Somerville Scout » Union Square

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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New Year’s Scouting Report: First Flag Flown

Pietre — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:53:09 +0000

I used to live on Prospect Hill. As recently as two years ago or so, I would hurry past that castle parapet everyday on the way to Union Square, always just barely catching the bus to work. Of course, it wasn’t until I moved elsewhere in Somerville that I finally learned of Prospect Hill’s historical significance. I know. Missed the big old “Somerville Gateway Mural” and everything. (It’s by Be Sargent and adorns 59 Union Square). In any case, as many of you wiser Villens already know, it was atop this tower that the first true American Flag was raised.

According to NPR’s Steven Mulder, who lives “halfway up the hill where the first American flag ever flew,”

“January 1, 1776 is the date that made Prospect Hill famous. On this day, George Washington ordered that a new flag be raised on a 76-foot schooner mast placed on Prospect Hill. This ‘Grand Union Flag’ was the first true American Flag representing the united colonies. It was raised with a salute of 13 guns and loud huzzahs by the soldiers…

“The flag design wasn’t sanctioned by the Continental Congress, but was a design that Washington and others liked. It combined the British crosses of St. Andrew and St. George with 13 red and white stripes…

“The Grand Union Flag flying on Prospect Hill continued to be a great morale booster for troops in the seige of Boston, maintaining them until the British were finally driven out of the city in March of 1776. It remained the de facto national flag until the Continental Congress authorized the more familiar Stars and Stripes in June of 1777.”

For more of Mr. Mulder’s interesting and in-depth research, visit: http://www.muldermedia.com/prospecthill/

So just in case you weren’t around 236 years ago or happened to have slept through that historical re-enactment this New Year’s Day, there you have it.

Happy New Year, Everyone !

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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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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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Metered Parking Spaces in Somerville Receive an Upgrade

Sandra Manzanares — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:57:29 +0000

Here's what Somerville's new pay-by-space meters look like.

A few weeks ago, the City of Somerville’s Traffic and Parking Department (133 Holland St) began beta-testing 15 new pay-by-space parking meters in the Union Square lots and in the Davis Square Rite Aid (393 Highland Ave) lots, replacing 30-single spaced meters that previously stood in those locations.

“Residents often complained that few people have 12 quarters available. We wanted to figure out how we can improve the meter options that in those same areas,” says Matthew Dias, Acting Director of Traffic and Parking.

The City partnered with Duncan Solutions, a company based in Milwaukee, Wis., to offer multi-space meters in these lots. The meters accept dollar coins, regular coins and credit cards. They do not accept paper bills.

The rates of meters will be consistent with the rates of the old meters: 25 cents per 15 minutes. Additionally, the pay-by-space feature of these meters allows patrons to pay by the number of their designated parking space. No longer will it be necessary to return to one’s vehicle to place a ticket there. “With these meters, you can literally pay and go,” says Dias.

The new meters offer helpful new technology for the Traffic and Parking Department as well. The old meters required extensive maintenance. It often took days to identify faulty meters. Dias can now use software to see in real-time how much money is in a meter; to identify which components of a meter are not working; and to ensure maintenance efficiency.

In time, the city hopes to add to other payment options to these meters, such as Somerville ParkCards and pay-by-phone technology. Each meter cost the City more than $1,000 each. The City is also absorbing costs incurred by using Duncan Solutions’ credit card processing technology.

Pending the success of this venture, the City will install pay-by-space meters in other locations. One proposed location is Somerville Avenue in Union Square, which would be the first on-street solution.

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Meet a Somerville stand-up comedian

Maja Orsic — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:05:34 +0000

Caitlin Durante, 24, Somerville resident and stand-up comedian. Note the Buddy Holly glasses in her right hand.

Caitlin Durante has a funny story about moving to Somerville.

Determined to live in Cambridge, Durante, 24, and her roommate agreed on a price range, found a realtor and started looking for an apartment with a September 2010 lease.

So when the realtor referred the pair to a Washington Street address, they showed up in Cambridge.

“No, [the place is] in Somerville,” said the realtor.

When Durante reached the Somerville apartment, she loved it. “Let’s buy it,” she said, “and by that I mean, ‘let’s pay our realtor’s fee.’”

Durante is petite when standing but still looks you in the eye. When we meet up at Bloc 11 (11 Bow St), she is fresh from brunch at The Independent (75 Union Sq). I mention how hip Union Square is and Durante speedily informs me that her Buddy Holly glasses have prescription lenses.

After graduating from Penn State in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in film studies, Durante spent a year in New York City, where she worked in publishing and took her first stand-up comedy class. “I needed to make friends,” she says, “and I had always told people I was a stand-up comedian.”

Durante enjoyed telling jokes and started pursuing stand-up comedy. Since moving here, she has performed on several local stages, including The Burren (247 Elm St), the Cheapshots Comedy Club at Sally OBrien’s Bar and Grill (335 Somerville Ave) and Cambridge’s Comedy Studio (1238 Massachusetts Ave). You can see a video of Durante performing at ImprovBoston here.

“I tell people I’m going to grad school at ImprovBoston (40 Prospect St),” she says, referencing the weekly improv classes offered there. She hopes to earn a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting at Boston University, an endeavor that would complement her undergraduate studies while drawing upon her comedy routines. Her first screenplay follows an aspiring but uninspired writer who assumes several fake identities on April Fool’s Day.

Until that script gets picked up, or at least until graduate school, Durante will continue to tell jokes about sex, Star Wars and her “debilitatingly nerdy tendencies.”

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Sherry, Baby! A Twist On Thai Tapas Tuesdays

Dustin J. S. Watson — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 15:08:35 +0000

Richard Auffrey, food blogger, will host the sherry wine pairing event as part of the Thai Tapas Tuesdays series at Ronnarong on January 11.

From mere picky-eaters to true connoisseurs, it seems like everybody is a self-proclaimed “foodie” these days. This city’s streets are lined with snacks and no doubt any reliable epicurean has searched them for the finest treats: pies, sandwiches, doughnuts, egg rolls, beers, pickles or otherwise. From the Lincoln Porker pizza at Mama Gina’s (19 Union Sq) to the Berry Crumbly at Kickass Cupcakes (378 Highland Ave) or Foundry on Elm (255 Elm St)’s Jonah Crab Trio, Somerville has something to curb even the most fickle of appetites and sophisticated of palates.

Still, it takes a special kind of food affinity to even consider pairing an often ignored white grape wine with a red beef curry dish. This is where food blogger Richard Auffrey‘s upcoming wine pairing at Ronnarong Thai Tapas Bar (255 Washington St) gets interesting.

Auffrey’s popular culinary blog, Passionate Foodie, highlights “good food, wine, saké and spirits.” As a published food and wine columnist and certified Spanish wine educator, you better believe that he knows his crushed grapes. Auffrey’s choice for January 11′s Thai Tapas Tuesday is a family of Spanish wines that he claims is often neglected, regarded by most Americans as nothing more than cheap cooking wine: a fortified wine made near Jerez, Spain from white grapes and brandy, known as vino de Jerez or sherry.

Combining one part Spain and one part Thailand, the meal will consist of the usual Thai roll tapas and three classic Thai dishes: seafood lad nah, beef with red curry, and a larb. Each course will be paired with a wine of a different style, representing sherry’s breadth of flavors and weights. Following a description of each, Auffrey’s offerings for the night will include a Manzanilla, an Amontillado and an Oloroso.

With only 30 seats available for this event, booking will fill up quickly. Seating for this wine tasting event is $30, plus tax and gratuity. Reserve your table by emailing hpatt@ronnarongtapas.com or calling (617) 625-9296.

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Calendar Highlight – The International Pop Overthrow

Dustin J. S. Watson — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:43:19 +0000

The Beauty And Disturbance Orchestra perform at the International Pop Overthrow festival on November 5.

If a single pop song has the power to get stuck in your head for days on end, then attending the International Pop Overthrow is sure to leave catchy hooks and infectious choruses bouncing around your cranium until at least New Year’s Day.

Over the past twelve years, the IPO and its founder, David Bash, have aimed to provide a festival-style venue for traditional pop music acts to showcase the mainstream power the genre still holds in a time largely dominated by heavier riffs and cheesier gimmicks. This year alone, the Overthrow has and will continue to span the globe with shows from Liverpool to Vancouver and Seattle to Somerville from February to December.

Of the 14 cities that this year’s celebration will reach, PA’s Lounge (345 Somerville Ave) will be the eleventh. The IPO kicks off at 7:30PM on November 3 with West Coast native and current Berklee College of Music student Natalie Smith. It closes five nights later with a set by this stop’s only international performer, Ontario’s Dave Rave.

The Boston Overthrow will highlight 30 of pop music’s up-and-coming groups, including nine from outside Massachusetts. Memorable past IPO participants include Phantom Planet, Maroon 5 (then performing as Kara’s Flowers) and the Click Five. With any luck, this year’s festival could be the launching pad for local favorites like This Blue Heaven and Powderhouse.

Admission is $10 per night and (unfortunately for the younger crowd) 21+.

For a complete breakdown of this year’s International Pop Overthrow schedule, click here or check out the Somerville Scout’s online events calendar.

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Calendar Highlight – Project MUM

Jillian Jackson — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:54:17 +0000

If you’re looking for something wild and out of the ordinary for your Saturday night, look no further than the intersection of McGrath Highway and Washington Street, outside of Union Square.

This unexpected location is where you will find the fifth and final Project MUM tonight from 9pm-1am. An outdoor dance party presented by ARTSomerville, this year’s Project MUM is a tribute to George Clinton and the P-Funk Mothership, so be prepared for DJs (featuring DJs Flack, Pace, Axel Foley, Wayne & Wax and Brother Cleve) spinning funk records, a video space mashup by VJ Dziga, and Carey Foster and Peneny Pinnette’s Space Girls and Aliennettes.

Check out this video from last year’s festivities.

$10 at the door.

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