Ken Field |
JAKE BANNON, lead singer of the Boston-based metalcore band CONVERGE, was on MTV this week. “We know we’re not easy to digest,” Bannon told Sumner Redstone’s little network. “We’re a band that you need to spend time with to really understand. . . . Without that, we’re a big barrage of noise. And as long as some people know there’s a little more to us than that, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing.”Let’s check out a few titles on Converge’s upcoming (October 24) Epitaph disc: “No Heroes,” “Grim Heart Black Rose,” “Trophy Scars,” “Hellbound,” “Sacrifice,” “Vengeance,” “Plague.” As Martha would say, “it’s a good thing.”
The quartet, who toured as part of this year’s “Sounds of the Underground” caravan, are playing a batch of dates in September with Mastodon and the Bronx. The closest they get to Boston is where this genre of music thrives: the Palladium in Worcester on September 9.
In addition to growling like a wounded animal, Bannon also co-owns the Salem-based Deathwish label. The roster includes MODERN LIFE IS WAR, who are about to release their second album, My Love, My Way. This Tuesday, September 5, they’ll road-test some of the new material at Revere’s Club Lido with Boston’s A GLOBAL THREAT, IGNITE, and STRIKE ANYWHERE.
KEN FIELD had a more interesting last week than you did. The local veteran saxophonist was working and playing in Japan and not worrying at all about little things like speaking a foreign language because he was traveling with translator/wife Karen Aqua. Monday the 21st, he played in a Kyoto club with bassist Hideyuki Shima and drummer Hiroshi Matsuda. Wednesday the 23rd, he played a Kobe club with that rhythm section plus tenor-saxophonist Eiichiro Arasaki. He played his own music and music from his oft-costumed band, the REVOLUTIONARY SNAKE ENSEMBLE.
That’s not all: from the 24th through the 28th Field attended the Hiroshima International Animation Festival — cool enough in its own right, but made even better because he gave a presentation on the compositional approach he’d used for Aqua's short abstract animation, “Sensorium.” They hope to screen it here later this year.
On the Web
Converge: http://www.convergecult.com/
Ken Field: http://fieldk.home.att.net/
Email the author
Jim Sullivan: jimsullivanink@verizon.net
