• If you're looking for an heir apparent to PAM BAKER and Maine's female keeper of the blues flame, MEGAN BAYRA might not be a bad pick. Her first record is Raw Era, full of old-time blues standards like "Summertime" and "Thrill Is Gone," along with some rock standards like the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues" and the Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See," complete with the flute bit in the intro and the finish. Bayra has a big voice and never seems to have met a vibrato she's didn't embrace, doing her best to eke every last drop out of every line she sings. Backing band of JACK FOSSETT on guitar, MAX KAY on bass, JUSTIN HAVU on keys, and JOSH FOURNIER on drums put together a competent backing, but are largely mixed far enough to the back that it's clear their primary job is to lay a foundation for the vocals. With so many standards and familiar songs, Bayra sets out a tough path for herself, to distinguish them from so many versions heard at weddings and in divey bars. As a demo to show off her potential, the disc mostly works. As a memorable album, less so.
• One-time LARS VEGAS member JEFF PLATZ returns to town January 31 with a new band, JEFF PLATZ'S NUDE SAVIORS, featuring local KIT DEMOS (MYSTIC OUTBOP REVIEW), for a show at SPACE Gallery. If you're not overly worried traditional song structure and sing-alongs, this is a date worth keeping.
Related:
Review: Out on the town, John Harbison plus 10, Local flavor, More 
- Review: Out on the town
Bars and clubs everywhere, 2009
- John Harbison plus 10
Classical music in Boston is so rich, having to pick 10 special events for this winter preview is more like one-tenth of the performances I'm actually looking forward to.
- Local flavor
Local journalist and acclaimed hip-hop scribe Andrew Martin has corralled a flavorful roster of Rhody-based rap talent on the Ocean State Sampler , 10 exclusive tracks available for free download.
- Beyond Dilla and Dipset
With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.
- Shout it out!
Sharks Come Cruisin' founder Mark Lambert is a Warwick native with a penchant for reworking and penning sea shanties from centuries past, often revised with rollicking punk flare — all thanks to the golden pipes of Quint, the shark-obsessed skipper in Jaws .
- Punk wreck
Guitar punk rock has a long and, frankly, dull history.
- Local heroes, ’09 edition
The Rhode Island music community flourished in 2009, with new full-lengths from the Coming Weak, California Smile, and the pride of Cranston West and official big-leaguers Monty Are I, who released Break Through the Silence in September.
- Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010
The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
- Review: In Search of Beethoven
Phil Grabsky's exhaustive documentary doesn't exactly dispel any stereotypes about Beethoven's being a shaggy genius prone to rages.
- The Stowaways
Empire Dine and Dance, January 4
- Joey Ramone remembered
On top of everything else that was a drag about the decade just past, there was this: in a three-and-a-half-year span, we lost three quarters of the Ramones. And then CBGB closed.
- Less
Topics:
New England Music News
, Entertainment, Music, Arts, More
, Entertainment, Music, Arts, The Marshall Tucker Band, Lars Vegas, Lars Vegas, Jack Fossett, Jack Fossett, Pam Baker, Pam Baker, Less
