Let’s see… they are known as one of the biggest party bands on the circuit, their biggest hit is called “BEER!”, and they are playing Southbridge’s Mill Street Brews this Friday, May 10.
Don’t think we need a crystal ball to guess how this evening will turn out.
“Yeah, if the beers are good, we’re in trouble,” admits Psychostick six-stringer Josh Key. “We love trying newer regional and local microbrews if the venue has them, but it’s also hard to resist Samuel Adams in Massachusetts.”
Upping the chaos quotient exponentially are Our Tour Can Beat Up Your Tour tourmates Left Hand Backwards, Words Once Lived By, Fuel of War, Apollos Resurrection and Conquer The Clouds.
While the members of Psychostick are known for giving birth to a genre they call “humorcore,” Key is quick to note that the laughs are well-crafted—a distinction that has enabled them to steer clear of the full-blown “novelty act” tag in a decade-plus career.
“We start with what the song is about, and we intuitively write music that makes sense for the subject matter, and we take the music very seriously,” he explains. “If we didn’t, people wouldn’t realize that we choose to do this! We’ve always been painfully aware of this. That’s why I learned to be an audio engineer for this band, to make sure that the production quality was there. While the humorous aspects set us apart, we find it very important to bring the goods musically, performance- and production-wise.”
Tickets for this 18-plus show are $10, doors open at 7 p.m. For more info on the show or venue, kindly point your browser to millstreetbrews.com.
In other news, your friendly neighborhood Crawler checked in with former scene staple Matt Hebert, who was just beaming, ready to talk about his latest studio effort, Until You Glow In The Dark.
“I’m recording it at Public Hi-Fi, which is a studio owned by Jim Eno of Spoon,” he revealed. “It’s almost wrapped, and it has a definite theme in that almost all of the songs were written days after losing a friend or family member. That said, it’s not so much down as a celebration, and has a lot of remembering lyrically.”
Tim Regan of the band Oh No Oh My is producing the sonic labor of love.
Although Hebert himself cannot confirm the exact date Glow will be available for mass consumption, he does know that he has a live Easthampton Co-Op show inked on June 2 and a Mocha Maya’s engagement in Shelburne with Fancy Trash on the books for June 4.
Moving on to the summer calendar proper, several more industry heavyweights have signed on for area engagements. On Tuesday, July 10, an Idol-less Steven Tyler will work on his “other job”—fronting Boston bad boys Aerosmith—at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. Over at Hartford’s Comcast Theatre that same evening, alt-icons Alice In Chains, Jane’s Addiction and Coheed and Cambria will hold court as part of the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival. Tix range from $175-$300 on the former, $19 (lawn) through $79 on the latter.
Also making a stop on the Connecticut casino circuit are Black Sabbath, complete with original frontman/madman Ozzy Osbourne. The heavy metal heroes are scheduled to perform at the Mohegan Sun Aug. 8, previewing material from their highly anticipated studio release 12 (in stores June 11).
Tix for that one are $69, $99 and $139, depending on your proximity.
Last but not least, leave it to Ray Guillemette Jr. and his Ray of Elvis productions to offer a ray of hope to area Mother’s Day gift purchasing procrastinators. The Valley’s premier King clone is serving up a special Mother’s Day kickoff dinner show at The Cedars on Island Pond Road in Springfield this Friday, May 10. The event includes prime rib, blackened scrod, salad, dessert, coffee and the vocal stylings of Sinatra sound-alike Patrick Tobin as well.
Tix are $20 each with a special sweetheart deal worked in for the guest of honor. Book a table for eight by calling (413) 737-7896 and mom and a guest go for free.•
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or email garycarra@aol.com.
