Tonight (Maybe?): A Lull + listenlisten + Smoky Mountain (UPDATE: Cancelled! For Reals!)

UPDATE-UPDATE: Got some more info on tonight’s cancellation; according to the good people at SHFL, A Lull‘s tour vehicle broke down, and they couldn’t play, so the listenlisten guys decided to call the show a bust. Just fyi, folks.

UPDATE: sigh. Looks like I was a little quick on the “Post” button, because yes, per the listenlisten crew, tonight’s show is indeed cancelled. Dang. Oh, well; enjoy the A Lull MP3, either way…

While I’ll gladly give props to Lucas Gorham‘s Sad Gorilla project and residency at Mango’s, I must admit that for tonight, at least, there’s only one show on my personal little maybe-go-see list: A Lull, listenlisten, & Smoky Mountain, up at Super Happy Fun Land.

Well, maybe. All of the bands’ various Websites, Facey-spaces, & whatnot list the show as going on, but SHFL, unfortunately, has a big “Canceled!” under tonight’s date (Monday, February 8th, that is). Still trying to find out what the deal is, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that the show will go on, because if so, it’s going to be pretty damn great…

Chicago-dwellers A Lull, for their part, do a neat, quirky brand of electro-tweaked indie-pop that sounds (to me, anyway) like a friendlier, less-bizarro Four Tet doing covers the best, gentlest songs from the Saddle Creek catalog, and they’re pretty incredible at it — the result is sweet and watery-sounding pop with the guitars and low-key voices up-front and Beta Band-esque electronics burbling along behind, and that’s no bad thing, at least not to me.

In case you don’t want to take my word for it, though, here you go:

A Lull – “Skinny Fingers”

I dunno Smoky Mountain at all, unfortunately, partly due to the fact that Googling “Smoky Mountain band” brings up a cheeseball-looking bunch of punks from the Philippines, and I’m guessing that’s not these folks…

listenlisten, however, are another matter entirely; they’re one of my favorite bands in town, and beyond that, they’ve steadily worked their way to being one of my favorite bands, well, ever. They’re dark and spooky and heartfelt all at once, playing an alternate-universe hybrid of Appalachian folk, late-1800s sea shanties, and stark, brooding Americana, and it’s freaking awesome, frankly. You owe it to yourself to check out last year’s Hymns From Rhodesia full-length, I swear.

There you go; get on out if you can, and hopefully this thing’ll actually happen. I’ll update this post if I find out otherwise.