Guitars, Drums, Tones, and Saxophones

The Please & Thank Yous - Mind Your P's and Q's

Chicago has spawned a whole damn lot of great bands. Screeching Weasel, Naked Raygun, Slapstick and every band that its members went on to play in (Alkaline Trio, Lawrence Arms, etc.), plus many others. So it’s a musical city with a great scene. So when I hear of a promising new band from Chicago, I get stoked. And when I hear that their album will be coming out on the venerable Death to False Hope Records, I get doubly so. And it is with that in mind that I couldn’t wait to sit down with the debut full-length from Chicago’s The Please and Thank Yous.

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Mixtapes - Maps

Mixtapes are a band out of Ohio, who will be sharing their debut album, Maps, with the world via Death to False Hope Records. DTFH, if you don’t know, is a donation-based label that, like Jeff Rosenstock’s Quote-Unquote Records, posts all of its releases online for your free downloading pleasure. They tend to put out awesome material, and Mixtapes are another strong band that backs up that reputation for quality.

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Harvey Danger - Little By Little

So several months ago, I had the pleasure of catching a show on Harvey Danger’s farewell tour, (documented here) which I thoroughly enjoyed. On my way out of the venue, I stopped by the merch booth because, well, this would be my last chance, right? I picked up their last studio album, Little By Little, on vinyl because that’s how I roll.

This album is a solid argument that this band should have been way bigger than they were.

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Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/xraphiex/

So here we are, wrapping up twenty-aught-nine, and once again, Boston’s own ska-core heroes The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are throwing their annual (minus some years in there) Hometown Throwdown. HTTD XII took place at Boston’s House of Blues for the first three nights, and wrapped up with a final show at the Middle East downstairs. And now the boys are playing in support of the recently-released Pin Points & Gin Joints. With a pair of reunions opening (Darkbuster on night 2, and Bim Skala Bim on night 3), this Throwdown certainly ranks up with the best that the ‘Tones have played.

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The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Pin Points & Gin Joints

2009 closes out with a new release from one of my all-time favorite bands, the one and only Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Boston’s plaid-clad crew returned from hiatus in late 2007 to bring a handful of new songs (on the b-side compilation Medium Rare) and play another of their legendary end-of-year stands, the Hometown Throwdown. Now, we have an 14 all-new (15 if you bought the vinyl) songs from the boys. The songs they’ve released so far post-hiatus have been solid. How does this stack up to their impressive catalog?

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Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20's

Wow. Where has this band been all my life? I’m so behind on this one; I’d been hearing about Cheap Girls for a while, be it on Punknews.org comments or various message boards, but utterly failed to check them out. And now I’m regretting it, because I could have listened to this album so much more in the last few months. Had I but known! Thankfully, I rectified that mistake, and have come here to help you all do the same.

If you’re not aware of the band, here’s the breakdown: Cheap Girls is a 3-piece from Lansing, MI. They’re currently signed to Paper + Plastick, who released My Roaring 20’s. This album is the follow-up to their 2008 debut, Find Me a Drink Home.

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Teenage Bottlerocket - They Came From the Shadows

Teenage Bottlerocket, hailing from Laramie, Wyoming, are the current standard-bearers for Ramones-core pop-punk. There’s pretty much no band out there who does it quite as well as these four guys. And now they’ve been signed to punk juggernaut, Fat Wreck Chords.

Happily, the jump from Red Scare to Fat hasn’t really impacted the band’s sound at all, at least not negatively. They sound tight as ever here, cranking out 2-3 minute pop-punk anthems left and right. “Skate or Die” delves a bit into skatepunk territory, as would befit such a song, and showcases perhaps a bit more bravado in the lyrics than the band’s previously been known for. This comes to a head in “Bigger Than KISS,” where the band boasts- tongue, one assumes, firmly planted in cheek- that they’re “gonna go down in history as world’s greatest rock ‘n roll band.” Great song, perhaps unless you’re a diehard KISS fan. Who can’t chuckle at the closing line “Ray beat the piss/outta Peter Criss/Now we’re bigger than KISS?”

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Cobra Skulls - American Rubicon

Nevada’s own Cobra Skulls are back, with a new full-length in 2009. Sitting Army was a fantastic effort, and has come to be one of my favorites of the past few years. Can the lightning strike twice? Especially on a 17-song album, in which only one song title contains the words “Cobra” or “Skull?” (“I Used to Like Them Better When They Put ‘Cobra’ In the Titles,” a roughly 30 second instrumental)

Well, the album winds up with “Time and Pressure,” and after a slow intro, the song is a quick-paced punk number that seems like a logical extension to the Sitting Army material. So far so good!

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The Toasters ft. Coolie Ranx

This past Saturday, the Ska is Dead! tour found itself, once again, at Showcase Live! in Foxboro, MA. For those familiar with the Boston area, we who live in Boston find this annoyingly out of the way. I’m spoiled, as I can bike to the Middle East in about 10 minutes. So driving 45 minutes to a show is pretty much something I moved to Boston in order to not have to do anymore.

But I digress.

The line-up this year was:

• The Boston Jolly Pirates
• The Brunt of It
• Hub City Stompers
• Deal’s Gone Bad
• Pilfers
• Voodoo Glow Skulls
• The Toasters
• Mustard Plug

Solid line-up, and a person into the ska scene would probably find little to complain about here. I didn’t, anyway.

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Nothington - Roads, Bridges, & Ruins

So here we are again with Nothington. Jay Northington, ex-Tsunami Bomb, leads his new band through a new album, and let me tell you right now, it’s a winner. If you liked All In, you should already have this album and have played it many, many times. And if you didn’t like All In, don’t fret; there’s a lot here that’s improved from its already excellent predecessor.

There’s no sophomore slump here; the band rips it up, and steps up the game from All In in an immediately noticeable way. Clocking in at 33 minutes, the band uses every second of that running time to its benefit, making these 10 songs all distinct, yet cohesive, and of course, catchy as all get out.

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