Category: Blog

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Sidewalk Driver @ T.T. The Bear’s Place 7.27.2012

A couple of weeks ago, we presented a show at TT’s with our good friends over at Boston Band Crush. Sidewalk Driver was on the bill. I may have posted some pictures of these guys before. I kinda sorta like ’em a little bit. They’ve got these songs. Really cool songs. Songs about magnets and Tad’s face. And they play the hell out of ’em. They do all that while blowing confetti all over the friggin’ place.

One of my favorite things about a Sidewalk Driver show is telling my boys about it the next morning. As I was describing this particular show, Big Little One suspected I may be embellishing the tale a bit.

“You’re teasing.”

I assured him I wasn’t, although I understood his skepticism. It all sounded to fantastic to be true. It was too much for his six-year-old brain to process. I paused a minute to let him take it all in.

Then I told him about the parachute…

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Parlour Bells @ T.T. The Bear’s Place 7.27.2012

We here at Daykamp Music recently got to present our first show. We did so with the fine folks at Boston Band Crush. How spoiled are we? Quite. The very first band to play at one of our shows was Parlour Bells. That’s just crazy. The ‘Bells got things steamy right from the start. These debonair popsters have a dark spark that lights up whatever stage they grace. Their passionate set was a sign of good things to come.

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We’re All Gonna Die – Kiss The Ground, Curse The Sky (2008)


We’re All Gonna Die
Kiss The Ground, Curse The Sky
2008

We’re All Gonna Die brought the thunder on Kiss The Ground Curse The Sky. The album opens with “Brown Rabbit.” The instrumental serves as a fitting intro to the dark, heavy rock on the rest of the album. “Bled Out” is in the number two spot. It has a sludgetastically catchy hook that most metal bands would kill for. Damn near perfect. The bulk of the record flows from the same vein. Heavy riffs, gritty solos and powerful grooves are the rule here. “Elevator Down” has Kiss The Ground Curse The Sky‘s most devastating guitars and a swaggering vocal. “Burn” and “Shank” are as a brutal as their names imply. It’s not heavy for heavy’s sake, though. These are bona fide songs. Good ones at that.

Jim Healey and company also knew when to pull back a little. “Nothing To Say” has a Jimmy Page-esque guitar part. The dark ballad “Dusk And Done” uses female vocals to nice effect. The melody of “On The Sea” lingers long after the record ends. These are not power ballads; think Alice In Chains in EP mode. These are melodic songs with lots of tension.

We’re All Gonna Die was a powerhouse band. Kiss The Ground, Curse The Sky is a testament to that.

Where to get it:

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Velah – Black Olympia (2012)


Velah
Black Olympia
2012

When I caught Velah at TT’s last month, I was impressed with how well-formed the young band’s sound was. I knew their lineage. I appreciate the work the band’s members did in Static Of The Gods and The Acre. I had high hopes. I also know a band’s early work can be a bit disjointed as they find their legs. Black Olympia flies that notion out the window on a breeze of shimmering guitars.

“Wanderlust” opens this EP with an elevated level of urgency. The immediacy of the song defies the shoegaze tag that is often placed on the band. We’re introduced to the vocal interplay, intertwining guitar parts and clockwork drumming that will define these recordings. Each song steps out from there. The chorus to “Calm Down” is pure pop. The EP’s title track is majestic. “Glass Heart” threatens to drown in its own delay-soaked layers before breaking the surface in a triumphant crescendo. It all works. Let’s see where Velah goes next.

Where to get it:

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Viva Viva @ Great Scott 7.23.2012

Viva Viva capped off the first night of the Boston Accents Funeral Party. Michael Marotta put together one hell of a night* to celebrate one hell of a run on his WFNX radio show. He’s a huge asset to this town. I look forward to seeing what he does next. As for Viva Viva’s set, it rolled as much as it rocked. It burned itself to the ground. It brought the night to an uproarious end – just like the radio show it celebrated.

* Word on the street** is that the other two nights were pretty great, too.

** Internet, obviously.

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Ribs @ Great Scott 7.23.2012

Ribs put on quite the show during Night #1 of the Boston Accents Funeral Party. Not only did they have a a ton of music and electronic gear hooked up, but they brought their own light show. There were so many cords and cables on the stage you’d think they had the Ark Of The Covenant up there.* They opened with Placebo’s “Pure Morning,” a sign of the indielectro rock that would mark their powerful set.

* That’s my second Raiders Of The Lost Ark reference in a week. Time to watch that movie again.

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Cask Mouse – Cambridge Sessions (2011)


Cask Mouse
Cambridge Sessions
2011

So no no don’t you worry
Someday I’ll settle down
But this fire in my belly
Is burning hot right now

Cask Mouse profess their wanderlust on “Astronaut,” the opening track of 2011’s Cambridge Sessions. It’s a feeling that will pop up again and again throughout the EP. This is a stomp-and-clap-along number filled with hope. It sucks me in. The drawl. The hook. The positivity. Cask Mouse are masters of emotional manipulation.

All of that optimism quickly turns into sentimentality. “Brick On Brick” is a slow, reflective number featuring some of the gorgeous vocal harmonies that have become one of Cask Mouse’s trademarks. Everyone in the band can sing with conviction. Bonnie Parks takes her turn on “Time To Breathe.” It’s a devastating number that revisits the theme of locational restlessness.

The places I’ll go
The things that I’ll see
Never really mattered that much to me
I’m leaving home
I won’t come back
I won’t come back
I won’t come back

That songs gets me every time. It’s brutal. I crash. “Smokin'” is the big hangover. This ode to hard living settles in with the slow burn of resignation before kicking up some dust. Cambridge Sessions closes with “Radio,” which pleads Cask Mouse’s case for displacement one last time.

Baby, turn off the radio
The sun is coming up
And I feel I have to go

Where to get it:

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Fat Creeps @ Great Scott 7.23.2012

Well, we’ve reached the end of WFNX’s long, slow goodbye. What started with the We Want The Airwaves: A WFNX Tribute at the Paradise closes out at a venue down the street. Michael Marotta organized this three-night Boston Accents Funeral Party at Great Scott to send the station’s Boston-centric show out with a bang. Night #1 started with an angelic set of garage pop by Fat Creeps.

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Zip-Tie Handcuffs @ Ringer Park 7.21.2012

Allston DIY Fest dragged a whole lot of bands out of the dark spaces they frequent and into sunny Ringer Park. Some bands, like Holiday Mountain, felt right at home in the open air. Others seemed gloriously out of place. Such was the case with Zip-Tie Handcuffs. Theirs is a sound meant to rattle around a dank, claustrophobic room. Freed from its confines, the wall of distortion and close-spaced vocal harmonies whipped through the crowd melting faces like the spirits at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It was awesome.