Shilpa Ray, along with a slew of local bands, is performing at the Smiling Skull this Saturday night and it’s guaranteed to be a night filled with progressive rock madness.
Singer-songwriter Shilpa Ray, who has toured throughout the country and in Europe with her three-member band, will perform at The Smiling Skull Saloon on Saturday night.
Ray is based out of Brooklyn and plays the harmonia, an east-Asian variance of the accordion. She combined this talent with her love of punk music to start her career.
“It has a very hard old school rock ‘n’ roll feel to it mixed with some R&B,” Ray said.
The band has a mix of instruments including a steel guitar, keyboard, drums, bass guitar and the harmonia.
This sound is not unfamiliar to Athens, for Shilpa Ray has been in town to perform shows in the past. Shilpa and her band performed at the Smiling Skull Saloon back in March.
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“We pre-sold tickets to Shilpa’s show in March and the bar was completely sold out,” Sarah Kennedy, bartender of the Smiling Skull Saloon, said.
There will three openers that are based out of Athens before Ray is set to perform.
The Blam Blams led by Scott Winland, the director of the music program at Hocking College, is one of the openers.
“The Blam Blams is a rock ‘n’ roll band with roots in garage, pop and psych stuff. I would like to think of it as a nice combination of Big Star, VU and The Who,” Winland said.
The group has previously booked many gigs at local bars, small venues and other local spots across Athens.
“They performed last year at Roller Bowl (Lanes) and put on a pretty good show,” John Mannion, a fan of the Blam Blams, said.
Blond will be the other local band performing Saturday, who formed in Athens in 2013.
The band blends psychedelic rock, indie pop and folk music, and released its first EP earlier this year.
“Blond has a very ‘Athens’ sound to it’s hard rock ‘n’ roll,” Max Look, a senior studying integrated media, said. “Anywhere Blond performs is the place to be.”
SlackLuster also has a hard and psychedelic sound to its music as well.
“There's some contemporary weirdo garage rock stuff on the surface, but what I like best are the subtle hints of 70s, 80s power-pop that come out in (SlackLuster’s) songwriting,” Winland said.
Winland said booking Shilpa Ray and the three openers was a breeze, for he has been friends with Ray for years.
“Every time I’ve been to Athens I’ve had a really great time,” Ray said. “Everyone there is nuts in a good way.”
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