Bagel place has new timecard box, on-site management and no fraternization allowed among employees.

Parenthetical Girls. All about the aesthetics. “Careful who you dance with; somebody’s liable to get their head kicked in.” Gorgeous art-rock videos unencumbered by the dreamy slowed-down pop plaints of Zac Pennington, who operates (rightfully) under the dual billing of “vocalist/creative director.” Style is paramount for this slender, nude, well-coiffed tranquilized party-boy band.

A utopian speculation by Francis Bacon. Antedeluvian bible-thumping mythology by Minnesota congressman Ignatius Donnelly. Donovan chant, with guitar solo by Jeff Beck. Dirk Pitt adventure by Titanic-saver Clive Cussler. John Ashley soggy romance suspense flick from 1973. Acting class July 28 & 29 for thespian tots aged 6 and 7 at the Long Wharf Theatre. (A press release exhorts “Go exploring with us as we dive deep into the mystical world of Myth, Magic and Monsters as we spend the class in the lost city of Atlantis. Using their imaginations, students will enter a world of magic & intrigue.”)

The space shuttle we’ve all been following this week. Now why, with that name and in its final journey, was it not allowed to land in the water?

Most of Brand O’s songs may be strictly Brand X, but the band has made a major breakthrough on the sartorial side of the scene: different sized stencils for different sized shirts!
How many times have you passed up the XL shirt because the band logo looked so small in the middle of it? You buy the M, which seems a perfect balance of fabric and icon. But you never wear it because the only thing more ubiquitous in the scene than T-shirts is beer, and the shirt just doesn’t fall correctly around your bulging belly?
Tog Tropix, Brand O’s drummer (as if you didn’t know—isn’t a band’s drummer always its logo designer?)—says she “just felt funny” about a small image swimming in such a large swath of cloth. “I mean, I felt physically ill. That’s my aesthetic. I’m a drummer, but mostly I’m a designer.”

Smalltooth, Slender Snipe and Tropical Gar experimfolkindie meltdown at the Bullfinch. Happy hour drink specials, though there’s nothing happy about the music… All tribute acts at Hamilton’s, albeit the kind where it’s not really a full tribute because the feted band didn’t have enough popular songs to warrant a full set. Also, you can’t tell from the band titles who the tributes are for, unless you’re so into these bands that any tribute done by others would likely sicken you. In any case, Bulbous Deepsea Angler and Unicorn Crest, your stage is set… Crisscross Prickleback and Alligator Pipe at D’ollaire’s will definitely sell more beer than anyone else playing this night…

Bagel place is under new management. Mar and I asked to share a shift.

The Summer Set, Everything Fine.” Skinny, squeaky clean faux-indie act which, based on the descriptions I read—Alternative Press likes ‘em, John Fields produced ‘em—would be appropriate summer listening for this hot and sultry week. I was misinformed. This is a year-round by-the-numbers Disney Channel-style pop, with unnecessary harmonies and twangs and other fillips. Overdone like heatstroke.

Can’t keep Christopher Arnott away from his record collection, even though it’s in the basement.

1. Mighty Purple, When Kingdoms Fall/Explode. Mighty Purple was many things to many people: hip high school coterie, heavily promoted pick-to-click regional rock stars, kids living the dream, suburban rebels… This was a band without an “in their prime” time: you simply saw them grow up from teenagers to young adults, watching as their tastes and talents expanded. This single, on their own well-designed Wonderland label, was from a particularly grandiose phase of studio exploration. Some think psychedelia is a nostalgia thing, but it’s a frame of mind we all go through. The A-side here runs over five minutes.
2. Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods, Who Do You Think You Are/Fool’s Way of Lovin’. The Heywoods were not a one-hit wonder, and here’s the proof. They were part of a ‘60s style pop revival in the mid-1970s, which suited them fine, since they’d formed in Cincinnati in 1965. As a snotty youth whose father would bring me back the latest UK hit singles from his regular trips to England, I lambasted BD&H for swiping thieir biggest hit, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero”, from Paper Lace, but “Who Do You Think You Are” utterly redeemed them for me. I finally got the chance to see the band live when they ably backed up an Archies-themed double bill of Ron Dante and Andy Kim at the Mohegan Sun Wolf Den in the mid-‘90s.
3. Wishbringer, It Came From My Grave/ Lost Children/ Nigh Time. Slushy-cool psych-garage, elegantly underproduced yet exorbitantly overpackage. The sleeve is a piece of purple construction paper adorned with cut-outs stickers, rubber stamps and a “#23 of 300” marking, the single also comes with a ripped out page (#137-138) of the paperback Go Ask Alice and a bubblegum sports card (Joe Caldwell of the Cougars: “They call him Pogo Joe”).
4. Cherry Red, Get Set/I Told You. Girly glam from the same label that hosted New Haven’s supreme female-fronted garage band, The Botswanas. Skillful approximation of the hallowed Chapman/Chin—style guitar sound.
5. Boiling Man, Roadkill Museum EP. Seven songs on a 45 rpm 7-inch! Those were the (hardcore) days. The sleeve design is overstuffed as well, thanks to the aesthetic proclivities of Todd Rogers, as famous in the New Haven scene for his street fliers as for this eminently worthwhile band. The crushingly fast music is full of shouted interludes that really draw you in, especially the “Fuck You!” parts.

Greener Good is the environmentally friendly band from the farm that isn’t the farm that the Shaking Quakers hold church at. (Don’t knock farmland bands; they usually get to practice as loud and as late as they want. Plus they tend to be healthy and can play longer and harder).
The Greener Good pulled up for their Bullfinch show on bicycles with little weapons behind them. All their equipment was accounted for, and that included stand up bass and vibes. The GGs’d been told they didn’t need to bring mics or amps, but they told me they could’ve lugged them too if so needed.
That’s a bonus show you want to arrive early to see! (Or, in our case, still be drinking at the Bullfinch after a late lunch.) Everything was in crates padded with newspapers. Everything needed to be tuned. Everything had little nicks and scratches on it, including the musicians. Guitarist “kid kiwi”– who’s not Australian; kiwis are what he grew on the last farm he worked at—had ridden through some brambles and fretted that his pickup had been pricked.
The set went off without a hitch, and the band was even afforded a long encore by the other bands on the bill. Impressed with the lengths to which they’d gone to play for, uh, 20 people who were mostly there to see the other bands or just to drink.
Extra-effort bonuses aside, Greener good says it bikes to shows to make a point about how possible it is, not how difficult. But what would they do if they got a gig in wintertime, during a snowstorm?
“Oh, we’re not idiots,” they say. “We know we can’t bike anywhere.
“If it was gnarly out, we’d take the tractor.”

Retzer’s Elephant Nose, Rosy Dory and the charming duo Pacu &
Opah all at the Bullfinch… Bullfinch has three bands, while Hamilton’s has just one— Striped Mojarra, for multiple sets starting at 9 p.m…. Feel free to dig Pirillo and Sedimentology at D’ollaire’s, for a much lighter tariff than the club has generally been charging for indie fare of late…

Missed several days of making bagels and thought I was through, but they must be hard up because they’re being all nice to me.

Maino featuring Roscoe Dash, “Let It Fly.” A new standard in innocuous, upbeat, unthreatening commercially minded raps: the main sample appears to be from (or at least is startlingly similar to) Billy Joel’s “Moving Up.” That’s got to be the most mainstream middlebrow sample sublimation since Jay-Z plumbed Annie for “Hard Knock Life.”