Animal Collective’s quiet electronic guru talks snorkeling, Super Smash Bros., and his inner monologues for our recurring series.
MUSIC
A BALKAN BEAT BASH
My band Gogofski do one very well-known Serbian song [in which] the young woman says to her guy, “It’s time to marry me, not just hang out at the bar with your pals. Marry me, and I will make your heart glad … and I will take care of your old mother.”
MARCELA CRUZ AND THE R&B GRIND OF A LOWELL NATIVE IN BOSTON
“I just want to sing,” Cruz says. “But I have come to realize that we don’t live in a world now where you can just focus on creating and be able to make a living off of that. The business side is just as important.”
FOTOBOM: JON SPENCER AND THE HITMAKERS, BODEGA @ GREAT SCOTT
Jon Spencer has been slogging it out on the front line of the trashy garage war for so long he’s got foxholes named after him. As the primary or co-leader of vaunted groups like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash and now the HITmakers, his resume is unassailable. He’s got […]
FOTOBOM: STEVE GUNN, MEG BAIRD & MARY LATTIMORE @ GREAT SCOTT
Over the last ten or so years, Steve Gunn has managed something that eludes most musicians. As he’s slowly transformed his craft from open string Fahey worship to a more tightly-crafted, song-oriented approach that is more akin to 60s troubadours like Fred Neil or a less ornate Tim Buckley, he has also been able […]
INSIDE THE BOX: IN BOSTON, HE’S A COLLEGE STUDENT. OVERSEAS, HE SERENADES THOUSANDS
At the time, he didn’t expect to be sitting in front of a computer only a few years later, at age 17, watching a live video of more than a thousand people singing along to his song in a country he had never been to before.
WE BANJO 3: IRISH-TENNESSEAN BLUEGRASS BADASSES WAX ON NOTORIOUS BANJO BATTLES AND MORE
“It is said that banjo is the instrument of ancient Celtic Kings, so everyone wants to play banjo. Once you have won a title, everything changes. Being mobbed on the street by adoring fans, hiring a big security detail. Not every hero wears a cape; some play the banjo.”
FOTOBOM: NEKO CASE, MARGARET GLASPY @ ROYALE
It took a little while, but Neko Case finally landed in town for a headlining slot instead of as support for someone else’s tour. She’s still in the promotion cycle for last year’s excellent Hell-On, and if you’re a fan of that record you got a heaping handful and then some. Three quarters of the record […]
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1775
Handel & Haydn Society play Mozart and Haydn this weekend Walk into most music shops and the violins hanging on the wall will be strung with steel strings. The highest string on the violin (the E) is particularly prone to sounding metallic when improperly played (think horror-film screech.) Back in Mozart’s day, though, […]
DIG THIS: NEKO CASE, STEVE GUNN, JON SPENCER
THUR 1.24 Neko Case @ Royale Neko last hit town for two shows in early summer as support for Ray LaMontagne, but now the New England-transplant has scheduled her own proper headlining tour, and will get a bit more room to stretch out over the material of her excellent new record. If you […]
