12/27: Neptune, Major Stars, Bugs and Rats @ Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square

It is common knowledge among promoters that the time between Christmas and New Year's Eve is a dicey time to have an event planned. Students are snuggled back into the cozy suburban nowheres from whence they issued forth in September, biding time between all the "holiday" festivities that have just started to fizzle out and the overblown, overexpensive disappointment that is every New Year's Eve... Not to mention the fact that it is generally cold as a warlock's balls.

The show I am here to tell you about, however, is in one any local promoter will tell you is an absolute slam dunk, calendrical issues be damned!!!


NEPTUNE


You see, nobody ever forgets the first time they see Neptune in concert... and that's a LOT of nobodies. Throughout several stylistic changes over their rather long reign at the top of Boston's noise-rock heap, the group have managed to sway, slam and clamor with homemade industrial implements and tense, theatrical stage presense for thousands of rabid fans from Boston to Bordeaux.

Just a scant two days after Xmas, we find them joining forces with local celebrities Major Stars, whose trajectory from instrumental wall-of-noise psych to wailing rock n' roll badassery has been well-documented locally and led to a fruitful relationship with stalwart indie label Drag City.


MAJOR STARS

Opening will be my all-time favorite Quincy-based rock group (and one of the MA's longest-held "best kept secret" bands) Bugs and Rats, in all of their sludgy, grungy fury.


CHARLIE'S KITCHEN

The show would be filled to capacity at nearly any venue you could throw at it, from Great Scott to Mass Art to the Middle East... But what better place to book such a facemelter of a three-band showcase during the collegiate diaspora known as winter break than upstairs at CHARLIE'S KITCHEN, a sweltering, overcrowded cheeseburger-joint-cum-karaoke-haunt which functions as Harvard Square's last bastion of unrepentant townieism!? Other than in the basement which once housed the HOSS, I think we all know the answer is "nowhere".

This will be a VERY crowded show, so don't be late. The bands are absolutely the type that will envelop you in sound... just as surely as the atmosphere will envelop you in a wall of hirsute, flannel-clad gentlemen and their too-cute-for-them girlfriends, and as surely as a fine bouquet of sweat, cannabis indica, spilled PBR and double cheeseburgers will envelop your lungs and nasal passages. Yeah, it's pretty much my idea of heaven, too...

October 5th: Chapterhouse, Ulrich Schnauss, 28 Degrees Taurus

The gods of UK rock have been smiling on New England as of late, bringing us in recent months a visit by CHAMELEONS UK, and now by personal faves CHAPTERHOUSE, in short succession.

Chapterhouse

There are few greater achievements in the canon of shoegazer rock than Chapterhouse's aptly-titled 1991 debut "Whirlpool". From the pop jangle of "Breather" to the ecstatic, enveloping warmth of "Treasure" to the propulsive and sinister guitar thrust of "Autosleeper"; the Reading, UK group managed in nine songs to mine a far wider range of sonic materials than even their more-hyped counterparts (such as Ride and My Bloody Valentine) could ever fit into one record, all while retaining a distinct sound throughout.



28 Degrees Taurus

Chapterhouse alone would be reason to leave the house, but luckily for you and I they are paired with an amazing pair of quite distinct talents. Germany's Ulrich Schnauss, who is touring with the group, is a purveyor of the kind of dreamy chillout electronica that pulls you in and won't let go, managing to sound somehow upbeat and sunny without ever being chirpy or saccharine. Local post-punk/psych favorites 28 Degrees Taurus will round out the bill with their dreamily eastern melodies and hard-partying boy/girl lyrical delivery.

CHAPTERHOUSE (UK)
ULRICH SCHNAUSS (GERMANY)
28 DEGREES TAURUS
@The Middle East (Downstairs)
18+, 8pm doors
$15
480 Mass. Ave, Cambridge, MA
The Middle East Website

TONIGHT: The Middle East and End of an Empire present FENNESZ, BURNING STAR CORE, NOVELLER

FENNESZ



Christian Fennesz, for those unaware, has been one of the most important purveyors of ambient experimental music to emerge in the past 20 years. His work with Ryuichi Sakamoto is already the stuff of legends, and his solo masterpiece "Endless Summer" is, to these ears, an absolute essential for anybody with an interest in more left-field, "out" sounds.

Make sure to show up in time for BURNING STAR CORE, as well. C. Spenser Yeh has spent a number of years now perfecting his noise/drone compositions for violin, electronics and vocals and may well prove to give the headliner a run for his money in the "intensity" department.

Opening act NOVELLER is less familiar to me, but an overview of her myspace page belies a sensibility which fits this bill perfectly. Her eddying currents of bowed and treated double-neck guitar and various effects are sure to pull plenty of early-birds up from their barstools to the front of the room.


NOVELLER

End of an Empire presents...
FENNESZ (Vienna, Austria)
BURNING STAR CORE (Cincinatti, OH)
NOVELLER (Brooklyn, NY)

@The Middle East (Downstairs)
18+, 8pm doors
$15 adv./$17 at door
480 Mass. Ave, Cambridge, MA
The Middle East Website