Live Reviews

FAT DAY, NEPTUNE
Great Scott
8/15/04

I’m really pleased to see this place actually looking crowded for a weird noisy show on a Sunday night! The first local band is Neptune, and their vast, impressive array of homemade instruments (even the guitars). Neptune’s sound is also not particularly melodic (except on their Go-Go’s cover), but their rich, metallic guitar and bass sounds really draw the ear, and the dual drummers, with their wide variety of interesting objects to hit, are endlessly fascinating. The vocals tend to be poetic, somewhat abstract spoken word, and the compositions are long and complicated, ebbing and flowing, dropping themes and then returning to them later. There’s some painful dissonance woven into one or two songs, but it’s a good, releasing sort of pain, like biting down on a dully aching tooth. Lots of boundaries are pushed, and very successfully. I like it.

Last up is Fat Day. They have these incredibly cool-looking helmets studded with little metal tabs that turn out to be synthesizer keys, so that all four of them can reach up and play keyboards on their heads! This looks promising. They insist that all the lights be turned off, and they play a four-part helmet-key song, with Christmas lights flashing. The harmonies and song structure are oddly traditional, even medieval, and it sounds like badly synthesized bagpipes. This goes on quite a while. Then they turn on blazingly bright lights at the back of the stage, pointed out into the audience, and play a rapid series of nearly identical half-minute punk songs while the vocalist shrieks and squeals and is barely audible. Then another long, droning helmet key thing, and then more tiny little screamers. Neither schtick is particularly compelling; I feel betrayed to have found them so promising.

MISSION OF BURMA

The Hot Tin Roof (Edgartown, MA)
7/10/04

Roll over Kurt Cobain, tell Ian Curtis the news, Mission of Burma (sans Bob Weston) play Carly Simon’s old club on the Vineyard to a crowd that was mostly still in pampers when the group broke up in 1983. (Full disclosure: I was never THAT big a fan, so now might be the time to reach for your revolver.) As tinnitus-afflicted Roger Miller dons his earplugs and firing range headphones, I can’t help thinking that the wages of din are deafness, and they don’t play as loud as they probably once did, but from Roger’s first guitar strums, and his pop-eyed glare at the crowd (he’s either got lasers for eyes or is wide awake behind something —he even polls the audience as to who’s on drugs), I’m glad to be here, half-pogoing along to their bombastic smart-punk, hard-headed militancy. Clint Conley’s faux-Brit accent sounds almost classic, and Peter Prescott’s tight pulsing drums remind me of how urgent it all once was—and still is, as when after “Academy Fight Song,” Roger tells everyone to give Bush the boot next November. If I detect a whiff of nostalgia, what’s wrong with nostalgia? They belt out the Dadas from “Max Ernst” until they look depleted. Roger’s hulky swagger (he looks like a beef-fed David Byrne) and ease along the fingerboard are the star of the show—and could be addictive. When he breaks into a noisy chicken-scratching Schoenberg-does-Ornette Coleman guitar solo, Clint follows, and that is when they really have their fun. (Donald Nitchie)

THE PILLS, BLEU, JAKE ZAVRACKY & THE
CYANIDE VALENTINE
The Middle East
6/18/04

I’m up front for Jake Zavracky & The Cyanide Valentine. The first song is a little dance-y for me, but Eric Barlowe’s bizarre orally modulated guitar part (guitar out to a tube taped to the microphone) keeps it interesting. And the next song is more of a rocker. In fact, as the set progresses, I hear a whole lot of different elements. This is post modern rock: pulling in snippets and patterns and stylistic quirks from all different periods of rock history and stewing them up together. So if “Freaks” is way too disco for me, well, there’s some of everything here, and the next song is different again. There’s one (it might be called “You’re The Focus”) which is very catchy, but he sort of already wrote it a couple of times as Quick Fix songs. Nevertheless, it gets a great huge roar of approval from the audience.

Bleu starts out with just a drummer, Matt, who does double duty with Bleu and The Pills tonight. Bleu plays simple guitar lines and some keyboard accents and sets them looping, then plays and sings over them. That part is really cool, and Bleu is an amazing vocalist, with a strong, clear, beautiful voice and serious range and control. His songs are cheesy as fuck: cloying, and kind of obvious, and catchy in a way that makes me wish they weren’t so catchy. But he sings them so well! After several songs, he’s joined by quite a talented band, and then by the Get Up Choir, a couple dozen backup singers who crowd in in front of the stage. I’ve never seen this before, and it’s a very interesting effect.

Finally, it’s The Pills’ last show. The sadness of this occasion is made bearable only by the fact that every Pills show is a joyous explosion of musical energy. The Pills’ marriage of rock ‘n’ roll guts with pure pop glory makes (or, I suppose, made) them, in one particular way, the perfect live band. The entire front line is consummate frontmen, yet there’s never a hint of ego or jockeying for position (Even when Dave Thompson introduces the unutterably gorgeous “Halifax” by wryly observing that it’s his wife’s favorite Pills song, and Corin wrote it.) and the harmonies available to three such accomplished singers are ridiculous. After practically a whole set’s worth of great rock, they start swapping in emeritus members:
Drummer Jamie Vavra flew in from LA just for this show! Then Clyde O’Scope comes in for Dave Aaronoff; his guitar style is a bit flashier, and it’s interesting to see the contrast. After a single song with The Pills original drummer (when they were still called The Penny Dreadfuls) John Walton, we get Matt AND Jamie, and Dave AND Clyde, for a six-piece Pills of unprecedented power. The last song has a sweet dueling drum fills section. It’s a hell of a show, and a great way to go out. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE HIDDEN, THE MIDNIGHT CREEPS, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE
The New Wave Café (New Bedford, MA)
8/6/04

We’re All Gonna Die is a working man’s outfit that is perfect for New Bedford. Jim Healey sways his black axe, heavy, bald and wild eyed, stalking the left side of the stage, heaving a chugging throttle of howitzer blasts. He has a howling, disciplined voice and commands the room with an unrelenting sense of high violence. His brother Scott is controlling the drums, head down, drunk as hell on warm Schlitz, riding his cymbals intensely left to right, beating his skins in sharp time with Russ Boudreau, their first cousin, a Boston Irish bone-breaker, all business, chopping his bass up and down through the assault-riff rigors of “No Roof,” anchoring the barreling nuance of barroom metal with a bellowing low-end throb. On their technically well-executed Go To Hell LP, they swing a too close to Staind territory, but live, they’re an arching, blood-brother wrecking ball of 250 lb. pummel-fuck.

The Midnight Creeps bend next into the crux of a late summer witching hour. Jenny Hurricane shifts personalities through the three-song opener. In “Menstrual Institution” she snarls the snarl of too many anonymous London flats and Midwestern living rooms; a small city queen late in her rule, waiting for the axe to fall, costumed and smeared, cold sweat glistening on the white of her fishnet thighs. The band looks tired, uprooted, testing another new guitarist for a cross-country jaunt. He’s young and intimidated but feigns a Johnny Thunder’s backstep kick to break the panic. Jonas Parmalee is almost physically absent on the bass, but still firmly tied in. Jeff Creep, the wiry, ex-con sometimes spokesman, thrashes happily in the back, keeping a swell of kick-and-tom swagger snapping around the room. They close on “Dancing With Myself”; the Hurricane douses herself with expensive bottled water, for lack of lighter fluid, and rubs herself all feline off and down into the back room to a den of cigarettes and accolades while her boys change over the stage.

The Hidden rise up out of the ashes of 1:00AM to close the night. The outfit is a cerebral horror-punk blank-out; a menacing and archaic slipstream guillotine of mathematical minor chord progressions swelling over swinging, labored percussion. Kevin Grant is a rarity; a true, unhinged front-man, but on this night, he starts out stiff, seemingly waiting for the gears to click into red and detonate. His lyrics are cryptic, neo-gothic sermons, elaborately spit with a roaring intensity. The brothers Brockman, Daniel and James, share 6-string duty behind him, bathed in hues of red and green light. Daniel plays through a freshly broken leg, leaning on a stool, wincing admirably while he and his brother lay down a back-and-forth momentum of high-end deathdream riffery. At times, The Hidden are a bit compositionally over-reaching, but on more driving songs like “The Goat” and “Kings Make Slaves,” they prove to be a crushing power-pulse of hammering ego and cutthroat Black-Mass malice. They finish in forty minutes and crawl back to the dank underbelly of The Wave, lost in the blue-collar din of another New Bedford night. (Paul Hullabaloo)

DEAR LEADER, COUNT ZERO, THE FLY SEVILLE

The Middle East
6/24/04

Tonight is a Rock For Kerry benefit. The first band I see is The Fly Seville. (I’m told I missed a great opener, UV Protection.) The only other time I saw The Fly Seville, they were opening for the Throwing Muses reunion show, so I just desperately wanted them off the stage, and they were sick, besides. They’re much better tonight. Their songs are catchy, melodic, mid-tempo indie-pop, with a certain gravitas to them. The playing and singing are good, with nice keyboards and really pretty, delicate harmonies. Alas, there’s a fairly severe Mid-Tempo Rocker Problem. They never break out, and never really venture far from their one groove. So it gets kind of boring. Good, but boring.

Count Zero are anything but boring. Spastic, eclectic, and bizarre, yes. They open with “Sham Maker,” which was written for the first President Bush. (You know, the one we ELECTED?) It’s a raucous start, but the set mellows with some newer, slower numbers, complete with challenging rhythms and instrumentation. This is a band that folds a lot of weird samples into their mix without coming out sounding like a synthesizer band. And one keyboard player also plays lap steel (as well as plain old guitar). Four different people sing at various times, but Peter Moore is the frontman, who sings lead on most songs, and is the one who dazzles with his vocal gymnastics and shifting personae. They finish with a Devo cover (on which the bassist lets some old guy at the side of the stage do his strumming for a few bars), and leave the stage to truly wild cheering.

Dear Leader is an odd band for me to try to review, since they have Paul Buckley, one of the best drummers in Boston. So, I know that there’s guitars and bass and vocals and songwriting, all the standard elements, and in fact Aaron Perrino is a well-known and beloved Boston frontman, but I’m totally focused on the drums. So, briefly, Aaron still has a way with a pop song and a jangly shoegazing wash of guitar, his voice is a little pinched and nasal for me, and he sounds great when he screams. The drums are a little conventional for the first two songs, and I worry that maybe Pauly is toning it down for this project, but he breaks out on the third song with a magnificent succession of cool, innovative patterns and blazingly wonderful fills. He pretty much never looks back, and I’m grinning like a fool for the rest of the set. For me, I swear, the point of the rest of the band is to get him booked and playing. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE FIGGS, THE CANDY BUTCHERS, THE RUDDS

T.T. The Bear’s
8/6/04

Local favorites The Rudds lead the evening off with a set of very catchy pop songs from their 2003 debut CD and from their soon-to-be-released follow up. The crowd is jam-packed with Rudds fans who know all the lyrics. Lead guitarist Brett Rosenberg’s playing is tastefully powerful, never overblown, a perfect compliment to the sugary vocals of front man John Powhida. The rhythm section is tight and professional, never flashy, but never missing a beat. Somehow, though, Powhida’s neo-Todd Rundgren vibe just doesn’t work for me. While I enjoyed them much more live than on CD, I still couldn’t help wishing that I was seeing The Brett Rosenberg Problem instead.

Following The Rudds are The Candy Butchers, which consists, at least tonight, of Mike Viola on vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, and keyboards; Pete Donnelly on bass; Mike Gent on lead guitar; and Todd Foulsham on drums. Even with 50% of their lineup being comprised of 66.7% of The Figgs, The Candy Butchers still sound 100% like Mike Viola. They come down decidedly on the pop side of power pop, more Squeeze than Cheap Trick, more Crowded House than The Knack. Viola’s a low-key front man, but so comfortable and natural-seeming on stage that he is able to hold my attention without any flamboyant showmanship. I like The Candy Butchers enough that I buy their new CD, Hang on Mike.

And now The Figgs take what was already a very good night up to the next level. This is absolutely perfect rock ‘n’ roll. I keep having flashbacks to The Cavern Club in 1962. Not because they sound like The Beatles, but because they own this audience, and because they play loose and natural, and are completely genuine. The three members of The Figgs—Gent, Donnelly, and Pete Hayes—are all impressively talented. By adding Mike Viola to the line up, and by switching instruments every once in a while, they are able to create a variety of moods, all of them fun. I honestly don’t know when I’ve seen a better rock ‘n’ roll show. If I never see another live rock show ever again, at least I’ll know that I saw the greatest band on earth. The Figgs rule! (Brian Mosher)

GATSBY, MERCURY CHARM OFFENSIVE,
THE SPOILERS, THE DRAGS
The Middle East
7/1/04

I half expected to hate The Drags. This is probably related to Richie Hoss having once said to me, “You’d hate us.” As it turns out, The Drags are a solid, basic rock band and a rollicking good time. It’s true that Richie’s sandpaper voice—and this is no 20-grit, either; we’re talking extra-coarse—doesn’t really emphasize the melodies in these songs. But the bass is mixed way high and has a clear, strong tone, and he often shadows the melody in the bass line. Between that and the backing vocals, it sounds pretty good. There’s also a whole lot of serious riffage going on, and a great drummer. Oh, and a song called “Detox Bitch”! You can’t not love that.

The Spoilers are a punk band. They play very fast and very simple. They shout, “Oi! Oi! Oi!” They are cheerful and snarling and kind of sloppy. They obviously love what they do, and that, combined with their hooky, oddly upbeat songs, makes for a dumb fun experience. One song even asserts, “We’re punker than you. Fuck you!” I’m not arguing the point.

Last shows are always sad. Either sad in a Ramones-farewell-tour-“That’s-just-sad” kind of way, or (when a band goes out at the top of their game) sad because they inspire a band to take risks and pull out all the stops, and draw a large and affectionate crowd that pull yet more energy from the band, and you’re left thinking, “This is so great; why are they breaking up?” The last Mercury Charm Offensive show is the latter kind of sad. The songs are good, poppy rock songs with astounding two-, three-, and four-part harmonies. Everybody plays really well tonight, and the mix is great. I can actually hear what the keyboard is adding to several of these songs, and it’s good. The set starts out really high-energy, then shifts to a bunch of slower songs. After a while, I wonder if they’re really going to end it all on such a relatively quiet note, but they close the set with “Back Door Betty,” a fierce bass-and-guitar-and-screaming extravaganza. It’s sad, but it’s a good sad.

Not a lot of people stick around for Gatsby. I have to figure that they’re inconsolable over the loss of MCO, but still, they miss a good set. Gatsby songs range from fast to very, very fast, with intense, driving 4/4 drum lines, but they all have a weirdly calm quality to them. There’s an immersive wash of jangly guitar that’s very rich, but simultaneously sharp, like lemon meringue pie. I suppose the sweet topping would then be the lovely, passionate vocal melodies, but there’s such a thing as stretching a crappy analogy too far. Besides, there’s nothing flaky about the bass. (I’m sorry.) (Steve Gisselbrecht)

FAST ACTIN’ FUSES, BURY THE NEEDLE,
SHANGHAI VALENTINE
The Middle East
7/22/04

It’s 9:45 on a humid Thursday night and a crowd of around 75 is getting juiced. The whip comes down and the crowd is face to face with Shanghai Valentine—a nice volume-driven band with a bassist/lead vocalist, guitar/second vocalist and a standout drummer. It’s always a plus when you get multiple singers. Gotta give the soundguy credit tonight for bringing the beast out of this band—as the two lead vocalists alternate songs—like a loophole lawyer working two weeks before tax day—there was absolutely no break in the momentum. By the time the 25 minute set was done I was fully enjoying the Minor Threat/Naked Raygun vibe of their music. Good harmonies in the studio may break this band. Good luck!

10:15 brings the crowd a slightly louder unit who go by the name Bury the Needle. A power trio fronted by a high octane screamer with an echo box, sportin’ some major left arm ink—seem to have the crowd’s attention from start to finish. Seeming to be in his own world, the singer effectively puts his personal stamp on a hard rock sound and leaves flavored by touches of Unsane, Drive like Jehu and the Jesus Lizard. Although there was isn’t much band/ audience interaction tonight from Bury the Needle, there is no posing either and ya gotta love ’em for it. Some bands have got a hidden agenda but Bury the Needle just wants to melt your face off.

At 11:15 the opening chords are struck and the crowd’s eyes are transfixed on the best act of the night: The Fast Actin’ Fuses. Their sonic assault, as pleasing to the ear as your first m-80, reveals a well-rehearsed and cohesive boogie-blues unit too big for this stage which is comprised of Scott Montropolis (awesome wah-wah player) and Greg Hoffman on guitars, Andre on bass, battery Craig on drums, and wildman Dave Unger on vocals. These cats do incinerated chicken right. There is potential for greatness here. The band features a great lead singer and excellent songwriting. Sounding like a cross between early Stooges and recent Bad Wizard, choruses of “Everybody wants to feel alright!” and “Here’s mud in your eye!” ring true. On a night in July with humidity levels soaring, these three bands helped show that Boston’s righteous hard rock scene is still climbing the thermometer. (Austin Rutledge)

HO-AG PANIC BAND, ROBOTVOICE
The Midway
6/28/04

Robotvoice are your typical drums/bass/noise/noise combo. The vocalist has a little homemade box that converts her screams and yowls into thickly distorted, vaguely robotic sounds, while Donna Parker adds her modulated feedback wizardry over a powerfully thick, sludgy rhythm section. The bass is mixed way high, but since it’s the main melodic element in all of this, that’s not such a bad thing. There’s a plodding quality to the rhythms that works well in this context. The most extreme part is the song with guitar. Deb unplugs her mic from the robo-box and plugs in a guitar lead, then climbs on the guitar and starts humping the neck. You’ll often hear “masturbation” used as a metaphor for a guitar style, but this is no metaphor. My joy is complete when I learn that the title of the song is, (wait for it!) “An Axe To Grind.”

Ho-Ag start their set in a new configuration they seem to be calling “Ho-Ag Panic Band.” The regular drummer is offstage, and the keyboard player is playing a reduced drum kit. They play a few songs this way, and they are, for the most part, punkier and simpler than regular Ho-Ag songs. Not simple, mind you, but simpler. There are some extreme technical difficulties getting all the many PA systems here tonight to talk to one another, and a dead guitar, but Matt soldiers on with a five-stringed six-string. Then their regular drummer takes the stage, and they revert to the high-performance precision brutality of a regular Ho-Ag show. They even sort of sing a bit, and the guitars are gorgeous, with the keyboard adding sweet accents. Best of all, for me at least, there is a two-drummer song, with unison and interplay sections; there’s nothing I love like more drums! (Steve Gisselbrecht)

BEEFY DC, SUGABOMB, THE OTHER GIRLS

The Beachcomber (Wellfleet, MA)
7/30/04

First up on this gorgeous night on the Cape is The Other Girls. Tonight, two of their regulars are unable to attend due to other obligations, so the lineup is supplemented by Jim Janota (The Bags and Uppercrust drummer), and the prodigiously talented lead guitarist Charles Hanson (Ross Phasor). I don’t know how hard they rock with the usual lineup, but tonight they rock plenty hard indeed. Lead singer Andrea Gillis (also of The Andrea Gillis Band) is an energetic, almost manic front-woman, with a ballsier voice than most guys in working bands today. Bassist Michelle Paulhus (also of The Dents), and rhythm guitarist Melissa Gibbs (Heavy Stud) sing plenty of harmonies and provide a solid foundation. They play all covers, from a wide variety of sources, including David Bowie, Joan Jett, Quiet Riot, and Billy Squire. In fact, they even made me enjoy hearing Squire’s “My Kinda Lover.” First time for everything. You can bet I’ll be checking out The Other Girls again in the future.

Next is one of my favorite bands, Sugabomb. Tonight is the last performance for bassist Sandy with Sugabomb. When I spoke with her, she seemed quite confident that she was making the right decision, and that she has had enough. The rest of Sugabomb are certainly sad to see her go, however. In any event, tonight Sugabomb play a loud, fast-paced set of their patented raunch ‘n’ roll, sandwiched between two stellar covers, Smokey Robinson’s “Get Ready” and Deep Purple’s “Highway Star.” Singer Vikki Sixx and guitarist Dee Stroy are both dynamic performers, with a boatload of rock star bravado, and the rhythm section of Sandy and Dave is rock solid. My only complaint: the set’s too short! I wanted to hear “Sewing Circle”!

Finally, the headliners, AC/DC cover band Beefy DC. Led by singer Beefy Scott, a behemoth of a man, they sound more like AC/DC than AC/DC does nowadays. Beefy looks like your typical truck driving, steak eating, Budweiser drinking, 400 pound, NFL fanatic. But when he opens his mouth to scream “It’s a Long Way To the Top,” you’ll think Bon Scott has come back from the dead. In fact, I believe it’s possible that Bon is actually alive and well and living inside of Beefy. There’s certainly plenty of room. Remember, you heard it here first. Beefy’s number one sidekick is lead guitarist 100% Pure Angus, who starts out wearing an approximation of Angus Young’s school uniform getup. He quickly loses the jacket, tie and shirt, but mercifully retains the shorts. There’s just enough between song banter from Beefy to let you know that they’re not taking this cover band thing too seriously, even though they are obviously huge fans of AC/DC. It’s not exactly a joke, but it is plenty of fun. (Brian Mosher)

LADY OF SPAIN, CARLISLE SOUND, THE PISCES

Charlie’s Kitchen
7/5/04

The Pisces is a pretty minimal project: two strings, one voice. (Well, six strings, but they’re spread out among three different instruments and only two get played at any given time.) The two-string chords prove to be surprisingly interesting, with lots of fine, crunchy distortion layered on top for good tone. Elio has a nice voice, low and warm and smooth, but he sounds very nervous for the first several songs and the guitar completely overpowers his singing. He does relax after a while, but the mix is still off. (Turning the guitar down for part of one song helps a lot, then it’s turned back up and resumes drowning out the singing.) We get a lot of covers and a few originals, and the songs themselves sound good, though again, it’s hard to hear the vocal melodies.

Carlisle Sound are a strange band. Their configuration is a standard four-piece, and any given part of a song has a mellow, pop-rock sort of sound. Several people mention The Byrds as a reference point. The thing that makes it odd and sets it apart is that these are sort of Frankensongs; each one seems to comprise chunks of several different mellow, pop-rock songs jammed unceremoniously together. The transitions are very abrupt, and not all sound entirely intentional, but the jarring effect keeps them from seeming bland or predictable. I also like the way one guitar tends to shadow the bass line in octaves, while the other wanders around in between.

Up last are Lady of Spain. Ironically, in a place with no sound person, no monitors, and nearly no sound system, they have the best mix I’ve heard from them. I can hear everything. The virtuoso dual lead vocals, whether sung with delicate vulnerability or screamed with terrifying intensity. The wonderful, dissonant guitar washes and the weird, spikey leads that occasionally cut through them. And the rhythm section, rarely obtrusive but always tight and supple, and often driving and fascinating. There’s not a lot of melodic hook to these songs, and often they don’t give me a sense of going anywhere. And usually, that aimless feeling bothers me, but with this band, it’s more like being in a dark, smoky, comfortable space and being content to lie around there, at least until the drums pick up and get all urgent again. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE DECEMBER SOUND
The Paradise
8/6/04

It’s great hearing the Sound in the Paradise back room with its kicking sound system. The addition of Jimmy on keyboard and second guitar and Zack Sarzana’s prolific songwriting are keeping the shows fresh. “Overflowing” starts things off with Zack’s quick, rippling guitar melody. Then some newer songs, one with Jimmy’s ethereal, effects-heavy guitar accents over a driving, sinister bass line. There’s a dark, simmering energy in their set tonight that is mesmerizing the crowd. I especially like a new one with Drew’s muffled drums sounding more like a mood than a beat. John kneels as he plays bass as if to get closer to that mood. The vocals are delicate and soothing; someone comments that this song reminds him of Slowdive. The set ends in a noisy bit of chaos with keyboard distortion and a punishing beat, certainly a new direction for the band. (Laura Markley)

(DEAR OLD) STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Gallery 108
6/27/04

Probably one of Boston’s best-kept musical secrets is the eclectic, improvisational collective known originally as Stockholm Syndrome, now forced to alter their name somewhat, due to some aging west-coast jam band who trademarked the moniker. Damn those hippies! Gallery 108 was SRO as D.O.S.S. packed the house, backing up poets Mike County (ex-Outlets, Ninety in Ninety), and Jim Dunne. The band’s rotating cast of musicians include several ex-Nisi Period and Abunai members, including Kris Thompson (The Lothars) on theremin and Dave Y (Ninety in Ninety) on guitar. Rounded out by free/ freak-jazzers Andrew Hickman on sax and Todd Watkins on drums, their eclectic sound went everywhere from quiet, Godspeed-like hypnotics, to full blown noise attacks, helped along by poet/ musician John Mulrooney, playing a strangely tuned lap-steel. Luckily, pretentiousness is nowhere to be seen as the quintet consistently make self-deprecating remarks and smiles laughingly at the captivated audience. These guys (Okay, well, not always—Thalia Zedek has played clarinet with D.O.S.S. in the past) don’t play out often, but if you’re a fan of avant-rock, post-jazz, or whatever the kids are calling it these days, you won’t be let down by checking them out. (Chris Pearson)

FORGIVEN
Marlborough VFW (Marlborough, MA)
7/10/04

Forgiven is a “Christian rock” band. Something completely different for me. I will be as objective as humanly possible. Hopefully I won’t be struck by lightening for my opinions. Here goes. When I think of this genre, I think of Stryper. The flash, glitter, toothy smiles, and free bibles. Forgiven is none of that. All we have here is music and a message. I can truly say the singer has the voice of an angel. Wonderful harmonies and heartfelt, honest lyrics set to a blues-rock backdrop. Some originals are written and dedicated to a former band member who committed the ultimate sin (drug overdose). Anyway, they then attempt to liven things up with Neil Young covers. I may be wrong, but I don’t think of Neil Young when I think of Christian music. See these guys for yourself. I’m not crazy about the lack of stage presence, but the talent is there, and the message is definitely there. In fact, they play so LOUD you can’t help but here the message. I feel blessed just being here. I hope the band likes this review, but if they don’t, I know all is Forgiven. (Sue O.)

THE COLLISIONS, SPITZZ, LILAC AMBUSH,
RICK BERLIN
The Abbey Lounge
7/14/04

Rick Berlin is alone with a keyboard tonight, doing the freaky queer surrealist chanteur thing. These are half-songs, half-stories, with very odd poetic digressions and very lush, languid (not to say loungey) piano parts. They’re fascinating excursions, and frequently hilarious, and if I can’t always follow them, it’s generally interesting to try. His voice is sounding a bit ragged this evening, but that works well with these pieces.

Lilac Ambush are morose drum-machine goth. I can’t really offer anything like a review, since I am unable to get past the drum machine. Drum machines anger and sadden me, and as I grit my teeth through their set, I am angry and sad.

After that, Spitzz are a welcome shot of punk rock adrenaline. The lead singer breaks a string with his very first note, but makes it through two whole songs before he needs to change guitars. They’re very tight, and their set is heavy on the shouting and youthful energy, although there’s a little bit of harmony thrown in as it progresses. Likewise the guitars, which start out simple and strummy but get more adventurous in the later songs. The drummer drifts the tiniest bit; if you weren’t obsessively rhythm-focused (as I am), you’d never notice it. They have a really fun, infectiously jolly stage presence.

The Collisions have an amazingly full sound for a three-piece, so much so that I occasionally forget that Bo is the only one playing guitar: he just seems to be doing more, and more interesting, things than one should be able to do while also singing so passionately and well. I love their songs, which are catchy and intense, and kind of quirky but not cute. “Gasoline Can” actually sounds like a Primus song to me. The whole band is very strong, and Dave’s high harmonies are really sweet and lovely, but the live Collisions experience is dominated by Bo’s extreme rock wildness. He’s a madman, jumping around on and off the stage, kicking over at least three different beers, body-slamming the audience during his guitar solos, and just generally going over the top and putting on a show. They’re flying without a set list tonight, (“Have we done ‘Pablo Picasso’ already?”) but it’s a familiar set of songs, and they bring it home smoothly. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE SPACESHOTS, THE BEATINGS
T.T. the Bear’s
8/7/04

The Beatings hit the stage looking nothing like their name. In fact, bassist/ vocalist Erin Dalbec looks like a high school English teacher about to mildly let loose, and guitarist/vocalist Eldridge Rodriguez reminds me of a young Roger Miller. In this case, you can judge the book by its cover, which, here, is an entirely good thing. The songs definitely have a literate feel to them and the shifting dynamics and explosions of noise do remind me of Mission of Burma. When Erin sings, it reminds me of Victory at Sea, and I hear some Dinosaur Jr, back when they were on SST. Some of the guitar noise becomes a little monotonous as the set progresses, but overall, it’s an impressive set.

While definitely intrigued by The Beatings, I’m ready for something with some hooks. Unfortunately, it appears as though I’m in the minority. Spaceshots’ bassist Joe McMahon walks over, looks at my notebook, laughs and says, “Write down that it’s 12:00, and there’s nobody here.” In fact, there are only about 15 or 20 people still mulling about, at least one of whom has a wicked case of gas. The band surveys the scene, notices it’s nothing but friends and family, and decides to play it loose. On one hand, this leads to a couple of sloppy moments, but on the other, it leads to a willingness to step out of the standard verse-chorus-verse thing, most notably on the extended outro to “Blues Driven.” In the end, though, it’s still power pop. It’s all about the hooks, and the crowd bops its collective head to nuggets like “Angelesque” and “Mercy.” (Kevin Finn)

VAN ELK
T.T. the Bear’s
6/22/04

Van Elk is a new project comprising Valerie Forgione and Ken Michaels. They both sing, with Valerie doing most of the lead singing, so you know it’s got to be good. Her voice is as angelic and her stage presence as friendly and lovable as always. Both play acoustic guitar on some songs, and Ken plays bass on others. The songs are pretty, mellow, and somewhat folky. The melodies are lovely, the harmonies are astonishing, there is nifty counterpoint, and their voices blend beautifully. They are, in short, a Simon & Garfunkel for the new millennium. And I mean that in the best possible way. Ken seems to doubt that he’s a really good singer, but after some of the tricky harmony lines tonight, I’m sure he’s the only one in the room that does. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

CHRIS EVIL & THE TAINTS

The Safari Lounge (Providence, RI)
6/01/04

Hailing from New Bedford, Chris Evil & The Taints blow into The Safari Lounge, distilling an antagonistic punk sneer and an insidious ’50s high school dance band undercurrent to derive the sacred scum and sweat sound of fast girls meant for shallow graves, delivered with the echo of an adolescent drooling whine. The Taints resurrect orthodox 3-minute rock ‘n’ roll songs that smear like teenage blood across the lips with a frenetic, heavy melancholy sound, ripping trucker highway blues breakdowns into a seedy harangue of basement dungeon dual guitar clamor. “Do You Wanna Go Home With Me” bashes a rusty toolbox full of scrap noise into a cocksure hormonal skinhead boot stomp, while “Gimme Love” is the preternatural offspring of essentially anything from The Ramones catalogue merged with The Misfits Static Age LP, complete with a bold recycling of the riff from She which has been sharpened, revealing its nervous twitch. The Taints then segue into “Night of the Vampire” a glam-goth, Hammer Horror cut from cult minister of underground psychedelia Roky Erickson’s bag of tricks and then rip “Gotta Get Away,” a caustic railroad chug anchored by a teeth chattering N-N-N-NA-NA tension. The Taints viscously cleave through the late night rumble for a little less than thirty minutes and finish to 24 hands and a couple of distracted howls. They then quickly collapse their equipment and escape back into their black hoods, shuffling back to the edges of the squat bar and eventually to the steam drain cobblestone streets of a whaling city at 3:00AM. (Paul Hullabaloo)

CAGED HEAT, ANTI-LOVE PROJECT,
STARLA DEAR, STARR FAITHFULL, RACHEL CANTU

T.T. the Bear’s
7/8/04

Rachel Cantu is playing when I arrive. She is a solo singer/songwriter, very good but very folky and mellow. I came here more to be rocked, so this is not what I signed up for. But there are a fair number of people here, and they really seem to love her. Her voice is pretty, and the songs are pleasant. One picks up a bit of speed near the end, and she makes some self-deprecating jokes about being on a rock bill. (“I play an electric guitar. That counts, right?”)

Starr Faithfull are a very different act. They actually start out pretty restrained, for them, but that still entails a lot of Jodee’s pitch-perfect gravelly screaming. I love that combination of clear and sweet with dirty and raw, and the bassist provides lovely harmony vocals on several songs. The guitar is also low when they start out, but she turns it up after a few songs and starts to really shred. Good old-fashioned hard rock virtuoso guitar wankery. This isn’t rocket science, and if you were determined to dislike this you’d probably say something like “derivative,” but fuck that. These people simply know how to rock. Late in the set, we get their “shameless self-indulgence,” a long, wordless, classic blues with solos all around entitled “Three Sore Thumbs.”

Starla Dear are a four-piece that play a kind of sweet indie-pop. They are almost very good, but they’re marred by persistent small inaccuracies. The drummer drags a lot, and rushes a little; this always grates on me, and it’s hard to get past. There are also some sour chords, and the lead singer doesn’t always land squarely on her note. (Though, interestingly, she doesn’t have this problem during the one song when she’s not also playing guitar at the same time.) But there are a lot of good elements present: the singer’s breathy little-girl voice is kind of appealing, both guitarists have great tone and some very fine leads, there’s some good harmony, and the bassist is rock-steady and skilled. I expect they make a very good record.

Anti-Love Project is playing their first show with a new drummer. He’s not quite there yet—he makes kind of a lot of mistakes, and they’re big obvious ones—but he has a solid sense of rhythm, and he never messes up anything easy or straightforward. These are complicated songs with difficult drum parts, so I anticipate very good things with a bit more practice. (In fact, he’s great for the last couple of songs.) The rest of the band is really wild tonight, with Jenn screaming her voice raw and Matt breaking strings to begin and end the set. (The bitchy by-play among band members to fill the time while a string is changed is fairly amusing.) And the spiky, challenging intensity of these songs is undiminished. In fact, “One Wish” is played much faster than I’ve heard it before, and makes a powerful set-closer.

It’s getting late, and a lot of people clear out during Caged Heat’s set, which is wrong. The phenomenal concentration of skill that they bring to their rootsy, blues-inflected rock romps deserves a wider audience. Asa Brebner has joined them on guitar, taking most of the leads and making it look easy, although Jill Kurtz has at least one serious solo, and the best are their forays into dual lead, with interlocking line sections and rip-roaring call-and-response parts. Jill’s lead vocals are kind of ravaged and ravishing, and Bo sings sweet harmony on the choruses. Perhaps the main attraction, though, are the harmonica solos, and the one in the endless, deathless last song is gloriously fierce. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE BEATINGS, ALOUD, DUST BUFFALO

The Middle East
7/17/04

To my chagrin, I get to the Middle East just in time to miss Dust Buffalo completely, but the room doesn’t show signs of having been blown away. Overheard standing in line to buy my ticket: “I think they’re done; I think it’s safe to go back in.” The mp3 for “Timeline” at dustbuffalo.net is interesting, if a bit long; “New Way” seems lacking in personality. I’ll reserve judgment.

I’m going to make enemies now, so I should point out that Aloud are over the first bar. They have nice-sounding gear, are reasonably tight, and have two above-average singers in Jen De La Osa and Henry Beguiristain (well-rehearsed harmonies, too). Their crowd is sizable, but more polite than enthused—there is even a young woman sitting cross-legged in front of the stage for a while. Aloud doesn’t have the sort of commanding stage presence or virtuosity that makes good material unnecessary, so they could benefit from sharper writing. Avoiding those “too easy” chord progressions (or voicing them more creatively), fewer choruses, and more bridges would help. Most importantly, more tempo variation would take them a long way toward “good” from “okay.” On the plus side: one of the new songs is one of the best.

The Beatings singer/ guitarist Tony Skalicky plugs into his Marshall. It goes “kchhhhh.” “Does anybody have a guitar amp I could borrow? Greg, that solder didn’t work.” Fivehead’s Beaty Wilson drags his Fender Super Reverb onstage, and about 30 seconds later The Beating are roaring into their opening number. Afterwards bassist Erin Dalbec asks if the sound is okay: “We didn’t get a sound check,” she explains. These problems could sink lesser bands, but not the Beatings. They’re tight in a way that doesn’t rule out anarchy, they’re both loud as fuck and pin-drop quiet, but what really sets them apart is their command of musical tension—even on the rare occasions they fall into a predictable set of changes, rhythmic and textural shifts threaten to make the tune explode. The audience demands and gets an encore even though they end late. (Doug Mayo-Wells)

B-LITE, UV PROTECTION, HORSE SINISTER, DONNA PARKER & KATE VILLAGE
The Midway
7/20/04

Donna Parker plays electronically modulated electronic feedback. Kate Village, kicking it more old school, plays electronically modulated electroacoustic feedback. It is a match made in heaven. They start out with growling, pulsing electronic feedback and squalls of nothing very note-like from the guitar, which builds slowly and fades slowly to a single, piercing tone and a fake ending before roaring back. This second part is much more active: swooping, cascading weirdness from Donna, while Kate attacks the guitar and plays like Thurston Moore ate the brown acid. There’s a transcendent moment where she’s entirely off the floor, standing with one foot on the wah pedal and one on the distortion pedal and playing the noise by teetering. My one complaint, and it’s a serious one, is that they don’t play NEARLY long enough. Maybe ten minutes, tops; after teasing me with that level of awesomeness, it’s just cruel to cut me off so soon.

Horse Sinister begin by variously sitting and lying down on the stage, before threatening to put us to sleep. It’s a threat they very nearly carry out. This is in part because I’m pretty tired, but their take on improvised noise is mostly very, very mellow and quiet and low-key. Things get briefly interesting when one of them starts poking at his guitar with a pencil, for a cool chimey effect. I think you might enjoy this a lot if you were looking to chill out in a very extreme way, but I mostly feel that it’s been a very long time since I’ve been stoned enough to get into this.

UV Protection are much more interesting. Musically, I more or less hate everything they stand for, but they put so much effort into putting on a show, and achieve such a bizarre effect, that I’m thoroughly bemused and occasionally enthralled. There are five women, a three-piece band and two dancers, each wearing a variety of textured foil headgear, collars, and cummerbunds. (There are numerous wardrobe malfunctions as the set progresses, and I am charmed when one of the dancers, unable to repair her collar, removes it and immediately removes the other dancer’s collar as well, so they’ll continue to match. Attention to detail is so important.) The music is radically simplistic synth-pop, but all three musicians are solid at what they’re doing, and the lead singer’s soaring, obviously operatically trained voice is a powerful treat. The dancers’ affectless postmodern hand-jive is fascinating.

Last is B-Lite, the Blind Rapper. He’s not really blind. He raps goofily about how, blind as he is, he’ll still steal your stuff and fuck your woman, accompanied by pre-recorded drum machine and keyboard tracks and a series of hilarious videos in the form of slide shows (which include the lyrics, which I otherwise wouldn’t be able to make out) showing B-Lite inserted Zeligiously into various scenes, ob- and otherwise. It’s really, really funny. However, there’s just the one joke, and after four songs, I’ve heard it. Since I hate the backing tracks quite a lot, and I feel like I got what I’m going to get out of it, I leave. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

LYRES, ERIC MARTIN & THE ILLYRIANS,
THE CLASSIC RUINS
Kirkland Café
7/3/04

The second Kathy Duff tribute party (although Mickey Bliss is calling it “the Jeff Conolly Rent Party”) gets underway early with the witty, laid back barroom rock of The Classic Ruins. Carl on bass and Matt on drums have honed their rhythm skills doing double duty in Kenne Highland’s Vatican Sex Kittens, while guitarist/ singer/ songwriter Frank Rowe is a respected veteran of many Boston bands. He’s also the man who wrote the classic song “Geraldine” which has been covered by Lyres. “Heart Attack,” “Nyquil Stinger,” and others are delivered with Frank’s unique throaty vocal and nimble guitar playing.

Eric Martin & the Illyrians take the stage and rock out with their soulful, blues based songs. There’s a mid-tempo, REM like song in the middle with falsetto vocals that I like. I’m not sure who the Illyrians were—maybe a tribe related to the ancient Greeks. So I raise my glass of retsina to this timeless Boston band, soldiering on after so many years.

Unfortunately, two Lyres are MIA tonight. Jeff reports that bass player Rick had some kind of boating mishap while no mention is made of guitarist Dan’s whereabouts. But rather than cancel the show, on the spur of the moment Jeff enlists Frank Rowe on guitar and Frank is a little hesitant but game. Jeff plays Rick’s bass parts on the organ in addition to the melodies—pretty impressive—while Paul holds up the beat on drums. So the show is salvaged and even danceable, as Brett Milano, Margaret from Mr. Airplane Man, and I cut the rug up front. [Addendum: Lyres played an energetic “Help You Ann” and “Don’t Give It Up Now” at Little Steven’s International Underground Garage Festival last weekend. It was an amazing, 12 hour outdoor extravaganza on Randall’s Island in New York featuring about 40 bands. Headlining were The New York Dolls and Iggy & the Stooges. Also representing Boston were Muck & the Mires (co-winners of Little Steven’s National Battle of the Bands) and The Charms.] (Laura Markley)

We get lots of calls from bands asking for coverage of their live shows. Please be advised that shows are never assigned for review. Noise writers cover what they choose to attend. It’s logistically impossible to honor or acknowledge these requests. The Noise has always had its ears closest to the ground in greater Boston. If you’re doing something even remotely exceptional, we’ll be the first to tell the world. If you’re horrible, same thing.

Live Reviews

CRANK STURGEON, BLACK HELICOPTER, DEVIL MUSIC, PRESLEY

Great Scott, Allston, MA 9/20/05

Tonight is part of N.E.S.T., the NorthEast Sticks Together week-long orgy of awesome booking. Presley starts an evening of miscellaneously sludgy music (and I say that with love) with a full-length set comprising an indeterminate number of songs fused into one long, spacey jam. It’s a highly textured, dirty psychedelia with a lot of ebb and flow. They speed up and slow down (in perfect lockstop), various themes seem to bubble up and sink back down into the murk, and the bass offers enough of a sense of propulsion that it never feels like aimless noodling. There are occasional bursts of vocals, but they almost seem beside the point.

Devil Music is missing one of their three regular members, apparently, so they have a nine-year-old guitarist filling in for them tonight. It’s entertaining (as is the sight of his little sister dancing to Presley), and it certainly immunizes them from criticism. What, I’m supposed to pick on a fourth-grader?

Black Helicopter are the Sludge Kings. Their music has a darkness both sonic and existential. Lots of cathartically grim minor key stuff, tempi that range from “moderate” all the way down to the slow end of “lumbering,” and infinitely heavy bass lines. (Since the lyrics all come from recordings of some drunk and/or crazy person who used to hang out at the workplace of one or more band members, they really play into the downbeat vibe.) It’s some kind of testament to the amazing skills of those involved that they take all this turgidity and turbidity and make it gorgeous. The guitars are just amazing, the vocals have a slow passion, and the rhythm section feels inevitable, as if driven by laws of physics rather than by fallible humans.

Crank Sturgeon prefaces his set by wandering around the bar area in a large angular mask urging people to come to the stage area. A few of us take him up on it. His performance involves a lot of harsh noise electronics, some prerecorded thumping synth tracks played from a small cassette player, and a whole lot of theatrics. He starts with a series of tea lights burning on a table, and after he sets the prerecorded synths a-thumping, he puts out the candles by expertly smacking them with a hammer—molten wax flying everywhere. He takes off the mask to put on more functional headgear, with a tuna can dangling from a stiff wire which seems to be a signal source for his noise setup. He’s a bit thrown off when his cassette player comes unplugged, but I personally enjoy the noise a lot more without the recorded stuff. There’s no codpiece this time, but there is a boa of sorts, a giant latex hose that he mics, flings around, and uses as a sort of launcher to spray oats into the audience. Possibly the weirdest thing about Crank Sturgeon—and that’s saying a lot—is that he seems really surprised and put out that there aren’t more people paying attention to his show; I can’t imagine that he thinks this is music with broad-based appeal. (But then, he also seems impressed to count ten of us left at the end of his set.) (Steve Gisselbrecht)

APPLE BETTY, THE IN OUT

The Kirkland Cafe, Somerville, MA 9/30/05

Over a beer, Todd Nudelman of the In Out is telling me how his neighbors are always giving him stuff—kids’ clothes, household items, etc. And when they do, they have to do a “stop and chat” (as Larry David would say). He’s a little uncomfortable with this familiarity—people knowing his name, his family and his lifestyle. That sense of being a perpetual outsider carries through in the In Out’s music. Take their song “Camouflage.” It’s a word loaded with meaning, bringing to mind the pointless war in Iraq as well as the paradoxical idea of hiding out by blending in. The line “please come to Kabul in the springtime” is the sort of ironic lyrical touch I savor. As to the music, there’s a sense of unease that’s not without beauty in the simple, minor key melodies that flesh out these songs. Eric Boomhower hits fast and hard, and his style is complemented by Andy’s laid-back bass lines. Together with Todd’s deadpan vocals and metallic sounding guitar, it adds up to their own, iconic post punk sound that’s pretty durable, having survived for over ten years now.

I notice two things right away about Apple Betty. First, the singer’s that girl I always used to see in the front row at Lyres and Real Kids shows, dancing like a banshee. Second, she’s wearing an awesome NOISE shirt that I’ve never seen before. Apparently it’s a collectible! The second trio of the evening takes the stage and bashes out an energetic, fun set of garage girl anthems. The fan boys in the audience are loving it and flashes are a-poppin’. We have to leave early due to feeling beery and weirded out by the stories of a graveyard-squatting vagabond at our table, some of which include haunted houses and arson. But I promise myself to return some time for another serving of Apple Betty. (Laura Markley)

MINIWATT, TRISTAN DA CUNHA, KALPANA

AS220, Providence, RI 9/25/05

I’ve never been to AS220 before. It’s a great space, big and open, with a huge stage and cool art on the walls to check out between bands. First on tonight’s bill is Kalpana. Sometimes, when they are a spacey instrumental rock band with a brutally fast and hard-hitting drummer, I like them very much. When they crank up the drum machine and the drummer plays keyboard, they are much less to my taste. And when they try to sing, it’s appalling. They’re shockingly off pitch, and when several of them sing “unison” it really accentuates that. (It doesn’t help that what they’re apparently trying to sing sounds like very pleasant melodies, which don’t lend themselves to this treatment the way a grungier song would.) Fortunately, they don’t sing on the last few songs.

Tristan Da Cunha is the main reason I’m here. I really grew accustomed to seeing them weekly during their residency, and I haven’t enjoyed going more than a month without a Tristan set. They start right in with “World of Rubber,” one of our favorites, which is everything a Tristan song should be: jumpy and weird, incredibly challenging, with bizarre jump cuts and rhythms that feel like they can’t possibly be right (but they are), yet with freakishly catchy little tunes and riffs and an overarching composed rightness. I’ve missed this. They continue in this vein—the still-untitled new song is getting more followable and engaging each time I hear it, even with its bizarrely long and involuted guitar line—and then Ernie and Steve switch places, and they pull out a couple of instrumental songs from Steve’s old band, Spineless, which they learned for their residency.

Sadly, tonight is Miniwatt’s last show ever. The genius of their songs is that they do not overstay their welcome. They are fairly simple songs, played ultrafast with spikey guitar parts and mostly shouted vocals, and each song has one or two good musical ideas. A song might be built around a gorgeous guitar riff, a killer bass line, or an amazing drum pattern, and it’ll just briefly explore the possibilities of that idea, then suddenly end. (A couple of the newer songs have two sections, each of which on its own sticks pretty closely to this pattern, but this enables them to also play with the idea of transitions. I’d have liked to hear how they would have continued to develop.) There’s a funny/ sad moment near the end of the set, when the penultimate song gets fucked up and crashes to a halt. They jokingly (?) blame each other and say, “See? This is why we’re breaking up.” Then they finish with one more quick blast. It seems a weirdly abrupt ending, but anything else would be untrue to the band they were. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE ABORIGINES, COUNT WESTWEST

O’Briens, Allston, MA 10/11/05

It’s a lovely rainy night at O’Brien’s pub as Northampton’s Count Westwest takes the stage. Count Westwest is a foursome in cords and jeans. The bass player is a pigtailed girl and the skinny singer-boy’s bowl hair cut and checkered shirt bring to mind a computer science student more than a rock ’n’ roller. But as the band warms up, his earnest, well-pronounced vocals and concentrated strumming begin to bring something up from the depths with an intensity that belies their mild look. Their indie-flavored song structures are unusual and unpredictable but accessible, and their music is genuinely moving. I wonder briefly if this is what it might have been like to see Smashing Pumpkins when they were very young. There is a real vitality to this band and I hope to see more of them.

If you can imagine the Bee Gees played by the MC5 with a very young Iggy singing lead, you might begin to imagine The Aborigines. They come out swinging—bitchin’ leads, outrageous madman drumming, and solid bass lines. Their nubile long-haired singer seems to be developing his writhing style as we were watching. His snake-like torso brings him out of his shell as the evening progresses. Their set list includes nuggets by Up, Bang, Blue Cheer, The BeeGees, and Jack Bruce. The awesome groove they had from the get-go was somewhat interrupted by the singer leaving the stage while the guitarist did some singing (give this kid a tambourine, somebody, please) but the singer is a new addition and in time these kinks should iron out.

I was suprised and pleased to see two unknown bands of such vitality in one night. Count Westwest should take their talents seriously. The Aborigines and their singer are lucky to have one another, and if this kid learns to sing with his heart in his cock, with that rockin’ backdrop, they could easily go much further than Allston. (Stella DeMaris)

HARRIS, REVERSE, JUNIUS, PANTS YELL!

The Middle East, Cambridge, MA 10/14/05

Oh, man, I have been looking forward to this show for months! It’s Harris’s CD release party, and they have put together the perfect bill: all the other bands are friends of theirs, none of them sound anything like each other, and all of them kind of sound like Harris. Or at least like something Harris can do. It’s excellent. First up are Pants Yell! A three-piece, they make pretty, lightweight pop songs with an odd ’50s feel about them. The singer is a bit hard to hear, but his voice is sweet. The whole band, in fact, is sweet and soothing. A little hard to get excited about, but it goes down easy.

Next is Junius, who have a heavier and artier sound. Blazing bass lines anchor these songs, while guitars and vocals, heavy with delay and reverb, shimmer all over the top of it. It’s a moody, atmospheric effect (which they play up, as always, with blue lights onstage). Their songs are epic compositions with lots of different movements and tempo changes. The vocals have kind of an attenuated Britpop tone to them that suits the songs very well. It’s a spacey, dreamy set, and easy to get lost in.

Reverse is a more visceral experience, and it is interesting to note the turnover in the people crowded around the front of the stage between bands this evening. Reverse is a hard rock band, with a pulverizingly loud drummer and lots of distorted guitar. They also sing sweet, catchy songs, with lots and lots of really good harmony, and the guitar is never wanky or inappropriate for the context of the song; it’s tasty and tasteful hard rock. It is also, tonight, getting more complicated than I’ve heard it be in the past, with some interesting shifting rhythms creeping in and mixing things up. They manage to write in ten without sacrificing any of the head-banging, horns-throwing, shout-along fun that motivates them.

Finally, Harris is up to synthesize all the different threads of the evening. Their record release party has sold out and all is right with the world. They seem really happy and humbled, and return the favor by playing the new album in its entirety. Not everyone is pleased by this decision; one loud, drunk fan screams for one particular older song during every pause, which goes from funny to annoying to, eventually, funny again. But I am entirely pleased. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since I heard the album, and it’s a delight to hear how they play with the songs. The drummer, in particular, is wild tonight, with new and interesting fills in several songs. The one song that the keyboard player sings lead on has a weird extended rant that seems to be about the microphone, and wondering who did what to it. They close with “Captain,” the sing-along epic, and the entire crowd sings along lustily, even after the band finishes. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE DRAGS, SASQUATCH & THE SICKABILLYS, THE GOOD FIGHT

Abbey Lounge, Somerville, MA 10/15/05

It’s too bad T Max won’t let me talk about the first band of the night, but they’re from New York City, and the Noise doesn’t cover bands outside of New England.  In any event, the first local band of the night is The Good Fight.  Relative to other street punk type bands I’ve seen, they seem to have more melodic hooks than usual.  On the other hand, the lyrics are very typical of the genre, and not terribly interesting.  The front man is very active, but I can imagine him at home practicing his various poses in front of a mirror: point at the audience, now raise a fist, now pump fist, now pantomime lifting something heavy.  It seems kind of contrived to me.

Next is Sasquatch & The Sickabillys from Providence.  Sasquatch has made a lot of the fact that he hasn’t been able to book shows in the Boston area, but tonight, fresh from a cross country tour, he and his band are back.  They are tighter than ever, with a rollicking set of manic rockabilly.  Between songs, Sasquatch delivers his usual diatribes against government, organized religion, social zombies, and anything else that pisses him off.  They do a terrific cover of Johnny Cash’s “Understand Your Man” to go along with their whiskey drinking, Cadillac driving, gun toting originals.  I love these guys.

Finally, The Drags.  I am looking forward to my first Drags experience.  I’ve heard from many people how great they are.  Before the show I have an opportunity to introduce myself to front man Rich Hoss, and he’s very gracious and friendly.  But… the band is boring.  I don’t know how else to put it.  The only thing they’ve got is volume, and plenty of it.  The songs are boring, and all sound pretty much the same.  I’m sure they’re all swell guys, but if this is a typical Drags set, I don’t understand the popularity.  (Brian Mosher)

THE LUXURY, THE APPRECIATION POST, ALOUD

T.T. the Bear’s, Cambridge, MA 10/8/05

Aloud is an excellent start for a big night of strong, melodic pop/rock bands. They have a Stones-y rock sound anchored by memorable tunes and HUGE vocals. Two fantastic singers share lead vocal duties, each can do quiet and soulful or wild and raucous, and when they harmonize, it’s a little bit of heaven in Cambridge. They also share lead guitar duties, and they have different strengths that set each other off well. And the drummer continues to get better each time I see them; last time he had gotten to flawless, and this time he keeps that high standard while starting to really branch out, adding fills that are tricky and interesting and perfectly executed. Tonight’s set starts with a lot of new material, teasing the full-length album that’s apparently well along, and the standout for me is “Beaches,” a powerful, hooky song that covers their entire dynamic range and includes some really standout wailing from Jen. Then they finish the set with some older songs.

The Appreciation Post is playing their first show ever. (But they have four-song demos to give out, which is fairly impressive organization.) They are a five-piece that plays sweet, sunny pop songs, which their singer delivers with an infectious grin. Early in their set, his pitch is pretty wobbly, but whether he gets warmed up or the monitor situation gets better, by mid-set that problem is fixed, and he has a really good singing voice, warm and smooth. They use an incongruously distorted hard-rock guitar sound and really synthetic new-wave keyboards, which somehow manage to balance each other out and fit the songs. (Neither would work without the other.) They cover a Billy Joel song, which I can’t really get behind, and it’s telling, really; if you like pop that’s pretty and polished, and maybe a little lightweight (Tom uses the word “twee”), you’ll probably like this band. It’s certainly a damn impressive first show.

The Luxury is only playing their third show (although it’s the first time I’ve seen them), but they have the advantage of a tremendously strong base on which to build: they include members of The Halogens and Baby Strange, and they play some of the best of The Halogens’ catalogue along with new songs. This means sprawling, stirring Brit-pop epics—I keep using the word “majestic” when describing these songs, but that’s because it’s the right word—and Jason Dunn’s excellent lead vocals. The Luxury builds on this base with uniformly great playing, good harmony vocals, and really stellar lead guitar, flashy and rocking where rock and flash are appropriate, but always within the context of these beautiful songs. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

VICTORY AT SEA, SHORE LEAVE

Great Scott, Allston, MA 9/21/05

Tonight’s Shore Leave set is kind of a sad occasion: their last show ever with their current drummer. (I’m told that the new drummer is excellent, but I’m still sorry to give Nick up.) Tonight’s show is mostly sweetly beautiful (with a great mix providing the balance and interplay between the two intricately pretty guitar lines that I find so enthralling in this band) and streamlined—no major technical challenges, which is an achievement in itself for a five-piece band with five microphones and a ton of equipment. The ton of equipment is mostly Afshin’s, and tonight he primarily plays keyboards; he and Charles double up on bass for one song, which is huge, but a bit of tight timing forces them to cut one song, so we don’t get to hear the electric sitar tonight.

I’ve been hearing about Victory At Sea for a long time now, and somehow I’ve just never managed to catch them. I’ve been missing out! A guitar/drums/piano trio, they start out with a slow blues that leans heavily on powerful, driving piano and the singer’s thick, dark alto. She can moan in a way that sounds weathered and infinitely deep, yet still really tuneful, then turn around and belt out a shattering scream. The drummer (who just got the cast off his broken hand!) is a big, scary-looking guy who sings pretty, sweet high harmonies. The pianist handles bass duties and percussive high end, and sings the low part on one song, and the guitar is noisy and strong. It’s dark, raucous, beautiful stuff, and I am thoroughly captivated. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

HEAVY STUD, SCAMPER, THE MONTGOMERYS

The Abbey Lounge, Somerville, MA 9/15/05

Tonight is Night One of The New England Pop Music Festival. The start time is absurdly early because six bands are playing, and they all get full sets. Awesome in principle, but I’ve already missed three bands by the time I get out of work. I have, however, arrived in time to see The Montgomerys, who make me very happy. They are a pop band with a strong focus on catchy, crafted songs. Best of all are their lyrics, which are full of incredibly clever rhymes, and the astounding fact that I can hear what he’s singing. This is because the arrangements are pretty spare and stay out of the way of the songs. It’s not that they can’t get fancy with the instruments—there’s a great wah-funk breakdown in one song that comes out of nowhere and makes me laugh—but they have the musical sense to rein themselves in when it’s appropriate. Peter, their singer/ songwriter and eponymous Montgomery, seems oddly disaffected during their set, going so far as to cut off what was to have been their last song after one verse, saying “I’m not really committed to this one,” and substitute a different song. But the contrast between a grumpy demeanor and sweet, heartfelt songs is also entertaining.

Scamper starts with a brand new song, written by Keith for his new son. So obviously, it’s pretty sweet and heartfelt also. I feel that it’s not quite there yet as a Scamper song, though; the greatness of their material is in its polish and sparkle, and this song needs a little more sparkle. I think the song is actually about 20 percent faster than this, and they just haven’t realized it yet. The rest of their set has that pop transcendence that I look for in them. My one quibble is that the drummer actually makes mistakes. Not many—maybe three or four audible errors in a 45 minute set. It’s a good performance. It’s just that he’s usually perfect, so any error really stands out. (I wonder if the free beer for the bands, and the fact that he’s been here for hours at this point, have anything to do with it.) So not the best Scamper set ever, but still a good time. Call it a B.

Heavy Stud apparently hasen’t played a show since February. So it’s not surprising if they’re a little rusty. Besides which, perfect and polished is not really what they do, and tonight they’re struggling with a number of handicaps. There’s a persistent and intrusive feedback problem that no one can seem to solve, which lasts through their entire set, and it really seems to throw them. So they don’t have quite the energy and ferocity that they’ve had before. Their music is very simple and straightforward, so without that energy I’m a little underwhelmed. (But I’m also really tired.) (Steve Gisselbrecht)

JONAS COMPLEX, GENUFLECT, THE FERNS, THE DRAGS, MISSY JOHNSON

Bill’s Bar, Boston, MA 10/3/05

For those who came to Bill’s Bar October 3rd just to see Genuflect, and then leave, you missed the best bands on the bill.

Missy fires the first shot of the night taking the stage touching off an inferno with her rendition of a Tracy Bonham classic. Her voice is in top form from the opening note until the last vibrations of her sound waves shimmer their way out onto Lansdowne Street and beyond. And she has a hot band of musicians to bolster those tremendous pipes. Sizzling guitar riffs, shimmering bass notes and pounding drums are the perfect ingredients to go with Missy’s lead and her pals’ harmonies. She is definitely an artist one should pay attention to and catch live so you can say you saw her when. She brings on stage Tom Dies, of Via Audio, who played guitar in studio for her album. His deft fingers trickle across the frets churning out leads on her final song, “Wait.”

The Drags come on next and they tear the house up with their straight ahead raging punk sounds. There is not a lick of pretense with these guys. Their no frills attitude is not unlike their punk forefathers, The Ramones, as the boys shred strings and splinter drumsticks as they ravage eardrums. They blaze through their set and leave to a growing crowd

Genuflect sandwiches their set between the four other bands. People come in clamoring to see these guys rock, but they leave after the set. Though I’m not really sure why. If you saw Rage Against The Machine back in the day, or have heard an album, then you definitely don’t need to see Genuflect. The name seems to foretell they’re paying tribute, but I don’t think that is their intent. They are a talented group of musicians, but there is a need for them to find their own way in music or risk disappearing back into the pool of also rans. They must remember the Highlander mentality that exists in the music biz, there can be only one. To have the power and talent is one thing, but to seek out their own path requires guts to stand alone and the creativity to find their own muse and follow her.

The Ferns follow and can teach a lesson to their stagemates about how to put together a band of originals. They use the sounds of their forefathers, the likes of Nirvana, Violent Femmes, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as inspiration, but create their own sound. With madman Tim O’Brien on the drums pounding out the beat in jackhammer-like fashion, The Ferns tear up the bar. Sweat streams from O’Brien’s head as splinters from his sticks fly helter skelter away from his set. Sizzling guitars and lead singer Ryan Bourque’s presence at the mike epitomizes the raw sexual power of rock ’n’ roll. While Bourque, O’Brien, and Eric Babineau tear the roof off the building, bassist Bob Henault just grooves as he lays down the backbeat. And in the end, Bourque leaves with feedback resounding around the club as his guitar mates with his amp.

Jonas Complex closes out the night and sends the dozen or so hardcore denizens into the unusually toasty October Boston night happy to stick around. On stage, lead singer Brig shreds his vocal chords spewing his venom upon the parsonage while his mates exorcise their souls with scorching electric madness. Their heavy dark sound rages from the harmonic and edgy guitar and bass riffs of Jamie and Dennis, to Ted as he hammers the brass and skins as though he was Vulcan himself molding the molten iron into form. Together they are a band on the edge, but are content to stay there as female fans hold signs cheering on their man Brig who chuckles at the devotion. (Richard Dumont)

THE FOOLS, WALTHAM, THREE DAY THRESHOLD

Boston Common, Boston, MA 9/17/05

The annual Freedom Rally at the Boston Common—where the adolescent youth from the area gather to express free will while undercover agents seek out easy targets for arrest. Upon discovering the nature of Mae Brussell’s conspiracy theories, I’m no longer one to rock the boat. A generation of potheads who relate more with hip-hop than the Grateful Dead are graced with the country rock styling of Three Day Threshold. Not much of a surprise to see the confusion on their faces as they are forced to listen to music influenced by the complete opposite spectrum in which everything they’ve been force fed lies. Music that promotes communal protesting against “the establishment” has long been replaced with aggression, commercialism, and wealth reinforced by modern pop culture. Oh yeah, the times they have a’ changed—freedom of speech through music has thus been suppressed within a system that does not allow contemporary songwriters, revivers of the new left, exposure to the masses.

Waltham, dressed in their punk/ grunge outfits (the lead singer has duct tape on his dirty black pants), has a surprisingly commercial sound. They start off by saying, “Our music makes you feel like you’re in an ’80s movie.” As a beach ball is being tossed around the lead singer says that he feels like he’s in Foxboro Stadium. They go into “Joe Anne” which sounds like any typical ’80s song. Next he announces, “This is a big deal for us today but we couldn’t invite our parents because they don’t know I smoke pot. But I will tell them today!” Then they go into a song called “Shirley” which sounds a lot like Rick Springfield. The lyrics: “Take a ride, be with someone else.” Next they throw water on the audience then go into “Fast Times at Waltham High.” This song sounds a lot like Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.”

The band headlining Boston’s Freedom Rally is The Fools. The name does not fall far from the performance. First off, the lead singer draws attention to his outfit. He is shirtless; wearing only a tie and a blazer. He explains to the audience that his reason for wearing the tie is because of the fact that he was censored for saying “fuck” 20 years prior on that very stage. He announces that he not only supports pot use but also bestiality, asking the crowd, “Who wants to fight for the right to have sex with animals?” The songs are generic with simple chord changes but they are fun to watch with their clown-like antics. On this song, they have played its entirety except for the last note where they stop and cause a spectacle. They select a female member from the audience to play the last note, giving her the choice between a ragged old doll or a dildo. She chooses the puppet and they finally finish the song. (R Feed)

THE LOT SIX, EMERGENCY MUSIC, NIGHT RALLY, THE BON SAVANTS, THE CHAINLETTER, REPORTS

Great Scott, Allston, MA 9/13/05

Tonight’s show is a benefit for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, so there are six bands playing short sets, a killer bakesale, and a raffle that Tom and I collectively buy about half the tickets for.

Reports is a very odd band. They start out with a noisy, psychedelic vibe tonight. But after a couple of songs like that, a completely different sound emerges, drawing heavily on the same English music hall tradition that informed early Bowie and The Beatles. These are the two major influences that they fuse; some songs lean toward the first, some toward the second, and some balance the two impulses. It’s a very, very strange mixture, but they make it work.

The Chainletter starts out as a five-piece, but after a couple of songs, one of their guitarists switches to second keyboard and a new guitarist joins them. Two guitars, two keyboards, bass and drums, plus two of them sing, powerfully. It’s strong stuff, but it gets to be too much: the overall sound gets muddy and blurred. And when you sound muddy at Great Scott, with Ben doing the sound, it’s you. The songs themselves rock hard, with heavy use of impressive shouted-harmony vocals, so a bit of judicious pruning in the arrangements could make me like this band a lot.

We just saw The Bon Savants here on Saturday, and they were so damn good that I’m really excited to see them again. The room is starting to fill up at this point. Since it’s a short set tonight, we get kind of a “greatest hits” set. They’re beautiful songs, shimmery Britpop with teeth, and there’s just absolutely nothing wrong with this band.

Night Rally hasen’t played in forever, it seems. (They’ve been recording, so I’m not going to complain.) They start by soliciting requests from their first demo, and play the first request they hear, “A Birthday Party.” They actually seem a little sloppy tonight, by Night Rally standards. But those are high standards, so I’m inclined to cut them a bit of slack. After the request, they play a much newer song, which is very effective—their recent material seems to include a lot more songs on which all three of them sing, and since they have three very different and complementary vocal styles, these songs rule. Luke develops some serious hi-hat problems, but decides to soldier through as they close the set with their triptych. It’s huge and deep, and it’s fun to see Luke improvise ways to deal with the defective hi-hat.

Emergency Music is next. This isn’t really their crowd, somehow, and the people that were packing the floor in front of the stage for Night Rally are kind of conspicuously absent during this set. Emergency Music plays quality pop songs, but they’re just a little bit, well, boring. Earnest and nice, and a little low-energy. I like the pretty high harmony backing vocals.

The Lot Six (of whom there are four) is another band that combine two quite different sounds and somehow make it work. There’s a thick, sludgy stoner rock thing going on here, and the singer’s weird vocal delivery emphasizes this. His voice seems to keep reminding me of someone, and I can’t think who. I get a whiff of Gibby Hayes, a touch of Jack White, maybe a trace of Beck? He doesn’t really sound exactly like any of those, but perhaps if you triangulate among them you can imagine where he’s going. But then there’s the piano. The keyboard lines are much crisper and cleaner and sort of balance out what’s going on in the guitar and vocals. They do sound weird with the rest of the band, but they contribute a little bit of prettiness that makes the whole thing hold together for me. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

 

The following Live Reviews are not included in the print issue.

MAJOR STARS, MAGIC PEOPLE O’Brien’s, Allston, MA 9/23/05

I show up in time for about half of Magic People’s set, which is nice but means that things are running really late. They’re your typical bass/ keys/ keys/ flute/ drums quintet, with the drummer and one of the keyboard players doing most of the vocals. The keyboard player that does vocals is wearing some sort of mic’ed gas mask sort of thing, so his voice is pretty muffled and completely unintelligible. In fact, my main problem with this band is that their overall sound is kind of a muddy mess, but I can’t really tell how much of that is them and how much is O’Brien’s. (Purp is good, but there’s only so much you can do with this system.) The flute is an interesting touch, but I can only hear it when not much else is going on. (One of the keyboards uses a flute-like patch from time to time, but those sounds don’t sync with what I can see the flautist doing.) More prominent is the theremin, which is used to good rhythmic effect on one song. There’s not much in the way of tune here—vocals are mostly shouted—but there could be some hiding in the mud, and I’ll want to check them out again some time.

After skipping out on the next band to get hot dogs, we come back to find that Major Stars have about 15 minutes to play before curfew. So their set is short and rushed, which doesn’t really fit well with their long, meandering psych-noise excursions. (Nor does it help when Wayne has to change a string after the first song.) Still, they manage to squeeze in three songs by ignoring the curfew and the increasingly emphatic finger-across-neck gestures from the staff and the booker. The singer’s wailing gets largely lost here, but I’m standing right in front of Kate’s amp, so I get an extra-large helping of rhythm feedback. (As well as a couple of body slams when Kate spills out into the audience.) They pack a whole lot of punch into a short set. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

WACK ASS EGYPTIANS, MUSEUM OF SCIENCE, PAKO

The Middle East, Cambridge, MA 9/24/05

In honor of Wack Ass Egyptians’ CD release party, the Middle East seems to have booked Weird White Guy Rap Night. Pako is playing when we come in. They all have odd masks on. In addition to the drummer, they have a rapper who plays a small extra drumkit. (I like more drums.) Also bass, keyboard, and seven-string guitar. And all this in service of music that sounds like the soundtrack to a Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon, deliriously overplayed. (One audience member screams out “EVIL CIRCUS MUSIC!” between songs, which the guitarist seems to like.) The keyboard player is front and center, and he’s quite the showman, hurling abuse at the audience and at one point pulling the keyboard off its stand to hump the keys.

Next up is Museum of Science, and more weird white guy rap. They unfortunately play with a lot of prerecorded tracks, and that always bothers me, plus I can’t really make out much of what he’s saying. (This is a common problem that prevents me from seeing a lot of live rap in clubs; it’s just too hard to make out the lyrics, and without them there’s not always much point.) So my favorite part of their set is their jam, when they turn off the prerecorded stuff and get some friends (from the band Camarijuana) to sit in on drums and bass. The MoS drummer gets up from behind his kit and plays a squealing, knob-twisting solo on metal detector. Now that’s cool.

Wack Ass Egyptians are a drinking band. So for their CD release party, they’ve rented a school bus and brought several dozen of their nearest and dearest to the Middle East, and nobody has to worry about driving home. It is, in short, a zoo. Rolled up socks and cheap beer fly everywhere. WAE songs are insane, goofy things, with all kinds of howlingly silly rhymes about camels and pyramids and, yes, Bea Arthur’s vagina. But their secret weapon is that they balance that foolishness with a seriously kick-ass rock band. They sound great tonight, and since the crowd is primarily their people, there is a powerful energy between the stage and the audience. It gets a bit too powerful near the end; the flying beer actually takes out one guitarist’s amp halfway through their last song. This is a shame, but if it had to happen, it was a good time for it, and he ends the set screaming the chorus into a mic. And the crowd, unsurprisingly, goes wild. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

AS LONG AS WE’RE ALL LIVING WE’RE ALL DYING, THE HOUND, SPARROWS SWARM AND SING, PILES

Smashachusetts Festival, Roller Kingdom, Hudson MA 7/14/05

Rock ‘n’ roll in a goddamn roller rink? Apparently so, as the Roller Kingdom in Hudson is the site of the first (annual?) Smashachusetts festival, where thirty-eight bands are scheduled to perform from noon to midnight on three stages. As I arrive just past noon, I see that a young punk band is playing in one corner of the parking lot on a makeshift plywood stage; there are about a dozen kids moshing in front of the stage, in an area roped off by gray plastic trash cans and yellow police barrier tape. Is this what they mean by the “Laser Tag” stage? If so, then how many kids will not bother with the $25 admission charge (granted, that’s only 66¢ a band) and just hang out in the parking lot?

Inside the rink it’s cool (in temperature, if not ambiance) and spacious, with the main stage spanning the rink along the mid-court and splitting the space 60-40; the smaller portion is the “backstage” area used by bands to load in and set up gear, leaving the larger share for the audience. The staging is fairly ingenious, as the wide, raised platform is split in half, so that while one band plays on the left side, another band can be setting up on the right side, thus keeping the time between bands to a minimum. Both of these main stages share the same ample sound system. But what of the Laser Tag stage? A quick trip to the Laser Tag room reveals the problem: there’s a tall chain-link fence that zigzags down the center of the room. Soon enough, though, some folks are feverishly working to tear down this barrier and cover up the carpet holes so that the ersatz stage in the parking lot can be moved inside.

The second band on the main stage (house right, stage left) is Piles. A three-piece, Piles somehow manages to be intricate and sludgy at the same time. Their overall sound is powered by the rhythm section, with powerful, throbbing bass lines and spot-on complex drumming that solidify and practically force one’s head to nod in cadent assent. On top of that propulsive foundation are some occasional vocals (mostly brief shouts) and a labyrinth of melodic guitar lines that swoop and soar. This is a seriously excellent set from a tight band; about twenty people are clustered on the cavernous floor.

Opposite the main stage(s) is the entryway, concession stand, and an official merch area, all surrounded by an array of Formica tables with benches. While any given band is playing, a surprising percentage of the people in the room are lounging in this back area, unmoved. Several bands each commandeer a table set up makeshift merch stations for themselves.

Sadly, neither roller skates nor laser tag equipment are for rent today, so there will be no rolling while we rock. Perhaps there were concerns of the potential for high velocity slam dancing. Between the schedule changes and entering a room after a band has started, it’s a continual challenge to try and determine the name of the band performing at any given time. I ask the sound guy at one point, and he has no clue as to the name of the band for whom he is currently mixing. The posted schedule on the Laser Tag room becomes a hash, with multiple handwritten addenda attempting to accurately predict the upcoming performers.

There are a surprising variety of bands here, ranging from harshly yelped moshfuel to quavering solo folk acts; although there are clearly more of the former, there are at least two examples of the latter. One of the odder and more delightful ensembles is Sparrows Swarm And Sing. Their sound is heavy ambient, ethereal without droning or becoming static, a vocal-less wash of kinetic soundscapes. The instrumentation is complex, including violin, recorder, banjo, and drawing violin bows across the glockenspiel and cymbals (as well as the standard guitar/bass/drum/keyboard component), with song segments alternating between quietly pensive and dazzlingly frenetic. It’s all peculiarly captivating, and more well received by this crowd than I would have expected.

The parking lot is its own little scene; the stopgap stage is disassembled by 2:00 pm after the Laser Tag room is put in order to make room for additional parking. Besides the usual clusters of folks on smoking break and bands loading in and out, there’s some good grilling going on. The members of The Hound are quite generous with their grillage, utilizing the innovative technique of liberally applying beer to any burger that may show signs of being overcooked.

Since most of the bands get approximately 20-25 minutes for their sets, As Long As We’re All Living We’re All Dying and The Hound choose to maximize their time in the limelight by playing simultaneously on the Laser Tag stage, alternating songs until their last two, where they all play together. This is some seriously heavy mosh metal being doled out; it’s hard to tell for sure, cowering behind one of the obstacles along the wall meant to protect one during a session of laser tag, but it appeared as though someone was actually doing cartwheels through the center of the churning pit. The havoc takes a toll on their equipment; Jonah from ALAWALWAD keeps knocking over his drum kit as he scrambles to the floor to dance/thrash during The Hound’s songs, and multiple guitar strings get broken. The Hound’s vocalist, Tif, has her mic cut out often enough that she ends up singing into two mics at once, which is a powerful visual image befitting her mighty, hoarse bellow. That the room is lit by the blacklight images on the walls and carpet adds a crowning, surreal touch to the wild sonic mayhem in, yes, the Laser Tag room.

All in all, the event is quite well run, with bands basically keeping to their allotted time; although the diversity in bands presented practically guarantees that anyone in attendance might find at least one of the bands repulsive, no excessive heckling or visible confrontations break out. After seven hours, having seen only 19 of the 38 bands scheduled, I call it quits and head for home. Perhaps this Smashachusetts festival shows that planning and hard work can make a diverse day of music run smoothly, even in a goddamn roller rink. (Weth)

LADY OF SPAIN, BLANKETEER, TRYST

The Abbey Lounge, Somerville, MA 9/29/05

Tryst are playing when I arrive. They have apparently just started, as they play for about seven more hours after I arrive. Or maybe it just seems that way. I’m sad for them, because they’re not really bad at all. It’s just really boring. I hate the reflexive sexism that I seem to default to in a situation like this, but I can’t help thinking of them as Five Musicians in Search of a Testicle. (Seriously, the sexes of the various band members have nothing to do with this. It’s strictly metaphorical balls that are missing here.) All the songs sound like they could be Billy Joel songs. There’s noodly one-hand keyboard parts slathered like margarine all over everything. The pretty backing vocals from the rhythm section would be a huge plus if everything weren’t already too pretty. I literally cannot keep my attention on the stage even when I try.

I enjoy Blanketeer much more. Now, when you break it down, they sort of employ similar elements. Guitar and keyboards share lead duties, and there’s even another all-female rhythm section. (These women, however, rock.) They’re also fairly poppy songs. But there’s some passion in the playing, and some elements that give it all some guts. More distortion in the guitar sound, and the singer’s voice is kind of freaky, with a bit of a Robert Smith yowling quality that sets off the melodies well. The keyboard lines are more driving and percussive, and that rhythm section is awesome. They are a fine repository for my grateful attention.

And then we continue our steady journey into the darker and gutsier with my beloved Lady of Spain. It is my first time seeing them since May (!), and also my first time seeing them with their new drummer. It’s unfair, but probably inevitable, that I can’t consider him without comparing him to Allen, their former drummer, whose playing style matches my stylistic preferences so perfectly. So yes, I miss his crispness, the sparing use of the cymbals, and the heavy reliance on the toms instead. But considered objectively and on his own merits, the new guy is good, and a good fit for the band. They make a lot of use of my favorite eight-beat (3-3-2), which gives almost any song a self-propelled momentum that I love. I think Anna’s singing has gotten better in the months since I saw them last. It’s lost some of the shy fragility it used to have, and gets the melodies across better. Of course, the guitars are key, and their dark, brooding interplay is intact. Also, the sound for their set is fantastic; I can hear absolutely everything. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE UNDERDOGS, KETMAN

PA’s Lounge, Somerville, MA 10/12/05

Ketman is having their CD release party tonight. I am happy to get a copy of the CD, less happy to have missed Appomattox, and fairly unhappy to see that it’s a pretty sparsely attended show. The sound at PA’s is a lot better when there are more people in the room. So it’s a bit muddy tonight. This mostly weighs on the bass lines, which are fast and involved but a bit hard to discern here. The guitar is too quiet but has lots of good, sharp-edged moments, and the drummer doesn’t have to worry about sound quality: she’s fierce enough to cut through any mix. The vocals are surprisingly audible; the bassist’s amphetamine screams, the guitarist’s lovely croon, and the neat sections where they both shout in a weird sort of harmony.

The Underdogs have it even worse, sound-wise. At one point there are only seven audience members, and they have two guitars, so the sound is more busy and muddy. They remind me of Social Distortion in their basic formula: these are fundamentally pop songs, but played in a thick, grungy way and sung in a gravelly growl. There are occasional guitar squealies, but mostly it’s fast strumming that doesn’t fare well with the sound. All the playing is solid, and if I can’t make out a lot of detail, I also don’t want to deprive them of 28% of their audience, so we stay through the end of their set. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

ROH DELIKAT, PILES, PAPER THIN STAGES

Great Scott, Allston, MA 10/15/05

Paper Thin Stages haven’t played a show in a long time (well, excepting one in Providence a week ago that I didn’t go to), they have a passel of new songs to show off, and they’re releasing a 7″ with two of my favorite songs of theirs on it. I am, as we say in the Northeast, wicked psyched for this show. The new songs are great examples of the PTS artistic approach: veering, rhythmically advanced and tricky, and intensely structured. There is some strikingly great guitar on several of them, to go with the strikingly great bass and always complicated, always perfect drumming, and the drummer has a microphone now, which is new. It’s still the case that none of them really “sings” very often, as such, but three different voices shouting with and against each other provides an added degree of vocal interest. During several of the breaks between songs, they play patter prerecorded by Bill Littlefield , which adds an archly surreal element to the whole set. It also explains, somewhat elliptically, what several of the songs are about, which is nice.

Piles are not selling merch or debuting new songs. They will have to settle for brutalizing us with freaky, complicated, mostly instrumental rock. The nice thing about mostly instrumental rock is that I can get right up next to the stage and not worry about missing the vocals in the mix. Tonight’s set would seem to go off without a hitch, if they didn’t persist in calling attention to every mistake they make, no matter how small. It’s also kind of disturbing how much they beat each other up, verbally, onstage. I hope it’s at least partially played up for effect. But then, whatever it takes to produce the kind of precision jagged viciousness and fucked up rhythms of a Piles song is okay with me.

Roh Delikat start out with a very short, spacey bowed-guitar-and-looping segment that peters out when the bassist can’t come in. A small colloquy of gear nerds manages to get power restored to the bass amp, and the spaciness resumes, to be joined by the rhythm section. The rhythm section are good, solid and interesting, but my focus in this band is on the singer/guitarist, and in particular on the way her high, light voice, singing pretty pop songs, plays against her caustic, arty guitar work. There’s more bowing later on, and in between a lot of hard, incisive texture in her playing. It’s a good balance, and I’m disappointed when their set is cut rather short. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

THE VOLUME

The Middle East, Cambridge, MA 8/31/05

The Volume is debuting a new member tonight. They’re now a five-piece, having added a second singer/guitarist who actually handles most of the lead vocals now. This is potentially great news, as my only real problem with this band before was the weak vocals. (Not bad, exactly, just weak; hard to hear and without a lot of presence.) The new guy is a much stronger singer, and so the tunes, which are solid, come across better. The music is fairly dreamy psychedelia with a bit of a slinky groove in the rhythm section. Unfortunately, with the slightly more cluttered sound, it’s getting hard to hear the original singer’s guitar, and his playing is so strong and varied and unusual that I’d like to hear it emphasized more. (Steve Gisselbrecht)

We get lots of calls from bands asking for coverage of their live shows. Please be advised that shows are never assigned for review. Noise writers cover what they choose to attend.

 

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Live Show Picks

Thur Nov 1 CATBIRDS CD release
@ Johnny D’s, Somerville MA

Fri Nov 2 DON WHITE
@ Me & Thee Coffeehouse, Marblehead MA

Sat Nov 3 AIMEE MANN
@ Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA

Sat Nov 3 AMY BLACK BAND
@ Old Sloop Coffeehouse, Rockport MA

Sat Nov 3 ALDO ABREU
@ Longy School’s Auditorium, Boston MA

Sat Nov 3 GOZU Small Stone Records 2012 Boston Showcase
@ Radio, Somerville MA

Sat Nov 3 THE NEIGHBORHOODS
@ Blue Ocean Music Hall, Salisbury MA

Mon Nov 5 AEROSMITH
@ 1325 Comm. Ave. at 12:00 noon, Allston MA

Fri Nov 9 MUY CANSADO CD Release
@ the Middle East, Cambridge MA

Fri Nov 9 LIZ FRAME & THE KICKERS
@ Firehouse, Newburyport MA

Fri Nov 9  BUFFALO TOM Chris Toppin’s B-Day Bash
@ Midway, Jamaica Plain MA

Sat Nov 10 ULTRASONIC ROCK ORCHESTRA
@ the Regent Theatre, Arlington MA

Sat Nov 9 PERSONAL FINANCE
@ Slainte Wine Bar, Portland ME

Sat Nov 10 JOE YOUNG
@ Brew’d Awakening Coffeehaus, Lowell MA

Sat Nov 10 BRITANNICA
@ Spotlight Tavern, Beverly MA

Sat Nov 10 G. LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE
@ State Theatre, Portland ME

Sat Nov 10 HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE
@ House of Blues, Boston MA

Tues Nov 13 INTERNATIONAL STRING TRIO CD Release
@ Sculler’s Jazz Club, Boston MA

Wed Nov 14 JULIE DOUGHERTY Hail the Hosts
@ In A Pig’s Eye, Salem MA

Thur Nov 15 ALASTAIR MOOCK Woody Guthrie tribute
@ Club Passim, Cambridge MA

Thur Nov 15 ERIN HARPE & THE DELTA SWINGERS
@ Red Rock Bistro, Swampscott MA

Thur Nov 15 BRIAN CHARLES International Pop Overthrow
@ Precinct, Somerville, MA

Fri Nov 16 GIRLS GUNS & GLORY
@ Me & Thee Coffeehouse, Marblehead MA

Fri Nov 16 Fishing the Sky CD Release
@ O’Brien’s Pub, Allston, MA

Sat Nov 17 BIRD MANCINI
@ Cat in the Cradle Coffeehouse, Byfield MA

Sat Nov 17 EDDIE JAPAN CD Release
@ Lizard Lounge, Cambridge MA

Sat Nov 17 BAG O’ NAILS
@ Quan’s, Hanover MA

Sat Nov 17 FOX PASS
@ Rosebud, Somerville MA

Sat Nov 17 LOVEWHIP
@ the Stone Church, Newmarket NH

Sat Nov 17 MARK ERELLI & JEFFREY FOUCAULT
@ Old Sloop Coffeehouse, Rockport MA

Sun Nov 18 (1-4pm) A Cappella Armageddon 
@ the Middle East, Cambridge MA

Wed Nov 21 (and every Wednesday) FLY AMERO
@ Rhumb Line, Gloucester MA

Fri Nov 23 FACES IN THE FLOOR
@ the Cantab, Cambridge MA

Fri Nov 23 NRBQ
@ Blue Ocean Music Hall, Salisbury MA

Fri Nov 23 THE BANDIT KINGS
@ Dog Bar, Gloucester MA

Sat Nov 24 Dost  Hear Now Live
@ Precinct, Somerville MA

Sat Nov 24 THE FOOLS
@ Blue Ocean Music Hall, Salisbury MA

Sat Nov 24 DRAW THE LINE (Aerosmith Tribute)
@ Showcase Live, Foxboro MA

Sun Nov 25 (4:00) PSYCHO
@ the Midway, Jamaica Plain MA

Thur Nov 29 ANAIS MITCHELL
@ Iron Horse, Northampton, MA

Thur Nov 29 DINOSAUR JR.
@ State Theatre, Portland ME

Fri Nov 30 THE BOYLSTON COLLECTIVE
@ the Cantab, Cambridge MA

Sat Nov 31 ANAIS MITCHELL
@ One Longfellow Square, Portland ME

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TELAMOR

Olex Music

Straight Shots                         

12 tracks

“Every normal man,” said H.L. Mencken, “must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Quite so. The opening track, “To the Barricades,” doesn’t have the same anthemic power as, say, Steppenwolf’s “Monster,” though one has to admire the quixotic impulse behind this genuinely frustrated rant. This 2014 collection by Tom Hauck, formerly of The Atlantics and Ball & Pivot, has at least a few smart, conventional rock songs. Here we find a song like “She’s Bad,” which conforms so well to the standard rock template that it approaches the canonical. “Nowhere to Hide” is picture-perfect proto punk rock in the Pebbles/ Nuggets mode. “I Ain’t Superstitious” is full of sneering attitude on top of an angular riff: “I went to the fortune teller/ She said ‘Your future’s all used up.” Even the riff on the ill-advised foray into rap, “We Got What It Takes,” approaches the monumental. (Francis DiMenno)
…

NONPAREILS

Album of World’s Champions

 

11 tracks

These dudes compare themselves to The Replacements and Hüsker Dü in their cheat sheet, which is just fucking crazy. I mean, I’m no Lester Bangs either, fellas, so let’s just pace ourselves a little. This actually has more of a Dinosaur Jr wobble to me, and the rootsy, early ’90s alt-rock bliss they’re reaching for sounds more like pop-punk than anything else. But all that’s fine. Weezer and The Descendants are good too, right? Lotsa hooks popping left and right, especially on “It Doesn’t Matter Anyway,” which is sort of a bummed-out “Buddy Holly” (the Weezer song, not the dude). The real gamer-changer, though, is “High Crimes” a really lovely ’60s pop jangler. It’s real good. It’s not fucking Pleased To Meet Me, but you can see skinny dudes really rocking out to this record. Produced by Marc Valois of The Blinders, currently the third best band in town, so that’s something. He does a good job. Likes doing stereo pans with the guitars. That’s always fun. Would blow your mind if they still made albums in Quadrophonic sound.                     (Sleazegrinder)
…

THE WRONG SHAPES

 

GirlBoyGirlBoy

Reverse the Phase

10 tracks

The air of Baudelaire’s dark blooms, a heavy lacing of The Jesus And Mary Chain, and shadow of The Velvet Underground. Stir slowly  rhythmically, blending well. Pour into a cauldron of avant garde electro. Wait, listen, see what happens. A recipe for shiny, black, candy apples lurks within these songs. Dark, strange, and sweetly alluring.

The Wrong Shapes consist of Bo Barringer on guitar, vocals, and beats, and Rachel Barringer’s vocals and cello. The two are clearly very much in sync with each other. At time the songs have the feel of an intimate bond, a shared secret known only to them.

I like the title track, “Reverse The Phase.” It flows smoothly, and is relaxing and euphoric. Trippy instrumentals enhance the trance effect, and it’s good dance music.“Easily Swayed,” brings Bryan Ferry’s silky style to mind, so Roxy Music fans should enjoy this track. Rachel Barringer’s cello dominates in “A Thousand Orchids,” backed by a riot of sounds which play like electronic fireflies, and chant-like vocals throughout.

The BIG winner for me however, is the much simpler, down to earth,“Alright, Alright.”  Wow… I really love this one. This track is cool, a ’60s retro sounding song reminiscent of summer nights made for fun, dancing, and making out, all while beneath the light of the moon. I dare you to refrain from swaying a bit to this one! It’s playful! While the CD is good, I really do wish there had been a lot more songs done in the spirit of this one on it.

This is a fascinating mix of elements and tracks, and the chemistry between Bo and Rachel does create some magical alchemy which is evident in the music. It’s not for everyone by any means, but if you feel like checking out something different, then wait no more. Come get your strange on. You just might like it.    (R.J. Ouellette)
…

SKUNKY ROOSTER

Buskers’ Blusterade                

13 tracks

Skunky Rooster is basically a collaboration between guitarist Scott Rath and drummer Seth Pappas who were originally in the band Zachariah from 1975-1980. These cats were mainly a Cambridge and South Shore gigging group but opened up for a lot of southern rock artists, at The Paradise whenever they came to town. This passionately played project, with clear and strong influences from Tom Petty, Warren Zevon, Rory Gallagher’s slide, and The Kinks, is very tight and their sound is mainly rock with hard rock, alt. country, and blues. It just rocks! Seth has a long history gigging with Barrence Whitfield & The Savages and The James Montgomery Band; Scott is a vet of Ginger Baker’s band when he was out on the Left Coast many moons ago. They are involved with the production on all the cuts and some of the mixing is done by Ducky Carlisle at Ice Station Zebra in Medford so the sound is crystal clear from the first song to the last, and the music jumps out of your speakers like it should. To fill out their rocking ensemble, local legends David Hull (The James Montgomery Band) and Dean Cassell (Johnny A’s Hearts On Fire) play bass and Tom West (Peter Wolf And The Midnight Travelers) on keys successfully join the mix.

I really dig the opener “Cross The Great Divide,” a real radio-friendly Americana tune, with its jangling beat, Hull’s pounding bass, and nice harmonies. “Stand Strong” could be in Tom Petty’s set list and Seth’s great drumming really drives the rhythm section. “Somewhere Between Lost And Found” could be in Warren Zevon’s catalog and has both nice slide and lead guitar playing by Scott. “Gambling On Memories” also has some nice slide work and is one of two tunes where I really like Tom West’s keyboards. It’s an uptempo R&B melody featuring great bar-room piano. West’s organ work on the Bluesier “The Lie” is also noteworthy. My favorite cut is the self-titled “Skunky Rooster” where David Hull puts down tracks playing rhythm guitar—which is the first time in my life I have ever heard him put down his four strings and switch to six. And he’s pretty good. This song is a rollicking bar-room romp showcasing all the top level musicians who play on it. With solid vocals on all the cuts, this band should go on the road and duplicate this recording live and onstage. Great music folks, give it a listen.      (A.J. Wachtel)
…

PJ ROGUE                             

Standing in Front of the World   

14 tracks

PJ Rogue has an easy-going voice reminiscent of Jimmy Buffett. He likens his love to the struggle of the salmon in the song “Spawning Ground”: “He has spent a life of slumber seldom waking in his dream/ Now he fights with every fiber, tries to make his way upstream.” His humor comes through in the last stanza where he says, “Will I end up in your spawning ground or will I end up on some dinner plate?”

“Dirty Feet” is a rhythmic Caribbean tune that makes you want to get up and wiggle across the dance-floor wearing a grass skirt with a little coconut and tropical fruit drink in your hand. “Don’cha need clean feet for your dreams?” Of course we do. “Keeper of the Flame” continues with the island feeling, only this is a plea for the sake of those who take responsibility. He has passionate-voiced ladies singing back- up. I can see them in my mind with their dance moves in unison, feminine dresses and  goddess-like harmonies. Switch on the rotating dance-floor globe for “The Promise,” which is a slow dance number, mmmmm, cheek to cheek, with that saxophone, written like a Platters tune, or that Tommy Edwards tune, “All In The Game,” PJ croons “I’m gonna love you for the rest of my days…” Snuggle, dip, and kiss… ahhh. “Violet Supreme” is a sweet little song rolling along on the back of a harmonica about camping and mixing up the last of the food on hand for a meal.

“The Color Green” is a lament about the ruin of nature. It features a gorgeous violin all through it.

He wrote a sea chantey called “Whales of Stellwagen” that mourns the dropping whale population.

“Fresh Feet” must be the antidote song to “Dirty Feet.” This utterly original and silly tune is my favorite song on the album and is a love song for his cat. “Each and every morning you wake up and yawn and groan/ stumble to your shower where you sing that dreadful song/ I try to cheer you up in my own way/ so I’m crouching by the curtain waiting for my break/ Fresh feet fresh feet, so juicy and so sweet, it’s your feet I like to eat./ You’re my favorite past time/ my special morning treat/ fresh feet fresh feet/ When you sip your coffee, on your foot is where I’ll be/ when your tootsies rub on my belly you can have your way with me.” This song bounces along with a joyous Django Reinhardt/ Stefan Grapelli style kind of tune, with that wonderful violin again played by Matt Leavenworth. “Lady of Marble” is another beautiful tribute to a misunderstood sculptor living in Scotland.

The final song, “Standing in Front of the World,” is a heart on the sleeve song of a love-centered man who has written and performed his music with trepidation. “What is this fear that shakes my bones? Where does it come from? Where does it go?” The song confesses lost dreams, a disappointed uncle, and traumas that haunt our pained bodies. I’m so glad PJ made the effort to write, sing, perform, record and create this album. It takes guts to follow a calling to be an artist, and this song made me cry. The charming and colorful cover art was designed by Connie Barbour—the little designs and messages of gratitude all point to the fact that PJ Rogue is someone who deeply appreciates his family and friends.  Every song radiates a warm regard for life. Seems to me PJ should glow in the warmth of his music. I know I do. Seth Connelly is at the helm with masterful production skills, with Eric Kilburn helping to produce this home run.    (Kimmy Sophia Brown)
…

SETH GLIER            

MPress Records

If I Could Change One Thing    

12 tracks

I’m too simple to avoid making a joke based on this album’s title, so here goes: If I could change one thing about thing about this recording it’s that I would ditch the often maudlin ballads and let Glier unleash the dance pop idol that is clearly bursting to get out.  Upon listening to the more upbeat numbers, I could easily envision hearing Glier on pop radio in between Justin Timberlake and Adam Levine.  His warm and expressive tenor certainly is impressive throughout, showcasing the kind of chaste sex appeal that has catapulted many to stardom.  But ultimately, too many songs slog along, which makes listening to the full album in one sitting kind of a chore.           (Kevin Finn)
…

STEVE CARAWAY

Upon This Rock                        

12 tracks

Steve Caraway is a dynamite pop songwriter. Maybe not on the Sedaka level, but he’d certainly give, say, Rupert Holmes* a run for his money.  And like any great pop writer, he slithers in and out of genres like a midnight prowler, a chameleon in an off-the-rack blazer, adept at creating a reasonable facsimile of whatever button you punch on the jukebox. Upon This Rock’s got it all, really: blues, power-pop, country, gospel-lite, even some chunky classic rock. But, I mean, do you want it all? Do you eat spaghetti with pancakes and wash it down with a kale smoothie? No, of course not. You’re not some kind of fucking nut. So I’m not sure this sonic bouillabaisse works as a cohesive unit. Individually, though, “Big Star” (yep, a Chilton homage) is so gorgeously chewy you’ll want to sink your teeth directly into the CD, “Don’t Leave” is a great piano-banging ’80s power-popper, “Justine” is slathered in the same delicious ache that fuels The Smithereens, and “Candy” is the kinda thing Darryl Hall might do if he joined The Archies. All this good stuff is sandwiched in-between pop-country crooners and Hornsby-esque piano ballads so you’ll have to prune diligently for the rocking stuff, but it’s worth the hunt.       (Sleazegrinder)
* C’mon man, the Pina Colada song—“Escape”!
…

MONUMENT THIEF

Your Castle Comes Down      

13 tracks

Jeremy Withers and Bill Paukert have a long history of making music together, but their latest project, Monument Thief, is probably their most direct and forward-thinking act to date. The band’s trademark sound is a fresh blend of pure and uncompromising rock ’n’ roll that borrows eclectically from the vast vernacular of the genre, incorporating elements of punk, hard rock and alternative.

One of the most interesting things about Your Castle Comes Down is that it allows listeners to take a peek into the kaleidoscopic song-writing sensibilities of the band. Tracks such as “Every Time” or “A Scene” are as gritty and punchy as early Nirvana, while songs the likes of “All On Me” or “Endless Debut” showcase the band’s ability to create memorable melodies, unlike artists such as The Cure or R.E.M.

Your Castle Comes Down is a classic-sounding yet remarkably diverse album that truly makes for an engaging and intriguing listening experience for fans of alternative music spanning all ages and currents.                       (Marc Friedman)
…

BEN CARR MUSIC PROJECT                                                

Ben Carr Music

Unyielding                                 

11 tracks

In all honesty, I just didn’t “get” this one. While much of it was good and original in a technical aspect, this CD and I quite simply had a personality conflict. The band is eclectic with multi-cultural influences. Any time you hear progressive use of a ukele , that’s a given. That’s a good thing. What is not a good thing is the degree and breadth to which they are influenced. This made the CD feel a bit all over the place, never settling into any particular groove for me to groove to.

I could not connect with this music. It touched my ears, but regrettably, never came close to touching my soul. Track four, “Together,” is a ska/reggae fusion song with a boppy feel and a slight hints of techno, exotic percussion, a really nice saxophone, and piercingly hot guitar work. It has a great dance floor vibe.

Perhaps they’’d benefit by defining themselves more clearly and pulling in the reins on the myriad directions into which they venture. Significantly commit to one or two genres as instead of so many. In terms of connection, I’m left with a “jack of all trades, master of none” feeling.

I wish I had more informative input to share, but having listened, I am left with a large question mark hanging over my head.      (R.J. Ouellette)
…

THE ALMIGHTY BUCK

So Long                                        

5 tracks

The Almighty Buck plays a brand of mellow, rootsy country-rock in a field of such bands that seems to be getting more crowded by the day.  The music is pleasant but unremarkable and melodic without being overly memorable.  In short, they come off as Wilco on sedatives, providing a nice background for your Sunday chores.  The one thing that stands out on this record is the drumming on “Orbit,” which sounds like someone bashing on a tin can.  More of these left field moments would go a long way.    (Kevin Finn)
…

JARVALAND & THE SHARKBAG

New Amerika                             

3 tracks

The dizzy brainchild of vocalist/ guitarist Jessica Jarva and everything else-r Travis Long. “New Amerika” is a woozy stumble through a groovy cough syrup weekend, a gloppy first-person narrative about walking around stoned and/ or with a potentially fatal fever. It’s like Jessica’s trying to remember her favorite Bob Dylan songs, but she’s wildly hallucinating the whole time. Or like Nico ditched The Velvets and traded them in for The Flaming Lips back when they were writing songs about Jesus doing dope. This might be the most narcotic record I’ve heard in years. I mean, there’s a good chance you’re gonna end up in rehab if you listen to the whole EP in one sitting. Apparently a whole album is on the way. That’s definitely gonna kill a few people.                   (Sleazegrinder)
…

MERCURY ON MARS

Be the One    

4 tracks

With an album cover reminiscent of fuzzy vintage sci-fi and a blend of catchy alternative rock, Boston-based Mercury on Mars sets out to deliver Be the One, a fun EP where their idea of music unfolds over four tracks.

The band’s thick guitar-oriented sonic layers are at the forefront of the picture, as the chunky riffs and flamboyant leads are reminiscent of some of the work of artists such as Dinosaur Jr, Armchair Martian or Archers of Loaf, just to name a few.

Unlike the aforementioned bands, Mercury on Mars does not feel as gloomy and introspective, preferring to drive their melodies in a more uplifting and upbeat direction, unleashing a blend of energy in the vein of popular newcomers such as Cloud Nothings or Wavves. The good balance between melody and aggressiveness is always very spot-on, as the band carefully bounces on and off from raw power to ear-worm triggering hooks that will immediately have you bobbing your head and tapping your feet. (Marc Friedman)
…

MARY CROWE

Rebound                                    

12 tracks

When I hear this album, I can’t help thinking of cocktail music, for the songs mostly hearken back to an older style, pre-rock and roll, characteristic of the 1940s. The opening track, “Rebound Blues,” sets the tone for this highly personal collection: quavery, pleasantly theatrical vocals full of character and spunk, backed by impeccable accompaniment. “Late Winter Blues” is a gentle, bluesy melody with a tasteful guitar solo by Mark Michaels, part of The Lincoln Hill Trio, also consisting of Evelyn Harris on piano and J.J. Althouse on bass. The most bravura vocal performance: “Love is a Crazy Thing.” Best of show: “If Hope is Your Religion….” Most affecting (and memorable) song: “Hold On/ Let Go.”     (Francis DiMenno)
…

JOHN AND RACHEL NICHOLAS

Here You Are                            

10 tracks

John and Rachel Nicholas, are all about passion. I hear it in the harmony of their voices and in the music and  lyrics they write. They lived on Cape Cod for a long time and are now in Camden, Maine. I saw them last summer at the Swans Island Sweet Chariot Festival. I noticed that John was frequently playing guitar for others, as well as singing back up along with Rachel. She has a great stage presence. I loved watching her dance moves, putting her whole lovely self into it.

I get the sense that they see their music as a chance to serve. Their music carries the social conscience and rock ’n’ roll hearts of artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Brown.

“Here You Are” is a plea to live in the moment: “Here you are, you’re a knock on the door/ Here you are, you’re crossing the floor/ Here you are, you sink in your chair/ Here you are with that far-away stare/ Here you are you’re telling stories/about your long ago once-upon glories/ If you could just see that you’ve come this far/ Oh here you are.”

“America It’s You” is a patriotic love song, recognizing the value and beauty of the United States, historic warts and all: “I’m gazing at your hills and the mountains carved long ago/ At the trail of tears that runs bitter/ And the shadows black as a crow/ It’s quiet out on the prairie/ And the memories shimmer like dew/ Oh America, America, America it’s you.”

“People like Us” is a theme about people who are always pinching pennies, juggling bills, trying to survive—a state of being many of us can relate to.

“Everything I Need” is a song about reaching the maturity of adulthood, embodying gratitude and putting life’s trials in perspective: “I spend my life always wanting for this, waiting for that/ Trying to be everywhere but where I’m at/ Oh, but here’s my resolution, my evolution/Going to see with new eyes that love is the prize/ Gonna stop wasting time now I realize/ I’ve got everything that I want/ This is my highest creed/ I’ve got every single thing that I want/I’ve got everything that I need.”

“Hold On” is the Nicholas’s version of “You’ve Got a Friend” or “Bridge Over Troubled Water”: “I know doubt calls your name when you’re seeing through fear/ I wish strength had a voice that would speak in your ear/ If patience were stars I’d show you the vault of night/ If troubles were stones I’d lift yours with all my might.”

In the liner notes they write: “Some things happen in their own time. Along the way we, like everyone else have felt the unvarnished glory of life – and death. From light to dark, dark to light we make our way. We navigate as best we can.”

Their voices blend beautifully, almost like emerging from the same throat. It must be because they’ve been in love and making music for over thirty years. There is an earnest and idealistic soul in their songs, full of longing, with poetic lines like “When birds fly away they take their songs.”John and Rachel are songbirds, giving of their hearts because they must.         (Kimmy Sophia Brown)
…

PAUL TAIT

Full 88                                        

10 tracks

Tait’s been at it for decades. Full 88 hits the bins with a far-reaching discography behind it, dozens of releases spanning 30-something years. While I know this to be true, I have not actually heard any of it, so I can only go by what’s on display here. Basically Full 88 sounds like the work of a hetero Jobriath—theatrical and glammy, but with a workmanlike tidiness to it all. It’s driven by piano and feels like something Dennis DeYoung might do if Kilroy never took off and he was resigned to community theater. It’s definitely not my kinda thing, but if you’ve ever attended any production of Jesus Christ Superstar anywhere and actually liked it, you’ll probably dig this.    (Sleazegrinder)
…

NEW PILOT

The Great American Tooth   

16 tracks

The band saves its best of show for the opening salvo, “Loneliest of Ways,” which is a phenomenal slow burner interspersed by wildly evocative fast sections. What remains is also variegated: rock which runs the gamut from 90s grunge (“We’re Gonna Break” to a rousing and excellent reggae-rock hybrid (“Step Into My Fingers”). In spite of the home studio recording, the first few songs are gratifyingly slickly mastered and well-crafted. Many of the remaining songs are forays into more stretched out and idiosyncratic forms which are not always quite so resonant. The raga-like “The News” seems to owe a good deal of its essential feel to Nirvana, as does “1994.” “Battle Cries” is a real mixmaster of a song, replete with distinct sections, including a brief nod to reggae, which is also the default mode of “First of All,” which is fueled by funk bass and fuzztone, courtesy of Matt Soper and Kevin Outland. “World Like a Wheel” is a nifty little anthem with a memorably nagging guitar line. “Tan Mom” is nothing less than a balls-out rock and roll instrumental. The memorable “What We Never Knew” is an anthemic and charming anti-lullaby. “Hey Girl” is a pleasant folk snippet. “Home By Home” is an enigmatic, minimalistic homily: “Your gestures of madness are logically sound.” This is a band which is bursting with energy and enough musical ideas for two albums. I hope they’re around for a long time. Recommended. (Francis DiMenno)
…

ASHLEY JORDAN

Nothing in Doubt                    

12 tracks

First of all, I’m one guy. Pop country is the dominant musical preoccupation for grown-ups in the U.S. these days. 50,000 Jason Aldean fans can’t be wrong, right? But I just don’t get how it’s even considered “country” in any traditional sense. It doesn’t even sound like Glenn Campbell or Kenny Rogers, never mind Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings. Am I crazy? All this bullshit just sounds like Bon Jovi in cowboy boots. It’s music for people who are gonna die young because Walmart won’t pay for their health insurance. I don’t get it. So anyway, Ashley Jordan. Boston might as well have its own pop-country queen, and she certainly fits the bill. Young, beautiful, with the honeyed voice of an East Coast angel. She’s got a song about the marathon bombing (“New England Tears”) that is either eye-rolling or deeply-moving, depending on your tolerance level for such things, an opening stomper about boozin’ and carousin’ (“Drink Some Whiskey”), and many, many bittersweet love ballads. She’s a solid guitar player and the songs are as good as anything currently playing on The Bull. If you lean towards this kind of music, it’s a winner. If you lean towards Tammy Wynette, hardcore alcoholism, bitter divorce battles or chain-smoking, go back to 1972 where you belong. I’ll meet you there.                          (Sleazegrinder)
…

DOUGLAS DAY

Barefoot to the Sea                  

13 tracks

On the idyllic cover photo of his album Barefoot to the Sea, athletic and handsome Douglas Day of Camden, Maine, is gripping a guitar in one hand while leaping above ocean waves. My first listen to this CD was on an hour drive to a meeting thinking I was going to hear some folk music. I wasn’t prepared for the first song entitled, “Inauguration Day,” about the poem Maya Angelou read at Bill Clinton’s inauguration twenty some years ago. It starts out with a spirit-filled gospel choir that wells up into a joyous, heart-splitting crescendo: “Evohe, I’m glad she came, to call upon the God of many names.” I started crying. I pushed the repeat button three times and cried all three times. I wondered, what does Evohe mean? Collins Dictionary says it means, “Exclamation” or “Exclamation of Bacchic frenzy.” This is an extraordinary hymn and  Doug delivers it with a beautiful, bold male voice that I could listen to all day.

“License to Go Crazy” is about a girl he saw at a contra-dance who wore out seven partners and never stopped dancing. There are also a handful of straight-forward, very nice major-key love songs.

The second exceptional gem is “Just Love,” which is about arriving in Manhattan where he was to live for five years. I love when Doug elevates his volume and vocal register in the second line of the chorus: “And I love, I love, I love, I love/um um um/ Oh yes, I love, I love, I love, I love, I just love.” His heart is full of hope and joy an the feeling is contagious. This one made me cry too.

“My Bleecker Street” is lovely and jazzy, beautifully executed, with help from the excruciatingly talented Suzy Williams.

The other stand-out song is “The Curve Above the Door” written for Gamble Rogers, a friend and mentor who worked with wood, boats, built houses and made music. The opening line talks about the thought that goes into placing a door when building a house, in regard to the elements, space, light, and weather: “And here I build a house to last beyond my lifetime/ and try to tell a story to last a hundred years or more./ I build it in the memory of a man of understanding,/ bear with me if I labor on about the curve above the door.”

“Modern Gypsies in Milan” is an insightful look at children driven to crime all over the world, and the prayer for better times for the children of the future.

The album is expertly assembled and produced with superlative backup singers and musicians. Doug should be proud of this album, it is uplifting and creative. (Kimmy Sophia Brown)
…

CAMERON SUTPHIN    

Black Cowboy Hat Records

My Guitar and Me                  

20 tracks

The danger in putting out an album with 20 tracks on it is that it greatly increases the odds of showing your warts.  In small doses, you might not notice that, as the title implies, a lot of the songs are about guitars and what Sutphin does with them.  You might not notice the distracting high-end sparkle to his guitar.  You might not notice how flat and unexpressive his voice is, and you might not notice how dourly self-serious and cliché-ridden a lot of the lyrics are.  But alas, you do notice all those things, and you find yourself wishing Sutphin had hired an editor.                             (Kevin Finn)
…

JO HENLEY

Around These Parts                

10 tracks

These guys are great. The ease and grace of their playing comes through like a live performance in the spirited little guitar riffs, and the subtle touches of mandolin and banjo. I’m heartened by the love for earth expressed in the song “The Last Monkey Maker”: “We can tar all our hillsides with roads/ Turn our art into binary codes/ You can’t know where you’re going/ If you don’t know what you left behind/ When the last monkey maker leaves town.”

“Deep in the Dirt” is a sad lament about love and loss, with wonderful vocal support by Hayley Sabella. “Under your knees/ As you free your garden of weeds/ The sky shines in my face/ Under your weight/I feel the ache of your hurt/ And I hear your remorse/ Deep in the Dirt.” “Jericho” flies along under a ripping melody supported with mandolin and impassioned vocal. “I want your love/ I need your love.” Those words have been in many songs; I feel them in this one. Fear is a theme that can find solace in a song. “Wait til May” speaks of some sort of tragic event and the way adults cope. “But we’re alright/ We’re okay/ I tell myself/ We’ll find a way/ The sun will burn away the night/ Wait til May with me tonight.” I wonder if it’s about the Boston Marathon bombing. Hayley Sabella sings on this one as well. I feel like I’ve heard “One More Night” before, even though I haven’t. It has that kind of epic rock sound like The Band or Creedence Clearwater Revival. “I’ve got a chip as big as Brooklyn/ On my shoulder/ I don’t want to hear/ There’s more to life than this/ Next week I’ll pick myself up by my bootstraps/ But tonight/ I’m full of vinegar and piss.”

There is a lot of heart in this CD, culminating in “Around These Parts”: “Dear Katie/ I’m settling in/ Winter’s here and I’m probably drinking/ More than one man should when he’s alone/ Come spring I’ll be hard to find/ I’m moving ’cross the Canadian side and I’m never coming home/ Around these parts I call home.” This album moves along with ardent vocals and guitar playing, telling stories of human life.                       (Kimmy Sophia Brown)
…

SUNSHINE RIOT

Black Coffee Sigh                     

12 tracks

Second album from these local scruffs. I feel like some of the press these guys get confuses the issue. This band does not play Americana, and they sure as fuck don’t sound like Johnny Cash or Gaslight Anthem. Most of the time they sound like a jam band, occasionally like cowpunk, and on “Drunken Love” they sound like The Lemonheads. Even on their grittiest tracks (“Dead Baby Cocaine Blues,” “Road Runner”), they sound more like ’90s alterna-grunge than anything else. If I were writing their press release, I’d say “For fans of The Fluid and maybe Third Eye Blind and some jamband bullshit and maybe The Flesheaters once in a while.” That probably wouldn’t help their cause, but at least it’d be fucking accurate. Not a bad record, but the goofy humor that runs throughout—the closer is called “Gramma Queefed a Football” for chrissakes—is kinda annoying and really, it all just sounds like you turned into a Canadian alt-rock radio station in 1995. Everything sounds sorta familiar, just not as good as you remember.            (Sleazegrinder)
…

FOLKAPOTMUS    

Phatcat Records

Whispered Words                    

12 tracks

I would be lying if I said that I am a fan of this type of folk music, but Folkapotamus is among some iconic company when speaking of performers within this somber genre. Indeed, the beautiful legend, Joan Baez lives “here.” “Here,” is a place of somber resignation to the entanglement of life’s pain and beauty.

To be fair, I commend the guitar and vocals of Penni Hart, as well as Toney Trite’s acoustic and electric bass and vocals. Also, Eric Kilborn contributes some nicely played mandolin, harmonica, and resonator guitar, while Jackie Damsky lends some lilting violin touches.

I adore the magnificent rendition of Guy Clark’s “Magnolia Wind,” more bluegrass to my ears. Between the mandolin, melody, and impeccable harmony, lyrics, I never stood a chance. It stole my heart away and if the only way to have it was to buy the entire CD, I would.

“Still Standing” has some nicely turned, well written lyrics, beautifully orchestrated instrumentals, and is a perfect vehicle for Penni Hart’s voice— a welcome bright note. Justice is well served to Paul Simon’s “April Come She Will.” The music is really good, worthy of a glowing review if you are a fan of this type of music.

My big problem with this kind of music is the black corner into which, so many of these performers paint themselves. I’d be happy to hear their talent move beyond that shadow of melancholia. There is an avid following for this music, and to those fans, I heartily recommend this CD.        (R.J. Ouellette)

 

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T-Max and Co., thanks so much for taking the time to give the new Jo Henley album Around These Parts a listen and including a review in your latest issue! And thank you for your endless support of local music!

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WALTER SICKERT & THE ARMY OF BROKEN TOYS
Casualty Menagerie
6-song CD
Having been a fan for many years, I have looked forward to this CD ever since I heard their dark, brooding, eerie debut.  Walter and Edrie’s shows are always about demented spectacle, twisted torment, and dark beauty.  This CD is a quantum leap from the low-fi, late night bedroom ethic of their previous recordings.  This latest release couldn’t be a more complete picture of the psychotic torment going on in the mind of Walter Sickert.  If their last recording gave you any glimpse of the dark psyche of this band, this new recording will draw you in and keep you there until Stockholm syndrome takes over and you can’t bear the thought of leaving… ever.  The genie is out of the bottle.  There is no going back.  You must own this record and be part of the demented spectacle.  This CD will alter your perception and change your life.  I couldn’t recommend this more highly.   (Joel Simches)

AFRO DZ AK
Gnawledge Records
Elevation
12-song CD
Is it possible to be too positive? It might sound crazy, but Afro DZ ak does a fair enough job of raising the question on Elevation. Boasting song titles such as “Multidiversity” and “Brotherly Love,” DZ ak’s message is anything but subtle on Elevation, a disc that’s lyrically high on idealism and breezy in its soulful attitude. And while the feel good positivity borders on preachy at times, in a world that seems to be getting more maddeningly apeshit by the day, it’s not a bad problem to have. But the winning ingredient in this eclectic hip hop stew is the music. DZ ak colorfully loops soulful horns, organs, and other jazzy tidbits over beats that leave even the most discriminating of listeners susceptible to head bobbing.  (Ryan Bray)

THE VITAL MIGHT
Magma Music
Red Planet
10-song CD
The urge to create a concept album seems to come from one of two impulses: to impress the bejabers out of the hoi polloi, or as a desperation move. Well, color me impressed. The title track, “Phantom Spaceman,” sets the theme and gives us a taste of that old Genesis/King Crimson progginess, and “The Truth” is a remarkably catchy and appealing, if somewhat lyrically simplistic followup. But “City” knocks it out of the park: it’s lyrically superb and emotionally evincing. The turbulent and reverberant “Trouble” seems strategically placed to carry the story along, and the melancholy instrumental “Chime” is deftly positioned to slow it down. “Saturday,” with its overtones of U2-style grandeur, brings us back to the narrative. The echoic “Seasons” provides another interlude, and then comes the magnificent slow-to-ecstatic centerpiece “5 O’Clock.” The Metallaesque impetus of “Superstitious Wish” provides a climax of sorts, and the final track provides a somewhat ambiguous denouement. I do not completely buy into the premise of their high concept “rescue the fair maiden from Mobsters on Mars” premise, but one doesn’t have to. The music carries the theme along far more effectively than the backstory. And each individual song can be appreciated on its own terms and outside of any larger context.  I’m not sure whether this is a deathless classic, but it’s well and carefully planned, and I strongly suspect it might well be. Bravo.   (Francis DiMenno)

EVERYBODY OUT!
Taang!
Everybody Out!
12-song CD
Okay, first of all, it’s on Taang! Records, and if you’ve been paying any attention at all, you have at least some of idea of what that means—punk, a little ska, organic music that sounds like The Sound of Boston, regardless of where Taang!’s headquarters may be.  Everybody Out! features Rick Barton of the Dropkick Murphys, Sweeney Todd, frontman of Scottish band the Dead Pets, and Billy Close of the Freeze, and that should give you a rock-solid idea of what this is going to sound like.  Yup, you’ll get some mandolin, and some Pogues-y harmonies (without all the booze-soaked vibe)—in other words, the Boston-Irish punk thang that has propelled so many bands from level A to level B.  Just chill and don’t ask too many questions.  Let Taang! do what Taang! does, and kick back and enjoy the ride.  Bang your head, kick the kegs, smash some glass— nothing is out of line here, other than standing in the back of the room with your arms crossed.   (Tim Emswiler)

BURIED IN LEATHER
We Are Gone
8-song CD
I must say I just plain dig this band. They play no-frills hardcore/ rock, and I suspect they’re a ton o’ fun to see live. They remind me a lot of Every Time I Die. My favorite song of theirs is “No Ninjas”—it’s a got a great guitar line. “Beautiful Scars” is really fun and catchy too. Other than that, the rest of the songs all sound kind of the same, but that’s typical in this particular genre—the style just doesn’t allow for much variation. Regardless, if you like fast, fun hardcore, rock, or punk, this is definitely a band you should check out.   (Emsterly)

THE REX COMPLEX
The Rex Complex
6-song CD
This isn’t your typical rooty/storyteller record.  The Rex Complex is wired and full of angst and energy.  It’s off-kilter vibe reminds me of Tom Waits, but instead of drunk and ranting about whores and slaughterhouses at 3:00 am after the blood has been swept up from the barroom brawl, the band is heavily caffeinated and eager.  This is that band after driving in traffic, full of road rage, having been cut off and flipped off by bike messengers and ignorant Saab drivers on cell phones, and needing to pee really, really badly.  This CD rocks and slithers to it’s own kinetic cacophony with each song a character in a twisted story, punctuated by odd percussion and exotic noises.  I can’t possibly get enough of this. Please make more until my brain explodes.   (Joel Simches)

LED TO THE GRAVE
Led to the Grave
10-song CD
Sweet merciful Jesus.  Metal isn’t dead.  Led to the Grave offers up lightning-fast riffs, drums played by a hellish robot, vocals that are vicious without landing in Cookie Monster territory, and dynamics that swing easily from speed-freakish to gloomy in the drop of a heartbeat.  Make NO mistake–this is for metalheads only.  No hybrid or crossover—this is straight metal.  Yeah, you got your pinch-harmonics; basically you get exactly what you deserve from a band called Led to the Grave.  No false advertising.  No punches pulled.  If the third track, “BTK,” doesn’t convince you, then you are unconvinceable, and should probably stick with the new Keane album.  This will make your pets’ ears bleed, your neighbors call the cops, and your loved ones question your mental wellness.  What else can you ask for from quality metal?  Look, I’ve been listening to this kind of shit for years, and this is among the best of the best.  Any metal fan who isn’t proud to be from New England needs their ears vacuumed.  (Tim Emswiler)

LOVERLESS
Nothing Under the Sun
10-song CD
To be honest, this band was not what I expected at all. The album art is white with black text—as plain as can be. But the music isn’t plain at all—some of the songs border on epic, though they are so different from one another that each song sounds like a completely different band. I like “1942”—it reminds me of the Beatles at first, and then launches into a Journey-esque guitar solo.
Then there’s “Out of the Woods,” which sounds eerily like the ’90s Australian rock band Silverchair. “The Crown,” on the other hand, is a short but heart-wrenching acoustic ballad, while “Down with the Viceroy” is decidedly jazz. The variation between the songs is almost overwhelming. Despite this, all the songs are good—so good, in fact, that it leaves me wondering what these guys could accomplish if they stuck to one style and perfected it.   (Emsterly)

THE WELCH BOYS
I Scream Records
Drinkin’ Angry
18-song CD
Some interesting tonal and creative desire to become the greatest and most feared group of musicians sleeping alone in the underground fortress made of dirt and steel. All the songs are crafted with skillful arrangement and beautifully laid down harmonic intervals. Each track travels through time eventually causing a tear or two. I am most impressed by the backlashing interceptive lyrics that have you facing up against your own pent up angst. You will eventually become you own worst feared self. You will become dangerous in the eyes of others but you won’t be able to understand your own faults. At first you realize it’s wrong but you get yourself so deep into the act that you become what you have created which is musical but can also be dangerous or delusional. Then you realize that you have to defend yourself against the common enemy be it your friend or your disgruntled neighbor. You find yourself doing the oddest things and getting into all sorts of interesting trouble.  Then you can barely walk and want to hide.   (Leonid)

THE DOOM BUGGIES
Doom Music for Dining
12-song CD
Strangely enough, the first three tracks on this collection of demos, out-takes and unreleased rarities—“Think Big,” “Mystified,” and “Rocket”—could (almost) fit quite snugly on the Vital Might’s newly-issued concept album, reviewed elsewhere in this column, even though all three of them were written in 1996. It’s not often that this happens. How else to explain it other than to speculate that at their very best, the Doom Buggies create timeless garage punk with themes so classically broad that one can see them sparkling even in a foreign setting. I’d like to say that all the songs on here are equally outstanding, but such is not the case. The trick to writing really good garage punk knock-offs is ingenuity, weirdness and brevity.
The desperate noise of “Blue Velvet” and the rampaging “Ledfoot” fit the bill; the other tracks are too long, or too murky, or too underdeveloped. But for a retrospective album of obscurities, five out of twelve is just fine.   (Francis DiMenno)

BILLY SHAKE
Look Away
11-song CD
I don’t know if Billy Shake is a person or a band; there’s no information whatsoever about instrumentation or production on this CD, apparently a home-reproduced copy. There’s no information on the web, either. Whatever it is, this CD is straight-up, beautifully written, played, and produced rock ’n’ roll that despite its 11 songs, clocks in at about 35 minutes. The vocalist has a slight Dave Pirner quality; actually, the whole CD kind of sounds like Soul Asylum developed an ’80s British influence.  Sort of, but not really—I know that doesn’t really help. Nonetheless, “When I was Young” does evoke a Brit-poppy sound with a bit of echo. “Stay the Night” sounds as if Dylan were funky and modern. “Bones of Angels” is a rollicking rocker. “Seven Mile River” is a bit bluesy and melancholy. These are great songs; I only wish the mix was just a little edgier and crunchier.   (Robin Umbley)

ALLEN DEVINE
Devdisc
Poportunity
10-song CD
Straight away I have to call out the obvious. Poportunity? Are you fucking serious? Sorry Allen, but some things can’t go unremarked. Fortunately Devine’s penchant for unforgivable puns is the worst thing about this offering of safe but perfectly catchy pop rock. True to it’s title, Poportunity offers up 10 songs of sugary pop, complete with tangible nods to all the prerequisites. “It’s On The Way” is perfectly Beatlesque with touches of the Beach Boys, while “She Told Me” packs a distinct power pop punch in the tradition of Big Star. And for the sake of mixing things up, Devine throws a few curve balls in there (the bluesy “My Baby Sezz”) for good measure. But in the end it’s a disc big on hook and melody, which is never a bad thing for any guitar rock fan with a pop fetish.   (Ryan Bray)

THE ORANGE OCEAN
Orange Ocean Publishing
Caught in the Air
9-song CD
Listening to this gentle pop combo from Worcester puts me in mind of rainbow-scented, sensitive bearded unicorns romping through a land of marshmallow and honey. Okay; who cares, the music is mostly lovely and melodic, and the vocals often sublime. But take it from the Band: “They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.” Anyway, the opening track is a sort of piano-driven pop with jazz-influence move that’s much more out of Vince Guaraldi than Dollar Brand. It also seems like just the sort of thing that might have been issued some 30-odd years ago by some tired Warner/Reprise adult-contemporary A&R guy who was sick to death of all that noise and who simply wanted to put out some wax he could actually listen to in his bong-juice-reeking shag-rug-infested den. Let’s put it this way: it’s lounge-y pop music that name-checks Jonathan Richman but seems more like Jules Shear with a Masonic spike scratching away at his cerebral cortex. What I hear on “The Love Within” is somewhat akin to Elvis Costello in one of his more introspective and cerebral moments, and “Wouldn’t Take Much” is undeniably gorgeous and lush. But the reggaefied “Seeing You Differently” is pure ick, “By the Ocean” is a gratuitous Beach Boys homage, “Show and Tell” is atmospheric ’70s-mellow showboating, and the decision to camp it up on “When My Heart” falls far below the aesthetic blundering of the most ignoble Kinks or even Harper’s Bizarre track.   (Francis DiMenno)

ERIC DALHMAN
Ripped Echo
11-song CD
Here’s something you don’t find too often: a trumpet player who plays what might best be described as ambient music, or stuff you might hear while on your massage therapist’s table. Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?  Well, to hear trumpeter Eric Dahlman’s compositions, it seems perfectly natural. The brass instrument adds a human element to the ambient-ness, for lack of a better term. Instead of sounding harsh and alarming, the trumpet in this recording is more like a mild but persistent voice. But, as Brian Eno says, ambient music can be “actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener”; if you choose to listen to this, you will hear the CD open with a solo trumpet prelude which segues exquisitely into interwoven sounds emanating from anything from lobster pots, mason jars, lap steel guitars, a sword on an artillery shell, electric guitars, a large clock spring, and accordion. The subtlety is illusory, though, because the compositions become subversively captivating. But if you choose not to listen closely, you may as well go back to the massage table.   (Robin Umbley)

CHUCK STATON
Senior Discount Music
VBW Attack! The Senior Discount Movie
25-scene DVD
This DVD is all about fun and good punk rock music from Rhode Island with a nutty gang of hangers-on filming all sorts of semi-social activities. Veterans of the New England scene should know such subtlety!
The punk band in question that released this is called Senior Discount; their brand of tagalong fun makers is called the VBW.  Chuck Station is the head guy and Johnny Knoxville of the video.
He comes across as a likeable derivative of Kevin Smith, the director of Clerks (you know, Silent Bob?!) and Jean, the guy who fixed my Jeep for a couple years. The antics are in the Jackass tradition. There’s obvious planning involved in the hijinks and capers performed by this troupe, along with that public spontaneity and I don’t-give–a-shit-who-sees-it attitude. Seeing people beaned by balls intentionally at batting cages is great, I never saw anything better. Mix that with a swift hand for production, drunken revelry clips, and a basic dissatisfaction with the world at large, and the guys provide quality entertainment. Let me tell you about the Enema at Fatima. It deals with VBW, in broad daylight, sticking an enema up Chuck’s ass in the front yard of the Fatima high school, filling it up with saline, and then him bending over and blowing watery chunks out all over the parking lot.  He got arrested for disorderly conduct (dude!). They don’t film the real arraignment and trial and decide to stay with the “punk band with a mission/wild troupe of crazy activities” motif.
There are too many skits/filmed ideas to fully encapsulate in this review, let’s just say that this DVD is gold and that the band and those with them have some mighty winds at their sails.   (Mike Loce)

THE I.Z.A.
7-song CD
Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse
WOW! Could music get any worse? I did not think so until I heard the I.Z.A.  Come on! Learn to play before making sort of attempt to record music. Don’t give me attitude either. No need to tell me I am gonna hate your music before I listen to it. But of course I did, because it displays no talent whatsoever. It’s like they picked up the guitar, played three random chords, and called it a song.  Then they spent some cash and recorded the music and then somehow it came into my hands and almost deafened me with its awful tastelessness creativity.  I suggest leaving Boston before you ruin the music scene with your apocalyptic taste in music. Take ten years of lessons and maybe you will be able to play good enough to be considered a musician. But of course you will never be able to write a song because you have your head so far up your ass to see any sort of color pattern in music.   (Leonid)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Corleone Records
10 Yrs. Everything I Own
Is Broken Or Bent
21-video  DVD
I had to throw in my copy of the Muppet Show first season DVD to make myself feel better after seeing this amazing collection of band videos from this label. Without further ado and with much brevity:
1. Work/Death: Sludge mostly played on bowed upright bass through multi-effects like distortion and time delay.  Sounds like being underwater next to an oil refinery.
2. Jacob Berendes: Backwards filmage of making a mess on the dinner table with shitty folk singing.
3. Get Killed: Good video of in studio band poses with Sonic Youth style guitar chords and screamo.
4. Mindflayer: Noise duo with a hyper drummer and a guy wailing on a Fatman or some analog synth.
5. Uke of Spaces Corners: One guy shoveling a snow path through the woods while another guy follows with a door. Cultish.
6. Fang Island: The best. Instrumental rock band bashes away in a second grade classroom as a presentation!
7. Frank Difficult: Trippy randomness for behind band play at live shows.
8. Mahi Mahi: Boring synthtronica with bad techno-acid visuals.
9. Colin Langenus: Crazy cartoon distortion of reality.
10. Night Wounds: Sounds like they’re stuck in a loop of heavy drums/guitar punching.
11. Landed: Great overdriven bass/drums/screamer in a basement.
12. Lorna Doom: Two guys trying to be like the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” video with mellow enhancement.
13. Tiny Hawks: I hate music videos that try to prove something by showing internal organs functioning.
14. Black Pus: Excellent crazy solo drummer with a mic in his facemask screaming while drumming.
15. Fred Thomas: Oregonian acid visionary.
16. Lazy Magnet: Mystical high school style musical film with super animation cuts.
17. Snake Apartment: Cartoons and beard close-ups with slop on them.
18. Bonedust: Witches gathering on stage in evil and purging.
19. The Body: Raucous drums and guitar in a stairway hall.
20. Pines of Rome: Lame studio footage of dork band playing interesting song looking important.   (Mike Loce)

THE MESMARINES
Crazy Eight Records
The Mesmerines
4-song CD
At long last, a 4-song CD that hasn’t been thrown together for the sake of releasing whatever the band could muster up. The Mesmerines, four veterans of the local post-punk scene of the ’80s and ’90s have united to record an adventurous effort-driven bouillabaisse, simply titled The Mesmerines. In just over fifteen-minutes, these songs galvanize punk, Brit-pop, psychedelic and garage. “Raygun” kicks it into gear and is reminiscent of the Cars while “Aquanetta Jones” is a cross between Social Distortion and Iggy Pop. “I am the Sunman” has a wonderfully crunchy guitar sound with tight drum and bass in tow, as does “Beautiful Day” with the addition of horns and strings. This CD has my attention and I look forward to their full-length in the future.   (Rob Watts)

MELT
A Stitch in Time
6-song CD
Melt combines pop sensibilities with the better elements of lighter goth and cool prog bands on their second CD. The collection opens with the Middle Eastern-flavored “Through the Doors” that riffs along at the beginning and has cool pre-chorus cooing from singer Rachel Drucker. Big hooks and riffs jaunt through “Home,” a pretty love song perfectly placed in the middle. The vocals on this tune are spot on and the acoustic guitar parts are a nice touch. Drucker is often compared to some of the more powerful female classic rockers but reviewers shouldn’t sell her talents short. “Comfortable,” another lovely little number, shows the band’s versatility: great harmonies and a really catchy hook, reminiscent of “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. On “No Fear” the band continues to explore some untraditional rhythms with success. Very cool guitar synthesizer parts by Nils Freiberger, great lead and background vocals, and hooky bass parts from Paul Pipitone.   (Tony Schinella)

LEONARD BROWN’S JOYFUL NOISE
Suns of Sons: Live at Bohemian Caverns
5-song CD
Leonard Brown, a music professor at Northeastern University and a virtuoso saxophonist has returned to his roots and put together a delectable set of recordings that will tickle your ears and feed your soul.  The CD was recorded live at Washington, D.C.’s historic Bohemian Caverns, a legendary jazz club that’s been host to jazz greats since 1926.  No surprise, the musicianship is all around stellar.  Though there are only five songs, the whole album clocks in well over an hour, giving each song plenty of time to showcase the complex melodic lines that delightfully swim, float and bounce over the innovative rhythmic vocabularies put forth by the band: Leonard Brown on both tenor and soprano saxes, Nasar Abadey on drums, Allyn Johnson on keyboards and James King on bass. Overall, the end result is excellence and if you have titles by Coltrane, Davis and “Birdman” Parker in your record collection already, this may be something you should check out.   (Kier Byrnes)

BAD LIEUTENANTS
Teenage Heart
Born a Bad Seed
6-song CD
Remember songs about booze, fast cars, fast girls, and getting into trouble with the law?  Well apparently Bad Lieutenants couldn’t remember, so they wrote an album of rocking punk tunes so they wouldn’t forget when they sober up.  With each song clocking in at around two minutes, you may find these songs brilliant or forgettable, depending on which jail cell or used Chrysler you happen to be rolling around in at the time.  I’ve heard better, but I’ve heard worse.  Perhaps if they sounded British and pissed off….   (Joel Simches)

NORTHERN PIKE
Speechless
5-song CD
I want to feel something too.  I want to feel the weight of a rockin’ six piece band in my loins.  The thin production of this recording makes Northern Pike sound like Soundgarden Lite.  The guitars sound huge and Mark Kalivas sounds like a cross between a young Chris Cornell, Paul Rogers, and Doogie Howser.  The drums sound tiny and lifeless under the weight of three guitars.  This could sound huge in the hands of the right producer, but Northern Pike sounds like a generic bar band that likes Soundgarden.   (Joel Simches)

LOVERS/DECEIVERS
The Tragic Search for Miss G. Pallor
5-song CD
This is Goth with a capital G and all its obligatory trimmings.  Lovers/Deceivers wear their influence firmly on their sleeve, evoking dark, dreamy images with whispery vocals, echoing B/Horror movie samples, droney synths and guitars.  This CD takes you back to a time where the Cure, Bauhaus and Jesus and Mary Chain ruled supreme and every skinny, pastey, neurotic misfit wanted to slit their wrists in the bathtub and have their virginal corpse displayed on a bed of rose petals beneath a medieval crucifix.  This CD left me cold, wishing for substance.  There was no dynamic, or emotion; just the monotone drone of what was, frozen in time beneath a layer of the haze. This left me yearning and empty.  Where’s my eyeliner?   (Joel Simches)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Allagash Country
Red Sox Tribute Songs
2-song CD
Put me in, coach!  This little sampler of generic Red Sox pep rally songs will have you rooting for the Yankees in no time.  There are certainly less tasteful ways to pander to baseball fans and make a cheap buck of Sox fans.  At least these guys are making crappy music and not selling tacky T-shirts on the corner.  I still have to walk by those guys.  I can turn this CD off.  I just did.  Tennis anyone?   (Joel Simches)

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Live Reviews

WALTER SICKERT & THE ARMY OF BROKEN TOYS/ THE RATIONALES/
THE FIELD EFFECTS/
RUBY ROSE FOX
Brighton Music Hall,
Allston MA   3/23/13

I arrive at Brighton Music Hall before any bands have started playing and I’m impressed at how many people are already here this early in the evening. There’s a burlesque act onstage, to which I’m only half paying attention as I seek out familiar faces in the sizable crowd. Ruby Rose Fox starts their set and plays a few old-timey lounge-pop songs that sound great, but they lose me when they downshift to a slower tempo mid-set.

Ruby Rose Fox finishes with little fanfare, making way for more burlesque, and then the Field Effect. Tonight you can’t hear any vocals if you’re standing to the side of the stage, so I’m forced to move to the rear of the crowd, but a few songs later I’m swooning with music-love. Take the chorus of “Dancing with Earthquakes,” a song about a girlfriend moving to California: “I set my clocks back to feel closer to you.” COME ON! My heart! The deal is sealed with a cover of the Weakerthans’ “Aside.” Yup, new favorite Boston band right here, and I’m now officially stoked to see them at the Rumble in a couple weeks. Someone near me gripes that the band overstayed its welcome by three songs, but I think this set was the night’s standout.

The show is sold out by this point, and BMH is packed. The Rationales play next, and something has clicked for these guys since I saw them about a year ago. They’ve always been good, but they sound especially great tonight. Everyone around me seems totally entranced by the music—this is not the half-paying-attention-while-texting kind of crowd. At the risk of sounding like a nerd, I feel reminded that this is what it’s all about—why I wile away my weekends by getting tinnitus at dimly-lit rock clubs whilst my peers are downtown drinking Bud Lights from  aluminum bottles and getting hit on by dudes in flat brim hats. This is good rock ’n’ roll. This is Boston.

After a David Bowie/ Labyrinth burlesque performance, which includes a shower of blood spewed from a headless baby doll, Walter Sickert and his multitude of band members arrive onstage. Tonight’s occasion is the release of their crowdfunded record “Soft Time Traveler,” and the ardor of those benefactors is present here tonight. This being my first Walter Sickert experience, I’m not sure what to expect, though the burlesque and general vibe of the evening certainly conditioned me to be less overwhelmed than I might have been (earlier, I overheard a woman exclaim, “Honey, a woman just asked me to lace up her corset in the bathroom—aren’t you jealous?”). Sickert, sporting a massive crown of feathers and steampunk goggles, is joined by a trippy Victorian carnival of a band, which includes a human marionette who jerks and sways creepily throughout the entire set; a young child dressed as a jester holding a xylophone for its vehement player; someone wearing a horse mask and period clothing; an upright bassist, an accordionist, and a ukulele-ist; and of course, a swirl of burlesque dancers. A guy near me remarks that they’d be a great band without the spectacle—I do agree that the theatrics are distracting, as the music by itself is transcendent, alluring, and kaleidoscopic. The finale, fittingly, is a cover of “Paint It Black,” which is executed raucously but proficiently amidst the distraction of boobs flying everywhere and the unrestrained enthusiasm of the crowd.         (Emily Diggins)

 

HENRI SMITH/
CHARLES NEVILLE
Larcom Theatre,
Beverly MA   4/6/13

I find myself in another beautiful old theatre, built in 1912, waiting for the postponed Mardi Gras show to begin. I count about 480 seats but confirm that it’s a 550-seater including the big horseshoe-shaped balcony. Le Grand David (the famous Beverly magician) welcomes us to the theatre and introduce producer Peter Van Ness who prepares us for the celebration of authentic New Orleans jumbalaya musico.

Charles Neville gets introduced and he strolls out leading a mixed bag of nine musicians. Some are old established players with impressive background and some are young, graduates of the New England Conservatory. The thin female Asian violinist, Orie Furuta, visually stands out.  When sweet sounds aren’t emanating from Charles’s tenor sax, he stands in blissful heaven; his pearly whites fill the room with a wonderful vibe. The nonet swings to a New Orleans romp exchanging solos as if they’re in the mists of a poker game, all individually showing their hands. When Henri Smith takes his place on the stage, it’s clear we have a Jagger/Richards relationship with the two smiling devils strutting their stuff both physically and musically. “That’s When I Know It’s Mardi Gras” gets the audience in the Southern mood. Then Henri states, “We love to develop choirs,” and leads the audience in a Fats Domino singalong with “Ain’t That A Shame” and “”Blueberry Hill.” They dabble in some jump blues that was made popular in the 1940s and it suits the band as well.  The group includes two tenor saxes, a trumpet, a clarinet, a violin, a piano, a standup bass, a pair of congas, and a small drum kit. Henri, handkerchief in hand, slows it down with my favorite of the night, “Saint James Infirmary.” “Johannesburg” gets funky and “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” stirs up the authentic musical aromas of New Orleans. Son of gun, we’re having fun, on the bayou.     (T Max)

 

ROCK SHOP #25:
PRESSING THE PRESS
HILARY HUGHES, LUKE O’NEIL,
MICHAEL MAROTTA, BRAD SEARLES 
The Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge MA  4/8/13

Rock Shop is a monthly event for the Boston music community founded by Kevin Hoskins (Middle East booking agent) and Steve Theo (Pirate! Promotion & Management) to give back to the local music community by helping local musicians develop their careers.  Each month, a panel of music industry experts hosts a seminar focusing on a particular aspect of the business. The event is free and open to the public and usually draws a sizable crowd of rock ’n’ roll enthusiasts. A couple of my band-mates and I head on over as tonight’s topic of discussion examines the role of the press supporting local music in Boston. As a struggling musician myself, I am always looking to learn more about the industry. Set up in the back corner of the Middle East Downstairs mezzanine, Kevin, and Steve and a small group of writers are soon berated by a slew of questions from the large semicircle of curious rock ’n’ rollers who are given explanations as to why their CDs haven’t been reviewed. I can’t help to wonder where the Noise’s representative on the panel, as the Noise is Boston’s longest running music magazine; however the group assembled; Luke O’Neill, Hilary Hughes, and Michael Marrotta as well as blogger Brad Searles are amongst the tops in the city.  These writers shed a lot of light on the inner workings of the press industry (or what’s left of it) and offer some pointers about how bands can better manage their public relations. The event is pretty helpful in that I get a bunch of useful pointers to promote my band. Thank you Middle East for hosting this!  (Kier Byrnes)

 

JAMES MONTGOMERY BAND
CD Release Party
Sculler’s Jazz Club,
Boston MA   4/10/13

This is the real deal. Blues harp icon James Montgomery is having a party—and just listen to his band! Guitarist George McCann’s playing is incredible. Bassist David Hull (the Joe Perry Project and Aerosmith) is pushing his four strings to the highest levels of lowness, and longtime Barrence Whitfield and John Lincoln Wright drummer Seth Pappas powerfully drives the tight tension and is making the walls of this cool club shake. Add Uptown Horns’ Crispin Cioe and Larry Etkin, and 20-year old ex-Brookline/Berklee sax phenom Grace Kelly and you have all the ingredients of a perfect night on the Boston club circuit. First, the packed house gets treated to chestnut “Good Time Charlie” with Grace wailing along with James and the gang. Then ex-Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau jumps onstage and screams though their version of “Sweet 16,” from James’ last CD. Montgomery tells the crowd: “It’s our version of the Junior Wells version of Al Green’s version of Chuck Berry”..Now the group only selects songs from their new release for the remainder of this electrifying two hour set. “Delta Storm,” then “Same Thing,” a Muddy Waters slow blues that they turn into a Z.Z.Top tidal wave midway through. Just great. Then “Little Johnny,” a song he wrote about his old band mate Johnny Winter. George’s slide guitar is tremendous and I shout, “I will tell Johnny you do it justice!” to his wide onstage smile. James steps off and Hull leads the band in a splendid song from his own recent release “Pay Some Attention” and then James returns for blistering versions of “Intoxicated,” “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is,” a McCann original, then “the first dance song I ever wrote”: “I Don’t Want to have a Heart” and then a high energy double dose starting with a jazzy Ray Charles “Hit The Road Jack.” It’s impressive listening to an old song done in a brand new way. Hearing Grace solo while The Uptown Horns play their incredibly solid and creative arrangements reading off charts on stands in front of them is one highlight of a night with no bad moments whatsoever. And then Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” with dancing blondes in front of the stage ends the night. Detroit Blues on the banks of the Charles. I love it.   (A.J. Wachtel)

 

TEN FOOT POLECATS
Record Release Party for Undertow
The Wonder Bar,
Allston MA   3/24/13

The place is filling up as I enter, and I can see bartender Ariel Bjorkman dancing behind the bar as she serves the drinks. She’s not dancing alone. As Jay Scheffler (vocals/harp), Jim Chilson (guitar), and Chad Rousseau (drums) play, there’s movement everywhere. People are dancing in front of the stage to killer new songs “Do That Thing,” “Moonshine and Mud,” “Worried Sick,” and the title track, “Undertow.” Couples are moving to the rhythms made by guest artists Helen Beaumont (Worcester’s the Farmer’s Union Players) singing “Tears On My Windshield” from the Polecats’ first CD, Gracie Curren (the High Falutin’ Band) singing “BrokenHearted Blues,” Erin Harpe and Rosy Rosenblatt (the Delta Swingers) on vocals and harp for “Big Road,” saxman Marty Phillips, vocalist Eric Savoie (the Throwdown Band), and harpist Satch Romano (the Houserockers) killing “Smokestack Lightening,” guitarist Satoru Nakagawa (the Tokyo Tramps) up for “Chickenhead Man,” guitarist Peter Parcak plays “Thought I Heard” and “Goin’ Crazy” from their first CD, Sonny Jim (Coyote Kolb) plays harp on “Nobody But You”), and Mark Milloff (the Cannibal Ramblers) up for “Boogie Chillin’ .” Tonight the local blues community is getting together to celebrate a new release from one of their own. Do you think this stuff happens in Duluth?   (A.J. Wachtel)

 

ADAM EZRA GROUP/
SARAH BLACKER & THE ALTERNATE ROUTES/
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER/
HOT DAY AT THE ZOO/
JESSICA PROUTY BAND/
CHARLIE FARREN/
VEYEAO TWINS/
EFFECT/
THE LUXURY
New England Music Awards,
Lowell Memorial Auditorium,
Lowell MA  4/13/13

The Luxury gets the show rolling with an amazing synth-infused pop-rock set. Between the bass and guitar riffs that fill every corner of the venue and the intense lighting and smoke effects, the set has an arena rock feel to it, and it’s one I can easily see the Luxury succeeding at. The keyboard adds a melodic element to this great four-piece rock band, and the band debuts a brand new song, “This House,” which builds to a powerful crescendo blending with the vocal skills of Brandon Erdos and Daanen Krouth.

Hip-hop artist Effect-—one of the nominees for best of his genre—only has one song, but he makes the most of it. This guy has a great stage presence, the kind of confidence that’s hard to come by when you’re alone before the crowd. He’s got precise vocal control, and a fast, surgical lyrical style that’s hard to come by.

Katherine and Kristen Veayo are the youngest of the evening’s performers, but what they may lack in experience, they make up for with a great stage presence, vocals that are hard to -ignore and an obvious love for the stage. “Screaming at the Walls” looks at the effect that bullying can have as you get older—and that’s a place that too many of us have been. Clearly, this duo is hoping to bring some important issues to light.

Charlie Farren, best known for work in the bands the Joe Perry Project and Farrenheit, is a presence on the stage, even as a soloist. He’s got a commanding voice with an impressive rock flair, and plays a casual, folk/rock set that puts the crowd at ease.

The Jessica Prouty Band won a battle of the bands to be here, and they show us just how they did it—with face-smashing rock and power-packed vocal styles. Cam Pelkey on drums pounds out the intense heartbeat of the one song the band plays, reinforced by Andy Covino (keyboard) Jessica (lead vocals/bass), Aaron Shuman (guitar/backup vocals) and Cody Nilsen, (guitar/backup vocals).

Hot Day at the Zoo brings a heavy dose of American roots to the evening with some heavy twang-laced rock to keep those feet tapping. The five-member band shares vocal duties and brings an array of instrumentation to the set, such as the ukulele, upright bass, mandolin and lap steel, blending the diverse sounds into a set ranging from more mellow tunes to songs that damn near break the speed of sound.   (Max Bowen)

 

You can read more live reviews on www.thenoise-boston.com.

We get a lot of calls and emails from bands requesting coverage of their live shows. Please be advised that shows are never assigned for review. Noise writers cover what they choose to attend. It’s logistically impossible for us to honor or acknowledge these requests. The Noise has always had its ears close to the ground in New England. If you’re doing something even remotely exceptional, we’ll be the first to tell the world. If you’re horrible, same thing. If you’re based in New England, send CDs to the Noise, PO Box 353, Gloucester MA 01930, and digital releases to tmax@thenoise-boston.com.

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THE STUMBLEWEEDS
The Plough & Stars
2/16/02

Boston’s bluesgrass band—yes yes, that is The Stumbleweeds’ undeniable title. Like most bands in Beantown they look as genuine as they sound. It helps a bit that they are not just playing the music—they live it, which is readily apparent right from the opening notes.
The tune “Wasted” comes barreling out and I expect a bar fight by the time it’s over, the crowd is that volatile. Red Sores’ licks are infectious—nobody plays steel pedal like him—wait who else in town even does play pedal steel? “Pickin’ n’ Sinnin’,” the title track off their new CD, is as catchy as a brush fire. You unexpectedly find yourself tapping your toes and the side of your beer glass.

The up-tempo numbers are unstoppable and unbelievable. Hell, if you only like bluesgrass a little, this band will push you over the edge into adoration. From what I can see there are plenty of people who are into the sounds. The Stumbleweeds are putting out and the Plough is packed, Yeah, it’s not hard to pack the Plough, but the people just keep coming in. (Bridget Unger)

JOHN POWHIDA, ROB ATTERBURY
Midway Cafe
3/6/02

This is a fine way to spend Hump Day without actually humping something. Rob Atterbury, resplendent in black Stetson and tie, croones classic country all by his lonesome (plus an acoustic guitar). Shit-kickin’ without all the shit, The Rob-Man peels off a good hour’s worth of well-loved glug-nuggets, sung from deep inside the heart and liver. While goin’ heavy on the Hank (including the usually-overlooked “Kaw-Liga”), there are also lovin’ spoonfuls of stuff like Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried,” better known as covered by The Grateful Dead. It’s also a gas to hear ordinarily female-identified tunes such as “Crazy” and “Stand By Your Man” sung by someone packin’ a scrotum, proving that the greatest love songs are gender-neutral. And yeah, I know, “Crazy” was written by a guy anyway, thank you. Atterbury has a unique, arresting voice, and plucks crucially tasteful tendrils from his six-pack o’ strings. He also yodels, and dad-gum means it, Junior! Plenty of cows, but no bull here.

I’m not sure if this city deserves John Powhida. The Rudds’ guiding light has more class, talent and smarts than any given hundred songwriters I can name. Rarely does a solo act satisfy on the level of a full band, but this is one of those times. He can also be a funny bastard, with lots of bawdy in-jokes and self-deprecating zingers. Then, blink, and you’re back into some heartbreakin’ take on something as touching as Eurythmics’ “I Need You,” as soulful as Hall & Oates’ “Sara Smile,” or as gorgeous as Michael Jackson’s “Ben,” about the filthy fucking rodent. Powhida’s voice swoops around to all the right places, while his guitar playing is a marvel of efficiency and understated grace. None of which prepares ya for the Ultimate Coolness of his original songs. A lot’s been said, and a thousand times as much remains to be. I’m just glad I’m catchin’ it early before it gets too big and I get too deaf. (Joe Coughlin)

IRRESPONSIBLES, SPARKOLA
The Paradise (front room)
2/16/02

We don’t review non-New England bands in The Noise, so I’m not allowed to write about the godawful New Jersey caterwauling that opens the night. Except to say that it is during their set that I require alcohol and I pay $9.50 for a shot of Tequila and a bottle of water. $9.50? Fuckin’ Paradise.

Sparkola makes it all better. This trio is Steve Powers on guitar and vocals, Adam Buhler on bass, and Jason Sekos on drums, and if you expect these Countess/ Splashdown dudes to sound like either of their other/ former bands, you’ll be disappointed. Think of the aggressive alterna-funk of Gingerbutkis (remember them?) or the rocking ingenuity of Radiohead. Sparkola powers through this, their debut show, with a set of pop/rock songs oozing with fat funky bass and catchy melodies. Standouts are “Marmalade” and “Climbing Out Your Window.” When they finish their set, the small but appreciative crowd calls for an encore, and the band, though they look shocked, delivers. It’s good old-fashioned musicianship at its finest, and I can’t wait to hear more.

Between sets I sneak through to The Paradise main room and catch a little of The Sheila Divine, who’ve packed the place to the gills. The SD sound great of course, but I feel like dragging people back through the black curtain to catch The Irresponsibles.

Haven’t seen the Irros yet? Good lord people, get off the couch and see this band. From the tight-as-hell opening jam (“we don’t know what that was,” laughs Peter Montgomery later) to the hilarious “Sausage Party” (an homage to Weezer) these guys positively kick ass. Drummer Dan Rudack (also of Starla Dear) has switched to a full kit instead of his usual pared-down stand-up kit, and it serves the sound well. They rock, they’re funny, and they’re cute. What more can you ask for? (Lexi)

THE TAKERS, MR. AIRPLANE MAN, THE MODIFIERS, TODD GILES
Charlie’s Kitchen
2/25/01

These Monday night shows at the popular burger joint in Harvard Square have been going on for a year, but this was the first I’d heard about it. We arrived at 9 pm and it was already crowded. Todd Giles started things off, playing guitar and singing earnestly with his eyes shut, something about “the most deluxe house/with a skylight to look out of/hand towels and soap dispensers” He played some jazz chords mixed in with Bob Pollardisms on a red SG and ended on a soft, unexpected note. I’d like to see him with a band, only because I’m too impatient for the singer-songwriter sensitivity thing.

The Modifiers, a three piece, were next, playing loose and rootsy melodic punk rock. The first song had me wondering if they were the second coming of the Replacements. A group of fans who knew all the words stood in front, one spiky haired dude showing his dedication to the great god Alcohol with beer bottle caps glued all around his sweat-jacket hood. The guitarist/singer played a Les Paul that cut through the noise every once in a while with a ringing, memorable line, but it didn’t happen often enough. I agreed with my friend that they were “louder than they needed to be.” They also lost points for playing a cover of the hideously whiney “International Playboys” by Morrissey, the irony of which was cancelled out by the aural torture — but the “mod” kids probably loved it.

Mr. Airplane Man was next, a two-woman séance conjuring up the ghosts of dead blues men from Mississippi. Their years of busking have paid off; they’ve achieved the sort of soulful, intuitive nuance players need to make the blues sound fresh and not just the usual bar band rip-off. The duo have some new originals and I was excited to hear them branching out into garage girl territory and even ballads. Their delicate voices and harmony vocals contrasted nicely with Margaret’s from-the-gut slide guitar and Tara’s no nonsense drums enhanced by a tambourine cymbal. Howie Ferguson added some nice accents on maracas and tambourine.

The Takers had a tough act to follow but played an amazing, energized set. They started with “Miles Between” (aka “Twin Peaks”), a smoldering punk lament bringing to mind the haunted sound of Nick Cave. Mike Hibarger’s slow motion, minimally phrased surf guitar lines slithered through the song like a sidewinder. Chris’ drums show a lot of finesse, he never just bangs it out. Nick Blakey’s bass lines carry some of the songs, particularly the second one, an incredible pounder that got a lot of applause; only later did I realize it was a cover of DMZ’s “Don’t Jump Me Mother.” During “Looking Down,” singer Mike Carreiro leapt up on a table and tried to hang off the rafters except there weren’t any. Instead, a panel of the ceiling fell down around him in a heap, which didn’t interrupt the show. There were a couple new songs that sounded promising, an amusing cover of The In Out’s “Caravan” with the words changed to “Taliban” and a dead-on Todd Nudelman vocal impersonation by Mike C. In short, they blew the roof off the place. Kenne Highland summed up the experience with a succinct, “Holy Shit!”(Laura Markley)

LIFESTYLE
Curve Film Premiere and Post Screening Party, NYC
2/27/02

My friend invites me down to New York for a movie premiere. He doesn’t tell me what the movie is, or what even it will be about, just that there will be 100 models from Ford, Click and all the other major agencies and he’s getting me on the VIP guestlist. A few years ago, I was in New York, someone smashed a bottle over my head and I’ve avoided the place ever since. Anyhow, this seemed like a good enough reason to lift the boycott on the Big Apple. I’d climb through hell for a beautiful woman, and for a hundred, well, I’d even go to New York.

So I get there and as it turns out the movie is called Curve, it’s a documentary on the fashion world’s prejudice against larger women, and you guessed it, all the models there are plus-sized models. So I’m not only surrounded by beautiful women, I’m dwarfed by them as well. Directed and written by Bostonians Constantine and Christina Valhouli, Curve is quite good. The movie is made up of hundreds of clips of both famous and struggling plus-sized models candidly telling the story of the “not as glamorous as you’d think” life of a fashion model. The soundtrack is also very glam and features two bands, the Go-Gos and Boston’s own Lifestyle (who also happen to be performing at the post screening party).

After the movie wraps up, we split to the party. Lifestyle is already in full effect with lights a flashin’ and tunes blaring. They sound like they’re straight from the ’80s and the ladies are loving it. They have two keyboardists pumping out electronic synth beats and a dude who looks like he should have been in Flock of Seagulls. In this context, its all entertaining, in a Duran Duran sort of way. If you dug Freezepop, you’re sure to like this four-piece. I almost expect to hear a Pet Shop Boys song at any second. The party goes on until dawn “Bright Lights Big City” style. I wake up late the next morning with my head hurting so bad I might as well have had a bottle smashed over it. Cheers to the city that never sleeps. (Kier Byrnes)

CANCER CONSPIRACY, DAMN PERSONALS, PIEBALD
South by Southwest Music & Media Conference
Emo’s Jr., Austin TX
3/13/02

SXSW is the music industry’s largest and most well-attended yearly shmoozefest, drawing thousands of music writers, record label executives, radio people and pretty much anyone involved with the business of music. So when Big Wheel Recreation arranged a SXSW showcase on its late-winter package tour (Vermont’s Cancer Conspiracy, and Boston’s Damn Personals and Piebald) everyone involved figured the expense would be justified by the exposure that the bands would receive. It didn’t quite work out that way. The showcase wound up on the inside stage of Emo’s—arguably one of Austin’s coolest clubs, but also one of its very few all-ages venues. So instead of industry poobahs brandishing SXSW badges and waving major label mega-dollars at the bands, the bands wound up playing to an audience that consisted almost entirely of indigenous teens. All three bands also had to struggle through harrowing technical difficulties. Cancer Conspiracy faired all right, although their brand of instrumental prog-rock really doesn’t come anywhere close to the typical garage-punk sound of most Big Wheel bands. Ten minutes into their set—after three quick numbers and a blown bass amp that had to be replaced—the band announced it was playing its last song, and then launched into a 30-minute instrumental prog-rock odyssey that my companion sarcastically described as “Tales Of Topographic Puddles.” The Damn Personals seemed flat and uninspired during the first half of their set; in fact, between lackluster playing and technical distractions, it was pretty much a trainwreck. The band pulled itself together for the second half of its set, but they never won over the largely uninvolved crowd. Things went much better for the more punky Piebald; despite a power outage that lasted near 15 minutes, the band had heads bouncing and fists flying into the air from start to finish, with frontman Travis Shettel’s endearingly nerdish persona clearly capturing the imagination of the mostly adolescent crowd. If you look at Piebald’s silly song titles, you’d think all the songs would be jokey. But live, they delivered a convincingly chunky brand of emo-pop, somewhere between the geeky sincerity of D.C.’s Dismemberment Plan and the power-chord crunch of kiddie-core favorites like Midtown and New Found Glory. (Jim Testa)

REVERSE, THE BEATINGS, HELLO ATTACK!
T.T. The Bears
2/14/02

Scenesters from all aspects of the Boston rock scene gather the first Thursday of every month in Central Square to check out the Yoursound.com showcases. Heading up the parade of hipness is the very busy Mike Baldino. Mike helps the club put these bills together in addition to his multi-zine writing workload. As I mingle about the crowd, I’m running into a lot of folks whose names I recognize from The Noise’s web page message board. It’s nice to finally be exposed to the identities of some of these online characters and sit down and debate each other’s favorite bands face to face while running up an ungodly bar tab.

On stage is a completely instrumental act named Hello Attack! (sic). They stop only once to speak into the mic to pitch their band and sell t-shirts then dive right back in to testing the dynamics of their instruments, creating huge peaks and valleys of hysterical and schizophrenic melodies. There are also a lot of unusual tones and noises created by a dazzling array of effects. It reminded me a little of the soundtrack from “Fight Club.” I was blown away.

Afterwards were The Beatings. It’s their CD release party and I have heard a lot of hype about these guys so I have high hopes. Unfortunately, all I hear is the same old pop punk thing. Someone next to me was describing them as Blink 183/ Matchbox 21. I had to agree, after hearing something as sonically unique as Hello Attack!, this seemed a bit bland and was a bit of a let down despite the energetic stage performance. Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to catch another show later because this time it just didn’t register.

Dan Troxell from Yoursound goes running up on stage to raffle off some CDs as Reverse sets up their gear behind him. It’s no secret that Reverse is one of my favorite bands in town today. Heavy drum beats and loud guitars calling me to the front of the stage. Tempo changes, grilling riffs and carefully constructed melodies have my boots stompin’ in no time. Those who were fortunate enough to make it out all the way until last call, got to hear Reverse do an amazing version of “Ridiculous,” well worth the three hours sleep and Friday morning hangover. (Kier Byrnes)

THE HIGH CEILINGS, FLEXIE, THE BRIAN GOTTESMAN BAND
The Middle East
2/21/02

Okay, I admit it, the only reason I’m here is because the Piebald CD release party going on downstairs with Cracktorch and Kipper Tin was sold out. Grudgingly, I decide to see what’s going on upstairs. On stage is a band that’s rocking out pretty hard called the Brian Gottesman Band. There’s a keyboard center stage. I assume it’s Brian Gottesman, who is standing behind them, wailing away, switching back and forth between keys and guitar while crooning into the mic. It’s pretty good stuff; interesting songs with clever arrangements and enough hooks to keep my attention focused off the show I’m missing downstairs.

The keyboard stays center stage for the next band, Flexie, as well. This time, however, a cute blond hops up behind it. An equally striking female takes her place next to her, stage left. With two babes like that on stage, Flexie have my attention but I’m looking around and it seems that the whole place has cleared out. Rarely have I seen the Middle East so empty. The music is ok; indie pop rock that’s not really offensive but not really groundbreaking either I suppose. Luckily the set gets over kind of quickly and there is a trickle of people back inside.

Apparently, Flexie is in a rush as well to get it over with because they decide to bolt as The High Ceilings, the next band on the bill play their first song. Isn’t it one of those unwritten musician rules that when you’re on a bill with multiple acts, you have to stay and help support the other bands? And to load out your gear in front of the stage while the other guys are performing… that’s just bad. Maybe they have tickets to the Piebald show downstairs. To be honest, I feel like I’m not missing much, The High Ceilings are rocking out in their trademarked heavy metal/ Pink Floyd sound despite recently adding a new bass player to the mix. Their new song, “Mayfly,” is one of my favorite locally made pump up songs. (Kier Byrnes)

MICHAEL LEYDEN, BLUEGRAZER
Kendall Café
2/27/02

Wednesday at the Kendall I’m thinking who the hell is gonna be here on Wednesday? Well Michael Leyden is. And no matter what night or where he is playing, if you can, go! He has a few people with him but really I can’t remember a thing they may have done. Micheal’s hook is his voice. An unlikely pleasing combination of a young Neil Young and Gordon Gano (The Violent Femmes). I couldn’t stop listening. The songs are catchy and poppy. They go bouncing by making you smile while furrowing your brow with thought.

Bluegrazer can give every band in Boston a run for their money, and beat many! Apparently they have been on a bit of a hiatus and it’s high time they come back! Sounding, undeniably, like Three Day Threshold but a lot less theatrical and a bit more rock ‘n’ roll than country/ bluegrass. Joe Pleiman, on lead guitar and vocals, John Stump on bass, and Jesse Sexual Spence on drums. Each a strong player, standing out with their individual ability yet blending smoothly into a kick ass band. I think the best thing you can say about a band is that they rock. And I like it! (Bridget Unger)

THE IN OUT
The Upstairs Lounge
2/14/02

What better way to snuff out the Hallmark phoniness of Valentine’s Day than with the uneasy, post-punk garage throb of The In Out. The mood is set by a slow motion disco ball and smoky red bulb. They start off with some uncertainty, but after a pulsating “Camouflage” (with Nudel-code about a “sex garage” and a “sex mirage”) the band kicks it up a notch with a song about “… a blue chip stock/before the bottom fell out” (“this is more like it!” read my notes), a bent guitar note creating anticipation. Now Todd’s intoning something about a pissing dog while using distortion AND fuzz pedal! “The Turning” has too loud crashing drums, while an unwieldy country version of “X In Its Place” makes a mockery of the slow burning magnum opus Matt Hunter used to sing. But the newish “Trap Body” has a memorable guitar riff and it’s always a treat hearing the lean years oldies like “Barnyard” and “One In A Thousand Service Industry Job.” (Laura Markley)

MOMENT, JUST FOR TODAY, THE HATE HOLIDAY, THE AMES CURVE
The X-Haus
2/12/02

I’m in a basement, and I know it’s a basement because of the hot water heater and the washing machine, which I’m sitting on, watching over the shoulder of the drummer as the band pumps the air full of sound, sweat, and dust. I’m listening to the band, but watching the kids as they invent dances, brand new dances, each one a little more ridiculous than the last.

Connecticut’s Just For Today plays an excellent but sometimes shaky set, with the interlocking guitar arpeggios building an aural mosaic that never wavers. From my vantage point I can see the group dynamics at work, the subtle eye contact and body language of a group perfectly locked into one another’s back pockets, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that I can’t make out a word the singer’s moaning about. After they are done playing I talk with them for a bit, and they turn out to be super nice guys; they seem like they were hinting at being out of practice, but their energy is irrepressible, and what the hell it’s all punk rock fun—right?

For Moment, I move to the front of the performance area, and before they can even play, people are dancing, undulating really. We’ve all become muscle fiber in one giant limb. Moment opens with a brand new, if slightly overlong, instrumental before launching into the hot rock. After the second song the audience starts clapping and continues for a good four minutes, until the band plays on. Hysterical. The connection Moment makes with the crowd is positively for real: the giant limb becomes a multi-limbed monster, flailing about wildly in ecstasy.

My only complaint is that after the show, when I bought my Moment CD, it cost me $10, but maybe that’s just because I’m unemployed. I just feel, especially for basement shows, that if it’s $4 to get in, the CD shouldn’t be more than $5 or $6. Maybe I’m just showing my age. Keep punk rock cheap! (Jesse Thomas)

KATE WIREN
Curious Liquids
2/23/02

My third show in three nights, I’m starting to go deaf but the promise of being set up with a girl that’s “model-hot” enables my friend Kristi to talk me into going out. I look around and the place is packed with women and I’m one of the two men in the audience. Does this have anything to do with the place being a dry smoke-free venue or did I just step into the Twilight Zone? If so, instead of that creepy theme song, the soundtrack features girl power acousti-folk in the Merrisa Ferrick and Ani Di Franco vein sung by Kate Wiren. She sings with confidence; like she’s drunk more whiskey than Janis Joplin and broken more hearts than Pat Benatar. She continuously chirps in with witty crowd banter, making up song lyrics on the spot and keeping the crowd amused. She even plays a “Birthday Song” she wrote for my friend earlier that day. Impressive.

Unfortunately, despite the performance, my night’s going South fast. I wasn’t able to meet the hot girl who I came to see and to top it all off, every other girl in the room turns out to be a lesbian. Just my luck. Anyhow, the clock is ticking and I’m looking forward to getting me some alcohol in my blood. This was a definitely an interesting stop along the way though. (Kier Byrnes)

Two Reviewers at the Same Show

BRADSHAW, THE GOOD NORTH, THE SILENT GOODBYE
O’Briens
2/22/0

The Silent Goodbye takes the stage dressed entirely in black; their music is just as dark. At its best, it’s enchanting catharsis, at its worst, it’s music to open a vein to. Both excellent guitarists sing separately, emotionally and violently, but rarely melodically. This is what would take them to new heights: imparting a sense of song. They have all the other elements in place, so I suggest singing harmony, as two good singers can make one great one.

The Good North are the most promising band I’ve seen in years. The elements are all there; the music is equal parts The Sheila Divine and The Strokes. There’s passion to spare, delay-drenched guitar, and a swaggering singer with pipes. Onstage, everyone is committed to the moment; the music swirls upward in continual crescendo and emotion is everywhere. What’s missing (and it may just be the sound system) is breathing room. Space begets clarity; a moment to rest is a moment to think and connect. What they need is: “Just a little patience… yeah.”

Bradshaw is pure smart-punk-pop entertainment. Tyler sings like Rob Halford, and to paraphrase NWA, “it’s probably why he kicks so much butt, he kicks ass!” He is one of the best lead singers locally, and who would have thought it when he seemed a gentle foil for Andrew King in The Control Group. Of course, Bradshaw has an entirely different sound and approach; they are more punk buoyancy than epic sincerity. Their guitarist gives off the rock love; people crowd the stage, laughing, giving devil horns, spilling beer. Allston rock city, know your new master: Bradshaw! (Glenwood)

THE SILENT GOODBYE, THE GOOD NORTH
O’Briens
2/22/02

There’s so much smoke in O’Briens I can barely see the back wall. I thought that the band on stage had a smoke machine going but no, it’s their fan base of crazy nicotine addicts. There’s a crew in front of the stage, cigarettes in hand, nodding their heads in unison to the drumbeat. The Silent Goodbye’s shirtless drummer is rocking out, exposing his tatts while the band dishes up some heavy extended jams. This band’s pretty young, and you can tell by the amount of energy and excitement they put into their performance. The Strange Goodbyes are kind of like a jam band, in that no real melody stays in your head. Just the groove, which in this case was more like full assault. Think of Tool but without the quirks or catchy hooks.

The Good North has a ton of people there to see them tonight. Decked out in full indy/emo look with the right amount of vintage gear to make them cool in Boston, I feel like I know what I’m in for before it even starts. My friend nudges me and slurs that the singer, Luke O’Neil, looks a little like Elton John. As I think about that one, The Good North busts into their first tune and it completely catches me off guard. Its not the dime a dozen indy crap that’s oh so trendy today, it’s actually some pretty damn good music. They have a Sheila Divine sort of influence, a balance between soft and quiet, a whisper and a scream, but they also have a High Ceilings misty hard rocking vibe going. Gotta say, I’m impressed. (Kier Byrnes)

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Cortney Swain

COURTNEY SWAIN: THE BROAD STROKES OF IMAGINATION

by Harry C. Tuniese

Songs are strange critters: thoughts with interpretive sounds, all individually contained, promising more than less, in simple bursts of content, known or unknown. By now, having passed through so many genres and styles, when I hear something where all the diverse elements connect, I’m struck with a renewed sense of wonder and awakening. Some artists may take years of struggle to reach their goals, and sometimes, they’re able to hit their visionary bulls-eye early in their career. Let’s meet Courtney Swain, a young, shimmering performer whose second solo album, Monstre, combines a gorgeous blend of overwhelming vocal talent, modern keyboard techniques, and contemporary sophistication. Although I’ve possessed this disc for just a short time, the sheer power of self-determination, vision, and performance that blazes out of every bar of music is so obvious and so courageously implemented that I am in a state of virtual awe at the achievement. She’s also a member of Bent Knee, a fabulous art-rock ensemble that has been roaming our locales for almost six years. As we sat down to discuss her burgeoning career, I can’t help gushing over her ingenuity and convincing qualities. Her new album is already tops on my list of local albums for 2015…

Noise: Tell us a bit about your musical background. What brought you to Boston and how do you feel you fit into our music scene?

Courtney: I was born and raised in Japan and moved to Boston in 2008 to attend Berklee College of Music. Before that, I was a classical pianist for a long time, though I never really wanted to be one, but it’s where I got my background. In high school, I sang in rock bands and found that to be refreshing to show my emotions along with the piano playing. I applied to Berklee after their deadline, but they contacted me and offered me an audition, so that’s how I ended up here. I find the scene to be diverse, but filled with cliques and niches that somehow don’t work together, but the deeper you dig you find more interests. I feel a lot of people bloom a project here and then tend to gravitate to other places like New York or LA. My band, Bent Knee, was formed in 2008 – we’re  still here and that’s good so far.

Noise: What did you expect to get from Berklee?

Courtney: I expected to learn how to make a living with music. I can do the music fine, but it showed me the fast track to doing a lot of things, like earning money, networking, and other aspects of the business. But best of all, it introduced me to the people I’m playing with now. Also, as a solo artist, I’m now part of a new collective, Secret Dog Brigade Records, which is seeking to change the paradigm of the scene towards a more nurturing & community based effort, less cut-throat or using tired old values. We’re trying to connect with other outfits using the internet and other social media, like the Record Company in Dorchester, to offer both veterans and newcomers a less expensive way to make music. That seems like a worthwhile venture to me!

Noise: How do you compose? Where does your creativity spring from?

Courtney: Well, each of my solo albums I did in one month. During the year, I write down little scraps of ideas, mostly lyrical – some musical, and then when the time comes, I coalesce them and see what I’ve got. I usually have half the album done from the work I’ve compiled and then I force myself to pull the rest out of nowhere. I’m most proud of the diversity in Monstre  – all the sounds are different in the song flow and I’m adamant to innovate in the form and harmonic structure. A lot of my creativity springs from frustration in the conflict of who I am and who I want to be. Having grown up in Japan, everything is different culturally, and as I gained new friends and acquaintances here I noticed different frames of reference that led me to question my values. I’ve had to change habits to cope and wanting to be a full-time musician allows me to observe these differences, without having to put on a “work face” as many people do. Really, I’m just a work-in-progress.

Noise: What do you call your type of music? Singer-songwriter? Electronica? Quirky avant-garde?

Courtney: That’s funny – I never ever think of that as a whole – it’s just dreamy songs!

Noise: Now that teaching is a vocation, how do you introduce music to your students? Do you first show the mechanics and then encourage them towards originality?

Courtney: It always depends on the student. Some kids are there because their parents make them and some special ones really take to it to heart. I encourage them to find their personal potential to unlock different parts of their lives, in their feelings and communication with others. Especially with my vocal students, the only thing holding them back is themselves. Singing is a very vulnerable and personal activity, so the connection between that and speech is an emotional one. People forget that and clam up. With my keyboard students, the mechanics are an essential tool. Not everyone is going to be a musician, so I know it’s important to learn fingerings and be able to read. The basic thing is to play music as a valuable part of one’s life.

Noise: Your cutting edge tunes stretch into an avant-garde direction with emotional depth, stylistic resonance, and lyrical imagery. It all feels so fresh and natural, yet well thought out – care to comment. What are you aiming for in your songwriting?

Courtney: A lot of my music just pops into my head – it just happens! I’m always looking to create something both familiar and fresh. I hear something and I immediately want to translate it to the keyboard to help fully realize the song. “Dreams” – from my first album – came to me on a bike ride past B.U., while “Grow Up!” – from the new album – was based on a keyboard riff and chord changes, with their time duration varying between the verses, which also acted as the metaphor for the song’s context.

Noise: Your vocals and their arrangements are amazing. Did you study or are you just gifted?

Courtney:  Vocals just happen! Though my lyrics go through editing, I very rarely do that with my vocals. When I was growing up, my dad listened a lot to The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater, Led Zeppelin, etc. and I naturally gravitated towards harmony lines. Though I have perfect pitch, I did study @ Berklee as a voice major and I had to start from scratch. Despite my piano ability, I did loose the joy of singing for a while because I was so focused on the mechanics – learning how to sing higher, sing louder, etc. It was very frustrating. My vocal development has been closely knit to my personal growth. I’m very proud that the vocals on Monstre are much more assured and controlled.

Noise: Both your solo albums were created for the RPM Challenge. Please explain that situation.

Courtney: I was introduced to that through the band Jaggery. It’s a call to musicians to create a certain amount of stuff based on quantity, not necessarily quality – 10 songs or 35 minutes of music – recorded within a month’s framework (usually February). It’s great when you start out with the first four or five tunes, but then you really have to change up your format or songwriting habits. It’s important to get it out and not labor too much over the process. It’s a great creative artistic enterprise.  [For more info, check the website  www.rpmchallenge.com.]

Noise:    Claws of the Beast Inside [2013] is a good introduction to your artistic values and Monstre [2105] nails it! Discuss your production techniques & ability in creating those albums.

Courtney: I used a software program called Reason. It’s modeled after rack synthesizers so it’s a lot more visual with knobs that you tweak and turn. It’s just my keyboard, microphone, and my computer. I used other instruments like violin, melodica, or a toy piano to enhance the textures. At Berklee, I studied composition and production as well as voice and keyboard, so that’s where my interests are truly directed.

Noise: When I was introduced just a few months ago to your tracks on the Secret Dog Brigade sampler, I was immediately floored and bought your albums from your website. Then I had  to see you perform, but was surprised to hear only one tune from the newest album. How do you plan incorporating the new material into your solo show?

Courtney:    I need to come up with a better looping situation, though I’m a bit hesitant to jump into full-on looping. So much of Monstre relies on textures that I need to set up a better triggering system. It’s something I’m looking forward to developing. When I get back from this tour with Bent Knee at the end of the summer, I can spend much more time on creating that fuller sound.

Noise: Tell me about Bent Knee, a most robust, dramatic, epic outfit – it’s been your main focus for years and you’re about to set out on a lengthy national tour. (Finished by the time this interview is published. – ed.)

Courtney: Bent Knee is an art-rock sextet. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious  – we’re not like a Rush. To me, it’s just progressive rock: forward thinking rock music with diverse influences. We try to be dramatic and dynamic. A lot of the earlier material was co-written with guitarist Ben Levin, but recently the group has become much more collaborative and exciting.

Noise: How will you handle these concurrent careers?

Courtney: Currently, Bent Knee is our bread winning band – with so much time and energy invested in making it work successfully. Right now it’s very tough to balance because I am the front person, as well as booker and organizing administrator, so there’s an endless workload to be tackled. But, since all of the members have their individual projects, we can foresee a time when the band becomes a seasonal effort. My solo act has become a refuge – it allows me to discover who I am in a fresh light. Though I’ve been playing for years, when I did my first solo show last year, I clammed up. Right there, that’s a new sensation.

Noise: Lastly, I cherish seeing new young talent obsessed with artistry in their efforts. I want to meet and listen to performers who pass this progressive torch. Both you and your band have created your own unique haunting style, obviously vowing never to repeat yourself. What are your future plans? Do you have a manager or agent or are you following your instincts?

Courtney: Well, I’m doing everything by myself for my own enjoyment for both situations, not trying to take over the world. My approach has been to love every aspect of the business and learn from each endeavor. So far it’s been working really well and I’m really quite proud.

Noise I hope Monstre wins you a bevy of fans and helps shape the arc of your career.

Courtney: Thanks very much. Everything I do for my solo act makes me feel good about myself.

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