This Little Underground

FIGUREHEAD GETS IMMORTALIZED

Few figures are as foundational to our music scene as Jim Faherty. From 1985 to 2001, he essentially laid the groundwork to make Orlando a destination on the national indie-rock touring circuit with his concert promotion company, Figurehead. By booking the likes of Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Jonathan Richman and countless others, Faherty became the godfather of our indie scene, and Orlando would likely be a cultural backwater without his work, passion and personality.

Being a city of tourists and transients for so long, it’s always been said that Orlando has no sense of history. Any active local can tell you what a shame that is. It’s especially unfortunate for Orlando’s underground music scene, which has more creativity, depth and edge than most realize, locals included. Spotlighting that, in case you hadn’t noticed, is one of the raisons d’être for this column.

Well, in Faherty’s very notable case, downtown’s Orange County Regional History Center is about to make a momentous step in rectifying that with new exhibition Figurehead: Music & Mayhem in Orlando’s Underground.

Opening Sept. 10, the feature exhibition won’t simply enshrine Faherty’s legacy in the official catalog of local history, but will also make Orlando’s cultural record deeper and cooler. In making the Figurehead archives part of its permanent collection and curating relics from that seminal time for display here, the museum is turning a major part of contemporary Orlando history from local lore into institutional heritage. For the museum’s part, they’ll earn more street cred with this stylish exhibition than probably any other before it. And unlike the recent big splashes over at the Orlando Museum of Art, this one’s certifiably legit (McDonald’s grift notwithstanding — IYKYK).

The museum will host a series of local music-related events around this exhibition running through December. But this weekend’s kickoff will feature an opening bash (Sept. 9, 6-9 p.m.) and a free panel discussion (Sept. 10, 1-2:30 p.m.) to tell the story of the Orlando music scene during the 1980s-1990s Figurehead era through the personal lenses of the movers of that time, including Faherty himself, Shayni Rae (Faherty’s partner in Sapphire Supper Club) and veteran musician Ken Chiodini.

BY BAO LE-HUU

TABITHA’S SECRET, FEATURING A YOUNG ROB THOMAS AND BRIAN YALE | PHOTO BY JIM LEATHERMAN

Being a city of tourists, it’s always said that Orlando has no sense of history — especially unfortunate for the underground music scene. The Orange County Regional History Center is taking a momentous step in rectifying that with its ‘Figurehead’ exhibition

CONCERT PICKS THIS WEEK

If you’re coming out, be safe, be cool.

Planning for Burial, Couples

Therapy, Haize, Bloom Dream: This one’s for those who like it thick and moody. Pennsylvania one-man act Planning for Burial mines the atmospheric hinterlands of heavy music, merging shoegaze, metal and slowcore into an enveloping monolith of sorrow. Orlando’s Couples Therapy are also highly textural and stylistically diverse, ranging from dreamy to heavy, sometimes both simultaneously. Miami’s Bloom Dream are an amalgam of post-hardcore intensity, emo feels and shoegaze aura. And new local project Haize impresses with haunted avant-soul. (8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9, Will’s Pub, $12-$15)

Zeta, Edhochuli, Moxiebeat, Gillian

Carter, Dearest: This bill packs some of the most modern and original takes on heavy music right now. First, no one is pushing that envelope with as much tropical intensity as South Florida’s Zeta. But Pittsburgh’s Edhochuli also take punk rock into deep progressive waters with their dense and complex sound. California’s Moxiebeat are a Filipinx band whose ferocious hardcore verges on noise rock. Local heat will come from post-hardcore leaders Gillian Carter and mood maestro Dearest. (7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, Will’s Pub, $15-$20)

Fabulous Weapon: The In-Between Series usually stays true to its downtown art gallery setting with avant-garde music. But this time, it’s smearing on some red drugstore lipstick and getting a little dangerous. Orlando art-rock couple Fabulous Weapon are a rising young act that just released a seductive record (Highway Killerz) that oozes sex and crime. (7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, CityArts, $5)

Rolo Tomassi, Cryptodira, The

Callous Daoboys: This three-headed hydra comes straight from metal’s progressive flank. Between the extreme and dimensional onslaught of U.K. headliners Rolo Tomassi, the progressive death metal of New York’s Cryptodira and the dizzying technical frenzy of Atlanta’s the Callous Daoboys, it’s gonna be a tornado of math and screaming that will fry your nerves. (6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, Will’s Pub, $15-$18)

baolehuu@orlandoweekly.com orlandoweekly.com ● SEPT. 7-13, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY 47