The Ash Gray Proclamation and Clicky Clicky Music present Hallelujah The Hills, Ted Billings, Richard Davies and The Blue Dress | PA's Lounge | 14 Jan.

We are exceedingly pleased to be presenting this Saturday alongside our friends at The Ash Gray Proclamation a sterling evening of rock and roll music. The bill, as the title of this post makes clear, features local heroes Hallelujah The Hills, Ted Billings of Age Rings, Richard Davies and The Blue Dress. The show is at PA's Lounge, and we are (briefly) coming out of our just-had-a-baby-show-going-hiatus to make the scene because, you know, we love rock and roll music.



Hallelujah The Hills, of course, needs no introduction, but if you gotta start somewhere like Jon Brion, we'd direct you to the recent, wonderful digital-only b-side "Some Of Them We Lost," which is embedded above and was introduced to us by Team AGP. The song, as we have quipped elsewhere, "at 3:11 ... all of sudden comes on like the vertigo of five too many shots of liquor, and you get up off the couch and realize you can't stand at all." The more recent work of Mr. Billings in Age Rings is well-known to readers of this blog; that band's Black Honey was among our favorite records of 2011, and Age Rings promised a follow-up entitled Magnum Love will appear sometime this year. Here's hoping that we get a little preview Saturday.

We're not going to lie: Richard Davies is totally new to us. But his inclusion on the bill definitely tells us that his music is something we'll want to hear. Word is that some of The Blue Dress guys will be backing Mr. Davies up for his set, which may or may not be akin to juggling swordfish or drinking moonshine from a sneaker, we don't know, but the proposition of the unknown is exciting. As for The Blue Dress (whose appearance here is apparently the band's first club show), we first became aware of the band last summer when the words "dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio..." kept wafting out of our IPod in an unusual context. The line, of course, is lifted from Joy Division's epic "Transmission," a song covered by many but perhaps most notably by Low. The Blue Dress tucked it into their demo "House Of The Demon," and that little hook -- mournfully delivered, but with a different vibe than Low's -- got us very interested in the band. The band's dazzling recent EP These Happy Golden Years is something we wish hadn't slept on in late 2011, because it has that perfect -- dare we say Kiwi-esque -- balance of melody and noise (and trumpet! which is sorta both!) that keeps us coming back for more. Check out "My Deth Ray" below:

The Blue Dress - "These Happy Golden Years" - My Deth Ray by The Blue Dress

It's going to be a great night, and we do sincerely hope you will come out and say "hi," it's been a long time since we've been among the indie rockers. See you then.