Local band Deer Tick made Jon Caramanica’s Playlist last Sunday in The New York Times. The following is not language I would use to describe my favorite musicians, but there you are. Caramanica praises (I think) their second album “Born on Flag Day”. . .

. . . which sounds as if someone had run over some old Hank Williams sides with sandpaper: loose, gloomy, desperate country, written entirely, it seems, while looking in a cracked mirror. Lyrically it’s a vacuum of joy.

Okaaaay. At any rate, they are on tour and will return to Rhode Island on August 2nd for the Newport Folk Festival. (photo: Kendall Pavan)

If her hair is blue, she’s at work — if it’s pink, she’s performing. Roz Raskin inadvertantly got herself some free press when (unbeknownst to her) she crossed paths with a ProJo reporter who dubbed her the ‘girl with the blue hair’. Roz had served her at Blue State Coffee and made such an impact that the meeting ended up becoming not one, but two columns by Rita Lussier. Roz is just one of those special fun people and she has a fantastic voice. Roz Raskin and the Ricecakes perform tonight at AS220 with Slow Drive and the Classical High School Band(?).

$6, 8pm, Sunday, AS220, 115 Empire Street

Friday — @Firehouse 13 (hosting its first FISA show), Josie Crosby, Whalebone Jackson, JimmyTown Juke @AS220, Route .44, Hoboe, Major Hemisphere @Lupo’s, Hank III, Ass Jack, Lucky Tubb @Jerky’s, Grow, Gravity Works

Saturday — @AS220, Idiot Vehicle, The Paper Chase, Exiles @The Penalty Box, Mark Cutler and Friends @Firehouse 13, The Stress, The Void Union, Sarah Borello @The Blackstone, Six Star General, Chris Evil and the Taints, Coma Coma, The Inclined

Sunday — @AS220, Roz Raskin and the Ricecakes, Slow Drive, Classical High Band @Machines With Magnets, Alec K. Redfearn and the Seizures, Reverse Mouth, Michael Thomas Jackson, Big Blood

[Message to local bands: Put some action shots up on your myspace pages. Don't be boring.BC]

I can’t say I was actually a fan of much he did after the age of fourteen or so.  This one gets me every time, though, and obviously he was hugely inspirational to millions of people with warmer hearts than mine:

(TMZ/the entirety of Twitter is reporting this.  The LA Times and CNN are both still waiting for a formal announcement, though obviously it’s not looking good.)

UPDATE: It’s true.

As previously noted, last night was the final installment of LOADED, the Britpop-heavy night at Local 121 that Eric’s been co-DJ-ing for the past two years or so.  Despite the fact that I’m downtown a lot on Tuesdays and also am probably the only person in this city besides Eric to fully appreciate Menswe@r, I only ever got down there a couple times.  Last night I was lucky enough to dance my patootie off one last time, though, and boy oh boy if I wasn’t thrilled to publicly rock out to one of my all-time favorite songs, Rod Stewart’s Maggie May.*

But, in honor of the fact that the British sounds of the nineties are slowly fading from memory now, here’s the Blur version, which was a b-side to their Chemical World single back in 1993.  I actually like it about the same as the original, which is to say a whole lot.

(*Okay, I know Rod Stewart is kind of the worst thing ever these days, but he really did have a couple of good singles back before he got all old-farty.  This one, for instance, and Young Turks.  And, um, I don’t know… Maybe there were some others.)

In celebration of the exciting new Transformers flick coming out tomorrow (or at midnight, if you’re awesome like me) dig this bad ass track and video by Maja.

You can follow my dorky thoughts on the Transformers franchise all week over at Bread and Roses.

Ada Books owner, Brent Legault, invites you to hear words spoken by Brian Shawn Oakley, Eric Paul, Melanie Hayze and Robert M. O’Brien.  Also experience some music by Drew Swinburne. It’ll be fun.

$5, 4pm, Ada Books, 717 Westminster Street

Long-time readers of this blog know that while I often like pop music made by teenagers, I’m also very particular about it. Last year, the organizers of Rhode Island Pride decided to spend God knows how much of their relentlessly fundraised money acquiring Tiffany, the mall enthusiast who had a couple of hits in 1987 that sounded mildly tolerable then but which are completely unlistenable today to anyone over the age of maybe nine. (A friend of mine pointed out the fact that her appearance wouldn’t have been nearly as awful had she actually played inside the mall, as opposed to just across the street from it, and I’m inclined to agree.)

This year, in a story I kind of announced before they did, they’ve decided to up the ante by bringing in Deborah Gibson. Gibson, known in her Reagan-era heydey as Debbie, was a teen singer superior to Tiffany in several regards. Namely, Gibson wrote her own songs, and more importantly those songs weren’t terrible. She was the youngest person to ever write, produce and perform a number one single, and to this day nobody’s beaten that record. Also, the Pixies have a song about her, which automatically makes her cooler. (I mean, it’s a b-side, and it’s the only Pixies song that David Lovering ever sang, but still.) And then there was Electric Youth perfume, which many of my friends claim to have sworn by and which is somehow still allegedly for sale.

She’ll be performing tomorrow at 7:45 in Station Park, according the Pride Guide (which is worth picking up mainly if you’ve ever wanted to see employees of LaSalle Pizzeria wearing see-through underpants.) Though the show’s right across from the State House I’m guessing that Governor Carcieri, who should probably be back from his appearance on The 700 Club by then, will probably not be making an appearance.

After the jump, a quick little journey through her hits: more »

Friday — @AS220, special event: Men (members of Le Tigre and Ginger Brooks Takahashi from LTTR), Triangle Forest, and Tinsel Teeth @Firehouse 13, Brokedown Serenade, Anderson Family Picnic, The Gambees @Lupo’s, RI Pride event: Deborah Cox Live! (as opposed to…?)

Saturday — @Penalty Box, Car Tune Heroes @Firehouse 13, Knowlton Walsh vs. DJ 11:11, Sacred Objects, Lucibel Crater, Ming Toro @The Blackstone, Beantown Boozehounds w/the McGunks @AS220, special event:Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Titus Andronicus

Sunday — @Firehouse 13, Fathers Day Special, Midnight Creeps, M.O.T.O., The Viennagram @AS220, Josh Netsky, Hannah Devine, and the Ghost of Otis

You know how the other day I was complaining about how the Bangles are underrated and too fondly remembered for one of their weakest songs?  Well, it’s true, but you know who’s even more underrated and even more often remembered for one of their weakest songs?

Berlin.

Berlin are awesome, and if you think otherwise then you have mold in your ears.  Though they were pooh-poohed in the early eighties as a Blondie knockoff, singer Terri Nunn and pop mastermind John Crawford nevertheless made whole bunch of really awesome singles in the early part of that decade, starting with the attention-grabbing “Sex (I’m A…)”  Even better, though, are “The Metro” and “Masquerade,” both of which appear on the same fabulously trashy and New Wavey Pleasure Victim EP.  [Note: A couple of years ago I dressed up as a Pleasure Victim for Halloween, THAT'S HOW GOOD THIS RECORD IS.]
more »

Look who got a mention in today’s New York Times!  “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin” by the Low Anthem was a selection for this week’s Critics’ Choice; new CD’s. Happiest with the down tempo cuts, Jon Pareles writes

. . . the quieter the music gets, in an elegy like “To Ohio” or a conditional reassurance like “(Don’t) Tremble,” the more its music inhabits its own otherworldly place, where ghosts and angels hover just out of view.

Congratulations, and thank you Low Anthem, for getting Providence mentioned in the national media for something other than . . . you know.

Uggh.  It’s five AM and I’m wide awake. Not because I’ve been out on a raging bender (I haven’t), but because some drunk jackass thought it would be a good idea to stand in the middle of the street yelling “WOOOOOOOO!” over and over at 3:30 AM.  That, and I fell asleep watching the channel that only shows Tony Petrarca on an endless loop, and then when the WOOOOO! man woke me up I got totally sucked into the Doppler 12000 and now my chances of a good night’s rest are slim to none.

Anyway. That doesn’t concern you.  But I thought I’d take this opportunity, if people were going to be WOOOOOO!-ing a lot, to at least present something worth WOOOOOO!-ing about.  So here’s Mpho, my new girlfriend, with her debut single Box N Locks.  I’ve been playing it more or less constantly for about three weeks now, and I’m officially declaring it a Really Hot Summer Jam.  Only time will tell whether this will be the sort of Really Hot Summer Jam that’s wonderfully inescapable or the kind that’s a summer jam to me and me alone, though realistically I’m guessing it’s going to be the latter.  I’m not sure Americans are quite ready for black female pop singers whose first names start with three consonants.

The sample, if you were curious, is Martha and the Muffins’ Echo Beach, which only happens to be one of my favorite songs ever more »

Friday — @The Blackstone, the ‘Mericans, The Wrong Reasons, Annie Bacon @AS220,Father Murphy (di Torino! Ciao!) Israel M, Blevin Blectum (she plays Scrabble sometimes), and Shawn Greenlee @Firehouse 13, Black Tree Burn, Worth the Weight, Semester Abroad, Big Tall Buildings, Mile @Lupo’s, A Faylene Sky, The Intel, Scare Don’t Fear, Acerose @Jerky’s, Someday Providence, Ballyhoo, The B Foundation, For The Love of Sloane

Saturday —@AS220,Bogus Trizzy, Shryne, With All Due Respect, and Black Tree Burn @The Blackstone, Route .44, VulGarrity, Milquetoast and Co. @Machines With Magnets, Made In Mexico, These Are Powers, Javelin, Grass Widow, Querent, and Cathy Cathodic (see below)

Sunday — @The Blackstone, Fish Out Of Water @Jerky’s Battle of the Bands, including Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes (go Roz)

Monday — @AS220,White Mice, Coathangers, and Science for the People

The nominations are in for the annual Providence Phoenix Best Music Poll. Congratulations to Daily Dose editor Eric Smith, bass player for the ‘mericans [sic] one of six bands vying for ‘Best Local Act’. (And by the way, Eric kills on bass.) The most interesting category may be ‘Male Vocalist/National’ where Morrissey goes head-to-head with Auto-Tune, and Antony Hegarty has officially been declared a man. There are both national and local categories, with an opportunity to write in your own choice. Balloting ends June 26 and the winners are announced July 31.

Aarrgggh — this is tonight already. I would have to get dressed all over again. Could happen. Thank you Jim Macnie of The Phoenix for bringing this gal to my attention. Speaking of girls who rock (Matthew, this one’s from Norway!) Ida Maria is already getting it done with a raspy-catchy voice and she even plays the guitar. I’ve only just sampled a little here, but it’s peppy and poppy and loud-sounding. The Danger Room and For What It’s Worth open.

8pm, $9.95, Thursday, Jerky’s, 71 Richmond Street, 621.2244

I’m not sure what the calculus is, but we got some people downtown tonight who might explain all this. Tallahassee, Cabinet of Curiosities and Son Cats perform tonight at AS220. Tallahassee’s influences include ‘Woodie Guthrie, Doc Watson . . . themes like trains, love, drunkeness, and cities around the United States.’ Hey, we’re a city.

$6, 9:30pm,Tuesday, AS220, 115 Empire Street