Central Square is truly the place to be on Wednesday, February 16th. First up is the Rock and Roll Book Club’s first book club “meeting.” This is a project I started up this past November. We chose Steve Almond’s book “Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life” as the inaugural book club selection for January 2011. Steve was an exceptional author and participant to work with: he blogged on the website and helped get the word out. Everyone who read the book (or who aspired to read the book or who wants to hang out with other people who mostly read the book) will be meeting up on the 16th 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at the Enormous Room in Central Square. The original plan included Steve attending the meeting and playing his favorite “guilty pleasure” songs along with guilty favorites of book club members. A family obligation has come up so he won’t be able to join us. Steve has graciously offered to make a CD for us — so all is not lost! He’s local so hopefully we’ll see him at a future book club meeting.
Say you’ll be at the Rock and Roll Book Club meeting on Facebook. (And if you don’t want to RSVP on Facebook, you can also just show up.)
Despite running a music website off and on for a long time, I’d never consider myself a music critique or reviewer. You couldn’t pay me enough money to write about a band I’m not into and I hate to describe what music sounds like and what you might want to compare it to. (Aside: I also don’t get excited when referred to as a “music blogger.” Who doesn’t have a blog these days? Next time you see me, please greet me with “Hello, long time U.S. Postal customer.”) So when I recommend a concert to attend after the Rock and Roll Book Club meeting on the 16th, I mostly want to insert 345 exclamation marks. The Old Ceremony doesn’t seem to be all that well known around here and admittedly, I didn’t know about the band until a couple years ago when Abby clued me into their music after she moved to their homeland of North Carolina a few years ago.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (plus a lot more)
This is a tremendously excellent superbly awesome delightful band. I’m excited to finally see them live. Strangely enough, it’s an all ages show on a school night. I’m guessing that’s because of Rooney, one of the other bands who is also playing.
Win a pair of tickets to see The Old Ceremony at The Middle East Downstairs
If you’d like to win a pair of tickets to see The Old Ceremony, please send me an email and include 12 exclamation marks in the subject line. I’ll contact the winner on Wednesday, February 9th. If you’d like another chance to win tickets, follow @BostonTweeters — that’s a Twitter account I run for Boston area “people on Twitter.” I’ll be giving away a pair of tickets on Twitter, too.
Who is The Old Ceremony?
Here’s how the band describes itself.
The Old Ceremony makes music so potent that you may go blind listening to it. But don’t worry, canes are in this season.
After three highly acclaimed albums and six years of touring, the Chapel Hill, NC band has built a large and loyal following. TOC has performed with CAKE, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Chuck Berry, Polyphonic Spree, Mountain Goats, and Avett Brothers, and was included in PASTE Magazine’s “Top 100 Albums of 2006.”
TOC is figureheaded by songwriter Django Haskins, and includes bassist Matt Brandau, drummer Dan Hall, vibes/organist Mark Simonsen, and violinist/keyboardist Gabriele Pelli.