The String Sillies are the latest in a “string” of (ahem) corny-concerto ensembles that blend mod-pop with class opuses. Nothing new in that, but some use this as an opportunity to let their long hair down, and others just pin it higher up.
Pretty obvious by their name what the String Sillies do. They twirl their instrument and cover candy-rock tunes and eat cheese sprayed from a can while they play.
What we guess is remarkable about this ensemble is that they don’t play very well. They play poorly enough for non-classical lovers to really notice that fact. The devil-may-care, self-deprecating attitude is a cliche in club-classical circles, but we hadn’t noticed before now that there are generally high performance standards involved. Even when The String Sillies do a four-chord rock cover there’s something off about it, a lack of understanding, and even with this light material they’re missing notes.
These are trained musicians, we’re told—all music majors at the college on the hill.
Is this what conductors are for? We never knew before. Do conductors provide oomph and tone and harmony? Do they foment a shared purpose?
We’d like to see The String Sillies with a conductor. It’d unify them. It’d also give them a target for their cheese.
Tonight: George Streetsign at the Bullfinch, all new set…

Italian restaurants which host live bands on weekends really shouldn’t leave the candles on the tables when those bands turn out to be boring.
A lot of folks who otherwise wouldn’t consider Consigliane’s Cuisine as a club destination went there anyway Friday night because Joe Knox of The Hard Knoxes was drumming. He’d suggested beforehand that this was a whole other side of him, and so it was—a laidback jazz standards revue. It would’ve been OK if the guitarist booked for the gig hadn’t bagged last-minute, and if the substitute knew anything besides Volume One of the American Song Fakebook. A couple of numbers had to be done twicer, to fill out the night,.
The food was yummy, however, and the house red was fruity. When we were done with those things, we started on the candles. Three tables were occupied with fans o’Joe, so after we’d held a wax-sculpture contest, there was a covert, under-the-table wax-pellet-pelting battle.
Tonight: Four Faultless Felons at the Bullfinch… College band The Poet and the Lunatics at Hamilton’s… Come to Think of It’s “The Turkey and the Turk” tour at D’ollaire’s…

Kai O’Neill, the multi-ethnic, practically Albino “Snow Goddess,” hails from a country that’s never seen snow. Yet her white skin and sparkly attire are a constant reminder of the substance. It was an unwelcome one Thursday at the Bullfinch, where Kai-O got heckled merely for being herself.
“Cold! Cold!,” yelled a sozzled soul. “Cold!” We interviewed him awkwardly later, and discerned that he was tired of shoveling his mother’s driveway, had come out to enjoy a few drinks too many, only to be subjected to a vocalist dressed up like an icicle. The music scene is plenty used to complaints about style over substance, but we felt sorry for Ms. O and sought to soothe her frozen ruffled feathers.
“Never mind,” quoth an unfazed Kai, with punny aplomb.
“It’s cool.”
Tonight: What I Saw in America at the Bullfinch, with a slide show… End of the Roman Road and Superstitions of the Sceptic, mystic cryptic dark metal at D’ollaire’s…

After Savage Clamor did their set at the Bullfinch Thursday, a bear (the gay kind) at the bar followed them outside and convinced them to play the Bohemian Gala a couple of months from now at Country Matters, the golf club.
Why? The guy really dug the songs “Lullaby Too Rough,” “Heavens Dim” and “The Day Frowns.” Not exactly prom material, but Mr. Bear (who’s on the music committee for the shindig) felt they had a beat he could dance to. It’s an earnest effort, apparently, to bring in a younger crowd. Other bands, yet to be chosen, will also be coming aboard. We do like how this “do” is shaping up, and have already seen the bear chasing other bands down the street. This is the chase.
Tonight: Able to Hear Again at the Bullfinch. A welcome return… Hot Table at Hamilton’s for Smart Teen Dance Nite… Old Gate Lane and Food Fuel ATM at D’ollaire’s, jamming for days…

SocPath has the look. SocPath has the gear. SocPath has fans aplenty, who sing SocPath’s praises better than SocPath can sing themselves. For SocPath is not a good band. They are the illusion of a good band. This is why you seldom see them play in public. This is why SocPath’s sole recording is so derivative that it’s easy to assume the band members simply sat around the studio while others did the real work. It would be a presumption, a folly, for SocPath to sing in public. It’s folly for the band to spend money on promotion. Yet they have
SocPath is playing D’Ollaire’s, biggest room in town, on Thursday night. SocPath has plastered the phone polls with heavy-stock, multi-ink posters that must have cost several dollars apiece to print.
Why is SocPath doing this? Is the answer the one thing that’s more ridiculous than rock fame: politics? There is reason for the saps in SocPath to be seen as young leaders. It costs them little to appear to be good. If they’re not, folks will just forget them and SocPath can insist, by showing the posters and souvenirs, that of course they were great. They will have excuses. But their bluster will probably get them good jobs and good stories to tell at cocktail parties. Meantime, they waste our time with their money.
Vanity, thy name is SocPath. SocPath is not talking to us. We’re fine with that. We hope they do not sing either.
Tonight: Acorn Cans at the Bullfinch. No other bands on the bill because nobody will play with them… Old Salt Barber Shop at Hamilton’s, not ironic… An Evening With Rex Hame at D’ollaire’s. Seriously, a solo acoustic show with a guy who doesn’t play any instruments, just sings and claps…

Jasper Spear has fenestration fixation. “I can’t play in rooms without windows,” he’s decided. That’s because he likes to throw stuff out of them.
It’s a percussive thing. Jaspear once read about a composer dropping a piano off a building, and it stuck with him. When writing songs in his third-floor walk-up apartment in the largely deserted old watch-chain factory building on Hour Lane, he got used to tossing pencils so they’d rattle down the drainpipes or ping on the metal roofs.
During his solo keyboard Bullfinch show on Thursday, Spear tossed dozens of pebbles, drumsticks, paperweights, books, alt-weekly newspapers and even a pint glass out the little window near the stage, the one that overlooks the alley.
When he tossed out a handful of pocket change, one of the regulars at the bar (who comes for the cheap booze rather than the bands) rushed outdoors to scoop up the coins—and got decked by a plastic toy hurled at a poignant moment during the Jasper Spear original “Binky’s Buddies.” No charges have been filed, but the window has been quietly closed and bolted shut…
Tonight: 19-9 (featuring former members of 28) at the Bullfinch… Falling Rock and The Shoulder Band at Hamilton’s… An Evening With Look! Park! at D’ollaire’s…

We’ve all witnessed what we’re sure must be the longest drum solo in the world,. But what about the bass?
“Bassy” (pronounced “Basie”) Biggs, who is equally proificient on the stand-up acoustic, electric and stick varieties of the instrument, held forth for hours Saturday at a downtown cathedral. Occasionally a guest star would stride up and plug in a guitar, but mostly it was just basic Bassy. He allowed himself one five-minute break per hour, which he covered with tape loops of himself so that the music never actually stopped.
He went on like this for close to seven hours, which he deemed “no big deal. I’;ve definitely had rehearsal days that went longer than this.”
The audience for Bassy’s endurance exposition was sparse for most of it, but toward the end a group of well-wishers from the Bullfinch piled into the pews to chant “Bass-y! Bass-y! Bass-y!” He didn’t break, and went another hour with a flourish. Back to bass. We’ll write more when the record’s been confirmed.

Tonight: Another preternaturally poppy evening at the Bullfinch, with Kolor Syndicate and Jackansons… Luminate and Mane Focus (a hair band if we ever heard of one) at Hamilton’s… D’ollaire’s is dark again. What’s going on?

The Shore Lobsters are that trio which formed to play postgame shindigs at flying disk tournaments in which the band’s members hurled and spun, added a slew of members for a special gig last month.
The line-up included two more guitarists, a keyboardist, two harmonica players, a ukulele player, two tambourine virtuosi and assorted roadies.
As of Tuesday, the band reverted to a threesome. “Musical differences” are being cited for the split.
It was a ruse, actually. The flying disk team had been invited to an international tourney, but couldn’t afford to go. So they strung together a variety of small grants and bequests so they could make their match.
The band was formed under an arts enrichment grant bestowed by the college on the hill’s ethnomusicology department. The institution was fully aware of the impromptu, second-priority nature of the ensemble they were funding, they simply set conditions. The disk tossers all had to attend a special class on music appreciation and three supervised rehearsals. They had to learn a composition by a student composer and perform it at the tournament to an audience of at least 20 people. And they had to submit a group report on their musical voyage. Especially sweet: the college even provided the group’s musical instruments.
All conditions were met, especially the concert one. When the organizers of the Wam Hau Tournament, on a small Caribbean island, caught wind of the intriguing travel fund, they invited the ShoreLobs to perform at the opening ceremonies, before a crowd of thousands. It’s thought to be one of the largest crowds ever to see a live performance of a neo-classical student composition in the history of the college. (When I ran that stat by one of the students, Jean Bluté, he replied “It’s not like they ever invite us to play at the football games.”)
The scheme is unlikely to be epeated, but the band’s performance of “Disk Variations” has been recorded for posterity. While none of the new members wanted to officially join the musical wing of the team—only in the rarefied sport of disk-tossing could membership in a jam-rock band be considered “too much work”—it’ll be hard to stop them jumping up at post-game jams now that they know a few pan-flute licks.
Tonight: Pizzings and Tumblefun (not as fun as they sound) at the Bullfinch… The Cranberry Building and The Fieldstons at Hamilton’s, playing the tunes you know so well… D’ollaire’s is dark. The date was being held for some former superstar, who still apparently likes to screw over clubs at the last minute…

You don’t notice the cliques forming at the Bullfinch unless it’s a very busy night or a very quiet night.
On a crowded evening the groups clump off like sovereign states in a republic—they’re all there for the same thing, but they identify in separate sections and cultures.
There are the college cool kids, the street youth., the undergrounders, the “professionals” from bands and studios and record shops, and the shy ones by the door who aren’t sure they’re gonna stay.
On quiet nights, when the band’s not that good and everybody’s there to drink, every table in the Finch could be available and only one will be occupied to overflowing. On those nights, the crowd divides thus: those who know each other and those who don’t. And if those who don’t have the price of a pitcher and are willing to share, then they’re allowed to switch tables with alacrity.
On Friday, a conceptual dance night, half the tables in the club were removed at the request of the band—a hotshot act from a big city. The effect was doubly disorienting. You didn’t know who to hang with, there were less places in which to do it once you’d figured out the “who” part.
What confounded the most was the realization that dancing matters to our little crowd. It’s the great divider. Many us grew up despising dance clubs and everything they stood for. We might bounce vertically, or trot clockwise with elbows akimbo, but we felt that we were safely among fellow disestablishment terpsichoreans (those who are against the practice of dancing). So even an ironic performance-art oriented dance event was polarizing.
Someone we thought we knew, really knew, did some moves—as a joke, she swears—and we couldn’t contain our disbelief. A married couple did a swingdance routine they say they learned in birthing class. And the folks whom we’d swear must have insisted on attending every school dance and prom from sixth grade onwards? They sat on their hands.
Dance stance. Each to their own revolution.

Tonight: The Wonder Books, power pop that’s too good for us, at the Bullfinch… Tanglewood at Hamilton’s, with a horn section… An Evening with The Hawthornes at D’Ollaire’s. Short evening…

Magic number: 93758
Magic word: conk