Slumgullion

Steve Earle and The Dukes and several other big-name acts will perform at the Sixth Annual John Henry’s Friends - A Benefit For The Keswell School this Sunday night. The lineup features Emmylou Harris, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Josh Ritter, Matt Savage, Shawn Colvin, The Mastersons, and Warren Haynes. All donations will aid Keswell’s mission to provide educational programs for children and adults with autism. There are also celebrity-contributed items available in a silent auction.

Episode 3 of the CIVLIZATION streaming series is going on tonight. Supernova, Quin Kirchner, Minor Moon and Ami will be performing. In addition to giving music fans the opportunity to enjoy shows, the series aims to cast a spotlight on the CIVL Emergency Relief Fund. Working in conjunction with the Giving Back Fund, CIVL supports Chicago artists and venues. Donations are being accepted at the CIVL website.

BBC Radio 4 will be celebrating the life and work of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and Rutles musician/Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes throughout December. The Monty Python Official Instagram page promises there will be new and archival interviews with Python members. 

Metro recently announced it has some more items from the vault for sale at its online store. 

Visitors to the site will find Metro and Smart Bar t-shirts, accessories, and indie rock gig posters for Dinosaur Jr.,  Babes In Toyland, Bob Mould, The Donnas, Guided By Voices, Sharon Van Etten, Wire, Questlove, and others.

As noted in an Instagram post from the music venue Sleeping Village today, artist-musician Steve Krakow, AKA Plastic Crimewave, has joined forces with Wake Up! Music to create a Heroes Of Chicago House Coloring Book. The 34-page effort features illustrations of house music stars from the 1980s and 90s. It’s available from Wake Up! Music for $20, and $5 of each sale will go to the Sustain Chicago Music Organization.

Krakow’s distinctive style will be familiar to those who have followed his weekly The Secret History Of Chicago Music strip in the Chicago Reader, and he released a Compendium of those strips as a hardcover book. I purchased an autographed copy at a CHIRP Record Fair a few years back. 

For three years running, Krakow would hang out at the Milwaukee Avenue Reckless Records on Record Store Day, drawing portraits of any band you wanted for $5. I had three Hollies sketches done during those years. 

R.E.M. tribute band Shaking Through will perform a livestream concert tomorrow night, December 12, as part of the New York venue The Bowery Electric’s LivePremiere Sessions. Tickets are on demand through December 18, and 100% of the proceeds will go to the Equal Justice Initiative and to help keep The Bowery Electric open.

The Hollies have just announced they’ll embark on a fall tour across England in 2021. The band will also be onboard for the 5th Annual Flower Power Cruise in 2022 from March 28 through April 4. They’ll be joined by The Zombies, John Lodge from The Moody Blues, The Guess Who, and The Yardbirds. The Hollies canceled its U.K. and U.S. tours due to COVID-19 earlier this year

The Fest For Beatles Fans online store has Ringo Starr’s new Painting Is My Madness Too! book for sale in autographed and non-autographed versions. The former will cost you $725 and the latter goes for $110. All proceeds will benefit The Lotus Foundation.

Ringo Starr will be among the performers when Joe Walsh and Friends present the VetsAid 2020: Home For The Holidays streaming event tomorrow, starting at 5:00 p.m. Little Steven Van Zandt, Eddie Vedder, Gwen Stefani, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Willie Nelson and The Boys, Ben Harper, Jewel, Daryl Hall, Billy Bob Thornton, Blake Shelton, Brandon Flowers, and other stars will be on hand.