JEFF BREEZE

Perfect pairing

JEFF BREEZE — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:29:14 GMT

Drug Rug turn a relationship into a band
Sarah Cronin and Tommy Allen have just opened a box of T-shirts sent by their record label.

MEETING CUTE: Their songs are “all about dying — they have nothing to do with love!”

Drug Rug, "Tiny People" (mp3)

Sarah Cronin and Tommy Allen have just opened a box of T-shirts sent by their record label. The colors aren’t quite right, and the logo is too small and off-center, not emblazoned across the chest as Cronin had envisioned. Such are the minor nuisances with which Drug Rug must now contend.

But it’s all worth it for a band who began as a folky, acoustic duo with little or no following. In the past year, as they’ve added members, Drug Rug have become Internet darlings, all without setting foot in a club outside the Boston/New York axis. Much of their notoriety can be attributed to Apollo Sunshine’s Jeremy Black (see correction, below), who gave the band a profile boost when he signed them to his fledgling Black and Greene label and initiated a promotional push long before their Drug Rug debut dropped on September 18.

Allen remembers the night Greene approached them. “It was the first show we played with the full band behind us. Just as we were wrapping up our guitar cables, Jeremy was like, ‘Hey, I really want to put your record out,’ and I was totally like, ‘This kid’s joking.’ ”

“And then he bought me a Shirley Temple,” adds Cronin, “and we knew he meant business.”

By the time Greene came into the picture, Allen and Cronin had taken steps to bolster their rootsy blues songs with drums and bass. And producers Carter Tanton (Tulsa) and Julian Cassanetti (Frank Smith, Lot Six) were instrumental in helping Drug Rug flesh out their material. Allen: “Most of those songs weren’t really rock songs until Carter and Julian got involved. They added the drums and bass and brought them to life and gave us a good lesson in how we should continue.”

Allen and Cronin have done their best to deflect the attention they’ve received as a cute indie-singer-songwriter couple. Cronin: “We’re in it to have fun and not just have this display of affection for each other. It’s more just to have a good time and make good music.”

Allen adds that their relationship and the musical collaboration began at the same time. “It all happened when we started dating.”

Fishtown's loss

JEFF BREEZE — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:24:25 GMT

Running out of Artspace
When artist Shep Abbott returned from New York to his hometown, Gloucester, he never intended to become the savior of Cape Ann youth.

Here, there, and everywhere

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:59:49 GMT

Uncle Earl’s Kristin Andreassen multi-tasks
For most musicians, a gig in Uncle Earl would offer more than enough in the way of regular work. Uncle Earl, "Stacker Lee" (mp3)

VIDEO: Uncle Earl, "Crayola"

For most musicians, a gig in Uncle Earl — one of the more highly regarded new-bluegrass (or newgrass) string bands on the scene — would offer more than enough in the way of regular work. The female quartet are scheduled to play the Bonnaroo festival this summer, and they’re touring in support of their sophomore album, Waterloo, Tennessee (Rounder), which was produced by ex–Led Zep bassist John Paul Jones. But when Kristin Andreassen — a stepdancer who plays a variety of instruments — isn’t on the road or recording with Uncle, she finds the time to play with the trio Sometimes Why as well as gig around town in the Jolly Bankers. She even has a new solo album in the works.

Andreassen hasn’t been doing all this from Nashville or Bakersfield but from right around the corner in Watertown. When we meet at the Town Diner in Watertown Square, she admits, while working her way through a mountainous Cobb salad, that she’s just glad to be home. “Last time I was able to be at my house was after Uncle Earl played a show at Club Passim. The girls allowed me to drive home to my house and drop off my winter coat and pick up my spring boots, since we were headed to Austin, and I was there 45 minutes before I was waving goodbye to my roommate.”

Her roommate is Aoife O’Donovan, singer for the Boston-based string band Crooked Still and — along with the Mammals’ Ruth Unger-Merenda — one of her co-conspirators in Sometimes Why. That band, Andreassen explains, is an outlet for songs that don’t fit in her other bands — songs that might not count as family fare. Most of Uncle Earl’s material is PG-rated; Sometimes Why’s repertoire includes titles like “Too Repressed.” And it’s with Sometimes Why that she’s planning to head to Ireland. “We have to plan it well in advance. We all have like a week and a half off in May, and Aoife’s family is from Ireland, so she has a cousin over there who’s booking us a tour, so it’s half a tour and half a vacation.”

All fired up

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:41:03 GMT

Tiger Saw catch a little dance fever
The first two songs on Tiger Saw’s new Tigers on Fire have the phrase “on the stereo” in their lyrics, and the closer, “The Big Bear Song,” says, “Put the record on.” Tiger Saw, "Tigers on Fire" (mp3)

The first two songs on Tiger Saw’s new Tigers on Fire (Tract) have the phrase “on the stereo” in their lyrics, and the closer, “The Big Bear Song,” says, “Put the record on.” In our digital age, when people are tethered to their iPods by white cords and earbuds, Tiger Saw recall a time when the record album created a bond between band and audience.

Tiger Saw is the brainchild of Dylan Metrano, a Newburyport singer-songwriter who draws on an ever-evolving cast of musicians to bring his ideas to life. No fewer than 21 persons were involved in recording Tigers on Fire. Yet the current touring ensemble for Tiger Saw is a quintet that includes none of those 21. So, is Tiger Saw really a band?

“I always feel like it’s a band, even when maybe it’s not,” Metrano says over bowls of “chowda” (that’s how it’s spelled on the menu) in downtown Newburyport. “I would never want to diminish the contributions that all the players make because it would be nothing without everybody, and people put so much of themselves into it. That said, we started practicing in January with this group, so it’s all sort of new still, and everyone is excited about being in the band. Ideally, I’d like to keep rocking with this group as much as we can, but I’ve felt that way before, too. I just know that things come up, and we’re not at the point where we’re making a lot of money, and people have other responsibilities and interests. I wish it were a situation where I could just put everyone on payroll.”

Of those involved in the new album, Jason Anderson, Nat Baldwin, Angel Deradoorian, Casey Dienel, John McCauley (Deer Tick), Alex and Camille McGregor (Ponies in the Surf), Annie Palmer, and Sam Rosen have all been on tour on their own over the past year. So when it came time to form a touring line-up, Metrano needed to look elsewhere. “It was more about getting great people to make the record and kind of figuring it out from there. It just turned out that nobody on the record ended up sticking around until tour time.”

Young guns

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:49:06 GMT

Battle of the High School Bands, Harpers Ferry, March 31, 2007
The windows at the front of Harpers Ferry are disorienting when a concert starts at 1 in the afternoon.

Boston in Austin

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:00:21 GMT

Black Helicopter’s trip to South by Southwest
There were 26 bands from Massachusetts in Austin last week to play the South by Southwest music conference Black Helicopter, "Buick Electra" (mp3)

HELLO CLEVELAND!: Black Helicopter constructed a two-week tour around their trip to Texas.

There were 26 bands from Massachusetts in Austin last week to play the South by Southwest music conference. Some flew down; others made a tour out of it by driving. Black Helicopter opted for the latter, having borrowed a van from the Beatings and constructed a two-week trip around a SxSW showcase for their label, Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace imprint. And I was along for the ride, not just as chronicler but also as navigator, tour manager, and band member, playing keyboards, percussion, and singing. In case you were wondering: squeezing five guys and a mountain of gear into a 15-passenger van bears little resemblance to the romance of Almost Famous.

No one in the band has been to SxSW or Austin in at least 10 years, and the city we see as we drive in is much different from what anyone remembers — more venues for bands, more things going on. Ecstatic Peace has gathered a slew of performers to fill both stages at a venue called the Mohawk. And it has a stack of Pizza Hut pies delivered to the top patio, where the bands have gathered before the Friday show.

The Mohawk is massive, with indoor and outdoor stages, so all night there’s a band ready to start just as soon as the previous one finishes. The noisier experimental stuff is booked for the inside stage; the more song-oriented rockers are outside. The good news is that there’s a line stretching down the block for our showcase, perhaps because someone was sharp-witted enough to put “and special guests” on the poster. Sure enough, the rumor mill has been churning with speculation about Sonic Youth and the Stooges.

Thurston is there to kick off the noise with an instrumental set. Three other musicians join him to make raucous waves of sound grounded only by the drums. It’s fun; it’s also pretty obvious that the crowd is there only for Thurston.

One of the scheduled outdoor-stage bands, Monotract, have gotten snowbound at La Guardia. Filling in are Nashville’s Turbofruit, a new outfit featuring members of the Ecstatic Peace band Be Your Own Pet. They’re young, and they’ve got energy and ideas, but they could use more in the way of memorable hooks. And their Tennessee vibe is a bit out of place on a bill heavy with Northeastern noise. Back inside, the Easthampton-based Gown play moody guitar pieces, but we’re rushing to set up our gear outside.

Hometown throw up

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:46:19 GMT

Darkbuster, Abbey Lounge, February 21, 2007
For years, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones celebrated the holiday season and their Boston roots with a week of club gigs they dubbed the “Hometown Throwdown.”

Covering all the bases

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:20:03 GMT

Anais Mitchell and Mike Merenda, Club Passim, January 5, 2007
Anais Mitchell took the Club Passim stage with hair freshly cut at Cambridge’s Judy Jetson salon and polled the crowd as to whether it was okay to switch hairdressers within the same establishment.

Extended family

JEFF BREEZE — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:33:00 GMT

Cave In spin off
Last year, after surviving a deal with RCA and returning to indie Hydra Head, Cave In were voted Best Local Metal Band in the Phoenix /WFNX Best Music Poll. Octave Museum, "Kid Defender" (mp3)

THE OCTAVE MUSEUM: After struggling with a solo project, Brodsky realized he needed help.

Last year, after surviving a deal with RCA and returning to indie Hydra Head, Cave In were voted Best Local Metal Band in the Phoenix/WFNX Best Music Poll. Now the band are on hiatus, and various members have gone off to pursue new projects. Singer/guitarist Stephen Brodsky’s Octave Museum have a new album on Hydra Head, which also has releases by guitarist Adam McGrath’s Clouds and bassist Caleb Scofield’s Zozobra forthcoming. Drummers J.R. Conners and Ben Koller have been playing with Doomriders and Converge, respectively. And though Scofield has moved to New Mexico, Brodsky remains optimistic: “It’s very positive and inspiring to see your friends presenting sides of their musical atmosphere and inner workings that you never really saw happening.”

Brodsky had been Cave In’s primary songwriter, and he’d also released a series of solo albums. After struggling with a bunch of songs that he’d been recording at home, he realized that the support of a band might help. At the end of a Scissorfight tour, drummer Kevin Shurtleff sent him an e-mail. “I was joking that we were going to start a band. He hit me back and said, ‘Well, actually, I’ve got these songs and I want to make a record.’ We just got together and started plowing through them one after another.”

Soon Thee Electric Bastards’ Johnny Northrup was drafted to play bass. “Steve had given me the demos of ‘The Voice Electric,’ ‘Kid Defender,’ and ‘Prove Myself, and I liked them a lot and called him up and told him so. Then Steve saw me at a show and said, ‘Dude, I want you to be in my band.’ ”

After recording their first album, Octave Museum realized they were on to something more substantial than a one-off. Shurtleff: “The initial idea was that he was doing a solo album. Then we thought we could do a little bit more with this and play it out.” Northrup: “It became less like me playing Steve’s songs and more like the Octave Museum the band playing the songs.”

Brodsky is glad he has a trusty trio to take on the road, and he’s also happy to be bringing Clouds along for a February Octave Museum UK tour: “It’s really about the whole camaraderie and representing the place that you come from and seeing your friends play every night and being inspired by that.” Of course, the Octave Museum will need more than an album’s worth of Brodsky originals to play every night. Shurtleff: “We spent time working up some cool covers and picked some choice gems that we all liked.” So far they’ve got tunes by the Kinks and Todd Rundgren as well as the Pretty Things’ “She Said Good Morning.”

Kimchee encore

JEFF BREEZE — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:42:32 GMT

The second birthday bash, T.T. the Bear's Place, January 5, 2007
After the second consecutive Friday-night show celebrating the 10th anniversary of the local indie Kimchee Records, it was easy to see how the label has managed to thrive over the past decade.

Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton

JEFF BREEZE — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:25:23 GMT

Knives Don’t Have Your Back | Last Gang
This solo debut from Metric frontwoman Emily Haines is a big departure for the Toronto-based art-school graduate. Emily Haines and The Soft Skeleton, "Doctor Blind" (mp3)