Tale of the tape

So Millie of the Model Marvels had a crush on Herve of the Pothunters.

We’re not blowing her cool for her by reporting it here; she’s written a song about it already, and scrawled a hear and initials on a well distributed flyer for this Wednesday’s TMM show at the Finch. (Due to some deft schmoozing of the Bullfinch management, the band is being allowed to break the midweek acoustic barrier and set up “the larger amps.”)

So amorous, amiable Millie made a mix tape and gave it to her bandmate Michael, who’s a good friend of her heartthrob Herve’s roommate Joe Derlesh. (they were in The Liaisons together). Joe asked Millie who was on the disc, then dug it so much he dubbed and kept a copy for himself. He happened to have it on—dancing to it, even, he says—when Anton of Ancient Regine stopped by his place, overheard a few tracks in a row and asked what the cool radio station was. A couple exchanges later, Millie’s mix actually was being broadcast on radio—our local hipster college station RGC 82, of course, where Friday “Hear and There” show host “Spawn” Smith (“manager” of the Dangeroos) attempted to credit the curator of the customized cuddle-inducing set but got it all wrong. Joe and Anton were handing out copies to whoever asked.

At this point, Millie reckons, hundreds of people have heard her private love letter, and dozens own copies of it.

But, as all the brokenhearted (not the band) demand to know, did the mix ever get to the two darling ears it was intended for?

We made a somewhat embarrassing phone call and can authoritatively report that yes, it did—but in an anticlimactic fashion. The ever-gracious Herve (heck, we have a crush on him too—who wouldn’t?) is in possession of the original edition of Millie’s munificent mix. But he heard it first on Spawn’s radio show, which mentioned someone else (who is the only embarrassed by this tale, and whose name we won’t mention even though it’s common knowledge and was broadcast for ten miles or more on a 100-watt radio station) as the intended recipient.

For the principal players in it, this adventure made for lots of laughs, and several rounds of drinks, at the Bullfinch last week. One of the lighthearted responses to the episode was that Millie and Herve say they’ll do acoustic covers of every song on the mix, maybe a month from now at one of those Wednesday happy hours like Millie’s playing this week. That’s where she’ll be debuting that song we mentioned at the outset of this column.

It’s called “Mitts on My Mix.”

Sharing the love elsewhere in scenesville:

Congratulations to the Little Browns. They are officially the one millionth band to jokingly self-title their debut album Self-Titled. Need ideas for the next one? Some riotous pun on Two/Too, perhaps. Release party Thursday at Hamilton’s…

We’ve been asked to inform you that the Doo Wop spectacular at Dollaire’s, put together by no other than Mr. Macmillan of ‘60s local harmony hotshots The New Americans, is exceptional in that all the bands include at least one original member. So at least one of the voices you hear in The Bantams, The Del Reys, The Groves, The Harlequins or The Hyperions will be exactly the same ones as on those scratchy old records you never listen to anymore.

Seriously, doo wop is too good an art form for Dollaire’s. The Pantheons’ “Center Street” put this town on the map. There a fervent international fan base of doo-wop devotees who care deeply, with the acuteness of a trainspotter or a baseball statistician, about the line-ups of these legendary groups. Many acts of the doo wop era lost (or never held) the rights to their names, and when the original artists did pesky things like ask to be paidl, they were erased from the groups they founded by evil managers and producers. Mr. Mac, whose own band was considered neo-doo wop back in the day, causing some bad blood with the traditionalists, says he’s always been a fan of the old school. The Dollaire’s bill proo-woo-woo-wooves it…