We remain obsessed with the elegantly rhyming (or alliterative) titles of joke pages in Archie comic books.
From Archie Annual Digest Magazine #57 (1990):
Jest Request
Volley Folly
Cross Toss
Help Help!
Gag Bag
Pie Guy
Stunt Stint
Scheme Supreme
Grouch Vouch
Gals Galore
The Flip-Floppers Fly Again

This issue is also notable for the curse grandly uttered by Samantha’ s Samson at the outset of the “Wanted man” episode of That Wilkin Boy:
“OH, DAD BLAST THE DAD-BLASTED DADBLAST!”

A funny thing’s happened to Dead Lewis. When we first started singing his praises (without ever quite praising his singing, if you know what we mean), it was because he’d found the perfect rock blend of irony and entertainment. When he took saucy old British Music Hall tunes and disguised them as classic punk tunes, we were enthralled. When he did a quasi-classical/jazz jam on old metal riffs for a lonely Christmas Eve gig, we were admiring. Then, when he took his exotic take on squeaky white ‘70s funk (Teaspoon of Zest) to a club (Hamilton’s) that couldn’t be expected to get the joke, we quibbled.

Now his career (and you can actually call it that) has really taken off, and color us not green but worried. Half a dozen ever-more-popular Hamilton’s gigs later, Lewis took his show on the road, a regional touring circuit of sports bars and college hang-outs which have honed his shtick into a battering ram. When he returns to the area tonight, it’s at the biggest party-nite haven in town, D’ollaire’s, on a bring-in-the-bucks-or-else Saturday.
A few sex-joke songs in the set became frenzied sing-alongs, so that the lewd tunes now reportedly overwhelm the interpretive funk and pop upon which Teaspoon of Zest was founded.
Which—sigh—explains the name change(s). Ladies and gentlemen, will you put your hands together (or over your ears) for “Screw” Lewis and T.O.Z!!!!

Pernix & Milner of the Sarnafils, acoustic at the Bullfinch… Sunbird Transport
and Manac at Hamilton’s, doing virtually the same set since they’re both “tributes” of the same unprolific band… Gus Sigrid & Bess is a duo—there’s no comma—which means they’re particularly overpriced at D’ollaires…

Is there some national tax break that everybody gets that I’ve never heard about?

Jon Pousette-Dart, Anti Gravity
We all know what punk was rebelling against in the 1970s. In the Boston area, the syrupy soft-rock menace which punk proposed to wipe from the face of the earth was personified by the Pousette-Dart Band

I’m older now, and more forgiving, so when I learned that a Hartford-based musician I greatly respect, Jim Chapdelaine, was involved with the latest Pousette-Dart solo CD, I wondered if I could stomach the old guitar-noodling nemesis now, after a gap of some 30 years.

I somehow made it through the first song, the title song, but had to hurriedly push “stop” after just a few lanquid notes of “Me and the Rain.” I flipped ahead to “Who I Am,” since Chapdelaine was credited with playing bazouki and toy piano on it. It’s just as slow and quease-inducing as that “Rain” song, plus it’s a duet with a female vocalist who coos as self-consciously as Pousette-Dart does. For a record called “Anti Gravity,” it certainly does have a high opinion of itself, thinking we’d fall for these old pop ballady tropes.

Some will applaud the return of California-induced East Coast soft-rock. I feel it differently. Check with me in another 30 years.

From the apparently endless stack of Christopher Arnott’s 45s. We’ll be doing this for months to come.

Loudon Wainwright II, Jesse Don’t Like It/T.S.D.H.A.V. I understand he’s an elder folk statesman and sired the esteemed Wainwright pop progeny Rufus and, um, his sister. But for years I only appreciated Loudon Wainwright III as a novelty act. A smart one, assuredly. “Dead Skunk” hit when I was 11 years old, and this slice of political satire followed 18 years later, when I was a rabid anti-censorship activist in college. (The A-side here is a reaction to Sen. Jesse Helm’s crusade against government-subsidized controversial artworks. The initials on the flip side stand for “This Song Don’t Have a Video.” This single was cutting-edge for about 20 minutes.) Another 20 years, and Wainwrights was on the Judd Apatow TV sitcom. Look, I know I’m some important stuff here, but I just find the guy funny.

The Rake’s Progress, Salvation/It Never Dies. Wonderful band name—classical yet saucy. Plus this is a limited edition (mine’s #290 of 1000) on clear vinyl. Unfortunately, none of those things make it memorable. Straightahead rock riffing and yowling.

The Trip, Help Me/Captain Poland’s Bolero. The band name is way too obvious and simplistic, the punk-tinged neo-psychedelic music much less so. Actually suits the 45 format, which is more than you can say for a lot of sprawling neo-psych experimentatlists.

The Swingin’ Neckbreakers, Workin’ & Jerkin’/Good Good Lovin’. The violent, up-close face-squeezing cover photo that looks like a cross between the work of WeeGee and Stan Brakhage, neatly suits the explosive post-punk rockabilly vulgarity of this band, which visited New Haven clubs regularly in the ‘90s thanks to Paul Mayer of the similarly old-school Gone Native.

Stigmata a Go Go, Satan Comes to Dinner/Mote. There was a time in the ‘90s when the word “Stigmata” was as common in band names as, well, Jesus. At least this one puts religious iconography in its song titles as well. Fascinating thumpy instrumental workouts which deliberately don’t stray far from their repetitive riffs. More soundtracky than in your face (or spurting out of your hands).

The E-Glares chose that name because of an early gig where the stage lights were so bright that none of the band could read the set list. “We’d laminated it. We were going to be the cool, extra-prepared group,” recalls guitarist/songwriter Napoleon.
How far they’ve fallen. Last week, The E-Glares found themselves without paper to scrawl a set list on. Seriously, no fliers that they wouldn’t feel guilty about ripping off the walls. No trash (Q had just thrown it out, along with a bucket from the kitchen which made dumpster-diving for scrap paper particularly unpalatable. And they were going on so soon that there was no time to run down the street to Pastrie Stationers (which would’ve just been closing for the weekend), or to tape a bunch of business cards together (though that was discussed) or perhaps to manufacture their own paper out of watery pulp.
That’s when Napoleon noticed the chalked-up hopscotch court on the sidewalk right outside the door of the Bullfinch.
It had been drawn earlier that day by a little girl who lives in the neighborhood. We’ve met her before. She drew our picture once. We wave at her whenever we see her. We’ve even, like a lot of drunkards exiting the Bullfinch, leapt about on her well-drawn hopscotch courts.
We don’t know the girl’s name, but Napoleon wants to buy her a Shirley Temple. See, she’d left her chalk right there on the sidewalk. The E-Glares wrote their set list right on the wall of the club, near the dartboards. When they loaded up at the end of the night, they left a big “Thank You” mural on the sidewalk next to the hopscotch court.
And wouldn’t you know it? The E-Glares have a song with the word “hop” in it. They played it twice. So we drank scotch twice to celebrate

Flaky & The Phyllos at the Bullfinch, with solo opening set by Choux… Tom Pouce and Shortcrust at Hamilton’s, following a rented event to tout the new CD by Viennoiserie, the classical quartet from the college on the hill… Huff Paste and Konditerai at D’Ollaire’s, way overpriced yet oh so good…

Brainstormed the perfect best selling novel.

Dom, Family of Love EP
Lightweight synthpop where the beats are bothersome but the keyboard flourishes and swooping backing vocals evoke welcome ghosts of lost New Wave spirits of 30 years ago.

Hearing that Randy Burns is playing two nights at The Space in Hamden (the weekend of Aug. 26-27) makes me think more than “Huh, Randy Burns is still out there.” It makes me realize that The Space fully deserves to claim the mantle of the old Exit Coffeehouse, the legendary ‘60s and ‘70s folk club/collective where Randy Burns got his start.
I missed the entire existence of the Exit. By the time I moved to New Haven, its spirit had dwindled to the occasional reunion. A few different people presented me with copies of the live anthology album recorded there.
This was a volunteer-run listening room whose top performers, such as Burns, were on par with the big-city folk scene in Greenwich Village. The folks who ran the Exit were uncommonly dedicated: I heard stories of New Haven hippies passing up going to Woodstock because they didn’t want to cancel an Exit show. The place is still spoken of in glowing terms as a community-based cultural landmark of its era. The Exit was so warmly remembered, so well documented, that one imagined it as a phenomenon that could never be repeated.
Yet, consider this: Steve Rodgers founded The Space in 2003, in the classic volunteer-staffed coffeehouse manner. It grew out of well organized weekly open mic nites at the rehearsal studio Steve’s band Mighty Purple. Like the Exit, The Space has paid high homage to folk and other acoustic musics, but also embraced rock, the blues, and whatever else the community was supporting. The Exit brought in countless college students; The Space has captured an even younger high school crowd. The Exit distinguished itself from the more commercial clubs where the main purpose was to sell beer. So has The Space, even when it recently opened a second club, The Outer Space, which has a beer-and-wine permit.

A two-night stand by Exit superstar Randy Burns and his Sky Dog Band should clinch the connection, but a quick scan of any month’s Space and Outer Space schedules will show you how devoted the venues are to a range of listening-room joys: solo singer/songwriters, harmony-trilling duos, three-piece pop acts, contemporary jazz quartets, on up to large ska bands and 150-capacity audiences.

The Exit and The Space. Two venues whose names suggest voids. Both created to fill a needed gap, and doing more than they’re given credit for in terms of ignoring generation gaps.

We don’t follow a lot of the local blues singers, as we’ve never required extra incentive to drink whiskey. But Clarks Falls appeals to us. Not just his plural first name (he was named after two feuding uncles both named Clark, he tells us) but how he seems to be in chronic pain when he sings. His agony adds to the allure of songs like “Oh, the Hurt” and “My Baby Stepped on My Insides Again.”
We asked Mr. Falls if the anguished expressions are real. He reeled off a lot of numbers and dashes which turned out to mean something like “classified” or “trade secret.” Clarks’s a war veteran, which may answer our question right there. But he’s loose and funny in person, flashing gap-toothed grins and trying to swipe our pencil so he can do magic tricks with it.
Whether it’s acting or catharsis, performing is clearly a great outlet for Clarks Falls. If he was as jovial onstage as off, it would kill his whole act—but save his audience a few buckets of tears.

Mysterious Handprints and Secret Pitch, pretty big names for the Bullfinch… Two Spies on the deck and Dead Eagles on the main floor of Hamilton’s… An Evening With Knife in the Watermelon at D’ollaire’s…