Election season is upon us. The deadline for submitting the requisite documentation to run has elapsed in Somerville, and the start of nominations in Cambridge is coming up fast – July 1. As voters start sizing up candidates, we’ll all have plenty of questions we want to hear the candidates address. For the sake of this column, I’ll be thinking about how some of their platforms and policies affect the local music scene.
To be honest, though, we voters are not always interested in specific answers to specific questions, however discerning our political antennae may be. Sometimes we’re just looking for a “vibe check.”
We shouldn’t oversell the importance of “vibes” with political candidates, nor should we dismiss them. For example, when it comes to music and politics, the endless carousel of recording artists who have sent Donald Trump cease and desist letters to stop him from using their music at campaign events is a definite vibe. A bad vibe that doesn’t so much speak to any particular policy as it spotlights the bottomless Abyss of Disapproval into which the president has been tossed by musicians that so many Americans, rightly or wrongly, look up to.
I started thinking about vibes in the context of local elections when I heard about Willie Fest. Willie Burnley Jr., Somerville city councilor at large and a candidate in the Somerville mayoral race, is teaming up with artists to organize a series of music concerts as campaign fundraisers. That’s a good vibe.
I got curious about the other candidates in the Somerville mayoral race. Did you know that Jake Wilson, another current councilor at large, held a part-time job as a record store clerk in high school, had a radio show in college and worked at Elektra Records in the late ’90s? That’s a good vibe.
I reached out to incumbent mayor Katjana Ballantyne for a vibe check and I haven’t heard back. The Ballantyne website ballyhoos her stewardship of the local arts. She’s steered the growth of new arts space, including the latest sweeteners from the Somernova development. And her administration presented a master plan for the Armory that preserves it as a publicly owned community arts space. That’s a good vibe.
Good vibes all around, I guess. Except for William “Billy” Tauro, the as-yet uncertified Somerville mayoral candidate, whose would-be campaign took another hit when his campaign website got hacked with some NSFW graphics. That’s a bad vibe. Be careful what you click on.
Hit this
Friday: Mohini Dey (Regattabar, Cambridge)
Bassist supreme Mohini Dey has been gigging professionally since she was 9 years old. She’s got the stuff. Expect up-tempo, bottom end trills aplenty. She’s joined by Mark Hartsuch on saxophone and Gino Banks on drums to form a trio as tight as a barrel full of radioactive waste getting dumped off the Farallon Islands. The trio is scheduled for two sessions, one at 7:30 p.m. and the other at 9:30 p.m. Why are jazz, blues and folk musicians always tapped for two sets in a single night when you rarely see it in rock? Wrong answers only in the comments, please.
Tuesday: Colleen Green, Rozwell Kid, Headband (The Rockwell, Somerville)
A night of indie music in Davis Square’s favorite bat cave. Colleen Green is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her rocking, riffing, ripping album “I Want to Grow Up.” Green crafts a mean pop hook, with enough grime to call it “garage” and enough bubblegum to make it “pop.” Slackrawkers Rozwell Kid join her on a coast-to-coast tour through the hot season. Local buzzard rockers Headband will open with a set full of good trills, chicken scratch, boot gaze and other descriptors they invented at their Bandcamp page.
June 27: Chuckyy (Middle East, Cambridge)
Young Chicago drill rapper Chuckyy rolls through Middle East Downstairs, a friendly spot for hip-hop as long as anyone still on the scene can remember. Like most 19-year olds, the rapper seems to live and breathe an outsized portion of his life on TikTok, where you can head to consume high-view-count Chuckyy content to your heart’s delight. But his full-length, horror theme-inspired album “I Live, I Die, I Live Again” proves he’s got a creative vision broader than 15-second clips. His deadpan delivery is not everyone’s cup of tea. But what is everyone’s cup of tea? (Answer: Mint. A pleasant taste that matches any flavor profile, and it’s noncaffeinated, so you can enjoy it day and night.)
Live: Ghosts and Shadows, Spirit Hotel, Past Life Crisis at The Jungle
Every party around town Saturday night was a Pride/“No Kings” postparty, officially or not. So it was at The Jungle, where three rock bands were shaking off the wet of a drizzly Saturday and tuning up for the early show, 4 to 7 p.m. The opener, Past Life Crisis, a quartet with rock opera flair, wished everyone a Happy Pride and got down to business.
Early shows are a blessing for out-of-town bands, which might otherwise be scared off gigs that involve a late-night trip home along dark highways. Especially for bands whose members have a few more miles on the odometer, who are no longer “made out of rubber,” as Steve Albini used to say about 20-somethings, who feel that extra drink (or two) and lost hours of sleep like a sledgehammer through a plate glass window in the morning.
What is true for bands is true for audiences too. If you grabbed a preshow libation in the neighborhood, you might have overheard a guy from Woburn having a loud, brusque, performative telephone conversation with his wife. After he hung up, he turned to his two buddies at the bar and complained that “the old lady” was giving him a hard time about “enjoying rock ’n’ roll with the boys.”
Strong Tim Robinson energy with this one – I half expected him to order a sloppy steak.
Now, Woburn isn’t situated on the far side of the moon. In fact, it’s barely a 20-minute drive between The Wu and Union Square, thanks to I-93. Every minute matters, though, when you want to lay into multiple rounds of Crispy Boys before “the old lady” spoils the fun and you have to clock back into work on Monday morning. An early Sunday show is just the ticket.
The trio made the trip to The Jungle in support of their friend’s band Spirit Hotel, an alt-rock quartet playing the second slot. An extra rack of guitars at stage right promised a gazy, hazy set. The rhythm section delivered a medium-tempo grind while the guitars droned and the lead singer floated smoky, sultry vocals in the breeze. Shades of The Jesus and Mary Chain with hints of Western twang and hard-boiled blues.
While the music rattled around the hollows of the old police garage, the trio were already plotting their next rock ’n’ roll adventure. Bigger, longer, uncut. A Labor Day excursion to East Rutherford, New Jersey, for an Oasis show.
Mr. Sloppy Steaks said aloud what was on everyone’s mind: “No chicks?” The other two waved him off, wordlessly. “Right,” he concluded, “No reason to muddy the waters.”
Before closer Ghosts & Shadows played a single note, the trio hit the trail. If this was an old Western, the three caballeros would’ve flipped the barkeep a silver dollar, hopped onto their mounts and rode off into the setting sun in search of a new adventure.
But this wasn’t an old Western. Somewhere in Woburn “the old lady” was about to get a beery peck on the cheek along with late-breaking news about a guys-only weekend to watch Noel and Liam Gallagher temporarily set aside their beef for a massive payday at MetLife Stadium. She won’t be missing much.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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