Four Bands, One Bill
Impossible Dog achieves the possible at Deep Cuts on Friday, 31 January 2025.
Cape Crush and Good June throw in to celebrate the three-way split Good Dogs Wear Capes.
Shiver. warms up in the opening slot.
Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️ Hump Nights 〰️
Hump Nights
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️
Shiver.
When Hump Day News last reported on the alt rock 4-piece Shiver., they were opening the festivities at Cinema Salem, one of the satellite bills orbiting Moon Over Salem. These guys are pros at breaking the ice. They released the deluxe edition of Ten Years of Shiver. last July. Has it been ten years already? Time flies. Did they have the period at the end of their band name for all ten years?
Good June
Speaking of the Cinema Salem bill at Moon Over Salem, Good June played it too. The four-piece traffics in a brand of emo pop that I’m tempted to call the “Salem sound.” But that would be wrong on at least two counts.
First, I’m not from Salem, so I should err on the side of caution by not making pronouncements about their brand of music. Even if there are some broad-based family resemblances in the sounds I’ve heard come out of Salem and its surrounding parts.
Second, if all I mean by “Salem sound” is a kind of peppy, sweet but not saccharine, emo pop, then I have to admit that you hear that sound all over. Not just Salem.
I don’t know what it was about emo (especially “Midwest emo”) & pop punk from the Aughtsies, but it seems to exercise an outsized influence on the sound you hear from DIY bands in the smaller clubs these days. Maybe emo & pop punk was just the most popular music that these musicians heard at formative moments of their lives, and it has imprinted itself on their souls forever?
Fellow “Salem sound”-er Ali Lipman (Cape Crush) put in a guest vocal spot with Good June. Just as members of Impossible Dog put in a guest spot during the Cape Crush set. Part of the three-way split Good Dogs Wear Capes vibrations.
Cape Crush
Split releases are weird things. Multiple bands tying their horses to the same cart. You’re stuck with each other forever. It’s always nice to share expenses though.
If the release is digital only, you don’t have manufacturing costs. But there are expenses involved all the way through the rest of the process: writing, practicing, recording, mixing & mastering, designing the album cover and related marketing materials, food/gas/lodging to play gigs to promote the album, whatever cut your online platforms take, and the cost to maintain the necessary equipment and instruments to carry yourself all the way through, start to finish.
Do all of the above yourself, instead of paying others, and it’s “free.” But nothing is free. Every choice equals time, and you only have so much time to spend in this life.
The new Cape Crush drummer made his Deep Cuts debut.
Impossible Dog
Impossible Dog is one of those bands that always make the venue’s PA sound one notch better than it might otherwise have sounded.
Have you ever gone to a show where everyone on the bill sounds sort of shitty, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Ah well, the PA at this place looks pretty busted” or “I guess the sound tech dude is just having a bad night.” But then the next band takes the stage and all of a sudden the sound coming through the PA is cleaner, crisper, fuller than you thought possible?
Some bands have that secret power. Not sure why or how.
It wasn’t exactly that situation in Medford on Friday night because Deep Cuts has good, reliable, consistent sound in general, and all the bands playing prior to Impossible Dog were veteran acts that know how to properly plug in and do a soundcheck.
I still noticed a subtle level up, though, in terms of the “fullness” of the music coming out of the amps with the last band. “Fullness” is, admittedly, a fuzzy descriptor. But you know it when you hear it. Pet theory: it has to do with the combination of equipment, including, but not limited to, the choice of effects pedals.
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