The Cosmogonys, legendary local psychedelic band of yore, were apparently set to reunite, opening a projected national tour with a theater concert at the college on the hill sometime next year. Then a few interviews with band founders Joe V. and Harry Busey hit the indie press, and now the only reunion likely will happen in a courtroom.
The dispute is over who formed the band, plus when and why. Joe V. is selling the story that it all grew out of a band his parents began, Race of Titans, where Joe worked out some of the key keyboard riffs he later brought to Cosmogonys. Baloney, says Busey; he thinks Joe is just trying to get his retired mom and dad some easy royalty checks.
Chaos. It’s chaos. All plans are on hold until a court settlement is considered. The band, which never appeared all that talkative before now, is politicking heavily against each other, in conversations all over town, to own their own origin story. But when we ask, it’s strictly “Talk to my lawyer.”

Footprints Under the Door and Sinister Signpost, high school gloom rock, at the Bullfinch… At the Hamilton’s, it’s Mark on the Door (Mark is a bouncer at that club; get it?) and Flying Express, drunken covers… Metal Nite at D’ollaire’s with Broken Blade, A Figure in Hiding and Clue in the Embers.. Yow!…

Weather-proofed the house, since we pay for heat.

The Unthanks, Diversions. I love The Unthanks—it’s unapologetically raw modern folk with indie band underpinnings—kind of the way Steeleye Span felt in the much different music universe of the 1970s. For The Unthanks to cover not just one or two but a whole album’s worth of songs by Anthony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt—acts that prize spirituality over musical conventions—seems like a declaration: We are in this world now, and we prefer to be gentle and pretty. Deal with it. Or, as one of the lead-vocalist Unthank sisters says early in this live recording, “You’ve all got your nice woolly coats on.”
Yet for all the sweetness and lightness of the presentation, there’s an earthiness and sauciness inherent in The Unthanks. “Buckets at the ready,” the band’s stylistic mastermind Adrian McNally says before he begins playing the piano part of Antony Hegarty’s trickily harmonic “You Are My Sister”; “Here’s one to make you puke.” He presumably means he’s worried the song is underrehearsed, but not to worry. The Unthanks don’t really make mistakes; they interact openly. Plus, having real sisters sing this encouraging, loving songs overcomes all else.
With the exception of a few signature songs, A&TJ and Wyatt aren’t often covered, yet they are such distinctive cover artists themselves: I’m thinking of Wyatt’s industrial take on the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet’s wartime novelty “Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’,” or Anthony ethereal unraveling of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” The Unthanks find both structure and improvisational opportunities in such material as Wyatt’s stomping and honking “Dondestan” and Antony’s desolate “Paddy’s Gone.” There’s considerably more Wyatt (nine songs) than Johnsons (six) here, but it’s the half dozen Antony songs in a row which lead off the concert, so any imbalance is redressed by that mood-setting choice. Wyatt’s had the longer and more varied career, so the set of his songs provides the sort of jumpiness and edginess you need in a second act.

Rachel Unthank: “Just in case anybody’s worried because we’re doing these other things, that doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be any clog dancing.
Adrian McNally: “We know why you’re here.”

Archie #627: Archie Meets Kiss, guest-starring Sabrina the Teenage Witch!
By Alex Segura (script), Dan Parent (pencils), Rich Koslowski (inks). Archie Comics, 2011.
Not the first comic book appearance by Kiss by a long shot, but easily the tamest. You might want to add “even by Archie standards,” but in fact this is the second Archie adventure in a few months where the townsfolk of Riverdale (and, since Josie of the Pussycats is seen, neighboring Midvale as well) are turned into drooling zombies.
No, the mildness comes from the band arriving as helpful heroes, summoned to round up some intergalactic monsters mistakenly conjured up by a jealous Veronica Lodge when she’s not allowed to join in on a proper spell planned by Sabrina. (Since Jughead #200 or so, Archie and his friends have been clued in to the fact that Sabrina is a witch.)
The members of Kiss go by their make-up names—The Demon, Starchild (ot “The Starchild”), Spaceman (again, not “The…”) and “Catman” (rather than “The Cat”). No wizard or fox. Artist Dan Parent doesn’t go in for detail, and fans of the band could justifiably raise hell with where he puts the cat’s facial stripes.
This is the first part of a four-issue miniseries, and Kiss’ presence can only increase. The band appears in only about a dozen panels of this 22-page initial installment. Not much for Kiss fans to salivate over. For Archie enthusiasts, however, the final full-page panel alone is worth the $2.99 cost: the horde of “mindless zombies” includes all three Pussycats, Chuck Clayton, Mr. Weatherbee, Cheryl Blossom, Ginger Lopez and even L’il Jinx.

Insomnia Cookies opened a couple of weeks ago, delivering fresh-baked sweets around town nightly from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. The local media, of course, couldn’t wait for the first batch to come out of the oven, and has been extolling the freshness and novelty of the business.
But the batter-scoop goes to the Yale Daily News, which reported on Insomnia long before its opening, and reported the most interesting story: that a charming small-time operation—a hardworking student who’s using his oven and his car to put himself through college—has been doing the late-night cookie thing on campus for a couple of years now. Aaron Seriff-Cullick’s business, Call Me Cookie, is obviously threatened by the franchise-strength, fully staffed might of Insomnia Cookies.
Call Me Cookie is not throwing in the dishtowel; fliers for the concern are seen in more places than ever: “Call Me Cookie is Back,” they read. (Seriff-Cullick was studying abroad during the incipient Insomnia incursion). According to Call Me Cookie’s Facebook page, a “Cookie Hour” was hosted last week on Lynwood Ave.
Choice and competition is crucial when choosing cookies. Let the chips fall where they may.

I had a ukulele gig Friday night at my kids’ school. The theme was “Sweets ‘n’ Sounds from Around the World.” I—or, rather, my uke—represented Hawaii. A couple of musicians from the Yale Symphony Orchestra (who were testing a new model for school outreach by sending individual musicians rather than an ensemble) covered Flamenco and other Spanish or Mexican musical and dance traditions. Another performer staged a Jewish courtship ritual. Of course the concluding African drumming and dancing was the biggest hit of the night.

I was introduced in the accustomed manner for non-professionals—as a member of the school’s “community.” “I am not from Hawaii,” I pastily declared. “I am from the school community. This ukulele has relatives in Hawaii.” Then I played “Aloha Oe,” the music hall ditty “Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula” and a medley of American turn-of-the-century Tin Pan Alley immigrant classics: “Bye Bye Blues,” “Whispering” and “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
Sweet enough sounds, you think?

Volk’s Music Dump would appear to be in trouble, and that’s because Volk himself is. He’s the one who does the rejiggering of used and broken equipment, so that bands that can’t afford to be bands can be bands. Volk does detailing. He’s a mechanic. He has a roofing business in the summers. He paints signs (and the occasional drumhead). He fixes the merry-go-round in the park when a horse works loose of its pole. He did that kinetic art piece with the chairs and the hubcaps in the modern art gallery at the college on the hill.
The only thing Volk does not do, it seems, is sire children. He’s always seemed kind of immortal, but he must be in his 60s now and is slowing down. The shop is now closed three days a week. We worry that the invaluable Volk is shifting his lifestyle from diversified businessman to idle tinkerer. After a bunch of unanswered knocks on the door of the Music Dump and a few worrisome anecdotes from scenesters, we’re bringing our concerns public.
What the Volk?

Power pop with Missing Chums and Hunting for Hidden Gold at the Bullfinch… Two cover bands which rule the cabanas at the beach bars in summertime and have trouble getting gigs this time of years, Cabin Island and Tower Treasures, are holding a “Winter Surf Sun Bash” at Hamilton’s. Why not just learn some carols, or blues?… Aged folk duo Cliff and Old Mill at D’ollaire’s, doing all three of their “classic” albums…

Roommates start getting home today. Baking them a cake.

Howler, America Give Up. RELEASED JAN. 17. In the first 40 seconds of “Back to the Grave,” opening song on America Give Up, Howler has given us what I felt as a Velvet Underground reference (“What goes on…”) connected to a garage-rock vocabulary (“…when you’re under the ground), connected to a beat simultaneously reminiscent of Bauhaus, Stones and Ramones that shifts into a commercial-rock harmony chorus thing for a moment, then happily descends again. A couple minutes later, we’re onto the next song, “Told You Once,” which opens with acoustic strums; stick with it, and the deep vocals and funny lyrics come in, and you’re ultimately rewarded with a fine surf-rock guitar solo. Howler keeps you guessing for the whole album—songs range from “Wailing (Making Out)” to “Pythagorean Fearem”—but what keeps them linked is the quintessential savage rock & roll beat, the very reason why America should NOT give up. Just howl.

Good Night Keith Moon
By Bruce Worden and Clare Cross (Word of Mouth Press, 2011)
It’s no Go the Fuck to Sleep—that book brilliantly takes magical fantasy into the real-life deadlines and frayed nerves. Good Night Keith Moon, not to mention the Goodnight Our World series which revises Good Night Moon into geographically and historically specific details, takes Margaret Wise Brown’s delightfully disorienting randomness and makes it real. And there’s not much humor there. Good Night Keith Moon’s funniest moment is its title; after that, it’s just filling pages with drunken rock star stereotypes. What it needs is not far afield—the absurdist and open-ended imagery of a good Who song.