Boy With a Fish

Rongovian Embassy, Trumansburg, NY......

My then-girlfiend, now-wife and I were visiting Ithaca and were happy to see that Boy with a Fish was playing at the Rongo.

The Rongo was a bar and music venue that everyone I knew went to while I was at Ithaca College in the 1980s--except me. I had never been to a show there, so I was glad to go to a locally legendary space that had some sporadic closures over the years. (It has since closed permanently.)

Boy With a Fish was a side project by members of the band The Horseflies during a hiatus period for them. I had heard their 2004 Birds Fly Backwards album and had played the song "Sometimes" a little on WYEP.

We had a fun time at their show and I had a chance to chat a little with Jeff and Judy from the band. There was also a band called Hubcap on the bill, but I don't think we saw them. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Michelle Shocked, Michael Penn, Erin McKeown, Assembly of Dust, David Poe

Allegheny Landing Park, Pittsburgh, PA....   The WYEP Summer Music Festival   In Brief: The only old song Shocked played was "Anchorage"--everything else was new. But unlike many performers who are heavy on their latest material, she was so dynamic that no one seemed to mind. Erin McKeown sat in on guitar for about 4 songs. There were some technical troubles during Penn's set, but he still played well. "Long Way Down" was interrupted halfway through ("I'd like to soldier on," Penn explained when he stopped the number, "But it's hard to sing if I can't hear the guitar"), but I'm so glad he played it. He closed with "Walter Reed," one of my favorites of the new record.
Read more

Catherine Wheel, Geneva, Feline

Image
Tradewinds, Sea Bright, NJ..... Catherine Wheel exploded onto the music world in 1992 with a 7-minute rock opus called "Black Metallic." This song synthesized the dance-rock of the Stone Roses, the moody riffing of Sisters of Mercy, and the simplified indie coarseness of the Jesus & Mary Chain into one epic expression of loosely-opaque lyrics. Its effect was anthemic on the alt-rock crowd, still reeling in the months after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has dashed previous anthems to splinters. The band recognized the power of returning to full volume after its 90-second breakdown section, which stripped everything down to drums plus a little lead guitar and vocal noodling. The crashing conclusion of this breakdown was the song's secret weapon, the stunning amendment to the dance-rock Constitution put forth by the Stone Roses and ultimately the missing ingredient to "Fools Gold." I never had a chance to see the band live during the years immediately fol...
Read more