Like fingernails on a fretboard.
We know it’s cool to include string squeaks on lo-fi recordings—adds to the purity of the exercise. But, as the new solo CD from Moon-Eyed Horse ably demonstrates, if you do it on every track it’s not lazy. It’s a reason for some of us to avail ourselves of the suicide prevention hotline. M-EH isn’t the only offending excavator of the rustic-miner veins-of-gold-amid-a-lot-of-slate sound hereabouts, however: There’s Scarebird’s “Ghost in the Noonday Sun” (how haunted can you get?), the amusingly titled (if you like fart jokes) “Big Wind” by Mr. Mysterious & Company, not to mention Bo and Mizz Mad’s entire album “The Ghost on Saturday Night.” If we want to scratch a tune out of a dish plate and clothesline on our back porch, we’ll do it ourself.

Cover band Giant Rat of Sumatra is at Hamilton’s Wednesday, oblivious to everything that’s going on in the region formerly known as Sumatra… Jim Ugly and The White Elephant rage at the Bullfinch, together and separately, with new songs promised… And finally, a band we can all agree is too cool for D’ollaire’s: The Bullwhip Griffins, who remain hip despite a massive mainstream hit we won’t mention, with Clancy and the Grand Rascal opening. Here comes McBroom!!…