Overpop is alive! The band had a car accident, one of those close calls where nobody died bur everybody had visions. Two members of the band, Bonney and C.G., spent weeks in the hospiltal and their girlfriends Rose and Pansy (of Flower Names) are showing off some nasty scars.

The terrors of the road trip inspired a concept album, which has become, appropriately, a live show. They tired it out last week in a classroom at the college on the hill, with projections and mic effects and everything. There’s not a lot of narrative, but there is a story, and a crash, and confessions, and a smashing set of brand new songs. Rose and Pansy sing back-up, which gives a whole new dimension to C.G’s songs: his lyrics always have sounded as if he was talking to someone in the room, and now he has a chorus to answer him.

The core concept of the set is that the crash was preordained, that the players had it coming to them. In real life, they do feel supernaturally altered by their communal experience. Joining forces and exorcising the demons musically seemed “more productive” than licking their wounds invidually in private.

“We crashed,” C.G. sez, “and we’re moving on.”

Rant Bloc is a spoken-word collective. Monday, they’re a band, with seven-piece jazz/rock backing, at the Bullfinch. Be forewarned: three of those musicians are percussionists… L’Etolie thinks he’s a star, because he’s headlining tomorrow at Hamilton’s Some stars do, in fact, do that, but sometimes the real headliners get to deciide where they go on the bill, and some choose to get back to the hotel before closing time. L’Etoile, the Star, goes on at 1 p.m…. The Flowers of Politics have back-to-back gigs at D’ollaries. Different opening acts each night, and we’ve even been told FoP will do different sets. That’s how things go in a city without a good-sized theater that allows rock band bookings…

Mar wasn’t at work and nobody knots what happened to her. The bagel place called around 6 a.m.

Ebsen and the Witch, Violet Cries

This takes me back to some of the doomladen female-fronted bands of my pre-emo youth: psycho but accessible, swirling but not smothering, making the most of high registers and low expectations. Slow-burn openings and stinging titles such as “Eumenides,” “Argyria” “Battlecry-Mimcry” and “Hexagons IV” add a mysticism and menace to the proceedings. Most of these elongated prog-electronic tunes sound like they mean to be accompanying an old arthouse film. That’s not a diss—if someone were to make that film, I’d watch it gladly. Spooky in how it lets light show through its darkness, Violet Cries doesn’t get weepy, just coolly gloomy.

(continuing scribblers.us’ irregular tribute to Archie Comics’ unparalleled mastery of punny story titles)

Net Fret

Handy Dandy

Gee, Ma, I Wanna Stay Home

Matter Over Mind

Channel Chump

Chore Corps

Alibi Awry

Prize Size

Strange Change

Ice Cream Dream

Smart Art

The Three Marketeers

Go West, Young Dudes

Yes Table was writing a press release. They compared their music to a splattering painter. They used the phrases “Deep Cloud” and “Fragment of a Hymn.” They described their sound as “the end of jazz” and “a courtly poem.”

Then they saw what they’d written, laughed, cried, crossed the whole thing out and stuck it in a drawer. They never released a press release, but now they’ve released an album—The Boom The Strain—and that tattered, florid prose constitutes its cover. Album of the month, cover of the year, and self-deprecating band of all time.

Love Lion Book and There is Not Passion Enough smoke your soul at the Bullfinch… Drunk Variation and Poisoned Wheat at Hamilton’s…

Thought mar would hate the barrel job, but now she’s talking about managing her own store. A least the hours would be better. We could go prank shoppings again.

Junior Doctor, Clumsy Words and Bad Pickup Lines

Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when major labels signed hotshot regional pretty-boy pop-rock bands, they groomed most of them to sound exactly like Junior Doctor does. Nowadays, such peppy , riffy, well enunciated clean-pop seems an absolute novelty. The busy guitars, changing tempos and theatrical delivery really want to impress with their professionalism. But who listens to professionals anymore?

How could Russian Caravan Tea have eluded me for the 300-some years? I’ve only just discovered the stuff, and I’ve been a tea-drinker my entire life. (British parentage, don’tcha know—been on the hard stuff like English Breakfast and Earl Grey since the womb).

Bought a half pound of loose Russian Caravan at Willoughby’s on Grove Street Saturday and brewed my first pot the following morning. Strong and dark, but doesn’t get bitter after a few hours as a lot of tough teas do. This is important to my regimen because for Christmas I got a huge teapot (not to mention a coffee table). I fill up that immense kettle in the morning and sip from it all day.

Looked up Russian Caravan online and besides how I just described it, it’s apparently supposed to be “smoky.” One of those tea (and wine, and cheese) words I don’t understand. Am I supposed to light it on fire? Did I buy incense, thinking it was tea? Do I have to chase down some long-departed caravan to find out?

MC Lure’s rap make our body acihe. Lots of women have problems with how rap dehumanizes them but Lure’s raps turn everybody, every body, into meat. Frozen or grilled. Sizzled, burned. He kills, he burns. And he redeems.

We know our readership isn’t crawling with hip-hop enthusiasts. (It’s the only genre where, when we mention it, we get negative comments. Not even classical and reggae get that response.) But MC Lure, to uphold the cliché, transcends genres. He refutes stereotypes. He stares stereotypes in the face and spits at them.

Hence his lyric:

I stare stereotypes in the face. I spit.

We miss mar. Woke her in the middle of the night to talk to her but she just got mad.