Nostalgia is one of the confounding and self-inflicted bugbears with which adults “of a certain age” must contend. We grow older, not necessarily wiser, and become haunted by persons, places and things that may or may not have existed the way we remember them, but have nevertheless taken root firmly in our hearts.
I’m haunted, in a pleasant way, by memories of visiting Newbury Comics as a boy. The adult world was strange and perplexing, yet the big, bright, bold branding of the store’s grinning cartoon face spoke to me in a language that made sense to children.
To a child, the world – made by adults, for adults – can feel like a desert of boredom. The music store (and more) felt like an oasis of fun where I was always welcome.
I visited the Amherst location (RIP) regularly in middle school. I frequented Boston and Cambridge locations as a teenager. When I went off to college, I made pilgrimages back to Newbury Comics on holiday breaks, to rekindle the magic even as I was slipping out the backdoor of youth forever.
Oh to live on Sugar Mountain. Newbury Comics ushered me along on a path of musical exploration from adolescence to adulthood. What a path it was. MC Hammer, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Beck, Björk and more. Until one day – no day in particular – I visited the store and couldn’t find any new music to catch my eye.
Not that I had fallen out of love with music. I was as smitten as ever. But the presentation and selection of the inventory at Newbury Comics started to feel inadequate for a 20-something. There were too few records and too many toys to make a visit worth the effort.
Plus, there was this newfangled technology called “MP3s,” which promised a deeper (and cheaper) path to musical exploration than I had ever dreamed of. Why be the 5 millionth person to buy “Kind Of Blue” when you could download Mile Davis’ entire discography for free?
It took about a decade for me, and others like me, to work through the implications of the digital music revolution – a decadelong pause from visiting record stores with any real intention of making a purchase. When I finally rediscovered a passion for physical media, which nurtures local music culture and commerce in ways that digital files flying around the Internet never will, I found that many brick-and-mortar music stores had not survived the impact of MP3s.
Yet Newbury Comics was still standing. I wandered into the Harvard Square location the other day for kicks. The inventory remains as I do and don’t remember it: Light on records, light on comics, overstuffed with shelves full of toys and various pop culture ephemera.
There is an infinite stock of Funko: softball-sized plastic dolls with big eyes and swollen heads modeled after famous figures in pop culture. Funko dolls of every shade and stripe: Hannibal Lecter, Elvira, Spider-Man, Krusty the Klown, Kenny from “South Park,” Tony Soprano, the Xenomorph, Harry Potter, Dobby, Jayson Tatum, Caitlin Clark, Jack Skellington, Freddie Mercury, Ozzy Osbourne, Yoda, Chewbacca and Donald Duck.
Do kids like these? They’re cute, sure, but the real draw here is nostalgia, and nostalgia is for adults. Or “kidults” (a phrase I heard the other day on a podcast about the Labubu craze). Consumers with the spending power of adults and spendthrift habits of a kid. Imagine filling your home with inert, meaningless future landfill such as these collectible dolls? The thought makes me a little sad.
Or maybe it’s just those pangs of nostalgia, coming back to haunt me? I don’t know. I came embarrassingly close to buying a Grogu doll.
Hit this
Saturday and Sunday: Ratchella 2 (321 Washington St., Somerville)
On the heels of another rat-themed fest in Brighton comes the second edition of a DIY music festival dedicated to our four-legged, garbage-loving friends. Or fiends? The lineup feels like a mashup between Nice Fest and Fuzzstival bills. The superlative Dead Gowns headline, joined by Paper Lady, Misuser, Mingko, Balaclava, The Croaks, Otis Shanty and more. Spring for the VIR (very important rat) pass to gain extra schwag.
Sunday: Dream a Better World Fest (Warehouse XI, Somerville)
At the risk of summoning the demon simply by speaking its name, isn’t a social justice music festival called “Dream a Better World Fest” exactly the sort of event where right-wing extremist losers such as Proud Boys or Patriot Front show up? You know, pile into the back of a U-Haul rented somewhere in New Hampshire, mask up and find a liberal enclave such a Union Square to goose step around until their moms call die Hitlerjugend home for supper? Let’s hope not. Organizer Melissa Nilles has put together a long list of musicians (Chris Walton, Why Try?, Ruby Grove, Evan Greer, Lonely Leesa and the Lost Cowboys, Linnea’s Garden) and activists with a mind to motivate positive change. You might not hang around for all seven hours, but scan the schedule to see if there isn’t a powerful block of entertainment that beckons the better angels of your nature.
Wednesday: Titans of Industry (The Rockwell, Somerville)
Portland, Oregon’s Titans of Industry are psych rawkers. The designation can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Don’t expect mellow jams and Birkenstocks. The trio hails from the Butthole Surfers school of tripped-out alt-weirdness, mixing funk, punk and electric guitar into a heady stew to keep you on your heels. Their band bio runs three sentences long: “Sleep before Sex. Milk before Cereal. Titans before Industry.” Are these descriptive or prescriptive statements? Local alt-rockers Weatherman and The Only Things open.
Aug. 29-Sept. 1: Campfire Festival (Club Passim, Cambridge)
Twenty years in, Campfire Festival is the gift that keeps on giving. The Harvard Square folk music hot spot hosts a mix of established and emerging voices on the local circuit. We all know the big names that have graced the stage of this musical tradition: Lake Street Dive, Anjimile, Josh Ritter, Jim Kweskin, a precancellation Regina Spektor. The list goes on and on. The folk scene veterans know what to look forward to, so let me direct my appeal to Club Passim newbies: If you’ve never sampled the sounds of this local gem, the cool climes of Campfire over Labor Day weekend is an excellent way to break the ice.
Live: Niqisax at the Garden Bar
“Berklee Summer in the City” strikes again!
Saxophonist Niqisax (a play on Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx?) led a Berklee-born jazz quartet through a set of originals and standards from the likes of Charlie Parker, Bill Evans and more Aug. 13 at the Garden Bar in Harvard Square.
The event was presented by Regattabar as part of the Berklee music series popping up all over the Boston outdoor locations this summer. We previously covered a gig featuring percussionist Cameron Spann leading a quartet on a rooftop in Kendall Square.
Niqisax’s audience took in the free concert at sea level on a hot and humid afternoon. The early birds found shade beneath the large white party tent dominating the brick-top plaza, while the rest of the groundlings nabbed seating where they could find it in the full sun. There was cornhole and ringtoss for the lawn recreation crowd. And for the famished, wagyu hot dogs, beer, wine and “Frozies” at the bar.
If the jazz quartet of saxophone, keyboard, standup bass and drums was feeling the heat, they played it cool. Niqisax handled the sax with a strong and even tone that skipped, hopped and pirouetted around the plaza, served up alongside a strange summer cocktail of warm breeze, hot garbage and bus exhaust.
Quaff in good health, cough in good health. Whatever gets you better.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
A stronger
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