Ax Not What The Jungle Can Do For You

`this body is all i have in this world at The Jungle`

this body is all i have in this world has a long band name at The Jungle on Friday, 30 June 2023.

Good June, Cheer Camp, and the Zion Rodman Trio make more consistent use of upper-case letters on the quadruple-stack bill.

RIP: Jalapeño Poppers?

You know it as The Jungle, but the full name is The Jungle Community Music Club. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Kind of like calling a pair of Air Jordans, “Air Jordans Feet Enclosure Shoes.” Dig that, sneakerheads!

But let’s reflect a little bit. What’s the meaning of the “Community Music Club” part?

“Club” is what you call public venues that put on shows.

Paradise Rock Club.

The Middle East Restaurant and Club.

Club Passim.

Once upon a time maybe there was an exclusive membership aspect to these venues – only members can get in the club! But nowadays the only membership you need is a ticket or cover charge, and sometimes you don’t even need that.

“Music” tells you what kind of shows to expect. The Jungle is not putting on theater productions. Then again, Paradise Rock Club is not limited to rock n roll. So as long as you have a stage, a PA, and some lighting, so maybe Death of a Salesman might have a limited run at the Union Square location someday.

“Community” says what? It’s a trend in the business sector to market yourself as contributor to the common good. In an era when the social contract is on the ropes, municipal infrastructure in decline, social services being cut, private businesses have stepped in to announce themselves as champions of the people often disregarded by their own government.

The Jungle pitches itself as a music club operated, “by and for local artists, fans, and musicians.” Sound familiar?

Of course, no one buys this sort of pitch when it’s delivered by Big Money. You think the capitalist ghouls behind Crypt.Com Arena give a single shit about the local history of sports and what it means to the people of Los Angeles when they took over the naming rights for the Staples Center? You think BP is really committed to eco-justice in the Gulf of Mexico, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? You think any of the billion dollar tech companies are pushing AI because they think it will actually improve the human condition? It’s nonsense.

But scale down the rhetoric to the neighborhood level and you start to see what sort of positive impacts businesses can have for a community. Union Square was hopping on Friday night, and The Jungle was a full house, creating a place for people to meet from different corners of the city and state. It’s not changing the world. But it’s also not overtaxing power grids to mine bitcoin, spilling oil, or weaponizing technology against humanity.

The Jungle is also not serving Jalapeño Poppers anymore, gone the way of the Lifetime Membership Card.

this body is all i have in this world

Salem’s this body is all i have in this world has an album on the way. No announcement on when to expect it, but if you caught their set at The Jungle you heard a sneak preview.

The musical range was impressive. There are little symphonies at work within the expansive confines of tbiaihitw’s new material. You can’t satisfactorily genre-fy it, but the seagulls are circling the separate territories of doom, emo, jam, and straight up indie pop. Shades of early Sebadoh, before the band had figured out what it was, before Lou Barlow took the reins more tightly in hand.

The trio works well together, with a tight and flourish-filled rhythm section selling the epic quality while the guitar surfs on top, taking the melodies to strange places.

Extra points for the guitar technique. What do you call that? Pointer finger hammer-ons? If you had seen Tyler Zucco-Bernard’s solo project Sonder at O’Brien’s Pub, you knew he has some classical-meets-artcore guitar tendencies, but if you only ever saw tbiaihitw at the Silhouette Lounge in April, you might not have seen him get as fancy with the fretwork with the full band.

Shout out to Hope Fest. Some of the band members are involved with organizing the 4 stage, 39 band extravaganza in Salem in early September. All proceeds go to NAGLY (North Shore Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth). Check it out on 9/2 in Salem.

Good June

Some bands just sparkle onstage like they are having the best fucking time of their lives. Good June is one of those bands, and the crowd feeds off it. The Boston-based four-piece kicked out alt rock jams and instructed everyone to be on the lookout for some new recorded material, dropping soon. Points added or subtracted for punning their name during stage banter? Can’t decide, but playing a show on the last day in June is awfully good timing.

Cheer Camp

Cheer Camp brings the people out, no doubt. The room was already full, but grew three sizes bigger like the Grinch’s heart when these local giggers got started. The four-piece crafted a mix of pop punk and emo, grinding out some originals before firing up the room with a Diarrhea Planet cover. Hard to say whether the band took more pleasure in announcing the name of the Nashville-based band or the name of the cover “Ghost With A Boner.” No masters of subtlety, these fellows, but a fun romp.

Zion Rodman Trio

Multiinstrumentalist Zion Rodman closed out the night with his Zion Rodman Trio, borrowing the bassist from the previous band. Good vibes rock n roll, jalapeno popper-free.