Arts&Entertainment
5 of the X
si me bands i
. unny» variety, fun m
By Jason Hardy
Staff writer
It never fails. At some
point in every party or
social get-together,
people inevitably
argue about which is
better, this band or
that band.
Is it the Rolling
Stones or the Beatles,
Lou Reed or Bob
Dylan, the Cramps or
the Misfits or maybe
Huey Lewis vs. God.
For every great
band, there’s a similar
band someone
thinks is better.
Tonight the battle
continues, only this
time it’s the
Clash vs. the
Sex Pistols,
and the
»The Clash vs
q |The Sex Pistols
WHERE: Knickerbockers
Ninth and O streets
|Tt | WHEN: tonight, 10 p.m.
UU COST: $2 .
IV THE SKINNY: Local bands
battle it out by playing
LJL songs by punk pioneers.
people §|g
arguing
aren’t bat
p tling it out with
vocabulary and party
banter, this time they’re
i using the music itself.
| “X vs. Y,” a new
series of shows at
Knickerbockers, Ninth
and O streets, is a battle of the
bands, in which local groups play cover
songs by the featured big-name acts of that
particular night.
Each band is allowed to do up to four
songs and, at the end of the night, the
audience decides on the best song over
Iall and a best song for each of the fea
turedartists.
The contest is held once a month,
Bailey
thought it would be interest
ing to pit two artists against
each other, and the series was
bom.
“For the first one, I had to
call around and get bands to
do it, but now I’ve been get
ting calls from bands I haven’t
approached. A lot of local bands
get together and form sub bands,” she
said. “It’s been really interesting. We’ve
got a lot of return bands and a lot of new people as well.”
Dan Jenkins, a member of Drive By Honky, also known
as the local solo performer Joe Buck, said he thought
the event would grow with time because it was a
chance for bands to play songs and styles they nor
mally don’t play. t
“I play mostly acoustic stuff, so I just kind
and tonights is the third of of make them sound like my songs,
its kind. The first one pit- I think that’s why it’s so much fun
k ted Frank Sinatra vs. for us,” he said. “Some peo
^ Elvis and the second pie do pretty straight cov
was David Bowie ers, and other people just
^ vs. Elton John. m totally change the song,
Charles Lieiuance, ™ like some might do a
a member oftfhe country version.”
im local punk-country Bailey said one of
combo theBlack Dahlias, said
► the first twoevents turned out
^ to be much more than just a
Ik good time.
ffk “I thought it was prob
^ ably the most unifying thing
in the Lincoln mdsic scene
P^ I’ve seen in the last 10
binL years,” he said. “It made it
seem like there was an
actual scene.
Kristen Bailey, the event’s orga
nizer, said the event drew an eclecfic mixture
of local musicians who ordinarily wouldn’t have
played a show together.
“The thing that I really see evolving from this that I like
is that this is really bringing band&together,” she said.
“Local bands have their own little groups, and those people
go see those bands, but this sort of broadens the music
scene a little bit.
“It’s really cool to see metal bands talking to country
bands, so it sort of makes the whole music scene a little
cozier and more familiar.”
Bailey said the idea came to her after talking with leg
endary punk producer, Spot, who was in town last year. She
said they talked about a series of shows that were put on in
Austin, Texas, which invited local bands to play cover songs
of one featured national artist.
the best things about the event J
was the variety of musical styles m
that were on display.
“It’s really interesting JM
because some people come in
and do electronica versions, H
and some do metal versions J
and some do country ver
sions,” she said. “So it’s real
ly fun to see what people
come up with in terms of styliz- «
ing these songs instead of doing j
straight covers.”
The Black Dahlias, for ^
instance, plan on doing a .
hillhilty death version of the
Sex Pistols’ “Bodies.”
Prizes are awarded for each
category. Tonight’s include a copy of the
Clash’s film “Rude Boy” and a bootleg video of a
late 1970s Dallas, Texas, performance by the Sex Pistols.
Lieurance said about 150 people came to the last show,
and he attributed much of the show’s success to the creative
approaches to the music.
“We’ve played gospel or soul or hardcore punk, but we
always try to give it our flavor,” he said. “I think it’s a release
for everybody, because most bands do all kinds of strange
things to the songs.”
