Mighty mighty throwdown

The Bosstones rock the Middle East

by Brett Milano

If there's one thing you don't often see at the Middle East, it's parents out for a Sunday afternoon with their kids. But when the Mighty Mighty Bosstones wrapped up last week's "Hometown Throwdown" with an all-ages show, that didn't just mean the place was going to be overrun with 16-year-old punks. Nope, this was a real all-ages show, with attendees ranging from pre-teens to post-40s; and it was one of the more wholesome crowds to turn up at the Middle East in some time. Neither booze nor smoking was allowed in the club, and I'd wager that a few of the patrons were at their very first rock show.

The Bosstones' set opened with the customary warning against moshing and stage-diving, but they didn't have to worry: the kids up front seemed more interested in getting a friendly handshake from singer Dicky Barrett, and the band were welcomed like the hometown heroes they are. In fact, you couldn't ask for a better set of role models than these guys. They've made it big but they stay true to their home town (the annual Throwdown and this year's spinoff live album have likely done wonders for the Middle East's profile). They respect their elders (vintage Boston punk tracks, including an SSD Christmas tune, were blasted before their set); they do right by their friends (as usual, opening slots went to a handpicked batch of regional punk/ska bands, on Sunday Boston venerables the Ducky Boys and the Connecticut party-ska band Spring Heel Jack). They even brought the members of a Bosstones-sponsored Little League team out to take a bow.

True, the band weren't overly respectable: when "motherfucker" turned up in a song lyric, Barrett belted it right out. But with some of the proceeds going to underprivileged kids, the Bosstones came off as worldly but responsible big-brother types.

They could also teach the kids a thing or two about a strong work ethic. It was the Bosstones' fifth show in as many days, and they played at full throttle despite some signs of battle fatigue. Barrett had managed to blow his voice out over the course of the week -- "I need a lozenge the size of my head," he announced before risking further damage by tackling the scream-infested "Devil's Night Out."

With two dozen songs crammed into a tight hour, the show stayed surprisingly close to the set list on Live at the Middle East (Mercury) but favored album tracks over the hit singles -- "Cowboy Coffee" was done as an audience request, just as it is on the disc. The early hits "Where'd You Go" and "Someday I Suppose" were omitted; the big hit "The Impression That I Get" was done, but without undue fanfare. With the shout-along choruses of "1-2-8" and "Hope I Never Lose My Wallet" coming in right on cue, the audience seemed nearly as well rehearsed as the band.

And the band were well rehearsed indeed. Their hairpin turns from dub reggae to hardcore thrash are a full-fledged trademark by now. The recent departure of sax player Kevin Lenear (he's yet to be replaced) puts less emphasis on the horns and gives Nate Albert more room for big guitar leads. Shods guitarist Dave Aaronoff sat in on keyboards and the Hammond organ (or a facsimile thereof) to help flesh out the ensemble sound. And non-musician Ben Carr continues to make the most of his unique position in the band, coming across as a walking (and dancing, and cheerleading, and backward-duckwalking) embodiment of all things Bosstone. Perhaps the most surprising move was their use of the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion" -- easily the most ominous, politically charged song ever to come out of Motown -- as entrance music. Whether this signals a more topical turn in the next Bosstones album remains to be seen.

For the time being, good spirits rule. After another round of thanks to virtually everybody, the Throwdown closed out with a pure hardcore number -- a cover of the Angry Samoans' "Lights Out" (also on the live album). If you were old enough to remember, you could hear that song as a flashback to the less-civilized all-ages shows you saw at the Channel 15 years ago, shows you wouldn't have dared bring your parents to. When the Bosstones played it Sunday, you got to see two generations pogoing together.

LARS VEGAS

It just wouldn't be Christmas if somebody didn't write a really weird song about the holidays. Local swingers Lars Vegas fill that bill with "Ficus" (off their just-released Smoking, on Akers). Although it doesn't mention drinking and barely mentions Christmas, the song tells you all you'd want to know about falling over crocked at a holiday soiree: while the band churn away at some finger-snapping jazz riff, singer Tom Stenquist collapses in front of the tree, muttering to himself about fruit flies, crazy drummers, and obscure James Brown songs. One assumes he woke up next morning with a heck of an egg-nog hangover.

Despite their name and the spiffy suits they wear on stage, Lars Vegas aren't the usual bunch of retro-swingers. If you wish all those zoot-suit-wearing, Mancini-reviving cocktail outfits were a little less trendy and a little more depressed, this just might be your dream band. Smoking jumps with snappy horn charts, secret-agent kitsch, and a touch of Martin Denny/Combustible Edison vibraphone exotica. But Stenquist's words wreak havoc on the good spirits of the music. Give him a jolly klezmer tune and he'll sing about his grandfather's funeral. Give him a funky bass lick and he'll unearth childhood traumas of trying to swallow liver. It's hip swing music set to the least hip and swinging topics imaginable.

"You've got to make light of the depressing things, that's the only way to survive," Stenquist offers. "Or else you wind up with ulcers and cancer and stuff. I tend to write more about the mundane things, because that's what speaks specifically to our lives and about the world. We've got one funny song, the `Sy Sperling' one, but that gets old -- just like telling the same fucking joke. For me the creative process is really elusive. I just have to scribble things down when they come into my head. Like, `Illness' came out of being sick as an adult, and it brought me back to being sick as a child -- that just seemed natural to write about." Stenquist reveals that the latter song's punch line had to be whispered because the label owner didn't want the word "boner" on the album. He promises to shout it really loud when he next performs it live.

If the music gives a boost to the lyrics, it also points to a mixed blessing that's less glaring live. Lars Vegas can sound a lot like Morphine, and not just because Dana Colley plays baritone sax in both bands (Phoenix cartoonist Scott Getchell is also in LV's horn section). Although Stenquist surely isn't trying to ape Mark Sandman's hip swagger, the resemblance can be hard to miss. "Personally I think they're great guys and they deserve all the success they've had," he says. "But then there's always this thing called envy and jealousy, and that's the beginning of all greatness. I think I heard that on TV once."

In fact Lars Vegas formed around the same time Morphine did -- in 1989. Stenquist was working in a rock club in Portland, Maine, and his primary influences were Nirvana and the Replacements. He was influenced to sound nothing like them. "Nothing against that rock thing, but I was overdone on bands that were trying to sound like other bands. I wanted to do something less in-your-face, where the music would be more interesting."

Despite the band's name, he doesn't have a Combustible Edison-style fascination with Vegas. "Once I submitted some poetry to a bad newspaper, and Lars Vegas was just the pen name I used. I've never been to Vegas except for once when I hitchhiked across the country, I spent the night in a park bench at the airport because I was too young to get into the airport." And probably went home and wrote a song about it.

DASH GETS NAKED

Our hats are off to New Orleans hellraisers Dash Rip Rock, who last Friday night at T.T. the Bear's provided one of the more memorable on-stage displays we've seen in some time. It's one thing to have your drummer strip naked and stick a beer bottle between his legs. It's one thing to cover "Ice Ice Baby." And it's one thing to pass a bottle of Jack Daniel's around the audience. But damned if Dash didn't do all of the above at the same time. They followed this feat with a note-perfect cover of the Upper Crust's "Little Lord Fauntleroy," with Crust drummer Jim Janota taking over the kit.

CHANDLER TRAVIS

Give Chandler Travis 10 points for chutzpah. A few weeks back I said in these pages that his was "the best band I've ever seen with a transsexual drummer and a singer in pajamas." He proceeded to splash that quote across his gig posters with the first six words in, shall we say, considerably larger type. So just to give him more grist I'll say that his new Ivan in Paris is the best album I've ever heard to include backward accordions, a Hoagy Carmichael cover, and a love song entitled "You Jerk."

A long-time mainstay of the Incredible Casuals (who were thrown into limbo when co-frontman Johnny Spampinato joined NRBQ), Chandler had as his calling cards a solid sense of tunesmithery and a weird-ass sense of humor. But the new disc comes out ahead by offering less shtick, less outright pop, and more reflection. It's a semi-acoustic album that includes more love songs than anything else he's released. One of these, "Air Moving Backwards," stands with the best of the Casuals tracks while sounding nothing like them -- it's a heartfelt bit of country folk keyed to a mandolin and an emotive chorus. Just to show that he hasn't gone entirely straight, Travis also includes a joky tune about bad haircuts and a few stylistic surprises (like the Sgt. Pepper-esque "Ball the Wall," which includes the backwards accordions), plus a nod or two toward Casuals/NRBQ territory and a lot of rough charm in the vocals. He celebrates the new disc tonight (Thursday) at Toad, and he promises to be the first this year to cover XTC's "Thanks for Christmas."

COMING UP

Cellars faves the Ape Hangers are at the Middle East tonight (Thursday) with Wide Iris and Noisy LeGrand, blueswoman Vykki Vox is at Harpers Ferry, songwriter Karen Harris has a CD-release party at Mama Kin, and Steve Westfield, Charlie Chesterman, and Ray Mason are all at Johnny D's . . . Tomorrow (Friday), it's the mighty Prissteens at the Middle East with 8 Ball Shifter and Caged Heat, roots rock's venerable Silos at Mama Kin, Four Piece Suit and Seks Bomba at T.T. the Bear's Place, and the Gravel Pit at the Lizard Lounge . . . The Noise has a holiday extravaganza at T.T.'s on Saturday with the Red Telephone, Silver Star, Max, the Peer Group, Sugar Twins, and Tugboat Annie. Also on Saturday, Paul Rishell and Annie Raines are at the House of Blues, Neon Jesus headline a Toys for Tots benefit at the Linwood, and Francine headline a holiday party at Club Bohemia . . . The Wicked Farleys play the Middle East on Sunday . . . And in one of our favorite holiday traditions, Jumbo do their annual execution of the Nutcracker at the Green Street Grill on Monday with Fuzzy and Cherry 2000.