Uh Oh And The Oh Wells, Hayes Noble, Puddy Knife, Sick Pay Holiday Spokane isn’t exactly a musical destination for most (see: most bands deciding to not stop here on tours, closing venues, etc.), so it’s worth celebrating when rad musicians migrate to the Lilac City. This year’s standout in that category is Illinois transplant Hayes Noble. The young rocker absolutely rips things up on his 2023 debut, LP Head Cleaner, a collection of sharply produced, fuzzy shoegaze rock that calls to mind bands like Cloud Nothings, Japandroids and even early Nirvana. It’s probably the best Spokane album of the year… if you count it, since he released it before moving here. If you need to escape your relatives in town for the holidays, ducking out to the Big Dipper to catch Noble play as part of a loaded local rock bill is as good an excuse as any.
Lauded by Nada Mucho for their "upbeat, happy, and very crowd-pleasing songs about relationships gone bad," the three-piece garage-twang outfit Chris King & the Gutterballs headlines a May 18 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the Chicago musicians' talents inspiring ReverbNation to rave that the artists “posses a charm as the songs worm into the ear via wooly production