So many bands pose as an opening act for themselves by scaling down to side projects or solo sets or what have you. So it was truly novel to hit a presumed rip-off “Evening With…” show at D’ollaires and get a full revue of several different bands, all featuring Ziggy Hell. In the Annie Doni band, he backed his wife on—get this—stand-up cello. In the acoustic duo Money & Run, he was “Money” to Bert Tony’s “Run.” Tony, Ziggy’s longtime touring bassist, was also around for the main set, a full-blown six-piece combo doing all the hits you wanted to hear and none of the downer ones you didn’t. There was also enough patter to constitute a stand-up set on its own.
We bitch about “Evening With”s constantly—they’re lazy low-key affairs that are less planned than an average band rehearsal. They’ve do away with opening acts and other elements of variety in the name of “intimacy” and “purity.” There’s rarely a decent tech crew. Everything’s bargain-basement, except you tend to pay more for the privilege of seeing the star “up close.” Thank you, Ziggy Hell, for showing us a good. We’ll wait at least a week before we starting slamming slumming gods again.

How Now Dow and the Ander Sisters at the Bullfinch… Just Tell Me What You Want takes your song suggestions at Hamilton’s… Warren LaSalle and the Pelhams at D’ollaire’s…

Our band has booked its first gig in our living room, two nights from now.

I love Black Francis/Frank Black’s quieter albums because they’re still loud as fuck. The man did not come equipped with a tremor control. Since he’s a seriously underappreciated lyricist, it’s a pleasure to have all the words (and not just buzzwords like “Debaser”) rise above the glorious din. In fact, it’s the playing and singing that shines through on this debut album for a duo who’ve worked together on and off in band situations for years. The songs can be rather uneven, but if you concentrate on how Black Francis and Reid Paley poke and prod each other as performer, the lighter-weight material catches right up to the better-written stuff.
I was a Boston scenester in the ‘80s, so Reid Paley comes separately into my consciousness, and not as Black’s “discovery” or somesuch. I knew about Paley for years before I stumbled onto the Pixies. He was a guitarist punks could dig—economical, never show-offy. It’s a pleasure to hear him sing again on this album in his distinguished rasp, which he can band into the blues (“On the Corner”) or deliver matter-of-factly as in “Ugly Life.” Black Francis rightfully rules the mic for most songs, however. If you only connect him with his growling past, you forget he has a higher register he can access, howling at the moon in “Magic Cup” and

Stripping the arrangements down to Paley & Francis’ own best instruments allows for nuance. Since neither man is prone to jamminess or trippiness, we’re talking neat solos and jabby instrumental interchanges that remind you of the Beatles in how much gets done in a short amount of time. The album was produced by Jon Tiven (Connecticut-raised brother of Dumptruck’s Seth Tiven; the Tivens were fighting the good indie rock battle in New Haven around the same time that Francis and Paley were setting things up in Boston.

Friendly and comfortable then. Mature in the we-can-do-this-sitting-down sense. Still experimenting, though, and challenging each other, beholden to no influences save for early Velvet Underground. In Paley & Francis’ hands, a simple riff and insignificant chorus (“the sun is bright/the sky is blue/and so are you/and so are you”) become “Deconstructed”—literally, that’s the name of the song, as intricately blown apart and put back together as anything either man has done, and you can hear every dainty deconstruction.

Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve, 2011).

Penn Jillette’s book God, No!, which I covered yesterday, opens thus:
You don’t have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is “I don’t know.” I remember sitting in a room full of skeptics when I first heard Christopher Hitchens say, “Atheists don’t have saints and we don’t have martyrs.” I’m a little afraid to put that in quotes, because no matter how brilliantly I remember any Hitchens phrase, when I go back and check, what he said was better than I remember. He is better at speaking off the top of his head after a couple of drinks than I am at remembering his brilliance later while referencing notes.
So onward we must go to the hard stuff, Hitchens himself. While not his first or best collection of essays, it’s essential reading alongside his recent memoir Hitch-22. I interviewed Hitchens when Hitch-22 came out last year, and asked if he’d deliberately downplayed the aspects of his career for which he is, ahem, arguably best known, including his renowned atheism. He admitted that he’d wanted to focus on lesser-explored areas of his life rather than regurgitate material which was already out in print. This fresh form of self-editing meant Hitch-22 was full of surprises. It didn’t get bogged down in wanting to have the last word on old battles, as so many memoirs do.
So here are the parts left out Hitch-22, or the stuff which underscores its last few chapters anyway. It reminds you that you need more than a subscription to Vanity Fair in order to keep up with Hitchens. His collections remind me of another prolific critic and enlightener, Anthony Burgess, who understood the value of a provocative opening line in something as formalized and innocuous as a book review, and who always found room for bon mots amid the brickbats. Hitchens is a professional considerer of things, and here he is in his elements, surrounded by books and clever people and avid readers.

Fair Haven’s a-happening. Tonight (Friday the 14th) was the final performance of the Bregamos Theatre Company’s production of the political parable A Peasant in El Salvador.
On Saturday the 15th at 7 p.m. in St. Francis Church, 397 Ferry Street, the chamber quartet Solisti Saint Francis evokes the 18th century with works by J.S. Bach, Rameau, Telemann and Vivaldi. The performers are Gary Bennett on bassoon, Libby Van Cleve on oboe, Peter Standaart on flute and Britt Wheeler on harpsichord (although the photo on the event’s promo flier depicts the elegant St. Francis organ). These players’ community musical activities are widespread, from the Yale-based Oral History of American Music project to the St. Gregory Society which provides music for Latin church masses. Some of them are regulars at the celebrated neighborhoods concert in Wooster Square. Spreading their magic to Fair Haven has been a gift for the whole city. And anybody playing Telemann anywhere is automatically cool.

Stay home. It gets worse. I work at home, thankfully, and when I got so dizzy last Wednesday morning that I could barely stand, I think I actually floated into a netherworld for a while. It’s the kind of sickness that makes you forget what being well was like. The nose goes first, then the stomach, then the throat, then the equilibrium.
I’m all better now, thanks. Braaaaap! Excuse me.

Sick of hearing about all those song-in-a-day games clever musos won’t stop playing, the ever resourceful Sonny Blit announced during his unexpected Tuesday set at the Bullfinch that he would be writing and performing a new song every minute. Hmmmm… maybe he IS god!
Of course it was just a joke. He’d sum a few chords, shot something distasteful, solo and then announce the next tune. What was impressive, considering the one- joke material and the one-note delivery, was how long Sonny bothered to keep it up: 30 songs, as in the full half hour set.
Our most favorite: “Tip your bartender, tiptiptiptiptip, whoops, you fell over” (to a rockabilly beat).
Least favorite: “Capshaw, Capshaw, stop writing this dooooooowwwwwnnnnnn…”

The Barrie Craigs back for more at the Bullfinch, with Bachelor’s Children… Hobby Lobby and Reg’lar Fellers outdoing each other in the cover-song expo that is Hamilton’s. (The bands are friendly rivals and have been known to challenge each other to the point of exchanging guitarists)… The Free Bergs at D’ollaire’s, one of those too-busy bands (they travel with vibes!) insisting on a low-frills opening act. Myrt and Marge got the gig, and are only allowed two mics tops…

We shamble through a set, most of which is Gar solo on guitar. Mar can sing better than she says.

Mikal Cronin, Mikal Cronin.
Charlie and the Moonhearts are the best band not from Rhode island to have uncovered the sandy cave where the beach boys meet the Ramones. (The one from Rhode island would be the Queers.)
The bassist of the Moonhearts is intermittently solo, getting produced by the band’s drummer Ty Segall, with the third Moonheart, Charlie Moonheart himself, providing a guitar solo on “Green & Blue.” The sound in consciously less harmonic or clattery than C&TM but with a similar smoothed-out sandpaper sensibility. It’s got that echoey, dispossessed thing happening, but at a frenzied clip that swooshes you along in much the way the Moonhearts do. For a one-man effort, it’s impressively layered, and loaded with gentle personality. Hearing Beach Boys harmonies deconstruct into raw Arch Hall Jr.-level rock frolics before your very ears, as it does on the album-opening “Is It Alright,” is a delirious experience even before the woodwinds break into the mix.
Folky starts get power-chord endings (“Apathy”). Feedbacky beginning go blissfully psychedelic (“Green and Blue”). Quiet, glistening tinkles become strum floods (“Gone”). The vocabulary is kept simple, so it all works. The far flung influences are joined smartly by swooping vocals, catchy melodies and beats so fast you don’t question, you just follow.
Simple and direct on the face of it, I’ve so far been unable to hear this album the same way twice. It comes at me from new directions with every listen. You know how the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School” has sweet harmonies collide with a cheerleading section? Mikal Cronin imagines the sports field, and tailgating, and the loners smoking under the bleachers as well.

God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
By Penn Jillette.
Penn Jillette knows he’s a blowhard. He knows he’s the biggest and loudest and foulest-mouthed guy in the room. He knows that if he went on attitude alone, he wouldn’t have a prayer of convincing people of his diehard disbeliefs, the chief among them being that there is no god.
It’s not that Penn doesn’t have a moral code. He has never drunk alcohol or done recreational drugs, for starters. This book is framed as an attempt to rewrite the Ten Commandments for atheists, without the bombast and subservience. He’s going the whole distance here, not just questioning organized religion but offering thoughtful alternatives.
I’ve interviewed Penn Jillette a couple of times and seldom missed Penn & Teller when they toured to Boston or New Haven in the ‘80s and ‘90s, before they settled in Vegas. Jillette isn’t just outspoken and articulate, he has amazing natural timing. He can philosophize at the drop of a (rabbit-filled) hat, and make it sound like a Lenny Bruce routine.
In his carefully worded fresh non-commandments, Jillette places creativity on par with the highest spiritual values. He’s also unfailingly entertaining in all that he does. This is a book bursting with backstage anecdotes and frank lifestyle advice. We get a full description of Penn & Teller’s Vegas office space and work habits. We meet their friends and co-magicworkers. When Penn mentions celebrities he’s encountered (a ridiculously varied list, epitomized by the rock stars and others who attended a days-long party he threw at which the main attraction was an obese naked Elvis impersonator), he has nothing but respect for those who play the fame game squarely, and total disdain for assholes who rip off audiences and indulge in petty feuds. His settling of an ancient score with the Amazing Kreskin is a poignant short story worthy of F. Scott Fitzgerald, while his admiration of the bespangled Siegfrid & Roy is eloquently argued.
Penn Jillette knows that he’s arrogant—he co-hosts the skeptic series Bullshit!—but he thinks a ranker arrogance comes from those who inflict their (often unfortified) viewpoints on others without acknowledging honest differences of opinion. Jillette describes atheism as an honest admission of uncertainty. He can bitch and bellow as madly as the most enthusiastic evangelists, but with an unmatched sincerity, and a deep-rooted need to entertain and enlighten. God, what a book this is.