Paper Lady eschews the plastic at Arlene’s Grocery on Friday, 8 March 2024.

The National Honor Society is not the publicly funded healthcare system in England, one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom.

The New Colossus Festival played out from March 6-10, highlighting new sounds in underground music from here, there, and all points foreign and abroad.

New York City is a destination that international acts are going to set their sights on regardless. But the stakes were raised as the fest has fit itself snugly into the week before SXSW, attracting bands from all over who wanted to hopscotch through town on their way to more storied Texas festival.

The New Colossus wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and you wouldn’t either, trading between showcases at dives and clubs dotting an electric neighborhood in one of the most exciting cities in the world. Sights, sounds, food, drink, and lodging if you can afford it.

Let’s go see some music!

Arlene’s Grocery! Home of legends, always ready to host a band, whether they’re born local or just lost on their way to Austin. It’s not clear who Arlene is or was…

The National Honor Society rolled into Arlene’s Grocery with ‘NHS’ pins on their guitar straps like they were British leftists trying to make a point. Entirely possible at an international showcase like The New Colossus Festival. But no, not so much, not the case. This band is a four-piece from Seattle that kicks out hummable Aughts-era indie rock. Shout out to the Stone Roses cover. “Mersey Paradise”? And extra points for the three guitarists up front rocking three of the all-time great electric guitars: a Telecaster, Jaguar, and Jazzmaster. Fenders all of them, start to finish.

Did some stage banter mention that there had been a fistfight at the venue earlier in the evening? The venerable indie rock hole-in-the-wall is not normally a place for throwing down, though sometimes it’s a place for throwing up. Since 1995, serving up cheap booze and cheaper music.

A lot of little details avail themselves to the trained eye, like the drumstick wedged above a pipe over the stage, anchoring an ambient mic suspended from above. It’s the kind of quick fix that was jury-rigged 30 seconds before the start of some long forgotten show, and then remained in place for a decade and counting. If it ain’t broke…

Boston’s Paper Lady is a noisy rock n roll outfit by the way. Layers and layers of moody texture wafting up from the strings of the guitars and keys of the synth. Pathos, gravitas, in vino veritas, sit vis nobiscum. After the spritely indie rock rhythms of NHS, the room might not have been quite ready for the level up in intensity. But the guitarist and lead vocalist Alli Raina has a way of bringing the room with her.

Photo Gallery