It’s resolution time. Here are a few to toy with, take to heart or crumple up into a wad and toss into the fire.
Use earplugs at music concerts. I’m not a doctor and I’ve never been a tinnitus alarmist. But after years of attending loud live shows, I can testify to a little ringing, now and then, in my ear. There’s no cure, which is kind of scary to think about. The good news is that prevention is easy. Music fans, musicians and venue staff should be using earplugs at the loud shows. Venues should make freebie earplugs available, be mindful of decibel level and avoid PA footprints that beg patrons to stand right in front of massive amps. Truth be told, you won’t hear the music as well with earplugs in, but it’s either that or switch fully over to a smooth jazz diet.
End the toxic relationship with your music streaming service. Spotify is on my mind here, but I’m sure you can name other bad-penny platforms. These people are thieves who will steal revenue from any artist who can’t afford the legal representation required to wrestle it back. They’re “playlisting” the music industry into algorithm-juiced chaos. And the real kicker is that, on top of everything, the user interface is kinda shit, with all the visual clusterfuck of Myspace and none of the heart.
Diversify music habits. Challenge yourself to listen more and listen differently in 2025. If you’re a streaming baby, try out some physical media: tapes, CDs, vinyl. If you’re a physical media junkie, go find a welcoming corner of some online platform (that’s not Spotify) and dig in. (I personally love Bandcamp, though I understand it’s fallen out of favor with artists in some circles after it was acquired by a corporation, which was acquired by another corporation, which was acquired by another corporation, which … You get the idea.) And if your live music diet consists of one arena show per year, go to a dozen dates at a smaller club or a half-dozen at a medium-sized venue instead. You’ll start thinking about, and hearing, music in brand new ways.
Hit this
The pressure to do “something” on New Year’s Eve can feel overwhelming. Sure, there are plenty of good local options for all kinds of NYE nights out. But I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to make some cozy plans at home and take the night off. The musical life of the city lives and breathes every day of the year, so feel free to pick your spots. Here are some choice selections before and after the ball drops.
Friday: Bermuda Search Party, Similar Kind, Layzi (The Sinclair, Cambridge)
“Unapologetically energetic,” “uplifting,” a “celebration of life.” These are all self-descriptions provided by Bermuda Search Party at their website. Yes, it sounds like a pitch for one of those slick GenZennial Christian groups that advertise on the T. But I promise you that there’s a shimmering pop ensemble beneath the tent revival rhetoric. Who knows, there might also be an actual tent revival beneath the rhetoric as well, but that’s between them and Buddy Christ. Similar Kind hails from Norwalk, Connecticut, aka Goose Central. Local indie popper Layzi is not lazy.
Sunday: Electric Zeus (State Park, Cambridge)
Sundays at State Park in beautiful Kendall Square were still freebie events the last time I checked. But you surely wouldn’t blink twice at coughing up some dollars to catch Electric Zeus in the faux Midwestern basement dive bar. The long-running experimental psych act lived a former life as the covert “radius clause”-breaking cousin of Apollo Sunshine. But now Electric Zeus has come out of the shadows and into the light, if not the sunshine. The lineup shuffles and the music improvs, so every night is a new experience.
Wednesday: Ward Hayden & the Outliers (Lizard Lounge, Cambridge)
Hats off to the troopers and the troubadours turning up at a New Year’s Day gig. Traditionally, the first day of the new year is a hangover special. Everyone’s aghast at what they spent the previous night or how they behaved or both – and they’d rather hunker down at home. Forget that. Ward Hayden & the Outliers are playing two sets of a “Celebration of Hank Williams,” and the early set is already sold out (though there will be more tickets at the door), so maybe there’s something redemptive and healing about the music of The Singing Kid.
Jan. 3: Hereboy, Tiberius, Intac (Lilypad, Cambridge)
An indie rock triple stack bill scheduled for the prime time slot at Inman Square’s favorite mural gallery-cum-performance space. At some point the local alt rock trio Hereboy started an instagram account with the handle @hereboy.mp4, which feels like a blunder, since MP4s are intended for video, as opposed to the MP3 format more commonly associated with music files. Sure enough, the band revised their handle to @hereboy.mp3. But not before linking the abandoned handle at their Bandcamp and either forgetting they had done so or just moving on with their fucking lives because we’re not put on this earth to slavishly update our online profiles so assholes in Silicon Valley can report “high levels of engagement” to their millionaire and billionaire investors. Speaking of which, Hereboy put together a Spotify playlist for the show, featuring songs from all the acts, including Tiberius and the mysterious Intac.
Live: The Fire Inside 2
If you missed the show at The Middle East on Friday, stacked taller than hotcakes, then you missed “The Fire Inside 2,” the second edition of a melange of local hip-hop and R&B presented by Booming Bay and Turntable Teachers.
You missed Vinny Mucho handing out $100 bills. You missed l.ucas conducting the crowd through a chorus of Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” You missed ToriTori delivering a dazzling solo performance on a stage about 1/100th the size of her Blue Stage digs at Boston Calling this summer. You missed Mindflex flexing a sweatshirt made out of a human rib cage. Or was it a human rib cage made out of a sweatshirt? You missed 5th Year trotting out the nudie blowup doll. You missed MonaVeli drop a scorching solo rap set, which included a cappella verses that threatened to light on fire and burn the house down. And you missed the superlative Rilla Force holding down the DJ duties for the night.
No worries, though. A little bird told me that everything, good or bad, always comes in threes. Unless they come in ones, twos, fours. The world feels destined for a “Fire Inside 3.” Just can’t put out that fire.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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Ahhhh nothing to start the New Year like a little musical snobbery.
The irony in complaining about streaming music on the medium that destroyed print. Wouldn’t it be more proper and “cooler” to publish this in any of newspapers still available on the street…..oh wait never mind… not even “Spare Change” seems to be in operation anymore.
But yeah, go ahead you “streaming baby”, invest in a record player, a cassette player, and buy media that was originally produced by those evil big corporate conglomerates.
CD’s are not practical for the average local band to produce. Even back-in-the-day self-produced CDs cost 10 bucks a piece to self-print. You’d have to order a 1000 to bring the price down to 4 bucks or so.
So you limp along self-printing 3 a show for 30, sell two at 15……and break even.,,,,if you don’t include the cost of gas and your time.
Or you can just put it all online as digital media on your website…..and almost none one will listen to it and you don’t make any money.
Seriously, the money has always, always, ALWAYS been in the merch not the ticket sales, not the record sales.
Just ask Gene Simmons.
p.s. Pandora rules and I only buy a psychical CDs after discovering a new artist through the evil algorithms. #bloodywood
Sam, you’re the best. Thanks for reading. MG