The Shore Lobsters, the trio which originally formed to play post-game shindigs at the flying-disc tournaments in which the band’s founders members hurled and spun, added a slew of new members for a special gig last month.

The line-up included two more guitarists, a keyboardist, two harmonica players, a ukulele strummer, two tambourine virtuosi and assorted roadies.

As of Tuesday, the band had reverted to its initial threesome. “Musical differences” are being cited for the split.

It was a ruse, actually. The flying disc team had been invited to an international tourney but couldn’t afford the plane fare. So they strung together a slew of small grants, donations and bequests so that they could make their match.

The band formed (or rather reformed, perhaps you could say deformed) under an arts enrichment grant bestowed by the Ethnomusicology of the college on the hill where most of the sportsmen-cum-musicians purport to study. The institution was fully aware of the impromptu, second-priority nature of the ensemble it was funding, but saw promise nonetheless and set a few conditions. The disc tossers all had to attend a special class on music appreciation as well as three supervised rehearsals. They had to learn a composition by a student composer (luckily, one which favors primitive and repetitive neo-classical concepts in her work) and promise to perform it while they were at the tournament, to an audience of at least 20 people. And they had to submit a group report on this rare musical voyage.

All conditions were met, especially the concert one. When the organizers of the tournament, on the small tropical island of Wam Hau, caught wind of the intriguing travel fund, they formally invited the ShoreLobs to perform at the event’s opening ceremonies, before an audience of thousands. The coup is thought to be the largest crowd ever assembled for a debut performance of a student composition in the college’s history. The student in question, Jean Bluté, responds to the honor with this challenge: “If they let us perform during the school football games, we could beat that record right away.”

The traveling-music scheme is unlikely to be repeated, but the Shore Lobsters’ performance of “Disc Variations” has been recorded for posterity. None of the new members of the band have any interest in officially joining the musical wing of the sports team. (Only in the rarefied world of disc-flinging could membership in a jam band be considered “too much work”). But expect to see them jumping up at post-game jams when the mood (or several beers) strikes, now that they know a few tambourine licks.

The Pizzings and Tumblefun special summer series concert at the Cranberry Building. Attend, but don’t let it get out of hand. We want more of these…. The Fieldstons, Kolor Syndicate and Jackansons at the Bullfinch, power pop. No, we’re being generous. These are straightahead rock bands… Mane Focus, Lumin8 and Rex Hame & the Situates bleed covers at Hamilton’s… Acorn Cans and Old Salt Barber Shop at D’ollaire’s. We’re delighted that these bands have settled back down to where they’re within reach of their most attentive fans…

Are the Red Sox dead? Even Minnesota has been beating them.

But never say never. The Red Sox know from miracles and mysteries. The corpses have been piling up for years in novels set at Fenway.

Here are ten morbid fictions where red is not just the color of sox. The ones I’ve actually read, I’ve commented upon. The others I hope to get to in the post-season, since I’m unlikely to be listening to ballgames then.

1. Murder at Fenway Park by Troy Soos. Set in 1912.

2. Killing the Curse by Jeff Stratton

3. Green Monster by Rick Shefchik.

4. Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery By Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and Jere Smith.

Connecticut-based novelist and memoirist Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and her son Jere, both diehard Red Sox fans, concocted this thriller where the ballpark is more than a backdrop for murder. The story is packed with team trivia and shows serious love for the Sox.

5. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. The only book on this list to be adapted as a pop-up book, King’s touching and harrowing adventure of a young girl lost in the woods is informed by a universal symbol of social connectedness—listening to a ball game on the radio.

6. Fear in Fenway by Crabbe Evers. The cover of this murder mystery, part of a whole baseball-themed series, features a skeleton sitting, grinning spectrally, in the stands. Not an uncommon sight around the seventh inning of many games, to be sure. The story isn’t as horrorstruck as that cover suggests, and the best parts of it are really the baseball-history bits.

7. Best Bet in Beantown, Squeeze Play in Beantown, Foul Ball in Beantown and Double Play in Beantown; Will Beaman mysteries by G.S. Rowe

8. Harvey Blissberg mysteries by Richard Rosen.

9. Mortal Stakes by Robert B. Parker. Casual Red Sox references are plentiful in Parker’s Spenser series. This one actually has a character who pitches for the team.

10. Strike Three, You’re Dead by Richard Rosen. Actually, protagonist Harvey Blissberg is a FORMER Red Sox player; in this novel’s he’s helping out the Providence Jewels.

My review of Harvey Pekar’s final book, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, is here.

My ct.com review of the three shows in the Yale Summer Cabaret’s 50 Nights: A Festival of Stories season is here.

My review of Douglas Brinkley’s biography of Walter Cronkite is here.

My New Haven Advocate preview of the Replacements tribute night (a screening of Gorman Bechard’s documentary Color Me Obsessed and a cover set by The Replacements Stink and So Do We!!!) July 27 at Café Nine is here.

I’m one of a large, odd group of local musicians who’ve been tapped to play Replacements songs tonight (July 27) at from 10 p.m. to closing time at Café Nine (250 State St., New Haven). My axe is the ukulele, and I’ll be attempting to play a variation of the tune “Androgynous” off of the Replacements record Let It Be.

The occasion is the second local screening of Color Me Obsessed, Gorman Bechard’s Replacements documentary which notoriously eschews using any music or interviews with the actual band members.

Following the screening is a set of cover tunes. My old friend Dean Falcone—of the bands One Hundred Faces, The Excerpts, Dean and the Dragsters, The Manchurians and the Shellye Valauskas Experience—is the bandleader, and such exceptional talents as Ed Valauskas and Jim Balga will be wailing along with him.

As for “Androgynous,” it’s a rare Replacements song in that it was originally performed on piano. My ukulele rendition will doubtless put it on the same level as the sublimely sloppy guitar which distinguishes all otherReplacements tunes.

Trees in the Forest is so quiet that you can’t hear the band play even if you want to. Club noise is the concept. The five members play, and rather well, but they play without benefit of microphones or electricity, and they deliberately choose very quiet instruments like the zither and the lute.

Truly, if you are at the foot of the stage and listen up close, then you can hear some stirring, subtle, gentle strains. But it’s you doing most of the straining.

As a conceptual performance exercise (do we really have to inform you that this band hails from the college on the hill?), TithF partly just wants to see what happens when audiences realize they can’t hear them.

Bandleader K. Johns prefers not to discuss the act’s artistic thesis, but is happy to report on the response to the shows themselves. (There’ve been three.) “Mostly, we’re just ignored,” he says. “People who are just there to drink at the bar don’t pay attention to the bands. We’re the ultimate proof of that.

“Some people have told us they thought we were rehearsing or doing a sound check, but that’s in their minds. We always make sure we’re properly announced. We go on, on time. We do our full set. And, if I say so myself, we look good doing it.”

And with Trees in the Forest, looks can be everything.

Dude Ranch o’ Death and The Missing Mitt at the Bullfinch. Call out for “Abracadeath”—both bands can play it… Trouble at the Arcade and Hyde & Shriek (featuring Sammy Shriek) at Hamilton’s, for pre-orientation week… Kidnapped at the Casino (rescheduled show) and prog-rock legends The Ocean of Osyria (do you know they’ve never actually broken up, just not released an album in 38 years?) at D’ollaire’s, a post-post-post-orientation show for mellow old men…

The plot thickens—Gar invested months of rent money on concert tix he hoped to scalp, but the show got postponed.

Backs of heads noticed at the Ephesians reunion concert Friday at D’ollaire’s:

7 bald spots.

2 male ponytails (one with bald spot).

1 female ponytail (on the only female in the crowd)

2 pairs of skull earrings.

2 “Eph U” ball caps.

2 sexually suggestive neck tattoos.

The band played all their old non-hits, and in some pretentious between-song patter laid down the logic that they weren’t superstars because they swore too much. Which might have been a more potent argument if the 15 people mentioned above weren’t the only ones there to see them.

D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman and Deadly Strategy at the Bullfinch… Live Free, Die Hardy! and Haley’s Top Eight at Hamilton’s all covers all the time… Shhhhhh! (the one with six “h”s) at D’ollaire’s, still refusing to change their name. The Deadliest Stunt opens…

Gar hasn’t been paying the rent.

I continue to write thrice weekly for the Daily Nutmeg, the circulation of which has grown by leaps and bounds since it launched six months ago. To subscribe, go here.

My story on the Book Trader Cafe (as seen on TV!) is here.

My pedestrian travelogue Whalley Avenue is here.

My return to The Grove co-working space is here.

My preview of the 2012 International Festival of Arts & Ideas is here, with coverage of the first week’s events is here.

My story on the new Healthy Kids initiative at the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop is here.

My musings on New Haven’s Union Railroad Station are here.

My scribblings on public art in the city (city-approved and otherwise) are here.

My celebration of the Fourth of July is here.

My collection of stores named “Haven” is here.

My tips on how to beat the summer heat in New Haven are here.

My list of where Yale goes in the summertime is here.

My experience at the first Yale Summer Cabaret “50 Nights” marathon are here.

My feature on the Group W Bench boutique is here.

My list of ten movies featuring New Haven is here.

My listening to the Yale Carillon concert series is here.

… and my Week in New Haven calendar highlights columns for the last two months are all here.

I have two pieces in the current (Spring/Summer 2012)  issue of Hoffman Decades magazine. One is the cover story:”Rocking the Center,” a history of Hartford’s XL/Civic Center. It includes quotes from a lot of local music scenesters, not to mention big-time promoter Jim Koplik.

My other contribution is “Star & Tykes Forever,” described in the table of contents thus “Our heartwarming story introduces you to some of the people who want to improve the lives of the children of servicemen and women deployed overseas.”

Hoffman Decades is published by the Hoffman auto dealerships in Connecticut. I assume you can find copies in their auto showrooms, but I’m not sure where else.

http://www.hoffmanauto.com/decades-magazine.htm