Doctor Gasp |
• For many, Halloween's a chance to dress as a slasher or a zombie or a slutty Harry Potter or something. And no shame in that! To DAN BLAKESLEE, however, it's another occasion to step into the skin of his diabolical alter-ego Doctor Gasp. Blakeslee's been donning the Doctor's cloak and mask every Halloween since 2003, and his repertoire — emotional, broad-paletted folk tales — is replaced by a batch of darkly adventurous songs about vampire fish and cursed swamps. Celebrating Gasp's tenth anniversary, Blakeslee takes him on a 31-date Northeastern tour that outlines the face of a Jack-O-Lantern (spookily accurate! — see it at drgasp.com), bringing him to our environs October 28 at Bubba's Sulky Lounge. Blakeslee's a champ and his alter ego's a good hoot; what he pulls off every Halloween seems like it must be a decent exorcism, at least as good as the default celebration of mass and various consumption of dubious candies.
• Various attributes of JEFF BEAM: 1) He rules. 2) Does #1 under his own name while playing full-time in another band (The Milkman's Union). 3) Does so while being deceptively young. 4) Has released a new record. You'll Find That It's Stranger Than Known is a collection of B-sides, live tracks, and covers (the Kinks, Spoon, and Olivia Tremor Control) the psych-pop songwriter whipped up in the aftermath of his beastly April release, Be Your Own Mirror. Fiercely creative stuff by a relentless and fast-growing Portland songwriter, available for download at jeffbeam.bandcamp.com.
Related:
Spoon | Transference, Review: WFNX's Miracle on Tremont Street 2009, Review: Do It Again, More 
- Spoon | Transference
Any year now, Spoon will release an album consisting of one 35-minute unfailing groove anchored by bass and peppered with erratic guitar-chord grunts and Britt Daniel's wordless exclamations ("Awright!") — an idealized endgame that distills the band's reductive technique to its purest state.
- Review: WFNX's Miracle on Tremont Street 2009
A quick, mildly sycophantic shout-out to the "powers that be" here in Phoenix -Land: This year's Miracle on Tremont Street was nothing short of a wicked pissah powerhouse bill. The grand old Orpheum creaked under the weight of a sold-out audience, and a pronounced feistiness prevailed .
- Review: Do It Again
As his 40th birthday looms, Boston Globe writer Geoff Edgers is on a mission to reunite the Kinks — a band who spat out a string of hits (“You Really Got Me,” “Lola”) and endured for decades, only to collapse from the sibling rivalry between founders Ray and Dave Davies.
- Multi-colored Greetings
You can’t accuse Jeff Beam of lacking ambition.
- SXSW 2010 (Wednesday): Spoon at Stubbs
Spoon playing live at Stubbs during SXSW 2010 | March 17, 2010
- Photos: Spoon at the House of Blues
Spoon, live at the House of Blues, March 27, 2010
- New projects, debuts, and goodbyes
Former CAMBIATA mates CHRIS MOULTON and STAN DZENGELEWSKI (hardest name in Portland music to spell?) have a new project they're calling VANITYITES , and they're getting help from all kinds of former bandmates and other talented folks.
- Jeff Beam navigates the Flying Trapeze
Talk about a high-wire act. On his fourth full-length album in as many years, young songwriter/performer/engineer Jeff Beam has set out to make an important album that's listenable, a record that both challenges ideas about pop music and embraces them.
- A local covers album that doesn't focus on the hits
Hopefully, the awesomeness that was Beautiful Locals hasn't slipped from the Portland consciousness yet.
- The two sides of Marie Moreshead
To this point, Marie Moreshead has made her bones as a sweet-voiced singer/songwriter with a lot of promise based on 2008's The Distraction EP and 2009's Birdwatchers EP.
- WFNX's top 101 songs in 2010
WFNX listeners voted online at wfnx.net for six weeks to create this list of 2010's best songs.
- Less
Topics:
New England Music News
, The Kinks, Dan Blakeslee, Jeff Beam, More
, The Kinks, Dan Blakeslee, Jeff Beam, Spoon, Olivia Tremor Control, the Milkman’s Union, Be Your Own Mirror, Less
