SOUND CHECKS – DON’T MISS CHARLESTON’S HOTTEST LIVE MUSIC SERIES!

Nobody brings you closer to today’s rising stars than Sound Checks.  We invite you to join the party, step on to the Clay Center stage, and enjoy the best music from local and national emerging artists.  Be a part of the scene at Sound Checks!

2020 Spring Shows
On Sale Now!

CANCELLED
Friday, March 20th | 8pm – Los Elk

Since their 2015 arrival in Boston, Los Elk has quickly evolved into one of the city’s premier genre-bending Indie acts, making waves as the newest must-see band.

Uniquely mixing Indie-Rock with flares of funk, pop, and R n’B, Los Elk’s razor-sharp sound and high energy performances drew attention, and it wasn’t long before they were playing sold out bills throughout the region. The band’s fresh approach to songwriting, which brings musical edge to creative pop numbers, has even landed them in Spotify’s U.S Viral 50 chart and accrued millions of streams.

From sold-out cross-country tour dates and festival appearances, to acoustic gigs in the heart of Boston, Los Elk is a dynamic four piece that can be found tearing it up with their motley crew of diehard fans and friends.

CANCELLED
Friday, April 10th | 8pm – Hawktail

Known collectively as Hawktail, fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie have combined their monstrous compositional and instrumental forces once again for a much-anticipated sophomore album, Formations. Released on January 10th, 2020, Formations took only two months to write and four days to record, a far cry from the 3-year process of their debut album, Unless.

With Formations, it’s become clear that Hawktail are quite capable of blazing away at their own trail, successfully challenging the traditional roles of their respective instruments and genres. “We’re just trying to find something good to play,” says Tice. “We’re not interested in adhering to the same old forms—merely adding some spice to something that we all know how it’s going to end.”

Friday, May 15th | 8pm – Southern Avenue

Boundary-breaking Memphis combo Southern Avenue’s second album, Keep On, released May 10, 2019 on Concord Records, has been nominated for a GRAMMY Award® in the category of Best Contemporary Blues Album.

By embodying an effortlessly organic soul/blues/R&B fusion that reflects the band members’ diverse roots, Southern Avenue combines the talents of a prodigiously talented set of young musicians who bring their individual backgrounds to the table to create music that carries the Southern soul legacy into the 21st century, spanning the band members’ wide-ranging musical interests while showcasing the powerful chemistry and electrifying live show that they’ve honed through extensive stage and studio experience.

Guitar phenom Ori Naftaly originally built his reputation in his native Israel before joining forces with deeply expressive Memphis-bred singer Tierinii Jackson and her subtly powerful drummer sister Tikyra Jackson. The band’s lineup is rounded out by versatile keyboardist Jeremy Powell, an early alumnus of Stax Records’ renowned music academy.