Day 2 began with Boston’s the Susan Constant. The Susan Constant are refined musicians with a knack for unpretentious power-pop/rock. They are some of the nicest guys I’ve met in the music industry who just genuinely enjoy playing music.
Zanois, the brainchild of Zane McDaniels played next. After some initial technical difficulties they served up a blend of keyboard oriented electro-rock that sounded like a Cake fronted MGMT as conceptualized by high-school prodigy. While we’re on the topic of high-school musical prodigies, How to Catch Shadows, not quite old enough to have a driver’s license, took stage next. HTCS is a one man band, acoustic guitar and vocals with a heavy Ben Gibbard (Death Cab/All-Time Quarterback) songwriting influence.
Free Idea sponsored Flight of the Navigator were up next. Flight of the Navigator, aside from having a brilliant name (go see the movie if you haven’t), are adept at writing catchy neo-emo songs in the vein of Taking Back Sunday.
Battleships, playing one night only as a 3 piece (normally there are 5 members) stormed the floor next. The local hardcore heroes captivated everyone in the audience with anyone who knew the words yelling along. Another local favorite, Sans Heroic (who have a CD release show @ Andrew Hall on May 15th) played right afterward. Sans Heroic have mastered entwining soaring melodies with driving alternative/rock instrumentation and it was noticeably appreciated by everyone in the audience.
After Sans Heroic had retired for the evening, swirling lights began to take shape on the opposite wall and I knew the Scopes Trial was up next. The Scopes Trial is a small army of a band with songs about how Alexander Hamilton sucks, Jon Bon Jovi killing vampires, and a port-a-potty space ship that explodes in outer space. They are equal parts entertaining, talented, and absurd, I don’t think anyone was able to look on without thinking, “What the fuck is this?” and then convincing themselves, “Whatever it is, it rules.”
From Sky to Sea, armed with a light show and projector, began their ambient set. FStS’s intricate instrumentation produced a sound that is both atmospheric and haunting and no one said a word, just listened with mouths open, as they unveiled each song.
It was nearly 10PM at this point and I was worried that everyone would head home soon, but almost everyone stayed to see Quixote and Sincerely, the Management rock the rest of the night away. Quixote played first, introducing their folk-twinged indie-rock sound to a foot-stomping audience. Then Sincerely, the Management, glowing under the black lights, got everyone to move their feet with their dancey sing-a-long-invoking sound. It was a perfect way to end the Second Annual Mass Recovery Fest.
Without the help of these people Mass Recovery Fest would have not been possible or at least not nearly as sweet: All of the bands that played, Andrew Mello, Nick Stockwell, Tim Jobin, Vanessa Roberto (thanks for taking pictures), Justin Demers, Kevin Padden, Chris Londa, Mike Ellison, Rob Wilcox, Dan Saraceni, Shannon & Erin, and anyone who danced and enjoyed themselves. Stay tuned for more Mass Recovery + Andrew Hall shows.
4/11 @ The Coalmine (7 Durant Street, Lowell, MA). Coalmine Canary + State Champion + Mansions.
4/24 @ The 119 Gallery (119 Chelmsford Street, Lowell, MA). Math the Band + Coalmine Canary + Factors of Four + the Brave Little Abacus + the Sinbusters.
4/25 @ The Coalmine (7 Durant Street, Lowell, MA). Quixote + Factors of Four + Packrat.
5/15 @ Andrew Hall (39 Main Street, Lunenburg, MA). Sans Heroic (CD Release Show) + the Sharpest + Always the Underdog.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The 2nd Annual Mass Recovery Fest- Day 1 : A Report
The Second Annual Mass Recovery Fest- Day 1: A Report
Last year I put together a free compilation with a bunch of local/touring bands that I really wanted other people to hear. Mass Recovery Fest was something of a two-night release show featuring all the bands (or rather most of the bands) on the compilation. I generally dislike shows that feature an ungodly amount of bands, but armed with 2 PA systems and a hall big enough to create two “stages” the whole thing went smoothly and everyone I talked to had a lot of fun.
This year, I was a little less ambitious and decided against doing another compilation but wanted to put together another two-night celebration, a concert featuring everyone from the area and a handful of bands from out of state.
The week before Mass Recovery Fest, this year, I got a shock in the form of a message from the Scopes Trial’s Chris Londa, who informed me that Day 2 of the fest was actually the same night as the Lunenburg High track team banquet, which was also set to go down at Andrew Hall. After a week of panic and maneuvering, the track team relocated their banquet elsewhere, so if you are responsible for this move, thank you.
Saturday, Day 1, I got to Andrew Hall early to begin the arduous task of setting up for the show. Luckily, Tim Jobin of Sans Heroic helped me set up the second PA and a bunch of friends helped with setting up tables and all that jazz.
The night began with a set from Andrew Mello, my roommate/bandmate/friend. I am familiar with all of Andrew’s songs as a consequence of living across the hall from him but even those who weren’t seemed to enjoy his Daniel Johnston influenced indie-pop clap-along melodies. After a half an hour, Andrew switched to bass and was joined by Streight Angular, Al Polk’s quirky songwriting vehicle which started the dance party while it was still light outside.
Thunder Asunder, who first played Andrew Hall more than four years ago now, christened the other side of the hall with synth and drums. Thunder Asunder has, over the years, gotten smaller in terms of band members but have only gotten better in terms of not-quite-dance avant-garde songwriting.
The Bynars brought the action back to the other side of the hall and played a set of their signature synth-laced upbeat power-pop songs. The Bynars are both tight and inventive, lacing their love of Next Generation era Star Trek with brilliant songs that are both catchy and tight.
At this point in the night, Roebus One from New Jersey, was supposed to become the first person to ever play a hip-hop set at Andrew Hall, but he didn’t show up. I found out why the next day, when he called me confused and hung-over from his Aunt’s house in Staten Island where he woke up with bruised knuckles and the biting feeling that he got in a fistfight with his dad while black out drunk.
So instead, my band Coalmine Canary played. It was our first time playing an “unplugged” set in such a big venue. But everyone came real close and stayed quiet except for a couple of impressive sing-alongs where the crowd sang louder than I did.
Lima Research Society played next. The other side of the hall was decked out in black lights, illuminating everyone’s teeth a neon purple color. Lima Research was fantastic, they had everyone in the hall dancing, and rarely do I see such an elaborate stage show paired with excellent musicianship. It was at this time I went out to my car and realized that my trunk door was no longer fully attached to my van. I tried in vain for a few minutes to fix it but went inside when I heard Horny Vampyre’s fuzzy synth-dance sound fire up in the PA speakers.
I wrote a pretty extensive review of Horny Vampyre’s debut 10” and this was actually my first time seeing them live. They invited everyone to stand as close as possible to them, erasing the performer/audience divide. Everyone who knew the songs danced and chanted, stomping on a stage light in the process and sending broken glass all over the floor which didn’t deter anyone from dancing. I found a broom and dustpan in between songs and they played an electro-cover of Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar” which prompted my good friend Rob Wilcox to walk through the crowd and stare in awe.
Math the Band headlined the show and had everyone on their feet and dancing. The ceaseless energy of both Kevin and Justin translates perfectly through their songs and prompted everyone to keep singing, stomping, and clapping the entirety of their set. At some point, Mike Ellison grabbed me and lifted me up and, to my surprise, no one dropped me and I made my way through the crowd. It was the first time I, or anyone I can think of for that matter, managed to crowd surf at an Andrew Hall show. Math the Band stopped playing but the audience demanded an encore which they willingly obliged with a cover of Andrew W.K.’s “She is Beautiful.”
I went to thank everyone for coming out and someone started chanting, “Speech! Speech! Speech!” which caught on pretty quickly. I jokingly began, “I have a dream…and Mike Ellison was in it…” and continued with, “but seriously, this whole night was amazing. I’ve been to so many shows where people stand cross-armed and aren’t interested in what is going on musically but you guys danced and that is an amazing, albeit rare, thing. Thank you to everyone who came out tonight, I hope to see some of you tomorrow.” I’m paraphrasing of course, I was probably even less eloquent in person.
Andrew and I cleaned up the hall and several people attempted to help me fix my trunk door which I eventually just bungeed shut.
I’ll post about the Day 2 shenanigans tomorrow evening.
If I forgot to mention you in the Day 1 report, look for your name tomorrow.
Last year I put together a free compilation with a bunch of local/touring bands that I really wanted other people to hear. Mass Recovery Fest was something of a two-night release show featuring all the bands (or rather most of the bands) on the compilation. I generally dislike shows that feature an ungodly amount of bands, but armed with 2 PA systems and a hall big enough to create two “stages” the whole thing went smoothly and everyone I talked to had a lot of fun.
This year, I was a little less ambitious and decided against doing another compilation but wanted to put together another two-night celebration, a concert featuring everyone from the area and a handful of bands from out of state.
The week before Mass Recovery Fest, this year, I got a shock in the form of a message from the Scopes Trial’s Chris Londa, who informed me that Day 2 of the fest was actually the same night as the Lunenburg High track team banquet, which was also set to go down at Andrew Hall. After a week of panic and maneuvering, the track team relocated their banquet elsewhere, so if you are responsible for this move, thank you.
Saturday, Day 1, I got to Andrew Hall early to begin the arduous task of setting up for the show. Luckily, Tim Jobin of Sans Heroic helped me set up the second PA and a bunch of friends helped with setting up tables and all that jazz.
The night began with a set from Andrew Mello, my roommate/bandmate/friend. I am familiar with all of Andrew’s songs as a consequence of living across the hall from him but even those who weren’t seemed to enjoy his Daniel Johnston influenced indie-pop clap-along melodies. After a half an hour, Andrew switched to bass and was joined by Streight Angular, Al Polk’s quirky songwriting vehicle which started the dance party while it was still light outside.
Thunder Asunder, who first played Andrew Hall more than four years ago now, christened the other side of the hall with synth and drums. Thunder Asunder has, over the years, gotten smaller in terms of band members but have only gotten better in terms of not-quite-dance avant-garde songwriting.
The Bynars brought the action back to the other side of the hall and played a set of their signature synth-laced upbeat power-pop songs. The Bynars are both tight and inventive, lacing their love of Next Generation era Star Trek with brilliant songs that are both catchy and tight.
At this point in the night, Roebus One from New Jersey, was supposed to become the first person to ever play a hip-hop set at Andrew Hall, but he didn’t show up. I found out why the next day, when he called me confused and hung-over from his Aunt’s house in Staten Island where he woke up with bruised knuckles and the biting feeling that he got in a fistfight with his dad while black out drunk.
So instead, my band Coalmine Canary played. It was our first time playing an “unplugged” set in such a big venue. But everyone came real close and stayed quiet except for a couple of impressive sing-alongs where the crowd sang louder than I did.
Lima Research Society played next. The other side of the hall was decked out in black lights, illuminating everyone’s teeth a neon purple color. Lima Research was fantastic, they had everyone in the hall dancing, and rarely do I see such an elaborate stage show paired with excellent musicianship. It was at this time I went out to my car and realized that my trunk door was no longer fully attached to my van. I tried in vain for a few minutes to fix it but went inside when I heard Horny Vampyre’s fuzzy synth-dance sound fire up in the PA speakers.
I wrote a pretty extensive review of Horny Vampyre’s debut 10” and this was actually my first time seeing them live. They invited everyone to stand as close as possible to them, erasing the performer/audience divide. Everyone who knew the songs danced and chanted, stomping on a stage light in the process and sending broken glass all over the floor which didn’t deter anyone from dancing. I found a broom and dustpan in between songs and they played an electro-cover of Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar” which prompted my good friend Rob Wilcox to walk through the crowd and stare in awe.
Math the Band headlined the show and had everyone on their feet and dancing. The ceaseless energy of both Kevin and Justin translates perfectly through their songs and prompted everyone to keep singing, stomping, and clapping the entirety of their set. At some point, Mike Ellison grabbed me and lifted me up and, to my surprise, no one dropped me and I made my way through the crowd. It was the first time I, or anyone I can think of for that matter, managed to crowd surf at an Andrew Hall show. Math the Band stopped playing but the audience demanded an encore which they willingly obliged with a cover of Andrew W.K.’s “She is Beautiful.”
I went to thank everyone for coming out and someone started chanting, “Speech! Speech! Speech!” which caught on pretty quickly. I jokingly began, “I have a dream…and Mike Ellison was in it…” and continued with, “but seriously, this whole night was amazing. I’ve been to so many shows where people stand cross-armed and aren’t interested in what is going on musically but you guys danced and that is an amazing, albeit rare, thing. Thank you to everyone who came out tonight, I hope to see some of you tomorrow.” I’m paraphrasing of course, I was probably even less eloquent in person.
Andrew and I cleaned up the hall and several people attempted to help me fix my trunk door which I eventually just bungeed shut.
I’ll post about the Day 2 shenanigans tomorrow evening.
If I forgot to mention you in the Day 1 report, look for your name tomorrow.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Factors of Four- Whoa!!!
It is sometimes difficult to qualitatively describe one’s experience in listening to music. I’m reminded of a cereal commercial where adults ask a group of children why they like Apple Jacks when it doesn’t taste like apple, and the kids kind of shrug and say something like “we just do.” I’ve been listening to this Factors of Four’s Whoa!!! over the past several weeks, essentially since they gave me the CD in January, and while I can say definitively that I like it, a lot even, until now I haven’t been able to defend my position other than to say, “I just do.”
I met Factors of Four when my band played with them in a basement, amorously referred to the Crack House, in Honey Brook, PA. They started playing a blend of up-tempo power-pop garage rock and everyone in the room started to dance. Two songs in I found myself crowd surfing, after my band mates hoisted me up, and much to my surprise everyone held me up and I made my way across the room. This is when I became really impressed with Factors of Four because while I’d like to consider myself a basement show connoisseur, rarely does any band energize the room in that manner to where you can actually jump on people and have them not be mad.
Right. I digress. On to the review.
Whoa!!! begins triumphantly with boy/girl vocals stretching the word “whoa” into a 5-syllable melody. Bright guitars strum through the song while the lead singer, Naomi, introduces her unconventionally beautiful voice, slightly off of kilter, resembling a young Caithlin De Marrais of Rainer Maria mixed with some deeper tones of Fionna Apple. The dual vocals return at the end of the song with the suggestion, “Go ahead boy (girl), go ahead get down,” and then a chorus of voices chime in with a few more ‘whoa’s’ (I have no idea how to effectively use quotations marks here.)
The album has a garage rock feel without being classifiably lo-fi. You can tell the recording was done in a basement, actually the Crack House basement by Pirouette’s Scotty Leitch, but rather than hurt the recording it helps accentuate the full sound. If you’re listening to it for the first time it possesses all the rawness of a well recorded live show with my only critique being that the guitars are mixed a little loud at points which can overshadow the vocals.
Whoa!!! has six tracks, with all of them being impressive and a few being exceptional. Track 3, “Happy Hour”, shines both musically and vocally, Tim’s guitar picks through the intro while the lyrics contemplate life’s little obstacles and obscurities, “Then on a slippery road it is easy to fall and the road is so big and the snow so tall.”
The song, “12th Street” is another exemplary track, where Naomi harps, “I am waiting for a change of skin” and observes that “moving on is such a chore,” while the guitars palm mute through the verses and strum lazily through the chorus. “12th Street” as well as most of these tracks on Whoa!!! are linear in their composition but catchy as hell. If FoF aren’t exactly groundbreaking they’ve certainly refined a sound that is both inviting and memorable.
Ultimately, Whoa!!! is an impressive debut that introduces Factors of Four as a band fully capable of writing clever garage-tinged pop songs. These songs present a double consciousness in FoF’s desire to play upbeat and catchy songs and their desire to occasionally rock the fuck out. Listen to this record if you can appreciate the pop sensibility of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but want the garage aesthetic of You’re Living All Over Me era Dinosaur Jr.
Hopefully, I’ll go back to one review every week, February was a weak month in terms of content.
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