Monday, June 12
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Don't forget Saturday is the Bostonist Anniversary Party at the Kinsale. In the interim please feel free to rev yourselves up with some of the great music rolling down the pike. Monday 3/20: Editors Neo-post-punk brits Editors (a la Joy Division & Bloc Party) with appropriately asterisked Stellastarr*. Roxy. Editors: Myspace | All Sparks.ram | purchase Tuesday 3/21: The English Beat, Westbound Train, The Sterns, and DJ Ford E. Buxworth More than just a...
Lent, what a time to give something up. Over here at Bostonist Headquarters we're thinking hard what we're going to drop come Wednesday. It won't be our MP3 player and it won't be live music. Maybe with this, week four of the now weekly music pick running on Monday we're going to be able to give up our lack of coverage of the local music scene. With fingers crossed we're raising a pint to forty days and forty nights with local music somewhere on the agenda.
O’Brien’s Pub has joined Great Scott in a recent push to build up the “Allston Rock City” rep that Harper’s Ferry has been carrying the flag for in recent years, attracting acts that may have previously defaulted to Central Square in Cambridge. As another step in the right direction to disrupt a Cambridge-centric view of the Boston music universe that Bostonist might at times possess, O’Briens posts a bill for Aerial Pink and Psychic Ills tonight. As part of his open-minded approach to touring, Aerial Pink has enlisted local Magic People to be a part of the show, as well as NY’s Isle of Citadel.
Forecast is for sun to out during the day most days this week. The temperature may be dipping a bit. Clear skies in February usually mean cold nights. Bostonist will be keeping warm with other music fans at some great shows this week. Phil (the groundhog) may have seen his shadow, making for 6 more weeks of winter, but these six weeks should sizzle with sound. More good shows coming up from now through March.
Psychic Ills introduced themselves to T.T. the Bear's in Cambridge a few weeks ago with a tidal wave of guitar noise, immediately calling to mind the 4-piece set up of Sonic Youth, with two distorted guitars furiously flanking the stage. Periodic release into more structured songs recalled Sonic Youth playing both sides of the coin around “Silver Rocket” from Daydream Nation.
With the air outside dropping steadily this December, it’s hard to remember how cold it seemed last Wednesday. As the damp wind whipped through our city’s streets, Bostonist hustled down Landsdowne St. to get to the Avalon for a night with Iron and Wine and Calexico, and was greeted with a warm reception. At this point, midway through Calexico’s set, the temperature in the ballroom was considerably higher than outside, thanks in no small part...
Neophyte British imports, The Subways, played Great Scott Saturday, December 3rd as Session #10 in the Fenway Recordings series, making a massive impact with their 3-piece barrage. With no more than 160kg (350 lbs.) shared between the band’s 3 members, The Subways impressed the packed house with maximum levels of energy and volume, thanks to the science of amplification and the miracle of sheer will. Guitarist/singer Billy Lunn was already standing on the kick drum midway through the band’s first song of the night.
REMIX! That seems to be the logical impulse for bands and DJ’s alike, with DJ’s being inspired by indie artists and groups feeding their hunger to make people dance. Recent remixes of Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm and Beck’s Guero (as Guerelito) are among the higher-profile examples of full-album treatments, with single-track mash-ups and adaptations having a long-standing presence.
Bostonist will check out the much-hyped (UK: festival appearances/ US: The OC appearance), small-town band The Subways from Britain trying to make the world their garage in the young group’s first stateside tour. Forgoing current angular, dance rock motifs (Franz Ferdinand) and pre-empting the American arrival of their debut album Young for Eternity with a live serving of one-foot-in-the-gutter three-piece pop in Allston, The Subways will face the gauntlet set by a city ravenously devouring the likes of Broken Social Scene, My Morning Jacket, and Franz Ferdinand of late. The live show should flesh out glimpses of Nirvana and Oasis seen on their debut, and, in the hopes of Bostonist, offer more than The Vines.
Tweedy opened the show with the slow, harmonica-accented confessional “Sunken Treasure,” which has been a longtime staple of the singer-songwriter’s sporadic solo tours, as well as a recurring encore when a full lineup is together. This immediate statement highlighted the fact that Jeff’s solo tour is the perfect opportunity for old-school Wilco fans to get their fill of the folkier, alt-country history that first endeared the songwriter to our hearts. That said, the singer is clearly proud of his last three studio offerings since 1996’s Being There, the double album alt-country masterpiece that preceded forays into Beach Boys sunshine pop, Radiohead sound explorations, and avant-pop/krautrock, as well as mass popularity and dissention among Wilco’s previous fan base. The truth remains, though, that Summerteeth isn’t all sunshine, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot isn’t all stuttering electronics and cynicism, and 2004’s A Ghost Is Born retains a classic rock feel for many of the tracks. Tweedy’s has been a uniquely-inspired, self-challenging voice in music, and his solo show reflected this eclecticism while emphasizing the great songwriting beneath each direction his career has taken.
With 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River’s Will Sheff has found his voice. Having already established his band’s American folkternative sound with Down the River of Golden Dreams, Sheff now celebrates the confidence and dexterity to sing his songs with a power already present in his writing. The instrumentation raises similarities to other contemporary artists while distinguishing the record from Okkervil’s previous releases. Compare the gentle strings and lonely narrator of “In A Radio Song” to Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles),” and the sweetness and punctuation of mandolin and trumpet on “A King and A Queen” to Bright Eyes’ “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now.” Themes of isolation and a dark view of the world at times rest BSB in between Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide, It’s Morning, while not aiming for the sonic assault of the former, but still bringing more punch and thickness than the latter.
Bostonist had heard the hype—and the debut LP from Montreal’s Wolf Parade—prior to picking up tickets in time for last Thursday’s show at TT the Bear’s Place in Central Square. One of the latest in a series of bands gaining widespread popularity to pass through Boston/Cambridge in the last year, Wolf Parade is touring on the release of their first full-length, Apologies to the Queen Mary on SubPop. Drawing constant, but due comparisons to The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse (having toured with both, and getting production help from Isaac Brock of the latter) the album is doused with flammable hit-potential. Bostonist is always interested in a visual performance to ignite the blaze of long-term interest in a newly-discovered band.
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