Tickets are a riduclously low price of $25.
Blue Cheer at RecordBar, July 11. Tickets are $10.

BC was formed in Boston in 1967 and was most famous for its version of Summertme Blues, one of the earliest heavy metal songs on record. The band gets its name from a potent strain of LSD, which fits their heavy, psychedelic sound.
On KCUR's Up to Date on Friday, Robert Moore and I brought in some songs from our favorite albums of 2006.

One of my cuts was Now by White Flight, who is Jason Roelofs, formerly of the Anniversary. The album is available for download at Range Life Records.
Zach Hangauer, who runs the label, sent this e-mail regarding the album:
Thanks for including us in the radio show today.

we're still waiting for that galvanizing review that puts us on the stage. in the meantime, such amazing industry response. sonic youth, who was just in town, wanted white flight to open, lee renaldo e-mailed how much he liked the record.

chatted with mark ibold (fmr. pavement), who was playing with them and he said he was a big fan and bought white flight in new york and has been telling everyone about it. crazy.

and ...

some interesting leads with uk interest recently. ..

.
Visit to sample or buy the music, which is unlike anything released locally this year.
The prospect of seeing the Blasters without Dave Alvin seemed weak, like seeing the Kinks without Ray Davies.

But it turns out the band isn't so much about Dave as it is the large catalog of songs it can draw from and the energy it musters while playing those songs.
Thursday night, before a large and lively crowd at Knuckleheads, Phil Alvin took the stage with the three other gents who now compose the Blasters (including original bassist John Bazz) and delivered nearly two hours of spit-shined, old-school American roots rock.
The set list drew heavily from the band's new record, 4-11-44, including the title track and cuts like It's All Your Fault.

Daddy Rolling Stone and Slip of the Tongue. Alvin sounded fine vocally, except when the sound system went awry and he faded in and out (a problem that wasn't completely resolved until the show was about half over). Behind him, the band effortlessly rocked and swung through about 18 tunes, including the instrumental Boneyard (The Dick Tracy Theme).

Halfway through, things got overtly political: Phil sang the Louis Jordan/Louis Armstrong tune I'll Be Glad When You're Dead (You Rascal You) and dedicated it to President Bush via the people of New Orleans. That got a big cheer.
The highlights were the hits : American Music, So Long Baby, Goodbye, the barn-burning rendition of Marie, Marie and the closer, One Bad Stud.

After that one was over, the crowd hung around, begging for more, and none seemed to miss too much the brother who wasn't there.
The best New Year's Eve of my life was in 1985, when I spent the evening tending bar (drawing beers, really) at Cogburn's, now known as the Bottleneck, in Lawrence. The headliner was the Embarrassment, who had broken up two years prior.

The Embarrassment are one of the best bands to ever come out of this area, right up there with Sin City Disciples. They broke up and dispersed and joined other good bands, like Big Dipper and the Del Fuegos, but neither was as glorious as the original.
In Spin magazine's Alternative Record Guide, Eric Weisbard wrote of the band: They played hooky songs with eccentricities galore and enough bassline dance beat to make it clear they approached artiness with as much gung-ho as covers, which ranged from 'Pushin' Too Hard' to Michael Jackson.

...

In the fourth edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide, Ira Robbins and Jim Green said the band conveyed a promising array of nuances -- from wistfulness to sarcasm -- and an inquisitive, adventurous way with arrangements.
Neither of those glowing assessments adequately describes the gist of the Embarrassment, a transcendent blend of post-punk, indie-rock and Midwestern charm. That New Year's Eve, all my beer was free and I made about $50 in tips, but what I remember most clearly was the show and how they recreated their songs, which were smarter and more complicated than they sounded.

The band will return to Lawrence on Aug. 20 for another reunion show, this time at Liberty Hall. You can get an earful of their sound from Heyday: 1979-1983 (see link at right).

Mark Southerland, musician, sculptor and local Renaissance man betrothed to Peregrin Honig, recently phoned in with a load of news regarding the Malachy Papers, Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle and his recent snagging of a Tanne Foundation Award.
At the end of May, the Malachys performed at the Musique Action, a festival near Nancy in Northern France, that Southerland called the biggest avant-garde jazz fest in the world. The band was invited to the six-day festival by friend and regular collaborator Dr.

Eugene Chadbourne.
Dr. Chadbourne performed all six nights, Southerland said.

He did six different shows, using different people from, arguably, all over the planet. The Malachys played the first night, performing the Butterfly Suites' with a trio from Denmark. We were a trio on one side of Dr.

Chadbourne, they were a trio on the other side. He would go back and forth from one trio to the other, playing ideas or songs and one would dovetail into the other. We rehearsed a little with Dr.

Chadbourne but only ideas or cells of songs, certain actions or key centers.So it was pretty improvised, especially playing off the other band.
The quartet was on tour over there and Oliver left the last night to play with Eugene .

I'm not sure Oliver knew what to think, especially of what I was doing. I'm a new guy in his circles with a strange connection with Dr. Chadbourne.

Then I pull out these weird hybrid instruments and start playing them.
It turned out OK. We were doing old-school free-jazz tunes -- several Eric Dolphy songs and a song Oliver Lake wrote.

He dug the vibe. He asked me to make a flutaphone for him.
Southerland recently learned he'd been bequeathed a Tanne Foundation Award that, according to the foundation Web site, recognizes passion, creativity and freedom of expression.

The money, he said, isn't enough to make friends and colleagues resentful, but it'll take some of the starving out of the starving-artist lifestyle.
In August, the Malachys will perform at the Telluride Jazz Festival. It's my first time, Southerland said.

Mike (Dillon) has been there before with other bands, like Critters Buggin'. He's excited to be going with the Malachys, who are more of his baby.
July 3 at Davey's Uptown: Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle will perform, and Southerland will sit in on a few songs.

His take on Dillon's latest project: It's straight-up go-go style funk music, more rootsy than the Hairy Apes BMX. Some instrumentals, some with vocals. I like it a lot.