1.
Middle East Downstairs
Headlining Bands: Black Lips, Sunset Rubdown, The Walkmen, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, King Khan & BBQ Show
2.
Great Scott
Headlining Bands: Handsome Furs, Head Automatica, Warlocks, Rifles, Wavves
3.
Harpers Ferry
Headlining Bands: Jay Reatard, Trevor Hall
Honorable Mentions: Paradise Rock Club (Arctic Monkeys, King Khan & Shrines), House of Blues (Animal Collective, Arctic Monkeys), Wilbur Theatre (Sonic Youth), and Wang Theatre (Pixies).
By: Glen
1.
Bands: Black Lips/Gentleman Jesse & His Men/Mean Creek
Venue: Middle East Downstairs
Date: March 7, 2009
Grade: A+
Comment: Meeting Cole before the gig. Getting handed beers from Ian. My favorite band playing all my favorite classics. Great mix of moshing and positive crowd interaction.
2.
Bands: King Khan & The Shrines/Mark Sultan/Homosexuals
Venue: Paradise Rock Club
Date: May 14, 2009
Grade: A+
Comment: Khan is a legend of a performer. He really got the entire room energized. Everybody was grooving and singing along to his sexually provocative lyrics. It’s too bad that I wasn’t able to appreciate Mark as much as I wish I could have at the time.
3.
Bands: No Age/The Beets/Lemonade
Venue: Wellesley College
Date: April 2, 2009
Grade: A+
Comments: Met Randy and Dean before the show. Hugged them after the show. The show itself? Fantastic. By the end, I was all sweaty from jumping around like crazy in between Dean’s drum-kit and Randy’s guitar set-up. A plus was that I recognized every single song that they played.
4.
Bands: KK+BBQ/Dum Dum Girls/Downbeat 5
Venue: Middle East Downstairs
Date: October 29, 2009
Grade: A+
Comments: Like I said before, Khan is a legendary performer. BBQ is a master at all three of his crafts: vocals, guitar, and drums. Combine the two and what do you get? A thing of beauty. Rockin’ out and singing along, always.
5.
Bands: Jay Reatard/Nobunny/Hunx and His Punx/Box Elders/Useless Eaters
Venue: Harpers Ferry
Date: October 2, 2009
Grade: A+
Comments: Quite the freaking bill, huh? I witnessed the greatest overall opening experience at this gig because garage-pop has that sort of effect. And what about Jay? His music was tight and this time around I really was able to connect with a greater majority of his songs than before. F-U-N times.
6. Walkmen/Here We Go Magic/The Dig – Middle East Downstairs – September 19, 2009 – Grade: A+
7. Arctic Monkeys/Screaming Females – House of Blues – December 13, 2009 – Grade: A
8. Pixies/Jay Reatard – Wang Theatre – November 27, 2009 – Grade: A
9. Sonic Youth/The Feelies – Wilbur Theatre – November 22, 2009 – Grade: A
10. The Rifles/Mike Fiore – Great Scott – September 23, 2009 – Grade: A
…..TO WRITE WITH THE KLYAM IN OUR GLORIOUS, REVOLUTIONARY DUTY TO PRESENT BIASED, SUBJECTIVE, UNDERGROUND PROPAGANDA TO THE ROBOTIC MASSES! JOIN THE UNDERGROUND, INDEPENDENT MEDIA AND HELP DISMANTLE THE VILE, CORPORATE, MAINSTREAM MEDIA. IT’S US AGAINST THEM: OUR PROPANDA VS THEIR PROPAGANDA.WE NEED GIRLS BECAUSE IT’S A FUCKING SAUSAGE FEST HAHA, BUT SERIOUSLY GIRLS, GUYS, HERMAPHRODITES, IT’S ALL GOOD. JUST JOIN TODAY!
DON’T MAKE ME START DRAFTIN’ YOU KIDDIES!
Chris
I saw an advertisement for Volvo cars that utilizes classical conditioning to excite customers about their products. The ad conditions its viewers to get “excited” when they see Volvo cars like they get “excited” for sex. Specifically, the ad features a parking brake in its upward position to resemble an erect penis, this is accompanied by the caption, “We Are Just As Excited As You Are.” The marketers are aiming at the 16-40 year old male demographic. They hope guys will learn to associate the company’s automobiles with horniness, so they will go out and buy them. Fuckers… why they can’t just associate horniess with big black boots like fine, upstanding, citizens.
Chris
Cool bands (in alphabetical order?) that I discovered for the first time in 2009. Rule: they must not have been formed in 2009/must not have released their first record in 2009. Anything questionable, I didn’t include. And no doubts that I forgot some.
– Atlas Sound
– Black Moth Super Rainbow
– Bloodshot Bill
– Bobby Ubangi
– Box Elders
– Galaxie 500
– Mika Miko
– Portugal. The Man
– Thee Oh Sees
Band: Wesley Willis
Year: Various
Label: Alternative Tentacles
Comments: Wesley Willis was (death, 2003) a joke. The man himself was not a joke…in fact, he was a paranoid schizophrenic who consistently had to deal with the “Warhellride,” or demonic encounters. He was a great story teller, as evidenced in many of the songs in this collection. Wesley was a master at combining vivid descriptions with catchy (but, very monotonous) outsider pop riffs and phrases. Go to his Wikipedia page and there you find how his songs are structured. This is precisely what makes Wesley’s music a joke. He built a career out of ranting over music. You don’t get a lot of that from musicians today and that’s why people will always react to his music in a wtf kind of manner. Whereas critics say fellow outsider Daniel Johnston’s music ranges from “spotty to brilliant,” Willis doesn’t fit on a paradigm that’s worth evaluating. How do you judge a man who can’t be judged? The demons got to him and got to him damn well at that. If I absolutely absolutely absolutely had to slap a grade range on his Greatest Hits, I’d probably dish out between a C+ and a B. It’s music for a good laugh now and then…not the kind that’s constantly on repeat. Rest in peace, Wes.
*Rough Trade Records named this the top album of 2009. But is it? In my never ending quest to find great music, I am reviewing this LP! But wait…I already named my top 5 albums of 2009. That’s tentative, though. So let’s see about this.
Band: The xx
Label: Young Turks
Release: 2009
1. “Intro” – 9.0
2. “VCR” – 9.4
3. “Crystalized” – 9.7
4. “Islands” – 8.2
5. “Fantasy” – 7.8
6. “Shelter” – 8.1
7. “Basic Space” – 8.8
8. “Infinity” – 9.3
9. “Night Time” – 8.5
10. “Stars” – 8.9
Comments: This is the first band to actually cause my sub-woofer to make crazy ass noises. There are some pretty cool beats and stuff like that, but this record isn’t that special. Vocals are kind of shabby and not really unique at all. The “chill-wave” that this record embodies is limited in the sense that you can only stare at your shoes for so long before you fall asleep. In essence, the only things that save this from mainstream success are the male vocals and the consistent darkness and ambiance. Pop music usually doesn’t regard the latter as positive or particularly marketable. And to some degree, I can see a lot of independent-minded people shunning this kind of music or writing it off as done before, or what have you. The album begins to crumble after the third song, but there are some cool spots after that.
Grade: 8.7
This is a new song…that presumably will be included on their next LP. I dig.
Okay, so this survey does have some degree of error. Like…people might be multi-racial or maybe I was flat-out wrong in my observation. Anyway, here are the results for a twenty minute observational session of students at Bunker Hill Community College who walked passed me on the lower level.
BHCC Statement: Students of color comprise over 50% of student population.
My Observations
Total: 89 students
Black: 24 students (27%)
White: 36 students (40%)
Asian/Indian: 23 students (26%)
Hispanic: 6 students (7%)
My Conclusion: Students of color comprise 60% of student population.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 