Ben Nichols

BEN NICHOLS (Lucero) and TIM BARRY LIVE at the Grog Shop!Saturday, August 2Doors 7:30 PM | Show 8:30 PMAll Ages$25 advance / $28 day of show+ $3 at the door if under 21BEN NICHOLSSinger, songwriter, and guitarist Ben Nichols is the frontman for the Memphis alt-country band Lucero. Lucero formed in the late 90s and the band has released a half-dozen or so albums since 2001, each drawing praise for the groups gritty, rootsy, and almost punk approach to country-rock and for Nichols smoky, emotional vocal style. During breaks from Lucero, Nichols began recording more acoustic-based material, and an EP featuring a stripped-down trio of Nichols on acoustic guitar, Rick Steff (Cat Power) on accordion and piano, and Todd Beene (Glossary) on pedal steel and electric guitar appeared under Nichols name in 2009 from Liberty s seven songs are all based on characters and situations drawn from Cormac McCarthys novel Blood Meridian.TIM BARRYAnd so begins Aint Much For Talking, the opening salvo on Tim Barrys latest album, Spring Hill. In a fashion that can only be called perfectly Tim Barry, the line carries with it some rather immense weight and rather eloquently and succinctly sets the table for whats in store, both on the remainder of the song and on the album as a whole. If youre expecting a bakers dozen tales of introspection and honest reflection and occasional pointed-tongued humor and a handful of lines thatll punch you right square in the solar plexus, youve come to the right place. Its been just about three years since Barrys last studio album, The Roads To Richmond, a span that pretty nearly matches the longest break between albums in a solo career thats now closer to the end of its second decade than it is to its start. And while its fair to say that the years since The Roads To Richmond have seen the world-at-large continue to unravel in ways that are as varied as they are tumultuous, much of that turmoil is absent from Spring Hill. Instead, what follows, both on the remainder of Aint Much For Talking and on Spring Hill as a whole, as a real and thorough examination of where Tims been, a little of where hes headed, and perhaps most importantly, where all of the many hard-earned miles on the above-mentioned tires have brought him to right now.