Start the weekend early…

Saturday’s so passe, after all.

Tonight, June 25, come hang out at the Middle East Up for Forest Henderson’s CD (re)Release. Even better, the show also serves as a CD release party for Dave Crespo & the After Party. Two for two, I can hardly stand it. Also playing and releasing nothing but the rock (you’d think Cat was writing this, wouldn’t you?), is Anomopoly and High Speed Steal. 9 PM, 18+, $10.

Tomorrow, you will likely be hungover and feeling a little bit poorer.  No fear, we have a free show for you. Beautiful Lies CD Release, presented by Boston Music Spotlight, will be at Kings. 9 PM, 21+, FREE.

No excuses. We’ll see ya there!

TEEN HEAT

by Anthony Pilgrim

There’s a fine line between the devil and me.
Teen Heat- Gunslinger Kids

Rock ‘n roll music is not for the cool. It is not for the organized, the suave, the WASPs, or the ironic. Rock ‘n roll is a reject game, first played by the misfits who weren’t allowed to use the front door in polite company, and followed up by WWII bomb shelter Brit brats. From there, it was handed off and fortified by space-case art rockers, glue-sniffing anarchists, mutant heavy-metal hitters, and the forever-27 crowd. So, when two boys wielding nothing more than a solid state amp, a guitar, and a three-piece drum set take the stage with “Born Too Kill” scribbled across their foreheads, screaming about disenchanted teenage lives and the need to see their own blood on the stage to a crowd of five people it quickly becomes clear that THESE are the rightful heirs to the throne.

Don’t think we aren’t busy!

I’m in a race with Steve and Anthony Pilgrim to see who can finish an article first.

Either you’re going to get to read about:

A. Forest Henderson

B. Teen Heat

C. Deer Tick / Faces on Film

I’m going to win, damnit.

-Kate

All things Aloud

by Anthony Pilgrim

photo by Mick Murray

“It’ll only get worse in the coming days
I might as well say what I been meaning to say”
Aloud- Fan The Fury

My Three Favorite Boston Bands

Over the past year, I found out some weird things about myself. Turns out that I actually like the company of cats, tomatoes and spinach are foods to be enjoyed (instead of swallowed without letting them touch your tongue), and… British indie music isn’t the end all and be all.

Since we’ve started this site, I’ve believed in Boston music.  Now? I could wax poetic. Who’d have thought that I’d have no idea who the NME was wanking over (probably still the Arctic Monkeys or The Horrors), but I’d know when two local indie artists came into the restaurant. Not because I fancy them, but because they are the most talented married couple I can think of.

Friday night, I unexpectedly got the night off of work. Everyone had plans but I NEEDED to go to this show. The idea of going to a Lower Allston house show just did not compare. So, after a pep talk from multiple friends, off my lonely self went to The Paradise. I used to be a pro at going to shows solo… it was time to get back into the habit.

And just who are my three favorite Boston bands? Only one way to find out…

Excuse this break from the Friend Rock onslaught…

I get Friend Rock but I am not part of it. I have only met a few Friend Rock-ers and Matt DeMello probably doesn’t know that I live with Cat. One time there were a bunch of people in our apartment and I was upstairs with the flu.

Whatever, I still like fun. My lack of Friend Rock involvement frees me up to sometimes go to shows where I don’t know everyone in the band. Like a few weeks ago. I went to three. I’m combining my week into one post because I only saw a few bands at each gig and also I’m lazy and sometimes find writing show reviews extremely painful.

Click on to read about Furnace, Math the Band, Pretty & Nice, The Toothaches, Kill Conrad, and something about Milo that I can’t remember right now.

10 Signs That You are in a Friend Rock Band

by Stephen Pilgrim

10. Five people showing up to your show who aren’t immediate friends of you or your bandmates constitutes “Fillin’ the joint.”

God Bless you Mr. Rockefeller (Or, How I learned to Love the Grid)

by Anthony Pilgrim


“It comes down to reality-and its fine with me cause I’ve let it slide,
I don’t have any reasons; I’ve left them all behind-
I’m in a New York state of mind.”
-Billy Joel

If you live in Boston, or just have a affinity for it, you most likely hate New York City with nearly no rhyme or reason. That was my case not three months ago, when I was front row at Local H proudly holding my Celtics jacket like a war banner and chanting along with Scott Lucas “…and fuck New York too!!!” Why was I so spiteful towards the Big Apple? I couldn’t have told you back then. The Red Sox hold no real place in my heart other than their familiarity and my visits to the enemy city itself had been limited to a trip to Ellis Island in third grade. But the venom existed somewhere natural for me, and after my escapade this weekend I understand why. It’s because no matter what happens, no matter what Mayor Menino plans or Bloomburg blows up, no matter what weird scene ever rises out of our mother city, New York will always be the center of it all, and Boston will be an exit along the way.

That Handsome Devil: Coming of the Next Madman

“Viva Discordia”
-That Handsome Devil

by Anthony Pilgrim

Part of the mystique of rock and roll is its saturation with truly insane individuals who scream, smoke, and bleed their way into the history of this mad subculture. Every generation tries to out-do the one previous, starting with the jumping wild south piano stylings of Jerry Lee Lewis to the attempted on-stage suicide of GG Allen. As we enter a new age of the strange and wonderful, where shall we turn our attentions? If I were to say that just a year ago I found our Messiah in an overpriced cash bar at the clean and cleansed back room of the Hard Rock Café in Boston, you may claim foul and demand the details. Well, even if you didn’t, here they are.

Working in Food Service to Follow Your Dreams

For forty hours a week, I hate all of humanity, in a psychotic way.  I actually believe that sometimes I would do physical harm to a complete stranger just because of the manner in which he asked for a refill on his tap water.

I play in a band.  Bands are awesome, but they rarely pay the bills.  I’m not a musician; if anything, I’d consider myself a performer.  Maybe not even that – I just like to be the center of attention.  So, I’m in a band because I like attention.  In this specific instance, getting attention doesn’t pay the bills.  Thus, (perhaps due to commitment issues) I am employed by a restaurant in Harvard Square, where I serve faux-Asian food to idiots.