On Thursday November 11th, the United States will be celebrating Veteran’s Day. In a bizarre twist of fate that the universe would describe as “scheduling”, Nectar’s will be hosting a benefit concert entitled Rock the Village. As a Sound on the Sound reader, why should you want to rock a village? Let me tell you.

In this country we take everything for granted. Loved ones, fast food, credit card debt. In America, if you can think about it, you can forget about it. U-S-A! U-S-A! One thing we take for granted that I failed to list is access to clean water. This concert, which features a couple of local acts that you should be excited to see this Thursday night, is a benefit concert for the Mohanam Cultural Center. The aforementioned cultural center is a small village school in Tamil Nadu, India that cleans water for most of its village of 2,000. The center helps maintain ancient cultural practices and traditions that are slowly being phased out of modern life.  If you want to know more about the mission of the Mohanam Cultural Center, as well as background information on the rest of the concert, click here.

Who’s performing on Thursday night at Nectar? Four bands with semi-long names. The Horde and the Harem recently performed a concert this past Saturday to the delight of Full Tilt Ice-Cream patrons. Now they will be lending their services for the benefit of the Mohanam Cultural Center. Do you like “garage” bands? I don’t. Do you like garage bands that actually know how to write songs and play their instruments? Let me introduce to some friends of mine, Fox and the Law. I currently hold the opinion that they “rock.” Seattle “garage bands” bring your notebook on Thursday night. This is how it’s done right. Stop sending me crappy recordings of your boring songs. Thanks. If “alternative rock” was still a useful label (and it’s not) then Viva La Villains would be squeezed under this dead genre. They sound good….yeah. I’m not sure if I can genuinely get behind this. For the sake of this benefit concert let’s say I am enthused to see this band take the stage. I think many of you will enjoy this band, because you folks are not jerks like myself.  James Lanman and the Good Hurt play doe-eyed innocent indie rock. No bells, whistles or gimmicks necessary. Stripped down songwriting in approach with vocals that the ladies surely adore (hey laaaaaadieessss). When it comes to this sort of thing I prefer my artist tortured and chemically imbalanced but that’s only because I enjoy unhinged company. They make for interesting dinner parties. I’m sure Mr. Lanman would make an excellent dinner guest as well.

Doors for the show at Nectar open at 8pm. The price of admission is $8. Don’t forget that all proceeds go to the Mohanam Cultural Center. Spare me the excuse of being broke, your money will go to folks who need it more than you do. Want even more information? Check out the events page on Facebook. Come on Seattle. Let’s Rock the Village.