What the heck is J.M. Buttermilk’s Hot Buttered Soul ‘n’ R&B Revue?!

To begin with the immediate, if you go to The Outland tonight you won’t find Open Mic Night going on, and that will be the case for the next couple of Tuesdays after that, as well. The reason why is even more interesting: The host for Open Mic Night, former Dirty Blondes singer Ranald Cummings III, will instead be rehearsing Tuesday nights with ’50s and ’60s rock and soul cover group The Detectives for a one-time-only supercharged edition of the show. Called J.M. Buttermilk’s Hot Buttered Soul ‘n’ R&B Revue, the upgraded configuration, now including Cummings on vocals–and, he tells us, a full horn section–will perform on Thursday, June 3 not as a rock ‘n’ roll show but as a classic R&B concert in the tradition of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and more. If you saw any of Cummings’s prior work with the Blondes and fronting the Doors tribute show on his birthday last February, you know you’re in for a treat.