Somerville Scout » Music

Thurston Moore Reminisces, Slides into the Future

Eli Jace — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:53:45 +0000

(L to R) Lattimore, Wood, Maloney, Moore, Lubelski play Somerville Theatre Jan. 31
Photo by Eli Jace

Last night marked a sort of return to The Somerville Theatre (55 Davis Sq) for Sonic Youth guitarist and vocalist Thurston Moore. The feedback-and-drone rock band last played the theatre early in their career in the 80s. On that night Moore threw a temper tantrum, left the stage thirty minutes early and locked himself in their van. “I’m back exorcising that demon,” he said with his typical smirk.
This time around, the scene was different. Moore played in support of his third solo album, last year’s, Demolished Thoughts, with his new backing band. Christened Demolished Thoughts, the ensemble includes Keith Wood on acoustic guitar, Mary Lattimore on harp, John Maloney (former Burren employee) on drums, and Samara Lubelski on violin. A surprising split from Kim Gordon, his wife of twenty-seven years and co-founder, bassist and vocalist of Sonic Youth, threw the fate of the band in permanent jeopardy last year. No announcement has been made on their future.
In his newest musical incarnation Moore is much calmer than that night in the 80s. Gone is the distorted destruction and wall of feedback from his previous work and in place are spiraling acoustic crescendos. The song structure is still mostly the same with long-winded outros that melt down and disintegrate in acoustic noise. Clearly there’s still a soft spot in his heart for Sonic Youth that this band only hints at, but this project follows its own meandering path.
The group played songs from all of Moore’s solo discography, even reaching back to 1995’s Psychic Hearts. “Circulation” from Demolished Thoughts, roared out of control but was pulled from the static bog by Lattimore’s plucked harp strings. The addition of violin and harp created a constant classical drone that led the audience down stereophonic hallways of dread. Moore’s vocals are still the vocals of warning, deadpan and off-putting.
Moore was friendly with the audience and patient as they shouted senseless one-liners for attention. Between a few songs he offered his own beat-up poetry streaming free from his mind. Sentence fragments were mashed in a sweaty electrical pulp offering an angulated glimpse into life with his new band. One poem reflected on a beer-fueled heavy metal practice they had.
Kurt Vile, who released the full-length Smoke Ring For My Halo and the EP So Outta Reach last year opened the evening. He brought his usual sleepy songs drenched in soft reverb and highlighted by his fishtail mumble. He stood mostly alone, center stage, with acoustic guitar, but was joined every few songs by Lattimore on harp.
It was a casual show, a laid-back affair, the soundtrack to those final moments of a deep sleep and so, the rest of the night was spent in a perpetual awakening. Moore takes his Demolished Thoughts to The Allen Room at Lincoln Center in New York City tomorrow night.
View more photographs from the show RIGHT HERE.

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Hot Molasses: After the Flood

Eli Jace — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:06:25 +0000

93 years ago on Jan. 15 a tank filled with molasses exploded in the warm air sending waves up to 15 feet high over the North Shore, killing 21. In commemoration, The Precinct Bar (70 Union Sq.) will host the fourth annual Boston Molasses Disaster Benefit Concert on Jan. 21 at 9 p.m.
Started by the band Hot Molasses, whose name is no coincidence, the concert acts as a fundraiser for different organizations. Past recipients have been City Life Vida Urbana and Alternatives for Community and Environment. “We raise money for a good cause while highlighting the quirkiness and the tragedy,” bassist and vocalist of Hot Molasses, Andrew Cohen says. Whistlejacket, Battleship Cometh and Fashion Snake will also support.

This year’s beneficiary is Opportunity Africa, “a fantastic organization,” Cohen says. They offer scholarships to academically gifted students living in Central Africa’s Cameroon in an effort to pull them from difficult living situations. Cohen studied abroad in Cameroon through the School for International Training with the organization’s future founders, Heather Buesseler and Michelle Wilson. He lived there for ten years and now acts as advisor to the board. Their work for Opportunity Africa began in 2007.

That same year Hot Molasses began to define itself as a pogo-stick rock-and-roll band. Guitarists Ben Abrams and Doug Sisko, vocalist Julia Dickinson, drummer Peter Kriensky and Cohen were all linked together in some way in previous bands. But as those projects unraveled a new one came together. They’ve since established themselves by playing every possible corner of Boston, Somerville, Cambridge and beyond. “We invest in getting people out to see us live,” Cohen says, adding, “We do not stand at our shows.”

Last year the band released their excellent EP, Frankly. This year they’ll begin work on a new EP and follow its path. “There’s a good chance we expand it into a full length,” Cohen said. “We have a lot of songs that we are super excited about.” They are eyeing an “end of spring, early summer” release, just as the air begins to stick and the humidity climbs.

Of the new material, Cohen says they’ve “been moving in a poppier direction. The songs are even a little bit simpler,” than previous efforts. Given their bare-bones attempt at song structure, it’ll be interesting to hear them peel back even another layer.

When creating songs from thin air Cohen stresses a first-come-first-served style. “When you’ve got a nugget of a really good song,” he explains, “to really build on that nugget is the key thing; to take the idea and not destroy it with too many other ideas, but really nurture the genesis of the song. There’s no reason to throw everything in.”

On Saturday the audience will get to hear the new raw tunes and bask in the warmth of charity. The cover charge is $10 with all proceeds going to Opportunity Africa. Pretty Things Beer will serve drinks.

opportunityafrica.org
hotmolasses.bandcamp.com

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A Tingling of My Spine’s Eye

Eli Jace — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:50:58 +0000

The circus came to Radio last Friday night by way of Walter Sickert and The Army of Broken Toys. There was androgyny, kabuki masks, red balloons, girls disrobing at intervals, breasts with mustaches, breasts without mustaches, Native American headdresses worn by Sickert and an inflatable Bozo the Clown, and some of the most chunky, grizzled rock ‘n’ roll in town. My eyes were like wall sockets stuffed with too many plugs.
Their set capped off a night that featured Rick Berlin and The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library before them. A festive mood thrived in the air with cupcakes (both vegan and not) made by Sophia Cacciola and birthday blasts for accordionist Edrie Edrie celebrating number 21. When they took the stage the end was nigh and not a moment was wasted (though, maybe, most everyone else was).
The Army of Toys know how to whip their audience into a frenzy. Sickert sat center-stage in a bridal gown and dirty locks like tentacles of an angry ink-spitting squid. All around him a revolving parade of personalities marched, twirled, shook and freak-danced. The performers blended into the spectators and nearly every mouth threw up the lyrics like bad white wine. It was exciting, it was brash, it was loud, like Tom Waits in drag jacked up on amphetamines feeling lonely and violent in a seedy strip club.
Not that any of this is unusual for this ghoulish gang of intrepid performers. Each one lived their persona to the fullest and without compromise. Starting with 2007’s Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys, they’ve built an impressive resume following with three more full-length albums. Their newest is this year’s, DREAM DROME. All are available in some form at www.armyoftoys.com.
When the set ended an explosion of protest erupted from the crowd. The band lopsidedly gathered together for one last boomshakalaka. The mass was divided up and given the ammunition of call-and-response for “Off With Her Head!!!” Throat-slashing screams of “off!” and “head!” bleated against the walls as the song slid out, finished and was over. Breathing patterns caught up, smiles formed, balloons popped and I may have been the only one with no idea of what I’d just witnessed.
They’ll put a major dent in the end of this year at the Hynes Convention Center Auditorium for the annual First Night Boston December 31 at 7pm.

www.firstnight.org

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Dastardly’s Liebowitz Makes the Road His New Best Friend

Eli Jace — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:40:48 +0000

When singer/songwriter Gabe Liebowitz, from the band Dastardly, stops by Radio on Sunday, his hustling career will be in full swing.
“I decided I was finally going to try to make this band my full-time job,” he explained by cell-phone from unusually warm Chicago. The band cut into Liebowitz’s four-year career as a double-decker bus tour guide for the city and playing music on the side, without any manager or agent, has kept him busy. “It’s been really crazy juggling everything,” he said.
Now, during down time with the rest of Dastardly, Liebowitz tours as a solo artist for extra funds. “I can get out there, get the name out and not stress everyone out,” he said, adding that the other members are consumed in work and school. “This tour is the beginning of that experiment.”
So out of the double-decker business and into the musical frying pan. He joins TonyBear and Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion in the freshly minted venue.
Since Liebowitz lives a carless life, he’ll be riding Amtrak, playing three shows in New York City, then hitting Providence, Somerville and Texas. He admits the road trip will be challenging, but understands the value the road holds for a songwriter. “When you see people like Jeff Buckley or Elliot Smith,” he reflected, “These gripping, incredible songwriters first started out playing solo.”
He referenced the legendary Buckley performance at the Sin-e in Manhattan from 1993 that finds him all alone on stage, but set him up for musical gold. “Then, when [he's] thrown in front of a band, he’s already got the chops,” Liebowitz said. Chops that went on to create the classic album, Grace.
Dastardly began, like many projects, with bedroom recordings and a finite blueprint for sound. “I would listen to the entire Hank Williams discography,” he said, also citing Townes Van Sant, Roy Orbison and Harry Neilson. As the band sprouted, their music took Liebowitz’s first country-blues seedlings and gargled them with more modern influences like Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective.
“We actually are so like-minded,” he said of the band. “We try to mesh it together in a way that isn’t necessarily trying to create an eclectic sound without seeming like we’re out of focus.” When the blender of sound grew full and the mixture poured out, a new term for the musical landscape was born: Hicksters. Impress your friends with that one.
Liebowitz returns to Chicago January 19 for the band’s record release show at Lincoln Hall. It’ll be their first release in over a year that has seen the band through some heavy evolution. “The strongest point of our band is the live show,” he championed. And that’s what they brought to Bury Me in the Country.
They recorded at the Rumble in Chicago, “literally like a laundry room,” Liebowitz called it. When the band showed up, with them was a grueling handle of whiskey — Canadian Club — for jacked-up inspiration. “By the end of the night we got our engineer hammered,” he revealed. “He doesn’t even remember the last session.”
Blackouts aside, those woozy sessions caught Dastardly live, loose and with much to say. “A lot of imagery throws back to the Carter Family and the old time recordings from the 20s and 30s,” he said, “But, it’s filtered through this mess of jumbling, modern sounds.”
The new album’s concept is about loving city life, but still, in the back of the mind, dreaming of country life, wishing to end that life a scatter of ashes complete in pure nature. “The idea is not to just pretend that we’re from Wyoming and living in big hills, but embracing the fact that we live in the city,” he explained. “[We just don't] have the balls to leave.” Though, if this experiment is a success, they may have to.

Tickets are $5. Show at 8pm.

www.myspace.com/dastardlytheband

www.facebook.com/radiosomerville

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The Twelve Days of Somerville

Michael Schulman — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:15:53 +0000

On my first day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

the lease to my new property.

On my second day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my third day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my fourth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my fifth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my sixth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my seventh day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my eighth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

8 thermal windows

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my ninth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

I-nine-ty three

8 thermal windows

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my tenth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

10 hills by Mystic

I-nine-ty three

8 thermal windows

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my eleventh day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

11 elected aldermen

10 hills by Mystic

I-nine-ty three

8 thermal windows

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property.

On my twelfth day in Somerville my landlord gave to me

12 thousand students

11 elected aldermen

10 hills by Mystic

I-nine-ty three

8 thermal windows

7 shoes on wires

6 Green Line Stations

5 pot-hole dings

4 streets named Linden

3-1-1

2 parking permits

and the lease to my new property!

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Tell Them Count Orlok Sent You

Eli Jace — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:57:27 +0000

In 1922 a beady-eyed vampire named Count Orlok shuffled in broken film projections to the horror of German audiences watching the debut of Nosferatu. Nearly 100 years later, with a revolving cast of blood-suckers come and gone, Orlok still finds space on a screen somewhere for his bald head and pointy ears every Halloween.
Next Friday, October 28 at 8 p.m., at the Center for the Arts at the Armory, multi-instrumentalist Brendan Cooney and four other musicians will inject new life into the classic creeper when they perform their score over the silent film.
Count Orlok, played by Max Schreck, “is such a fantastic character,” Cooney said. “Compared to modern film production, it’s nothing, just a little make-up, but it comes across really creepy.”
The first time Cooney saw Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau, it was fittingly projected onto the walls of a church in Germantown, Philadelphia. He was asked to play piano for the score at a showing and practiced only once. From then on he knew it would be a project worth delving into. “[The film] has many contrasting moods and overly emotive body language,” he said. “It lets the imagination run wild.”
Debra McLaughlin, Executive Director for The Armory, called the minimal effects of the film “haunting and mesmerizing,” especially when combined with live music.
Cooney, who comes from Philadelphia but very recently moved to the Boston area, has taken his score on the road for a short jaunt through New England this month.
“It’s funny,” Cooney reflected, “Audiences crack up at the things I thought were spooky. Some things were spooky because they come across very campy [even] humorous. The score I wrote brings those things out,” he said.
Cooney took his musical direction from the movie’s spooky setting. Set deep in an ancient castle in the Carpathian Mountains the film has “an old-world Eastern European vibe,” he said. He incorporated klezmer ideas, Yiddish traditions, Hungary folk melodies and gypsy grooves from that round-about area to build an atmosphere that hinges on the kooky, but also the shuddering freak-nature that is prevalent in the film.
On top of that Cooney throws in clarinet, violin, accordion and bass. “I’ve also used a lot of modern improvisatory effects [like] screeching violins and things you might associate with old horror movies like Psycho” or other Hitchcock scores, he said.
Cooney is a major player in the Philadelphia music scene. For the West Philadelphia Orchestra he plays baritone, in the City Wide Specials, a weekly country/bluegrass concert, he plays banjo and is also a member of Noggin Hill and Rhinoceri Trio. He’s also worked with acts like Dr. Dog, Buried Beds and Rick Berlin as a horn and string arranger.
“The fun thing about this project is the musicians are from very diverse musical backgrounds,” Cooney recognized. “It allowed me to write a lot of different types of music for the score and rely on the players.” Perfecting the score was very natural thanks to “some killer musicians” backing him up.
Shinjoo Cho, who lives in Somerville, plays accordion, Carlos Santiago is on violin, Chris Coyle is on bass and Larry Goldfinger on clarinet. They are all loosely connected. Goldfinger works with Cooney in the West Philadelphia Orchestra and Coyle is in Rhinoceri Trio with him. Santiago creates avant-garde music, hitting on prog-rock and experimental jazz and Choo plays with the Oscuro Quintet.
Over the last year or so the team rehearsed under ten times, according to Cooney. “[The film] is time-coded with a clock,” he explained. “The more we [play], the less we have to rely on the clock,” and it becomes more about remembering the pacing of the scenes.
Joining live music with film is nothing new for the Armory having hosted versions of Phantom of the Opera and Nosferatu before, as well as a festival centered on pairing documentaries with live musicians. “We feel it enriches the viewing [and] listening experience for all parties,” McLaughlin said.
Friday marks a return to the Armory for Cooney who played a few years back. For Somervillians this will be an appropriate start to the Halloween weekend. Tickets are $10 and doors open at 7:30p.m.

www.nosferatu2011.com

www.artsatthearmory.org

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This is Radio Control

MikeMcCullagh — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:59:57 +0000

art by Radio Control

The history of the two-man, knife-in-teeth castle-stormer rock n’ roll combo is convoluted. If you do it one way, you get the mainstream and sometimes hackneyed White Stripes (not to say I’m not a fan…rock n’ roll has benefited a great deal from Jack White’s efforts to unearth forgotten heroes and gems from days of old, including the Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson and that brokenhearted nightingale Loretta Lynn).

You could do the blues rock revival of The Black Keys, which works for plenty of Radio Moscows worldwide. If you really swing it right, you end up with the timeless caterwaul of Dex Romweber and the pulsating earth-shaking Crow, better known as Flat Duo Jets (another piece of soulful gold White has helped pluck from the dust). One listen of “Hot Audio” by Union Square’s Radio Control lets you know where you stand. You want to rip your dirty t-shirt down the middle, throw your hands up like you just don’t care and set fire to the evening. Whiskey, blood and fire. Get ready.

It’s an unfortunate side effect that uncreative writers like me will inevitably compare bands like Radio Control to all other rock duos. It doesn’t help that one of their songs (Beach Babies) has a very similar melody to the White Stripes “We’re Going To Be Friends.” Honestly, it’s like a better, more rollicking version of what is possibly the most boring Stripes tune.

If you were stricken the wrong way by that one strange choice, chances are you will totally forgive the lady and gent when you hear their theme “Radio Control.” They join a full list of self-referential bands like Black Sabbath, Wilco, The Magnetic Zeros and The Riverboat Gamblers.

This two-headed street gang consists of drummer, howler, “cat wrangler” and resident babe Kristen Otero alongside the sweaty and handsome Matt (sometimes-y) Studivan. The crew has been exploding the architecture of Somerville and beyond for just over two years. Tours, records, live shows and general buzz-making is most definitely in their immediate future.

Do yourself a solid and expect to catch the crew rhyming at P.A.’s lounge October 1. Say hi to them and say you read about it on the Scout blog.

And remember not to “Drink drink drink ’til you die.” It’s just a tune, man!

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STARLAB FEST 2011! 8/6/11, Union Square

MikeMcCullagh — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:53:50 +0000

The good folks at Starlab (32 Prospect St) have organized perhaps the very best live acts from Somerville and beyond for their third whenever-they-feel-like rockin’ BBQ and festival. It’s all happening outside of a junk metal shop and radiator graveyard in Somerville’s most underrated square, Union. It is of paramount importance that you go and see what this town is up to in the music vein, and I honestly can’t think of a better start than this.

design M. Price, Starlab

The concert features the brightest contributors from the extended Starlab family, including two teenage-rock n’ roll fantasy metal acts, Ramming Speed and Ohio’s Locusta, the only non-local. Other acts include:

Movers & Shakers Sweat and Blood Americana from your hosts with the most. Thank them and dance.

Girlfriends Plywood stage shaking verbosity with the straight beat from before you were born.

Fedavees Ask your older brother how many bands these dudes have given to their community, because he was probably at a party where Johnny Allen played every instrument.

Spirit Kid The pop of your dreams. Singing along to this act will be like listening to all of your favorite records at a party with old friends and plenty of babes.

Trabants Heroes of New England Surf. Sometimes they have two bassists and a go-go hula hoop girl. Always they drench the joint in sweet reverb.

Sleepy Very Sleepy Starlab originals with the sound that moves in you when you are young. Even if you are not.

Earthquake Party! That exclamation point is no accident. These dudes are young and wiry and their music portrays that. Outstanding party rockers all with some cool hair cuts that YOU (read: I) could never pull off!

Locusta THIS IS OHIO METAL. Know what you are getting into. Bring hair.

Ramming Speed Sound like the heavy-metal version of early Metallica. I said it. Bring your chest and a sharpie, because they are going to autograph you.

Besides carrying a party attitude and an appetite, please remember that Starlab relies on your donations. If you want this kind of thing to occur right in your own backyard, and you will after Saturday, be cool with a five or ten dollar bill. Free barbecue for all and ‘gansetts for the over 21 crowd? I haven’t seen this kind of open party and concert combo since I lived in the middle of North Texas. Somerville needs Starlab. COME ON DOWN!

Remember, folks: you read it in The Scout!

Photo: Starlab

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Somerville’s DC FAM to perform Thursday night (7/28) at Club Samba

Maja Orsic — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:20:23 +0000

DC FAM

Somerville natives Leanis Almanzar, Wilner Alexis, Kenny Neff and Larry Travaglione will perform Thursday, July 28, at 8 p.m. at Club Samba (608 Somerville Ave). Known together as DC FAM and respectively as Third Degree, Real Wil, K Street and Renzo, the group is headlining an event featuring DJ Stix from Hot 97 Boston and performances by Concep, Cav Bernah, Black Roze and Fly Rydaz.

And if you recognize none of the names listed above: fear not! You can read more about DC FAM in the next print issue of Somerville Scout. Until then, catch their recent hit “I’m on Fire (Beam Me Up)” on YouTube and visit Brown Paper Tickets in order to attend the Club Samba show.

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Listen to “My Imagination” by Somerville band Spirit Kid

MikeMcCullagh — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:52:46 +0000

Somerville band Spirit Kid's new album, Happiness, debuted this week.

There is never any shortage of music to go and see, and — from this day forward — I’m going to to try my hand at directing you to the right way to spend an evening in our fair burg.

Take it uptown to Johnny D’s (17 Holland St) or across Union divide to PA’s (345 Somerville Ave) and catch the wildest live happenings in your very own backyard.

I aim to please, and this is an open ended love note to all of Somerville’s creative community: Check out new releases from local luminary Spirit Kid, who celebrated the release of their new album Happiness this week.

Let’s listen in!

My Imagination By Spirit Kid!

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