Speaking of Nightstage

Speaking of Nightstage (Cambridge, MA) I thought I saw it being torn down this week. For those outside of this area, Nightstage was a great local club in Cambridge that had a plethora of local and national acts through it's opening in the 80's through the 90's. In a strange dispute over liquor licenses, the owners locked the doors and pretty much did nothing with the building. It sat to this day as it was left, with zero work done to the building.

A search on Nightstage Cambridge will still bring up old tour schedules, and will give you an idea of the plethora of artists who played there. Would be interesting if the stoic icon is finally removed...

Local Music continues...

OK, OK. I'll post more regularly. :-) In the meantime...

Well, converting more of the old Analog music (LP to MD) to the computer now - and still surprised to see how many folks are still making music. The internet can be really cool some times. Some recent finds:

Three Colors. On MS, and they have a CD of all their stuff! No vinyl transfers for me. way cool. Picked up the CD at CD baby and re-enjoying their songs. Give them a listen. Was weird reading the CD liner notes - and see them talking about shows I know I attended. :)
http://www.myspace.com/3colors

Cheating Ace. OK, not an old favorite. Found their 2 song Ep and filtered it as much as I could (lots of album remnants). They're long gone, but a band member is making some nice jazz in Two Ton Shoe. Another MS band you should give a listen to.
http://www.myspace.com/twotonshoe


Still have some MIA. Did you remember them?

Vow of Silence. You know a band is gone when they're not in the internet at all. No remnants. Nothing in the old Boston band blogs. Just nothing. And of course, the EP is long gone, so I don't even know band names. I need a hand here.

Delusions of Grandeur - happened to be on the same MD as VoS. Another MIA band. Unfortunately, both of these bands have generic enough names that Google brings up thousands of hits. sigh. Actually a "friend of a friend" was in this band. I remember seeing them at Nightstage. (Yes, that's still an empty shell of a building...) I think I've listened to "This Theater Falls" a dozen times, I can't get enough.

R is for Rediscovered

One thing a powerful computer, lots of disk space, and cheap software is getting me is the ability to transfer a lot of old analog items to digital. one of those efforts is to get all my music on my Mac. (more on that for another blog)

One thing this is doing is exposing me to music that has sat on my shelves and other media for 10-20-even 30 years. You listen to it once in a while, but now that it's all in one big big pile, I get to hear 30 years worth of music all the time. Pretty cool as it is.

Now comes the Internet. So I listen to these old, sometimes local, sometimes one-hit-wonder bands, and think "I wonder what happened to". A lot have faded away. I mean, you ever Google something and find nothing out there at all? Gives new meaning to one hit wonder.

Then there are the real finds. You find groups and people still around, maybe even still making music. And now the 'net allows us to re-connect. I found out the other day The Outfield has put a new album out after a long hiatus. I ran into the drummer for Figures on a Beach - and he remembers me from 25 years ago. Talk about a head trip. I put a video for School of Fish and The Vels on Youtube - and it's been great reading the comments everyone has made - others who remember these bands. Even some history - the lead singer of School had died of TC (Which I'm a survivor). wow. (search for johnmcboston on youtube)

This morning I find an old Boston band Dumptruck has resurfaced, and is on myspace. I'm here listening to their album D Is For Dumptruck (hence the blog title) and found their MS web and regular web (www.myspace.com/dumptrucktheband). Even found a site where I can track down a lot of other old Boston faves (http://www.rockinboston.com/). Now the danger begins - looking at Dumptruck's friends, and finding even more old stuff (Hey, The Atlantics!)

So anyone else out there re-discovering music form their past?

What to say

OK, so is this like the lamest blog ever? I admit I'm a bit outside of the blogging age. Plus, let's face it, I have no desire to share my day to day life with folks. No insult to those who do. I have some friends who make bog entries several times a day.

But I should put something here. As of now 43 people have visited, only to find a few tumbleweeds. I'll see what I can do to spice things up!

- J