Ballads and Bruises: Grex, Jack O' the Clock, Dead Western (SAC), Religious Phase

Ballads and Bruises is an evening of daring and (often) dark experimental rock music hailing from the environs of Northern California, themed around the desolation and expansiveness of the American West. The evening mixes spacy, art rock inflected free jazz (Grex) with a couple very fresh takes on American musical tradition (Jack O' the Clock's "majestic junk folk," Dead Western's booming and profound psych folk), detouring into the impossibly weird song stylings of new band Religious Phase (featuring members of Kapowski).