FEEL THE BURN Get ready to flip those crosses, kids, ThunderBloods are born. |
It's been more than five years since Amherst-born Read Yellow played their final show, and it still feels like the once-heralded rock band has some unfinished business left to tend to. Although that may never materialize, half of the band — guitarists/vocalists Evan Kenney and Jesse Vuona — have launched a new project that also features former Kingsley Flood drummer Steven Lord. The unit, rounded out by Taylor Sullivan and Austin Bousley, is dubbed ThunderBloods, and they premiered two new tracks last week via Bandcamp. Their first gig is this Saturday at Radio.
ThunderBloods' bluesy rock sound is a huge departure from Kenney's previous band, the dance-party machine known as Bodega Girls. "I'm happy to be playing with him again," Kenney says of Vuona. "It's just one big fun project, bunch of white dudes singing about the devil and shit."
Whereas "Nashville Days and LA Nights" is an alt-country ballad for the lovers, the other track, "Pussy Patrol" is a boozy bar-banger fight song that has a lot of Read Yellow juice flowing through its rock-and-roll veins. Maybe it's just those amped-up guitars we've been waiting Kenney to scream over since that last Read Yellow gig at the Middle East back in March 2007. Kenney says he's always had the rock-and-roll itch. "Now I am just ready to play it again — get even more deaf."
Though rumors of Bodega Girls' breakup floated around the scene a few months ago, Kenney says the crew is still active. "We are still writing and recording," he says. "Carmen [O'Connor, of Bodega Girls] and I are doing a group called Dream Baby Dream, that is heavy synth shit, but we are probably going to keep writing under Bodega and then play live sometime in the future."
Bodega Girls went down to New York recently to record with two former Bostonians, Isom Innis (of Southern Belle, and the touring keyboardist for Foster the People) and Anthony Rossomando (Dirty Pretty Things guitarist and former Damn Personal). We'll see what impact Kenney's rock rebirth has on his previous dance party mindset.
THUNDERBLOODS + ALL ECHOES RETURN + NOUNS + NERVOUS | Radio, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville | July 21 @ 8 pm | 21+ | $10 | 617.764.0005 o
