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Molly Zenobia w/Val on cello, opening for ENSMB @ Amazing Things
Oddly, I realize I've never posted much about my awesome housemates on my main LJ, though they're such a big part of my life, and I promote their music a lot in other places. Both of them are people I originally met through liking their music, before we lived together, and each of them has her own band and also performs with others, in a web of interconnected musicians and bands - several of whom live a few houses away - that forms a community. Several others are often here at the house, for rehearsals or to record things or just to hang out. Especially we seem to have lots of pianists and string players around. I love this community, and I love hearing so much music in the house.

What prods me to post about it now is tomorrow's show at Club Passim, where you can see both my housemates' bands, and one of our friends' who's often here, and I want you to come!

Molly Zenobia's first CD arrived at WBRS, where I was music director, in the spring of 2000, and I filled out the reply card inviting her to come perform there. We've been friends ever since she did so, at the end of that summer. Molly's music is emotional tending between folky, rock-y (but somehow, never folk-rock-y), jazzy, and ambient; some of it reminds me of Veda Hille's "bigger"-sounding pieces. Other people often mention Tori Amos, but I think that's may be because they have limited experience with music like Molly's and Tori is the first intense female vocals + piano thing that comes to mind. Tori has great lyrics, but I think that musically Molly overshadows her beyond comparison. And Molly's far more varied.

Goli w/guests, at Cloud Club

Playing cello in Molly's band is our other housemate, Valerie Thompson. She's got her own band, Goli, with her friend Vessela on electronic marimba (and occasional melodica). Their music is unlike anything I've heard from anyone else; they call it "chamber music for the modern age". Valerie writes (and sings) quirky, charming, somewhat folky songs. They play some cello/marimba instrumentals, tangos and Balkan tunes and other things... just watch some videos!

Here's Molly Zenobia from a 2009 show at the Lily Pad,
And here's Goli entertaining children at Quincy Market, and a celtic tune from that same afternoon.

One of our friends who is often at the house to collaborate with them is Mary Bichner, a synasthetic musical genius-girl with multi-octave vocal range, who calls any band or project she puts together to play her own songs "Box Five". She put together tomorrow's concert, where the Boston core of Box Five will do a set partly designed to celebrate Mozart's birthday. Mary has rearranged a few Mozart songs for them to perform, and one of her guests will be soprano Evangelia Sophia Lorentis to join them on some arias.

Box Five's core Boston band has Mary on vocals, piano, and guitar, along with Valerie on cello, Ariel Bernstein on drums, Kristen Ford on bass, and violinist Eliza Kopczynska - who has performed with a orchestras and chamber ensembles and, among others, Wynton Marsalis and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Oh, and she's also in Molly Zenobia's band.

Goli at Arisia 2010




You might've noticed that Valerie is in all three bands, which makes it a Valerie cello triple feature.

Coming?

Edit: You can watch the show live online, at this link.
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Michael's been part of our camp at Falcon Ridge for years, and we were excited this year that his contra dance band, Giant Robot Dance, was going to perform there for the first time. What I didn't realize was that that they were stars, apparently one of the newly-hottest contra dance bands around. I don't think they quite realized it either.
  • I mentioned the robots to the girl I gave a ride to Falcon Ridge to, and she told me the people she was camping with had also been telling her about them.

  • At one of the dances they played, I danced with a friend who'd never been to Falcon Ridge before. I had no idea she'd heard of giant robot, but it turns out they were the reason she decided to go to the festival.

  • Walking through the campground, I heard a group of people I didn't know discussing how awesome this band is.

  • In the shower line I was standing next to a guy who dances at Concord, and the girl behind us was also a contra dancer, so we started talking about it, and just as I was pulled away from the line by my campmates for birthday cake (our camp is very close to the showers) they all started extolling Giant Robot Dance. Amusingly unaware that half the band was sitting a few yards away :)

Sunday, during their last set of dances, I sat one out so I could get a video:

(Note: at about 1:30 in, video switches to a vantage point where you can see the band clearly, and both trombones are playing)

... and also the waltz they closed their final set with:



I don't have a video of the dance they played Smells Like Teen Spirit, or the Lady Gaga contra dance tune... because I danced those :)
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I found an old cardboard box of CDs that I hadn't gone through since several moves ago, that contained mostly CD-R's, demos, show recordings, pre-release albums from friends' bands, and the like, from the mid/late 90s. Unfortunately some of them were damaged - I think this box was in my trunk on a road trip a long time ago and soaked up some automotive liquid (antifreeze? wiper fluid?) from a leaky container. I've been able to restore some of them by washing them, though even most of those have some damaged tracks.

One that seems to have survived completely* (after washing) is "Bad Release: The Dead Opossum Sessions" by Oxytocin High. Which was their performance at WBRS that I recorded, and they possibly re-mixed then burned onto CD with track names and titles, and a nice printed label. Someone even entered all the track info into CDDB.

So I'm sitting here listening to [livejournal.com profile] lyonesse and [livejournal.com profile] ceelove singing songs they wrote, with instrumental accompaniment by [livejournal.com profile] coraline, [livejournal.com profile] nacht_musik, and a few of their friends. I can hear [livejournal.com profile] chaiya in the audience, and I know [livejournal.com profile] iabervon and [livejournal.com profile] veek are there.

I haven't listened to this in probably nearly a decade. But I used to sit in on some of their living room practices, and it's surprising how completely familiar every single song is. I didn't think I remembered their songs, and if you'd asked me yesterday I probably wouldn't have been able to recall any of them except maybe a title or two.

* One small skip in track 4, Ashes and Sighs.


[ Some of the other finds in this box: An early 4-track demo from January, and an early 4-track demo from Fluttr (before they became Fluttr Effect) which has some damage causing pops and hiss in the first ~10 seconds of each track ]
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... Five women dressed in many colors are singing a rhythmic soundscape on the state. They bring it to a quiet, and silently place their wireless mics, in unison, on the wooden floor at their feet (clack-clack-clack-clack-clack). Slowly, one, then the others, tap their feet lightly, recreating the rhythm. They swoosh their thin, colorful scarves in the air in front of them, lightly almost-touching the mics in time with the music, adding a flowing windy sound as they begin to sing again...

I've seen several thousand live music performances, and the three times I saw Zap Mama stand out in my memory. They might possibly be the best band ever. Wikipedia has this:
    ... musical group founded and led by Marie Daulne. Daulne says her mission is to be a bridge between the European and the African and bring the two cultures together with her music. "What I would like to do is bring sounds from Africa and bring it to the Western world, because I know that through sound and through beats, that people discover a new culture, a new people, a new world." Zap Mama specializes in polyphonic, harmonic music with a mixture of heavily infused African instruments, R&B, and Hip-hop and emphasizes voice in all their music. "The voice is an instrument itself," says Daulne. "It's the original instrument. The primary instrument. The most soulful instrument, the human voice." They sing in French and English with deep African roots.

Actually they also sing in some African languages and in made-up sounds and nonsense syllables. Their use of vocal music pretty spoiled me for a capella. One song on their first album is a story about a drive: the rattling of the keys, the start of the ignition, the quiet roads, the sounds of passing on the highway, the crash, the ambulance... all without words in any language. On stage, I saw them act it out, be the car as they sang it.

Marie Dualne was born in the Congo to Belgian & Bantu parents, and grew up in Belgium with her Bantu mother after her father was killed; her music is very very much "world music", and deliberately so.

So, Zap Mama has a show at The Paradise in Allston tonight. Doors at 7pm, I guess the show is around 8:30.

Coming?

Edit: Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, 02215. On the Green Line B branch. $22, 18+
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Boston people: Who wants to go to the NEFFA contra dance in Concord tomorrow evening? Wild Asparagus, one of my favorite contra bands, who play a bunch of dances at Falcon Ridge every year, are playing this Thursday's dance.
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The lead singer puts on a black leather jacket, picks up a strapless guitar ("anyone got a strap-on?" he asks), pulls over a chair, puts his leg up on it and rests the guitar on his thigh.
    I wrote this song when I was living at the Chelsea Hotel with my buddy Robert Mapplethorpe

    We'd just formed a queer poet punk band, called Pink Narcissus

    The band was soon to disappear into air,
    but the song remained
    and reappeared on the bee-stung lips of Michelle Pfeiffer.

    This song is for people who thinks cock tastes sweeter on the wrong side of the tracks.


Then he and the band (drums, piano, upright bass) launch into a cover of Cool Rider from Grease 2.
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I started a twitter account for Boston area music at http://twitter.com/musicboston

Because twitter is so low-barrier and low-impact, I'll be posting pretty much every show I know of in Boston that has a band I like, or that I'm going to, or that I think is interesting and worth notice, as well as stuff about radio shows or stations I like, venues, good new albums, etc. But mostly local shows.

Even if you don't use twitter, you can easily check that link whenever you want to see what shows I've posted about recently.

Pass it on.
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I recently discovered an mp3 file that had been lying around on my hard disk for a long time, maybe years, that I'd never gotten around to listening to. It's called A Leaf and Fallen (mix) and is about an hour long. I burned it to a CD and listened to it in the car and liked it, but I can't remember where I got it. On the theory that maybe someone I know gave it to me, or even made it ... do any of you recognize this?
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