Boston's Best Bands

This blog is intended to be a snapshot of living in the Boston area and a snapshot of our lives. One of the most important things for me is music. I've played bass since 1996 (jeez...13 years?) and I love live music. One of the reasons we moved here is the local music scene. Over the past year and a half, we've seen a lot of local bands. Here are 5 of our favorites (that we've seen). Note: we first saw all of these bands at Church. This is a great bar in the Fenway area that has live music every night.

1. Anarchy ClubLike White Zombie ran into Bruce Lee in a dark alley, Anarchy Club is the brain child of Keith Smith and Adam von Buhler. They're famous for appearing in Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, Rock Band and Rock Band 2 (Keith works for Harmonix, the company that created those games). Best songs: Hidden by Blue, Kill for You, Behind the Mask, Get Clean.

2. That Handsome Devil
There's truly no way to describe That Handsome Devil. They're part rock, lounge, hip-hop, bluegrass...jeez...just listen to them. Best songs: Squares, Rob the Prez-o-dent, Viva Discordia, Elephant Bones

3. The Lights Out
Absolutely perfect Alternative Rock music. I think they're the best song writers in the area. Best Songs: Anything on Heist!.

4. Death of the Cool
Great electronic-rock band. They put on an amazing show. See 'em live to hear their covers of Next to You by the Police and Mr. Fix-It by The Amazing Royal Crowns. Best songs: Can't Let Go, and a whole bunch more that I don't know the name of :)

5. Red Red Rockit
Great classic rock band. Seriously tight three-piece group. I've never seen a bass player that can play like he does while singing. Seriously amazing. Best songs: I Got a Woman, Goodbye Hello.

Jill's probably going to be pissed that her favorite band didn't make this list. But she didn't write it...so :P

We'll revisit this topic in the near future with 5 more great bands in Boston. Until then, check these bands out and know that there are more to come.

The Walt Disney TIMESHARE? or What will you go through just to poop?

I'm throwing out this weekend's best story first just to get this blog started in the right direction.

This story begins at the Harpoon Brewery in South Boston. We had planned on visiting the brewery for its tour on Saturday, but arrived to find out that all the day's tours were sold out. We were assured that we could get a tour on Sunday and that they started at 11:30 AM. So, being the dedicated alcoholics that we are, we shook off the hangover and ventured to the brewery at 12:30 expecting to get right in and start our drinking.

On a side note, Harpoon has the best tour, hands down. They take you around the brewery for 30 minutes and then open the bar to taste as many beers as you want for another half hour. They even throw in a souvenir glass. All this for $5!! We're going to start our saturdays here a lot more often.

So, with our scarred livers in tow, we arrive at Harpoon, only to find out that the earliest tour that we could go on was 2:00. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal. But you try to kill an hour and a half on the waterfront of South Boston. I dare ya. You can go hang out at the Bank of America Pavillion....or....well there's not much there. It's mostly warehouses. Sure, you could walk in to downtown, but by the time you get there, you would have to turn right back around to make it back in time for the tour. So instead, we dicked around in a park for a while, until I got a certain urge. Let's just say that the previous night's booze was knocking at the backdoor. I HAD to poop. We happened to be across the street from the World Trade Center, so I thought it was worth a shot. I mean...it's a public building...they have to have crappers, right? If only I knew what was waiting for me behind that door.

We were greeted at the entrance by a grown, overweight man wearing Mickey Mouse ears and one big Mickey Mouse glove...no matter where that guy tells you to go, you follow him. Seriously. If he made it out of his mom's basement, you have to give him respect. He asked us if we were there for the Disney vacation event. Of course we said yes and he led us in. I looked frantically around the main lobby only to not see a single shithouse in sight. But we did see another person with a matching glove and ear set. She told us to go up an escalator and that someone up there would guide us the rest of the way.

Let me just take this time to point out how bad of an idea this obviously was. If I ever see anyone with a single glove on and no golf club in hand, I'm running in the opposite direction.

So, we get to the top of the escalator and we're told to cross a pavillion. STILL NO SHITTERS! So after going through the labyrinthine building and passing at least 5 more glove wearing weirdos, we near our final destination. The Disney Dream Vacation presentation. And guess what else....a pot to call my own...

Finally being relieved of my load, it dawned on me that we got in....but how in the hell are we going to get out??? That, and we were so goddamned curious about this presentation...how could we leave without taking a peek?

All the signs said the presentation was by invite only....the whole way to the final destination. Every glove wearer asked us if we were there for the presentation. We had no way of leaving, and no way of getting in. However, we found out that they were happy to let us in....and why wouldn't a timeshare presentation want extra people? You read that right. The Disney Dream Vacation presentation was being run by the Disney Vacation Club....aka the Disney Timeshare!!! We were each given a small remote and a bag that held a folder containing a pen, a tablet, a form to fill out for the "raffle" and a few pamphlets on the Disney ripoff club. We ventured into the auditorium when right in front of us, there appeared a man who looked like Jiminy Cricket meets Elton John's gayer cousin. He was in a shiny silver suit and when he saw us behind him, he looked at the 20-somethings with nothing but pure shame in his eyes. And rightfully so. What we witnessed next defies explanation. Imagine the most stereotypical Disney character from 30 years ago in real life. He was making up words and generally hamming it up to the point where I was embarassed for him. He left the stage because his calculateamonatron....or something like that.....was "malfunctioning". In place of him, 4 technicians....who just happened to be 2 guys and 2 girls.....appeared on stage to fix the machine. Only to break into a capella versions of numerous Disney songs. If that didn't make me want to kill myself, the act that followed them sure did....the slimeball timeshare salesmen.

After hearing the beginning of their pitch, we realized that it was 1:30 and we needed to leave. That's right...we had to leave a timeshare presentation........so...what do three college educated people decide to do? Say that our friend Wes's "wife" was in labor at Mass General and book it the hell out of there. Guess what? It worked!!! We left that place with giving them nothing but a raffle card from Phil McCracken at 123 Fake Street. We ran from that place and avoided as many of the single gloved douchebags as possible. But we couldn't avoid them all. Whenever we got near one, I would start mumbling about how we knew this was going to happen....as soon as we get in this presentation, we were going to get the call, etc.

Fortunately, this is where the story ends. We got drunk. We had fun. And we will never forget about the Disney Timeshare that almost was ours....:D