I’m proud to say it: The White Ghost Shivers are one of my all-time favorite bands. And recently, as I was listening to their new album Nobody Loves You Like We Do in my car (I agree with Texas Music Matters‘ David Brown and The Bubble Studios‘ producer Frenchie Smith – the car is where you do the best music-listening), I began to reminisce a bit about the band that never fails to bring out the flapper in me.

I recall their early days, when I first saw them perform at Beerland on Red River, performing before an audience of five – which included two people working the bar. But even then, they gave one hell of a performance, entertaining and loads of fun. I remember seeing vocalist Cella Blue for the first time when she joined the band, and remarking that I was thrilled to see this lovely and talented individual getting in on the hoakum action. I remember their very first White Ghost Shivers Ball – and the enormous turnout they weren’t expecting, so huge in fact that they ran out of beer.

These days, about a decade later, the parties are bigger than ever before. The Shivers have toured throughout the country and internationally, playing some of the finest stringband music of the ‘20s and ‘30s, a mad whirl of early jazz, ragtime, swing, vaudeville and that extra little something that makes them so irresistible. Could it be insanity? Perhaps. But if gettin’ crazy is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

The Shivers are celebrating the release of Nobody Loves You Like We Do with one of their spectacular signature party shows tonight at Antone’s, 213 W. 5th St. And what a party it shall be, friends, with performances by the raucous Whiskey Shivers and the ever-delightful East Side Dandies. Doors open at 8 p.m. You will not regret it. Highly recommended.

-Laurie Gallardo, KUT