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Smitt E. Smitty, Parlour Bells, Once, Cambridge, MA June 30, 2018
It was a glamorous night at Once. The Smitt E. Smitty Band made their stage debut. Smitty, the Fez’ed one with the big, blue, vintage car drums checked off a bucket list item, stepped out from behind the kit and took the mic. Live, he took what could have been a vanity project, injected a shot of twisted lyric Modern Guy humor and politics into a double handful of originals and ran it through a crackerjack band to get the party rolling. Smitty augmented his conversational vocals with two shimmy shimmy backup singers Linda Bean Pardee and Joellen Saunders Yannis and the man in the beard (Sam Avola). Jim Melanson and Eddie Nowick kept the riffs snappy with Nowick throwing in small doses of his high wire guitar. Danny Lee on drums reminded us of what a great job he does back there! The set had a new wavey early 80’s sheen. For the finale, the drums, and a trio of additional tom toms up front wove Bow Wow Wow’s "Candy" hook into a rip through Bowie’s "Panic in Detroit". Candy is tossed to the crowd.
Goddamn Glenn brings his Parlor Bells to the stage to play much of their still new Waylaid in the Melee disk. The twin guitar lineup brings more muscle to the mix - the riff on Celebrities on Ice. Glen has a supple, theatrical voice with deep roots in Bowie’s low-end croon. He makes good use of a contrasting, octave-leaping falsetto on the excellent "You Don’t Wear the Dress, The Dress Wears You". He takes his politics for a vaguely Latin groove on "Sanctuary Cities". A song like "Wetware" is unlikely to catch the ears hard rockers but, if you're susceptible, it will pull you in.
Gene Dante and the Future Starlets had a successful a run at the Rumble about ten years ago. They also dig in the glamorous Velvet Goldmine. Like Glen in Parlour Bells, Dante is at the center of the Future Starlets' surge. The songs are full of big hooks and earworms. The solos are short, give the tune a bump, and they’re gone. The songs explore the ups and downs of love, lust, and longing with a keen eye for a clever couplet or all but irresistible hook - "The Love Letter is Dead". GD and the FS’s have wit and flair to spare. And that's before you get to the kiss-offs and feather boas.
BGN has a collective band crush on The Gala. The band's sense of glamour is more shambolic than what preceded. Lead singer Emily Doran caterwalls and contorts from start to finish. She’s a shaman whirling around the bonfire exorcising every demon; yours, mine, hers. Her antics draw you toward the fire. She pulls you in and pushes you back. The band pours on kerosene. Justin Perilli is a carney lost in the wood with a monster bass and his pounding partner Todd Sampson. Chris Kenneally and Rebecca Frank add static and swirl. Doran's arms are akimbo. She is all elbows and knees flying and falling to the floor. The fire explodes and crashes again and again. Layers disappear. If we were outside in the woods, everything would be howling.
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