Live Music Roars Back into Luke's Lounge

Live music had mostly been silenced at for months. Fans had weathered the hiatus pumping coin into an internet jukebox wired through the state-of-the-art house sound system (programmable from home via texting or email).

"But still," owner Nate Luke said, "there's nothing like the sight of sweaty, hard-workin' musicians crankin' out the tunes."

Luke had put live music on hold last January after a dispute with American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (commonly known as ASCAP) which had, without warning Luke said, . But that's all history now.

"I think it's really important to have live music in Downtown Dixon, get people out of their living rooms and out on the dance floor," Luke said. "So we bit the bullet, negotiated with ASCAP,  and here last Friday night we shut off the jukebox and cranked the sound system up."

Indeed, the $15,000 loudspeakers blasted each note crystal clear as three alt-metal bands weighed in like boxers before a big fight and then laid down some heavy hardcore, punkabilly and alt-rock last Friday.  Luke's Lounge acoustics are great.

First up were Disciples of Bacchus, who'd traveled from Santa Cruz to perform in Dixon. Formed a month ago, Ian on drums, Hunter on guitar, and Aaron on bass executed original songs as a tight-knit crowd-pleasing unit with only a few pauses for high-level discusions about technical details such as the next song to play.

Mortal Atrocity took over with a thrash-metal full tilt piledriver beat. Matt “Matigus” Alger was totally raucous on vocals. Nate "Wolfman" Adcock played his bass like a lead guitar, throwing jazz licks into the wall of thrash mix.

Asked how he got away with that, the "Wolfman" said, "Hey, it's all music." Christian "Chin" Stonehouse wailed on lead guitar, and Joe "JoHawk" Schairer drummed with heavy-duty attitude.

Avenue Saints, Friday night's headliners, are a stripped-down high-energy alt-punkabilly trio based out of Sacramento.

Dusty Graves, decked to the nines in a snapbrim cap and florescent white shoes, sang lead while madly thumping his midnight black standup bass topped with a ceramic vampire's head. Josh Lawson played tornadoes of notes on lead onstage and while wandering out on the dance floor. Josh even smoothly ordered a drink at the bar in the middle of a blistering solo. Steve Prieb stood out uproariously on drums and backup vocals.

Nate Luke said he's committed to booking live shows at least the rest of the year.

"Thing is, though, tonight most of the audience came down from Davis and even Sacramento. We hope to see some more Dixon folks comin' out too and havin' fun with us," Luke said.

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