When UK-bred Louisa Rose Allen was 18, she moved with her older sister to the big city of London to go to music school. A few semesters later she said screw it and dropped out to go her own way, no boundaries, re-naming herself Foxes. Now, 22, she’s releasing her cathartic EP Warrior where the classic beauty shows off her pipes over synths and experimental beats that nestle themselves deep within your mind...
After battling the scheduling gods, I managed to make it to Run Gazelle Run’s show at the Middle East Downstairs on 6/22. For a Friday night, the crowd was a little thin, but the show was just getting started with the first act, The Brother Kite. Still, the place should have been packed—these guys had the talent of the indie rock persuasion and a pretty impressive set of vinyl at their merch table...
Welcome back to DIY Fridayz. To those former participants, welcome back. To those who have never played, welcome.
How it works is every week there is a topic, and it is your job to comment on this post (not facebook post, THIS ACTUAL POST) with a video that relates to that topic. Get the most thumbs up and brag to all your friends at the bar tonight!
This week's topic is: SONGZ ABOUT SUMMER!!!! (<3 summer so hard)
White Rabbit is the name of the DJ who is featured at the Boston club, RISE’s Friday event, Wonderland. This event seems to be a polarizing one. “It’s like a high school dance”, warned my friend who studies in Boston and has friends that frequent RISE. I’ll admit that I ascended the stairs Friday night, first in line, with definite biases. Camera strapped diagonally across my chest, I sat uncomfortably on one of the plush leather couches like a parent chaperone on a Prom bus...
There is absolutely no way to recount the experience of going to see Caveman at the Paradise last weekend without being completely honest about where my state of mind was at.
I had been drinking. Just a bit. (Side note: I’m of legal drinking age, was not driving, had a buddy, etc. etc. Please enjoy responsibly.) But it was enough to make the coincidental presence of two long-lost exs in the Paradise’s pit that night more than overwhelming.
Upon first hearing Santigold’s new album Master of My Make-Believe, the sound seemed so different from her first album Santogold that I was unsure how to respond to it. With her first album you could easily sense her punk background in songs like “You’ll Find a Way,” but in this album there are no obvious punk roots...
Blake Mills is opening for Fiona Apple this summer on her highly anticipated, post-hiatus tour to support her new record, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. Mills seamlessly combines a folk and blues sound with a sense of humor and understanding of his past on his own 2010 record, Break Mirrors...
The hottest day of the year seemed appropriate for one of the nation’s hottest bands to pay a visit to Boston. Nashville sibling duo Jeff The Brotherhood are no strangers to our hood. As a matter of fact, if my mind serves correctly, this is the fourth club gig they’ve played in Boston in the past year. In appropriate fashion, these shows have gotten bigger each time, reflective of their touring ethic and growing success nationwide...
For as long as I have been going to concerts, I have pissed and moaned about “stage presence.” This vague, yet crucial term has been the crux upon which the success of a live act hinges. Anyone who has seen the nearly immobilized Neil Young play a show in recent years will explain that a musician can play the hits, but must also have both command of the music as well as the audience, and to display both with energy and charisma. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting to see when I sauntered down to The House of Blues last week to go see Goldfinger and Reel Big Fish, two veteran groups of the ska/punk movement in the 1990s. What I know now is that I should have done it 15 years ago...
Touring with fellow Canadian Dan Bejar’s long-running Destroyer project, Toronto- based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sandro Perri played the Paradise Wednesday night. Perri has been releasing music in some form or another since 1999, much of it in the realm of ambient electronica. 2011’s Impossible Spaces, the focus of this set, finds him in something of a singer/songwriter mode, but certainly not in the conventional sense...
As I’m sure all of you have heard by now, WFNX is officially closing its doors in the very near future, having been bought out by Clear Channel. No matter how you look at it, it’s basically a bummer, but the way I’ve seen it, the support has been outpouring and passionate...
Folk music: music of the people, or nowadays, music of the quiet, thoughtful people who find Sigur Rós offensively modern. The term became like those instant anachronisms: Bossa Nova, or New Wave, or Grunge, becoming lies unto themselves as soon as they're made marketable in an industry focus group. Even the genre's great artistic triumphs like Blue and Pink Moon point to the collapse of the folk paradigm, insofar that they're neither singable nor immediately penetrable to the median member of the working class...
We gave Deer Tick a disposable camera to do a lil' self documentation of their shitshow last week. Read Allston Pudding's review of the show and check out the pics the band snapped for us after the jump...
Life is full of surprises. But PA's Lounge failing to support the arts isn't one of them.
“I'm here to write about the Royal Headache,” I tell the doorman.
He looks back with a pitying kind of look, and informs me that they're “playing last”, using the tone of voice which implies I probably wouldn't find it worthwhile to stay. When that fails to dislodge me, befuddlement sets in. “Well, you're not on the list.”
Last Wednesday, fans – mostly female– gathered to see the shaggy-hair trio Bass Drum of Death rip through their debut album GB City. John Barrett (vocals/guitar), Colin Sneed (drums), and Print Choteau (bass) are products of 90's grunge rock...
I’m still kind of a loss of what to say about this trio. I had really been looking forward to writing a bad review full of that cynical humor so rampant in successful blog writing these days. His second album “Barchords,” released in February on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records, seemed to have one good song on it, “I Got You Baby,” a twangy, warped out tune in the fashion of The Black Keys on painkillers. Much of the rest of the album featured front man Afie Jervanen pairing his slow guitar lines with some soft baritone vocals, a simplistic drum line, and the airy, harmonic backup vocals of Felicity Williams and Carleigh Aikins...
Rustic Overtones returned to Boston last weekend. Hailing from Portland (the slightly less hipster one), this is a mutt of ska, funk, punk, and rock. Releasing their first album almost 17 years ago, the band experienced a run of success: they landed bookings at festivals and large venues across the U.S.: they used to play Paradise pretty much every year: their 2001 record Viva Nueva featured cameos from Funkmaster Flex, Imogen Heap, and David Bowie: they used to be signed to Arista.
When attending live shows, there is always a chance that the band will either exceed or damage your impression of them. Think about it: haven’t you left a show feeling disappointed because the artist failed to live up to their recordings? It’s a huge letdown. On the other hand, there are those bands that, after you see them live, you can’t help but become a newfound fan. Admittedly, Ramona Falls may have wooed me into such fandom....
There is approximately an 87.9% chance any given Deer Tick show that either has been or will be in existence is, in fact, a shitshow in disguise. Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a disparaging comment. Rather, it’s just the truth, and I merely want to inform any potential, future Deer Tick live attendees. You may get pushed around by some bros who still look like they should be sneaking rum and Cokes into their high school football games. You might have a few (or many) sudsy PBRs sprayed into your face and/or onto your head by unseen assailants...
We gave Sister Sparrow a disposable camera to go to Bonnaroo with and asked them to document their various adventures. Here's what they gave us...
It was ladies' night at T.T. the Bear's last Wednesday as two female-led bands rounded out the bill. Widowspeak, a Brooklyn based dreamy, pop quartet originally from Washington kicked the evening off right with their meandering, ethereal tracks anchored by snapping, resolute drums...
We gave Clare and the Reasons a disposable camera to go to Bonnaroo with and asked them to document their various adventures. Here's what they gave us...
Towards the end of Keane’s set at the House of Blues last week, a fan on the floor threw a copy of Ned Calmer’s 1951 The Strange Land to frontman Tom Chaplin’s feet in a clever tribute to the band’s latest release Strangeland...
The Mayans predicted that the end of the world would occur in 2012… or so we thought. Whether the world ends or not, here are four reasons you should attend this spectacular show at the Middle East Downstairs on Friday the 22nd, featuring Metaphor for Everything, Run Gazelle Run, Hot Molasses, and The Brother Kite.
I’m going to preface this piece with something known to many of my “friends” and certainly all of my ex-girlfriends. I’m an asshole. I’m also exceptionally talented at stubbornly justifying something just enough so that I can think I’m righteous. This is how I get through my pathetic existence, and is probably why I’m still unemployed. It’s also probably why I have such a knee-jerk, one dimensional reaction to all of the hoopla ricocheting around the interwebs about poor Emily White’s confession about never buying music. Clearly, she’s a bad Catholic. If you’re reading this, Emily, we should go out sometime...
We gave Caitlin Rose a disposable camera to go to Bonnaroo with and asked her to document her various adventures. Here's what she gave us.....
Brooklyn oft makes me jealous. I try to suppress those feelings as much as possible and flaunt my Boston pride, but then bands like Night Manager and Total Slacker come along and make the former all the more difficult. Last Friday, the two New York bands paid a visit to Ted Saunders’ House and blissful mayhem ensued...
Are three-piece bands coming back in style? For a while the standard four or five person rock band was the standard (Strokes, Hives), then music moved to the “stadium anthem bands with enough members to fill a stadium” (Polyphonic Spree, Arcade Fire), now duos are the hot thing grabbing everyone’s attention (Japandroids, Jeff the Brotherhood)...maybe The Police will find a cool kid resurgence within the next six months? Anyway, Brookyln based trio Jukebox the Ghost...
Manchester, Tennessee is like nowhere else on earth. But only for four days. Four days of song, art, comedy, and sweltering southern heat better known as the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, a sea of tents, vendors, food, and hippie love that amasses over 80,000 music lovers every year. Though the festival saw its roots in jam band and folk rock, this summer’s Bonnaroo boasted acts of all kinds, including indie rock, soul, pop, hip hop, electronic, metal, jazz, and reggae, among various other genre-spanning performances...
