PLAYGROUND BOSTON

It’s that time again! 40 local Boston musicians split randomly into 8 5-piece bands, writing 4 songs (1 cover) over the course of a single day to be performed the very same night. Sound hectic? It is? Sound awesome? IT IS! This is the second annual occurrence of One Night Band, put on by the good folks over at Boston Band Crush for the benefit of East Boston youth music organization Zumix.

This year’s edition features another incredible roster taken from some of Boston’s best bands – Township, MEandJOANCOLLINS, Mellow Bravo, Sidewalk Driver, Mean Creek, Drug Rug, Gozu, Autumn Hollow Band… the list goes on and on. Head on over to the ONB website to check out bios and interviews of all the participants, then get down to the Middle East Saturday night for an unforgettable event! As an added bonus, the first 300 people in the door will get a gift bag filled with all sorts of free goodies! Check out the video below, it’s a documentary about how this amazing night went last year!

One Night Band

Boston Band Crush

Zumix

Planetoid Singer/Bassist Locrius - Photo Credit: Scott Gacek

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Sidewalk Driver – “Dancing With Her Friends” – For All The Boys And Girls
(PGB Track of the Week #18)

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Planetoid – “Beyond The Black Hole” – Shadow Of The Planetoid
(PGB Track of the Week #26)

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Thanks to Scott Gacek for the incredible camera work! See more of his photography at his website!

Sidewalk Driver Lead Singer Tad McKitterick - Photo Credit: Scott Gacek

Thanks are also in order for local promoter Agent Bishop, who put together yet another incredible lineup of Boston’s best bands! Our apologies to Liptease and Gene Dante, who opened up the night in front of Sidewalk Driver and Planetoid, yet unfortunately are not pictured here (well, except for one picture of Gene at his best.) Check out the Agent Bishop Website for news on more great shows in the future!

Planetoid

Sidewalk Driver

Gene Dante & The Future Starlets

Liptease

Agent Bishop

Church

Friday the 13th is upon us again, and with it, the birthday of fast-on-the-rise local promoter Agent Bishop! To celebrate, Bishop has put together an excellently eclectic bill down at Church this Friday. You’ve probably heard us preach on and on about PGB Favorites Planetoid and Sidewalk Driver, and if not we’ll just let the music do the talking – check out these tunes here:

Planetoid – “Russian Space Solution” – Shadow Of The Planetoid

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Sidewalk Driver – “Tornado” – For All The Boys And Girls

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Sidewalk Driver at last year's Provincetown Rocks Festival - Photo Credit: Seth Drury

So OK, now you know all about the evil retro stoner-metal of Planetoid and the awesome glam-itude of Sidewalk Driver. Good, glad we got that out of the way. Those bands together on any bill would make for a pretty incredible night. But no, that’s not enough for Mr. Bishop – he had to add the consummate showman Gene Dante and his merry rockin’ band of Future Starlets, as well as Liptease, the living embodiment of a disco dance party, to start off the night. Now that’s a lineup!

Sounds good right? Now what if you could get into this show for free? PGB’s got you covered once again! Just send an e-mail to bryan@playgroundboston.com with the subject “LUCKY 13″ and you’ll be automatically entered to win a pair of tickets to the show! (We promise, we have better things to do than spam you. Seriously.) Winner will be selected at random on Friday afternoon – enter now!

Planetoid lead singer Locrius at Harper's Ferry - Photo Credit: JustBill

Friday, August 13th – Church of Boston
21+ / Doors at 8pm
$10 advance / $13 doors

9pm – Liptease

10pm – Gene Dante & The Future Starlets

11pm – Sidewalk Driver

12pm – Planetoid

Agent Bishop Productions

Friday, July 16th – TT The Bears

An undeniably strong local indie pop lineup, set to a political theme. This bill is solid front-to-back, highlighted by Sidewalk Driver’s glam antics and Brendan Boogie’s so-catchy-its-scary assortment of hooks and harmonies. Popsters The Motion Sick and Leo Blais are sure to keep you bobbing your head and singing along all night – good luck trying to stay still! Added incentive: This is one of The Motion Sick’s final shows, this could be your last chance to see how energetic their live performance is and how snappy they dress, not to mention frontman Mike Epstein’s Mustache-to-end-all-mustaches (It’s so intense it needed to be capitalized.) The good part is that most of the band members are still kicking around town involved in other projects, but time is running out to catch them together as a full band!

The bands are calling this show “The Rock Primary,” and in conjunction with Killer Suit Media have created over a dozen campaign videos running the gamut from the traditional “vote for me” vids to scandal, intrigue, rebuttals, apologies, press ambushes and more. Seriously, take 10 minutes, head on over to The Rock Primary Youtube Channel right now and watch the entire series – highly entertaining and well worth your time! These bands obviously put a lot of time and effort into coming up with creative new ways to promote their shows – even if this go-around we’re not quite sure what office they’re trying to get themselves elected to! But hey, everyone loves a good smear campaign! (Just ask Scott Brown! heeeeyooooo)

9pm: Leo Blais

10pm: Brendan Boogie & The Best Intentions

11pm: The Motion Sick

12am: Sidewalk Driver

18+ / $10 / Doors at 8pm

Sidewalk Driver frontman Tad McKitterick- Photo by Seth Drury

Featuring The Lights Out…

The Lights Out – “Gottagetouttahere”

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Sidewalk Driver…

Sidewalk Driver – “Tornado”

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Plus Trucker Mouth, AM Stereo, and Larcenist!

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Sidewalk Driver guitarist Jared Egan - Photo by Seth Drury

Page 1 – Trucker Mouth, AM Stereo, The Lights Out

Page 2 – The Lights Out, Sidewalk Driver

Page 3 – Larcenist

Thanks to Seth Drury for the incredible photos!

Trucker Mouth

AM Stereo

The Lights Out

Sidewalk Driver

Larcenist (FREE album download!)

Perhaps you’ve seen the flyers around town. Perhaps you’ve seen a sticker or two while walking the streets. Maybe you’ve heard about it through features in Performer Magazine or Boston Band Crush. Hell, maybe you just saw something odd in your song library while working on your laptop at the In House Cafe in Allston. Whatever it may be, you’ve gotta check out Band Over Boston, a new initiative by Cullen Corley (Kuuluuko, Electric Laser People) designed to bring local music to the masses of Boston, conveniently to their own computers!

Band Over Boston is a self-described “free, ever-expanding iTunes-based jukebox of all-local music.” Sounds good, right? Basically, the way it works is if you’re in a cafe or restaurant that offers this service, you pop open your computer, fire up your music player, and you’ll see “Band Over Boston” appear on the left under Shared Libraries. Click on that, and you now have free access to thousands of songs to stream by hundreds of great local Boston bands! Very easy to use, very simple concept, but holy shit is this a great idea! The launch location for this project is the In House Cafe, located at 194 Harvard Ave. in Allston (Green Line B to Harvard Ave, about a quarter of a block up the road from the T stop). Once the website is finished, Corley aims to expand to other cafes and WiFi spots in and around Boston to perfect the service before opening access to the internet.

The list of bands who have contributed their music to this project is already extremely impressive, and more music is being added every day! There are dozens of bands who have received coverage right here on PGB, quite a few PGB Favorites, and looking over the list I saw a bunch of bands that have won past PGB Track of The Week honors – including Aloud, Blackbutton, Kingsley Flood, The Lights Out, The Luxury, The Shills, and Sidewalk Driver! If you’re a fan of local music this is a great chance to hear your favorites. If you’ve been meaning to get into the local scene, this is an excellent way to get access to some of Boston’s best for free. Whatever your reasoning, you owe it to yourself to head on down to the In House Cafe and check this out for yourself! (Plus their iced coffee is amazing. Just sayin’)

BANDS: Want to get your music on the Band Over Boston archives? IT’S FREE! While there are already hundreds of bands featured, there are plenty out there who still need to get in on this initiative for it to thrive as it should! Join the hundreds of acts who have already submitted their music, and get exposed to new fans across town! You’ll get a bio on the main page, links to your website, and easy access for people to purchase your music if they like it! Did I mention it’s free? Easy too! Head on over to the Band Over Boston Submission Page for details on how to get your music loaded into the Jukebox!

Band Over Boston

Band Over Boston Blog

Band Over Boston Twitter

Band Over Boston Facebook Page

Friday, June 18th – Middle East Downstairs

Amazing bill! $5 tickets are gone, but still, $10 is a bargain for this one! The Lights Out and Sidewalk Driver are both PGB Favorites for sure, with both having received past Track of the Week Honors, They’ll be sharing a bill with the sweet Southern Rock of Trucker Mouth, AM Stereo, and Larcenist. This promises to be an amazing show!

8:00 PM Doors
9:00 – 9:30 Trucker Mouth
9:45 – 10:15 AM Stereo
10:30 – 11:00 The Lights Out
11:15 – 11:45 Sidewalk Driver
12:00 – 12:30 Larcenist

Friday, June 18th – TT The Bear’s Place

A killer garage rock lineup here. This’ll be the first time Reigning Sound has brought their soulful throwback sound up to our fair city in about 5 years. They’ll be commemorating the release of Triple Thick’s latest album, a glorious explosion of trashy guitars and psych vox. The rootsy good time of Movers and Shakers and the psych madness of Sister Spaceman round out the bill, check out the flyer to the left for set times.

Friday, June 18th – Cafe 939

Just a rockin’ good time. The Thickness is straight-up 90’s style pop punk, with some good hooks and introspective lyrics thrown in. Alien 8 is much of the same, only perhaps a little more melodic and with a little less of an edge. Brunt of It is madness, pure and simple – some riotous ska-core that’s nearly impossible to stay still to. Should be a great time – and it looks like this one ends at 11 so you can go to this one early and then hit up one of the others to polish off your Friday night mayhem quota!

Halloween weekend in the city of Boston is always full of great shows by some of the best in the local music scene – and this year is certainly no exception to the rule! Every day this weekend features incredible lineups at venues all over town, along with festive bonuses such as costumes, beer, prizes, more beer, candy, some booze, covers, and more! If you weren’t planning on going out to catch any music this holiday weekend, you might reconsider after checking out this listing. Have plans to go to a party? Work around it and stop by these shows before or after the party to catch a band or two – PGB fully guarantees that each and every one of these venues has booze for you to drink while you’re there. Seriously, I promise. So get on your creepiest costume and get ready to rock out! Be sure to frighten some children on your way out to the show – you know, even more so than you do on a regular day in regular clothing… scary looking bastard.

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Sidewalk Driver

“Dancing With Her Friends”

For All the Boys and Girls

© 2009 Self-Released

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CD Release Party for For All the Boys and Girls this Saturday 10/3 at TT the Bears!

Sidewalk Driver