Today's Hotness: Lemonheads, She, Sir

>> We didn't expect to be learning stuff last Saturday night when we took in the big Varsity Drag show at Midway Cafe, so when fronter (and Lemonheads co-founder) Ben Deily laid out a surprising little history lesson for us, we were caught a bit off guard. We followed up this week with Mr. Deily who graciously reiterated his tale, which concerns one of our favorite Lemonheads songs, "Mallo Cup." When Evan Dando originally brought the song to the band, it bore the title "If Only You Were Dead," the arrangement lacked the metal vamp in the middle, and the chorus had entirely different words. In place of the familiar section that begins "I never will forget," the words instead were "If only you were dead, I'd walk on home, if only you were dead, I'd know I was alone." While Mr. Deily is a big fan of the popular, well-known version of the song, he and Varsity Drag tore through the original version at Midway Cafe Saturday, blowing both our 38-year-old mind as well as what remains lurking within of the mind of the 16-year-old kid who cut the lawn hundreds of times listening to Lemonheads' Lick on cassette. Earlier this fall -- in the wake of news that Deily and Dando were reuniting to create a new Lemonheads record along with Juliana Hatfield and Ryan Adams -- London-based Fire Records announced it will reissue in 2013 that record as well as Lemonheads' debut full-length Hate Your Friends and Creator, which along with Lick are the three records made during Deily's original tenure with Lemonheads. What's more -- and this is where we tie things together, people -- Fire Records issued "Mallo Cup" b/w "Mallo Cup (Live on VPRO 1989)" on "super-limited" edition 7" vinyl Nov. 26 (buy link). That live version is the one found on the tail end of Creator, as fans will likely recognize. It turns out "Mallo Cup" isn't the first Lemonheads single Fire has released; the label, through its Roughneck Records subsidiary, released a single for "Different Drum" in 1990. And that single, incidentally, contains our very favorite Lemonheads b-side "Paint," which was released domestically as part of the Favorite Spanish Dishes EP. While you twiddle your thumbs waiting for those album reissues, why not stream "Mallo Cup" via the embed below?



>> Just as our hunger for new She, Sir jams was rumbling again in the wake of the delicious digital single "You Could Be Tiger" [coverage here], the Austin-based dream pop heroes have announced they will finally release the long-anticipated Go Guitars full length early in 2013 on Japan's Happy Prince Records; the band continues to look for a suitable domestic label situation for the record. But clearly the season of giving is upon us, as the group is also sharing the first single from the planned album, "Condensedindents." The new tune confirms that the act continues its delicate revisions to the tape-saturated noise-pop which first captured our hearts with the brilliant, brilliant 2006 mini-album Who Can’t Say Yes. "Condensedindents" stands apart immediately, as it is marked by She, Sir's signature timeless sonics and composition, but also appropriates signifiers hence unheard. Specifically, there's a smooth, '70s-funk-inspired bass line that mingles with the delay pedals. That single instrument imbues the song with a playful, relaxed bounce that transports She, Sir's dream-pop to the yacht club. Add to this the brief yet effective and creamy guitar strums in the breakdown, and you've got all the makings of another classic from collaborators Russell Karloff and M. Grusha. The duo now works with a steady slate of members including lead guitarist Jeremy Cantrell and drummer David Nathan, both of whom seem to fit seamlessly into the band's aesthetic. She, Sir fans have had to be patient while the band simmered in the studio and practice space in recent years, but the release of Go Guitars is looking and sounding like it will be fine reward for all the good boys and girls that kept the faith. For now, enjoy "Condensedindents" via the embed below. -- Edward Charlton

That Was The Show That Was: Infinity Girl EP Release Show With New Highway Hymnal, Speedy Ortiz and Soccer Mom | TT The Bear's | 5 Dec.

In what seems to be a trend in Boston of late, Wednesday night at TT The Bear's featured a killer lineup worthy of a weekend slot. The occasion was an EP release show for Boston shoegaze quartet Infinity Girl's new Just Like Lovers EP [review]. It was an espcially important show for the band, as its future is presently up in the air, with at least half of the band soon to take up residency outside of Boston's friendly confines. The bill also featured crackling sets from scenemates Soccer Mom, grungy post-punk from Northampton's Speedy Ortiz and Boston-based The New Highway Hymnal's narcotic psych-blues.

Soccer Mom opened the show a little after 9 with a set that included unrecorded material, both "sides" of the foursome's recent digital single, and selections from the band's killer 2011 EP You Are Not Going To Heaven. While their music certainly doesn't shy away from heavy use of noise, it's worth noting that Soccer Mom are particularly loud live. Dan Parlin and William Scales' guitars and their attendant feedback regularly collide and then cut out, leaving an opening for vocals to penetrate the live mix. The 'Mom's newer songs retain the chaotic atmosphere of their older material. The foursome ended its set with songs from their digital single "Brides" b/w "A Canoe Shy;" the latter track and its soaring chorus was particularly impressive.

Speedy Ortiz jumped right into a slew of new songs slated to appear on the band's planned full-length debut; the quartet finished recording the set with Justin Pizzoferrato at his studio Sonelab in Easthampton, Mass. just last week, according to fronter and guitarist Sadie Dupuis. She noted from the stage that certain of the songs in the set were being given their live debut last night. These new tunes fit well within the band's established sound -- sarcastic, awkward verses that give way to big choruses punctuated by dynamic blasts of feedback and heavy drum fills. Speedy Ortiz's lone selection from this year's excellent Sports EP was "Silver Spring," and the live iteration -- complete with a song-ending noise section -- was a highlight of the band's remarkably tight and engaging set. The set closed with a new number touting an extended outro which provided the band an opportunity to nearly destroy their equipment as they ran mic stands and pedals up against their guitars. Wednesday's show is apparently Speedy's last in Boston for a while; the band soon embarks on a short tour with notable Western, Mass. resident Thurston Moore.

Infinity Girl released its triumphant Just Like Lovers EP just past midnight Wednesday morning, but even so it opened its powerful performance with "Please Forget," its typical opening number and a highlight of their full-length debut Stop Being On My Side [review]. Gear issues plagued the opening number, as Mitch Stewart’s bass died almost immediately. Fortunately, Darl from Speedy Ortiz stepped up with a loaner bass and the show went on. Infinity Girl played selections from both Side and Lovers after announcing from the stage that the show was in fact their last for a while, and the set felt like a sort of farewell by the end. The quartet closed with an earth-shaking, nine-minute version of Stop Being On My Side's "Cannons." In its final minutes the song shed its languid groove and climaxed into a titanic cavalcade of noise and feedback, with drummer Sebastian Modak driving the tempo faster and faster as Mr. Stewart stabbed at his bass and fronter Nolan Eley pogoed as he exorcised feedback from his guitar, ultimately sliding his guitar back and forth across the stage by its strap. The players embraced after the cacaphony subsided.

The New Highway Hymnal had the unenviable task of following that set, but made short work of seizing the crowd's attention with its focused, harrowing live renderings of songs from the recently released long-player Whispers. Between the hypnotic groove of the trio's formidable rhythm section, fronter Hadden Stemp's possessed stage persona and spine-tingling yelps, and the shifting psychedelic light show, The New Highway Hymnal was able to skillfully transport the crowd at TT's with its dark, hip-shaking tunes. -- Dillon Riley, Correspondent

Review: Infinity Girl | Just Like Lovers EP

[UPDATED] Boston shoegaze behemoth Infinity Girl with its latest EP of cacaphonous dream pop puts a big exclamation point on a break-out year for the quartet. It's easy to forget that a year ago the band was just getting off the ground, and as recently as seven months ago few even knew who these guys were. But with the unexpected materialization of its brilliant full-length debut Stop Being On My Side last spring, Infinity Girl began a meteoric rise into the vanguard of the city's guitar bands. Just Like Lovers, given the relatively short time it germinated and how closely it comes in the wake of that long-player (although most if not all of its songs are already live staples), is a surprisingly large and well-defined step forward for Infinity Girl, one that suggests the band may only be beginning to tap a great potential.

Opener "Untitled (July)" commences with a My Bloody Valentine-esque swirl of guitars and a stuttering beat. Lush, effected guitars drape over everything, burying the drum kit and threatening to levitate up off the rhythm tracks altogether as they sensuously shift across one another like layers of diaphanous tulle. "Taking Nothing" touts gentle vocals that recall Brooklyn's late, great Dirty On Purpose, but the most compelling aspect of the tune is the crushing loud-quiet dynamics that move drummer Sebastian Modak's steady work behind the kit to the fore as he powers tidal waves of drop-tuned guitars spangled by guitarist Kyle Oppenheimer's helical leads. EP closer "Not My Hang," featuring what we believe to be the first recorded lead vocal by Mr. Oppenheimer, is blurry, bending and beautiful, and perhaps I-Girl's most sophisticated composition to date. The song's final moments when rendered live are cataclysmic; the mayhem is necessarily reigned in on the recorded version to non-ear-bleeding levels, but nonetheless is both quite affecting and a suitable end to a collection of songs.

Like the first Ringo Deathstarr EP, Just Like Lovers is so very enjoyable and brief you will just play the thing over and over, until the songs just play over and over in your head. Just Like Lovers captures the sound of Infinity Girl reaching farther, with more crystalline production highlighting arrays of guitars deftly arranged around soft or spectral vocals. With the impressive progress the band has logged in such a short period, fans can only hope that its development won't be arrested by the temporary departure of Mr. Modak, who will be out of the drum stool for much of 2013 while he pursues other interests. Infinity Girl self-releases Just Like Lovers tomorrow; our friends at WFNX.com premiered it in its entirety earlier this evening. The EP is being feted tomorrow night with a killer show at TT The Bear's that includes sets from the mighty Soccer Mom, Speedy Ortiz and The New Highway Hymnal; all the details are at the Facebook event page right here.



Selected Previous Infinity Girl Coverage:
And Then This Happened: Infinity Girl, Young Adults Blitzkrieg TT The Bear's
Forever Now: The Infinity Girl Interview
Review: Infinity Girl | Stop Being On My Side

Infinity Girl: Internets | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube

On Giving

It's folly to even attempt to make a comprehensive accounting of all the good, as in altruistic, things people are doing to help others within and without the Boston music scene right now. While it isn't played up so much as to be in your face, and while we have very mixed feelings about awards shows, even tonight's Boston Music Awards serves a charitable function: proceeds from the event go to a local car salesman's Music Drives Us Foundation, which provides funding for music education programs. Music education: that's certainly something we feel is worth-while, something that pays dividends for kids long into the future (and something we support through an annual gift, in honor of our aunt, to the Chester Children's Chorus). The Boston Music Awards is a big, high-profile production with lots of media support, but there are smaller efforts here in Boston as well. Take the grassroots effort to help Cambridge-based electronic music luminary Andre Obin get back up and running after an electrical fire at his apartment left him homeless and without a lot of his gear. Vanya Records is selling an 18-song comp, a tidy documentation of a slice of the scene here in Boston, with all proceeds going directly to Mr. Obin; stream the comp Friends Of Andre via the embed below, and click through the purchase. Another local effort is Sleepover Shows' annual charity auction, that ends today, making our reference to it here something of a "day-late-dollar-short" situation. But theirs is an *annual* charity auction, so remember to look for what they've got on offer when next year rolls around.



There's Boston Band Crush's Holiday Spectacular, which plays host to four bands Dec. 14 at Brighton Music Hall. The event includes a toy drive being run by Boston Emissions' Anngelle Wood. As the esteemed Richard Bouchard of BBC states here, "[The toy drive's] biggest need is presents for teens, so gift cards, music, stuff like that, and they serve people of all ages, so toys and games are good too. Please, if you can, bring a new, unwrapped gift to the merch table, Anngelle will get it where it needs to go." So, instead of buying that extra round of drinks this week or next, why not put the money toward a toy that will give a kid looking at the prospect of a sub-optimal Christmas a reason to smile. Here's the Facebook event page for the Boston Band Crush Holiday Spectacular.

As we mentioned supra, good deeds are being done everywhere, you needn't look hard, although perhaps you'd have to look a little further afield to find this one. Turn your focus for a moment, if you will, to our friends at the classy disaster of a record label Audio Antihero. We will bet you whatever you'd like to bet that the proprietor of the esteemed London-based indie label has donated over the last few years 10 times more money to the various charities he supports than the label has taken in as revenues. This year proprietor Jamie Halliday has put together a compilation titled The Hüsker Doo​-​wop EP. The short set is available here for a limited time only and features exclusive and rare music from the Audio Antihero stable of artists. Proceeds from the sale of this collection go toward Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. The comp opens with Nosferatu D2's Ben Parker talking about eating glass and pissing the bed, and it gets even better from there. The EP also includes a creaking freak-out from the equally genius Benjamin Shaw (whose record There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet was our second favorite album of 2011), as well as a throbbing rocker from Watford, England-based grunge messiahs Wartgore Hellsnicker. Stream the entire EP via the embed below. And while you're doing that, take some time to think about what you might be able to do this winter to help people in your community who are struggling to get by. Whatever you do or don't do, our larger point is this: if you've got the gumption, you don't have to look far to find opportunities to help out while getting your rock fix this year. So come on.

Varsity Drag, The Suicide Dolls, Unholy III and The I Want You | Midway Cafe, JP | 1 Dec.

Rock fans, lend us your ears. Yes, yes, we stole the image above, for you young people that there is a detail of the cover art from AC/DC's brilliant 1976 set Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. But that's not why we've called you here. You are no doubt aware of the big, big rock show tomorrow evening, that being the apparently not-yet-sold-out Dinosaur Jr. bill at The Paradise, a show that will most certainly sell out now that The Sinclair has had to postpone the competing Titus Andronicus bill. But perhaps you are less familiar with your options for Saturday? This will not stand, because there is a mighty, mighty show occurring down in Jamaica Plain at Midway Cafe Saturday night.

Top-lining the evening are indie punk stalwarts Varsity Drag, Clicky Clicky faves who many readers likely saw early this month delivering a dominating set -- basically spur-of-the-moment -- at the big Clicky Clicky Community Servings Benefit Show. We heard two new numbers from Ben Deily and his henchpersons that night, and the band is promising to play some other newies this weekend to boot. Varsity Drag has recently gone back into the studio with storied producer Tom Hamilton, so it would seem the beast is stirring once more. Speaking of things beastly, that brings us to the main support for the night, Connecticut's own stoner punks The Suicide Dolls, who impressed us greatly -- particularly their totally sick drummer -- at the Tiger Mountain show in September. Also performing Saturday are The Unholy III, which features punk lifer Kevin Stephenson formerly of The Shods and et cetera, as well as garagey Boston upstarts The I Want You, whose recent video for the tune "Three Short Days" kept us amused for easily about that long a few weeks ago. Let us not belabor the point. This is going to be a hot one. Hit the embeds below for a taste of what you've got coming to you, then click over to the Facebook event page to digest the deets and pledge your allegiance.

Today's Hotness: Hush Delirium, Infinity Girl

>> While certain indie rock elder statesperson are content to mount nostalgic (and sometimes quite lucrative) reunion shows, Mark Gardener of early 90's British shoegaze titans Ride has taken an interesting alternate route. After an "exile" from music following the dissolution of Ride, and with only sporadic forays since, Mr. Gardener has returned -- not with a band, however, but rather as co-curator of a music and art collective called Hush Delirium. The cohort's aptly titled debut The Taster is a self-released effort (and for a limited time, free to download here) bearing a nifty premise. Musicians within the collective each compose an atmospheric piece that is then used as inspiration for a painting. The result is a multimedia installation that tours galleries bringing shoegaze-inspired aural headspace to arts patrons, and presumably anyone else who walks through the door. Among others, the collective features the art of Hush Delirium founder Simon Welford, whose artwork is likely familiar to Ride fans. Other participating musicians include Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, Aziz Ibrahim of The Stone Roses and Dean Garcia of Curve, making this elite new club one of the swirliest and psychedelic currently going. Gardener's own piece on The Taster, "3rd Floor Elevation," grooves on a Brian Jonestown Massacre-styled, heroin-cool groove, while Mr. Ibrahim's "Heavens Rain" is a meditative sitar instrumental that echoes the wanderings of The Rolling Stones circa Their Satanic Majesties Request. The Cult of Dom Keller and SPC ECO (a moniker used by the aforementioned Mr. Garcia) turn in more traditional songs. One of the real gems on this set, however, is Jaq Gallier's rainy, female-led "Wild Is The Wind." Opening with ambient vocal sibilance and lilting background hums, the brief, almost-folksy tune works marvels with a gentle minimalism. Overall, The Taster is a great introduction to a hopefully thriving multimedia enterprise from an exciting community of artists merging their influences and styles as a means of looking forward instead of back. -- Edward Charlton



>> Boston-based shoegaze giants Infinity Girl today revealed details about a forthcoming EP. The quartet will self-release next week the short collection Just Like Lovers, which includes five songs and is the band's second official release of the year; the quartet issued its brilliant full-length debut Stop Being On My Side in May [review]. The new set (whose cover art you can inspect here) includes the tunes "Untitled (July)," "Taking Nothing," "Read Yr Mind," "Summer Gold" and "Not My Hang," and it will be feted with a sure-to-be-tremendous release show next week featuring Boston(-area) scene luminaries including power blues drone lords The New Highway Hymnal, noise rock behemoths Soccer Mom and the brilliant guitar wranglers Speedy Ortiz, who Monday celebrated the anniversary of the band's very first show. The release show next week at TT The Bear's Place in Cambridge, Mass., may be one of the few remaining times we'll see Infinity Girl before drummer Sebastian Modak leaves the country for an extended period, so all the more reason to get out and see this ridiculously great slate of bands. Full details of the show are at this Facebook event page, so click over and pledge your allegiance. We are given to understand that Just Like Lovers will be mastered between now and next week, and we hope to have some sort of music to share with you before too long. In the meantime, there's always Stop Being On My Side, which we encourage you to revisit via the embed below.

Rock Over Boston: Ted Leo With Bent Shapes | 26 Nov.

[Ted Leo and Bent Shapes at a house show in Brighton, MA to benefit 826 Boston on 11/26/2012. Photos by Michael Piantigini.]