Boston Rock Photos And Stuff
It’s a Thursday night at Radio and I’m bouncing between floors. I came here tonight to catch the first show in the new downstairs lounge. Since I’m here, I figure I’ll check out the benefit for The Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights going on upstairs.
I manage to catch a few songs by Beautiful Weekend. The sound is eerie and warm, slowly rising over the din of the bar. It hangs in the air, inviting in anyone who wants to listen.
Did you know that Radio has a downstairs lounge? They do. Chris n Kate (from Kingsley Flood and Just Rice, respectively) were the first people to perform down there.
The first show in Radio’s other performance area was like hanging out in a basement with friends, drinking beer and listening to music. There’s wood paneling. It works.
Let’s get one quick thing clear. This New Villager is the brainchild of Caleb Cliff, not NewVillager, the San Fran meets New York multimedia artists. Got it? OK.
Now… Caleb and his friends opened a benefit show for The Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights to an enthusiastic crowd. His nylon string guitar gave way to a full band setup with laptop support without missing a beat.*
* In fact, it added some beats. A dance number was played during the switchover.
Watts
One Below The All Time Low
2007
Watts have a sound. It starts with Cheap Trick and The Rolling Stones. Then it adds liberal doses of The Psychedelic Furs and both varieties of The Heartbreakers. It’s a good sound.
Watts use that sound to power their way through One Below The All Time Low. The record opens with the fantastic swagger of “20 To 12.” It’s the Stones on steroids and it’s a scorcher. There are other great songs, too. “One Below (The All Time Low)”, “Wishing” and “Petty Revolution” all feature great lead guitar lines to go with their catchy melodies. In fact, there’s not a bad song in the bunch.
One Below The All Time Low is fun and well executed. The guitars interact with precision, trading riffs from speaker to speaker. The backing vocals are spot. John Lynch is a human metronome. This is good solid rock ‘n’ roll.
Where to get it:
Holy mackerel! Bikini Whale were AMAZING!
I’m not going to pretend to be some diehard B-52s fan. I like some of their stuff, but I don’t think about or listen to them often. That may change. Bikini Whale were that good. So much fun.
With any luck, these guys and gals will reconsider the one-off nature of this gig. I’d love to change all of those “were”s to “are”s.
Halloween at Radio continues with Louder My Dear busting out INXS songs and campy Australian accents. A vocal minority wanted to hear “Devil Inside”. I think Louder My Dear was happy to leave the “devil” songs to Mötley Böö.
Gondoliers performed as Mötley Crüe, I mean Mötley Böö. Their set that was as much performance art as it was musical tribute, complete with fade outs and a cameo from an overdosing Nikki Sixx vomiting oatmeal.
Neon Angel (not to be confused with Gene Dante fronted Jett Streamer And The Neon Angels) got together to do a set of Runaways covers. Not a bad way to kick off the Halloween celebration at Radio.
Streight Angular
“Supermarché”
2011
Damn. Streight Angular have put out two of my favorite songs of this year. A few months ago I stumbled upon the amazing “Everyone Is Syncopated”. Now they’ve followed it up with the raucous and raving “Supermarché”. It’s The Pixies meets Queens Of The Stone Age over a hyperactive dance beat. It’s a neon strobe light, inviting you to party and taunting you at the same time. I can’t stop listening to this. Streight Angular really got me now. I want some more.
Where to get it:
The sounds of Plume’s prog/psych blend swirled around the basement of The Cantab as I snapped a few photos.
