The Motion Sick is Boston’s Best Local Band! We are psyched to congratulate z=z friends and faves The Motion Sick on being the Boston Phoenix Best of ’09 Reader’s Pick – “nerd meets quirk meets Steampunk meets pop meets Kurt Vonnegut.” What more excuse do you need to go check them out? MP3: The Motion […]
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Coverage: The Motion Sick at Influenza
January 28, 2009Tomorrow night (Thursday, January 29) is the premiere of “Influenza,” a new Boston-based monthly show that features local artists playing a mix of their original material and covers of songs that influenced them (hence the title). I think this is a great idea – one of the things that makes it a little tough to […]
Listen local: The Motion Sick
August 23, 2008Boston’s The Motion Sick are doing a residency at Church, playing every Wednesday night in August. Every night has a different theme; last Wednesday was the superhero-themed “Flash Wednesday,” and they were supported by zed equals zee faves Electric Laser People (playing—and costumed as—”Michael Phelps and the Defenders of Freedom”). For each night of the […]
z=z at Tourfilter Night, Thurs Sept 16
September 15, 2010Cambridge! Somerville! Boston! Allston Rock City! Late notice, but I’m guest DJing at Tourfilter‘s monthly residency at River Gods, just outside Central Square, Cambridge this week: Thursday, September 16th, and the festivities start at 9 pm. Same drill as last time: my playlist is composed entirely of songs from artists with shows lined up for […]
Thinking about playlists
September 5, 2010I love playlists. I live and die by them, and make new ones almost daily. My car doesn’t have an MP3 input and I have a daily commute, so a good chunk of my music listening is in the form of burned CDs—de facto sub-75-min playlists. And I realize it’s antediluvian, but I still trade […]
Tourfilter Night playlist (April 15)
April 16, 2010As promised, here’s a full playlist from last night’s set for Tourfilter Night at River Gods, in Cambridge, MA. Unsurprisingly, local and Canadian bands are overrepresented – I’ve flagged the local bands with a red asterisk, but you’re on your own for spotting the Canucks. Hyperlinked song titles takes you to free MP3 downloads. I […]
Listen local: art rock vs Americana edition
April 3, 2010Today in Boston: Two great bands (in two completely different genres). Two CD release parties. Two different venues. At exactly the same time. The horror. What’s worse, members of both bands are friends of mine (and frequent commenters here at z=z). Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is duo Sophia Cacciola and Michael Epstein […]
Live music and risk
December 17, 2009Live music, especially in small venues, is about taking risks. And not everyone is comfortable with that. A couple of months ago, I went with a friend to see The Killers play at the TD Garden in Boston. It was the first arena show I’d been to in many years, and what I was most […]
What does ‘selling out’ mean, anyway?
November 17, 2009Three recent perspectives on artists licensing their songs to big companies. The end of selling out. A predictably trite blog post in Newsweek about the ‘sudden shift’ to fans not really caring if songs get used in commercials. What does it say about our culture? Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney, wrote a post for NPR which […]
In heavy rotation at zed equals zee
October 19, 2009Some music, mostly local, that’s getting a lot of listens here at zed equals zee headquarters. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (pictured): Boston music power-couple Sophia Cacciola and Michael Epstein (also of The Motion Sick) are Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, currently working on a Prisoner-themed EP. I went to their […]
This weekend in live music: z=z picks
October 2, 2009This is a killer weekend for live music in Cambridge, at least in the z=z worldview. Friday: Montreal’s Besnard Lakes are headlining at TT the Bear’s, and a lineup of bands including Kingsley Flood are playing a free (as in beer) show at Sally O’Brien’s in Somerville. Saturday: Double-plus-good bill tonight – first up is […]
There’s no place like home
August 5, 2009Zed equals zee is back in 02139, hurrah! Postings will be light this week, thanks to Verizon deciding they need an entire week to turn the phone service on in my apartment, but I’m psyched to return to a bunch of zed equals zee local faves doing live shows. Tomorrow night (Thursday, August 6th), The […]
….aaaand, we’re back! (kind of)
July 24, 2009Apologies to our loyal readers – zed equals zee‘s crack blogging team got kind of hammered by work responsibilities (and I am now increasingly in awe of Michael Epstein of The Motion Sick). We won’t be back to our full schedule until August, but we will be posting over the coming week as z=z headquarters […]
It’s rumbling time!
April 5, 2009If you’re in Boston, this is a great week to check out lots of great live music, as it’s the 31st Annual WBCN Rock’n’Roll Rumble, a battle-of-the-bands style competition in which four acts do short sets each night. In typical Boston underdog fashion, there’s said to be a curse on the winners and the losers […]
♬.ws: music search engine for Twitter
March 10, 2009There’s a new music-related-service for Twitter, ♬.ws. The basic premise is that you can enter the name of a band, and you’ll get a page with info on the band, a listing of relevant tweets, and links to iTunes, Amazon MP3s, and Musebin (a website of one-line music reviews and, not incidentally, the creators of […]
The Bloodsugars at All-Asia on Feb 7
February 5, 2009Brooklyn-based The Bloodsugars are doing a show at the All-Asia in Cambridge on Saturday night (February 7). Man, there’s all these great East Coast bands that aren’t making it out to the West Coast. If you’re on the right side of the country, go check out The Bloodsugars sweet indie pop. While they are presumably […]
Welcome Diesel Sweeties fans!
October 14, 2008(portrait by rstevens, of course) zed equals zee is a site about indie music. I focus on local music, mostly in Boston and Seattle (about). Occasionally, it gets a little scholarly, sometimes it’s historical, and sometimes it’s just plain fun. Scroll down for some recent additions. Some posts that DS fans might particularly like: The music […]
This week in live music: z=z picks
August 26, 2009Winding down the summer with another great week in 02139. Tonight – Wednesday, August 26th – Ryan’s Smashing Life presents a great-looking lineup at the Middle East Upstairs, with Larcenist, Static of the Gods, The Shondes and Ian Adams. Full details at RSL, including lots of pictures and songs to download. On Thursday night, we’ll […]
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