• Maine folk musician DAVE ROWE hit and surpassed his $2000 Kickstarter goal last week, setting the stage for a new record of his classic, deeply regionally inflected folk tunes. With the money, he intends to employ a whole entourage of Maine musicians, and — gasp — pay them for their efforts. Rowe, of course, has been involved in local music since he could hold down a fret. The son of the late Schooner Fare songwriter Tom Rowe, he's played with the Makem Brothers, '90s acts Rowe by Rowe and Turkey Hollow, and more recently the SQUID JIGGERS, an active duo who keep a Wednesday night residency at Bull Feeney's. And while formally speaking, his particular brand of folk might be atypical Wax Tab fare, we can totally appreciate someone who's so dedicated his life to the labors of music-making and oral tradition. Look for the CD to be finished late summer, and check for more Rowe info at daverowemusic.com.
• Add jazzman ROB SCHREIBER to Zen Ben, Asher Platts, and the rest of the storied list of Portland musicians who have become local politicians. The Standard Issue drummer vies for a gig as South Portland District 1 city councilor next month, and campaigns on, among other agenda items, the goal of reducing the noise of party boats along the harbor.
• Besides their big release by "electronic phonk" duo ALTERED GEE (read a full review of their Rise From Yr Grave on page 17), L'ANIMAUX TRYST continues its grand project of fomenting local psychedelia with releases by the experimental folk project DRAB PONY (the cassette-only release Bulbul) and the hot AM-radio fuzz of TRACEY TRANCE (the LP Pyper Kub). The label has had a relatively dormant few months while moving its HQ, but these are major howls from a seemingly revived beast. Check them out at lanimauxtryst.com.
• While he runs with a different pack these days, former L'animaux affiliate IAN PAIGE gave life to a solo record this week, a limited cassette of a dreamer called Poor Palimpsest, which flips the levers of pure drone far more than the fuzz-folk in his primary unit Planets Around the Sun. Enjoyable, unfettered, and occasionally ecstatically doomed musique concrete. Stop by teenriver.bandcamp.com.
