Flavor of the Week: Keys to the Streets of Fear

IF YOU GO:

• Turpentine Brothers, KTTSOF, Beat Awfuls, Headband
• PA's Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville
• 18-plus, $7 ($10 for under 21), 8:30 pm

Hard to say which is more amusing, the Beat Awfuls/Keys to the Streets of Fear "residency" at PA's Lounge (which opts for Who-at-the-Tea-Party week-long stand in favor of the Strokes-at-TTs-once-a-week-for-a-month model that has become a beloved signifier of Boston rock mediocrity) or the press release KTTSOF put out to promote it. Here's some of our fave excerpts from the latter:

• "to be honest guys i can't wrap my fucking mind around the enormity of the thing. when i think about playing with beat awfuls seven times i shit my pants. this fucking thing should change the way bands approach everything. not to mention the super fucking insanity of the analog recordings that are going to come out of this. 56 reels of tape. something like $12,000 worth of microphones. a french horn and two different kinds of pianos. who knows how many miles of cable, all going into the kitchen at pa's lounge. arghhh how do i explain to editors why this is so much more important than some band playing every tuesday in july at the abbey?"
• "it had become a common thing in the boston music scene for a band to hone a sound, write an album’s worth of material and play the exact same set over and over again until the kids started dancing. if you happened to sit through that a couple of times, or maybe seven or eight hundred times in the years 2001-2005, you wanted to die."
• "[KTTSOF and Beat Awfuls] write songs for one another.
• "they cover each other's songs.
• "they sit around learning duke ellington and hank williams songs in the
  drunk early mornings.
• "the pa's residency is going to be a tutorial for the local music
  scene, a demonstration that you need to rise above having one good
  show once a month. if you want to call yourself a band you’d better
  write and know enough interesting things to entertain the same people
  for seven hours a week."

The marathon kicked off on Sunday night and is still going strong. Here's the remainder of the schedule:

• TUESDAY: Turpentine Brothers, KTTSOF, Beat Awfuls, Headband
• WEDNESDAY: KTTSOF, Beat Awfuls, Michael Tarbox & Fog Apes, Hands & Knees
• THURSDAY: Thalia Zedek Band, KTTSOF, Beat Awfuls, Tigersaw/Tigers on Fire
• FRIDAY: Beat Awfuls, Chris Brokaw, KTTSOF, Winning Looks (NYC), Frank Smith (Aaron & Brett duo)
• SATURDAY: KTTSOF, Beat Awfuls, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Ketman

BAND IN BOSTON featured stripped-down sets from both KTTSOF and BEAT AFWULS this week. You should go download them now.