Photo By Tea Leaf Green

Tea Leaf Green

Wednesday · Southgate House

The capital of Jam-dom has shifted westward from Vermont to Colorado recently, but San Francisco's Tea Leaf Green is making a strong bid to bring it back home to the left coast. 2005 was a breakout year for the band, landing opening slots for Gov't Mule and Trey Anastasio (who on several occasions treated the band to that ubiquitous jam anointment, the onstage cameo). TLG also played Bonnaroo and the High Sierra Music Festival, along with hundreds of other dates on their seemingly endless tour. Along the way, they have grown from a sidestage act to a highly polished groove factory, impressing audiences with the same combination of songwriting and psychedelia that propelled Phish into the spotlight. They have officially released four studio albums and four live albums, and they have a huge archive of live shows available for downloading at tealeafgreen.com. Their latest effort, Taught to be Proud, was released in November, and has been hailed by many (including the band themselves) as the first album where their songcraft truly shines. Guitarist Josh Clark brings his love of '80s Hard Rock and Metal to bear on the genre, and singer/keyboardist Trevor Garrod performs a similar balancing act with his wistful Nils Lofgren-esque approach to the piano. He also has a very smooth and subdued vocal style, a "sensitive songwriter" croon along the lines of Jackson Browne or even James Taylor, that is one of the trademarks of TLG's sound. Certainly many folks who saw them open for Gov't Mule at Taft Theater two months ago will be back to get another dose of Green before they outgrow midsized venues. (Ezra Waller)

Electric Frankenstein with Kill City, Dead Flowers and The Nailers

Thursday · Southgate House

If ever there was a band that has lived up to its name, it's Electric Frankenstein. Stitched together from the best parts of Punk's glorious fervor, Hard Rock's blistering anthemics and Garage Rock's visceral simplicity, EF has spent nearly 15 years converting casual listeners into slavish fans at the drop of an ear-bleeding power chord. The New Jersey quintet's résumé is littered with irrefutable evidence of their influence; the respected "Zine Guide's Top 500 Bands Most Featured in the Press" list charted EF at No. 2, skateboard legends Tony Hawk and Bam Margera routinely use EF as their background music (as do several video game creators) and the band counts peers like Pearl Jam, Social Distortion, Monster Magnet and The Hives as major fans. The band's last album, Burn Fast, Burn Bright, was EF's 13th in 13 years, a tally that doesn't even begin to take into account the hundreds of singles, compilations, tributes and EPs the band has either released or been involved with. Perhaps the most astonishing fact regarding Electric Frankenstein is that, over the course of their 13-year history, the band's members have continuously worked around day-job schedules, gigs that they maintain not necessarily because they need them but because they like them. And it goes without saying that the best way to experience Electric Frankenstein is ... alive! It's alive! Torches, pitchforks and angry villagers are optional but always welcome. (Brian Baker)

CKY with Avenged Sevenfold and The Confession

Tuesday · Bogart's

Philadelphia-area quartet CKY has found a way to bridge the gap between the visceral impact of Metal, the melodic appeal of Pop/Rock and the jacked-up energy of Skatepunk and has improbably found an audience among fans of all three genres. The seeds of CKY were sown over a decade ago when guitarist/vocalist Deron Miller and drummer Jess Margera started the band Foreign Objects in their hometown of West Chester, Pa. After releasing an EP in 1995, Miller came up with the name Camp Kill Yourself and the band began recording demos with its reconstituted line-up featuring Miller, Margera and guitarist Chad Ginsburg. The band's big break came through Margera's skateboarding daredevil brother Bam, who convinced producers of Jump Off a Building, the stunt skate video he was starring in, to use one of CKY's songs in the video's soundtrack. Bam's enormous success in subsequent videos allowed him to prominently feature his brother's band in his productions, which led to the release of two volumes of CKY's video soundtrack music. After two stints on the Warped Tour and the release of the Disengage the Simulator EP, the band's profile rose dramatically with their exposure through MTV's stunt showcase Jackass, where Bam had been added to the cast. With the added attention came a contract with Island/Def Jam and CKY's major label debut, Infiltrate·Destroy·Rebuild in 2002. The band was tapped as the opener for the Guns N' Roses tour, which collapsed after a handful of dates. CKY carried on with the tour and earned the healthy respect of the Hard Rock/Metal crowd in the process. For the next two years, CKY toured ceaselessly and finally took time to record their latest album, An Answer Can Be Found. The album's more polished production and stylistic shifts polarized CKY's fan base, with some hailing it as their best effort to date and others dismissing it as a commercial compromise. Either way, CKY has proven once again that they're capable of inciting incredible passion among their faithful. (BB)