Two sides of local singer-songwriterdom at Local Band Wednesdays

It's likely tonight's installment of Local Band Wednesdays on the Terrace will go through some subtle mood swings. One local guy with an acoustic guitar, Blake Thomas, casts a somber shadow over his country-folk songs about being lovelorn, broke, and/or drunk, but is by no means humorless. This is the guy whose last CD featured a classic goof-off hony-tonk number called "I Don't Want Your Heart (I Want Your Liver)." Another local guy with an acoustic guitar, Vid Libert, plays and sings as if he's quietly rehearsing in his room, cluttering together ramshackle arrangements of keys, drums, pedal steel, and dub-inspired tape effects.

Perhaps one guy sounds like he's gunning for a deal with Bloodshot and another sounds like he'd be content to put out his own CDs with hand-drawn art for the rest of his life. Perhaps the sound and stage presence, the whole personality, is different, but Decider's wondering whether the effect isn't rather similar. As Thomas performs his song "Please Cash This Check" and Vid Libert performs his song "Janitor" in the videos below, they show a common knack for writing their songs in plain English and letting listeners in with simple, standalone melodies. To our knowledge they've never been on a bill together, but we're expecting to hear as much complement as contrast tonight.