WUML

The Clippers on Live from the Fallout Shelter Tonight!

2011-04-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, The Clippers will be coming in to play a live set in our studio! This pop rock power trio is a relatively new face in the local Boston music scene, but has been making a pretty nice impact as of late. With an interesting mix of dance-y pop rhythms, punk rock drum beats and minimal post-punk noodling, these guys leave you with a fresh sense of something new and fun to listen to. It's easy to hear similarities to bands such as Cursive, Piebald, Dead To Me and even The Strokes. Currently the band has a 3" mini CD available on PRGNT Records called "An Evening With..." and will be releasing a split 7" with Coping off of their new label Topshelf Records.

So tune in tonight from 8 - 11pm to Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM with The Clippers playing at 9:30pm with an interview afterwards and the best in underground music before and after the set. The transmitter may be down so your best bet would be to listen to the show streaming live online .

In the meantime, check the band out at their bandcamp page.

Life & Limb on Live from the Fallout Shelter Tonight!

2011-03-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, Life & Limb will be coming into our studio to play a live set! These guys are a post-hardcore band from the Merrimack Valley that consist of members from many other local bands such as Late Nite Wars and Road Rage. Blending just the right amount of emo with an overall complimenting portion of melodic hardcore, Life & Limb are able to produce songs that are heavy, interesting and musical. Easily comparable to bands such as Small Brown Bike, Cursive and Crime In Stereo, these guys are able to let the songs of Life & Limb separate themselves from the crowd in a scene over run with hardcore and pop-punk. It is very refreshing to say the least.

So tune in tonight from 8 - 11pm with the band going on at 9:30pm. There will be an interview after the set and the best in underground music before and after the set. You can listen at WUML 91.5FM or stream the show live online.

In the meantime, check the band out at their bandcamp page.

Drummers on Live from the Fallout Shelter Tonight!

2011-03-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, we will be having Drummers playing a live set in our studio! These guys are from Boston, MA and we are very excited to have them with us tonight! The band consists of members of Sparrows Swarm And Sing (Magic Bullet Records) and Pretty & Nice (Sub Pop Records) and has toured and played with The Get Up Kids, Built To Spill, The Thermals, Franz Ferdinand and many others. Their music is comparable to such post-hardcore bands as At The Drive In and Sparta and sometimes I even find myself hearing a distorted version of Cursive. Very melodic and musical, yet heavy and screamy at the same time.

So tune in tonight from 8 - 11pm to Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM. Drummers will be playing at 930pm with an interview after and the best in underground music before and after the set. You can stream the show live on-line or listen on air at WUML 91.5FM

In the meantime, check out the band's music at their website.

Graverobbers on Live from the Fallout Shelter Tonight!

2011-03-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, Graverobbers will be playing a set live in our studio! Often tagged with labels like "Americana", "Country", "Indie" and even "Folk", the band prefers to go genre-less and is frequently changing their sound. If you wanted to though, you could easily compare Graverobbers to the sounds of Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry, Jeff Rowe and even old-timey stuff like Hank Williams. However, also having members from local hardcore bands Have Heart and Road Rage, and not to mention Live from the Fallout Shelter host MC T South on drums, this band's influences are endless. The band recently released a 7-song EP called "Black Market EP" which is available for purchase at their bandcamp page.

So tune in tonight from 8 - 11pm with Graverobbers going on at 930pm. There will be an interview after the set as well as the best in underground music before and after the set. You can listen at WUML 91.5FM or listen to WUML's live online stream.

Sherman Burns on Live from the Fallout Shelter Tonight!

2011-03-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, local Boston area rockers Sherman Burns will be making their second appearance on the radio show and playing some songs for all of us! These kids are currently located in Allston, MA but have roots deep in the North Shore music scene having had members (past and present) play in such bands as Mutt, Margin Walker, Pile, Vulture and many others. This makes for a plethora of noticeable influences in the songs of Sherman Burns. One song will have you thinking a heavier version of Minus the Bear. The next song will have you thinking "Worship and Tribute"-era Glassjaw. Then most of the rest of the songs will have you thinking about 1990's moshpits...which were probably a lot more fun than today's moshpits. The band just released their new full-length "The End Is All" which is available for a "name your price" deal at their bandcamp page.

So tune into Live from the Fallout Shelter tonight from 8 - 11pm on WUML 91.5FM with Sherman Burns going on at 930pm followed by an interview with the band. There will of course be the best in underground music before and after the set as well. The radio show is available for live streaming online.

Wolves and The Radio on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 2/28

2011-02-27T11:04:00.000-08:00

This Monday night on Live From the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, local Allston, MA band Wolves And The Radio will be coming in to the studio to play a live set! Following in the foot steps of beard-punk and org-core acts such as Off With Their Heads, Nothington and Dillinger Four, these guys do a great job at creating songs that will have a basement full of punks singing together and pumping their fists in the air. Take it from me...I had these guys play a show in my basement in December and it was a ton of fun! The gruff vocals and driving punk beats that everyone loves are there as well as heartfelt and honest lyrics that will leave the listener wanting to memorize every word before seeing the band live.

A fresh addition to the Anchorless Records family, Wolves and the Radio are currently promoting their self-titled first release for that label, which came out this past January.

So tune in this Monday night from 8 - 11pm with Wolves and The Radio playing a live set at 930pm with an interview after and the best in underground music before and after the set. You can listen at WUML 91.5FM or stream the show live online.

In the meantime, you can listen to the band and download their "I Fucking Hate You, Steve Terry" EP for free at their Bandcamp page.

Fishing The Sky on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 2/21

2011-02-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

This Monday February 21, Fishing The Sky will be playing on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM. This is a one-man ambient post-rock band featuring Rob Hughes, a north shore musician of many talents having played in such bands as Short Fuse Burning, Charlie and now the sole force behind his new project, Fishing The Sky. As the name eludes, there is definitely an Appleseed Cast type influence in his songs as well as darker ambient parts reminiscent of "You Are There"-era Mono. Unlike most post-rock bands of the present day, Fishing The Sky is able to stay away from the standard tremolo guitar parts and overdone movie scene background music. As the only person in the band, Rob jumps between drum kit, bass and laptop and he never misses a beat.

So listen Monday night from 8 - 11pm to Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM with a live set from Fishing The Sky at 930pm. There will be an interview afterwards as well as the best in underground music before and after the set. You can listen online at www.wuml.org .

You can check out Fishing The Sky and download the new demos album at http://fishingtheskyband.bandcamp.com/

Brain Killer on Live from the Fallout Shelter 2/14

2011-02-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

WUML 91.5FM has a very special Valentines Day present for all of you!

Tomorrow night on Live from the Fallout Shelter, Brain Killer will be coming in to play a live set for us. Compared to such bands as Discharge, Deathreat and Japanese hardcore acts Bastard and Disclose these guys are one of the fastest, heaviest and most powerful hardcore bands in Massachusetts currently. However, able to stand on their own, Brain Killer is definitely able to stay away from the D-beat cliche and bring their own force of brutality and insanity with crushing distortion, ferocious drumming and dooming vocals. The band currently have a Self Titled 7 inch and a Demo 7 inch available off of Deranged Records.

So listen to Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM tomorrow night from 8 - 11pm with Brain Killer playing at 930pm with an interview after the set and the best in underground music before and after the set. You can listen online at www.wuml.org

In the meantime, check out the links below to see some of the bands live sets on Youtube.

Brain Killer Live (7/30/10)
Brain Killer Live (1/11/10)

Investigating the Underground: Jon Strader of No Trigger

2011-01-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

At Four Year Strong's 2010 Holiday Show (which due to a weather related rescheduling was actually in 2011!) I had the pleasure to interview No Trigger guitarist Jon Strader after their set. This was No Trigger's first live show since the end of their almost 3 year hiatus and possibly their first Massachusetts show since they hit the stage with Propagandhi and Paint It Black back in early 2008. To add to the excitement, the holiday show was being held in their hometown of Worcester, MA...an area who's hardcore scene often goes unmatched. Fresh off the release of their new seven inch record "Be Honest" from Mightier Than Sword records, the band played an unforgettable energy filled set proving that they were in fact back in full force. Read on to find out what the future holds for No Trigger, Jon's top favorite new releases of 2010 and why we had to wait so damn long for new songs.

Tom: Why don’t we start by having you introduce yourself, telling us what you play in the band and then if you could have one superpower what would it be and why?
Jon: I’m John and I’m the guitarist of No Trigger. If I was to have a superpower I would probably be able to fly because then I could get from point A to point B in a matter of seconds.

Tom: Good answer, good answer. Ok, so now for the question that is on everybody’s mind right now…why did we have to wait like four years for you guys to release new music?
Jon: I know, it’s been a long time. Our last big tour that we did was a 52 date through Europe with Set Your Goals and after that we were like, you know, we just did the whole world on an entire record and you know, we’re going to have to sit down and write another one. Everybody was getting to that point in their life where they were trying to figure out what was next for all of us. I mean, some of us got into real estate, some of us kept playing in other bands, two of our guys who were touring with us are still playing in Outbreak right now, the drummer Erik Perkins and guitarist Billy Bean. So I mean, I moved to California…it was just one of those life things. We got to see the world, we did a lot off of one record and we’re very thankful for that, you know, we have fans from all over the world. It’s funny how fast time goes by! We had a couple of shows here and there like we played the No Idea Fest, we had a show in Boston with Propagandhi and we were still trying to write over the years but we’re kind of slow moving. Now we’re kind of stepping it up into gear and everyone is comfortable with our job situations and stuff so we want to just put out new music now.
Tom: Awesome, well we’re glad you’re doing it.
John: Awesome!

Tom: So what led you guys to sign with No Sleep Records instead of keeping with Nitro or Mightier Than Sword for the full length?
Jon: A lot of bands were leaving Nitro, like Crime In Stereo, and we just weren’t seeing the attention that we were before. We kind of were like looking elsewhere and it was cool with that label too, like we’re still cool with those guys, like they said if we wanted to put out a record elsewhere than go for it. And these up and coming guys are killing it, they’re picking up really good bands and they have an amazing following and we’re very honored to be a part of that. Like you know, we know a couple of people and we were talking to some people and it just worked. We’ve known about these people for a while so it was actually cool that we wanted to put out new stuff and we had it. So big ups to Mightier Than Sword and No Sleep Records for sure.

Tom: What can people expect from the full length and when are we looking at a release date?
Jon: Well, I’m really excited to get this material out. We’ve been working on this material for like 3 years now. There’s been a lot of stuff that we’ve just brought back out and that we’ve been re-amping. We’re trying to make a Canyoneer step 2. We put a lot of work into that first record and we put a lot of work into this one too. And I can’t wait for people to hear it and see how they take it. We’ve been working really hard on it. For a release date, I think we’re looking at the summer right now. We’re going to be recording with Jay Maas at Getaway Studios in Wakefield, he just did our two song seven inch and we were stoked and he was stoked. We just really connect working with each other and yeah we’re probably looking at a summer release.

Tom: Who did the artwork on the seven inch?
Jon: The seven inch artwork was done by Laurie Shipley (www.laurieshipley.com). She’s an amazing artist and she did all that by hand too. She was really stoked to work with us and it came out awesome.
Tom: Yeah it’s really cool, I was looking at it earlier and thought it was awesome.
Jon: Yeah!

Tom: So you guys are headed to Australia in January, right?
Jon: Yeah we have a headlining tour in Australia with Such Gold coming up in a few weeks. We’ll be there for three weeks. We’re basically doing the whole eastern coast. That’s the one place that we haven’t gotten to tour yet and we are so excited to get there and we’re finally going and we just can’t wait to see those kids because they’ve been waiting. Every time our friend’s bands go over there they’re always telling us like the kids were asking about you and when’s No Trigger coming over here and its like very flattering. We’re really pumped to get over there.

Tom: Yeah, how does that make you feel to have people in Australia talking about your band?
Jon: It’s crazy! It really is, it’s crazy and we are still going over there with this one record that we had. Now we have a seven inch to take with us so we are really looking forward to it.

Tom: Do you guys have any plans to tour the states after that?
Jon: We don’t have any plans for the states yet. Right when we get back we’ll be in the studio for a month and a half and after that we’re doing a week long tour in Europe because we got confirmed for Groezrock in Belgium and The Descendents are on it, Millencolin’s on it, you know NOFX, like we aren’t going to know what to do with ourselves! It’ll be cool to see Bill Stevenson from The Descendents because he recorded our record so it’ll be really nice to catch up with him. But as far as the states, we’ll be looking to hit the states towards the fall of 2011 when the record comes out.

Tom: When information of you guys resurfacing first came about were there any bands that were hitting you up to go on tour with you or any bands that you wanted to go on tour with?
Jon: Band’s have been hitting us up looking to do some international stuff, which is really cool. A lot of our friends that we toured with like The Swellers, Set Your Goals, Polar Bear Club, like those are our boys, like growing up in the scene with those guys and then watching them take off is like wow and they’re still doing it and looking to take us out! We’re going to be doing some stuff with those guys in the future. That’s going to be fun, those bands are killing it right now. I just can’t wait to get back on the road and just bring us back to where we were starting with those guys. It’s going to be fun!

Tom: On the new EP, you guys spout some Massachusetts pride on "Commonwealth Song". How do you guys feel about how the scene has evolved in Massachusetts since you guys first started?
Jon: I mean, it’s crazy! Look at this show. You know, Four Year Strong, 2,600 kids sold out! I used to play with those guys back when I was 13 years old. We’ve known those guys forever and just watching all our friends just grow up and still tour and now they’re packing the Worcester Palladium with 2,600 people. We all used to come to shows here when we were younger and now we’re playing them. The Worcester scene is evergrowing and we’re extremely proud to be a part of that. Like you have bands like Four Years Strong, you’ve got Mountain Man, our good friends in Last Lights, rest in peace Dom. Bands have a passion here and their passion for music shows when you listen to their bands so we’re definitely honored to be from this part.
Tom: Yeah, it seems like everyone is really kind of friendly within the scene here.
Jon: Yes, everyone is really respectful and everyone gets a long and all of these bands just kill it dude. I‘m very proud to be from here.

Tom: So since its 2011 now, a lot of people are coming out with their top ten lists of 2010, so what were some of your favorite new releases of the past year?
Jon: Let’s see, 2010...some big releases that I was listening too… I don’t know if the Wonder Years came out in 2010 or 2009?
Tom: Yeah, that was 2010. "The Upsides".
Jon: "The Upsides", I can’t stop listening to that record! That record is awesome.
Tom: So good.
Jon: And again, for this scene, that type of music is just awesome, it’s ever growing. What else…I mean I listen to a lot of different stuff. I started listening to the new Gorillaz a lot, the new Vampire Weekend. Transit’s new record that came out is sick. All these bands man, it’s so cool. I’m pumped!

Tom: Alright, so this is my last question. I ask all the bands this one. Who do you think would win in a fight…all of the people in the world or all of the ants in the world?
Jon: In a fight? The people or the ants? Well, let’s see…there’s probably a lot more ants than people…I’d say ants. What do you think?
Tom: I’ve always thought the ants.
Jon: You’ve always thought the ants?
Tom: Yeah.
Jon: Well there you go, then we agree on something!
Tom: It’s very 50/50 between bands.
Jon: Yeah? There’s a lot of ants in the world, dude. (laughs)

Tom: Cool, that was a great interview thank you very much!
Jon: No problem, dude!

Make sure to check out No Trigger's music, tour dates and pick up a copy of their new seven inch "Be Honest" from Mightier Than Sword records at www.myspace.com/notrigger.

President Soup on WUML Tonight!

2011-01-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM, Lowell's own President Soup will be coming into the studio to play a live set for all of us. Playing a mix of gypsy folk, punk and jazz, these guys have been becoming familiar faces at local Lowell music hubs such as The Dirty Douglas, 119 gallery and various downtown restaurants. President Soup is easily comparable to popular acts such as Gogol Bordello and The Bad Plus but also encompass their own unique style of the jazz-punk genre that many other bands struggle to achieve.

So tune in tonight from 8 - 11pm with the band going on at 930pm with the best in underground music before and after the set as well as an interview with the band. We will also be continuing our lists of Top 5 best new releases of 2010.

You can listen tonight at WUML 91.5FM. Unfortunately, our online web streaming is down.

You can check out President Soup and get some free recordings at http://www.nicebassproductions.com/artists/2010/president-soup/

Investigating The Underground: Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms

2011-01-07T07:12:00.001-08:00

This past November, The Lawrence Arms treated Massachusetts to two very special nights at TT the Bear's Place in Cambridge. Both nights were sold out and ended up being two of the sweatiest, memorable and amazing shows of the year. I was fortunate enough to sit down with bassist Brendan Kelly before the show at the nearby Middle East restaurant and find out more about what The Lawrence Arms have planned for the future, their thoughts on where the music industry is going and why he probably wont accept a free drink at a show if you offer it to him. As he munched on a falafel sandwich, we shared the following words. Enjoy!

Tom: Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself.
Brendan: I’m Brendan. I’m in The Lawrence Arms. I play bass and I sing.

Tom: How is the tour going so far?
Brendan: It’s good, this is the last day. It’s been pretty short…we flew to Philli, then we just went Philli, New York, New York, New Hampshire and then two nights here. The NH show was a little bit, uhh…squirrly…but all the rest of them have been sold out.

Tom: Now was that at Rocko‘s in New Hampshire?
Brendan: Yeah…

Tom: That place sucks.
Brendan: So weird. My wife called me and asked how the show was and what it was like there. My response was that I think if Fred Durst walked in the people at the show right now would be pretty fucking stoked, you know?

Tom: What have you guys been up to recently and what are you currently working on as a band?
Brendan: Man, this is going to be a bummer of an answer. Nothing! That’s the answer to both.

Tom: Just kind of playing one off tours and stuff?
Brendan: Yeah, we’re just doing little one off shit. We’re just not as active as we used to be. I mean the music industry is kind of going out of business, we’re all a little bit older, it’s hard to tour as much as I think we would need to do to be productive, like a really super active band. I mean, touring is fun and being in a band is awesome and we all love it but we’ve also always been a very organically growing and functioning band and when its like natural for us to write a lot of music and record and go on tour we’ve done it and when it’s not we don’t and its not like we have this huge insane momentum right now where like if we stop or we relax we’re going to lose out on something that’s going on. For better or for worse we’ve stayed a pretty small band and our fans are pretty dedicated. The results are we’re not really doing much.

Tom: So you said that the music industry is going out of business. Do you think that there is anything that could bring it back to a sustainable place?
Brendan: I have no idea man. If I could figure that out, I wouldn’t be in a band at all. I’d be wiping my ass with hundred dollar bills in someplace in paradise. But I mean, people love music and there’s going to be a methodology that is going to be imposed on the world of music consumers and music producers that will probably balance out the universe a little bit. Definitely the way things now or the way things were recently, it’s just totally messed up. It’s like people who were making the music weren’t really making any money, People who were listening to the music were spending way too much money and now there’s been this humongous shift where the people who are listening to music are paying no money and still the musicians who are making the music are making no money but now the suites make no money either. But I mean at the end of the day playing the guitar for a living its pretty frivolous and its pretty awesome and its fun, but its hard to get a lot of sympathy from people when you say I can’t play my guitar for a living anymore. It’s like well you know what why don’t you come stand next to me in the factory for a while, it really sucks there!

Tom: So what are your opinions on illegally downloading music and stuff like that that a lot of people have criticized as the reason for the downfall of the industry?
Brendan: Well, the thing is man, what relevance does my opinion have on that? I mean, I don’t want to sound like an old man and sit there and be like oh man back in the old days people used to pay for music and now you kids have gone and ruined everything…I mean, it’s the most useful line of thought that there could ever be. You know like a hundred years ago there was a dude that shoed horses for a living and then people started driving cars, he was probably like ‘you know what, these cars…fuck these cars! I can’t stand these people driving these fucking cars!’ Its like well, guess what old man, people are driving cars now. So you can either stop shoeing horses and get with doing something that works with the way the world is now or you can like sit there and let shit pass you by. That’s how I feel about illegal downloading. It’s happening. It’s going on and that’s the way the world is. I may as well bitch about the sun coming up in the morning instead of in the afternoon. There’s no practical application to wasting your energy and hating that kind of thing.

Tom: So the industry kind of just needs to figure out a way to evolve to work with it?
Brendan: I mean, I don’t know man. I don’t have the answers to that. The person who does figure that out is going to be very rich because people want to make money making music and people generally do want to support the artist that they really appreciate. But I think the thing that is becoming really apparent with this whole decline of the music industry is that people were charging way too much money for something that really a lot of people feel is sort of intangible and sort of should be kind of free if not cheap and the people making the money weren’t the people that the consumers really wanted to be giving the money to. That’s created this like backlash. And right now, people feel like they don’t need to pay for things because they’ve been kind of fucked for a long time. The music industry is pretty weird.

Tom: I have heard that you guys have pretty strong feelings against the Warped Tour and in past interviews I have read that you guys have had some say in what you think is wrong with the Warped Tour. But recently there have been a lot of DIY fests popping up all over the country like obviously The Fest in Gainesville and The Fun Fun Fun Fest and Get Better Fest and just a bunch of stuff like that. Do you think festivals like those are beneficial for combating against the Warped Tour or do you think they are kind of feeding into the same machine that is effecting touring bands and effecting smaller venues?
Brendan: Festivals are a cool and fun thing and they’re awesome and even the Warped Tour does its job. I mean like kids who live in Montana would never get to see any bands. They would never get to see NOFX or The Bouncing Souls or The Suicide Machines or The Lawrence Arms or anything but then all of a sudden the Warped Tour comes through and those kids get to see them all. I mean, the Warped Tour is not like a completely horrible thing and like festivals aren’t horrible, they’re cool. I’ve got very specific ideology issues with the Warped Tour. It has a lot to do with the fact that that shit takes place in stadiums and there’s like army booths and I thought that the reason I got into punk rock in the first place was so that I didn’t have to pay $25 to drive out to the suburbs and sit in this stadium and watch my favorite band from like a zillion miles away while someone tried to recruit me for the army at the same time. Like it has nothing to do with why I got into this. But like a festival like The Fest or The Fun Fun Fun Fest, that’s just kids putting on a show on a big scale. That’s totally cool. None of it’s evil, none of it’s like pipelines through Afghanistan. I don’t know man, I wish we lived in a world where like the insurgent music consuming public was indignant enough to not want to go to the Warped Tour, but we don’t and as a result the Warped Tour does serve an important function for better or for worse. The shit’s not evil though. It’s just a very, very opportunistic disingenuous thing and it’s repackaging something that’s punk rock which is the very fundamental antithesis of what I consider to be punk rock. But who the fuck am I?

Tom: Well, for this tour for example…you guys were supposed to play at Harper’s Ferry last night and tonight you were supposed to be down in Rhode Island. Both those places, Harper’s Ferry and Jerky’s, both closed down and they’re both not very small but they’re not very big venues either. What do you think these places can do to help themselves from closing there doors?
Brendan: Well, you know, again man, the whole country’s kind of in the shitter, man. The housing industry, the music industry, publishing, periodicals, like so many things and so many jobs are just gone and they’re just never coming back. Like we hardly even produce anything in this country anymore. The problem’s not the Warped Tour or whatever. The world’s fucked up man…if I could figure it out…
Tom: You’d be rich?
Brendan: I’d be rich haha. But what can they do? I don’t know, go be a venue in Switzerland. Times are tough right now man, times are tough. And where is that going to be reflected in like the way people spend their leisure hours and their leisure dollars? Maybe there’s a time when you feel like oh yeah Goober Patrol, I remember when they were a band on Fat Wreck Chords maybe I’ll go check them out tonight because I have nothing better to do. But like that night out is squarely competing with the twelve pack of beer that you may have bought that could last you the next couple of days or another show that you would actually want to go to in terms of the dollars in your pocket. Those kind of casual interests are just going to fucking hold up and that’s what the problem is. That’s why clubs are shutting down, man.

Tom: So you guys are pretty much road dogs…you’ve been touring your whole career all over the place. Do you have any advice to new bands who want to start touring?
Brendan: You kind of just have to get out there and do it. I mean, you’re never going to do anything by wishing you could go on the road. It’s not that expensive to buy a van and this day and age its very, very easy to book shows. When we started booking shows I had to leave messages on people’s home phone answering machines because there were no cell phones, I mean, there were but they weren’t common. And now you can go on Myspace or Facebook and you can book a tour in 45 minutes. You just have to get out there and do it because no one is going to see you in your basement or your garage and the only way to have people be interested in your band is to be in front of them. You can’t just expect to put a record and expect that to do all the work for you. You have to be out there…now that being said our band is pretty unsuccessful so I would take that advice with a grain of salt.

Tom: Ok so, less serious questions now. What song do you like to listen to that you wish you had written yourself?
Brendan: That’s a good question. You know I used to have an answer to this too…(thinks for a while)…I mean there’s a lot of songs I wish I had written but there used to be a song I remember that I would listen to and be like ‘oh man, I’m so jealous that I didn’t write this song.’ I mean, there’s a zillion! The song that comes to my mind instantly is this song called “I Was Stabbed By Satan” by this guy named Kanon, he’s like a Somalian rapper and that’s a really, really incredible song. If I had written it, it would have been vastly more incredible. But like, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, I mean there’s just so many awesome songs. The reason I’m kind of flailing right now is because there is one song that I know I was just so jealous that I didn’t write and I think it was written by a friend of mine. I wish I had written “Trusty Chords” by Hot Water Music man, that song is incredible. But in a way, no I take that back because I would so much rather be somebody who could listen to that song and appreciate it than be the person who wrote it…but no, I don’t wish I had written that song. I don’t know man, there’s a lot of them out there. How about the first song off of the Marshall Mathers LP? It’s pretty good.

Tom: Can you tell us what your worst show experience has been?
Brendan: Hmm, no not really. We’ve played a lot of shows and a lot of them have been pretty bad. I don’t know man, it’s just so hard…we played a show where there was one person there and halfway through our second song they left. We played a show where somebody put something in a drink that they bought for me and I couldn’t stand up and play when we were there and Chris and Neil had to play and I was basically passed out on the stage. We’ve played shows where the microphone was shocking me so badly that it literally knocked me off of my feet. We’ve played a lot of bad shows, there’s no way I could even come close to figuring out what the worst one was.

Tom: Who do you think would win in a fight…all of the people in the world or all of the ants in the world?
Brendan: This is people versus ants? So the notion is that ants are becoming aggressive and looking to exterminate the humans and our option is to exterminate the ants or die?
Tom: Yes.
Brendan: Oh, people would kill the ants.
Tom: You think people would win? Why is that?
Brendan: Ants are fucking retarded. People are smart. Ants can’t even get organized enough to take something from here to there. They just work in this robotic method. Human beings…you know what we can do? We can stand on tables! There’s no question, people would win. There are those ants that can cover you and those ants will cover some people and some people would die but they’re not covering everybody. I mean they would cover one guy and the guy standing next to him would burn that guy and all those ants. All those ants would be dead. Ants don’t stand a chance against humanity.
Tom: What about flying ants?
Brendan: Fuck them too.

Tom: Haha, well thank you for the interview. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope you have a great show tonight.

Brendan: Thanks man!

You can check out The Lawrence Arms songs, tour dates and other information at http://www.myspace.com/thelawrencearms.

Veloz on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 12/27

2010-12-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

On Monday December 27, Veloz will be playing a set on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM! This band includes members of Furnace, who played on the show back in 2008. Like their predecessor, Veloz is fast, heavy and intense, almost as if Motorhead had a baby with Converge. Most of their songs are under two minutes long and offer a constant and steady pattern of thrash which the musicians involved have the talent to make worth listening to. This band strikes me as the type of band that would start playing a set and then finish the entire set seven minutes later. It would most likely be one of the best hardcore sets the people in the audience would have ever seen, despite the fact that they probably don't have any limbs left.

So tune in this Monday from 8 - 11pm, with Veloz playing at 930pm and the best in underground music before and after the set as well as an interview with the band. You can listen at WUML 91.5FM or online at www.wuml.org.

You can listen to Veloz and download their music for free at veloz.bandcamp.com

Dreamtigers on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 12/20

2010-12-17T06:55:00.000-08:00

This Monday December 20, Dreamtigers will be playing a live set on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM. This will be the band's second appearance on the radio show and we are very excited to have them back! The band features current members of Defeater and past members of Ambitions, Life In Your Way and Acta Non Verba. Displaying sounds similar to that of Bon Iver or Iron and Wine but with more of a pop-rock sense added to the mix, this band is perfect for everyday indie rock and folk fans and even hardcore fans who are looking to relax for an evening. Intimate and heartfelt, yet driving and intense.

The band has just released a new 5-song 7 inch titled "Fools" through Grinding Tapes Recording Company. You can listen to a track off the album and then order it at http://www.grindingtapes.org/artists/dreamtigers/fools/

So listen this Monday night from 8 - 11pm with Dreamtigers playing a set at 930pm and the best in underground music before and after the set as well as an interview with the band. You can check the band out at http://www.myspace.com/dreamtigersmusic.

You can listen online at http://www.wuml.org

WUML Rock For Tots 2010 Re-Cap

2010-12-10T14:33:00.001-08:00

Last night, WUML 91.5FM held it's 11th annual Rock For Tots charity event at Cumnock Hall on the North Campus of UMass Lowell. The event was a huge success and managed to raise $425 for One Lowell, a local organization that aids immigrant families in Lowell. We all see this as a huge success!

Big thanks to Hivesmasher, Los Bungalitos, Hetfield & Hetfield, The Sinbusters and Ladderlegs for all playing amazing sets as usual. Also, big thanks to One Lowell, The 119 Gallery, The Sock Hop, The Space, To Write Love On Her Arms, Coalition For A Better Acre and United Teen Equality Center for coming and being a presence at the show and helping us promote. Finally, a huge thanks for everyone who came out to the show to support the bands and donate to the charity. We couldn't have done it without everyone involved and we all look forward to Rock For Tots 2011!

Pictures and video footage from the show will be posted soon!

Darkwoods on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 12/13

2010-12-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

This Monday December 13, local hardcore outfit Darkwoods will be performing a set on Live from the Fallout Shelter. These guys hail from the South Shore and are about as fast, heavy and angry as it gets...but in a good way. While listening to them, I can just see an image in my head of a circle pit opening up from wall to wall at your local VFW or Knights of Colombus and no one in the audience being able to resist. Their music definitely reminds me of bands like Bane, Ceremony and Verse...heavy, hard and with vocals that are right up front making sure the listener is paying attention.

You can check Darkwoods out at http://wwww.myspace.com/darkwoodshc where they have a free download of their "Road To Ruin" EP.

So tune in this Monday from 8 - 11pm for Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM. Darkwoods will be playing a set at 930pm with the best in undergound music before and after the set as well as an interview with the band. You can listen to the show online at http://www.wuml.org

WUML Presents Rock For Tots 2010

2010-12-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night at Cumnock Hall on the North Campus of UMass Lowell, WUML 91.5FM will be hosting it's 11th annual Rock For Tots charity event for One Lowell, a local organization who aids immigrant fanilies in Lowell and settles them in to the community by offering services and providing social connections. Five of the best bands in Lowell will be performing throughout the night and all proceeds will be going to benefit the One Lowell organization. There will also be many informational tables set up for local non-profits, clubs, organizations and businesses. If you are interested in attending, here is the information:

WUML 91.5FM Present Rock For Tots 2010
Thursday December 9
Doors at 730pm, Event starts at 8pm
One University Ave, Cumnock Hall, North Campus, UMass Lowell
Lowell MA 01854
Bands: Hivesmasher, Los Bungalitos, Hetfield & Hetfield, The Sinbusters and Ladderlegs
18+, $5, All proceeds go to One Lowell
More info on One Lowell at http://www.onelowell.net

Please join our Facebook event and help us promote by inviting all of your friends and sharing the event on your wall. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=162277003809250

2010-11-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

Empty Phrases on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 11/29

2010-11-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

This Monday November 29, Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM will be hosting local band Empty Phrases as they play a live set in our studio! This four piece indie-shoegaze group hails from the mean streets of Lowell and even includes WUML members and UML students, so we are extra excited to have them!

Going the DIY route that so many bands from the Lowell area have gone, they have released their first EP for free download at their bandcamp music page. When I first listened to these guys, their music made me feel like what I can only imagine it would feel like to fall off a cliff and never hit the ground. Soothing and relaxing, at the same time canceling out all of your other problems. Empty Phrases is definitely for fans of Rx Bandits, Pavement and Minus The Bear.

You can hear them on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM this Monday November 29 from 8 - 11pm, with their set starting at 930pm followed by an interview and the best in underground punk, indie, folk and whatever else played before and after their set.

You can listen at www.wuml.org.

You can check them out and download their EP for free at http://emptyphrases1.bandcamp.com.

Dan Blakeslee on Live from the Fallout Shelter, 11/22

2010-11-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

On Monday November 22, Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML 91.5FM will be hosting the one and only Dan Blakeslee as he plays a live set in our studio! Dan hails from Somerville, MA but has frequented a few venues right here in Lowell. Dan is an acoustic singer-songwriter who plays very creative folk songs and has been compared to Johnny Cash, Echo and the Bunnymen, Jeff Buckley and Tom Waits. Actually, following in the footsteps of Johnny Cash's Live at Folsom Prison recording, Dan has played and recorded a set in front of a houseful of murderers and felons at Laconia State Prison. His eerie yet enchanting songs combined with his engaging live performance make Dan a true American Renaissance man.

So tune in this Monday night from 8 - 11pm, with Dan going on at 930pm and the best in underground punk, folk and indie spun by the shows DJ's before and after the set as well as an interview with Dan Blakeslee himself.

You can check out Dan's music at http://www.myspace.com/danblakeslee

You can listen to Listen to Live from the Fallout Shelter online at http://www.wuml.org and see the whole schedule of bands at http://www.myspace.com/livefromthefalloutshelter

Review: BOX, Ten Variations on an Unknown Theme

2010-07-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Claudia Ulla Binder - Piano
Christian Weber - Bass
Dieter Ulrich - Drums, Bugle

BOX's Ten Variations on an Unknown Theme is a collection of improvised projects curated by Swiss bassist Jonas Tauber. With such a title the caliber of free jazz they play, set in a modern composer's back yard is no surprise.

The trio's take off point is this "theme" usually consisting of disjointed, spiky drum parts accompanied by off-kilter piano and bass melodies. With numbered variations being the groups chosen mode of presentation the album makes for a delightful listen through, as the album progresses it gets stranger and stranger.

Variations 1 through 4 are each in their own way elegant trio compositions, albeit avant-garde. Loud-quiet dynamics play into the trio's style as each one snaps in and out of the listener's attention at almost lightning speed and for short, disciplined amounts of time. 5th Variation is very wiry. Here the group is using the very outer edges of their instruments Binder's piano sounds alien while Ulrich trades his kit for undulating bugle bursts. Bassist Weber picks up all the rhythm, or what little shreds are available. After track 5 the album becomes noticeably more textured. 8th Variation explores a more solemn mood for the group and the 9th a drunken marching suite.

BOX's exploratory intermission serves to create two halves of an album, that is, one which jangles along just inside the fence of typical free piano-trio music, and another which embraces the area beyond that boundary as a home.

Review: Kyle Brenders, Ways

2010-07-20T15:16:00.001-07:00

Kyle Brenders - Soprano Saxophone
Nicole Rampersaud - Trumpet
Johnathan Adejmian - Korg MS-20
Tilman Lewis - Cello
Aaron Lumley - Contra Bass
Brandon Valdiva - Percussion

It's no surprise that Ways may sound Braxton-esque, for Kyle Brenders, a Canadian saxophonist, has studied and appeared on numerous recordings with experimental jazz composer Anthony Braxton. Brenders' debut from March of this year melds modern electronic composition and stretched-out free jazz. For Brenders, composition is extremely sparse and off-pulsed. Creeping loud parts are so forward they seem omnipresent, but Brender's use of quiet/loud dynamics is markedly masterful.

The inaugural Section 2 serves to pace off the album from a distance. At first, the drumming marches in with distant tympani hits, but soon Brandon Valdiva's spritzing, varied fringe percussion takes hold. Stylistically reserved, it focuses more on rim clicks and cymbal rushes rather than accented hits or beats. Section 4 begins to take more shape as it evolves from off-pulse ideas into shades of humming from Brenders, trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, and cellist Tilman Lewis. Here, Johnathan Adejman's Korg synth uses only pitches that dance between ranges of cello and contra bass of Aaron Lumley. As the sections expand and progress, they become more infused with jazz such as Section 5's episodic procedures through choppy solo sections. Each time one of the players takes the forefront, the backing four fall into a different, regimented melody. After the 13:30 mark, the track rolls into a layered, cresendoing conclusion. The album's longest track, Section 6, begins as whimsical and eerie making for some true minimalism, that is, conjuring up complete feelings and images by doing as little as possible. It moves along very slowly, with abrupt rises and slithering falling actions throughout. Album closer Section 8 is a study in the drone, providing a stark one-note procession and, for the first time, a continual, thunderous drum part.

The assembled sounds work of one another well. Brenders has directed each member of the sextet to engage in a study of ambiance, but it sounds at times like a harrowing experience. There is a noticeable loneliness in between rigid structures and timeless freedom, and Ways studies these intervals masterfully.

Review: Anti-Social Music, Fracture: The Music of Pat Muchmore

2010-07-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

New York's composer collective Anti-Social Music (ASM) are a group of jail-house rules misfits who found seem to have the time among scrounging up rent to put out a debut, a collaboration with the Gena Rowlands band, and this, their third offering entitled Fracture. ASM takes cues from many different styles of music, while guiding it with an avant-classical approach. It's various members include Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay on accordian, Gutbucket member Ken Thompson on clarinet and sax, who also a member of The World/Inferno Friendship Society alongside Peter Hess, who also contributes on various woodwinds.

According to their Myspace, the 11 members are well versed in several different types of musicology. Not only those expected members, trained in classical and jazz composition, but also music auteurs, world tour rock and rollers, anti-establishment cretins, cult members, and hipsters. Each piece of the ASM jigsaw gives the album such an alarming set of tracks.

Obviously, chamber-pigfuck has not taken off as a genre but what certainly has, is the blurring of jazz with classical with rock and roll with punk. For ASM this seems a bod, in large part, to progenitors such as Naked City (and other Tzadik projects), Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham and others. What puts ASM in a new light is the fact rather than a cohesive group of musicians looking into new horizons, the members are all coming from differing backgrounds and looking inward.

Herding ASM into "third-stream" is a little uncalled for. They more are outer-edge, modern classical. Gumdrops and Kittens serves up what could be called a "gnarly" opening riff on guitar/violin. The jarring swell sloughs off into a tense climax and enters into the albums first real movement Fracture IV. Here, the group is in a purely cinematic form. In dipping in and out of sections featuring fluttering winds, clunky piano, and low, moaning brass sections. These larger tracks, running over 10 minutes, including String Quartet No. 2 and PortRait_7 have the group maintaining improvised discipline and working the songs up to more frantic parts or vice versa. shitfuckcumbastard is an uncomfortable, daunting yet beautifully layered track. A tapestry of trembling strings and accordion fall in place behind short, staccato tenor sax hits which slowly go from spiritual Coltrane-like to frantic, hoarse Shepp-like. Although the album is drum-less, the groups series of Broken Aphorisms (eight of which appear here) have low, orchestral anchoring in using cello, violin, and trombone with piercing highs of dual flautists. With the help of accordion and pianist/keyboards, all of these work towards a sinking ship of middle range for a very interesting sounding conference.

This album isn't exactly approachable, but people who can appreciate rather intense post-rock, left-field third-stream, and meat grinder modern classical should find something.

Review: Ceremony, Rohnert Park

2010-06-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

By Matt Gannon

The first time I heard Ceremony it was three years ago, the song was called “Kersed”. It was the most raw angry thing I ever heard and I was instantly a fan. I have been looking forward to the release of “Rohnert Park” for some time now. After finally listening to it I found it to be a great punk album. It is defiantly a progression from “Violence Violence” but its also the next logical step after “Still Nothing Moves You”.

Rohnert Park opens with “Into the Wayside Part I/Sick, the first chords strike and it feels like Dick Dale wrote a Halloween song. Its not long before Cazarotti’s pounding drums come in with a steady punk beat, guitar and bass add to the mix and make the build up that much better. When Ross Farrar finally sings the cynicism and anger in his words is enough to send shivers down my spine. The song boasts a simple message of pure hatred for the modern world, and the delivery is remarkably effective.

One track in particular caught my attention, “The Doldrums (Friendly City)”. This track alone shows the huge range that Ceremony is able achieve. The subject matter of the song is only enhanced by the droning clean vocals. I applaud Ceremony for doing what great bands do, experimenting with their sound. This song will be hit or miss for many Ceremony fans but for me it is defiantly a hit.

“Rohnert Park” sounds like it could be some long lost gem recorded in the 80’s and not discovered until now. The production quality and the style of song writing couldn’t have reached a more perfect balance. Rohnert Park in my opinion is one of the best hardcore punk albums to come out in 2010.

Highlight Tracks
M.C.D.F
Moving Principle
The Doldrums (Friendly City)
Don’t touch Me
Back in 84

Review: Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens, Two Cities

2010-06-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Aram Shelton - Alto saxophone, Clarinet
Keefe Jackson - Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet
Josh Berman - Cornet
Fred Lonberg-Holm - Cello
Anton Hatwich - Bass
Frank Rosaly - Drums

Chances are, Chicago has a cooler jazz scene than your city. With its young vanguard of experimentalist, Two Cities, the new offering from Fast Citizens, proves a second wave is within the ilk of Ken Vandermark, Chicago Underground Duo, and Isotope 217. The sextet Fast Citizens' rotating leader chair is this time occupied by saxophonist Aram Shelton.

Although the album is built around free-form clusters, usually with each of the six members in mix, they are set within a post-bop ethos. The opener and title track is a colorful trek through not one, or two cities, but an array of sounds for touring many different places. Josh Berman and Keefe Jackson round out the front end. All three invited each other in and out at various points in the song, some times harmonizing warmly, other times tip-toeing around one another. Big News flourishes Fred Lonberg-Holm's cello with entrances by horns just after the 1:00 mark and creeping rhythm lines soon thereafter.

The album even dips into third stream. VCR #9 is Mingus-like in mood and image with its dizzying whirs. Clocking in at just over a minute long, Wontkins is the rapid unpacking and throwing about the room of angular free jazz, but certainly not a shrugged-off after thought. It's voice on the album sheds more onto what type of sextet Shelton is leading. The group's last album, led by Keefe Jackson, was more mature in its track by track organization. Here, the Fast Citizens sound juvenile, but are in no way unweaned.

Is this Jazz?: SBS June 8th

2010-06-03T12:25:00.001-07:00

Tuesday night jazz show primer! Each week SBS, hosted by Chris and I, plays what is defined as 'jazz and jazz plus.' So here are some thoughts on jazz and jazz plus, but more specifically new, underground things we play.

SBS Tuesdays, 6 PM - 8 PM 91.5 WUML Lowell
or
Listen Online

New Music Worth Your Time:

Little Women - Throat, AUM Fidelity
New York Art Quartet - Old Stuff, Cuneiform
Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens - Two Cities, AUM Fidelity
Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Steps Ahead, Strut

This Week's Program:

Some music off of Popol Vuh's 1983 masterpiece soundtrack for Aguirre, Wrath of God. Directed by Werner Herzog.
Joe Harriot, the lost pioneer of free jazz.
In honor of it's 35th anniversary, selections from Phedra by Tangerine Dream.
Miles Davis Live at the Fillmore East, 1970: It's About That Time.

A Look at the UML RESD Situation

2010-06-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

An announcement from a February 2010 Umass Lowell chair meeting on the dismantling of the Regional and Social Economic Development (RESD) department came as a shock to students and faculty, and now professors and students say they feel they are losing a sense of community despite administration claims of bettering the program.
The interdisciplinary department, now in it’s thirteenth year, focuses on economics, sociology, labor, environmentalism, and other fields. It’s flagship program, the Master of Arts in Economic and Social Development of Regions, will continue under a new model starting in July by re-integrating RESD department faculty into disciplinary departments.
“After the University Provost suggested the idea of having a better model, we offered to work with him,” said Philip Moss, RESD professor and co-chair.
The announcement came soon after.
“I was shocked and appalled this was happening,” said Dr. John Wooding, a RESD co-chair.
Moss says a department base is crucial and the student community relies on this structure.
Wooding and Moss, along with concerned students, have been holding meetings and keeping correspondence with university administration to raise issues and reiterate negative reactions to the decision.
“This change was extremely unexpected and there is a lack of transparency with whats being done” said Graduate Student Lianna Kushi.
Umass Lowell Provost Ahmed Abdelal said it was always clear that the degree program would continue.
"I feel the alarm may have been provoked by misunderstanding," says Abdelal.
Graduate Student Matt Hopkins said meetings were bizarre, marked with emotion from students and a lack of listening from administrators.
“[RESD] has evolved as a department, not a framework,” said Hopkins.
Administrators say the current deployment of RESD resources and departmental boundaries have hampered interdisciplinary collaboration and cost the university money in an economic climate when they need to be prudent and cost effective.
“Sometimes there is confusion with change but we feel the sense of community will still be there,” said Nina Coppens, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
RESD's 5th floor space located Umass Lowell's O'Leary Library will be used as a research center rather than a department base.
“Integrating RESD into different departments will bring expertise of the department to the whole campus,” said Coppens.
Coppens said that RESD expertise can not only better student education, but make their Master’s program more visible to the UML community.
Changes in RESD, like in other interdisciplinary frameworks, will include faculty councils, from different departments, and student representatives to provide input.
“RESD was an experiment to decide what would be a sustainable model for interdisciplinary programs,” said Associate Dean of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Melissa Pennell.
Pennell said creating new departments for new programs is unwieldy and by creating faculty councils with professors from multiple departments increases flexibility as professors are being utilized in a number of different teaching activities.
Co-chair Philip Moss said the departmental structure has always lent itself to good quality instruction and research.

Is This Jazz?: Favorites of 1985

2010-05-24T10:06:00.001-07:00

Tom Waits' Rain Dogs is an extension of Swordfishtrombones, and certainly an experiment into yet another backwater, scurvy-ed and dilapidated album. For me, the real hit on it is Marc Ribot, who helps drive the jostled 'Singapore', but anchors down 'Jockey Full of Burbon'. This, of course, is not meant to overlook appearances from Bobby Previte on auxiliaries here and there, Greg Cohen on upright, or John Laurie's background vocalish-sax on 'Walking Spanish'. The more solemn Diane, by veterans Chet Baker and Paul Bley, is heroin remnants dripping off into standards. By '85 Baker was utterly destroyed by heroin, drugs or drug deals, by this time and admist label and mood jumping, he would fall out of a window to his death three years later. But here is one of Baker's last statements: trumpet accompanied by chiming piano trade off on a textbook rendition of 'How Deep is the Ocean'. Its dreary, hazy, and relaxing.

John Carter's Castles of Ghana features free-jazz compositions on the clarinet as well as Bobby Bradford on cornet. It's left-field avant howls create an atmosphere of remorse and reflection on the African Slave Trade. Lester Bowie is similar on I Only Have Eyes For You, an album not unlike Coltrane's My Favorite Things. State of the Tenor is a live double-disc from Joe Henderson and is a history lesson, with selections from all walks of jazz, as well as a beautifully recorded show from the Village Vanguard. The Big Gundown, Zorn's reworking/tribute to Ennio Morricone, was at one point titled Once Upon a Time in the Lower East Side and is his first in a set of interpretations he would do. After reinventing quartet interactions on his early works, Gundown is the ushering in of a phase which would move on to put Ornette Coleman, hard bop,and Mickey Spillane through his own filter. Finally, Ran Blake's third-stream, film nior compositions are collected on Painted Rhythms and then he would go on to do many more things, mostly in the footsteps of Horace Silver.

Chet Baker and Paul Bley - Diane
John Carter - Castles of Ghana
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Lester Bowie - I Only Have Eyes For You
Joe Henderson - State of the Tenor
John Zorn - The Big Gundown
Ran Blake - Painted Rhythms, 1

Around Lowell: Free Thursday.

2010-05-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, 5/27, a Lowell cultural revue of sorts will take place at UTEC on Hurd St. Starting at 6 pm, join the Revolving Museum and UML Regional Economic & Social Development Dept for historical immigrant mural presentations, live music by Celtic Angkor, slam poetry from FreeVerse! and refreshments. Free.

Also Thursday: Sinbusters and Ladderlegs will be playing a free show in Charlestown at the The Tavern at the End of the World on 104 Cambridge St. Doors at 9:30.

Other News:

New !!!...!
Concord River Dedication

Around Lowell: Fallout Summer and WUML Kickball

2010-05-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

To our readers: an apology for the lack of content from the last couple of weeks. Finals had most of us ravaged and away from the blog. However, expect more stuff from the WUML Blog and 91.5 FM all summer:

Fantastic Fallout summer schedule announced:

5/24 - SMALL HOUSES - http://www.myspace.com/smallhousessing
5/31 - CHOKE UP - http://www.myspace.com/chokeupma
6/07 - SCARS LIKE OURS - http://www.myspace.com/scarslikeours
6/14 - SOLAR BEAR - http://www.myspace.com/solarbearclub
6/28 - DOMINIC AND THE LUCID - http://www.myspace.com/dominicandthelucid
7/05 - APE UP! - http://www.myspace.com/apeup
7/12 - THE CARRIER - http://www.myspace.com/thecarrierhc
7/19 - LEWD ACTS - http://www.myspace.com/lewdacts

WUML wins kickball against UML's print-journalism news source. Another reason to listen to radio, another reason to read our blog: three-peat. Inner-forum details here.

Other News:

Synth Pop pioneers O.M.D. Reunite. New Album.
Comic Books, post-rock, Patton, Zach Hill, and MORE.
The Boston Phoenix on Steve Lacy.
TPB on Old Abraham Brown.
Free Jazz Blog on Little Women.
More Miles, includes pic with French girl.
David Lynch with your weekend.

Investigating the Underground: Mike Reed of Small Brown Bike

2010-05-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday night, fellow Live from the Fallout Shelter host Sean and myself, ventured out to see Small Brown Bike at the Great Scott in Allston with a few of our friends. The Michigan born post-hardcore-beard-punk band recently got back together last fall and have released two seven inches, “Composite Volume 1” and “Composite Volume 2”, since then off of No Idea Records. The band would be playing their first show in Boston in seven years to a sold out crowd at The Great Scott. We had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Reed, lead singer and guitarist, before the show, which I can only imagine was like watching Chris Farley interview Paul McCartney on Saturday Night Live. Enjoy!

Tom: So why don’t we start by having you introduce yourself.

Mike: Hi, this is Mike and I play in Small Brown Bike. I play guitar, yeah, I play guitar.

Tom: So you guys have recently released two new seven inch records, the Composites 1 and 2. What was the motivation behind having these as separate releases instead of just one big recording and are there more of these releases to come?

Mike: Well, I think it just started as an idea, like we had originally started writing some songs last summer and the first two that we kind of finished up and felt like they were ready we said to ourselves, well we didn’t really want to just come out and do a full record, we wanted to do something that was a little more bite size and little pieces of music. So the first one we got out just because the fest was happening and we wanted to just make sure we had it out and literally got them the day of the fest last October. So I guess at that point we didn’t really want to do the big full length, we wanted to kind of come out in pieces. We’re going to do five of them total and the way that it happened was Dan our drummer does graphic arts and he had five paintings and collages that he had done in school on his wall in his living room and we were just sitting around one day after practice and we came up with this idea to do one for each painting or whatever and that was that. So the covers of each record are based on his collage, its actually the collage scanned in at a smaller scale.

Tom: So there are three more coming out?

Mike: Yeah for sure. So its just a matter of you know when, I don’t know. We’re kind of doing when we feel like its, you know like when we have songs. Right now we’re working on getting newer songs and obviously getting a record together but right now its just like yeah there will be three eventually.

Tom: So the reunion this time around seems to be a little more significant than from when you guys reunited back in 2007 for those shows. You guys even have a Twitter account now.

Mike: Haha, yeah we’re really 21st century.

Tom: What are you guys currently up to and what does the future hold for Small Brown Bike?

Mike: Well, I think we’re really just kind of taking it really day by day week by week kind of thing. The main thing is just having fun and being together writing songs again. I don’t know, sometimes you get so caught up in the business stuff or the we have to do this, we have to do that kind of thing. It’s a huge part of our lives but its not like the number one priority so we do it when we can all get together and get a chance. So right now we’re just writing new music basically, we’re playing these four shows on the tour and then we don’t have any shows scheduled after this. It really kind of just comes and goes. We look ahead about three months and decide what we want to do and then just go from there. So right now we’re just writing new music and mainly that’s done. My brother still lives in Chicago so we just send each other ideas on mp3s and stuff and get together when we can. So that’s the main thing, just writing as much as we can.

Sean: So you’re doing the five Composite albums. Will there be a full length encompassing those?

Mike: Yeah that’s the idea. Eventually we’re going to do five of them and then eventually the idea is to do an LP with all of the songs on it and we’d probably remix everything so it sounds more cohesive because each one we record in our drummers basement and have a friend mix them and so we kind of buy more gear and they, well I hope they sound a little better each time, so by that fifth one we’ll probably just remix everything and make it a full LP with everything.

Sean: So are you going to do more touring after that?

Mike: Well, I don’t think we’ll ever do a big tour again. It’s not the same, I mean never say never, but its hard to see that happening where we just do like a full US five week tour. So stuff like this where we come out and play four or five shows, that will happen and we want to go out to the west coast this year. I mean, obviously we always had fun coming out here and playing shows and the west coast is fun and Chicago and Michigan were always fun. So I don’t know, its hard to say. Right now we don’t have anything scheduled at all. We’re kind of just like I said focusing on writing new music and that’s about it.

Sean: So do you think those are mostly going to be headlining shows or you’ll maybe be jumping onto somebody else’s tour?

Mike: I mean, if it comes up where somebody asks us to tour, I’m sure we’ll do the right thing, obviously we would totally consider it. But we don’t have a booking agent right now, we’re kind of just doing stuff on our own so that’s kind of part of that, is you know when you have a booking agent they know other booking agents who can get you on tours. So I think we’re just having fun kind of headlining right now and playing smaller shows with like two to three hundred people which is still huge, I mean that’s not a small show by any means. So its been fun just doing our own stuff and then we can play a longer set with some old songs and some new stuff too.

Sean: How about a Small Brown Bike/Hot Water Music show?

Mike: Always, I’d love too! Yeah, I’d love too, absolutely.

Tom: They only play in Germany.

Mike: My other band played with them in Chicago, what, two years ago. So yeah, I could see it happening if those guys were into it.

Tom: That would be the best thing ever.

Mike: Haha, thank you.

Sean: So after “Dead Reckoning” came out, you guys changed things up a little bit and you guys released “Nail Yourself To The Ground.” The last song on that, “A Table For Four”…what is that about exactly? Or what things?

Mike: Well, Travis wrote it, Travis wrote the lyrics to it so I don’t want to speak for him exactly. But I will say its based in reality, like we don’t really write stuff that we don’t believe in. But that song, we still play it and its one of our favorite songs to play and its just become one of those epic things that we like doing. I think we’ve all taken our own meaning from it. That’s about the best I can answer that one.

Tom: What does the future hold for your other projects, La Salle and Able Baker Fox?

Mike: I don’t know that’s a tough question too. We don’t plan very well. Nathan, from Able Baker Fox and I keep in touch and almost every time we talk we say we have to write more music and we have to do something but he’s busy with Coalesce right now. I think it will happen again, I think we’ll eventually do something when we have the time or when we start sending ideas back and forth. Right now, I’m kind of focusing on writing songs for Small Brown Bike so that’s like what I want to do. But you know, I guess the lesson from Small Brown Bike is that breaking up doesn’t really mean much anymore, it’s like we get back together. So that’s the way I look at Able Baker, its like we just kind of aren’t actively doing anything right now. Same thing with La Salle, my wife and I still write music and we have a ton of songs and its just that you know we’ve both been in school and working and stuff so we just haven’t been out playing shows. But who knows when we’ll pick them back up again. Right now there’s no plans to do stuff.

Tom: At WUML, we play a lot of underground music. Are there any bands that you listen to who you think don’t get as much recognition as they should?

Mike: Yeah, there’s a ton of bands. Well I think like Bridge and Tunnel and Your Skull My Closet who are both on tour with us right now, I think both of those bands are amazing and they’re not played on top 40 radio stations by any means but we respect them and appreciate everything that they do. Old Growth is another band that has one of the guys from Twelve Hour Turn in it who we were big fans of and toured a lot with back in the day and they’re just an awesome band. I don’t know I guess that’s all I’ve got right now off the top of my head. But yeah, I’d recommend those three for sure.

(At this point, one of our friends Nick stepped in to ask a question.)

Nick: What was the band that just kind of got your juices going? Name a few of them.

Mike: Well, when I was really young and getting into punk rock, 7 Seconds was a big one. We all skateboarded so they were huge in getting me into that kind of stuff. Then like as we started writing our own music, Jawbreaker was huge obviously, I mean, I remember the first time I heard that band it was just different and something that I wasn’t used to. I had heard punk and pop punk way before that but they were doing something that just kind of pushed it into a different kind of territory so I still remember hearing them for the first time for sure. And yeah, Hot Water Music was another one of those bands where I remember it was just a fluke and like a friend of mine was going to see them in Kalamazoo and they played in front of like ten or fifteen people and I just went and was like yeah I’ll go check out this band from Florida, they were playing with Giant’s Chair, who I loved at the time and it was just those four guys just pushing it, and it was just crazy, in front of like, you know there were probably thirty people at the show or something like that but to just see that energy…there’s a huge list, I could keep going. Even bands like classic rock, like Led Zeppelin and stuff, just growing up I loved that music. It goes on and on.

Tom: So for the last question, I ask this to a lot of bands. It’s really stupid and silly. Who do you think would win in a fight, all the humans in the world or all the ants in the world?

Mike: The ants? In a fight? Like a fist fight? Because ants don’t have very good fists.

Tom: That’s true, I never thought of that.

Mike: That’s my answer. Yeah, in a fist fight I guess we’d win because we have fists.

Tom: Alright, good enough for me. Well, thanks a lot for the interview. It was a pleasure and have a really good show tonight. We’ll be out there rocking out.

Mike: Awesome, thanks!

Keep an eye open for the next time Small Brown Bike hits your town as they put on one amazing live show. You can buy “Composite, Vol. 1” and “Composite, Vol. 2” at noidearecords.com and check out the band’s music at http://www.myspace.com/smllbrwnbk .

Investigating the Underground: Corey Murchy of Minus The Bear

2010-05-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday the 5th of May, Minus The Bear was kind enough to grace The Wilbur Theatre in Boston with their presence. The Seattle based indie rock, kind of proggy kind of poppy, band had just released their new album “Omni” the night before, the first release off of their new label, Dangerbird Records. Myself and WUML intern Jenna sat down with bassist Corey Murchy on the sidewalk outside of the theatre for a quick little chat about what is happening behind the scenes of Minus The Bear.

Tom: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself.

Corey: Hmm…I’m Corey Murchy and I play the bass in Minus The Bear.

Tom: Yesterday (May 4) was the official release of “Omni“, your new album. You guys must have been pretty excited for its release. What did you all do to celebrate?

Corey: Well, we played a radio show in New York City because we had played the night before and then we actually hoofed it up to Newbury Comics in Boston and played a little record store. So I guess we celebrated by playing in a record store.

Tom: Was that a wicked secret show?

Corey: The record store? Well, I think it was kind of last minute so I think it was maybe announced the day before or the day of so it was pretty short notice.

Tom: Yeah, that would be an awesome venue to see you guys in.

Corey: Yeah, there was a really great turnout so it was a lot of fun.

Tom: What would you like to tell people about the new album? What do you think is the most important thing about the new album?

Corey: I think just the fact that it was the first time that we all recorded kind of together as far as wanting to keep a lot of the tracks that we all recorded together as opposed to overdubbing later. So it was a lot more of a live feel and in the end it was about getting the right feel and the right vibe to the songs as opposed to whether it was perfect or not, it was more of a relative thing.

Tom: And that worked out pretty well for you guys, playing live like that?

Corey: Yeah absolutely. There’s a lot that was learned from it for sure but we pulled it off in the end.

Jenna: In what ways did the writing process of “Omni” differ from the earlier albums?

Corey: I think it was actually the first time that we really allowed someone else from outside of the band to take a stab at song arrangement and placement of parts and revisiting parts and stuff. We never really had an outside influence but working with Joe (Producer Joe Chiccarelli) in pre-production and stuff it was kind of like well what about going back to that chorus and what about not doing this part. So that was probably the biggest difference.

Jenna: How do you guys feel about the album leaking early? I know you guys posted your album for streaming online so it must have not really ruined any element of surprise. But there are a lot of different opinions between bands on this subject. Is it just assumed that this will just happen, or did you guys try to prevent it?

Corey: Yeah, I mean we always try to postpone it for as long as possible but we know that in this day and age its going to be leaked. And on one hand its really not that big of a deal because its kind of cool because kids can go and listen to the record and become familiar with the songs before they come to the show. So playing those songs live is always kind of fun when people recognize them and are familiar with them. So I think it kind of helps because it gets people out to the shows and then they’ll buy a CD at the show or a shirt or something.

Jenna: Yeah, it definitely helps out because I saw you guys at Bamboozle and all the new songs that you guys played, I knew all of them already.

Corey: Yeah, so I think it’s a cool thing and I think it can actually be a good thing as long as you don’t freak out about it. At the end of the day people are still buying music, I mean it’s a lot less than what it was but I mean if you still love the band and want to support them then you’re going to buy the record.

Tom: So you recently switched over to Dangerbird Records. What made you decide on the switch from Suicide Squeeze to Dangerbird?

Corey: Well, our record contract was up with Suicide Squeeze and we just decided to try something different and Dangerbird was one of the options and they were by far the right option. They come from selling records kind of where we come from too. It’s about the whole package and they’re a bunch of artists as well so they understand it. We’re really stoked. We’ve been really lucky to work with Suicide Squeeze because they’ve been so on top of it and they have helped us out in a lot of ways but we’re really excited about Dangerbird too. And we still support Suicide Squeeze, we love them. So there’s no bad blood there.

Tom: It’s pretty much just a new group of family and friends.

Corey: Exactly.

Tom: So you guys have been kicking around for almost ten years now and you have been pretty successful with your endeavors. I believe the hardest part of being a band is getting your name out there, for a lot of bands at least. In your experience, what has been the most effective way of promoting the band and what do you advise bands to stay away from?

Corey: Well, we have definitely put our time in on the road as far as touring and playing places repeatedly and I think that really helps to build a fan base if you come to their town and play. So I think touring is really, really important. You know, obviously the internet is not without its flaws, kind of like the whole downloading question, but its also a good tool. It gets kids interested in the band immediately. What was the second part of your question?

Tom: What would you tell bands to stay away from?

Corey: Oh Jeeze, there’s so many things to stay away from. You know, I would tell a band to stay away from letting someone else tell them what to do. We are really hands on with our band and we really want to know everything that’s going on from the mundane shit to the big stuff so I think sometimes bands let go of the reigns a little too soon because they think that’s the way you need to do it but you really need to stay on top of your shit ultimately.

Jenna: What kind of history have you had with college radio?

Corey: College radio has been really good. Kind of from the get go they have always been really supportive and I think a lot of our fans are turned on by college radio. I think that college radio is still really viable and even in the age of internet and websites and blogs and stuff I think that its cool that kids are still listening to college radio and its still a relatively unchanged format. It still gets people playing what they want to play. It’s good, it helps.

Jenna: So at our radio station, we only play underground music and try to stay away from the mainstream popular bands who don’t necessarily need our help anymore. Are there any bands that you would consider underground right now who you believe deserve a lot more attention?

Corey: The Heartless Bastards. I think they’re fantastic, I am surprised you don’t hear them more. Uhm…who else? Russian Circles are phenomenal. The Narrows are also really good, they’re from Seattle. All those bands…Velveteen’s another one.

Jenna: Who was your favorite band that you got to see at Bamboozle?

Corey: Piebald actually, Piebald was fucking awesome! They took us on some of our really early first tours and we opened up for them and we were main support for them and they are really good friends of ours and we have had a lot of really, really great times. Piebald are great dudes and they really took us under their wing on those first few tours and taught us a lot about touring and stuff because you know, they’re road dogs. So yeah, watching Piebald was definitely the highlight.

Jenna: Do you guys prefer playing at festivals or do you like smaller venues?

Corey: I mean, its like comparing apples and oranges, I know that’s cliché but its kind of true. They’re just different beasts. I think its always fun playing your own show and having your own thing going on but festivals are fun because you get to run into people and you know it’s a lot more hectic and chaotic which is a lot of fun too.

Tom: Alright this will be our last question and its a silly one. Who would win in a fight…all the humans in the world or all the ants in the world?

Corey: Ooh, ants. Ants.

Tom: That was a pretty quick response.

Corey: Yeah, ants are by design much more hearty characters than the old humans. I think ants will persevere much longer. You don’t want to fuck with a group of ants, man. Hell no.

Tom: It’s a big group.

Corey: It’s a really big group. We’re talking…a lot. Yeah, I’ve got my money on the ants. Sorry humans.

Tom: Awesome, well thanks for the interview and have a great show tonight!

Corey: Thanks man, it was nice meeting you!

Minus The Bear is currently on tour supporting their new album “Omni”. The album is now available to buy and is certainly well worth it. Make sure to catch these guys next time they come to your area, but in the meantime you can check them out at www.minusthebear.com

Review: Male Bonding, Nothing Hurts

2010-05-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

After seeing them blow up the Silent Barn and the Mercury Lounge at the head and tail of CMJ last year, Male Bonding appeared three English chaps destined for greatness. Then we scratched around for anything by them...and only came up with two collections entitled 'Ruff Demos' and 'Brattwell Shed Punk Sessions.' Needless to say, they were fucking gold, and the band was signed to Sub Pop.

Oh the suspense. Now seven months later we have the release of their debut album Nothing Hurts, we have them breaking through a well deserved surface. First and foremost, MB can write a damn good pop song, but it's gonna be under 3 minutes, they're punk-rock. To be more exact, and to not call them post-punk/indie, these guys are intelli-punk with angular attack and frantic guitar work, and dabble in surf-rock. Immediately I noticed the speedy 1-2 shimmer of opener Years Not Long provided by guitarist John Arthur Webb, which breathlessly shoots into the dreamy All Things This Way. With each track, Male Bonding marks more territory; the lazy surf-haze of Franklin, the jostled, blistering R.U.F.F., or the heart-throb acoustic Worse to Come (feat. Vivian Girls). Male Bonding don't shy away from punk, but feel the need to evolve as polymaths of the genre. The unnerving anthem Pumpkin towards the conclusion deserves the old skip-to. Album-wide, Robin Christian's drumming is not only frantic in typical punk fashion, but also shows resolve in places, taking a back seat to wily guitar riffs or stabbing in cringing cowbell.

Of course, I cringed more live...and I loved it. Nothing Hurts' has more refined, alt-rock sounding versions of their songs sound different from live stuff and 'Ruff'/'Brattwell.' Of course, this simply makes them more accessible and allows them to put forth the breadth of sound they can produce better. The album will pass quick, and taking it at face value may be punk but Male Bonding writes simple statements, but is saying more...read between the lines...put it on repeat.

Nothing Hurts is out on Sub Pop on May 10th. Check out Male Bonding here.

Review: Walls, Walls

2010-05-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

Kompakt's relentless assault of minimalism has been breaking out more and more. London-based Walls' self-titled debut is very cinematic. The different aspects of opener Burnt Sienna seem to creep up on a listener, leaping from the 70s to 80s and back here with borrowed roars and beats.

Cyclopean Remains lumbers and pulsates with jangly poly-rhythms and a opening string fanfare. Airy vocals are etched into a lasting guitar drone on Burnt Sienna which invites in an active backing synth. Throughout the recording there is noted style changes among their sound: sporadic, glitching A Virus Awaits!, Strawberry Sect sound like the opening of a Beatles song extended over 2 minutes, and Gaberdine is straight-forward micro house. Walls' best feature is not their ability to create these, but to float in and out so well, and incorporate strange wisps of footsteps, crush-like sounds, and bullfroggy croaks, as well as some smart samples such as The Black Angel's Death Song in Gaberdine.

Listen to Walls.

Around Lowell: Ant Cellar Demolition Date Set, Birke's: The Movie!, Lalame,

2010-04-30T21:42:00.001-07:00

Ant Cellar show featuring :The Network, The Binary Code, Gloominus Doom, Hivesmasher, and Drive-By Bukkake. Woah. Thursday May 6, 2010 at 8:30 p.m.

Former Lowellian shoppe Birke's will be explored through the film Browsing Through Birke's on Tuesday May 18th at 6 p.m. The film, being shown at the Lowell Historical Park Visitor Center, spun off a 1994 exhibit which explores the vintage store, which not only sold garments but served as a social gathering spot for many locals. Free admission.

Fallout Announcement from Punky T-South:

Live from the Fallout Shelter will be having In The Audience play a set on the show tonight! In The Audience is an indie pop band from Portland Maine, which is cool because we never have people from Maine play the show! The band sounds a lot like Anthony Green and Say Anything...except folkier. In other words, really good stuff!

So tune in Monday night from 8 to 11PM, In The Audience will be on at 930PM. You can check the band out at http://www.myspace.com/intheaudience

LALA is shutting down, which is lalame. The web service has been a valuble way of finding music, by supporting tons of artsists. One of it's best features enables a user to listen to an entire song once and then keeping to it a 30-second sample. Below is a copy of the email sent to all users.

Dear [username],

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala's Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

©2005-2010 la la media, inc. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on the Performance Tax

2010-04-27T06:38:00.001-07:00

Radio is still a bulwark of discovery for new music. Currently a bill in Congress called H.B. 848, but more affectionately known as the performance tax, is being looked at to charge radio stations for airplay of artists...record companies cashing in on the otherwise free airtime they have been giving radios. In turn for that free airtime, comes free promotion, but not anymore. The fees are graduated, and the more money a station makes the more they will be required to pay for music. Thus, stations that can't pay the fees will essentially be done away with or resort to something alike talk radio. The act could mark the second major sea change in radio telecommunication in the last two decades. In February of 1996, increased competition in the radio industry paved the way for media conglomerates acquiring large numbers of stations.

And perhaps that's all fine, but what has happened was alignment of many stations under uniform programming. People are fine with this because many of us prefer to hear familiar sounds when they tune in. However, those who challenge such alignment and promote, play, and celebrate what the power of radio are who may not survive passage of a performance tax. Classic rock and popular bands promoted otherwise soak up airtime and use radio as a tool for extension of reissues and hit records. Don't kill tools of discovery and beneficial promotion.

http://www.noperformancetax.org/

Review: The Slits, Cut

2010-04-26T05:40:00.001-07:00

After listening to Cut from 1979 , it's no wonder the Slits first tour was with the Clash. However for these girls, dub-reggae was injected into them from the start. Along with co-conspirators The Raincoats, LiLLIPUT (who also got reissue treatment as of late), and Siouxie Sioux they expanded the framework for Riot Grrl and to-die-for indie sweethearts of today, but Cut proves to be a very important step forward for punk rock music.

M.I.A. isn't exactly ripping off Ari Up (lead vox), Palmolive (Teresa Pollitt [bass]), and Viv Albertine (guitar), but with a backing band instead of a backing track she might sound a little bit like them. Right from the onset, opener 'Instant Hit' begins with picky guitar and tip-toeing high hat, with all three girls swirling about. At:48, the album kicks off the dubbed-out sound with a cliche, taut-snared bdddDADA *crash!*. Copy and pasted from Alton Ellis and Desmond Dekker, from there, the rest is just relentless reggae. The Slits' particular brand of it is angular and broken up. The drums, here provided by the only male member Budgie (Peter Clarke) are colorful, but tie-dyed as he climbs over walls of change with relative ease on So Tough. Shoplifting anticipates a straight feel, and then chokes you for a second and leaves you to groove, but between the trios gang-vox chorus and Ari Up's screeching, the mere 1:40 of the song is a lower class living English viewfinder, which sums it up perfectly: "Do a runner!" so you can eat tonight. Cut is quite thin, and sounds as if it's RIGHT in front of your face, little sounds to create a big idea. Spend, Spend, Spend's just as Ari sings "I want to buy..." at the 1:20 mark, a coin drop cuts through everything sizing down their sound yes, but more so giving perspective.

The 2010 deluxe edition gives this morsel justice, by expanding it to a double disc with 29 other tracks including alternate takes, 8-track demos, and John Peel sessions. Highlights include the spacey 'brink style dub' version of Typical Girls, the straight post-punk of Vindictive, and several instrumental out takes on disc 2. Feminism? Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott pose loinclothed and muddy? Welcome to a broader revolution.

Local Music in Public Spaces!

2010-04-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

Join local artists, Sheep and Other Anomalies, TRAGWAG, Texas Battle, Found You, Everyone Except Me, Caitlin Ford, Chris O'Grady, Victoria Valente, and Inspector 34, on Saturday 4/24, for a lovely afternoon of FOLK THE PARK.

Featuring special guests, Kevin and the Wasps!

Utilize your public space, get fresh air, and enjoy local sounds.

This is all happening at the Wakefield Commons tomorrow (April 24th) at 3:00 PM. See you there!

Is this Jazz?: Thoughts on Film Music

2010-04-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

In light of the third annual Lowell Film Festival, which brought many people out to relevant Depression-era movies a couple weeks back... I got an idea for writing about music in movies while watching the excellent Capra film It Happened One Night.

Howard Jackson's score was uncredited...but it presents an interesting look at film soundtracks: it is an elitist genre. Obviously a film with a good soundtrack is greatly enhanced. But what about a soundtrack alone? Does Carl Stalling's cartoon music stand alone because we've been watching cartoons for years or is it because its some of the most technical, fast orchestral music we've heard? I think they can stand alone, and here are some that do. I watch a lot of movies, so maybe I am biased by the images on-screen, but nonetheless, they certainly can translate.

Naked Lunch, Ornette Coleman & Howard Shore - (1990, dir. David Cronenberg) - This meeting of the minds, in my opinion, is unparalleled. Coleman's previous orchestra work on Skies of America had the orchestra molded with him, playing sporadic, free compositions. Naked Lunch bends Ornette around the mood setting orchestra of Howard Shore.
Brazil, Michael Kamen - (1985, dir. Terry Gilliam) - Just like Terry Gilliam in his film, Kamen's music puts a technocratic spin on sambas, film nior, dramatic fantasy, and everything in between,. To be amazed: add the track "Waiting for Daddy" with Johnathan Pryce, soggy toast, and ducts.
Vergogna Schifosi, Ennio Morricone - (1969, dir. Mauro Severino) - This is a great example, because I have not seen the film and thus have no images to connect to. Dirty Angels may be one of the lesser known of Morricone's but it is the most in touch with the popular music sound he injects into all of his works. The center piece of the whole album is a 1-2and bassline which lies beneath haunting vocal lines, summery guitar solos, and piercing organ attacks. It's best track is the spiraled rising of all parts on Una Spiaggia a Messogiorno.
The Conversation, David Shire (197 dir. Francis Ford Copolla) - 70s funk-nior from movies like Three Days of the Condor and the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 seemingly responds to Blaxploitation be saying 'we can be hip too!' In FFC's The Conversation, not only was the film made between Godfather parts I and II, but the main character, portrayed by Gene Hackman, plays saxophone, and the ending this movie has one of the greatest endings.
The Shining, various - (1980, dir. Stanley Kubrick) - Not to many arguments here, but this soundtrack includes a lot of source music and pop tunes which blend together very well. The Gleneagles band's old time, big band recordings are very washed out and sound eerie, plus Henry Hall's vocals are regal, yet sadistic in context. Electro-charged Wendy Carlos makes a breathtaking acoustic-electro appearance having worked with Kubrick 8 years before on A Clockwork Orange. However, the true terror, infused with mystery behind the film, comes from Krzysztof Pendereck (pictured above). This Polish compose's incredibly dark, unexpected contributions are marked with unexpected blasts of auxilary percussion, far-off, daunting brasswork, and truely scary sounds: open-ended terror of not knowing.
Blue Velvet, various - (1989, dir. David Lynch) - Picking out one of these with Angelo Badalamenti wasn't easy to do, so I just went with my favorite movie. He also scores the City of Lost Children, Holy Smoke, Wicker Man, and everything else Lynch has done. Aside from working with Lynch, he has collaborated with Shirley Bassey, and that just kicks ass. Atmospheric, ethereal, dreamy, terrifying. Also, this soundtrack has the best old school rock and roll from Bill Doggett, Roy Orbison, and others to complement Angelo's eerie sound and Lynch's surreal images.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Popol Vuh - (1972, dir Werner Herzog) - Before Grizzly Man and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Krautrock was spilling out everywhere. Apart from being an airy, highly experimental band, this film soundtrack is frequently cited as one of their best works.

Honorable Mentions:

Punch Drunk Love, Jon Brion
Alien, Jerry Goldsmith
Amarcord, Nino Rota
Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud, Miles Davis

Around Lowell: Lightning Bolt in...Worcester

2010-04-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Lightning Bolt's upcoming tour is kicking off at 'noise day' at Clark University in Worcester MA. Saturday, April 24th the SOUND//ART//SOUND//ART action will kick off at 1:00PM. The event's schedule is as follows:

2:30-3:00 Dark and Stormy
3:15 - 3:45 Britney's Spear
4:00 - 4:30 The Awesome Something
4:45 - 5:30 Gila Monster
5:45- 6:15 Kyle Clyde
6:30 - 7:00 – ISA Christ
7:15 - 8:00 - Tinsel Teeth
8:15 - LIGHTNING BOLT

Also, check out our review of Earthly Delights.

Around Lowell: Take Back the Night

2010-04-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday April 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm.

Join the City of Lowell as they march to end sexual assault and domestic violence.

Speakers include:
Attorney General Martha Coakley,
Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Kontz,
Lowell Police Chief Kenneth LaVallee,
Lowell City Manager Bernie Lynch
and more including an open mic!

Around Lowell: Clothesline Project, JazzTV, LFC

2010-04-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

Visual artist Rachel Carey-Harper will be displaying an installation in McGauvran today from 1 - 5 p.m. Carey-Harper, a founding member of The Clothesline Project will be hanging up shirts made by victims and color-coded to identify various types of domestic abuse. The event will be followed by a candlelight vigil at 7:30 p.m.

If you're interested in a haul out west, Hadoken is playing a show Phi Sigma Kappa in Amherst on Saturday, April 24th. Show begins at 8 p.m. cover is 5$ and Phi Sig promises the event will "get gnarly." Also, The Right to Arm Bears, Ghost Ocean, Young Victorians, and Ask the Ice.

On Thursday, April 22 at 4 p.m. a talk entitled "Raising Awareness in Human Trafficking" will be held in O'Leary 222. The talk will discuss reasons and motives behind human trafficking and many of the groups working to stop it.

News in brief:

Roulette TV presents videos of Jazz artists: Henry Threadgil, Joe McPhee, more.
Lowell Film Collabo: "Browsing Through Birke's"

College Radio Is Important.

2010-04-19T13:16:00.001-07:00

Click Here and watch this awesome documentary on Pitchfork.tv

Investigating The Underground: Rory Van Grol of Soul Control

2010-04-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday, Providence, RI's Soul Control made their way up to the Fox Common in Lowell MA in support of their latest album "Cycles", which was released off of local punk/hardcore label Bridge Nine Records this past August. I had the pleasure to meet up with vocalist Rory Van Grol before the show and talk to him about a few things including what it's been like touring for "Cycles", New England hardcore scenes and other delicacies that sit on the plate that is Soul Control.

Tom: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself.

Rory: I’m Rory and I sing for Soul Control.

Tom: How have you enjoyed your time in Lowell so far?

Rory: Well, I just got here so I mean despite the nice aroma of whatever dining hall type hangout spot this is and the dead bird outside, our van made it here and we’re here so it’s been alright I guess.

Tom: So you guys released your latest record “Cycles” back in August off of local record label Bridge Nine Records. What are you guys currently working on and are there any new releases in the near future?

Rory: I mean we’re just writing. There’s no releases named or whatever, we’re just writing songs. If we write 12 songs then we write 12 songs. There’s no record we’re writing for…if we end up writing a record then that’s cool, if not then whatever. We’re a band and we produce songs and we like writing so that’s what we’re doing. It’s kind of redundant in a way, but oh well.

Tom: Are you guys playing any of those songs or are you still just supporting “Cycles” right now?

Rory: Well, we played one new song out live but we are still working on them so we’re not really pushing those songs yet. We’re pretty much just playing “Cycles.”

Tom: Your music definitely adds a lot of different aspects to the term hardcore. You guys are pretty heavy but you definitely have a lot of different things going on at the same time. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard you before?

Rory: Well we got pulled over in Philly and the guy was like ‘so you’re in a band?’ And I said yeah and he asked ‘what kind of band we were in’ and so I said well its kind of like a heavier Rage Against The Machine, so I guess that is what I would go for. Something that people can easily grasp if they have no knowledge of really heavy music or really loud music. I think Rage Against The Machine is a pretty good median for that, you know like people will say ‘oh its heavier than that? Cool!’ So I think that is a good starting point. I mean I could go from there, obviously we have more influences than that but not everyone is going to know who Dinosaur Jr or The Pixies or Sonic Youth are or bands like that. They’re not going to be like ‘Oh that’s a Byrne riff’, you know what I mean? Rage Against The Machine is a good starting point I think.

Tom: Yeah, I never thought of it like that. That is a good description for you guys. I like that. So you guys are from Providence. It’s a different state, but its not too far from Boston, so I am sure you guys get plenty of both scenes and areas in your experience. How would you say the scene changes as you cross the state line?

Rory: Well a lot of Rhode Islanders don’t like to leave their houses, let alone their state. So I would say Rhode Island is an older community of people and I would say that Rhode Island, as far as music and independent music, is a lot more wild as far as I‘m concerned. Like you have bands like Lightning Bolt and Dropdead and bands that are just like independent punk music whereas hardcore is not so much. There was like Verse…and I guess more recently there are a lot more younger hardcore kids, which is awesome, but as far as like defining a hardcore scene there really isn’t a huge one in Rhode Island its just like a few bands and a few kids, you know like a normal show would probably have like 30 kids who are from Rhode Island. If a show is big it’s probably because kids from mass came down. I would say Rhode Island as far as music goes has a lot more older people and a lot more people who are into like metal and punk than hardcore. As far as Mass, it definitely has a more like youth oriented hardcore vibe. But you can also get your crustier and punk-er hardcore style too. You have bands like Mind Eraser who don’t necessarily fit on shows with other “hardcore” bands, you know what I mean. But in my experience I’m a lot more psyched on the dirtier hardcore aspects of hardcore punk than I am on the sterile hardcore thing, but that’s me personally. I guess I grew up in Upstate New York so it’s a smaller close knit scene with more variety. I think they are both good and I think I wish there was more youth involved in Rhode Island hardcore and punk but its kind of cool seeing a bunch of thirty year old dudes still raging and people into their forties still doing like the DIY punk attitude. Like you have Armageddon records and the dudes in Dropdead. They’re there…they’re staples, which Is awesome. I guess I don’t get that so much from Boston like you have people who come out every once in a while but you don’t have staples. Whenever I go to a show in Boston I don’t see that person at every show, you know what I mean. But as you get older you have more responsibilities and that happens so maybe that’s life. And I don’t go to as many shows in Boston anymore, I don’t have all that knowledge. But Mass is definitely a lot more youth, and that’s the main difference that I see in my experience.

Tom: What is your favorite thing about “Cycles”?

Rory: My favorite thing about “Cycles”?

Tom: Yeah, the record.

Rory: Yeah, well I mean riding bikes is cool. But “Cycles” the record…I think the whole process of talking about the idea of the record was awesome. It was a really cool process, especially as far as artwork and everything like that. I mean, we were all really motivated and had a really good idea of what we wanted the band to like not necessarily sound like, but our idea. I think that came across well and it was pretty cool. So like the painting of the record is an actual painting of the record that our friend Alice did for us, which is awesome. So having friends involved and having us be there and affected and just the songwriting says a lot about us I think in a very personal way. It’s just like this cycle is a continuation and a new breath of this band, new singer full length, new drummer full length like these are our songs as far as Soul Control, this is Soul Control right now. You know, this is the band. The last album was a totally different band, different songs, different song writing and way of going about it. So “Cycles” is us as a band now. From that point there’s a new breath of fresh air, a new cycle of life. And there’s so many different ideas that can stem from that and that’s the most exciting thing for me about the record. This is something fresh and new and exciting for us and I think going from there is the biggest part of this band. Not looking back to say who is the new member or whatever. This is it, starting point, we’re taking off and we’re going with it.

Tom: Yeah that’s really cool because it gives you so much freedom to do whatever you want if you think that way.

Rory: Exactly. We don’t want to be held down by any kind of barriers or limits of being a hardcore punk band. I think it’s your attitude that definitely makes you a hardcore band not necessarily your sound anymore. I think a lot of people put themselves in boxes and are afraid to get out of them and I don’t think that we are a band who is limiting themselves and the record “Cycles” is our extension of that and I think it is just going to continue our extension, which is pretty exciting.

Tom: So you guys have been touring pretty heavily for the album. What has been your favorite place to tour too?

Rory: Um, we’ve done two US tours and then a European tour and I mean, Europe is always awesome, it’s fun. You always experience something crazy to do. I got pretty sunburned in Portugal which was shitty but kind of hilarious in a way. Favorite places? I guess since the US is like, you’re so used to it you don’t really think about it, it becomes like who are your friends, you get to see your friends and go to restaurants. So in that aspect, Chicago is always fun because I can eat Pick Me Up café and that place is always awesome. Seattle has always been awesome, we have tons of friends and it is just great being in that city. Other than that, in Europe we had an awesome time in Belgium. Good friends there and we stayed in this red light district which was weird because there were just like prostitutes selling themselves and we were on this balcony watching it and it was just wild because it’s legal and the government subsidizes it and it just throws you back and your just like wow that’s crazy. So those things are kind of crazy and wild and you’re just like this is insane, this pocket exists in this country, in this city and it’s totally acceptable. It’s interesting and it makes you think of the US and how we treat it, it’s really interesting to think like that.

Tom: For my last question, this is something I ask most bands…it’s kind of a silly question.

Rory: Go for it.

Tom: Who do you think would win in a fight, all of the ants in the world or all of the humans in the world?

Rory: I would say ants. I mean I hope ants.

Tom: You hope ants?

Rory: Yeah, I think humans are just pieces of shit who could care less. I think ants have this drive to thrive. I mean, humans do too in a very cockroach kind of way, but we’re more fallible. I think ants just have that drive and they don’t have that mentality to make a decision, they’re just doing their job where as we have a decision. Overall, I think ants would win out because they would burrow and we would just kind of destroy ourselves. Ultimately, I think ants will win by default because we would kill ourselves.

Tom: Would you try and side with the ants?

Rory: No, there’s no point. I mean, I’m not an ant. It’s going to happen, like, fuck it.

Tom: Haha, awesome. Well thank you for the interview and have a great show tonight!

Rory: Thanks!

Soul Control's "Cycles" is available now from Bridge Nine Records. You can find out more about the band at http://www.soulcontrolhc.com .

TRAGWAG- Live From The Fallout Shelter (2010)

2010-04-13T21:30:00.001-07:00

Local monster of folk, Tyler Bisson (aka That Really Awesome Guy With A Guitar), was nice enough to post this Fallout recording from the past week. Featured is a set full of songs that Tyler has written over the past 5 years under various project names; this is a wonderful way to get a glimpse into Tyler's musical past! CLICK THE PICTURE FOR DOWNLOAD LINK!

Tracklist:
1. Well There/Beauty Fades
2. Snow Symphony
3. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
4. Congratulations!
5. The Gloved Hands Story
6. Tyler Song
7. Why Can't We?
8. Prospect Avenue Is Looking Dreary
9. Finder's Keepers
10. Texas Sky
11. Home of The Redcoats/Demo Song
12. Tales Of Miscommunication And Loneliness
13. My Dear Watson
14. Interview

Review: Thomas Fehlmann, Gute Luft

2010-04-13T17:39:00.001-07:00

The above cover for Thomas Fehlmann's new album on powerlabel Kompakt records resembles those of Eno's Ambient recordings. Therefore it comes as no surprise the contents are not only a commissioned work, but include ambience. Berlin 24hr, which you can view for free here, is the longest television program ever made. Gute Luft ("Good Air") is the soundtrack for it. The album is only 70 minutes of kraut-dub minimalism, but it is seemingly made up of infinite pieces, and thus works out for such a large project. Fehlmann's soundscape moves a listener, as it does the progress of the film. By dropping out enitre layers and match even the smallest glitches to a new one, Fehlmann tends to jump about. Some, such as the playful Wasser Im Fluss, begin in a mood and progress to another, Wasser moves to a sudden seriousness with a regimented back beat. Punchy synth creates anticipation on Permanent Touch, Von Oben is a club hit for the non-participant, and Darkspark gears you up for the unknown.

The 6 minute opener Alles, Immer's only inherent characteristic is one swell of static occurring every four bars or so, the remainder is restless, improvised noise which pops, pangs, and pans. Like the cover, Fehlmann has created a sound map for the daily life of Berlin, or any modern city for that matter. Gute Luft is certainly contemplative, the 15 tracks are less songs than they are complete ideas packaged in their own unique ways.

Review: Child Abuse, Cut and Run

2010-04-12T10:22:00.001-07:00

Michael Gira isn't exactly turning over in his grave, but NY's Child Abuse sound as if they are using Filth as a touchstone. Although the genre could be, at times, identified as listener abuse it's really not the same effect as it would've been when Swans played in 1983. On Cut and Run, this bass-keyboard/voc-drums power trio's debut, screechy layering and distant, helpless vocals, along with proggy drum beats combine to create "no-grind". Opener Hold This is free, distorted and seems to soundtrack an arena of troglodytes, all the while inviting whiring synth tuned like Sonic Youth . Child Abuse doesn't let up, especially on Froze Toes which clocks in 5 minutes of changes. Bebe trudges along, shuttling back and forth from lightning quick blasts to murky sludge parts. Cut and Run from pop music, here's your synth-core motor cycle accident you can't help but watch.

Cut and Run is available on Lovepump United. Check out their myspace for a taste and an Eric Dolphy cover.

News: Great Job!, Punk Phunk, Shortfuseburing.

2010-04-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

HEALTH and Eric Wareheim collide in a music video for the song We Are Water, thanks Gorilla vs. Bear! And, personally, this is one of the greatest fucking music videos I have ever seen.

OFFICIAL Short Fuse Burning reunion has been scheduled for May 7th at the Ant Cellar. Past-epochal looking bassist Brian Gullekson will be heading westward post-graduation, so the boys are getting back together for something "incredibly insane." Also performing: Hetfield and Hetfield and Fishing the Sky. Show starts at 8PM.

New attack at the University Art Gallery, "No Thing," begins April 12. It will include drawings, paintings and wood cuts from realist, literal/figural artist Richard Ryan. Mon. 11 - 4, Tues. & Wed. 10 - 4, and Fri. 9 - 2.

In Brief:

Gang of Four, at it again.
News LCD...new HERC!
NPR takes a swing at Williamsburg

Review: the Sinbusters- "Prime Blowout" (2010)

2010-04-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to pre-face all of this by letting you know: if you do not purchase the Sinbusters' first full length, "Prime Blowout", you are shooting yourself in the junk.

Once Lowell's underdogs, the Sinbusters have seen a huge rise in hype over the past year- simply because they are going to melt your fucking face off every time you see them perform. This feeling of utter chaos translates perfectly onto "Blowout". Live favorites "Fuck You, Aristotle" and "Back From Hell" make raucous debuts, while old jams "Generation Locust", "Mystic City", and "Do You like To Party?" get a filthy make over, showcasing one of Mill City's hidden jems.

My only qualm with this album is it's length- clocking in at approximately 23 minutes, I'm left wanting more and more. If you doubt all the praise this site gives 'em, please do yourself the favor of listening to album opener "I Don't Wanna Be A Slave", and have fun melting into a puddle. Mixing punk, 60's garage, and sheer insanity makes for an exciting and unpredictable listen. Keep your eyes on le Sinbusters. They're doing big things.

Owen Pallet gets Dan Deacon-ized

2010-04-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

Phase-\phase\ (?), n.- Any one point or portion in a recurring series of changes, as in the changes of motion of one of the particles constituting a wave or vibration; one portion of a series of such changes, in distinction from a contrasted portion, as the portion on one side of a position of equilibrium, in contrast with that on the opposite side.

Read- Our review of Owen Pallet's, Heartland

Listen- to Dan Deacon's (phasy) remix of 'Lewis Takes His Shirt Off"

Review: The Wedding Present, Live 1988

2010-04-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Born on the seminal C-86 cassette, The Wedding Present seemed pressed into the fabric of twee pop with their contribution This Boy Can Wait (A Bit Longer). C-86 proved to be many indie blips on the radar produced by two authorities on the subject: New Musical Express and Rough Trade records. Several of the comp's groups fizzled out between 1988 and 1993 after making EPs now are considered holy grails of iTunes libraries and corners of the blogosphere. Others saw indie not as a genre but a stepping point and an idea to evolve; Primal Scream dove into acid house and Half Man, Half Biscuit became a satirical rock parodying everything between Brit Lit 101 and Thatcherism.

Others aside, The Wedding Present began popping up all over the map and with them they brought an edge of brute force to this established indie-pop. Singer David Gedge's distinct, nasally authoritative voice matched lightning quick guitar riffs and straight, harrowing drumming. '87's George Best (below, left) was truly indie, recorded and put out by the band's own label, and Bizzaro from '88 was a more mature version supported by RCA. Albini got a crack at them on the harsh Seamonsters (center) and the 1994 Island Records album Watusi (right) could be their most critically acclaimed. In short, they proved to be as adaptive as they were good at writing songs.

Live 1988 sits smack dab in the middle of a band which is a blueprint for what indie has become: an over-arching, experimental idea in which kids apply their influences with a DIY mindset. Half recorded in Rotterdam, half in Valencia, the album is a look at the band during the George Best era, but with a sheer exuberance and edge which would bud on Bizarro. Their C-86 song This Boy Can Wait, along with What Did Your Last Servant Die Off? both seem to be stretched to their breaking points. Other tracks like the shiny pop of No, the methodical, driving A Million Miles, and the dreamy Not from Where I'm Standing all strengthen the point of the Wedding Present sound, versus the sound they had on low recording budgets during the first half of their career. The Wedding Present thrives in a big, live sound, with all pieces on level 10, and Gedge's voice on 11.

Despite the above history lesson, I have even managed to exclude The Wedding Present's early single's collection, their John Peel sessions (of Ukrainian folk songs) affectionately titled Українські Виступи в Івана Піла, and their 2 Hit Parade albums which were collections of 12 singles released month to month during 1992-93. And also three other albums which charted in the UK during 1995, 1996, and 2005. In the ashes of more visible indie throbs like the Smiths, The Wedding Present proved longevity couldn't...and doesn't hurt all that bad.

Check them out at the Middle East Downstairs on Monday 4/12 with Girl In A Coma, and the Motion Sick!

News: Sinbusters, MASS Recovery, Scrabble

2010-04-07T05:09:00.001-07:00

Lowell Film Festival Begins Tomorrow!

Garage punk thrashers The Sinbusters will be playing their last show/debut release tomorrow at PAs Lounge. The album is called Prime Blowout and the show will also feature: Ladderlegs, The Kominas, and V. Grind. The event is 5$, 18+, and proclaims

"It's a LOWELL INVASION! Come to Somerville! Forget Thom Yorke! The 90's are over! (This show is cheaper anywho...)"

Not to be missed. Doors at 8 PM.

On Friday, the 3rd Annual Mass Recovery Fest will kick off in Lunenburg at Andrew Hall on Main Street. The cassette compilation release will be celebrated with two nights of local acts, doors at 5 PM both Friday and Saturday. 7$/night or 10$ for the both. 21 bands, local or otherwise, in total:

Friday Lineup:

- From Sky to Sea
- The Bynars
- Bearstronaut
- State Champion (IL)
- The Thin Heir
- Peter Piek (Germany)
- Factors of Four (PA)
- Ian Fisher (NY)
- That Really Awesome Guy with a Guitar
- Young Mountain (New Hampshire)
- The Cast of America's Favorite TV Sitcom

Saturday Lineup:

- The Sharpest
- Remainder
- Battleships
- Chalk Talk (CT)
- Black Bear
- By Surprise (NJ)
- Blue Star Burns Red
- Fishing the Sky
- Challenge the Throne
- Giuseppe (RI)

In brief:

Amir El Saffar & Hafez Modirzadeh (Pi Records) new release reviewed.
Scrabble to allow proper nouns.
New Ariel Pink.
First Google, now Robert: China bans Dylan!
New Gang of Four?

Good News For Sundowner Fans!

2010-04-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is good news for Sundowner fans, AND Lawrence Arm's fans if you haven't heard of Sundowner (you should listen here)

Chris posted a bulletin on his myspace earlier:

"Well, it’s been three years since the first Sundowner record and man has a lot happened in the world since then. We had the summer and winter Olympics, the Cubs got embarrassed in the playoffs a few times, Obama became president, I won my first fantasy football championship and we all got a bit older. Ahhh, the dizzying highs. I also wrote a bunch of songs. Over the last several months me and Neil (Hennessy if you’re nasty) having been working on the new Sundowner record in Logan Square in Chicago and I’m excited to say it’s just about done and that we’re putting the finishing touches on it. I’m stoked to be teaming up with Mike Park and releasing it on Asian Man Records this time around. We’re shooting for a mid-summer release and we’ll have more details for y’all in the near future. I’m also really excited because Toby Jeg at Red Scare is gonna press Four One Five Two on vinyl this summer and we’re gonna throw a big party. Rap at ya soon!"
-Chris

Review: Infinite Body, Carve Out the Face of My God

2010-04-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

Infinite Body is a satellite addition to the dawning nano-fad chill-wave. However, his debut album Carve My Face Out of God sounds newly discovered slacker movement infused with DIY technology. The album has all the ingredients: layered, drawn out feedback in lo-fi AND the appearance: an ominous photograph slightly grainy for the album cover, but the music is much more cerebral than beachy, childhood memories.

Within these contexts, it seems Infinite Body has adopted this stripped down sound to an arena more fit for chamber music, Out To Where I Am's opening discharge comes again and again, swirling and shimmering. At the 2:30 mark, a dissonant ringing organ enters bringing in order. The darker, Constellation-style On Our Own to Fall Off hearkens more post rock than anything else.

This is less an album than a collection of ideas which can bring up images for individual listeners. Where many of our chill-wavers want to romanticize Spaghetti Ohs and losing Nerf ammo, Infinite Body is attempting to create more timeless.

News: Lowell FIlm Festival

2010-04-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

Our friends the Lowell Film Collaborative will be kicking off their annual film festival on 4/8. Hollywood and the Great Depression: 10 cent Entertainment During Difficult Times is free and open to the public and will include depression-era films and more, click here for more details.

Schedule:

Jezebel - Thursday, April 8 at 7PM
Lowell National Historic Park Visitor Center, 246 Market Street

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Friday, April 9 at 7PM
Lowell National Historic Park Visitor Center, 246 Market Street

Frankenstein - Friday, April 9 at 10PM
119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford Street

The Grapes of Wrath - Saturday, April 10 at 1PM
Boott Cotton Mills Museum Events Center, 115 John Street

Snow White - Saturday, April 10 at 1:30PM
Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack Street

Modern Times - Saturday, April 10 at 3PM
Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack Street

It Happened One Night - Saturday, April 10 at 7PM
UMass Lowell O'Leary Library (Room 222), 61 Wilder Street

Bride of Frankenstein - Saturday, April 10 at 10PM
119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford Street

In brief:

LIQUID LIQUID WOAH WOAH
If "Drunk Girls" isn't your bag, then "Pow Pow" by LCD Soundsystem may be very, very promising.
Mose Allison interview.
Fuck yeah Male Bonding!
April 20th...new Caribou...
New Books album for July on Temporary Residence. The Books ~ Group Autogenics from Luminary Music on Vimeo.

News: Local Concert Report

2010-04-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Big Sway on Live from the Fallout Shelter- TONIGHT!
The Sinbusters, Ladderlegs, The Kominas, and Deadly- April 8th at PA's Lounge in Somerville
Tartufi (CA), Ununi, and Daniel Harris- April 6th at the 119 Gallery in Lowell
TRAGWAG with Matt Wixon, Young Mountain, Inspector 34 and Sheep and other anomalies- Picnic at the Prism AFTERNOON SHOW at the ICC in Lowell April 10th
Br’er (PA, NC), Mr. Lee’s Defense Squad- April 10th at the Sockhop in Lowell
Goospimp at The Chalet April 9th - St. Joseph’s College- Standish, Maine
The Bella Birds and Kristen Ford April 9th- The Tavern at the End of the World- Charlestown MA
Mass Recovery Fest April 9th and 10th
Baylock With The Wailers and Roots Down Below- April 7th at Lupos Heartbreak Hotel

Local dance-punk band, Bearstronaut, nominated for Best-New Act by the Boston Phoenix! David Boffa said of their 2009 release, Broken Handclaps, "It's kind of amazing — it could put bears on the moon." Check them out!

The Big Sway on Live From the Fallout Shelter

2010-04-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight on Live from the Fallout Shelter there will be a performance from the Big Sway (not Los Bungalitos. Unfortunately they had to cancel their appearance). They are an awesome dancy-funk-punk band from Western Massachusetts, so you wont want to miss it!

We will be on air from 8-11 spinning awesome tunes. The band will go on at 9:30. Tune in to 91.5 FM if you are in the greater Lowell area, or www.wuml.org if you are anywhere else on this planet.

*The Big Sway

*Live from the Fallout Shelter

Live from the Fallout Shelter 25th Anniversary Recap

2010-04-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

This past Friday night was the 25th Anniversary celebration of Live from the Fallout Shelter, one of WUML 91.5FM's leading live music programs. The show was started back in 1985 by Chris Porter and Bob Weston (Mission of Burma/Shellac) and has hosted a live band every week since. It has been host to over 500 bands, a countless amount of student DJ's and engineers and remains one of Lowell's leading music spots. Needless to say the people involved in Friday's show, staff and crowd, were all very excited to be celebrating the radio show's birthday.

Starting off the show was local Lawrence hip hop duo Rebels of Art featuring Lowell's own pop rock band Beneath The Sheets. Following them were Allston basement celebrities L'antietam who brought the heavy and proved why we keep asking them to be involved in Fallout shows (they also played the 20th anniversary back in 2005). After them, Bridge Nine Record's Energy took the stage with their fast melodic punk and even managed to please the crowd with a cover of Astro Zombies by The Misfits. Smoke Or Fire then took the stage to what may have been one of the most energetic crowds I have ever been a part of. This was definitely the highlight band of the night as people surrounded the singer and screamed at the top of their lungs every word that he sang. Finally, to close out the evening, local favorites A Wilhelm Scream displayed once again one of the most energetic and powerful performances I have ever seen come from a band. There wasn't a fist in the room that wasn't raised in the air.

WUML and Live from the Fallout Shelter would like to send a big thanks out to UTEC for hosting the show, Red Bull Energy Drink for providing free cases of drinks, Dan Gonyea of Future Bree Photography for taking excellent photos, all the bands that we have enjoyed working with over the years and most importantly the 250 people who showed up to celebrate the anniversary with us.

You can see photos of the show at www.future-breed.com

Is this Jazz? #10: Tzadik Labeled

2010-03-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

My 3rd column was a look at Zorn's 50th birthday month recording series. His label, Tzadik, was formed in 1995 and has been crunching out massive amounts of stuff since. It has all the right parts for a good jazz label, intriguing series titles, awesome album covers, and a swath of music wide enough to have cult favorites, timeless jazz works, and unknowns waiting to be rediscovered.

Southwestern style guitars and bass combined with endless loopings of people talking about ordinary things: John Somebody. Scott Johnson's 1986 album was officially inducted into and remastered by the Tzadik catalog in 2004. Directions:

You know who's in New York?

You remember that guy... J-John somebody?

He was a-- he was sort of a--...

Repeat.

Raz Mesinai's 2001 Before the Law combines electro-acoustics with sharp, fast changes all occuring in 1 - 2 minute packages. Plus, each movement is named after a Franz Kafka and seems to invite that unnerving terror of his novels.

At times, minimalism can seem boring until you look at the big picture. Amidst Tzadik's furthest reaches into the experimental, Jacques Coursil's trumpet fanfares on Minimal Brass record strips it all down. This record is very much like George Lewis' Solo Trombone record, taking instruments which are usually brought to the forefront to make loud statements, and press them all into the background with one another.

When one first begins listening to Zorn, it may be hard to adjust to the klezmer feel which is the rank and file among many of his recordings. Two Voices in a Desert is essentially a Tzadik gateway drug. The Perry Robinson Four, are backed by composer-pianist Burton Greene and two voices brings in equal parts of swing, klezmer, and free-form composition styles to create sophisticated musics.

Obviously I wouldn't get away without mentioning a Zorn release. One of my favorites of his chamber music is Cartoon S & M. Its a double disc performed by the Mondriaan Quartet. Disc 1 is a homage to Carl Stalling, it is light and drawn out with sharp changes and coordinated snaps and pops which visualize running, sneaking, and peering like in an animated short. The second disc is filled with shorter attacks of darker visuals. Any one of the Dead Man's 13 movements would be right at home in a thriller, they sound Hitchcockian, peppered with the usual klezmer we know from Zorn.

News: Mass Recovery Fest

2010-03-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's always a pleasure to hear about UML student or graduate successfully organizing events and contributing to their communities. Shawn Massak, a recent Umass Lowell graduate, is seeing his creation Mass Recovery Fest come together for the third time next weekend. This annual event will prove to be bigger and better than ever...more bands, more music, more surprises!
Its origin lies in a compilation called The Ice is Gonna Break, that Shawn put together for bands that he had either booked, or played with.
"I wanted to have some kind of release show for the compilation but wanted to showcase every band included, which was a tough feat for a compilation that included 20 tracks," said Massak.
The result was a two night festival at Andrew Hall, a space owned by the United Parish of Lunenburg, MA, using a borrowed P.A.
Last year, despite not releasing another compilation, the festival still took place, bringing together live, independent music from Massachusetts and beyond.
This year's festival has a new twist: the Everyday Use cassette comp. Cassette Tapes were the first home audio recording device. They allowed for people to record songs of the radio, make mixes for their friends, and essentially become their own DJs.
"I can remember taping music off the radio and smuggling unlabeled recordings of 'parental advisory' albums into my house...I have a taped copy of Life is Peachy still in my possession," said Massak.
To Massak, the cassette tape signifies music sharing and Mass Recovery Fest is his vehicle to do so.
"The event is important because I get to book bands I love, a lot of which I don't get to put on other Andrew Hall shows because of various restrictions, mostly distance," Massak said.
Mass recovery will last for two days beginning Friday, April 9th at 5pm and picking up again on Saturday, April 10th, at 5pm again. It will be held at Andrew Hall at 39 Main Street in Lunenburg. $7/night or $10 for both. All Ages. Everyday Use, the cassette tape compilation will be available for sale both nights.

Friday Lineup:

- From Sky to Sea
- the Bynars
- Bearstronaut
- State Champion (IL)
- the Thin Heir
- Peter Piek (Germany)
- Factors of Four (PA)
- Ian Fisher (New York)
- That Really Awesome Guy with a Guitar (TRAGWAG)
- Young Mountain (New Hampshire)
- the Cast of America's Favorite TV Sitcom

Saturday Lineup:

- The Sharpest
- Remainder
- Battleships
- Chalk Talk (CT)
- Black Bear
- By Surprise (NJ - Acoustic Set)
- Blue Star Burns Red
- Fishing the Sky
- Challenge the Throne
- Giuseppe (RI)

Curious about any of these artists? Mass Recovery Promotions is posting daily artist showcases on their blog!

Also check them out on Myspace or Facebook

Around Lowell: Big Hype!

2010-03-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

Holy shit...

"Short Fuse Burning is having another show because our dear bassist Brian is leaving for Chicago and then Oregon. So we're going to have a big party/show! If you have seen the pictures from the "last" Short Fuse Burning show then you know how crazy it is going to get. Here's the info so far:

Friday May 7 2010
The Ant Cellar
778 Broadway Street Lowell MA 01854
SHORT FUSE BURNING + 3 more probably.
Basement show, probably start at 8pm."

courtesy of WUML forum.

Investigating the Underground: Brett Adams of The Riot Before

2010-03-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday night, I journeyed out to the Great Scott in Allston where The Riot Before was playing their Boston tour stop with Cheap Girls. The Richmond, Virginia punk rock outfit released "Fists Buried in Pockets" back in 2008 and have been touring pretty heavily since it's release. Now awaiting their release of "Rebellion", due out April 27th, the band is once again hitting the road. Singer and guitarist, Brett Adams, was kind enough to let me interview him. He turned out to be a really awesome dude and we ended up talking about some pretty random stuff. Enjoy!

Tom: Why don’t we start by having you introduce yourself.

Brett: My name is Brett and I sing and play guitar in The Riot Before.

Tom: You guys are currently on tour with Cheap Girls. How is the tour going and are you playing any of your new songs from your upcoming album?

Brett: Tour has been going really well! We’re old friends with Cheap Girls so it has been super fun just coming and hanging out with them. There hasn’t been any sort of lag of getting to know the bands. It’s only two weeks that we’re out with them and a lot of times it takes a few days to get to know people so we were able to just jump right in and already be friends, which is fun. And we’re playing about two or three new songs a night.

Tom: You guys must be pretty excited for the new album, “Rebellion”. What can your fans expect to be different about this one as compared to your earlier releases?

Brett: I think that it continues a trajectory of our maturity, if you’ve been following us since our earlier releases. I think it’s a little bit faster and it’s a little more diverse as far as just kind of like, it’s overall a little heavier but the heaviness is a little more spread out while some songs are fast and some other songs are slow and heavy. We definitely diversify a little bit. But it definitely sounds like The Riot Before.

Tom: Yeah, the new song “Oregon Trail” sounds really good.

Brett: Oh yeah, that’s a little more of our pop punk kind of track on the record. I like that song a lot!

Tom: So when is the album being released exactly?

Brett: April 27th.

Tom: I noticed on your Myspace page that you guys are urging people to buy the album on vinyl when it comes out. Are you a vinyl nerd?

Brett: I am not a vinyl nerd unfortunately. I had a CD collection growing up and now I am kind of in that place where it is stupid to buy CD’s, like I don’t want another CD. But also, last year I lived out of my car for a whole year and like a lot of this band is couch surfing so that doesn’t play well towards collecting anything. So I would have started a record collection a long time ago if I had the means but I moved to Virginia with almost nothing and kind of just couch surfed. I’m actually looking forward to starting a record collection this year. I think vinyl rules I just don’t have any myself.

Tom: Do you have a record player?

Brett: Uhh, I’m going to. Haha.

Tom: It’s a fun hobby!

Brett: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. And I like having tangible copies of stuff and on any release artwork is just way better represented by a huge twelve inch piece of paper.

Tom: So since you’re more of a CD guy, what is your stance on the whole downloading music controversy?

Brett: I mean, its hard because I think people should buy records. I download stuff so I would be a total hypocrite if I said I was completely against it. I think there have been times when it has totally worked for the benefit of certain bands. I think I don’t have a good ear for stuff that like. Like, have you ever gone to a store and like someone told you you looked good in a shirt that you didn’t think you looked good in and then you know, three months down the road you’re like I’m really glad I bought that shirt? You know, there’s a lot of stuff on my ipod that I didn’t like the first time I heard it and it’s just there and then three or four months later I’m just like, “this is the best fucking thing I’ve ever heard!” In that way the downloading thing rules because I’m a fan of bands that I wouldn’t have been a fan of if I had heard one song on Myspace and then decided not to buy the record. But you should still definitely be purchasing music. It’s not free to make you know? So if you like it you should purchase it. And that’s for me as well as for anyone else. That’s a speech for myself.

Tom: Onto something a little unrelated…I noticed that you guys are a pretty heavy supporter of the organization, “These Numbers Have Faces.” Can you talk a little bit about what exactly that organization does?

Brett: Definitely! These Numbers Have Faces was started by one of my very best friends a few years ago and the general idea was rather than getting overwhelmed by huge fatalistic statistics about horrible things going on in the world, let’s help individuals who are effected by that. It makes it a lot more realistic and a lot more doable to pick actual people and develop relationships with those people and give them aid. These Numbers focuses primarily on aid through education so they currently have, I believe six maybe seven students in a township in south Africa going to college and they are paying for their college education under the idea that a college education you can’t take away, you don’t just use that up so its aid that grows throughout the person’s life and nothing empowers people more than an education. So if you can give people in an impoverished area education, you’re really giving that area an opportunity to advance and under their own terms as well which I really like because if you go to an area and just kind of blanket help them you don’t know if that’s really what they wanted. You educate them, they go back and they diagnose a problem in their area and help it within their culture and I think that’s really cool. They’re doing a few other things as well but their primary focus is education and I think its phenomenal. And its really realistic.

Tom: Where can people who are interested find out more information?

Brett: Thesenumbers.org . They have a Facebook and a Myspace page. Go to the website and they have a bunch of videos and really good information on there. There is one great campaign that I participate in which is, it costs $23 a day to send a student to college in south Africa so they figured if 30 people give $23 a month, that’s a students entire education expense so they have a $23 per month campaign and you can just sign up. I like to say on stage its basically like one less hangover a month and you’re sending a kid to college. I think its pretty phenomenal, I highly recommend that people do that. You don’t miss that $23 at all and it changes someone’s life.

Tom: That’s really awesome. So you guys hail from Richmond, Virginia which has a pretty good reputation for having a pretty strong music scene. What would you say is the most important aspect for trying to create and support a strong local music scene?

Brett: Well, I guess I would have to say that I should describe Richmond’s music scene a little bit better in that Richmond has a lot of really good touring bands and a lot of really good bands coming out of it but not necessarily the strongest local music scene as far as going to shows and being really kind of supportive in that sense. I almost sometimes describe it as, and this is totally my understanding of it, but it’s almost like its where bands that tour go when they don’t want to see shows. You know, it’s a really hard scene to get a fan base in because everybody tours and everybody is almost in the same place as you. It’s great to live there though if you are in a band. But all those scenes go in waves and so I think Richmond’s scene is coming up a lot better now. There are some houses doing shows, there’s some better venues…we lost some venues which really killed us. So I don’t know if I really have advice for creating a scene except for if you want a scene in your town just do it yourself, like you can’t rely on anyone else to do it for you. If you look at the stronger scenes in this country, it’s a lot of very, very dedicated people. Colombus especially comes to mind. It’s very organized and very dedicated and there’s a whole structure of houses in Colombus where they’re dedicated to putting shows on and it happens and there is a scene as a result. It’s literally DIY. If you want a scene then make a scene.

Tom: What would you like to see change about the current state of the music scene right now?

Brett: You know I don’t really know. I really like the current state of music. I was talking with Corey yesterday, we were thinking about all the bands that are putting out records right now and there are some amazing bands right now that are releasing some very diverse music and I think the punk genre is better than its been in a long time and its very diverse. You look at The Gaslight Anthem, The Menzingers and Against Me who are all putting out records pretty soon. Broadway Calls put out one of the best pop punk records I’ve heard in a really long time last year. There’s fliers all over this venue for Titus Andronicus who are playing here and that band kills it! So I don’t know if I have any necessary things that I want to change. I think music is pretty good right now if you look in the right places. It’s over saturated but that’s like complaining that you got too much sleep. “Oh no there’s too much music.” Yeah it takes a little work to find it, but it’s better than it used to be I think. You know, I try not to be too much of an idealist for the past.

Tom: Alright, so this will probably be my last question. I like to ask everyone this. If you had to choose, who do you think would win in a fight…all of the ants in the world or all of the humans in the world?

Brett: Uhh. Are there like battlefronts?

Tom: It’s every single ant in the world versus every human and anything that a human has.

Brett: Hmm, I think I would say…wow, that’s a great a question…

Tom: There’s a lot of ants.

Brett: I mean, yeah there’s a shit ton of ants. I’m trying to wrap my head around that. I mean, I would go with the humans just because I feel like we would be able to have some sort of obnoxious something that would destroy them. I mean, there’s got to be some sort of horrible environment ruining chemical we can spray on stuff that could take care of most of the ants. At least have a safe place and spread out from there. There could be quarantines and then we could move on. Or we could get a bunch of six year old versions of me, because I used to collect ants in a jar and watch them dig tunnels, but they would all die. So if you would just sit me out in front I would collect all the ants, put them in a jar and they would all just die. So maybe the main strategy should be to get a bunch of six year olds to jar ants until the entire population is decimated.

Tom: There’s definitely like three million ants per six year old.

Brett: Yeah, exactly. That’s a lot of jars but I mean, they don’t have homework you know…they have time. Just take away the video games, give them some jars and send them out to get the ants. So humans win.

Tom: Six year olds win.

Brett: Yeah, six year olds will save humanity from the ants.

Tom: Awesome I like that. Well thank you very much for your time and good luck tonight! I’m looking forward to it!

Brett: Thanks I appreciate it!

The Riot Before will be releasing "Rebellion" off of Paper and Plastik Records on April 27th. For now, you can hear their newest song "Oregon Trail" on their Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/theriotbefore .

News: A Month of Film, Warmouth's Food Court, Cool Picture of Miles Davis

2010-03-29T07:38:00.001-07:00

Live on Fallout Tonight

LFC's exciting spring schedule kicks off with a Marx Brothers revue April 2nd, 3rd, and 5th and then the Lowell Film Festival opens the following weekend.

Prof. Johnathan Silverman will present his findings during a Faculty Research Series Wednesday, April 7th at 3:30 – 5 p.m. in O'Leary 325. His new book, entitled "Hello, I'm a Cultural Text": Understanding Johnny Cash, focuses on the life and times of the dark-a-billy icon.

Jeff Warmouth's "Food Court" is ongoing untill April 2nd in the McGauvaran Gallery. The exhibit combines advertising, food, convenience, culture, and language in a visually-elemental installation. Hours Mon.-Thurs. 11 - 4, Fri. 9 - 2.

In brief:

Male Bonding's Sub Pop debut
Eno's Here Comes the Warm Jets wasn't ALL Fripp! Nod to Ballardian
The Clash film
Ethan Frome!!!!
FreeJazzBlog hits 1000 reviews.

Is this Jazz? #9: Favorites of 2009

2010-03-29T07:35:00.001-07:00

So why not do last year? It was pretty interesting overall with labels like Tzadik (#2/#9) and ECM (#8) ushering in classicism and a jazz-plus of sorts. European artists like Stefano Bellani were now veterans of the not-so-fine line between jazz and classical. Hard bop has returned as a mainstay since it's burrowing underground during the mid-70s and has now been refined over and over again after reemerging during the late '90s. Two Cities, Sensible Shoes, and Varmint all are excellent examples of this.

Full Blast is one of Peter Brotzmann's many side prjoects. Allen Tousaint's Bright Mississippi is a great homage to the state itself and guys like Django, Duke, Monk and others. Rune Grammofon's Fire! album was great, topping out even international label mates Supersilent, but the real prize goes to Bobby Bradford. Midnight Pacific Airwaves is simply incredible, and features cross-career tracks from Bradford, half recorded in 1977 and the rest in this decade.

Bobby Bradford Extet - Midnight Pacific Airwaves
Led Bib - Sensible Shoes
Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens - Two Cities
Borah Bergman Trio - Luminescence
Old Dog - By Any Other Name
Jason Adasiewicz' Rolldown - Varmint
Full Blast - Black Hole
Stefano Bellani - Stone in the Water
Allen Toussaint - Bright Mississippi
Fire! - You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

Review: Beak>, Beak>

2010-03-28T20:09:00.001-07:00

In Geoff Barrow's 5-10-15-20...his 30 was Ege Bamyasi! Krautrock! Portishead! Third! Beak's self-titled debut album from Ipecac sounds certainly more at home 197_ than 20__. I Know is a constant, fluid funk beat amongst a taut bass line which rolls up-scale and down-scale. A sheen of organ in the background brings in that sullen trip-hop, also on the grooved, fuzzy walks of Blagdon Lake and the glitchy first half of Ham Green. Ham Green's second half turns sludgy and cathedralic. This wintry, driving comes close to dark metal, but reserved.

Live from the Fallout Shelter 25th Anniversary Pre-sale Ends Today!

2010-03-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to pay for your ticket to the april 2 A Wilhelm Scream/Smoke Or Fire show in Lowell via paypal! After 5PM today you will need to wait until the day of to purchase your ticket at the door. Do not worry though, the ticket will be the same $10 price and there will be plenty of them available.

This is Live from the Fallout Shelter 25th Anniversary Concert. The show has been airing live bands every week since 1985.

For ticket info please visit http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=10150090686980577&ref=ts

Review: Galaxie 500, Today/On Fire/This Is Our Music

2010-03-24T10:24:00.001-07:00

In 1991 stuff happened, two are:

Galaxie 500 broke up after 4 years of making music.
Richard Linklater's Slacker premiered at Sundance.

Slacker was groundbreaking in an entirely unexpected way. It is essentially a movie which celebrates, documents, and explores the nothingness of "bored," which turns out to be a lot more. Linklater, in his filmmaking breakthrough, gets off a bus in Austin Texas and taxis his way into a meshing of nobodys, but they're glamorized into independent film history.

"I went alone down to the drugstore
I went in back and took a Coke
I stood in line and ate my Twinkies
I stood in line, I had to wait"
-Galaxie 500, Strange

Predating Linklater was Dean Wareham (all the way left), and like Linklater he simply did something that you wish you'd thought of first. Play slower, take your time, and pen the poetry happening all around you at any given time. 500 brought a garage band mentality to dream pop. They met at Harvard, were named after a friend's Ford, and borrowed their drumset from Conan O'Brien. In '87, they signed to Shimmy Disc. If you look across their short lived discography, you'll see one defining factor: covers. Galaxie 500 paid homage to their heroes by covering their stuff and branding it with their lackadaisical sound.

1988's Today contained an immediate influence, Johnathan Richman. Both 500 and The Modern Lovers adhered as proto-punk musicphiles to garage rock rowdiness and mysticism. "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste's" first noticeable difference is Wareham's voice, which is more angelic than Richman's. Richman's live Modern Lovers track, which is dominated by his voice, is transformed into a gaze of guitar chunking and ee-and-ahs on the toms and ride.

Today culminates in Tugboat, which is irresistible pop. Swaying into the more-complicated-than-it-seems drum part, this song presents the formula Intro+Lyircs+Solo=G500. After discussing parties, your friends, and the president, Wareham goes metaphorical: "I just wanna be your Tugboat captain," "there's a place i'd like to be..." Repeat. It seems to add layers of thought to the song, which could are multiplied by introspective guitars.

After Today, On Fire from 1989 propelled them to critical greatness. Snowstorm and Blue Thunder further strengthened their regional feel by slow-coring about Route 128 and the weatherman telling all the Cambridge kids about possible school closings. Of course G500 are not the manic MA drivers or snowbound adolescents, but strikingly lethargic non-participants. George Harrison's Isn't a Pity re-charges his 1970s timepiece. It's just as patient, but perhaps a bit happier as Wareham takes it up the scale at the end of the phrase, rather than down.

Joy Divison's Ceremony also goes this route, shoegazed and disillusioned rather than its original epic, forward feel. Standing on the brink of the decade, Strange is an anthem to the fast-moving 90s and seems to foreshadow those who took the back seat. Here We Welcome: internet, video-game popularity, Kevin Smith, and the show about nothing!

On This is Our Music, the group crystallized their sound. Fourth of July is the standard G500 formula: establish a laid back riff, talk quietly, harmonize atmospherically, then shred out a guitar solo to the end. Rim shots and congas are explored on the following track. Spook is an awesome lamenting slow jam. Summertime and Yoko Ono's Listen, The Snow is Falling seem to juxtapose each other, but it sounds as if G500 is the band for all seasons.

Oh yeah, thanks to Domino for re-releasing this stuff.

Review: Double Dagger, Masks EP

2010-03-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

Baltimore bass-and-drums power trio Double Dagger's newest work will drop in about three days. The band's last album, More, was their first from the Thrill Jockey camp. It combines parts of punk (minimalist riffs, punchy banging lyrics, and sheer energy) with an art-rock palate (cerebral lyrics, cool changes, and weird sounds) to create an album that was equally Baltimore as it was Providence...or NYC 1985...or cut-off Texas hardcore...or the weird kid in the garage next door to your house. Masks is a 5 song sampler of essentially an extension of their sound. More More.

News: UTEC Show, Dr. J's Funny Title, Anthony Burgess

2010-03-22T06:20:00.000-07:00

Get ready.

Prof. Johnathan Silverman will present his findings during a Faculty Research Series Wednesday, April 7th at 3:30 – 5 p.m. in O'Leary 325. His new book, entitled "Hello, I'm a Cultural Text": Understanding Johnny Cash, focuses on the life and times of the dark-a-billy icon.

In brief:

Clockwork Orange (Burgess' book), AV Club.
Purely a British label after all these years, on 4AD records at the Independent.
Tea Party Boston on The Feelies.

Up & Coming: Garth Donovan

2010-03-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

About Garth Donovan: Boston DIY filmmaker Garth Donovan funded PHILLIP THE FOSSIL, with blood, sweat, tears and a whole lot of metal. Relentlessly collecting recyclable cans and scrap metal, Donovan made PTF in a green, cost effective manner. His debut feature, EVERYONE’S GOT ONE was described by the Boston Phoenix as “an edgy mixture of guerilla filmmaking and Andy Kaufman-esque antics” and the National Society of Film Critics named it “New England’s Best Comedy 2003.“ After the administrative director of Boston’s oldest drug and alcohol recovery center, The Hope House, saw Garth’s second feature film which dealt heavily with alcoholism, he commissioned the filmmaker to produce an in depth documentary on the organization. Currently, Garth is producing a narrative feature he co-wrote with award winning independent filmmaker Alex Karpovsky, directing a documentary on an underground rapper battling with the music industry and personal demons, as well as polishing off a script that he describes as BEFORE SUNSET meets Wong-Kar Wai.

One of Massachusetts' most promising DIY film mak

ers, Donovan's latest feature length, "Phillip the Fossil" premiered this past week at South By Southwest to critical acclaim (lead actor Brian Hasenfus won SXSW's "Breakthrough Actor" award). Written and directed by Donovan, "PTF" is described as a story "Set in small-town New England, Phillip The Fossil follows an aging party animal chasing the now extinct glory days of his youth. Blowing lines with kids half his age, making it rain in strip clubs, and voraciously pawing naive girls with “JUICY” tagged across their rears are all part of Phillip’s relentless pursuit of the endless summer. He chuckles along as the carefree town jester, but beneath this suffocating guise Phillip feels increasingly isolated in the dead end rut he has so comfortably dug. The chance to pull himself out comes when an old love returns home and the opportunity to run his own landscaping business knocks. But before Phillip can dust himself off he must first ditch the woefully insecure seventeen year-old that’s been his shadow for the last month. With her jealous, steroid-pumping ex in his grill and a best friend returning from Iraq with an acutely hostile form of PTSD, it isn’t long before Phillip gets tangled in a tornado of violence that may tarnish his future forever. Filmed in a brutal, stripped-down fashion, Phillip The Fossil is an uncompromising and realistic portrait of everyday people who struggle in all their blemished glory for a life of balance, control and meaning"

Keep your eyes open for more information about both Donovan and Phillip the Fossil! For more information, go to http://phillipthefossil.com

Is This Jazz #9?: Review: Burton Greene Live at the Woodstock Playhouse, 1965

2010-03-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Burton Greene is one cool pianist. He lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam during the '70s while playing with the likes of Sam Rivers, Bill Dixon, and Rashied Ali (featured on this album). Honed in Chicago, his latest release was with Klez-Edge, Greene composed all the music.

Back in '65 Greene, still firmly rooted in free-jazz, appeared at the Woodstock Playhouse with Ali, saxophonist Marion Brown, and bassist Reggie Johnson. This three song, 58 minute performance is not rooted in blues such as Ornette, nor the fire of Ayler or Coltrane, but a balance within composition between avant-garde classical and that of modal post-bop. Greene's ability to dance this line makes his brand of free jazz very accessible. Tree Theme II always has either Greene or Brown stepping in and out of structured lines, and then into improvised freedom. The rhythm section follows suit perfectly, anticipating every move.

'Cluster Quartet' begins to chug along with slow 1-2s, which change to doubled 1-ee-and-a-2s, and then eventually blast into a frenzy, like a perfect plan that suddenly falls apart. Respective solos are then taken. Brown, who this same year would file in behind Coltrane on Ascension, has a warm sound alike Trane's, but: 1.) is not scared to reserve it back down to a composed level and 2.) is able to do 1 because he's playing alto. This track's bass solo defines interplay between Reggie Johnson and Rashied, notably during through bowed screeches and quick-fire tweaks which drop the album down to it's lowest depths. On the finale 'Like it Is' the room is filled by Greene's somber induction and Brown's opening solo which brings out of this established low and back into a swirling solo section

Essentially this album can serve as a free-jazz gateway drug, but it could be coveted further for people who want some damn good music from jazz's most fertile era.

Investigating the Underground: Alex Dunne of Crime In Stereo

2010-03-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Crime In Stereo is one of those bands that has been pushing themselves as much as possible since their start in 2002. Now with 4 LP's, 2 EP's and a Split with Kill Your Idols under their belt, the Long Island natives are on the road once again promoting their latest album, "I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone", their second release on Massachusetts record label Bridge Nine Records. I was able to catch an interview with guitarist Alex Dunne at their recent Boston CD Release show at the Middle East Downstairs on March 2. We sat down in the upstairs restaurant, ordered some coffee and dug deep to find out what Crime In Stereo is really all about.

Tom: Why don’t we start by having you introduce yourself.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex from Crime In Stereo. I play guitar and sing, kind of.

Tom: I wanted to talk about your new album, “I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone.” I think it sounds a lot different than your other albums, but what exactly was going through your mind when you guys were writing the album. What was the band going through during the writing process?

Alex: Hmm…I don’t know, that’s kind of a very abstract question. At the time that we did it I was teaching high school government, actually. I was teaching 12th grade high school government, and at the start, this is when we started doing pre-production because we started the record in I believe April so I was teaching through the end of the school year in June and I was basically, you know I was at work from 7 to 230 and then I would drive straight to the studio and then I was at the studio from 4 to 1 or 2 in the morning getting like 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then back to work every day. Christian was going through a pretty bad break up. I don’t know, it was a tough time. It was stressful.

Tom: Well, something good came out of all of it and that’s all that matters right?

Alex: Yeah.

Tom: So in your opinion, how does this album differ from all your other albums?

Alex: Uhm, I mean it is different. I mean I think the ways that it is different is apparent to anyone who listens. I don’t know, if I had to describe how it’s different, I don’t know, it just is. It just is.

Tom: Why did you guys decide to redo “Dark Island City”?

Alex: When we did the first Dark Island City it was written as two. They were always together and it just ended up being one that made that record and we always had the other one. But it was re-written several times, the lyrics were there and the concept was there but the music kept changing over time and with this one it just came together. But it was always going to happen, ever since Troubled Stateside. I mean the fact that the second Dark Island City would have come out on another record was always going to happen.

Tom: Why was that the plan for it to come out?

Alex: Just the whole idea behind the two songs. When you’re making a record, not everything goes as plan, you know, you run out of time, you run out of money, you know something maybe doesn’t fit the feel of the record, you know there’s a million things that can go into it so it just came together now, but if it wasn’t on this record it would have been on the next record or a record ten years from now. Maybe there will be another one.

Tom: Now, the two times I have seen you guys in Boston, they have been at all ages venues. I know that the last time you played here was on the Brand New tour at the House of Blues, which was also all ages. How do you feel about the all ages scene in Boston and New York right now? It seems like they are diminishing.

Alex: It’s very difficult, these record release shows are really like our first time ever as a band having to deal with not all ages shows. We have always been an all ages band as long as we have been together. But really what’s happening now, is promoters just don’t want to do all ages shows because there is too much risk for loss with you know, them not being able to serve at the bar and, I don’t really know what goes into the decision making process , but its not like behind the scenes there like you know there’s some big nefarious kind of like “oh if we do 21 and over they’ll pay us more” or anything like that. Its not the case. What it really comes down to is it’s a 19 or over or 21 or over show or there is no show. It’s not like it was even an option. So for example, the show here, if they wanted it to be on a Saturday, they would absolutely not do an all ages show on a weekend and then the only way we could get it 19 and over and not 21 and over was to have it as a matinee. So we fight hard, we really do and our booking agents kind of you know probably think we’re being immature about it, but we do fight hard for all ages and the fact that it was a matinee show at 1pm was the compromise we had to make to even get that Boston show to be 18 and over otherwise for them on a weekend they will only do 21 and over because its Friday night, its Saturday night and they need to have the bar open. That’s how they make their money, they don’t want to waste their time with an all ages show on a weekend. So for example, the New York City show, when it was on Friday night was 19 and over and now that it got moved to a Tuesday night its all ages. So on Tuesday night they don’t give a shit, you know they’re like “alright whatever its on a Tuesday night have it we don’t care.” But on a Friday night, they know that if they put in a drinking crowd, for example, a club like Webster hall where our New York City show is…if we’re going to sell it out with 350 people, that same room would rather have 100 or 120 people of a drinking crowd than 350 people of an all ages crowd because of that 350 the only money they’re getting is what comes in at the door and that’s it, where as if you get 100 or 120 people of a drinking crowd and it ends up being a good drinking night, there’s a huge potential for backend profit, so almost every venue of every where now doesn’t want to waste there time with all ages shows on weekends. They want a drinking crowd and for us as a band now with a major booking agency and starting to be in more legitimate venues and less VFW’s and catering halls, it’s tough. It’s tough…it’s crazy. I’m sorry that was such a long winded answer.

Tom: No, no. The whole all ages topic, I love it because it’s so surprising how the alcohol industry has such a hold over the music industry.

Alex: Well, that’s really a broad generalization because its not like the alcohol industry has a hold over the music industry, it just comes down to dollars and cents like if it was you’re business, if you owned a club, you would feel the same way. You could be the most DIY legit dude, and you know have all your punk rock ethics and ideals but when it comes down to it, you need to pay your bills and if it’s the difference between keeping your business open or not, I mean those are the tough choices you have to make. For example, like the Triple Rock in Minneapolis, those are the guys from Dillinger Four and they know what’s up, those are like legit DIY down to earth dudes but their shows aren’t all all ages, they do a ton of shows that are 19 and over or 21 and over. You know we have to ask specifically for all ages shows and it’s the same thing like if we want a Friday night at the Triple Rock and we want to do all ages, and they have an offer for a Metallica or some gimmicky cover band that they know is going to bring a 21over crowd regardless, absolutely 10 times out of 10 the dudes from Dillinger Four are going to do the gimmick cover band over Crime In Stereo because that’s there business, they have to keep their doors open. It’s not like the alcohol industry has a stranglehold on anyone, it’s just those are the economics of real life.

Tom: So what do you think people can do to, even though the whole business aspect of everything kind of takes control and you have to look to making a profit, what do you think people can do to still help the all ages scene in the meantime?

Alex: Well, you know the same option that was always there, which is do DIY shows. Rent out a VFW, rent out a catering hall, an artspace, you know something like that and put on your own show. The problem becomes when you’re dealing with bands that then outgrow those things. You know what I mean? So for example, us on long island, its tough because there is really only one legit venue, the Crazy Donkey, and it sucks. You know I think there is a new place but for arguments sake to illustrate my point, there’s really one place you know the crazy donkey and it sucks and its 1000 capital and they don’t want to do lower than 15 dollars a ticket and they don’t want to do all ages shows especially on weekends. But the DIY spaces that are available hold 150 kids, 200 kids, so what do you do? You can’t make everybody happy. If you play the DIY space you have to turn 200 kids away at the door who don’t get to get in to see the show. Or you do it at the Crazy Donkey and everyone has to go to the venue that they hate and half the kids cant get in because they’re under 21 and its like there’s no good answer. It is what it is. You’ll never be able to make everybody happy. Ideally you could, but there’s always something. Take like Gilman Street in San Francisco, Gilman Street is amazing. If you draw 40 kids or 400 kids they’ll have a show for you and its DIY, there’s no bar, there’s no alcohol on premises, they divvy up all the money between bands, other than expenses. It’s amazing. But if you’re with a major label or a major booking agency, they wont deal with you. We go way back with Gilman Street, we’ve played there a bunch of times, we’re good friends with the people who book there. But if we sign with a major, they won’t book us there anymore.

Tom: Really?

Alex: Absolutely, 100%. And what do we do about that then? So now we want to play San Francisco and we can’t play Gilman and now we’re stuck at a major club. And it sucks because for a band like us we’re kind of a mid size band. We draw, you know a couple hundred kids maybe, or less, give or take.

Tom: Yeah, you’re right on that threshold.

Alex: Exactly. So like most of the major venues are for 500 or 600 people. So what happens when you’re less than that but slightly a little bit more than the 150 cap DIY space. It sucks, I mean it sucks but it is what it is. There’s nothing you can do.

Tom: Well, that was a pretty good response on the all ages topic. I ask a lot of people about that and its really surprising how a lot of bands aren’t really that passionate about it, because the whole business aspect makes sense, you need to try and make a profit. But at the same time I feel like a lot of bands need to work harder to kind of, even though they’re trying to grow, still maintain the DIY ethic.

Alex: Well I mean it depends because for years it was never an issue for us because we always played like underground DIY shows and so it was a non-issue, you know what I mean? Like it never came up. No one ever said “oh you have to do 21 and over” because in the world in which we existed it was just not an issue and no one ever said that to us. Like, we only played DIY shows, we were always in CD bars and VFW's and catering halls and things like that and so when we would go out and do a tour with like, Have Heart or Blacklisted and Verse and Guns Up and Life Long Tragedy kind of like our group of bands that we all came up touring with, it was never an issue, it was totally a give in that the shows would be all ages. But now, things have changed for us slightly and so now we’re kind of playing more like legit clubs, less DIY spaces. Some of that is because of us and some of that is because a lot of those DIY spaces just don’t exist anymore. And now its an issue and it’s a totally new experience for us because it was never something we had to deal with before and it was actually pretty shocking to us when we started booking with our new booking agents and they were like, “you know you guys cant do a whole tour of all ages shows right?” And we were like, “wait really?” You know before this year I would say that the number of 21 and over shows that we played literally was no more than 3. In our entire existence as a band I could name them. You know like, I know there was night in San Diego, we were on tour with Polar Bear Club and Broadway Calls and it was the only show we could get. Maybe 1 or 2 more times when we were first starting out, but before this year maybe 3 times total in our 5 or 6 year history that we played age restricted shows and now in the last month we’ve probably played half a dozen.

Tom: Wow. That’s Ridiculous.

Alex: It’s crazy.

Tom: Are there any cities or areas in the country that are more lenient as far as the all ages scene is concerned?

Alex: No, I mean there’s not really so much a thing as an all ages scene. Some places you go and there’s subsidized community centers which are always really, really cool. In Santa Cruz there’s one, there’s like a community center that they let have shows. There’s some places in the Midwest in Missouri, and places like that. Strangely enough, there’s a lot of like, Christian collectives and cooperatives like in Joplin, Missouri that have amazing venues that do all ages shows, that don’t care whether or not you’re a Christian band and they’ll do all ages shows. But for the most part, it’s business. Owning a venue is like owning a restaurant or a bar and its basically the worst business you could go into. On top of that its so hard to own any mom or pop self proprietor in this day and age. And when you’re dealing with like, Live Nation, who owns venues and like, these major conglomerates that are in the business of owning rock clubs and you own like, the Middle East or like, a local kind of place, they’re not trying to fuck around with all ages shows. I mean the stakes are big for whoever owns this. This is there livelihood, this is how they pay their bills, this is how they pay their kids tuition and if you think they’re going to risk all of that because of your local punk rock show, it’s just totally unrealistic. That’s just not the way the world works and people need to understand that. So I wish there was an all ages scene. I feel like when I was growing up there was, but when I was growing up I went to shows in warehouses, you know I went to shows in warehouses and every VFW in long island and catering halls and shitty dive bars where they would have shows because that was the only way they could make money, they couldn’t get people in the door otherwise and you know that’s never going to die out. I think when you talk about in terms of all ages, you mean like big shows “all ages” you know, kind of in legit venues and things like that you know the VFW’s and catering halls are never going to have age restrictions, that’s never going to die out. But if you want to go see the Dropkick Murphys do something like that, then it’s a different a story. Imagine you were in, I’m just using them as an example, I have no idea if their shows are all ages or not, but say you’re in the Dropkick Murphys and you’re going to do a 60 day tour and they average out the numbers and they’re like well if you do 21 and over you’re going to average out 17000 dollars in guarantees a night and if you do all ages shows you’re going to average out 7000 dollars in guarantees a night and someone puts that in front of you and you’re a dude in this band and you’re talking about a difference of coming home from tour with 30000 or 40000 dollars in your pocket…its rough out there. As much as people want to support DIY and independent music and shit like that. It’s tough. It’s definitely tough out there. Not everyone can be like Ian Mackaye and really stick to their guns. It’s not black and white.

Tom: That’s a good answer, I like that. Well, I think that’s going to do it for the interview. Thanks a lot, it was great to have you. Do you guys have any plans for after this tour to come back to Boston.?

Alex: Yes. I think we’re going to come back and do a very special something…a very special show at probably like the end of April, early May. I think we’ll be back to do something very special.

Tom: Why exactly will it be so very special?

Alex: Well, you’re going to have to wait. I can’t say yet. But yeah, you know this show is at the Middle East and there was a problem with the age restriction and everything so next time we come back in about, I guess like two months, I would definitely like to and expect to see the show at the ICC in Allston or the Cambridge Elks Lodge right across the street. So when we come back it should absolutely be in one of those two places.

Tom: Well, that will be a lot of fun.

Alex: Cool.

Tom: Well thank you for the interview and congratulations on the new record.

Alex: Thanks a lot man I appreciate that.

Crime In Stereo is currently on the road promoting their latest release, "I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone." Make sure to catch them when they come to your town, or when they come back to Boston in April or early May. You can go to http://www.myspace.com/crimeinstereo to buy their album or for tour information.

Also, as we were leaving I realized I didn't pay for my coffee. Oh well.

News: Sexism, Synthpop, and Miles Davis biopic!

2010-03-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Banjoist Ali Lipman of TRAGWAG is chronicling their east coast tour.

Next up on the exhibit front for UML is "No Thing" by Richard Ryan. Show runs April 12 – May 6 and will include drawings, paintings and woodcut prints. The event will features interesting takes on realist still life.

On Wednesday March 31 at 6 pm a biographical play will be held in O'Leary Library Room 222. It focuses on Goodyear Tire supervisor Lilly Ledbetter and her 17 year career, during which time she was subjected to sexual harassment, retaliation, and wage discrimination. Based on her sex, she was paid unfairly and cheated out of a good salary.

Jazz night at Durgin on March 25th. Classic favorites from Maynard Ferguson and Buddy Rich will be performed by UML's Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Rock Big Band. The Compaq Big Band will also be performing. Free Admission. Show begins at 7:30

Shows:

Sinbusters, Big Sway, more - Midway Cafe, Jamacia Plain, 3/23 at 9:00pm 21+ OR 8$
Three Dub Mice, Big Sway - The Garden, Nashua, 3/27 at 8:00pm
A Wilhelm Scream, Smoke Or Fire, Energy, Lantietam, Rebels of Art - UTEC, Lowell 4/2 at 6:30, ALL AGES 10$

In brief:

Review: Toro Y Moi- Causes Of This

2010-03-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Catch the chillwave, glo-bro. Slumber pop? Slumber rock? Kewl Boring Music 2 Smoke Weed 2?

When describing Toro Y Moi (aka Chaz Bundick), or his debut album "Causers Of This", you'll hear lots of words involving beaches, bros, and sleeping. But sadly, folks, this is a crock of bullshit: this mini pop masterpiece is an ocean. Clever, right?

Dreamy vocals, skittering samples, with washed up drums and synths carrying it home: I'm undecided on whether or not this album should be meant for a summer or winter listen. However, it's perfect to nap to. Perfect to read a book to. Perfect to write to. I suppose this undermines the album (and makes it seem incredibly boring), but I really cannot say enough great things about Toro Y Moi.

I'm sorry to join the bandwagon on this one, but the kids are right. PROOF? Check out the single "Blessa" for a good summation of what's going on.

(I'd also like to note that WUML and myself do NOT endorse the term "chillwave", "glo" anything, etc.)

Review: Minks, Funeral Song 7"

2010-03-15T20:15:00.001-07:00

The Minks 'official site' is a string of photos ranging from cigarette butts to Joy Division skateboards to Lux Interior in classic form and Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy. Funeral Song is just as collaged. The bass sound is high, and emulates the lead guitar which floats along with squeaky synth, making it seem happy ('summertime and i like it') and sad (Funeral song) at the same time. The 7" is post-punk garage rock which is expected from Captured Tracks, every band on the label could play all at once, and many wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It's a great alternative to some super-rosters out there.

Is this Jazz? #9: Favorites of 2009

2010-03-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

Bobby Bradford Extet - Midnight Pacific Airwaves
Led Bib - Sensible Shoes
Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens - Two Cities
Borah Bergman Trio - Luminescence
Old Dog - By Any Other Name
Jason Adasiewicz' Rolldown - Varmint
Full Blast - Black Hole
Stefano Bellani - Stone in the Water
Allen Toussaint - Bright Mississippi
Fire! - You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

Investigating the Underground: Thomas Barnett of Strike Anywhere

2010-03-14T17:16:00.001-07:00

On February 13, Danielle and I traveled out to the ICC Church in Allston to the Four Year Strong, Strike Anywhere, Title Fight, This Time Next Year and Mountain Man show extremely excited to interview one of the current leading voices in punk rock, none other than Thomas Barnett, lead vocalist of Richmond, Virginia posi-core band Strike Anywhere. As we get to the venue, I decide to give Thomas a call to find out where to meet up. He doesn’t answer so we decide to go into the church and find him ourselves. As we are standing in the hallway of the infamous home of Massachusetts hardcore, I feel my phone vibrate and notice that Thomas is calling me. As I grab my phone, I look up and he is standing right next to me not knowing that I am right next to him. I tap him on the shoulder and introduce myself and the three of us travel to the back of the church into a very small dark room next to the stage. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t nervous interviewing Thomas as Strike Anywhere has been one of my favorite punk bands for a long time now, but lucky for us, Thomas turned out to be the nicest person in the world.

Tom: My first question is, Iron Front was your first release off of Bridge Nine Records, a local Massachusetts record label. What was it that made you want to switch from Fat Wreck Chords to Bridge Nine?

Thomas: That’s a good question. We have nothing but love for Fat and we spent four years touring on Dead FM which was our only record and commitment on Fat Wreck. I guess when we started building the songs that later became Iron Front we just felt that artistically with the sonic direction and sense of impact and aggression that was happening it seemed like it would fit a label like Bridge Nine, and you know we have a lot of love for East Coast hardcore, and maybe even that is more of where we come from as far as roots and culture than the kind of sunny often comedic world of west coast pop punk. It’s not really our thing. We have a lot of really good friends working at that label and they were nothing but fair to us…I just feel like that artistically Bridge Nine is our cup of tea and it feels like more of where we came from and also where we are going.
At some point it does get hard to relate to the weird sense of intoxicated self involved celebrity culture that surrounds some of the more wealthier West Coast punk bands. Sometimes you cant really relate to it and have it make you feel like your part of an actual community of resistance and ideas. I think as far as the way we relate to this counter culture in our ten years of time in strike anywhere it makes more sense for us to move laterally through the underground and working with and building relationships from various labels, people that we count as mentors and friends whether that is Var from No Idea, Daren and Tim from jade tree records, Fat Mike and all those lunatics at Fat Wreck and now Chris Wrenn and Bridge Nine and that family. Its all one thing to us. It’s all about spreading love and building connections. Plus so many of our friends from the earliest stages of this band are now in bands on Bridge Nine. It seems to have all happened at once you know its like you graduate high school and then everyone goes off in all these directions at different universities and then you all end up working at the same place ten years later. For all those reasons and also it felt like something new and fresh and inspired like Bridge Nine’s commitment to Hardcore and Chris’ commitment to music that he loves and just you know artwork and vinyl and packing it with posters like it’s the mid nineties like buying a seven inch or lp or a cd that is packed to the brim with stickers and posters and things. That’s the punk experience that we grew up with and Bridge Nine still seems to pull from that tradition. So we’re stoked to be a part of it.

Tom: Who are some of the bands that you are happy to see as label mates?

Thomas: Oh man, Soul Control, Defeater, Ruiner, I mean all of them! I hung out with Death Before Dishonor last summer at ten bands for ten bucks and those guys are awesome. We played two shows with Agnostic Front and that has been amazing and now there our label mates. Seriously it’s incredible. Like Polar Bear Club, they’re old friends of ours and they’re an amazing group, Crime In Stereo…they’re so many. All of them. Even the one’s we haven’t played with yet. We’re just really excited about the future.

Tom: Yeah it seems like a really tight knit family and it is really cool to see that with labels.

Thomas: Yeah!

Tom: I heard for Iron Front, you did a lot of writing overseas in a space built by Prague Nomads. How did that idea come about and how was that experience?

Thomas: We had been sending these digital footnotes, like guitar and vocal ideas back and forth and building on songs in this way and then Rise Against invited us to tour with them in Europe and we were like yeah lets do that and then we were like hey let’s meet up with our tour manager and friend Ellish, who was part of the early nineties central European otto-noman scene which were kind of like the anti globalization resistance movement counter culture that did a lot of squatting and fixing things up all over Europe and just developing a world within a world against an isolated and divided and capitalist infrastructure of a society. So with all those tactics of like “lets take this old building and get heat and water and get a kitchen going and feed everybody” and anyway that is the tradition that the nomads come from and then they also have a fleet of crazy vehicles to take punk bands around in and they have a warehouse full of gear so whenever you come to Europe you can pick out your guitar rig and drum kit and some kind of weird vehicle that’s surprisingly comfortable but DIY made and that’s how we do our European tour, so Ellish was like “look we have this room with a PA in it and you guys can spend some time and live here and write and rehearse”, so we spent our days walking around Prague in the snow trying to shake off our jetlag and we spent all night in the heart of winter in the heart of Europe trying writing that record in that room.

Tom: It must have been a really awesome experience.

Thomas: It was! It was amazing and it was really good to have something that feels like an adventure. A lot of bands with a huge budget will live in a studio and write in a studio because that’s like the old school seventies major label way. But for us it was like we need to live as punks in this punk filled environment in this ancient and impossibly sad snowy and beautiful European city and wander around and drink cheap beer and have nothing to do but write music from 12 - 6am.

Danielle: How did all of this, Strike Anywhere, get started as an entity? To me, when I listen to your music it seems like it comes from a place so much different than “we’re a bunch of angry kids who have something to say” and that’s really inspiring and touching to hear every album after album and I just wanted to know what was the progression? How did you guys connect on that?

Thomas: It’s inspiring and touching to hear your analysis. That’s what we hope happens and that’s what we hope to project. We started when my band mates were in their late teens and I was in my mid twenties and so I was previously involved in the Richmond punk scene in a band called Inquisition (http://www.myspace.com/inquisitionrva)and me and my friend Matt Sherwood found Matt Swift and Garth because we knew his older brother and Eric and we just started writing songs and playing music in warehouses and basements of punk places in Richmond. It was the kind of thing where it was exciting that we had songs, that we could play our friends house, that we could go to DC and play a show, like everything we did felt like beyond everything we had anticipated like “oh wow, we’re really going to go on a week long tour with hot water music!” like all these different windows that had opened up. And now we just tour and we just go everywhere and its strange because we feel like there are always new opportunities, like we’re going to Costa Rica at the end of March and like we did a eastern European tour two summers ago, we went out to Bella Ruse, Levia and Moscow like a year ago. So all these different memories and moments are resonating with us and its strange, we have just been putting one foot in front of the other, not really having any ambitious career (air quotes)…because its not only not what punks about but it’s also not what we’re good at as individuals, just writing songs that we believe in and tapping into that part of you that is so frustrated in the world, but we’ve been exposed to so many positive communities like fighting for change and also loving towards change and having that kind of interesting human duality that is involved in this counter culture makes this way more than music for us and we just happen to be folks that put these feelings in songs and like the cathartic group moment of singing along like we start the song but it doesn’t end when its on the record, its just begun and so everyone else carries that message, there interpretations and what they need from it and then gives it back to us and then we give it back and it just goes back and forth. I know it sounds intense when its just a two minute hardcore song, but that’s the answer to why it has been ten years because we don’t own this shit its just happened to us the way its happening to you and the way its happening to everybody and its beyond just our little band and the good luck and accident of being able to tour the world and make records and independent labels that we respect and work with amazing groups and people of vision and heart, but there’s this huge part where you just feel like its this aspect of our species like making art and communicating with people and when its honest it’s a revolutionary act…it has to be, and you guys know this because you are doing underground media right now as we speak like you’re fighting against the competition and the isolation and everything becoming an advertisement for a debased and degraded version of itself and to make yourself to fight against becoming co modified, becoming just a product, is really what this whole reaction and revolution is about so for us I think it is just part of our very survival, our psychological and intellectual survival if you will.

Danielle: That is wonderful! And it sounds like it had just been a really exciting progression towards living the dream.

Thomas: (laughs) Uhm…it’s a dream where like our housemates and families all really wish we could just get a job and settle down but this is our calling you know? It certainly doesn’t make any economic sense. Being a middle aged punk rocker and never having any health care or other credentials in life is kind of a scary thing, but I know I’m not the first and that there are plenty of other folks in this legacy of American hardcore older than me and my peers who are enjoying the same absurd reaction and like getting older in America and realizing all you have is your voice on these little records that are various colors . But its beautiful and fun and we are always trying to find ways to operate that are still righteous and moral but at the same time not just play shows to the people who are converted or the people who know more about what we sing about than we do and try to open this up to all the folks that we once were when we were young teenagers like hungry for substance and hungry for truth and hungry for a place where we could go and be a family of outcasts. So being a part of a scene that evolves is huge for us and it would be what I guess I could call spiritual…you know because we’re atheists…you know like its what it means when you cant quantify something and its more than coming home with a few hundred dollars to pay the bills that are waiting for you when you get back, like its much bigger than that and that’s a part of it where we don’t make any long term plans with labels or booking agents we just do what we do when it feels right, and that’s another reason why we haven’t imploded and have the stamina because we’re just living in the moment, but for ten years.

Danielle: Earlier you touched on another subject that I wanted to bring up with you and that’s the kind of multiplicity there is to the music that you make which is something I find very rare in punk music in general where its kind of like the anti establishment theme that you’ve got going on but I never hear come out as just anger or discontent in your songs, like there’s this feeling of dissatisfaction with how things are but there’s always this underlying message of love and understanding and things that can transcend that and I think that is a really important message that you guys give off.

Thomas: No, that was a beautiful interpretation and that is of course what we desire the most. But its something that we also have to live up to as well and I think we tend not to over think what we do or who we are and its important for us to remember that we are just five friends stumbling through life playing loud crazy music and yelling at people and to the outside world it doesn’t make sense but to many people in our community it is way more precious and delicate than it sounds. It is really vulnerable, not vulnerable as in the hyperbolic, romantic, screaming, emotional sub genres of music that almost get misogynist because they’re only about boys yelling at their ex girlfriends, because that’s not doing me any good like where are they taking us with that. I think with the songs that we write and the way that we approach the songwriting process we are all foolish idealists but there is also something real that we have reached. Trying to write the perfect song to describe that feeling, that’s why there are so many records and we keep putting out punk records because we have yet to do it, but we are getting there.

Tom: A common characteristic with punk bands and their fans is to somewhat hate and disagree with the police and I feel like sometimes it gets put on as a gimmick just as a crowd pleaser. But I feel like you guys have a pretty decent message behind your songs that involve anti police force, anti police brutality and all of that. So I was wondering, what are your thoughts on this theme as a trend and do you have any specific examples behind the way you guys put it in your songs?

Thomas: Obviously we try to write from lived experience especially with songs like Sunset on 32nd Blvd which was just me watching a racist police dragnet destroy my neighbors lives in front of me. Its so personal that the song, even though it has a greater political metaphor, is more of just an act of catharsis for the sense of powerlessness and rage that I felt by watching my neighbor being pulled out of his house and being kicked by six cops and when the cops turned and looked and saw me and my partner staring at them from our porch and saw the fact that we were Caucasians they kind of stopped and started making excuses and pulled him into the van and they took him to the hospital to try and clean him and then because they broke the hinges on the door and destroyed part of the house just trying to get him out because he fit the profile of African American male on bicycle, and that’s who they were running down that week in my neighborhood and they’re allowed to do these things with impunity, unless you are there to observe. I would have much rather not had that happen and for us just to write a fun angry you know “we’re the punks and we hate the cops” kind of song, that would have been much better than to have actually had to have witnessed that and the collateral effect it had on my neighbors who were pushed into the projects, their kids given up to foster care, every job lost, every opportunity lost, pretty much they were put in prison even when they weren’t, just by poverty and racist police profiling.
As a band, we have been pulled over, harassed, robbed at gunpoint, incarcerated, let go and occasionally helped, all by police in various profile. In our own, in Japan, in Italy, in Russia. Most of the time, 85% of those things have been corruption, violence, staring at a loaded gun while we know our belongings were getting rifled to and our money and records…you know why would they ever take our punk records!? We never got to ask that question because when our tour manager went up to them and said “you idiots I’ll cut you” and we’re just holding him back saying “Joseph why are you saying this?” And all they said was “Joseph we are the Italian police“, not why…nothing…they just needed to announce who they were and everyone shut the hell up. So all these things were odd circumstances for us, like we played a show in Moscow and there was a neo Nazi bomb threat on the club, threats of violence the entire day we were in Moscow just trying to get to the show, a lot of anti racist skinheads and this awesome women led group of the Rash came out and were there to defend us which was really sweet of them and it wasn’t because we were a band that they knew or liked it was because that was their duty in their minds. Then a bus load full of cops in black armor and automatic rifles came out of what looked like a painted school bus into the club with German shepherd dogs who then sniffed for this bomb that they didn’t find because it wasn’t there and they, the police left and on their way out they extorted money from the club owner who then extorted money from the promoter who then extorted money from us and then we were abandoned in a hostel the next morning with no way to get to our airplanes, no money to pay for our flights or work visas…and then a kid from the show appears out of nowhere, we don’t even know how he knew where we were or that we were abandoned, but he did, and he flagged down a bunch of Russian dads on their way to work on the ring roads around Moscow to be our taxis, to take us to the airport, to get to our flights on time and then he took us to the bank and paid us. All of these things done by a kid who last time we saw him he was wearing a Youth of Today varsity jacket because kids in Moscow and eastern Europe know more about American hardcore than most North Americans do. But they have their own amazing bands too. But last time we saw this guy he was in midair taking the mic and now he was saving our lives literally from rotting in a cold basement of a hostel in Moscow.
So we have had people in the scene and the community rescue us from the collateral effects and avalanche of power abuses and state control by police. And we have also seen people outside of our fairly trivial punk rockers trying to get into different countries trying to play shows or whatever, we’ve seen other peoples lives devastated by racist police assault and class biased police assault and so for us its songs that we wish we didn’t have to write and feelings that we wish we didn’t have to feel but the reality is there. It’s not just coming from a punk band that has beliefs and values against state control and authority and we recognize that law enforcement is there to protect property and the ruling class and there is no humanism in that approach. Now this is not to say that every individual of law enforcement cannot be actual heroes, as much as that has become an inverted joke. There are some really good hearted people out there in every profession and so we have had police be extremely kind to us and help us. Like in Japan we were incarcerated for not having the right work visas that we didn’t know weren’t the right ones the first time we tried to go there and we were just left and forgotten in a kind of persona non grada cell on the ground of the airport, but outside in that weird area where you’re not allowed in a country…we were there… in that middle ground when you’re not anywhere, you’re not a citizen, you’re nowhere, your passports are gone, no one knows or cares where you’re at, and so there were people from all over the world there and after about 30 hours a police officer came up and was like “hey why are you here? I know some English” and so he helped us get out of there and at least get to Australia where we had a tour. So later we went back to Japan and had the right paperwork and made it and now we play shows there all the time and it’s cool.
What we risk and what we sacrifice is meaningless compared to the damage that law enforcement does to working class communities of color and to people all over the world like in the service of the state and the corporate dogma that has rewritten what it means to be alive and to function in our democracies. That’s something we had already known but we have the unfortunate opportunity to not just be there to intellectualize into something that’s a pithy statement and an aggressive punk rock trope but its something that we have lived and experience first hand and we wish we didn’t have to.

Tom: You guys have been around for a pretty long time now, and I like to see that you are playing shows with up and coming bands like some of the bands tonight, Title Fight and Mountain Man, who are well respected around here. What is the best advice you can give to these new bands who are sometimes faced with the decision to keep going or give up?

Thomas: Yeah that’s something everyone has to kind of understand for themselves and for the reasons that they’re doing it. I think the bands that keep doing it, it just means that they still have something to say, the chemistry works and they have managed to strike a balance between having the band eat their lives and having a personal life and a life in a community where you still have honest inspiration. The crappy seventies rock “only write songs about the road because you’ve been in this isolated rock star bubble and tour bus for most of your life”, like there is a punk rock version of that where you can write songs about traveling and having adventures and playing cool venues and connecting, but if you don’t also have a life in your town beyond the identity of the bassist or drummer of this particular band then your only living like a one dimensional aspect of this thing that is meant to be a three or four dimensions. So I mean I would say just be real with yourself and don’t be desperate about needing to be in a band all the time. There’s other ways to contribute, there’s other ways to get it out and manifest your desires. Like our friends in the Beehive collective that are here, they do the visual art component of many of the activist ideals that a lot of bands try to live up to and they have an amazing time and they have a party while they do it. And I think that some of the things, especially as punk is pretty structured even in the independent underground sectors that you can just go through the motions for a while, like I’ve seen bands that forgot they even had to questions themselves, they forgot that they really had to mean it and dig deep and we all have to remind ourselves that that’s what we have to do in order to justify this existence because it’s a little crazy, it’s a little irrational and we rely on the good graces and the belief of other people and we can’t ever lose site of that and take that for granted.

(At this point in the interview Mountain Man has begun to play their set which has filled the ICC church with some of the most chaotic hardcore you will ever here. You can check them out at http://www.myspace.com/mountainmanhc . Also, the pastor of the church, Rev. Lorraine Anderson has walked in on our interview and has started talking to us about how important it is that the church has shows that everyone can go to. She urged us to tell people to email her in support of the all ages shows at the ICC church as she apparently has to constantly fight against the surrounding neighborhood to keep these shows going. You can email her at landerson@icc-boston.com.)

Danielle: I found a quote from you that I found particularly inspiring and I would like you to elaborate on it if you can. It was on the FAQ section on your website and it said “I do believe that punk needs to retain its intelligence and creativity and it can only do this by not confusing social revolution with what passes for politics.” Was that you who wrote that?

Thomas: Yeah, I guess I think that like there is something way deeper than not just the duality of the American electoral fear of democrats and republicans but I also think that just getting caught up in what the state allows, there won’t be much room for real change. It always comes from the ground, it always comes from people, it always comes without an apparatus of law. That’s something you can just see historically and of course Dr. Howard Zinn was the one that made that most clear so I think I will dedicate this answer to him.

Danielle: Thank you for saying that, because I think that that is a really important message to get out to people, especially kids and younger kids who are coming to these kinds of shows that are all ages.

Thomas: The thing is also though, it’s the way that we get Boston to having to join one of these teams and people seem to mimic their parents culture politically for a while and then they rebel against that and join a university or whatever or don’t and there is just a sense that we’re all getting played by that like there’s a much deeper change to engage with each other and to liberate and to understand like that all of us are kind of in these psychic chains and we need to break them. And then we need also for the people who are in the physical chains of poverty and disease and wage slavery and allowing for the rest of us to live in this relatively privileged sphere. It’s really important not to just think about rocking against bush or rocking for the democratic party, it just dumbs it down and it ends up betraying some of the deeper values that this punk rock thing is capable of manifesting.

Tom: Those were some great answers and we really appreciate the interview. Thank you very much.

Thomas: Thank you!

Strike Anywhere is in the middle of supporting their latest album “Iron Front” which was released off of Bridge Nine Records last Fall. The band has plans to be playing the Palladium in Worcester in June. You can listen to their songs and find out about tour information at http://www.myspace.com/strikeanywhere .

News: East Coast TRAGWAG tour!

2010-03-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

In support of the split pictured above with Low and Away. All information on this release can be found here.

Dates/Detes:

Mar 12 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Pennsylvania, Haverford Commons- w/ Low and Away

Havertown, Pennsylvania

Mar 13 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Maryland- Scott’s House

Arnold, Maryland

Mar 14 2010

6:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- North Carolina- Internationalist Books

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Mar 15 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR-South Carolina- The Hangar

Greenville, North Carolina

Mar 16 2010

7:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Florida- Stardust Coffee

Orlando, Florida

Mar 17 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Florida- Dicey Reilly’s Pub

St. Cloud, Florida

Mar 18 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Florida- Artman’s Arcade And Skate

Umatilla, Florida

Mar 19 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- Virginia- The Great Valley w/ Folk The System

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Mar 20 2010

8:00P

SPRING BREAK TOUR- New Jersey- The Bath House

New Brunswick, New Jersey

New Music Roundup: Captured Tracks, Reissues, Kimya Dawson's band

2010-03-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

Minks - Funeral Song 7" (Full Review Soon)

WB reissued from Bobby Darin, Aztec Camera, Echo and the Bunnymen, and many more.

Dreams of Tall Buildings - Drowning in the Heart of Sound (Full Review Soon)

Andrew Thomas' Between the Buildings and Trees from Kompakt.

Graham Collier's double-album Darius/Midnight Blue/New Conditions.

Happy Birthday's Sub Pop Debut.

Also out this week:

Burton Greene, Live at Woodstock Playhouse 1965 (Full Review Soon)
Chiaroscuro, new project from Ralph Towner/Paolo Frsu
Quarantine the Past, Best of Pavement
Titus Andronicus' new album.
Kenny Baron Trio album.
Kimya Dawson's band The Bundles, K Records release.

Small Houses Sing

2010-03-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

Our Dusking Sound

Albums are best released around a change of season. There is nothing like listening to songs while the days lengthen that bid in the spring with open arms. This is Our Dusking Sound, the debut full-length from Small Houses, and J. Quentin's debut under the name Small Houses.

J.Quentin writes thought-provoking, wholesome folk-music that is both soothing, and beautiful. The theme of "dusking sounds," are paralleled throughout the 8 songs laced with striking imagery of the Great Lakes and folded road maps. These are travel songs, energized by the faces, stories, and nostalgia that come with being on the road. He calls Michigan his home although he spends time in Massachusetts studying and writing music.

My favorite tracks are Our Dusking Sound; Like the Day, Like the way I seem; and When It's Morning.

To Listen, click here

This album was released just a week ago. To pick up a copy and watch him play, come tonight to Mt. Vernonsworth Mansion 81 Mount Vernon Street, Lowell MA. Or watch this video:

Around Lowell: Doin' It Together Fest 2010

2010-03-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

Doin' it Together Festival is a weekend-long event held in March in Lowell MA. Now in its second year, the event brings together the diverse musical population of UMass Lowell and the community, chops it up, and rearranges it. Participants who wish to play sign up and are regrouped by styles of music. They then have one day to practice at a designated practice space and write 25 minutes of music, which is performed the next day. Check it out this weekend at the 119 Gallery on Saturday night at 8.

Participants from: Sinbusters, Ladderlegs, Packrat, Ghost in My Basement, Goosepimp Orchestra, Ralph Eats Dynamite, Awaken To Ashes, Maudslay, Bird Organ, Gnome Revolt, Caragianes of Manifest, Goodbye Sluggo, Bearstronaut, Streight Angular, Stereoplegic, Lonesome Republic, Bar Sinister, Aces Ashes and more. Woah.

Around Lowell: TRAGWAG Tour Kickoff

2010-03-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

Twee-Folk duo TRAGWAG will be starting off a week-long tour at a free Mt. Vernsworth Manor show today at 7:30.

Also playing:

Small Houses (MI)
Kevin & the Wasps
Caitlin Ford

News: TRAGWAG, LCDetails, Jazz Night

2010-03-08T06:40:00.001-08:00

Twee-Folkpunk duo TRWAGWAG will be starting off a week-long, East Coast tour at a free Mt. Vernsworth Manor show on Wednesday. Be sure to come out in support of the band!

Also playing:

Small Houses (MI)
Kevin & the Wasps
Caitlin Ford

Murphy's new album is being mastered, and there's new details afloat. It will be released May 18th, and either 'Drunk Girls' or 'Change' will be the first single so be on the look out for those. A joke working title has been given: "Internet Sensation!"

Track listing:

Dance Yrself Clean
Drunk Girls
One Touch
All I Want
Change
Hit
Pow Pow
Somebody's Calling Me
What You Need

Jazz night at Durgin on March 25th. Classic favorites from Maynard Ferguson and Buddy Rich will be performed by UML's Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Rock Big Band. The Compaq Big Band will also be performing. Free Admission. Show begins at 7:30

Measure for Measure is in full swing until Wednesday. Shows will be held at 7:30 in the Comley-Lane Theatre on South Campus on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Directed by Nancy Selleck. Produced by the Off-Broadway Players and UML's Theatre Arts Program. Tickets are $5 for students and seniors and $10 for adults. Tickets available at the Student Information Centers on North and South campuses, and at the box office two hours prior to each performance.

In brief:

Dolphy article from A Blog Supreme.

Around Lowell: Mar. 12 - Hivesmasher, Burning Streets, Swaggering Growlers and more - The Ant Cellar

2010-03-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

This Friday March 12 come support some great local music in one of the most cobweb ridden basements you will ever see! Bands will include Hivesmasher, Burning Streets, The Swaggering Growlers and there is even rumor of a possible set from Lowell's own Three Dub Mice. All of these bands have played on Live from the Fallout Shelter on WUML and proceeds from the show will go to help fund the Live from the Fallout Shelter 25th Anniversary show on April 2 with A Wilhelm Scream, Smoke Or Fire, Energy and more.

Here is what you need to know:
Friday March 12
The Ant Cellar
778 Broadway Street Lowell MA 01854
8PM, All Ages, $5 donation going towards Fallout show
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=350397567670&ref=mf

Bands Playing:

HIVESMASHER - http://www.myspace.com/hivesmasher
BURNING STREETS - http://www.myspace.com/burningstreetspunk
THE SWAGGERING GROWLERS - http://www.myspace.com/theswaggeringrowlers
THREE DUB MICE (probably...not for sure yet) - http://www.myspace.com/threedubmice

We hope to see everyone there! It will surely be a basement show that you will never forget.

Around Lowell: March 4th National Day of Action at Umass Lowell

2010-03-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

I've been absent from the blog for a couple weeks, focusing on seeing an event on campus happen.

March 4th was a National Day of Action, with 32+ states participating in some sort of action against the rising costs of education. In California, students climbed up on billboards, blocked freeways, and said "enough is enough." But what has happened to California over the past several years has happened to Massachusetts too, just much much slower. So why, when California holds a protest, do thousands of students show up, while at Umass Lowell, when an event happens, only 50 students show up? As our Dean of Students put it, "If we went to the dorms right now, we'd find another 200, 300 students playing video games."

My fellow organizers and I considered ourselves to be unique as campus organizers because we had gotten Faculty and Administration to join hands with the Students and hold a summit outlining the problems with higher education. We planned tirelessly, staying up to all hours of the night this week to see this event pull through. All we asked of our professors and administrators was that they help us promote the event. Dean Siegel assured us that the event would be publicized, and yet no emails went out, nothing was posted in Umass Lowell Today, and all our fliers were torn down.

And still, after a meeting with Chancellor Meehan where he promised to Champion this issue and to be the key note speaker at the event, he showed up 30 minutes late and walked out on 50+ plus students, professors, and families that had come to learn and share their stories....For a Basketball Game (Which we won actually, go UML!).

I woke up this morning feeling betrayed and hurt by our Chancellor and I can only hope that he will reconsider his priorities in the future.

Here is the video that was shown during the summit:

The Rising Cost of Education at UMASS Lowell from Ali Lipman on Vimeo.

News: NDADE, Shakespeare, Pavment sound check

2010-03-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

REMINDER: This Thursday is the National Day of Action to Defend Education.

Shakespeare's Measure for Measure begins Thursday, March 4 in the Comley-Lane Theatre. Directed by Nancy Selleck. Produced by the Off-Broadway Players and UML's Theatre Arts Program. Matinee performances March 5 and 7 at 2 p.m.; evening performances March 4, 6, 9, and 10 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $5 students and seniors; $10 adults. Tickets available at the Student Information Centers on North and South campuses, and at the box office two hours prior to each performance. (Props to Vinny for designing that awesome flyer you may have seen up around!)

In Brief:

Basquiat documentary entitled The Radiant Child with awesome trailer.
Paste on Peter Hooky.
wowee zowee. Courtesy of Spiral Stairs blog.
New Thelonious film.

News: Fallout Productions Presents A Wilhelm Scream, Smoke Or Fire and more...

2010-03-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

This April, Lowell local music promotion group, Fallout Productions, will be bringing you a concert that you will surely not want to miss. The show will be featuring bands that have all graced our fair city of Lowell at one point or another in their career including A Wilhelm Scream, Smoke Or Fire, Energy, L'antietam and Rebels of Art. WUML 91.5FM will be a presence at the show, DJing in between sets and promoting their 1985 - 2005 Live from the Fallout Shelter Live Music Compilation.

Here is all of the info:
APRIL 2, 2010
UNITED TEEN EQUALITY CENTER (UTEC)
34 HURD STREET LOWELL MA 01854
DOORS 630PM, SHOW 7PM
ALL AGES $10

Also, make sure to check out the bands:

A WILHELM SCREAM - http://www.myspace.com/awilhelmscream

SMOKE OR FIRE - http://www.myspace.com/smokeorfire

ENERGY - http://www.myspace.com/thisenergy

L'ANTIETAM - http://www.myspace.com/antietamnh

REBELS OF ART - http://www.myspace.com/rebelhiphop

For more information and to buy tickets, go to http://www.myspace.com/livefromthefalloutshelter

Around Lowell: 3/4 National Day of Action to Defend Education

2010-03-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

This Thursday is the National Day of Action to Defend Education. At UML student groups, faculty, and administration officials have banded together to call attention to the lack of state funding for higher education. Chancellor Marty Meehan has been invited as the keynote speaker for a summit in O'Leary 222 at 6 p.m. Dean of Student Affairs Larry Siegel will also speak. Sponsoring the event is the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM), a group created in Feb. 2007 to network and mobilize members of higher education communities to fund public higher ed and make it more affordable and accessible.

Last years event was a day of action protest, which began on the South Campus quad and marched to the front of Cumnock Hall (pictured above). For more info, check out www.defendeducation.org or http://www.phenomonline.org/

Also: Facebook Event.

News: UMass President Steps Down, Gives Wise Words

2010-03-01T10:05:00.001-08:00

Boston Globe article/video about Jack Wilson stepping down.

News: Kerouac, Curley, (ted and alice.)

2010-02-28T20:42:00.000-08:00

A Message from Tom Southerton:

Hey everyone,

Today is the last day for you to help us raise funds for this amazing show by donating through our kickstarter.com donation page. We are trying to raise $2000 and still need about $600. But we only have until noon! Please help us out! Here is the site:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/826718188/live-from-the-fallout-shelter-celebrating-25-year

Also, the lineup for this show right now is A Wilhelm Scream, Smoke or Fire, L'antietam and Rebels of Art.

Make sure you catch Energy and Children of the Night on Live from the Fallout Shelter tonight from 8 to 11PM. Listen online at http://www.wuml.org

Thanks for all your help!
Tom

3/11 Kerouac Film Celebration: Record and film producer and Lowell native Jim Sampas will host a CD listening session with the soundtrack recording from his new documentary film, “One Fast Move or I’m Gone,” about Kerouac’s novel “Big Sur.”
Listening: 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Durgin Hall, Room 114 - Please RSVP to Paul_Marion@uml.edu.
Viewing: 3 p.m. O’Leary, Room 222

There will be a political book discussion in O'Leary 222 on Thursday, March 4, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. The topic, James Michael Curley: A Short Biography, written by Former senator/UMASS President William Bulger. From 1910 to his death in 1958, Curley served as the mayor of Boston, the governor of MA, and in the US House of Representatives.
For more information call the Political Science Dept. 978-934-4255.

In brief:

Elephant9 review from FreeJazzBlog

Is this Jazz? #8: Review: Byard Lancaster Unit

2010-02-27T10:46:00.001-08:00

BYARD LANCASTER - HORNS (1-6)
J. R. MITCHELL - PERCUSSION (1-6)
CALVIN HILL - BASS (1, 5-6)
PAUL MORRISON - ELECTRIC BASS (1)
LESTER LUMLEY - PERCUSSION (5-6)
SID SIMMONS - PIANO (2-4)
JEROME HUNTER - BASS (2-4)

The 1972 release of Byard Lancaster's Live at Macalester College on Dogtown Records (owned by Lancaster himself) was the building of a bridge. On one side, a spiritual, robust free jazz spawned from the likes of Ornette and Coltrane and on the other, the startlingly new idea of jazz-funk. The jazz-funk era was slowly being heralded, Joe McPhee's Nation Time would came in 1971, Davis' On the Corner the following year, and Hancock's Head Hunters one more. But it was Byard's blending of these two styles which he was exploring on the 1966 debut, It's Not Up to Us and can be heard on Macalester.

Lancaster is a Philadelphian multi-instrumentalist who attended Berklee and feels both comfortable on the reeds or brass. He is also comfortable fronting a funky beat laden with toms or congas, or a seemingly relentless free-jazz assault, provided here by drummer JR Mitchell. Opener 1234 provides these aspects, with Lancaster beginning on sax, and then putting it down at the 13 minute mark, and inducting a sprawling, but similar trumpet line. It was recorded in Boston in 1970, and features, in an uncannily fitting way, both an upright bassist (Calvin Hill) and an electric bassist (Paul Morrison).

The official 1971 concert begins with Last Summer, a marked change of pace from 1234, inviting flute and pianist Sid Simmons to trade off in a erie ballad which is accented by a bowed bass background, provided here by Jerome Hunter. War World is a more familiar Lancaster tune, featuring Mitchell's drum floes, which roll about in as he changes from tom, to rim shot, to sharp, full ride attacks. For a minute and a half, he inducts Lancaster, who comes barreling in on alto and blazes along with Mitchell. The bass is invited for the conclusion, and the piano non existent. On the final official concert track, titled Live at Macalester, Lancaster, Simmons, and Hunter all attack the head, and settle into a hard bop straight-shooter. The Lancaster solo is truly explored here, 4:30 into the tune somber Far-Eastern Scales can be heard, and the track takes off from 52nd Street and lands on a rainy, oriental mountainside. Mitchell is also noticeably more roped in, keeping his punchy rim shots to a minimum. This track is very cinematic and third-stream in quality, provided mostly Lancaster utilizing the energy of his sax versus the melancholia of flute and Hunter provide barge-like bass sounds where needed.

Lancaster recorded the last two tracks on the album in 2008. They feature Calvin Hill on bass and Lancaster on a horn arsenal. Both tracks' other players are unknown. World in Me is a daunting wall of free-sound. Trumpets, piano, saxophones, electric guitar, and flutes are ground up and take turns emulating screaming people. Again, they are patchworks of several different styles, with Lancaster heralding his percussive forces to tour styles of soul, funk, free, and oriental musics.

This reissue provides a cross-section of Byard Lancaster's criminally unknown, but diverse career.

From the AllMusic Nerds:

2010-02-26T15:55:00.001-08:00

HAPPY WEEKEND

News: Short today, go outside!

2010-02-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

Lawrence film showing, supported by LFC.

In Brief:

Strawberry Alarm Clock guitarist, RIP.
AllMusic loves '90.
Sodomy, Rum, the Lash...and Good Irish Cooking.
After playing Cochella, reunited Public Image Ltd. will hit Boston May 4th and 5th to the Royale Boston

News: LCD Lights Up

2010-02-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

Paste is reporting that James Murphy is pretty much done with the new LCD Album, and Bob Weston is mastering.

News: RADIO AT RISK, Fallout Shelter, Lil' Wayne has a Twitter.

2010-02-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

The Radio at Risk coalition is trying to combat record labels which are hemorrhaging $$$ using radio stations as ways out. Two bills currently in Congress would levy performance taxes on local stations, which are usually not and provide free (at times, 'underground') music and public service to all people. Act now!

Come visit us at the McGauvran Table!

Fallout's 25th Anniversary is in full swing. Show has been scheduled, past Fallout guests Willhelm Scream and Smoke or Fire will be playing. It will be on April 2nd, 2010 at United Teen Equality Center on Hurd St. doors are at 6:30, show is all ages, 10$ admission. A compilation is also planned, cover:

You can still donate here...thanks for the support!

Some LFC Updates. Come and watch Indie films in Lowell!

CAPA's Annual battle of the bands will be held at Spring Carnival on Friday, April 30th and packets are available begining today in North/South Information Centers. For more info shoot an email to Concertscomedy@student.uml.edu

Winter Olympic athletes and sports journalists Bob Ryan, John Powers, and Kevin Dupont of the Boston Globe will be in town on Wednesday, March 24 in O'Leary 222, 7 p.m. to discuss politics and the Olympic games in Vancouver. For more information contact Jeffrey_Gerson@uml.edu

In Brief:

Steve Shelley, Chris Connelly form new band.
Stacked Tibet benefit.
New live Smog album, says Pitchfork.
Even his Twitter has auto-tune.
AllMusic chimes in on Classical Music, the Olympics [article].
Free Jazz blog has a bit on Brotzmann, the father of European Free Jazz.
During SBS last night, NPR broadcasted a show on the Village Vanguard's 75th Anniversary.

New Music Roundup: Past Lives, very expensive Clifford Brown, jazz-rapt

2010-02-22T22:32:00.001-08:00

Jamie Stewart's 7th album Dear God, I Hate Myself will be Xiu Xiu's first studio release sans Caralee McElroy (now of Cold Cave).

Past Lives Tapestry of Webs launches out of Seattle. Arty and antsy.

Clifford Brown gets a 4 disc box set entitled Emarcy Master Takes.

Stonesthrow Records and Madlib is jazz-rapping..err...rap-jazzing with The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble...err...cool loungey stuff with changes like DJ proper!

Also out this week:

Funky, Detroit contemps Was (Not Was) get a box set treatment. Standard album artwork applies.
World music front: Malian guitar release Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté on Nonesuch.
(Even if you don't like it, Joanna Newsom's gonna crush it with Have One On Me)
The Streets!
David Byrne and Fatboy Slim!

News: Fallout Monday, Food umor., Odds n Sods!,

2010-02-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

Abraham Taber on Fallout Tonight!

Jeff Warmouth, a conceptual humorist will present "Food Court" on March 1st - April 2nd in the McGauvaran Gallery. The exhibit will combine advertising, food, convenience, culture, and language in a visually-elemental installation. Hours Mon.-Thurs. 11 - 4, Fri. 9 - 2.

Graphic Design alumni from the last decade will be returning on 2/22 to showcase their work in the Dugan Gallery. Working Proof: Graphic Design Alumni Exhibition will last until 3/12 and runs weekdays 10a.m. till 5 p.m., a reception will be held Wednesday, 2/23 from 3p.m. till 5p.m. For more info contact: Karen_Roehr@uml.edu

In Brief:

Rarities/B-Side List of the Day from Paste.
Dr. of Gonzo Journalism gives us a Criterion dispatch
Pitchfork: New Roky Erickson and interesting Chris Knox (Flying Nun Founder) chat.
Run Chicken Run...AllMusic on Link Wray!