The Offseason / Tied To A Bear / Lucky United
O’Brien’s Pub, Allston, MA 5/28/16
So these knuckleheads from TNB newspaper asked me to scope out a show for them.
I’m a private eye and I take any assignment as long as it’s legit and as long as I have a good chance of seeing daylight tomorrow.
These chumps go on about my “esteemed knowledge and experience.” While I know one of them (Andy Bang) is now cooling his heels in a Kentucky prison for a few years, and the other (Scumdog) was arrested recently for walking half naked on the highway from Boston to the Firehouse in Providence.
Seems he was booked on indecent exposure but beat the charge, being let go for “lack of evidence.”
Either way I got a job to do.
Walking down Harvard Ave I happen to notice a couple walking hand and hand, black and white, but not boy and girl- this is boy and boy. Which I think is great. Some of my great fondness for nightclubs, besides the free-flowing whiskey and the loose dames, is seeing people being relaxed, having fun, feeling free being who they are.
And I have enjoyed my time when visiting P-Town or Ogunquit, Maine- seeing gay folks free to be themselves or, like tonight, seeing Jenn the singer, arm and arm, with Jen the drummer. I like seeing people being happy and free and who they truly are. That is, unless it involves my clients for tonight. For them I wish they’d lock them both up and throw away the key!
Lucky United are the first performers to display their repertoire tonight. They are led by Jenn Lombari, one of Scumdog’s favorite songwriters. And in this rare case, I’d actually agree with him. And, Jen the drummer provides a ferocious beat.
The band all ate nacho’s at the bar across the street, The Draft, where I hear tell the idea of TNB was hatched.
Tonight they pulverize the patrons with some punk inspired rock’n’roll. The paint is peeling off the ceiling, not due to the abrasiveness or volume but due to the emotion, passion and intensity that the songs they play are filled with.
This is like Joan Jett and Buddy Holly fronting a combo of The Ramones and NOFX.
These are quality songs delivered with pop/punk punch and energy. And this is not slick pop/punk but the down and dirty- beer, sweat and tears blaring out at you kind, like a cannonball blasting a hole through your soul.
They have quite a few new songs since I’ve last seen them and a new rhythm section that’s a thousand times better than the last. They turn in a burning set and afterwards I ask them about a particular song. Turns out it’s a cover and a song I’m unfamiliar with- it’s “Hello” by Adelle which may be a surprise to you. But then I have seen Jenn do a cover of “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus that was so good it was overwhelming.
“Our new album is 80 percent complete,” says their male bassist, also named Jenn, (Unlike The Ramones they all have the same first name.) And I’m looking forward to it- 100 percent.
Tied To The Bear is the next orchestra to provide dancing entertainment. They have two vocalist/guitarists, a very solid rhythm section and songs that are anthematic and fall in the pop/punk or maybe punk’roll genre.
Though I may hunger for a little more grit than polish in their sound I still find them enjoyable and give them a thumbs up to their set.
The truly esteemed Blowfish of Boston Groupie News (bostongroupienews.com) enters right now. And he’s a part, along with Miss Lyz, of the best music paper of Boston. Far better than the drivel that TNB usually print.
He mentions he’s relieved that Scumdog isn’t here tonight as he almost always hits him up for free drinks. I assure him that he won’t be here tonight and for that he looks notably relieved.
The Offseason are a little more to my liking. Pop/punk for sure, but a little more loose, a little more passionate.
They have the rushed rhythms and blaring volume that remind me of a more tuneful Husker Du, though, Blowfish refers to them as Emo. This is the end of the night as the headlining band from Philadelphia turned their van around when they heard the possibly of Scumdog being here.
I got take-out Chinese food for my mother earlier tonight and they gave us two fortune cookies.
Mine said, “Don’t be cynical,” and I figured, I got this cookie a few decades late. And from the taste of the cookie, I figured, probably that’s when it was made. But my cynicism has mostly washed out of me. Though I still feel a contempt for institutions, society and life itself.
Because the young that I’ve encountered, in the last few years, has changed that for me. I blame them all for me loosing my sacred ideals.
A very good friend of mine who I hadn’t seeen for a few years commented, “What happened to that cynical, abrasive edge? Where did it go?”
I told her, “The young people I know now, don’t allow me to feel that way anymore.”
It’s time to walk down Harvard Ave, several blocks back to the car, it’s parked right beyond Great Scott’s. I pass many, many Asian restaurants unlike the cheap, Chinese food joint I frequented today. This is all Thai- Korean- Japanese food and all for the better, I think.
The sounds of the city still echo on the street. Though times change and move on, my legs are still walking in time to the seconds, like the beat of a metronome. The sky is dark, life’s still a struggle, as I imagine it will always be. And I’m homeward bound.
(Samm Gunn)
