BY AMY Z. QUINN There are moments — say, on a swampy summer evening when Lucinda Williams’ between-song patter is accented by the rumble of August thunder, or when you’re 17 and dancing at an REM concert instead of at your Senior mixer — when the Mann Center for the Performing Arts is a magical place. And yeah, in recent years the quality of the acts booked at the Fairmount Park venue was spotty at best, but don’t blame that all on the Tweeter Center. Because fact is, no matter how good the performer, the biggest problem with the Mann […]

READING IS FUNDAMENTAL: The Books, First Unitarian, Last Night   EVA SAYS: I was in New York this weekend and I couldn’t afford to get into the MoMa. It was either modern art or lunch — and I was really hung over so I picked the latter. Luckily, the nice guys in The Books — Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong — comped me a free press ticket, knowing full well what it’s like to be broke. And so, while I might have missed out on the Warhols and Calders, I did get to experience The Books live. In a […]

DOPE, GUNS & FUCKING IN THE STREETS: Birds Of Maya, Closing Night Of Popped!, Fireman’s Lounge, Last Night BY SARA SHERR The most thankless job in the world is to be the band that plays the last night of a weeklong festival. Especially one on a Sunday night in the middle of a Nor’easter. But like fungus, the best rock n roll thrives in dank, dark places. Pissed Jeans, Total Fucking Destruction, and Birds of Maya basically gave both the weather and rocked-out indifference the middle finger and brought the beautiful noise. It also helps that the show was in […]

1. We are called Birds of Maya because we thought that was a good name. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is what? of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we’re 3 dudes who like hanging out and playing music. 4. If we were not a band, we would be 3 dudes who like hanging out. 5. People say we sound like Stoner Rock. 6. But really we sound like 9th graders covering ZZ Top songs. 7. If the cops searched our van, they would find… we don’t have […]

WHERE R U GOING, CRAZY? Dr. Dog, Popped! Fest, Starlight Ballroom, Friday [FLICKR] BY AMY Z. QUINN If the question at hand during the Popped! Festival’s headlining night was, “Where are you going crazy, in your mind or in every inch of your body?” the answer was YES. Here’s the kind of scene it was at the Starlight Ballroom on Friday night: By the time I arrived at the show, during the second act of the four-band bill, all but one of the stalls in the women’s bathroom were already clogged and the bass was heavy enough to make your […]

[Photo by Paul Castoral] Kmass * 1. We are called Kenneth Masters & Cramske (The Premium Underground) because we’re under the radar, make niche music for no one in particular, and don’t really take ourselves as serious as those statements imply. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is generously awesome, slightly rad, although a little presumptuous of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we had “gasoline dreams” and delusions of making music, getting rich, and wasting our days as we saw fit. But reality sank in and we just […]

BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Props to the Popped Festival — a massive undertaking that has gone reasonably well thus far. To see the back-porch house show cats making moves and slinging in-kind donated energy drink, it makes you feel proud. We’ve crawled from the mud-caked basements and now we are basking in the light for all to see in our hirsute, road biking glory. Shit, even though there’s a one-to-one musician/promoter/DJ/photographer/blogger to fan ratio, it still feels like a bona-fide event rather than a rearrangement of furniture. But in an ironic twist, as the Popped Festival protrudes its proud, puffed-out chest and […]