Democracy Center in action
By LIZ PELLY | August 9, 2011
DISCONNECTED The name of Big Nils’ singer tends to show up only in the fine print. |
Between Somerville's Starlabfest and Deep Heaven Now IV and a host of Allston house shows, last weekend boasted a stacked deck of local music. Cambridge had its own killer option with Ladyfest Boston's third benefit at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square on August 6, which lined up hardcore, garage, and post-punk acts for a good cause. All funds from these shows went toward venue costs and paying bands at the upcoming three-day festival, set for February at the Cambridge YMCA. Ladyfest Boston will then, in turn, benefit the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Access Fund.Boston three-piece female-fronted hardcore band Curmudgeon opened the Ladyfest benefit with quick, one-minute tracks — a snapshot of the noisy punk found on their Human Ouroboros cassette released in April. The room filled to about 40 kids for Big Nils, a four-piece teenage punk band from Western Mass fronted by 16-year-old singer Coco Gordon Moore. Their approach to bratty fuck-it-all post-punk is all low-key shouts, an occasional shriek, minimal punky guitar and bass riffs, and driving drums. It would be bad music journalism not to acknowledge their front-grrrl's familial roots, but the band doesn't use the connection as a crutch; it seemed as though many people in the room didn't know that this was Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon's daughter's band. Big Nils released their debut record Sibling in June via Bandcamp.
Somerville's Foreign Objects and NYC's Quilty followed with punky garage pop. Quilty played through a few tracks from their grungy '90s-inspired 2010 release Clover/Coriander plus newer singles like "Lizard Queen" and the appropriately timed "Shark Week." Boston's own Girlfriends closed the night, sounding badass as always, playing in front of an amp reading "kill a chillwaver for post-punk" in red tape. They were probably exhausted-as-fuck, having just played New York the night before and Starlabfest earlier in the day, but the Ladyfest benefit seemed well worth the trouble.
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Topics:
Live Reviews
, Music, Democracy Center, The Democracy Center, More
, Music, Democracy Center, The Democracy Center, boston music, Ladyfest, Curmudgeon, Quilty, Less
