Good & You? names their EPs with numbers at Union Tavern on Friday, 29 March 2024.

Voided Shape, Husbands, and Will Tell Aim play in support at the record release show.

A couple sidled up to the bar at Union Tavern, ordering a pair of cocktails. They paid immediately, instead of opening a tab, and seemed delighted by the total dollar amount they owed.

The actual dialogue is lost to the sands of time, but it went something like this…

Couple Guy: Oh, wow.

Couple Lady: Oh, jeez.

Sometimes Ornery and Sometimes Bemused Gerald Amaral: Oh, what?

CG: That’s a lot less than I expected to pay.

CL: We pay more up the street.

SOSBGA: Oh, what?

CG: It’s nice to have a local place to get a drink that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

CL: The place up the street will charge you 13, 14, 15 dollars for a cocktail.

SOSBGA: Oh, what?

CG: I’m not setting foot in any other bar ever again.

CL: Chain us up in the basement and pour 9 dollar rum & sodas down our throats forever.

SOSBGA: Oh, what?

Never mind, that’s the exact dialogue that transpired down to the letter. Some people just really appreciate a good deal in times of rising prices. Union Tavern, formerly known as PAs Lounge, has been keeping its booze and live music joint on an even keel for the last however many decades.

Same ownership before and after the rebrand, so who knows why they wanted the name change, though there are some pretty defamatory and unsubstantiated theories at their Wikipedia page. Yikes!

Union Tavern aside, the Union Square neighborhood is definitely gentrifying. What’s that mean? More food and drink options that you can longer afford. Guess we’re all moving to Canton where real estate is cheap in the wake of the destruction wrought by the Great Turtleboy Wars of the ‘20s.

The solo act Will Tell Aim mixed live drumming and synth sounds for a spacey, ambient opener before turning to a little electric guitar. Whatever stirs the stew. Will Tell Aim should team up with the Orange Peel Mystic duo to create a drum/synth super trio. With their powers combined, maybe Gorbachev would finally tear down that wall.

Not sure if Husbands enjoyed the affordable cocktail prices at Union Tavern as much as the Couple Guy above. Why not though? The band knows a good deal when they see it. They also know what Union Tavern looked like when it was called PAs Lounge. The four-piece emo-charged artrockers played a gig there back in 2017, about one year before the name change. PAs Lounge is dead, long live Union Tavern!

More emo for your enjoyment, but it comes a little more math rocky from the four-piece Voided Shape. Angular guitar lines cut through the sonic space. They played a few tracks off their EP Tangled Mass, released last December.

The belles of the ball, the balls of the belle – it’s Good & You? The only local band brave enough for both an ampersand and question mark.

Their subject of celebration was their new EP, EP ii. Numbering your records instead of titling them is unusual but not unheard of. Numbering them with what I suppose are categorized as lowercase roman numerals? That’s a niche choice.

Hump Day News has covered this band at least once at an O’Brien’s gig where they performed as a three-piece with no bassist. Had no idea they were really a four-piece with a bassist. In fact, you miss about twenty minutes of cumulative stage banter if you catch this band without the bassist. He’s the heart & soul of their low end & spontaneous anecdotes. The more you know.

The Dreamtoday was a late cancel on the bill.

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