The BGN News Archive

Arthur Freedman at Harvard Film Archive Photo: John Keegan

Friday 11/8 was a big night for Arthur Freedman, the Harvard Film Archives and the Boston music scene with the Boston Punk Rewound/Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection event The scensters filled up the Carpenter Center…easily, is was in fact standing room only! There was talk of a bigger hall next time.

The Harvard Film Archives have had the Freedman's cassettes and videos for eleven years now. This was the night where we saw how much they've done. Speeches from the archivists illuminated a lot. They have digitized all audio. They also have set up a critical framework where they are analyzing the material for views into gender identity and women inclusiveness.  One could see that in the future this material will be used to contextualize different issues. It's a gift that will keep on giving.

There was a short abstract video by Martha Swetzoff of Bound & Gagged. She played guitar along with the video, giving it a live soundtrack, very much experimental.

Dangerous Birds Photo: John Keegan

The set by the Dangerous Birds was a stunner. It brought all that post-punk vibe back.  They played about half a dozen songs and closed with "1926" written by Gary Gogel of V (another Propeller group) who played guitar for the Birds this night. I wish everyone reading this could hear Thalia as she sang, "your god hates me." Quite a moment. This was followed by an old video of various Propeller records bands hanging out on the bridge on Brookline Ave just outside Kenmore Square. That certainly brought back memories!!  

Then what the night was about - an compilation of some of Freedman's videos:  Human Sexual Response had a few colorful and exciting moments. Unnatural Axe, Volcano Suns (last show) and the Neighborhoods with guest Springa were energy filling the screen. Barrence Whitfield made a big impression with his mighty voice.

Peter Lawrence - Harvard Film Archive and Willie Alexander Photo: Blowfish

There were a few moments where people who have passed filled the screen and that was poignant. RIP: Justine Covault, Windle Davis, Bobby Bear, Mickey Clean, and Asa Brebner etc....

You can see the value of these films now. In time they will be of more and more importance. When Arthur Freedman rose to speak he got the first of many rounds of applause. He spoke calmly and with great assurance. We were proud of him.

To get a fuller idea of the night we have a longer review with more photos on its own page...CLICK the photo link below.

The Middle East is having a Celebration of Life for Steve Morse on Saturday, November 30 in the Downstairs club at 5pm. No RSVP required.Here the FB page!

 Oh the Humanity have released a second single titled "Love Irresolute" from their forthcoming album Ground To Dust that will be out in January.  Right now it's only on the New Noise magazine site.

Huck 2 gave us some updates on what they've got coming up. They'll be guests on WMFO's Mike Newman's show and they'll play live. That's January 11 at 10am.

They have a gig at the Worthen Attic on Saturday, January 18, 8pm with State of the Union and the Satch Kerans Band. The very next day they are traveling to Newcastle Sound in Barrington, RI to mix songs from a David Bieber Boston Music Archive session they did last month. They will release those songs soon after.

Maybe the most exciting news is that they are going back into the studio late spring/early summer with Sir David Minehan at Woolly Mammoth.

Here's "Neighbor" by Huck below.

Jack White's Third Man Records has reissued The Jesus and Mary Chain's debut single "Upside Down/Vegetable Man". This is the 40th Anniversary of its release. That was massively influential.

Order on Third Man Records website  

VIDEOS......

When we were at the Harvard Film Archives, see above, Arthur slipped us digital card with the full set from the Dogmatics at the Belforge Art Center in September. Here's our page on that show. Reasons to be cheerful, part 2. 

We spotlighted the song "Paranoia" by Spun Out (Detroit) last week. This week we have the video for it. We see this as another chance to hear the song. We love that dive bomb guitar sound that couples the word Paranoia. The live footage gives us a glimpse of what the group looks like. The video gives clips of various disasters and a lurking Nosferatu.

Sonic Lobotomy posted their show #94 with Glider. Some of the songs were: "Sex Beat", "Out of Touch",  "Anorexia", "MTV",  "We Don't Care" and  "Living in the Suburbs"   Kenne Gizmo sang "Be More Flamboyant". Captain Easychord sang the Sonics "Psycho". Roky Erickson…no we mean lookalike Kenne Highland… sang "You're Gonna Miss Me".

You can see Kenne on bass. That's the only way to see him play, now that he's off his fretwork for a month.

RADIO......

Brian Young had Sonic Bomb on his A Crash Course for the Ravers show. We're used to bands scaling down and playing with acoustic instruments on studio live sets, not Sonic Bomb. They were all electric with loud drums intent on being raucous as possible. Even in the interview parts they were high energy. Brian, no slouch himself, was right in step with them.

Sonic Bomb started in 2006.They are at Alchemy in Providence on November 19. Tickets here.

A Crash Course for the Ravers show is on WMFO 91.5 FM on Saturdays at 1pm. After that got to the WMFO schedule page  Hit the Crash Course for the Ravers show on 1pm on Saturday, then hit the 'archive' button.

PODCASTS.........

Blowing Smoke with Twisted Rico did a transatlantic interview with The Legendary Rich Gilbert who is in Italy now.  Rich moved from Boston to Nashville and has opinions on how the cities developed in his time there. He's played shows in Italy with his wife Eileen Rose. Most shows tend to be outside. 

Rich was inspired by the Beatles like the rest of his generation. He got a guitar when he was 14. His influences came as he copied music he heard on the radio: Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Steve Howe (of Yes).  Later when he was at Boston he became fixated on Randy Roos of Orchestra Luna and then Steven Paul Perry of Luna (the following iteration of Orchestra Luna). 

Steev then questioned Rich on the string of songs he's releasing now. He has a project to release one new song every week. Steev also questioned Rich how he got involved with Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses/Belly and played on her solo records.

Sethyspice keep everything positive in the first post-election Elastic Glam Show (11/15). There was some drop ins with people giving encouraging words. Elastic Glam supports the Trevor Project https://www.thetrevorproject.org/  that helps people in crisis. Their calls have increases 700% since the election.

Then there was Slade with "Gudbuy T' Jane", that always raises our spirits. We dug the new releases like Gyasi with "Sweet Thing" and  "Playgirl" by Cream Circus. We have "Playgirl" embedded below.

The glam song we missed back in the day was 1973's "Billy Mars" by Vodka Collins.  Loved hearing "Pale Blue Eyes" by the Velvets after the mega "Pick Pony Club" by Roan in a live version.

Then there was Skyhooks who turned it all around with "Straight in a Gay Gay World".

It was another enjoyable show from Tim Livingston on his Radio Warfare podcast.

It began with The Motors, made up of ex members of pub rockers Duck's Deluxe and included Bram Tchaikovsky at one point. "Airport" was the big hit. Tim played "Dancing the Night Away", another example of their pop pub rock (in a time of punk) tune.  That was followed by the one hit from the one hit wonders The Headboys, "The Shapes of Things to Come".  We were crazy to hear that back in 1979.

Tim also picked up the just released Diablogato song "July 1969" from their album Snake Oil Salvation.

He played the Clang Gang. They have someone from the Deaf School and Roxy Music's Andy Mckay  The new song from The Only One's singer Peter Perrett was poignant and Tim says the album is one of the singers finest. We could go on, it's interesting songs both new and old.

 On the 11/4 Sonic Overload Al Quint played The Damned "Love Song" off Machine Gun Etiquette because it was released 45 years ago.  

Quint played a French group Bart and the Brats which is new band to us. They were formed in 2021. They take from the Ramones but have a garage edge to them too.  Their Bandcamp page is worth pursuing around but they have albums on different labels. Google is your friend with these guys.  "Only Fair" was on the show, we have that embedded below.

What about surfing to Joy Division?  The Routes from Japan have the album Surfin' Pleasures that's surf instrumentals of Joy Division songs. What a concept!! Al played "Isolation" and that worked well.

We have the album imbedded below and that starts with “Love Will Tear Us Apart”.

Reverberation Addict is their Buzzcocks instrumentals album! 

We heard The Motors on the Radio Warfare podcast (above) and Al played The Motors first single "Dancing the Night Away". One local play was the song "Pet Smell" from Lube from 2013. Another was Alloy with "Unafraid" and we have those two embedded below.

The Sonic Overload 11/11 show was a post-election catharsis, and nothing works better than hardcore for that. Al Quint let loose on a few sets.  He hit it from a few angles. We liked "Outcast Stomp" from 2015 which is a morale booster for the LBGTQ community that feels more vulnerable after the election. It's by G.L.O.S.S. - Girls Living Outside Society's Shit from Olympia, Washington.

NEW MUSIC/CDs......

We saw Lady Pills back in 2019 at O'Brien's 

We could see how much craft went into their music then. Now they have an eleven cut album, Renowned In the Roaring Twenties., on the verge of release They have two songs streaming on Bandcamp now. All the songwriting and most of the instruments are done by Ella Boissonnault. Ella brings so much to the table. No matter what you focus on it's done with so much care and creativity.

We especially like "Didn't You". Everything clicks here and by the chorus you can't fail to be won over. We're embedding that song below.

The whole album will be released in April of 2025.

Gretchen Shae & the Middle Eights new release is "For You". The overall sound is a throwback hard rock sound. In some ways it seems very simple, just a few chords and minimal lyrics. The lyrics carry weight however. Even the short chorus "For you, time stops" gains heft with Gretchen's delivery.  Gretchen's voice raises everything. That makes everything not so simple, and you give the song lots of attention and thought.

This song is part of a three track EP out on November 22.

It's been three years since Coffin Salesman last released some material. We saw them a lot for a while before Covid. Here's one time   .

Their new album is called Fire to Burn. The group's content basically comes from leader Aria Rad. The group sounds full and big. Some of that is because the members are multi instrumentalists.  They don't have a punk sound.  He's similar with Nick Cave instrumentally and thematically. 

Aria is dealing with the human condition. There's mention of prayers, mercy, hard rain, war, chains that bind, curses and the potter's field. Meanwhile the music can be meaningful sparse piano or spaghetti Western guitar riffs or ominous chording. The album gets louder as it goes along.

This is not a light hearted trip but neither is Nick Cave's hellfire material. It's also not cartoonish or Halloween-like death metal.

This is well done. It's too good to be ignored. We've thought that Aria would have appeal to a wide audience. This impressive album deserves to get noticed.

Miracle Blood have their whole album Hello Hell released now. The CD's are out and the whole album is on Bandcamp.

This has got to be the hardest pounding album ever. We usually think of hardcore as the loudest thing out there but this outdoes that. They tag themselves as noise punk.  We have the CD and playing that at max volume will clear you earholes. When the songs end abruptly, the silence between the tracks is both spooky and just a short rest before “once more into the breach you go.

The recording at Bridge Sound and Stage in Cambridge is fabulous. You don't feel that the tremendous volume overwhelmed the sound equipment. Somehow they get the full power of the trio without any sonic corners being cut.

The mix is also top notch. Even with everything going to the max you get stereo separation that is distinct which is wonderful to experience at that volume. It's such an enjoyable album to listen to just for the sonics.

The drums are rolling thunder as the wall of guitars traverse riff based songs. The fast angular riffage on "Prepare for Breadkfast" is a highlight. We will be listening to this a lot. This is got to be the best loudest album this year.

We were crazy for Gene Champagne's song "Rock 'n' Roll Boy" off his Let's Jet album.  Now the whole Rum Bar Record album is out on Bandcamp.  Gene played with Teenage Head. He brings that early punk sound to this. It is Ramones style rockers with simple progressions along with pop sensibilities. The guitar work has the hard power chord punk down pat.

We like "You Can't Break Me", "Let's Jet", "Become Unfriends" and every other song really.  We would write more but we have to listen to "Rock 'n' Roll Boy" a few dozen more times. Forgive us.

Kurt Baker is always producing songs, lucky for us. There's a new one now on Wicked Cool Records. "Inner Demons" is about keeping optimistic. "Send these inner demons back to hell," he sings.  Kurt says that the song has some influences from Green Day, Alkaline Trio and Bouncing Souls. We can really hear the Alkaline Trio vibe in this and get off on that a lot.

Kurt got on our radar in 2011   at Great Scott's. We've been right on every release since and he's never failed to deliver.  You never get the feeling that he's just putting out filler. Every song like "Inner Demons" is fresh and new feeling. If you are a pop fan you should be all over Kurt.

There is a live album coming out of the group Sex Beat titled Live at the Batcave and Other Dark Places

 The song prereleased is "Girls" live at the Lyceum in 1984. It has that early Bauhaus sound.

We don't know if you ever noticed but Iggy Pop doesn't wear a top!  Michael M from Glasgow observed the phenomenon and mentions the fact 34 times in his song "Iggy Pop Has Got No Top".

The song doesn't go much further than that, but does it have to?

Here's some good shows coming up .....

November 23, 2024 (Saturday) Diablogato, The Long Wait, Speed Teeth at Faces in Malden tickets

November 23, 2024 (Saturday) Hi-End, Duck and Cover, Color Killers at The Square Root

November 25, 2024 (Monday)  Tyler and the Names, Lupo Citta, and The Spatulas - Silhouette Lounge

November 30, 2024 (Saturday) Midway Matinee of Punk! with WORM, Presidential Disgrace, Screw Cart, Neponset Monestary - at The Midway for a 3PM Matinee!!

November 30, 2024 (Saturday) Punk Rock Benefit for Pine St Inn - Welch Boys, Ice Cold Killers, COB, and Working Poor - Midway Cafe 21+ [8:30] 

November 30, 2024 (Saturday) Steve Morse Celebration of Life at the Middle east Down...FB page. 5PM FREE!!

December 5, 2024 (Thursday) The Shang Hi Los , American Ocelot at The Burren - Early show 7-9PM

December 6, 2024 (Friday) Warrior Soul, All Sinners and Speed Teeth at Koto Salem

December 13, 2024 (Friday) Murphy's Law, Neighborhood Shit, Scumbari, and Poor Impulse Control - MIddle East Up

December 21, 2024 (Saturday) The Del Fuegos at The City Winery - TWO Shows 3PM and 7:30 PM TIX 

December 23, 2024 (Monday) Leon Rich, Larry Newman, Butterscott, Captain Easychord at The Jungle  

January 4, 2024 (Saturday) The Instamatics, The New Frustrations, The Pleasing Terrors at The Jungle  

January 11, 2024 (Saturday) The Bags with The Croaks and Gymnasium at The Crystal Ballroom - FB event page 

April 20, 2025 (Friday) Gang of Four at The Crystal Ballroom, Somerville. Tickets.

CONTACT US AT....misslynbgn@yahoo.com Send us your gig listings, your anything else you've got!! You want your CD reviewed?? Contact us for that too.