U. Utah Phillips
is a treasure of the musical landscape. Not only is he a singer, songwriter, historian, activist, storyteller and good-natured rabble-rouser, Phillips is a live performer who will keep you glued to your seat and have you singing along before the night is through. Wednesday at 7 p.m., Phillips will visit Ken Sanders Rare Books, 268 S. 200 East, Salt Lake City, to talk, sing and sign copies of his box-set, "Starlight on the Rails," and other CDs, as well as vintage concert posters. It's free, and any proceeds from CD sales will go to Utah Jobs with Justice. Thursday at 8 p.m., Phillips plays a concert at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $15, available at all Art Tix outlets and the door.
Guitar man: If you've never seen Kelly Joe Phelps, it's time to rectify that situation. The Northwest-based singer/songwriter is a mesmerizing guitar player, whether delving into blues, country, folk or even jazz. He's a slide-guitar wonder as well as a finger-picking ace, and his smoky voice and low-key stage presence add to the intensity. Phelps plays twice this weekend in Utah. Tonight at 7:30, he's in Logan at the Eccles Conference Center Auditorium on the Utah State University campus; tickets are $14 at the door. Saturday at 9 p.m., Phelps plays in Salt Lake City at Ego's, 668 S. State; tickets are $12, available at Smith's Tix outlets and the door. Both shows are nonsmoking.
Cue sound and . . . action! If you ever wonder what music-writer geeks mean when they use adjectives like "atmospheric" and "brooding" to describe a band, take a listen to San Francisco's Film School. The quintet's self-titled debut arrived earlier this year and is indeed one atmospheric, brooding set of guitar-rock that evokes U2 at times, My Bloody Valentine at others, and The Cure in between. Film School plays Kilby Court, 741 S. 330 West, Salt Lake City, tonight at 7:30, with Knife Show and Brilliant Stereo Mob opening. Tickets are $6, available at 24tix.com and the door.
New World Order, part duh: Neil Young might be getting all the hype with his four-years-too-late anti-war album, but Ministry's Al Jourgensen beat Young to the punch with his band's new album, "Rio Grande Blood," a brutal sonic assault that assails the Bush administration repeatedly through songs like "Fear (Is Big Business)," "The Great Satan" and "Khyber Pass." This is nothing new for Jourgensen; he ripped into the first President Bush in the early '90s and found himself on MTV, selling tons of albums and headlining Lollapalooza. Something tells me he won't be as commercially successful with "Rio Grande Blood," but it offers some seriously aggro industrial-metal. Ministry plays Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Great Saltair in Magna, along with Jourgensen side project Revolting Cocks and Pitbull Daycare. Tickets are $25, available at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
Up next, Green Day goes polka: The very idea that synth-pop duo Erasure would make an acoustic - some would say "country" - album seems absurd at face value. Singer Andy Bell and keyboard man Vince Clarke have created a multiplatinum career out of electronic music and club cuts, after all. On new album "Union Street," though, they decided to show off some deep Erasure album tracks and B-sides in a new light, coating them with slide guitar, strings and piano. There's no need to question whether Erasure fans will go for the "new" sound; they bought all the tickets to Erasure's Monday concert at the Rose Wagner, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City, in a matter of minutes. The show starts at 8 p.m., so if you're trying to find a scalper, get there early.
Worldly beats: A lot of Westerners can claim to infuse their music with African rhythms, but few can say they moved to Zimbabwe for 10 years to study the indigenous percussion instruments and styles of the region. Back in the states, the influence of his years in Africa comes through loud and clear on Chris Perry & Panjea's album "Dancemakers," with songs infused with dancehall, reggae and hip-hop. The sound so inspired the String Cheese Incident's Michael Kang that he's joined Berry for a spring tour that includes a stop Monday at 9 p.m. at Ego's, 668 S. State, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $8, available at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
Get weird in Utah County: Thanks to Oklahoma City's Flaming Lips, we'll have to call the Starlight Mints the Sooner State's other quirky, experimental rock band. The songs on the band's latest disc, "Drowaton," throw church bells, horns, pianos, violins, tambourine, triangle and synthesizers into the mix of standard guitar-bass-drums, and they have a knack for writing sticky hooks. Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Starlight Mints join Dios Malos and the Octopus Project for a show at Provo's Velour, 135 N. University Ave. Tickets are $8, available at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
A friendly British Invasion: British rock quintet Gomez finds itself in the enviable position of having three songwriters in Ben Ottewell, Ian Ball and Tom Gray. And considering the new "How We Operate" is the band's fifth album, the division of labor seems to be working just fine. The new album, produced by Pixies vet Gil Norton, is a sonically ambitious set full of strong cuts like the title track and the über-poppy "GirlShapedLoveDrug." Wednesday at 9 p.m., Gomez headlines at Park City's Suede, 1612 Ute Blvd. at Kimball Junction, with David Ford opening. Tickets are $15 at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
No, not THAT Roy Rogers: The Roy Rogers playing Wednesday and Thursday is considerably younger than the Western star, but he's old-school all the way. Rogers is a slide-guitar wonder who played with John Lee Hooker through the '80s while leading his own band, the Delta Rhythm Kings. My one-man source of blues knowledge, Bad Brad Wheeler, vouches for Rogers' guitar skills, and that's enough for me. Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings join Ides of Soul Wednesday and the Legendary Porch Pounders Thursday at The Depot, 400 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Both shows start at 9 p.m.; tickets are $14 in advance, $16 day of show, at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
Loogie-rock: Kind of Like Spitting is the nom de plum of Ben Barnett, a folk-rock songsmith who's garnered comparisons to Guided by Voices' Robert Pollard, mostly because Barnett is similarly prolific. In 2000 alone, he put out four full-length albums. Thursday at 7 p.m., Kind of Like Spitting plays with Grizzly Prospector and Dead Horse Point at the Kayo Gallery, 315 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $7 at Smith's Tix outlets and the door.
