photo by Jana Miller

Austin Lucas

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Austin Lucas was taught how to sing by his musician father Robert Lucas before he could even speak. At home or in the car, his family would sing and make music, traveling during the summer months to folk, bluegrass, and old-time music festivals where Robert would perform every year.

As Lucas became old enough to attend school, he also attended the Indiana University Children's Choir to hone his gift of singing. In spite of working under the program for six years performing in three operas and dozens of classical choral pieces, he never learned to love or appreciate his studies until much later in his life.

At 12, Lucas removed himself from the choir in search of louder and faster music. It was in the punk and hardcore scene where Austin found himself and has remained for the last 16 years. Having played in crust and grind bands such as Rune and Twentythird Chapter, as well as technical punk outfit K10 Prospect - he had called Praha, Czech Republic home splitting his time touring solo and playing guitar in the Orc-core Crust band Guided Cradle. However, as many will infinitely attest, it is truly his skillful and soulful homage to his country and bluegrass roots that leave all listening audiences haunted with a stirring sense of amazement.

Lucas is hitting the road in support of his latest full-length, "Somebody Loves You" (Suburban Home Records). An eleven-track collection of true confessionals, cathartic wisdom, and heartbreak at the end of the tunnel, Lucas lives and breathes his music, as will the listener.

He makes a stop here in Mount Pleasant on Saturday, June 5 at The Village Tavern. Located in the Crickentree Shopping Center at 1055 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, the VT has been bringing national touring acts here since 2001.

Damion Suomi began singing in church as a child and later took up the guitar after his parents' divorce as a means to feel more connected to his father, who also played guitar. Suomi attended Bible college for a year before choosing to take a new direction with his life: "They give the students this great experience, but then I realized later that I was having the same experiences at concerts and bars, where there's this collective conscious, you're surrounded by the people you love, everyone's singing songs, and something just clicks. It's completely the same feeling."

Beginning songwriting in his early twenties, Suomi played with Dame before moving to Ireland for a year and a half. He returned home to Florida with a catalog of Irish rebel and drinking songs, which he would later perform at local Irish pubs. Following this, Suomi found regional success with pop band Memoranda but left shortly thereafter to pursue music closer to his own heart. Suomi set out on a solo career, with his debut album Self Titled ("a straight-ahead look at disillusionment and the walls people put up to avoid pain") being released in early 2009, following with the EP Needs a Little Water ("brief, by most recording standards, but a lion nonetheless") in December of that year, both released by Atlanta-based record label P is for Panda, an affiliate of Hopeless Records.

Touring tirelessly since November 2009 with Andy Zipf and Lauris Vidal, Suomi rejoined former Memoranda bandmates Ian and Gavin Little, along with David Fountain, in January to resume touring as Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets. Suomi and band appeared at the 2010 SXSW music festival, garnering a spot on Esquire Magazine's "Great New Songs from SXSW... in a Sentence Each" list.

I have received a few e-mails asking about what I'm doing since A Dough Re Mi moved to a smaller location and cut out the live music. It was quite a blow to me to lose that stage where I had spent the past five years booking the acts as well as mixing sound.

But after the first week or so, it dawned on me that I had spent the past 10 years or so of my life focused mainly on promoting and producing shows for a myriad of artists but my own music was often neglected. Although I continued to play during those years, my various projects and bands floundered as I always put the concerns of the venues I worked at first. So there I was, no band, no stage to work , just a room full of guitars and some dusty recording gear.

While the band (Allnightkungfu) had dissolved some months earlier, "Kung Fu" Jerry Beale and I continued to share our rehearsal space (the padded cell). We would run into each other occasionally while we worked on our respective solo projects. One thing led to another and soon Allnightkungfu was back. At present, we are an acoustic duo. We play a wide variety of folk, rock, and blues covers and originals. Songs from such great songwriters as Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty as well as songs penned by Beale and myself both separately and together. We are hosting an open mic at Fiddler's Green every Tuesday night. We usually play once a month at Wine Awhile during the Friday Wind Down but if you'd like to check us out , our next show is Saturday, June 5 at Iacafano's. We start at 9 p.m. and play 'til they make us stop!

(To get your establishment listed in the East Cooper Music Scene, email Stu at sjohnson@allnightkungfu.com).