Time for 2013 gigs to start

Well its cold and nasty but its time for some relief.
This is where I differ from nearly every blog in Boston.
Next week an extremely exciting new band, Palma Violets are playing The Middle East Upstairs, January 22nd.
The BBC have touted Palma Violets as one of the Sounds of 2013. So is the band all hype? I have only one question for anyone, the tickets for Tuesday night are $10, for $10 why would you NOT go and see who this band is. The information available is minimal but the number of people that have raved about the power and energy of this young band are mounting up. Some of the sound reminds me of The Vaccines but I do not mean to demean this band. The Vaccines give a lackluster live performance which left me cold to the bone so I hope this band will instead make me energized.
Then on Saturday 26th January we get Ra Ra Riot playing their new album. I am not sure I follow the band on their new path but they have always given a good live show and in Hartford CT in December that still held true so it should be a good concert.

now for a quick run down of what we are looking for in 2013 so far.

15th March at long last The Maccabees play Boston and as a headliner. You have to love the Maccabees and this is an excellent opportunity to see them.

21st February has The Spinto Band at Great Scott, great venue - so so band - we want to show some support.

24th February Beach Fossils at TT's, I loved seeing this band when they played Great Scott with Warpaint and the new album is good so this is a must see.

We go to the 2nd March Alt-J show, why some people call them a new band astounds me but the sound at the Paradise is great and even despite the hipsters this is a good band.
5th March a british band called Citizens! play Brighton Music Hall, this band are intersting and its time to see them at a small venue while you can.
9th march the scottish band Veronica Falls play Great Scott. as a band Veronica Falls are pretty interesting BUT the real interest here is Cheatahs, recently signed to Wichita and much talked about.

March 11th the cruelest trick ever played on scottish music fans happens when Django Django play the Paradise and PAWS play Great Scott (wehavepaws.com, @wehavepaws) who are pretty ungoogleable. Go see one, whichever you choose you will see a great band and miss a great band. Damn that sucks.

March 23rd Little Green Cars from Dublin, Ireland play The Sinclair, I am hearing only great things about this band.

April 3rd we go down to Rhode Island to see frightened Rabbit play Fete because I hate House of Blues with a passion, new album is out soon thank goodness, FR are nearly as good as The Twilight Sad while not being on the same playing field.

Daughter play the Sinclair on May 4th , another interesting British band to watch for while they are small.

Telekinesis play Brighton Music Hall on May 10th, BMH sucks but telekinesis knock your socks off.

thats all for now.........

2012 in review

I am very late in this post.

As someone who blogs about music it seems obligatory to post what albums I loved in 2012. I would say this to anyone who releases an album in teh first few months of teh year most people lose track of albums released early in teh year. I personally try to keep track of what is released and I listen to to give myself a fighting chnce. That said
in 2012 some of my favorite albums included:

The Twilight Sad No one can Ever Know
Alt- J - an Awesome Wave
Blood Red Shoes - In Time to voices
Club Smith - appetite for Chivalry
Call the Doctor -
Dog Is Dead - All Our Favourite Stories
delerentos-Little Sparks
General Fiasco- Unfaithfully Yours
Egyptian Hip Hop-Good Don't Sleep
The Futureheads - Rant
Green Day's Trilogy was suprisingly fun uno , Dos, Tre!
mystery jets - Radlands
Maximo Park - the national Health

need I say that seeing Alt-J, The Twilight Sad at Great Scott were both amazing. seeing The Wombats again and catching up was fun too, then throw in the small road trip to see Bombay Bicycle Club there were some good points of this year. Not to forget when Johnny Foreigner eventually managed to make it to Boston about 5 years after we wanted them too.
Lets hope 2013 is better and does not live up to being a year of 13.

Mike Scott in Boston and The Sad play Boston

I just wanted to throw down some thoughts on teh past week in review.

First I must say how great it is to be lsitening to a couple of new tracks from The Twilght Sad from their Tour EP. Looking at our concert database and our convert photos it become clear its been 5 anbd a half years since we first fell in love


The amazing thing is that during this time the boys have never put out music that was less than amazing and never been less than humble hard working and at times so so self detructive. They should be pushing this tour EP at every turn but yet they keep quiet and trust that people will find their treasures when the music business of today and the oblivious self centredness we see at gigs necessitate pushing people in the right direction. All I can say The Sad should be bigger than Radiohead and I feel so shocked that such talent can be ignored.

We started on Sunday ghoing to see Mike Scott at the Brighton Music Hall, I found Mike when A Girl called Johnny first came out. The concert was half a reading of Mike's autobiography half an acoustic set. To me the self importance and arrogance of Mike Scott puts me off music which could be enjoyable. Steve wickham on the other hand was funny and extremely talented. A good night but not supreme.



Then we have Tuesday, we got to ctach up before hand and also lucky enough to catch a heart wrenchingly beautiful rendition of Nil. Lets face it I am no sap but this version had me totally engrossed and emotionally ravaged.

Errors put on a good show to get the night going before The Sad came on.

Why people have not embraced the new album I have no idea, I loved hearing Alphabet live, Nile was great though not as wonderful as in soundcheck then from Forget The Night Ahead The Sad did a version of At The Burnside which started as a slow burn and layered on powerful guitar and drums to provide a depth around James's wonderful vocal. As I listened I knew I had to thank the sound guy who had managed to keep everything necessary to sow the power and awesomeness that this band can exude when everything falls in place.
How can people not see how seminal and important this band is? I love Alt-J and love the fact they got the Mercury but if The Sad had been nominated (Bad Fat Cat who rarely support the guys the way they should) I really think I would have preferred these boys to win the Mercury an every other award. I say kill Taylor Swift and replace her album in every household with The Sad's music and enrich everyone's aural pleasure.

The twilight sad play Boston tonight

I am sitting listening to the twilight sad sound check and wondering at how great they sound.This will be our 17th time seeing them and it never gets old. Emotional powerful violent and beautiful if you don't love this band you have no emotional iq.
I have elaborated about this band so many times but I want everyone to come see them and give these guys money but if you could just not be around us singing out loud like a spaz because at that point you are detritus.
I also hear there may be two tour eps left so grab them while you can and buy merchant and the guys a drink or four.

Great Bands that played Boston - part 2

To resume (well work occasionally intercedes)

On Saturday Patrick Wolf came to Boston to play the Royale as part of his 10 year Acoustic Tour.Patrick is extremely talented and since leaving home at 16 has been extremely prolific writing many albums all of which refuse to dumb down his emotions or use instruments most people would not correlate with pop music (harp, ukelele viola). The beauty and honesty of these albums may put off some peopel but not his 'Wolf pack'. To be honest I love so many bands I am not fanatical about PW BUT when he comes to play Live and I listen to his music it always astounds me to remember just how good and out there it is.
Taking the tie to revisit his songs and strip them down uncovered beauty and honesty.
The setlist can be seen here and I am not sure what I loved more the beautiful performances or the wonderfully intimate monologues he introduced the songs with.
The lighting was not kind to my camera's ability to catch video but I think the sound quality survived.










after the show we rushed off and saw Dry The River at Brighton Music Hall. The Audience loved the show but maybe I had been spoilt as I felt the band was pushing too hard and the efforts were cliche and overblown, it was fun but it was a poor second to the start of the night.

Sunday was the return of Blood Red Shoes to Boston after way too long.
It is hard to believe that this duo can produce so much power and volume. The Third album In Time to Voices is another example of being brim full of punchy well composed inie perfection well if you love power drums and guitars as I do.

The set was full of old favorites interspersed with great songs from the new album. The vocal was a little low which talking to Steven he did agree that their sound engineer had a heck of a struggle with the acoustics of TT's which seem to sometimes causing issues. Despite that Stephen and Laura put on a strong show. The good news is the duo have a visa for the next year and seem pretty keen on visiting again during that time which would make me very happy.

Great Bands that played Boston- part 1

Wow, I feel so lucky to have seen some of the shows I have in the past four weeks. As noted before Maximo park and Jesus and Mary Chain lived up to my hopes.

Alt-J on the 17th at Great Scott proved no exception. The album has proven to be so different that people are stabbing in the dark for comparisons. Myself I thought of Wild Beasts and Forward Russia! and during their show added These New Puritans. Why? because they dare to go places that others do not, ignore nastiness about the vocal style standing out and use layering and silence to create a building complexity that rewards.
The alt-J show was just a great day from the starting point of non existent traffic going to the show, to the sunny break allowing sitting outside drinking an excellent beer pre-show right through to the final discussions with the band late that night it was perfect.
We managed to sit through the soundcheck which let us know that the sound on the record was reproducable live which allows us to have heard at leats a couple of songs live twice - priceless.
The show was pretty crowded, I guess buzz brings out people including fools who refuse to shut up especially during the support band who were pretty good. Alt-J played through the album and a suprising amount of people knew lyrics and sang along. It is hard to choose favorite moments though of course Tesselate was transcendal and Matilda was beautiful.
The sound was great and it really hit home just how many great songs are on the album.
Side note the band are very down to earth guys who have no arrogance or airs and who love to talk to fans such a great thing to see.



Handmade is the hidden track from the album

September Excess

It was a feast of excess musically this week.
Maximo Park played The middle East Downstairs on Monday night, at the start of the night it seemed horribly quiet but by the time we had suffered through the two abysmal support bands thankfully the place had filled out.
Maximo Park have never been a band that were the most popular but have steady stream of support and have continued to create really great music which if you look at the lyrics can really suprise you as Paul Smith uses terms that are pretty erudite and are way beyond the normal garbage espoused by pop bands such as The Vaccines.Then there is also the fact that Smith is pretty acrobatic out there doing scissor kicks and jumps and generally keeps the audience in the palm of his hand.
On Monday they gave us a 21 song set, listed here .
Full of brilliant pop songs with hooks that kept people going crazy and having a really good time the band showed why they are so important.
Girls who Play guitars, Limassol, Apply some Pressure, books from boxes adn the kids re sick again show that they consistently create strong powerful songs which have the power to make you smile, want to move and raise your spirits. Lets hope its not another five years before they come back.
Talking about long time since a band has played, the Jesus And Mary Chain played The Paradise Tuesday and Wednesday, again pretty low attendance, what the heck is with Boston not knowing when a good thing is happening?
When the show started the band looked so old unassuming and I did wonder if this was going to be less than brilliant. It is probably the brilliance of the original songs but hearing songs like Sidewalking, Some Candy Talking , Just like honey and Reverence. However when they played 'Never Understand' it was transcendental and made e remember exactly why I hold these grumpy temperamental freaks to my heart with awe and wonder. and yes it felt just as wonderful the second night and of course Jim Reid had to throw the odd hissy just to prove he existed.
Such Wonder!
On a different note , Alt-J, a band from Leeds play Boston Monday the 17th.
Alt-J play music that really has quite a different structure to most current songs and the vocals have a almost falsetto note. As always Leeds provides music that goes where others do not helping the landscape keep fresh I am looking forward to this concert very much.