After shepherding 61 local bands for a year-long monthly concert series, Hugh Twyman is ready for more.
Twyman — warhorse concert photographer and local music blogger — caps his free HughShows concert series at Eide's Entertainment next Saturday with an all-day extravaganza featuring stripped-down acoustic sets from 23 local artists.
"It's going to be crazy!" says Twyman. "The bands that we have never, ever do that. Fist Fight in the Parking Lot playing acoustic! There's Weird Paul, playing right before Slim Forsythe, playing right before townsppl. The list is great; I can't believe it."
The series, which began as a celebration of local music in honor of 10 years of Twyman's blog, raised hundreds of dollars worth of cash and school supplies for the Homeless Children's Education Fund — and earned Twyman an official city proclamation for his efforts.
"The whole thing about [the concert series] was having two or more bands share a stage who never play together," says Twyman. "Host Skull played the same day as Brooke Annibale; The Lopez played with Arlo Aldo."
But the concerts don't end there. Less than a week after the final Hughshows, there will be another: the HughShows Secret Santapalooza, a one-off charity benefit for Karl Hendricks, of Sound Cat Records, which will feature performances by seven local bands, including the likes of Grand Piano and The Harlan Twins.
And in January, there's HughShows Coda, featuring sets from just two bands: Meeting of Important People and a reunited Lohio.
Additionally, Twyman hopes to release some form of live album from the HughShows series to benefit charity. (J Vega, of The Wilderness Recording Studio, ran and recorded audio at each of the shows.)
After 10 years of blogging and shooting shows, Twyman is looking forward to his next endeavor.
"I'm gonna still do the blog," he says, "maybe just scale it down. My idea is maybe do a live performance/interview podcast. Maybe do a [public-access] TV show — I've always wanted to do that."
"When I stop having fun," he adds, "I'm not gonna do it anymore."