PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Friday, June 11th – Rosebud Diner

Nice lineup here! Muy Cansado and Sun Lee Sunbeam are both PGB Favorites who’ve received plenty of coverage on these here pages. These guys rock out with the best of ‘em, and the two of them together on a bill at an extremely cool venue is an event not to be missed! This is Muy Cansado’s first show in months, as they’ve been locked up at Q Division hammering away at a new EP due out later this year. The 5 songs on the new album will be “Not About A Girl,” “Love & Fear,” “Sharpshooter,” “Giant,” and “Acquaintances” – and there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get a sneak peak of the new tunes if you get your summer lovin’ butts down to the Rosebud tonight!

Friday, June 11th – McGann’s Pub

OK OK to be fair, this isn’t really a flyer for this show so much as it is a listing for all the shows at McGann’s this month. However, its got Super Mario critters on it, so its going up on the site, dammit. Shows like this are helping McGann’s to gain notoriety as a quality music venue in this city. Artsy indie darlings The Hush Now have been exploding both nationally and internationally since their debut in 2008. They’ll be joined by the Hendrixian trash rock duo Kuuluuko, an incredible act in their own right! Also on this bill are The Susan Constant and El Fuego. But check this out – apparently a regular flyer wasn’t good enough for this show, so The Hush Now made a little video flyer with some artsy images and soothing music, to lull you into coming out to the show. Take a look!

Saturday, June 12th – Rosebud Diner

Rosebud’s got some great shows going on this weekend – isn’t it about time you checked the damn place out? Looks like our friends at Boston Band Crush have come up with another AWESOME idea for a show. This one strikes close to my Middle School soul (Even *I* had long hair back then. And yes, you’re right, it looked friggin’ terrible.) Rather than have a show full of covers of one specific band’s songs, the Mixtape series takes an entire year and lets bands cover whatever songs they like that came out at that time. Think about some of the albums that came out in ‘93 – In Utero, Vs., Siamese Dream, Rancid, Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We, Black Sunday, The Wedding Album, Pork Soda, Are You Gonna Go My Way, Doggystyle, Pablo Honey, Last Splash, 36 Chambers, Undertow – holy shit, right? They picked a hell of a year to kick off this series with! This show’s going to be great, especially considering they’ve tapped some of Boston’s best to do the performing – The Luxury, The Rationales, and St. Helena will be joined by the newly formed Exile in Somerville, featuring members of Apple Betty, Kingsley Flood, Dark Martini & The Dirty Olives, and Ashley from BBC!

The Phoenix is turning Downtown Crossing into a week long block party! This Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday they’ve got 3 bands per night rocking out in the streets – with different themes per night. Tonight’s show is “Garage Night,” featuring a killer lineup of Needy Visions, Hands and Knees, and Thick Shakes. Wednesday is “Blog Night,” with John Shade, Kingsley Flood, and Magic Magic hand-selected respectively by our buddies at Tea Party Boston, Boston Band Crush, and Bradley’s Almanac. Thursday wraps up the event with “New Night,” with a bill consisting of Mystery Roar, Bearstronaut, and Mean Creek. There’s talk of a full wine bar, and the entire event is sponsored by Budweiser so I’d guess there will be a few beers floating around as well – what’s a block party without alcohol? Best of all? IT’S FREE! (well, admission is free, I’m guessing the alcohol is gonna cost you a few bucks) Here’s some links to let you check out the bands, see you down there!

Tuesday, June 6 – “Garage Night” – 5-8pm

Needy Visions
Hands and Knees
Thick Shakes

Wednesday, June 7th – “Blog Night” – 5-8pm

John Shade
Kingsley Flood
Magic Magic

Thursday, June 8th – “New Night” – 5-8pm

Mystery Roar
Bearstronaut
Mean Creek

Photo by Sooz - photography.sooz.com

Hundreds of local Boston rockers descended upon The Bridge Sound & Stage up in North Cambridge on Sunday for a BBQ of epic proportions. The event was a collaboration by a number of local Boston music sites  – PGB, Boston Band Crush, Bradley’s Almanac, Exploit Boston!, Ryan’s Smashing Life, Tea Party Boston, Zed = Zee, and Agent Bishop Productions. In addition to some amazing food, tons of beer provided by our friends at Narragansett, and a charity raffle that netted hundreds of dollars for local children’s music organization Zumix, some instruments were set up on stage and musicians were invited to jam out together. Mick Murray of In Your Face Photography caught some great video of some of the better jams, here’s our favorites from the night. A big thanks to all the musicians who participated, and a lot of credit has to be given for the EXCELLENT selection of covers over the course of the night. We’ve provided links to the bands represented in each jam, if you’d like to help us with the ones we missed feel free to leave a comment or send an e-mail over to bryan@playgroundboston.com.

To see photos from the Boston Rock BBQ check out the collections of Mick Murray and Sooz

For more of Mick’s videos, check out the Eurogael YouTube Channel

Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who) – Midnight Spin

3 Songs including In The Summertime (Mungo Jerry) – TAB The Band

Led Zeppelin Jam – Brendan Boogie, Adam Ritchie, Joe Packard

Blues Jam – Kevin MacKenzie, Joe Packard, JL Claybourne

Blues Jam – Shoney Lamar, Jordan Tavenner, Joe Packard

The Bridge Sound & Stage

Mick Murray @ In Your Face Photography

Sooz Photography

The Weekend is finally upon us! The spectacular show presented in conjunction by Playground Boston and Boston Band Crush is here! This Saturday, May 1st, we’re bringing you an unbelievable event at the Hard Rock Cafe, featuring performances by PGB Favorites (and former Track of the Week Honorees) The Luxury and Silent Century, as well as talented indie rockers Hot Protestants and poppy experimental Rock Band heroes The Main Drag!

The Luxury – Sing For The Last Train – In The Wake of What Won’t Change

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The Luxury - Photo by Seth Drury

This all-star lineup can be seen for only $7 if you purchase HERE in advance, but if you can’t get the tickets in time you’re still making out like a bandit with only paying $10 at the door… provided there are any tickets left! The Hard Rock rose from the ashes of the now-defunct Rack night club, on Clinton St. just across from Faneuil Hall. The club is very easy to get to via the Green, Blue, or Orange Lines.

Silent Century – “Teeth” – Live At Great Scott

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Hot Protestants - Photo by Seth Drury

This is an important show for the Boston music community as a whole. Since doors opened at this new rendition of The Hard Rock back in 2007, this 300-capacity nightclub has primarily booked cover bands, hosted parties for TV shows such as “Rock of Love,” and occasionally brought in a national semi-headliner or two. Now its the local boys’ turn to show the bigwigs at Hard Rock booking central what they’ve got. If we can pack this place up they’ll be sure to start to book more local shows in the future – a 300 person monster of a venue with one of the most extensive and expensive sound systems in the city! For fans, this could give you another spot to catch some of the best new acts this city has to offer. For bands, this could be another spot to show off what you’ve got, in the heart of the city!

Hot Protestants – “Spent The Weekend” – EP2

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So come support your local scene, rock out with the PGB and BBC staff, and catch some of the fastest rising stars in Boston rock! We’ll see you there!

Save $3 off the cover by purchasing tickets in advance!

Silent Century

The Luxury

Hot Protestants

The Main Drag

Silent Century

Boston Band Crush

Hard Rock Cafe

The ProblemAddicts - Photo by Katherine Taylor

So many shows, so little time. This weekend is absolutely chock-full of great local music. We’ve already featured a few in separate posts – BBC’s “What’s your Major” Series, Hempfest, etc. – but there are so many more we think you should know about! Here’s a little rundown of what’s going on this weekend in Boston Rock.

Friday, September 18th

Boston Band Crush “What’s your Major” Day 1 – Church –  check out the preview here

MassCann Boston Freedom Rally Preparty & Awards Show – Middle East Upstairs – featuring performances by Casey Desmond, Keep Me Conscious, Final Hour, and the ProblemAddicts. Band4MassCann will also be giving out awards for the best Boston music acts of the year.

Boston Music Spotlight Battle of the Bands – Oliver’s / Cask & Flagon – featuring PGB favorites Silent Century, as well as In Like Lions, Polyethylene, Shadwell, and Taste. Grand prize is worth over $5k, come out and support your favorite band!

Lauren Flaherty Acoustic set – Middle East Corner – Lauren will be performing two separate sets with her band at the Corner on Friday night. The first set will start at 10:30 and will feature a more traditional singer/songwriter style, while set #2 at 11:30 will get a little crazier and more upbeat. Lauren’s one of the nicest people I’ve come across in the entire local music scene, and a talented musician to boot!

The Wrecking Coast Debut show and EP Release – Copperfields – The Wrecking Coast will be joined by a great lineup featuring This Blue Heaven, Birds Make Birds, and Cola War Vets. They’ll be giving away free music all night too! Presented by Hear Now Live!

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That’s right, local indie rockers Blizzard of ‘78 have made their new album Book of Lies available to download for just $1! That’s a pretty damn good deal right there for a pretty damn solid album. Check it out! Just don’t be a jerk, sign up for their mailing list while you’re there too, its the least you can do seeing how they’re nice enough to make their music so cheap. If you like what you hear, you can check them out down at Church on September 19th as part of Boston Band Crush’s “What’s your Major” show.

Download the album here!

Blizzard of ‘78 Website

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This Saturday, August 29th, our fellow Boston music bloggers Bostonbandcrush.com are hosting an extremely ambitious and exciting event called “One Night Band.” They’ve assembled 40 musicians from all over the Boston music scene, and will be assigning them into groups of 5, where over the course of a single day they will write, practice, and perfect a 4 song set to be played on the big stage, downstairs at the Middle East the very same night. Each band will be instructed to have 3 original songs and 1 cover ready to go. This could either be really good, or really bad, but its a sure bet that its going to be entertaining!

The talent assembled by Band Crush for this event is really an all-star cast of some of the best musicians Boston has to offer. Some of the bands that are donating members for the day include Aloud, Apple Betty, Brendan Boogie & The Best Intentions, Destruct-a-thon, The Luxury, The Lights Out, ME andJOANCOLLINS, Muy Cansado, The New Alibis, The New Collisions, St. Helena… get the idea? Not only are there great musicians involved, but they come from a vast array of styles and influences – which should make for some very interesting combinations!

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