We went unabashed to the Sugary Pop Con. In case you’re unsweetened, this is a music festival, not a confection convention.

We’ve never been ashamed to profess our love for classic acts like The Zagnut Five, The Punctuation Marx and Syrup Boys. But still, this is the cultural affection that dare not speak its name, and some of us are more out about our love for loud cheesy superficial bands than others. We saw a lot of people we know well at Sugar Pops (as it’s affectionately known), and darned if some of them didn’t avert their eyes or duck into hallways when they saw us coming. Others, of course, embraced the culture and loved being among fellow tripe-rock travelers.

Rose Riot of Winged Euonymus greeted us with “Hi-doodly-doo!,” quoting the gummy-jazz classic “Hi Doodly Doo” by the, um, Hi Doodly Doos.

Others wanted to be all learned and academic about the genre, noting that some of the most important guitarists and saxophonists in the harder rock realms had played in sugary studio bands.

Fine. Justify thyselves as thee will. We did the color and the lights and the cool and the lightness. Wouldn’t even know where to put these bands if they wanted to play downtown in our town. Hamilton’s? Too much of a drunken party scene. The Bullfinch? Too ironic. D’ollaire’s? Too big. maybe the outdoor show in the park. With cotton candy and carnival rides. For now, may the heavens bless the Sugar Pops. Besides the live sets—total bliss, too perfect to describe here—we scored a mint 45 of “Fragrant Frank” by the Tri-Fools for only a smattering of bucks, plus a stack of Rich Bears comic books. Sweet, with no guilt.

Tonight: Samses and Adore Clean at the Bullfinch, both with the same bassist, Lauren Snails… The 24 Hours and Best Gas, convenient covers, at Hamilton’s… An Evening with Eunice X. Alon and The Braiders at D’ollaires. Discount admission for distinctive “do”s…

The problem with house shows? When you’re at the wrong house. Jeff & the Jazzcocks, a scrawny punk outfit from Omaha, had vague directions to a basement show on Spoon St., part of a ramshackle national tour the band had arranged. They lost the exact address but found the street, heard music in a backyard, walked in and set up. Turns out the Jazzcocks had crashed an engagement party which didn’t appreciate such original relationship songs as “Don’t Need You Too” and “Fuck Out of My Life.” The party they’d wanted would’ve been two blocks down, on the other side of the street, but had been shut down without notice because the host’s parents hadn’t gone on vacation after all.

Problem with house parties is that you can’t let too many people know about them. But some people just, you know, gotta know.

Tonight: The Pat Hobbies and Beloved Infidel at the Bullfinch. Smart lyrics… France by Big Shots and No Nutty at Hamilton’s, pop covers perhaps more obscure than you’d expect… Dame Rumor comeback gig at D’Ollaire’s, propped up by young upstarts Ted the Pink and Rodgers the Fink, all sharing the same pick-up band…

Taliban Law, an exchange-student three-piece, observed 45 minutes of silence at the Bullfinch last Wednesday afternoon. It was a political statement, obviously, about cultures that fear the arts.

Thing about silence, however, is that folks invariably fill it. It was Happy Hour, and it wasn’t more than three minutes after the opening announcement of the silent set that the crowd was back to their conversational ways.

Now the one-off band—a project in Provocative Performance at the college on the hill—has become a two-off band, modifying their statement for a show in the English Department Lab 12 later this week. Instead of cutting music out of the conversation this time, TL will turn the conversation into music. The “band” plans to conduct the audience in a “rhythmic verbal symphony.” If that works, they’ll bring the whole experiment back to the Bullfinch in springtime.

Tonight: Majestic Mosaics, Propark and My Unused Greek Book at the Bullfinch… Philippe Count of Darkness, whom you usually don’t see except in October (and never in daylight)

makes winter scary at Hamilton’s. His backing band includes members of the cover-savvy Beverage Boss… An Evening with The Story Needs (tenth anniversary full-album rendition of Bud the Untalented) at D’ollaire’s. We know this matters to many people, yet we don’t know why…

Waking someone up for a phone interview about their band is the bane of every music journalist’s existence. It can happen to us as often as once a week. You ring, they answer groggily, you remind them that this call was arranged days in advance, they say “Is that now?,” you avoid offering to call back later because a deadline looms, and then you lob very easy questions while waiting for them to wake up as you’re talking.

So much easierto do interviews in bars. The interviewees often balk because they don’t think they’ll be clearheaded. But they don’t know what they sound like at 10:30 in the morning after that night in the bar is over.

This week we phoned someone so out of it that they got everything wrong: the date of his next gig, the title of one of his songs, even at one point the name of one of his previous bands.

We won’t embarrass the guy by naming him, but the upshot is that the interview had to be voided and the story didn’t happen. (We plugged the show regardless, but in a lesser, interview-free format.)

Next time, we advise, just go for that last drink and pour your heart out at the bar. Better than fighting your dreamstate first thing in the morning. We speak fluent bar-lingo. We have yet to master semi-comatose.

Tonight: Doomladen lyric night at the Bullfinch with Romantic Egotist, Write Hard and Orderly Man in a State of Disorder… Big Envelope Marked Scott and Don the Red, headbanging love rock, at Hamilton’s… Rap hasbeens Steve Old School Beaver (OSB) and $6 Car Wash at D’Ollaire’s, barely holding onto their jewelry …

The Back of the Heads, clearly, had a concept already firmly in place when they named their band. Facing away from the crowd while playing is a phenomenon we’ve documented here numerous times. Thinking ahead, and basically caring for the needs of the audience, sets BotH apart.
“We’re ugly,” suggest singer Franque. “Plus we’re video geeks and computer programmers. So we do projections and videos.”
BotH shows are big events at the campus on the hill. So much so that it brings up a whole other “back of the heads” issue.
“They’re getting too crowded,” Franque sighs. “People can’t see. We’ve had to start playing auditoriums, or classrooms with a lot of chairs.”
Sad, he says, since Back of the Heads’ music is danceable and frantic, a mechanical-beated fuzz-noise melange that benefits from a light show—as long as the light show doesn’t take over.
Franque is stymied by the paradox. “We meant to liven things up, and we’re deadening them.” This should not be a problem, however, at the Bullfinch Thursday. There, the projections will be high up on the walls over the bar, and the videos plugged into the TVs on the walls.
“One day,” Franque, “we’ll get the balance right. It’d be a shame to ditch the band and just make movies.”

Tonight: Folk slumberthon at the Bullfinch with The New World’s First Fashion Victim, Shy Turtle With a Soft Spot and Sounds from the Mountains—all of which are solo acts. The longer the name of your act, it seems, the fewer people are likely to be in it… The Original Transformer and Awesome Forces, hard rock with heroic overtones, at Hamilton’s… An Evening With Green Sea Urchins at D’Ollaire’s… Crowned Madonnas, yes, Crowned Madonnas, at a basement show we can’t tell you anything about…

The Risings fell. Right off the stage at Hamilton’s Thursday night.

Some readers think we’re obsessed with falling-off-the-stage stories. But they’re more common than you think, and if you mention one, you’re suddenly being told about a dozen others. And they’re all great stories. The scuffle among the gods last week faded into memory when The Risings (aka the extended Reisling family from the suburbs) swept into a full-band kickline and swept each other off the platform.

Nothing injured but pride. Lots of pride. Band patriarch Sal Riesling insisted that the act do the kick again, then again. Painful to watch, more painful than actually getting kicked. The band might have been expecting some sort of ovation, like when a circus act misses the trapeze somersaults twice and then invariably connects the third time. Instead, crickets. Worse, active rebuke. “Stop kicking!,” someone yelled.

Tonight: Below the Fold and Engine 31 at the Bullfinch… GTTP at Hamilton’s (wordy rapping)… The Advos at D’Ollaire’s with no original members…

Their logo is so incomprehensible that in some circles the band has become known as Blotch.

Their music is equally muddied and misshapen, yet exhilarating and impossible to pigeonhole. Which may be what that logo is saying, as far as we know: “Impossible to Pigeonhole.” We’ve heard worse band names.

The collective, which has in fact played out under several different names, has a dozen good songs in their repertoire. They’re in search of a producer and a manager… and a graphic designer.

Tonight: Bulbous Deep Sea Angler and Retzer’s Elephant Nose at the Bullfinch… Unicorn Crest at Hamilton’s… Tropical Gar at D’Ollaire’s; all well drinks $3…

Dance music. They played it before the Edgewood Day show Thursday. By dance music, we mean a 1927 recording of the Primrose Waltz by the Fantasy Attenuators. Then 50-Tuft Horse stampeded with a clap- along, stomp-along thrash routine which got out of hand. The number, of course, was the band’s longtime staple “Got the Brush.” Love these community bake sale basement shows.

Tonight: Striped Mojarra, with Rosy Dory, at the Bullfinch… Smalltooth and Slender Snipe at Hamilton’s, in full warpaint… Pacu and Opah, world music, at D’Ollaire’s…

The dart stunt—in which a self-destructive punk artiste insisted on playing a Happy Hour set during a darts tournament at the Bullfinch—ended badly.

We won’t mention the musician because we don’t want to encourage. One can, it has been wisely noted, put an eye out doing this sort of thing. No eyes were put out on this particular occasion, but there was a flesh wound.

“I can think of some hypodermics we can throw at him,” suggested a pre-Med student from the college on the hill. “That might actually help him.”

Tonight: Blotch (not their real name) at the Bullfinch… Whistler & The Thames at Hamilton’s, a rare indoor show for the Sand Shack houseband. Too cold for the pier… D’ollaire’s is closed. Repairs to the bar…

Percy S. cooled down. Dusa gave up, broke up her band, went home, got stoned. Kim Era (nee Kimmy Cameron from the Fable Farms complex), however, is still a problem. She’s been turning up at the Bullfinch for his kiss-and-make-up duties still breathing fire (girl’s got a 5-cent hotball habit) and scratching growling hissing at anyone who comes near her. Defensive posture or performance art, her days are numbered. Whatever the case, she’s down to do a set at the Bullfinch tonight. The ever-eager Billy Phonics has been told (but mysterious Bullfinch “assistant manager” Joe Bates) to do an opening set. At first it seemed Billy had no idea what he was in for. Then he turned up with a horse bridle, a dog leash, a skateboard and a new song, “Harry Beaver”:

Squishy thighs

Gallons of harm

Underground mercury rising

Vaults on Easy Street

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds

Turn in the wind, horse’s ass

Which world which world witch world

…or something like that. Somehow, a spell was cast. Billy, whom we never knew had this in him, blew off the stage, left the bar, went home and crashed. Kim seemed stunned. She sang a bunch of folk covers, sobbing a little while she did it.

Tonight: Polly Idus solo acoustic at the Bullfinch… Fancied Monsters at Hamilton’s… Pie and Reenie oldies revue at D’Ollaire’s…