Turning it up

The Loud Festival comes to Boston

by Brett Milano

Loud Music Festival producer Trey Helliwell hasn't slept a whole lot in the past week, and it's likely that he'll pull a few more all-nighters before the weekend's out. In preparation for the three-day festival's opening tomorrow (Friday) night, he's been running from one club to another, negotiating with managers, staying out till all hours watching rock bands -- in short, doing everything he'd be doing anyway for fun.

This is a critical year for the Loud Fest, which for the past four years has been the best and only alterna-rock festival in western Massachusetts. This year it takes two big steps by going biannual (a second Loud Fest is set for September) and relocating from Northampton to Boston.

"I still love Northampton," Helliwell explains, "but I needed better demographics, more market support, a larger customer base. And you can find that within a four-block radius of Central Square. I managed to squeeze eight rooms out of Northampton, but resources were limited. If you think it's hard dealing with . . . well, I won't say that, but Northampton clubs are even more of a monopoly."

If the Loud Fest already has more street credibility than other music festivals in town (uh, think of Jules Verne's submarine captain), that's partly because Helliwell is a raving music fan who books the festival accordingly. This spring's Loud Fest line-up doesn't pretend to represent everything happening in town: neo-hippie rock, heavy metal, and commercial alternative are all in relatively short supply (at this writing, local faves Jack Drag, Expanding Man, and the Dambuilders are the only major-label acts). But if your tastes run to a Central Square indie-rock aesthetic, the festival -- which will hit every Central Square venue excepting T.T. the Bear's and the Phoenix Landing -- will be a major musical splurge.

The Middle East will have a whopping 70 bands playing half-hour sets over three nights, with enough headliners (Come, Fuzzy, Dambuilders, Speedball Baby) to provide dependable peaks. But we're looking forward to a handful of bills devoted to some of our favorite fringe trends. Combustible Edison guys Michael Cudahy and Brother Cleve are commandeering the Cantab for the weekend as the "Loud Lounge." There'll be an afternoon ska showcase (with Insteps and Beat Soup) Saturday at 288 Green Street; a rockabilly show (with the Cranktones and others) at the same venue that evening; and an "A&R showcase," with such signable acts as Brilliantine, Ramona Silver, and Boy Wonder, at Small Planet on Sunday. Also highly promising is a songwriters roundtable, apparently modeled after the national "In Their Own Words" tours, that Skeggie Kendall is hosting at the Kendall Café on Saturday. Panelists include Ellen Cross, Dennis Brennan, Chandler Travis, and Todd Thibaud. Thing from Venus will close the show.

Helliwell makes annual trips to Austin for South by Southwest and to New Orleans for the Jazz & Heritage Festival; he wants the Loud Fest to be a similar overload: "I want you to be running around, looking at your watch and making sure you don't miss the next band -- but in our case you only have to go two blocks." He admits that he's walking a tightrope. The festival has corporate sponsorship (from Store 24 and ASCAP), and since Helliwell quit his day job (as an industrial equipment representative) three years ago, he wouldn't mind turning a profit. Ultimately he'd like to expand the festival into Boston proper and give it the scope of South by Southwest, though without the commercialization that seems to be springing up around the Austin event.

"If the corporate stuff becomes cancerous, I will be chopped out of power," he notes. "We've got all of Boston to grow into, and if we can take it to that level, 51 percent is still going to be independent -- and hell, that would be five to 10 years away. I like the idea of using music to build a community, to spotlight what we've got here instead of trying to package it for a market. I've been a consumer of this business for so long and I want to do it for life. I have a slogan that I keep repeating to myself, which is to do the right things for the right reasons." For more info on the Loud Music Fest, call 492-5446.

3 1/2 GIRLS

If you can recall what made Malachite click -- the overwhelming punk-metal sludge, the unhealthy obsession with sex and death, and the soft-spoken lead singer who turned into an absolute maniac on stage -- you've got a rough idea of why 3 1/2 Girls' debut EP, Rule (Curve of the Earth), is so much fun. No, the two bands aren't clones; in fact the members of 3 1/2 Girls hadn't heard Malachite before they moved here last year from the musical wasteland of Salt Lake City. (They had, however, been fans of other Boston outfits, notably Sam Black Church.) No matter: their EP, produced by ex-Neighborhoods mainman David Minehan, is the year's liveliest metal debut -- not least because of the pleasure they obviously take in overstepping the bounds of good taste.

"Salt Lake City worked in extremes -- either you're ultra-conservative or you get pushed so far that you fall away from it," explains lead singer/guitarist Sunshine Volz, who's likely heard her share of jokes about her name by now. "There are a lot of little punk kids out there going to extremes, but they all end up pregnant and married by the time they're 16. I was lucky. I grew up in a household where I wasn't pushed into anything. I'm a pretty even-tempered person most of the time; maybe the way I act on stage helps keep me that way. We all have rotten things happen to us in life; I just happen to tap into them when I play." And the reaction when she gets off stage? "I can't tell -- usually they just come up to me and say, `You guys rock, man.' Then they run away."

3 1/2 Girls are one of the younger bands in town; in fact Volz managed to get herself carded at the Middle East when ordering a drink during our conversation. Being 21 she passed, but 18-year-old guitarist Julie Jenson wouldn't have. Jenson was all of 15 when she wrote the EP's opener, "Straight Edge Boy," which dumps on the guy in question for breaking up with her and insisting she not drink. (The Black Sabbath riff that opens the song can be considered a bonus.) Volz wrote the obvious hit, "Chris B." (repeated from the Allston Rock City compilation), which features the grabbing chorus "Wake up, time to die" (where Volz's fake English accent can be considered a bonus). "The line comes from Blade Runner, but Chris was a guy I worked with. Whenever he got upset with anyone, his usual reaction was to threaten to go get his gun."

Did he ever go through with it? "Probably, but I didn't stick around to find out."

3 1/2 Girls play a CD-release party at the Rat tomorrow (Friday), with Honkeyball, Roadsaw, and a likely Neighborhoods song or two from Minehan.

COMING UP

Underball are at Mama Kin tonight (Thursday), Cherry 2000 and Shiva Speedway are at Bill's Bar, Richard Davies is at the Middle East, and the city's most underrated guitarist, former Knots & Crosses man Rick Harris, plays Johnny D's . . . Loud Music Festival mania begins in earnest tomorrow (Friday). Look for 6L6 at the Middle East, Slide in the Middle East bakery, Babaloo and Jayuya at the Greek American Hall on Green Street, and Hank at the Kirkland. Meanwhile, Mistle Thrush have a CD-release party (with Mary Timony of Helium opening) at the Paradise, and Laurie Geltman's CD-release party is at T.T. the Bear's.

Loud Fest events Saturday find Jules Verdone and Expanding Man playing the Lizard Lounge, Skeggie doing the songwriters roundtable at the Kendall, and about a million bands (Come, Jack Drag, Scud Mountain Boys, Push Kings) at the Middle East. Pooka Stew and Doom Buggies are at the Rat, the Swinging Steaks are at Johnny D's, and the Big Bad Bollocks are at the Phoenix Landing . . . Sunday Loud Fest events find the Strangemen at the Greek American Hall, Women of Sodom at Man Ray, Roger Miller at the Garment District, the above-mentioned A&R showcase at Small Planet, and another million bands (Speedball Baby, Space Pussy, Dambuilders, Fuzzy, the Gravy, etc.) at the Middle East. Mojo Nixon plays the Paradise, and the Silos are at T.T.'s . . . On Monday, the long-running psychedelic experimenters Red Krayola play the Middle East, Statuesque and Different Engine are at Charlie's Tap, and Galwegians the Saw Doctors are at the Roxy.