Halloween 2010

It's baaaack. Advance tickets on sale Saturday via greatscottboston.com:



The pill Halloween Show history:

2009: The Daily Pravda as Radiohead, Televandals as the Clash, The Honors as The Smiths and Lindsey Starr & The Chemical Smiles as the Sounds

2008: The Perennials as the Strokes, Wonderful Spells as the Kinks, the Sun Lee Sunbeam as Elastica

2007: The Daily Pravda as David Bowie, Mako as the Stone Roses, the Lie Society as Blur and the Perennials as the Libertines

2006: Lifestyle as New Order, the Daily Pravda as Suede, the 8mm Fuzz as Echo & the Bunnymen

2005: Emergency Music as the Velvet Underground, Protokoll as Bauhaus, the Chainletter as Joy Division

2004: The Information as Depeche Mode, the Bon Savants as Pulp, Emergency Music as Blur, the Cignal as Primal Scream

2003: The Information as the Cure, the Cignal as the Happy Mondays

08.13.10: Blur vs Oasis Nite @ the pill

Oh hey, this is coming up (pardon the Suede pun)... To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Country House vs Roll with it, the pill -- who else? -- hosts an epic dance floor battle between Blur and Oasis jams, with other assorted Britpop gems tossed in the mix while the two combatants show off their videos on the big screen. Modern life is supersonic.

In My Head: Hide your kids, hide your wife

Clearly this is the Song of the Day, maybe month, maybe YEAR. Antoine Dodson is a STAR.

Tonight: Chameleons at Hennessy's

In this week's Phoenix we talked to Mark Burgess about last year's legendary show at Hennessy's with the Curtain Society, and tonight Boston attempts to catch lightning in a bottle once again as the former Chameleons frontman returns to Faneuil Hall. Vanya MMC's Endless Wave was added as a last-minute opening act. This is going to rule.

Twitter : Michael Marotta and Michael V

Over the weekend I launched about 35 Twets from down in Newport, from Twitpics to other fun stuff, so if you'd like to follow all my music-loving shenanigans, both on assignment at the Boston Phoenix and independent solo musings and ragtime, click the links below (Note: Yes, I go by my birth name at the PHX):

Michael V via the Phoenix's On The Download

Michael V via his own bullshit

PHX: Interview with AA Bondy @ NFF

Also yesterday at Newport I thad the fortune of a few minutes with AA Bondy, who I first heard a decade ago when he led Verbena through a post-grunge haze. Once again, pulled from the Boston Phoenix's On The Download NFF coverage. It might be time for bed.

Newport Folk Festival 2010 AA Bondy Interview with Michael Marotta from Boston Phoenix on Vimeo.

PHX: Interview with Dawes @ NFF

Yesterday I talked with the dapper California indie-folk dudes of Dawes at Newport Folk Fest, pulled from the Boston Phoenix's On The Download NFF coverage.

Michael Marotta interviews Dawes at the 2010 Newport Folk Festival from Boston Phoenix on Vimeo.

In My Head: "Home" by Edward Sharpe & Magnetic Zeros

Oh hai Vanyaland, sorry I've been so neglectful. Well, just got back from 33 hours of Newport Folk Festival, all after another rager at the pill Friday night, Hercules & Love Affair on Thursday and Drug Rug @ the MFA on Wednesday. Non-stop action through it all, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love.

Yes, madly in love.

With Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, who I caught just a few hours ago at NFF but had on in the van with the Boston Phoenix production crew pretty much the whole weekend. How I slept on this song "Home" for the past year, man, I duno. I'm supposed to be onto of these things.

Here's the clip. which even with the bland album art as a YouTube stand-in still sounds phenomenal. What an absolutely perfect love song. "In the streets we run free, like it's only you and me... ... .... Home is where ever I'm with you" Good lord the Newport Folk Fest made me all hippie.

Die Antwoord straight kill it at Royale

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but last night's DIE ANTWOORD show at Royale in Boston might have been the best live performance I've sen all year. Mind-blowing. Just found this video...

Phoenix mp3 of the week: Night Fruit

Peep it, on newsstands now and at thephoenix.com: MP3 of the Week: NIGHT FRUIT, ‘SEA BLOOD’


NIGHT FRUIT may be relatively new to the scene, but the noise-smart Cambridge trio aren’t lacking in local-rock pedigree. Guitarists Amanda Dellevigne and Jonathan Gill built buzz in the gone-too-soon ’90s-flavored trio Hot Box while drummer Luke Sullivan was cavorting around town with alt-rock-minded Left Hand Does. Now, they’re taking their former bands’ multilayered melodies and post-rock riffage and throwing them through the experimental grinder. The almost-menacing “Sea Blood” is a magnetic slow burn of neo-shoegaze, a calm-before-the-storm dreampop firefly that’s chilling in its deceptive reach. Night Fruit’s debut EP is expected around early fall, and the band are performing this Friday (July 23) at the House of Blues’ underappreciated free front-room local-music series with Streight Angular. In the meantime, grab the “Sea Blood” MP3 at thePhoenix.com/onthedownload.

_Michael Marotta