On-again, Off-again : Scamper reunites & Harris splits up, Mid East down, 4/18/09

You'd think, given that they're one of my favourite bands and considering how crazy emotional I got over their split, I would have been in hyper-excited-fangirl mode for the one-set reunion of Boston's "local rock heroes," Scamper. Don't get me wrong, I was excited. But not...overly so. It's difficult to describe, other than to say that the build up to their first last show was so intense that anything less than that just won't register.

The show itself, friends Harris' last, was a mish-mash of players and sounds. The Men were originally supposed to play, and then dropped out, leaving the penultimate spot to Scamper. Members of Harris noted that they wanted Aloud, who played at Scamper's last show, to join in as well, but they were booked for the night. Jericho Trumpet's (featuring Harris frontman Mike Nastri's younger brother, Matt) all-instrumental set was followed up by a mild punk band whose name I can't recall at the moment (but I'm sure somebody will remind me of it). And then a dose of powerpop followed by Harris, who meld pop and rock to sort of defy any sort of convenient label.


Reunited and it...okay, whatever, you knew that was coming.

It didn't even hit me until "Coughing Up Roses," well into their set that, "Oh, right. Scamper. Yeah!" An utterly bizarre feeling, comparing the last time I'd seen them a year before, ready to cry during "Barcelona" (true story - drummer Mike said post-show that he couldn't watch me because I looked so darn miserable) to bouncing around and cursing the lighting for being sucktastic. Perhaps if they'd been headlining, had allowed themselves more time and more songs, the feeling would have been different, but probably only slightly so. Aptly quoting 10 Things I Hate About You : "I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be...whelmed?"





I was, however, blown away by frontman (co-frontman? what do you call it when there are technically two dudes singing?) Keith's performance. Seriously. There was a power, grit, and emotion to his singing (and playing, by extension) that I personally had never seen before. Granted, I've only ever seen them live four times. But he went from "guy I don't really know fronting one of my favourite bands and doing a rather good job of it" to "veritable rockstar" in the blink of an eye. He was the one to watch and further cemented the fact that this is not, and never was, a fluff pop band. The fact that he is no longer fronting a band is fucking criminal, truly so.


Dude to watch.

As for Harris, I honestly can't comment too much on their set because I've never been terribly familiar with their music, though that was the third time I'd seen them play and now I'm thinking maybe I should have familiarised myself with their catalogue because that was a band that deserved to be far more popular than they were. Sure, they played a two-hour set, which is slightly mind-numbing if you don't actually know the band's material, but they were an incredibly good band, defying labels and genres as previously noted and playing with an enviable energy and vibrancy throughout the long set. The indie music world is a far less rich place now that they're gone.

(Also, they kept playing new songs they'd recorded just before splitting up which was hilarious 'cause it's like, "We’re breaking up! Here’s a new song!")



A really terrible picture of a lot of people onstage during Harris' almost last song.

At the end of the day (or set, whatever), Harris refused to do an encore...and (predictably) did one anyway, excusing themselves for a moment so they could actually figure out a song to play that they all remembered (presumably because they'd already played all their other songs). Maybe that's similar to calling quits and then playing your second annual last show. Maybe Harris will be back to dance on another band's grave next year; the way things are going, I wouldn't be wholly surprised. Then again, maybe these aren't really graves. Perhaps this is just the ultimate on-again, off-again relationship.

.....

If you're interested in hearing some of Harris' newer stuff, which they recorded shortly before deciding to call it a day, you can hear it at their 'Space.

No word (that I've heard) on what Harris' ex-members will be getting up to now, but Brendan Boogie-formerly-of-Scamper continues to play with his band, while former cohorts Nate and Mike have recently (re)launched a new project, officially titled The Future Everybody.

Scamper REUNITED. For ONE NIGHT ONLY. Because Harris is splitting up.

I can't believe I totally haven't posted about this yet.

You all remember last year, when Scamper, the powerpop band from Boston oh-so near and dear to my heart, called it quits, right? Because, like, I totally spent forever being upset about it.

Back in February, true to their style, those boys decided to be their own rumour mongers, dropping hints here and there of "something big" on the horizon. Could it be anything other than a reunion show?

Well, no, it couldn't. Well, actually, it could - it's more of a reunion set than a reunion show. Pals and fellow Bostonian band Harris, who were nice enough to play Scamper's last show, have also called it a day. So, essentially, they're getting back together to dance on Harris' grave before retuning to retirement and their respective new gigs, which is what any good friend should do.



The show is slated for 18th April at the Middle East down. All other details are on the poster above or at the venue's site. You can get tickets here.

ohboyohboyohboy.


ETA: Man, I should totally proofread my titles before I post so I don't wind up with things like "Because Harris splitting up." WHERE DID THE VERB GO??

Look, Ma, I made a mixlist! : 9 boys, 10 songs.

Let me break it down: Girl loves music. Girl loves message in music. Who wrote music? Oh, it was Attractive Boy who can play the guitar/bass/drums/sax (umm...no, not keyboard, really sorry). Music = the musician who wrote it which is what girl loves.
So, girl loves musician.
-- http://wellobviously.blogspot.com

If you've been keeping track, you’ll remember that I don't do year-end lists. First off, the thought of compiling my top 10/20/50 tracks or albums is daunting. But more importantly, I feel I'm totally unqualified to do so. I don't pay enough attention to new releases and, frankly, who the hell cares what I think is the "best" of the year? Who the hell cares what half of the "blogosphere" thinks was the best of the year? It just seems like a lot of yammering, a narcissistic ploy to validate ourselves and post about the same 10/20/50 bands, just rearranged a little bit each time.*

Annnnnnnnnyway. My gripes aside. When it comes down to it, 2008 has been a weird year.

There was that whole "going back to school after a year and a half of being away" thing and then the "graduating from college" thing, as well as the various problems of trying to find a job - any sort of job - in a recession, trying to get on my own two feet, and the whopping amounts of nostalgia complicating all of that. Life changing and evolving and, quite often, coming full circle. So many things ending, which only opens up beginnings.

I'm not talking about any of that.

I'm talking about the boys. Because, let's face it, we are prone to defining large portions of our existence by our romantic engagements, entanglements, or lack thereof. We broke up a year ago, I was dating him at the time, the year so-and-so broke my heart and the time spent getting over that, the summer girl, the fall girl, the winter girl.

And so, when it comes to the romantic engagement and entanglements and lack thereof, 2008 has been a peculiar year. Often fun, sometimes upsetting, but generally peculiar.

I don't do “best of” lists. I won’t tell you which records or songs or artists were "great in '08." I won’t make a mix listing my favourite cuts from the year. Run to Pitchfork for that sort of thing. Instead, I'll give you a 10-track mix – nine for the boys, one for myself – to commemorate the who and what and where of my wandering heart in the past year. I feel like it's a better way to sum it up.

Obviously, since I'm posting this on the Internet, any number of these fellows can – and probably will – read this. Frankly, that’s not my concern. But for anonymity’s sake, I’ll change up the names and the order.

For Ben:
Saturday Looks Good To Me – “Girl Of Mine”
The endless comparisons are not made with malicious intent. But nor are they meaningless.

For Christopher:
Looker – “Spit For Your Shine”
[link]
You can’t just be mine.

For Ethan:
Bowling For Soup - “Ohio (Come Back to Texas”
Too obvious? Let’s call it “very bad timing.”

For Eddie:
Scamper – “Wait Wait”
[link]
Darling, it’s been a long time coming. I still miss seeing your plates.

For Phillip:
Vampire Weekend – “Walcott”
Hey, remember that time we sat around listening to VW? Did I every say “thank you” for that weekend? If I didn’t, thank you. Please move back – the city suits you so well.

For Scott:
Salt ‘n Pepa – “Let’s Talk About Sex”
Oh, come on, you love it. Here’s to late summer nights. How boring they would have been otherwise…!

For Andy:
Bishop Allen – “The Monitor” (album version)
I’ll settle for one of the wisest things I’ve heard this year: “You’d think I’d understand that a rock ‘n roll band doesn’t mean a blessed thing.” Anything else would be too easy.

For John:
Nightmare of You – “I Want To Be Buried In Your Backyard” (album version)
You are not the understated demo; you are the sweeping, cinematic album version. It took a year of losing and regaining a record to figure that out. I no longer feel this song, but it’s still yours. Thanks for all your patience.

For Cary:
She & Him – “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
How do you deal with an island sitting between two people? Here’s to 2009 and all that it may bring.

The Long Blondes – “Guilt”
This is mine. I declared it mine circa March. It’s not that I’ve got or ever had boys lined up around the block; it’s just that, well, when one showed up, another five that I’d known longer followed suit. A wonderful and wonderfully heart-wrenching year.

And guilt has nothing to do with it.


Note: Half of these songs are in .mp3, the others are .m4a. I don't feel like wrestling with iTunes right now. Ignore the last five seconds of "The Monitor," too.

*(Quoting Heart On A Stick on this: "If you have Weaponize in your year's Top Ten you're immediately a more interesting person than anyone Number-Wunning Fleet Foxes, because at worst it suggests that you're blindly loyal to something other than the release schedule/leak pipeline.” Specific album references aside, I couldn’t agree more with the principles behind the statement.)

Muxtape 1 : Coupling, v. 1.0

Yeah, I stole that image from Muxtape, you all know it.

So I've gone and joined up with this Muxtape business. Just because I like mixtapes/lists and such. Haven't actually listened to anybody else's mix, but. Whatevs.

I posted my first mux*, which isn't anything hugely special - I just wanted to get something on there. Feel free to go and enjoy while I scramble to get that Fall '06, etc. playlist together.

Coupling, version 1.0

Mux to be found here.


The whole point of this list is to put together songs that, for whatever reason, go together: because of a common theme or story, because one is a “remake” (and not merely a cover), because they remind me of each other, etc.

You can tell I started this a while ago (two years, I think), as there are three OK Go songs (and an SDR song, to boot). This is still a work-in-progress. There are a few more songs on this list on my iTunes (I cut it down to the more important ones, as Mux doesn’t allow you to post more than 12 at a time), and I continually add more as I go along and find more musical “couples,” so to speak.

1) “Maybe This Time” – OK Go
2) “Down For the Count” – OK Go

“MTT” is on OK Go’s second major label effort, Oh No, and has long been one of my favourites due to its simplicity and…well, snarkiness isn’t really the right word, but you get what I mean. I’ve always wanted to strip it down even more, and get a version that relies purely on the glockenspiel (or “rockenspiel,” as Tim Nordwind would put it) and vocal harmonies done in a round. Maybe a tiny bit of percussion. Maybe. “DFTC” came out as a b-side on the UK single for one of the songs from Oh No (though which song that was escapes me at the moment), and instantly became one of my favourites from the entire OK Go catalogue.

I’ve long wondered if these songs had anything to do with each other. They’re like bookend s: “MTT” ends with “Maybe, this time, you were wrong” and “DFTC” opens with “Maybe I’m wrong.”

3) “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” – The Smiths
4) “Please Please Please” – The Lashes

The Smiths one is a classic that I originally discovered because, surprise! OK Go once did a cover of it. (I told you, I started this thing aaaaaaages ago!) The Lashes version is in no way like the original, other than the refrain repeats “please please please let me get what I want” a few times. Think of it as a remake. Whether or not you consider remakes to be bastardizations of originals, that’s up to you, but I like it.

5) “My Window” – Secret Dakota Ring
6) “Thomas Window Paine” – DraculaZombieUSA

Witness the beginnings of my love for Serious Business. “My Window” is one of my favourite and one of the most infectious SDR songs. “TWP” is the DZUSA take on that same song, which means that you’ll probably hit the dancefloor in no time.

7) “Timourous Me” – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
8) “T’s Song” – OK Go

Two very lovely songs, in their own ways, that share one very sad story. Go look it up to make sense of it all.

9) “Lust a Prima Vista” – The Spill Canvas
10) “Lust In The Movies” – The Long Blondes

Fall versus spring. “Prima Vista” is his take; “Movies” is my response. I just want to be a sweetheart.

11) “Jessie’s Girl” – Rick Springfield
12) “Coughing Up Roses” – Scamper

Sorry, loves- had to do it. If you haven’t heard “Roses,” the relation will become immediately obvious once you have. A friend of mine once started singing “I wish that I had Jessie’s girl” in the middle of the song. (Apparently, it’s really supposed to be “Jessie’s Girl” crossed with “Heat of the Moment,” but I’m only allowed 12 songs. And I don’t have “Heat of the Moment.”)

That doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s pretty brilliant, whether or not it needs a third verse.


*I initially typed "furst mux." Srsly.

For those interested in maybe learning a little too much about me,

I've gone and started posting some old playlists from my junior year over at my LJ.

Since May '06, I've been making 20-track playlists for each season, and they all mean quite a bit to me. I'll eventually start posting them here, but because the first few are very stuck in the past, those will be posted over there instead.

So if you're interested in finding out maybe too much about me and/or hearing what summer 2006 sounded like, feel free to stroll on over here.

Tracklist, if you're interested:

1) "Barcelona" - Scamper
2) "Sometimes The Sun" - The Lashes
3) "My Name Is Trouble" - Nightmare of You
4) "Fidelity" – Regina Spektor
5) "Because It’s Not Love" - The Pipettes
6) "Half Light" - Athlete
7) "Out of Range" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
8) "Chasing Cars" - Snow Patrol
9) "Oh Lately It’s So Quiet" - OK Go
10) "Here It Goes Again" - OK Go
11) "Modern Swinger" - The Pink Spiders
12) "Mirror Kisses" - The Cribs
13) "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" - We Are Scientists
14) "Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley
15) "Start Wearing Purple" - Gogol Bordello
16) "Happier" - Guster
17) "You Got Me" - VHS or Beta
18) "It’s Not The Fall That Hurts" - The Caesars
19) "Jetsetter" - Morningwood
20) "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have" - Panic! At The Disco

And updates soon, I promise promise promise.

Two weeks (and a day, shush) and counting:

Have you purchased your tickets yet? Okay, but don't cry to me if you can't get in the door....

The Brendan Boogie Band played Hennessy's last night. There's a video of them performing up here. You tell me how good it is, because I haven't watched the whole thing yet.


(PS: I'm heading back up to school in a few days, so I'm frantically packing up right now. I can't guarantee any posts, or at least any new and interesting posts about bands other than the five I regularly post about anyway, over the next few days. Just so ya' know.)

2-2-08

Let's talk about how much I love that shot, except that I just want to run up and give EMO!Nate a big hug. And I'm not sure how I feel about leopard-print ties.

Tickets for the Local Rock Heroes' last show are on sale now (which reminds me that I should go buy mine now that I have more than $2 in my bank account).



Brendan Boogie Band's (Scamper minus Keith) first show is going down tomorrow at the Bulfinch Yacht Club in Boston. If you can't see them there, catch them at Hennesy's at Faneuil Hall in January.


ETA: Okay, I still don't know how I feel about leaopard-print ties, however, I do know how I feel about paisley ties. So, um. Pretend I didn't say what I said. Or something.

Mark your brand-spanking-new 2008 calendars*, kids:

Scamper's Last Waltz

Saturday February 2, 2008

Middle East Downstairs

with Aloud, Harris, and Baker

$9 in advance/$10 at the door


Part of me is really really super-hyper-excited about this, and the other part is still crying in a corner somewhere. (Also, I suppose the Middle East setting is particularly fitting. Weird coincidence? Hmm.)

But seriously, kids. If you're not going to this...then I don't think we can be friends any more.



(Erm. May do a write-up-review-thinger on the Skylines EP. (Which you should go buy like, now.) Maybe. Not now. When I actually have something intelligent to say.

...


Because, you know, I totally haven't had "Coughing Up Roses" on repeat for the past several weeks. I don't even know why you'd suggest such a thing.)



*Holy fuck, it's almost 2008 already??

Oh, sadness.

I'm not sure if any of you who bother reading this are familiar with Scamper, but they're one of my favouritest bands out there. I discovered them in late 2005 when they opened for OK Go and Juliette and the Licks. Their record, Leave Your Glasses On, makes me ridiculously happy; the Boulevards EP makes me a little sad and angry, but I still love it anyway. Lovely powerpop.

Unfortunately, the news from Scamperland is that the band is now on "indefinite hiatus", which, oh Jesus, makes me sad. I've only seen them live twice (including aforementioned October '05 show), and the last time was June '06 in New York (for which I made a rather sweet t-shirt, and now my boobs is on the internets). While I was swanning about in Paris for a year, these guys opened for OK Go (again) and Nada Surf. Grr.

I'm not particularly surprised by this news, though- the band itself hasn't been playing a lot of shows, guitarist Nate Rogers has been playing quite a few solo shows, and while they were supposedly working on new record material, it seemed more like they were taking a break. That doesn't make the news less sucky. LYGO is one of the few albums that makes me instantly happy.

I'm happy to learn that both bassist Brendan (who apparently was NOT involved with Letters to Cleo, I was just misinformed or not paying attention or both) and Nate will be going solo, or starting their own bands, which is great. I've wanted to go to one of Nate's solo shows for a while (Nate seems a to have a thing for nostalgia-soaked songs about ex-lovers, and as the sort of person who would rather listen to and cry over all the old songs that remind me of an ex instead of listening to something happier, I sort of relate), but distance has sort of made that an impossibility.

Gah. I am still so sad, though. :(