(The return of) Music Miscellany: Upcoming Boston-area shows (TT’s tonight!)
Posted on December 21, 2010 at 5:03 pm | No Comments
Hey, remember me? Name’s Brad. Used to run a music blog, back in the day. Don’t blame you if it doesn’t ring a bell.
Let’s get reacquainted, shall we? Time to blow a little dust off this place, shake out the sheets with some personally inspiring show-related randomness. I’ll spare you the many excuses for my too-long absence (that’ll be a whole ‘nother post) and just jump straight in…
The impending new year will bring a whole mess of great bands to the Boston-area. Seriously, I’m buying more tickets lately than Christmas presents (uh, sorry, family), and new shows keep popping up every day. Here’s a quick look at few I’m excited about in January — not necessarily all of the ones I’m looking forward to, but definitely the ones you should get tickets to before they disappear. There’s also a show tonight you should check out, and a couple beyond the end of January I’ll mention while I’m at it…
camper van beethovenThe ongoing “bands playing entire albums” trend looks like it will continue into 2011, with David Lowery bringing both his bands (Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker) to the Middle East Downstairs on January 16th. CVB will run through all of 1989’s “Key Lime Pie” (the last album before their 1990 breakup, notable for the single “(I Was Born In A) Laundromat” and their cover of “Pictures of Matchstick Men“), and Cracker will serve up their 1993 sophomore breakthrough “Kerosene Hat”. I was never much of a Cracker fan, but as a massive Camper Van devotee, I’d be infinitely more excited to see them do KLP’s immediate predecessor, “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart”. Doesn’t mean I won’t still be there for CVB’s set, though. Tickets, yo. As long as we’re on the subject of Mr. Lowery – he’ll be releasing his very first solo record on February 1st courtesy of 429 Records. It’s called “The Palace Guards”, and he’s shared up the title track as a preview…
I can’t help but feel some pride, however completely unjustified, when bands from my homestate of Vermont get well-deserved attention outside its borders. So I’ve been particularly keen on the ascendance of longtime Lyndonville resident (and now West Virginian) Dean Wells, aka The Capstan Shafts, over the past couple of years. While he’s been using that name for about a decade, all the P4K props and live-band action are relatively recent. January 18th brings some of that live action to the Boston area, finally, when he (and his backing band?) opens for our own Hallelujah The Hills at TT the Bears. A guaranteed, can’t-miss, wintertime hootenanny will ensue. Get those tickets. The following Friday sees a ridiculously stacked solo-guitar-guy triple-bill at the soon-to-open Brighton Music Hall in Allston (formerly Harper’s Ferry). Seriously, just look at this: Ted Leo headlines, Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom precedes him, and Drew O’Doherty (ex-Ivory Coast, and one of Ted’s former Pharmacists) kicks things off. I mean, jeez, all killer no filler. Last time I saw Drew open for Ted, they used a Springsteen song as an aural relay baton – wonder if those three gents will come up with some kind of cool handoff to segue between each set this time around. One can hope. Grab tickets online, or save on fees and pick them up at the Paradise Box Office, who also handle BMH ticket sales. Not music, but this will rock in it’s own way: On Saturday, January 22nd at 2pm, ace funny-man and occasional actor Patton Oswalt hits town for an afternoon appearance at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, courtesy of the Brookline Booksmith. The special occasion? He’s got a book to sell, meaning you’ve got one to buy. His imminent memoir is titled “Zombie Spaceship Wasteland”, and for $5 you can be there when he cracks wise in Coolidge Corner. Stop by the Booksmith to grab a ticket, and soon. I’ve never been a huge Decemberists fan, and less so after the last couple albums, but I’ll still be at one of their two late-January shows at Boston’s House of Blues. Why? Two words, two people: Wye Oak. Jenn & Andy are opening both nights, January 28th & 29th, and I’m hoping/assuming we’ll get to hear some songs from their out-in-March-on-Merge third album, “Civilian”. I have two wishes: Their set isn’t cut too short due to the opening slot, and if it is, that they come back to town very soon for a headline date once the album arrives. I missed their last Boston-area show, and that ain’t gonna happen again. Make with the ticket buying: night one / night two. The month of January ends with two competing locally-focused shows that might have you hoping for the quick arrival of cloning technology: Saturday, January 29th gives a choice between the foursome of Mean Creek, Taxpayer, Girlfriends, and Dirty Dishes at the Brighton Music Hall vs. a show across the river at the Lizard Lounge with Aloud, This Blue Heaven, Oranjuly, and One Happy Island. A tough call, to be sure, but you should think about advance tickets no matter where your decision falls. Be forewarned: That Lizard Lounge show is the night One Happy Island officially releases a 4-track split single with personal UK fave Standard Fare (!). The bands cover a song by each other, and each offer up a new one. Cannot wait to hold that piece of wax in my happy little hands, especially so I can hear OHI’s take on one of my favorite Standard Fare tracks, “A Night With A Friend“.
Looking a bit further ahead into February, you must acquire grab tickets for the Radio Dept. at the Middle East Downstairs on February 4th if you haven’t already, and if you’re a fan of seminal Aussie quartet The Church, buy one for their February 18th appearance at Showcase Live in Foxboro. I’ve seen, and loved, them at that general-admission, seated venue before, and this time they’ll make it more special: Three entire albums (1988’s “Starfish”, 1992’s “Priest=Aura”, 2009’s “Untitled #23) played top-to-bottom in one night. Yup, there’s that ongoing trend again, with the Church tripling down. Two shows in March jump out at me: Walter Schreifels (Quicksand/Gorilla Biscuits) and his recently-rekindled Rival Schools show up on Saturday, March 5th at the Brighton Music Hall, and all-girl uber-group Wild Flag plays there two days later on Monday, March 7th. Why “uber”? ‘Cuz it’s former Bostonian Mary Timony (Helium) with Janet Weiss (Quasi), Carrie Brownstein (that’s 2/3 of Sleater-Kinney), and Rebecca Cole (the Minders). Been a long time since a new band has gotten so much digital ink before any officially-released recordings, or even before their first show (which happened last month), but given that pedigree, they kinda deserve it. Austin’s Yellow Fever and Boston’sJP’s own Shepherdess open up that show. Tickets right here.Think they’ll play this cover when they hit town?…
Yeah, I kinda think they will, too.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention one show that’s happening before we ring in another new year: TONIGHT, Tuesday the 21st, new fave In The Audience opens up a 3-band night on the side-stage at TT the Bears. The self-described musical collective pulls members from both Portland (ME) and Toronto, and I’ve really liked everything I’ve heard from them so far. There’s an 8-track album (“What Lives”, released in October) available over at their Bandcamp site, and they’re in the midst of recording a new album as well. Keep an eye on their MySpace site, where they’re promising to share up some fresh demos. They’ve been kind enough to send some to me, and they’re a marked improvement on the already-good songs from that first release. Pretty psyched to see them play, and I’m hoping there are more people in the crowd to see them than you’d expect for the opening-slot-on-a-holiday-week-Tuesday. In other words: Join me at TT’s tonight, k? Get there at 9 sharp so you don’t miss a note. Here’s something from their poppier side that should help you make those plans…
Hit up Bandcamp to stream (or better yet, buy) some more. Give a listen to “Walter Gretzky Street Hockey Tournament“, and head to MySpace for their cover of Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” (yes, that was the second Bruce mention in this post).
One show that hasn’t been announced yet, but surely will, is the reunited Sebadoh‘s return to town. They’ve just announced a slew of West Coast dates, and the East Coast itinerary is imminent. The occasion? A re-release/reissue/repackage/remaster of what is, as far as I’m concerned, their best album: Bakesale. You want bonus trax? How about freakin’ 25 of them.
Naturally we’ll get Lou Barlow and Jason Loewenstein both, but no Eric Gaffney this time around. Bakesale-drummer Bob Fay unfortunately isn’t along for the ride either, but we’ll get treated instead to Bob D’Amico behind the kit. Bob’s been playing with Jason for years, and has been doing rhythmic duty alongside Jason in Fiery Furnaces lately. Cannot wait to see them rock those Bakesale tracks out. I’ll be the one kinda freaking out during “Drama Mine“.
Postscripts:
1. Tonight: TTs!
2. It appears as though I’ll be at Brighton Music Hall more times in their first few months of existence than I was during all the years it was Harper’s Ferry. BMH booker for the win!
3. Hey, look, I made a blog post! Feel free to slow clap.
[Comics Giveaway] Jeff Lemire’s spellbinding SWEET TOOTH (+ new SUPERBOY)
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 9:47 am | No Comments
We interrupt your irregularly-scheduled musical programming for something I don’t mention often enough on the ‘Nac: Comic books. Or ‘sequential art’, as the more erudite might say. ‘Graphic storytelling’, maybe? Whatever you want to call them (just not ‘the funny pages’), I don’t write about them near as much as I used to, and certainly not as much as I should.
The short skinny: I was a comic-obsessed teenager who lost track during college but rediscovered the love in the mid-90s, mostly thanks to Misters Ellis and Ennis. These days, as a bonafide, toddler-raising adult, that love remains strong, and while I still make weekly Wednesday trips to my local shop, I don’t buy nearly as many monthlies as I used to – I’m mainly a trade paperback kinda guy. For the uninitiated – trade paperbacks (TPBs) are the eventual collections of multiple monthly issues. They’re for more patient readers, those who’d rather have something with a spine on their bookshelf instead of a growing collection of floppies, or those with faulty memories who get more out of chapters read back-to-back-to-back.
There’s a catch-22 in making the conversion from monthly comic collector to the paperback-buying practice – if too many people ‘wait for the trade’, then there’s a chance that collection may never come. A monthly book needs enough retail action to justify that eventual bound release. It would be like an army of individual TV viewers saying “Oh, I won’t watch this show – I’ll just wait for the season 1 DVD collection,” only to see the show get canceled after a few episodes. Some comics publishers can be more forgiving than networks, allowing new books time to grow before getting the axe, and collecting ones that end far too soon (I’m looking at you, Air and Unknown Soldier).
While my comics-buying is nowadays mostly TPBs, there are a select few books I must buy monthly, for a couple of obvious reasons – a compulsion to know, as soon as humanly possible, what happens next?, and a desire to express my appreciation for the book’s mere existence with my wallet. Pretty simple. There aren’t a lot of monthly comics that qualify, but the ones that do are pretty special.
One of those is Toronto-based writer/artist Jeff Lemire‘s spooky, spellbinding Sweet Tooth, which debuted on DC’s Vertigo imprint in late 2009. I fell for Jeff’s work after devouring Top Shelf’s giant collection of Jeff’s “Essex County” books, and was instantly hooked. As a kid raised in Northern Vermont (in a place called… Essex), and who spent some time visiting similar Canadian farm country to where those stories were set (shout out to La Pocatiere), I was an easy target. Jeff done got me good.
So when Sweet Tooth was announced and released, I was on board for at least a few issues, after which I figured I’d start waiting for the trade. Well, so far, that waiting has been impossible. Sweet Tooth squashed my patience, and as each issue adds a new layer to the story, I don’t see that changing. The latest installment, number 15, was just plain riveting.
As a fan, I’ve been the beneficiary of Sweet Tooth’s excellent online promotion, taking advantage of a couple contests (one from Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog, the other from Jeff’s own Twitter account) that scored me autographed copies of the first 5 issues of the series and the first TPB collecting those same five issues. Since I’d already bought all those monthlies and the bound book, I figured I’d pay my good fortune forward and gift them to a couple ‘Nac readers: The first five Sweet Tooth monthlies to one winner, and the first trade paperback collection to another. And whoever wins, well, you’ll thank me later.
But wait, there’s more! This past Wednesday saw the release of Jeff’s very first quote-unquote-mainstream superhero writing work in the form of Superboy issue #1, also for DC, and I’m throwing in a copy of that one as well to the winner of the trade paperback collection. I don’t buy a ton of superhero comics, but if Jeff’s involved, I’m in. Here’s some background for fans and soon-to-be-fans: Part 1 and part 2 of Jeff’s creative journey from Essex County to Smallville.
The contest details: Send an email to giveaways [at] bradleysalmanac [dot] com. Make sure your subject line says “Gimme some Sweet Tooth!“, and tell me the first comic book you remember reading (or buying). If you don’t remember, name your current favorite. If you’ve never read one, well, first of all – shame on you – but I’ll settle for your favorite superhero. Even though Sweet Tooth is not a superhero comic. Or is it? It kind of is.
As I said, there’ll be two winners: One gets the first Sweet Tooth trade paperback collection, titled “Out Of the Deep Woods” along with a copy of the just-released Superboy #1. A second winner gets those first five issues of Sweet Tooth. The only condition: Continental U.S. or Canadian readers only (as if I’d exclude Jeff’s own homeland!).
Alright, get emailing. I’ll take entries for one week, until exactly 9am EST on Monday, November 15th, and contact the winners that afternoon to find out where to send your early holiday presents.
Speaking of holiday presents, the second collected volume of Sweet Tooth, titled “In Captivity”, arrives on December 14th, Superboy continues monthly, and way on down the road, look for Jeff’s next work for Top Shelf, “The Underwater Welder”. Keep an eye on Jeff’s blog and Twitter account for the latest.