Honey & Soul lean into the ampersand at Midway Cafe on Saturday, 15 July 2023.

Guitars rule the day for The Big Lonesome, Graveyard of the Atlantic, and Junior Classics.

Question: Who’s on the Midway Cafe Playlist?

Dead Gowns, for one. Their single “Renter Not A Buyer” played at least twice between sets during Saturday’s evening show. Which means one of two things…

Either the Midway Cafe needs a longer playlist (no repeats!).

Or your intrepid reporter is spending too much time in the club. Get some fresh air, guy!

Who makes the playlist anyway? Some venues will craft a custom-tailored playlist at the request of the artists playing the show. You know, some artists like to create a certain vibe in the room before they perform.

But you figure with both a Saturday afternoon and evening show at the Jamaica Plain dive, with a total of eight bands crossing the finish line by the time the lights are turned out, there’s not too much extra time and energy for superfluous niceties.

No one’s getting a bowl of red M&Ms in the green room either.

Honey & Soul

Burlington’s Honey & Soul filled the room. A packed house. Did they all take the booster club bus from Vermont?

Or did the four-piece (three-piece according to all their press photos) stir up a local following with a performance at Midway Cafe back in May? The guitarist called it a little “homecoming.”

On a night with more conventional, guitar-led bands closing out the night, the rootsy indie folk of Honey & Soul stood out. The lineup included a fiddle, electric guitar, cello, and drums. But the group didn’t even pick up their instruments until the second song, opening with an a capella number.

When’s the last time you heard a straight up a capella jammer at Midway Cafe?

Honey & Soul’s tour continues through July to all points south, Brooklyn, New Haven, Philly, and more, as the band promotes its latest LP Lady King.

Junior Classics

Guitar-led bands, you say? Well, maybe. But Boston’s Junior Classics mixed a cello into the mix, so it wasn’t your typical rock n roll ensemble.

There’s something special that classical string instruments can lend your sound. Strings can even do some of the same work that musicians use synth keys for, if you want them to. Shades of Arcade Fire with that mob indie pop approach. Two main vocalists traded singing duties from either side of the stage, so you were never sure where the leading movement of the song would come from next.

Neither here nor there, but Corey Fyfe played bass on Junior Classics self-titled LP from 2019. You’d figure Corey would, you know, play flute. Maybe he does that too.

Graveyard of the Atlantic

Graveyard of the Atlantic is a local four-piece rock band that played in the third slot on Saturday night. But it’s also a museum in Hatteras, North Carolina that specializes in the history of shipwrecks on the Outer Banks. That’s a lot of dark, black metal energy for a maritime museum.

The band itself wasn’t so metal, though there was some deeper pathos in their minor chord progressions and brooding instrumentals.

It’s music to listen to while your boat is getting up to ramming speed to crush the military yacht of a genetically-engineered Adolf Hitler war-clone in World War 5. Global warming has melted the icecaps, so most of the conflict is fought on the water, Waterworld-style. The wind and seaspray whipping in your face, all your ammunition exhausted, as you barrel toward the Eighth Reich battleship, knowing that you must sacrifice yourself and your vessel to save the world from the Cryptofascists.

The Big Lonesome

Hump Day News wrote up a band the other day, Science Penguin, and dropped a few paragraphs bloviating on their economy of sound as a two-piece.

Then it was revealed that the Germantown (Maryland!) band was really a three-piece. One member was just off sick for the day. So no need to break your back on the classic two-person band comparisons and analysis in the writeup.

Moral to the story: do a little research before you write.

Yup, The Big Lonesome is a legit two-piece. Drums and guitar. They’re back onstage after a five-month layoff, spent recording new material, some of which we heard Saturday night. Kind of a breezy West coast chill vibe.

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