Music

The Sanderlings and the dashburns are the Odd Couple of the local rock scene.

The Sanderlings would be Felix Unger – neat, clean and efficient – burning through tight grooves and melody with a focused ferocity. The dashburns are more like Oscar Madison – loud, raucous and messy, banging out pure rock with fervent and willful disregard that is as much a joy to watch as it is to hear.

Sticking Felix and Oscar together in a tiny apartment resulted in hilarity. Putting the Sanderlings and the dashburns together in the studio resulted in a split EP and a showcase of some of the best rock the local music scene has to offer.

The dashburns have been an on-again, off-again band for the better part of a decade and have a history that includes several hiatuses, a lineup change here and there and an album recorded in 1999 that the band members are glad no one can find.

The band’s current incarnation can be seen around the area – more often than not – sharing a bill with the Sanderlings.

In comparison, the Sanderlings are little more than a year old and do not have an extended back-story. In a nutshell, the band is the union of two sets of longtime friends who got together to jam and learned they could play some great rock ’n’ roll together.

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With the summer concert season drawing near and the baseball season heating up, many consumers are probably stashing a little extra cash aside for some summertime fun in the live entertainment arena.

Plan on stashing quite a bit more if you really intend to maximize your targeted summer concert or sporting experience.

Unfortunately, when consumers click on the Ticketmaster Web site or make a trip to the nearest outlet to buy tickets for one of the season’s hottest shows or an exciting series between the Tigers and Mets or Indians and Yankees, they’re going to find the good seats are already taken.

In many cases, total sellouts will fatten the disappointment.

It’s not that all those who missed out on the best seats were too slow to pull the trigger when tickets went on sale on a Saturday morning, or that they didn’t pay attention to ticket release dates.

Even the most vigorous of eagle eyes are finding that primo tickets to the hottest events are already swiped up when they hit the site or the agent right in the opening minute.

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The Sanderlings practice in an old warehouse, which, when you get right down to it, is befitting the type of rock and roll they play.

Like the warehouse, the Sanderlings’ sound is large, full of odd, dusty bits of rock history: Dirty old blues, soaring classic rock solos, pop hooks, extended instrumental jams and the curious piece of prog rock can be found just lying around.

Dusted off, the resulting mish-mash of rock’s bygone days is at once familiar and strangely exciting, sometimes just straight-up rock, sometimes a complex, genre-hopping blend of the past six decades of popular music.

The Sanderlings, the union of two sets of longtime friends – Josh Evans, guitar, keyboard and vocals, and Jonathan Rodebaugh, bass, joined forces with Jonny Kynard, drums, and Ben Masters, guitar, keyboard and singer – aren’t your typical Midwest rock band.

Where the trend has taken many bands to seek out rock’s roots and play stripped-down garage or blues, the Sanderlings offer something more involved, filling all possible spaces with their wall of sound approach.

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The blues is alive and well in the Midwest. Just ask Cetan Clawson, a true child of the Internet generation and a devoted student of the blues.

Clawson has been playing guitar since he was 3 and making appearances around the area for much of his life.

Cetan Clawson.
Photo Courtesy Melissa June.

Coming from a musical family, it was easy to find inspiration and band mates. When he was 11 years old, Clawson joined his dad’s band, the Soul Side, originally as a rhythm guitarist before growing into a front man and recording the album White Heat under the name Cetan Clawson and the Soul.

White Heat, released last year, is now available through CD Baby and iTunes.

Clawson has since moved on and is now fronting the Cetan Clawson Revolution with Mike Smith on bass and Andrew Spaulding on drums. The band is preparing a new, five-song EP due later this year and is currently touring the area.

Playlist had a chance to chat with the 19-year-old guitarist to find out what the future of Midwest blues has to offer.

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The Uncertain 5 are a dedicated, passionate bunch.

Dedicated and passionate about what exactly, I’m not really sure, but if it has to do with independent music and an unstoppable, do-it-yourself work ethic, then the UC5 are there.

Guitarist Pat Peltier, drummer Zach Weinberg, bassist Seth Anderson and vocalists John Salvage and Nick Mikolajczyk are the epitome of the DIY indie rock ethic: ready to do everything themselves and totally unapologetic about the genre-bending, mind-twisting music they play, referring to their music in overly simplistic terms, “aggressive dance rock.”

“It’s aggressive punk, hardcore music, with dance influences in it. I think it’s because we all listen to so much music,” Weinberg said.

Without a doubt, it is aggressive and you can dance to it (if you want to), and it’s most definitely rock.

But to truly understand it you have to understand that the Uncertain 5 are willing to do anything for music – not just their music, everyone’s music, especially those who believe in DIY indie rock.

The band’s sound, which seems to go all different ways at once, is not the product of a group of lackadaisical slackers. On the contrary, the Uncertain 5 may, in fact, be too focused.

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