The upcoming Low Anthem show, featuring openers Tallahassee and the ‘Mericans, is now free, with suggested donations requested to benefit United Way’s Rhode Island Flood Recovery Fund. If you have already purchased tickets, you can be refunded at point of purchase or waive your refund and the $ will go to the fund. How this came about was explained by Ben Knox Miller of Low Anthem,

Our tour was way out west when we heard about the flooding. It was a dry but helpless feeling to be so far away. Mat’s mother’s had the idea I think to turn Lupo’s into a benefit show. A good idea! People can donate if they like or just come into Lupo’s for free, which is pretty unusual. We are excited to come back home for the show, and also hopeful for the dryness of the gear in our basement.

So that’s the kind of people they are. Kudos to Mat’s mom and everyone else who is helping to make this happen. The rest of us can head down, listen to some great music, and give generously.  Here’s hoping all their gear was kept high and dry.

Benefit for Flood Recovery, Wednesday, April 21, 7pm to 11pm, Lupo’s, 79 Washington Street

That’s right — local favorites the Low Anthem will be the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman. For all that Letterman plays up his grumpy old man persona he is known to be into current music, and this choice seems particularly enlightened. His show frequently showcases under-the-radar acts from around the country and tonight the Low Anthem will get their chance to reach a wider audience. And they get to meet Paul Shaffer. Very cool.

Thursday, 11:35pm, CBS, Late Show, Channel 12

The end of the year is always an opportunity to reflect and recap. One theme emerges from my collection of ticket stubs — the bands I like are skipping Providence venues altogether and just doing Boston. Could we fix that please? I hate that drive home. Another problem is that the Brits still find it too difficult to clear all band members through our draconian (and clearly ineffective) visa system. Still, here are some highlights. I saw Brendon Small and the Philadelphia ‘School of Rock’ kids perform Dethklok, a band that doesn’t really exist, and just blow everyone away. I saw Andrew WK perform with a string quartet, and the crowd still rushed the stage. And I pried open my narrow metal mind and made a space for the Low Anthem at the Avon which was a special night (please Avon, do more of that).

But it was hard to top Tragedy, the All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees at Harper’s Ferry, pictured here with my choice for break-out star of the next decade, Gigi Gleason of opening act Misstallica. (When an audience member shouted out “Sandman!” one of the girls snarled “We don’t do slow songs” — and they never played it.) Gigi totally shredded with Dethklok as well. This prodigy is so charismatic and at home on the stage that it is easy to forget that she isn’t even old enough to drink at the bar. Here she is at the end of that evening, jumping in with Tragedy, in a picture that looks like New Year’s Eve, but is any Tragedy show on any night. So in 2009 I got over my folk music and tribute band prejudices and had some of the most fun ever.

[I almost forgot to mention falling in love with the Upper Crust at Jerky's a few months back. And they are actually playing tonight up in Boston (natch) at Church. Perfect band for New Year's Eve.]

I’m probably the least into the Low Anthem of all the people here on the Dose staff, so I have no idea why it took a blog in another country to alert me to this extremely lovely new stop-motion video for the song “Charlie Darwin”.  The video was created by Glenn Z Taunton and Simon Taffe.

I think I like the song, especially towards the end, though at first it struck me as overly precious.  Still, I like what other stuff I’ve heard from the local trio, and I’m definitely a fan of their live show, so repeated listens/colder weather/whiskey might soon convince me of its awesomeness.

Don’t forget the special event (they are calling it Strats-on-Avon) Thursday night at the Avon Cinema. The Low Anthem will headline with Death Vessel and Brown Bird in support. (I could have sworn Annie had posted about this but I must have been hallucinating again.) I love the idea of the Avon hosting live music acts. Annie was right to mention the loveliness of the tickets (verrry detailed hallucination). They can be purchased at the Avon box office and the Low Anthem website. Two days later they will be heading out on tour starting in Seattle, then down the west coast to Arizona, Texas, Baton Rouge. They then work their way back up the east coast in December. (The national press took much notice of their latest cd Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. Read here and here. Listen here.) Tickets will be $14 the night of the show, so order early and save.

(Message to BKM. I have kept my part of the bargain, I trust you will forget where you saw me today.)

The Low Anthem, $12 in advance (order here), 8:45pm, Thursday, Avon Cinema, 260 Thayer Street

And a hat. Great article by Rick Massimo in the Thursday ProJo highlighting the local acts representing at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend — The Low Anthem and Deer Tick.

At last year’s folk festival in Newport, Ben Knox Miller and the rest of The Low Anthem weren’t on stage — they were backstage, helping out with the recycling.

That place should erupt when they take the stage. Come on folkies, go a little mental! Massimo also discusses the unexpected Deer Tick/Brian Williams/Rachael Ray nexus. Impressive lineup for this weekend; folk royalty Joan Baez, 90-year-old Pete Seeger will share the bill with The Decembrists, Neko Case, Fleet Foxes. And Elvis Perkins (on Sunday) also had a Providence connection I believe (Wikipedia is down). The schedule is subject to change, but the weather looks fantastic.

George Wein’s Folk Festival 50, Saturday & Sunday, 11:30am to 7pm, Fort Adams, Harrison Avenue, Newport

The Low Anthem, Saturday, 2:10pm, third stage

Deer Tick, Sunday, 3:30pm, third stage

Look who got a mention in today’s New York Times!  “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin” by the Low Anthem was a selection for this week’s Critics’ Choice; new CD’s. Happiest with the down tempo cuts, Jon Pareles writes

. . . the quieter the music gets, in an elegy like “To Ohio” or a conditional reassurance like “(Don’t) Tremble,” the more its music inhabits its own otherworldly place, where ghosts and angels hover just out of view.

Congratulations, and thank you Low Anthem, for getting Providence mentioned in the national media for something other than . . . you know.

I’m probably exactly the wrong person to be reporting on the Low Anthem (they are as unlike Dethklok as it is possible to be, not being a cartoon and all) but I get excited whenever I see a mention of our state in the national media in a story not about icebergs.  In covering the SXSW music festival in Austin The New York Times reports that many established bands are now showing up to push one thing or another — Metallica is flogging their Guitar Hero game, Kanye West is flogging himself — it’s possible that SXSW is jumping the shark this year. (What would a conversation between Lars Ulrich and Kanye West sound like?)

But most musicians here were less concerned with the interests of the music business than they were with reaching listeners. They might be quiet, like the Low Anthem, a Rhode Island trio that played somber songs pondering fate and eternity . . . They saw their future not in stadium tours or rock-star indulgences, but in the pragmatic steps of setting up another tour or doing another studio session.

That is what SXSW used to be about after all.