Island of Alaska is lovely this time of year at The Jungle on Saturday, 20 July 2024.

On Regret, No Detour, and Cheese Pile pile it on in the opening slots of the four-stack bill.

The Jamaica Plain Music Festival is coming!

Also known as the JP Music Fest. That’s got more zing.

It will be the 12th edition, coming your way in September, and each year is organized with tender love and care by a neighborhood community that loves live music and knows how to have a good time. This is a bottom-up affair, by and for the people, and it needs your support.

If you missed the annual Smell The Love fundraiser, you can still donate below!

If you missed the fundraiser show in March at the American Legion Hall with Rick Berlin, Colonel Broccoli and the Legion Basement Band, and Fantastic Trees, you can still donate below!

If you missed the annual classic fundraiser John Casey’s JP Bar Wars at Midway Cafe, you can still donate below!

Do your part to keep Jamaica Plain fresh AND funky.

Cheese Pile isn’t just a name, it’s a lifestyle for this rawking three-piece out of Lowell. They’ve got cheese-related stage banter. An album called Cheese Shanties. And to most shows they bring a head sculpted out of cheese, but not the one at The Jungle on Saturday night. It left the crowd feeling a little cheated. But the trio was so dedicated to singing the praises of Blink-182 (their second great love after cheese), in word and song, that you couldn’t stay mad at them for long. A mix of originals and at least one Blink-182 cover. Extra points for the Always Sunny-themed Blink-182 novelty t-shirt.

The venue sits along Sanborn Court, which is a real road, though it dead ends in a parking lot so it doesn’t get any thru traffic. Which is a good thing because there’s a knot of bars, restaurants, and venues/event spaces dotted along the short stretch. Hence, a lot of foot traffic that goes hither and thither, and pedestrians live their best lives without having to dodge a lot of cars.

Some of that foot traffic made it through the front door of The Jungle for the No Detour gig. The four-piece are no strangers to the venue, having performed there on a five-stack bill as recently as January. Five bands!

The Jungle might be one of the best values in town. All the button-down shirts and khakis walking out of the tonier bars across the street could buy the price of admission for less than they just spent on one cocktail.

No Detour plays heavy, loud, and mostly fast. The drummer always wears Eastbound & Down-style sunglasses. Metal-adjacent machismo aplenty, but you appreciate the curveball cover by The Cure.

This band On Regret name makes you feel dyslexic. Isn’t the usual phrase ‘No regret’? The formation of “On ______” is reserved for philosophical treatises like On Justice by Plato, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, and On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt. But there are no rules in naming a band, and these emo-tinged rawkers, who recorded a studio track with a chainsaw, make no apologies. Not even The Apology by Plato.

The local five-piece pop rockers Island of Alaska, who love that dirty water, released a live recording called “Blue Haze” from a Porchfest appearance in 2023. Was it Somerville Porchfest? That shit rocked this year, and, no hate, but it wasn’t because of Guster. Just a really lively scene. A pedestrian takeover full of good vibes.

The live recording was billed as the band’s first recording as a full band. And as far as I can tell on Spotify (which is hard, because Spotify interface is a shitshow) there haven’t been any recordings released since, which means the only way to hear the current lineup is live.

Two guitars, a bass, drums, and plenty of vocal energy with a pair of singers. Operate in the rocking pop vein. And the drummer could bass kick holes in a concrete wall. Check ‘em out.

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