ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9 2010, Boston/Lowell’s GOOSEPIMP ORCHESTRA will set sail toward the hot sunshine of Manchester Tennessee, to take part in one of the largest and loudest music festivals in the world. In proper funk-gypsy style, we have a caravan of our closest friends and freaks with vehicles filled with musical instruments and costumes following the band to BONNAROO 2010. If you are there, and you get bored of JAY-Z or GWAR (what the fuck?!), be sure to check out the WORMTOWN tent and catch Goosepimp hitting it all weekend. 6 sets between Thursday night and Sunday morning.
ALSO, thank you to everyone who came out to the annual STRANGE CREEK campout and music fest last weekend. We had so much fun and enjoyed an incredible amount of talented bands (check out Garage Mahal or The Sam Kininger Band). SEE YOU AT WORMFEST? If you want more Goosepimp, head over to the BOOTLEGS page and download our LIVE AT LOWELL WINTERFEST performance! Thank you Emilie Palmer for the photos.
Get your live music fix! I added a new page called BOOTLEGS, where I will post recordings of live shows. Right now you can hear some bangers from the 2010 Winter Jazz Fest and President Soup’s performance from Centro in Downtown Lowell. Right-click and save the files to your computer! or copy the link and paste it in your browser… I need to set up the link better.
“Blowout status was officially achieved when I saw Nick crowd surfing while playing his guitar in the middle of our set.”
It was in the Fall of 2008 when I spoke to Nick Collela at a party about a new band he was starting with local guerrilla-poet Patrick Shaughnessy. Says he needs a drummer, so I say count me in. We became The Sinbusters. After a year and a half of writing, performing, recording, bringing friends into our band, and having all sorts of fun, I realized I was unable to keep up with the momentous energy and output that these guys want to continue expressing. I had to back out of the band… So as a culmination of the music that we worked so hard on, and the beautiful friends we made along the way, we played a celebration show at PA’s lounge in Somerville, with Ladderlegs, The Kominas, and Venetian Grind on Thursday, April 8 2010. Abe Taber was there to visually document the craziness that ensued, so thanks to him for the pictures.
Our new album is called PRIME BLOWOUT and you can hear it HERE. Thursday’s show was nothing short of a Prime Blowout, which was realized when Ladderlegs and The Kominas started wreaking havoc all over the drunken attendants of the show. Blowout status was officially achieved when I saw Nick crowd surfing while playing his guitar in the middle of our set. During our last song, Basim (The Kominas) and Mike (Sweatpants Symphony) approached me as if to invade my personal space… but what they really did was lift me in the air, along with parts of my drums, so that I rocked out suspended above the crowd.People gathered to support the drum set and help bang on cymbals. Guys, you have no idea how much fun that is. I will die happy.
I wish to extend thanks to many people who helped us out as a band along the way. Firstly, 119 Gallery is where we played most of our shows. It is an amazing space with progressive art always on display, and friendly people inside. Matt Studivan came to the show, and I handed him a CD that he recorded in his basement in Medford. Abe also lives there, and he takes lots of cool pictures at shows. We used his bass rig for the recordings, and tape machine for mixing. Thanks guys! Stephanie Lak lets us rehearse in her room (!!!) almost every week, and that is seriously generous. Brian Redmond mastered our CD at the Fuzzbox, which means he made it louder and more badass than it was in the first place. We played with a lot of bands along the way- Ladderlegs and The Kominas, thanks for sharing Thursday night with us. Ralph Eats Dynamite is still awesome. Streight Angular, I hope you win the Phoenix poll for best new band. The Big Sway, keep it fresh. Hetfield & Hetfield was there when we started- thrash it up!
Thank you to Nick, Patrick, Jen, and Joe for helping me play the craziest, loudest, most honest music I have ever made.
Put Dick Dale and Henry Rollins in the same room, light them on fire, and you might come close to the sound of The Sinbusters. The five of us have been writing songs and playing around Lowell for the past 15 months or so, and now it’s time to show the rest of the world, er, New England, what we’re made of. We just finished our 7 song EP weighing in at 22 minutes, and will push off for a week of shows in four different states starting tomorrow. Here’s the low down:
Thursday, March 18
WELH 88.1 on the Liveblock Brown Student and Community Radio Providence, Rhode Island Tune in @ bsrlive.com 8:00, all ages
Friday, March 19
Sinclair’s Pub West Babylon, NY with Nix 86 and more 9:00, 18+
Saturday, March 20
Heirloom Arts Theater Danbury, Connecticut with Fort! The Band 8:00, all ages
Tuesday, March 23
Midway Cafe Jamacia Plain, Massachusetts With The Big Sway and The Kominas 9:00, 21+
And to celebrate our news, we are sharing the first track off our new album, PRIME BLOWOUT, with all y’all!
Last weekend, the 2010 NYC Winter Jazz Fest kicked off for a two-night exhibition of the finest new musical acts in the city. Over 50 groups were sprawled across 5 stages in the West Village, showcasing their unique sounds and instrumentation. I brought my trusty bootlegger to Kenny’s Castaways and The Bitter End, and taped some of the most memorable performances of the weekend. Download mp3s of The Claudia Quintet (actually a sextet that night), Bobby Previte‘s New Bump Quartet, and Elliott Sharp‘s Terraplane. Right Click and select “Save As.” All recordings captured with a Zoom H4 in Stereo, 44.1/16bit, converted to mp3
The Claudia Quintet (plus one)
January 9, 2010 John Hollenbeck- Drums / Todd Reichmann- Accordion / Chris Speed- Clarinet and Tenor Sax / Matt Moran- Vibraphone / Trevor Dunn- Upright Bass / guest: Gary Versace- Piano
January 9, 2010 Elliott Sharp- Guitar / Eric Mingus – Vocals / Reut Regev – Trombone / Alex Harding- Baritone Sax / Dave Hofstra- Electric Bass / John McKenzie- Drums
Two weekends ago marked a special time for the Lowell music scene with the release of the new Nice Bass/Audio Park collaboration: Lowell & Behold vol.2. Friday night, we broke out the amps and cranked the subwoofers, 7 bands all playing loud and proud. Starting the night off was ONSLO, a trio of epic proportions, full of raw energy and vocal harmonies. For your own sake, please check them out. You will not be let down. Second up were THE SINBUSTERS, the band in which I lose most of my hearing, errr, play drums. As usual, we were not the happiest with our performance, but based on the crowd reaction and the recording (yes, those will be available SOON), I’d say we were pretty tight. Pat was sportin’ some tig ol’ biddies. Up next, the trio featuring local veterans Gabe Cruser and Brandon Downs, with ex-Trip Fisk guitarist Whit Love, rocked their extended poly-rhythmic electro-funk jams. Hearing the instrumental complexity of THREE DUB MICE, sporting synthesizers, foot-triggered loops, and vocal harmonies, it is hard to believe they are only a trio. Watch out for this band, and try to get your hands on a limited copy of one of their releases, Version 1, Version 2, or …Live From The Fallout Shelter. Their instrumental track on the compilation features Alex Toth of Rubblebucket Orchestra. Longtime Lowell band MANIFEST took the stage next, leading the crowd into energetic singalongs and mosh-ful excitement. The security at Gemstones didn’t like that too much. The front man of the heavy metal quintet, Ronnie C, has more than enough stage presence to go around. They have an EP in the final stages, and perform regularly at Mickey’s Irish Pub on Central St. From here, there was no moment of cooling down, as the last three bands brought more energy to the stage than I could even try to describe. THE BIG SWAY‘s instrumental “distortion funk” had people moving feet and bobbing heads. I had the amazing pleasure of getting onstage with my saxophone to wail with these guys on their last track, “The Cheese,” a downright dirty jam full of tri-tone riffs and chromatic squeaks and squonks. They have an EP in the beginning stages, set to be recorded and released in the spring of 2010. BENEATH THE SHEETS never ceases to entertain, coming onstage around 11:30 with their tighter-than-a-baby’s-asshole set. I couldn’t tell if singer Evan Gillis was joking when he said he was feeling a bit under the weather, because from the sound of it, he was on top of his game. They just self-released their debut album Go Easy, It’s My First… for Dirty White Sneaker Productions, so PEEP THAT! Last to rock the joint, Hetfield & Hetfield smashed their way through 10-12 songs (sometimes it’s hard to tell where the opuses begin and end), giving everyone left in the club no choice but to thrash with them. As an instrumental metal trio with a garage full of songs and new ones being crafted all the time, this band has already taken off in the growing Lowell music scene. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for their unique epic thrash doom style. And if you are in a 20 mile radius of any of these previously mentioned bands, you will probably feel their energetic vibrations flowing out to space. MAD PROPS TO: Ali Lipman for taking the beautiful live pictures and Brian Bahia for running sound that night. Check out other bands on the compilation who (sadly) did not play the release parties: LADDERLEGS, THE KOMINAS, LOS BUNGALITOS, OH MY THE MOON, GOOSEPIMP ORCHESTRA, THE BAY STATE, RALPH EATS DYNAMITE, and THE WHALEWATCHERS.
“Bringing all ages shows to the Merrimack Valley” is the motto of this Lowell basement-turned-venue. The low ceilings and graffiti-filled walls make it a welcoming stage to punk and hardcore bands and fans alike, but that is not to say that any exclusive genre is meant to play there. Tom Southerton, promoter and booker of the Ant Cellar, tries to keep it diverse. “But most of the bands that I know are punk or hardcore bands. Plus it’s easier to get them to confirm a show,” he says. TRAGWAG, armed with an acoustic guitar and a banjo, is a regular performer at the Ant Cellar, sometimes playing between sets. Dopapod, one of Boston’s best funk jam bands, got everyone dancing until the wee hours of the night on the first stop of their east coast tour this fall. The people at the Ant Cellar usually have more reasons to celebrate than it being Friday. We have seen birthday bashes, going away parties, and Halloween festivities go down underground. And instead of singing “happy birthday” really out of tune, Dopapod bust into The Beatles version as soon as they heard someone mention it was Fran’s birthday. The positive vibe of the basement is something very special, and for a city with a lot of underground bands but not many places to play, that’s a good thing. Where Tom grew up on the MA North Shore, he frequented The Art Space to see local bands and have a good time. Moving to Lowell, he noticed that most of the venues are 21+ bars and a little out of the way. Now, right off south campus, there is a basement you can walk into, high-five your 18 year old friends, and headbang the night away. Watch out for shows coming up in 2010!
