Friday, January 27, 2006

We’ve seen the three-man musical-amoeba that is Devil Music headline the Milky Way as an electric-violin-led rock trio. We’ve seem ‘em perform contemporary-classical works with a 20-piece orchestra at the sold-out Mills Gallery -- and one of those works was a balding dude mouth-farting for like ten minutes, seriously. They’ve done tons of shit we didn’t see, like participate in Glenn Branca’s 100-guitar composition Symphony #13 in 2001 (at least it says so here) and tour nationally playing silent-film scores to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the 1922 Western Big Stakes. And so we’re pumped to see them play a CD release show for their new rock record Go! with their youngest collaborator ever: fourth-grade "guitar shredder" Alex Brown-Whalen.

Nine-year-old Alex has been taking lessons from the dude on the far-left, multi-instrumentalist-wonder Brendon Wood. And when Devil Music had a Wednesday show booked at Great Scott in Allston this past September, Wood invited his star pupil to join he and Rapino. Onstage, Alex was decked out in a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt circa 1973. On his little knuckles was the word OZZY inked upside-down. His parents were there -- his dad actually videotaped the show -- and so was his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Amica. ("She was dancing," electric-violinist Rapino remembers, grinning.)

One major hitch: Alex's kid-friends couldn't come to the 21-plus club. So when the three-piece finally finished Go! (select song called "Burning" below) they invited him back. Alex’s involvement inspired a theme: an all-ages bill tomorrow night at the Massachusetts College of Art (North Hall) comprised of bands with members under 18. Bands like Undecided Youth, a Marblehead junior-high group whose Web site lists members’ "rock idols" alongside their "best friends" and "favorite colors." And a pair of others called the Conversions + the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, all scheduled to take place between the bedtime-friendly hours of 5 and 9 p.m.

[ADD-friendly version: Devil Music is playing a show tomorrow at MassArt from 5 to 9 p.m. with a 9-year-old guitar shredder named Alex and a bunch of other kid-bands. Alex is cute and he likes the Misfits, Slayer, and Ozzy, which way better than the Lame Hot Hits you were sweating as a young child. Alex isn't on the Web-exclusive Devil Music song from Go! below, but you should wax some right-clickage on that dash-underlined text. The song's cool.]