A new type of garage dance-rock is getting Boston’s feet moving, and for that we can thank The Honors. The four-piece from Allston are practically regulars at The Pill at Great Scott and Throwed at the Middle East. Basically, they can fit into just about any type of bill. Their versatile sound reflects shades of surf rock and punk rock, but overall is completely original and always energetic.

Lead singer Brandon Heisler has a distinct raspiness to his voice that shadows classics like Morrissey. In fact, the band is playing a tribute show to Morrissey at the Great Scott on May 22nd. Until then, you can check out The Honors on Saturday at the Middle East Upstairs for what is sure to be a hot and sweaty kickoff to another Boston summer. I was able to get some background on the band as I chatted up with drummer Jason Trikakis. From the words we shared, it is clear that the Middle East will be the place to be come May 8th.

–Perry Eaton

So Give me some background on The Honors, who plays what?

I’m Jason, I play drums. Andrew (Bayardi) plays guitar. Brandon Heisler, he’s the lead vocalist and he plays guitar. Our bass player’s name is Roland (Nicol).

How did you guys initially come together?

Well, Brandon and I met in London, we were kind of studying abroad, or studying broads as we like to say. We got started playing basement jam sessions at the university, Regents College, which was cool because it’s Europe and things are much more open and free and there was a bar on campus. Down the hallway from the bar area, there was a rehearsal space for students and you couldn’t play during the day, but at night they would give you a key and they had a drum kit and some guitars and stuff. So Brandon and I would go to this jam spot and invite all of our friends to come down and just have these duo jam sessions. That was all back in 2003 or 2004.

We started gathering a bit of a following, or a group of folks who would always come sit in on these jam sessions. Brandon is from West Virginia and I’m from the Boston area and when we moved back home, we had talked about forming a band at some point, but we were still in school and had some other priorities. Several years later, Brandon moved up to Boston and was like, “Hey man, I’m taking you up on this, we’re gonna form a band.” So that’s how this project kind of got on its feet.

I knew Roland from another band I was playing with called the Press Project, which is kind of like a hip-hop band. Our guitar player Andrew is also from West Virginia and he and Brandon knew each other through mutual friends in West Virginia, but actually never met each other in Boston. He went to Berklee for a couple of years and graduated from there and when he connected with Brandon here in Boston, that’s how he joined the group. It’s a little all over the place, but it all worked out.

How does songwriting work? Is there one principle songwriter or is it more of a collaborative effort?

Well we have a new album coming out in May and that material was usually the result of garage band sessions that Brandon did in his apartment that we took the skeletal structure of and collectively put together and created the larger themes of the song. So I’d say that the ideas come from one of us initially, like a template and then the group kind of comes together and improvises on it. We’re all trained improvisational artists and jazz musicians, so improvising is kind of what we do outside of the rock and roll that we play. We’ll take an idea, improvise on it, take a form that works, and kind of just take it from there. Lyrically, we take more of a storytelling approach, like we have songs about getting drunk at Great Scott and the other fun stuff that happens in this area.

So, you guys are from Allston Rock City. Tell me, what is the best band in Allston besides the Honors?

Oh man, there are so many good ones in the area that I love. We have friends in Aloud, and the Luxury, and the Lights Out, and other bands. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, there are just too many good bands in Allston.

Why do you think Allston in particular is such a musical community. Like, why do so many bands wind up flocking to Allston?

I’d say because it has cheap living, and musicians don’t make money. Of course there’s also BU and other schools right down the street, so there’s a population of young adults who like to go out and see live music. Great Scott has been a cornerstone in the Allston music community and it has turned the community around in the past five or six years. Great Scott is now this in-demand hot spot for independent musicians to play and I think that attracted a lot of people to the area. Every band knows that the clientele and the consumers that are going to be there are specific to indie music. Its not like you’re playing your music at a big downtown Boston venue where the crowd isn’t there to hear your style of music. It’s really a great collaborative community in Allston. Allston is the shit.

It’s funny, I’ve spoken with a lot of bands who have come out of the Berklee area and they have expressed how tough it is to collaborate with other Berklee musicians. It’s cool that Allston has such a good outlook for bands.

I think so as well. I do still wish that there was more collaboration going on amongst musicians. There are definitely a fantastic group of people who are trying to make that happen, trying to make it more of a community. I love what Michael V is doing at the Great Scott on Friday nights at Pill. He books bands that are specific to the dance night and kind of clumps them together as “Pill bands” or bands that have played this particular event and he’s very keen on who he hires for these shows. That definitely inspires collaboration because we all have a similar sound and a similar vibe, but at the end of the day, I think everybody just wants to help each other out.

What are your favorite venues to play in Boston?

I’d say the Middle East, the Great Scott, and TT’s. That’s like the rock triumvirate, and we do really well in those places. We like the sound systems there, the people who work there, and those venues just kind of come with a built-in crowd, which I think is really important because you bring your own fans in, but you also want to reach out to new fans and new people.

So, do you guys have a new release in the making at the moment?

Yeah man, we’re in the process of mixing I guess what you could consider to be our debut album. We have a couple of EPs out, but those were more for finding out who we are and even more so working out the identity crisis of what our sound is and what we are going for. We had to figure that out just by writing songs. So, for the new effort, we recorded it, wrote it, and pretty much finished all of the tracking in about a two week period. We tracked it in like two days at New Alliance with our good friend Ivan Mennasia who engineered it and is helping us produce it. It all happened really fast and we’re hoping it comes out some time in early May. We’ve already released four tracks online, we’re trying to be really casual about the release date so we can feed our audience new music every few weeks rather than releasing it all at once. Expect that to come soon, sometime in early May-ish.

So if people come out to the Middle East show on May 8th, what can they expect that night?

Lots of sweat, lots of bumpin’ and grindin’, actually I don’t know about that. We try to play music that make people dance, so that’s why we get hired to play these electro-dance nights like Throwed at the Middle East and the Pill at Great Scott. Although I wouldn’t consider our music to be electro-dance, it’s rock and roll music that we want people to get down to. A lot of our new material is more along the lines of 50’s/60’s surf rock, where people can come and get up and dance around with their friends and get a little crazy. Expect people to be having a good time.

The Honors play Saturday May 8th at Middle East Upstairs

In an undeniably diverse Boston music scene, it has only taken The Organic Sound Project a matter of months to break out of their infancy and begin formulating their own distinguishable music. Spearheaded by a duo of Dans, Dan Batista and Dan Levenstein, who have been writing together for years, the group rounded out its complete five-piece lineup just a short time ago and are already clicking on many levels.

On December 14th, OSP played at Harper’s Ferry in Allston supporting New England jam veterans The Breakfast. The band’s set ignited with the energetic “Sunday Morning,” one of the more notable songwriting efforts off of OSP’s self-titled EP. Immediate traces to the Dave Matthews Band and the Rustic Overtones were thrown at me, but I was yet to realize just what kind of individuality this band achieves in a live setting. Other early originals like “Time” showcased their keen sense of improvisation and the talent of saxophonist Aiden Rush, while “Tonight” displayed their ability to slow the pace while maintaining a polished groove that leaves space for ample soloing.

New tunes such as “Painted Pictures” reassured me that the future is nothing but exciting for this young band as they were once again able to extend themselves to new territories musically while giving equal importance to writing creative lyrics and clever hooks. A cover of Van Morrison’s “Moondance” was anything but modest, grabbing the attention of first-timers and keeping more seasoned fans moving and wanting more. A set-ending “Gasoline,” one of Batista’s first works as a songwriter, held the crowd captive to the very last note and assuredly sealed the deal for many new fans. From first listen, it was clear that OSP is one of those bands that cannot be restricted by one specific genre, but rather a group that pulls influences from a number of different realms. Continually building off of every songwriting effort, recording session, and live experience, this is a band that is certainly thinking progressively. While they always strive to maintain their own unique sound, they hope to have a bit of something for everyone. Dan B. even hinted (although don’t say it too loud), that the band may be incorporating electronics into their live sound. The Organic Sound Project will be a fun band to watch evolve and progress in 2010, both on stage and in the studio. This thought only solidified as I was able to catch up with the band for a few questions that same night.

–Perry Eaton

Hey guys! Nice to meet you. Introduce yourselves, who are the Organic Sound Project?

Mike: I’m Mike [Rivard], I’m the drummer.

Dan L: I’m Dan [Levenstein], I play violin and guitar.

Dan B: I’m also Dan, Dan [Batista], I play lead guitar and sing lead vocals.

Aiden: I’m Aiden [Rush], I play saxophone and piano.

Eric: I’m Eric [Toussaint], I play bass.

Cool, so tell me a little about how you guys came to be a band.

DL: Good question. My freshman year (2006), I was jamming at Northeastern with some guys from my dorm. I was playing violin and my guitar was just sitting unused and Dan B walked by and asked if he could sit in. Apparently Northeastern was setting up some “beginning of school” event and there was going to be some bands there and one of the soundstage workers walked by and asked if we wanted to play. We were like, “Yeah man, we’d love to play, but we’re not really a band though.” He didn’t believe us, but we wound up playing a solid 10 minute set. We kind of pulled it out our ass, but I guess it was technically our first gig.

How did the other OSP members come into play?

DB: Well after our first gig, the other guys who we played with kind of fell off the face of the earth. I met Aiden in music industry class and he wanted to come jam out with us and then the three of us started writing music together for about a year before we started gigging regularly. Then we met these two clowns (Mike Rivard and Eric Toussaint) on Craigslist and we held auditions and they were the ones we wanted.

So when it comes to songwriting, is there one principal songwriter or is it more of a collaborative effort?

A: I would say that the main songwriters are Dan B. and Dan L. when it comes to chords and hooks. The thing we all decide on together is form and structure. Dan will come with an idea and we can all kind of build off of it. It all kind of changes though, especially when we play songs live.

What are some of OSP’s musical influences?

M: For me it kind of goes everywhere from old jazz drummers to some of the great jamband drummers to some more popular drummers that are out there. My influences are pretty broad.

DL: I’m a huge Radiohead fan so that’s always first and foremost in terms of influences, but I also grew up playing classical music, so classical violin has always been a big part of my musical taste.

DB: I grew up in a musical family, so I was always used to a lot of different types of music. Actually, my first band was a hardcore band back in New York City, but my main influences really come from the blues, old rock and roll, like Hendrix, Santana, Steely Dan.

Any local or up-and-coming groups on your radar?

E: There’s this band, I think they’re on the bill tonight, they’re from Boston called the Organic Sound Project. (Band laughs)

DL: I’m a big fan of Spiritual Rez, we played with them on Halloween, they’re great guys. Rubblebucket [Orchestra] kicks ass, they actually just won a Boston Music Award for Live Act of the Year.

Would you describe OSP as a live band above all else?

DB: We always bring something new live; it’s definitely an experience, but we also love our songs and we love recording.

E: We’re also really good at dancing, which you might get to see tonight if you stick around.

DB: Yeah, he does the Eric boogie. Our X-Factor is that we’re all trained and we can do improv. We’ve been doing it for a long time, so it makes every show different each time we play. I wouldn’t necessarily consider us a jamband in that factor though.

E: For as much emphasis as there is on the live part of it, we put a lot of effort into songwriting and structure and dynamic. So I think we’re very conscious of how the songs will develop in the studio as well.

Do you guys have any favorite Boston venues?

DB: [The Middle East] Downstairs is awesome. We’ve had nothing but great experiences there. This place too [Harper’s Ferry]. We’re definitely excited to be playing here again.

As a whole, what can OSP fans expect in the coming year?

DB: We got some new music coming out, we’re working on quite a stack of new tunes. We’re going into the studio basically planning on a small release for right now, probably due for late winter or early spring. Then we’ll be working on a full-length in the early fall. Until then, we’re just trying to keep up the energy live and make every experience worth it for the listener.

Thanks a lot guys, and good luck in 2010.

With dual frontmen trading lines at top volume and a dueling pair of DJs, there is no risk of boredom at a Big Digits show. The recent addition of a projected video backdrop now lends a level of full-on audiovisual confusion to their live set. My fascination with each of the elements of their show made it a bit difficult to keep track of everything the members of Big Digits were doing on stage, but the potentially dangerous levels of sensory overload didn’t prevent the crowd from dancing along frantically–although no one was a match for the energetic moves of TD.

Before the show (but after getting chased out of Harpers Ferry by some overly enthusiastic sound checking), we joined Big Digits at a place down the street, in a booth meant for far less than six people. TD, Mac, Mark E. Moon, and Mikey spoke frankly about the benefits and burdens of making music that sticks them somewhere between the hip hop scene and the electronic scene (we’ll let you decide where an invite to play a show at a Hot Topic puts them in your own mental music library), and about some of the challenges of being participants in the Boston music scene in general. It wasn’t all so serious though; we also got the scoop on the time that Public Enemy lyrics saved Mac during a confrontation with a state trooper and the night that TD found out what his spirit animal was.

–Tim Burdick

We are here with Big Digits– introduce yourselves.

Mac (M): My name is Mac. I’m from West Newbury, MA.

Mark (MM): Mark E. Moon, from Long Island.

TD: TD. I’m from Seattle, WA.

Mikey (Mi): I’m Mikey, and I’m from Worcester, MA.

So, with you from Seattle, and you from Long Island, what brought you all to Boston?

TD: I’m sure they’re both long and somewhat boring stories that are not worth recounting. I wanted to live on the East Coast, but I didn’t want to live in New York. The story had some twists and turns, but brevity is the wit of the soul. My story would just be extremely boring to anyone-

MM: He moved here to be near Tanya Donnelly.

TD: That is not true. I didn’t even know who Tanya Donnelly was.

MM: So, who did you move here to be near?

TD: It was to be near Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I believe she has a summer home here.

How did you guys meet and how did you come to make music together?

TD: Well, years ago I lived in an apartment in Somerville with a young lady who was dating Mac. Mac would come around and we’d talk about music. Because- [To Mac] were you DJing at WMFO at the time?

M: Yeah.

TD: Actually, before that I had known Mark from comics. I used to work in a comic book store in Harvard Square. So, Mac and I would talk about music, and eventually he came to me and was like, “Hey man, I’m starting this project”. It was something very different from what it is now, and then Mac’s computer crashed and that went out the window. He came to me later, and was like, “I want to start this rap thing. Would you want to do that?” and I said yes. So, that’s the way we kind of started. We started out as pretty straight ahead rap stuff and then we both wanted to do a little bit more with it. So, we spent some time exploring different ideas and avenues. We knew Mark was an excellent DJ around town, and we asked him if he would want to live DJ for us, like regular rap groups have. Then, we had known Mikey from around town for years and we wanted to have more people involved. There were times when Mark couldn’t do stuff, so we were like, “Let’s have Mikey come on,” because we really like his DJing stuff and electronic music.

Can you guys take us through your writing process?

M: It starts when I just fool around with loops and come up with the basis for a song. I send it to TD, and if TD likes it, we’ll work on it together in a practice space. After we get something that we think is a song, we bring in Mark or Mikey and ask him what he can put on top of it. Until this past year -we’ve been together for over 6 years -  I’ve been doing all the production. It’s gets tiresome and frustrating, so I’ve been asking for help and Mark and Mikey have been doing some production for us: helping with the beats aspect. As far as lyrics go, TD and I tend to write things separately and mash them together. Or I write a verse first and he asks me what its generally about. Usually it’s something completely random; I try to stay away from personal life, politics, or anything like that. I like to pick the craziest things possible to rhyme together. It usually ends up being about rapping, or dancing, something like that. We tend to write the verses separately and the choruses together. By the time it gets to the stage everybody has added something to it, which is good because everyone has a very interesting perspective on music and dance music. It’s great to have those extra perspectives, rather than just the two of us.

How would you say that those perspectives differ?

TD: Well, because we’re all different ages, there’s a wide swath of musical interests amongst the four of us. Think of it as a Venn diagram. There are definitely some things right there in the middle for all four of us, but there are definitely big parts of the circles that do not match. Just because you’re not into a certain type of music, doesn’t mean that someone bringing an idea from that perspective isn’t going to be welcome. I think that is a big key to why this works. For example, Mark E. Moon is doing a series of remixes highlighting artists like Blues Traveler and Alanis Morissette. I, myself, would have never thought of that or been able to achieve it.

MM: In my defenses, I don’t particularly like those artists, so that’s part of the challenge. I’ll try to bring in samples of stuff that I don’t like, and make it something I like. I feel like hatred is just as strong an emotion as love.

TD: Whoa. Are you into Depeche Mode now? (laughs)

MM: I just mean it’s better to get a strong reaction either way. And I feel the same way about our show. People are either really into us, or hate us.

So, are there any songs in the Big Digits catalogue that really stand out to you as favorites?

TD: I’m always really excited to play “Making Progress” because it’s kind of a ballad about trying in the face of adversity. Boston is a great town in a lot of ways, but as a musician it can be very tough, especially in terms of longevity. It’s such a transitory population. Also, bands break up. It’s expensive to live here, and it’s tough to be in a band. “Making Progress” is just about diligence and change. Incremental change…. You’ll see when we play it.

M: I like that song a lot too. I think I sort of hit my creative production peak at that point. There’s a lot going on beat-wise and sound-wise in that song. Somehow, I just hit the jackpot. It doesn’t happen every song, but that song… I’m just really, really proud of it.

Mi: I really like “Longwood”. (murmurs of agreement) … it’s soft, but everything really comes together really well. Because I’m the youngest one, it doesn’t really… apply to me at all – it’s just a song … but I still love it.

M: That’s produced by somebody else. That’s not an in-house production. A friend of mine from Philly named Michael Robinson made that. And that’s the only track that none of us have had a hand in beat-wise at all. He sent us a track, it was perfect as is, and we just started writing from there.

We talked about the collaborative nature of your writing process and live performances… what about in the studio?

M: Well, we’ve never been in a studio. We record it with Mikey in his home studio, which is basically just a jerry-rigged bathroom-

Mi: Bathroom closet.

M: It’s a wonderful set up–

Mi: A little hot…

M: It was a little hot, yeah. But mostly we – and I know this term is floated around a lot, but we subscribe to it, even it is overused – but we literally do everything ourselves. Record, mix, master, all that stuff, without a studio, on laptops, in someone’s house, in someone’s bathroom closet. There’s no studio, there’s no fancy mixing board. We don’t have an office. We don’t have any press people working for us. We don’t have a manager. We book all our own shows. We book all our own tours. It’s incredibly draining to do everything ourselves. TD and I are the core of it, so we’re always doing something. So, yeah it doesn’t really change. I’d say the one difference is that when you’re on stage you can feed off the energy of the audience. If it’s a good show, it brings our lyrical performance to the next level. When you’re in a booth or in a practice space, it’s a little more difficult to get yourself psyched up, to get that same energy that a live performance brings out. But I think we get pretty darn close.

The term DIY is tossed around a lot in the Boston indie scene. Is the hip hop scene similar in that respect?

TD: Well, we don’t generally play a lot of hip hop shows. And that’s something I don’t like about this town, that there is a big schism between independent hip hop music and independent rock music. There’s basically independent hip hop music and independent every other kind of music. It stinks because I spent a lot of time on the West Coast – I was in Seattle – and there’s a really great integration of the hip hop scene there with the rest of the music in the town. I’m not exactly sure why it hasn’t happened here, but there just isn’t a ton of integration.

M: During the shows we try to bend… We both love hip hop and we both have hip hop backgrounds. It’s not our choice to not play those shows. What I don’t like about hip hop shows is that, for some reason, they’re more expensive for people to attend and it doesn’t really make sense to me. We play a lot of basements and parties and art galleries.  We try and just play our weird hip hop everywhere and charge as little money as possible, because we want people to see it. A typical Boston hip hop show has about seven acts on it and it costs like $40-

Mi: And they each play 15 minutes.

M: Right. So, it’s just not appealing to us.

MM: We’d love to play those shows, if it was part of a structure that we dug. I just don’t think it’s going to happen. We have played a few, and some of them have gone well. It just sucks. Hip hop shows all cost like $25. And I’m not paying $25 to see… anybody.

M: Yeah, and the rap shows are not at better venues really. There’s ones that are at the Middle East Downstairs that are $25, $30.

MM: Harpers has a lot of hip hop and the price for a hip hop show is double whatever they’re charging for any other show.

You mentioned you were playing in galleries and houses. What’s the weirdest place you ever played?

TD: It would have to be on a bus.

A parked one, or?

TD: A parked one, yes. There used to be – it’s now long gone – but there used to be, in the Bay Area, this bus. It was originally a mobile home; it was then converted into a police headquarters, but then they ran out of funding for it. This guy bought it from them and turned into this venue that would like drive around and have shows in parking lots. Sometimes they’d be on the Berkeley border, and the Oakland PD would show up, and they’d just drive over to Berkeley, where the cops didn’t have jurisdiction anymore. We played there once out in the Bay Area, and once when it went on this national tour of the country – which led to its demise, unfortunately. That’s got to be the weirdest place.

M: We played an alternative prom in Olympia, Washington. We played a dotcom merger party. We’ve played on a roof of a hotel. Weddings.

MM: Many joyous occasions.

M: We’ve recently been asked to play in a mall. At a…

All: At a Hot Topic store.

Mi: In New Hampshire.

M: We kind of want to play it just because it will add to our crazy shows list. It will be a great story. We’ve played a shed in a kid’s backyard. We played an indoor skate park in Buffalo, NY. You ask to play anywhere, and we’ll pretty much do it.

TD: If it sounds interesting.

M: We played an arcade in Portland. That was a bad show.

TD: It was a make up show. We were on tour, and we had two shows scheduled in Portland, right before we were supposed to play. We were scrambling to find a place to have a show, and this guy was like, “Yeah, we’ll put you on here.” It was terrible. One person came to see us. We got paid in tokens.

Any crazy tales from the tour bus for you guys?

M: We almost got arrested coming back from opening for M.I.A. in Worcester. We were coming back on the MassPike and I was going the speed limit. I got pulled over by a state trooper for a broken taillight. There’s three of us and one of TD’s roommates. I drank that night, but I was definitely the one that drank the least of our crew. I wasn’t swerving or doing anything dangerous, but our car just smelled like alcohol. I was wearing an Oakland Raiders jacket, because I like NWA; it’s sort of an homage to them. The state trooper started picking on me. He was like, “What? Do you like the Raidahhhs?” I told him we were all Patriots fans, so he was like, “Why are you wearing a Raider’s jacket then?” I told him I was in a rap group and that some of my rap idols used to wear Raiders jackets, including Chuck D. And he’s like, “Oh yeah, Chuck D.” – this is a whiter-than-white, buzzcut, 35 year old, state trooper. He’s like, “Chuck D. Public Enemy. What’s your favorite Public Enemy song?” He was asking all these questions, and I was nervous because I wanted to make sure I answered in a way that he wanted, so he let me go.

TD: And try to think of a Public Enemy song that isn’t about killing the police.

M: It was really hard thing to do. Then he went back to his car for a while, and he came back and was like, “Alright, I only have one more question for you.” and then he told this really lame Public Enemy joke: What’s one question Flavor Flav can always answer? — What time is it? Then he told us to get on our way.

TD: I can say that we’ve had some harrowing experiences while on tour. Once, we drove 36 hours straight, from Chicago to Seattle. But the last time we were on tour, we were driving through Montana, and we couldn’t find a hotel to stay in. Everything was booked, so we had to keep going. When I get tired, I start to freak out a little bit when I’m driving at night. I swear to god a giant, white owl swooped directly in front of our car. I looked into the owl’s eyes. [Everyone else starts laughing]. I saw its animal spirit. I slammed on the brakes and it swooped away into the night.

M: And I saw none of this.

TD: You were asleep.

M: I had my head down, I wasn’t asleep. I think that’s a sign that an owl is his animal spirit.

TD: We eventually found a place to sleep and we had to ring a bell to wake up someone who was sleeping to let us in.

M: That night was straight out of a horror movie. Exits were 35 miles apart. Every exit would have a sign that said there was a hotel, and then we’d take the exit and turn onto a dirt road. Things didn’t feel right, so we would just get back on the highway. Somehow, we found the place we ended up staying at. It was a surprisingly decent place, with a very hospitable woman who ran the joint.

Do you have any favorite cities to play in besides Boston?

TD: Los Angeles.

M: The scene there right now is a lot of young kids, trying a lot of different things.

TD: Toronto, also.

M: We’ve had a lot of good experiences in Buffalo. There’s a vibrant scene in Buffalo that America doesn’t know about.

TD: Seattle. I still have some friends there that do music, and they help us out. It’s always a fun time when we go there.

So, getting back to Boston, what do you love about being a hip hop act in Boston, and what have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a group here?

TD: For what we do, the best part and the most challenging thing is that we’re kind of the only people doing what we do. It’s great because there are other people around the country that do similar things as we do, and when they come to town, it’s got to be us. The other edge of that sword is that people are like, “What are you weirdoes doing?”. Because we’re not hip hop enough to be really accepted by that scene, and we’re not electronic enough to be completely accepted by that scene. We’re in this weird middle place. It’s good because it makes us unique. Because if you’re the only person doing something -no matter how weird or fucked up it is- you’re probably on the right track. It is hard at times to find bills that we could be on and acts we could play with when we’re doing our own shows. It’s tough to find similar bands. And if you are a similar band and you’re reading this, send us an email.

How about favorite venues?

M: I have to go with the Middle East, Downstairs preferably. Upstairs is cool too. No disrespect to other venues, but I think that they have the best staff and the best sound engineers.

TD: I work at ZuZu, so we get a little bit of preferential treatment, I think. But we also always have consistently good performances there. I really like the shape of the room. It’s a nice narrow room; if people are not paying attention and getting drinks, you don’t even see it because it’s blocked off by that side wall. I used to be a punk rock aerobics instructor and we have our classes Saturday at noon in the Middle East Downstairs. It was gross.

Are there any Boston bands that you are following or you really enjoy?

M: Boston is sort of going through a Psych revolution right now. All the acts from the Whitehaus Collective.  Our very good friend Dan Shea organized the PsychFest at Church. It was a three day festival of all local bands. Boston has a lot of great music, and it goes through phases of what is in. We’re also friends with a lot of DJs around town.

So, what’s next for Big Digits?

TD: In my brain, we’re going to release an EP, then we’re going to release a remix EP, which will be remixes of the songs on the EP. I think t-shirts are in the works. There’s going to be a Mark E. Moon mixtape. Playing more shows. Doing our thing.

Mi: Gathering the legions.

Big Digits open for Dan Deacon at Mass Art’s Pozen Center on 11/8

One of our favorite parts of each interview is when we ask bands who they are listening to. The consistent love parade that we’ve experienced in talking with local acts about other local acts gives us faith in the state of the Boston music scene, and gives us a heads up on who is making waves in the community and who we should be keeping an eye on. One such recommendation came from former-Bostonian, Brian Hamilton of Cymbals Eat Guitars, who couldn’t pour enough praise on his friends, local disco-dance revivalists Mystery Roar, when we talked with his own band on the deck outside Great Scott.

We managed to corral the boisterous bunch on that very same deck after their spellbinding, hip-shaking set at the Allston venue. Between greetings from both fans and friends hanging out nearby, we got them to talk about their storied beginnings, complicated songwriting process and how they decided to “be a real band about it.”

–Jessie Rogers

Hey Mystery Roar. Introduce yourselves…

Jake: Jake Dempsey. I play guitar, keyboards and I sing.

Andrew: I’m Andrew Dole and I play drums.

Nathanael: I’m Nathanael Bluhm and I sing.

Patrick: I’m Patrick Dole and I play bass.

Tia: Tia Carioli and I play keyboards.

Joseph: I’m Joseph Wawrzyn. I play keyboard and guitars and I sing.

So how did Mystery Roar start?

N: …you had to go there.

T: Oh man.

P: You guys got a minute?

JD: Nate, Joe and I met in Pennsylvania and we were in a band. The three of us move to Boston. Joe and I become the Western Trail. Nate forms Cassette. Cassette becomes bigger and adds Joe and Pat and becomes Fantasy Mirrors.

P: We all hate each other, we break up.

JD: So Joe, Pat, Nate and I start working on songs again, together. And that becomes Mystery Roar. And we bring in Andy and Tia to flesh out the band and make a live set.

A: The really short version is these four dudes, minus myself and Tia made really great songs in their bedroom. And they were awesome. And they were like, “Yeah we should play live.” And they were like, “Well we need a drummer and we have a million keyboard parts.”

P: We made a lot of stuff on this little Yamaha keyboard and we just threw it on the computer so we could do whatever we wanted. So we’d have songs with 70 tracks and it was like, “How the hell are we going to play this with 3 people?”

N: Nine-minute songs….with 50 tracks…

P: The original concept was to just put out 12-inch disco mixes for all the kids in art school to listen to.  And then it turned into something more and we were like, “Oh we can be a real band about it. Let’s do it.”

So you started out making 70-track keyboard songs… What is your creative process like now?

J: We get together and fight a song out of it.

A: Somebody puts some chords down, and then it’s like bombardment dodge ball. And then we have a song.

N: With the program we use… you can build songs, uh, down or across. And we write them down and then we put them across. And you can loop shit and then you can add. And we just add, add, add, add. And then we go [grand sweeping gesture] and just throw it across and it sounds fucking marvelous.

JD: We come up with two parts and we layer the living daylights out of them and we put them next to each other. And it’s like, “How are we going to get these parts to sound good together?” So we write six minutes of song to put in between them.

N: We also write songs, like from start to finish. With pre-choruses and bridges.

JD: We write bridges.

A: Actually what we do is we write five songs and five verses and put it all into one song.

T: … So, do you have a clear answer?

N: We have a really good time doing it.

P: Everybody here is pretty much a songwriter. We have old songs, we have skeletons of songs, sometimes we just make a cool sound a we’re like, “Wow that sounds awesome, what do we do with this?” And sometimes Nate will write a whole song and we’ll be like, “Oh, that’s cool.”

N: Ha! That’s exactly what you’re like…

P: Or Joe and Jake will have a song from their other band and we’ll be like “Oh, that’s great.”

Well you all clearly bring different things to the table… What are your influences? Either individually or as a band.

P: Well, Nate and Joe and I were on tour with Fantasy Mirrors and our friend gave us a zillion old-school, deep disco cuts from post-70s, early 80s stuff and Nate alphabetized them…

N: We’re talking deep disco. Deep, deep disco.

P: We’re talking B-sides.

J: C-sides.

P: We drove across the country and that’s all we had. We listened to the whole alphabet of these tracks.

N: Well it’s not that I put them in alphabetical order…iTunes did that. It sounds really great to think I put them all in alphabetical order, but I wasn’t like, “I’m going to alphabetize these rare disco tracks…”

A: We can all agree on that [influence], but then everyone comes from a different place.

J: We all listen to a lot of different stuff. And then it all gets smashed together.

JD: Change, Mtume…

P: Mtume.

J: Mtume.

P: Mtume is a big influence.

A: Giorgio Moroder.

N: Mtume is wonderful. Tawatha Agee–she’s the singer. She sounds fantastic. She sings back-up in Hercules now. I looked her up on Wikipedia. I was like “Oh my god! She’s in Disney movies now.” She deserves so much more. She’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard in my life.

P: That’s a great story.

N: She’s making money. She’s still doing it, which is amazing. “I am a working singer. I had hits in the 70s and I am still a working singer.” Fuck that. That is fucking amazing. I hope I’m still…God knows I’ll be on a cruise ship somewhere but I’ll be having a good time and I’ll still be singing.

So you formed in Pennsylvania… are you all from Pennsylvania?

T: Incidentally, I’m from Pennsylvania, but I didn’t know those guys.

N: She is from Pittsburgh, Ohio…

All: Oooohhhh!

N: We are from Scranton, thank you.

A: Where The Office is filmed!

N: And Mr. Joe Biden. It’s Joe Biden Country. I’m just a hardscrabble kid from Scranton.

How did you get to Boston?

T: I went to college here.

N: So did Joe. And then I quit college and I had nothing better to do. We followed him. We packed up the U-Haul and the first time I saw Boston was when I came up here. That’s how it is to be a hardscrabble kid from Scranton. You get the fuck out.

J: Joe Biden did it.

P: Andy and I are from New Hampshire. We pretty much did the same thing.

Do you feel like Mystery Roar is a Boston band? Do you feel connected to the scene here?

T: Oh yeah. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else.

P: As far as being part of a scene, it comes in waves. It feels cool… we were a part of a scene a while ago…

T: What scene was that?

P: I don’t even know. The indie dance scene?

JD: There were lots of basement shows and things like that.

N: Cambridge is where I found myself. I’m at home. I am safe here. I’ve got these beautiful friends that I make music with. It’s awesome.

J: Yeah. Nate said it better.

N: We’re refugees. From fucking Middle America.

JD: But we were like, “OK let’s play some shows.” Boston opened up for us.

T: We’ve brought a lot of experience from the different bands we’ve been in and I think that’s definitely helped us out. It’s just been a lot easier for this band than any other bands we’ve been in.

N: We’re friends. I can’t imagine…I don’t want anybody but Patrick to play bass.

All: Awww!

N: This is so stupid but I have to concentrate to turn around on stage and face the crowd because I’m so interested in what’s going on with Patrick’s bass playing and Andy’s drumming and Joe’s guitar work. The keyboard work. I’m, like, watching my band. And then it’s like, oh shit I have to turn around and see the audience. I’m so enamored with their playing.

P: We should all get T-shirts that say “Nate, sing.”

N: That, and a big, flashing, neon “SAVE” above the computer. Otherwise…you… lose albums. It is not good.

So who are you favorite bands in Boston?

P: Tigercity. They’re actually a New York a band.

N: Well didn’t they go to Berklee?

P: ….do you guys go to shows anymore?

JD: Back when Joe and I were in separate bands, my favorite bands were Cassette and Fantasy Mirrors.

N: I go to Scullers Jazz Club and watch Lou fucking Rawls. That’s what I do. I go to Scullers Jazz Club, I watch Shirley fucking Horne. That’s who I watch.

A: Night Rally. Night Rally was the best Boston band that ever was and ever will be. Night Rally.

T: OK how about bands that are not defunct…

P: I like the kids in Mean Creek. They’re good. Hooray For Earth. They’ve been doing that shit forever. Andy and I actually went to band camp with the drummer.

N: We’d probably be way better at identifying local DJs.

P: Colbourne, Die Young…

N: Fucking Colbourne? Alright. I’ll go to ZuZu’s every night of the week and there’s fucking great fucking music in that place. Middlesex, fucking representing with some awesome disco nights happening.

P: Bodega Girls. We just saw Bodega Girls, they’re actually really good. Big Digits. The 440R Collective.

N: We’re from this collective of artists called Compound 440, originally—we’re no longer there—but you’ve got artists like UV Protection, well they’re defunct, they’ve got a new band Secret Sea.

P: Paul Foley was spinning the other night. Big Digits are great. Bodega Girls are great. They’re kind of what we’re doing.

N: I was psyched to see Bodega Girls. Mac is awesome (from Bodega Girls), and he did a remix of one of our tracks. Those guys are awesome. They vacillate between the electronic stuff and kind of garage rock which is amazing. Like, they’ll have a song with backing tracks and then the next song  is just tambourines and guitar and it was like my favorite song.

P: I’m a big fan of Drug Rug.

What’s up next for Mystery Roar?

A: I don’t think we’re touring until Spring. We’re going to release a record and then tour.

J: We’ve been talking to a bunch of labels, but one we’re really excited about is Dopamine Records.  They do rock records, they do dance stuff. They started as a hardcore label, which is weird. So we’ll just get the record out and…

N: Promote the shit out of it.

A: My brain is exploding trying to keep track of all the industry people that are emailing us right now. But we’ll just get it out there and tour.

We know you haven’t really gotten to tour yet, by any crazy show stories?

P: We lost a battle of the bands to a high school band.

N: They were very Facebook savvy!

T: We did this contest, sort of as a favor…

N: Oh, now we did it as a favor but at the time we wanted to WIN THAT.

T: Well, we wanted to win it. It was sort of a last minute thing that was thrown together, and the winner got to open for Matt & Kim, Major Laser—a the show at the House of Blues. But the whole thing was determined by text messages. But these kids were in high school so of course they and hundreds of their friends…

N: What’s wrong with high school?

T: Nothing’s wrong with high school.

J: I actually had a really miserable time in high school.

JD: High school was obnoxious.

T: But they had the advantage, man. They’ve been texting since they were born.

J: There was this show on a Wednesday or Tuesday…

T: We totally packed the place. There were like 10-times more people there to see us.

N: We sounds so spiteful.

T: I know!

N: We’re gonna fight those kids…

J: We lost by, like, two texts.

T: They were actually really great.

T: They were a fantastic band.

What band was it?

N: Are we going to call them out? We want a rematch!

T: We want a rematch!

JD: They were Old Abram Brown.

N: This is not over.

JD: We’re coming for you.

A: Another story–well this isn’t really a zany tour story– but we played this really small night at Enormous Room and it turned into the most epic show I’ve ever played.

N: It was amazing because they had risers so we all got to stand on risers.

A: There’s no stage. It’s the smallest bar in the entire world and it was just packed. Nate was in the crowd—the whole band was in the crowd the whole night.

N: Patrick got it on… he was getting his groove on.

A: It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had playing music live.

N: I wish… I wish I’d had a monitor. It was an awesome show though. Gary from Hooray for Earth put that on.

P: We’ll probably be real boring on tour. We’ll probably go back to the hotel and watch Golden Girls.

N: If you want to watch Golden Girls at the hotel, I am there. I will bring the first and second season.

T: We’re going to be tour blogging.

N: It’s going to be boring. We went to SXSW and these guys were partying like motherfuckers and I went to be at 1 every night and went to the gym every morning.

P: We pull into SXSW and we’re all, like, eating mushrooms, playing our first show all on mushrooms, and Nate’s like “I signed up for a gym today, guys.”

N: I got a 5-day membership at Pure in Austin, Texas and their facilities were really clean and really lovely. And I said, “Next year you should offer a special for the musicians.” And they were like, “You’re the only fucking one here. We’re not offering a special.” So I said, “What about for me? Can I get a special?” Actually, the guy at the AT&T store gave me the hook-up, he gave me a pass. Because I lost my cell phone in Waco and this guy named…

P: Corbett Trap

N: Corbett Trap found my cell phone.

MYSTERY ROAR plays GREAT SCOTT on WEDNESDAY 10/28 with HAR MAR SUPERSTAR

The first time we saw Ad Frank in action was onstage at Boston Band Crush’s One Night Band this past summer: Frank, along with various varsity members of Boston indie rock, played one of our favorite sets of the night as a member of Awesome Chariot.  The band, visibly amused and enjoying themselves as the kick-off act for the evening’s festivities, seemed to be a surprisingly positive experience for Frank as this Boston-based performer is a self-described one-man show.  This Ad Frank, the one who’s goofing around and screaming “WE ARE AWESOME CHARIOT”, is a far cry from the Ad Frank that Boston’s come to know as a heartbroken guy with good voice and a sad guitar.  When comparing old material of his to his forthcoming release, Your Secrets Are Mine Now, Ad Frank is borderline-giddy when talking about how this album is a departure from previous work: “I sort of had this local persona going, being the guy with the perpetually broken heart that’s always getting stopped on.  It was kind of like a joke.  We even had Ad Frank with a big broken heart on them.  This record is all about what a son of a bitch I am.”

This Saturday, October 24, Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women will be celebrating their new album with a CD release bash at Great Scott.  Ad will be sharing new material from Your Secrets Are Mine Now, so Ad Frank fans will get the chance to listen to the new stuff before the album is readily available on November 3.  Read on to get the good’s on what goes into Ad’s songwriting, what brought him to the conclusion that a saxophone wasn’t a very punk rock instrument and what’s next for Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: AD FRANK AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Cracklin’ Oat Bran, but I almost never eat breakfast.  I usually just grab handfuls of it like it was pretzels or something.  I like Grape Nut ice cream, does that count?

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles, or Mouth from The Goonies?

Okay, definitely not Long Duk Dong and I’ve never seen The Goonies. Who would punch Long Duk Dong?!

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

I’d like to be one of those mixers, but I’d like to be a big, pastel one.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

I took the Facebook Muppet quiz and it told me I was Gonzo, so… I don’t know.   I’ve always liked Floyd, the bass player, but I’m more of a Gonzo.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

That’s easy.  I would get black racing stripes tattooed all the way up both sides of my body.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

I wouldn’t mind behind manhandled by a large Asian man, so I’ll go with sumo wrestler.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

You’re making me feel bad because I can’t grow any.  I’m going to go with stubble.  It matches my capability.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

The Stinking Bishop.  I don’t really know what kind of cheese it is exactly, but it’s really pungent.  The sell it at the Wine & Cheese Cask.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

“Cuts You Up” by Peter Murphy.

What’s your favorite word?

I don’t know if I’d say it’s a word, but I like how “Speen Street” sounds.  It’s a street in Natick.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE AD FRANK TPB INTERVIEW

Hi, Ad!  Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in Melrose, and I’ve been in Somerville for the last ten years.  I was in a band called Perma Cross for most of my adult life until I quit.  I quit with the intent of retiring, but didn’t and couldn’t.

Now you’re doing your own thing, right?

I have my own band, Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women.  I play guitar in a band called Life Style, and that’s pretty much it right now.

How did you start playing music?  Are you one of those people who were born with a guitar in hand?

I’ve always made up songs, and I’ve always made up words to interesting tunes since I was like, four.  I can’t really blame it on punk rock because I think I wanted to … the lure of the Sex Pistols sort of proved that anybody can do it and I think it’s true.  That was probably around seventh grade when I started thinking about it.  I was playing saxophone but for the most part it wasn’t a very punk rock instrument, so I picked up a guitar then.

Who would you credit as creative influences for you?

Let’s see… I feel strange strange saying these two in the same breath, but it’s true: The Ramones and David Bowie.  I remember that the song “Switch” by Suzie and the Banshees came on the radio and I had an epiphany while listening to it, like, “YES! I must be in a band!” I don’t know what I liked about the song, but I think I was just overripe for an epiphany at the time.  I should listen to that song again; I haven’t heard it in about ten years.

Who are you listening to right now?  If we were to steal your iPod and check out your “Recently Added” playlist, what tracks would we find?

I’m so out of it.  I’ve been listening to Scott Matthews’ record a lot, but I think it’s a couple of years ago.  I like the Great Lake Swimmers, too.

In terms of your creative process, can you take me through it?

Usually, what happens is somebody doesn’t return my phone call and then I get really mad and then I start thinking about all the things I would say to this person if they were to call me back and then that’s the song.

That’s amazing.  What about the compositional portion of your songwriting?  Do you collaborate with anyone?

I’m not very good at writing with other people.  I almost said no to One Night Band because I don’t really know how to write… usually, I bring the song to the band and the chords, words and melody are done, but for the most part everybody writes their own part.  I might have like, a guitar noodle or a keyboard part that I’ll sort of make it known that it’s not optional, but for the most part everybody writes their own part, which is probably good.  It’s good that I’ll often bring a song in without telling the band about how I hear the song going in my head so they can pick what they will out of it.  The arrangements and the production of the songs performed by Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women are collaborative; the songwriting is not collaborative.  There are certainly bands where certain bands contribute less than the people in my band do and they get writing credit.

Are there any songs in your catalog that you feel particularly connected to, or any songs by Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women that stand out as favorites?

It’s called “U-Hauls and Ryders”, and it was written right around the time when I decided I was not going to retire.  I was pretty much going crazy: I had lost my apartment, and my job, and my band, and my engagement fell through, all within six weeks of each other, so I was squatting in this apartment in Brighton and that was, the song was sort of my process of being like, “What the hell just happened to me?”  The good thing about a song is that you get to sing it over and over and over again until you finally figure out what it’s about.  Hopefully it’s not just good for me.  If someone’s in a similar situation, maybe I get to articulate something for them.

It sounds like a cathartic process for you, what went into writing that song.

The stuff I write and the songs I like are usually all written because they have to be, not because somebody set aside three hours on a Sunday and said, “Oh, what am I going to write about now?”  The songs I really like are ones that sound like they had to pull their car over and grab a pen and paper and write it down so that they wouldn’t forget it.

When it comes to songs you love to play live, what are some songs that you make sure to include in your set list for every performance of Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women?

Solo, I like to play “U-Hauls and Ryders”.  There’s one called “Open Up The Patio Pretty Girls Are Back In Style” that I won’t let the band play during the wintertime, I only play it in spring and summer because it’s a spring and summer song.  We usually like to close with a big, bombastic, arena rock-style song called “Timing is Everything”.

In terms of touring and your experiences outside of Boston, what cities have been really responsive to your music?  As the frontman of a Boston band and a Boston-based musician, do you tend to stick close to home or do you play elsewhere, too?

Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women is mostly a Boston-based operation.  It gets less glamorous when you’re spending ten hours a day and sleeping on couches [while touring] as you get older, but I do a little bit of it.  I have a gig in Chicago coming up and one in D.C.  It’s really, really random.  We had one of our best shows ever in Detroit, and I have no idea why…

What are you working on right now with Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women?

We’re kind of like the Spinal Tap of keyboard players; I think I’ve gone through fifteen of them!  I guess I’m difficult.  Our last one left a little under two years ago and that was right around the time we started getting to work on this record. For the most part, though, we’ve been playing shows and working on the record that’s about to be released.  The CD release show will be our first show with a full band in almost two years.

How is this upcoming album a departure from previous material you’ve released before?

Lyrically it’s a departure: I sort of had this local persona going, being the guy with the perpetually broken heart that’s always getting stopped on.  It was kind of like a joke.  We even had Ad Frank with a big broken heart on them.  This record is all about what a son of a bitch I am.  This is actually the first record where the band and I have played out all the songs live before they come out on the record, so they won’t be new to people who have been coming to see us.  We really took our time with this record and it took us four years to do.

Let’s talk about Boston venues for a second.  Are there any Boston venues that you love to play or any that stand out as great places to go to shows at?

I love to see shows at the Lizard Lounge.  I don’t play there often just because we’d have to turn it way, way down, but every time I go there I always have a great time.  TT the Bear’s Place feels like home and I love playing there.  I love the Cantab Lounge and the vibe it’s got.  You know that Frank Sinatra album, No One Cares, and he’s sitting at a bar or a café alone at a table with a drink, and behind him are all these happy couples and he’s just sitting there?  The Cantab always reminds me of that.

What about the Abbey Lounge?  I feel like that old venue has come up in conversation a lot recently, especially because a hot new restaurant [Trina’s Starlite Lounge] was recently put in it’s place.

I don’t have any stories from playing there myself, but…  (Laughs) There was this whole graffiti thread on the bathroom wall making fun of this poor guy, and I was reading it, and I was thinking, “Oh, this dude must be a real prick!” And then I got to the bottom of the thread and it was me! (Laughs)  It’s nice to know that someone was thinking of me I guess.

What Boston bands are you following right now, or that you’d love to bill with?

Trying to book this CD release party I realized how out of it I am.  In my band, I have Sarah RabDAU of Sarah RabDAU and the Self-Employed Assassins, and Chris Mascara from the band Mascara, and Sean Connelly from the band Francine, and those are three bands that I also like.  I like this new band, Mystery Roar, a lot.  Everyone in that band is so good!

How do you feel about your Boston fan base?  Let’s talk about your relationship with your fans here and the crowd you see at your shows.

I’m trying to figure out who’s still there because we haven’t played!  I think some of our fans might have been in college or might have had babies and moved to the suburbs, so we’re nervous about the CD release to see if anybody shows up at all.  We have great radio in Boston.  College radio is fantastic, and I feel like there’s more of an opportunity to get heard here than there is in other cities.  As much as people and bands complain about FNX and the former WBCN, the idea of a commercial radio station having a local music show doesn’t happen in most cities, and we have that here and there’s definitely more right going on then wrong in that regard.  I haven’t felt this in while because it’s been awhile since I’ve been on the verge of anything, but there is a tendency to – there’s a lot of backlash when a band starts to do well.  I don’t even know if it’s still active anymore, but the Noise Board would be a forum where people would tear me apart every couple of months.

Have you thought about moving on to other cities?

I have a lot of friends in LA who keep telling me to go there and it’s tempting.  I need something a little more than just picking up and starting all over again.  If I got a publishing deal and would be doing some co-writing with some people I would go, but there’s definitely a lot more opportunity and a lot more … you can go to a party and odds are somebody there is going to be the music director for a TV studio or something, or the guy who picks out the songs for a movie.  On the other hand, all of the people at the party are also musicians and actors so there’s more … I feel like if I need to be connected to the industry I can be by just hopping on the Fung Wah and heading down to New York, but LA seems – well this is sort of deteriorating too, but the idea that you have to be in your early or mid-20s and you have to be a different kind of rock band, in LA they get that you don’t have to be those things to be a songwriter.  They have a better understanding of the fact that people who write the songs aren’t necessarily fronting rock bands and there isn’t that much of an age ceiling.  I think that the age ceiling is crumbling along with the rest of the record industry.  Nobody’s getting signed to a major label and having a hit record, so the thirty-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, forty-year-olds… we’re all going no where together.

What’s next for Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women?  What do we have to look forward to from you and the band in the next couple of months?

I definitely want to get out to some other cities, hopefully with the band, but they’ve got their own things going on.  One of them has a four-year-old at home, so… that’s the advantage of being “[Your Name] and the [Something-Somethings]” because your name still has some kind of weight.  The album is going everywhere and it’ll be streaming.  I just want to see who likes it.  If I turn out to have a huge pocket of fans in Akron, Ohio, I’ll head out there and go say hi to ‘em.  I was having a huge span of writer’s block after we finished the record.  It was like a year before I finished recording it and before I wrote anything.  I always figured that I would just retire and move on to something else, like writing fiction or painting, but I just finished another thing this week that I’m really excited about so I guess I’m committed to another record in the future.

Scandinavia, on the whole, has given us some revolutionary [Vikings!], aesthetically pleasing [Minimalism! Ikea!], and whimsical [The Little Mermaid! Abba?] icons in popular culture.  Naturally, a Danish band like The Raveonettes is going to be pleasing to our palate:  Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo are on a mission to get beautiful people on the dance floor, and hey, we’ve got nothing but pleasant things to say about Scandinavian pop (especially since that Lykke Li album dropped last year.)  Their latest album, In And Out Of Control, hit stores in the US on October 6, and this record is a gritty, distorted followup to their 2007 release, Lust Lust Lust.

I caught Sune on the phone for a minute or two to chat him up about tonight’s show, what songs he’s stoked to include on the set list and what The Raveonettes are up to through the end of the year.  The Raveonettes hit the stage tonight at 9:15 on the dot, so go early and check out openers The Black Angels in order to properly warm up your moves.  Read up on Sune and Sharin, get on your dancing shoes, and get to the ‘Dise tonight for a piece of this lovely electro-jam action.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE RAVEONETTES TPB INTERVIEW

What’s the back-story on The Raveonettes?  How did you guys come to make music together?

S: Oh, that’s a very boring story! (Laughs)  Like any other band, we just met.  I did some songs, Sharin liked them, and we just started the band.  There’s no fairy tale story, unfortunately.

How is the new album different from previous material by The Raveonettes?

S: Well, it sounds different.  The production is very different and we made the album differently in that we recorded it and a studio and worked with a producer, and we haven’t really tried that before.  We had just recorded our songs at home before.

Take me through your creative process: How does the songwriting go for Raveonettes?  Is it collaborative, or does someone head up the majority of the lyrics and music?

I write everything.

Are there any songs by The Raveonettes that you feel particularly connected to or that you really enjoy playing live?

I really love all of them.  That was the whole idea with our music when we started: We wanted to make music that we’d never get tired of playing.  I love all of it.

You’ve played in Boston before.  Let’s talk about your experience here for a bit.  Do you have any favorite Boston venues?

We’ve only played the Paradise Rock Club, and we’ve always had great shows there!  We’re really looking forward to the show tonight, and we’ll definitely be playing selections from the new album.  We’ll be playing “Gone Forever”, “Suicide” and “Break Up Girls” for sure.

So, what’s next for The Raveonettes?  What does your schedule look like for the next few months?

We’ll just be touring for a very long time.  We’re booked up through Christimas, and we’re planning for some shows in January as well.

The title pretty much says it all.   This weekend is long for a reason and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Columbus totally screwed up trying to find India and wound up with us instead.  With Boston bands headlining shows in Cambridge, Allston and Somerville on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, there’s no legitimate excuse for you to spend these chilly autumn evenings carving pumpkins and watching reruns of Friday the 13th on TMC even if it’s only a couple of weeks before Halloween.

Anyways: GET OUT OF YOUR APARTMENT. NOW. like, right this minute.  because as we post this, some shows are already underway or about to get going.  Tonight, we’ve got The Beatings at the Middle East (Upstairs) and Tim Gearan with his new residency at Atwood’s.  Tomorrow: It’s a deathmatch between Glam vs. Punk at the Middle East (Upstairs), and the stacked bill is a put ‘em up smack down between Boston glam gods MEandJOANCOLLINS, Gene Dante and the Future Starlets, The New Alibis and Acro-bats.  The Everyday Visuals will be back in town tomorrow as well and they’ll be in ARC (Allston Rock City) with our buddies Magic Magic at the Paradise, along with Mean Creak and The Great Bandini. Sunday: The Sea Monsters are playing Precint, as usual, so come out for some big horns and big hooks with Christian McNeill and his collection of the über talent we’ve come to know around these parts.  We’ve got interviews with pretty much all these people available for your perusal, so if you’re not at these gigs already, give our rundowns a look-through before you call Green Cab or hop on the 66.

-Hilary Hughes

Bridges Blowing Up and Giant Cosmic Conspiracies: Talking Boston with The Beatings

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“The Revolution Will Be Recorded On Your Mini Tape Recorder”: Indie in Boston and Beyond with The Everyday Visuals

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A Farewell to Toad: Tim Gearan on an Autumnal Change of Scene

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Ode to Cambridge: Waxing Poetic on MEandJOANCOLLINS’ Favorite Place

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“Fat” Food, Favorite Words… and That Girl Who Bought Too Much Wine In London: Meet Magic Magic.

The Beatings have been around the block for sure: Since forming over ten years ago, Eldridge, Erin, Tony, Dennis and most recently acquired member Greg have been bouncing ideas off each other, getting songs down on tape and playing their music from the East Coast to the West Coast and back again.  Though based in Boston and undeniably a Boston Band, the members of The Beatings definitely raise an eyebrow when it comes to discussing their relationship with the city they call home.  The Beatings express nothing but warmly-worded gratitude for their loyal Boston fanbase who have been coming out to shows over the course of the past decade, but there’s a tinge of resentment in the voice of Beatings frontman Eldridge Rodriguez’s when asked about his feelings on the Boston band moniker.  What it comes down to is this: The Beatings, as a fiercely talented fivesome, have been making music for years, and given that Boston is a city saturated with talent and lacking in the number of venues, it’s a little surprising that The Beatings have remained a best-kept secret of sorts.  As a band who’s paid their dues playing bars and clubs and grimy stages all over Boston, New York, and other cities of note that they’ve hit touring the country a whopping eight times, it’s interesting that avid indie rock fans in Boston seem surprised when The Beatings reveal that, hey, maybe they’ve received a warmer welcome elsewhere and that other cities have appeared to be more receptive of their rock.  Regardless of whether or not Bostonians are flocking to Allston and Cambridge to hear The Beatings live for the first time or they’re back for another great show, their roots are here, and this familial relationship with the city has it’s ups and downs as any kinship with a loved one would.

We caught The Beatings outside in the pouring rain just before the Late Season Kids CD release party at Great Scott a while back, and luckily the guys (and girl!) were cool with moving the interview inside over cheap beers before the opener’s sound check.  The Beatings will be headlining Upstairs at the Middle East on October Read on for a look back on how The Beatings started, their thoughts on their Boston roots and what exactly happened that night in Tennessee when they played next to an exploding bridge.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: THE BEATINGS AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Erin: Kashi! Go Lean!

Greg: I don’t eat breakfast…

Tony: No.  I don’t touch cereal.

Eldridge: I haven’t touched cereal since grade school, I think.

E: Am I the only one who eats breakfast?!

T: I have coffee and then maybe lunch.

Dennis: I’ll eat a banana…

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

T: Long Duk Dong knows how to party!  I’m punching Mouth.

ER: Mouth got me through some tough times.

E: I’d punch Mouth.  They were making fun of Long Duk Dong because he’s Asian!  He’s the underdog!  I’m not gonna punch the underdog.

D: I’d punch Mouth, yeah.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

E: An oven, ‘cause it’s HOT! (Laughs)

D: I’d be one of those grippy things that helps open jars.

T: Probably one of those cranking mixers.

ER: … Like an eggbeater?

T: Yeah.

G: I’d be a George Forman Grill because I’d be in everyone’s house.

D: Yeah, you’re kind of the George Foreman Grill of Boston musicians…

ER: I’m the spatula.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

E: Janice!

ER: Doctor Teeth!

T: One of the dudes in the balcony, either Statler or Waldorf.

D: Me too. I’d be the old guy in the balcony that he’s not.

G: I’d be the airplane bomber guy with the big bags under his eyes because I don’t really sleep.

ER: I’d be the Swedish Chef.  He wasn’t fluent in Swedish or English, he was fluent in Swedinglish.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

G: For me, it’d be a big anchor on my chest because, I, uh, already have a big anchor tattooed on my chest….

E: This is so cliché for a librarian, but I’d get an owl on my arm or something.

ER: It has to be the owl from Clash of the Titans.  I would get all my body parts labeled.  Nose, eye, forearm…

D: I’d get a black “B” tattooed on my left hand so that I could get into shows for free.

G: Why don’t you just get a big fluorescent band around your wrist?

ER: I’d get like, a puma or something.  Or something with glitter.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

ER: RODEO CLOWN.  That’s respect.

D: I’d have trouble inverting my penis, so I’m going to go with rodeo clown.

G: I agree.  I’d definitely be a rodeo clown.  I can’t put on the weight.

T: And the wardrobe is a hundred times more manly!  I could look at myself in the mirror after work if I was a rodeo clown.

E: Yeeeeah rodeo clown.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

G: I’d get the Fisherman, which is when your sideburns grow into your mustache.

ER: If I could grow facial hair, which I can’t, because it comes out all Teen-Wolfy, I’d get a nice pencil-thin mustache.

T: I’d get a full-on Civil War general-style beard.  And I’d gain fifty pounds just to match the beard, too, and I’d walk around with a uniform too.

D: I’d go with a unibrow.  I’d like to know what that feels like.  I want to know those people’s pain.  I would understand them better once I learned how to walk the streets like that.

E: I’d be a dirt ‘stache.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

E: Fake, soy cheese.

G: Yup, soy cheese.

T: Blue cheese.

D: I feel like a Romano I think.  Aged Romano.

ER: I’d be Parmesan shaky cheese.  Like, Kraft shaky cheese.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

ER: “Moon River.”  You gotta listen to the beats they AREN’T playing.

That’s an interesting choice.

ER: It’s a solemn dance.

D: It’d be just the intro to “Money Or Nothing”.  As soon as they start singing, I turn it off.

T: “Maneater”, Hall and Oates.

G: “Big Country” by Big Country.

E: Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice”.

What’s your favorite word?

G: I say “Dang!” a lot.

T: Pantalones.

D: I like “panty” because of the polarizing effect it has on women.

ER: I like “bagina”, with a B, and “turd-burger” a lot.

E: Meep. I like “meep.”  It’s a term of endearment.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE BEATINGS TPB INTERVIEW

Hey guys!  We’re here tonight to celebrate the release of Late Season Kids, your latest album. This is a nice little party we’re about to have.

Eldridge Rodriguez: It is.

Erin: Yeah!

Before we start talking about the album, can we get the back-story on The Beatings? How did you all come to make music together, and where you come from?

ER: Tony and I grew up with each other, outside of New York, right on the Jersey border and outside Manhattan. We’ve known each other since we were in the fifth grade.  I left for school, and I met Dennis while I was studying at UMass Amherst. Dennis and I moved to Boston together, and that’s where we met Erin.  Tony then came up to live in Boston for a while, and then Tony moved back down to New York. Once everyone was up here we started playing together.  In the last two months or so, we added Greg to start playing with us as well.

Let’s talk influences for The Beatings. What artists and musicians do you draw inspiration from?  Who’s helped you cultivate your creativity as players and songwriters?

G: It’s pretty varied I guess. For me, personally, it’s the 80s alternative explosion kind of stuff. College rock mostly, stuff like R.E.M.  I’m really into The Pixies.

E: We’re all writing in the band. We’re collaborating, so you’re getting influences from all of this. And I think it’s very varied. Sonic Youth would be my main influence. The Pixies, too.

Tony: We’re kind of hard rock; we’re kind of metal; Folk. Between all of us, there’s a lot of stuff that somebody will love and bring to the band. And when they play it to the rest of us, they’ll be like, “I love this band”. And everybody else doesn’t get it. But when it comes to the band, it all seems to work.

E: Yeah!

ER: I’m trying to avoid the word “synergy”, but The Beatings has a good one of those.

We’ll thesaurus that.  As musicians, I’m assuming you didn’t just pick up a guitar yesterday and have never played in a band before. How is The Beatings different from other projects you’ve worked on before, and what do you really enjoy about this collaboration?

ER: It’s hard to say because we’ve been playing for a really long time together, for about ten years, now.

T: With the exception of some high school acts I played with, I’ve really only ever played with Eldridge.

E: Yeah, me too.

T: And Eldridge and I played together in high school, so… I don’t know how to play with anyone else. (Laughs)

E: Yeah, I me too. (Laughs)

ER: It’s kind of like when you’re getting picked for kickball teams, and you guys are the last four people to get picked. And you’re like, “Fuck it, we’ll start our own game!” That’s kind of the way it turned out. We just started playing with each other, and realized that we could tolerate each other and work with each other, and we just haven’t stopped.   We’re all really good , too. It’s not like we’re just acquaintances who play together. We’re in each other’s lives even when we’re not in a band.  We were at each other’s weddings. I mean, it’s been such a long relationship. It’s always felt like its been there, so I don’t know where it comes from, or where it developed. It’s just been there as far as I can remember.

When it comes to the collaborative nature of The Beatings, you mentioned that you’re all writers. Can you take me through your creative process?

T: Generally, somebody will write a song or an idea for a song or a skeleton of a song, and present it to everybody else. From there, it will usually take a life of its own. I have an enormous amount of confidence that if I have good idea about a song, I can bring it in and it will come out a very good song after it’s over with. I’ll have a skeleton of an idea and between all of us, we can make it into something worth listening to. Repeatedly.

D: I don’t really write songs, but what I feel like I add is just arranging things. You know what I mean?

G: But what about those vignette songs?

D: Those aren’t really songs-

ER: they’re vignettes!

D: Yeah, but everybody brings something in and whether it’s the kernel of the song, or ideas for other people’s songs.  It’s really collaborative like that.

ER: We share songwriting credit on all the records, and I feel like that’s totally the way it is.

And lyrically, is it that way, too? I know that sometimes when people talk about writing, it’s very different discussing lyrics as opposed to talking about the compositional aspect of it.

ER: It depends. For the most part, the person that brought the song in writes the lyrics, but there are several songs where I’ve needed lines and such and I come in and I’m like, “Hey! Guys!”

E: “Scorched Earth Policy” was your song that you brought in and were like, “What are we going to do with this?” So then I started writing lyrics, and Eldridge wrote lyrics, and it evolved.

ER: Someone certainly takes the brunt of the responsibility, lyric-wise, but it’s still a shared responsibility.  If someone writes a really horrible line, we’re comfortable enough with each other to go, like, “Hey, that really is kind of sucky, and it would embarrass me to play that on stage”.

That’s a really good point to be at in collaboration, I feel.   That’s great system of bounce ideas off of.

ER: Yeah!  I know it sounds cliché, but it really feels like a family.  We’re in each other’s lives on a daily basis. Even with Tony in New York, we talk every single day. Not necessarily about band stuff, just checking up, seeing how everything is going. “Did you read this comic book? Did you see that show? Did you do this?” So, it just feels like family. With family, you have spats, and then you realize that you’re kind of dug in. You can’t really get out of it, so you make up and you move on.  (Laughs)

You’ve mentioned that you guys have been working together for ages and that you’ve all got a hand in the songwriting.  Are there any songs from The Beatings’ catalog that stick out as favorites to you, or that you really enjoy playing live, or any songs that you’re especially excited to play for us tonight?

ER: I’m always excited to play “Heavy Metal”, because it’s a really spastic song and I really get a kick out of it.

G: The crowd seems to like it too, and a lot of times most people will come up on stage and sing.

ER: I like all of them. I really do. I don’t think we would have made them if we didn’t like them. We’ve always talked about that. The only reason you play in a band is to make songs you want to hear, like, “I wish there was more of this type of thing out there!” and then we write a song like that.

E: I like “Shark Attacks On The Rise”, but we haven’t been playing that for the last couple shows so I think we should play that. I’m going to lobby for that at our next show.

T: I get very excited to play the new stuff, just because it’s fun to see what’s going to happen and how the audience is going to respond to it. It seems like we just all write this stuff in our little vacuum, and when we take it out on stage it’s interesting to present it to new people and see what the response is going to be. We always get very excited about our new songs. We’re all like, “This is an awesome song!”  We’re modest that way!  We’re pretty in love with ourselves, but it’s nice to see other people fall in love with us, too. (Laughs)

ER: I feel like that especially on tour, when you’re playing in places you don’t know, and you get to see how they react to that stuff. It’s just exciting.

E: It’s really nice when there’s not that many people there, and you’re sitting at the merch table feeling kind of defeated, and someone comes up and is like, “I’ve seen you every time you’ve come. I have all your albums”. It’s that one person who saves the day. It’s just what you need when you’re touring.

D: I really like a lot of the early stuff, in terms of just fun stuff to play.  I also get excited about even us just writing stuff on stage sometimes, or adding new flairs or fills or whatever.

Do you guys have any crazy stories from The Beatings’ tour bus, so to speak? Any adventures on the road?  Tell us about your time on tour together.

ER: Well, we just came back a week and a half ago from tour.  We got some stories, but they’re definitely not Motley Crue style. Maybe Motley Crue, like, now.

Yeah, Tommy Lee’s pretty ridiculous, still…

ER: A lot of weird shit has happened in ten years.

E: The craziest thing was in Tennessee, though.

ER: Bridges blowing up…

Wait, what? Hopefully you weren’t driving over said bridge-

ER: No, but we were in the middle of playing, and all of a sudden everyone left-

T: And Knoxville is a place we usually do pretty well in and there’s a good crowd, but all of a sudden there was nobody left in the room. We look up at the end of a song, and it’s like, “Wow. We really cleared the room.” But the sound guy came up to us and told us that everyone left to watch the bridge blow up. He invited us to go watch with him, and was like, “Just come back whenever the bridge is blown up and everybody will be back here, I’m sure!” Sure enough, everybody was. We heard a giant boom, and then everybody came back in.   Generally, though, I can really only speak for myself, but – especially when we’re touring – I feel like I leave so much on the stage that there’s not much left over for partying afterwards. And if there is something left over, I almost feel like I haven’t done something right while playing.  If you have that much energy at the end of a show, there’s something you need to do on stage.

G: I concur. We tell some really funny jokes to each other while we’re watching TV afterwards. (Laughs)

So, let’s talk about what you’re listening to now. If I were to steal the iPods of The Beatings, what would I find in the Recently Added playlist?

ER: Hands and Knees, who are playing tonight. Label-mates. My wife and I have really gotten really into Mariachi music, so there’s a lot of that playing in the house.

E: I just started listening today to this band called St. Helena. They’re also from Boston. I had never heard them before, but I got the CD recently, and it was like, “Oh! This is really good.”

G: I’ve actually been listening to a lot of Spaghetti Western soundtracks lately. I’ve been all about that, I don’t really know why.

T: I just bought The Dark Side of the Moon.

Have you watched it with The Wizard of Oz yet?

T: No.

G: It works!

T: I know! I’m just listening to it for right now.

D: One band I’ve recently gotten into is Band of Horses. I’ve gotten pretty heavy into them over the last couple of months. And M. Ward.  I discovered Post-War a couple of months ago. That’s been on pretty heavy rotation ever since.

Now, in Boston, you guys have a pretty heavy following here…

ER: I don’t think we’ve ever felt comfortable in Boston.

Really?

ER: I think we’ve always felt like we were on the outside looking in. We’ve always done better in other cities. New York has always been really good to us.  Other places have always really supported us. It’s great, but then we come home, and we feel like we’re fighting for scraps in our hometown.  But I think that’s all going to change after this release so… (laughs)

E: It’s that and it’s the fact that there’s so much more media now then there was ten years ago, with blogs and networking… So I just think we’re getting more press lately. But also, just in general, I feel like more people are interested in The Beatings in Boston now.

ER: I mean, the crowd and the scene has always been supportive. It’s weird when you walk down the street in New York – on  a random night that we’re not playing- people will be like, “Hey, you’re The Beatings!”-

T: That’s even happened in South Carolina.  Weird.

ER: And then you come back and people up here are like, “Never heard of you. Are you guys new?” ‘No, we’ve been around like ten years.’ “Well, do you guys play out?” ‘Yeah, fairly regularly; you’re on our email list, dude’.

I mean, would you call Boston your hometown, in the sense that this-

All: Yeah!

Well, it’s really interesting that you’re received better in other cities. Why do you think that is?

E: Well, there are so many bands here. It’s a small city, and there are tons of bands here for a city of this size.

ER: I don’t think the situation is unique to us. There are plenty of bands from here that I know that I think are absolutely brilliant. And do really well outside the city.

Who are some of those bands?

ER: Black Helicopter only a couple of years ago finally started getting props in the city and those guys have been around longer than us. It’s a weird thing. You don’t know what people are going to respond to. You don’t know what the local press and media are going to respond to. It’s all a crapshoot!

T: I think our relationship with Boston is pretty much what they said: There’s just a lot of bands here. And it’s so small… I don’t think it’s any sort of giant cosmic conspiracy or anything like that.

ER: See that’s where you and I differ. (laughs) I think it’s absolutely a conspiracy.

T: Just look at the odds, the numbers…

Well, what keeps The Beatings here? What makes you stay in Boston?

D: Well, I think, musically, every thing everyone has said so far is pretty much true, but I also think one of the neat parts about it is coming home from a tour and seeing a lot of familiar faces up there. And we’ve had those as well. I feel like we do have a small and devoted following and for me, that’s worth a lot more than stuff like getting sold spaces.  It’s just seeing people that know us and appreciate us.  We’ve had that in Boston, so it always feels like home.

ER: I don’t mean to besmirch Boston, don’t get me wrong! I’m not besmirching- I’m smirching Boston. I think Boston’s a great city. But I do harbor a resentment towards…

G: The giant cosmic conspiracy.

ER: The giant cosmic conspiracy.

ER: When it comes down to it, I love Boston.  That’s the reason why I stay here, is because I absolutely love Boston.

E: Yeah!

G: And he bought a house!

ER: Yup.  We bought a house in Lower Allston last June.  I love Boston.  I absolutely love it.  Maybe you always feel a little bit stronger towards something you care about, I don’t know.  I kind of feel like it’s the parent who doesn’t pay enough attention to you and then when you’re older you’re like, “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?!”

G: Eldridge is like, “LOOK AT ME! HEY! ME! LOOK AT ME!”

ER: “I’m screaming!  I’m yelling!  I’m playing guitar, what do you want?!”  I don’t know, maybe I’m being overly harsh.  Tomorrow, I may be like, “Boston has the most supportive scene on the planet!”  And to an extent, I believe that: I think that Boston has some of the most supportive radio stations on the planet.  The college radio stations are the more supportive I’ve seen of bands on tour.

E: We have completely changed our minds about Boston based on what we were saying earlier…

We’ve talked about Boston’s general lack of venues, but what are your favorite Boston venues to play when you’re back in town?  You’re having your CD release party at Great Scott tonight.  Is there a reason for that?

E: Yeah!  They’re AWESOME!

ER: We’ve also had a relationship with Carl for forever.  It’s a great room.

G: The sound at Great Scott is the best.

ER: We like the shows they put together here.  I also like the Middle East and I love TT the Bear’s Place.

G: Generally, if a club likes us we like them! (Laughs)

T: We’ve had great shows at PA’s Lounge, too.

ER: The few clubs that are still here are very supportive of the local scene, and I think it’s great.  It feels like a scene, you know?  When we tour and we talk to people, they’ll say that there isn’t a scene, that there aren’t radio stations who will play their music and that there aren’t bands who bill with each other on a regular basis.  Boston has that.

I think it’s interesting to talk about the New York to Boston relationship and to talk about the differences versus pros and cons between the two cities.

ER: A lot of it has to do with the universities here and that a lot of kids split for New York once they graduate, but the scene in New York is weird, too.  Boston is a smaller city so you have to deal with the hand you have here and you have to deal with the clubs here as this city doesn’t move at the same pace as New York.  I like neither city more than the other.

When it comes to other Boston bands that you enjoy, if you could bill the perfect Boston band show, what Boston bands playing in town right now are acts you’d love to do a show with?

ER: Ernie and the Automatics.

T: I like that Hallelujah the Hills band.

G: Ketman’s good!

ER: There aren’t many bills we’ve played that I haven’t liked.  Ian Adams I like.  There are bands I like and then there are bands I care about.  I feel like we pair with more noisy bands in general.

How is Late Season Kids a departure from previous material by The Beatings?

T: I don’t know if it’s a departure.  One of the things I always loved about REM is that every REM album was, like, just a little different to keep it exciting, but it was identifiably REM.  Every single one of our records is the same way.  There’s no way I could love the last Beatings record more than this one, and then the next one comes along and I think it’s the best one after that.  It just feel like our music is always growing and we’re always learning from it.  I think we’re always just trying to impress each other I guess, or something.

E: We’re playing better and getting tighter!

D: I think this one is different, too, in that there are a few songs that we hadn’t really played in front of people before recording them.  A couple of the songs had been stage tested, but three quarters of the albums were written in the studio or in the practice space and had never been played onstage in front of a bunch of people.  When you play songs in front of an audience you can work with it more to find out what sounds best, so with this album, there was a lot more work that went into making the song sound the best it could sound in the studio.  We figured it out on the studio as opposed to on the road, and I feel like that’s part of the different feel on this album.   I think Tony is right, though, in that this album definitely feels like one of our children

So, what’s next for The Beatings?  What do we have to look forward to hearing from you guys in the not-so-distant future?

ER: Shows!  We’ve talked about building a studio so that we wouldn’t have to be paying for studio time.  We also run our own label, which keeps everyone busy.  I don’t feel like this is a big explosion for us, this new album.  I feel like it’s another step in this progressing movement that we’ve started ten years ago.  I’m sure there’ll be touring next year; there’s always touring to be done.  There’s always label stuff to be done.  There’s always stuff we have to do for our music.  We’ll probably start writing the new album fairly soon.  It’s just more of the same, in that we’re gonna keep on hashin’ it out!

“Good music is good music, regardless of genre.”

This quote, which also happens to be the closing note of our interview, describes the all-inclusive and laid back attitude of Boston’s own Televandals to a T.  The dance/new-wave/electronic/indie/punk foursome with a sound impossible to define has been making waves on both sides of the river while recording their new material in Allston and playing for packed houses in Cambridge, and they’re ready to hit the ground running with “Good For Nothing”, the single they’ll be celebrating with a soiree at Great Scott on September 4th.

Jared, Nico, Nick and Ryan are all friendly, grounded guys who are grateful for the support they’ve received from the Boston music community and their fans. After hearing about their silly food fight antics on the road (Nico may or may not have shoved some mashed potatoes into someone’s car air conditioner) and the intuitive shenanigans behind their creative process (which, at times, may involve running keyboards through the stereo of an automobile), we’re just as stoked to see this Boston band on the rise as they are to be making music in a city they’ve grown to love.

-Hilary Hughes

THE OPENING ACT: TELEVANDALS AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Nick: Cocoa Puffs.  It’s been my favorite since I was two years old.

Jared: Cracklin’ Oat Bran: It looks like dog food but tastes delicious.

Nico: That makes you poop, doesn’t it?

Jared: … Doesn’t it make everyone poop?

Ryan: I’d say Frosted Flakes.

No: Rice Krispie Treats Cereal.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

J: It would be a pleasure – no, an HONOR – to punch Corey Feldman in the face.  He came to Boston a year or two ago for some cause, I forget what it was, and he was just a total douche bag the whole time.

Nk: I’m gonna go with the offensive stereotype with Long Duk Dong.  I’ve never seen “Sixteen Candles.”

No: I’ve never seen “The Goonies…”

R: Yeah, I’d punch Mouth.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

No: I want to be the old toaster oven that short-circuited and melted our stereo.  That was like, a Jedi toaster oven.

…It melted your stereo?

Nk: They melded together!

No: Yes.  I want to be that toaster oven/stereo.

J: I think I’d be a blender.

Nk: I’d be a coffee machine.

R: A microwave!  I’d get to melt shit. [Ryan grins. Broadly.]

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

R: Animal! Duh.  Or maybe Louie, the dude who threw around those boomerang fish.

J: I’d be the Swedish Chef! Yes!

No: I’d be either one of the two old guys who sit up in the balcony-

Nk: YES! ME TOO!

No: Yeah.  Nick and I would be the two old guys. [Statler and Waldorf.]

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

J: I would get the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” all over my back.  That would be a LOT of words.

No: When I was drunk one night I thought up two tattoos, and then I got them the next day when I was sober.  I think I would have architect’s lines on my back, so that it would look like an architect had designed the human body.

Nk: I have no idea.  If I was drunk, I have no idea what I’d go for.  It’s really hard!  I’d probably get a can of PBR on my chest or something.

R: I’d get two sleeves.  I’ve always wanted sleeves.

No: What you SHOULD do is get sleeves of sleeves of a shirt.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

Nk: Sumo wrestler.  I am scared of clowns.  And mad animals.

J: Rodeo clown.  I don’t want to be that fat, I’m sorry.

No: Rodeo clown.  I already like garish clothing.

R: Me too. Rodeo clown.

No: What if you could just be a really fat rodeo clown and then you’d have the best of both worlds?  Or a sumo wrestler with a cowboy hat…

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

No: 19^th-century handlebar mustache.

R: Mutton chops!

Nk: Sideburn.  Just one.

J: I’ll be some kind of real bushy, bushy beard.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

No: Parmesan.  It’s good on everything.

R: Extra-sharp cheddar.

Nk: Ricotta.

J: I love cheese but I like so many of them!  I’d probably be feta: I’m half Greek and one of these days I’m gonna just crumble and fall apart.

What’s your favorite word?

Nk: Word. Haha.

No: Tomfoolery.

J: Hope.

R: Wow.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

Nk: Dancing with myself, Billy Idol.

No: That was mine!  Actually, no: Mine would be “She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals.

R: Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.”

Nk: Jared, I know which was the last song you danced on top of a van to…

J: What?!

Nk:  “You Can Call Me All”, Paul Simon.  His answer is “You Can Call Me All.”

THE MAIN EVENT: THE TELEVANDALS TPB INTERVIEW

Hey guys!  Real quick: Names and ages from the members of Televandals for the record, if you please.

Jared: I’m J-Restless, also known as Jared Savas.  I’m 28 and I live in Allston.  I’m the singer and guitarist in Televandals.

Nico: I’m Nico.  I’m 27.  I do guitar, keys, synth, mixing and things that go “beep!”

Nick: I’m Nick, I’m 27, and I’m living in Medford right now.  I’m the bass player.

No: Our missing drummer is Ryan.  He’s my roommate in Allston, actually.  He does drums, beats, and a little bit of mixing, too.  He’s 19 (laughs).

J: He’s older than the rest of us.

[Editor's Note: Ryan was caught in traffic on the way back from Vermont for the majority of the interview, but was able to join us in time for the TeaParty Ten.  Stupid New England summer traffic! Rahhh.]

So, how did you guys meet and come to make music together?

J: It’s kind of a funny thing.  Nico and I knew each other way before Televandals even happened.  He was actually the last one to join the band.  Thank God for Craigslist!

No: Yeah, we put up almost identical posts at the exact same time-

J: – Looking to start a band of the ilk of what we kind of do now.  We hit it off right away, and ended up working with a bunch of different people over the course of a year and change, basically.  We played a few shows with a fella under the name Televandals, even though it’s very different than what we do now.  Same general idea, but we’ve evolved since then.   He left to pursue other things and we met Ryan.  At that point we started doing shows again and writing new songs.  A buddy of ours was a temporary bass player for sometime before we could find someone permanent, and then Nick moved to the area, and we asked him to join.

So how long have you been playing music?  Were you children banging on pots and pans and whatnot?

No: I started when I was fourteen, I guess; I just bought a guitar and went at it.  A few years later I was like, “Why on earth am I not doing this?”  I’m from Miami, actually, and so I packed my car and drove up to Boston to be in a band.

Nk: I started playing cello in the fourth grade and I went to upright bass in the sixth grade, but I also started playing guitar when I was twelve.

J: I started writing lyrics when I was like in middle school and of course at that time I thought it was the greatest thing ever, and it was totally, looking back on it, it was total bollocks but it was a good place to start, anyway.  I didn’t start playing guitar until maybe I was, I don’t know, 16 or something like that?  The funny thing is, this is the first really serious band I’ve ever been in.

No: Likewise.

J: Just recently, I’ve been dabbling in synths and that, for me, is in the formative stages, but I do a lot of songwriting.

No: He does awesome synth.  My favorite line of the whole album was your synth. (Laughs)

Let’s talk influences: Who would you credit for the cultivation of your creativity?  Are there any artists whose sound you just love that have helped shaped you as musicians?

Nk: For me, I started out with West Coast Punk, like NOFX and all that.  I retroactively got into The Clash after that.  When it comes to newer stuff, I’m into Radiohead.

No: Yeah, I’d say Radiohead was the band that really kicked me into music.  With Kid A they got into electronic stuff and that got me into electronic stuff: The Chemical Brothers, Apex Twin, and more recently I’ve gotten into some electro-DJs and UK-based indie stuff like the Wombats.  I’m kind of a big fan of Plush Gun and Passion Pit.

Passion Pit always comes up in our interviews!

J: (Laughs) For me, my whole outlook on music changed when I started listening to The Clash.  That was really the big turning point for me in terms of music.  They like, changed me in a way that I never expected to be changed by one single band.  Not that that was my only influence – I love Massive Attack’s dark sound, and Bloc Party’s been a big influence.  What Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead does with sound manipulation has been very influential in and of itself, too.

No: One thing we try to do a lot of is to make an instrument sound like another instrument; like, we’ll run our guitars through filters to sound like keyboards, we’ll make our keyboards sound like string sections and then we’ll mash it all together.

It sounds like Televandals has got a good “Mad Scientist”-y vibe going on.

No: Yeah!  Ryan is very good with playing dance music from a live [drum] kit.

Nk: Yeah!  He’s got a great dance beat.

J: Well, we do all this with a sense of familiarity and cohesiveness, too; it’s not just a bunch of sounds and, you know, sounds for the sake of making sounds.  We’d like to think that there’s a core to it.

No: Yeah, a foundation.

We can definitely appreciate the difference between fucking around with equipment and experimenting with sound.

Nk: Yeah, our songs take a loooong time. (Laughs) Maybe too long.

No: One of the most frustrating things for us is that we’ll record a song, like the songs for the EP or the songs for the album, and by the time we print it we’ve changed it again.

I guess this is a good point to segue into the creative process behind Televandals.  Is is completely collaborative, or is there someone who heads up the lyric writing and compositional quality?

Nk: Lyrically speaking it’s pretty much Jared.

J: It depends.  Most of the more recent stuff, we’ve been fully collaborative and writing parts and arranging stuff.  There have been a lot of times where I’ll come in with ideas, but just as often these guys will bring in something to work with.  There’s definitely no front man.  It’s a band, and we strive to be a band in the truest sense of the word.

No: It’s definitely like controlled chaos, I guess.   Sometimes we’ll just be jamming and that’ll become a song.  There was one instance where we were trying to write the ending of one song and it became another song.

J: We have another song on our album called “Arch Nemesis”, and when we were working on the arrangement for that song, I don’t know, at least two other current songs and several other song ideas came up for us just working on that one song. One of the bands I think all of us would mention would be Does It Offend You Yeah.  The way they kind of have blended rock with a whole different electronic aesthetic has been-

Nk: Well, not jut the aesthetic, the songwriting, too.

J: Yeah.  Their concept in general is very intriguing to us.

No: It’s kind of that sense of a DJ found a guitar and learned how to play it.

Yeah, I think that people are really receptive to that kind of vibe.

No: A lot of the best electronic acts do that already:  When we saw LCD Sound System at Austin City Limits, they had a live drummer and a live bass player.  It’s that more organic feel.  When you look at the premier electronic bands, too, it all goes back to analog.  You’re trying to get that organic dance sound.

J: That whole direction that electronic music is going in is really inspiring, and it’s also something where, like, the lyricism of going back to Dylan or something like that.  There are no limits or boundaries to the elements you can bring into the creative process.

Do you feel particularly connected to any of your songs?

No: I like playing “Silence in the City” because it’s very balls-to-the-walls.

Nk: I always love playing “Molotov.”

No: I love playing keys on “Endor.”  I have a lot of fun with that.

J: In terms of songs in our catalog, that new song, “Endor”, of the songs on our album it’s the most recent we’ve written and I feel like it’s very strong and a very full arrangement.  I feel like “Endor” kind of embodies what we’re all about.

No: Yeah!  It’s a lot of fun.

In terms of playing live versus spending time in the studio, does your creative process change? Let’s talk through the process that was behind recording your latest LP.

No: It was … long.

J: Yeah.

Nk: Very long.

How long are we talking?

No: Ten months?

J: Yeah, nine or ten months, yeah.  We all have jobs so it’s not like we can all just go and dedicate this many weeks or months to just recording it straight, so it was kind of intermittent.

No: I was saying how we can change songs constantly; by the time we came back to finish recording it we had new lines added.  All of our songs have so many layers that it’s never a matter of just recording the guitar line.

Where did you record the album?  Did you record it in a Boston studio?

No: Yeah, right down the road at Cease and Assault.  It was actually funny because our manager is in the same building.

When it comes to touring, you’re planning on doing a big push behind this new album.  Take us through what the Televandals are going to be up to in the coming months.

No: We’re looking to book more gigs in New England and then we’ll branch out to father-reaching things.  We’ve got a new mix contest out right now with the new single and we’re trying to bring the DJs in Boston into it.

J: I think the goal for us is to not be the follower of a trend; we kind of want to be the trend.  We want to do something unique and in of its own right something inspiring in its own way.  Who knows if we’ll get there?  I hope we will, but that’s sort of the idea behind what we’re doing.

Where do you want to be with Televandals six months from now?

Nk: In a van.  I want to be in a van. (laughs)

No: In a van.  Driving on the left side of the road.

Soooo you want to be touring in England, then?

J: That would be awesome.

No: As much as people find it hard to settle into this lifestyle, it’s basically just living on the road and going from show to show to show to show.  I don’t like sitting down for very long.

Do you have any crazy stories for us from Televandals’ tour bus? Or van?

Nk: Nico thinks it’s fun to throw food at my car when I’m driving.

No: I have to.  I have to attack it, and he’ll retaliate.  It’s gotten to the point where we’ve almost damaged our cars.

Nk: You HAVE!  You HAVE damaged my car.

No: There may or may not be KFC mashed potatoes in his air conditioner.

J: We did this one show in Providence where someone threw a beer can at the other person’s car, and it hit someone else’s van on accident, so that was fun.

No: There was another instance where he was stopped at a red light and I jumped out of the car with a 100-yard roll of duct tape and I duct taped him into the car.

Red light shenanigans are the coolest.

No: Yeah, especially when you don’t get hit by other cars…

J: Once, we were playing this gig in New York, and our van was broken into and robbed, so that wasn’t fun… The only equipment they stole were two of my guitars, which sucked, but they stole a lot of our personal things, like bags and stuff like that.  We have this guy who usually goes on the road with us named CJ who’s 6’7” giant of a man, huge, huge guy, so he had his bag stolen which had a portable DVD in it.  The police come, and a female police officer was interviewing all of us to get a record of what had been stolen, and CJ said, “Oh yeah I had this bag stolen, personal DVD player and … some DVDs… of an adult nature….” (Laughs) It wasn’t fun at the time but looking back on it it’s very amusing.

No: Coming back from SXSW, Ryan and I actually drove the van.  He fell asleep and the GPS went out, so I just kept following the road we were one and I only realized that we weren’t in Tennessee anymore when we wound up 100 miles into Kentucky.  Yeah.  That was a funny four-hour adventure.

J: Meanwhile, that same trip, Nick and I are flying back and we flew out at like, four in the morning, and we had been downing tequila all day long as it was the last day of SXSW.  We fell asleep on the floor of the airport.  We had to do a connecting flight from Austin to Houston and they upgraded us to first class, so we sit down, and we’re like …

No: We actually wrote the keyboards for “Endor” driving back from SXSW.  I traded this gigantic setup using a cigarette lighter to power my keyboards and my laptop and running everything through the car stereo.  I was riding with the laptop and me with the keyboards in the back seat blasting the stereo.  It was fantastic!

Let’s talk about Boston. What are some Boston bands that you would love to bill with, or are there any Boston artists that you really happen to enjoy?

Nk: I really like You Can Be A Wesley.  They’re another band that can really write songs, and they’re cool people.  They put on a good show, too.

No: I’ve been getting into a lot of Boston DJs, like Die Young, Volvix,  they’re all really good.  Thick as Thieves won my heart when they covered “Just” by Radiohead at one of the last Aloud shows.  They’re pretty sick.  I’m always a fan of Aloud since Henry and Jen moved up here, and I’m also really into Herra Terra, who we actually played with two years ago.  Amazing, amazing hybrid band.

J: Both those bands, Herra Terra and You Can Be A Wesley, were on the bill with us at Middlesex a month or two ago.  It was very interesting and a very solid avant-garde lineup.  It was unexpected and very cool.

How has it been for you guys as active members in the Boston music community?

No: It’s totally a family.

Nk: I don’t know anything else to compare it to…

J: I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but we’re a band who happens to be from Boston but it’s not like we want to typecast ourselves, but at the same time we’re proud to be from here, too.

No: It’s a very, very fertile ground, too: I mean, if you look in New York right now, all these clubs are closing down and here, you have a bunch of really good acts and really good clubs.

J: It really is burgeoning: there’s a lot that’s come out of here recently so hopefully we can come out of that and do our own thing.

No: I feel like there’s been a big resurgence lately in Boston music.  I mean, this was kind of a dead spot for a while, but Passion Pit, Wild Light, labels and the people in the business are starting to take notice of Boston again and it’s really showing.

Let’s talk venues.  Where are your favorite Boston venues, both to see shows and play them?

J: Great Scott is fun.  TT’s, we’ve had a number of good shows there.

No: I loved Middlesex just because it wasn’t a normal venue.

J: I was skeptical about the show, but having the crowd right there and in your face was cool!

No: We’re into interactions.  We hate that space between the stage and the audience, so the closer the audience can get to the stage the better.  There should not be dividing lines.

Yeah, we love that about Middlesex, too!

J: Earlier in June we played Harpoon Fest, and it was a huge stage, right?  It was kind of the opposite of Middlesex.  A bigger stage, it was great in the sense that we got to play for a ton of people, but on the other hand, there’s also the intimacy that you need to make up for, so we invited a bunch of people to dance up onstage with us to get that.  Normally, when I’m playing, Ryan is thisclose to me, but on that stage his drum kit was so far away.

No: Yeah, I actually ran out of guitar chord at one point.  It was like, “I can’t go farther?! Shit!”

Well, most of the Boston venues have small stages.  I can definitely see how you’d get used to working with not a lot of square footage.

No: Yeah.  We really like the Paradise Rock Club, too.  The sound there is fucking awesome.

What about the differences between Boston and New York as musical cities?  We hear a lot about the changes you see city to city when it comes to band-club relations and the business aspect of that.

No: New York right now is, I mean, for lack of a better term, is overloaded: There are so many bands and relatively so few venues that it becomes kind of cutthroat.  More so than that, people have trouble getting any kind of draw because if you’re a fan of local music you have 10,000 bands to go see.  Draws get split up, it’s hard to build a following, I mean, it’s definitely a place for already established bands.  Trying to get started, it doesn’t matter how good you are: You’re still going to get lost in that giant pile.  If you’re good in a place like Boston, you’re not gonna get lost and you’re going to be heard.  I think that New York offers a lot of opportunities, but I think you have to know when it’s your time to go after them.

Do you see yourselves as being a Boston band for a while?  Do you have any plans to move onto another city in the near future?

J: I mean, we very well could move, depending on what happens in this coming half a year or year.  Maybe we’ll be on the road and coming back here.  It’s just tough to say.

No: We definitely have allegiances here, though.  Even if we’re living in a different city, it’s not like we’re ever going to forget that Boston is where we started and Boston is what made us.  I hope that we’ll be able to play massive shows elsewhere at some point and then be able to come back and play secret shows at Great Scott.

Do you find the Boston music scene to be clique-y?

No: I don’t know if I’d call it clique-y.  People go after the kind of music they like and they befriend the other people they see congregating at these shows, but I mean, we see a huge variety in the people who come to our shows.  We draw everyone from Boston punks to fans of the Boston DJ scene.  I think cliques only exist to people who want to be in cliques, and there are a lot of people around here that don’t really acknowledge that.

J: I think that goes back to why we hesitate to classify ourselves.  I’d say we’re a punk band or a new wave band or whatever you wanna call it; we try to play with a wide variety of bands and venues.  It’s not like we’re being clique-y.

No: Good music is good music, regardless of genre.

This Saturday, August 29th, we’re gonna be running around Boston like chickens with our heads cut off and there’s NO GOOD REASON why you shouldn’t be, too, as this is one EPIC EVENING OF MUSIC!  It doesn’t matter if you’re situated way the hell out in Forest Hills or you’re twiddling your thumbs in the suburbs getting ready to watch your DVR’d episodes of Weeds and Mad Men for for the umpteenth time: Boston’s got a lot going on tomorrow, and we here at TeaParty Boston will be taking it upon ourselves to make sure that you guys get in on what’s sure to be an incredible night.

Unfortunately for us, all three major music events we’ll be following in this city Saturday night are happening simultaneously: While the Boston Band Crush event of the summer, One Night Band, which the Globe referred to as a game of “rock n’ roll musical chairs”, will be raging from 8pm until the wee hours of the morning, the Rex Complex will be celebrating their CD release before they leave Boston for Brooklyn and McAlister Drive will be just warming up before their set at the ‘Dise opening for Michael Bernier + the Uprising.  We’ll be biking/driving/training in between the Middle East, the Lizard Lounge and the Paradise between the hours of 7-God knows when, so if you see a big-haired loudmouth chasing rock stars around with a tape recorder, a chic, willowy-type getting all up onstage for some sick concert photos and a cute lil’ bespectacled girl taking a picture of your sick outfit and double-checking the spelling of your name, well, that’s us.

To prep yourselves for tomorrow night’s musical marathon of awesome, we’ve got two shiny brand new interviews.  The first one on the list below with The Rex Complex is probably our most hilarious “WTF?!”-inducing interview yet, and we’re gonna be sad to see these fellas go when they leave their beloved Cambridge/Somerville scene behind for a chance at breaking it big in Brooklyn.  Our second interview, which took place in the pool room at TT’s with Aloud before their awesome show on August 6th, gives us the back-story of one of Boston’s most exciting bands to watch as they prep for an upcoming album and gush about The Beatles.  Also, we’ve got McAlister Drive photos up the wazoo over in the TeaParty Boston Gallery, so if you want to see Christoph work  it in white skinny jeans while belting out some good ol’ fashioned pop/rock, check it out.

After that, we figured we’d remind you that we have some of the silliest interviews on record with dudes of The Luxury and The Motion Sick.  Reps from both bands will be joining Jen and Henry onstage for One Night Band, so brush up on why exactly Travis of The Motion Sick broke into a rendition of a NKOTB hit mid-interview and learn how Justin Day changed the meaning of Gaiking forever.

-Hilary Hughes

“I WANT TO SQUEEEZE YOU!”: A Candlelit Conversation with The Rex Complex

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The Search for White Jeans and Other Adventures with Aloud

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Where Play-Doh leads to music, and the music is about Waffle House: Gab and Jessie spend some time with The Motion Sick

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The Luxury TPB Interview: Girly Drinks, Gaiking Tattoos and All “In The Wake of What Won’t Change”