Music Features

Up and autumn!

New local rock to shake the leaves from the trees

By MATT PARISH | September 15, 2009

THE SUN LEE SUNBEAM: They do their fishnet-and-lace-prom-dress garage metal at a CD-release party at Great Scott.

What do you have to show for your summer? These local acts sacrificed weeks of perfectly good BBQ time hunkered down in studios making records just so your transition into season-appropriate New England bitterness could be a bit more bearable. Behold! The prime of the approaching fall local rock crop.

THE LIGHTS OUT | T.T. the Bear's Place | September 25 | Color Machine, this local quartet's new full-length riff-heavy popsplosion, collects everything from their previous EPs and tacks on five brand new songs, all recorded with the Luxury's Jason Dunn at his Mad Science studio in Allston. Which means it's been a full three years in the making. A video for recent MP3 of the Week "Gottagetouttahere" is in the works as well. | 10 Brookline St, Cambridge | $10 | 617.492.BEAR or www.ttthebears.com

DEAD CATS DEAD RATS | Middle East upstairs | September 25 | North Shore scuzz trio Dead Cats Dead Rats have been wrecking rooms all year with their fitful grunge punk, and we'll finally have a souvenir once they self-release their nine-song debut, Riff. DCDR sound like a gnarled mix of '80s Northwest noisemongers like Tad and the Wipers with speed-crazed, rubber-band vocals that haven't really been touched by anyone since Bad Brains. | 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | $8 | 617.864.EAST or www.mideastclub.com

YOU NEED NEW GLASSES | Middle East upstairs | September 25 | On that same bill, Watertown's You Need New Glasses unveil their Fart Proudly EP. Yes, YNNG rip loud-ass math rock led by depraved worked-up-vagrant vocals. They won't be hosting any more shows at their casa (maybe that Thunderhole brunch show was ill-advised?), but now they can devote more time to building on Boston's proud history of complicated rock with abstract harmonies, whirlwind drums, and a blissfully minuscule degree of commercial appeal. | 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | $8 | 617.864.EAST or www.mideastclub.com

MY STUPID FRIENDS | Middle East upstairs | September 26 | From a world where the idea of four guitarists with half-stacks seems completely reasonable come My Stupid Friends, the local supergroup project for which Waltham's Peet Golan taps his most shamelessly metal yah-doods. Golan and company create an unrepentant, knuckleheaded wall of sleazy (and flawlessly executed) rock on Rock, Rip and Roll. Expect rock kicks from every member of the band at their release blowout. | 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | $12 | 617.864.EAST or www.mideastclub.com

THE BYNARS | Great Scott | September 30 | These supremely mellow synth-poppers have been siphoning melodies from the Cars' fuel tank into some airtight EPs over the past few years (check last spring's Back from Outer Space), and a new one is due. No title yet, but they'll certainly have it figured out before their release show, at which they'll also debut a video from the EP produced by locals Quarter Productions. | 1222 Comm Ave, Boston | $8 | 617.566.9014 or www.greatscottboston.com

1 | 2 | next >

Spring fever
As action-packed as the holidays are, they can be a real dead zone when it comes to decent shows.
Going on sale: October 24, 2008
Raveonettes, Duncan Sheik, Jim Gaffigan, and more.
Ten gigs worth trudging through snow to in early 2011
Ten gigs worth trudging through snow to
Ten local shows to break the ice in early 2011
If 2010 was the year Boston re-acquainted itself with its local music scene, then 2k11 should be one big party, right?
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger explore dualism
When Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl started the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (GOASTT), the project was intended as a bit of a joke — an acoustic-folk thing that wasn't supposed to lead to anything particularly serious.
Tapes ’N Tapes | Outside
Disentangling themselves from larger-label involvement seems to have lightened some of the load on this highly touted blog-band forerunner’s shoulders.
Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker display their indie artifacts
It was on a whim roughly 25 years ago that a young David Lowery called up a friend at SST Records to see how SST had been promoting records that year. "He just said, 'Hey, we've been sending a lot of our stuff to college radio stations, and they seem to be playing them a lot.' I mean, this is literally like how this all started."
Two Door Cinema Club embrace dance hooks
If a band play and no one is around to hear them, do they make a sound?
Hooray for Earth find new life in the dirty Apple
Sometimes it's well and good to wave the flag of home-town pride and condemn New York City as an overhyped, overcrowded, unholy chore to drive through. Other times, you've got to get the fuck out of Boston.
Mistle Thrush reunite, remain indefinable
It's a fun bit of Boston rock trivia that on September 23, 1991, homegrown post-punk band Bullet LaVolta played WFNX's fifth-birthday show at Axis with two relative unknowns: the Smashing Pumpkins and, on the eve of Nevermind 's release, Nirvana.
Photos: Motherboar at Great Scott
Motherboar perform at Great Scott on January 22, 2011.
Less

Topics: Music Features , Entertainment, Middle East Downstairs, Alternative and Contemporary Rock, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY MATT PARISH

INTERVIEW: TALKING WITH MISSION OF BURMA'S ROGER MILLER | January 18, 2012
This weekend (January 20-21) brings a two-night stand at Brighton Music Hall for post-punk godfathers Mission of Burma, who have somehow morphed into a band that's equal parts internationally renowned throwbacks and prolific local underdogs.

MISSION OF BURMA'S SONIC FURY STILL BURNS | January 18, 2012
It already seems like ages ago when Mission of Burma announced their reunion.

TRYING TO FIND NOW | January 04, 2012
William Gibson — the writer who famously coined the term "cyberpunk" and whose classic tech-punk novels like Neuromancer and The Difference Engine helped spawn a couple generations' worth of bleak, busted fantasies — is now on tour promoting his first collection of nonfiction.

HAVE BILL SIMMONS AND GRANTLAND MADE IT COOL FOR GEEKS TO LIKE SPORTS? | December 14, 2011
"The paper quickly began its operations, grabbing all of the talent money could buy."

DENGUE FEVER ADD ECCENTRICITY TO PSYCH POP | June 01, 2011
For all the kitsch and B-movie flair of Dengue Fever, there are still a few aspects of their obsession with Cambodian pop that they haven't put on record.