Category Boston Rock City
THE DAZIES: From Blue Skies To Grey (And Back Again)
One of the things I miss most about Boston is the music and the people who make it. Over the span of nearly two decades spent as a music critic and columnist writing about the plethora of sounds emanating from the city, I never stopped being excited about discovering bands and musicians I hadn’t heard […]
EYES EVERYWHERE: Remembering Deep Heaven Now’s Jinsen Liu, Boston’s “Dark Lord of the Shoegazer Scene”
I’m saddened to learn of the death of Jinsen Liu, one of Boston’s most adventurous musicians, listeners, and advocates for a burgeoning, always shape-shifting psychedelic-space-rock scene in and around the city during the first decade of the new millenium. In addition to releasing a clutch of albums with his own lushly textured dream-pop band, 28 […]
A LATE BLOOMER IN FULL FLOWER: Becoming Asa Brebner (1953-2019)
“I don’t believe in God, but I believe in music and sharing that with other people. That’s kind of my religion. If I have a religion, that’s what it is.”
— Asa Brebner
SECRET WINDFALLS & DIAMONDS DOWN THE DRAIN: The Vinyl Skyway’s Long Cool Journey
Time always seemed to stand still whenever one of The Vinyl Skyway’s songs would crackle to life on the radio inside my parents’ car on a cold-as-chrome winter’s afternoon. I remember being 14 and hunched toward the gleaming dashboard dial as if receiving a secret transmission. There was always something inviting, if somehow slightly baleful, […]
Rocking The 617 24-7: Inside the Vortex of a Spectacularly Noisy Universe
It speaks volumes — maybe decibels is a better word — about the consistent musical vitality of this city that I simply could not keep up with all of the adventurous, surprising, inspiring, and thrilling music that reached my ears over the years. But man, I tried.
Absolutely Pre-Fabulous! The Messiahs Trip Back To The Future in Bobb’s Psychedelic Car
Check out the brand spankin’ NEW Pre-Fab Messiahs video here (a fittingly surreal cartoon for these cartoonishly surreal times): https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzAnUJ7MjnZ4&h=ATOPhol0JrD6O-uJnI9KreX528r34HTCMovCwE_-GcVYAUFPBRn7xXgvaKerRizt-v0mdtO9IpcmrpBMcoBDK6YhunvmPxF9lwpMcZwlRLIK8RxY17aevvExkg49PSzn3lW37R5oMoGulrB_G5sYB1w https://theprefabmessiahs.bandcamp.com/ Source: Absolutely Pre-Fabulous! The Messiahs Trip Back To The Future in Bobb’s Psychedelic Car
REGARDING THE END: Life, Death, and The Wondrous World of Robert Fisher’s Willard Grant Conspiracy
Robert Fisher’s Willard Grant Conspiracy conjure a mostly deserted world of long, lingering shadows where guys like Nick Cave and Mark Eitzel brood in a half-light that’s either salvation or damnation — a distinction that depends on whether you think being alone is solitude or isolation. A world where the songs thread through a musty room and gather there like settling smoke. Eventually, if you’re lucky, a cracked window swings open from the wind, bringing a new beam of sound and a fresh light with it to remind you that you’re alive.
CRACKED CHANDLER’S CRAZY CARNIVAL: From Incredible Casuals to Casually Incredible (Try Saying That Three Times Fast!)
“I gave up the idea of thinking I would make any big time dough in the music business a long time ago, and started just loving the fact that I have an obsession,” says Chandler Travis. “I worry about people in life who don’t. I don’t know how you’d get through.”
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT: Rick Berlin, Old Stag In Badville
“In Western culture, if you’re not making money for somebody else, you’re a flop. And I’ve never succeeded, I’ve never made any money doing this, ever. And yet, I’m so compelled to do it. I’m not at the level of Van Gogh, but I think about him.” — Rick Berlin
A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: Listen As RPM: Life In Analog Spins The Sounds At Boston Free Radio!
A post meant as much for listening as reading: I want to give a shout-out and thanks to fellow music junkie and Boston Free Radio “Voices Of Time” host Alan Patterson for inviting “RPM ” (that would be me) to the Internet station’s Somerville studio to spin (and chat about) a few of my favorite things a little […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 