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A great night of music is going to happen at R.T. Quinlan’s Saturday night, with a three band lineup. I think of this as the Day of Infamy show, not for any particular reason other than it takes place on Dec. 7, the 83rd anniversary of the actual Day of Infamy.

It’s a special concert featuring two out-of-town bands – Dallas Orbiter from Minneapolis and Redshift Headlights from Oshkosh – with Duluth band Indecent Proposal.

Both Dallas Orbiter and Redshift Headlights released tasty albums earlier this year, Spaceman Things for the former and If You Are Around Still by the latter. I did a story back in August on Redshift Headlights making their great new record with legendary Chicago producer Steve Albini two months before his untimely death.

I’m really looking forward to hearing Dallas Orbiter after listening to the sonically exciting Spaceman Things. The record seems to straddle the worlds of psychedelia, prog rock, punk and grunge. 

There’s some great music on this album, but I was particularly taken with Jon Schmig’s keyboards, both electric and acoustic. Beautiful.

Greg Flanagan’s power drumming is front and center throughout.

There’s a gentle quality in Mark Miller’s vocals that remind me of local band Glitterati. Miller also plays tasty guitar. 

Dan Gahres holds down the bottom on bass. I especially enjoyed his rubbery sound on track 2, “To the Breakdown.”

I’ve been streaming the album but I intend to buy a vinyl copy pressed on orange swirl vinyl at the show. Great cover art on this album as well by Jason Hendricks, who in the mid-1990s played drums in an Oshkosh band called Cookie Bug with Mark Miller of Dallas Orbiter and Stephen McCabe and Dean Hoffman of Redshift Headlights.

The members of Dallas Orbiter have been especially busy this year, having also released in the summer the first volume of recordings by their alter egos, Laser Bats from Mars. Here is their description:

“Since at least 2014, laser bats from Mars have been inhabiting the bodies of the members of Dallas Orbiter and recording weekly sessions of improvised music in a 4-piece rock band format. This is the first volume of those accursed ‘collaborations.’ No overdubs, no edits (except for fades in/out). Performed by angry alien bat creatures in human form.”

It’s a trippy excursion.

One other reason to attend this show – even though it will be the first time Redshift Headlights has played Duluth, it will also be the band’s last show anywhere “as far as we can determine,” guitarist/vocalist Stephen McCabe said in an email.

If you need one more reason to attend this Day of Infamy show, two words – Indecent Proposal.