Gracie

Anyone who was sad when the Fat Creeps broke up has zero reason to be sad anymore, with Mariam doing Bong Wish, and Gracie doing her band, Gracie. It’s Gracie Jackson’s solo project, but it is a full band that chose the name Gracie because it fits and Gracie wrote all the songs. A couple of her tracks, like “Jesse”, have been online since October of 2014, but she waited until the time was right to make the debut release. They play a lot of shows, they have a solemn live presence in a very enticing way. The music sounds heavy, similar to some of the Fat Creeps stuff. The heaviness does not weight it down though, it traps you in. So smooth and raw, the vocals on it are very rich and drippy. It has a big sound, big like the big room of destruction Gracie is calmly standing in the middle of on the album’s cover. It kinda reminds me of 90’s grunge, but more woodsy and eerie at times. She exhibits a fresh meld of trepid nostalgia, like when she coos “Things get heavy/ you lose sight/ what was once so dreamy keeps you up at night” on “Youth is a Fire”. It is a soft-pop, but also downright guitar rock. You can get the cassette now from BUFU Records and in September 2015 from Ghost Ramp Records.



BONUS!!
Here is my interview with Gracie herself from the Bostonhassle.com:

Boston Hassle: When did you first start making music and writing songs?

Gracie Jackson: I started dicking around on the piano when I was a little kid, I didn’t record any of that shit, but those were my first hits.

BH: What are some of your biggest inspirations and when do you feel most inspired?

GJ: I don’t really listen to music that much, Neil Young is alright but that’s about it. I feel a sense of overwhelming inspiration when my parents go away for a few days and I get to relax at their house and use their nice computer which has garage band.

BH: What was your motivation to start Gracie?

GJ: We call it Gracie because I wrote these songs, and Erik, Mike and Travis help develop these joints and make them sound dank ripe. I had this crappy band name, but it didn’t resonate with me or the boys so we dropped it. We also considered these bands names: Market Basket Drip Castle, Johann Sebastian Market Basket, and Chicken Connection. I decided to use my own name.

BH: Are there any certain feelings, themes, or messages you are trying to convey to your audiences or find yourself drawn too?

GJ: I write a lot from personal experience, and watching network TV.

BH: How did you meet and start playing with your bandmates?

GJ: Me and Erik (who shreds) have played together since high school. He showed me a lot of great music way back when and saved me from being obsessed with Audioslave. Travis I met through friends who went to Uni with him at University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Massachusetts. He played drums in Fat Creeps too. Mike who plays bass in Kal Marks (who are dope) also plays bass with me. He is a great musician and a lot of fun to play with.

BH: What was your process like for writing and recording your new album?

GJ: Me and Erik recorded a few of the songs off my album a long time ago, but then he moved away and they just got kinda got shelved until the time was right, which is right now. My process? I write a song, figure it out with the band, call my studio guy Doug, who recorded the Fat Creeps albums, I’ve been working with him for 4 million years. At this point he gets the weird way i talk and express what I’m hearing in my head so its really easy to get the sound I’m looking for, and I record it!

BH: If you could collaborate or work with any artist in the world, dead or alive, who would you pick and why?

GJ: I love Cookie Monster’s voice, but I guess if i could jam with someone? Keith Richards taught me a lot of what i know, and Captain Beefheart too, and definitely Neil Young.

BH: What are you most excited about for Gracie’s future?

GJ: My album is coming out soon on a great label, big plans, big ideas. Big ideas. BUFU records hooked it up

SaraLee

pic from facebook

One of the first shows I went to in Boston was a Ride the Snake Records anniversary party where SaraLee was amongst the bands that played that night. And it hit me hard, they were the purest and boldest form of low-fi. The setup is so simple, Sara on guitar and vocals and Lee on drums, but it was so intoxicating. They are my favorite because they were my first, they really showed me that there is so much music out there that is amazing and completely oblivious to me. That was almost a year ago now, and I think they have only played like one or two shows since then, and haven’t released something since 2013, so I am unsure of their status, active wise.

After the show, I went on their Bandcamp and downloaded all of their music and listened to it religiously. The site fairly is bountiful, with 5 releases from February 2011 to the most recent being from September 2013, but their facebook page seemed pretty desolate. Which created a sense of mystery in my mind, because it felt like as soon as I heard them they were already gone.

I’ve seen Lee drumming in Pucker Up more recently. He’s the most intense drummer I’ve ever seen. Pucker Up and SaraLee are obviously very different, but the intensity is the same. At one point it the Pucker Up set, at a part when he wasn’t drumming, Lee got up from his kit, walked around the stage, and then sat back down and started whaling the drums. And I just thought that was the coolest move ever.

Sara’s vocals are so unique and powerful. The music is very natural sounding and reminds me of being in the woods. It’s very calming and strong. The lyrics are simple, deep, and cool. Like on my favorite “So Sorry”, which goes like “I’m so sorry but I can’t go home with you, Things are different, Now they’re new.” The fuzzy guitar balances so well with the resolute drumming. I don’t know if they are going to play or release anything in the near future, but it’s okay because I’m still not over any of their old stuff.

MURIEL: Utter Perfection

Muriel means utter perfection. This tape project on feeding tube is a solo spilt. The first side is six songs by Lily Konigsberg (of Palaberta) and the second side is three songs by Kassie Carlson (of Guerilla Toss). This project sounds like a theory, like building one. The recording process is a learning process.                 Side A, Lily’s, has an eighties science fiction feel. Feels like it’s swarming around you. The tracks sound like techno music was dismantled and put through a filter. At some points there is an utterance of grand synths, like on “Swept by SH”. The vocals are heavily filtered and effected, and are on the verge of becoming an eerie chant. Along with some creepy keys, this side has a chaotic and otherworldly aura.                   Side B, Kassie’s, is intimate pop. It is recorded by Kassie and features her vocals, a drum machine, and which ever other instruments she plays. The drum machine gives the three songs a good beat, which gives an upbeat feel, even on the morbid “Nobody Loves Me”, with a retro twist. Kassie’s music is about feelings, like feeling something hyper-real or interpenetrating feeling, very specific. Such as the levels of body language. She writes great lyrics and that gets more of a light shown on it here than in gtoss. Everything she write has meaning, no random lyrics. Hopefully your familiar with Kassie’s other solo music, under the name Jane La Onda, this tape and the Jane tape are my two favorite tapes ever.

Bong Wish.

Photo by Molly Dower

There are plenty of psych-rock bands in Boston, but Bong Wish is the only one that truly feels like it was transplanted straight out of the 1970’s. They’re like a breath of slightly weed-scented fresh air. Bong Wish has only grown since their start. First, it was just former Fat Creeps member, Marian Saleh, recording songs in her bedroom, then grew into a 3 piece, now there is primarily 4 members, including a flutist, with additional bongettes constantly jumping in and out of the mix. Mariam cares about spirituality, love, and growing, which bleeds into the music. The harmonies and melodies of the vocals and guitars forms a tough bond. Bong Wish sounds reminiscent of the 70’s hippie dreamy tunes, but with more a dark sharpness that creeps up on you before you know it. Bong Wish only exist a live physical format. No recordings yet, but expect some soon. For now, catch them at one of the many shows they’ve been playing. The live show is an extravagant and psychedelic experience.

Tredici Bacci

                Tredici Bacci is the smoothest, sultriest, and most Italian pop ensemble in Boston. They are one of the only bands doing what they are doing right now, and if they are not the only ones, they are definitely the youngest. It’s a 14-piece orchestra that is describes as an1970’s Italian film soundtrack. 

The motivation of the band was to investigate one very specific type of Italian music, and to explore composer/conductor/ electric bassist, Simon Hanes’, interest in Ennio Morricone and all things Italian. I like how Tredici Bacci is basically Simon’s way of praising Ennio Morricone, because I know all I wanna do is praise my idols and make fan art all day, and it cool he’s got other people to help him do that. It’s like spaghetti western, but in reverse. Because instead of being western stuff made by Italians, it’s Italian stuff made by Americans. Tredici Bacci is melting the world of composition with the world of more abrasive abstract style.

You really need to see Tredici Bacci live. Listening to them is only half the experience. When you see them live it can feel electric, like a movie, which is exactly what I think they’re going for. It’s so smooth and European, it makes you feel like a smooth European. There is so many of them! And they sound fresh and energetic about the music they are making. It’s a powerful! And they are all so talented and look like they’re having so much fun and act sort of goofy, which just makes for a very positive energy.

On the latest TB tape, Vai! Vai! Vai!, they’ve made the soundtrack to a fictional lost film. This one sounds bigger than The Thirteen Kisses EP. The horn, the keys, the strings, everything sounds augmented, like everything was paid more attention to in the studio. Tredici Bacci is the prime example of how much depth there is in Boston music. 

“Well, I Like Joey Ramone Cause He’s Tall and Handsome. He Looks Like a Poem to Me”: Riff Randell, the Ultimate Fangirl

Being a fangirl takes up so much of you. You just love whatever it is so much that you can’t stop thinking about it and you feel so emotionally invested you get so proud almost like it’s your child, or else you feel hopelessly in love. And you think it must be a figment of your imagination because there is no way anyone else could have created something so perfect for you that you must have somehow made it yourself. And in the Ramones’ 1980 rock comedy Rock n’ Roll High School (which has the perfect amount of Ramones performing with minimal Ramones acting) , protagonist Riff Randell is the supreme fangirl. Riff is cool. Riff is punk. Riff is confident. Riff is a nerdy Ramones fangirl.

 The movie takes place in 1980, but everyone at the high school, except Riff, acts like it’s the 50’s. The stuffiness of the adults and the way they talk about rock is so exaggerated. Which makes it so great and funny, it’s not taking itself seriously. So it’s really funny to watch the up-tight square adults straight out the 50’s have confrontations with Riff, the super abrasive modern rocker. The film exaggerates Riff using the wildest ideas 50’s of teenage rebellion. It’s funny that Riff is seen as so rebellious, when all she is guilty of is literally listening to the Ramones. But she is proud of her punk trouble maker status and get almost excited when she gets in trouble, like it validates her as a punk. Even though she is really just a nerdy fangirl with a big ol’ crush on Joey Ramone.

She is the ultimate fangirl because she just wants to share her favorite band with the whole world. She has felt the power of The Ramones and she knows her whole school needs to feel it to. She blast Ramones over the loudspeakers, ditches school to buy her whole class concert tickets, and makes her gym class do a dance routine to “Rock n’ Roll High School” (which isn’t really a Ramones song in the movie yet, but she wrote it for them, so same dif). She is the object of the main jock’s affection but Riff can’t even pretend to even notice him because he is not Joey Ramone (who was so ugly that it reverted back to being cool and attractive). She daydreams about getting serenaded by The Ramones in her bedroom. She inspires her submissive and conservative best friend, Kate, to open up and be more assertive. She thinks the Ramones make her a better person, so she wants to make everyone else better too by sharing the Ramones.

Riff wants to be IN the band, she wants to be involved. She has a goal, she needs to give them the song she wrote for them. She is full of confidence and knows the second the Ramones read her lyrics she will become their primary songwriter. It’s cool that she wants to write for them. As much as I would want to be involved with my favorite bands, I don’t think I would want to write songs for them because I just wanna hear what they have to say. It’s kinda of intrusive of her, but in a cool way, like she feels she knows them so well that she can write music for them and her lyrics line up with what the Ramones are about. Riff wins a radio contest and gets to meet the Ramones, which is her opportunity to hand them her sheet music. She is so ready and prepared to give them the sales pitch of a lifetime, but when she gets in front of them she melts and gets giddy, like anyone would. But she still has the confidence in her lyrics to put it right in front of Joey’s face. Riff is a very determined fangirl.

Riff Randell the ultimate fangirl because she gets the ultimate fangirl fantasy in the end. At the end of the film when Riff is at school getting tortured by the evil principle, The Ramones roll up singing to tell her they liked her song. Then they roam her high school, which has gone vigilante in wake of their presence, and Riff gets deemed an honorary Ramone. Riff’s dreams came true and she got to become a Ramone.

May 31 Playlist

Ideal World - Girlpool Suck It and See - Arctic Monkeys Virgo Babe in a Maiden Shirt - Ben Katzman's Degreaser Summer Mood - Best Coast Lonely Boy - The Black Keys Joke - Chasity Belt Don't Call Me - IAN Messed Up Kids - Jake Bugg Emma - Tomboy Memorize - Jane La Onda Temptation - New Order Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn, and John