March Music Madness tips off in Harrisburg this month, with an 11-band lineup series called Winterfest.
Vetour Productions will be presenting tunes on both stages at Appalachian Brewing Company, featuring the precocious upstarts, The Flower Garden, and the more rootsy, bluegrass band, the Coal Town Rounders. Others who will share the stage over the course of the evening are: the Incubus-inspired sounds of Minshara, Taillights, Colors, Vegas Under Lights, Spotted Atrocious, Feed Your Ego, Crobot and That Girl—a wonderful array of band names and sounds.
Makespace, the ever-dynamic creative entity, has become the dandy of intimate indie venues in Harrisburg. This month, it proves it by bringing in Wooden Wand, the stage name for the mercurial James Jackson Toth.
Toth has never boxed himself in by genre or generation, but Pitchfork describes his new album, “Blood Oaths of the New Blues,” “as affording songs ripped from the headlines or rescued from personal journeys [the] necessary empathy and intimacy” they deserve. The opener, a two-song medley “No Bed for Beatle Wand/Days This Long,” is a question-driven one that seems an appropriate balance to the closer, “No Debts,” which is a clear admission of a life ending without questions, but rather, with contentment. This concert will be like watching a fine story telling, one imbued with honesty and imagination.
At the end of the month, The Corty Byron Band plays at Stage on Herr. The eponymous front man started gigging his way around central Pennsylvania at the age of 16 with his former group, The Green Onions. Following this stint, he took his talents out to Southern California. Byron clearly has an immense respect for Hendrix, found in his song “I Am,” but his skills span the rock ‘n’ roll spectrum, from the simple traveling man ballad, “Mississippi Moan,” to the harmonica-driven “Leavin’ Love.”
This jack-of-all-trades impresses on all fronts, and he will deliver on his chameleonic material. Don’t be shy about coming to this one early, too. The Kyle Morgan Band opens with its honky-tonk balladry; Morgan is a lyricist with impeccable writing and guitar skills, and should not be missed.
Take your pick of the mercurial this March. In this bracket, you’re not going to choose a loser.
Winterfest, March 3, Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing Co., 50 N. Cameron St., Harrisburg. Starts at 7:30 p.m.
Wooden Wand, March 9, MakeSpace, 1916 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. Starts at 8 p.m.
The Corty Byron Band, March 30, HMAC Stage on Herr, 268 Herr St., Harrisburg.
