Shake Your Halo

This is a blog for Shake Your Halo, the latest of what seems to be a neverending stream of music events in Lower Manhattan. This one will be a keeper, we promise. The club is fantastic and the music is going to impress people.

Has there ever been a party that's had its own blog? Not that I'm aware of. Even if this isn't the first time we'll do what we can to make it interesting. Bands will log in and write about themselves, post tracks and brag about themselves. The DJs can let people know what kind of music they tend to play.

I'm Glenn from Coolfer.com. Jen Carlson from Daily Refill/Gothamist/5th Floor Management is doing the party with me. This Shake Your Halo thing will hopefully turn into a monthly event -- with your kind support -- and we're looking forward to the first one. It's on February 1st at Fat Baby, the new club on Rivington near Essex in Manhattan.

Why the name? We needed a name and nothing good was coming to mind. So, in a very uncreative manner, I went through some songs on my hard drive and wrote down the ones I thought would be good. I don't recall exactly what was on the list. Probably a Ramones song ("Locket Love" isn't a good party name). Maybe a Saint Etienne tune ("Hug My Soul"?). One was "Shake Your Halo," a shortened version of the Shudder to Think song "Shake Your Halo Down" from Get Your Goat.

The next day I IM'd Jen the short list.

"One of them really stands out to me," I wrote her.

"Shake Your Halo!" she replied.

And so it was settled.

As luck would have it, we got Craig Wedren (ex-Shudder to Think) to DJ at the premiere Shake Your Halo. It's his song. Why shouldn't he be there? Michael Jurin from stellastarr* is also going to DJ. And I'll bust out some of my music collection at some point as well.

On the bill right now are two bands (we'll have three total) we're excited to have: Bravo Silva and Overnight. Some of you are probably familiar with Bravo Silva. I last saw them at the Knitting Factory and thought they were great. There's something different about them that you just don't see very often in this town. No disco-punk, for one. Mainly it's the '70s connection. Not Led Zep or Foghat. They remind me of Steely Dan with bits of Psychedelic Furs. Or something like that. That probably doesn't help a bit, does it?

Overnight is a band I heard just recently and wanted to play as soon as the night at the club was set. The band replied to Jen's query with excitement. We had no idea they're such big Shudder to Think fans! Overnight has what one could call a New York Sound but they do it differently. Just give them a listen, here are some downloads:

• Overnight: "It's Time"
• Overnight: "Sorry"
• Overnight: "Victims and Volunteers"