PLAYGROUND BOSTON

The outpouring of support for the victims of the disaster in Haiti from the veterans of the local Boston music scene has certainly been impressive, but there’s always more that can be done. To this effect, Jillian of One in a Million Media has put together a benefit show tomorrow night at the Middle East Downstairs featuring an outstanding lineup of bands, DJs, prizes, and more! Aloud, The Lights Out, and You Can Be A Wesley are all PGB favorites that have received plenty of coverage on this site (Aloud and TLO are also previous Track of the Week honorees). Pretty & Nice’s indie pop is just about impossible not to dance to, as are the vast array of songs spun by some of the most well-known DJs in town. This will be a great opportunity to catch some incredible music, and all for a great cause too!

If some of the best rock & pop acts Boston has to offer aren’t enough for you, there’s plenty more happening at this event. Several local businesses have donated some amazing prizes to be raffled off to raise additional funds for the relief effort, including Ace Ticket, Anna’s Taqueria, Rescue, and The Alter Eco. We’re talking tickets, gift certificates, merch, and more! Also, Special Ed & Charlie, formerly of WFNX’s Sandbox but now operating independently as The Empire, will be recording a podcast throughout the night. PGB always supports charitable benefit concerts, especially for such a great cause. It’s a lot easier to be so supportive, though, when a benefit is as packed with awesome-ness as this one. Rock out, dance, win prizes, party – but feel good about it because you’re helping out those in need! That’s what we call a good time – see you there.

• 7:30 – Doors
• 8:00 – 8:30 Michael V
• 8:45 – 9:15 Aloud
• 9:30 – 10:00 The Lights Out
• 10:15 – 10:30 Pretty & Nice
• 10:45 – 11:15 You Can Be A Wesley
• 11:30 – 12:00 Damien Paul
• 12:00 – 12:30 Repeat Offenders

Aloud

The Lights Out

You Can Be A Wesley

Pretty & Nice

DJs Michael V / Repeat Offenders / Damien Paul

Gillian Bowling Photography

The Empire

One in a Million Media

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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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The Lights Out

“Red Letter Day”

Color Machine

© 2009 Self-Released

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The Lights Out Website

Our lovable local scene looks to be well represented at the CMJ Festival down in New York this year. For almost 30 years CMJ has been an annual showcase of some of the best emerging musicians and filmmakers in the world, taking place across the entire city in over 75 different venues. This year’s festival will take place from October 20th through the 24th, so we here at PGB thought we’d clue you in on what Boston bands will be playing so you can start planning your schedule and making your travel arrangements now.

Early registration for the festival ends on October 18th, so make sure to get on over to the CMJ website to pick up tickets as soon as you can! In addition to early registration specials, CMJ also offers discounts for students, industry professionals, and groups – check their site for more details. The set times and locations for many of the bands are still being confirmed, but we’ll do our best to keep you posted as to when our local heroes will be performing as we hear about them. Without further ado, here’s our listing of Boston’s representation at this year’s festival…

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PGB Favorites The Lights Out have embarked on a media blitz in anticipation of their new album Color Machine, scheduled for release on September 25th. You’ve seen the posters all over Allston – You’ve read their posts all over the internet. They’ve also been offering one track per week for download on various music blogs leading up to the release (see below for links to each track!). We are honored to have been selected for the home stretch – PGB has been granted exclusive rights to make “Danny Partridge,” the final track off of the much-anticipated record, available to YOU – to stream AND to download! Check it out:

The Lights Out – “Danny Partridge” - Color Machine

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download: The Lights Out - Danny Partridge.mp3 (4.41MB) description: PGB Exclusive! The final track off of the as-yet unreleased new album byThe Lights Out, Color Machine. FREE download for all PGB Readers!

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Photo by Seth Drury

I missed Aloud again. I can’t fucking believe I missed Aloud again. I’ve been trying to catch them for the better part of a year, but I either can’t make the show, arrive too late, or find out they’re playing a day after they actually play. They were one of the bands I had marked off down in P-Town to catch, and of course because of set time mix-ups I ended up just missing them. Tonight was no exception – Aloud was tapped to play The Lights Out’s big Video Shoot show at TT the Bears, along with This Blue Heaven and Divorced. Unfortunately I showed up JUST as they were finishing up their set – I’m almost used to it at this point. Ah well, I’ll catch them sometime soon, and hey, at least what I did see of this show was fucking excellent – that’s a plus, right?

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Onto day three of the P-town music bonanza.  Our trusty photographer Seth Drury was able to join us for the weekend, so at last we have some proper pictures for you all.  The weather has steadily improved as well, so things are looking up!  Though as soon as we found parking near the fest we heard rumors that Good Times was shutting down its music, we were quickly able to quash the misinformation and we can assure Good Times was most certainly rocking! And will continue to rock through the weekend.  Also scheduling mayhem seemed to be much improved, and bands we wanted to catch actually played (for the most part) in their advertised time slot.

Click for recaps of Day 1, Day 2 and Day 2 continued.

Click here for a complete listing of bands and venues participating in the festival!

Day 3 – Friday, July 24th

Photo by Seth Drury

Starting the night at The Vixen, we caught the tail end of The Shills’ main stage performance.  These guys were tight, playing a lot of fast palm muted riffs underneath singer Bryan Murphy’s zero-to-howl in .02 vox.  While the crowd was certainly lacking, the rock was not, and the Shills ended things with a nasty jam– Dave Sicilian strummed out meaty bass chords while Murphy and guitarist Eric Ryrie wailed intricately harmonized guitar solos.

The Shills – “The Fire” – Ganymede

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Click here for Noah’s Day 2 recap

Click here for a complete listing of bands and venues participating in the festival!

Festival still seems to be going pretty well. My only real complaint so far is the scheduling. Bands are getting their set times pushed back, changed around, etc. The schedules will at least tell you what band is playing where, but the when has kind of been up in the air. That’s frustrating for me as a spectator, I can only imagine how annoying that is for the bands themselves. Hopefully that’ll be a little better tonight, I’ll keep you posted. Other than that everything’s been good – and the sound in the venues I was at was definitely better across the board last night than it was on Wednesday. Alright, anyway, on to the tunes…

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