Cambridge’s Leisure are a pop band, though not in the over-produced, over-compressed sense that might come to mind. Instead, Leisure look back to when pop was great, innovative music. Their sound blends the dramatic flair of icons like David Bowie or Queen with a definite musical root in early 90s Britpop. You can also hear chamber pop influences in their arrangements, which include vivid strings and piano. It’s a sound that’s as powerful as it is intricate, conceding none of its depth while being shaped around simple pop structures.

Since their formation back in 2009, Leisure have been working diligently in their warehouse practice space, bringing their repertoire of songs up to their own high standards, and only recently taking them to the stage. Still, if their sell-out show as part of our TeaRoom Tuesdays concert series back in February was any indicator, it won’t be long before these guys are wowing wide audiences even outside the Boston scene.

I sat down with Jed, Chris, and Sam, the creative core of Leisure (though they add a few more players live to recreate their big sound), and got to find out about their songwriting, diverse influences, and upcoming tour with San Francisco lo-fi outfit Girls. Make sure to show them some local support as they kick off their Northeast/Midwest tour this Thursday at The Paradise.

–Kevin Junker

Hi guys, can you tell me a little about how Leisure formed?

Jed: We’ve all known each other since about 2004, we all went to the same high school. It’s a little small town and nothing much goes on there, and that’s why we ended up making a band. So we got together and we’ve been working on writing music together for a long time, we have a long-standing musical relationship.

Sam: The three of us were in another band two or three years ago called Scary Monsters, so we got the writing down there and it sort of turned into Leisure over time. It was a little different lineup then, Jed was playing guitar and singing, and we had another member who isn’t with the band anymore.

How do you come up with your songs? Does anyone write most of the material or do you collaborate together?

J: It’s different every time. Sometimes I’ll write a full song on my own with the piano, or I’ll have some kind of lyrical idea. Someone else might have a small riff or a bunch of chords, and we’ll work it together. We kind of have an aversion towards jamming, sometimes it’s overdone in music, so we avoid that and try to shape our songs around a structure, but it’s a little different each time.

S: We kind of have that intense concentrated musical experience that one could have by themselves, but we have it all together. We sort of create an environment where we can stay with each other for a long time and work through something over the course of a month or two. The song usually ends up completely changing from what it was.

J: Since we’ve all played together, some of the stuff goes back like four or five years. When we first formed Leisure, we really spent a lot of time writing and trying to get a really good track together without really showing anybody. We have high standards for ourselves and so we don’t want to put things out there until they’re great. Just recently we’ve been getting out and playing and getting everything going.

What music would you say influences your sound?

J: We all bring different things to the band, but the one thing we all like is to write pop songs—concise pop forms. So any pop music that can bring different things into the format of a specific song is interesting to us. So obviously, Bowie, The Smiths, famous pop bands like that. Queen is one that we like a lot, too.

Chris: I like a lot of different stuff, but in terms of influences for this band, maybe The Libertines. For composers, I like Debussy, in terms of his harmonics. He uses a lot of non-conventional chord changes, doesn’t keep everything diatonic.

J: When you’re confined to a pop song, you’re always looking for innovative ways to do it. That’s the beauty of it, is that you’re forced to find new ways to go about it instead of just the same thing every time.

When I think of pop, though, I tend to think of like Top 40 radio stuff, which isn’t necessarily your sound. What sort of pop sensibilities do you draw upon then?

J: We try to create a narrative that can relate to everyday life with a structure and sound that is comprehendible. You don’t have to be a professor to understand it.

S: A lot of 50s, 60s, and 70s pop songs were pretty intricate and complicated, and that kind of got lost along the way somehow. Maybe not necessarily lost, but now it seems harder to find that balance where you can make something musically interesting but also make it appealing. Bowie, T-Rex, the Stones–so much of that music is just really interesting to listen to.

How do you feel about the local music community here in Boston?

S: There’s definitely a place here for good music, in terms of if you’re making good music, it’s a great place to get some exposure. There are definitely some bands from Boston getting some big attention, like Passion Pit. That’s important, like if an area band gets that big, maybe you can do it too. Boston definitely has a lot of the components for strong music.

J: There are bigger music communities, but location shouldn’t even really matter. You shouldn’t feel like you need to get up and go somewhere else just to make better songs. It’s not going to change your music.

Which venues do you guys like to go to or play at?

J: Great Scott, we like playing a lot, maybe because it’s just down the street… We like going there too.

S: They got rid of Avalon and Axis, which is too bad, we used to see shows there all the time. Those were good mid-sized venues that aren’t around anymore. Paradise is great too, almost every night they manage to have great, great bands.

C: Playing at Lizard Lounge was really cool. The sound was surprisingly great there– you could actually hear Jed sing which is hard to do for such a small room.

What have you been working on recently and what’s coming up for Leisure?

J: We’re trying to record as much as we can right now, we have a lot of songs written, but we’re kind of neurotic in the studio sometimes, so it can take us a long time. We can get hung up on little details. We’ve had an idea to do a 7” maybe try to put that out after the tour. Our ultimate goal is to make a really good album and to make it the same way as we make music now– produced by us, done by us. We’re working with this guy Richard Marr at Galaxy Park Studios in Allston. Then of course we’re really excited to head out on tour with Girls. They played here a few months ago and we hung out with them and made friends. It’s great for us to be able to reach a much wider audience. It’ll be an East Coast and Midwest tour with a date in Canada, for about two weeks, starting off in Boston at The Paradise. We really want to shoot a video too, we think it’s important to match songs up with videos, so after tour we’ll probably try to work on one.

Leisure plays April 1st at Paradise w/ GIRLS, Dum Dum Girls

“In 2008 we bought a 1986 Chevy Beauville, named it Pope Bishop the Second, released our third record, grabbed a monkey puppet for a mascot, and hit the road for a six week tour of the States,” Grimis frontman David Tanklefsky told us, beginning his explanation of how the Andover-bred, now bi-coastal quartet ended up releasing their own DVD, “A filmmaker from Oregon named Dusty Bodeen came with us and documented the trip.  He shot tons of footage from shows, a few interviews and then just a lot of stuff about traveling together as friends and doing something ambitious.”

With members split geographically between Portland (the one in Oregon), Brooklyn and Boston–and musically between a whole handful of side projects–Grimis’ situation may seem like a difficult one. But for them, it works. In our interview, David explained how the band keeps it together: a lot of trust. After all, they’ve been friends for over a decade and their currently scattered status means every tour and every show is a reunion of sorts. Drummer Pete Michelinie puts it into perspective in the documentary, “I like living out of a van. It’s like living out of a backpack, but you can bring your friends too.”

After a west coast tour this fall, Grimis is back in their hometown for a DVD release/screening at Andover’s Old Town Hall on December 23rd, followed by Hello Echo’s 2nd Annual Post-Christmas Party at the TT the Bear’s Place on December 26th.

–Jessie Rogers

[Grimis Tours the States - click for the trailer]

Hey David! Who is Grimis? Who plays what?

Grimis is myself (guitar/vocals), and my three childhood friends Andy Doherty (bass), Pete Michelinie (drums) and Lyle Brewer (guitar).  We currently play shows as a trio as Lyle is a busy man playing all around Boston all the time and touring with Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles.  While I would not call any of us “multi-instrumentalists” we all like percussive things and have a passion for the freestyle drum jam.  Andy and I dabble on lots of different instruments and Pete plays a nasty accordion and melodica.  Sometimes those instruments find their way into recordings and shows.

How did you start playing music together?

We all grew up in Andover, Mass.  Andy, Pete and I went to the same elementary school.  I remember a day in 5th grade when the lunch aide let Pete bring his drums out to Dragon’s Lair (that was the name of our playground, it was modeled after a 17th century medieval death structure and was totally awesome) and being amazed at his John Bonham-like virtuosity.  In middle school we met Lyle and we all played in concert band.  In high school we were part of a jazz combo (I was playing saxophone at the time) and we got pretty into Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, etc.  For a short, two-year window or so our high school was just filled with bands and musicians doing really creative things so we got totally swept up.  We started making records, playing with friends and organizing shows.  We developed a really strong group of friends and creative people who still support us and as we all grew up and spread out across the country for college and life after college. They have served as the bedrock for allowing us to keep pushing our little band forward years after forming.

You guys grew up outside of Boston, would you identify yourselves as a Boston band?

In some ways yes, in some ways no.  The first time we played the Middle East we felt like we had become a real band.  So in that way yes.  We also really looked up to some Boston bands who came through and had success before us like Piebald, Apollo Sunshine, The Slip.  But we were never really part of a scene in Boston, maybe because musically we don’t fit into any scene very easily.  It always kind of feels like we are just a little bit out there in the wilderness, enjoying playing music together immensely but not really catching on with the wider world. In a lot of ways that’s OK.  Lyle really opened me up to a lot of the Cambridge/Somerville Americana kind of thing and I try to see some of those musicians play when I am in town–Tim Gearan, David Johnston, Dennis Brennan.  But that’s just from a fans view, Grimis isn’t really related to that scene.

Where are you based out of these days?

Now Pete and Andy live in Portland, Oregon and I live in Brooklyn.  Pete farms and makes furniture.  Andy works with kids in the Portland Public Schools and I am a reporter.  Andy and I both play a lot of music in our respective music scenes with different projects.  We’ve worked playing music in Grimis around a lot of different stages of our lives so this latest relocation is really no different.  Pete went off and lived in New Zealand for a while.  He also hiked the Appalachian Trail.  Andy went to Australia and met an Aussie with a great mohawk who would become a vital wayward traveler with us years later when he landed in Oakland and came on tour with us.  I lived in London for a while.  We move around and then come back together and keep playing music.  That’s us.

What’s your songwriting process like with everyone so scattered about?

In the beginning, when Grimis was pretty much a jazz/fusion band, Lyle was probably the main songwriter with all of us collaborating on songs.  In recent years, as we’ve all become more interested in folk music and the band has sort of shifted gears, I’ve done a lot of the songwriting.  We haven’t all lived in the same city since we left for college and we’ve all lived all over the place so when we get together and work on new material, it will often be me bringing a tune to the table and Andy and Pete taking it a part and figuring out where all the pieces of their playing fit in it.  We’ve built up a lot of trust and miles on our collective musical odometer so when we get together and work on songs, things can come together fairly quickly and organically.

You mention jazz and folk as important genres, but what acts do you credit as your musical influences? Do you have any non-musical influences?

We love great songwriters–The Band, Paul Simon.  We all like Fela Kuti and The Bad Plus.  We’ve played a lot of shows with a group called Basement Band from Brooklyn that we are all quite fond of.  We’re definitely influenced by our friends and their various musical endeavors–our buddy Chris DeLorenzo is basically Grimis’ fifth member, he does all our album design and concert flyers and is a great songwriter in his own right.  We have another friend named Mark Brickman who is a creative tornado–musician, painter, sculptor and all-around questionable character–and he provides a lot of inspiration.

What are you listening to right now? Are there any new artists that you’re really excited about?

I can’t speak for the rest of the band but I really love the Dirty Projectors as of late and I’ve been really into a lot of other new stuff like Emil and Friends, Big Tree, Cuddle Magic, Tune Yards and Hello Echo.  Cuddle Magic is a big 9-12 piece band made up of NEC graduates.  We know a few of them through Lyle, who went to NEC, and their singer Kristin sang on the last Grimis record.  They are phenomenal.  There’s lots and lots of good music sprouting out all over the place.  Also, Andy has been playing with a band in Portland, Oregon where he lives called Quiet Life and they sound great too.

So this tour you documented back in 2008…

It was the longest tour we had ever undertaken but it’s still just an independent thing–we organized the whole tour, promoted it ourselves, all of that.  So the whole trip had a kind of beautiful, flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants kind of feel.  We played a sold-out CD release at the Middle East Upstairs and two nights later found ourselves in Montpelier, Vermont playing for 15 people and then sleeping on the side of a mountain at the house of some guy who allegedly founded Goji Berry Juice or something like that.  So it kind of captures that sense of the inane and exciting.  Anyways…we have a friend who studied film in Chicago named Grant Guiliano who has been a huge supporter of our band for a long time and he took the initiative to take all of Dusty’s footage and make a documentary.  It’s basically about the four of us, our friendship and the joy of doing something you love for no other reason but that you love it.

Care to share any crazy stories from the road?

Hmm…I thought Pete got stabbed at a rest stop in Idaho once.  I already mentioned the Goji Berry Man.  We don’t do very much in the way of general road debauchery.  We like to hang out in cities we visit, eat at diners, see friends.  One cool road story is when we went on that US tour we struck out from Montpelier and let a guy with dreadlocks use one of our cell phones at like two in the morning on our first night on the road.  Then we went all the way around the country and finished the tour in Burlington, Vermont.  As we were packing up we ran into the same guy and he said, “How was the tour?” so that was pretty cool.  It all came full circle.

What has your past experience been like playing in Boston?

Our CD release show at the Middle East was definitely a defining night.  We had worked for more than a year and a half on our third record and it was just a night of sharing what we’d been up to with a lot of people, so that felt really good.  I remember a really fun show at the Paradise Lounge a few years back.  When we were younger we got to play the Paradise Rock Club as part of the Emergenza Festival and that was a thrill.  BU has been great too.  I went there for a year and a half and we got to open for some bands we really respect there.

Are you currently following any Boston artists?

I follow anything Lyle is a part of, and through his various goings on I usually hear about other interesting things.  The aforementioned Emil and Friends and Cuddle Magic.  Our friend Craig Martinson is a local guy who writes and records amazing songs.  I follow him breathlessly too.

What can fans expect from Grimis in the upcoming months?

We have some demos that we recorded in Mass. last winter that we are discussing how to release.  It may be an online-only type of thing.  It’s Andy, Pete and myself and then we have guests on the recordings.  And then we’re talking about another big long tour sometime in 2010 but that isn’t solidified yet.  Gotta dot the i’s and cross the t’s.  But I think it should happen.  We get restless legs.

Back on the eve of Halloween, we had a chance to catch an eye-opening set by Allston’s masked madmen (and women), Mighty Tiny.  Local instrumental post-rockers Caspian were headlining, and the Middle East Upstairs was packed to near capacity with dozens of fans dressed in costume. Mighty Tiny got on stage decked out in turn-of-the-century Vaudevillian attire, complete with masks straight out of commedia dell’arte, creating a definitive air of mystery.  A causal concert-goer might assume this was a special get up for Halloween, but elaborate costuming is just one of the many elements of the unique theatrics of Mighty Tiny’s performance.

Opening their set with an accordion- and fiddle-laden cover of “This Is Halloween” from the ever-popular Tim Burton film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, it was clear that Mighty Tiny were going to bring something different to the table.  It’s difficult to characterize the band’s sound, which strangely floats somewhere around blues, jazz, punk, and gypsy music, sometimes shifting gears from one to another in an instant.  What might be even stranger is how seamlessly it all comes together.  The music serves as a great vehicle to allow the musicians to get into character, like Max Rose and his spidery antics as he leaps around the stage, laying out some sinister slide guitar solos.  The effort that the sextet puts into performance, to make the show as entertaining visually as it is musically, is what sets them apart from so many other local bands.

Before their set, we sat down with all six members of the band and talked about their eclectic influences, creating a stage persona, and what it’s like to be a band on the rise in Boston.

–Kevin Junker

Hi everyone! What are your names, where are you from, and what do you play?

Kana: Kana Zink, I’m from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and I play the accordion.

Noah: Noah Appel, I play the drums, and I’m from Belmont, Massachusetts.

Amy: Amy Alvey, I play violin, and I’m from Orange County, California.

Dave: Dave Pezzano, I play bass, I’m from Folsom, Pennsylvania.

Matt: Matt Tompkins, I play guitar and sing, and I’m from Elkhart, Indiana.

Max: Max Rose, I also play guitar and sing, I’m from Sudbury, Massachusetts.

OK, so some of you are from MA and some from all over– how did you guys all get together and become a band?

Mt: Do we say it?

D: Yeah, we say it.

Mt: We all went to Berklee.

A: [jokingly] Off the record, off the record!  Actually though, I met Matt through Starbucks.

Mt: Yeah, I worked with Amy at Starbucks, Max and I lived on the same floor, Dave was on a different floor in our dorm.

N: Actually, me and Max went to Hebrew school, we go way back.

Mx: But we never talked to each other…

N: Yeah we were never really friends, we didn’t even know that we both played instruments, we didn’t even know that we were both going to the same school until about a month before we left and in some class we were talking about where we were going to school and we both said Berklee.  It was like, “What? Who are you?”  So then we both get to Berklee and we happen to be right next to each other in the dorms and… we still didn’t play together that much. We did one show together, but then Matt and Max started playing together and joined up with Amy and Kana.  They started looking for other players and then asked me and Dave to come.  We all got together one day in the practice rooms and it was like magic.

So when did you form the band, how long have you all been together?

Mt: Last September, it’s been little over a year now.

Can you walk me through your creative process a little bit? Is there a primary songwriter or is it a collaborative effort?

Mt: I do the majority of the writing and Max does a fair amount of writing.  We end up collaborating a lot on the songs we write anyway.  Then we kind of bring skeletons in for the band and it usually ends up being something entirely different than what we came up with in the first place.

D: Add in the 11 herbs and spices and that’s about it.

N: I gotta say, I think one of the greatest things about this band is that we each come from a different musical background.  We each trained in different styles of music. Kana trained classically and she plays pretty much every instrument known to man.

K: Well… not every instrument.

N: Max, you played mostly jazz. And Dave, Dave played hardcore metal.

D: [groans] You didn’t!

A: I was classically trained, and then when I got here where there’s an emerging fiddle scene, I really got into that.  Me and Kana played klezmer music together, which is Jewish folk music, and so we’ve been kind of drawing all of that in, in little ways.

N: When we get into that room together and play, we each bring something completely different and it just makes for a really great creative environment.

Do you have any influences that you think have shaped the pretty unique style that you are playing now?

Mt: Well first, Max and I were in a different band, the first act that we had called Cristo.  It kind of started off as my solo act and just sort of dissipated, but that was really influenced by Tom Waits and Nine Inch Nails. We got a lot of influence from Modest Mouse, that’s one of Max’s big influences.

A: I think it has a lot to do with what Noah said about our different backgrounds and probably because of the instrumentation we’ve brought to the table. I’m sure this band would sound completely different if there wasn’t violin or there wasn’t accordion or slide guitar…

Mt: Each song we’ve presented as of yet, we’ve been trying to conquer a different style, like to bring a new genre to the band.  Some of them share genres, like we have a few heavier blues songs, but we’ll try to bring a ragtime tune in or a latin song– kind of mess around with styles.

Mx: I feel like a lot of our music is very directly based on antiquated music but is not directly referential to it, so we’re not actually playing old time music, we’re not actually playing gypsy music, and we’re not actually playing jazz, but we’re playing bits of them all thrown together.

K: It’s kind of a smorgasbord.

So what has the band been up to lately? I know you have a pretty new debut EP…

Everyone: Eat People!

Mt: Yeah, we recorded our EP, Eat People, back in April over just two days.  Mostly we’ve been trying to do a show a month in the Boston area, we haven’t quite branched out yet.  We’ve done a few in New York but we’re trying to build up our fanbase here in Boston and then starting spreading out. We’re a pretty new band, we’ve only been around for about a year so.

Let’s talk a little about your Boston fans. How have you found Mighty Tiny received at shows and what sort of reaction have you got to the music?

Mx: Generally positive, I don’t think I’ve heard much of anything negative. Most people seem to really like it, like the fact that it’s something really different, which is nice.

D: It’s almost surprising– we do what we want and people like it. I mean we’re like “Hey, here’s a gypsy ragtime song!” and people are like “Hey, great!”

A: We know we’re doing something right– at just about every show, we get a lot of people who have seen us a few times and I think that really says something when people come back to see us.  At the same time, at every show I feel like we’re always seeing new fans who are really impressed and I think it’s going really well. I couldn’t really ask for more.

N: We’ve been really well-received by the actual venues that we play at too, we’re always getting asked back to play shows so it’s very encouraging.

Mt: Yeah this will be the fifth time that we’ve played the Middle East.  They gave us a gig last November on like a Monday and we got a pretty good turnout and they really liked us so the next show they gave us was a Saturday night show with That 1 Guy.  They brought us back in June and July and now in October we’re here again.  Allston’s not as nice to us actually– Great Scott we played once and haven’t been back since, Harper’s Ferry we’ve only done a few times but we are going back there to play with That 1 Guy.

Are there other local venues you guys enjoy going to see shows or playing at?

A: Well the Lizard Lounge was pretty cool.  Café 939 on Boylston is great too, it’s a Berklee-run café and the sound guys are always really on top of what they’re doing.

D: I really love just going to shows at the Middle East.

N: I think the best show I’ve seen recently has been at Club Passim with Luminescent Orchestrii, that was one of the best shows in a long time at Club Passim.

What other Boston bands are you all into?

K: Our friend Carmen has this sweet band called Scatter Gather, they’re a drum and guitar duo right now. Who was that girl that opened for them?

A: Erica Russo and the Good Sport! That’s great stuff.

K: There’s this band Esperanto, there’s a saxophone, keyboard, and drums and it’s just like the funkiest stuff ever.

Mx: Black Button is fuckin’ great.

Mt: Shoney Lamar, we just played with them.

So what’s in the cards next for Mighty Tiny?

Mx: Well, we’ve been working up the stage performance and trying to get that a little bit stronger.  Each of us has these crazy masks and we’re trying to build characters around them so instead of just “I’m wearing this mask” it’s “I am this mask.”  We’re working on making everything a little tighter, a little more professional, a little more dramatic and theatrical.

Mighty Tiny are back at the Middle East Upstairs with Kittens Ablaze, Sway and Boy Without God on Thursday Dec 17th.

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.

Going through interviews we’ve done and shows we’ve covered in the past, we’ve put together a roster of some shows not to be missed by those attending the CMJ Music Marathon this weekend.  We’ll be live-blogging to the best of our ability, providing set reviews and wrap-ups, and tweeting our little hearts out.  (You’ll only get in on the up-to-the-minute action if you’re following us on Twitter, though.)  We don’t plan on sleeping very much given that we’ll be dancing/rocking out/chatting up musician-type folks, so if you’re up for the challenge, join us at the following shows throughout the CMJ Music Marathon or follow our live coverage of Boston bands playing CMJ over the next few days.

-Hilary Hughes

ALOUD

Aloud CMJ Sets: Wednesday [October 21], 8pm, The Glasslands Gallery; Thursday [October 22], 2pm, Rockwood Musical Hall

Why You Should Join Us: Gnarly, snarly pop rock and fantastic harmonies keep us coming back for Aloud shows time and time again.  That, and Jen and Henry’s dedication to their music borders their undying infatuation with The Beatles.

ANNIE AND THE BEEKEEPERS

CMJ Set: Thursday [October 22], 9pm, The Living Room

Why You Should Join Us: Annie and the Beekeepers offer up earnest bluegrass, friendly folk and some of the prettiest vocals we’ve ever heard.

BODEGA GIRLS

Bodega Girls CMJ Sets: Wednesday [October 21], 7pm, Piano’s; Thursday [October 22], 6pm, Beyond Race Magazine Party at Crash Mansion

Why You Should Join Us: Kid you not, this is the best hedonistic dance party we have EVER BEEN TO.  Also, sick beats/scandalous lyrics have Bodega Girls sitting pretty atop SPIN’s CMJ Acts to Watch list.

DRUG RUG

Drug Rug CMJ Sets: Friday [October 23], 3pm at Rockwood Music Hall, 9pm at Bowery Ballroom

Why You Should Join Us: Their latest album, Paint The Fence Invisible , has been on heavy rotation for TPB since we attended their CD release party at the Middle East back in August.

THE HUSH NOW

The Hush Now CMJ Set: Thursday [October 22] , 8pm at Bruar Falls

Why You Should Join Us: Ever since the single release party for “Hoping and Waiting,” we’ve been, well, you know, for their sophomore effort: Constellations.

THE LIGHTS OUT

The Lights Out CMJ Set: Tuesday [October 20], 8pm, Alphabet Lounge

Why You Should Join Us: Tracks from The Lights Out’’s month-old Colorshow kept folks enthralled at the CD release party at TT the Bear’s Place, and we wish we could be there to hear tracks from the new release tonight!

THE LOVE LANGUAGE

The Love Language CMJ Sets: Tuesday [October 20], 3:30pm, Piano’s; Wednesday [October 21], 10pm, The Bellhouse; Thursday [October 22], 5pm, Crash Mansion; Friday [October 23], 10pm, The Living Room

Why You Should Join Us: Okay, okay, we know, The Love Language aren’t a Boston band at all and they’re actually from North Carolina, but WE REALLY LIKE THEM and they’ve played some incredible shows in Boston since forming last winter.

THE MAIN DRAG

The Main Drag CMJ Set: Saturday [October 24], 11:45pm, Spike Hill

Why You Should Join Us: We have a soft spot for songs that have lots of interjections in them, especially the “HEY!”-s in “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter.”

THE MIEKA CANON

The Mieka Canon CMJ Set: Thursday [October 22], 11pm, Rockwood Music Hall

Why You Should Join Us: Their latest EP, From The Mouth Of Paris, is a study in poetry set to music: We love the lyrics as much as we love the ferocious intensity of Mieka Pauley’s voice.

ST. HELENA

St. Helena CMJ Set: Tuesday [October 20], 10pm, Alphabet Lounge

Why You Should Join Us: St. Helena is a motley crue of Boston musicians who have done time playing Boston’s favorite stages for years, and their live show is just as exuberant and fun as the personalities that make up the band.

MORE BOSTON BANDS WE’RE STOKED TO SEE AT CMJ:

The New Collisions! (Saturday 10/24, Bowery Poetry Club)

HO-AG! (Thursday 10/22, Lit Lounge )

Hooray For Earth! (Tuesday 10/20, 8pm, Crash Mansion; Friday 10/23, 6pm, Crash Mansion)

Rubblebucket (Tuesday 10/20, 8pm, SOBs)

With venues closing and becoming more restrictive in their hometowns outside of Massachusetts, Rish, Adam, Jesse, and Matt all found themselves drawn to the feeling of community that the Boston music scene provides.  In the few years that this four-piece has been together, they have gained some serious momentum, receiving praise for their dynamic live sets fueled by the crunchy guitar attack of Rish Green and Adam Ritchie.  Now defined as a Boston band, The Lights Out have embraced all that Boston music has to offer, playing the WBCN (R.I.P.) Rumble, a Ryan’s Smashing Life Showcase, and even Gillette Stadium before the Pats’ season opener.  The members of the band are also firm believers in the Boston music community, frequenting The Rock and Roll Social and seen across the city checking out sets by their fellow Boston bands.

After a loaded summer playing festivals in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, we met up with The Lights Out who were back home for the release show of their new album, Color Machine, at TT the Bear’s.  Super excited the about their record, The Lights Out played through Color Machine in its entirety as their set for the night.  The crowd was just as pumped– rocking out and dancing around to the punchy, energetic hooks of the new tracks.  Before the show, we had a chance to talk with the whole band, who shared stories about how fun it is to play in Boston (but also what they’d change if they were in charge), running from the police, and some really, really, ridiculous tattoos.

-Kevin Junker

Hey friends!

TLO: Hey!

Let’s get down to business.  What are your names, where are you from, and what do you play in The Lights Out?

Jesse: My name’s Jesse James and I’m from Brookhaven in Long Island, New York. I’m the drummer.

Adam: Adam Ritchie from Freehold, New Jersey, (the home of Bruce Springsteen!), and I play lead guitar.

Rish: Rishava Green, from Lincoln City, Oregon.  I play rhythm guitar, sometimes lead guitar, and I’m the lead singer.

Matt: Matt King. I’m from Vermont, and I play bass.

So, Matt,  you’re the closest one we got who’s actually from the area? What brought you guys to Boston?

M: I came with a band.  Basically, the music scene got legislated out of existence in Burlington and they closed all the clubs to 18+ shows and that just sucked, so I pulled up stakes and moved down here in 2001.

J: Similar thing for me, actually: I played with a band in Syracuse throughout and then after college, and all the original venues in that town started to close one by one until you had to play three or four hours worth of covers to even play in front of an audience. Eventually, my band broke up and I decided to move to Boston.

A: I just moved here for work and took a couple years off from music which were the most boring, unexciting, depressed years of my life.  I got back into it once I had established myself professionally and felt like I could go do something and join the circus.

Well the circus is happy to have you.  How about you, Rish?  How’d you come to be making music in Boston?

R: Well, Lincoln City, Oregon kind of stinks and not much is going on so I originally came out here to go to college. I wound up at Berklee and I just liked the city and stayed.

Can you guys take me through your creative process? Does somebody head up the majority of the writing or the compositional quotient of your songs, or is the creative process behind the music of The Lights Out completely collaborative?

R: It’s essentially a complete collaboration as far as the music goes, and then it’s sort of a partial collaboration as far as tweaking melodies. I usually do most of the melody making although somebody will come in with a snatch of a melody or “Oh, I like that melody but what if you did it this way?” I hear that a lot.  There’s a lot of pushing and pulling in the best possible way.

J: We’re all very open to creative input from each other.

M: I think one of the most important parts about being in a band and not fighting is that you have to completely separate yourself and your ego from the process and that’s a really hard thing for a musician. Basically everyone wants to be a rock star, to get their just dues and be that guy, so for us we really have to check [egos] at the door of the practice space.  It can be tough, too, because you can come up with a part that you think is awesome and nobody else will like it, and you just gotta be like, “Okay, well, that’s that, then.” You can’t take it personally and you just have to roll with the punches.

R: I think oddly enough ego kinda comes into play for me in that it’s more like “Okay, well they don’t like that, that’s all right, I can roll with whatever. You don’t like that? Alright, how about this?”  I think we definitely work hard to establish a setting where, you know, it gets a little uncomfortable sometimes but it’s never like… nobody throws beer cans at each other.

J: There’s never any immature fighting going on.

R: Everybody wants to be heard.  We do have egos and that’s why people get into the arts anyway, because of their egos. So it’s this tension between having enough ego to make the music good, and have the balls to make it in the first place, and then be able to set that aside and say, “Well… alright.”  It’s going to be better and ultimately it’s going to serve everyone’s ego better if we’re on a thing where the music is coming together really strongly. Once that happens, the switch flips and all the little fights and little arguments that happen during the process kind of fall away and it’s like, “Alright, this is awesome!”

M: What it comes down to is it’s all about what the song needs.  The song is the ultimate songwriter in a sense because whatever that thing shapes up to be, that’s what you’re playing to and that’s what you’re writing the parts for and you have to make sure that whatever you’re doing serves the song first and foremost. I think that’s something we’ve got a good handle on, recognizing what the song is asking for and how it’s supposed to sound, just trying to do our best and make that as best we can.

Any there any songs in The Lights Out catalog that you feel especially connected to, or any tunes that stick out as favorites? I know it’s kind of like asking you to choose between children somewhat, but…

R: The latest one. It’s always the latest one!  The last one you wrote is always the best one.

Anything you’re really excited to share with us tonight for your big CD release?

M: Our CD!

The entire thing?

M: We are going to be performing our CD for the only time from start to finish. This is going to be the only time we’ll ever do this and that’s what we’re sharing tonight and that’s why we’re here.

A: I’m really looking forward to playing “Gottagetouttahere.” We’re shooting a video for it. We actually shot part of the video at our last show here.

J: -Which is why I can’t cut my hair any shorter and I really want to… I’m like stuck in this middle ground like waiting to grow it out for the next photo shoot.

How has The Lights Out differed from other projects that you guys have been involved with before? You’ve all mentioned that you were in bands before.  How does The Lights Out differ compared with other stuff you’ve been involved with in the past?

J: Ive definitely been in other projects where I didn’t trust the other members to be a spokesman for me in the sense that there were a lot of egos in those bands and it was just always this constant fighting, and that’s just something I’m so happy to not have in this band. That was the first thing I noticed and it’s lasted for three years already and I don’t think its going anywhere.

A: It’s the first band I’ve ever been in where I didn’t have to do all the work. There are four people in this band that work hard both on the music and everything that goes around the music.

R: I’d second what Jesse said. Part of the work that Adam’s talking about is the work of cultivating this culture and it doesn’t just happen by accident. There’s an intention on everybody’s part to make it a place so you can walk into the room and basically know that you’re going to feel better three hours later instead of like “Goddamn it, that guy was an asshole! Fuck!” You know, there’s been plenty of moments like that in everybody’s past bands and we’ve been in enough bands where maybe you get to the spot where you’re like “Ah, enough of that, let’s just get on with it. We really want to just write so let’s do it.”

M: I like the lack of fighting.  I like the lack of the asshole lead singer… (Laughs)

J: We do debate. We do debate but we don’t fight.

A: I really like how we’re fighting about not fighting right now…

J: They’re lively debates though!

Better to be lively than boring!

M: Nobody ever gets shouted down though, no one ever gets told “NO!”

A: No one’s ever walked out of the room in anger, and we’ve been doing this since 2005.

How is this Color Machine a departure from previous material released by The Lights Out?

R: It’s a stew of everybody’s thing. Everybody brings something to this band in that they’re influenced by someone that probably turns everybody else off like… I don’t want to name names of bands, but I’ll like a certain band, and everyone else will be like, “Aw, are you kidding?”

A: Steve Miller, right?

R: Steve Miller! Alright, naming names…

J: We’re definitely willing to respect different aspects of each band that any other person likes. I think even if you completely hate the band that the other person likes, that you have a little bit of respect about something about that band and you understand that that’s why the person likes them.

And you think that’s kind of encapsulated in Color Machine?

R: Well, it’s encapsulated in everything we do.  I think that a lot of bands and artists in general feel that volatility is the secret to good creative process and that’s very tiresome and tiring, it wears me out.  I think that our sync and harmony and flow is actually what’s allowing us to work so strongly together and that’s what comes through in the music rather than like the fighting.  Volatility can yield great stuff but it’s no fun to be around that kind of thing.

M: If you’re going to spend as much time making music as we do it has to be fun. You have to be ok with it, you can’t have that kind of tension for that long… it’s a really refreshing thing.

In terms of influences, we kind of touched on that recently but can you give me the laundry list of people that you really look up to or people who have really helped cultivate your creativity?

R: I always have to say Kiss. Kiss was the first band I ever got into and Kiss led me into Zeppelin and Bowie.

A: I really like Alex Lifeson from Rush, Marc Ford from the Black Crowes, and Jeff Beck.

J: I grew up with a lot of soul and Motown and stuff, and I got into rock a little later in life.  I like Chad Smith from the Chili Peppers; he’s still one of my favorite drummers.  As far as music goes, I tend to like a lot of female lead singers.  I listen to my collection and I’m like “Man, I never played in a band with a female lead singer,” but I love Morcheeba and The Cardigans and Fiona Apple.

Morcheeba?! Definitely haven’t heard that name in awhile…

J: I really miss them.  I wish they’d put out stuff still… Anyways, I like your female voice, Rish.

R: Thank you! I work hard on that. (Laughs)

M: I was always the alterna-kid. The Pixies were big for me early on, Jane’s Addiction, Fugazi, bands like that.  Then I spent some time as a hippie and I was listening to a lot of jam bands for maybe four or five years… came to my senses… and basically I’m the guy who only buys new music.  It’d be hard to buy something for me that came out even a year ago.

J: You’re pretty up on what’s happening.

R: Matt probably is the guy that helps keep our sound current. I think that the guitar attack of Adam and I is probably what makes it sort of heavy rock.  We’re about crunchy guitars, we were saying the other day, more so than fuzzy like Flaming Lips-y guitar stuff. We lay the base of a song down but then Matt comes in with ideas on how to move chords around  Jesse’s really good with melodies and whatnot, and somehow it always works out.

In terms of touring, let’s talk about that for a second, do you guys have any crazy stories for me from the tour bus of The Lights Out, basically?

J: We got pulled over a few times….

M: We can talk our way out of a lot of things. (Laughs)

R: There’s no trashing hotel rooms and misbehavior or anything.

J: Not yet!

So you’re not budding Tommy Lees?

M: Nah… We’ve driven on a few lawns… we’ve had to ditch the car a few times…

With the equipment in it??

A: No, just running from the police… being some places, doing something that we shouldn’t be doing…

Want to elaborate a little bit or…

A: [laughs] No, that’s all everybody needs to know.

We’ve talked about what brought you guys here, can we talk about your Boston fanbase?  Your CD release is a big event in Boston’s indie rock community and I’ve seen eight gazillion people tweeting about how they love the new album and are stoked to see the show tonight.

M: I hope they all come!

J: I thought that the tipping point for the Boston music scene was the WBCN Rumble last year. The Rumble coincided with Twitter really coming into its own, and soon as that happened, it was like the scene just felt really connected and everyone was able to comment on what was happening at every show and just keep abreast of what was going on throughout the whole entire event.

R: This is a bumper crop this year, the rumble was awesome. Especially like, my favorite part was the preliminary rounds, there was 24 bands and everyone was like “We could do it, we could take it!” and everybody basically could have taken it, pretty much.

M: Everyone in all the bands went to as many shows as possible so you see all these people every night for a week and you just kind of start talking, you get to know them that way, rather than just running into them at a show whenever you’re playing together, you see them consistently so you became more friendly, more familiar.

A: The Rumble has been going on for a long time, and there’s this great event called the Rock and Roll Social that we go to every month, every month on the second Tuesday at The Model Cafe.  It’s where we met and formed as a band.

Who are some of the Boston bands that you’re following right now? We’ve talked about this big community where everybody’s bear-hugging at shows all the time, but if you had to give me some names of people who you think are doing some really innovate stuff that you’re really excited about, who would you list?

J: Three of my favorites are ones we’re playing with tonight: Township, Gravehaven, who has now changed their name to Roman Traffic, and Reverse. I also really like MEandJOANCOLLINS.

R: The Luxury, of course. And I’m really liking Gene Dante and the Future Starlets. We played together at Middle East upstairs, we played in P-Town together, we were in the Rumble together… we play with Gene a lot.

J: Great Bandini! I like them a lot, too. I haven’t seen them in a while.

R: And The Motion Sick.

M: There’s Aloud…

R: Aloud, Future Everybody– we played with them at the Middle East last time, they were really good.

When it comes to your favorite venues, it seems like we’ve been about talking this corner a lot…

R: I like playing Middle East Up, I like that room a lot.

J: Yeah that’s my favorite. TT’s is close, Great Scott, very close.

A: Church has been very good to us.

R: We’re playing there for Halloween.

If there was one thing you could change about the Boston music scene what would it be?

M: Probably the two-week rule.

Two-week rule? What’s the two-week rule?

M: Well, you can’t play more than once every two weeks. Now it’s starting to be three weeks.

A: I would say make the drinking age 18 and keep the T open past 2am, or at least UNTIL 2am.

I feel like that sucks for headliners so bad…

M: You’ll notice we’re playing third tonight.  That’s why.

We’ve seen really big acts play the 12:30 slot at the Middle East a lot, and literally the venue will be half-empty three songs into their set.  Some people have to get back to Allston and JP, you know?

R: It’s either that or walk home.

So, what’s next for The Lights Out?  What do we have to look forward to hearing from you guys in the next few months?

A: We’re going to be playing a lot of professional industry conference showcases, so were heading to Delaware next week to play Dewey Beach, then we’re heading to NYC to play M.E.A.N.Y. Fest, then we’re putting together a run of shows down the East Coast for the fall.

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!

Rarely at TeaParty Boston do we have the opportunity to document a band’s formation and its subsequent first shows, but that’s exactly the case with The Future Everybody.  After watching them deliver a set drippin’ with pop sugar and nerd rock sweat Upstairs at the Middle East back in August, one thing became very clear: This Boston band is excited to just hit the stage, crank the volume and get people moving.  Made up of the likes of musicians who’ve earned their keep as local indie rock mainstays, this project, initially headed up by former Scamper members Nate Rogers and Mike Mirabella, is a group of people who look forward to experimenting with music that wouldn’t necessarily work for the bands they’ve previously been in or the other acts they’re currently affiliated with.

A month or so passed before we were able to catch up with Nate, Matt, Mike, Morgan and the lovely Veronica before their set at Boston Band Crush’s Rock Lecture Series, What’s Your Major? They were dressed to the nines for the evening as the event had a collegiate feel to it, so it was an added bonus that Nate was rocking a nutty professor-type ensemble, Matt had a tartan plaid vest that you’d probably see on a pimply, trombone-wielding seventh grader in jazz band, and Veronica was rocking the Catholic school girl wardrobe like nobody’s business. It was an especially festive evening, as it was also Morgan’s birthday, and we put forth our onslaught of Boston music/breakfast cereal-infused questions while indulging in a cake bearing a puppy face made out of frosting that the band had gotten for their lead guitarist.  Read on for a proper, uncensored and guffaw-inducing look at a new Boston band with some respectable local roots.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: THE FUTURE EVERYBODY AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Morgan: Cookie Crisp!  There was this independent film about a store that sold collectible cereals and it came out a few years ago.  It was awesome.  Weirdos would come in and be like, “Do you have the 1967 ___?”

Nate: I once decorated an entire apartment with cereal box fronts.  There was a cereal in the mid-90s called Spiderman Cereal, and it was essentially frosted Rice Chex with marshmallows.  This was the most brilliant cereal in the entire world, and it disappeared promptly thereafter.

Matt: I’m a big fan of Flutie Flakes and I actually have a box of Flutie Flakes in my apartment because they re-released ‘em! He’s in a generic uniform.  I was waiting for which uniform he would wear, and he wore a GENERIC ONE.  I was upset by that.

Mike: I’ll go with a bacon, egg and cheese croissant.  I don’t eat cereal, but I eat that almost every day.

Veronica: Blueberry pancake cereal.  That’s what they need.  If they made a blueberry pancake cereal, that would be my favorite.

Matt: Why don’t you just get Boo Berry, then?

Nate: Ugh, of all the monster cereals, you know which one everyone always forgets?  Yummy Mummy.

Matt: WAIT A SECOND.

Morgan: HEY NOW.

Nate: Okay so I guess everyone else forgets about it except for my band.

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

MM: Long Duk Dong.

MG: Yeah, Long Duk Dong.

M: What?!  You can’t go with Dong, he’s awesome!  I love that dude.  I’ll go with the Goonie.

N: No, you can’t punch the Dong-er.

V: I’m a lover, not a fighter.

N: I’m gonna go with Matthew McConaughey from “Contact.”

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

V: Eggbeater!

MG: My friend was telling me about this meat grinder she has that she uses to grind up her cat food.  The patent is from like, 1857, and she says the meat grinder smells like really old, bad metal.  I’m going with the metal smelly 1857 meat grinder.

MM: I’d go with coffee maker.

N: I want to be one of those big lemon slicers with six razorblades.

M: I’m a waffle iron, I guess.

N: We would make a HELL of a kitchen, guys.

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?

N: Burt.  Obviously.

MG: I’m going with Super Grover.

V: I’m gonna say Rolf!  He’s my favorite!

MM: I’m going with the Swedish Chef.

M: I’m sad to say it, but the first Muppet that popped into my mind was Scooter…

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?

V: ROLF.

MM: Whatever.  When we were in New Orleans we were walking past a tattoo parlor, and I wanted to get something to commemorate the trip but I couldn’t think of anything, so we joked around that I should get the following text: “Mike Mirabella was in New Orleans on this date in…” and it’d be a whole sleeve.

MG: They can’t tattoo you if you’re intoxicated. COME ON.

Okay, Matt, stop trying to sabotage my interview.

MG: It’s not like you’re going to write this out anyway.

Oh, really?

MG: Well, you can tell Jessie that I didn’t see a lot of Matthew Girard quotes in the last interview I did!

WHOA.  Hold the phone.  Are you seriously calling out Jessie’s transcribing skills?

MG: You know what?  I bet that Jessie is trained in the martial arts and that she knows how to use them, but that is a risk I am willing to take.

M: Well, I’d get a tattoo of Burt on my ass?  I guess?

N: I would have to go with Matthew McConaughey from “Contact”, all over my WHOLE BODY.  And then I’d have to punch MYSELF in the face.

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

V: Rodeo clown.

N: Rodeo clown.

MG: Sumo wrestler!

M: Sumo wrestler.

MM: Rodeo clown.

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

MG: An imperial mustache!

M: Fu Manchu!

V: A reverse flavor-saver.

N: A standard pedophile mustache.

MM: Handlebar mustache!

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

MG: I’d be a cheddar so sharp you’d cut your tongue on it.

V: No one can top that.

N: Velveeta.

MM: Provolone.

M: Mozzarella!

V: Actually, I’d be Manchego.

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

N: The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”

M: “Let’s Get Physical”, Olivia Newton John.

V: Anything by The Future Everybody!

MM: “Against All Odds.”

What’s your favorite word?

N: Douche-canoe.

MG:  Yeah?  Well mine’s douche-kayak.

V: Sisigy.

M: Idiots.  Plural.

MM: Douchebaggery.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE FUTURE EVERYBODY TPB INTERVIEW

Hey guys!  Let’s get some names, ages and hometowns for the record.

N: I’m Nate, and I’m 32 years old!  I live in Somerville now but I’m originally from upstate New York.

M: I’m Morgan, and today’s my birthday!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

M: – But a man’s gotta have some secrets so I’m not telling you how old I am.  I’m originally from Pennsylvania, though.

V: I’m Veronica.  I’m 30.

MG: I’m Matthew Girard and my age is also an undisclosed secret.  I’m originally from Maine.

MM: I’m Mike, I’m from Revere and I’m 30.

Okay.  So no Reveeee-yah jokes for you, then.

MM: I’ve heard ‘em all before, it’s okay.

So, how did you all come to make music together?  You’re a Boston band, but you guys are from all over the place!

N: I always intended to move to Boston with a former bandmate after living in California and playing solo there for a while.  I came out here and was in Scamper, and both Mike and Brendan Boogie were in that band with me too.  When that band dissolved, that’s when I came together with these guys to form The Future Everybody.

How does the creative process go for The Future Everybody? Do you head up the majority of the songwriting, Nate, or is it more of a collaborative project?

MG: This band started, originally, with Nate and Mike working on songs that didn’t necessarily work for Scamper.  We all kind of joined in piece-meal, and we’ve been working on the songs that were originally presented.  It’s been a lot of, “Well, what parts do we put in here?”  After that, we started working on some new material and it’s a fairly collaborative process where we all approach practice with ideas of our own.  Right now, most of the song’s are Nate’s, but we’re all looking to bring riffs and pieces of ideas into the mix.  We’ve been really successful working together in the practice space.

M: Nate comes in with a puzzle, and then we pick it up, and then we smash it, and then we rearrange the pieces.

N: It’s true.  They like to smash my songs.

The Future Everybody sounds like a pretty destructive creative group, then.

V: And there’s dancing!

MM: Yeah.  A lot of parts require dancing, especially during practice.

So, what’s the signature dance move of The Future Everybody, then?

N: I’d say it’s Morgan’s stutter step.  I’m going to be introducing a running man this evening.

MM: I’m going to be introducing a very over-exaggerated snare drum hit.

MG: There’s a lot of guitar swinging, actually.

N: Yes.  Watch your head.

V: I don’t do much, because I’m hiding behind a keyboard.

You can totally headbang, though….

V: Oh, yeah!  There’s definitely some headbanging going on.  I need to grow my hair out a little bit for that, though-

N: And THIS is where the interview turns into talking about Veronica’s hair once again.

V: Yeah.  It happens a lot.  There was a 27-email Gmail thread about it once.

MM: The ones about shows, where we’re gonna play, if we’re gonna record, those emails elicit maybe one or two responses. The outfits and haircuts threads seem to stretch for MILES.

Of the songs that you guys have played for us so far or that you’re currently writing, do you have any favorites?  What songs of The Future Everybody stand out?

MG: I’m a big fan with “Running With The Devil” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”

MM: We’re actually only playing “Freebird” tonight and we are going to extend it so that it’s twenty minutes long.

N: I’m actually a big fan of the Kelly Clarkson tribute nights we’ve done.  Why are you laughing?

(Edit: Hil wasn’t laughing.  She was giving Nate the eyebrow of judgment.)

N: Ultimately, we love all the songs that we’re playing, so we don’t really pick favorites, you know?

MM: It’s still in the early stages of the band and everything is still new and exciting, so there are definitely a couple of songs that have come together, and there are some that are easier to play or a lot more fun because we have them down, but I think that the songs are all equally great.

N: It’s a set full of hit singles. (Laughs)

MG: We’re going straight to the top. Like a BULLET.

MM: Yeah, I’d say our favorite song is always the new song.

N: In terms collaboration, we have been working on this new song, and it’s the first time that we’ve really brought it in kind of fresh and opened it up to everybody’s interpretation.  I’m super excited about the way it’s going.  I was in Scamper for all my life, now it’s a whole new group of people, and it’s exciting.

MG: You should have seen him when he was a little baby playing in Scamper.  Back then, the guitar was kind of big, but he could still do the jumps with the diaper and everything!

M: Don’t forget about the time he shocked himself when he drooled on his guitar…

N: Thanks guys.  Moving forward, I do think that the songs will be more exciting once we all have a hand in it.  I don’t have any intention to be the dictator front man, or anything.

Now, Nate and Mike, you guys were in Scamper.  Matt, you play in eight gajillion different Boston bands on any given weeknight.  How does The Future Everybody compare, on artistic and personal levels, to other projects you’ve been a part of?

MM: I feel like Nate and I have a formula and we know what we want to do, but everybody adds something to the music and that’s the most exciting part of The Future Everybody.  Not only has every idea been a good idea, but it’s changed the production of the song and it wouldn’t necessarily have changed had it just been the two of us.

N: The Future Everybody is definitely full of fresh perspective.  Things definitely got a little stale with Scamper.  I’m not gonna talk trash about that band, but we kind of ran out of ideas, you know?  It’s nice to break out of that mold and write stuff that fits outside of that mold, and that’s what this band is about for me.

Let’s talk about Boston.   Who are some of your favorite Boston bands or acts on the Boston music scene that you make sure to see live when you can?

N: Kelly Clarkson. (Laughs) All of my absolute favorite bands in Boston broke up, to be perfectly frank!

MM: We’re trying to rediscover the Boston music scene.  I like The Motion Sick; I like the Brendan Boogie Band…

It sounds like you’re listing bands that you’re billing with for this BBCU event.

MM: I really do love them though!  And I like The Lights Out a lot.

V: Yeah, they’re great guys.

M: I like Pretty Nice there’s this frantic kind of Of Montreal meets Punk thing I’ve seen a couple of times.  They’re awesome and they blow my mind consistently.

V: I love MEandJOANCOLLINS. They’re great, too.

M: Hallelujah the Hills!

MM: Aloud, gotta love Aloud.

N: Yeah, Scamper had a great history with Aloud.  I honestly don’t know if Baker is still a band-

They are, actually!  Conan, Andy and Steve are now together as The Frosty Pines.

N: We absolutely adore them.  We love those kids.  Steven Lord’s last name is very appropriate as he is a god.

We’ve talked about your favorite Boston bands, but what about your favorite Boston venues?  Where do you love playing in Boston and where do you like to see shows here?

N: The Middle East is home for me, both Upstairs and Downstairs.  Great memories in both rooms.

MG: I like Church, The Middle East and TT’s, even if the sound can be weird at TT’s occasionally.

MM: I absolutely love playing The Lizard Lounge.  Every time we played there, I just loved that intimate feel.  It’s a great spot to play.

V: I like The Middle East!  Church is also probably one of my favorite venues in Boston.

N: You know what?  The list of favorite Boston venues is shorter than it used to be.  Shout out to the Abbey Lounge!

MM: Yeah, there’s some sort of diner going in it’s place now…

In terms of your fans in Boston, how has it been for you so far?

N: We’ve played one show, and it’s hard to tell: You draw a great crowd because everybody’s curious.  We had a great show and we’ll find out in an hour how we do at the second show, and we’ll go from there!  I mean, hopefully people like it, but who knows.

If we were to steal your iPods right now and look up your “Recently Added” or “Recently Played” lists, what bands and artists would we find?  What songs can’t the members of The Future Everybody get out of their heads?

MG: For better or worse you’d see a lot of Guns N’ Roses because I’m playing a Guns N’ Roses tribute show with Morgan.

M: Yup.  I was just complaining that I had “Nitrate” stuck in my FREAKIN’ head for like, eight days.

MG: Also, Joy Division for me.

M: I like Sondre Lerche a lot and Bon Iver, too.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Beirut lately as well.

N: Kelly Clarkson, absolutely.  I’m drawing a blank.  I don’t even know what I’m listening to right now.  I’m listening to The Beatles.  I’m ALWAYS listening to The Beatles.

MM: I recently discovered a band called The Morning Benders.  I followed iTunes Genius, of all things, and I clicked every song and I just think they’re amazing.  I downloaded the whole album immediately.

So, what’s next for The Future Everybody?

N: We’re beginning to start turning the wheels about recording, probably in the new year and after the holidays are over.  We absolutely want to record the record in Boston.  We’ll see where the road takes us.

Shoney’s reputation as a lunatic/enigmatic frontman preceded him: Though we’ve never had the chance to catch Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights in person before meeting them backstage at Cafe 939 about a month ago, we’ve heard their music and have learned through word of mouth that they put on a show that few on the Boston music scene at present can rival.  When you’re just chatting with Shoney, Doug [aka Slow Train Carter, long-haired bass player for the Equal Rights], Lance and Chris, you wouldn’t think that the foursome is an eclectic force to be reckoned with: The guys were chill as can be when we were all hanging out in the green room and couldn’t stop complimenting the musical stylings of the set before theirs performed by Mrs. Danvers.  Fast forward to an hour later, however, and you’d hardly think that the dudes we had plopped next to on the couch were the same maniacs on stage.  Shoney’s octave-leaping wails, furious strumming and erratic movements under the brilliant spotlight were matched by Lance’s intense guitar riffs, Doug’s beat driving tendencies and Chris’ ferocious downbeats.  A live set with Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights is a demonstration in controlled chaos: Part of the fun is witnessing the thrill these four thrive on in pushing the limits of the audience with the swells and shape of their music, and part of the danger lies in knowing that it’s impossible to tell when they take you past the point of no return and you’re left dancing in delirium.

Before they left the crowd at Cafe 939 spinning, Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights sat down with us and answered a few questions regarding their music, their inspirations and their unique relationship as a band that calls both New York and Boston home.  With a new EP, Revenge of the Narrator, under their belts, Shoney, Slow Train, Chris and Lance are ready to hit the road again.  Before they skip town, we bet they’ll be playing tunes from the new disc during their set at a fashion show at Villa Victoria on October 3, but if you can’t make it on that particular Saturday wait a month and you’ll get to see them do their thing all over again November 6 at Church.  And if you can’t make it out for their November 6 show?  The raw, uncontrollable talent behind Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights isn’t something you see everyday, and we have a feeling their Boston fans will have them coming back for shows on both sides of the river time and time again.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: SHONEY LAMAR AND THE EQUAL RIGHTS AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Shoney: Cheerios!

Doug: Count Chocula.

Lance: Coffee.

Chris: Whiskey.  Actually, no, French Toast Crunch.

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

S: I actually like Mouth from “The Goonies.” I’ve never seen Sixteen Candles so I’ll punch that motherfucker.

L: His name is terrible.  I’ll punch Long Duk Dong.

C: Yeah, I’d save Mouth.

D: Me too.

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

C: A meat tenderizer.

S: George Foreman Grill.

L: I’ll be a juicer.  I am a juice man.

D: Oven?

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?

C: Um, ANIMAL.  My offstage persona is Gonzo; my onstage persona is Animal.

S: I’m definitely one of those dudes up in the balcony talking shit about everybody, so I’d be Statler.

D: Count.  I’ll go with that.

L: Miss Piggy.  Or Beaker.

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?

C: I would get a very big grizzly bear.

L: I would get wasted and get one of my friends’ bands tattooed on me.

D: I would get like, a red line, a yellow line, a blue line…

S: I have no idea, and I don’t think I’ll ever get any tattoos, but I like the idea of having lines tattooed around my arm.

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

C: Rodeo clown.  When you’re a rodeo clown, you can take the costume off and be a regular motherfucker.  With a sumo wrestler-

L: -People just know you as wearing your underwear and running into people.

C: … Yes.

S: Yeah!  Fuckin’ yeah.

D: Yeah.

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

S: I’d be one of those hairs that’s coming out of a wart.  That’s me.

L: I think I’ll go with the handlebar.  Actually, no – I’ll be a reverse mullet of a neck beard, where it’s business on top and party underneath.

D: I’d be a beard comb-over.

C: Haha. A sooouuul patch.

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

S: Goat cheese is my favorite, I’ll go with that.

D: Cheez Wiz.

C: Smoked Gouda.

L: Muenster!

S: You ARE a muenster.

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

S: Definitely “Hey” by the Pixies.

L: It’d be something by Of Montreal, I think, but definitely one of their older songs.  I think I’ll go with “Lysergic Bliss.”

C: “The Decline” by NOFX.

D: “666”, Queens of the Stone Age.  That one gets me pumped.

What’s your favorite word?

S: Antsy.  I really like that word.  I can’t say with finality that it’s my favorite but it’s the first one that popped into my head.

L: Patience.

C: Snot.

D: No.

No?!

D: That’s all I can think of right now.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE SHONEY LAMAR AND THE EQUAL RIGHTS TPB INTERVIEW

Hello, fellas!  Let’s get some biographical details on the record.

Shoney: I’m Shoney, I’m 27.

Doug: I’m Slow Train and I’m 25.

Chris: Chris, 27.

Lance:  Lance, 25.

Where are you guys from, originally?

S: I’m from Daytona Beach, Florida.

D: Daytona Beach.

C: Brooklyn!

L: Portland, Oregon.

So, what brought Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights to Boston?

D: I moved here after I graduated from college.  I had friends who lived here.

S: Yeah, I did the same thing and I followed two months later.

C: I originally came up to play music in a different band.  We all sort of moved here for bands.

L: I went to college here, to Berklee.

In terms of how you guys all met and came to make music together, can we talk about that?

S: Doug and I have been playing music for quite awhile together.  We had another band, Shoney Lamar and the Robots, way back in the day (laughs).  I was going solo for a long time, and then Doug came in and played bass.  After that, I was working with Lance, and we were waiting tables at California Pizza Kitchen, and I just asked him to join to fill out the sound a little bit.  We actually wanted to move to New York and we wound up sitting on our asses instead.  I broke my foot, too.  I was doing a little spin-twist move to go into the kitchen when I was working, and my shoe kind of fell off and I just twisted it and it broke.

What artists and bands would you credit as creative influences?

S: For me, it’s The Pixies and Tom Waits.  I like the way those guys do shit, especially getting the four-member lockdown.  The Pixies is the best rock band ever and I want to learn from them how to do rock music.  Tom Waits is just the best songwriter ever.  All twenty-something of his albums are incredible.  Those are the two big guys, as far as I’m concerned.

L: T-Rex is up there for me, I really like those guys.

C: I’d say Spoon is up there for Doug and me.  I sort of have a more punk background, but as I’ve played with these guys more and more it’s shifted a little bit and I’ve definitely opened up to indie rock.

In terms of the creative process behind the music of Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights, how does it go?  Does someone handle the compositional quotient and the lyrics or is it completely collaborative with you guys?

S: I write the songs and we work them out in practice.

Is it the same deal in the studio?

S: With this recording, we’re just kind of going for a replication of what we sound like live.  We’re just trying to go for some straight up stuff with this record.  The studio itself consisted of three separate houses, one in JP, one in Brooklyn and one in Cambridge.  We’re looking for a live, raw sound and we want to see if we can expand upon that in the studio.

In comparison with your previous work, how is this next album a departure from the music of Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights that your friends know and love?

L: When I came about, they were a two-piece doing acoustic stuff, and it was very folky-bluesy.  They were rompin’ around and stompin’ and knocking shit over.  We’re still doing that, but I think it’s a little bit different.  I came on board and started to fill in, and Shoney started writing weirder stuff like, immediately.  It’s been a gradual thing.  I guess that year after I started, the band totally transformed, and now we’re settling down.

C: I think a lot of people who talk to us about the music see it as a departure from the folk and blues nature of Doug and Shoney’s duo, and they’d be like, “How come you guys aren’t doing the bluesy stuff?! I love those songs!”  Shoney definitely started incorporating folk and blues into more original ideas as opposed to playing straight folk and blues.

In terms of songs that you feel especially connected to, are there any that stick out as favorites in the catalog of Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights?

L: I’m sure they’re different for each of us.

S: “Rise of the Insects”, I don’t know, I feel like it’s something I haven’t heard before and that’s kind of the goal.  It was easier for a long time to just write folk and blues and to do something people have heard a bunch of times before so that it’d be easier for people to get into.  Now, we’ve got four guys onstage we can start pushing our music into new territory, and I think that “Rise of the Insects” is a perfect example of us trying to make some new-sounding music.

C: “Rise of the Insects” was also one of our major turning points as a band and in our songwriting.  I remember that he had demoed an acoustic version and he emailed it to us, and we took a listen on our iPods and we got together to rehearse, which we usually only get to do the day before or day of a show.  In New York, we were in the rehearsal space and we just went into it all the way through and we were all excited about it.

Do you have any crazy stories from the tour bus for us?

C: Tour bus?  More like the Fung Wah bus! (Laughs)

S: So, I’m on the Lucky Star bus, not the Fung Wah, and we were a couple of miles from Framingham and the thing broke down.  They actually didn’t have us get out, and I was reading this really good book, so I didn’t really care.  Finally, they make us get off the bus and all of us are sitting on the interstate for a long time, and I’m reading, and we saw two other Lucky Stars go by and they didn’t stop and pick us up. Anyway, long story short, we were practicing later and I go to use the bathroom, and I look at my leg and I got a tick.  Chris had to yank it out for me.

L: Yeah, I couldn’t even look at it.

…Wow.   Well, that’s gross.  How about the EP?  Let’s talk about that, not ticks.

C: We recorded the drums and the electric guitar in the basement of The Real House of Ultimate Destiny, which is in Jamaica Plain and is actually a real house.  It’s the kind of place where there’s always fifteen people living in the house at a time, and a friend of ours lives there.  He was like, “Don’t worry about it!  No one’s gonna be there” for the recording process, and it turns out that there were fifteen people and two dogs stomping around.  This house is also on the edge of the biggest cemetery in Boston, I think, and it’s huge and the last house, so we were recording in this basement, underground, and twenty feet from dead people.  We’re not obsessed with morbid bullshit or anything, but that was kind of weird.  Three of us are sound engineers and we all have the gear to put together a mobile recording studio of sorts, and we ended up doing the drums to the EP in a day and a half and then Shoney’s like, “Yeah! Let’s just do my guitar!”  Well, he didn’t have his guitar there and he didn’t have his amp there, so he was walking to the bathroom and he sees a Strat lying on the couch, and it was missing the high E string, and he just walked into this living room full of people smoking weed and watching television and asked if he could borrow a guitar.  It literally IS The House of Ultimate Destiny.  All the pieces came together.  The next day, I’m bumming around before the show, and Doug calls, and he’s like, “Well, we’ve got a couple of hours to kill before the show.  Wanna record the bass?”  It literally took him 45 minutes to record the bass.

S: That’s what it was like.  The whole thing just came together beautifully.

We talk about the Boston/New York relationship a lot with local bands that bounce back and forth between the two cities, and Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights definitely seem like a band that fits the bill for that.  How has this experience been for you, living in both cities and playing regularly in both cities?

S: I mean, New York is this whole, “holier than thou” thing where it’s really hard to connect with audiences there.  I went there for a year to try to do the whole damn thing and I came back with my tail between my legs.  It’s hard because the shows go past midnight most of the time and then the trains switch over at that point and it makes it a pain in the ass for people to get home.  Here, you can pretty much walk everywhere.  People are crazy here!  Boston is such a supportive city for us.  We’ve got ladies dancin’ and people are shouting the words back to us and our shows here have such a good vibe.  I don’t want to down New York because I love playing there and I love trying to make shit happen in New York, but New York definitely has a tougher crowd.  We base Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights out of Boston because our fans are here, you know?  It’s way easier for us to connect with people here.

C: New York is devoid of any kind of scene.  Maybe there are small scenes that I’m not really aware of, and I’m sure it exists in electro-pop and hip hop, but when it comes to rock, indie or punk, there used to be a scene and there isn’t really anymore.  You would think it exists in New York and not here, but in my experience Boston has so much more of a collaborative scene with bands supporting other bands and helping each other out.  In New York, bands don’t talk to each other while they’re setting up.  In Boston bands hang out and we’re all giving each other big hugs.  That’s the best thing for me.

D: There’s less to do here than there is in New York.  When you go to a show in New York, you have to miss four other things that are happening.  There are plenty of college kids looking for something to do here, so I think it’s a little bit easier in Boston for kids to come out and see shows.

Back to the whole camaraderie thing: Are there any Boston bands that you’re currently following or that you’re really into?

L: Oh, yeah! I really like the Boston scene.  The more shows I see, the more bands I notice that I like.  I find that I’m listening to less music from other places because my iPod is full of Boston bands.  My favorite playlist is called “The Local Playlist”, and it’s just getting bigger and bigger and I’m deleting stuff from my iPod to make room on that playlist.

S: Black Button, 28 Degrees Taurus, those guys are friends of ours.  So are The Shills.  Hotbox just broke up, but we love them and they’re friends of ours, too.  There are so many more!  We love Mighty Tiny.  All of these bands are awesome and play really good music in addition to being really cool people.  I hate that I’m forgetting people to add to this list, there are just so many!

What are some of your favorite Boston venues?

C: Right now we love Café 939! (Laughs)  This place catered the joint!   We have snacks and all of the water we can drink and a lovely greenroom to sit in, what more could you want?

S: We love playing The Middle East, Upstairs and Downstairs.  We LOVE Great Scott, and Church is such a great venue, too.  The sound is always so good there!  I always fall over onstage Upstairs at the Middle East, though.  It’s so small, but the sound is so good there.  The people who run the Middle East are great as well.  I’d like to play the Lizard Lounge, but I feel like we’re too loud for that spot.

L: We’re like, “get the tables out of the way and stand up”-loud.  You don’t want to sit down for our shows. (Laughs)

What aspect of the Boston music scene would you like to see changed?

C: I want bars in Boston to stay open longer.  I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to see that happen.

L: Yeah, and it would be nice if the T ran longer so that you could get somewhere at two in the morning when the bars close.

C: The great thing about playing shows in New York is that the bands are done playing by 1am, and then everyone gets to hang out for three hours at the bar afterwards and get nice and happy and have a really good night out!

L: At one in the morning, everyone gets nervous because they’re gonna miss the last train home.

S: That’s the thing about playing a headlining spot here, too: If you play ‘til 1am, there’s a good chance that a lot of people will have to leave whether they like it or not in order to make it home and catch the T.  That happened at our last Great Scott show.

What’s next for Shoney Lamar and the Equal Rights?  Where do you see yourselves in the coming months?

L: I think we’re going to try to push everything, you know?  Internet presence, we want to make some steps there; radio wherever we can get it, you know, things like that.  The EP was a great new step for us, and I think another EP is gonna happen real soon, much faster than we all anticipated.  We’ve been talking about small formats and stuff.  People loved singles back in the 50s and 60s.  Everyone says that the attention span of the average person has decreased?  Well, people’s attention spans have never been that big.  Lawrence of Arabia? Come on, people got bored!  Short and condensed is appreciated, just as much as something long.  I think an EP is a great format to work in.  You definitely want more once the album is done.

S: We’re trying to get on tour and we’re going to start around here, and then hopefully we’ll get down the East Coast.  We just want a lot of attention!  I’ve made a shit ton of albums and in essence, this is OUR first album together.  This is like the first record, so we just want to make something new.  We’ve got about twelve songs recorded and there’s only one that I really want to go back and fix, but there are three or four new songs that we absolutely love.

C: The cool thing is that the whole recording process is free for us.  We mastered the record, we engineered the record, and we have all the equipment ourselves or we borrowed it from friends.  It’s not an obstacle for us to make the music.  We’re trying to be forward-thinking when it comes to doing the record completely online.  What we’re trying to do is make our albums more accessible: Yeah, we’re gonna have CDs for sale at some shows, but we want people to be able to bring their iPods to the show and connect it to my laptop and they can come up with the shit right on their iPod.  A six-song, smaller format also helps us with that, especially if we’re going to be emailing people our album.