There was a time when music performance was not confined to theaters and stages, but formed an intrinsic, seldom-analyzed component of community life. Activities like carrying water, painting one's nails, harvesting grain, bicycle repair, and, yes, worshipping God all had their own complementary musical expressions - riffs, hooks and sonic watermarks that "house mothers" and "chosen families" would devise, share, and pass down to their juniors. Cross-pollination occurred when neighboring tribes battled or collaborated. Such events were the foundation of our modern "punk show," and it's in this way that even now, at the most corrupted of these affairs, one can still entertain the possibility of communicating with one's ancestors.

RELEVANT HAIRSTYLES is a music performance concept in the folk tradition. Though not concerned with "passing" per se, there's a level on which it's simply a modern vocal group in the lineage of, say, Sons of the Pioneers or The Ink Spots - yet the project is also an attempt to strip away such signifiers and get at an earlier sensibility, one in which audience and performer alike are brought into contact with forces suggesting there may in fact be life before death.

For those who care about such things, a recognizable strain of queer longing suffuses the entire affair, and the songcraft is of a sort that'd compel any wandering Hank (Sr, Jr, or III) to tip their hat back and sit a spell. This evening the group performs as a co-ed sextet, mostly electronically unamplified, to help reclaim the Music Box Lounge's whispered ancestral legacy. Come join us, won't you?

Also performing tonight is OFFICIAL CLAIRE, "a brand new songwriter from Chicago with witty insight and swaying hooks." For her Music Box Lounge debut she'll be backed up by former Wilco member LeRoy Bach and Denver pianist Brooks Palmer.