This past Tuesday night offered a unique opportunity to catch three great bands for five bucks in the Parlour at The Southgate House. Two “locals” and one “national touring” act filled the room with sweet folk sounds as lightning flashed outside that night. While they are all viewed a bit differently, all three of the bands had cut (or are cutting) their teeth in and around Cincinnati. On a night where the weather was iffy outside, the quality of music inside left no doubts about the fact that there is almost always high quality live music going on around these parts.

The opener for the night was Margaret Darling from Cincinnati’s The Seedy Seeds. She played a set of about 10 songs, most of which were from her side project Junebaby which also features a member of Pomegranates, as well as member of The Sheds. Talk about a Cincy Supergroup! This set was stripped down music with just a guitar and drums, and sounded like Margaret was under the influence of songstress Kathleen Edwards, which is a very good thing.

The tall & lanky Daniel Martin Moore was up next. With quite a local following, the crowd was into his set from the get go. Opening with a few songs from 2008’s Stray Age, he won the room over with familiarity before introducing us to a few new songs which hope to be on an album by the end of the year. Daniel let us know that all 4 members of his backing band this evening were players on the new record, and that means we are all in for a treat when it comes out. Many of the new songs were more upbeat with a nice bluegrass feel, but nothing that was overwhelmingly loud and would turn off fans of the first record. Daniel’s great pipes were enough to carry the set home, even over the increasingly loud karaoke coming from the lounge downstairs.

The night closed out with the two piece band, Vandaveer. Named the “band of the week” over at Paste a few weeks ago these two folks came to the front of the room and clearly carried a larger presence than the acts before them. Mark Charles Heidinger and his sister Rose played a great set, most of which came from the new album Divide & Conquer. While the album was just released in the US it has been out in Europe for quite a while and has done great. This two-piece was easily the quietest band of the night with Mark Charles playing acoustic guitar and his partner singing accompaniment. Even the stomping on the floor for percussion was up against the heavy competition of the karaoke machine, but Mark still had fun with it. All in all, the hour long set not only lined up well with all that was ahead of it, but it really shone through as the best set of the night. While there were only a handful of folks left by the end of the night, the 4 hours of music for 5 bucks was definitely the deal of the day in the Cincy area.
~Dave Rolfes