Your Complete Music Listing
by Gabe - October 16, 2008 2:11pm
One thing occurred to me looking at what is going on in Worcester for music this week. That thing is…I don’t know a damn thing about the blues. Aside from delta blues, which I absolutely love, it all sounds the same to me. All this blues going on this week and I am at a loss for how to describe it except to say, well, hey, here’s some blues. I need to start listening to a greater variety, although nothing has really ever done anything for me except for delta blues. Please send recomendations. Please don’t send me anything that is just some dude playing bloooooooooz guitar over the same chord progression over and over again though. Thanks.
Thursday: The Dive Bar has drummer Duncan Arsenault’s weekly free for all. This week he will basically be joined by his bandmates in The Howl, Troy Gonyea and Brooks Milgate. The Hanover Theater will be swingin with The Artie Shaw Orchestra. 80’s tribute Flock of Assholes wear their sunglasses at night at The Lucky Dog and are joined by XXX The Owl, along with a couple touring acts in Boston’s The Vital Might who are embarking on a Northeast tour, and Baltimore metal act Seventh Seal who is in the middle of their own. Chet Williamson and his bloooz harmonica are at Nick’s. The Palladium has what I hesitate to call an emo bill but all of these bands have definitely been influenced by the emo school of music. Reliant K, Ludo, This Providence and House of Heroes make a stop in Worcester on their “Uncle Fest Tour” at the big room on the corner of Main and MLK. It’s Metal Thursday again at Ralph’s with Joe Stump, Your Pain is Endearing, Frozen, and Acaro. Sturbridge Indie Folk act Tall Heights is the feature at the Worcester Art Museum’s monthly Third Thursday series. Usually in these here parts if you are a jam band you can count bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish as some of your bigger influences. This is not the case with Boston’s The Indobox, who, while still a jam band, defintitely offer up something a little different. They are joined by piano based North Shore jam banders The Brew tonight at Tammany Hall. Vincent’s has the blues with Travis Colby.
Travis Colby
Friday:The Jimmy Mack Band plays the blues at Gilrein’s. Guitars will be played loud and they will be played fast Friday at The Lucky Dog with Stone Crusher, Beware The Ides, and Ice In Her Veins. Also on this show is Boston’s Axemunkee who are a very strange inclusion on this bill but of note because of the outstanding playing of guitarist and band leader Cathy Capozzi. If you want to get out and see something different tonight I am highly recomending this. It’s just too bad Axemunkee couldn’t have been on a more complimentary bill. The Palladium has The Blackest of the Black tour with Danzig with Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Winds of Plague and Skeletonwitch. Ralph’s goes on a panty raid with Murphy’s Law and what I can only assume are super secret surprise opening bands as I couldn’t buy the info on them. Tammany Hall has Holmes releasing a CD on Friday. Your guess is as good as mine.
Catherine of Axemunkee
Saturday: Debbie Davies Band plays more blues at Gilrein’s. Her blues seems to be a little upbeat. Hotel Vernon has the Sons of Hiram. Again, your guess is as good as mine. The Lucky Dog has a litte for something for everyone, but just a little, with the Dave Rivers Group, local piano poppers Hey Now Morris Fader, frat boy hippies Stem and rock duo A Thousand Ships. Nick’s seems like it’s going to be a pretty hip place to be Saturday when Jesse Dee CD releases his new CD “Bittersweet Batch.” The Palladium has two shows, downstairs The Twilight of the Thunder God Tour (I am not making this up kids) brings the metal with Amon Amarth, Ensiferum, Belphegor and The Absence and upstairs in the smaller room is a local pop punk show with Lansdowne, Penrose, Gone By Daylight, Teamwork, The Fury Coast, and Jared Salvatore. Ralph’s hosts another something for everyone type bill with the musical tapestries of Transient (featuring Shodows Fall/Overcast vocalist Brian Fair on guitar) hard rock from Birch Hill Dam, girl vocal Boston indie rockers Barnicle, and Worcester upstarts Eastern Eyes. Spiritual Haze has maybe the most interesting show of the night with post rock instrumentalists The White Mountains, Boston electronic tinged indie rockers Where The Land Meets The Sea, ambient artist Estrela and what seems to be a brand spankin new Worcester act in Ghost Ocean. Tammany Hall has Before The Fall and the Thickness. I could find hardly anything on Before The Fall online but what little I could suggests these folks play the metal. The Thickness will play some pretty damn good punk rock that also seems to have a little metal influence as well. Vincent’s gets all rockabilly with Johnny Carlevale and the Rolling Pins.
The rest of the week: Last week it was the Palladium, this week the Dog are the kings of the early week night time world. If you like what you here on Thursday at the Dive why not go to the Lucky Dog on Tuesday and check out The Howl in all of their plugged in big rock stage glory? The Lucky Dog has 5 bands on Wednesday and no over charge. For no cover there is some good value and variety here with some 90’s style girl vocal alternapop from Jen Tobey’s Alter Ego, White Stripe influenced Canadiens The Pack A.D, Main prog metal from The Project Seven, touring San Diego alt rock from After The Crash and pop punkers Houlihan.
Ho hum.
It would be better if that guy just put up a select list of events (2, 3 or 4) instead of spilling the whole mess on people. The article is unusable as is. Its overkill.
Dan,
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want or appreciate seeing the full spectrum of what is going on in the town musically over the course of the weekend. You call 5 paragraphs “unusable” and “overkill”!!! I can’t understand your thought process at all.
Would you like the movie listings in the newspaper to only list 3 or 4 of the movies that are showing this weekend rather than all of them? Would it be better if there were only 3 or 4 types of cereal in the supermarket rather than 40?
Websites such as this are here to provide information…. I don’t understand why you would want to see less of it!
Dan, in all seriousness, this is only a snapshot of what is going on. There is a whole bunch of stuff that I leave out simply because I don’t think it’s really worth talking about. This is the stuff that I feel may be worth checking out, and yeah there’s a lot of it. Who knew?
Constructive criticism is great, maybe we could do a Gabe’s pick column for the week as well? I love the listing because then I can pick out what I want to do, but maybe other people just want to read about a few select shows that Gabe highly recommends.
That’s assuming Gabe has taste of course. That’s debatable.