Boston Indie Pop Favorites This Car Up Back In Service For One Night Only, Saturday Aug. 13 at Great Scott

We first began hearing about a potential This Car Up reunion show about 20 months ago, and we can exclusively reveal today that at long last it will happen, just in time -- more or less -- to mark the MySpace-era hitmakers' 10th anniversary. Believe that headline: This Car Up performs for the first time in five years at Great Scott in Allston Rock City Aug. 13, with support from Sinnet and Pale Hands. Mark it down.

Since disbanding in 2009, members of This Car Up scattered, launching or weaving themselves into a number of Boston and Brooklyn-based projects including Mean Creek, Slowdim, The Hush Now and Stereo Telescope, among others. There was a one-off reunion at Deep Heaven Now in 2011, which elicited raves from a very lucky crowd. The quintet's sole release, 2008's terrifically tuneful Smile When You're Alone, was recorded with Aloha's T.J. Lipple at the legendary Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia [watch the rockumentary]. The set garnered a Japanese distribution deal with Moorworks and the band did a respectable amount of touring, but the resulting acclaim, frankly, was not commensurate with the excellent music the album contained. Songs like "Dislocate," "Tarzan vs. Graham Chapman" and "Expect Them To Lie" are immediate and irresistible, with massive hooks tastefully downplayed among chiming guitars, blocky synth lines and urgent drumming. The tunefulness suggests an affinity for Built To Spill among many others, but folks familiar with TCU co-fronter and friend-of-the-blog Paul Sentz -- who these days leads Slowdim -- know that the man carries around in his head an encyclopedic knowledge of '80s and '90s radio hits, which he draws upon with such facility that his songs can feel like they are singing your life. Or at least that is one man's opinion.

If there's a silver lining to the This Car Up story, it is that Mr. Sentz and This Car Up co-fronter Eric Glassman contemplate working together again, although sadly it will not be in Boston. Mr. Glassman has lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for a number of years (certain readers may recall the delightful town was the first post-graduate pit stop for this blog's executive editor), and Mr. Sentz is considering relocating there as well. Sentz had previously reunited with TCU bassist Kevin MacDonald for a time in Mikey Holland's power-pop project The Dazies, and keyboard player Kurt Schneider currently holds down the bass for that act and has also found acclaim as part of Stereo Telescope. For his part, TCU drummer Barry Marino logged a lot of years with Clicky Clicky faves The Hush Now (and now plays with Brooklyn rock act Wet Leather).So while This Car Up has been gone for a while, it isn't far from the minds of many. We're eager for the show Aug. 13, so come say goodbye and hello and goodbye to some of the nicest guys to have graced the Boston scene. It will rock. In the meantime, we invite you to click play on Smile When You're Alone, which is embedded below.

This Car Up: Bandcamp | Facebook



Related Coverage:
Playlist: Great Scott, Boston, Jan. 27 | Giveaway

Mean Creek Local Losers Release Show With Pile, Ovlov, Heliotropes, The Young Leaves | Middle East | 25 April

We admit that we've always been a bit uneasy about the unabashed sincerity of local indie rock luminaries Mean Creek's music. It's really our own hang-up, and one not worth dwelling on here, and the eight-year-old act's hook-heavy new set Local Losers -- a collection of scruffy tunes whose swell and sweep subsumes years of FM ministrations of Bruce Springsteen, The Monkees and The 'Mats -- provides all the incentive anyone should need to enlist in the Creek Army. Local Losers arrives and departs with the economy of a major carrier's passenger jet, touching down with the fist-pumping, feedback-spangled howler "Cool Town," catching a smoke in the pilot's lounge along with "My Madeline" (whose woozy, bending guitar leads and invigorating harmonies make the tune an album highlight), flipping through magazines over a jumbo vodka tonic while some guy shouts in your ear about the Massachusetts border, and then going wheels up again with the dreamy, yearning closer "Teenage Feeling." That final tune finds fronter Chris Keene sounding particularly vulnerable, maybe even a little scared that the FAA might breech the cockpit and ask him to blow a breathalyzer. The album proceedings are thrillingly brisk (no song goes past the crucial three-minute mark, a calculus once tied to analog jukeboxes and full-flavor cigarettes, a metric that would seem to have outlasted both), richly melodic and persistently rewarding, and the cats over at Old Flame, who released Local Losers April 8, are likely feeling pretty smart right now. Mean Creek's set was issued in a limited edition of 300 LPs pressed to 45RPM 12" flat circles of vinyl [get it], as well as CD [boink] and digital download.

Oh, right, that flyer up there... yeah, Mean Creek is having this totally epic release show Friday night in Cambridge, with a ridiculously stacked bill the very sight of which should induce queasiness and/or hyperventilation. When was the last time you saw heavyweights Pile, Ovlov and The Young Leaves all on one bill? We're looking forward to hearing new music from the lot of them, and particularly The Young Leaves, whose 2010 LP Life Underneath -- now available as a free download -- has recently gone back into heavy rotation at Clicky Clicky HQ. And Heliotropes, too? The Brooklyn-based fuzz docents are the wild card act for us, as we have no more than a passing familiarity with them, but, we mean, seriously: just look at that bill. Just look at it. Here's the Facebook event page -- how about we leave you with some streams and we circle back up Friday night at the Middle East? It's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it.

Rock Over Boston: Buffalo Tom 25th Anniversary | Night 3

[Buffalo Tom and guests at the Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA 11/27/2011. Photos by Michael Piantigini.]

Night 1 coverage here and night 2 is here.

"Did you come here to remember, or to forget?" - Buffalo Tom's "It's You"

And so a terrific weekend of sweaty, feedback-drenched rockstalgia came to a close and Buffalo Tom blew out the candles on 25 years. Night 3 didn't have as many surprises and guests as the first two nights, but the diehards - many of whom were there all weekend - didn't need any gimcrackery. The A-level Buffalo Tom set was plenty great on its own. "Fortune Teller," "Sunday Night" and "Torch Singer" (not "Torch Song," as one drunken, confused punter kept asking for Saturday night) were welcome set additions, as was the rarely played "Porchlight." A popular singalong around my household, its rarity is usually blamed on drummer Tom Maginnis' apparent dislike of playing it. To add insult to injury, Janovitz and Colbourn had a lot of fun at his expense, reminding everyone of Maginnis' being the target of Sassy Magazine's "Cute Drummer Alert" back in 1992 (1991? something like that).

It's worth noting that only a couple of songs from their most recent pair of albums got aired and that's a shame. Three Easy Pieces and Skins are as worthy as anything else in the catalog and, as fun as it is to look back, the present ain't exactly slouching (at least where Buffalo Tom is concerned).

An important element was missing all weekend - especially Sunday, the last night: Billy Ruane. A staple at Buffalo Tom shows since the beginning, he could always be counted on to commandeer the stage to exhort the crowd into calling the band back for another encore. They dedicated "Larry" to him last night, but that there was only one encore was in itself a fitting tribute.

There were some pro-looking cameras around on Friday and Saturday, so here's hoping they'll share all that soon.

Buffalo Tom at Brighton Music Hall 11/27/2011:
Tangerine
Staples
Porchlight
Summer
Clobbered
Arise, Watch - with Mike Gent
Fortune teller - with Mike Gent
Sunday Night
Kitchen Door
Would Not Be Denied - with Chris Keene from Mean Creek
Sodajerk - with Aurore Ounjian from Mean Creek
Torch Singer - with Tanya Donelly
Don't Forget Me - with Tanya Donelly
It's You
Late At Night
Velvet Roof
----
Taillights Fade
Seeker - with Mike O'Malley and Mike Gent
Larry
Frozen Lake - with Tanya Donelly
Treehouse

Buffalo Tom: Tubes | Facebook | Twitter

-Michael Piantigini

Playlist: Mean Creek | Bigger Lovers | ACL | Merge | R.E.M.

Ye olde series of tubes is serving up quite a bit of great new (and old) music at the moment, so I thought I'd round some up:

MEAN CREEK: The local flannel rockers have their terrific new Hemophiliac EP up at the low, low price of whatever you wanna pay. This is especially nice of them, since they had to back off their plans to record a full-length when they found themselves without any financial support for the recording. It is entirely self-funded and recorded in NY with John Agnello, who has produced many rocking albums in your collection. So download it, learn it, love it, and then go celebrate it's release this Saturday, 1/29 at the Brighton Music Hall with Taxpayer, Girlfriends, and Dirty Dishes.

Mean Creek: Bandcamp | MySpace | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter |

THE BIGGER LOVERS: This favorite Philly pop outfit called it quits five years ago, apparently leaving their own unfinished EP behind. They've just now got around to finishing it with Papas Fritas-frontman/Jenny Dee and the Delinquents-sideman Tony Goddess behind the board. It's out February 1st, but you can get track #2, called "Little Giant," from it now for nuthin'. The relatedly awesome news is that they're also reissuing their long out-of-print 2001 debut, How I Learned To Stop Worrying, on vinyl (as well as digitally) and WITH bonus tracks, on March 8th. They're doing a hometown gig at Johnny Brenda's on March 12th, and seem to be leaving the future open ended.

The Bigger Lovers: Intertubes | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | MySpace

BUFFALO TOM: These local legends are getting ready to release their new album, Skins, on March 8th as well, and they've already previewed a pair of great tracks on the intertubes: "Arise Watch," and "Guilty Girls." Fortuitously, the BBC has their rockin' July 16,1990 Peel Session at 26:13 into the stream on this page. That's some big-ass SG rock right there. Meanwhile, Bill Janovitz continues his "Cover of the Whenever" series with Merle Haggard and Elvis Costello covers in the past week.

Buffalo Tom: Intertubes | MySpace | Facebook | Twitter
Bill Janovitz: Intertubes | Blog

R.E.M.: They've just announced that they shan't be touring behind their upcoming record, Collapse Into Now - also to be released on March 8th (this is sounding like a really good day). Disappointing, but for now we can take solace in how great the new tracks they've been doling out on-line sound. You can hear "Discoverer," "Oh My Heart," "It Happened Today," and "Mine Smell Like Honey" over at REMHQ right now, and they've just put up "Uberlin" at the HuffPo (for some reason) this morning. So far it's been a mix of the talky vocals of latter-day R.E.M., the edgy guitar return of Accelerate, the catchy poppy moments they managed to squeeze onto the regrettable dark period, and, with "Uberlin" the welcome return of some of the folkier elements of Out of Time and Automatic For The People.

SONIC YOUTH and BLACK KEYS: The PBS institution Austin City Limits has been including more and more indie and alt rock (or whatever genre name you think is appropriate) and making me feel almost as uncomfortable about my age as NPR has by including more and more bands that I like. This week, this means that Sonic Youth is on. You can watch the whole episode that they share with the Black Keys here. Don't be afraid to dig through those archives, either. Lots of great full episodes in there, including recent shows by Cheap Trick, Alejandro Escovedo, and Spoon, as well as 1974's premiere episode with Willie Nelson.

MERGE RECORDS: They really ought to just sell subscriptions where you just get all of their releases, because they've been that consistent. Streaming right now at the Merge homepage are upcoming releases by Apex Manor, the new project by former Broken West guy, Ross Flournoy (which is terrific), and East River Pipe. Meanwhile, label bosses Superchunk have just done a session with Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions (see?!) from which there are also some great videos over here.

-Michael Piantigini