Indie Rock Ranger Holiday Spectacular: Freezepop, Sidewalk Driver, Parks, Animal Talk, Harris Hawk | 14 Dec. | Middle East

Maybe, like us, you spend your commutes to and from work car-bound and following pre-schoolers' orders to dial between the two all-Christmas music stations presently on the FM spectrum in Boston, and the idea of more Christmas music makes you want to hit yourself in the head with a hammer. Fortunately, the ideas "holiday" and "music" can be separated, shaken up like a snow globe, and put back together in just a different enough way that you are no longer doomed to Karen Carpenter crooning on both 96.1 and 106.7 at once. Shake them right, wait for the faux snow to settle, and you just might find yourself at Indie Rock Ranger's Holiday Spectacular this Saturday at the Middle East Down. The evening is an auditory five-course meal of homegrown Boston rock and pop from the acts Animal Talk, Freezepop, Harris Hawk, Parks and Sidewalk Driver.

But wu-wu-wu-wait there's more. Did you miss your chance to get yourself down to Plymouth this past weekend for The Ash Gray Proclamation's Toys For Tots benefit show? If you did, and even if you didn't, Anngelle Wood's Holiday Toy Drive to benefit the DCF Kids Fund is happening during the Holiday Spectacular as well. If you've got a little extra scratch to spread around to help make the holiday better for a kid getting through a tough situation, pick up a new, unwrapped toy on the way to the show and toss it at host con most and exemplary human Richard Bouchard, who will surely wonder why people are throwing toys at him (SHHHHHH! let's let it be a surprise!). Ms. Wood wisely points out that toys are great, but there are older foster kids out there who might get a smile out of a gift card, electronics, games, art supplies, music, videos, books, clothing, hats, gloves, scarves, stuff like that. Cash is always good, too. Another way to get your money into the worthy hands of DCF is to buy a print of the awesome show poster situated atop this blog post. That'd look good all framed up in the rec room, right? Get one for $10 at the show, and that money goes to DCF courtesy of the good people behind Daykamp Creative.

So what about these rock and roll bands playing? Do they make good rock and roll music? They do! The line-up is tilted toward dance-rock acts that will surely have the joint jumping. But we're particularly interested in the openers, the relatively new hard rockers Harris Hawk, whose sound draws heavily from like-minded bands working between, say, '76 and '86. On their epic jam "Sweetness," Harris Hawk come across like mid-'70s Heart riffing on Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," which we think we can all agree is a good thing. But it's the song that leads into that one that first fired our imagination. "Intermissionary" is an atmospheric interlude that functions a lot like Van Halen's "Intruder" on 1982's Diver Down, building tension that is released with the commencement of the ensuing track. We'd be totally stoked if Harris Hawk jammed out on "Intermissionary" for 10 minutes during their set Saturday. Find out if they do just that: buy tickets, buy a gift for the toy drive, and get over to the club when doors open at 8PM Saturday. You can do this.

Rock Over Boston At The Movies: Led Zeppelin

In a world where bands of Led Zeppelin's stature are constantly coming up with ways to take more of our money, there's been remarkably little cashing in by the arguable kings of the dinosaur band jungle. Hell, it wasn't until 1999 that they even issued their first best-of, the two-part Early Days and Latter Days collections. That great restraint has helped solidify Zeppelin's monolithic status among their peers - their 8 core studio albums are a tight, consistent, rock-solid body of work (let's spot them In Through The Out Door, okay?) without many peers.

Fans have been historically under-served, however, in good documentation of the band's formidable live act. The Song Remains The Same was all we had for the longest time and, as any longtime fan and collector of illicit recordings could tell you, it was an inadequate representation of their stage power. It has its high points for sure - "No Quarter" and "Since I've Been Loving You" are my personal highlights - but for most of it, the band sounds tired and bloated. Not their best night.

The dam finally broke when they released the revelatory BBC Sessions in 1997, which finally gave us an idea of what they were capable of. But it was 2003's DVD set that was the true mind-blower. The first disc's 1970 set at the Royal Albert Hall presented us with a huge, uncompromising display of youth, power, and enough amphetamine-driven energy to kill 10 Tour de France champions.

So here we are then with what is only their third live collection in their 43 year career. A collection that, though inevitable, still took 5 years to release. Celebration Day captures the band's 2007 reunion performance in tribute of the late Atlantic Records svengali Ahmet Ertegun (which benefited an educational foundation in his name) with the late John Bonham's son Jason on drums. The lottery for the coveted one-night-only full concert set tickets fed anticipation that would be a challenge to meet, especially given the band's spotty reunion history. Horrible-to-disastrous short reunion sets in 1985 (at Live Aid, no less) and 1988 (at Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary event) seemed to put the band off of reunions for good, despite the much more successful Plant and Page collaborations in the 90's.

I was not a successful ticket-lottery winner, and Clicky Clicky HQ was apparently unable to secure press credentials, so we're making do with Celebration Day, a film that blows by the worries and exceeds all anticipations and is worthy of the band's small live catalog. The dynamic is different, for sure. The band may have needed to work harder than ever - there's no coasting on the cocksure invincible attitude of their youth, and you find yourself rooting for them in places - will Plant hit that note? can Page still dazzle? will Jason Bonham deliver? Yes, yes, and yes. It isn't long before you forget that construct, though and realize that, damn, this is simply a great Led Zeppelin concert. The concert is presented here in its entirety, with what we're told is a minimum of sweetening (and a listen to audience recordings and myriad YouTube clips pretty much bears this out), and a stage-eye view of the band. Crowd shots are scene setting - most of the time, we're in the band's space. Seeing their interactions and musical in-jokes and Jimmy Page's foot on the wah-wah pedal and John Paul Jones' foot on his bass pedals when he does double-duty on the keyboards.

The performances are solid-to-incendiary, the middle third in particular. "In My Time Of Dying" warms things up after the band works off their early jitters, the never before performed "For Your Life" really loosens them up, and "Trampled Underfoot" has the band firing on all cylinders. They stumble slightly in "Dazed and Confused" - there seems to be a missed cue (and possibly some editing) in there somewhere, but all is forgiven when Page takes out that bow and you're 15 again.

And no one's having more fun here than Jason Bonham. A solid, heavy-hitter like his dad, Bonham has flashes of that subtle looseness that helped give Zeppelin their swagger. He isn't quite as fluid as his father, but he's in the neighborhood. It's fun to watch the his elder bandmates beam at him throughout with obvious affection.

There are limited theatrical screenings on Wednesday and Thursday of this week (see the embedded doohickey for details) and, as fun as it is to see it on the big screen without the distractions of your living room, choose your theater wisely. The sound system at my screening was at was not up to the task of reproducing rock music - particularly the bass. Whenever John Paul Jones' bass was featured, like the beginning of "Dazed..." and in "Ramble On," it sounded slightly like those shredding videos until the rest of the band came in. I'm dying to see the Blu-Ray and hear the vinyl coming on November 19th and December 11th respectively.

I had been talking with friends lately how unlikely it is that this collection will ever be anyone's go-to listen when they want to hear live Zeppelin. Celebration Day proved me wrong. It's a fine new edition to the catalog.

Now. How about, say, Long Beach '75 next?

-Michael Piantigini

Led Zeppelin: Intertubes | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Review: Guillermo Sexo | Secret Wild

Guillermo Sexo's recently issued fourth full-length is doubly remarkable: not only is the Boston-based dream-pop quartet's collection Secret Wild very good, but also it strongly underscores that the band is very good at doing more than one thing -- no mean feat in today's atmosphere of the Internet subjecting acts to harder scrutiny ever earlier in their careers, before they even figure out how to do one thing right. Of course, Guillermo Sexo has been writing and recording records for more than five years at this point, and don't qualify as "new" by any metric. But all the same, the band's facility with different styles -- as particularly evidenced by Secret Wild -- is impressive.

As we stated here earlier this month, the new record charts the "middle ground between heavy atmospheric shoegaze...and Led Zeppelin-styled English folk." The same sonic range also characterized 2010's terrific and relatively slept-on (at least, admittedly, by us) full length Vivid Nights, which we discussed briefly here a year ago. But the songs on Secret Wild resonate even more strongly, perhaps because of a heightened air of psychedelia shot through the music, or perhaps because of the rich production. It's no matter -- either way Secret Wild is one of the strongest releases to date in 2011.

Highlights abound. When co-fronter Noell Dorsey pushes her voice into overdrive for the concise, spine-tingling rocker "Green Eyes," it takes on a tonal similarity to that of Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. Guillermo Sexo's "Exhale" opens with melancholy strumming, and something about the production and tension consistently tricks us into thinking an explosive chord will arrive at any moment, as in The Boo Radley's epic jaw-dropper "Foster's Van." Instead, tasteful and spare guitar leads coax the composition along like a lure on a line, all while the atmospheric swirl just below the song's surface continues its seamless, endless respiration. The title track ("Secret Wild") offers a starry strummer that -- as noted supra -- reminds us of the sort of mystical English folk we assume (but about which we have to confess ignorance) must exist outside of the context of Led Zep's (and, to a lesser extent, Fields') compelling acoustic compositions. The song conveys an ideal pastoral carelessness that one only ever really gets to experience via nostalgia, which is to say you don't know it is happening until after it has happened.

Guillermo Sexo self-released Secret Wild July 16 in a limited edition of 300 white LPs, 100 t-shirts with download codes and also digitally. Five of the album's nine tracks can be streamed at Bandcamp, and we've embedded a player containing same below. But wait, there's more! The digital version of Secret Wild comes packaged with three otherwise unreleased demos; these are not included on the vinyl, although those who purchase the LP receive download codes for the digital version of the album which includes the three demos. Guillermo Sexo is planning a tour to support the record that will launch in September.



Guillermo Sexo: Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube

Rock Over Boston: Robert Plant | House of Blues | 1.26.2011

[Flier for the Boston Tea Party for May of 1969. Not a terrible lineup.]

Led Zeppelin played Boston three times in 1969, according to LedZeppelin.com: the first was a 4-night stand in January at the Boston Tea Party, the second was a 3-night stand in May again at the Tea Party (see the schedule above), and the last a single night at the Boston Garden in October.

In May of '69, the Tea Party moved from their 53 Berkley Street digs to 15 Lansdowne Street. A building that housed a succession of night clubs before being dismantled a couple of years ago to make way for a slick new mega House of Blues. (More on the Boston Tea Party here).

Robert Plant took note of this coming full-circle moment at his gig there on that spot on Tuesday night. And, really, he could not seem more happy about it. Spurning the massive glorious spectacle and payday that the Led Zeppelin tour everyone wanted and expected after their '07 London reunion gig, Plant instead decided that he'd be much happier doing this: making a great folky-bluesy Americana record and doing a club tour. Bravo to him for it. As I complained about in the Plant entry in my 2010 top 10 list, why do all these big classic rock acts continue to insist on the ginormous stadium spectacle that they can only pull off with lots of production gimmickry and dubious musical compromises?

But Plant knows the score - his voice is better suited for what he's doing now than putting it through the rigorous demands of a Zeppelin tour. That's a respectable decision in my book.

His handpicked Band of Joy for this tour is the same one he made his recent album of the same name with, and they're a great band to be making traditional American music with, most notably Buddy Miller, a great guitar player and songwriter in his own right, has been a sideman to Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle; Bostonian Patty Griffin sings some sweet harmonies, but is a well-established folkie; and Darrell Scott (who also spent a few years in Boston) was a great utility man, playing pedal steel, banjo, and extra guitar. Each of them took a turn fronting the band (sort of like Ringo Starr's All-Star Band, but good), and Darrell Scott's entry made me want to investigate further. Drummer Marco Giovino is apparently from the Boston area as well - it's all about us!

The set was naturally heavy on the band's great recent album of mainly covers of standards and other songs obscure, oddball, and otherwise. I was wondering how many people in the audience knew who Low is? Not many, I'm guessing, though the band's version of "Silver Rider" is honest and vibrant. The spark in Miller's guitar playing drove a lot of the show, but was not so flashy to compete with Plant and Griffin's sweet harmonies. There was plenty of gently re-arranged Zeppelin material that worked really well for this band. Stuff from III was an obvious choice, and "Tangerine" and especially "Gallows Pole" were highlights, as were "Ramble On," and a rave-up of "Rock and Roll."

Hell, he even made "Tall Cool One" sound pretty good. But where was the rap part?

-Michael Piantigini

Robert Plant: Intertubes