When I was a young 20something with slightly more hair, my first editor at the Gazette welcomed me to my new job by opening her desk drawer. Inside was a mess of locally produced cassettes and CDs, with handwritten and typed letters from area bands. She looked at the pile, looked at me, and said something to the effect of, “Help.”
This was the early ’90s, when people penned actual letters (with actual pens) and Valley bands contacted the paper directly, saying hello, sharing their music, eager for coverage. It still happens, but rarely. There’s no jam-packed drawer anymore, just a dusty file, usually empty, on top of a cabinet. The email account gets a little more action, but it doesn’t regularly runneth over with messages from local musicians.
Where are all the bands hiding? In plain sight on websites like Bandcamp, which has made it easy to post (and sell) one’s entire oeuvre, along with photos, liner notes, artwork and tour dates. The phone app is fun to search, and it’s mind-blowing to find an underground network of neighborhood artists, quietly creating and sharing music. Here are some of the new-to-me local sounds I found.
Thee Arcadians has a fluid lineup that swirls around the core of vocalist/guitarist Ian Arcadian, bassist Niko Lapinski and drummer Hart Russman. It was one of the show-stealing bands at last week’s “Transperformance” at Look Park in Florence, ripping up the stage in a raggedy magnificent performance as The Replacements. The group captured that band’s ramshackle thrash and Paul Westerberg’s gargling, phlegmy wail; the power-punk energy woke up the late-afternoon crowd and had other musicians backstage beaming and cheering.
One year ago, Thee Arcadians released its debut studio album, “We’ve Come for Your Parents,” recorded and mixed by Sonelab engineer Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr, Thurston Moore, Parquet Courts). Highlights include the fast-galloping poppy roar of “MCIII” (with backing vocals caught between a coo and a snotty nyah-nyah) and “A Grrrl Like You,” which blasts by in less than two minutes and mixes a heavy riff with a shimmy-inducing beach-blanket-bingo beat. The band currently has a new album in the works at Sonelab, with Pizzoferrato returning behind the board.
Searching around Northampton’s online landscape, I discovered a mysterious musical entity known only as Sweat Enzo. His latest release is the “Manatee County” EP, a stripped-down collection of vocal/piano songs, recorded in Florida last year and released in May. The simplicity and jazzier chords in Sweat Enzo’s songs were refreshing; the recording’s homey quality made it feel as if I were listening in on a friend playing just for himself. Songs like “Manatee” and “Ape Man” employ a wistful soft shuffle, like the early work of Todd Rundgren and Laura Nyro.
The band’s completely different self-titled EP from last fall is full of short and sweet shambolic guitar pop. “Twenty Six West St” shows a J Mascis influence, though the chords get fruitier (more like something from Hypnolovewheel’s “Space Mountain” album). Sure enough Mascis shows up in the band’s list of inspirations, alongside Peter Holsapple of The dB’s, George Strait, Meat Puppets, Juliana Hatfield, Willie Nelson and others.
Nicky Flowers is a Northampton-based creator of electronic music, with a new single out just last month called “Real Talk.” It’s computerized dance funk, and when the main melody comes in, it makes some mischievous left turns. “Harpsdischord” is part of a single released last summer, and it skips along and bleeps like a drunk Nintendo game, moving through a few memorable zones during its short run time. And speaking of Nintendo, another memorable Nicky Flowers jam is a remix of the music from the video game company’s Wii Shop Channel, taking the original loungey samba and giving it a fun funk strut.
Lost Film is the project of Easthampton-based vocalist/guitarist Jimmy Hewitt. He’s had a prolific year, having released two dreamy, jangly indie-pop singles and a lower-fidelity drum machine-powered EP called “Temporary,” where all four tracks have gentle charm (“Closer” is my current favorite). In addition to crafting low-key textured guitar-pop, Hewitt has a love of cool packaging: the song “Silver Keys” was available on a hand-numbered lathe-cut square 7” single, made-to-order (and now totally sold out), and his 2015 album, “Imago,” came out on a snazzy limited-edition goldenrod yellow cassette — and at press time, of the 100 made, only 1 remains. Grab it before it’s gone.
For more information on these local artists, find them all at bandcamp.com.
Ken Maiuri can be reached at clublandcolumn@gmail.com