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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
DOWNLOAD: The Silver Lining, “Cemented Steps” (mp3)
It’s rare to hear a debut album that sounds as fully-realized as the the Silver Lining’s note-perfect, Tony Goddess-produced Well Dressed Blues, which already already has folks describing them as the US’s answer to Magic Numbers. Fronted by co-singing husband-and-wife team of Anna Price and Matt Rhodes, the group nails joyous ’60s pop like no one we’ve heard in years: as our sister publication Stuff at Night put it, it’s “like being hurtled through space in a time machine aimed for the Summer of Love and piloted by the Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas and the Papas.” Next week, the Silver Lining plays kicks off a residency that sees them playing every Tuesday in June at the Abbey Lounge. Matador's next big thing, Jennifer O'Connor, is along for the jumpoff on June 6. Mark yr calendars.
CLICK HERE to read Jonathan Perry's profile of the Silver Lining.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Top: She's the Car. Bottom: Therefore I Am
DOWNLOAD: Therefore I Am, “I Get Nervous In Cars” (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: She’s the Car, “Vibeke” (mp3)
We take an interest in scenes of all flavors, and right now the one that’s got the most juice in Boston is the teenpunk underground that’s grown up around venues like the ICC Church and bands like Vanna and the Receiving End of Sirens. More on Vanna and their Epitaph debut coming in a few days; a long overdue interview with TREOS coming later this summer. And right now, we introduce you to some kids we think you should know.
Previously available only on a vinyl split-single with their Epitaph-bound metalcore pals Vanna, Therefore I Am's “Nervous” is new-century pop-metal done right: one part Iron Maiden-y guitar duel, two parts soaring emo chorus. This time around, though, the kids aren’t drinking Jager and worshipping Satan; they’re just trying to stay sober and righteous. (Note also the intro, recorded live on the Boston College arm of the Green Line.) If you're in New England, they're probably playing a VFW near you in the next two months.
We've gotten to know She’s the Car, a super nice girlgroop, through their lead singer/keyboardist Grace, a good girl who's fallen in with a rough crowd. Asked for a one-sentence quote we thought for a minute and said, “Lilith Fair for emo kids?” To which Grace mentioned that she had in fact been to Lilith Fair. We're trying to do the math: she must've been, like, seven? We suspect a budding Tori Amos in 2006 would sound a lot like this. Truth be told, the only band they remind us of even vaguely is a Providence all-girl band called Can't Face the Falling, and as it turns out, both bands are friends (to give you a sense of how tight this whole scene is, both girlbands lent members to sing vox on the Vanna record.) She's the Car are veterans of Soulfest ("New England's Premier Christian Music and Teaching Festival"), and if you've got a problem with that, you can take it up with us. Over here at OTD we're like, second-generation agnostics, so get the fuck over yourselves. If kids can figure out how to love God and Metallica, we're all for it. Also, it's kinda sweet on this song the way Grace sings, "We will take you to a higher, brighter floor/with softer beds," as if they're the Lord's rock and roll nurses -- and not that we believe in God or anything, but if we did, we would believe fervently that He would have lots of rock and roll nurses in His employ.
By now most of you have heard of Paper, the weekly dance night that’s packing emo kids by the hundreds into rooms like Harpers Ferry, Club Lido, and the Middle East. We went to a few and decided we wanted to party with these kids as soon as fucking possible. So when the Phoenix asked us to set up some shows -- which we’re now doing on a monthly basis -- we called up our dude Eric and put together this show coming up THURSDAY at Bill’s Bar. Stay tuned for details. Each month we’ll be highlighting a favorite club, DJ, band, or promoter. Any of our acquaintences who want to get involved, let us know through the usual channels.
Photos (c) Byron Smith.
Wales's Bullet for My Valentine are having their breakout year: introduced to the headbanging faithful via tours with Rob Zombie and Lacuna Coil, they landed the most coveted opening slot in New York (Guns N Roses' Hammerstein shows) and then set out to headline a Trustkill tour, which brought 'em to Axis last night. You can tell from their T-shirts and haircuts -- or lack of them -- that these motherfuckers mean business. Photographer Byron Smith reports audience participation level was up in the screaming-along-with-every-word levels.
WATCH: Bullet for My Valentine, "All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)" [Windows] [Real]
Saturday, May 27, 2006
DOWNLOAD: Finian McKean, "Oh, My Heart Is Heavy" (mp3)
Back when he was with the Boston indie-rock group Push Kings, on former Dambuilders’ guitarist Eric Masunaga’s label, Finian McKean went by the name Finn Moore Gerety. Now he’s moved to Brooklyn, where he’s crafting sad, spare, Heartbreaker-grade indie-folk ballads alone at the piano. His recent disc Shades Are Drawn has inspired a blogroll's worth of praise, and he returns to PA's Lounge this Saturday night for a homecoming of sorts. Above: our favorite song from the record, the kind you could imagine Emmylou Harris having a go at. Which is not bad work for an ex-Boston Irishman if you can get it.
[Due to techncal difficulties, this post didn't flip when it was supposed to. We apologize for the inconvenience. Now we're gonna go fix our blog engine with a sledgehammer.]
DOWNLOAD: Age Rings, “Millions of Americans” (mp3)
This song was recorded last weekend at a converted Civil War-era barn, and you can practically hear the woodgrain. Age Rings have yet to officially release a single song, but after listening to their previous demo for six months, we’ve already started thinking of them as Boston’s answer to Wilco. And we’re not just saying that ’cause guitarist Will Spitz sits three cubes over. (Which puts us in a weird situation: we generally try not to write about our own, at least not in this publication. At which times you realize that sometimes the Globe actually is good for something. And their little blog Toto, too.)
Age Rings play Saturday night at T.T. the Bear's Place [DETAILS], as well as June 12 at Great Scott; those of you in the New York City area should keep an eye peeled for their Lit Lounge gigs this summer (June 24 and July 29).
Friday, May 26, 2006
Is that a Pearl Jam hat?
Donate enough money to a good cause -- or win the Red Sox their first World Series in 80-odd years -- and you too can rock out with Pearl Jam. Last night between songs PJ's Eddie Vedder went on a rant about how part of the ticket price ($51 + service fees, ouch!) was to be donated to Horizons for Homeless Children, a Boston-based organization that attempts to break the cycle of homelessness, starting with children. Then, he mentioned that a local man and his cohorts have agreed to match every dollar that PJ donates, and that local man, avid/rabid Pearl Jam fan, is Theo Epstein.
About 20 minutes later, as they were starting to close down shop with "Rockin' In the Free World," an unannounced special guest guitarist came out donning a hat, wig, and GIANT sweatshirt. After a performance that included lots of off-time jumping, sloppy axe work, and falling to his knees to rock even harder, the garb was shed to reveal . . . you guessed it, Epstein. (Some audience-shot photos can be seen here.) Who woulda thunk it? I was hoping for the Boss, who was rumored to be in the building. Oh well.
That capped a pretty rock and roll day for Epstein, who kicked off with a morning announcement that for the second year his Foundation To Be Named Later would be throwing a bash at Ye Olde Fenway Park in conjunction with ESPN rockabilly fanatic Peter Gammons and CBS sitcommer Mike O'Malley. The 2nd annual Hot Stove, Cool Music: The Fenway Sessions takes place July 12, with music by the Click Five, Juliana Hatfield, Buffalo Tom, the Gentlemen, and a bunch of Sox irregulars including Lenny DiNardo and Epstein. Now if they can just get Eddie to replace last year's faux-Eddie impersonation by Bronson Arroyo, maybe they'll fill the joint.
DOWNLOAD: Snowleopards, "Stuck in the Middle" (mp3)
Sarah Tomlinson gets the lowdown this week on Heidi Saperstein's band the Snowleopards, who're playing tonight at Sally O'Briens, next to PA's Lounge in Union Square, openingg for Emily Grogan: it's a CD-release party for a one-song single that they'll be giving away free at the door. Or, if you can't make it, you can just download it here. You should. Because it's really, really good: plugging in and rocking out, they channel Fountains of Wayne’s new-wave pop and toss in a classic Fleetwood Mac-ish solo for good measure.
Recorded at the band’s home studio, ["Stuck in the Middle"] was mixed by local power-pop songsmith BLEU. “It’s guitar-oriented pop, like a merge of the modern retro ’80s sound (with the synth-sounding Elbow guitar) and ’70s guitar pop like Fleetwood Mac,” says guitarist Mike Oor. The band, which also includes drummer Paul Trudeau and bassist Jim Zavadoski (ex-DAMN PERSONALS), will record their debut full-length at their home studio this summer. Bleu will produce two of the songs and mix the entire album. “The record will be very pop and guitar heavy,” says Oor. In the meantime, Saperstein will sing on Grogan’s upcoming album and perform with Bleu’s Get Up Choir at the Paradise on June 16.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
We're so turning our entire weekend over to Compound 440r. Mr. MicL Potvin just checked in to inform us of a late-breaking gig by Japanther Friday night over at MIT. Which is sort of like just casually mentioning that there's gonna be a fucking hurricane in someone's living room. Oh, the furniture damage. For those of you who attended the Steer Roast, this is the same address: 70 Amherst Street, 9 pm. Those of you who cannot make it, and some of you who can, should also tune in WMBR's "Out of the Trash Can" from 7 to 8 pm for live, on-air Japanthage.
To sweeten the bargain, pawrty-rap commandos Big Digits and the reunited -- and tour-sharpened -- We Are Cassette are also on the bill. Plus, word has trickled back to We Are Cassette that the band who took their original name, Cassette, might have broken up. Which then leaves open the possibility that We Are Cassette would go back to calling themselves Cassette. We feel like jumping the gun and just calling them Cassette ("which I never really stopped calling us anyway" -- Potvin), especially since they've taken this opportunity to drop a new song, namely their bananas synth-mope anthem "Human Beings," which can also be found on the amazing new two-disc Compound 440r sampler. It does that awesome '80s Breakfast Club thing where the synth parts are really optimistic and the lyrics are about being in love but the voice is all Bela Lugosi-is-coming-for-your-children. Like Simple Minds if they'd been possessed by Type O Negative. On second thought, don't ever tell anyone we said that.
DOWNLOAD: Japanther, "The Whales" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Cassette, "Human Beings" (mp3)
 That dude DJ Mark E. Moon has been awful quiet lately -- too quiet, buried-in-the-lab quiet, building-birfday-mixtapes quiet. We should've known that he wasn't kidding when he told us his Dipset-ized Neutral Milk Hotel "King of Karat Flowers" remix was part of a longer suite. But after that, there was his baile-funk Belle and Sebastian remix and then . . . nothing. Hell, we haven't even heard much from his band Plunge Into Death lately.
Wait's over. Run for cover.
The official occasion of Mark E. Moon's "Last Nail in the Coffin" mixtape is the birthday of his comrade-in-ravesploitation TD of Big Digits, and the official celebration goes down tonight at outsider-rock gnome Dan Shea's "Haunted Toof, Neon Fang" night at the Reel Bar. [DETAILS.] But this tape is going to be knocking spare tires off trunks for months. We knew the kid had something back when he created the groundbreaking "Crunkin Donuts" mixtape, which introduced the world to the Compound 440r miniverse and set Allston breakdancing to UV Protection. Now he's set his scope on the world at large, and the results are . . . fuck . . . stunning. Crazy. The tracklist doesn't do it justice -- but like OMG THE MAGNETIC FIELDS DISCO SONG AND JJ FAD IN THE SAME JAM (which OTD hereby christens the "S/FJ'S REVENGE MIX"), and then Tom Waits over Clipse shotguns is, like, ten kinds of retarded genius. Like everything on this thing, the Waits track is outofcontrol brilliant, but it's an example of what elevates Moonbeams over yr usual mashup fare -- the associational leap (the fronteir-American-violence of Waits' bone machines, the urban-American-violence of Neptunes' clattering gunplay) that makes rock critics start drooling and titling posts "total genius" and gushing like idiots.
Neutral Milk Hotel: King of Carrot Flowers
Lil Kim: Whoa
Juiceboxxx: Do you wanna hear some Juiceboxxx?
Tom Waits: Hoist That Rag/ Hawnay Troof: Out of Teen
Beats International: Won't Talk About It
Chamillionaire: Ridin
Sebadoh: Brand New Love/ Yaz: Situation
Magnetic Fields: I Thought You Were My Boyfriend/ JJ Fad: Boom I Got
Your Boyfriend
Run DMC: Tricky/ Velvet Underground: What Goes On
Busta Rhymes: Touch It/Architecture in Helsinki: Do the Whirlwind (NON-MARK E. MOON JAM)
Jay Z: Dirt off Your Shoulder/B-52s: 52 Girls
Clipse: Mr. You Too
My Bloody Valentine: Sometimes
DOWNLOAD: Mark E. Moon, Last Nail in the Coffin Mix (mp3)
(In this week's Circuits column, David Day profiles the WERS "Revolutions" triumvirate. Addendum: 'ERS honcho Alden Fertig (above, at right) doesn't just let the music play, he also makes some himself.)
Brookline resident Alden Fertig runs Emerson’s radio station WERS, but he's been DJing since he was 14 and is a bit of a techno prodigy. He claims not to listen to much new stuff these days, but his new stuff belies that statement. Getting its worldwide debut on OTD, his most recent track, “Let Go” is a nanotrance prog monster that grows from a mustard seed into a mountain. It recalls the recent output of uberhip labels like Poker Flat and Kompakt, as the numerous arcs dip and dive into beatpools with a Greg Louganis-ish grace. The song is also filled with more melodies than a sunny Sunday afternoon. It's the jim-jam.
DOWNLOAD: Alden Fertig, "Let Go" (mp3)
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Say what you will about this year's Best Music Poll, the hippie kids sure love them some Matisyahu, who plays the Pavilion tonight. BMP is always an occasion for some of us older dudes -- you know, us early-30s geezers -- to sit around telling the interns about the good old days. So here goes.
It's probably the most famous WFNX show ever: depending on who's telling the story, it was either the night Nevermind came out or the night before -- Google isn't much help here -- and the band that was about to break punk or whatever was playing a gig at Axis for the station that had been the first (there still weren't that many) to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit." MTV was there, and the clips below -- in crappier fidelity -- were on their site for years. Anyhoo, the show sold out, there was an all-ages show the next day. In our recollection, they never played Boston again. (The closest they came was Fitchburg, after In Utero.) So here it is, until Courtney makes them take it down: live, that night, sold out . . . Nirvana!
There are those nights that you go see see a friend’s band and you tell yourself: this headliner that I’ve never heard of has about 30 seconds to absolutely blow me away or I’m going home. That's what happened last night. An hour later I was standing in line to pick up MuteMath’s disc.
Mashed in prog-rock somewhere between the Police and Radiohead (yes I know that Radiohead sucks, but think of Angels and Airwaves but not as cheesy), this was quite possibly the best show I’ve seen this year. The drummer rocked out so hard he literally duct-taped headphones on his head and the front man, Paul Meany, used the whole stage and even their merch table to rock out (not a bad way to show the kids to where it is, either).
The picture above doesn't do it justice. Even at about two-thirds capacity, these dudes tore down the house. Judging by the line that stretched the length of the Downstairs Middle East, I wasn’t the only one they impressed. They’ll be playing most of the Warped Tour so if you’re headed there, be sure to check them out.
-- Miike Johnson
Monday, May 22, 2006
DOWNLOAD: DJ C featuring Tiger Saw, “Fish Town Freighter (Remix).”
Cambridge beat scholar, party scientist, Boston bouncer, remixer of M.I.A., and ragga maniac DJ C is the busiest man in Boston these days: he’s prepping a half-dozen releases on two continents including 7-inches, 12-inches, CDs, and digi-only downloads with guests ranging from Kid606 to Ghislain. He emailed us a few weeks ago and gave us the whoas:
I've also got some releases coming up in the next few months. A digital, download-only EP on the Providence label Cozy Music, a 12-inch with Kid606 and Jonny P on Shockout, a 7-inch with a ragga vocalist named Zulu on Strategy's Portland OR based Community Library label, another 12-inch on the Bristol UK based Death$ucker label, and a remix of Max Sedgley for BBC Radio One DJ Rob Da Bank's Sunday Best label. I've also got an other little Euro-tour in the works for July, some more Mashit and Beat Research recs on the way, shopping an album that I finished up. On the DJ mix front, I'll be sharing a mix CD with Ghislain Poirier on the Tigerbeat6 Shotgun Wedding series, and working on solo mix for Blentwell's new series. Eventually I'll get back to the "B" series too. Ahhh!
But this song is our favorite of the batch: part of the aforementioned digital-only EP coming out next month on Cozy Music, it’s a hard-riding take on a soft-focus track by Newburyport indie-rockers Tiger Saw. C defibrilates their strummy haze, dials up a shock-proof heartbeat, and loops their plaintive boy-girl vocals into gorgeous dubstep reverie. Stay tuned: dude is on fire.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Dance, dance.
Now that everyone's counting, it's time to get our Merrittometer up.
1. Just when you thought the D4L/snap craze couldn't get any more ridiculous, along comes the best monkey-dance song since the Ideals' "The Gorilla."
DOWNLOAD: R. Kelly & Fabo, "Gorilla" (mp3 link, via Shanghai Flu)
To paraphrase Pink Skull, R. Kelly is a fucking genius.
2. Still trying to decide which is better: Hova's verse or the Faderblog graphic. Winner: "3 Amigos" in a photo finish. (Distant runner up.) Of course you will download this, but we're all in agreement that the original is better, yes?
DOWNLOAD: Rick Ross, Jay-Z, and Young Jeezy, "Hustlin' (Remix)" (mp3)
3. The new Pharrell/Kanye song came to us all legal and shit. You can stream it from the links below, or download it from a blogger. For those keeping score, Clipse jawn "Mr. Me Too" is way hotter.
STREAM: Pharrell feat. Kanye West, "Number 1" (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
4. The new OutKast single mooches from the master, but it's a little too "The Whole World Pt. 2"-ish for us. Yawn.
DOWNLOAD: Outkast, "The Mighty O" (mp3, via sinternet)
All photos (c) Carina Mastrocola.
If you've got to have bands play in the sun -- and that's how it goes at the Best Music Poll -- then OK Go are a great fit. Upbeat tempos. Creative, thought-provoking lyrics. You know: good times. They were infectuous, and the audience (a mix of young and old) seemed to be catching their fever. I noticed that frontman Damian Kulash was still sporting the pinky ring on his right hand. Last time I sat down with him, about two years ago, he told me that it had belonged to a friend of his who'd passed away on her 22nd birthday after falling out of a window. He wrote the song "Return" for her. I have yet to see him not wearing it.
After their set ended, Damian announced that they were going to perform a public service announcement and show everyone what MTV used to be about..MUSIC VIDEOS! They proceeded to perform a delightfully cute and funny choreography set which had the crowd cheering and smiling! One of these people being Elefant front man, Diego Garcia, who happened to be standing right next to me.
Which was super awesome, since Elefant was the band I was looking forward to seeing the most, and since I can't talk about this band without talking about Diego. He's got a certain Jim Morrison appeal. On stage he exhudes charisma, style, and grace. He also has a talent for writing songs that are at once sweeping and introspective, lovelorn and danceable. The packed crowd at the Axis was on board. Throughout their set, Diego constantly bowed to the audience and extended his arms out to them. They stole the show for me.
Friday, May 19, 2006
From top: Charlatans UK, Aberdeen City, Aberdeen City, Nada Surf. All photos (c) Carina Mastrocola.
(Second in a series of reports from last night's Phoenix/FNX Best Music Poll blowout on Lansdowne Street.)
The Charlatans haven’t really had the chance to jump the shark — not here, and not in the UK, where their songs never managed to plug into their homeland's gigantic hype machine. Still, last night on the Street Stage, the Charlatans weren’t holding any grudges. Tim Burgess, with his warm voice and sexy swagger, certainly does a decent Mick Jagger impression — or was he going for Liam Gallagher? Couldn’t be sure. Doesn’t matter. Unlike Mick, the Charlatans still look pretty cool for a bunch semi-aged rockers, all aviator shades and leather jackets and killer floppy hairstyles. No craggy faces, either. They’re comfortable — god knows they’ve been at it since 1990 — and they’re good at their own thing: lush, bluesy Britpop. Judging by the girl standing in front of me, who was slamming Coors Light and shaking ass, the Charlatans were living up to their underappreciated name by midset. The more Burgess thrust his hips and urged the crowd into a hand-clapping session, the more she loved it. “Blackened Blue Eyes,” off their latest, Simpatico, and You’re So Pretty – We’re So Pretty,” the first cut on 2001’s Wonderland were piano-drenched and danceable, especially on a warm (dry!) night in the middle of Lansdowne Street.
Outside Axis, a couple of kids were screaming “ABERDEEN CITY!!” at the top of their lungs — a sweet reception for this year's Best Local Album winner. For what it’s worth, the band certainly appreciated the support. Bassist and singer Brad Parker was sweet and appreciative when he talked about how nice it was to be back in Boston after their tour. Awwww. I felt like a proud Mom welcoming my son back home from a grueling semester at sea or something. Unforch for his real Mom, lucky for us, that whole schoolboy act was dropped as soon as he started howling. Abcity's melodic, post-punk angst-rock is clever and dark, and Parker leads the group in a sounding desperate and elegiac but big and grand at the same time, not to mention completely orchestral — I can only imagine how good they’d be in Symphony Hall. (NEMO: be good for something and hook this up.) Their behavior might not be apropos for a night at the Pops, though: during “Pretty Pet,” Chris McLaughlin dragged a floor tom away from Rob McCaffrey’s drum kit and pounded his brains out — in between making some insane noises on his guitar that were somewhere between an electric violin and a screeching baby. All in a night’s work, of course. The crowd was loving it most during “God Is Gonna Get Sick of Me,” one of the standouts on The Freezing Atlantic, though set-closer “Mercy” was an orgiastic conclusion to their musical restraint. I watched Parker and guitarist Ryan Heller bang the hell out of what looked like a neon cowbells while McLaughlin humped a huge amp so fast and so hard it nearly fell over. Then he tried to climb a platform on the side of the stage, and the security guards yelled at him. Then they threw drum sticks at us. Wow. I was spent.
All night I’d been looking forward to Nada Surf at Avalon. When I got there around 11 pm, the band had already ripped into "Hi Speed Soul," one of my faves off 2003’s Let Go. They sounded great, and Nada Surf are nothing if not a talented and oft-underrated pop band, but on stage, they are just short of foolish. They were so dull in the flesh when compared to their music, which is gorgeous and catchy and made perfect by Matthew Caws’s pretty croon. Except I was more obsessed with how long it must have taken bassist Daniel Lorca to grow out his waist-length dreads than I was with watching the boys play. Maybe I was just tired out by Aberdeen City, because during “The Blankest Year,” which has so many hooks it takes my breath away, the random dude and chick in front of me were practically swing dancing. She was an Emily Strange goth girl in pink fishnet sleeves, he was Josh Jackson during the best years of Dawson’s Creek, and maybe they were drunk, but Nada Surf was probably delivering them into the same cab that night. If the band couldn’t bring themselves to fling sweat or smash guitars, it was the least they could do to play the musical score to the weirdest concert hook-up I have ever witnessed. I think we all went home happy.
— Sharon Steel
All photos (c) Carina Mastrocola
(First in a series of shitloads of photos and maybe even some words from last night's Phoenix/FNX Best Music Poll party.)
Brit Pop and Pop Punk don't have a lot in common, and Charlatans UK and The Academy Is... didn't get any closer by playing on the same street during last night's Best Msic Poll extravaganza. Aside from having to change their names at some point in their respective careers to avoid lawsuits -- the Charlatans added the UK to distinguish themselves from the American Charlatans; the Academy added the "Is..." for similar reasons -- the correlation between the two bands is effectively nil. The Brits' set came first, closing down the outdoors stage on Lansdowne, and they took their signature reggae/dub-pop/textured sound to the streets. Even with a semi-shoegaze attitude -- three-fifths of the band were wearing jackets and didn't break a sweat -- they delighted the crowd by playing the Simpatico hits "For Your Entertainment" and "Blackened Blue Eyes." A lot of their earlier stuff showed up in the latter part of the set, and the contingent of older fans cheered loudest during those songs. Aberdeen City at Axis -- make that Aberdeen Fucking City, they rocked -- and Nada Surf at Avalon (yes they played "Popular," yes it rocked) served as pallete cleansers before I caught the Academy Is. Their sunny music and distorted guitars were a far cry from the subdued and somewhat dour Brit Pop jangle of a few hours earlier. The difference was also in the crowd: the Avalon floor was packed with about 856,982 chicks and one dude, all younger peeps. William Beckett had them eating out of his palm right away, prancing about the stage while the poppy power chords of "Attention" and "Classifieds" swirled beneath his crisp, high-pitched vocals. But the overall teeny-bopper atmosphere trumped the loud music, making things unbearable after about six songs. And punk music without screamed vocals or an element of anger/hatred is just plain wrong, even if it gets the chicks.
-- David Boffa
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Crappy camera phone photo by OTD.
The above is from the Enormous Room on Tuesday night, where Mission of Burma's Peter Prescott and Roger Miller manned the decks during the local release party for Burma's new The Obliterati. What did they play? Well, the entire album, for starters, and then some stuff you wouldn't expect. Brazilian funk? Missy Elliottt? Public Enemy? Full report can be found online over here. And yes, the song below is a gift from the Burma camp to you: previously referred to by us as the song title of the month, "Donna Sumeria" is track three off the new record. We arrived at track 3 after falling in love also with tracks 1, 4, and 5, and then not being able to decide on which one to single out. That 2 is pretty good too.
[You can listen to lots more from the album at TheObliterati.net, where Eric Van has his own wiki entry] [Friend the band at MySpace] [Order tickets for their upcoming tour]
DOWNLOAD: Mission of Burma, "Donna Sumeria" (mp3)
Top: Blackpool Lights. Below: Pink Spiders. Photos: Mike Johnson.
The Blackpool Lights, Pink Spiders, the Adored
May 17 at Great Scott, Allston
For those of us still longing for a Get Up Kids reunion tour, at least there's comfort in knowing that we can see three times as much Get-Up-spinoff now. Reggie and the Full Effect and the New Amsterdams were in full swing by the time TGUK split. But now the other Kid, Jim Suptic, is out on the road with his new band the Blackpool Lights. If this is news to you, too late: they were at Great Scott last night with Pink Spiders and the Adored. (They're currently touring behind a five-song EP and will release This Town’s Disaster June 20th on Curb Appeal Records.)
BPL’s sound didn’t stray from what was expected: it’s almost as if each TGUK member took a piece of that band's sound with them when they left. While Reggie is off drowning in synths, and Pryor is writing sappy alt-country tunes, Suptic is playing clean-cut indie rock w/o the attitude.
Pink Spiders get a big thumbs up for their fancy light show and cover of Elvis Costello’s “Peace, Love, & Understanding.” (Also thumbs up from OTD for taking the rollerderby girls to the laundromat -- see video below.) The Adored get a big thumbs down for their British accent even though they’re from LA. LAme.
-- Mike Johnson
DOWNLOAD: Blackpool Lights, "Blue Skies" (mp3, via MySpace)
WATCH: Pink Spiders, "Little Razorblade (windows) (real) (QT)
With the Perceptionists -- who just took home Best Boston Rap Act in our annual readers poll [hollerz] -- Mr. Lif proved he could rap about football as well as he raps about genocide. But football really isn’t his specialty, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise on his comeback album, Mo’ Mega, due out next month on Def Jux. His trademark sensibility — enlightened paranoia — is back in full force. What distinguishes Lif (“code name: Mayhem”) is the way he blends fantasy and sociology, dropping references to helicopters and flying saucers into a lyrical dissertation on how young black men are conditioned to internalize racist stereotypes. That funhouse/loony-bin xylophone tells you the world's gone crazy, and the authoritative young man in the glasses, the one with the microphone and the orange rhyming dictionary, well he might be next.
DOWNLOAD: Mr. Lif, "Brothaz" (mp3)
(Mr. Lif celebrates the release of Mo Mega with a show at the Middle East on June 27.)
Photo by Mike Byrne
DOWNLOAD: The Blue Bloods, "Dying Day"
Vintage Boston street-punk is alive and well . . . in Belgium, of all places, where the I Scream label has been snapping up local faves from Slapshot and the Ducky Boys to Darkbuster and blue-collar hardcore dudes the Blue Bloods. Name-dropped by Rancid, they've come back from a lengthy self-imposed hiatus to see their 2004 album Death of a Salesman get a belated US release, and they're playing their first show in over a year on Friday at Bill's Bar as part of the New England Product/ThePhoenix.com concert series. [Details]
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Teo Leyasmeyer died today. [Update: memorial plans below]
 For all of us who knew him, Teo was one of the great unsung heroes of Boston: he was perhaps best known as the booking agent behind the old House of Blues in Harvard Square -- not coincidentally, the only House of Blues in the country that ever really lived up to its name. He was an extraordinarily sweet, friendly, humble creature. A great champion of the music, he was also a musician and a student of the music, and a musician's sensibility invigorated his stewardship of the club. During a journeyman's career touring the country and throughout Europe, he backed Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Big Joe Turner, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Linda Hopkins, and Junior Wells, and was a mainstay of Johnny Copeland's band. When he was summarily let go from the HOB in February, 2003, it signalled the end of an era. The club closed soon after. The Phoenix's Ted Drozdowski, who knew Teo professionally, personally, and musically, wrote at the time that the move came as a shock: "Leyasmeyer," he wrote, was "a highly regarded figure in the nation’s blues community and is credited with making the Cambridge House of Blues one of the premier touring stops for top blues artists. Other clubs in the chain, while featuring blues, tend to favor rock and other pop-music formats.
For 10 years, Leyasmeyer was responsible for bringing the House of Blues a number of historic performers — including Otis Rush, Dr. John, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Ike Turner, and Solomon Burke — who would typically not play a small (225-capacity) club. He also introduced the raw Mississippi-blues sound of the Fat Possum label to the Boston market, booking the first area performances of both Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. After all, Leyasmeyer was a touring pianist with such well-known bluesmen as Buddy Guy and Freddie King before he entered the talent-buying business.
In 1997, the Blues Foundation, a nonprofit organization made up primarily of professionals from all aspects of the genre, acknowledged Leyasmeyer’s accomplishments with one of its Keeping the Blues Alive awards: Promoter of the Year. In 2000, the Blues Foundation drafted Leyasmeyer for its advisory board, where he sits alongside such blues-world dignitaries as the record producer Jerry Wexler and the performer Bonnie Raitt.
Teo's death came as a surprise even to those close to him. Just yesterday, Leyasmeyer's friend, the pianist David Maxwell, forwarded a note to friends that Teo's condition had worsened. An illness that was thought to have been the flu had proved to be something far worse: Teo's kidneys were failing and he was not expected to make it through the week. This afternoon Teo's friend, the promoter Sue Auclair, broke the bad news: "It is with great sorrow that I send you this e-mail. Our friend Teo Leyasmeyer, has just passed away. Evidently he had cancer and was unaware of it until about two weeks ago." Plans for a fundraiser for his family are in the works, and details for a memorial are forthcoming.
UPDATE (May 18): Memorial Plans were announced today for a memorial service for Teo Leyasmeyer.
TEO LEYASMEYER MEMORIAL SERVICE:
SAT. MAY 27, 2006 2PM
HANCOCK UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
1912 MASS. AVE (NEAR PAUL REVERE STATUE AND LEXINGTON GREEN)
LEXINGTON, MA 02421
FLOWERS ONLY TO CHURCH
DONATIONS AND CARDS - SEND TO
TEO LEYASMEYER FAMILY FUND
% HEGE LEYASMEYER
11 HAMBLEN ST.
LEXINGTON, MA 02421
PINK
July 18 at Avalon, Boston
$25.25
on sale Friday at 10 am
617.931.2000
DEF LEPPARD + JOURNEY
September 23 at the Tweeter Center, Mansfield
$25-$75
on sale Friday at 10 am
617.931.2000
PAUL SIMON
July 8 at the Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester, NH
$39.50-$74.50
on sale Friday at noon
617.931.2000
REEL BIG FISH + MXPX
July 11 at Avalon
$20
On sale Friday at noon
617.931.2000
FOO FIGHTERS + FRANK BLACK
August 22 at the Wang Theatre, Boston
$40.50-$48
on sale Friday at 4 pm
617.931.2000
PHIL LESH & FRIENDS + TREY ANASTASIO & MIKE GORDON
July 6 at the Tweeter Center
$29.50-$50
On sale Saturday at 10 am
617.931.2000
BLOC PARTY
July 28 at Bank of America Pavilion, Boston
$30
on sale Saturday at 10 am
617.931.2000
QUEENSRYCHE
November 9 at Avalon
$26
On sale Saturday at 11 am
617.931.2000
ON SALE NOW:
FUTUREHEADS
July 1 at the Paradise, Boston
$13
617.931.2000
MISSION OF BURMA
July 13 at the Paradise, Boston
$22
617.931.2000
EDITORS
July 30 at the Paradise, Boston
$15
617.931.2000
Monday, May 15, 2006
(Our senior house critic Michael Freedberg stayed out late Sunday morning and came back with the following report, an edited version of which will appear soon on thephoenix.com. We present the unexpurgated, unedited goodness below.)
 For house music, you can’t get much more authentic than DJ Honey Dijon – grew up in Chicago, African-American, transgendered; started dancing at the very clubs where house music was being created at the time, for girls much like herself; became a friend, then protégé, of Frankie Knuckles, the prime originator of the genre. Like Knuckles, Honey Dijon moved to New York, just at the time (early 1990s) when many first-generation house music club kids were becoming second-generation house DJs -- Honey too, with lots of encouragement from Knuckles and Danny Tenaglia – the avatar of that second generation. Says Honey, “I’d always taken an interest in the records, the songs. I was a record fan as well as a dancer. So when Danny and Frankie told me I should become a DJ – ‘just do it!,” they said – I started hanging out in DJ booths, bought a turntable set, practiced, and soon there I was!”
Actually, hers is a typical story of those first club kids who became the next-phase’s major DJs and who created the tougher, more electronic and atmospheric style of house that now prevails in clubland. Honey developed a strong reputation for fast, fierce sets, started touring clubs all over the world, and, still touring, came Saturday night to Boston’s RISE Club.
Her dancers at RISE were overwhelming male, short-haired white guys, many of them body-builder types naked to the waist. The body-builder guys love heavy, harsh, electronically filtered rhythms with scratchy, acid-style vocal overlays, and Honey played to their likes. Her set started at 3 A.M. and was still going strong at 5:30, a continuous surge of chugging, booming rhythms, but artfully phased with rhythmic pianissimo interludes – a style very much her own. With a true DJ’s touch for odd, personally discovered records, and a classic house music fan’s love of sexy tenor vocals and salacious diva banter, Honey quick-cut from one beat to another, seamlessly, with a minimum of mix fuss, overlaying her vocal quotes (many of them sampled – big fun there) on the mix points and so distracting (and beguiling) the dancers. Her strong beats made the dancers stomp, but even more arousing were her vocal quotes, from Eddie Amador’s “House Music,” Crystal Waters’s “100% Pure Love,” and many other anthems. As for those pianissimo passages, she digressed almost completely from body-builder beats to the soft, swooning rhythms of first-phase house music, complete with the sugary, delicate vocals of that time, atop rhythms as rapturous and funky as any that she played. Gradually, out of pianissimo, Honey made the music rise, toward highly embroidered, complex orchestrations, subtle in their sensuality and irresistible to those who understand house as a spiritual, a soulful, and a body thing.
-- Michael Freedberg
We Can't Make This Shit Up Dept: Be all you can be, duders.
Subject: AEROSMITH/ARMED FORCES DAY
DATE: MAY 15, 2006
FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/MARCEE RONDAN/TODD BRODGINSKI
ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS: Look for Boston rockers AEROSMITH to get back to work on a new AEROSMITH album later this month. And they've picked the perfect day -- May 20 -- to begin laying down tracks. "It's Armed Forces Day," reveals STEVEN TYLER, "and we're going in with guns ablazing!"
###
ThePhoenix.com's Tony Ware interviews Ninja Tune's dancefloor hooligans:
Early on, Coldcut’s beats-and-pieces æsthetic was put to the test on long-form ’80s remixes for Eric B & Rakim, among others, and credited, in pure pirate-radio fashion, to Grandmaster Flash and Double D & Steinski. Since then, the duo’s multimedia mentality has led to philosophical comparisons to Robert Pepperell’s “posthuman condition,” a “ mechorganic” convergence that’s too obscure to get into here when there’s a new Coldcut album, Sound Mirrors (their first in eight years), and a “Ninja Tunes Presents” tour that brings them to the Paradise this Monday, May 15, for a show with opening sets by fellow travelers Blockhead and DJ Signify.
Read, listen, go to show:
DOWNLOAD: Coldcut, "Man in a Garage" (mp3)
Saturday, May 13, 2006
1. Back in the '80s, when OTD was in grade school, we used to fantasize about going to this joint in suburban Philadelphia that, in retrospect, was probably Pennsylvania's answer to the Palace in Saugus: it must have been the cheesiest disco glitter palace on the East Coast. They also, for some odd reason, hosted a Sunday brunch, and so it was there that we got a taste of what electro had wrought on American dancefloors. Sometime between pancakes and strawberries -- as it must also have been the night before around midnight -- a 15-foot flying saucer dropped out the ceiling, and then out of the UFO dropped a six-foot, fully-functional robot, which would roll around the room while some dude up in the booth spoke through a vocoder, hitting on moms and cracking PG-13 jokes. For the life of us we cannot recall what the name of this club was. But we always remember it when Debbie Deb's "Lookout Weekend" comes on, because it's EXACTLY the kind of room she was talking about, and we're pretty sure we used to hear this song there anyway: "Jumpin' music, slick DJs, fog machines and laser rays." That was how we do.
In a brilliant get-her-back-in-the-clubs move, Janet Jackson's people had her cover Debbie Deb's "Lookout Weekend."
We'll leave it to the experts to figure out what this means for freestyle -- is this a sign that it's ripe for pickup by huge pop stars (some of whom, like Janet, were actually kind of the inspiration for this stuff in the first place)? Dunno. But this is ridiculously fun.
DOWNLOAD: Janet Jackson, "Lookout Weekend" (mp3 via PopMuse)
Here's where we give a little something back: everyone knows that Christina Aguilera has a new album, that the new album is a maturity bid dolled up in DJ Premiere beats and references to jump blues and classic jazz, and that there's such a chokehold on new material that people have taken to posting phone rips of Promosquad clips on the internet. The news last week was that she's shooting a video. We got that press release. And heck, we even got the new press photo. Since that's about all we got, we're going with it, in the shameless hope that her fansites deluge us.
 Perhaps the karma was secretly imbedded in the grooves of that Clickers/Night Rally split 12-inch on Honeypump Records: by the time the kids come back to school in the fall, all three entities will be kaput: Clickers didn't last long enough to enjoy the 12-inch; Honeypump has announced its retreat from the field effective this summer; and very recently Night Rally (or, as we would prefer not to think of them, the giraffe, the butterfly, and the lion -- ugh) issued the following bulletin:
Friends --
It is our sad duty to inform you that Luke (the
drummer, the tallest one with the lowest voice) will
be moving back to New Mexico to finish school, and
as a result we will only be playing three more shows
before going on an indefinite hiatus.
But! For those of you who remember the vague
rumblings of our recording a full length last fall,
we are pleased to announce that our final show will
also double as an album release.
We've had a good run, | |