OMENKILLER + MANHACK + CORRUPTED EMPIRE @ SOUTHBOUND BREWERY
FRI AUG 11 | 7 PM
Aura’s Summer Brutality show features Savannah’s own Omenkiller, fresh off a tour that took them from here to Wisconsin to Texas and parts in between. They make their metal more interesting by adding a healthy dose of beatdown and deathcore. They’ve only been around for a little more than a year but have made plenty of waves in the regional scene, singing to Total Deathcore records and Continental Touring, home of death metal godfathers Deicide and Norwegian aggrotech/industrial band Combichrist. Atlanta’s Manhack plays melodic hardcore and claims their breakdowns are so hot, you can twerk to them. Let’s hope so. Groove metal killers Corrupted Empire (formerly Guns to Gallows) will be playing new music, and opening the whole shebang is the debut show of Charleston thrash metal outfit Atomic Peacemaker. How sentimentally Cold War is that? Southbound will, of course, keep the craft…beers flowing, and Chazito’s food truck will fuel you for the pit.
OOKAY @ ELAN SAVANNAH
FRI AUG 11 | 10 PM
One year into his EDM career, Ookay (née Chula Vista, Ca.’s Abraham Laguna) teamed with Diplo on a remix. That’ll give you a big ol’ boost when you’re starting out. Ten years and a couple of Coachella appearances later, he’s a respected producer, DJ, and performer with a bazillion collaborations, including with Marshmello, Noah Cyrus, Flux Pavillion, Elohim and more. He’s released a bunch of singles, an EP, and his second full-length album Very Special! dropped last year. Ookay creates dubstep, trap, and future bass with a focus on variety. Live, he transitions the hard beats to softer, more emotional sounds with aplomb, maintaining a wild party atmosphere even when the sounds are moody and mellow. The result is what he calls “brutally happy trap pop” and it sells, with singles “Thief” and “Stay Forever” charting. Once again, the EDM gods smile on Savannah. The You Got It! tour doesn’t have many stops, but we are one. Time to celebrate.
ALIA JANINE @ THE WORMHOLE
SAT AUG 12 | 8 PM
Featured in the print version of Connect, an interview with comic Alia Janine is revealing, to say the least. She’s worked in concert security, she was a stripper, she drove an armored car, was a successful porn star for four years, did private investigating, and worked in loss prevention. Yes, that’s correct. Porn star. Now a comic. Got a problem with that? You don’t. Or at least you shouldn’t, because the material that doesn’t cover her most famous of former professions is just as funny as talking about getting in trouble on set, naked, for trying to inject some laughs into an absurd scenario that precedes the XXX action. A Wisconsin native now living in New York City, Alia runs live shows, records podcasts, and keeps up with her social media accounts. She’s also a very nice person who takes no shit and will make you laugh until you cry. She’s had a run-in or three with hypersensitive language police types, and they, too, are encouraged to attend for the further amusement of all.
BERO BERO + SPACE KNIFE + PICTURE ONE @ THE WORMHOLE
SAT AUG 12 | 9:30 PM
It’s a “synth pop rock extravaganza” at the Wormhole. Bero Bero call their work “sultry, synth-driven mood music,” and they are absolutely correct. Think of Veronica Garcia-Melendez and drummer David Murray’s intriguing, electropop collaboration as something like a version of Savannah’s own Eurythmics. It’s kinda new wave, the vocals are sexy af, and with a common theme, each track has the potential to upend expectations. Space Knife began slowly but blew up when the man behind the project was hired as a set dresser on the streaming sensation Stranger Things. He snuck references to his synthwave project here and there and AV Club revealed what was happening. Johnson is taking advantage of the attention, releasing more music and touring. Opening the show is Atlanta’s new wave/post-punk/coldwave band Picture One, whose latest music is guitar-free and a bit gothic.
ANDRAÉ MURCHISON & MURCHCHURCH BRASS BAND @ GOOD TIMES JAZZ BAR
FRI & SAT, AUG 11 & 12 | 8 PM
The Savannah born-and-raised trombonist is a world-class jazz musician with an impressive roster of collaborators. He’s shared the stage with both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Harry Connick Jr, Jay-Z, Common and The Skatalites. When he isn’t playing the role of essential side man, he sets loose his own project, Murchchurch. It’s a big brass band, playing high power music. Joining him is fellow Savannah legend Teddy Adams, a veteran of the city’s West Broad Street jazz scene from the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Additional local support comes from multi-instrumentalist and Savannah jazz scene stalwart Eric Jones, and up-and-comers trombonist Jaron McCarr and drummer Robert Britton Saunders. Rounding out the Murchchurch congregants are Atlanta bass veteran Kevin Smith and Jacksonville’s rising star Bismark Habyarimana. That is a ton of talent on one stage, and it may get loud.
