Familar favorites back in area

Here's hoping the heavy rains from earlier in the week didn't flood our favorite Cape Girardeau night spots because this weekend the musical forecast is bright and shining. The outlook for fun is good.

Some beloved local bands whose sparse appearances almost rival Nessy from Scotland are scheduled to surface Friday and Saturday in Cape Girardeau and its northern neighbor Jackson and misfit cousin to the south, Sikeston.

The Dirty 30s were a band I heard about a lot when I first landed in Cape Girardeau, and people continue to sing the praise of the quintet, most (or all) of whom originate from Cape but mostly play in St. Louis now. Of course, anything said about them was inevitably followed by "I don't know when they'll play here next."

Well, I do. They'll play Friday night at Broussard's. The Melroys will come south Saturday from their new home in STL to play a gig at Stooges in Jackson, and Promise to Burn will bring up the rear Saturday at the Double Nickel II in Sikeston.

It's all a good homecoming for the Easter holiday weekend. Enjoy and go see some other bands, too.

If you can't wait until those shows this weekend, go online and get a load of some new songs from bands who have been playing all winter — playing in the studio, that is.

Several bands from the area are rumored to have new stuff in the works.

We tracked down four acts and commandeered their hot-from-the-disc-drive albums. We've featured them in this issue (see Page 13) and will have three tracks from each of their new albums online — three is the magic number after all.

Now that the tracks are posted, let the games begin.

We're giving you the chance to vote for your favorite new material from the new albums.

Log on, listen to the tracks and then follow the links to the poll page where you can choose your fave.

The winner will get an all-out feature in the next available SE Live. We'll uncover the story on them, their music and whatever else we figure to ask them. So I guess you could just vote for whatever group you don't know anything about and wait to see the results.

Voting will go through April 3.

Of course there will be a comment section — either on each band's page or on the poll page. Sign up and post what you want to know about these guys.