Given Away: New Pornographers Boston Tickets
Posted on April 5, 2006 at 10:03 am | No Comments
The kind promo crew over at WBCN were generous enough to provide the ‘Nac with 10 pairs of tickets to a private (aka ‘lucky winners only’) appearance by The New Pornographers at the Paradise on next Monday night, April 10th. As a fan of the New Prons, I was fairly disappointed to have missed their shows with Belle & Sebastian at Avalon in February (an aside: is anyone else as underwhelmed by the new B&S album as I am?), and I’m more than a little psyched to remedy that at a smaller venue.
So we’ll be there, with 10 of you Boston area readers (and a fortunate friend) joining us. Drop me an email with a subject of ‘FREE PRON!’ between now and Wednesday noon-ish with your snail-mailing address, I’ll pick the winners then, and send out the tix so they show up by Saturday (barring any postal snafus). My email link is over there on the left.
(Let’s hope that email subject I specified doesn’t get you stuck in my spam filter. Oh, and if you win, you are under absolutely no obligation to buy me a beer at the show.)
If you don’t wanna rely on getting lucky here, then listen to 104.1 WBCN, who are also giving away tickets, or head over to the Weekly Dig website, where you can enter online. Word has it that event sponsor Jack Daniels also has representatives handing out tix in Boston area bars, so heads up if you’re out and about. Since it’s a JD promo event, you have to be 21 or over to get in. Keep that in mind when you’re entering…
edited later to add – Ok, so I’m totally loving the influx of ‘FREE PRON!’ emails, and getting a kick out of your reactions to having to write it. And for those who are confused, yes, ‘pron’ is misspelled on purpose… it’s an old spammer trick to avoid filters. My attempts at humor often fall a bit short of the funny bar.
edited on 4/5 to say – The giveway is officially over, so if your inbox doesn’t contain a congratulatory message from me, unfortunately you aren’t one of the lucky few. I was honestly overwhelmed by the number of entrants, and truly wish I had a bunch more to give. If you missed out, definitely check out the Weekly Dig’s website, listen to WBCN, or hunt down a Jack Daniels representative in a local bar… tickets could still be yours.
Congratulations to the winners: Jacy, Stephanie, Krysta, Georgy, Ben, & Rob (all from Somerville… represent!), Dave from Medway, Eli in Brookline, Ashley and Ned from Cambridge, and Grant from Boston. Monday can’t come soon enough…
[Live MP3s] Th’ Faith Healers in Somerville, MA 2006
Posted on April 3, 2006 at 6:52 am | 6 Comments
Th’ Faith Healers. Roxanne Stephen, Tom Cullinan, Ben Hopkin, and Joe Dilworth. Their story was seemingly short but sweet: The first band singed to London’s ace Too Pure record label in 1990, two fantastic albums, some singles and a couple of EPs, one tour of the states, over and out. The first time I heard their debut disc, ‘Lido‘, I had one immediate thought: “Wow, I really need to see them play these songs live.” There are certain bands that instantly trigger that, and Th’ Faith Healers were one of ’em. But when they disbanded in 1994, I assumed I’d never get a chance…
Flash forward 12 years, and we get a perfect little surprise epilogue. First Ba Da Bing Records does us all the favor of compiling and releasing Th’ Faith Healers Peel Sessions late last year. Very cool, but just a sign of what was to come: Six stateside shows in March. When the dates were announced, I couldn’t believe that the Boston area would get one of ’em, but we did, and at the fairly cozy PA’s Lounge in Somerville.
And what a show it was. Dilworth’s steadily intense drumming, sweat pouring off him. Stephen’s alternatingly subdued and fierce voice, long hair often hiding her face. Hopkins repetitive, rolling bass lines, and a barefooted Cullinan supplying enough frenetic guitar noise for two. It just sounded so big, barely fitting inside PA’s. They played almost everything they’d rehearsed, 14 songs worth. Nearly the entirety of ‘Lido’, a few from ‘Imaginary Friend’, and a couple that can only be found on the Peel Sessions disc. To have finally seen Hopkins do his sliding bass bit during the breakdown bridge on ‘Don’t Jones Me‘ was a personal treat, or Cullinan’s heavily effected intro to ‘Reptile Smile‘, or, well, everything else. It was a wish finally fulfilled.
Much thanks to Ben from Ba Da Bing and Stacie from The Critique of Pure Reason for not only helping to make this night happen, but for being cool with my recording it…
Live at PA’s Lounge
Somerville, MA
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
[download the entire set as a 107MB .zip file]
01. This Time
02. Curly Lips
03. Moona Inna Joona
04. Bulkhead
05. Get The Fuck Outta My Face
06. Don’t Jones Me
07. Hippy Hole
08. It’s Easy Being You
09. Heart Fog
10. Spin 1/2
11. Love Song
12. Ooh La La
13. Reptile Smile
14. Mother Sky
Some extra added action…
I always thought the re-recorded version of ‘Don’t Jones Me‘ from the out-of-print EP was a bit better than the album version, so here it is…
Strange Fruit released a (long out-of-print) disc of Too Pure Peel Sessions in 1992 that included tracks from PJ Harvey, Stereolab, and three from Th’ Faith Healers. For some reason, these three songs weren’t included on the Ba Da Bing compilation, so here they are for ya…
Coffee Commercial Couples (Peel Session)
Bobby Kopper (Peel Session)
Jesus Freak (Peel Session)
And thanks to WFMU DJ Brian Turner, you can listen to Th’ Healer’s live broadcast on his show from last week, including the song ‘New No. 2‘, which they didn’t play at PA’s.
The fine print: If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just say the word (email link on left). Songs recorded with a Sony minidisc, converted from .wav to 192kbps mp3s.