That Was The Show That Was: Lemonheads | Boston Common | July 20

While it is not the most rock 'n' roll sentiment, seeing Lemonheads perform last night was a tremendous pleasure primarily for personal reasons: it was the first time we were able to synthesize rock-show-going and family-having. The logistics of raising two kids and managing careers just hadn't allowed allowed us to attempt every resident at Clicky Clicky HQ attending a show together until last night, and being able to have the missus and the kids along while taking in a set by a Clicky Clicky All-Time Top Five act was even more enjoyable than we had hoped. When it was announced months ago that Lemonheads would play at a relatively family-friendly hour, we began to plot our attendance, and fortunately the kids enjoyed it and the weather held out. It was also great to be at a show with Clicky Clicky Managing Editor Michael Piantigini once more. We've been silent on the issue in the blog out of respect for his privacy, but many friends of Clicky Clicky know that Michael experienced a major health issue in the late spring, and so we hadn't seen a show with him in months. It is great to have him back on the scene.

Lemonheads held up their end of the bargain by delivering a dynamite set, dipping as far back as the '80s into a repertoire that is overflowing with should-be-hits. A highlight of the set was a three-song stint featuring founding member Ben Deily, with whom Clicky Clicky readers are well familiar due to our coverage of Mr. Deily's current combo Varsity Drag. Deily -- who left Lemonheads to focus on his studies at the turn of the '90s -- joined the quartet last night for "Don't Tell Yourself It's OK," "Uhhhh" and "Amazing Grace." He first reunited on stage with Lemonhead-in-chief Evan Dando more than three years ago, but we haven't any idea when the last time was that the two shared a stage in Boston, so this was pretty special. Lemonheads also played cracking versions of personal favorites including "Stove" and "Rudderless." Mr. Dando was focused and funny, his voice as solid as ever and more than able to convey and color the emotions guiding his brilliant songwriting. The complete set-list is below. This iteration of Lemonheads is abetted by guitar virtuoso and musical journeyman Chris Brokaw, who -- in addition to playing in Come and The New Year and Codeine and numerous other acts, in addition to being a talented songwriter -- is the best utility player in rock music. Your lead guitarist get eaten by a shark? Call Mr. Brokaw. Drummer explode? Call Brokaw. In the context of Lemonheads last evening, his leads and rhythm playing stayed true to the band's recordings, while also creatively accenting tunes with well-place salvos of harmonics or other flourishes. He even occasionally recreated melodic elements from the recordings that weren't guitar lines, such as when he approximated a missing vocal line from "It's About Time." Brokaw's playing is brilliant, and damn it if he doesn't seem to get younger-looking each year, too.

Lemonheads are in the midst of a short strand of tour dates, having playing Providence Friday night and with a planned date in Connecticut tonight. We've posted a few more dates, and also last night's set list (as well as a link to a photo of same from Deily's Instragram feed) below. Surprisingly, this is only the second time we've ever seen Lemonheads; we reviewed a December 2006 show -- when the band was touring its self-titled Vagrant record -- right here. As for the future, Fire Records is expected to reissue expanded versions of the first three Lemonheads records later this year, and sessions for a new Lemonheads record -- a record that would include input from Deily and Juliana Hatfield, as we reported here -- were begun with Ryan Adams in 2012.

Lemonheads: Internerds | Facebook | YouTube

SET LIST: [Instagram]

Confetti
Down About It
Alison's Starting To Happen
Hospital
Drug Buddy
Style
Great Big No
Left For Dead
It's A Shame About Ray
Break Me
Dawn Can't Decide
Don't Tell Yourself It's OK (with Deily)
Uhhh (with Deily) [video]
Amazing Grace (with Deily)
Outdoor Type
Hannah + Gabbi
Tenderfoot
It's About Time
Stove
Rudderless [video]
Into Your Arms

MORE ROCK MUSIC:

07.21.13 -- Hamden, CT -- Spaceland Ballroom
07.23.13 -- Asbury Park, NJ -- The Wonder Bar
07.24.13 -- Brooklyn, NY -- Knitting Factory
07.26.13 -- Edgartown, MA -- Flatbread Pizza Co.

Today's Hotness: The Hush Now, Sir Yes Sir, Shores

>> We saw The Hush Now's final show of the year Wednesday night and the quintet continues to be among the most formidable of Boston bands. We've been holding onto the fivesome's latest holiday jam "On Holiday" because, well, we're trying to hold the line against holiday creep. But now that Thanksgiving is over and done, it is time to confront the sounds of the season. The Hush Now's aforementioned, bossa nova romp approaches irresistible, and we've had the one-song CD-R on repeat in the car for days. "On Holiday" is an uptempo confection that eschews the band's now characteristic wall of guitars in favor of a horn-driven, jingle bell-appointed chorus. We've got to hand it to the boys: anybody can write a holiday jam, but few acts write ones you want to hear over and over. Catch the stream below (and cheers to the RSL Blog for the initial upload). The Hush Now is off for the rest of the year, but we've heard whispers about new music for the new year. So be good for goodness' sake.

The Hush Now - On Holiday by rslblog.com

>> Tip the 40, if you will, for Sir Yes Sir: the London-based noise pop upstarts announced earlier this month that they are breaking up. However, fret not: it sounds like what is really being done -- after five years, one tape, one CD and one CD-R -- is that Sir Yes Sir is scrapping its name and contemplating reconfiguring a little. When we last wrote about the trio in May they were poised to release their debut full-length Reigning Over Silence, which you can stream right here. We had short correspondence with Daniel from SYS after the break-up announcement, and were told the band is considering adding a new member and perhaps changing who plays what instrument. This all sounds like a good thing to us, and as long as the new entity can continue to churn out delightfully tuneful sludge like "Not Excited," which we wrote about here in January, we'll be more than happy.

>> Fans of hardcore and pop-punk know No Idea, the Gainesville, Fl.-based label responsible for superb releases from acts including Armalite, Lifetime and J Church (RIP Lance). The label's aesthetic is well-established, but one new No Idea release from Michigan-based and un-Google-able slowcore duo Shores challenges it, and suggests that No Idea is now about more than, well, all that stuff we mentioned above. Take, for example, the track "Meanwhile" from Shores' debut Coup De Grace, issued by No Idea Oct. 31 in a limited first-run of colored vinyl with a screen-printed cover and download code. It's measured, meditative, melodic and dynamic, and it hits a strident crescendo two-thirds of a way through that recalls certain fine moments from T.W. Walsh and Codeine. No Idea has posted "Meanwhile" as a free download, and it is ripe and ready for your winter playlists. Have at it.

Shores -- "Meanwhile" -- Coup De Grace
[right click and save as]
[buy Coup De Grace from No Idea right here]

That Was The Show That Was: A Weather at P.A.'s Lounge

It's rare that we see an act struggle with deficient live sound because it is too quiet. But despite a rough start mapping the shortcomings of the house sound system, A Weather's show at P.A.'s Lounge last night was uplifting, mesmerizing and poignant all at once. The Portland, Ore.-based quintet was touring as a trio using freshly hatched live arrangements situated around guitarist Aaron Gerber and drummer Sarah Winchester's murmured harmonies and Mr. Gerber's finger-picked guitar arpeggiation. Its hour-long set passed without any sense that the band was lacking component parts. If anything, playing as a lean, taut three-piece reigned in the relatively lush arrangements from A Weather's excellent, recently released sophomore record such that the songs were more in line with the sparse, haunting music from its 2008 debut Cove. The new collection Everyday Balloons was released by Team Love March 2 [review here].

The set largely drew from Everyday Balloons, and opened with the song "Giant Stairs." Highlights included the stunning closer "Lay Me Down," which dramatically heaved and sighed as the song collected and dispelled tension. The re-arranged "Midday Moon" was absolutely spine-tingling. The performance featured Ms. Winchester standing behind her spartan drum kit clutching her hands as if in prayer while Gerber and bassist Lou Thomas laced together accompaniment that on the record is solely piano. A Weather also played "Spiders, Snakes," the opening cut from Cove, the Codeine-esque "Seven Blankets" and "Happiness," among other tracks. One beautiful song caught our attention because it was unfamiliar with us, and featured a line something like "if this is going to make me stronger, I'd rather stay weak a little longer." We look forward to discovering what that is.

A Weather's tour continues through April 30; all of the remaining dates are posted below the interview with Gerber we posted here last week. A final word about the show: we think it is safe to say you know you have proverbially arrived in the Boston scene when scene-maker Billy Ruane interrupts your set to offer some comments and make an announcement. Welcome to the scene, A Weather. We very much look forward to seeing you again.

A Weather: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Previous A Weather Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Calories, William, Lali Puna, A Weather
Be Prepared: A Weather | Everyday Balloons | 2 March
Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Top Albums 2000-2009
Clicky Clicky's Top Albums Of 2008
Review: A Weather | Cove [MP3]

Review: A Weather | Everyday Balloons [MP3s]

Perhaps the greatest challenge for thoughtful songwriters is to write compelling songs about relationships that don't bluntly reiterate the trite tropes of unrequited love, failed love or the teen ideal of infinite love. Yes, we know your baby done you wrong, up and left you, and/or won't text you back. But what about songs that address living in love, what people in relationships do to fill their days, ward off the doubt? Some songwriters can do it well, once in a while. Only the best songwriters can do it consistently and make those efforts sound effortless. Slow-core upstarts A Weather, led by singer and guitarist Aaron Gerber, did it across its entire 2008 debut record Cove. The set, which we named one of the best of the last decade here, is a quiet, beautiful and intense recitation of sweetly whispered secrets.

The Portland, Ore.-based quintet return this month with the charming Everyday Balloons. In contrast to its debut, the music on the new collection is relatively (relatively) cacaphonous. Gerber and his cohort -- while still nodding in the sonically disciplined direction of one-time tourmates The New Year and, on "Seven Blankets," to the long-gone Codeine -- have filled out the compositions on Everyday Balloons and expanded their dynamic range by deploying piano, more electric guitars and more assertive drumming. There is even (thrilling) guitar feedback in certain places. While the new collection is louder -- the album shudders to a close with the stirring climax of "Lay Me Down" -- it remains characteristically mesmerizing, paralleling the fevered state Gerber references in the exhilarating album opener "Third Of Life" ("and I thought I was hot stuff/but it's just that I was burning up...").

That said, the changes do alter the tone we had grown accustomed to from A Weather. The broader instrumentation and increased volume more fully illuminate on Everyday Balloons what was obscured in the dark corners of Cove. Beyond tone, the new set addresses broader themes with a sort of natural realism we associate with writers like Sherwood Anderson. Everyday Balloons focuses tightly on elevating the mundane and holding it up as a thing of beauty. Its songs limn in crisp detail quiet, unremarkable domestic moments and diurnal ephemera that in aggregate comprise a wide-eyed, brighter -- but still troubled and questioning -- outlook. The aforementioned "Third Of Life," in the midst of its observations about the fleeting nature of time, describes positioning a bed pillow, brushing teeth. The piano-led ballad "Midday Moon" sung by percussionist Sarah Winchester (whose enchanting vocals, we should note, provide counterpoint to Gerber's on nearly every A Weather track) begins with a rumination about cleaning a bathroom. The brilliant album closer "Lay Me Down" rides a melodic spiral of picked guitar and chimes, but makes time to analyze the act of "tucking back your hair/right behind your ear."

A Weather embarks on a North American tour to support the release of Everyday Balloons April 10. The band plays Somerville, Mass.'s P.A.'s Lounge April 19 with Drew O'Doherty supporting.

A Weather -- "Giant Stairs" -- Everyday Balloons
A Weather -- "Third Of Life" -- Everyday Balloons
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[buy Everyday Balloons from Team Love right here]

04.10 -- The Woods -- Portland, OR
04.12 -- Kilby Court -- Salt Lake City, UT
04.13 -- Hi Dive -- Denver, CO
04.15 -- Vaudeville Mews -- Des Moines, IA
04.16 -- 400 Bar -- Minneapolis, MN
04.19 -- P.A.'s Lounge -- Somerville, MA
04.20 -- Apohadion -- Portland, ME
04.21 -- The Lamb Abbey -- Montpelier, VT
04.22 -- AS220 -- Providence, RI
04.23 -- Union Hall -- Brooklyn, NY
04.25 -- Galaxy Hut -- Washington DC
04.26 -- Joe Squared -- Baltimore, MD
04.28 -- Off Broadway -- St. Louis, MO
04.29 -- The Czar Bar -- Kansas City, MO
04.30 -- Jackpot -- Lawrence, KS

A Weather: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Previous A Weather Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Calories, William, Lali Puna, A Weather
Be Prepared: A Weather | Everyday Balloons | 2 March
Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Top Albums 2000-2009
Clicky Clicky's Top Albums Of 2008
Review: A Weather | Cove [MP3]