Tonight's flights - Margaret Glaspy EP release at Passim | Doctors Fox + New Beard at the Milky Way
Tonight on Cambridge (my side of the river), folk singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy will be celebrating the release of her debut EP, If & When, up at Club Passim. Folk is a pretty big bucket these days (always was, I guess), but Glasby has a unique skill set that sets her apart from a huge pack and makes her record worth repeated listens. I'll give you a hint--it has a lot to do with that studied guitar-playing of hers.
Merrily, Inbound Sounds is happy to give away a pair of tickets to the first enterprising reader to respond to my friend Scott Pollack via his email by 7PM.
Down yonder in Jamaica Plain, the most excellent Doctors Fox will be presenting their Broolyn-based friends, New Beard at the Milky Way. New Beard generate a sound spectacle that I predict will be as fun to describe as is to listen to--but don't take my word for it...because I just might not have the words.
Glaspy was a resident of Boston from 2007-2010 following a cup of coffee at Berklee. Also an accomplished fiddle player, the singer/songwriter gained a foothold for herself at Club Passim before moving off to her current home in New York.
Although Glaspy's preferred style of singing is in the syllable-chewing, somewhat feral Karen Dalton (via Joanna Newsom) vernacular that has become vogue of late, she does some pretty magical stuff with her guitar--which she uses as the bare accompaniment for her tracks. "My guitar is a Harmony Stratotone Jupiter from 1961 and I always run it through a tube amp," says Glaspy via email. "The magic is in those harmony pickups!"
Listen to how she paces and bends the guitar on "Who Said." The percussive, dark-purple, almost banjo-like tone that she gets is pretty magical. The EP just gets better. Counterpoint and thoughtfulness abound.
New Beard dare you to watch the video for their song, "Doom." Suffice to say that this is nuts. The singing alone is pretty sweet, but watch/listen as orchestral and rock instruments fly around (a lithe tuba--believe it!) in cohesive little sandstorms of pop movements, leaving a trail of happy feelings in their wake. A major lead-guitar v. viola battle goes down, while shimmering tamborine and a festive handclaps egg everything on. Unless you're incredibly prescient, you should have no idea what that means until you watch below.
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Margaret Glasby
Club Passim
Thursday, 1/31
8PM, 18+, $10-$12
Doctors Fox + New Beard
The Milky Way
in The Brewery Complex in Jamaica Plain
Thursday, Jan/31
9:30pm, 21+, $5
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About the author
Jonathan Donaldson is a Boston-based musician, writer, and second-generation music junkie. An Ohio native who moved to Boston in 1998, Jonathan's musical loves include R&B, psych, punk, bubblegum, country, electronic, More »Recent blog posts
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