Boston music news: January 5, 2007

Notes on Dave Tree's latest pursuits, plus Hallelujah the Hills

January 2, 2007 12:16:14 PM

SuperPower

DAVE TREE, who took his surname from the band he fronted for 13 years, wears two hats: musician and artist. He’s just returned from the massive Art Basel Miami Beach art fair, where he helped construct a gallery and displayed his work with 62 other artists. He hung eight and sold four, the biggest of which is Dare To Compare, a photo collage-and-silkscreen of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb and New Orleans after Katrina. It went for $350. He’s kept busy on the music front too, fronting the band SUPERPOWER. “I wanted to celebrate the old-school punk hardcore rock of the ’80s where there weren’t all these trendy rules,” says 39-year-old Tree of the band. “Musically, I liked the freedom of the era, where fast punk riffs go into slow Black Sabbath grooves, creating a nice roller coaster. Tension and release.” SuperPower self-released a five-track EP Demo Psalms in October, and they’ve got 16 more songs in the can for a forthcoming full-length, Prey for the World. In the meantime, the Brooklyn-based art collective he works with, Goldmine Shithouse, have a show planned for NYC in February, LA in March, and, hopefully, Boston in April. . . . The local sextet HALLELUJAH THE HILLS are awaiting a $1,000 check from salon.com for finishing third in a Best Unsigned Band Contest. Singer-guitarist Ryan Walsh hopes the money will partially fund a van and tour, but says the best news is, “We’re in talks with a great record label.” They’ve got four songs streaming at myspace.com/hallelujahthehills and a CD, Collective Psychosis Begone, ready for a spring release. They play the Paradise February 9. . . . The death of James Brown on Christmas was bad enough news for everyone, but particularly for PARKER HOUSE AND THE THEORY, a local band led by singer-guitarist Carlos Foglia. Thanks to management connections, they’d scored a number of dates on a tour Brown had scheduled for early 2007. They currently have a four-song EP, Soon, up at myspace.com/parkerhouseandthetheory, a live CD recorded last January 2 at Nectar’s in Burlington, and plans to work with Bryce Goggin (Pavement/Phish) on a studio album later this year. They play the Paradise January 26.

On the Web
SuperPower: //www.superpowermusic.com/