Preview: Alex Hall's Figurehead / October 25 / Casa
By: Tony Cardwell, Contributor
Casa Cantina / Saturday October 25, 2014
HallOUween, Athens, Ohio. Does the idea of one of the country’s biggest block parties send a chill up your spine? Does the idea of a street full of semi-topical costumes and annoying drunks entice you? Does the mere thought of poor life choices have you wishing to travel on up to Ohio University? Well if you answered "yes" to one of those questions you’re certainly in the right place, and for Alex Hall’s Figurehead, well, they answered "yes" to all three.
Yes, one of the many great performers this year will be Alex Hall’s Figurehead, a traditional vintage prog rock band from Akron, Ohio. The band’s first show ever was actually here in Athens, so needless to say the guys are pretty pumped. “Many of us have played in Athens with the bands we've been in before Alex Hall's Figurehead, but since AHF's first show was at Casa, there's a special place in our heart (and stomachs!) for Casa, and for Athens in general,” said front man and bandleader Alex Hall.
The group has a very vintage sound. When asked about their ideas on their sound and their genre label as “progressive rock” Hall stated, “Progressive rock in the last 20 or so years has gone a heavier direction, I think, which isn't consistent with our sound, but the musical sophistication of the genre is something we take pretty seriously. Many of our songs have some more difficult and tightly-arranged sections that give the music a progressive sound, and we're definitely moving in that direction more and more as we develop new original material.” For a more concrete definition, Hall lists some of his many influences as Yes, Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd.
After kicking off the second leg of their local tour here, Alex Hall’s Figurehead plans to head back to the studio. “We'll finish off with a holiday-themed show in Akron on Dec. 5th, then we jump right into the studio to record six songs for a CD we'll release when we hit the road again in the spring. After that, we're going to take a different approach to the way we release studio recordings; we're going to record one to two songs at a time and put them up for free download on our website as they get finished, then we'll collect them in volumes on CD as they accumulate, and you'll be able to purchase hard copies at shows if you like. I'm really excited about how liberating such a short length of time between releases can be, and I honestly can't wait to get into the studio!”
The show starts at 9 p.m. and lasts all night long “officially” ending at 2 a.m. Admission is $2 and the band has a bit of a Halloween surprise in store which the band is “pretty stoked” about.
