High-Five Time: Black Queen Speaks Opens for Slash Tomorrow & Linus Pauling Quartet on RCRDLBL/Spinner

Got good news on a couple of fronts recently and wanted to share & virtually high-five the bands on the receiving end.

BQS Wows Slash: This one’s a little more time-sensitive, since it’s happening, um, tomorrow, Sunday, September 9th. See, that’s when Slash, legendary guitar-god for Guns N’ Roses back in The Good Old Days, is playing over at the House of Blues.

And lo and behold, local rock dudes {Black Queen Speaks} will be opening for ’em. Whoa. Apparently BQS entered the Guitar Center OnStage competition and fought their way through to the semi-final round, where they were picked by Mr. Saul Hudson himself to be one of 20 opening bands across the country. From here they have a shot at the finals, with a grand prize of $30,000(!) at stake. Um. Double whoa.

Seriously, guys, high-five from over here on this one; while the bullshit surrounding GN’R in recent years leaves me eye-rolling and disgusted, I’ve always thought Slash was a massively awesome guitarist. Being handpicked by him is massive.

LP4 Everywhere: Next up, it seems that with the awesomely heavy thunder of Bag of Hammers being just about to drop — September 18th is the most recent date I’ve heard — those {Linus Pauling Quartet} guys are freaking everywhere, and dammit, they deserve to be.

This past week, they not only got a free download of “Crom,” the first single(?) off BoH, up on Spinner, but they also got a second free download, this time for “She Did Not Know,” up on RCRDLBL.

And holy hot damn, you really, really need to grab both. Trust me. I’ve been a fan of the band for a few years now, and this is truly a high-water mark for ’em; get in on it early.