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FLUTTR EFFECT and Sunspot with Bluf and The Terrors
Saturday · The Mad Frog
A potent double shot of "Chick Rock" comes to town this weekend with the highly anticipated return of Boston's FLUTTR (now known as FLUTTR EFFECT) and Sunspot from Madison, Wis. FLUTTR EFFECT floored a capacity crowd at last year's MidPoint Music Festival, and both bands are alumni of Chicks RockFest, set to roll this year on April 8-9 at the Southgate House. The "Girls of FLUTTR" will make an acoustic appearance on Friday at the Rohs St. Café for the girl/solo/live showcase.
In the spirit of double shots, FLUTTR EFFECT would be absinthe and Sunspot would be straight whiskey; both are intoxicating, but in slightly different ways. FLUTTR EFFECT's absinthe is enjoyed as a ritual of sorts, a mysterious blend of Metal roots, Eastern flavorings and classical herbs stirred by the exotic caramelized sugar of Kara Trott's vocals and then swallowed down in lusty sips. A slightly hallucinatory effect takes hold as the mixture makes it way into your bloodstream and into the nerve centers of your brain, causing you to perhaps imagine scenes of Eastern European gypsy decadence, or maybe you envision a sleek metal locomotive making its way through moonlit forests. That's the thing about FLUTTR EFFECT (and absinthe); you're never quite sure where the journey will take you, but you know it will be somewhere you haven't been before.
Sunspot's pleasantly burning gulp of whiskey has been aged in oak barrels at Cheap Trick's practice space and then filtered through gravel courtesy of early Van Halen. It is then put into a silver-sequined bottle to be served, fresh to you, in a specially designed non-shattering shot glass for repeated use. The interplay of Mike Huberty's bass, Ben Jaeger's guitar and Wendy Lynn Staat's drums will appeal to palates that favor saying "Oh, hell yeah!" over "The beverage has a fine nose." It's music that might actually require a designated driver, and you're highly encouraged to binge.
(Dale Johnson)
Ellis Paul with Jayne Sachs
Saturday · Jack Quinn's
To call Ellis Paul a folkie would seem to damn him with faint genre-specific praise. Clearly, Paul exhibits the best qualities the Folk tag offers in its purest forms: a penchant toward detailed storytelling in song and onstage, the ability to transform a highly personal song into a universal truth and a social and personal conscience that burns brightly in his compositions and performances. It is the level of Paul's musicianship and stagecraft, the intimacy of his compositions and the incredible passion he brings to his entire musical process (perhaps most visibly evidenced by his prominent tattoo of Woody Guthrie) that make him unique in the Folk community. Perhaps most importantly, Paul is generally recognized as one of the first and best of the new Folk revivalists to link the genre's modern sound and direction with the populist heritage of Folk legends like Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There might be no better proof of this hypothesis than the fact that Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter and caretaker of his legacy, requested that Paul sing at Woody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1996. A Maine native who relocated to Boston, Paul got his start at the city's open mic nights within the late '80s Folk scene, a scene that attracted the likes of Dar Williams, Martin Sexton, Patty Griffin, Catie Curtis and The Story and the Jonatha Brooke/Jennifer Kimball duo. Fellow New Englander and respected Folk balladeer Bill Morrissey was so taken with Paul's grasp on the genre that he produced Paul's debut album, Say Something, in 1993. Almost immediately Paul began to garner attention for his new traditionalism; before his first album was released, The Boston Globe was calling him "a songwriter's songwriter," and over the course of his 15-year career in the city, Paul has won over a dozen Boston Music Awards. After one more independent album in 1995, Paul was signed by Rounder, the respected American music indie label, where he has remained ever since. His latest album, American Jukebox Fables, will be released in April, which can only mean that Ellis Paul has a few new life-altering stories to mingle in among his time-tested favorites. (Brian Baker)
Dark Star Orchestra
Saturday · Bogart's
There are bands that perform original music as influenced by the Grateful Dead, there are bands that perform their own unique versions of Grateful Dead songs as an homage to the band, and then there's Dark Star Orchestra. Formed in 1997 from various band members of Chicago-area Dead aficionados as a loose Jam collective, the original intention of DSO was for the group to get together for an occasional Dead fest at a local bar. On a whim, the band decided to shift from offering an improvised set list of various Dead songs to actually re-creating the order of a specific concert from 1981. With an overwhelmingly positive response as their guide, Dark Star Orchestra set a course toward making a living not merely as a Grateful Dead tribute band, but as a group that can easily discern the subtleties that define not just different eras of the band but different shows along the path of a particular tour. DSO's mimicry ranges from replicating the kind of equipment on which the Dead originally played particular shows to matching personnel from an extra drummer to specific background singers. Lead guitarist John Kadlecik is sonically a dead ringer for the late Jerry Garcia, and rhythm guitarist Rob Eaton did his apprenticeship in aping Bob Weir by attending hundreds of Dead concerts and hanging out backstage. Keyboardist Scott Larned probably has the most complex position in Dark Star Orchestra, as his role in the band must reflect four distinct keyboard entities in the Dead's history — Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and former Tubes member Vince Welnick (presumably he also has occasion to haul out a little Bruce Hornsby, who joined late in the band's tenure). It's an amazingly disciplined concept in tribute to one of the most freeform musical acts in Rock history, and yet Dark Star Orchestra works incredibly hard to maintain the same kind of vitality and fresh vibe that defined the band they and so many thousands of fans came to cherish over the years. You will believe. (BB)
