BUBBLES IN THE THINK TANK presents

The Petite 7 Inch Record    6-song vinyl record

"Bubbles...” is a weekly show on WMFO, with hostesses Belinda and January Fairy. The record is purple, plays at 33-1/3 RPM, and comes with a download link that includes extra tracks. 300 were made, more than half are already gone, and I’m not surprised. It’s a microcosm of one big family tree of sorts, connecting all the acts (and many others, as well as fans) with long, deep roots stretching back a good thirty years plus. Most everyone involved knows or has worked with any number of others along a given branch at some point, regardless of home base. Who knew that those proverbial six degrees separated Ray Mason from Birdsongs of the Mesozoic? Or the Spampinato Brothers from singing TV sock puppets? And on it goes. The scenario deserves an extensive article of its own, but if you had to narrow it all down to one commonality in this case, it would be the simple, underlying sweetness here, so warm you can feel it. By not shooting for epic or whimsy, they somehow ended up with epic whimsy. Oh, and every song is about records. And, it rocks. The liner notes guy says it best: “Just listen. You can actually hear the fun that the artists are having.” Well, that’s just for starters. 

Bubbles in the Think Tank

[Editor's note: It didn't make the mag, but the record is dedicated to the memory of NRBQ drummer Tommy Ardolino, which could not possibly be more fitting.] 

THE SPAMPINATO BROTHERS, DJ EASY ED

Midway Café, Jamaica Plain MA   4/13/12

Props must be dished out (like platters, Daddy-O) to DJ Easy Ed, who could create a party atmosphere in an empty broom closet, but graciously brings it around to other places I hang out in too. If you enjoy rockabilly, truckin’ and drinkin’ songs, and likeminded honky-tonkin’ (emphasis on honky), and Roy Sludge is predisposed, Ed’s your man. His weekly show airs Friday nights on WMFO, and you’d be most wise to hire him for any upcoming sock-hops, BBQs, clambakes, weddings, class reunions, baptisms, you get the picture, trust me.

As good a mood as Ed has already laid on me, I’m fully unprepared for The Spamps. With members of NRBQ, The Incredible Casuals, and a drummer whose history crosses all known boundaries, I knew they’d be tremendous. By the third tune, they’ve left “tremendous” in the dust. A bittersweet ballad here, a gospel-worthy thumper there, a sparkly pop jewel followed by an ass-whomping stampede of staccato guitars, heart-thumping bass, flailing rhythms, and laser-cut harmonies. As with so many of their other projects, this is nothing short of a history lesson. I’m overjoyed and exhausted at once. Everyone’s beaming. The band’s gotta be spent after all this. So what do they do? They come out and play a second set that actually dwarfs the first. On one hand, I’m nothing but grateful. On the other, they raise the bar to such absurd degrees, I know that little (if anything) else I see this year will measure up. Not one second of this has been mailed in. To create a vibe this uplifting is hard work. That’s the reason I still even bother, and all you fractious, sub-sub-sub-genre wannabe radio stars, take note: If your crowd doesn’t leave feeling better than when they came in, really, what the fuck’s the point?  

[Photo snabbed elsewhere, photographer unknown]

DIRTY BOMBS - Alpha Transmission, 6-track CD

Five songs, really, with actual radio transmissions as intro and outro. Members of Conservative Man, Televandals, and The Luxury join considerable forces to produce a concept which cohort Jason Dunn describes thusly: “…The band [as] a socially subversive sleeper cell operating a pirate radio station from our hidden bunker…consists of subtle recruitment messages, warnings, sarcastic admonitions to power, revolution, destruction…a post-electro/ britpop/ slightly punk vibe, very dark but very danceable, songs about terror/ Armageddon/ crime/ despots…” Sound pretentious? Guess again. Concept or no, it’s ultimately about the songs, and there isn’t a wasted note among them. They soar and dive, crash and burn, compel and baffle (a bit). You find yourself wondering what exactly’s going on, but it scarcely matters. Create your own mindscape, it’ll work just as well. It’s a vast bumload more pure fun than the descriptions might suggest. I was left wanting more. LOTS more. Now there’s a concept more bands should get behind. Dunn handed out 20 demos at a gathering late last year. Within two days, The Phoenix featured them as Download Of The Week, with other outlets calling them “a supergroup.” The official release date/ party is at Great Scott (where they’ll recreate the bunker and more), on 11-11-11, with a set at 11:11 PM. It’s a conspiracy, y’see. Believe the hype, comrades.  

[Logo courtesy of http://www.danatkins.com/]

Yep, that Johnny Angel rejoins the game with a whole ’nother approach, and it’s as solid a front-to-back listen as you could ask for. He’s said that he makes music for grown-ups now. True enough, but he hasn’t forsaken the occasional wiseass lyric when called for. Who else could employ a non-smarmy “Sha-la-la” chorus and then mention “the ass-hat below” (the downstairs neighbor of the gal he’s banging), while never shooting for shtick? Many songs are based on true experience, and it feels like it. Loves lost and found, vividly-rendered characters from the party days, best-forgotten and never-forgotten flings are treated with equal compassion AND kick. “Vampire In Los Angeles” is about the typical music industry leech. “September In New England” proves that, despite having left us 22 years ago, he never forgot where he came from. The music is warm and gentle, but never limp or self-serving. As full and rich as anything with ten times the budget and overbaked ideas, but not the least bit sparse. And a good amount of it rocks, just without pummeling. Customer reviews alone have cited The Stones, Marshall Crenshaw, Gram Parsons, Doug Sahm, Tom Petty, Big Star, Mink DeVille, Willie Nelson, etc., while never noting hundreds of lesser acts mining similar territory. That speaks volumes, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s the real deal. Visit the Facebook fan page (full name as above) to snab one. Also available HERE.

BEHOLDEN TO THEE: JJ Rassler & Thee Cuban Heels

On the, uh, heels of their sparkling release, Behold! (Green Mist Records, Issue #313), I was lucky enough to get the straight poop from the members, who explain not only their sense of history, but their own place within it as regards the bigger picture. It all comes together on the disc; a seamless, lovingly-crafted homage to some of their biggest inspirations, while remaining a fresh-baked original recipe all its own, with no filler or flat-out mimicry. A pretty fuckin’ tall order, if you ask me. But they say it much better than I could, so here you go:

THE IN OUT (Sell You Records) - The Venal Column, 13-song 12-inch vinyl LP with download pass

It can be fun trying to describe the indescribable, but sometimes you’ve just gotta step outta the ring. So it is again with these baffling bastards, who can send skulls spinning to unknown worlds on a whim and make it sound as natural as breathing. Some say it’s minimalist, but the open spaces allow for massive interpretation. Forces it, actually. I hit them up for lyrics this time, and got stuff about the terminally ill, the 1919 Boston molasses flood, a talentless line cook, winks to obscure films and bands from the 70’s, parties gone wrong, blood, brains, with none of it quirky or predictable. The groove itself here, which is pretty fucking deep, has a decidedly dark tinge, but it’s not heavy in the usual sense, which makes it all the heavier. Riffs and execution are insidious and airtight. For a trio with the occasional curveball sound effect, they infect the mindscape with methods few bands of any ilk would dare attempt. One of those things where, when it’s not actually playing, I find myself thinking about where it’ll take me next time. And sure enough, it’s always a different place. I can think of no higher praise. 

JJ RASSLER & THEE CUBAN HEELS (Green Mist Records) - Behold!, 14 song CD

Rassler is a founder and longtime veteran of this “scene” (as much as I hate the term), but this is practically a scene unto itself. About half originals and half obscure covers (okay, one not so obscure, but they give it a brand new life), there’s stuff that smacks of garage, surf, soul, proto-psych, British invasion and teen-beat, straight-up raunch and lots more, yet it never lapses into retro-chic shtick (and any genres not represented are not missed for a second). This is exactly the kind of thing I wait for all year, and I’ve yet to play it once without hitting “repeat” at least once. Songs, sequence, arrangements, playing, and production are all tops. You can also hear that they take it far too seriously to ever get all serious about it, which is fucking crucial. Heartfelt but never sappy, breezy but deceptively powerful, tight but with plenty of breathing room, it nods to its influences without slavishly aping them. This is NOT easy to pull off, but they sure make it sound that way. I’ve said it before, but it ain’t nostalgia when the shit was timeless in the first place. A rare and special gem, and we’re lucky to have ’em. Thanks, you guys!  

[Photo by Michael Wagner]

HIP TANAKA (REUNION), THE LUXURY   Great Scott, 4-23-11

I arrive late, missing openers Marconi, and all but a few songs from the tireless Thee Day Threshold. TDT are often unfairly pigeonholed as cowpunk, but there’s a hundred more things going on here. Their stuff is also pegged as drinking music, which is fine, but when it works just as well for teetotalers, even better. Everyone plays their tits off, and from what I’ve seen over the years, they’re constitutionally incapable of mailing it in. They mean it, and they back it up on all fronts. And they’re always at it, with hundreds of shows a year, all over the world. They can be exhausting, and I mean that in the best way.

Speaking of vision and not fucking around, The Luxury strafe the joint with a set of loud, hard [insert: grand, sweeping, soaring, breathless, heart-stopping, etc.] ultra-melodic (and harmonic) rock that’s meticulously arranged, full of surprises, tight as a straitjacket, and delivered via pneumatic drill. The hipsters who think they’re “too mainstream” don’t deserve them anyway. Mainstream is for lazy minds. The Luxury are accessible---big difference---in ways that offer something for nearly everyone. Their sound could overwhelm a stadium, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it does, sooner than later. Every song sounds like a hit. I tried to think of a remote comparison, and there ain’t one. That says it all.

Like a wave of Mongols sent in to pillage the survivors, Hip Tanaka infect the brain from a completely different, yet equally monstrous angle. You don’t know where they’re going, but you sure know who’s driving. Songs from all their releases are played (free downloads for the searching, by the way), so it’s an avalanche of choice headfuckery, but their arsenal of curveballs is NEVER misthrown or overplayed. They’re insane and intelligent in combinations otherwise unheard, but don’t come off for a second as “aren’t-we-clever?” There’s plenty of room for interpretation, which most bands this cerebral / visceral flatly refuse to give you. Many songs are murderously catchy, seemingly in spite of themselves. There is bombast, beauty, irony, painstaking precision, shambles, humor, pathos, megachops (drummer Rich Adkins is as sick a player as you’ll ever hear), and lotsa dangerous thunder, but somehow it all remains organic. No tidy packages or explanations here. Hiroshima may have been laid to waste, but a lotta mad genius love went into that bomb.

THE FATHOMS   Midway Café, 5-14-11

The event is billed as “Polynesian Pounce Night,” and this scruffy, blue-collar joint-of-all-joints has undergone a makeover of mythical magnitude. Think of Don Ho hosting “Kitchen Nightmares.” Festively festooned with a truckload’s worth of inflatable palm trees, flamingos and life preservers, tiki torches (with fake flames, natch), tiki fixtures and figurines, enormous tropical murals everywhere, a DJ spinning all manner of Hawaiian hoo-hah, an exotic drink menu (including one served in actual hollowed-out pineapples), vendors selling ingenious handcrafted kitsch, a pulled pork sandwich station ($3, or 2 for $5, and worth twice that), and much, much more. Patrons are decked out in grass skirts (and often little else), and it’s fair to say that everyone in here has already gotten lei’d. The only thing missing is Jungle Rot. And all that would have been more than enough, but Frankie Blandino (Crank-Tones, Spurs, etc.) has assembled a 5-piece (with sax) edition of The Fathoms, the region’s premiere surf-instro act, for a rare and tumultuous appearance. In addition to their timeless originals, some wildly unexpected covers (with vocals, even) are given the twang treatment over the course of two generous sets that have everyone Watusi-in’ whether they mean to or not. More fun than mere mortals deserve, and the best news is, it might become a regular thing.

[Pic snabbed  from elsewhere, photgrapher unknown]

THE WEISSTRONAUTS (Sool Recordings) - In Memphis, 4-song CD

Says it’s recorded live “including the guitar solos” (even though additional recording IS used), but it’s live-in-the-studio. Which is fine, but I’m curious as to 1) What’s with the bearded guy in the blond wig and white dress? 2) Why cover “Ode to Billy Joe” and not employ the lyrics, without which the song is even more useless? 3) Were there no studios available locally? Seems like quite a long schlep to do something so relentlessly innocuous. It’s not like the spirit of Elvis came floating outta the speakers or anything. Four instros, two of them based around 12-bar riffs, one that reminded me of “The Stripper” for a few seconds, and one with vibraphone and genuine atmosphere (George Hall’s “Exit Sandman”), which is the sole keeper here, not unlike an even-spookier “Harlem Nocturne,” as my fellow geezers might note. Great playing, I’m just not sure to what end. The upshot is, they only made 300.

RICK BERLIN (Hi-N-Dry) - Paper Airplane, 13-song CD

Rick Berlin doesn’t make records. He makes movies. I called his last one a masterpiece, and this pretty much dwarfs it. A true architect, his songs are full of surprises, but he never kitchen-sinks you to death. You wonder how he decided on some of these arrangements, and soon realize nothing else would have worked as well. And while never overstated, it’s impossible to have on as background music. And this is before even considering the lyrics, which are heart-wrenching, sung from the pit of the soul, and 100% schmaltz-free. Word limits prevent me from describing track-by-track why each is suitable for framing, but there’s a chanty, a Tom Waits-ian cabaret number which is made more theatrical by its very lack of theatrics, even a flannel-shirted thing the yahoos will enjoy that sounds like Molly Hatchett unplugged, but it’s not a joke. I can think of---maybe---a dozen artists who can pack this much emotional wallop without over-reaching at some point. In over 30 years of seeing him play, in all kinds of formats, I’ve never once felt he was selling the tortured artiste (which he could pull off in his sleep and make fly), but the material, and the integrity he accords it, speaks for itself.

MATT BUNSEN AND THE BURNERS - Greatest Hits, 10-song CD

Recorded on both coasts and featuring lots of well-known locals, they say here that they're difficult to pigeonhole. Not at all. By their own admission, it's largely a novelty record and, despite their claim to be "genre-hopping," mostly uses country rock as a springboard. They tag one ("Drugs Make Me Happy") as a swing tune, and say that it made it to the finals of the International Songwriting Competition. (The mind reels at the thought of what kind of ungodly entries didn't make the cut.) There's an honest-to-God Carpenters cover here which manages to make me long for the original, and they throw the guitar lick from the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" into it, which I could only take as a personal insult. The music is appropriately slick, but the lyrics are often shamefully Junior High. I'm all for bands having their fun, but I'll never understand why those who can play at these accomplished levels would squander the time and resources to pinch off D-grade Al Yankovic knockoffs when they could do something truly lasting.    

THE DAVID WAX MUSEUM - Carpenter Bird, 12-song CD

They tour as a four-piece, but including guest spots, this bugger has acoustic guitar, mandolin, dobro, fiddle, pump organ, banjo, vocals, woodwinds, horns, and something called a jarana jarocha. I still learn stuff occasionally. You won't learn anything huge from this record, but that's fine, and not the idea anyway. Someone once said, "There's good genre stuff, and bad genre stuff," and this is not bad. It ain't your average folk thing, since it's fairly informed by the main guy's time spent in Mexico. So while some of it has (among other things) an actual Mariachi tinge, it's not that mindlessly happy stuff you hear blarin' outta the low-riders with the fuzzy dice, by a longshot. (Conversely, I'm not sure a quote such as, "The David Wax Museum has been causing a ruckus in living rooms and backyards throughout the country" is something you wanna crow in your press sheet.) Not my thing, but they possess that rare no-bullshit quality where you just know you're not being hustled. The more naked the sound, the harder it is to fake it. If you like the kinda instrumental lineup noted above, doing subdued, non-precious boondocky stuff, you're good.

TRISTAN DA CUNHA - Irrevolution, 8-song CD

I trashed these guys a few releases ago, and was pleased to see the review on their site. Seriously. Most bands won't go there. And I was gonna take the cheap route and and just reprint it here, with the disclaimer, "because it's the same record," which I thought for sure it would be. It's not, though. What irked me about that other one is done a thousand times over here, but I gotta admit some newfound perverse respect for 'em. The intro letter calls them "garage prog" [or] "shitty prog," while their site has a blurb citing The Minutemen, mad science, ethics vs. elixers, accuracy vs. aggression, mutants, bombs, etc., then underneath that, it just says, "We play arty shit." Some might say "noise" or quirky-for-its-own-sake. Ear of the beholder and all that. Silly lyrics, very little melody, constantly shifting rhythms, but way too precise to even consider calling it noodling. Nine years along, and still not settling in. They're way past going out on limbs and are just napalming the trees now. Most bands wouldn't risk alienating a solid fanbase, but TDC's willingness to push it only shows more respect for those fans, not less.