September 18, 2008
Straight from the FNX/Phoenix Disorientation 2008 show, here's some FNX folks interviewing some of the bands who performed. Check back later for video of performances by the Kooks, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio, and more.
September 12, 2008
DOWNLOAD: TAB THE BAND, “HEAVY IDEA” [MP3]
For a rock band, there’s only one real way to channel the spirits of Steppenwolf, Deep Purple, and, well, the Eagles without sounding grossly ironic: have one of your dads be a member of Aerosmith. By this criterion, Duxbury’s finest, TAB the Band, should have double the success in their adoption of the arena-rock mantle: brothers Tony (guitar) and Ben (bass) are offspring of Joe Perry. But they don’t actually sound anything like Aerosmith. Sometimes they sound like the Stones if the Stones had been signed to TeenBeat; other times they’re like a lo-fi amalgam of two hours of WZLX programming. Lately, they’ve been popping up in the pages of the New Yorker and mini-touring with Stone Temple Pilots and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The track above comes from their Long Weekend album, the release of which they'll be celebrating at Great Scott this Saturday, September 13 — and no, smart-ass, they won’t be doing anything off of Honkin’ on Bobo.
September 05, 2008
Deadly Sins
DOWNLOAD: ASHERS, “DESTITUTION” [MP3]
DOWNLOAD: DEADLY SINS, “GREY SKIES TURN” [MP3]
Not that they’re strangers or anything, but it’s nice to know that there’s now a single degree of separation between Boston’s two biggest punk-rock franchises: members of Dropkick Murphys and the Unseen have fired up two new bands who share former Crash and Burn guitarist Bill Brown. On Ashers’ debut EP, Brown and frontman Mark Unseen prove they’ve got more to offer than speed and anarchy, whether they’re taking a blowtorch to Tom Petty’s “I Need To Know” or penning this track, 2008’s catchiest crustpunk sing-along. Brown’s also all over Selling Our Own Weaknesses, the debut by part-time Dropkicks singer Stephanie Dougherty’s Deadly Sins. Dropping the Irish sass and heading straight for wounded pride, this turbocharged anthem has been melting the mohawks of bondage-pants’d 15-year-olds from Quincy to Belgium. Grab both mpfrees above, then watch Brown do double duty when both bands play an all-ages CD-release gig at Harpers Ferry this Sunday, September 7.
August 27, 2008
We had essentially forgotten that My Bloody Valentine even was reuniting, figuring that nobody in our tax bracket would ever be able to see it. But if this clip that's been making the rounds from their Fuji Fest performance last month doesn't quite get us totally pumped to see the show, we're at least now up to "intrigued."
August 25, 2008
XTC, "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead"
Our colleague (and XTC fan) David Bernstein is blogging -- and Twittering -- live from Denver for the duration of the Democratic National Convention. A few minutes ago he txt'd an update while walking past an official DNC merch booth that was blaring XTC's 1992 track "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead," which David correctly remembers as "a song about a JFK-like pol who gets killed."
We suspect that the DNC/XTC fan who put this on their iPod recalled the song's opening verses -- Candidate Pumpkinhead "came to town/Spreading wisdom and cash around/Fed the starving and housed the poor/Showed the vatican what gold's for" -- but neglected to recall the song's bitter conclusion:
But he made too many enemies...
Peter pumpkinhead put to shame
Governments who would slur his name
Plots and sex scandals failed outright
Peter merely said
Any kind of love is alright
But he made too many enemies...
Peter pumpkinhead was too good
Had him nailed to a chunk of wood
He died grinning on live tv
Look, we're all in favor of anything that gets the Democrats to stop blaring the same two fucking Bruce Springsteen and U2 songs they've been playing at every rally since 2004. But given how assiduously the Obama campaign and the news media in general have avoided the A-word -- as ThePhoenix.com's Adam Reilly reported during the primaries -- this seems like a very odd choice for a soundtrack to selling Obama t-shirts.
August 25, 2008
In lieu of a review of Metallica's throwbackish new single, which has bitterly divided staff opinion, we'd been amusing ourselves by making up (a la the New Yorker's caption contest) snarky new song titles suggested by this photo -- an image by which we are universally horrified. Feel free to add your own in the comments, but note that the following are taken:
And then, just today, Metallica made yet another surprising upmarket cameo -- in the New Yorker itself. The source? Part two of Anthony Lane's Olympic Games wrap-up, thusly (our emphasis):
The other mystery weapon in [Canadian archer Jay] Lyon’s quiver was Phil Towle, a performance coach back in the States, whose online messages had been an inspiration. “He’s also been a psychologist for Metallica,” Ryan said, as if to justify the gentleman. I had to steady myself against a passing volunteer. Metallica has a psychologist? What, exactly, is it repressing in its sylvan melodies?
What makes this exchange particularly amusing is that Anthony Lane is the New Yorker's chief film critic.
Anthony, have we got a movie for you.
August 22, 2008
These guys are weird
Skeletal Lamping, Of Montreal's follow-up to last year's outstanding Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, made its way on to the internet today, and it's a worthy follow-up that may even outpace its celebrated predecessor.
The actual sound of Skeletal Lamping is pretty comparable to Hissing Fauna. It's still Of Montreal's particular brand of weird, arty, pop. It kind of sounds like listening to a 1970s cartoon. What this album doesn't have is anything as instantly catchy as some of the best songs on Hissing Fauna ("Heimdalsgate as a Promethean Curse" or "A Sentence of Sorts in Koningsvar.") But that's okay - what it lacks in immediacy it makes up for in ambition. This is main dude Kevin Barnes' epic, and if it's not an actual "concept album," it's certainly got a unifying theme to it - specifically, just about all of the songs are about sex, and they manage to get their point across in about the least subtle way imaginable. Sample lyric: "I want to know what it's like to be inside you." And that's one of the tamer ones.
August 21, 2008
DOWNLOAD: Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Shoppin' for a Friend" [mp3]
If you were around in 1978, it’s possible you could’ve bought Unnatural Axe’s legendary seven-inch "They Saved Hitler’s Brain' out of the bin at Newbury Comics, then gone to see Richie Parsons’s obnoxiously loud (or loudly obnoxious?) OG punk band tear the Police a new asshole at the Rat. Thirty years on, the Rat is dead, but the Unnatural Axe and Newbury Comics are still with us. They even share a birthday, which they’re celebrating together with three Parsons-curated gigs at Church August 21 and 22 and the Middle East downstairs August 23. For those who would dispute the continuing relevance of either institution, there’s Ruling the World from the Back Seat, a new double-LP (yes, vinyl) tribute to the Axe on which their songs are played by the likes of Mission of Burma (“Creeper”), the Neighborhoods (“The Man”), Jerry’s Kids (“Bombing”), the Queers (“No Surfing in Dorchester Bay”); there are even takes on “Hitler” B-side “Summertime” by both the Bags and the Dogmatics. Here we’ve got the Mighty Mighty Bosstones rampaging through “Shopping for a Friend,” a song that could still pass for a Johnny Thunders tune if not for the local details. As in the original, Dicky Barrett name-checks Filene’s Basement, which is (essentially) lost to history, along with (you guessed it) Newbury Comics, which is not.
BONUS TRACK: Another new Dicky Barrett song!
Longtime Phoenix contributor and former music editor Ted Drozdowski is about to release Luck In a Hurry, a new album by his punk/blues duo SCISSORMEN (with the drummer from Blaine "Nashville Pussy" Cartwright's old band Nine Pound Hammer).Ted taught OTD most of what we know about the blues, which is not bad tutelage considering Ted learned partly from the late critic Robert Palmer, and partly from the hill-country virtuosos of Clarksdale, Mississippi, including the late R.L. Burnside. The new Scissormen record is the fucking balls, and this track is even gnarlier thanks to a cameo by the Bosstones' Dickie Barrett -- who with his grizzly-bear growl is actually a much more believable blues singer than he is a ska singer. HE MISSED HIS CALLING. Kidding, plaid ones, kidding.
DOWNLOAD: Scissormen and Dicky Barrett, "Whiskey and Mary Jane" [mp3]
August 19, 2008
As always, you can get first dibs on weekly ticket onsales straight to your mobile phone by texting HOTTIX to 22122. Standard txt-msg rates apply.
KAKI KING
October 10 at the Paradise, Boston | $15 | On sale this Thursday, August 21, at noon
ASOBI SEKSU
October 18 at T.T. the Bear’s Place, Cambridge | $10 | On sale Friday at 10 am | www.ticketweb.com
THE HOLD STEADY + DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
November 9 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston | $25-$27.50 | On sale Friday at 10 am
KINGS OF LEON + WE ARE SCIENTISTS + THE WHIGS
November 12 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston | $36 | On sale Friday at 10 am
ELECTRIC SIX + LOCAL H + THE GOLDEN DOGS
November 21 downstairs at the Middle East, Cambridge | $15 | On sale Friday at 10 am
N.E.R.D. + COMMON
October 1 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston | $35-$39.50 | On sale Friday at noon
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
October 3 at Agganis Arena, Boston | $35 | On sale Saturday at 10 am
MAXWELL
October 8 at the Opera House, Boston | $59.50-$150 | On sale Saturday at 10 am
MADONNA: STICKY & SWEET TOUR
October 16 at the TD Banknorth Garden, Boston | $57.50-$352.50 | On sale Monday at 10 am
MEIKO + JENNY OWEN YOUNGS + THAO NGUYEN + SAMANTHA CRAIN
October 31 at the Paradise, Boston | $15 | On sale Tuesday at noon
ZUCCHERO
September 25 at the Somerville Theatre | $39.50 | On sale Saturday at 10:00 am
August 19, 2008
Jen and Andy Guthrie of Band in Boston: “Five Local Songs We’d Love to Play in Rock Band”
1_The Soft Drugs, “Let It Be”
2_The Self Righteous Brothers, “Electric Boogaloo”
3_Apollo Sunshine, “Brotherhood of Death”
4_Viva Viva, “Valentine”
5_Township, “Highway”
Band in Boston curated a series of shows at P.A.’s Lounge that runs through this Saturday.
August 15, 2008
DOWNLOAD: The Broken River Prophet, "Alec's Vision" [mp3]
The Broken River Prophet have come a long way since 1994 — without ever leaving Allston. Adam Brilla (of Lockgroove, Tiny Amps, Shenzou 5, and the Seana Carmody Band) imagined an evolving exploration of country, psych, and folk musics, but it’s not likely he foresaw the panorama of sounds that’s ensued. After more than a decade of amorphous memberships and genre-resistant experimentation, the group have finally been “curated” into what feels like a band. On “Alec’s Vision,” from their new With Infinite Arms To Cradle the Flames, the sweet boy/girl vocals of Brilla and Deborah Warfield navigate storms of bristly guitars, but the real surprise is the overt pop — think Silversun Pickups without their fashion pouts. Grab the MP3 above, and then nab your own copy of Infinite Arms at the CD-release show this Saturday, August 16, at the Middle East upstairs.
August 14, 2008
>>If you haven't already, check out our photo gallery from last night's show. Yes, it was that good.
Sure, we sent a "reviewer" to the Radiohead show last night -- WILL SPITZ went
with the traditional pen and reporters' notebook, having won a
last-minue inter-office Sumo match for the right to write the Final
Word on the World's Most Important Band. The rest of us, being big
interweb dorks and even bigger Radiohead geeks, took our cellphones and
txt-chatted straight to our Twitter page during the whole show, thereby
making us into total assholes. But look, someone's gotta lead the
new-media revolution, right? What are you gonna do, read what the Herald wrote? Or skim our fanboyish, Twitterific play-by-play, NOW UPDATED WITH YOUTUBE CLIPS? Exaaaactly. Here's how it went down according to OTD, MEGAN BELL (who was seeing her third Radiohead show in less than a week!), and CAITLIN CURRAN. Read on after the jump!
August 13, 2008
Going to Radiohead tonight? Got a Twitter account? Follow us on www.twitter.com/bostonphoenix, then reply to our live-tweets with shocking praise, OMGs, stoned epiphanies, etc. We'll post best @bostonphoenix tweets tomorrow morning at www.thephoenix.com/onthedownload, along with shitloads of photos by our ace shutterbug Carina.
If you're stranded at home, you can still read our drunken, real-time play-by-play (in bursts of 140 characters or less) at www.twitter.com/bostonphoenix.
And yes, we know it's not called the Tweeter Center anymore.
August 13, 2008
Besties, "Prison Song"
Ever been hugged too hard? It’s a bit like listening to the BESTIES,
purveyors of either the bristliest indie pop ever sprung from Brooklyn
or the most adorable punk rock. Their songs — poppy paeans to lost
time, lost loves, and lost lofts — threaten to be devoured by their own
cuteness, but the Besties have dueling penchants for volume and
bombast, and the result is more whee! than twee. Catch them opening a
poptacular show with PANTS YELL! and Stockholm’s the FAINTEST IDEAS at P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville | doors @ 8:30 pm | $8-$11 | 617.776.1557 or www.paslounge.com.
DOWNLOAD: the Besties, "Zombie Song" [mp3]
Hercules and Love Affair, "You Belong"
We fear some of you are headed for the Gnarls Barkley show tonight just to hear GNARLS BARKLEY. Wrong. If you're planning to hit the Wilbur Theatre tonight, make sure you show up early to catch the late-disco glories of NYC's HERCULES AND LOVR AFFAIR, who've followed time-honored tradition by becoming huge in England before beginning to catch on back here. Hipsters already have -- and how could they not, with downtown-NYC model/singer/friend-of-CocoRosie Nomi on vox and Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons fame) yelping the hooks, plus James Murphy's DFA label putting their name whole-heartedly behind it? Check the new video above, grab some hot British remix below, get on the fucking dance floor. Oh, wait -- right. Well, bounce along in your tattered theater seat. The Wilbur’s at 246 Tremont St, Boston | 8 pm | $25 | 617.248.9700 or www.livenation.com.
DOWNLOAD: Hercules and Love Affair, "You Belong (Riton Mix)" [mp3]
August 12, 2008
Joel Roston of Big Bear and Don’t Ever Lie to Anyone: “Songs I've Totally Annihilated at Karaoke”
1_Oasis, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
2_Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill”
3_Billy Joel, “The Longest Time”
4_Liz Phair, “Supernova”
5_The Beatles, “Oh! Darling"
Don’t Ever Lie to Anyone play upstairs at the Middle East on Friday.