After all the yammering this column has yammered since January regarding a wintry Record Store Day Walk, you didn’t think we’d watch the actual Record Store Day pass without comment? It’s almost 4/20, dude! Put on your walking shoes.
Especially now that the weather has turned and you no longer have to don two layers of underwear to get through the day. Please, no comments from the peanut gallery about how winters are not what they used to be. If you can see your breath, it’s cold.
But the snow didn’t stop our spotlight on Planet Records. The sleet didn’t stop our spotlight on Armageddon Record Shop. So let’s complete the Harvard Square trifecta and tip our cap to the mainstay big boy on the block, Newbury Comics.
Not that the New England institution needs any additional plaudits from a local paper. But sometimes ubiquitous and shiny branding can make you take a place for granted.
Cast back a bit to the humble beginnings. The business was founded in 1978 by two MIT students, John Brusger and Mike Dreese. The pair set up shop on Newbury Street, offering a hot fix of the latest in comics, music and, as the inventory evolved, any item a pop culture junkie might dream of.
It’s a savvy mix of essentials alongside the absolutely frivolous. And buying the one somehow justifies buying the other. Pure death for any extra spending money in your wallet. Go into Newbury Comics for a pristine vinyl reissue of the Pixies “Trompe Le Monde” and you’ll walk out of the store with the record under your arm along with a cute plastic sloth to mount on the end of your toothbrush, a pet rock or, god forbid, a Willy Warmer.
Part of you wonders how many child workers in foreign countries with nonexistent labor laws died so that you could enjoy a brief thrill with a slide whistle, switchblade comb or Funko doll. A legitimate source of wonder. But don’t let it spoil your fun. There will always be a fondness for trivial amusements in the human heart. Life is long and strange – have a laugh. Just make sure your sea monkeys, plush dolls and Harry Potter incense are union made.
The Harvard Square location of Newbury Comics is on the second floor of The Garage, the dilapidated mini-mall on Mount Auburn Street. If you pass through on Record Store Day, snap a few photos of the nightmare interior design. It’s a car crash of brick, metal and primary colors knotted into a floorplan out of an M.C. Escher print. An exquisite monument to bad taste that is sure to be lost forever once the planned (and currently stalled) renovations get underway.
Friday: The Ghouls, Looking Glass War, Roser, Other Brother Darryl (Sonia, Cambridge)
What happens in the preliminary rounds, stays in the preliminary rounds. We’re on to the semifinals of the Rock N Roll Rumble. And if the semifinals are anything like semifreddo, the second round of the storied rock tournament will be a class of frozen desserts similar to ice cream, introduced in Italy in the 19th century, and derived from French parfait. Yum! Four bands enter, one band leaves. Watch out for Lowell-on-Lowell violence as two acts from Spindle City, The Ghouls and Roser, meet up to measure Mill City supremacy.
Tuesday: Almira Ara (Club Passim, Cambridge)
Did you catch Almira Ara at the inaugural We Black Folk Fest in February? The singer-songwriter wore two hats. First as a performer, plying their wares with an acoustic guitar in hand. Second as a member of the Folk Collective, a local project for boosting inclusivity, equity and diversity with the genre run out of Club Passim. If it sounds like Ara is a folkie through and through, wait until you hear them ramp up the rock and R&B flavors.
April 26: Helado Negro, Marem Ladson (The Sinclair, Cambridge)
The man behind the Helado Negro moniker, Roberto Carlos Lange, sounds like one cool cat. Born to Ecuadorian immigrant parents in South Florida, he now resides in Brooklyn. One of those guys you’d love to trade CVs with. A multi-instrumentalist who builds his own sound from the ground up. An artistic polymath with a background in computer art and animation who explores the creative touch points between music and video, sculpture, sound and performance. Tireless creative, tireless collaborator. Gobbles up grants and fellowships. You’re as likely to find him in an art gallery as onstage at a music venue, playing tracks off his latest LP, “Phasor.” Call it experimental. Call it indie. Call it alt Latin. Call it what you will. Madrid’s Marem Ladson opens.
Rosali rolled through The Rockwell on April 11. The four-piece rock ’n’ roll outfit shades off into the hazy lanes of country and psych at will. But it’s the otherworldly voice of fronter Rosali Middleman that keeps the music on an even keel.
The current tour takes the band to all points north, east, west and south as part of the big promotional push for her latest album, “Bite Down.” She’s been quietly putting out indie rock gems for years (shout out to “No Medium” and “Trouble Anyway”) on smaller imprints. The new album was released on the major indie label Merge Records, and could signal a well-deserved level up for the artist if all goes well.
And how’s it going? So says the Bandcamp landing page for “Bite Down”: “*** THIS LP IS TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK & BEING RE-PRESSED. GRAB A COPY ON TOUR IF YOU’RE ABLE, OR PRE-ORDER HERE AND WE’LL SHIP WHEN READY! ***”
It’s going pretty well, I’d say. Is the all-caps really necessary, though?
Middleman has a knack for surrounding herself with top-shelf musicians who know how to sit back and showcase her voice. On the recent album, she’s loosened the reins a bit to let the rest of the band speak their truth. And it might be making all the difference.
Case in point: The live version of “Hills On Fire” featured an electric guitar part by James Schroeder that was so singular and distinctive that the lead singer called the song a “duet.” At its conclusion, even the bassist David Nance fell into applause from the stage.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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