Calling Shenannigans...

For those who've missed my more frequent posting here, perhaps you'd be interested to check out the work I'm doing for The Weekly Dig! Since New Year's, I've covered everything from punk record store openings to Hercules and Love Affair DJ sets to cult film revivals, with more work coming every week. That doesn't mean this blog is dead, though. Far from it. Expect big things starting soon. In the meantime, let's catch up tomorrow night @ SAVANT PROJECT in Mission Hill, where I will be performing free of charge with DARK & STORMY and MR. MCNEILL from 10 to close!

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...

Saturday: VISIONS w./ DJ DONNA SUMMER (Jason Forrest!), DEV/NULL, CORALCOLA + DAVID DAY!

For years and years now, DJ DONNA SUMMER aka JASON FORREST has been a transcontinental household name in more styles and subgenres of electronic music than it is worth listing. Whether it was his 2005 block-rocker "War Photography", the truly dizzying "My 36 Favorite Punk Songs" novelty track, or the more recent electro club bangers he's been producing on the NIGHTSHIFTERS label, you've probably heard the COCK ROCK DISCO founder tear up the laptop at some point or another. This Saturday, don't miss the opportunity to see him reunited with Boston's own CRD alum (and producer of my favorite local 12" of 2010), DEV/NULL!!!



DJ DONNA SUMMER

Local institutions CORALCOLA (whose soon-to-be-released new record will probably give Dev/Null's a run for its money) and DAVID DAY will top off an amazing evening at GOOD LIFE, 28 Kingston Street in tundra-esque Downtown Boston. ALL FOR A MEASLY FIVE BONES!!!

Tuesday, October 19th: Matthew Dear, Andre Obin, Coralcola and Volvox!

During that all that luxurious and plentiful free time I'm sure MATTHEW DEAR has at his disposal (that is, when he's not running two record labels, crafting epic sets for all your favorite podcasts and  remixing all your favorite bands), the GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL and SPECTRE SOUND honcho has somehow managed to eke out four increasingly-singular albums of deep, minimal electronic dance music. Apparently bored with all that slacking off, he's decided to embark on an exhaustive tour, which will be stopping off in Allston towne to perform with a trio of Boston's freshest electronic tastemakers.

MATTHEW DEAR 

Endless Wave frontman ANDRE OBIN has a textured, shoegaze-influenced take on laid-back technopop which will be the perfect segue into Matthew Dear after CORALCOLA sets us all adrift on a sea of his glitchy, ambient dreamtunage. If one were to read this blog end to end, there is no doubt that it is Mikey "Coralcola" Lee whose events come up most disturbingly often. Mikey opened for Mount Kimbie last week and played a set of almost-entirely-brand-new jammy jams that got me all tingly in ways that assure my practice of over-covering his appearances will continue unabated well into 2011! One of those tracks is available now on the internets, so I'll just let y'all listen for yourselves...

CORALCOLA - Moistests Weathers


VOLVOX

I'm sure you will all show up to Great Scott promptly and READY TO DANCE, because this will be packed early and VOLVOX is spinning. I'm sure you've seen her at MAKE IT NEW, or HARUM SCARUM, or VISIONS, or NO TOMORROW, or in so-and-so's basement, or opening for DEADMAU5, or probably somewhere right now... So you're familiar with the way those little inflections of darker ebm and industrial beat can peak out of that minimal house and techno sheen... and you know that you can't deny them...



Tuesday, October 19th at GREAT SCOTT in Allston, MA...
MATTHEW DEAR
ANDRE OBIN
CORALCOLA
VOLVOX
18+
$10 advance/$12 day of show
Doors @ 9pm
See the GREAT SCOTT WEBSITE for more info.

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

October 1st: An Evening with Graham Hancock

GRAHAM HANCOCK

Leading counter-cultural figure and fucker of minds Graham Hancock, best known for his 1995 investigation into the roots of civilization, "Fingerprints of the Gods", will be making a stop in Massachusetts to promote his new book, "Entangled", on October 1st. Although Entangled is Hancock's first fictional novel, you can bet that topics discussed at the reading will range from prehistorical civilizations to extraterrestrial contact to psychedelics to the approaching 2012 event and back. Anyone with a curiosity regarding the more esoteric and mysterious aspects of human existence would do well to attend.

The Emergence Project presents...
GRAHAM HANCOCK
Friday, October 1st from 7:30 to 9:30
@ The Arlington Center, 369 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, MA
$10/$5 for students
for tickets and information, click here.

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