The Zeus Is Loose
Electric Zeus unleash the raga at State Park on Sunday, 29 December 2024.
Kendall Square is a real construction warzone lately, eh?
Or has it always been that way…
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 〰️
Electric Zeus
I can report that Sunday shows at State Park are still free, with suggested donation. Don’t be a cheapskate! The acts usually take Venmo.
Enjoyed some Polish tallboy called O.K. Beer, or something like that. It was OK. Ordered the kielbasa at the bar, which was good, but a little too gussied up with ornamentation. Just give it to me straight, Doc.
For the rest, I defer to the writeup at my Cambridge Day gig.
A psych rock barnstormer unfolded in State Park Bar on Sunday night, part of the regular calendar of music events at the beloved basement bar at One Kendall Square.
But there’s nothing “regular” about Electric Zeus. The indie rock-meets-raga ensemble rolls deep, packing in three to four times the musicians of your average band. Jesse Gallagher (Apollo Sunshine), musician and certified Hatha Yoga instructor, arranged them in rows like a kindergarten choir. The shortest up front, seated criss cross applesauce, and the tall kids in back, totaling around eight, nine, ten players in all.
We can’t be exact with the numbers. Musicians floated in & out of the ensemble throughout the continuous two-hour long first set, an amorphous glob of glorious sound, undulating like a petri dish full of copulating amoeba.
Just know that there were a lot of musicians, which means a lot of instruments. Standard rock n roll gear like guitars, drums, and keyboards and samplers. Jazzy, orchestral add-ons like violin, cello, clarinet, saxophone, and turntables. Appalachia-meets-world music obscurities like jaw harp, jugs, finger cymbals, jingle bells, and a goddamn ocarina. It takes a village of sound to power Electric Zeus.
The music swelled and surged, advanced and retreated like the tide. There were vocals, but the utterances seemed to form themselves in shapes other than words, channeling a cosmic hum rather than communicating a particular message. If there was a message, it was a message designed to undo messaging, to draw us out of our all too common states of individual alienation into a shared communal presence. And I’m not talking about that “sharing” you do when you blast out a meme to strangers via a smartphone.
Or something like that. The new year is a good time to reflect on the big stuff. Isn’t it strange that clocks and calendars, which are supposed to measure advancing time, operate in a cyclical fashion? 11:59 always finds its way to 12:01, December always turns to January. You’d hardly know that time is passing at all…
Except that we grow old. We feel time passing in our flesh and bones. We feel time passing in the changing landscape of loved ones, who arrive too late and leave us too soon. Clocks and calendars may run in circles, but we feel the forward movement of time in sore bodies and aching hearts.
You don’t need me to say it, but I’ll say it anyway. Pour one out for Jimmy Carter, and let’s treat each other better in 2025 than we did in 2024.
Photo Gallery
A jazzy walk down main street with a legendary guitarist.