Anti-Valentine’s
Smell The Love raises a stink at Midway Cafe on Saturday, 15 February 2025.
A world of covers, dedicated to the saltier side of love, to raise funds for the 13th JP Music Fest.
Rick Berlin caps the festivities with a little a capella at the end of a snowy, blustery evening. Dylan got a haircut. Naragansetts cost $4. The theme was “anti-Valentine’s.”
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 〰️
Not quite Snowmageddon, but it was a night of snowfall unlike we’ve seen lately with spate of cold and arid winters. The snowflakes, heavy, thick, white and ragged, poured down all night while the plows struggled to keep pace.
If this was any other show, you might expect diminished numbers, if not a reschedule. But this was Smell The Love, a fundraiser for the JP Music Fest, an annual rite of passage for the Jamaica Plain and JP-extended musical community at Midway Cafe. Everyone’s heart, like the Grinch’s, grew three sizes to fill the room with bodies, and warmth, and good cheer.
Colonel Broccoli and the Legion Basement Band
Good cheer everywhere except on the TV screen, where the Team USA and Team Canada hockey teams were pummeling each other from the opening whistle at the Nations Face Off match.
The nationalistic chickenfuckery inspired by the Trump administration is taking hold in too many corners to count, but these guys might have thrown a few punches anyway.
It was all good at the Midway Cafe. Rick Berlin’s extra long keyboard stayed propped upwards at stage left, and never did get any play, but every other aspiring cover artist under the sun (including many return acts from previous Smell The Loves) got their say.
Covers included: a solo acoustic version of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” and Chapell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” performed by Colonel Broccoli and the Legion Basement Band (who said they’d be performing at Midway Cafe on New Year’s Eve, yet to be confirmed), The Outfield’s “Your Love” and Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” Radiohead’s “Creep,” The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane,” Michael Bublé’s “Feeling Good,” and a closing a capella number from Rick Berlin.
Berlin declined to wheel out the monster keyboard, opting instead for a quick wrap up before the remaining warm bodies in the house were snowed in for the night.
As always, you can smell the love at Midway Cafe. You can smell all sorts of things.
Rick Berlin
Photo Gallery
Uptempo power pop with some fuzz.