this body is all i have in the world melts faces at Silhouette Lounge on Monday, 3 April 2023.

Average Joey, Edward Glen, and The New Noise sandwich the four-tall bill.

In this episode of As The Sil Turns, Bill the Bartender demurs in the face of an Old-Fashioned order. Why? No sugar cubes.

No sugar cubes behind the bar at the Allston dive? Probably no loose sugar either. It’s the kind of thing that attracts pestilence. But surely there’s saccharine products like Grenadine and Southern Comfort on the bar shelf…

A bottle of simple syrup might be a helpful alternative to messing with granular or cubular sugar during a busy shift. A 1:1 mixture of sugar dissolved in warm water will give you all the sweetness you need with the ease of a quick pour.

It’s not a labor-free solution, but it’s pretty easy. 

Maybe sugar wasn’t the real holdup? Angostura bitters are also required for Old-Fashioneds. Along with an orange twist and/or maraschino cherry. Now we’re starting to get into “pain in the ass” territory.

The dream of a bartender or food server is to be able to clock in, supply the service, secure the tips, and clock out to freedom. The hourly wage is a pittance, so any labor you provide that isn’t tied to a tip feels like a swindle. Never mind ‘feels’ – it might be an actual swindle!

An old warhorse like Bill knows the score. Setting too high expectations about what drinks can be served during the night grows the amount of unremunerative labor on either end of the shift required to meet those expectations. Managing expectations is a high-wire tightrope act in the service industry.

Damn if an Old-Fashioned isn’t a sweet beverage though.

Average Joey

Pittsburgh’s Average Joey opened the four-stack bill with a string of folk/punk numbers on his Forever Tour.

With his guitar and suitcase full of poetry, the rambling man behind the moniker Joey Schuller is a one-stop shop of DIY creativity.

His easy rapport with the audience evidenced a familiarity with rooms like the backroom at Silhouette Lounge in towns across the country.

When a string broke on the final song, he didn’t miss a beat, plunging himself into the pit, and turning the set into a melee sing-a-long. Extra points for actually being named Joey, instead of randomly picking the artist name.

Edward Glen

When Hump Day News last caught Edward Glen, the question remained whether ‘Edward Glen’ was just the name of the band, an actual individual member, or both. Mystery solved! Maybe!

Edward Glen is the frontman for ‘Edward Glen’ the band, which performed a hard rocking set of indie originals as a three-piece on Monday night.

It’s like when you buy a ticket to see Bob Dylan. Sure, there are other musicians playing with Bob Dylan, but it’s only Bob’s name on the marquee. Unless you’ve got a real established backing band, like Crazy Horse backing Neil Young, or the Flaming Lips backing Beck, you just give sole billing to the big name.

There’s one remaining possibility: all members of Edward Glen are named ‘Edward Glen.’ It’s kind of a Ramones situation, but everyone shares the same last name AND first name. There’s no evidence to support this hypothesis and no evidence to definitively reject it, so it’s ready for Fox News.

this body is all i have in this world

The three-piece post-rock, post-hardcore, grammar-bustin’ sonic assault advised the audience to “wear ‘em if you got ‘em” with respect to earplugs.

That’s saying a lot when you consider that the frontman for the band also works the door and soundboard on other nights.

The music came over the room like a series of tidal waves with few breaks for applause or tuning.

Shout out to the drummer, playing out of his mind, breaking at least one stick in the process. Shout out to the bassist, rocking a “No Picks” sticker on his bass, playing with a pick. Shades of Still Life Sounds meets Yamatsuka Eye.

The New Noise

Better than the old noise!

The four-piece altrockers The New Noise brought a metal mindset to their dark and stormy riffs.

The band members had that look about them like you had seen them each in ten different bands in the past ten weeks, which is true of a lot of practicing musicians. Variety is the spice of life. 

You could have spent the entire set mentally reconstructing the rock n roll genealogy of The New Noise, starting with – who else? – Edward Glen on bass!

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