April 4th at The Radon Lounge: The Soil & The Sun, Kellen & Me, Trouper

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563557_572477889429410_758688775_nThe Radon Lounge are making an exception to their one-show-a-month rule for an exciting show on April 4th featuring The Soil & The Sun from Grand Rapids Michigan. The Soil & The Sun is an eight piece band playing folk and experimental rock. That’s a lot of people for a basement show! You can stream some of their songs on the bandcamp player below. Also playing the show at Radon on April 4th is Kellen & Me, which is a one-man electric/indie/folk project from Chicago. Opening things up is Trouper, which is a two piece that formed just this year from Mansfield, Ohio.

The show will start at 7:00 pm and admission is $8. The Radon Lounge is a house venue, so you have to email radonlounge@gmail.com to request the address. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. You can see what other events are coming up over at The Radon Lounge on their website’s shows page. Also don’t forget to check our Springfield shows page to see what other shows are coming up around town.

 

Lovecow Release “Sneak Peak” of New EP

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2732961882-1Springfield folk punkers Lovecow have released two newly recorded songs as a teaser for their upcoming EP! The songs are “Terrified” and “Somewhere” and you can stream both of those songs below. The EP is being recorded by Tim Williams of Our Lady at the Harm House Basement Studios. The two songs are also up for free download on the band’s bandcamp page.

Lovecow will be playing short time slot tonight at The Radon Lounge as a part of the Radon’s Open Mic Night. They will also be playing the show at Black Sheep on April 13th with Sean Bonnette of Andrew Jackson Jihad and Ian Graham of Cheap Girls. And yet another Lovecow show will be on April 20th at the Radon Lounge along with The Traditional, Analecta, and Caterpillar Club.

 

Teenage Bottlerocket, Off With Their Heads in Ten Days

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Teenage_Bottlerocket1Does anybody know what day it is? No, the Teenage Bottlerocket/Off With Their Heads show is not happening today, but today marks ten days until it does happen! That’s right, TEN MORE DAYS until the show on Monday March 11th!

For those of you who haven’t gotten the chance to pick up tickets yet, you can find them online right here. We also have started selling ticket for the show at New Ages Tattoos and also Miles Ahead Productions. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door so get them now while you can! Also playing the show aside from Teenage Bottlerocket and Off With Their heads are The Timmys and Hospital Job. Doors are at 6:30 pm and the show starts at 7:00 pm. You can find a facebook event for the show show right here.

Midwest Zine Fest 2013

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cropped-2012headerWe try to keep you all in the loop of fests going on in Central Illinois in the areas surrounding Springfield. Today we bring you news of the third annual “Midwest Zine Fest” taking place in Urbana, Illinois on Saturday April 13th. What is Midwest Zine Fest? Well, here is the description from the Midwest Zine Fest website:

Mid-West Zine Fest is a gathering of zine-makers, authors, speakers, musicians and other rad people for the purpose of celebrating zines and zine-culture!

The festival will include interactive events, food, speakers, music and plenty of zines. The festival is open to the public and admission is free.

No, this is not a music fest where bands play but we feel it is important to mention because zines have played an important role in getting out ideas about music and spreading words of bands in the underground music scene.

Do you make zines or want to get involved with the zine fest at all? You can find info on registering your own spot on the fest here. The fest itself will be located inside at the IMC. You can find a facebook event for Midwest Zine Fest here.

 

Black Sheep Radio Tomorrow: Nephrons

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IMG_6154Tomorrow is another episode of Black Sheep Radio! And this time around we have local punk band Nephrons coming in to talk about their next release and also their show on Saturday at Donnie’s Homespun with Josh Catalano & The Dirty Thoughts, and Witchfeet! You can tune in at 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm to 88.3 WQNA fm or also stream the show online at wqna.org to hear. You can also stream old episodes of Black Sheep Radio and download them on our radio page.

You know what else? The Black Sheep Radio Show has a facebook page now! You can find that right here.

 

Elyse Complete New Album

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306878_385902208152336_1549689248_nLocal/Mechanisburg metal band Elyse have completed recording their new ten song album entitled From Pieces To Portraits. You can head over to the band’s facebook page to check out some of the new tracks off of the album. If you like what you hear you can also catch Elyse play at some shows coming up at Black Sheep. They will be playing Friday, March 15th at Black Sheep with The Convelescence, Kleos, Skywalker, and Scott Blacula and also on April 13th along with Battalion, Heavy Arms, Dreams May Fall, Vengeance, and Brave|Heart.

 

New Band Pages: The Gunga Dins, Neon Rebels

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222141_10150226774255395_5855197_nToday we bring you two new band pages! One for an active band and one for an inactive one! The inactive band (inactive aside from reunions, that is) is The Gunga Dins! We recently told you about some rumors online of a Gunga Dins reunion show. Now you can learn more about the band and stream some of their music! Head over here to check out their band page. Then the active band that we have a new band page for is Neon Rebels! We also recently announced that Neon Rebels will be playing the show at Donnie’s Homespun on May 3rd with Michale Graves and his backing band. You can check out the page for Neon Rebels right here.

And as always, feel free to check out some of the hundreds of thousands of band pages we have set up for current bands right here, and past bands right here. Do you play in a band or have played in a band from Springfield that does not have a page on our site yet? Well we would love to hear from you! Shoot us an email at blacksheepspringfield@gmail.com.

Tonight at Black Sheep: Lumpy & The Dumpers, Say Something, Trauma Harness, Earth Witch, Soap Scum

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2-24FINALFINALWe have one heck of a show for you all tonight. It’s five intense hardcore and punk bands from Springfield and other surrounding areas! Kicking things off we have Soap Scum, which is a brand new Springfield hardcore/punk band featuring members of Kick To Tha Head, Bastognes Best, Don’t Mess With Winkie, and Intricate Collapse. Wow! Then next we have Earth Witch from Champaign featuring members of RVINS and Dino Bravo. From Belleville, Illinois we have Trauma Harness playing ghoulish garage punk. Then we have new local band Say Something, also featuring members of Don’t Mess With Winkie. Last we have the return of slimy St. Louis punks Lumpy & The Dumpers!

The show starts right at 7:00 so get there early! Admission is $5. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. And as always, be sure to check out what other shows are coming up over on our shows page.

 

Error Records Update

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With only five days left on their indiegogo campaign, we thought we would give you one last update on how the launch of the new Error Records all ages music venue in Champaign Illinois is going. There is currently five days left for them to reach their $3000 goal and they are currently at $2500! Go here to help them out!

In other news, Buzz Magazine in Champaign recently published an article about the launch of the new Error Records. The article included a nice little tidbit on The Black Sheep. From the article:

The Black Sheep Café, run by Kevin Bradford, regularly hosts shows in a thriving local scene. Entertaining local acts such as Our Lady and Foxtail, the venue also draws national acts such as Andrew Jackson Jihad and famed actor and puppeteer David Liebe Hart, exhibiting its success as a national attraction and a support system to the area’s local music scene.

Aaron Shults, a veteran musician in the CU scene, recognizes Black Sheep’s success and hopes to see a similar situation arise from the birth of Error Records.

“As much as I like going to house shows, I think a public all ages DIY space is vital for a scene to thrive, something we’ve seen evident in venues like Black Sheep Cafe and many others across the state and nation,” Shults said. “It’s really cool for Nathan to take the reins that were set up by the CU Collective and take the ultimate push that it needed. It shows great leadership and responsibility.”

You can check out the full article here.

Bands Recording

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With the high number of Springfield bands who have all recently announced plans for recording, we thought we would sum up all of the bands who have told us they are hard at work in the studio all in one post.

One of the biggest bands that we are all excited about recording right now is Our Lady. The band posted this from their facebook page last night:

Tonight the final bit of recording will be finished, and then on to mastering!

One band that has recently announced plans to record is The Transatlantic. From their facebook page:

We hit the studio this coming weekend! Can’t wait to visit Bloomington, Indiana! So pumped to put some new material out! Maybe a new video in the works? Maybe some photoshoots? New merch designed by Benny D. Lots of cool things to come!

If you are a fan of ska punk, Obi-Wan Kanblo Mi has been talking about their plans for recording for a while now. From their facebook page:

Recording is brewing for later this month, we’ll most likely have a cd release show in March that you can certainly get a free copy at, and hopefully into for free also. With that said, we will also probably have NEW merch for sale also.

Another mysterious new Springfield punk band called Soap Scum will be on Black Sheep Radio today to talk about their new recordings and their show on Sunday. Recording master Brandon Carnes had this to say recently:

Did some tracking for a new Springfield band that’s hard as nails tonight.

Speaking of hard and heavy music from Springfield, Pound For Pound is also finishing up work in the studio and they hope to release new music soon.

We also talk to metal act Battalion on the radio today about their newly recorded material. Battalion have recently released a brand new CD entitled “Resilience.”

Speaking of metal, younger metal band from Mechanisburg Elyse have announced that they have finished recording. From their facebook page:

Our album is 100% done! Tracks will be uploaded shortly! One person who likes this status will get the FIRST copy printed, and signed by all of us, with Anthony’s nub traced on the back. HUGE thanks to our producer Pete Rock! Thank you for ALL the work on our album!

There are plenty of other bands who have recently recorded new material awaiting to be released including Nephrons, Caterpillar Club, and a ton more we are probably forgetting about. If you play in a band that we missed feel free to email us at blacksheepspringfield@gmail.com so we can set up a post for you!