Word: dippers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...into the classroom. At Boston's Josiah Quincy School, Pat Keohane's first- graders play an animated game of hangman, filling in seven blanks that form the word cumulus. In Pittsburgh local Meteorologist Brian Sussman creates mini-planetariums for fifth-graders by piercing the shape of the Big Dipper on the bottom of plastic cups. In a fifth-grade classroom at the Hillside School in Needham, Mass., students think up celestial similes: trees become the "roots of the sky"; sunlight is "butter pouring through a hole"; clouds are savored as "marshmallows." When children look skyward for lessons and inspiration...
...Bears--Snakefinger, Big Dipper, Scanner Darkley...
Well, the trio has proved me wrong--twice. Peter Prescott, of course, reformed Volcano Suns into one of Boston's best and most experimental bands. And the other two members of that primitive trio (guitarist Gary Waleik and bassist Steve Michener) have formed Big Dipper, a group with more obvious roots and less fervor for weird than Volcano Suns, but on the same track nonetheless...
While the general thrust behind the Suns seems to be an investigation of how little structure a song can have and still be a song, Big Dipper insert their bursts of oddity within relatively normal frameworks. All the songs on Dipper's debut EP, Boo-Boo, are vaguely recognizable forms of straight rock and roll, country or pop balladry. "Faith Healer," for example is a conventional rock tune made interesting by a contorted and bizarre riff, seemingly some sort of comment on the TV preacher of the title...
While Big Dipper could be a lot tighter--the rhythm section nearly falls apart during "San Quentin"--Boo-Boo is a worthwhile debut. Nothing on this disk is as immediately startling as Volcano Suns' "White Elephant," but then again this EP is a lot easier to listen to than the Suns' All Night Lotus Party. For those who like musical roots mixed in with sonic radicalism, Boo-Boo by Big Dipper is Boston's next big thing...