PREVIEW: 2nd Annual Noise For Toys Benefit (12/12)

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I have begrudgingly accepted the fact that it’s not likely I will feel the same amount of joy in life as I felt on Christmas Day 1997.

I was five years old, I had slept for maybe two and a half hours that night, and I damn near howled for twelve hours straight when I snuck downstairs to find a Playmobile castle set waiting under the tree for me at 5 AM.

While I still ponder if anything in the adult world could make me lose my mind as fully as that glorious castle, organizations like Toys For Tots showcase the hard truth that some kids don’t get to have that quintessential “toy under the tree” moment this holiday season. For those that aren’t the best with holiday shopping for loved ones, never mind kids you’ve never met before, enter the 2nd Annual Noise For Toys benefit show.

Happening tomorrow at the phenomenally named house venue Make Out Point (so yeah, ask a toy-bearing punk for the address), Noise For Toys brings shoegaze, punk, and all-around noisy bands for a eardrum-shattering benefit with all proceeds going to Toys for Tots. Having two of our favorite regional music blogs, Clicky Clicky Music and Ash Gray Proclamation, organizing the bill is promising enough, but the lineup would honestly make the Grinch’s shriveled heart explode.

Even though they formed within the year, Gold Muse are no strangers to us. Catching what was apparently their first show ever opening for Infinity Girl this past September, the quartet made a pretty sizable impression with a perfected balance of dreamy, but jangle poppy confections wrapped in distortion. It almost seemed unnatural for a band on their first show to possess such confidence until we got the hint that they’re an amalgamation of members from Earthquake Party!, Soccer Mom, and Swirlies. With that kind of pedigree, we doubt they’ll be strangers to many in the coming year.

When we premiered Coaches’s lead-off single “Elizabeth Warren” back in October, I braced for how our dear senator might respond. The MA/NY-split band (including two members of Infinity Girl) definitely don’t mean any disrespect, but “Warren” is easily one of the sauciest songs about an elected official we’ve heard in a long while. “I thought of you and left the harbor for Boston Proper just to be near you / ‘cause if ‘we the people’, then I’m your equal” seriously might be the lyric of the year for me personally. While Coaches takes on a slightly grungier, but more jovial feel that Infinity Girl’s fuzz and gloom, the distortion still runs heavy through their debut SHUSH EP, which will be released on cassette tomorrow at the show.

While bands like Joanna Gruesome, Makthaverskan, Fear of Men, and Westkust prove that Europe’s got the whole jangle-punk game locked down, bands like Easthampton’s Kindling give me hope for an American renaissance. Their Galaxies 12” this past month not only marked their first release with revered Florida punk label No Idea, but a marked step-up in recording from their humble, but rad debut Spare Room in 2014. “Blinding Wave” basically warns you with its title before laying down pummeling riffs, whereas the remainder of Galaxies takes on a sludgier, shoegazey approach to walloping.

Where most of the Noise for Toys bands casually mix distortion-heavy genres together, Elizabeth Color Wheel take it that extra step by branding themselves as “shoepunk”. The genre mix certainly isn’t unwarranted; moments of brashness on this year’s self-titled EP meet up with sludgy droning held together by galaxy-sized reverb. Although their two track Single this past September shows its intentions by name, it serves as the band’s finest declaration of their unique dichotomy. “Move” stomps through with doom and gloom as their singer commands despite sounding at least two blocks away from the mic, while “Wish” proves its single-worthy catchiness at breakneck speeds.

The show starts at 8 PM and will be $5 entry or free with an unwrapped toy. Even if your gift giving selection only goes as far as dumpster diving behind thrift shops, all proceeds will benefit Toys for Tots, so you’ll be a good person regardless!