bradley's almanac - a boston music blog

boston area shows of note:

sunday, september 7th

ryan adams & the cardinals

@ the bank of america pavilion

monday, september 8th

mates of state

the cool kids

tim fite

(free, but students only)

5:30pm @ northeastern university

tuesday, september 9th

paul weller

@ the berklee performance center

wednesday, september 10th

'what the fluff?' fest

comic book art exhibit opening

somerville community access tv

5-8pm, 90 union square, somerville

friday, september 12th

mission of burma

in-store performance

7pm @ newbury comics, newbury st.

friday, september 12th

buffalo tom

@ the boston arts festival

6pm @ christopher columbus park

saturday, september 13th

rogue wave (in-store)

@ newbury comics grand opening

8:30pm in norwood, ma

saturday, september 13th

wfnx disorientation 2008

the kooks, flogging molly,

alkaline trio, rogue wave,

and more to be announced

@ bank of america pavilion

sunday, september 14th

juliana hatfield (full band)

hayden

@ the brattle theatre

sunday, september 14th

lymbyc systym

this will destroy you

arms and sleepers

@ harper's ferry

sunday & monday

september 14th & 15th

james

unkle bob

@ the paradise

monday, september 15th

lagwagon, mxpx,

only crime, & tat

@ harper's ferry

monday, september 15th

sunset rubdown

@ the middle east

tuesday, september 16th

a place to bury strangers

sian alice group

neptune

@ the paradise

thursday, september 18th

bell x1

wild light

@ the paradise

thursday, september 18th

the walkmen

@ the middle east downstairs

friday, september 19th

sigur ros

@ the bank of america pavilion

friday, september 19th

the swell season ('once'/frames)

bill callahan (smog)

@ agganis arena

friday, september 19th to

sunday, september 21st

all tomorrow's parties

with my bloody valentine, low

built to spill, mogwai, shellac,

polvo, yo la tengo, lilys, autolux

dinosaur jr, mercury rev, & more

@ the catskills in nyc

saturday, september 20th

mike viola (solo)

(1st of 3 weekly residencies)

with guest blue and their

band, the major labels

@ the lizard lounge

saturday, september 20th

noah & the whale

@ toad

sunday, september 21st

the low lows

magic magic

ryan lee crosby

@ tt the bears

monday, september 22nd

wye oak

@ cafe 939 @ berklee

monday, september 22nd

the broken west

@ the middle east

monday, september 22nd

oxford collapse

love as laughter

takka takka

@ tt the bears

monday, september 22nd

mogwai

fuck buttons

@ the wilbur theatre

tuesday, september 23rd

writer dennis lehane

(release day for 'the given day')

@ the coolidge corner theatre

tuesday, september 23rd

weezer

angels & airwaves

tokyo police club

@ the tsongas arena

tuesday, september 23rd

cut copy

the presets

@ the paradise

wednesday, september 24th

joan as policewoman

@ the middle east

wednesday, september 24th

low

tulsa

@ the museum of fine arts boston

wednesday, september 24th

gemma hayes

sydney wayser

@ great scott

friday, september 26th

ben folds

missy higgins

@ the orpheum

saturday, september 27th

mike viola (solo)

(2nd of 3 weekly residencies)

@ the lizard lounge

saturday, september 27th

julie doiron

mount eerie

calm down, it's monday

@ massart

saturday, september 27th

built to spill

performing 'perfect from now on'

dinosaur jr.

meat puppets

@ the orpheum

sunday, september 28th

the bird and the bee

willoughby

@ great scott

sunday and monday

september 28th and 29th

ratatat

panther

e*rock

@ the paradise

tuesday, september 30th

boston spaceships

(gbv's robert pollard)

big dipper

@ the paradise

tuesday, september 30th

say hi

jukebox the ghost

@ the middle east

wednesday, october 1st

chromeo

treasure fingers

@ the paradise

thursday & friday

october 2nd & 3rd

baltimore round robin

29 bands playing in a circle,

non-stop, one song at a time,

with you in the very center

with dan deacon, beach house,

creepers, the death set, adventure,

and everyone listed here

@ mass art

friday, october 3rd

death cab for cutie

@ agganis arena

friday, october 3rd

the fratellis

airborne toxic event

electric touch

@ the orpheum

saturday, october 4th

mike viola @ friends

(3rd of 3 weekly residencies)

@ the lizard lounge

sunday, october 5th

old 97s

@ the wilbur theatre

sunday, october 5th

pinback

sbach

@ the paradise

monday, october 6th

the wedding present

the jealous girlfriends

@ the middle east downstairs

monday, october 6th

fleet foxes

frank fairfield

@ the somerville theatre

monday, october 6th

stereolab

le loup

monade

@ the paradise

tuesday, october 7th

liam finn

the veils

@ the paradise

wednesday, october 8th

lucinda williams

@ the orpheum

wednesday, october 8th

the opening night of

carrie fisher's one woman show

'wishful drinking'

@ the huntington theater (bu)

wednesday, october 8th

allison moyet

@ the wilbur theatre

wednesday, october 8th

wire

@ the middle east downstairs

thursday, october 9th

chuck ragan (of hot water music)

ben nichols (of lucero)

tim barry (of avail)

with guest jesse malin

@ the middle east

saturday, october 11th

les savy fav

passion pit

@ the middle east

saturday, october 11th

the feelies

@ the roxy

sunday, october 12th

the residents

@ showcase live, foxboro

sunday, october 12th

the notwist

@ the roxy

sunday, october 12th

jamie lidell

janelle monae

@ the paradise

sunday, october 12th

against me!

ted leo & the pharmacists

the future of the left

@ the wilbur theatre

monday, october 13th

tv on the radio

the dirtbombs

@ the wilbur theatre

tuesday, october 14th

cold war kids

@ the paradise

thursday, october 16th

ben kweller

whitley

@ the paradise

thursday, october 16th

jonatha brooke

glen phillips

(from toad the wet sprocket)

@ the wilbur theatre

friday, october 17th

hallelujah the hills

wonderful spells

capstan shafts

needy visions

@ tt the bears

friday, october 17th

jonathan richman

with drummer tommy larkin

@ the somerville theatre

saturday, october 18th

asobi seksu

the broken river prophet

@ the middle east

saturday, october 18th

ra ra riot

walter meego

the morning benders

@ the middle east

sunday, october 19th

the spinto band

frightened rabbit

@ the middle east

monday, october 20th

magnetic morning

(adam swervedriver & sam interpol)

julie ocean

springhouse (w/jack rabid)

@ great scott

tuesday, october 21st

minus the bear

annuals

sylvie

@ the wilbur theatre

tuesday & wednesday

october 21st & 22nd

billy bragg

@ the somerville theatre

wednesday, october 22nd

yeasayer

@ the paradise

wednesday, october 22nd

lyle lovett & john hiatt

(acoustic, on stage together)

@ the orpheum

thursday, october 23rd

lykke li

@ the paradise

thursday, october 23rd

deerhoof

experimental dental school

@ the middle east down

friday, october 24th

fujiya & miyagi

prototypes

@ the paradise

sunday, october 26th

scars on broadway

the duke spirit

@ the paradise

sunday, october 26th

broken social scene

land of talk

@ the wilbur theatre

monday, october 27th

matthew sweet

@ the paradise

wednesday, october 29th

legendary pink dots

@ the middle east down

thursday, october 30th

of montreal

@ the orpheum

friday, october 31st

hotel cafe tour

with rachael yamagata, meiko,

thao nguyen, samanatha crain,

and jenny owen youngs

@ the paradise

friday, october 31st

the rumble strips

birdmonster

@ tt the bears

friday, october 31st

david byrne

performing the songs of byrne & eno

@ the wang center

saturday, november 1st

henry rollins (spoken word)

@ the orpheum

monday, november 3rd

matt and kim

best fwends

@ the middle east

monday, november 3rd

coldplay

@ the td banknorth garden

wednesday, november 5th

conor oberst +

the mystic valley band

@ the roxy

thursday, november 6th

the decemberists

loche lamond

@ the orpheum

friday, november 7th

"my name is bruce"

area theatrical premiere

with director/star bruce campbell

@ a boston-area theatre (tbd)

sunday, november 9th

the hold steady

drive-by truckers

@ the orpheum

tuesday, november 11th

deerhunter

times new viking

the vivian girls

@ the paradise

wednesday, november 12th

the sea and cake

@ the middle east down

wednesday, november 12th

kings of leon

we are scientists

the whigs

@ the orpheum

thursday, november 13th

nicole atkins & the sea

salt & samovar

@ tt the bears

thursday, november 13th

scarce (cd release!)

wheat

triplethick

@ tt the bears

tuesday, november 18th

m83

school of seven bells

@ the middle east down

thursday, november 20th

bishop allen

@ the middle east

friday, november 21st

robyn hitchcock

performing 'i often dream of trains'

@ the somerville theatre

saturday, december 13th

neil young

wilco

@ the dcu center, worcester

visit tourfilter for more shows

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wednesday Music Miscellany

Cutting straight to the chase, sharing up some songs I've been listening to lately, and some info that has me jazzed. Artists mentioned include Pinback, Yo La Tengo, The Soft Drugs, Neil Young, Sigur Ros, PJ Harvey, Sleepyhead, Editors, British Sea Power, and some other band who released an album on the internet today.

The mighty Pinback return to Boston tonight in support of their latest (and greatest, methinks) album, "Autumn of the Seraphs". Opening up is geek-rap prodigy MC Chris, and as of this writing, tickets were still available. They simply blew me away when they played the Paradise last year, so I highly recommend heading over to the Roxy this evening, or checking out their lengthy tour itinerary if you're elsewhere.

Pinback's Rob & Zach appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation a couple days ago, and played two songs to bookend their interview. Here's one of them...

Mp3: Pinback - "Walters" (live on NPR)
Stream: Pinback interview & performance on NPR

Yo La Tengo's latest tour, which is billed as a Freewheelin' one, kicked off last night in Bloomington, Indiana, and swings through Boston on Thursday, November 15th for two shows at the Museum of Fine Arts. Tickets are here and here.

Here's how the band describes the tour...

The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo Tour is a rare opportunity to see this ever-surprising band in a setting more intimate and interactive than any tour in their 23-year career. A little bit "Storytellers", a little bit "Unplugged", with a soupcan of their famously varied Hanukkah shows, it will feature the band playing an almost-acoustic set of songs from their entire catalog, with stories about their life as a band, and an encouraged back-and-forth with the audience. Already famous for never playing the same show twice, this fresh look at Yo La Tengo offers rare insight into one of the most important, unique, and beloved bands in American rock. Yo La Tengo's latest CD, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, will be the springboard for these shows, though anything can and will happen from there.

That spells "can't miss" to me.

Well-timed for the Red Sox run for the pennant, although not necessarily related, T.W. Walsh has a new streaming song under his nom de rock, the Soft Drugs, called "Build Me A Ballpark". Check it out over at his MySpace page. The full-band incarnation will make their Boston debut at TT the Bears in Cambridge later this month, opening for David Bazan (along with Drew O'Doherty and All Smiles). Check back here next week, when I'll be giving a way a pair of tickets to the show.

If you missed out last week on the quickly-vanished tickets for the two special Neil Young shows that are happening in December at the Orpheum, you'll get one more chance: A third show has been added, on Thursday, December 6th, and tickets go on sale for that one this weekend, Saturday, October 13th at 10am. Yeah, it's a pricey one (tix start at around $70, and go as high as $160), but it's not like Neil comes around very often, or plays places that seat under 3000 fans.

Sigur Ros has been playing a short acoustic set to accompany screenings of their documentary/concert-film "Heima", and one of those performances was in Helsinki, Finland a couple weeks back. Taper Teema was there, and has allowed me to share mp3 versions of their beautiful recording (original torrent here). They're absolutely (and unsurprisingly) gorgeous versions of three songs...

Mp3: Sigur Ros - "Njosnavelin" (live)
Mp3: Sigur Ros - "Heima" (live)
Mp3: Sigur Ros - "Agaetis Byrjun" (live)
(all live acoustic in Helsinki, Finland on 2007.9.30)

And if you haven't heard it yet, it's worth checking out the Kronos Quartet's version of Sigur Ros' "Flugufrelsarinn", which you can stream here *, or download via iTunes. Oh, and if you're wondering if "Heima" will screen in Boston? Hang in there, and keep your fingers crossed.

* Also note the stream of Kronos performing a live version of "Way Down In The Hole" with Mr. Tom Waits. Fans of the Wire will get a special buzz outta that one. Just a few more months to go until season 5 starts.

PJ Harvey's new album, "White Chalk", marks a beautiful shift in direction from her previous disc, and I for one am thankful. It's a disquieting, almost eerie piece of work, all piano, hushed guitars, and fragile vocals, a far yet soft cry from the raw, rough edges of "Uh Huh Her". Had she toured for that album, I might have skipped it, but if she hits Boston to share "White Chalk" with us, I'm there. For now, she only has two U.S. dates scheduled (tonight in NYC, Monday in LA), but I'm hoping that changes soon.

The packaging on this one was a bit odd, what with the full disc coming in a thin cardboard sleeve and the accompanying extra EP (which is actually a computer-only EPK) housed in a regular-sized jewel case. Usually it's the opposite, but I'm not complaining. Did take awhile to figure out how to get the .mov file of the bonus EP's 1988 demo "Wait" converted to mp3, though. iTunes buyers get that song included with their full-album purchase.

Here's a fairly stunning performance of "Grow Grow Grow" that had PJ strumming an autoharp and tapping a keyboard with her feet for a French television show (video here)...

Mp3: PJ Harvey - "Grow Grow Grow" (live)

I'm still a bit sad that I missed Sleepyhead's first show in three years a couple weekends back (how dare they schedule that while I was outta town?!), but getting a new song helps make up for it, at least until the (hopefully) next show...

Stream: Sleepyhead - "Whoville" (rough mix) on MySpace

The proper mix of that should be found on their "sometime in 2008" album, "Red Letter Daze".

In the "odd covers" category, here's Editors doing Calvin Harris on BBC Radio 1 last month...

Mp3: Editors - "Acceptable In The 80s" (Calvin Harris) acoustic on BBC1

The band also took a stab at the Cure's "Lullaby" to commemorate Radio 1's 40th Anniversary, and you can see an interview about that with the band (and many others) here.

This new British Sea Power track thrills me, and ensures that I'll be buying their "Krankenhaus?" EP when it arrives on North American shores November 20th. Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but there will be an extra spring in my step as I head to the record store that day...

Mp3: British Sea Power - "Atom"

BSP plays downstairs at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA on Sunday, October 21st. Tickets here, or at the club's box office if you want to avoid the extra charges. The band's third full length, "Do You Like Rock Music?", arrives on February 12th in the US, and a month earlier in the UK. Lucky sods.

And finally, how can I not comment on Radiohead's "In Rainbows" today, of all days? My longtime love for the band has bounced back and forth from "big fan" to "obsessive", but I've felt no need to add my little voice to the overwhelming amount of blogarrhea that's built up over the past 10 days, at least not until I had it on my hard drive. I'll sum things up by saying: The news of the release, and the way it was done, excited me. Yeah, it might have been nice if the band disclosed the bitrate info and eventual proper cd release plans up front, but this is uncharted territory here. I dropped $5 U.S. in their bucket, woke up this morning to my download link, and have been absorbing the album all day.

Apart from the music itself, the best aspect of the whole experiment? The return of the "shared experience" that has disappeared in the age of leaks and staggered releases. I sure missed those big Tuesdays, those marked events, and it's nice to have it back for once, especially when the reaction comes fast and furious on music blogs, entertainment sites, and personal rss feeds within a number of hours. Even better when it's for an album this good. Others can "live blog" it, and I'll refrain from going track by track, but I will say there's only a couple songs that didn't somehow strike me within the first listen or two, and even those might hit me later. It's a big step up from "Hail to the Thief" (and I liked that one), and I'm guessing it'll easily make my top 5 this year. I'm fired up enough that, budget be damned, I feel like springing for the box that ships in December, for the vinyl and the disc full of extra tracks. Even if I don't, I'll still be picking up the more conventional disc next year, because I'm one of those old-fashioned freaks who needs something sitting on my cd shelves.

My only initial complaint is one of preconception: Like others, I was so impacted by the live version of "Videotape" when I saw the band last year that I'm a little let down by the relatively subdued one that closes out "In Rainbows". I'm mystified as to why the band kept drummer Phil Selway out of the studio for that one, but hey, we'll always have the live tracks: From my recording of Radiohead's Boston show back on June 5th, 2006, here are the songs that made it onto "In Rainbows"...

Mp3: Radiohead - "15 Step" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)
Mp3: Radiohead - "Videotape" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)
Mp3: Radiohead - "Bodysnatchers" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)
Mp3: Radiohead - "Nude" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)
Mp3: Radiohead - "House of Cards" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)
Mp3: Radiohead - "Arpeggi" (live in Boston 2006.06.05)