TIFFY and oldsoul sandwiched a four-band bill at State Park on Sunday, 22 January 2023.

New York’s Mote and Tysk Tysk Task filled out the meaty middle.

The bar known as State Park, located at One Kendall Square in Cambridge, has gotten into the live music business for the indie crowd. With Mondays already spoken for by Charlie’s Kitchen and Silhouette Lounge, the subterranean dive has set its sights on Sundays. “Every Sunday,” if advertisements are to be believed, you can find music (no cover?) at “this small town bar with big city food.”

If you go, expect a quaint and cozy interior designed with the homesick Midwestern transplant in mind. The look of the place has been carefully curated to produce a reasonable facsimile of a late 20th century neighborhood dive in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, or Ohio. In fact, there’s so much pre-worn wood, pleather, and vintage illuminated beer ads in the place, a half dozen real midwestern bars must have died and had their organs repurposed to create this stitched-together simulacrum of flyover country.

The Frankenstein aspect of the bar fits in nicely at One Kendall Place, which has been providing food, drink, and entertainment to the wealthy biotech crowd for decades. After a long day of breeding mice with over-sized cocks and cultivating the next Wuhan virus, executives and lab jockeys need a place to unwind too. 

State Park offers a good change of pace from the glass-and-steel aesthetic that reigns supreme in the surrounding highrises. There’s a pleasant soporific effect in the quantity of vintage domestic brew advertisements lighting up the joint. Per the bartender, they no longer serve Hamm’s. Maybe that was a midwestern bridge too far for Cambridge? A Narragansett will do just fine.

TIFFY

TIFFY always rolls deep. The Boston band brought its mountain of guitars, bass, and drums to make some noise. Like The Rockwell, State Park has more of a “performance zone” for artists as opposed to a stage riser. The band set up and ran through soundcheck while stragglers were still coming in from the winter weather.

Overheard: “Snow shows are the best shows. You may have a few less people come, but those that do…it’s more intimate.”

With four bands on the bill, you don’t need that many music fans to fill a small bar like State Park. TIFFY alone arrived with its five-member lineup. What do they do with all that guitar power? Lots of layers, plenty of effects, and a few solos. They played some new material on the night off a new record that’s been recorded and is currently being mixed. Maybe in time to sell a few copies at their Lowell gig in April, the Town and the City Festival?

Mote

Binghamton, New York’s Mote rolled through town on a mini-tour. They weren’t filling the gas tank with the cover, since the show was free. Hopefully State Park patrons dropped some cash into the tip jar at the merch table.

The three-piece is a flexible unit, bouncing vocal duties back and forth between the guitarist and bassist. On a night that sounded like a ‘90s indie rock tribute, Mote was your prototypical hard rocking ‘90s trio, full of creativity, never straying too far from a punk minimalist aesthetic. Shades of Team Dresch or Tongue Love.

Tysk Tysk Task

Speaking of Lowell, why isn’t Lowell’s Tysk Tysk Task playing the Town and the City Festival? Denied! Burp got passed over too, but Class President will represent. It’s a veritable rock n roll shangri la up in Mill City, which celebrates the opening of a new music venue The Overlook.

Tysk Tysk Task is the brainchild of Samantha Hartsel, who crafts grunge guitar-led jams as the frontwoman for the three-piece. It was the maiden voyage for new members on bass and drums. The ship sailed smoothly. Hartsel employs two mics for added vocal colors: one for straight singing, the other for a howling echo effect. When she hits the modded vocals at the peak of the mountaintop, the songs really soar.

oldsoul

Closer oldsoul matched TIFFY for body count: 5. The result was a big sound.

If you heard a recorded version of their single “High On Yourself,” you might have expected more foregrounded vocals. The frontwoman has got a real banshee wail, and it plays a more prominent role in the studio version. In live performance (did you catch them at Nice, A Fest?) oldsoul strikes for a more balanced attack between voice and the other instruments. 

By the way, don’t plan to hang around too long after Sunday shows at State Park. The bar lists a 11:30 PM closing time (2:00 AM the rest of the week). Enjoy the music and get out the door. The biotech crowd needs to get up bright and early Monday morning to create the next generation of genetically-enhanced super soldiers to protect our freedom and American way of life. Pass me a Hamm’s.

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