Tag: Keith Pierce

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Motherboar @ T.T. The Bear’s Place 4.20.2012

Brutal. Devastating. Unrelenting. Throw all of those terms at Motherboar’s 2012 Rock ‘N’ Roll Rumble Run. They were the heaviest band in this year’s competition and they didn’t shy away from that distinction. They pummeled the TT’s crowd with three sets of punishing metal. More importantly, they were also a blast to watch. The may not have donned the Rumble tiara (what a sight that would have been), but their Finals set proved why they got the wildcard. Motherboar is one of the best bands in town.

2012 Rock ‘N’ Roll Rumble Winner: Bow Thayer And Perfect Trainwreck

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Paper Airplane Fight and Mellow Bravo @ Moe’s Lounge 2.10.2012

In the grand tradition of Puppet Show and Spinal Tap comes Paper Airplane Fight and Mellow Bravo.*

* Yes, I know this wasn’t technically a Mellow Bravo show, but I didn’t know what else to call it.

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Tad & Kate @ Moe’s Lounge 2.10.2012

So much good music at Radio this past Friday night! Quality tunes upstairs and down all night long. I shot down to Moe’s Lounge after Reverse’s amazing set just in time to catch Tad & Kate doing their thing as part of Keith Pierce’s new series, Practice. Keith even jumped behind the kit for a couple of tunes. His Mellow Bravo band mate, Seager Tennis, followed suit on bass. This is pretty cool. I want more!

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Aquanutz @ Moe’s Lounge 1.20.2012

I pretty much knew I was going to like Aquanutz. I grew up on hair metal, so this was right up my alley. I expected the Poison and Cinderella covers. I would have been happy to leave it at that. I got so much more.

When Aquanutz opened with “Slide It In”, I knew this show was going to exceed my already high expectations. When they covered “Blind In Texas” a couple of songs later I was all-in. I mean, who covers W.A.S.P. in 2012? Awesome bands do. Aquantuz does.

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Mellow Bravo @ Radio 11.19.2011

Mellow Bravo is the band you should be begging to play at your basement kegger. Sure, the cops are gonna come and bust the thing up, but it’ll be awesome until then…

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The Bedss @ The Middle East Downstairs 9.24.2011

File this one under: But wait, there’s more!

Just when you thought One Night Band 3 had come to an end, Ashley Willard* came out to inform us there was one more act. Get ready for “Cum On Feel The Noize”** as performed by The Bedss, One Night Band class of 2010. Well, most of The Bedss. And some other folks. A whole stage full of One Night Banders. Some of them may have been drinking.

* VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Ashley Willard, Richard Bouchard and the whole crew at Boston Band Crush did an amazing job putting this thing together and raising $2,700 for Zumix. If I was wearing Richard Bouchard’s hat I would tip it to them all.

** I think. This is open to interpretation.

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Golden Owl @ The Middle East Downstairs 9.24.2011

Golden Owl (Aaron Rosenthal, Even Shore, John Sheeran, Lou Paniccia and Ryan Schmidt) was another band I got to photograph for their official One Night Band posters. The band had a loose Star Trek theme for their set. Shatner tie-in or not, “Name Your Own Price” is now one of my favorite songs.  I don’t even mean “favorite songs by guys that had only formed a band a few hours earlier”.  I mean “favorite songs to sing around the house because I just can’t help myself”.

I won’t pay full price for your love…

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Mellow Bravo @ The Middle East Downstairs 7.29.2011

There’s this movie called I Get Off. It stars a white 1974 Pontiac Trans AM driven by Sheila, played by an otherwise unknown actress who now makes her meager living charging people $20 a pop to have their picture taken with her and a replica of said car at comic conventions. In this cinematic masterpiece there are bar fights, mustaches, a Columbo knock-off police detective, bricks and bricks of an unspecified narcotic and a guy in a banana suit.

In the climactic scene, the Trans Am races head-on toward a tanker truck in the desert. The windows are down. Sheila’s hair is blowing in the wind. She lifts her sunglasses. Her eyes are focused. There’s a shotgun on the passenger seat. Her hand reaches down to turn up the radio.

Mellow Bravo blares from the speakers as a sly smile comes across Sheila’s face.

Then it gets messy.

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Mellow Bravo – Strut (2010)


Mellow Bravo
Strut
2010

Do you like your ’70s inspired hard rock with a healthy dose of bombast? I thought so.

Mellow Bravo deliver the goods on Strut. They hook you out of the gate with the heavy groove of “Highs And Lows” and the blistering “I Get Off”. Mellow Bravo makes you feel good. Just try to not sing along to the “ooo ooo” parts in “Must Be My Woman” or “I Wanted A Girl”. You can’t help yourself. “Freshman Prom Queen” is wildly inappropriate and unbelievably awesome. “Hard Timin'” has a swinging guitar riff that sounds too good not to have been played before.

Just when you think you’ve got Mellow Bravo pegged as the ultimate party band, they hit you up with “Just Like Water Would” and “My Head And Heart”. Keith Pierce and Jess Collins carry these songs with their well paired vocals. Oh wait, did I just imply that Mellow Bravo aren’t the ultimate party band? No, no, no. They are the ultimate party band. They just happen to be able to go a little deeper as well.

It would be impossible to capture all of Mellow Bravo’s live energy in a studio setting, but Strut comes about as close as you could hope for. For one last hurrah, they close out the record with a live version of “Light Up My Little Love”. Mellow Bravo rules.

Where to get it:

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Mellow Bravo @ T.T. The Bear’s Place 4.14.2011

Mellow Bravo played their Rumble semi-final set as if it was their last ever. I suspect they play all of their shows this way.

What a fun band. I wouldn’t doubt that Mellow Bravo fans think the band has a middle name. I, for one, found myself muttering “Mellow F’n Bravo” underneath my breath more than once throughout their supercharged set.  The band was firing on all cylinders, and singer Keith Pierce was their spark plug. Jeffery Fultz and Andrew Doherty channeled every classic rock guitar riff they’ve ever heard.   Dave Jarvis on drums and Seager Tennis on bass kept things moving along with reckless abandon.  Jess Collins helped make the whole thing gel on keys.  She also happened to explode when they put a microphone in her hand and gave her center stage.

Semi-Final Night #1 of the 2011 Rock ‘N’ Roll Rumble was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. Spirit Kid won the night, but any of the bands could have moved on given a different set of judges or a groundhog seeing his shadow or what have you. Mellow Bravo, Sidewalk Driver, and Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (and Spirit Kid, of course) were just that good.  What an awesome night.