Long-time Columbus “trucker country” band The Sovines are playing a special show at Cafe Bourbon Street, Thursday July 10 in support of community radio station WCRS. Joining them on the bill are Bee Humana and Closet Mix.

The Sovines formed in 1995 when a friend suggested to Bob Starker and Matthew Benz that they should form a band to play country truck driving songs and call themselves “the Sovines”, after famed country singer Red Sovine. It might have been said in jest, but Starker and Benz ran with it. With bass player Ed Mann and drummer Pete English (and later Gene Brodeur on drums), the Sovines took their revved-up take on truck-driving songs, punky rock n’ roll, country ballads and roots rock on the road and in the studio, through five albums and a lot of shows. This show will mark their first live appearance in over three years.

Bee Humana is an elegant, muddy, and thoroughly lichenized garage folk-rock trio. Singer-songwriter Bee sings in English and Spanish and plays non-classical guitar on a classical guitar. She is backed by Dave Holm (of Ugly Stick/Bigfoot) on bass and backup vocals; and Sam Brown (of the New Bomb Turks and Divine Fits) on drums. Their sound has been described as “Elis Regina and Carlos Jobim sitting in with The Dirty Three and Cat Stevens in a moonlit back-alley show, fully amped.” They’ve been playing around the Columbus area together for a couple of years now and are soon to release their first EP.

Closet Mix rounds out the bill. A quartet of local music veterans, Closet Mix is Paul Nini (Great Plains, Log) on bass and vocals, Chris Nini (Log) on keyboards, Dan Della Flora (Red Skylark, Van Echo) on drums, and Keith Novicki (Vena Cava) on guitar. Principal songwriter Paul Nini describes Closet Mix as stubborn local veterans that refuse to stop making their peculiar brand of indie-rock, which is steeped in the 80s college radio sound they all grew up with.