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.
