Music: Sidewalk Dave to perform Thurs., Mar. 7, at 8 PM

Sidewalk Dave bring their psychedelic-inflected indie rock to the Best Video Performance Space on Thursday, Mar. 7. The cover charge for this show is $5 and the music starts at 8 PM.

Sidewalk Dave is led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Dave Van Witt. Van Witt resists describing his music, preferring to that the listener “lis­ten and decide for your­self. There has never been an over­ar­ch­ing influ­ence or ‘you sound like’ that has been con­sis­tent or mean­ing­ful to me, so I will not mis­lead you with my own opin­ions of myself.”

He is willing to divulge some biographical info, including the origin of the name “Sidewalk Dave”:

In sev­enth grade I was kicked out of band class for impro­vis­ing dur­ing con­certs we would put on for all the par­ents. After a few failed punk bands (one aptly named For­mula For Fail­ure) I began writ­ing my own songs on a cheap gui­tar. Learn a chord, write a song, learn a sec­ond chord, write two songs, and on and on. I used to burn the nerves out of my play­ing fin­gers to strengthen my cal­louses and allow me to prac­tice longer each day. Right after my six­teenth birth­day my mother moved to Kansas City to get re-married. After liv­ing in seven dif­fer­ent towns between Bel­gium, Switzer­land, Iowa, North Car­olina, and Con­necti­cut, I decided to stay put and ride out high school on the grace of friends and their fam­i­lies. Often, I would get some beer and play on the side­walks to keep from both­er­ing my hosts. One fate­ful evening a friend yelled from a passenger-side win­dow, “Side­walk Dave!” The name some­how fol­lowed me to col­lege, and after my pre­ten­tious prog-rock band fell apart (due to my arrest for pos­ses­sion of LSD), I needed a name to release the music I con­tin­ued to work on by my lone­some. Four albums later, I’m still learn­ing what it is to become a man through the per­sona and stage name, Side­walk Dave.

Writing at CT.com, Chip McCabe listed Sidewalk Dave’s 2012 album “Hard On Romance” among his albums of the year. According to McCabe:

This album just seethes a nasty vibe and sound that you would expect to hear emanating from the best dive bars in the bowels of the most artistic cities.  I hate calling a band’s efforts “mature” because that implies their previous work is, what, “immature”?  But this really is a band that continues to grow and expand their sound so that every new album is their best.  The Blues play a big influence here but it’s just one coat of paint over a canvas of sounds that draw from such varied artists as The Stooges, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, Weezer and even moments of Pink Floyd just to name a few.  However you want to classify it though (I’ve seen “rock”, “folk rock”, “alt rock”, etc.) doesn’t really matter because whatever label you try to put on this band they will always transcend it.  This album is no exception.

Check out Sidewalk Dave’s video for their song “Sinister Things”:

UPCOMING PERFORMANCE SPACE EVENTS:

• Saturday, Mar. 9. ACOUSTIC CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC: HADE & WILLIAMS

• Wednesday, Mar. 13. ACOUSTIC BLUES & ROCK: NOAH KESSELMAN

• Thursday, Mar. 14. WINE TASTING with KARL RONNE from THE WINE THIEF

• Wednesday, Mar. 20. JAZZ: DAVID CHEVAN

• Thursday, Mar. 21. INDIE GARAGE ROCK: GHOST OF CHANCE

• Sunday, Mar. 24. READINGS: JOEANN HART & MATT DEBENHAM

• Wednesday, Mar. 27. PUNK ROCK: STARK RAVING LULU

• Thursday, Mar. 28. FILM SCREENING: STEPHEN DEST’S “MY BROTHER JACK”

• Wednesday, Apr. 3. INDIE ROCK: LYS GUILLORN BAND

• Thursday, Apr. 4. CLASSICAL: HAVEN STRING QUARTET

• Wednesday, Apr. 10. BLUEGRASS: RAGWEED

• Thursday, Apr. 11. SINGER-SONGWRITER: ANNE MARIE MENTA BAND

• Wednesday, Apr. 17. SINGER-SONGWRITER: ESTHER GOLTON

• Monday, Apr. 22. FILM SCREENING FOR “WHAT WOULD YOU DO?” SERIES: “WALK ON WATER”