ON THE SCENE! With my assistant Megan

Hello, my name is Megan Van Deest. I am executive assistant and office specialist for Councilman Reeves Sinderman, who is filling for Councilman Sherman Larson this month (I was also recently hired by Biff Romney as Treasurer for the Mishipeshans For Mitt Romney campaign steering committee, which is also temporarily located here in the 3rd Ward, in Councilman Larson's residence, in fact).

The regular author of this feature, Marisha Ferguson, seems to be busy with her duties (such as they are) around the neighborhood, so Councilman Sinderman has asked me to write this feature for the week. I haven't seen Marisha around much, but I hope she knows that she is welcome around Romney HQ. We certainly don't hold it against her that she is a member of the ACLU or a bisexual. The Romney campaign welcomes people of all backgrounds in our fight for a stronger America. After all, the Romney Brothers are a diverse bunch of guys themselves, and remember that they grew up in Boston, which is almost as liberal as Armitage Heights.

My area of expertise is in International Politics and Political Theory, particularly in regards to the work of Leo Strauss and Irving Kristol. So please forgive me if I don't quite have the same beat on the local music scene that Marisha does. I spent my college years generally away from the music scene at Vassar, so I've missed out on these sorts of things. I remember back in Poughkeepsie there was a band at one of the downtown clubs we used to see once in awhile. They did a few very good Nelly Furtado covers.

But there seem to be a lot of bands here, although many of them seem obscene or inflammatory in a way that doesn't reflect well on this neighborhood. I mean, I am no prude myself. I love all kinds of music, from hip-hop to country, but I feel uncomfortable with the idea of using a City Council blog as a platform for privileged, angry middle-class liberals to mouth off about societal forces they don't have a real understanding of. Therefore, I have elected not to post show information by bands like the October Revolutionists, who are named for Marxists anyway.

I haven't been to any concerts since I've been home, but maybe I'll check a few of these out:

The Rockers for Romney benefit will be held at Cliff's Tavern this Friday evening at 6703 Kendall Parkway near State Highway 82. I know that's a little out of the way from the 3rd Ward proper, but well worth the drive. HedRush, Galaxxxy and Linger will be performing, beginning at 8:30 P.M., and concluding by 11:00 P.M.

HedRush will also be performing here in Armitage Heights at Spike's Gaslight Pub, located at 5200 Stanton Avenue South. I have been very impressed with their demo tape. It's very cool.

I hope this helps you plan for the weekend.

ON THE SCENE! With my assistant Marisha: break-up edition.

Hi everyone, Marisha here.

I've been really busy trying to get my master's thesis together for my defense next semester, so I haven't been out to many shows lately. Sherman has been cutting articles out of Rolling Stone and Alternative Press about the neighborhood scene, though, and he says there's lots of momentum we need to capitalize on. That's probably true, but I was also thinking this might be a good time to think about some of the notable bands around town that have called it quits in the last year. I'll write more later about some going-on around town, but some my favorite groups have split recently, and I'd like to devote some space to remembering them.


Dance punk duo Spelling and Usage, who the Free Press once described as making "dance music so post-ironic it actually seems to twist back around into irony, stops for a cigarette, and then ducks back out again into post-irony," broke up in March after the release of their first album, this year's We Love Electroclash. In a press release, they attributed their break-up to being "bored." Keyboardist Aaron Kaplansky will still be spinning Thursday nights at the Lakesider. Keyboardist Sean Hall will continue to work at the Armitage Heights Co-Op on Stanton Avenue.


Beloved pop foursome Christmas Island didn't break up, per se, but have decided to relocate from here to Brooklyn, New York pending their signing to the legendary Kill Rock Stars record label. So we'll miss them -- they were certainly on their way to becoming big stars around here. Sherman unsuccessfully attempted to convince Mayor Underdahl to donate one of a number of old warehouses in the Cassock District to the band to use for tax-free rehearsal and living space in hopes of retaining them as Armitage Heights residents, arguing that their presence here was a "non-negotiable economic and cultural necessity." Of course, this plan didn't materialize, and Christmas Island is off to the east coast to strike it big. So good luck in Brooklyn, guys!


The Family of Birds, led by the singer known only as "Marianne" (above), charmed audiences with such lo-fi, shambling acoustic odes to nature, love and magic as "O Mr. Wind, Why Do You Blow So Very Hard?" and "All Of The Trees In The Woods," and were infamous for their gentle mid-show crying sessions. They recently announced, unfortunately, that they are too shy to continue performing live. The loss to our local musical scene is incalculable.

Other notable break-ups this year included The New System, This Island Earth, Camp Crook, The Census Bureau, He's A Bodybuilder Too!, The Tzimmes, State Pension, The Artinian Module ("indefinite hiatus" owing to lead guitarist Erik Shriner's acceptance to Brigham Young University), The Skin Game, Mobido Diakité, Liquid Candy and the Going Steadies, The Capris, "yacht rock" revivalists The Millionaire Billionaires, Cross Country Meet (not to be confused with the similarly-named Armitage Heights-based indie four-piece Cross Country, who just opened for the October Revolutionists on their last West Coast tour), Servant in Heaven, Toyo Carp, Wihinapa emo heart-throbs Small Things Cast Large Shadows, The Astronomiques, Mirror Dinghy, The Amritsar Massacre, Silver March, The Franklin W. Dixons, The Handsome Xenologists, Commons Club, Wolf Siege, Third Swamp Reserve, and ye-ye-core faves Murder A La Mod. They will all be missed.

ON THE SCENE! With my assistant Marisha.

Hi everyone, it's me, Sherman's assistant Marisha. It's been pretty busy here on the Armitage Heights music "scene" (love those parentheses), but truthfully, I haven't been to as many shows recently as I might have. I'm serving on the new novelist laureate committee, plus I'm trying to wrap up my thesis at the University for next semester. And other things have been going on, as well.

If you want, I've set up a MySpace page at www.myspace.com/assistantmarisha. There's not much there yet, but I'll flesh it out when I have a chance. You can send me information there about any upcoming shows, albums, music news or anything else. Please note that this isn't my private MySpace profile. My private MySpace profile isn't viewable by the public at large at this time.

Anyway, the biggest news lately is the October Revolutionists have signed with Capitol Records, who will be putting out their new record next month. The Revs were also featured on the cover of SPIN Magazine this month, who called their new album "a fascinating melange of old-time genre music and late-model hipster cynicism," so everyone's pretty excited about that. Personally, I think their new work is more cynical than good, and it's a really tired formula that they've been flaying for a long time -- ooh, here's a reference to a Victorian book, sung like Gordon Gano over a bunch of accordians and glockenspiels. But, who am I to say anything. If you look at the comments from yesterday, the legendarily cranky novelist Kimball Burin put it rather pithily, even though I wish Sherman wouldn't approve every insane comment that floats by. Particularly when it's about me, which all of them seem to be lately.

Regardless, that's the news. There's some good shows coming up, including the Red Queen Principle at the Lakesider Tavern this Friday, local noise-rockers the Gold Journal are playing a record release show for their new album We Study Magical Destruction at Don's Liquors on Saturday, and finally, you can see Société Nationale play with the Four-Chambered Heart and Frost Creep next Tuesday at Spike's. All of those bands are pretty good, except for one, but Sherman asked me to stop saying "non-positive" things about local bands. So you'll have to go see for yourself which one I mean. I think it will be pretty obvious -- the answer will probably sneak up on you in the cold, so to speak.

New feature! "ON THE SCENCE!"

Hi everyone.

My name is Marisha Ferguson. You may know me better as Sherman's assistant. I do a lot of the paperwork and research around here, as well as doing some freelance design work, a little acting and generally attempting to finish up my masters degree in urban planning and women's studies at the University of Mishipeshu. Anyway, Councilman Larson saw an article mentioning some of the recent activity in our neighborhood's music scene in The New York Times Sunday Arts section this weekend, and he got kind of excited -- you can read the whole thing through this link.

He asked me if I wanted to write a little feature for the blog every once in awhile about what he loves to call "the rock scene" in the neighborhood. In his words, "keep people appraised of what's rockin' where, and where's rockin' when, who's rockin' with whom, and what not." I said sure, because I like going out to shows and there are some good bands around these days.

Of course, there's probably better resources than the 3rd Ward councilman's blog for information about upcoming shows, but I digress.

Anyway, the Times article dealt mostly with the scene up around the north end of Armitage Avenue in the old Cassock District, you know, where the Lakesider used to be. The article says:

The hipsters are all in agreement that Silver Lake is the new Williamsburg, which means Chicago's Wicker Park is coming up as the new Silver Lake. That makes Austin, Texas the new Wicker Park, Echo Park is the new Austin, Hoboken is the new Echo Park, and both Chapel Hill and Armitage Heights are making definite inroads into being the new Hoboken, if Chapel Hill can break free from its perceived image as the new Mission District, which most older scenesters still think of as the old pre-"new Williamsburg" Silver Lake.

The article goes on to cite some our great local bands, such as I Promise To See You Die And I Will, the October Revolutionists, Witness to the Thunder, My Other Car is a Robot, Hell Is Other People, the Do-Overs, Teenage Law Student, Fear Death By Water, the Architects of Fear, Klaxon!, and the Upper Voltas.

All those bands are pretty good. So be sure to check them out. Klaxon! and Teenage Law Student are playing this Saturday at Spike's, so that'll be a good one.

Other than that, I should probably point out that although the Upper Voltas were indeed great, they sort of broke up last month -- Andy, the bassist, ended up leaving the band to replace Chuck in Witness to the Thunder because their original bassist Nick moved to New York, so the other guys in the Upper Voltas decided to just change their name to the Anna Kournikovas, and I hear Tom, who used to play in The Dream of Horses, might be joining on keyboards. Remember The Dream of Horses? They were pretty good. They were at the Lakesider all the time.

Anyway, on that note, here's a list of bands that have broken up in the last few months: A Factory on the Moon, the Boutonnieres, Phillips Cycles, Sepak Takraw, the Song Dynasty, National Trust, the Truants, Randy Scouse Git, Super Team Spirit & the Color Line, %!*@ (good riddance, too, I told them it was stupid to a.) name a band after a Beetle Bailey reference, and b.) not even have it be pronounceable), the Atari Jaguars, International Circle, and the Stoics. So good luck to all those people in their new projects.

And I suppose that's all the news in the world of the "rock scene."

Take care,
Marisha