The Minor Improvements and The Bug Fixes are apparently both better bands now, but we don’t know quite how. Both have been enhanced with a new rhythm guitarist, the alleged Oswald Xavier the Tenth. But he barely plays, he’s the antithesis of a natural showman, and even the comedy potential of his name seems as yet unrealized.

Where Mr. Xavier really matters is behind the scenes. He’s arguably the best street-flier designer in town right now, and more importantly he’s a street-flier designer who actually makes the effort to get his work seen. We’ve run into Ozzie X (real name as yet unknown) dozens of times in the last few weeks, on the street, hanging his art. His role onstage is strangely muted—both times he played Thursday, with both those bands, his guitar was buried in the mix and he seemed to actively evade opportunities to use the mic.

Why is he even onstage? “He’s a musician first,” the MI’s Flip Casuary counsels. “We respect that. He’s finding himself. You know, he’s never been in a band. He grew up in the sticks, dreaming of being in a band. Now he’s in two.”
“He’s actually pretty amazing,” adds the BF’s Joe Smith. “He writes bridges. Like three of our songs, they had no, you know, bridge, and he came up with those, well, bridges. He hears our music and makes it better.”

Casuary noted that Ozzie X was doing more that it seemed, including working the pedals and feedback for other members of the band.

So what we have here, music fans, is part anomaly, part godsend: The quiet, selfless scenester. We could use more of a show from him, sure, but he’s a character to watch.

The Pixelmaters and The Prizmos at the Bullfinch… The Calcbots (retro New Wave electronica covers) and World Clock turn back time at Hamilton’s, for a college-on-the-hill reunion-party thing that happens to be open to the general public… Neo-prog-fusionists Collage It are at D’ollaire’s. It’s the full show, with lights and projections, not the “Evening With…” rip-off they brought last time. XScope opens…