Weekend of local rock volume 49

This comes to you from the friendly confines of Ocean City, Maryland. If you couldn’t guess, it was OC Bike Week at Pickles Pub.

But I wasn’t there to celebrate the biker culture; instead I came out to one of my favorite charity events.

Yes, I am a tata lover. I admit it. But it was for a good cause, the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition. Several people gave their time and effort to make this possible, including those who manned (womanned?) this table.

(See the front bag on the left side? I dropped most of my arm’s length of raffle tickets into the bag and won that prize. Third year in a row I’ve won something.)

Lovely Melissa was selling the 50/50 tickets.

I didn’t get a picture of Iris, who was manning her own camera for the best tattoo contest, but I did get a good picture of the ringleader of the event – who happens to be a fine singer and breast cancer survivor to boot. Michele Hogsett is the singer from Semiblind and also is a DJ who goes by the nom de plume DJ Siren, for obvious reasons.

She started the Save the Breast Fest three years ago and has gone through many trials and tribulations to make the event as successful as it is.

A lot of people were having a good time throughout the evening.

I do have one complaint of sorts, though. Jesse James Dupree, the lead singer of Jackyl, is now a whiskey maker. He had a promotional appearance next door at 8th Street Liquors (Pickles Pub and 8th Street Liquors are actually attached.)

It would have been nice if he’d popped over to say hello or at least donated a couple bottles of his product to the cause as a late raffle item. By several accounts he was quite interested in autographing the tatas. (Even if I had taken pictures, this is a family-friendly website.)

All right, that’s enough preliminaries. You can follow along with this handy band lineup.

As one may expect from this type of event, it was loaded with female-fronted bands. Lauren Glick and the Moodswingers batted leadoff.

I missed their first couple songs, but I did find out Lauren’s a great singer who can handle a little country or classic rock.

They yielded the stage to an up-and-coming band from Delaware called Elwood.

One of the younger groups playing the event, they mixed a couple bluesy originals in with their cover tunes. I thought they were the best band in the show.

Returning to the female-fronted pattern, Lipstick Molly came next.

The quintet played mostly rockers, but tossed in a little gunpowder and lead to liven things up for the modern country crowd.

The host band came next.

While Michele and Jim Hogsett have kept the band together for over six years, it seems like they have a different drummer and bassist every time I see them now. I was interested to hear they’ve gone back to their more “traditional” playlist, such as backing up Black Magic Woman with Magic Man.

The second picture of Semiblind was taken during Jim’s solo on Seven Nation Army, one which was so blisteringly hot you could fry eggs with it.

The composition and framing on this photo qualifies as my dumb luck shot of the night, and perhaps year.

Along with Semiblind, the only other band to play all four Save the Breast Fest events is Witches Brew.

I have to say that Susan Witchey (yes, that’s her name) personifies the biker chick, which makes her a natural for this show.

They also took care of the night’s first, long-neglected ‘social!’

Raise those glasses, ladies and gentlemen! And take some beads while you’re there – Susan really enjoyed passing them out between songs. I kind of wish they’d gotten to the last song in their written set, though – haven’t heard much Quiet Riot in awhile.

The final act eschewed cover songs, though. I liked that.

But I have a little trouble classifying Perception. Their artistic flair suggests their music would have a psychedelic strain, as you can see by the pictures of the guitar case and amplifier.

But when you actually hear them play, the very spare arrangements have more of a garage band feel. With these guys you can tell it’s three musicians as opposed to a band like Rush or even ZZ Top, where three musicians sound like four or five. They’re not heavy like Motorhead, either – these guys come with much more of an alternative sound and a “screw everything” attitude.

I have to wonder, though – I’m not a musician so I won’t hold myself out as an expert. But it seemed like on some of the middle songs they were either in a minor chord I don’t hear often or the guitar was a little out of tune. It was sort of strangely unpleasant.

Still, they put together some good songs which have gotten play on ‘Local Produce’ which was why I battled exhaustion from a long workday to stay around until 1 a.m. to hear them.

And the real good news is that the event raised almost $1,000 for the DBCC, which will go to help area women (and a few men) who are afflicted with breast cancer. All six bands should be commended, along with the local businesses which have supported this cause.