As I rounded the corner toward the side door of The Beach in Jamaica Plain, buy cialis virtually no hints were dropped. Needless to say, cure the stoic doorman wearing a tiny fur coat and sunglass, the wallflower hands-in-their-pockets attendees, and the terrifying, dangling pirate figurine didn’t help much. There was nothing to really assume other than the fact that Ava Luna, Celestial Shore, Rosie and the Rosies, and Palehound would play. Little did I know how kick-ass and surprisingly cohesive the whole show would go, making it one of my favorite ones since moving to Boston.
Rosie and the Rosies, a Boston-based trio, kicked off the night with their own definition of endearing. “I’m Rosie, and those are the Rosies,” said, well, Rosie as her fur-coated drummer and bassist took their positions in the cave-like beach. The set was filthy with guitar abuse. And despite how abrasive that sounds, I mean it in a good way. Simple drumming and high-pitched vocals left space for guitar and bass to talk the room full of jacket-clutching listeners into a hybrid of head bobbing and banging.
However, almost reminiscent of The Breeders of the early ‘90s, Rosie and her Rosies weren’t completely void of tenderness. “Our last one’s a new song,” said Rosie #1(or was it #2?), aka the bassist. “But if the new one sucks we might play an old one after.” To that I mumbled “Well that’s adorable,” and proceeded to listen to all three end their set with a softer sound that grew into Rosie #1 (… #2?) grinding a cellist’s bow against his bass. I dubbed the ambient growl to be “just loud enough for my liking,” an impressive score for the Rosies. With my naïve-to-all-things-punk ears, that sweet spot is hard to hit. The trio was so good that I even forgot about how disgustingly small their coats were and forgave their indoor sunglasses. When the future’s bright, you gotta wear fur, I guess.
After a couple minutes of listening to conversations about books circulate around me, Palehound took the floor and simultaneously saved me from yet another episode of “Please Don’t Make Eye Contact with Me, Pirate” (Tuesdays at 9 o’clock, EST). Ellen Kempner, the vocalist, guitarist, and all around everything-ist for the group, wasted no time creating a show out of her own humility. During Palehound’s first song, Kempner’s accidental stumble backward served as one of the most graceful moments I’ve ever seen in a basement. Not only did the songwriter continue playing from the dusty ground but also followed up the song by dusting off and letting the crowd know that “this is why I don’t do sports.”
Originally from New York, folk-inspired and alternative Palehound both made its debut as a Boston band and delivered the most emotional sounds of the night. Their guitar-centric songs seemed almost made for live performing, but Kempner’s fragile vocals and occasional screams made something really sincere. The group included a few tracks off of last year’s EP Bent Nail in the set, such as “I Get Clean” and “Pet Carrot.” Even more prominent was the acknowledgment of the half-year novelty of the group’s first 7” Kitchen. “Holiest,” my personal favorite off of it, was introduced by Kempner with the best possible breed of sarcasm: “This is a song from the internet.” And this is a guitar. These are drums. That’s a bass. Sometimes music falls out of it.
Next on the bill was Celestial Shore, a three-man collective from Brooklyn. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from the twangy, psychedelic trio whose rhythmically challenging tunes seemed, to me, catered toward recording. However, the deconstructionist group had no trouble following the night’s theme: good stuff.
Their out-of-sync vocals and dissonant harmonies were surprisingly easy to follow and laid the groundwork for collaboration throughout the room. Even when the guitarist, bassist, and drummer started shredding all at once while humming in the microphone, the crowd was still chasing waves with them. When a guitar string broke, Palehound’s Kempner provided reinforcements. As chaotic sections were played, bystanders pulled out their phones for some instant strobe lighting. Even Sam Owens, the trio’s guitarist and lead singer, decided to spend most his last song letting the crowd determine his route around the room through limp pushes, almost as if to say, “keep helping me out with this.” Despite the fact that him and I locked eyes for about four seconds too long, I enjoyed it. For shore. There’s that token beach pun.
And then there was Ava Luna, which lent such good listening that I can’t seem to think of a proper transition sentence. The soul pop five-piece from Brooklyn presented a whole different style to the night, and it wasn’t all that surprising. The group’s creation of what I would call “frantic R&B” was presented through a set full of stuff off of their newest album Electric Balloon. Albums aside though, there’s something to be said about Ava Luna live: It’s clean, almost formulaic even. Every choo-choo train inspired harmony, beat, and pause followed a sequence in which each part was given equal attention. And the room ate it up. In fact, I’m almost positive Ava Luna uncrossed the arms of the few remaining wall-leaners in the vicinity. It even ignited the world’s least necessary three-person mosh pit right in front of me. However, I was okay with it. In the words of Tupac Shakur, “I ain’t mad atcha.”
…But apparently the police were. Right after the group performed a smooth-like-I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Margarine rendition of “PRPL,” The Beach closed house for the night.
As I hopped on the bus, I felt validated to an almost egotistical level. “Be proud of yourself Becs. You just stared at awesome people do awesome things. Good for you.” And I guess the delirium makes sense since it was unexpectedly the best show I’ve ever attended in Boston. “I just want to congratulate all of you,” said a member of Ava Luna to the crowd upon dismissal. “Thank you,” I mentally said as I scrawled in my notebook, “My Tuesday nights don’t usually go this way.”