On: August 7 at 02:54 PM
This is the first installment of 209Vibe's new Weekly Rundown, which you can check out every Thursday on 209Vibe.com, for a breakdown on what's happening throughout the weekend here in the 209.
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
These days, three hundred bucks will barely get enough gas in the van to get your band out of town for a few gigs, but that’s the prize that several local rock acts will be vying for at the Calvary 1st Battle of the Bands. They’ll be the ones battling; all you have to do is hang out and watch the fun.
If the prize was for coolest band name, this reporter gives it to Oh My! Explosive. But that’s not the criteria, so the competition comes down to them against Final Last Words, With Grace We Fall, He Set Fire, the Pilot’s Wife, We’re Not Friends Anymore, Tetragrammatron, the Paper Melody, La Circa, A Moment’s Notice, and Fairview.
1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. 8407 Kelley Dr. $10. (209) 952-4734.
HOT BUTTERED RUM
Around this time of year, these guys are usually playing outside events on festival-type stages where you can kick off your Birkenstocks and get your feet dirty, but they’ll be just as fun to see inside of a casino. The group has become a Northern California staple, taking acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins, fiddles and upright bass and whipping up a rock, jazz and bluegrass infused package that challenges the usual style boundaries of your average string band.
8 p.m. today. Black Oak Casino, 19400 Tuolumne Rd. North, Tuolumne. (877) 747-8777; www.hotbutteredrum.net.
DEZU
With a little back-breaking punk rock with tinges of ska and reggae and lots of lyrics en Espanol, this local outfit is becoming a fixture with local punk fans at the Blackwater.
They’ll be getting down with Stockton's Kid Disconnect, a murky, bluesy acoustic punk act that sounds like Social Distortion unplugged and wading through maple syrup, as well as the Yellow Dot Project, a bouncy pop-inflected rock outfit that also packs some tools of the jam band trade, and alt-punk the Edge Most Violent.
8 p.m. Friday. Blackwater Café, 912 N. Yosemite St. $5. (209) 943-6938; www.myspace.com/stocktonrocks.
Oh, and Don’t Forget…
SONORA BLUES FESTIVAL
Joe Bonamassa is straight-up awesome, a young singer and guitarist that throws around blues licks that would make anyone from Buddy Guy to Jimmy Page cock an eyebrow.
11 a.m. Saturday. Mother Lode Fairgrounds, Highway 49, Sonora. $40-$45. (209) 533-3473; www.fireonthemountain.com.
"A CLOCKWORK ORANGE"
The experience of midnight movies is en vogue again, so catch this late night screening of Stanley Kubrick’s violently twisted tale.
Midnight Friday. State Theatre, 1307 J St., Modesto. $8. (209) 527-4697; www.thestate.org.
