Let's Roque!

Last night was a school night and yet, I had to make a pilgrimage to my old stomping grounds in Somerville. The Upper Crust were playing Precinct and if you know The Upper Crust, you know they don't play out all that often. I'll spare you too much hyperbole except to say that if 18th century aristocrats playing Bon Scott era AC/DC style tunes(Lord Bendover sounds a lot like Scott)is your thing, then you owe it to yourself to check them out.

For the record...they killed and are also funny as hell.

Tales of infrequent sessions and new tunes.

There are supposed to be waves tomorrow. Please let there be waves tomorrow.

My last decent session was a couple of weeks ago at the local. The forecast looked promising. I got there to find Tony and another dude, Carl standing there not looking happy. A few minutes later a couple of other cars pulled up and everyone had this, "Damn." look on their faces. It was small. Ideas about heading to NH were tossed around and then a collective "Fuck it." was thrown out there and we all went in. At first, it was as advertised. Not much power, micronic stuff. Suddenly it got better. Not "all time" better but knee to thigh, long clean rides better. I rode the Sam for the second time and at first was cursing the fact that I didn't have the pig with me. When it got better, though, I found out what the Sam can do on a clean wave and it was awesome. Really fun climbs and drops. High line trim to bottom turn to cut back and back again. I can't wait to run it back out there again.

Tunes.

You like power pop? I like power pop. I've liked it ever since I discovered Cheap Trick in my elementary school friend Danny's, older sister Paulie's album collection.

I saw Gentleman Jesse and his Men a few years back when they opened for King Khan and the Shrines. I hadn't heard them before and they were really good. I was outside along with one of the guitar players and was complimenting him on the set. I believe I dropped the "Power Pop" thing on him and he cringed a little. My response? "Hey man, there's nothing wrong with that."

In the midst of all my music purchases, Gentleman Jesse kept getting missed and then I bought an iphone recently and was looking to add to the tunes on it. What had I been neglecting that wasn't easy to find on cd? That's right, Gentleman Jesse's first album. Think The Nerves, Nick Lowe, Paul Collins Beat, Elvis Costello, hell a bit of the late great Exploding Hearts. They're not re-inventing the wheel here but it's good rock and roll. Now I'm going to have to pick up the second album.

Dig it.