I've been greatly enjoying everyone's salutes, eulogies, and memories of the dearly-departed Boston Phoenix. But Ryan H. Walsh of Hallelujah the Hills wins the top prize by placing these Public Service Announcements all over town. Maybe we should just give him a red box of his own.
Pretty awesome.
Like a fucked up iPod commercial from the 2000s, where the music isn't Jet but rules instead, where the people get face-bombed with glitter-liquid and don't dance like idiots, and where they're all colorfully naked instead of drowned out silhouettes shilling product, HERRA TERRA's new music video for "Reason To Lose It" is pure visual stimulation for a futuristic peep show. Sit back, zone out, and pop off. The song, the latest galaxy-pop offering from their Hyperborean EP, nicely rises and drops along with the Torey Champagne-directed clip, taking Herra Terra's roller-coaster synthpop and giving you something to stare at inside your helmet screen as you're rolling face through the cosmos.
(Also, I'm sure everyone's YouTube ads vary based on what location they're viewing this from, but mine keep saying "Find the #1 plumber in America" and that works perfectly. And hilariously.)
Herra Terra crashes the Rock and Roll Rumble next month at T.T. The Bear's Place (a stacked Night 2 on Monday, April 8 alongside Camden, the Deep North, and Endation), but not before releasing Hyperborean officially tonight in their home zone of Wormtown at Ralph's. It's a very Boston-flavored affair with support from Vanya favorites RIBS, Animal Talk, and Coralcola. Then a week from tomorrow they hit up Fete Lounge in Providence with Lovelife (ex-Viva Brother and Mirrors), Ravi Shavi, and the Kolour Kolt.
No Boston date announced just yet (WTF?), but I'd gladly take that Worcester show any day of the week.
If you're gonna name your new song "Vader," that shit better be pretty menacing. Boston psych collective Ghost Box Orchestra have always been about the sonic desert-road journeys, and more of a mind fuck than hate fuck, so there's never been anything inherently evil about their music. And yet "Vader," the first track off May's Vanished LP, is just that: a feral groan trudges forward over mechanical doom for more than seven minutes, and terror unfolds slowly until you're just consumed by a swirling, ominous sound. There's a brief moment of air right around the middle, like when an enraged maniac lifts your head momentarily out of the toilet just before he shoves your grill back underwater, if only so you can look into his eyes one last time before you die. It's a bit uneasy, then, that this is slated as Track 1.
GBO hit the road for a string of dates starting tonight at the Sierra Grill in Northampton, then hit Philly tomorrow night, and swing back to our hood with a gig Saturday, March 25 at PA's Lounge in Somerville. Bring a weapon for self-defense.
A few weeks ago at Great Scott our pals in Eye Design hosted the Color Channel record release party, and since Abadabad and Early Nineties were on the bill, the Boston Phoenix threw its support behind it as a showcase for Class of 2013, my annual wrap up of the best new bands in town. A few weeks later, another show with some additional C13 energy hits the Middle East in Cambridge, as tonight Class of 2013 acts The Deep North and the Susan Constant take to the upstairs on a bill with WFNX BFFs Parlour Bells. It's definitely some shit I'd be yelling about in three hours if I still had a radio show. [Note: The Arcane Comedy is also on the bill, but I have to plead ignorance on that one. But hey, that's why we go out, right, to hear new shit? Word. Also their website looks like the Lizard Lounge's homepage, and that's cool.]
It should be good times at the Mid Easy, and I'll be bouncing back and forth from next door: The Susan Constant are powered by frantic indie-pop energy, the Deep North by lush rock orchestration led by vocalist Rebecca Frank, and Parlour Bells by a crisp noir-pop that's a rather fragrant side of glam rock's 24-hour diner. Well, that and Goddamn Glenn Di Benedetto. I wrote about their ace new EP Thank God For The Night when it was released a few weeks ago. Its moonlight dance still prances in my dome.
In fact, Di Benedetto and P-Belz guitarist Nate Leavitt were in the WFNX studio a few weeks ago for the Super Bowie Weekend pre-game show, along with the Daily Pravda and Gene Dante, and their acoustic performance of the Duke's "China Girl" was something special. I'm told they've worked it into live sets since then, so we'll see if it gets dusted off tonight.
Get into the jams:
Several years ago I was driving around with Carl Lavin somewhere around Boston and he was lamenting how bands rarely cover current songs, instead it's just shit from like a decade ago, nostalgic trips and tweaks on old favorites from when that artist was younger. At the time, we were listening to the Pixies covering "Head On" by Jesus And Mary Chain.
Lavin would be proud of this sudden Joust of Now, as Chris Keene of Mean Creek has stripped down and re-imagined "Dog Song" from Potty Mouth, off the Northampton garage rock band's 2012 EP Sun Damaged. The whole EP is great, as I named it one of the best records of last year, but this was always my favorite track ("Hazardville" a close second). In a Phoenix feature that ran last summer, Liz Pelly asked the band about the song, and if it had any underlying social meanings of oppression. "A lot of people think it's a metaphor for women being oppressed. I don't ever say that's the wrong interpretation," said Abby Weems, "but I did write it from a dog's perspective."
Keene's "Dog Song" will be included on his upcoming solo record, Dove, out in May.
Ever since I moved to Boston back in 2000, I'd grab the Phoenix every Thursday and read it at the kitchen table of my Perkins Street apartment in Somerville, aided by the Taco Bell + KFC hybrid joint on Broadway. First thing I always went to: the Cellars by Starlight local music column.
Thirteen years later, the final Cellars have been published (online, to be technical, from this week's zombie Phoenix), and it belongs to indie-pop quartet SLOWDIM. One of my ace writers, Jonathan Donaldson, caught up with Paul Sentz and the band a few weeks ago: Cellars by Starlight: The unified melody of Slowdim, March 21, 2013.
As they prep for next week's record release party at Great Scott, with Night Fruit and Fedavees in tow, they've issued the bubbly first track off their debut self-titled record, "Up Stream." Sounds like an afternoon make-out session with the springtime vibes in your mind.
DJ KNIFE is out of control. One of the few DJs around town that can spin any party and adapt to any style from downtown hotspots to Allston DIY spaces (he spun the Phoenix launch party back in September), Knife has now birthed another Strange Brew mega-mix indicative of his schitzo tastes. With 40 tracks mixed super-quick in under 42 minutes, the third installment runs the dance floor course from remixes of Passion Pit to Toto, Jane’s Addiction to Neon Indian, Janet Jackson to Haim, Jamie Lidell to Jay-Z.
What else? “Of course there’s gotta be some trap stuff, a smidgen of classic rock, couple retro tracks and a lotta French sounding dance music,” Knife says.
Remember those “set it and forget it” commercials for the Showtime Rotisserie chicken cooker? This is the DJ mix version of that. Grab the entire mix below, then celebrate its release tomorrow night, March 22 at Good Life on Kingston Street downtown when Knife hits the decks with El Poser and Leah V. They'll be upstairs while Pico Picante rages down below.
Strange Brew 3 Track Listing:
1. Intro
2. Jamie Lidell – Figured Me Out
3. Onra ft. Olivier DaySoul – Long Distance
4. Gigamesh – All My Life
5. Poolside - Do You Believe?
6. Toto – Africa (DJ Ayres Edit)
7. Jane's Addiction – Caught Stealin (Whiskey Tango Edit)
8. Geto Boys – Mind Playin Tricks (Steve1der Remix)
9. Moon Boots – Got Somebody
10. Le Crayon – Lush
11. Kill Paris – Shades Of Funk
12. No Doubt - Settle Down (Baauer Remix)
13. Le Youth – Dance With Me
14. Only Children – Down Fever
15. Grupo Guerra 78 – Soul Makossa ( Whiskey Barons Re-Work)
16. Mat The Alien – Tom Deluxx (Moombahton Edit)
17. Oliver – All Night Long
18. Tony! Toni! Tone! – Feels Good
19. Mr. Vegas – Bruk It Down (DJ Class Remix / Diggz Short Refix)
20. DJ Day – Still Jingling (DJ Day Edit)
21. Pretty Poison – Catch Me I’m Falling (Diggz Short Edit)
22. Fleetwood Mac – Dreams (Gigamesh Edit)
23. Haim – Forever (The Knocks remix)
24. Passion Pit – Carried Away (Viceroy Remix)
25. Penguin Prison – Fair Warning (Oliver Remix)
26. Sneaky Sound System – Big
27. DJ Fashen – Ecstasy
28. Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer (Skeet Skeet Edit)
29. Brass Knuckles – Lie To You
30. Janet Jackson – Someone To Call My Lover (Top Billin Remix)
31. America – Ventura Highway
32. King L – Val Venis
33. KP & Envi – Shorty Swing My Way (Kid Kamillion Remix)
34. Big Chocolate – Blue Milk
35. DJ Samir - Samir’s Theme (OH SNAPP!! Remix)
36. Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life (Exceed Remix)
37. Jay – Z – Who You Wit (Accro Remix)
38. Nas – The Don (Tom Wrecks Remix)
39. DJ Serafin – Music Sounds Better w/ Blunt Passing
40. Usher – Climax (Flosstradamus & Diplo Remix)
Now deemed “Buzzworthy” by the good folks at MTV, Boston’s PRETTY & NICE have been on the road prepping new record Golden Rules for Golden People, the Rory Records/Equal Vision Records follow-up to last year’s self-released Us You All We. After their gig exactly a week ago at SXSW at the Basement just off Congress Street (where they wrapped shooting a seven-location music video), I trrrrriiiieeeeeedddddd to get the scoop on the new tunes, and, well, did, in a tour van interview down in Austin, but it's lost in the WFNX black hole. It was cool, I pretended to be Pretty & Nice and Pretty & Nice pretend to be me. More shit that will never air. Vanyaland needs a soundcloud. Note to self.
Anyway, the new P&N record is not out until late April, but we’ll get a taste Thursday night when our favorite herky-jerky ampersand band hits Allston's Brighton Music Hall with the Charlotte-Zoller-tour-navigated Jukebox the Ghost and WFNX golden girl Stephie Coplan and the Pedestrians, who, as has been well documented, I am quite fond of.
There is seriously way too much going on Thursday night. WTF. We haven't even gotten to the Middle East show. I've been picking unemployment splinters out of my ass all week, and now there are at least four shows I need/want to be at tomorrow night. Dafuq.
"We do not share the values of the establishment. We are not old men. We are not worried about petty morals." --Keith Richards
Continuing the What If theme from the previous San Cisco post, this track embedded below, "Radio Action" from the newly-minted PETTY MORALS, was scheduled to be the Boston Accents Song of the Day on WFNX this past Monday. Obviously, that never happened. Kinda a bumout, as I've been digging this squealing synth-punk number from the moment it found its way into my inbox. It got spun on Accents maybe two or three times before the shutdown.
The ladies of Petty Morals -- who have performed in a host of past and present Boston rock dynamos as Tijuana Sweetheart, Cult 45, Ghost Box Orchestra, and the Grinds -- first met in rehearsals for a Joan Jett tribute show late last year, and after realizing a shared love for a more rock and roll side of synthy disco (think late '70s/early '80s NYC subculture, as well as stuff like the Cars, Le Tigre, and the Sounds) they hatched this new band. A few months later, the Cotton Candy Demos were born.
Their first gig is April 6 at Radio in Somerville, for Jay Allen's 50th birthday bash alongside Muck & the Mires, Dirty Truckers, and Dogmatics. People are gonna eat this shit up.
So I guess for the next few weeks these posts will be a series of What Ifs. Shows that never happened, songs that never got played, bands not written about blah blah blah all that regretful shit.
But here's something I'm legit bummed about: Aussie pop act SAN CISCO were supposed to perform a private set at the Museum of Fine Arts tomorrow, part of the years-long WFNX sessions that in the past housed the Vaccines, Dropkick Murphys, Airborne Toxic Event, and so on and so on. We were currently in talks to host future sessions with the Breeders and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. But those, like San Cisco tomorrow, won't ever happen.
In any event, WFNX had been spinning their breakout hit "Awkward" for a while on the stream. People were feeling it.
They are in town to begin with, of course, because they're at Great Scott in Allston tomorrow night, 03.21.13, so we'll just have to settle for a regular ol' plugged-in show. So it goes.
Despite the song title, there’s nothing “Awkward” about San Cisco’s bubbly brand of love-pop, and like the Naked and Famous and Strange Talk, the band is the latest in a string of acts from Australia and New Zealand blurring the lines between indie and electro. Their 2012 Awkward EP was one of the more overlooked records of the year, but I think their 2013 success will more than make up for it.
