Graveyard Club and the Ocean Blue Album Releases W Dj Jake Rudh First Avenue July 26

Ocean Blue / Graveyard Club at Fine Line

Ocean Blue Setlist

All the Way Blue
Ballerina Out of Control
Sad Night, Where Is Morning?
Kings and Queens
It Takes So Long
Drifting, Falling
Paraguay My Love
Mercury
Love Doesn't Make It Easy on Us
Sunshower
Slide
Sublime
The Limit
Ask Me Jon
with "The Love Boat" theme song outro
Just Let Me Know
Between Something and Nothing
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover)

Ocean Blue Tour Dates

07/27 Valley Bar, Phoenix, AZ
08/23 Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA
08/24 NorVa, Norfolk, VA
10/04 Union Stage, Washington, DC
10/05 Jammin' Java, Vienna, VA
11/01 Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI
11/03 Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL
11/17 Echoplex, Los Angeles, CA

Graveyard Club Tour Dates

7/27 MILWAUKEE Company Brewing
7/29 COLUMBUS Ace of Cups
7/30 WASHINGTON DC DC9 Nightclub
7/31 PHILADELPHIA PhilaMOCA
8/2 NYC Rockwood Music Hall

Read More

The Ocean Blue

The Ocean Blue is an indiepop band from the late 80s, originally signed to Sire Records. Currently, the band released Ultramarine and is signed to Korda …

Graveyard Club

Hometown band The Graveyard Club started the night off with a handful of spooky synth-laced gems and featured main duo Matthew Schufman (vocals/keyboard) …

DJ Jake Rudh

This is billed as a Transmission (aka DJ Jake Rudh) / BNLX release show, but music fans may want to take note that at nearly midnight, The Ocean Blue is scheduled to appear. …

The special co-headlining show by The Ocean Blue and Graveyard Club at the Fine Line Music Café took place on Friday, July 26. Both bands had new album releases, with Ocean Blue releasing Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves on Korda Records, and Graveyard Club releasing Goodnight Paradise on Seafoam City Music.

Before the band came on stage, DJ Jake Rudh from Transmission played a lot of 80s/90s British bands, such as The Sundays, Stone Roses, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, and Psychedelic Furs… but oddly also including in some things that didn't below - like the beautiful La Sera.

At 9pm sharp, Rudh introduced The Ocean Blue (David Schelzel, Oed Ronne, Bobby Mittan, and Peter Anderson), stating that he first saw them on MTV's 120 Minutes and thought they were British, because they sounded and looked so much like other UK bands of that time period.

Singer/guitarist David Schelzel said that since it was an album releasing show, that the band will be playing mostly new songs, but mixing in some old classics. Their new album Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves is their first album in over six years, and it's strangely being released on a Minnesota record label called Korda Records.

Since the band re-formed, the group is heavily tied to the Minneapolis-music scene, playing their first gig in January 2013 at the Korda Records showcase show in support of Ultramarine (which we wrote about in December 2013).

In fact, Schelzel admired the local music scene, stating how much he loved it and introduced Brian Tighes (from The Owls) to help them play saxophone on "Drifting, Falling". Other Owls members, Maria May and Allison LaBonne (also from Ice Palace) would join The Ocean Blue to provide backup vocals on a few songs ("Mercury" and "Sublime"). It made sense that these local musicians volunteer to participate because they're also signed to Korda Records.

Highlight of their set was "Ask Me Jon", which, once again, featured Tighes on sax. At the end of the song, the band medley in "The Love Boat" theme song, making the live song, "exciting and new."

The Ocean Blue had always wore their influences on their sleeve, play music that sounds very similar to 80s dreampop/shoegazing sound, and even covering The Smiths' "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" (faithfully, I might add) on their Peace & Light EP. At the end of their 90-min set, they dedicated their cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" to the Transmission audience.

Local Graveyard Club closed out the show, playing plenty of songs from their new album Goodnight Paradise. It's a long road from when we first saw them in Sep 2014, describing their music as, "a handful of spooky synth-laced gems" from their debut Nightingales.

With Goodnight Paradise, the synth band (singer/synth Matthew Schufman, singer/bassist Amanda Zimmerman, guitarist Michael Wojtalewicz, and drummer Cory Jacobs) continues their theme of death and spirits: "Witchcraft", "It Hurts", "William", "Ouija", and "Deathproof".

What's cool is that Graveyard Club is heading out on tour after this album release show. See tour dates on the sidebar.