Left of the Dial Radio Playlist - 4/27/12

Thanks for tuning in to Left of the Dial last night. By popular demand, I’ve decided to start posting my weekly radio playlists on Spotify, even though not all the songs are available. If you would like to stream the playlist on Spotify, I’ve embedded it below, sans the 7 songs that weren’t available. The full playlist can be found directly below, but I’ve only attached links to the songs that weren’t available on Spotify. If you’re not on Spotify already, hopefully this will provide you with an incentive to get on that!

• 1. Ceremony - “Into The Wayside Part I\Sick”
• 2. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists - “Dial Up”
• 3. Bomb The Music Industry! - “Everyone That Loves You”
• 4. Titus Andronicus - “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With The Flood Of Detritus”
• 5. The Fucking Cops - “Paycheck”
• 6. Screaming Females - “It All Means Nothing”
• 7. St. Vincent - “KROKODIL”
• 8. Andrew Jackson Jihad - “Heartilation”
• 9. Ceremony - “Citizen”
• 10. One Hundred Year Ocean - “Poison Smoak”
• 11. Desaparecidos - “Greater Omaha”
• 12. Beach House - “Lazuli”
• 13. Fang Island - “Sideswiper”
• 14. The Guru - “Pirate’s Cove”
• 15. The Format - “She Doesn’t Get It”
• 16. Sufjan Stevens/Rosie Thomas - “Here I Am!”
• 17. Serengeti & Polyphonic - “Bon Voyage”
• 18. Aesop Rock - “Labor”
• 19. Zammuto - “Groan Man, Don’t Cry”
• 20. Jack White - “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy”
• 21. Elvis Costello - “Every Day I Write The Book”
• 22. Simon & Garfunkel - “Cecilia”
• 23. Red House Painters - “San Geronimo”
• 24. Cameron Boucher - “27”
• 25. Into It. Over It. - “Raw Bar OBX 2002”
• 26. Sigur Rós - “Varúð”

TITUS ANDRONICUS live at Quinnipiac Festapalooza. Hamden CT. 4.20.12

July 10th 2010 may have been the first truly beautiful day of my life. If the previous March was the watershed month that set my life on the course that it’s been on for the past two years, then July 10th was the first real manifestation of that change. That night, Titus Andronicus played a packed show in New Haven, Connecticut with Hallelujah The Hills and Bomb The Music Industry!. That night I found out what it was like to be thoroughly engaged with music on both a physical and mental level. Much like TItus Andronicus’ record The Monitor, released earlier that year, had made me experience recorded music in a different way, that show at Lilly’s Pad made me appreciate live music more than I ever had before. 

Needless to say, when I found out that the dynamic pairing of Titus Andronicus and Bomb The Music Industry! would be returning to Connecticut, I was excited. I had seen Titus Andronicus twice since that show two years ago, and had seen Bomb The Music Industry! once more as well. My friend Ben Goodheart tipped me off that he was trying to get the two to headline a day-long festival he was putting together at Quinnipiac, and I waited with baited breath for the official announcement. As it turned out, the lineup was even better than I could have expected. In addition to two Quinnipiac-affiliated acts, the festival (dubbed Festapalooza) boasted The Front Bottoms and my good friends in The Guru. 

When I arrived at the Quinnipiac campus yesterday, I immediately spotted the members of The Guru looking out from a bay window on the second floor of the athletic center where the show was being held. They waved down to me, and I entered the building and ascended the stairs in an attempt to track them down. Soon enough, I found myself backstage, quite accidentally. As I hobnobbed with The Guru, I realized that the members of Titus Andronicus and The Front Bottoms were lounging around in the very same room. I quickly re-introduced myself to Patrick Stickles (whom I had met three times before) before being called downstairs to do an impromptu video interview with The Guru. Soon enough, it was time to start the show.

I didn’t pay much attention to the opening act The Midnighters, but I found myself drawn to their followup act Great Caesar, a local group whom I had previously seen at The Space last year. I didn’t remember much about them from that show, but they quickly won me over last night with their power pop guitar licks and jazz sensibilities. Their frontman sang like a cross between Paul Westerberg and a 1950s crooner, and the combination of shoegazy guitars and tenor saxophone was exciting and unique. The Guru came on next, and within seconds of their first song I was brought back to this past summer, when going to a Guru show was practically a weekly activity for me. Their set was just as fun and as engaging as any I’ve seen, and the growing crowd seemed to really enjoy their frenetic psych-rock vibe. 

Afterwards, The Front Bottoms took the stage, supplementing their traditional guitar/drums duo formula with a bassist/keyboardist. I had never given much serious listening to this band before, but from what I could tell, their bolstered sound really helped their performance. I was also amazed and surprised by what a draw they had, and how active their fans were during the show. For an acoustic guitar-led band that doesn’t really qualify as ‘folk punk,’ they maintained an incredibly high level of energy and crowd participation throughout. They also established a level of fun that topped even The Guru that night — a hard task to accomplish. 

Although it actually seemed like The Front Bottoms had the most devoted fans of the night, my level of excitement last night only began to truly peak with Bomb The Music Industry!’s set. When I saw them the previous two times, I had only been a passive fan of their music, but ever since Vacation came out last year, I’ve gotten much more invested in them. Thankfully for me, their set was just about as perfectly aligned with my tastes as it possibly could have been. They played a whole lot of Vacation material, opening with “Campaign For A Better Next Weekend” and moving right into “Everybody That Loves You,” “Everybody That You Love,” and the album highlight “Hurricane Waves,” which elicited two impassioned stage dives from me. Other highlights included the sped up version of the breezy “Can’t Complain,” which was transformed into a high energy punk song with distorted guitars, and the pining, emotional slow jam “The Shit That You Hate,” which became an impressive singalong lovefest. They only played a few tracks that weren’t on Vacation, but the songs that they chose were among their best. “Side Projects Are Never Successful” sounded as much like an apocalyptic party as it possibly could, and their penultimate song “25” served as a great lead in to their very last, the Vacation closer “Felt Just Like Vacation.” Throughout their entire set, I couldn’t help but feel that this band (especially Jeff Rosenstock) was at their creative peak, despite having been around for nearly a decade. Plus, the abundance of beach balls everywhere was a fitting touch.

Although Bomb The Music Industry!’s set last night vastly outshone their previous performances that I’ve seen, Titus Andronicus’ headlining set did not. That certainly doesn’t mean it wasn’t great though; it’s just that the July 2010 show still stands as one of my top two or three favorite shows ever. Titus Andronicus took the opportunity afforded to them by this show to perform a lot of new material, much of which will probably appear on their currently untitled third full length album, supposedly due out at the beginning of next year or the end of this year. The new material was a little hard to get into, but from what I could tell, the studio versions will probably sound great. Among the new songs played were a lengthy jam called “Ecce Homo” and an even lengthier, multi-part epic called “My Eating Disorder.”

In between new songs, Titus Andronicus played some great older material as well. Working with a more streamlined punk rock lineup, featuring only three guitars, bass, and drums, the band cut away the instrumental fat from some of their tracks from The Monitor and did justice to the noisy and aggressive material on The Airing Of Grievances, their 2008 debut. Early on in the set, they played the vintage Airing Of Grievances track “Upon Viewing Breughel’s Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus,” which appropriately led into their new non-album single “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With The Flood Of Detritus.” On “Titus Andronicus,” Patrick Stickles busted out a harmonica and began wailing on it in between verses, and eventually passed me the mic as I crowdsurfed during the “your life is over” breakdown part. Ironically, I don’t think I had ever felt more alive. Patrick seemed a little worn out at points, but he and the other band members demonstrated impressive resilience during the lengthy The Monitor battle hymns “A More Perfect Union,” “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future,” and the closer “Four Score And Seven.” By the time they began their last song, only a fraction of the crowd that was there at the beginning remained, but those of us who were still standing managed to give it our all, singing along with gusto and finally reveling in one last high-energy push in “Four Score And Seven’s” final half.

With some unfamiliar material and poor sound mixing, it wasn’t a perfect set, but perfection wasn’t what I wanted. What this show left me was an idea — an idea that being part of something even as seemingly temporary or superficial as a punk rock show is just as real and important as anything else. Titus Andronicus could have played anything last night and I probably would have liked it, but I really did need this to happen. Forget September 2011. Forget my ex-girlfriend. Last night was the first time I’ve been truly happy in what feels like a lifetime. My life isn’t over yet, but if it had to end right now, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. 

8/10

________________________

Check out more photos from this show over at the Lewis and his Blog facebook page!

Buy Tickets to Quinnipiac’s “Festapalooza” Now!

Quinnipiac University’s official radio station WQAQ is sponsoring the university’s first ever music festival this spring, featuring a stacked lineup that includes Titus Andronicus, Bomb The Music Industry,and The Front Bottoms. The festival will also include opening performances by local favorites such as The Guru, Great Caesar, and The Midnighters.

This show has been scheduled for some time, but now tickets to the event are available for purchase! Tickets are five dollars, or free for Quinnipiac students. Buy your tickets to this great Spring music event HERE.

Check out the original press release post below for more information:

wqaq:

FESTAPALOOZA: Quinnipiac University’s First Music Festival

featuring:

Titus Andronicus 

Bomb the Music Industry

The Front Bottoms

The Guru

Great Caesar

The Midnighters

…and Hamden’s local food vendors!

The event is on April 20th in Quinnipiac’s Burt Kahn Court, starting at 5:30, show at 6:15. Raffles every hour. Tickets JUST FIVE BUX (free for Quinnipiac students)

BUY HERE

WQAQ Spring Break Show: Titus Andronicus, BTMI!, The Front Bottoms, The Guru

andresfromct:

bulimic-vegetarian:

Hey Connecticut people Titus Andronicus is playing with BTMI and The Guru and some other bands at Quinnipiac on 4/20  so if you aren’t going to AJJ in brooklyn you should go to that.

FUCKKKKKK YESSS YESYESYESYESYESS

Yes, WQAQ (Quinnipiac University’s radio station) has been keeping this under wraps for a while but this is official now. They will have a flier for this show soon. I’m excited. The Front Bottoms are also supposed to be on the bill, as far as I’m aware. 

(Source: titusandonocus)

Interview: The Guru/High Pop/Jake Shaker (12.28.11)

15 Great Connecticut Albums From 2011

I know I promised to do a top ten list of my favorite Connecticut albums from this year back when I made my original list schedule, but it was too hard to narrow the list down to just 10. I simply heard too many good albums from my home state this year to pick so few as my favorites. I also found it too difficult to order them properly, so I just put them in alphabetical order. So, with that having been said, here is the next installment in my list series: 15 great Connecticut albums from 2011! Bandcamp links to stream each album are available when applicable.

1. boy crush - hauntr

Indie Pop, Psychedelic Pop

 The High Pop singer’s debut album from his solo project boy crush demonstrates an impressive level of maturity that I never expected. Hauntr is a brief but memorable collection of fragile, lo-fi pop songs about ghosts. Apparently it was recorded in a haunted house, which you may or may not believe after hearing it.

2. Bust It! - Hell Is Other People

Hardcore Punk

Seeing Bust It! live at The Mannor last month made me feel like it was 1983 and I was in Washington, D.C. Their EP Hell Is Other People, released back in March, isn’t entirely derivative of 80’s hardcore punk, but it does have that same level of raw aggression and recklessness. It’s also a lot of fun too, as evidenced by the dynamic opener “Intro/Empty Drawer,” which somehow fits three or four distinct movements into three minutes.

3. Co-Pilots - All My Friends Are Crutches, Because God Knows My Legs Are Broken

Indie Rock, Emo

You could look at Co-Pilots’ All My Friends Are Crutches EP in two ways. In one sense, it’s an album that has perhaps the most potential of any new band in the Fairfield county scene to lead to something truly great, with its inspired lyricism, very lengthy, epic tracks that never get boring, and song structures derived from post-rock. On the other hand, it’s probably the most crushingly frustrating record I’ve heard in a long time, as much of the album’s potential is stymied by its demo-quality production. Thankfully, the band has announced that they will be putting out a new EP this winter. Stay tuned for more information on that! 

4. Fugue - YEARS

Post-Rock, Math Rock

In a year full of crushing breakups, Fugue’s disbandment was one of the saddest, especially for people in the Connecticut/Massachusetts scene. On their final EP YEARS, the band had just started to truly live up to their potential as a sweeping, dynamic, instrumental post-rock band. YEARS’ math rock inflections and subtle electronic influences set it apart from the pack of local post-rock groups, leaving listeners with a great last release to remember Fugue by. 

5. Giles Corey - Giles Corey

Slowcore, Shoegaze, Ambient Folk

Seeing this record here is probably no surprise to anyone who read my Top 50 Albums of 2011 list, on which Giles Corey claimed the top spot. I’ve said a lot about this already, so I’ll keep it brief here. It’s interesting that despite consistently producing great music, Dan Barrett’s Enemies List Home Recordings doesn’t really feel like a part of the local scene at all. The New England identity of Giles Corey goes much deeper — Back to the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, from which Barrett’s solo project takes its name. Listening to these creepy, hollow sounding ghost folk songs in that context gives them even greater emotional power. 

Purchase the album HERE.

6. The Guru - Native Sun

Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Psychedelic Pop

No other record defined my Connecticut summer this year more than The Guru’s debut LP Native Sun, a joyful, resonant, and deceptively funky indie pop gem about youth. I caught tons of Guru shows over the summer, which were consistently packed, and witnessed these songs being brought to life, but when the summer turned to fall and the kids went their separate ways (Two went off to college together), I still had Native Sun blasting through my speakers to remind me of those summer nights.

7. Heavy Breath - Ugly Americans

Sludge Metal, Post-Hardcore

A lot of great punk came out of Connecticut this year, but nothing was as heavy or as badass as this. Heavy Breath’s Ugly Americans EP is a brutal indictment of American politics, culture, and society, conveyed through scorching bass and guitar grooves and delivered by chord-shredding vocals. If you’re pissed off at America, or if you just want to feel pissed off, Ugly Americans is for you.

8. Jerkagram  - We’ve Only Come To Leave

Math Rock, Post-Rock

Jerkagram is a pair of cerebral Connecticut musicians who, despite being well versed in art rock and angular math rock, really enjoy simply jamming together. Their debut record We’ve Only Come To Leave finds those two musical worlds colliding, with a stirring, semi-improvised mix of mathy guitar bursts and impressive percussive fills. Despite opening for artists like Kayo Dot and Marnie Stern, this album went under the radar, which is unfortunate. You should all check it out if this sounds like your thing.

9. M.T. Bearington - Love Buttons

Indie Rock, Indie Pop

The New Haven band M.T. Bearington have been working up to this release for quite a while, getting sponsored by the likes of Mates Of State and releasing a number of records since getting started around 2006. Love Buttons represents the apex of their vision: A smart, undeniably catchy indie pop record with just enough weirdness to stand out. I first saw the band live opening for Man Man back in October, and although I didn’t particularly understand the pairing at the time, it makes a lot of sense now.

10. Ovlov - What’s So Great About The City?

Indie Rock, Noise Rock, Shoegaze

Connecticut’s best 90’s indie rock revivalists put out an unmissable EP this year, entitled What’s So Great About The City? The album placed on my top 50 list, so I won’t go into detail, but suffice to say it’s an extremely catchy and memorable indie rock record with heavy shoegaze guitars. With just four tracks, you can sit through the record in just over 10 minutes, or replay this over and over again if you want.

11. Sinforiano Diaz - The Moosup Sessions

Indie Folk

Although Thomas Diaz, best known as the singer from The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, has been recording as Sinforiano Diaz for years, this is the first piece of recorded material from his solo project that I’ve been able to dig up. Although the four songs on The Moosup Sessions were not recorded this year, the album itself was made publicly available early in 2011. These songs — Fragile, delicate folk gems — give listeners a tremendous insight into the mind of one of the more enigmatic frontmen in the Connecticut scene right now.

Read more about Sinforiano Diaz / Download The Moosup Sessions HERE.

12. Suns - Be Good Boy

Indie Rock, Emo

Fairfield County trio Suns raised their stature earlier this year with their EP Be Good Boy, a record that brought an aggressive rawness to their indie rock product. The album’s not as consistent as I would have liked it to be, but it’s got a great sound and some singularly great songs. Fans of anthemic, angst-ridden indie rock bands like Titus Andronicus will definitely want to check this out.

13. Wess Meets West - Chevaliers

Post-Rock

This is another one that placed high on my year end albums list. Wess Meets West’s Chevaliers was one of the biggest and heaviest albums I heard all year, especially of the post-rock variety. With Fugue having disbanded, this decidedly smaller group now stands head and shoulders over their peers in the local post-rock scene, and this incredibly ambitious record solidifies their place.  

14. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Are Here To Help You (split w/ Deer Leap)

Emo, Indie Rock, Post-Rock

Based on the amount of coverage that I gave it ever since its release, it should be pretty clear that The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die’s split with Deer Leap is one of my favorite records of the year. TWIABP’s side is the highlight, boasting four fantastic atmospheric emo songs that are easily my favorites from the band. Topshelf Records recently released the split as a 12”, and my copy came in the other day on white vinyl. It sounds fantastic, and I’m really glad I ordered it. 

15. Year In Review - I’m Sorry Mario, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle

Pop-Punk, Indie Rock

The Fairfield County scene really cleaned up this year, as it turns out, with a number of great new bands sprouting up and releasing solid material. Year In Review is a pop-punk band from the area with indie rock credibility and none of the annoying cliches generally associated with that style of music. Their record I’m Sorry Mario, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle is an EP comprising five songs about growing older, approaching adulthood, and losing the innocence of youth. It’s pertinent, catchy, and interesting, and definitely worth a few listens.

____________________________________

Check back here tomorrow for the final installment in my list series, my 10 favorite shows of 2011. 

Fugue Announce Breakup

Towards the end of what’s shaping up to be a pretty bad month for bands breaking up, Connecticut’s own instrumental experimenters Fugue have added their name to the ever-growing list. On their facebook page earlier today, the group wrote a lengthy post detailing the reasons for their impending disbandment. “What it boils down to is that the six of us couldn’t commit to this band the way we know we need to,” the post reads, “We honestly believe that for the life of this band we were creating something special, and unique but it really took all six of us to make this band what it is. And keeping the six of us together to create it became too great a task.”

This announcement comes in the midst of a tour that has included dates opening for artists such as Mt. Eerie, as well as headlining shows throughout the Northeast United States. The band will play two final shows before officially breaking up, including one in Salem, Massachusetts on September 30th. Their final show will take place on Friday, October 28th in Hamden, CT, where they will be opening for Tera Melos and Melt Banana. More information about that show can be found HERE.

Over their relatively short career, the band released three EPs, all of which are available for purchase on their bandcamp page. Their most recent release, the excellent 2011 EP Years, is embedded for streaming below. It is also available for free download.

Summer Shows Recap

Hey everybody, I was recently contacted by someone who writes for my school’s newspaper. She is writing an article about Summer shows, and was asking if I could provide her with some information about the many shows that I’ve seen over the past couple months. I wrote her a very lengthy response, so I figured I would post that here as well, in case any of you want to read it. It’s basically a recap of all the shows I’ve seen, some of which I’ve only covered in passing prior to this. 

Anyway, this is what I did this Summer…

For me, the summer concert series really began with B.O.M.B. Fest in late May, which took place in Hartford at the Comcast Theater. The festival wasn’t planned very well, and the lineup featured some really bizarre choices for bands in addition to two really irrelevant headliners, but I did get to see a lot of my favorite indie rock bands that don’t come around here too often. At its best, B.O.M.B. Fest was cool because I got to see my favorite local bands (that friends of mine are actually in), such as Midi & The Modern Dance and The Guru, play with my favorite current nationally touring bands like Titus Andronicus, Free Energy, Man Man, The New Pornographers, and Wavves, although Wavves had a pretty disappointing live set. It was fun to see Weezer too I guess, because I was in the front row and they played a set heavy on material from their debut and their second album Pinkerton, which is one of my favorite albums. Also, this guy Bryce (who plays in Chalk Talk, another band I saw at BOMB Fest), stagedove from backstage during Weezer’s set and actually jumped over me. There’s a hilarious video of that somewhere.

Here it is:

In June I saw two shows that are really worth mentioning. The first one took place at Toad’s Place on June 4th, with Okkervil River headlining and Titus Andronicus and Future Islands opening. I got to meet Patrick Stickles (of Titus) for a third time after meeting him again at BOMB Fest the week before and he remembered my name. It was awesome. Titus’ set was pretty good, but it was the same setlist as their BOMB Fest show, which was disappointing. Okkervil River were fantastic, and played for well over two hours with a set heavy on material from my two favorite albums of theirs, Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names. Their new songs also sounded really good. HERE are some photos from that night.

On June 11th my friends The Guru played a special show in celebration of the release of their first official full length album Native Sun at The Space in Hamden. People went crazier at that show than I’ve ever seen at that venue. It was such a fun, life affirming experience, and I was so proud of those guys for being so great.

Then on June 18th I saw The Antlers play a really intimate show at The Space. This band has sold out venues like the Music Hall of Williamsburg and the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn so seeing them play at such a small all ages venue was really a treat. I’m a huge Antlers fan and the show was absolutely gorgeous. I know I took photos of the Antlers show but I can’t find them anywhere. 

The last show I saw in June was Bomb The Music Industry! at Lilly’s Pad, the small venue upstairs at Toad’s Place. I had seen them once before opening for Titus Andronicus last summer, but this was the first time I had seen them headline. At the time, I wasn’t actually a big fan of theirs. It’s a shame, because they released their new album Vacation a few days later, and I actually love that album. It’s definitely the best thing they’ve released and I love the change in style. The show was pretty fun and energetic though.

I guess July must have been kind of a dry spell for shows for me because I only saw one that month. I wanted to see The Feelies in Milford in July but I was away in North Carolina. I also wanted to see Animal Collective but my ride dropped out. Anyway, on July 1st I saw my favorite band from Connecticut, an atmospheric emotive hardcore/post-rock/whatever band called The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, from Willimantic. It was my fourth time seeing them, and first seeing them in a headlining role. They played at a DIY venue in downtown New Haven called Popeye’s Garage, because it was literally a tiny garage behind the Popeye’s there. Pitchfork BNM’ed punk band Iceage played there a few days earlier. It’s the real deal. Anyway, they had some technical troubles but they played two new songs that are going to be on an upcoming 12” split with Deer Leap, and they sounded fantastic. Also, Football, etc. opened (along with three other bands) and they were really good. 

August is only half way over, though, and I’ve already seen four great shows. Sufjan Stevens played at Prospect Park in Brooklyn on August 2nd and 3rd and I was at both of the shows. Collectively, they were my favorite show of all time and the highlight of my summer if not my whole life. Seriously. I wrote a huge review of that show with pictures and stuff on my blog and you should check it out: 

Here are some more pictures from both nights.

The first night was breathtaking and full of surprises for me, and the second night was a huge awesome dance party in the pouring rain except it wasn’t shitty dance music, it was Sufjan Stevens and he was amazing.

It was funny coming back from Brooklyn on August 3rd and then going to a completely different show on August 4th. I went back to The Space to see Grown Ups play with a bunch of great bands, but I was mostly there to see The World Is A Beautiful Place… again for the fifth time. I can’t get enough of them. Grown Ups were okay, TWIABP was awesome, and the other openers Legs Like Tree Trunks, Martin Luther King, High Pop, and Deer Leep were also great.

This past tuesday I saw my most recent show, which was pretty funny actually. I’ve seen a lot of punk rock basement shows, but none like this. I’m used to dingy basements and tiny, packed rooms for house shows, like The Cookie Jar in New Haven was before it was retired as a venue. Instead, this show was in a basement in Easton, CT, probably the least punk place in the world. It was at this massive house with fountains and shit. It was hilarious. I brought Jared Eisenberg along because he had never been to a show that wasn’t in a giant arena or something before, and he said that he had a really good time. It was just funny because I was trying to explain what punk was about to him, and then we pull up to this house that is even bigger than his… it was just really funny. But I went because Suns were headlining and releasing their new EP Be Good Boy and because a bunch of other great bands were playing, some of whom I hadn’t checked out before. It turned out to be a pretty awesome punk night after all. Co-Pilots were amazing. Maharati was kind of an oddball choice because they were a hardcore punk band, but they were touring so whatever. Year In Review was kind of a cutesy pop-punk band with 90s roots, and they were pretty good. Ovlov was incredible. They sounded just like a 90s indie rock band like Sebadoh or something and it was really great seeing them play with such admirable apathy. They really didn’t care how they sounded, which worked because they sounded fantastic. Martin Luther King played at this show too, which was their last show before the members all go off to college. It was amazing though, and everybody was really into it. Finally Suns played, and I was surprised at how much I was into it. I went crazy at that show. I wish I had taken pictures. Sometimes those basement punk shows can really be more rewarding than anything else. It’s about losing your sense of self-importance and reveling in the communal acceptance that punk provides. It doesn’t matter that the new Suns EP is ‘just okay’. It was an amazing show, and I loved everyone who came. 

Anyway I realize that I just recounted my entire musical summer to you, and I’m sorry that I basically wrote a novel just now, but hopefully that will give you something to go on. Feel free to use whatever, but I guess if you’re going to use pictures or quotes or anything, just source them back to my blog.

Thanks for reading!