Word: lavolta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Music provides Tarver with a way to express these contradictory backgrounds. Tarver describes Bullet LaVolta's music as somewhere between rock and punk, but "not hardcore"--somewhere between Boston underground music and the traditional rock music he listened to in high school. The five-person band avoids the standard Harvard band track of covers, playing only original compositions. Bullet LaVolta consists of a mix of Harvard students and local musicians. They may not make as much money as other Harvard bands, Tarver says, but they have developed their own style and gained a respected position in the Boston music world...
...band's first gig last year, in the Adams House dining hall, captured Tarver's Harvard student and Boston musician identities. Full-time punks, local musicans, and Harvard's own punks-by-night-history-majors-by-day stood side by side to listen to Bullet LaVolta. Hundreds of students, local skatepunks, and die-hard Boston scenesters slam-danced beneath the portraits of John Adams. Outside on Mt. Auburn Street, crowds of fans in combat boots gathered to cool off between sets...
...first contact with this genre of music occurred in the basement of an apartment building in Central Square. Performing in the band members' home gave the show an authentic personal quality lacking in stadium rock shows. It emphasized audience participation, instead of isolating rock star from fan. Bullet LaVolta's performance in Adams House had much the same effect, Logue recalls...
...listen to this cut would be enough to dispel all your reservations as well as whatever wax has built up in your ears.) Although their songwriting was not always consistent and they occasionally leaned towards camp, as in the really slow and fast "Because You're Mine," the Bullet LaVolta set came through with the power of a late Sixties Led Zep club gig, wrenched by twenty more years of frustration and anger...
...spectacle was tough to follow, but Lemonheads' leaner, more straightforward attack held its own. Lemonheads cross catchy pop melodies with premium-fueled rockabilly riffs of the type Billy Zoom used to spew out with X. Although their simpler and more familiar sound suffered a bit in comparison with Bullet Lavolta's complexity, Lemonheads came across live as a pop bard with serious balls. A particular delight was "I Don't Wanna," an infectious single which could easily be played on WBCN but which never gave the impression of sucking up to the mainstream (for more on Lemonheads, see the review...