Cloudy With a Chance of Tallboys

Weatherless makes it rain at the Silhouette Lounge on Monday, 19 June 2023.

Not Bad Not Well, No/Nations, and Dropbear sandwich the four-stack bill.

If you want to see how the sausage is made, roll into the Silhouette Lounge about 7PM. Well before the 8:30PM showstart on the typical Monday night.

You will see the Allston dive make its transition from pure watering hole (with year-round Halloween decor in the window) to hybrid rock n roll venue.

The transition is not always smooth. The regulars are still getting accustomed to the music offerings in the backroom. Looks of surprise, bemusement, dispossession all along the counter.

Who are these young men and women humping heavy loads of instruments, amplifiers, and all manner of electrical doo-dads?

But let’s be clear. It’s not the noise coming out of the backroom that startles the regulars. They like noise! Who could live/work in Allston, and drink at the Sil, and not be at peace with a certain amount of chaos, sonic or otherwise?

Nor is it the type of noise. The regulars love rock n roll! Give them half a minute, they will tell you wild and possibly true stories of seeing modern day music icons playing their first licks at local pubs not so different from the Sil.

No, it’s neither the noise nor the type of noise that rattles the regulars. If there’s a point of contention, it’s the jukebox shutoff time. At around 7:30-8:00PM, the jukebox is shut down while the bands for the night load-in and soundcheck.

You see, the regulars love the jukebox and they love playing their hits. It offends their aesthetic sensibility to quaff without background music. Who can blame them? A beer and shot combo goes down much smoother with a little Thin Lizzy in the air.

Bill the Bartender does his best to smooth over any ruffled feathers with the regulars. And Bill’s best usually does the job.

Not Bad Not Well

The Worcester-based five-piece Not Bad Not Well got off to a rollicking start and pretty much stayed in the high and heavy register all the way through their opening set. Bone-jarring licks and a quaking rhythm section.

Is the frontman for this band the same guy as the frontman for Gut Health, also from Worcester? He’s got a pretty specific style, rolling onto stage with a suitcase full of effects for his vocals and a few added layers of digital haze. Extra points for making the gig even with a broken arm. Some people will drop out of gigs for much lesser reasons, like scoring Dave Matthews Band tickets at the Xfinity Center.

Speaking of the Xfinity Center, or Tweeter Center, or Great Woods, the Cure was playing there around the time of the Monday night gig at the Sil. Did we hear Not Bad Not Well play a Cure cover in homage? One of those songs in the setlist had a certain special something…

Weatherless

On a night that was pretty thick on the guitar distortion, Weatherless flirted with a cleaner sound. The melodies rang out crisper and clearer and a bit more leisurely in comparison with the rest of the evening. All to the purpose of cultivating an indie emo vibe.

Does it make sense to divide emo into two broad categories: pre- and post-breakup?

Pre-breakup emo tends to have a cleaner and sweeter sound because hope is still in the air. But once love turns sour, bring out the big guns, topple buildings, watch the world burn in a six-string maelstrom.

Weatherless had a good sense of humor about their chart-topping, runaway success Spotify single. Presumably “Watching You”? Over a thousand plays and counting…

No/Nations

Was this a rejiggered lineup for No/Nations? The five-piece has played on some solid bills around town, including an opener spot for national touring act Enumclaw back in March at The Rockwell.

But was someone missing on Monday night from that Rockwell lineup? The incredibly dark and impossibly loud and wildly distorted confines of the backroom at the Sil is not always the best environment for a fact-check.

The band has a kind of melancholy, minor key power that it weaves into hard-charging, heavy rock balladry. Interspersed throughout, though, are some lighter, poppier moments. Even shades of 80s teen movie soundtracks here and there.

Extra points for the Mystic Valley Parkway shoutout. That’s a road you don’t want to drive during rush hour. But what can you do?

Dropbear

The Boston-based five-piece Dropbear closed out the night with a hazy, hot, and humid set of blown out nu-gaze. You can check out their debut EP Spiralized on Bandcamp and other fine online retailers.

And you can check out spiralizers at some of the higher end home goods and kitchen wares stores.

You know what a ‘spiralizer’ is? It’s a kitchen tool that will shave off the surface of fruits or vegetable to create a spiral-patterned mound of produce flesh.

It’s the dictionary definition of ‘non-essential item’, but if you’re looking to get fancy with preparation techniques, this is one tool that will do it. Some people use spiralizers to create “spaghetti” out of vegetables like zucchini or squash. Nobody knows why.