“Pretty much every time he plays, I get to see him,” said Ryan Groff, vocalist and guitarist of Elsinore. “Larry has always had a lot of good ideas where he feels his music should go.”

Groff speaks of Larry E. Gates II, former front man of Lorenzo Goetz; which was a “folky, punkish rock n’ roll” band, as Fred Hudson, general manager of Mac’s Uptowner, describes.

“My first band in college was called the Last Resort. When I was at Eastern, we played the Canopy Club for this Midwest music convention that they had there and Larry’s band, Lorenzo Goetz, was just getting started too, and they had a booth set up right next to our booth and both of our bands actually played that day,” Groff said. “So, we actually met there and we both liked each other’s music a lot and from there, it took off. We started getting each other shows between Charleston and Champaign and now Larry and I are really close friends and always pushing for each other’s music and that’s kind of how it started.”

Although Lorenzo Goetz is no more, Gates’ new project, Curb Service, will be performing at the Uptowner tonight with Elsinore.

“What happened was, we played our last shows and all of a sudden, it’s a new year,” Gates said. “So what I did was take about two months to just clear my head. That whole band was a huge chunk of my life. That’s all I did every day, was I managed the band, I booked the band, I produce the records, I wrote the songs, I was the front man, I did it all.”

And with a clear head, Gates began recording his own material. Only, his is different than most musicians who go solo.

“As far as artistically, I wanted to present something and I want to present it in a unique fashion. So, like the looping station. If you see a white guy with a guitar and a loop station, he’s usually going to try to do some Keller Williams type stuff or Howie Day,” Gates said. “They just noodle with an acoustic guitar over loops and loops and it kind of bores me to tears.

“So, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to approach it differently. I personally haven’t seen too many people incorporate beats and turntables and acoustic guitar as a one-man band and try to present it all that way. So these shows that are coming up are some of the first times I’m taking this out.”

Hudson also anticipates a good show tonight, as he is familiar with Lorenzo Goetz.

“They were phenomenal. They played up here quite a bit. We actually have had requests for them to be re-booked up here,” Hudson said.

And as far as Gates goes, the Charleston area has been kind to him in the past.

“Everybody loves him,” Hudson said. “It’s just so hit and miss in this town as far as whether people are going to be going out at all to see live music really. But it’s always a good show.”

Gates and Groff have been friends for some time now, and both share roots in Charleston as well as Champaign.

“When (Groff) moved from Charleston to Champaign, he played a special farewell show at Jackson Avenue (Coffee), and he brought down three people from Champaign to play the show,” Gates said. “And with all four set up on stage, (we) just go one at a time playing a song and go down the line and just keep going around like that. That’s what we did. So there’s Ryan and then myself and two other Champaign songwriters.”

That was almost a year ago for Gates, but it was an awakening experience.

“Every song that I played was greeted with some sort of applause or reaction. Once I started, they recognized it, and that’s when I realized; yeah, I’ve been coming down to Charleston for a while,” Gates said.

Gates’ focus this year has been to develop songs and a record.

“This whole year’s kind of been putting this project together,” Gates said. “So it started with chipping away at the songs, then starting to record songs and then I just spent five months on the record.

“Like I said, I laid almost everything on it. So, it takes a while when you’re responsible for every beat and hit on there. And then (I was) trying to think of how I was going to pull it off live, and I really don’t have any desire to put a band together again.”

Being that he has been in a band for quite some time, Gates is now looking to do things more on his own time.

“I just got out of that situation and it would really need to be the right people and the right circumstances for me to do it again at the level that I just came from,” he said.

“So, it started to make more and more sense for me to try to put something together.”

Groff is excited for the show as well.

“He’s always been very vocal and forthcoming about what he likes musically and how to get things that he hears in his head out on a stage or onto a CD and in the recording studio, and I’m really happy seeing him doing exactly what he wants to do and just kind of taking a break from the whole band situation,” Groff said. “I think it’s going to be good for him because he kind of gets to go from being leader of a band that started to tour more than just regionally, to having a solo record and getting to make all the music by himself on stage.

Groff describes the Uptowner as Elsinore’s home turf as well as the catalyst to their frequent gigs at bars. Elsinore will be headlining tonight’s show, with Curb Service opening.

“Elsinore is a pretty big draw around here,” Hudson said. “So we like to have names like Curb Service that have not played here before play with bands like Elsinore. We know there are going to be people in here to watch.”