Concert Review :: Quilt, Girlfriends, Hands & Knees, and Thick Shakes @ P.A.'s Lounge on 2.20.10

For a night basted with noise, the stage was sweetly dressed with floral arrangements. Sagging from the drapes, outlining the drum kit and climbing the mic stands, all to compliment to giant brass tuba hanging on the wall of what Girlfriends band members joked was ‘father’s’ or ‘pa’s’ Lounge. Thick Shakes set up the event for their EP release and gathered three of the areas most impressive new garage punk experiments. For a mostly male dominated genre, femininity was well represented (and not just with the flowers). Each band had at least one female member.

Quilt opened up with the droning intensity of their cavernous soundscapes. Chanting lyrics flooded from each member of the trio (even the drummer wore a head set). The guitarist bowed, bopped, knelt, begged and prayed with his instrument all over the stage. Towards the end of their set, they pulled out a banjo that had been hand soldered to be amplified. The twangy slide and plunk of the thing fit in gracefully with the rest of the celestial mysticism in their sound to make for some gritty psychedelia.

Girlfriends patented 'trash pop' followed with vicious giddiness. An unexpected intensity had the lead prancing all over the stage like he were possessed by a garage rock demon. The drummer was right there with him, while the girl playing bass bobbed her head sweetly, in her own world, watching for cues. The singer's guitar became his head for the bridge of “Sucking Rare Meat Off Bone China,” when he recited verses into the pickup, sounding like a poetic cop through pissed off radio static. When it started to get warm, he tossed his cardigan into the crowd, which was returned neatly to the stage. “It came back to me…I'm not sure what that means,” he laughed. Girlfriends even squeezed in a Vaselines cover of 'The Day I Was a Horse.' Their drum had an X with the letters S, I, T, C in each section. This, apparently, stood for "send in the clowns."
Each artist on the bill was pushing their debut material except Hands and Knees, who are coming down from their last release, Et Tu, Fluffy?, and preparing for a new release this year. They've got a bar room swill stuck to their sound and appearance, the lead in a trucker hat. but when they play, its with finesse. The irresistible pop poetics were pierced with the violence of thunderous guitar noise and ferocious shouts that can flat out scare you. Hands and Knees ended the set with a minute and a half adrenaline releasing thrash, “Shove it Up Your Heart.”

Thick Shakes took the stage sort of looking like if the Adams started a family band. The guitarist had been attacked and nearly blinded at the band's last house show in November, so the set decoration and their gothic attire were a tongue in cheek faux-funeral that added an interesting element to their ghastly fuzz flooded music. It poured out to surround the whole room, like wrapping the crowd in warm cotton. The producer for their EP joined them on a vintage keyboard for the first few songs of their set, before the band took off by themselves.

It also seemed to be the night of cassette tape flashbacks. With the CD on its dying legs, a lot of local acts are getting back into the tapedeck. Both labels that Quilt and Girlfriends are on (Breakfast of Champs and Floating Garbage Continent) have started almost exclusively distributing tapes. Even the EP release show was for Thick Shakes recent cassette Ooh Mommy.

I fancied myself a photographer for this show. Check it out:




myspace.com/quilt

girlfriendstheband.com

handsandknees.net

thickshakes.net

Photography by Lee Stepien

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Playlist :: Christians & Lions - MORE More Songs For the Dreamsleepers & the Very Awake

Here's a little treat for any potential Christians & Lions fans. From following the band for a while, I've compiled some additional non-album material that happens to be pretty damn good. So, I've made a playlist of the aforementioned songs.

The first section is all unreleased songs.

'We Fall and Get Up' I snatched from myspace, circa 2006...maybe. A sweet acoustic thing about indigestion and indecision. It kind of lyrically relates to the bridge in 'Stay Warm,' "if we only find ourselves in decision, will we only find ourselves indecision?" Don't know why this one never made it onto any release.

'Firebelly Salamander' was on the Christians & Lions Acoustic LP that was released before More Songs.

'Waltz in D' and 'Palek' were also snatched from myspace, but after the Bird's Milk EP in 2009.

'Outlaws' was on the first little Sharp Teeth demo burned CD that I bought at a show in 2005 for two bucks.

The next section is alternate versions of songs on More Songs that are really interesting for one reason or another.

'Bones' has a mandolin in it and for some reason I always really liked when Sam shouts "Let's walk he says!" after the homeless man line before the bridge. This is also from the Acoustic LP.

'Stay Warm' is a demo also with mandolin. From that same Sharp Teeth burned CD.

'Sexton Under Glass,' my favorite version of this song, with mandolin and more uptempo. They used the mandolin for a while, mostly with Sharp Teeth. It was a shame to see it go.

'Things Don't Fall Apart, They Just Give Up on Being What They Are' is actually a demo of 'Some Trees.' For some reason the song got to me with that title. It's actually a line from 'Everybody So Gorgeous' on Bird's Milk. This version is interesting because it has the singing saw, a synth and what sounds like clinking glasses for percussion. It sounds very different from the album version. No idea where this came from.

'A Seven Alarm Fire is Burning Sacred Heart to the Ground' is a 'Landing' demo. The saw really makes this one. Think this came from the Sharp Teeth myspace.

'Free Radio Post-Apocalyptic Metropolis Blues,' is a really cool demo of the version on the Gimmie Diction single and Bird's Milk EP. It's got a nice litte intro.

'Alphamale Soup/Two Row Pale' is a live instrumental thing from 2007. Towards the end of their first run, the band started doing a lot of these semi-digital, very different sounding things. Would've made for an interesting second album.

christiansandlions.com

myspace.com/christiansandlions

myspace.com/sharpteeth

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REVIEW :: Christians & Lions - More Songs for the Dreamsleepers & the Very Awake

It was in the basement of a building on Boylston Street in the mid aughties. Some students from Emerson College set up a show of absurdly different bands. A thrash-core scream-fest metal monstrosity, whose name has been lost to time, finish pillaging the stage and pack up their gear. Fans who were a moment ago throwing themselves into one another and 'slam dancing,' now wait, panting. A group of guys walk in front of the stage. One of them has black wavy hair and Truman Capote glasses and says, "we do things a little differently." He asks everyone to take a seat in a circle around them. The other guys pick up their instruments as he pulls over an upturned trash can with a torn bit of cardboard on it and sets up a tambourine on top of a hat on the floor, testing its sound with his foot. Some confused and sweaty skacore kids stumble out of the back door, but the rest of the crowd sits.

The group plays. Steel brushes chatter against cardboard and tin, the acoustic guitar chasing the rhythm. An upright bass bumbles along, a singing saw is squeezed between knees, and mandolin trickles throughout. Harmonic croonings emerge from the boys that, back then, were calling themselves 'Sharp Teeth.'

It could've been just the fact that those two acts were such a stark juxtaposition, but the audience was entranced, faces awash with surprise. Simple, hollow instruments with thick earthly resonance matched well with prophetic words that were humble, but had an insistence and urgency pervasive throughout. This was nothing wildly inventive; the old world folk attitude came just as people were starting to call that particular sound a 'revival' around 2005. It was just pregnant with poignancy. Amidst the well worn patterns of noise, things could be a little different.

A year later the band had changed up a bit. Now, they were called 'Christians & Lions.' The significance of the name might best be best understood through a little scribbling posted on their myspace for a while, something to the effect of: "we may be Christians and we may be lions, but we ain't Romans!" They released More Songs for the Dreamsleepers & the Very Awake on ECA records in 2006. The core of the group was based around brothers Ben (vocals, acoustic, singing saw) and Sam Potrykus (bass, backing vocals). For this record they were joined by Matt Sisto (guitar, organ, piano), Chris Mara (drums), and Chris Barrett (trumpet). This is all in the past tense, because at the time this is being written, the band isn't active...but that could always change. After a brief break, the band most recently released an EP called Bird's Milk, and then disbanded again.

The lyrical skill and depth of the music is worth noticing. Words have influence from philosophers and theorists, like Hélène Cixous, Louis Althusser and Marshall McLuhan. These kids have read some books and the songs show it with political, religious and social commentary that's never shoved in your face.

'Stay Warm' carries lines like, "we doubt our commitment to God and Country or Job and Comp’ny. Though no one wants to break their arm to reach for what they don’t know" and those "who make 'amen's instead of making amends." The simple glee of the song makes it stand out, sometimes less like singing and more like harmonic shouting.

On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, but still thematically similar is 'Skinnyfists.' It manages to hit a lot of the album's ideas, "I scream, 'We only want to level this city because things are so uneven'" and, "like the psalms between my palms are all I'll ever need to know." Then there's a subtle, well penned semi-anti-war statement/social commentary/personal observation, "I still get sad ripping up ads that the Marines send to friend every kid in my family...because I can afford to." It even has one very romantic and tragic line, "I told her once, 'There's a great line in this song I heard, but I can't tell you unless something really big happens to us,'" before trailing off into haunting wails.

There's a harmony between the Portrykus Bros. spanning the entirety of the trudging and wandering 'Bones.' They sing, "What's the use of a good strong noose when your problem's too much hanging around?' and "said a man who wasn't homeless, 'I'm always just traveling, taking walks around my neighborhood."

Engineer Jack Younger describes the band in a way this writer wishes he thought of, "somehow comfortable, yet unsettling...like a Cadillac someone died in." In the wake of waves upon waves of sorrow laden bands, Christians & Lions was aware of their sonic place, while never forcing the listener to notice it. 'Tender Sparks' has the line "There's all those boys and all those girls who liked me better when I was weakened by loss in all the right spots, but I don't need to slap people in the face."

'Sexton Under Glass' is an interesting song, because before it appeared on the album it was played much, much more uptempo. Yet here, the slower songs begs another to stay alive, becoming seemingly romantic.

The album ends with 'Landing,' a song about a church burning down. It's a suitable end to the album's deconstruction of its themes.

The single from the album was 'Gimmie Diction,' a playful romp, juxtaposed by some lyrical confrontation to it. "It’s like some overbearing tax on praxis; how I’m supposed to feel bad for this when all I’ve sworn to do is hold soul like a cold in haunted bronchial tubes." There was a great little animated video for this song full of skulls and fallen apples that could be found online, however it no longer can.

The reason, is because Warner Music Group is under the impression that it owns all of Christians & Lion's music. The band can't even post certain songs on their myspace. It's tremendously ironic considering how fervently DIY the band members are. Hopefully, the righteous will prevail and they'll get their music back...and hopefully those same fiends won't find this blog...

//Jamaica Plain, MA//
//Released on ECA Records//
//November, 2006//
//Produced by Jack Younger and Christians & Lions//
//Recorded by Jack Younger at Basement 247 in Allston, MA//
//Mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East in Boston, MA//
//Art and photography by Michael Washburn//

Here's the video for 'Gimmie Diction:'

christiansandlions.com

myspace.com/christiansandlions

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REVIEW :: The Whitehaus Family Record Family Record

"A hootenanny captured in vinyl"

The artists of Jamaica Plain collective, The Whitehaus Family Record, present an onslaught of the best tracks from label artists and friends. This sampler reflects their shows called ‘hootenannies,’ which feature a wide spectrum of audible enjoyables, from slam poetry to acoustics to psychedelics. It’s a little ‘hoot’ captured in the grooves of this vinyl only double LP.

Brian S. Ellis kicks the compilation off with a feedback infiltrated poem, setting an open-minded tone with lines like, “I can be more than a planet. My body was made of music and river.” As the record progresses, each track holds something unexpected and infinitely intriguing. Playful pop tunes bubble straight into digital experiments. The fidelity of the songs range from lo to hi. Charming demos capture space and mood like seeing the musicians sitting on the carpet right in front of you. Live tracks distill the band’s energy and personality in a way that only a performance could. Then there are crisp, fully mastered, fully orchestrated professional recordings.

For those involved in the collective, the compilation is sort of a milestone and documentation. Hard evidence of the experience they’ve been having and sharing around town. As an album description, Ellis wrote a short narrative poem on their website. It’s from the perspective of a girl, tracing her time at the Whitehaus from her first awkward steps up the dark porch. Ellis tells her, “Now under your skin, a record is written of the electric stutterspit heartbeat of a place, made of movement and songs, made of history and fiction, and yes, it was written by everyone.”

The release coincides with the third annual Blastfest on March 20th. They’re an appropriate pair, as Blastfest is an all day talent show pastiche of the artists that have formed a family of sound.

// Jamaica Plain, MA //
// Released on The Whitehaus Family Record//
// March, 2010 //

whitehausfamilyrecord.com

myspace.com/treehaushoots

Published in Performer Magazine, April 2010 issue.

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REVIEW :: Spitzer Space Telescope

“A folkloric renaissance folk bard”

Download "Spitzer Space Telescope - Graknils and Gerkins" (right click, save link as)

Gather round the crackle of the fire for Dan MacDonald to tell stories from a time long ago about incredible voyages to the edge of the world and deep into the netherworld. Tales of unicorns and phoenixes and a slew of other fantastic creatures like Graknils, Gerkins and Mynocks. This modern day minstrel masquerades under the name Spitzer Space Telescope and he’s released a full length self-titled vinyl LP.

The music has a fresh sound for the present folk resurgence. Its part old world acoustics, part sea shanty and part episodic folklore, all with a slight Irish flare. Folk is a pretty traditional format for war protest songs. However, when MacDonald sings of battles in “House of Seven Sisters,” you know it’s got to be a completely different kind of war. The kind where soldiers have to march for days over foggy, lush hillsides and fight with antique weaponry. Then there are tunes that are so strangely upbeat and erratically silly like “Song of Voyage” and “Graknils and Gerkins” that you may be compelled to laugh or get up and do a jig while listening to them.

Performing live, MacDonald is a sight to be seen. With a guitar strapped on and maybe a harmonica around his neck, he has an otherworldly energy. He strums erratically, making goofy facial expressions, running all around the stage and occasionally raises his guitar neck high into the air as if it were a cannon out of which he fires dangerous sounds.

Spitzer Space Telescope’s first release is an archaic journey with an unmatched talent for creating expansive mythic places with a few words and chords.

// Boston, MA //

// Released on Good People //
// August 2009 //
// Recorded by Dave Suchanek in East Lansing, Michigan //
// Mastered By Carl Saff at Saff Mastering in Chicago //

myspace.com/spitzerspacetelescope

Published in Performer Magazine, April 2010 issue.

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Feature :: The Whitehaus Family Record!!!

On any given weekend night in Jamaica Plain, by some fleeting word of mouth from friends of friends of friends you might wander up the dim wooden porch that is decorated with polaroids or a gutted antique radio or other found art projects. Upon entering this house you’ll realize that it might be the strangest and most interesting place you could’ve gone tonight. Creativity is strung from the ceilings and walls as a dumpster diving collage of broken instruments and equipment, random knick knacks and toys. The house itself buzzes and croons, becoming an amplifier for anything from sloppy, silly, sensitive folk to psyche piercing digital experiments. Its white rooms transform into a stage, a screen and willing host to various performance and projection anomalies. It’s more than just a living art project, a venue, a DIY record label or an art collective; it’s the Whitehaus Family Record.

In the player above I've compiled some of my favorite Whitehaus tracks.


The collective's label has over 50 releases; the most recent is a double LP label sampler, featuring tracks from some of the now over 20 active artists on the roster. All of the albums are handmade, hand stamped and hand printed artifacts that use 100 percent recycled cardboard. And they’re only five bucks.



The artists are an eclectic and creative bunch. You’ll be humming along to the soul-warming, hypnotizing and giddy folk and blues of Gracious Calamity, Avi Jacob, the Cups and Be Law. Mind bending instrumental, noise, and cassette tape experiments are the specialties of Atomfoam and Morgan Shaker. Digital loop and sampling vortexes swirl from the pedals and speakers of the sometimes wacky Truman Peyote, or the tribal infused Many Mansions. The slam poet veterans Brian S. Ellis and Casey Rocheteau will have you tumbling along to the rhythmic, unrestrained collisions of humor and poignancy. Meditative electric guitar bands, like the brooding Manners and Hare Krishna-influenced Prince Rama of Ayodhya, could be spiritual portals to the center of the universe. Then there’s the Whitehaus supergroup: Peace, Loving. It’s a live experience like no other, as members of several label bands surround the audience, shake large chimes made out of buzz saws and scrap metal, and weave through the crowd while playing banjo, singing or yelling poems.Outside of the house, groups can be caught at their local haunts like The Milky Way, The Alchemist, The Middle East and P.A.’s Longue. Alternative venues include churches, basements and art galleries. Although non-traditional, these shows are coated in a unique charm and become nights to remember, like stumbling upon a secret speakeasy and just happening to know the password. A lot of times they’re free and because they’re not at bars, there’s no age limit.

Each year Bostonians get a concentrated dose of the collective when the planets align for Blastfest in March. It’s a patchwork of label artists and friends that audibly mimics the controlled chaos of the haus art projects (which also serve as the set decoration). Last August also marked the beginning of the trance inducing psychedelic bizarro-circus called Weirdstock.


The group formed three years ago as friends playing music in an apartment and it has grown to become an unparalleled collective infecting the whole Greater Boston area. Shows began as “hoots” or “hootenannies,” which are essentially open mics where anyone who wandered off the street could play. The refreshingly accepting environment revolves around the group’s patented “Yes Wave” ethic as Jamaica Plain’s cosmic center for positivity. The collective encourages any kind of performance from music to jokes - even fire breathing.

Some of the most eerily odd and irresistibly interesting acts at the haus have fused several styles. One night a band started with a traditional guitar/bass/drum arrangement, then did a ten minute recorder solo, broke down into puppetry, and finally ended by spazzing out while wearing instruments made into costumes, like a cymbal mask. Another night featured an overhead projector with various fabrics, transparencies and cut-outs streaming through, as the light spilt onto the horrified face of a grizzled interpretive dancer, all to dissonant violin.

Things are getting serious around the haus these days. They’ve started recording on a reel to reel eight track and a slew of new releases from Manners, Avi Jacob, Shai Erlichman, Gracious Calamity and The Cups are about to be unveiled. Check out the website, go to some shows, pick up a cheap record of awesome music and buy yourself a screen printed Yes Wave T-shirt. Soon, you’ll be able to say you knew The Whitehaus before they got big.


whitehausfamilyrecord.com

Myspace.com/treehaushoots

Published in Performer Magazine, March 2010 issue.

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REVIEW :: Girlfriends - Our Very First Cassette!

"Like getting your ass kicked by an 8 year old!"

Download "Girlfriends - Sucking Rare Meat off the Bone China!" (right click, save link as)

Once you pop this radioactive green cassette into your tape deck, you'll get three new girlfriends who like to hang out in dusty basements, make noise and yell at you. Oh, and two of them are guys. Maybe not the ideal romantic situation, but it makes for an excellent bopping, in your face, giddy garage punk trio. The menage a trios is a coalition of other local bands. Singer and guitarist Ben Portrykus' fronted the folk philosophers Christians & Lions and the digi-tape-loop project BAXIA, bassist Jen Dowty is formerly from Mmoss, and drummer Andrew Sadoway played with Mean Creek and also backs up Spirit Kid.

The DIY enthusiast, lo-fi grit production has a cavernous live sound from actually being recorded in an old warehouse and it remarkably still manages to maintain every note and lyric. Fuzzed out guitar flirts with different genres and their expectations, meandering through walls of feedback with old rock and roll melodies, surfy riffs and bouncy punk power chords. It’s all draw together with infectious tin can vocals and clever lines like “parasite for sore eyes” from ‘Slugger.’

There’s an inventiveness that mostly comes from a sarcastic humor in everything from the sound down to the catch-phrase “Nothing is fuuucked!” printed on the neon cassette. A spacey wah pedal solo on ‘Good to Be True’ could easily be a wacked out vocodor and the song ends with an off key falsetto. It’s a juxtaposition of childlike playfulness and hardcore punk rock, like getting your ass kicked by an 8 year old. In “Sucking Rare Meat off a Bone China,” a masturbation joke: “I found that touching so I touched it, now my palms went hairy, I'm blind” comes right after turning Ghandi on his head: “an 'I' for an 'I' makes the whole world 'yours' and 'mine.'”

However, some of the lyrics take music to task for credibility, like good punk rock should. ‘I Was Here But I Disappear’ challenges pop to a duel with “the same bands play the same shows every night,” and “it's just pretty songs by pretty people and it's tough for me to give a shit. Have I failed hedonistic calculus?” There’s always a self-aware element that makes it more about the band’s artistic presence in the music genres and scenes it explores. ‘Sucking Rare Meat’ asks itself “am I hungry for approval or for something to prove? It aint right, I lost my appetite, too fed up to move,” settling with “I just do what I do and I do and I do.”

As a good girlfriend should, this too short five track EP will leave you satisfied, but hurting for more.

Girlfriends are leaving footprints all around the greater Boston area. Check out their website for a list of shows. You can catch them on March 31st at the Middle East opening for Japandroids, which should be an outrageous show.

// Boston, MA //

// December 2009 //

// Released on Floating Garbage Continent //
// Recorded in a warehouse by Freddy Hamil and in Andrew Sadoway’s Mom’s Basement, both in Belmont, MA //
// Mastered by Emeen Zarookian //
// Produced by Girlfriends //

girlfriendstheband.com

myspace.com/girlfriendsus

myspace.com/floatinggarbagecontinent


Abbreviated version published in Performer Magazine, March 2010 issue.

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