Bang!Bang! - The Knux
New Band Alert
Boys Life - Apache
In Your Headphones - Dressy Bessy
Symptomatic - Hank IV
To say that Poison Arrows vocalist Tuk Smith has matured since his days spent jamming on plasticine punk chords with his former band the Heart Attacks isn't quite accurate, but he is more focused these days. The same can be said for the rest of the fashionable young lads who make up Poison Arrows; Mikey Portwood (bass), Joey O'Brien (drums) and Josh Hitson (guitar).
The budding glam punk crew finds former Heart Attacks cohorts Smith and Portwood exhibiting the benefits of digesting a broad swath of rock 'n' roll history that began in the 1950s and comes to a screeching halt somewhere in Britain circa 1975. Trace elements of Nick Lowe, Cheap Trick, the Boys, and Slade bare a distinct mark on the group's strutting guitars and sneering pop songwriting. Portwood decrees that he doesn't want to be thought of as a record collector band, but Smith chimes in to the contrary. "I don't want to make the same mistakes the Heart Attacks made," he says. "I don't want to be thought of as a little kid band. I would like to take it to another level where we actually write good songs and play good songs. To me the Heart Attacks were a gimmick band. I was 19 and we were crazy."
Tired of Fighting - Menahan Street Band
I've been pretty amazed by the variety and quality that the loose group of New York musicians affiliated with the Desco/Daptone Records juggernaut has maintained over the past decade, combining funk, Afrobeat, and hard soul. Flagship band the Dap-Kings have enhanced the already considerable appeal of singer Sharon Jones to the point that they're headlining the Vic with her on Thursday (it wasn't so long ago that they were playing the Double Door), and their members have also turned up in various combinations backing Amy Winehouse, Al Green, and Lily Allen, among others. Other label-affiliated groups, some of which predate the Dap-Kings, include the Daktaris, Antibalas, the Soul Providers, the Sugarman 3, and the Budos Band.
Didn't I? - Darondo
The House Under the Hill - The Finches
Palms are pretty much the same band as the Finches, only with a different name. Confused? Me too! Carolyn Pennypacker-Riggs is still the main singer, but she's joined by a bunch of new folks (including Dear Nora's Katy Davidson), all of whom are listed as being in the Finches as well.
For this show, they're joined by Personal & the Pizzas, a semi-local outfit that plays the kind of '70s punk that flirted with power-pop and didn't get it's ass kicked (see Milk 'n' Cookies, Hubble Bubble).
Les Hormones, Personal & the PIzzas, Wild Thing @ Hemlock Tavern on Saturday, November 29; doors 9:30 p.m., tickets $5.