Black Taxi |
Next time you're in the mood to hear something that sounds like a cross between Suicidal Tendencies and Gnarls Barkley, your best bet would be to check out SPIDERHEARTS, the collaboration between Milled Pavement producer/DJ Vik44 and Covered in Bees frontman Boo Leavitt. Their latest record is Goth Jams, a 14-song collection of lively electro tracks. Musically, Spiderhearts alternate between thumpy electro trip hop and videogamey glitch breaks, and both are fine platforms for Boo to let loose his characteristic weirdness and wit, which are the driving forces behind his manner of rapping/singing here. Unfortunately, there's nothing as venomous as Spiderhearts' debut single "Vacationland Uber Alles," which reprised the Dead Kennedys song as a pointed barb at Governor Paul LePage, but for fans of either of these dudes' other work, it's plenty entertaining. Visit spiderhearts.bandcamp.com.
Mainers with some degree of self- consciousness about how their state is perceived might remember BILL MAYO, the dude who wrote the mysteriously cultish Mainah battle song "Toddy" that exploded as an uncredited Internet video in 2009. Mayo's a Brooklyn musician originally from Waterville, but his band Black Taxi have since "taken off" in New York, in the sense that they headline the Bowery Ballroom and people come to their shows by the hundreds, we're told. They play a super energetic style of indie-rock not too removed from Modest Mouse — no traces of Maine dialect — and swing through Boothbay Harbor's MINE OYSTER on July 4. Visit blacktaxi.com.
The garage-punk band NUCLEAR BOOTS recorded their second album with Ron Harrity over the spring, and it should be out anytime now. A split EP between LEAVES, LEAVES and the RATTLESNAKES should emerge in the beginning of July, a logical pairing, and the first release by the 'snakes since the seven-song Spine showed up in the tail end of 2011. Meanwhile, the melodic punk band BORDERLINES, a/k/a the former members of the Leftovers not named Kurt Baker, dropped a solid six-song demo EP. Hear that at borderlinesmusic.bandcamp.com.
Topics:
New England Music News
, Bill Mayo, Nuclear Boots
