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Matt Parish

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Person and persona

For John Shade, it’s all in the text
Folksie newcomer John Shade says that his songs are focused on identity and anonymity, but there’s also what sounds like an unraveling personal economy lurking beneath: characters steal purses, check classifieds, go it alone with “no safety net,” and generally feel like bums.

By: MATT PARISH | May 04, 2010

Disco stew

Mystery Roar are more than just four-on-the-floor
I’ve never been to a disco band’s practice space, but I figured it would involve lots of velvet, mirrors, and other visions borrowed from the foggy-lens films they used to show at roller rinks. Was that naive of me?

By: MATT PARISH | April 20, 2010

Worcester rock city

Boston, you be nice to Dom and Golden Girls
When I first saw the gooey-inked hand-screened sleeve of the Golden Girls’ recent Ultimate Freedom EP, not only did I get that stirring, satisfying feeling that it had come straight from unsound minds confined to some DIY basement workshop, I also sort of got the creeps. But I think that’s only because they’re from Worcester.

By: MATT PARISH | April 13, 2010

Haus music

The Whitehaus spares its carpets with Blastfest 3
On a sleepy side street in JP sits the Whitehaus, where, on a recent Saturday evening, muffled electronic gurgles and drones pulse from the basement like the sounds of some secret sci-fi laundromat. It's an experimental electronics night anchored by Boston synth overlord Keith Fullerton Whitman, but it could be any number of scenes that the Whitehaus has welcomed into its living room over the past four years.

By: MATT PARISH | March 17, 2010

Bands of brothers

'Hislopalooza' is a family affair
I'm living the most local life I've ever lived right now in Dorchester," says Chris Hislop, bespectacled guitarist in the long-running Boston band Piles.

By: MATT PARISH | March 10, 2010

No moves required

Club nights for ye who cannot dance
Some of us are just better off not shaking it in public. So here are a few recurring options for rad nights of music that require not an ounce of dance mojo on your part.

By: MATT PARISH | March 01, 2010

Oddballs

After 40 years, the Residents ditch the script
Even if they had closed up shop 15 years ago, the Residents would go down as some of rock's most prolific pranksters. They aped the Beatles on their 1974 debut, Meet the Residents , tormented short attention spans with 40-minute songs on 1980's The Commercial Album , and skewered standards by everyone from James Brown to John Philip Sousa along the way.

By: MATT PARISH | February 02, 2010

Ethiopiqued

Debo Band go from the Western Front to East Africa
Last spring, Danny Mekonnen and Jonah Rapino led Boston's fledgling Ethiopian pop group Debo Band straight to Addis Ababa. They played a local festival, made friends with nightclub owners, and found an Ethiopian Airlines deal for a free trip down the coast to Tanzania.

By: MATT PARISH | January 26, 2010

Punk wreck

Get Laid have nothing else to do but rule
Guitar punk rock has a long and, frankly, dull history.

By: MATT PARISH | January 05, 2010

Winter warmers

Local rockers drop it like it's cold
Sure, some bands take the easy route and have album releases through the summer, enticing you to shows with back-patio barbecues and all-night rooftop after-parties. In January? Not so much.

By: MATT PARISH | January 04, 2010

2009: The year in local pop

The '09 mixtape
When I think back on 2009, I feel the same pleasant discomfort you get at the end of a John Hughes movie, when suddenly all the jocks and dorks and punks are good friends. This year, hardcore denizens of time-worn niches came out of hiding and acted all presentable and all sorts of scenes and sounds went behind the bleachers for some unlikely scores.

By: MATT PARISH | December 28, 2009

Going down

One last fling with The Elevator Drops
One last fling with The Elevator Drops

By: MATT PARISH | December 16, 2009

Epic Win

The Martyrdom of Junius
It never seemed possible, but metal is finally getting comfortable with indie-rock proportions. What once required enormous stages with catwalks and hyperactive spark machines now really needs only kids throwing all-ages shows in basements. It's a bit more modest an existence — nobler, somehow. Nerdier, even.

By: MATT PARISH | December 09, 2009

Sweet sorrow

A farewell to Pants Yell!
Everybody loves a tidy ending. Episodes of Seinfeld , fireworks finales, a sturdy hem at the base of a pant leg — these things give us faith that the designer knew what he was doing.

By: MATT PARISH | November 11, 2009

The evil deaf

The return of the Northeast Noise and Power Electronics Festival
Inside the dusty corner room of a dungeon-like warehouse basement, Karl Giesing dumps out a bag full of pedals, samplers, grimy cables, and homemade synth boxes. Their functionality seems questionable.

By: MATT PARISH | November 05, 2009

Drear leaders

The Black Heart Procession stick to the low road
On the Black Heart Procession’s first visit to Boston, back in ’98, the duo hunched on chairs at the Middle East downstairs surrounded by equipment — keyboards, guitars, a musical saw, an array of percussion.

By: MATT PARISH | October 27, 2009

Rhythm queens

The educational ecstasy of Zili Misik
It’s a chilly Monday afternoon, and at the head of the lawn in front of the Christian Science Center, Zili Misik are starting soundcheck, bear-hugging their instruments to keep them warm.

By: MATT PARISH | October 21, 2009

An unstoppable force

This time is (once again) right for Converge
Appreciation of Converge is one of those things that comes after you stop trying too hard, like driving stick without stalling at the red lights.

By: MATT PARISH | October 15, 2009

Crash proof

Arms and Sleepers are more than just a hard drive
I've never trusted music that's too engineered, too perfect. Headphones on the drummer and a hundred tracks running off a laptop? Most bands practice and practice to get things just right, but it's that threat of the unexpected that makes a show worth seeing.

By: MATT PARISH | September 29, 2009

Up and autumn!

New local rock to shake the leaves from the trees
Behold! The prime of the approaching fall local rock crop.

By: MATT PARISH | September 15, 2009

Band of outsiders

The Beatings are at home under the radar
The Beatings got back from their eighth US tour the day before, but they’re already reconvening over at frontman Eldridge Rodriguez’s misplaced little two-story beach house in Lower Allston. I do a double take on the way through the cute picket fence.

By: MATT PARISH | September 09, 2009

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