Hot Local Bands
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Our annual list of buzz-worthy bands can never keep up with all the great acts rocking Boston. But we can drop another batch of 10 diverse groups that deserve your attention.
Bad Rabbits
 Photo Credit: Jesse Burke
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Talk about pulling a perfect trick out of the hat. Bad Rabbits have been recording their debut album in L.A. with producer Teddy Riley, originator of New Jack Swing, the late ’80s/early ’90s hybrid of dance-pop, hip-hop and R&B that inspired the hard-slamming band.
“It’s a dream come true,” drummer Sheel Davé says, noting Riley (who worked with Bobby Brown, Michael Jackson, and his own groups Guy and Blackstreet) is fastidious with details to nail the right sounds. “The first couple of days, we were like kids in school.”
The Riley hookup came through online-streetwear force Karmaloop, which branched into music by distributing the group’s EP Stick Up Kids for free. “People who never would’ve heard our music got an opportunity to hear it,” guitarist Salim Akram says.
The two-year-old Rabbits, which also feature singer Dua Boakye, guitarist Santi Araujo and bassist Graham Masser, are hoping Riley can kick them to a level that eluded their previous outfit, the Eclectic Collective. “It was almost too eclectic,” Akram says of that 10-piece ensemble with sax and turntables.
The leaner, meaner Bad Rabbits aren’t for passive listening, reflecting hard-rock influences like the Deftones and At the Drive-In. “We want people to have fun,” Akram says. “We’re out here bugging out, doing our thing, having a blast. Why the hell are you standing there with your hands on your pocket?”
Watch video of our photo shoot with Bad Rabbits at the Lenox Hotel!
Magic Magic
 Photo Credit: John Annett
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Magic and witches may go together, but Magic Magic isn’t from Salem—despite press reports that say so. “That’sbeen a long-shrouded mystery,” says guitarist Brendan Hughes, who suggests the mistake was perpetuated after a London Times review cited Salem before home fans even knew the band. “Are we spooky?”
If not spooky, the Dedham group’s music is certainly haunting. It suggests the influence of the Jeff Buckley Band, as much for the quintet’s textural dynamics (undercut by two drummers) as for singer/guitarist John Murphy’s tempered yet charismatic lead.
“We like loud stuff that can also quiet down,” Hughes says. “It’s definitely more aggressive live. I’ve always liked when bands have very distinct recording sounds, and when you see them live, it’s not always clean and nice-sounding, but intense.”
The four-year-old group nails both ends of the spectrum, even though Murphy, bassist Nick Serra, and drummers Mike Hlady and Dylan Gough only recently passed the drinking age. Magic Magic has also grown prolific, recently pressing two new records to follow its 2008 debut. One was made at a Chelsea studio, the other banged out in the band’s Norwood rehearsal space. Both convey a mature, atmospheric spell that’s hard to pigeonhole.
U.K. management had helped Magic Magic land early gigs overseas, but Hughes says it’s harder to tour the U.S. without a record label. “It was almost like we traveled to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean to get some attention over here, which is funny,” he says. “For the most part, it’s been do-it-yourself.”
The David Wax Museum
Missouri native David Wax fell in love with Mexican folk music during summers as a rural-development volunteer south of the border. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, Wax returned to the country on a fellowship to research the music.
But there’s nothing academic about his songs with the David Wax Museum, a Mexo-Americana combo that blends son jarocho with folk-rock influences such as Bob Dylan, Uncle Tupelo and Wilco. “It would seem foreign for us to make something that isn’t folk music for everyone,” says Wax, adding of the Mexican element, “A lot of people don’t even realize that’s what is going on in the music. It’s just something fun and upbeat and catchy.”
The singer switches between his acoustic guitar and the Mexican jarana, while fiddler Suz Slezak also plays a donkey jawbone, which has rows of loose teeth to rub or shake. They supplement their duo with his accordion- and piano-playing cousin Jordan Wax, along with Mike Roberts, Jiro Kokubu and Alec Spiegelman, all on a mix of instruments. They’ll rotate the cast in a Tuesday night August residency at the Lizard Lounge, on the heels of a fan-voted appearance at the Newport Folk Festival.
The band’s 2009 album Carpenter Bird was a gem of rare beauty, and Wax is excited about follow-up Everything Is Saved, recorded in Maine with producer Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Erin McKeown) and due in early 2011. “The thread [between styles] is a lot clearer,” he says. “It conveys our live excitement.”
Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents
 Photo Credit: Beth Oram
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Since she was a kid, Jen D’Angora had a thing for girl groups: Motown-styled acts where three singers flowed in choreography. But when D’Angora thought about starting one as an alternative to her other bands (garage institution the Downbeat 5 and disbanded punk-pop vehicle the Dents), no players came to mind. Plus, she adds, “I definitely didn’t know any girls in that scene who’d get up there and do moves.”
However, she found her first backup singer in younger sister Beka, who shared in childhood dance routines in Plymouth. And when D’Angora spoke with her bassist husband, Ed Valauskas (the Gentlemen, Gravel Pit), the rest fell into place. Valauskas had just played with rock veteran Tony Goddess (the Rudds, Papa Fritas), whose wife, Samantha, even filled out the vocal front line.
“This thing has taken off like a rocket,” says D’Angora, who wrote 11 songs on the octet’s debut Keeping Time. It includes a cover of the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action,” which graced a 7-inch in Spain that led to a headlining tour of the country.
Not that she’s keen about wearing matching dresses and tights each night. “That part kinda sucks actually,” D’Angora says. “You have to look the part.”
Movers & Shakers
 Photo Credit: Maggie Cassidy
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Many bands have dreamed of recording in a remote, rustic shack. Movers & Shakers went ahead and did it, searching online rentals for a Maine hunting cabin. That’s where they recorded the majority of their new album Larrabee, which is named after the shack’s owners.
“You have to drive on a dirt road for 15 minutes to get to this cabin,” singer/guitarist Matt Price says. “It definitely helped with staying focused and believing in what we’re doing.”
The results speak for themselves on the album, a raw but rich slice of American-styled rock that nods to the Replacements as well as to the Band. Price grew up in Mansfield as a punk-rock fan with bassist Dan Wallace, though the two later moved to Austin, Texas, to absorb the textures and emotions of roots music.
“I still like punk-rock music, but I’d definitely be bored if we were still playing stuff that straightforward,” he says. “But that still shows as part of our live shows, with the energy.”
The group has also been energized with the arrival of drummer Reid Calkin (ex-Protokoll) and guitarist Marc Valois, Price’s foil as an alternate singer/songwriter. “We kinda push each other,” Price says of Valois, who, along with Calkin is a fellow Middle East employee. “We’d hang out and play guitar and listen to music.… I wanted him in the band for a long time before he was actually in the band.”
Bearstronaut
 Photo Credit: Ali Lipman
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Dave Martineau was literally in the closet when he recorded his vocals for Bearstronaut’s 2009 debut Broken Handclaps. “It was definitely comfortable,” Martineau says of that spot in the band’s shared Lowell apartment. “I was just singing into my clothes.”
Now the group’s built a recording space in the apartment, which they’ve used in addition to professional studios for a new EP due this fall. They’ve already released “Shannon,” a synth-wound track about a dance-floor pickup, as a free download.
“Your first album, you’re trying to find your sound, and the [new] songs are little more cohesive,” the singer/guitarist says. “I’d hope a listener would maybe say, ‘That sounds like Bearstronaut.’”
After all, he only formed the band two years ago with fellow UMass/Lowell students Paul Lamontagne (guitar, keyboards), Phil Boisvert (bass, keyboards) and Luke Steere (drums), bonding over danceable rock like Daft Punk, Talking Heads and the Killers.
“We all are very interested in technology and the ever-expanding world of synths and PCs and DJ programs,” Martineau says. “But we do try to keep an even keel. We’re still a rock band.”
Bodega Girls
 Photo Credit: Peter Frey & Andrea Martin Photo
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“We’re the least serious people you’ll ever meet,” Evan “EvRock” Kenney says of Bodega Girls, a colorful electro-popcollective whose musical in-jokes draw flocks of hipsters.
The chorus to the group’s flagship hit “She’s Into Black Guys” features a reference to Cambridge club the Western Front. “A lot of the songs are based on people we know and their experiences,” the singer says. And “We Are Losers” calls out scenesters by name, for what he describes as “an anthem for our recession friends who are looking at their lives and trying to figure their shit out.”
Kenney, once of art-punk band Read Yellow, did the same thing with roots-rock scion Jake Brennan, and opted for a fun change of pace. They asked two Puerto Rican girls at a New York bodega to “show us what’s cool around town,” Kenny says, and after a night of crashing hip-hop clubs and loft parties, “We decided to create a whole act that was in dedication to those girls.”
The act has grown to incorporate MC Mac from Big Digits, bassist Jay Cannava and singer Carmen O’Connor, who still works as a cocktail waitress at the Middlesex Lounge, where Bodega Girls’ party nights are legendary. “The Middlesex gives us the forum to do whatever we want,” Kenney says. “We really don’t plan much in this band. We kind of let it move itself.”
Viva Viva
 Photo Credit: Nolan Gawron
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With two divergent songwriters and a chaotic blues-rock glide shared through sporadic gigs, Viva Viva may not seem like the most stable band. But it’s a relationship that somehow works.
“This is like a life thing for all of us,” bassist Dan Burke says. “This is the band we’re going to be in until someone croaks or loses their fingers or something.”
It’s been three years since Dave Vicini, who fronted the Lot Six alongside Burke, moved into a Jamaica Plain house with singer/guitarist Chris Warren from Officer May. The pair spent long nights recording on four-track. “They would get together over whiskey and whatever else and just crank out tunes,” Burke says.
The songwriters have complementary personalities—Warren more prolific and diligent, Vicini more raw and free-wheeling—but they found common ground in the Kinks and ’70s Stones. “It’s basically like a push and pull,” Burke says of the band, rounded out by drummer Dominic Mariano and keyboardist Fumika Kato.
Viva Viva’s debut album, only available online, is finally set for release this fall on the new Fort Point Recordings. “Aspirations for success is a very subjective thing in music, especially nowadays,” Burke says. “Success is having freedom.”
Mighty Tiny
 Photo Credit: Seth Brown
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The twisted world of Mighty Tiny extends from its music to the Venetian masks that members sport onstage. “Everyone in the band wants to make their own character and stage presence, and the masks definitely influence that,” Matt Tompkins says. “If we can get away with [masks], we can get away with a lot of musical oddities as well.”
Tompkins and fellow singer/songwriter Max Rose formed the band at Berklee two years ago and began layering the eccentricities. The two guitarists often slap their guitar strings in a rhythmic convulsion recalling Primus bassist Les Claypool (who has donned similar masks live), while violinist Amy Alvey and accordionist Kana Zink provide Gypsy-esque icing that nods to Gogol Bordello, whose “Start Wearing Purple” the band has covered on occasion.
But the sextet, filled out by bassist Dave Pezzano and drummer Noah Appel, also conveys songwriting chops that stand apart from many Boston bands. Influenced by dark lyricists like Tom Waits and Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, Tompkins and Rose trade songs about a beheaded suitor and a little girl lost in a well where a would-be rescuer returns “missing most of his skin.”
“We try to maintain a level of satire,” Tompkins says of the group, which has released a self-made EP named Eat People and aims to expand its audience through diverse club bills. “Even though we’re kooky and insane, we can appeal to a lot of different people. We end up with a strange demographic.”
The Main Drag
Drummer John Drake remembers a show last summer where 300 people came out to see the Main Drag—in Calgary. Apparently someone knew the group from playing Rock Band 2 and told the booker.
“It was word of mouth, like MySpace and iTunes,” says Drake, who (conveniently) works for game creator Harmonix, along with other members of the group. “Rock Band has a really powerful reach to where rock bands can’t go themselves.”
Luckily, the Main Drag gets around—and produces intoxicating indie-pop CDs like this year’s You Are Underwater. But the game link can’t be ignored. “We were worried about being labeled as just a video-game band,” he says. “But who cares why music fans start listening as long as they’re listening.”
The Main Drag began several years ago as more of a folk-pop outfit, but increasingly developed a synthetic approach with remaining members Drake, bassist Dan Cardinal, singer Matt Boch and fellow multi-instrumentalist Jon Carter. “The process always has been that someone writes a sketch of a full song and people contribute parts to it,” Drake says. “And by the time we’re finished, it’s all chopped and screwed and completely different.”
The group is also converting songs into game files to sell as add-on content through the Rock Band Network. So does the band write its musical parts with gamers in mind? “It plays into our creative process,” he says, “though it’s not the sole driver.”
