Let us offer up a toast of cheap red wine to the Sights for earning the respect of thespian rock star Jack Black after some Hollywood shows the band did several years ago in which singer Eddie Baranek called it like he saw it with chords and words. (Baranek’s a proper rock ’n’ roller, ya see, which also makes him a master of self-sabotage – he even once told Rick Rubin to fuck off after a Sights Troubadour show, and nearly got his band tossed off a Robert Plant tour for numerous infractions.) Black obviously sees the giant in diminutive Baranek so he personally tapped the Detroit combo (now a quintet) for Tenacious D’s “Rize of the Fenix” U.S. tour this summer. Black said he wanted a “real rock ‘n’ roll band” to support them. Good thing we here at Metro Times – who’ve long supported the Sights – aren’t the only ones who know the worth of Baranek et al. (Look, we’ve watched and documented Baranek, from his loss of innocence to his growth into a songwriter’s writer.)
The multi-month tour, which kickstarts in St. Louis on May 16 with a handful Sights solo dates, will see the band play storied American venues including Denver’s Red Rocks, Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom and Nashville’s Ryman. Longtime Sights road man Shades will head up band’s caravan.
Tour Diary: We also couldn’t resist dispatches from said tour so we enlisted Baranek to keep an online tour diary, updated every other day, in our blog section with accompanying photos by Shades, who also happens to be a rising photo journalist. Eyeball that in both our Music Blahg and Star Traction blogs beginning May 18.
New album: Each time the Sights make a new record we say it’s their best yet. No sense straying from tradition and getting up off our knees now ’cause their new, AutoTune-free, Jim Diamond-helmed album (their seventh!), Left Over Right, is the band’s finest moment thus far. No shit. It’s out June 19 on CD, digital and limited-edition vinyl.
Free Download: Here’s a free download of the song “Fool” from the forthcoming full-length.
The Sights are playing two shows this weekend too. One’s a Cinco De Mayo celebration on Friday at Royal Oak’s Tequila Blue. Look for a collectable Sights 7” single whose A-side’s sung in Spanish! Saturday the band hits Detroit’s Town Pump.
