PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Let it never be said that JustBill doesn’t throw a hell of a party. The local master photographer is celebrating his 12th year in the Boston rock scene – 12 years of tirelessly supporting local music, spreading the word about great new acts, taking incredible pictures, throwing huge afterparties and basement shows, and generally being an all-around great guy. This year he’s assembled an incredible lineup to rock TTs Friday night, jam-packed with PGB Favorites.

Chris Mascara gets the night started with with his cast of Boston rock all-stars (Bo Barringer of MEandJOANCOLLINS and Matt Graber of Sarah Rabdau & The Self-Employed Assassins). The otherworldly rock stylings of Planetoid follow them up at 10, with a sound caught somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age… IN SPAAAAACE! Fresh of a St. Paddy’s day appearance on WMFO’s popular On The Town show, I Pistol will be rocking out third on the bill, this time bringing in Daanen Krouth of The Luxury to rip it up on lead guitar. Forgetful Jones will be closing out this show, the reggae-infused funk rockers will get you jumping and amped up to party all night long. This is a solid bill front to back, each band hand-picked by JustBill himself for your maximum rocking pleasure. Don’t miss this show!

9pm: Mascara

10pm: Planetoid

11pm: I, Pistol

12am: Forgetful Jones

One of the best parts about living in Boston is the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Camraderie, funny hats, and alcohol-infused good times – what better to go with all of the above than some great local music? Sure, its not exacly what St. Patrick had in mind while transversing the Irish countryside as a Catholic missionary, but I don’t think Jesus was thinking of pastel pink rabbits handing out eggs to commemorate Easter either. We work with what we’ve got, and we make the best out of what we can. Since the parade always falls on a Sunday, and St. Patrick’s Day is always on March 17th, they usually don’t line up on the same day and as a result you get TWO days to celebrate. Sure, this year’s parade was a little… soggy, to say the least. But hey, the weather’s going to be 60 degrees and sunny tomorrow, perfect conditions to throw a few back and check out some Irish-themed local shows!

Over in Cambridge, The Swaggerin’ Growlers are taking over The Middle East Upstairs for their 5th annual St. Patrick’s Day Riot. The local legends of Irish riot folk are bringing some great local bands together for this one, including Faulty Conscience and The Old Edison. Amherst’s Time and Place will be this year’s pit band. They’ll also be bringing in New Jersey’s F Bombers, a female-fronted punk rock machine from the worst-smelling state in the country. The Growlers will be selling their new CD for only $5, will have new T-shirts for sale, and will without a doubt be willing to have at least one drink with every last man, woman, and child who walks into that club. There are also plans to have the entire show recorded for a live DVD, even more reason to join in the revelry! This annual show has become an institution for St. Paddy’s day madness in Boston, come see what you’ve been missing!

If you’re planning on spending your time on the other side of the river make sure you get down to Great Scott for their St. Pat’s celebration show, featuring an absolutely STACKED lineup. Local Britpop superheros The Luxury will be headlining the night, playing a rare weekday show to commemorate the Irishness of the day. They’ll be joined by Midatlantic (ex-Bleedin Bleedins), who put on one of the best sets of the entire P-Town Festival but we have unfortunately not seen since. Midatlantic’s actually got some ties to Ireland among the band members, so I suppose that gives this show a little bit extra authenticity. The Organ Beats (ex-Damone) completely killed it at the Conservative Man EP Release show back in January (click to see Matt’s review), and have been blowing up the Boston spotlight ever since with a jam-packed show schedule. We’re excited to see what they come up with for this one. Local rising stars Mellow Bravo are also featured on this bill – their gritty blues-rock style has made a serious impact on the local scene in the relatively short time they’ve been together. The Herald recently named them one of their top 10 bands to watch for in 2010 (Herald article is archived, click link for a transcribed version on the writer’s blog), so if you haven’t had a chance to watch them yet, now’s your chance! Creepy Jones rounds out the bill, ensuring you’ll have enough yee-haw rock to make it through the night. In addition to their normal sets each band will be doing at least one cover of a traditional Irish song, and DJ Belfrank out of Belfest will be spinning and lending even more authenticity between sets. This is sure to be an unforgettable (depending on how much you drink) night of some of the best local rock Boston has to offer!

This Saturday at Precinct in Union Square NTP Productions has put together a strong lineup of bands to celebrate the release of the Young Tremors new album on Teenage Heart Records, a local indie label well established in punk and garage rock circles. The collection of bands on the bill are perfect compliments to each other, and are extremely fun to catch live. The Young Tremors describe their sound as “The Kinks caught huffing the fumes of Motown in Elvis Costello’s garage.” Tad Overbaugh is opening the night up, the former frontman for The Kickbacks debuting his solo project, The Late Arrivals. Memphis 59 are bringing their rootsy twang up from Virginia to add a little southern flavor to the bill – and hey, look! Is that Rich Lewis from Sam Black Church on bass? You damn right it is! PGB Favorites Watts will be providing rock ‘n roll hooks, sneers, and struts for the masses. Dirty Truckers, who have also received plenty of coverage on PGB, will be closing out the night with their 90’s style rock that’ll stay stuck in your head the entire ride home after the show.

Watts - Photo by Johnny Arguedas

Good music and good people not enough for you? OK, well how about a ‘Gansett sponsorship? Still not enough? How about FREE FOOD?! The $10 price of admission gets you all the appetizers you can eat all night long, courtesy of Nicole Tammaro. Stuff your face and rock the fuck out tomorrow night at Precinct, 70 Union Square in Somerville.

Tad Overbaugh and the Late Arrivals – 8:30pm

Memphis 59 – 9:15pm

Young Tremors – 10:05pm

Watts – 10:55pm

Dirty Truckers – 11:45pm

This weekend brings the 4th annual New England Americana Festival to Boston (formerly known as the Alt-Country Extravaganza). The festival this year has been receiving tons of press in newspapers and music sites for the past two months, and is looking to be one of the best roots-rock events this area has seen in years! This is an entirely non-profit event, with all proceeds to benefit Coalition for Courage, an organization that helps children in Africa.

In addition to 8 bands per night on the big stage at Church, event organizer Noel Coakley (Autumn Hollow Band) will also be setting up a second stage over by the bar, to ensure that even between sets there will still be music filling the room. The lineups for each night speak for themselves – check them out below, with the headliners for each night in bold. Each night is extremely solid! Tickets are around $10 per night, but you can get a combo pass to all three shows for only $20 – a great discount for a long weekend of all the twang you can handle!

Here’s the lineup and set times for each night:

(continue reading…)

In case you haven’t seen the lineup here, we wanted to get you some quick and easy links for all the information you need on the 12th annual New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, taking place this April 23-24th at the Palladium in Worcester. This event always attracts some of the biggest names in local, national, and international metal and hardcore, and this year looks to be the same. Mastodon is headlining the festival, fresh off a 2009 that saw them in Boston twice (playing nearly exactly the same set… at the exact same venue… ah well, on the plus side, both times their second set of the night was all older stuff and it kicked ass.) Other big names include Amon Amarth, Baroness, Between the Buried and Me, Cannibal Corpse, COA, Cro Mags, Death Before Dishonor,  Skeletonwitch, and the immortal and unparalleled Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, current reigning champion for Best Band Name EVER. Just make sure to avoid Earth Crisis’ set. Those guys sicced an entire pit on a buddy of mine for smoking a cigarette at one of their shows. Screw them. Preachy straightedgers drive me insane. There, I said it.

For a full listing of all the bands playing each night check out the NEMHCF’s website here

Tickets to the festival are about $40 a day, or you can get a small discount on a 2-day pass. To purchase tickets, click here.

Friday, February 19th @ TT The Bears

Seems like just about every weekend so far in 2010 has been an embarrassment of riches for local music. Every Friday Saturday Sunday you have tons of amazing bands coming together to form jaw-dropping can’t-miss lineups. Only problem is, you need about 4 clones to be able to make it to everything you want to catch! This Friday at TT’s is no exception. PGB Favorites The Luxury and Conservative Man are teaming up with local britpop-meets-american-monotonish-indie act The Honors to rock the hell out of Cambridge. After listening to these guys side by side I’m REALLY surprised they haven’t shared a bill before – they seem like a great match for each other’s sound. They’ll be joined by Philly’s Jealousy Curve, who are set to break into Boston with a little help from their friends on the bill. And yes, I know this is an outdated flyer (CM were a late add to the bill), but it was also the best looking one I could find. So deal with it.

Friday & Saturday Feb 19-20th @ Rosebud Diner

Fresh off a raucous live set at Mad Oak Studios (click here to download the full live audio from that session!), Township will be taking over the Rosebud Diner in Davis Square all weekend to celebrate the release of their latest opus, Vol. 1, a collection of the cream of the crop from the past 4 years worth of EP’s and LP’s. Friday night they’ll be sharing the stage with Brownboot, whereas Saturday they’ll be joined by Ryan Fitzsimmons. Both nights will feature DJ Jordan Valentine spinning between sets. Do NOT let this weekend go by without catching at least one of these shows!

Saturday, February 20th @ O’Briens

Everyone needs a good metal show now and again to roil the blood, blow off some steam, and generally rock the fuck out. This Saturday is a great opportunity to do just that. Local icons Born of Thunder and Cromulent are joined by newcomers onto the scene Bring The Knife, born out of the ashes of the now-defunct Destruct-a-thon. They’ll be joined from She Rides, up from Providence to bring their intense, high-energy onslaught to bear on the unsuspecting masses of Allston. This promises to be an excellent show that brings you back to the days when O’Briens was metal and metal only, and you didn’t go in their unless you had long hair, excessive regrettable tattoos (band names or pentagrams on your neck really aren’t nearly as cool at age 72 as they are at age 27, dude), or were wearing a t-shirt from an obscure Swedish metal band from 1978.

Sunday, February 21st @ Middle East Upstairs

We’re looking at melted faces, cramped hands from clenched fists, and sore necks from banging heads – just a few of the casualties of Sunday Night! This is an excellent lineup, a perfect note to end the weekend on. PGB Favorites Planetoid NEVER disappoint – spacy riffs, sibilant vocals, and thunderous talent abounds with this extraterrestrial power trio. Cocked N’ Loaded bring some good hard rock to the table, complete with all the guitar insanity you could possibly ask for. Mellow Bravo’s got gritty vocals over a bluesy southern sound to help you drown away your sorrows from the weekend, while Hotblack’s aggressiveness and sick riffage will feed your fury and get you thoroughly depressed that you have to go back to work the next day when you could be rocking this hard all the time. Come have a beer with some PGB Staffers and check out some of Boston’s best straight-up rock!

We’ve got an incredible weekend of some of the most aggressive music Boston has to offer coming up on Saturday and Sunday at Great Scott. Some of the biggest names in the local punk rock scene are coming together to benefit the family of Ron Holbrook, ex-drummer for the Welch Boys who passed away in August of 2007.  This has been an annual event of solidarity and compassion in local rock, with bands coming together to donate the entirety of their proceeds to Holbrook’s wife and two daughters for 3 years now.

This year’s lineup is flat-out incomparable. The Welch Boys are a rare treat in Boston – they don’t play very often but when they do you can expect a packed house full of drunken revelry, singalong choruses, and general madness. They’ll be headlining BOTH nights of this event. PGB Favorites Burning Streets, Beantown Boozehounds, and Dead Friends (all past PGB TOTW honorees) are also on Saturday’s bill, and The Snipes and Drago, two nasty bands in their own right, round out the lineup.

Sunday features local legends The Blue Bloods taking the stage for the first time in 2 years, gearing up to rock the faces off all those kids who forgot what Boston punk rock is all about. Sunday’s show will also be the record release for Refuse Resist’s latest effort “Socialized” – they’ll be donating 50% of the proceeds from album sales to Holbrook’s family in addition to their door money. Ashers will also be on this bill – a high-energy outfit featuring members of The Unseen and Bad Ash. The Murder and Full Powered Halo will also be rocking for the cause on Sunday night. These will be two great shows for a great cause – trying to make the best of a tragic situation however we can. Nothing says “Happy Valentine’s Day” like in-your-face punk rock and down-your-throat cheap beer, see you down there!

Look, we here at PGB are going to plug a BLOWW show any chance we can. We’re here to help provide you with the best choices in local-oriented live music entertainment – and let’s face it, it really doesn’t get much better than this. WWF-style drama, thorough backstories, costumes & props, and some seriously talented and agile wrestling moves – all set to the backdrop of some furious rock music? Yes please!

We did a fairly extensive writeup of the BLOWW experience last time they came to town, you can check that out here for all the gruesome details. There’s a few changes this time around though – most notably the lineup of opening bands, rife with PGB Favorites.

The Few’s bluesy classic rock stylings have been covered many times over on this website. This time around they’ve got some new originals, some new covers, some blazing new harmonica solos, and a few tricks up their sleeve as well. They’ll be kicking off the night at 9.

Next up is Hail Plankton, fresh off a Copperfields show that according to management was the most people they’ve ever packed into the venue. Healthy doses of metal, grunge, and straight crunchy rock come together to slap you in the face and leave you begging for more. They’ll have a special guest or two up on stage for their set, you don’t want to miss this!

Oilhead is the last of the openers, keys-based rock with siren vocals. They’re back in town after a mini-tour around the Northeast, and will be firing up the crowd in preparation for the main event.

In addition to the usual BLOWW insanity down at Harpers the ladies will be setting up a Kissing Booth and other Valentines Day surprises. They’ll also be featuring James Willetts (Silent Century, The Lustkillers) on drums for their house band. For the love of all things rock, do not miss this show! The PGB Staff will be out in full force, come say hello, have a beer with us, and be prepared to have your brain smashed by awesomeness.

Here’s how the matchups are looking:

MURDERIN’ MONROE vs. BETTY RAGE

SKANK WILLIAMS JR. vs. GINGER TONIC

NAUGHTIA NUTCRACKER vs. SUZIE SCREW

THE WRATHALIE (current BLOWW champion) vs. MUFFY WINTERS

See you there!

BLOWW

The Few

Hail Plankton

Oilhead

Harpers Ferry

b

Major Stars @ TT's 1/19/10 - Photo by Tim Bugbee

I was fortunate enough to catch Major Stars at their show at TT’s last month (click here to check out Tim Bugbee’s AMAZING photos from that show), and as a result I can honestly say that I’ve resolved to never miss another one of their local shows. These guys put on an intense performance of psychedelic insanity – hair flying everywhere, more wahs and shreds than the ears can handle, dueling guitar solos, and general face-meltery all around. Ever seen two guitars, a bass, and a drummer all soloing at the same time and have it actually WORK? Come down to Charlie’s in Harvard Square tonight and see for yourself! Joining Major Stars on this bill are Fat Worm of Error and Vile Bodies.

Here’s a video to give you an idea what to expect. The lineup’s a little different, but the sound is the same. Entire band plays the song through, singer sings the lyrics, then she gets outta the way and lets the rest of the band jam out for 4 minutes or so. That’s how they did it at TT’s, that’s how I’m expecting them to do it at Charlie’s – don’t miss out!

Major Stars

Charlie’s Kitchen

Tim Bugbee @ Tinnitus Photography