Greg Kelley & Jason Lescalleet, Ghost Grass at Wire Sounds

I showed up late (couldn't find the place) and missed most of Ghost Grass' set. I left early (to catch the last train to Salem) and didn't hear a single note of Graveyards. So instead of reviewing this show, which I only saw slightly more than a third of, I'll just say that Kelley & Lescalleet were mind blowingly amazing. Shrill, unnerving, kidney rupturing chaos. And here are a couple of pictures.

Ghost Grass
Greg Kelley & Jason Lescalleet
Greg Kelley & Jason Lescalleet

Show Worthy 7/27 - 8/2

Benjamin Nelson on Rare Frequency via
Monday, July 27
Benjamin Nelson & Brandon Terzakis at Weirdo Records (donate, 8:00, all ages)
Nelson + Terzakis = prepared guitar + chord organ = sign me the fuck up


Quits
Friday, July 31
Magic People, Life Partners, Quits at Jacques Cabaret ($10, 8:30, 21+)
Magic People are fucking weird. But in a totally awesome way. Industrial minimal punk doom with a dose of hilariously absurd lyrics. Not too sure about Life Partners... But Quits are Wayne Rogers and Kate Village from Major Stars plus some crazy man on drums and they just fucking shred. No songs. Just insane psych meltdowns. Also, Kim Phuc might be playing?



Andrew Eckel via
Saturday, August 1
Andrew Eckel, Steve Walther at Lilypad ($10, 7:00, all ages)
Remember Eckel? The guy that did the crazy ass Make A Laser Sound? Now you can see that wacky shit live and I can pretty much guarantee that his live show will be just as awesome as the record. He'll be playing piano and joined by Jonah Sacks on cello and Louisson playing bass.



Max Lord by Jane Wang via
Saturday, August 1
Graveyards, Greg Kelley & Jason Lescalleet, Ghost Grass at Wire Sounds (donate?, 8:00, all ages)
I think Graveyards is normally John Olson, Chris Riggs, and Ben Hall but this incarnation includes Vic Rawlings on cello/electronics. Kelley & Lescalleet do amazing trumpet/tape stuff. And Ghost Grass is Max Lord, who's hosting the show at his loft in Downtown Crossing. He does awesome electronics shit with all sorts of crazy synthesizers and whatnot. This show is going to be killer. I know there's a lot of other things going on Saturday night but I think this one is where all the cool kids will be.




Saturday, August 1
Friends Forever Fest at Chatham Village Hall ($5, 4:00, all ages)
If you're going to be anywhere near South Chatham on Saturday, there's an awesome little fest going down with a bunch of cool bands. Totally worth it just for Animal Hopistal and Peace, Loving but there's also Total Bolsheviks (ambient coolness), Dead Rambler (folk/haunting/acoustic/etc), Brava Spectre (screechy psych nasty tribal stuff), Western Syndrome (high speed brutal punk metal), and The Zookeepers (totally awesome catchy indie pop with a free album). Lots of fun should be had. 3 rules though. "No drinks. No dope. No bad vibes." Easy enough, right?



Sore Eros via
Sunday, August 2
Sore Eros, Eat Cloud, Youngest at Great Scott ($8, 9:00, 18+)
Ducktails and Oneohtrix Point Never were originally scheduled for this show which would have made it 100% epic. They hand to cancel for whatever reason but this show is still mostly epic. All the info for the new lineup is somewhere on Lemmingtrail which at the moment is switching servers so I can't give you all the details. I know a Prince Rama side project is supposed to play, and that may or may not be Youngest. But Sore Eros is super great chill stuff from CT and Eat Cloud does hypnotic poppy electronics from Providence. So this show is still gonna rule. And there's also a little daytime thing happening around the corner at O'Brien's with Station Wagon and Kilojoule around 2:00 for $5. I think they're trying to incorporate both shows into one "event." Kinda weird but whatever. That just means more good tunes.
Update: Prince Rama side project is Prince Llama, features members of Prince Rama, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, more. Also, Coralcola has been added. Fuck yeah dude. This shit just got real.

Ghost Grass - Hydrogen (Wire Sounds, 2009)

Ghost Grass - Side A (untitled)


Ghost Grass is the guise under which Max Lord records. I had the opportunity to see him do a live collaboration with Karlheinz and that was the first I'd heard of either of them. Lord blew my mind with his furious drumming and I knew I had to hear some of his recorded work asap. Sadly, I procrastinated in my quest for his tunes but eventually a copy of his newest tape Hydrogen came my way and man was it worth the fuckin wait.

Hydrogen is basically a synth/electronics tape with lots of live drums. In other words, TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME. The A side begins with all out retro sci-fi mainframe meltdown for about 4 or 5 minutes until it coalesces into something your open minded jazz loving dad might call "music." It goes from more noise/less music and vice versa until it ODs on sedatives and morphs into an organic synth drone with a pulse. Absolutely beautiful, washes of thick hypnotic waves and hidden piano. A true standout of a piece unlike anything else on the tape.

Turn it over and you're welcomed by some more electronic mayhem with hardly any live percussion to speak of. I wouldn't quite call it power electronics but it's pretty damn close. When it slows things down, it turns towards the dark side with unsettling tones and menacing rumbling. In time, the pace quickens with the addition of Lord killing his drum kit and some electronic squawks all the while remaining just as foreboding but it again returns back to the minimal scariness sans drumming. The tape finishes off with the most spare and terrifying sounds offered.

I don't know if Hydrogen is anything like the rest of Lord's recorded output. But if it is, you can guarantee that I'll be picking up some more of his ridiculously limited and rarely distributed albums. Right now, this tape is only available through Lord himself at shows or you could probably contact him and ask nicely. If you give him some money I'm sure he'd send you one.