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New England Music News

Boston music news: April 6, 2007

Unnatural Axe

“I am absolutely primed for my punk-rock midlife crisis,” says RICH PARSONS, singer/guitarist of UNNATURAL AXE, a band who formed back in 1978 and broke up in 1980. But the trio have regularly reunited, and they’re a full working unit again. Last fall they played in Rome, where an Italian rock writer told Parsons, “Your music is the truth, the true punk sound.” Every few years, Parsons brings former Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome up from Nashville to gig. This year, that’ll happen on Good Friday, April 6, at the Linwood. The Axe will play their own set as well as back Chrome; the night will also include sets by Parsons’ late-’70s punk contemporaries the NERVOUS EATERS and CLASSIC RUINS. At the end of April, Unnatural Axe return to Rome (this time with Chrome) to play the three-night “Road to Ruins” punk festival.

Former Phoenix rock critic JIMMY GUTERMAN spent four years commissioning and compiling tracks for The Sandinista! Project, a tribute disc that features 35 acts playing all 36 songs from the Clash’s three-LP 1980 set Sandinista! “It’s still very much a punk record,” says Guterman, still a Mass resident, “even more than London Calling. It was so expansive, it showed how much you could put in and still have punk.” Proceeds from the double CD go to Clash-favored charities like Amnesty International. It’s out May 15 on 00:02:59, a label named after a Sandinista! song.

Michael Tarbox of the TARBOX RAMBLERS has assembled what he calls a “neo-, post- and future-roots” bill at P.A.’s Lounge for April 16. Seven acts, including the Ramblers, take the stage starting at 7:30. Tarbox says the bands’ range goes from “fever-dream country” to “psychedelic folk spirituals” and “collective improvisation.”'

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Jim Sullivan: jimsullivanink@verizon.net