The big local music news this week is the return of Great Scott, a cherished venue in Allston that never reopened its doors after the heights of the pandemic. A performance space casualty, like the beloved Once on Highland Avenue in Somerville, unable to weather the health catastrophe. A venue mourned by a generation of club rats who cut their teeth on indie music in the Aughties.
Most of these news pieces will namecheck the famous acts that played the stage at 1222 Commonwealth Ave. before they blew up. It’s a testament to the savvy of longtime booker Carl Savin. And it’s great bragging rights for all the club rats at the original gigs, now in their 30s and 40s and likely not living in Allston anymore. Truth be told, it’s the acts you’ve never heard of that make a music scene go.
Where’s the relocated venue headed? Right next to O’Brien’s Pub at Cambridge Street and Harvard Avenue in Allston. That’s right, it’s a one-two combo with the 75-person capacity O’Brien’s Pub complementing an expanded vision of Great Scott that will accommodate up to 300 people. There will even be a real green room so artists can change into their sequined jumpsuits in privacy and comfort.
Okay, okay, okay. This is all good and well, but is it news fit for Cambridge Day to print? Two responses here. First, the music scene is an ecosystem that does not respect the same geographical boundaries mandated by parochial journalistic mandates. Second, the long-awaited rebirth of Great Scott is a grand opportunity to remind the Cambridge and Somerville communities of their own music venues riding along the razor’s edge of oblivion.
Will Once in Somerville ever ride again as a bricks-and-mortar location? Toad in Porter Square just got a paint job, but the timeline for its announced reopening has come and gone. Ownership of The Middle East in Central Square has been angling to turn the block into a six-story hotel (albeit with some sort of music venue at the base) since at least 2022.
Does it feel like we’re sinking in the sand on this side of the river? Where’s our “feel good” story for music venues in Cambridge and Somerville? Whose palms do we have to grease to revive and rescue some of our beloved stages? And will they accept an IOU?
Hit this
Friday: Yoko Miwa Trio (The Mad Monkfish, Cambridge)
Stop by the Central Square jazz spot for some sparkling key work from the eponymous leader of the Yoko Miwa Trio. The pianist has been wowing audiences on both sides of the Pacific since the turn of the millennium. And the regular gig in the Jazz Baroness Room (named after Baroness Pannonica Rothschild de Koenigswarter, heir to a decent chunk of the Rothschild fortune and devoted patron of Thelonious Monk) gives her all the runway she needs to take flight.
Saturday: Whitney Morgan & the 78s (The Sinclair, Cambridge)
Flint’s Whitney Morgan writes bangers about getting paid, getting drunk, getting high and getting off your high horse. He hasn’t released an album since the 2018’s “Hard Times and White Lines,” but his brand of outlaw country always stays evergreen. Morgan is joined by the 78s for a night of hootin’ and a little bit of hollerin’. Giddy-up!
Sunday: Bars Over Bars (The Jungle, Somerville)
Bars Over Bars is keeping the hip-hop dream alive in Boston and beyond. More than 629 shows thrown, featuring more than 800 artists. It’s not all about quantity, of course. More important is the opportunity that these events provide for artists trying to get their name out there, whether you’re getting music heard on their livestream, popping up in their newsletter or performing that first set in front of an audience. Bars Over Bars is building community. This week the community is coming to The Jungle, with a showcase featuring nine artists. Eleven, if you count the two turntables.
Live: Nice, A Fest
Nice, A Fest landed in Somerville for its fourth year this past weekend. The 2024 edition stayed true to its roots as a local’s local indie fest, leveraging organizer Get To The Gig’s prodigious familiarity with the local music scene to cram four days of music into a schedule that always felt full and only occasionally bloated. The bookers know which stones and logs and DIY venues to turn over to find talent ready for a bigger spotlight. All the more important for a festival that, historically, runs a little light on headliners.
Who needs expensive headliners when local bands come cheaper by the dozen? Eighty indie music acts found their way to the stage, with dives into subgenres you can’t even put a name to. Highlights included:
- A farewell gig from bluesy rawkers Rusty Mullet, whose fronter is moving to Berlin … forever?
- The return of Nice veteran Olivia Sisay, fronting a new band called Bus Crush. Which was playing its first live gig at the festival? Let it not be said that Get To The Gig doesn’t have faith in the artists they book.
- A high-energy Nurse Joy set in a packed-room at The Rockwell, which, judging from early returns, might end up being the most talked-about “shoulda been there” performances on the schedule.
- Ovlov’s surprise appearance at Crystal Ballroom, filling in when the regularly scheduled Grass Is Green outfit came down with Covid. It was a reunion gig that never quite reunited, but the night didn’t miss a beat with Ovlov.
- The shoegazey art punk of Slow Quit, which sounds as good live as it does on record.
- And the crowd work antics of Model/Actriz, electro thrash club lords who put the proper exclamation point on the final set of the fest.
Don’t forget the venues. Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell were once again the principal locations, serving since 2022. They’ve been the air-conditioned oases you need and deserve midsummer. If you’ve attended any type of summer festival at Boynton Yards in Union Square, where the festival premiered in 2021, you won’t forget the radiating hell that an endless sea of pavement manifests in hot weather. Good times, but yeesh.
Not that weather was an issue. The gods smiled on Nice, A Fest with a weeklong break from the heat and humidity that had owned the forecast. The cooler temperatures were a lucky turn because the organizer just can’t quit hot pavement, debuting a brand-new outdoor stage at a Grove Street parking lot Saturday. Three stages in a single day?
Nice, A Fest pitches itself as a homespun production. Sure enough, the bookers and artists cut their teeth locally. But tap your toes on the accelerator – this kitten purrs more like a premium SUV than a beat-up jalopy. In other words, not a music festival that takes its commitment to local music as an excuse to cut corners.
In a summer that already has one notable absence on the festival calendar – Quincy’s In Between Days is bowing out for 2024 – it’s a relief to see that Nice, A Fest hasn’t lost steam and is finding new ways to bring new music to new audiences.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.