PLAYGROUND BOSTON

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!

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 Everyday Visuals - Photo by JustBill

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All photos by JustBill – check out www.justbill.net to see more of his amazing work, to purchase prints from this incredible show, and to learn about some of the best bands in the local scene!

Aloud

Flying Machines

The Lights Out

The Everyday Visuals

Thursday, April 29th @ Great Scott

Former WBCN personality, local rocker, and creator of the amazing Quiet Desperation Allston reality sitcom Rob Potylo is putting on his own version of the WBCN Rock & Roll Rumble down at Great Scott this Thursday. He’ll be filming for the 20th episode of his show, giving away prizes, and drumming up support for an initiative to get local radio stations to play more Boston music rather than cookie-cutter-corporate rock. The former Roadsteamer has assembled a great lineup for this event, with performances by his own band, Humanwine, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, and New York’s King Hell. Great local sponsors + great local rock = a great fuckin’ time!

Friday, April 30th @ TT The Bear’s

This is an unbelievable lineup of some of the best indie rock in town. If you’re a PGB reader, you’ve heard us scream bloody murder about the merits of Aloud and The Lights Out, and how amazing their live sets are. If you’re not familiar with them, click those links and get yourself caught up! They’ll be joined by 2009 BMA Pop Act of the Year winners The Everyday Visuals, easily one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the city. The driving force behind them, singer Christopher Pappas, departs our fair city for the smoggier pastures of LA later this summer, so this may be one of your last chances to see this amazing band! Rounding out the bill is New York powerpop outfit Flying Machines, freshly back from SXSW and a live performance at Rolling Stone HQ. Don’t miss this show!

Saturday, May 1st @ TT The Bear’s

Very cool event happening Saturday at TT’s. Rock photographer extraordinaire (and PGB contributor) Nicole Tammaro will be turning the venue into an art gallery, featuring artwork by local Boston musicians bringing their talents to a new form of media. The night will also feature performances by (in order) Squallie Greenthumb, Paul & The Strings, The Other Girls (local supergroup featuring Andrea Gillis, Linda Khoury, Amy Griffin, Melissa Gibbs, & Michelle Paulhus), Bryan McPherson, and Gene Dante & The Future Starlets. This was an extremely popular event last year, and this year’s rendition promises to be even bigger and better. Support local music and local artists, all wrapped up in the same event!

And don’t forget about our BBC & PGB Presents show, the main event, coming at you Saturday, May 1st from The Hard Rock Cafe… More info coming soon!

Photo by Heather Canterbury

Aloud AND The Beatings on the same bill? You’re kidding, right? Its not uncommon for two bands who have had such a profound impact on the Boston music scene in the past decade to share a bill, but it’s rare when they exhibit such a glaring contrast in styles. Aloud is straight-up rock – catchy hooks, singalong vocals, crunchy riffs. The Beatings are a bit more on the indie-noise-rock side of the spectrum – feedback and distortion used as instrumentation, droning verses giving away to screaming choruses, that type of thing. What might have initially seemed like an odd pairing ended up a match made in heaven though, as both bands had the entire venue howling for more! Apologies to Hello Ninja and Action Camp, who opened the night but I was unfortunately not able to catch.

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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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