BY CORY WALSH

Over a decade ago, underground hip-hop record label Anticon seemed too strange to ever approach mainstream acceptance.
Compared to the businesslike Jay-Z, its rappers were weird – oddball dudes with a vulnerable streak whose rhymes veered off into the heady, abstract territory of spoken-word poetry.
With the rise of over-sharers like Kanye West and the saturation of indie rock in all media, there’s room now apparently for veteran Anticon group WHY? to play a venue like the Wilma Theatre.
It walks a fuzzy line between genres – it’s a band that plays a melange of indie rock, hip-hop, folk and chamber pop, led by a rapper. Fronting the group is vocalist Yoni Wolf, a neurotic with a high-pitched voice who flips between a croon and rhymes. He spends much of 2012’s “Mumps, Etc.,” pondering illness and aging.
Why? performs with opener Dream Tiger on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at the Wilma Theatre. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m.

Tracy Morgan, star of “30 Rock” and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, will perform on Thursday, March 28, at the Dennison Theatre on the University of Montana campus as part of his “Excuse My French” stand-up tour.
Morgan was first introduced to TV audiences in his role as “Hustleman” on the hit comedy series “Martin.” He went on to join SNL in 1996 where he appeared for seven seasons and created such memorable characters as “Astronaut Jones” and “Brian Fellows.” After leaving SNL, Morgan went on to star in his own comedy series “The Tracy Morgan Show” and voiced “Spoonie Luv” on Comedy Central’s “Crank Yankers.”
Currently starring on NBC’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning “30 Rock,” Morgan appears opposite Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin as “Tracy Jordan,” the unpredictable star of Lemon’s (Fey) hit variety show, “TGS with Tracy Jordan.” In 2009 Morgan received his first Emmy nomination for this role in the supporting actor category; in the past five years he has also been nominated for the Supporting Actor NAACP Image Award.
Morgan made his animation debut in Jerry Bruckheimer’s “G-Force” with the character “Blaster,” one of the highly trained secret agent guinea pigs dispatched to save the world. The film opened at No. 1 in U.S. box offices and was celebrated by audiences worldwide. In 2010, Morgan starred in “Death at a Funeral,” a remake of the 2007 British movie of the same name, also featuring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, and Danny Glover. In 2011, Morgan also headlined the New York Comedy Festival, which featured comedians such as Bill Maher, Andy Samberg and Patton Oswalt, among others.

Thursday, March 28 at the Dennison Theatre on the University of Montana campus
The show starts at 7 pm.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 14. The reserved seating tickets cost $49.50, and additional fees may applied. It is for mature audiences only.
Tickets are available at the Adams Center Box Office, all GrizTix outlets, by phone (406) 243-4051, or by visiting griztix.com.

BY CORY WALSH

Hirsute, overweight, often shirtless and sometimes bloodied, Damian Abraham is an unlikely candidate for one of the best frontmen in rock.
When he’s not screaming into a microphone or beating it against his head, though, the frontman for hardcore punk outfit F----- Up is surprisingly lighthearted on stage, leading sing-alongs or telling jokes.
That’s just one of the many contradictions that define the Toronto group. It works in a genre known for short songs, but loves to release 15-minute epics with weird instruments and collaborate with decidedly non-punk musicians like Final Fantasy and members of Arcade Fire.
The group also has a keen sense of spectacle that stands out an era of music overload. Its members chose an unprintable name; they once played a 12-hour concert in New York; and have released a series of singles named after the Chinese Zodiac that stretch the verse-chorus-verse template of punk into monolithic tracks that last up to 20 minutes.
Its last full-length album, 2011’s “David Comes to Life,” tackled the disreputable genre of the rock opera, and earned glowing praise from unlikely quarters such as NPR. Like others before it (see The Who’s “Tommy,”) the plot’s sketchy without the help of a lyric sheet – it’s a love story set in Thatcher-era England and involves terrorism.
It works thanks to focused, single-worthy tracks over the course of its 78-minute running time. The group also shirked any excessive interludes or pretentious instrumentation for “David,” stripping everything down in favor of unrelenting, sledgehammer rock. Given the constraints of touring, that’s what listeners should expect when Abraham, working name Pink Eyes, and the group’s three-guitar lineup play Missoula’s Badlander.
KBGA College Radio pulled off an impressive coup in booking them for the End-of-Thon, the nonprofit station’s celebration to mark the end of its annual fundraising drive, and it’s likely to be the most explosive rock show you’ll see this year until TotalFest.

FEB. 15, 2013 | @ THE BADLANDER