Nina
EMMA
Filed under: Emma, Nina | Tags: boston counter cultural compass, brighton music hall, das racist, dom, great scott, lady lamb the beekeeper, middle east, o'death, Sharon Van Etten, starfucker, the kills, tt the bear's, upcoming concerts in boston, Wye Oak, yuck
An accurate depiction of Allston in Spring, I hope the mysterious JHamel doesn't mind it's use here.
So we’re a bit late on this due to procrastination and frolicking in the nice weekend weather, but here is the official, seemingly never ending, list of shows we’d like to go to this month if time were no factor. Unfortunately, as April showers turn to May flowers and our rate of panic attacks to… non-panic attacks turns against us, we can’t see them all. Instead, if you need us, we can be found hyperventilating about the future somewhere in a curled up ball in Allston. Or reading this new found blog This Horrid Life. Read: How to Overcome a Bender. But you should go to these shows! And dig these tracks listed in conjunction, because they’re all great.
As always – Boston Counter Cultural Compass has an abundance of shows not listed here. So check it out, too.
4.4 Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys at TT the Bear’s for Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble
4.5 Starfucker at Brighton Music Hall
Bury Us Alive from Reptilians - Buy on Amazon.
Das Racist performs at Stereogum's Last Night party at the Pure Volume House in Austin.
Gobble Gobble at Boston Family Dinner during SxSW
Wye Oak at SxSW 2011
4.13 Handsome Furs at Great Scott
4.13 Chris North Residency at The Haven, with Mount Peru
4.14 Girlfriends at Middle East Upstairs
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper at Cafe 939
Kingsley Flood at SxSW 2011
4.30 Yacht at the Paradise
Filed under: Emma, Nina | Tags: boston counter cultural compass, concerts, march, upcoming concerts in boston
Guys, March is here already, and as John McCauley sings in the title track from Middle Brother, “My days are numbered but I’m bad at math.” That’s right – counting is out, good music is in, and before you can say “Fat Tuesday,” we’ve rounded up enough worthwhile shows to drag you out of your hibernaculum nearly every day of the month. How’s that for March Madness? Our overjoyed and overwhelmed restless legs are hopping over to Austin for SXSW to see lots of shows, discover new music, worship the sun gods, binge on barbecue and beer, and, if the stars are aligned, get served tequila by Bill Murray. (Rest assured, updates to come.) Considering this, we thought we’d maybe take it easy this month, but this calendar is so good looks like it’s high season for all music all the time. Tut tut now shake ya butt!
3/2 – Smith Westerns @ Great Scott
3/3 – Middle Brother @ Paradise
One fine day somewhere in America, Deer Tick’s John McCauley, Dawes’s Taylor Goldsmith, and Delta Spirit’s Matt Vasquez formed a group called Middle Brother. Middle Brother brings together and amplifies each member’s strengths – Deer Tick’s raw songwriting skills, Dawes’ melodic sensibilities, and Delta Spirit’s warm soulfulness – into a stylistically varied but consistently great album which gets better with every listen. Country-fried folky goodness, ya’ll.
3/3 – Aviary opening – “Sound on Sight”
Read about this in the Phoenix, it’s an editor’s pick for the week! Reception today, but the exhibit will be open all month.
3/4 – Low Anthem @ Old South Church
3/6 – Get Up Kids @ Paradise
If “Overdue” and “Let the Reigns go Loose” figure prominently in my memory montages of being young and vulnerable I’m not alone – the Get Up Kids were one of the most influential bands in the late-90s Midwestern emo movement in the good old days when “emo” meant emotionally honest punk-influenced music instead of angsty teenagers with swoopy hair and fetishes for wrist-slitting imagery and tear-streaked eyeliner.
3/6 – Say Hi @ Middle East Downstairs
3/7 – Oh Land (opening for OMD) @ Paradise
Electro-glitter winter wonderful.
3/8 – Pete Yorn @ House of Blues
Yeah, yeah, yeah, his hair is too shaggy, he’s all over simplified pop rock and old news, something you listened to on the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack in 2001 (No? Just me?), but I refuse to let go of my Musicforthemorningafter memories from before I even knew what a “morning after” felt like. A strange condition, indeed. Plus, on Enjoy Every Sandwich, the stellar Warren Zevon tribute album released after he died, Yorn covers “Splendid Isolation” wonderfully.
3/9 – Rural Alberta Advantage @ Middle East Downstairs
I have these guys on near-constant rotation these days, and for good reason. Before Japandroids realized “The Boys Are Leaving Town” and Arcade Fire were missing The Suburbs, Rural Alberta Advantage tapped into the nostalgia felt by itinerant twentysomethings with Hometowns - a gorgeous album that picks up the aforementioned Get Up Kid emo legacy and updates it with Jeff Magnum-esque vocals, occasional horns, and dislocated heartfluttery synths reminiscent of the Postal Service. Now they’re touring for their follow-up, Departing. Check it.
3/10 – Bright Eyes @ House of Blues
No conversation about Midwestern emo can go for long before hitting on infamous emo posterboy Conor Oberst. Whether you loved him for writing transparent lyrics that spoke to the confusion and pain of growing up or hated him for making grotesque self-pity worn on your sleeve not only acceptable but fashionable, seems like everyone had an opinion on the depressive wunderkind. Eleven years and tons of projects after Fevers and Mirrors, Oberst is finally hanging up the Bright Eyes moniker, so if you’re looking for a cathartic occasion to shed a public tear to “A Perfect Sonnet,” this could be your last chance.
3/11 & 3/12 – Zoe Keating & Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys @ Cafe 939
Zoe Keating: one-woman orchestra/cello extravaganza with a hardworking DIY ethic, collaboration history with the likes of Amanda Palmer, John Vanderslice, and The Secret Life of Bees, and seriously badass dreads. Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys: 15-piece orchestra with baroque sea shanties, neocircus postapocalyptic folk waltzes, and a seriously badass steam-crunk aesthetic. Bored of the same old musical fare? Get at this. (Note: the Friday show is SOLD OUT but Saturday tickets are still available!)
3/11 & 3/12 – The Pogues & Titus Andronicus – House of Blues
3/16 – Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon @ First Church Congregational
3/20 – Blast Forth @ Cambridge YMCA
Whitehaus Family Record presents the fourth annual Blastfest, and it’s loaded with enough DIY New England goodness to melt your heart and melt your face off. The Cambridge installment of the tour features Welcome Home; Peace, Loving; Gracious Calamity; Jimmy Ambulance; Casey Rocheteau; Shai Erlichman; Brian S. Ellis; B. Law; The Needy Visions; Manners; Shira E.; Emma N. Young; Chris North Dream Quartet; Morgan Shaker; Free Pizza; Avi Jacob; and Gobby It’s going to be epic.
3/21 – Simian Mobile Disco @ Paradise
Get your dance on.
3/24 – Sebadoh & Steven Brodsky @ Paradise
3/26 – DeVotchKa @ Paradise
I am told time and again by a certain Russian co-writer that I mispronounce their name, but this Boulder/Denver four piece band plays awesome Eastern world, gypsy-folk music in the vain of Beirut and Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. Perhaps you heard them in the background of Little Miss Sunshine, which featured arguably two of their best songs, “You Love Me” and “How It Ends.” Unusual instruments (sousaphone, theremin) and Nick Urata’s vocal bravado make DeVotchKa unmissable. I saw them live once in Colorado, and between the hometown spirit and the circus-punk, rock ‘n’ roll accordion, I was hooked. They’ve got a new album just out the last day of February, too, which I have yet to check out.
3/26 – Hallelujah the Hills & Parts and Labor @ Great Scott
3/28 – Klaxons @ Paradise
3/29 – Joy Formidable @ Brighton Music Hall
3/30 – Bodega Girls record release party @ Middlesex Lounge
3/30 – The Dears @ Brighton Music Hall
3/30 – JEFF the Brotherhood & Juiceboxxx @ Great Scott
We saw JEFF the Brotherhood at Homegrown, back when the Temple in JP was still kickin’. Revisit those good times here.
3/31 – Viva Viva & Doomstar @ Brighton Music Hall
Annnnd, as always, we encourage you pick up/find online the Boston Counter Cultural Compass and go to any shows/events listed there. They are always a good time, and even if the music isn’t your thing, the hangings out will be. COMMUNITY, PEOPLE!
Filed under: Emma, Nina, Uncategorized | Tags: autotune the news, boston counter cultural compass, Dawes, land of talk, mighty tiny, november shows in boston, peelander-z, sanity song, slim cessna's auto club, the joy formidable, upcoming concerts in boston, wadzilla mansion
Nov. 11 – Pretty and Nice, Oranjuly, Spirit Kid, Hot Protestants @ Mid East Upstairs
Nov. 18 – Brown Bird @ Audrey’s Loft?
Nov. 20 – Delorean @ Mid East Down
Also – not featured here: If you have not begun following along with the Boston Counter Cultural Compass, find it here and look out for all the underground goodness that is sometimes hard-to-find out about in this fair city compiled in one (or two) easy-to-read sheets.
Filed under: Emma, Uncategorized | Tags: calendar, october, rocktober, upcoming concerts in boston
Thank you, XKCD.
What Cheer? Brigade
As a continuation to this weekend of awesomeness, Oktoberfest in Harvard Sq. will offer some more music and celebrating… including a show by The Points North (and probably others but that’s the one we knew about).
Filed under: Albums, Emma, New Music | Tags: broken social scene, canadian indie pop, cloak and cipher, land of talk, montreal, pitchfork, tt the bear's, upcoming concerts in boston
out on Saddle Creek Records
Montreal trio Land of Talk‘s new album, Cloak and Cipher, will be released on the 24th. I’ve been waiting all summer to write about this, having only learned of the band back in June. As a friend slowly fed me their inventory through Skype messages, beginning with their ridiculously addicting EP Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, I quickly fell in love singer Elizabeth Powell’s husky vocals and the band’s riff heavy style. I was sad to find out they had JUST been in Boston a week before my ears started an intense summer love affair with them, thanks in large part to the track “Summer Special.” Alas, they will be back on November 3, and at TT the Bear’s no less: I now suspect the summer lovin’ will last way past fall.
I had the pleasure of hearing Cloak and Cipher at my internship back in July and felt it was a pretty big step forward for the band, whose first full length album Some Are Lakes lost a little steam after their EP (though there are a few excellent tracks on that release as well). Anyway, today Pitchfork published their review of Cloak and Cipher and gave it a 6.9 rating on their despised decimal system… which isn’t particularly bad, considering how harsh they can be. The review was also pretty positive, but call me crazy, I was expecting a higher grade especially as Some Are Lakes also received a 6.9. God, I hate decimals.
Land of Talk toured North America with Montreal’s super group to end all super groups, Broken Social Scene, a few years back. Their new release picks up a bit of that good ol’ Canadian indie pop sound, often reminiscent of BSS’s older stuff, but I really can’t say that’s a bad thing. In the Pitchfork review, writer Zach Kelly mentions a particular similarity between LoT’s “Swift Coin” and the epic “7/4 (Shoreline),” which I suppose I can hear now that it’s been pointed out, but in the guitars alone. Otherwise, Land of Talk have their own unique sound.
Cloak and Cipher opens with the title track, a thumping ballad that starts out with Powell’s singing sounding far away until the first chorus comes around and everything kicks in at once. The “distanced” singing comes in and out throughout the song creating a push and pull feel, which allows the percussion to really stand out. “Quarry Hymns” is beautiful and haunting, even though I can’t get the image of the song being played on what looks like a Casio keyboard under a highway overpass, thanks to the video of LaBlogoteque’s take-away performance (which you can find right here).
Other stand out tracks include “Color Me Badd,” in which Powell’s vocal range and talent are really showcased, “Playita,” and “Blangee Blee.” “The Hate I Won’t Commit” is interesting, to say the least, as it interrupts the rest of Cloak and Cipher‘s pretty consistently poppy, controlled and accessible sound with a noisy interlude that almost reminds me of Sleater-Kinney or something equally hardcore. It takes a little time to like, but eventually I decided it was pretty awesome too.
LoT got by with a little help from their Montreal friends, Stars and (all together now), Arcade Fire, and a cast list of many others, although these cameos are not really pronounced on any of the tracks. One thing that could be worked on? These songs have great lyrics, but you’d never know it without looking them up. While Powell’s voice is strong, you can really only hear her words when she is belting out choruses. Some more audible wording throughout the songs would be nice.
Huzzah! Finally raving about that album feels like the sweet relief of fall’s coming at the end of a hot summer. Check out the album, come see them live when they return to TT’s on a chilly November evening or wherever they’re playing near you… it’ll be a good time, I’m sure.
* As the album isn’t quite out yet, it’s a bit difficult to find streaming links. Will put them in once they’re up and out there on the big bad interwebs.
