Tonight: The Lonely H (Interviewed!) (+ Prairie Cadets, Too)

Got a really good show up at Rudyard’s tonight (Wed., February 17th), with Port Angeles, Washington-bred retro-rockers The Lonely H chugging back through town for the third(?) time in about a year.

I caught ’em the last time they played here, I believe (also at Rudz), and even though they were playing late, to a crowd that was somewhere south of half-capacity that was made up mostly of polite friends of the evening’s earlier bands, The Lonely H played like a barely-controlled freight train barreling down the tracks. It was, to put it mildly, pretty freaking impressive.

Singer/keyboardist Mark Fredson was the obvious focus, in part because, um, he’s about nine feet tall (okay, almost), and the howl that comes out of his lanky, blond-haired frame is mind-blowing — holy shit, that guy can sing. He’s like the love child of Steven Tyler and Janis Joplin, except better than that combination really has any business being, and I really, really mean that in a positive way.

The rest of the band measured up, to boot — bassist Johnny Whitman and guitarist Eric Whitman effortlessly ripped through song after song, even while the latter had his jaw wired shut and couldn’t do his usual harmonizing, with drummer Ben Eyestone pounding away behind ’em all. At times, they came off like a wind-blown Black Crowes or a countrified, Americanized version of The Darkness, with hints of gospel and flat-out blues peeking through from behind the curtain of scuffed-up, rough-edged rock.

The Lonely H looked and sounded like they dropped through a hole in time. And beyond that, they were tight the way a band only gets from playing off one another day in and day out, and it was a very cool thing to see. So I’m glad to see they’re coming back through town, and I was able to fire off a handful of questions to Fredson, which he was nice enough to answer.

Check out the full Q&A (plus a more detailed writeup of that night’s show) on over here. And in case you’re wondering, it turned out Eric Whitman’s jaw was wired shut because his brother Johnny had tried a wrestling move on him at a party while out on tour and broke his damn jaw. That’s fucking rock ‘n roll, y’all.

Alternative Stuff:
Yep, there’s another show going on tonight that I can’t miss mentioning… I still have yet to see ’em, unfortunately, but I’ve really been looking forward to seeing Prairie Cadets, the band of Adam Newton & Marc Brubaker (of Dryvetyme Online/Houston Press and Click.Wind.Repeat/Houstonist fame).

I like what I’ve heard of their quirky, sweet-hearted, folky indie-pop (esp. the now-old-school classic “Free ?uestlove”), and hey, they’re really, truly nice guys, so I desperately need to get a real-live listen.

Which means tonight might well be my night, because the band’s playing a free show tonight up at Walter’s. They’re playing in the middle, before headline-y bands Lazlo and Snowplow and after cool, Lucy Lawless-alike indie-folkster Sara Van Buskirk and Frank Freeman, who I dunno but who I hear is good.

Fun shows, both of ’em; get on out there, folks…