Knockover City closes out frisky four-stack at Midway Cafe on Saturday, 3 August 2024.

Memory Lame, Blame Shifters, and Vacuist open la fiesta del sabado gigante.

The Jamaica Plain Music Festival is coming!

Also known as the JP Music Fest. That’s got more zing.

This year’s edition is coming your way September 7, and each edition is organized with tender love and care by a neighborhood community that loves live music and knows how to have a good time. This is a bottom-up affair, by and for the people, and it needs your support.

If you missed the annual Smell The Love fundraiser, you can still donate below!

If you missed the fundraiser show in March at the American Legion Hall with Rick Berlin, Colonel Broccoli and the Legion Basement Band, and Fantastic Trees, you can still donate below!

If you missed the annual classic fundraiser John Casey’s JP Bar Wars at Midway Cafe, you can still donate below!

Do your part to keep Jamaica Plain fresh AND funky.

Hump Nights

Nov 30

WORM | Presidential Disgrace | Screw Cart | Neponset Monastary

Dec 3

ONCE Presents: Ezra Furman Doing What She Wants

Dec 4

The Ladybug Transistor / Lightheaded / Mark Robinson (of Cotton Candy)

Dec 7

The Lotusheads / The Dead Flowers / Music Farm / The Pretty Fears

Dec 13

The 4th Wall: Nectarine Girl, Special Guest, Exit 18, Wulfer

Dec 13

Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket / Funk Safari

Dec 14

ONCE Presents: Scream Along Blue Xmas w/ Billy Hough

$Fat Togue Holiday Bash: Give Up!, Love City Dirt, BAD\\VERB$

Dec 16

Fat Togue Holiday Bash: Give Up!, Love City Dirt, BAD\\VERB

Dec 26

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along

Dec 31

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along

The four-piece Vacuist kicked out some postpunk metal with some screaming overtones in their opening slot at the Midway Cafe. Artful feedback. Shades of Kal Marks. Nimble bass work and lighting fast (double?) bass drums.

The three-piece Blame Shifters played some tracks off their new album Everyone Must Go. Which you gotta hear, but also gotta see because the art design is kind of creepy, edgy cool. Something like post-modern militant aesthetic. Like Pussy Riot doing a photo shoot with Harmony Korine. Somebody involved went to art school.

New tracks and newer tracks on the night, some of which sounded downright surfy.

Was that a member of Pink Slip in the crowd cheering them on?

The three-piece Memory Lame plays heavy rock accompanied by some Cobain-textured vocals. Apparently there’s been some friction between them and another band called Memory Lane, from out of Toronto. I don’t know if ‘beef’ is too strong of a word.

If the Canadian “event show band” is getting protective about band names, they’ve got more to worry about regarding SEO confusion with other bands named ‘Memory Lane,’ never mind ‘Memory Lame.’

A cursory web search reveals at least five other Memory Lanes: one from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, California, and a fifth one in parts unknown led by Danish Guitar Wizard, Martin Slott.

The three-piece Knockover City rounded out a night of heavy music. Like “taking advantage of the free earplugs at the bar”-kind of heavy. Which, by the way, is a super classy move from Midway Cafe, providing earplugs free instead of tagging you with a $1 charge. It shows they care. About your ears.

The band played a new song or two from a new release – possibly a compilation? That’s the tough part about earplugs: you kind of miss out on understanding the stage banter, unless you’re constantly taking them in and out of your ear. Which is not impossible, but is made that much harder when you’re holding a tallboy AND trying to be an amateur photographer.

Shout out to the Slow Quit t-shirt on the bassist. And FREE PALESTINE.