ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART, VISION CONTROL
10 p.m. White Water Tavern.

For this one, I’ll defer to Times contributor Joe Meazle, because I think he nailed it on this description: “If you think of Alvin Youngblood Hart only as a Handy and Grammy award-winning interpreter of roots and blues music of bygone eras (as many seem to continue to try to do), you would be missing the majority of what the multifaceted artist has thus far and continues to create. It would be akin to judging a bowl of gumbo base solely on a single ingredient, a folly to be sure. That fine gumbo has a roots and blues component, sure enough, but there is also R&B, soul, and good ol’ fuse-blowing Southern rock ‘n’ roll, just to name a few of the ingredients.”

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I can’t put it any better than that.

As far as Vision Control goes, you should know that it’s a project of Little Rock native John Pugh, surely one of the most restless and creative artists this state has produced. He was integral in the ’90s LR punk scene, performing in a grip of bands (Uptown Prophets of Armageddon, Crown of Glory, No City No State and Jet Jangua, among many others). He anchored the drumkit for Sacramento-to-Brooklyn dance mavens !!!, providing the driving beat for that band for several years before leaving to focus on the duo Free Blood.

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I haven’t heard Vision Control yet, but according to press materials, “using only a guitar, a loop pedal and his voice, Pugh creates a minimalist landscape where syncopated pointillist patterns interlock with heavy proto-punk R&B vamps liberally peppered with bursts of no wave dystopia.” Sounds intriguing, brainy and sultry all at the same time, which is to say, it sounds like a project from John Pugh.

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