• Congrats to the PETE KILPATRICK BAND. Their "Coming Home" won a national fan-voting-based contest from insurance provider USAA this past week that came with a $4000 check and a write-up in the nationally distributed USAA Magazine (which, certainly, no one reads, but can't hurt). They beat out 23 other artists over the course of a nine-week, bracket-style contest.
• You know political flack DENNIS BAILEY has put together a BOB DYLAN tribute band? One would think the head man at Savvy Inc. would know better than to tout a meager 300 Facebook fans in a press release. They celebrate Dylan's 70th birthday with a gig May 28 at the Dogfish.
• Rockland-based folkster PADDY MILLS has a new disc, 3 Lefts, which he released with a show last week at the Common Ground in Union.
• IN THE AUDIENCE aren't resting on their laurels. Less than six months after their well received debut, What Lives, they'll be releasing a follow-on EP with a show at SPACE May 29.
• One of the more exciting new bands locally, VANITYITES, fronted by CHRIS MOULTON (IN THE ARMS OF PROVIDENCE, the CAMBIATA) have released their first single, "I Am the Liquor," a strutting piece of bravado-filled radio rock. It pretty well lives up to the hype and more than whets the whistle for the band's debut EP, Once Again to Lilith, which they recently laid down with JONATHAN WYMAN. Something of a Cambiata/Even All Out mash-up, the first single borrows the gravity from the former and accessibility of the latter. Play it loud.
• The guys from OKBARI continue their ode to the late AL GARDNER with a third volume of From Kef to Classical. They'll play a show to release it May 22, at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, with MICHAEL GALLANT on violin, STEVE GRUVERMAN on clarinet, BETH BORGERHOFF on accordion, ERIC LAPERNA on darbuka, and AMOS LIBBY on oud.
