PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Ready to get your Wednesday Night Rockabilly Fix? Only one place to town to do it! O’Briens tonight features three great Boston ‘billy bands to get your weekend started off EARLY – Tex Railer’s Doomtown, The Parasites, and The Jackchops! In less than a year of existence Tex Railer’s Doomtown has signed to indie label Argyle Gargoyle, put out two vinyls, and opened up for the likes of The Independents, Sasquatch & The Sickabillys, The Henchmen, August Spies, and the legendary former bassist for Hank III, Joe Buck! Not bad for a debut year!

Tex Railer’s Doomtown – “Buried In Leather” – Summer 2010 Tour 7″

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To celebrate the release of a brand new 7″ TRDT is about to embark on an East Coast tour (OK, maybe a few shows out in the Midwest too), and they’ve invited some local psychobilly badasses to help kick things off right! Both The Parasites and The Jackchops are relatively new on the scene, but considering the bands consist of members of Calamity, Photon Torpedos, and Pulp 45, you know this promises a hell of a show! The show’s only 6 bucks, and there’s free BBQ while it lasts – so get there early, stay there late, and check out what Boston rockabilly is all about!

Wednesday, August 4th – O’Briens

21+ / 9pm / $6

Tex Railer’s Doomtown

The Parasites

The Jackchops

Friday, July 2nd – On the Boston Harbor!

Back on New Years Day, Destroy Babylon tore the roof off the Middle East by performing The Clash’s London Calling in its entirety to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the best front-to-back album ever recorded (I apologize for nothing). Due to popular demand, DB will be doing another Clash show, but this one with a few changes thrown in. Yes they’ll be performing London Calling, yes they’ll be throwing a few other Clash favorites into the set… but this time they’ll be backed by the 11-piece afro-funk outfit The Macrotones… and they’ll be doing up the whole thing on a boat in the middle of the Boston Harbor! Both bands will be doing a set of originals as well before joining up and getting all Strummer on us. INCREDIBLE! These rock cruises are an absolute blast, if you have yet to check one out this is a perfect opportunity! If you can’t make this one, definitely check out Rock On’s website for more info on other cruises they’re putting on over the course of the summer. Don’t be late though – boat boards at 7 and departs at 8 sharp – whether you’ve made it on board or not! These things usually end at 11, so if you’re feeling especially ambitious you could hit this up and then head over to Cambridge or Allston to check out one of our other picks for the night…

Friday, July 2nd – Middle East Downstairs

A night of irresistible pop catchiness. Lots of piano, lots of love songs, lots of head bobbing… and some of the most beautiful songwriting in Boston. All four bands on this bill are immensely talented, and fast on the rise in this city. Oranjuly is celebrating the release of their brand new debut album, a labor of love they’ve been working on for 3 years now! Their brand of dreamy pop is reminiscent of Ben Folds Five with a little Weezer thrown in, and a little twist of their own. Wear orange tonight and you’ll get a free download of their new album! Oranjuly will be joined by an incredible lineup sure to pack the Middle East. If you read PGB regularly you know all about The Luxury, click this link here to check out all our past coverage. The star of Spirit Kid is growing brighter every day, their new age take on Beatles-style pop is well worth checking out. This may be the final Boston show for local indie pop icons The Everyday Visuals, as a couple of the guys will soon be leaving our fair city behind for the greener pastures (read: concrete-r wastelands) of LA. Catch them now before it’s too late!

Friday, July 2nd – O’Briens

Sweet garage punk show going on at O’Briens tonight. The band to watch, in our humble opinion, is With A Bullet, a new band just a month or so off their first show. WAB consists of members of Razors in the Night and the Beantown Boozehounds, among others. Definite Jawbreaker sound here, from the raspy vox to the driving guitar riffs – looking forward to watching these guys explode on the local scene! They’ll be joined by trash rockers Triple Thick, fresh off yet another CD release party just a few weeks back. This show also marks the debut of new Allston punk outfit The Nose Jobs, and rounding out the bill will be The Nailheads all the way down from Montreal.

Pray For Polanski

“Subway Song”

The Death of Dennis Patrick Robbins

© 2009 F-Nice Records

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Catch Pray For Polanski’s Residency every Wednesday night this month at O’Briens in Allston! They’ll have different special guests sharing the stage with them each week – tonight they’ll be joined by A Bit Much, The Big Big Bucks, and Radio Control. This is a LOT of great local music for only a $5 cover – it doesn’t get much better than that!

Pray For Polanski

F-Nice Records

O’Briens Allston

Let The Night Roar - Photo by Tim Bugbee

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Black Pyramid - Photo by Tim Bugbee

Thanks to Tim Bugbee of Tinnitus Photography for the jaw-dropping shots. See more of his work at www.tinnitus-photography.com

Let The Night Roar

Black Pyramid

Cortez

Fresh off a trip to SXSW playing showcases for their new label Small Stone, Gozu is back in Boston and ready to crack skulls and melt faces with an aggressive stoner rock meltdown. They’ve assembled a great lineup to open for them down at O’Briens this Friday – each band presenting a very different style yet somehow complimentary for the bill as a whole. The crunchy riffs and sneering female vox of Cult 45 hit you hard, fast, and angry. Brooklyn’s Pioneers of Seduction have the indie noise-rock thing going on, with enough of an edge to give them an undeniable post-punk feel. Definitely a cool sound. Couldn’t find out much about The Pandemics, a power trio out of Boston, but what I was able to check out was full of raw guitars and an irresistable catchiness to the gritty hooks. Definitely enough to make me want to check them out, and this show provides a great opportunity to do so.

This will be a hell of a night! Gozu just got finished tracking their latest album, and are just waiting for the mastering process to finish up. You can bet they’ll be playing some brand new songs in addition to old favorites. Gozu received some great praise for their SXSW showcase over at Exploding in Sound, click the link and scroll down to check out the writeup and some pictures. We’ll even throw you a video of theirs to check out right here – “Meat Charger” features some serious rock and some seriously disturbing imagery (as any good video should).

So you’re convinced? You want some free tickets to the show? Just send an e-mail over to bryan@playgroundboston.com with the subject “GOZU” and you’ll be entered to win! Our winner will be selected Friday morning, so don’t wait – enter now!

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!

Friday, February 5th @ Church

Former PGB Track of the Week honorees Sprained Ankles highlight a bill chock full of irreverant punk rock down at Church. Check out the Ankles’ original brand of doo-wop garage rock, complete with female backup singers doing interpretive dances to songs like “Randy the Rock and Roll Pizza Wolf” and the legendary “Axe Gnome.” Nope, couldn’t make that up if I tried. Also worth checking out is Wasted Talent, featuring solo artist Nabo Rawk and DJ Paul Foley. Should certainly be interesting, click here to check out their video “Khed.”

Friday, February 5th @ O’Briens

I’m happy to report that rumors of the demise of Buried in Leather have been greatly overexaggerated. While they may only play a show every 6 months or so, they are still definitely alive and breathing. Sneering, guttural vocals laced over shredding guitar riffs, this band gets you pissed off and fired up like no other. You never know if or when you’ll have another chance to catch them, so make sure you don’t miss this one. Also appearing on this bill are Anarchunts, an all-girl gutter punk quartet having recently burst onto the Boston scene; Doggfight US, fist-in-the-air anthemic punk rock from up north; and local legends The Acro-brats. This is an unbelievable lineup, sure to pack the house at O’Briens and threaten to tear the roof down.

Saturday, February 6th @ Great Scott

A killer lineup is hitting Great Scott on Saturday night. Local rock giants Reverse might be the most influential band playing out in Boston today – almost every last musician in town counts these guys as one of their favorite acts to see. Full Body Anchor is a brand new outfit consisting of former members of some of the best punk and garage bands in the city – Blue Bloods, Darkbuster, The Dents, and more. Lead singer Eric Edmonston jumps back and forth seamlessly between a heartfelt croon and an eardrum shattering scream, accenting the crunchiness of the heavy noise-rock instrumentation. Sun Lee Sunbeam and Dirt Mall also take the stage for this show, assuring a nice mix of styles across the bill for your listening pleasure.

Saturday, February 6th @ Church

Church is doing themselves proud this weekend with the great rock shows. Look at the bands on this bill! Dirty Truckers, fresh off a win at the Xconomy Battle of the Tech Bands. Watts, featuring the incomparable John Blount on guitar and John Lynch on drums. (Lynch is easily one of the best drummers in the entire damn city, and is pulling double duty on this show as he also plays for the ‘Truckers). Garage powerhouses Muck and the Mires will also be making an appearance, the only band in town and probably one of the few in the entire country who have shared a stage with both MC5 AND the New York Dolls – if that’s not some serious credibility right there I don’t know what is. Rounding out the bill are The Cretins, back after an almost 10 year long vacation. Local hero Malibu Lou will be opening the night in celebration of his 40th birthday – go check out him and The Italians rock out up on stage, then buy him a PBR or two – happy birthday Lou!

with ArtOfficial, Boston Molasses Disaster and Stevus and the Deceivers

Taking a break from its usual punk/metal ass kickery, O’Brien’s in Allston welcomes some ultra chilled-out jazz and hip hop grooves courtesy of Miami’s ArtOfficial. On a brief stint in the Northeast, ArtOfficial is rocking Allston tonight before heading to NYC for shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Also performing are local jam bands Stevus and the Deceivers and Boston Molasses Disaster. The latter takes its name from a true event that occurred in Boston’s North End in 1919. In January of that year, a giant tanker containing over two hundred thousand gallons of molasses collapsed, sending an 8+ ft wall of brown gooey sweetener rushing out into the streets. In all 21 people died and 150 were injured in the aftermath of the molasses tidal wave. BRUTAL.

The 4-piece band puts out a nice blend of hypnotic jazz/rock/funk jams with satisfyingly crunchy breakdowns.

Look for pics from the show later this week!

ArtOfficial
Boston Molasses Disaster
Stevus and the Deceivers

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