Vintage Math Rock: Boston 1990's - early 2000's

First of all this article is a sort of a lead in to an article that will be up soon but also a continuation of this "Math Rock Mystery" in it we sort of unearthed a forgotten group from the Boston area called "Pizza". In the following I will be covering a great web of artists that are all interconnected with this group..follow me.
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PIZZA
active 1999 - 2001
Members included:
Dan McCarthy (drums)
Justin Joyce (Guitar)
Fin Moore (guitar)
Scott Buoncristiano (bass)

So for the sake of the article we are going to start with these guys (ps click the band name for a link to a video or in this case the album download...hosted by the way by the groups drummer) Any who I've been in contact with Fin from the group who had this to say about the groups formative beginings.

"The early songs were written acoustically by Moore( Diamond Nights, Robots) and Joyce while standing on the coffee table at 40 Gordon st. Allston ma.(the painted lady) from late summer to the end of fall of 1999 at which point it was decided to introduce an electric sound. McCarthy(Helms, Dagobah, Challenger) filled the position on drums while Scott B (Challenger, Intendo) bused up once a week from cap cod to operate the bass."

"Scott and Justin came up with the name pizza i think because it was sharp, catchy and had humor attached to it. The band was very short lived, it seemed like the second it took off and people gained interest it lost fuel and deteriorated."

Fin Moore

Hmm so in other words it looks as though there are a few other groups mentioned here lets dig a little deeper...

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DAGOBAH

active: mid 1990's

Members Included:

Paul Joyce (bass, vocals)
John McWilliams (guitar, vocals)
Dan McCarthy (drums)

Killer group that has a sort of updated Rodan/Slint feel with the speed and calculations of math rock. With a little digging you can find several albums from this three piece. It's worth noting also a familiar last name up there...yep Joyce. Paul is Justin Joyce's (Pizza) brother.

ripping it up live...  

something remarkable about this is its just Dan and Paul playing...

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HELMS

active 1997

Members Included:

Tina McCarthy BASS(maiden name Helms..) husband of....
Sean McCarthy (guitar/vocals)

Dan McCarthy (drums).

So basically as Dagobah was ending for Dan, Tina and Sean's band had lost there drummer thus the three formed Helms. A much more mellow group than the previous...think hypnotic post-rock, great drums and spoken word. 

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  Challenger 
 active 1997-1998
 Members Include:
 Dan McCarthy (drums)
 Scott Buoncristiano (bass)
 Paul Joyce (guitar)

So by now your begining to see the trend I'm getting at all of these bands feature Dan on drums and its easy to see that he is an incredibly versatile drummer with some varying styles being repped. Challenger is my favorite of the bunch for a few reasons. One, this albums feels just as urgent and fresh as anything today except it was written in 1997. Now you go find me some math from that time and compare..theres honest to god not much that can compare. granted this was re-mastered which could have helped in this but these songs are incredible. Here we see Paul stepping away from bass and front and center.

Also worth noting is Paul Joyce was also the bassist in the seminal math rock group Lynx with now Battles axe slinger Dave Konopka. Hows this? well Lynx was very much a Boston group before they packed their bags and moved to the Chicago area. 

Hope you fine folks enjoyed the history lesson and found some new groups to look into from the past. Thanks as well to Fin Moore for reaching out and giving me some perspective on his role with Pizza.

Next up?
My mini- interview with Scott Buoncristiano:
 

"Pizza vs Don Caballero".....?!?!

 

Stay Tuned :)

 

Ghosts of Sailors at Sea - The Skeleton Coast (2013)

We've got a few PoS members from the Boston area so its not uncommon for us to cover music from the area more so than others. Im usually last to the party but lately I've been tirelessly researching 90's math rock based in Boston for a doozy of a post coming up and I ran across a current group I am highly enjoying.  

Ghosts of Sailors at Sea are like a torrent of instrumental math but never too off the wall. What hits me right off the bat is those dual guitars laying down some incredibly tight riffs. Its certainly rocking all the way through and never lets up not even for a moment. Transitions? seemless. Now thats the mark of a truly great math rock group.

Ghosts of Sailors at Sea

Math Rock Mystery (SOLVED!)

So this is kind of an interesting post as we had a reader with a very specific question for us the other day.
You see our interested party had an album that had been given to him by his girlfriend....math rock in nature...that had become one his favorite math albums.  Unfortunately...there were no track titles, nor album title and only the supposed name of the band, PIZZA.

The PoS team and myself feverishly began searching the interwebs for any and all information concerning to no avail. However it wasn't until a reader from the wonderful math rock reddit page suggested that it may in fact be a group briefly mentioned in Don Caballero's final tour diary.

As it turns out upon checking in deeper it was indeed that same group. Pizza hailed from Boston in the early 2000's and is said to have played in Tuxedo's and utilized a wireless guitar system to be able to play outside the venue. This is unconfirmed as the information on this group is scarce at best. One thing is for sure though is that they are best known as the group forbidden to play during Don Cab's show in Boston. (if you want the full story read the diary above..its worth it) As during Don Cab's set members of the audience actually threw real pizza at Damon Che and company.

It should also be noted that Scott Buoncristiano of Pizza would go on with a former member of Lynx and others to create the group Challenger. Also another incredible math rock group very much worth your time.

I feel like its incredibly important to keep people informed as much about the new music coming out as well about the older groups that have paved the way. Pizza is a pretty excellent group especially for the time and certainly have that classic math rock sound.

History lesson over :)
Below is a direct link to Pizza's self-titled as well two live albums
PIZZA

Koala - TL;DR (2013)

The actual title of this release is "We are Like the Spider. We Weave our Lives and then Move Along in it. We are Like the Dreamer. Who Dreams and then Lives in the Dream."  This is a most unfortunate title.  Egregiously long titles are pretty hard to pull off, especially when the intention doesn't appear to be humor.

Koala plays a pretty ambitious brand of post-rock.  For a band so lavish with words, the compositions are surprisingly tight.  Layers of harmonized guitar snake through polite bass grooves and smartly-executed drums.  The tunes can be somewhat academic and polished, but it works well for the group - they're majorly enjoyable to listen to.  The songs are understated but kinetic - different parts are constantly popping in and out, and things never get boring.  Super clean production and instrumental proficiency allow some interesting timbres to speak up.

Koala has shown marked improvement with this EP.

The Most Americans - The Most Americans (2013)

Have to say that there is a serious lack of indie rock these days that has that healthy dose of math like in the 90's....ahhh the 90's hahah. The Most Americans are from Boston and bring the heat hard with some wonderfully crafted indie rock that also has its fair share of dual guitar tom foolery...incredibly melodic guitars at that. You can be sure that the vocals are also just as catchy with their melodies. These guys know exactly what their doing and as a first release its clear that they know exactly what they want and how to get there. So again to sum it up 90's era indie rock with some inspired mathy instruments dueling it out underneath some intense crooning. Its not frenetic but it keeps a solid clip throughout which makes it seem maybe a bit more laid back than it actually is....blah stop! haha go listen now.

God some straight gorgeous guitars. This one certainly blindsided me hard. congrats.

Sparhawks - The Cabin (2013)

Last Time! on Lots of Kni.....er ugh PLENTY OF SWORDS!

Boston Based Sparhawks finally drop their first full length and they have three songs up on the bandcamp for a sampler platter. Deff. some more post-rock instrumentals here with slight math flirtations.  Production is top notch as well with a great drum sound. Have to say that I did expect a bit more progress toward some end of things...either more math or more post-rock but balance is still managed here as last time. Not a bad thing at all. The guys have obviously become tighter and are able to pull off some slicker break downs as a result. Check it but out for sure. 

ps. a bit sad they pulled the demo down

sparhawks

That's Rugby - Wide Eyed (2012)

Incubus and Minus the Bear are throwing a pool party and thing's get a little "progressive rock" if you know what I mean. So in a nutshell this is what you're in for. Sound good? yea its pretty aces.

BANDCAMP

A Troop of Echoes-Tour Starts 1/4/12!

Just wanted to add a quick bumpity bump to restate that starting tomorrow, January 4th, our fellow ninja FranklinDCs group A Troop of Echoes is kicking off their tour at Precinct in boston; metaghost and i will be going, and hope to see some more of you Swords folks at the show. They'll be touring all over the northeast, so get ready to rock out to some sick tunes. Heres a neat video for their song Little Bird off their 2010 album Days in Automation, and again tour dates below:



4 Boston, MA - Precinct (w/ Zvoov, Strange Mangers)
12 Baltimore, MD - Charm City Art Space (w/ Fires, Sea Patterns)
13 Greenville, NC - The Tipsy Teapot
14 Charlotte, NC - The Common Market (w/ David Cox)
15 Columbia, SC - Conundrum Music Hall (w/ Pan)
16 Nashville, TN - Exit / In (w/ Call it Anything, Chris West’s Junkyard Horns)
17 New Orleans, LA - Hi-Ho Lounge (w/ Autotomii)
18 Athens, GA - Go Bar (w/ Sleep Dance)
19 Charleston, SC - Village Tavern
20 Baltimore, MD - Sidebar Tavern (w/ Zvoov, Time Columns)