First up was Bev Rage and the Drinks who guested at The Green Mill’s Paper Machete podcast show on Dec. 1. Along with the Drinks the show featured performances from Joe Fernandez, Skyler Higley, Matt Ruby, and Sarah Ende. Bev broke up the standing room only crowd with her stylish frocks and cyclone inspired hair do, while ripping through a set which included Rage classics such as “Limp Wrist” and “Bitter Old Queen.”
On Dec. 9, queer baroque pop star John Grant played Lincoln Hall to a packed house while sampling chunks of his new Love is Magic CD (on Belle Union Records). With a full band (that included former Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Budgie) behind him, Grant sang older material (“Queen of Denmark,” “Jesus Hates Faggots,” “Grey Tickles”) as well as newer work (“Touch and Go,” “Is he Strange?,” “He’s Got His Mother’s Hips”) while throwing in some inspired choreography to boot.
The pair of Aimee Adams and Paul Alexander, who go by the name Two Medicine, performed music from the recently released full-length CD, Astropsychosis (on Belle Union Records) and wowed the attentive crowd with an atmospheric set of their unique electronically infused acoustic blues.
Heads up: Noname will close out 2018 with a three-night stand at Thalia Hall on Dec. 30-31. (The first show, on Dec. 29, is sold out.) Looking forward, Erykah Badu plays The Aragon Ballroom on Jan. 19; Mike Maimone of Mutts has a single release show at Lincoln Hall on Feb. 9; The Empty Bottle and Glitter Creeps have added a second Boy Harsher/NGHTCRWLR show at the venue on Feb. 10; and the two shows with Peter Murphy at Rockafeller Chapel on Feb. 22-23 are sold out.
File in the “just can’t get enough” column: Return gigs from Panic at the Disco! (at the Allstate Arena on Feb. 4), and Elton John for the very last time (at Allstate as well) on Feb. 15-16.