Monthly Archives: February 2015

Rock Gods

Rock Gods #337: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

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…

Archie

Riverdale Book Review

Style Signatures for Archie Artists

Bob Montana: Frowns, scowls and furrowed brows.

Samm Schwartz: black silhouettes, legs and arms sticking out beyond the panel borders.

Dan DeCarlo: Attractive anonymous women in the foreground of panels.

Harry Lucey: Back-end view of cars as they and their drivers leave the scene of an adventure, along a winding road.

Dick Malmgren: Loony reaction shots; comically twisted faces.

Stan Goldberg: full-body reactions, as if the characters had been pushed or thrown.

Joe Edwards: Beads of exasperation. Lots of close-ups.

Dan Parent: Thick strong lines, blank backgrounds.

Fernando Ruiz: Askew angles; diagonals and slants.

Music reviews

Scribblers Music Review

Belle and Sebastian, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (Matador). It’s weird to realize that I’m still having trouble dealing with the “new,” more professionally produced and mainstream-poppy Belle and Sebastian, even though the band has been that way for12 years now, since Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Something still strikes me funny about how Stuart Murdoch thinks his audience wants to dance rather than just stare at the shoes like in the good old days. Selling out, self-delusion, or whatever else, I still dig the more laid-back stuff, and fairly recent releases such as Write About Love and God Help the Girl show that it’s still in Stuart Murdoch’s power to show restraint. On the other hand, there’s an ironic bliss to songs like The Party Line, which has tacky old disco beats and lyrics like “People like to shoot at things with borrowed guns and knives,” or  the even faster, dancier, odder “Enter Sylvia Plath.” I can get it—Belle & Sebastian has its dance-pop crowd just like Stephen King has his sci-fi Dark Tower crowd, and I don’t have to like it. There’s still plenty of other stuff for me left to like, even if I wish there were some alternate solo acoustic take of the overblown yet essentially sweet and sultry “The Book of You” that I could wallow in. And I will never completely give up on a band that can write a song (the most wistful on the album) titled “Today” and subtitled “This Army’s for Peace.”

Daffodil

Exclusive! The Music Line-up for the 2015 Meriden Daffodil Festival—Rob DeRosa’s Last Stand as Musical Programmer

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Once again I get to be the first to unveil which bands will be playing at the Meriden Daffodil Festival. This year’s fest is, as always, on the last weekend of April (Saturday the 25th from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday the 26th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) in Meriden’s Hubbard Park. General info is here.

For those who don’t get why this is a big deal, know this: over the past 17 years, the fest’s music programmer Rob DeRosa (of the Thin Man record label and the Homegrown local-bands radio program on WESU) has built the Daffodil Festival into one of the premiere places to see some of the most important Connecticut-based bands. Rob balances established acts with up-and-comers. He lured country music titan Gary Burr from Nashville back to his hometown in 1998, and gave the Wesleyan student band MGMT (now an international success) their first off-campus gig.

As one part of a greater festival, however, the music bookings are subject to the same decreased funding and subsequent budget cuts that many big events suffer these days. For years, the volunteer-run Daffodil Festival has featured around three dozen bands, on three separate stages. This year, there will be 22 bands on two stages. The Food Tent, so valuable last year when torrential rains forced the outdoor Mark Mulcahy set to move elsewhere, is gone this year. For some bands, who struggled to be heard over the hubbub of thousands of mingling epicureans at the food vending booths, this loss will be bittersweet. For those of us who planned lunch at the festival around who was playing in the Food Tent, we lose our soundtrack. Plus, you know, like a dozen less bands are playing.

Due to the downsizing, DeRosa has intimated that this will be his last year booking the festival. He was a festival volunteer for years before taking over the music booking duties. “Gary Burr is who I came in with in ’98 and who I’ll go out with in 2015,” DeRosa told me in an email.

Here are the 22 lucky bands playing the 2015 Meriden Daffodil Festival, alphabetically, with my own comments:

• The Balkun Brothers

Connecticut Music Awards “Best Blues Band” winners in both 2013 and 2014, theirs is a funk/rock-induced bar-band form of blues.

• Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman

Burr’s a Meriden native who played the festival in 1998 when he was already an established Nashville songwriter. His fame has only increased since then. The Texas-born, NYC-educated Middleman’s songs have been recorded by the likes of Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Kenny Chesney and Sheila E. Besides the Daffodil Festival, Burr and Middleman will be at Infinity Hall in Norfolk April 25. But at the festival, the show is free, and will be accompanied by fireworks.

• Branchwater

Young “Blues funk jam” band from Litchfield which took Best New Act honors at the CT Music Awards.

• Eurisko

New Haven rock quartet of Jay Prince, Nick Santore, Erik Kukansis and Michael Hemenway. Eurisko released its debut album, Wild Animal, in July.

• The Foresters

The three Nork boys of Bethany began the band in their pre-teens and, just a few years on, are now an established, award-winning act which continues to up its game and released a solid new album, Living Hold, last year. They’ve played the Daffodil Festival before, and also NOT played it—last year’s scheduled set got rained out.

• Rex Fowler

The taller, frizzy-haired half of the ‘70s folk duo Aztec Two-Step, who’s now a Bridgeport resident. Aztec Two-Step is apparently still going strong, and released a 40th anniversary CD, Cause & Effect, in 2012.

• Funky Dawgz Brass Band

Not a lot of brass bands have hit the Daffodil stages over the years. This 12-strong ensemble is made up of UConn students with a love for New Orleans jazz.

• Gigglejuice

Jam/fusion act that’s been kicking since 1992 and recently released the new album Driving Around in Circles.

• The Gravel Pit

Founded in Durham CT in 1987, developed into a power-pop powerhouse in New Haven throughout the early ‘90s, and a very big deal in Boston for years, The Gravel Pit recently regrouped for Serpent Umbrella, the band’s first album since 2001. There’ve been a few Connecticut appearances over the years, including at the wedding of New Haven Advocate Music Notes columnist Kathleen Cei and New Haven Independent web designer Kyle Summer, but not all that many, and the Daffodil Festival is a rare big outdoor gig for a band that’s freshly back in business.

• Graylight Campfire

Fairfield County trad rock trio. Leader Dave Hogan has also performed with Six Pack Dutchmen, Grimm Generation, The Zambonis, Rafter Bats and solo.

• Kindred Queer

The distinctive heavy alt-folk sounds of Xavier Serrano’s vocals and acoustic guitar, Shannon Kiley’s cello and vocals and Quinn Pirie’s percussion.

• all-caps LADD

Rob DeRosa calls this band the “the hottest Wesleyan act since MGMT,” and I’ll just have to take his word for it, since when you Google “LADD band” you get some obscure medical term for “fibrous stalks of peritoneal tissue.” Seriously, all-caps LADD won a battle of the bands for the honor of playing the Wesleyan Spring Fling last year. The leader of all-caps LADD is some-caps Jack Ladd, who graduates this year. The band released a three-song EP, Mad in the Coatroom, in November.,

• Laundry Day

New Haven indie rock four-piece. A mesmerizing five-song EP with such disarming songs as “Hey How’s Heaven” and “Space Heater” was released last April.

• Lines West

Bridgeport-based No Depression quartet fronted by guitarist/vocalist John Radzin (of the West Coast pop act Magnified) and keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Brian Larney (who had a solo career before joining up with Radzin).

• Mercy Choir

This open-ended vehicle to play the songs of Paul Belbusti became a reliable full-fledged band last year.  Mercy Choir didn’t get to play at the festival in 2014 due to the rains, so here’s another chance. The busy Belbusti also has a novel coming out this spring.

• Mark Mirando

The locally rooted singer-songwriter frequently plays and records in Nashville. He’s worked with Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman (both of whom will also be playing the Daffodil Festival this year), Ringo Starr, Kristin Chenoweth and Stealing Angels.

• The Modeans 

According to Rob DeRosa, the keyboardist for this Wallingford-based blues act “last played the bandshell in ’67  or so when his act won the battle of the bands!”

• 1974

1974 audaciously revives the powerful prog and AM-rock era suggested by its band name. Naturally, they’re big crowdpleasers, and all the more impressive for not being either tacky or ironic in their quest to evoke the power of Yes, Rush and (yuck) Tull.

• Ponybird

Jennifer Dauphinais (whom I knew as a colleague at the old New Haven Advocate) is a confident, sensitive singer/songwriter. She released a new single, “I Am With You,” in November.

• Straight to VHS

New London garage rock combo with crowd-pumping songs like “Hey” and “Yeah Yeah Yeah” and “It’s Fun” and “Punk Rock Black Chicks.” The new album is Weekend Weekend Weekend.

• Frank Viele

Genre-bending rock/soul/folk/R&B songwriter and New England Music Awards winner, whose new EP is due out a few weeks before the Daffodil Festival.

• Wise Old Moon

Not to be confused with Poor Old Shine (which has changed its name to Parsonsfield), Wise Old Moon is a folky barroom four-piece which formed in 2013, will be putting out its second album this year, and tours constantly.

• Faith Zeigler

Fast-rising talent from Berlin CT, who’s going the mainstream commercial route with slick videos and studio pop production.

***

That’s it—a whole stage missing, but no deadweight on the two that are left. In fact, some great acts which have become Daffodil regulars aren’t represented at all this year: The Manchurians, Frank Critelli, Mark Mulcahy, The Furors, James Velvet, anybody from The Reducers… Not even the entrenched Meriden covers bands Boxcutter, Chico & Friends, 691 and The Gonkus Brothers.

As DeRosa tells me, “I decided that I needed a fresh and exciting bunch of acts on the other stages for both days. Ninety-seven percent of the acts have NEVER played Daffodil stages before. Some tried and true old faves have taken a pass this time around.”

If Rob DeRosa’s really going, he’s going in style, letting newcomers bloom like so many daffodils.

Rock Gods

Rock Gods #336: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

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…

Archie

Riverdale Book Review

Uses for Poorly Cooked Food

Betty’s cookies: hockey pucks

Veronica’s meatballs: cannonballs in Jughead’s Civil War diorama.

Betty’s too-hot chili: spicing up Archie’s lips such that Veronica comments on his “hot ’n’ spicy” kisses.

Betty’s bad-breath-inducing cheese dip: its halitosis effects can be countered by Pop Tate’s mint chocolate chip cookies.

Fruitcake: bricks for a stone wall