Dreamtoday, Gone Tomorrow
The DreamtodayNew Hampshire’s The Dreamtoday visited The Silhouette Lounge on the night of Monday, 28 November 2022. The Endorphins opened, Hunting Accidents closed. Tip your bartender.
Mondays are a hostile continent in the service industry. Many a bar, restaurant, or would-be music venue have tried to conquer the territory, and many have failed. The physical and psychological reserves of their customer base have been drained by the usual weekend excess. The Average Joe wakes up at the start of the week full of contrition and determined to stay below the radar until at least Thursday. Bartenders, servers, and entertainers too resign themselves to the early week famine in the hopes of a feast on Friday, Saturday, and football Sundays.
The Silhouette LoungeThere’s another school of thought, however, that says Zig when others Zag. A few music spots in Boston and beyond have been trying to set up small, defensive beachheads along the coast of the hostile week night. The Silhouette Lounge in Allston is one of them. Charlie’s Kitchen in Cambridge is another. Neither is first and foremost a music venue. Both are beloved local institutions. If you’re going to colonize Monday nights, it might be places like these that do it with moderate success. Patrons stop by for an afterwork drink, stay a little longer for some music, and can look themselves in the mirror Tuesday morning and say, “Sure, I went out last night, but I didn’t go “out”-out.”
So how’d it go Monday night at the Sil? It was the usual counterfull of afterwork regulars before the show. The kind who order a shot as soon as they roll up to the bar, and then sit tight with a Tall Boy sipper. The bartender was holding court, dropping nuggets of wisdom and marginalia, while the Celtics blew out an undermanned Hornets squad 140-105 on the plasma TV.
Some choice cuts:
He canceled his Florida trip (for undetermined reasons), got his money and miles back, no problem. He’ll reschedule down the road with the intent of catching a Tom Brady-led Buccaneers game.
The sign out front hasn’t been illuminated since 1974.
Some young jerk came in to claim his free hot dog (if you get a Silhouette Lounge tattoo, you get free hot dogs for life) and didn’t even buy anything, never mind tip.
On the economy: “It’s almost a sin, how money is made.”
On finances: “You can’t spend above your means.”
On his trade: “People always want alcohol, to relax, expand their mind. It’s the oldest business.”
Meanwhile a trio of self-styled poolhall junkies brought their own cue sticks in small attache cases and a couple on an e-date met in a side booth. As the trio assembled their cues, the woman in the booth recounted her worst e-date experience. She was younger, in her 20s at the time, and it was clear her online match was not forthright about his age, his beer gut, his bad teeth. “Needless to say,” she told her date for the evening, “I needed to get out of there.” Having thought ahead, her girlfriends were ready and waiting in the bathroom to aid an early escape. Her date sipped his beer across from her and listened in silence as the cue ball ricocheted around the green felt-covered table.
When the music started up, you could tell there wasn’t enough juice in the powergrid to fully service the needs of both the bar and the makeshift show-space behind the black curtain. Whenever a musician stepped on a stompbox, the lights would briefly dim.
The EndorphinsThe Endorphins
There was plenty of stompboxing in The Endorphins’ set. The Boston-based four-piece performed as a three-piece, with one of their members off to “emoji [Irish flag].” All the bells and whistles arrayed at foot level lent their attack a strange spectrum of flavors.
The band performed songs from their recent LP Nothing Is Real. The bones of the songwriting were all postpunk and altrock, though the stompbox saturation hinted at more spaced-out regions. A listener is reminded of the textural qualities of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”, which offers fairly conventional pop structures, but – whether it’s a trick of tuning or a particular guitar effect – sounds utterly alien to the ear.
The DreamtodayThe Dreamtoday
The Dreamtoday was the highlight of the night. The New Hampshire four-piece got a great response from the crowd, which dug its atmospheric brand of heavy psych rock. You could tell the band had the same origin story as most New Hampshire underground acts: smoking, drinking, raising a ruckus while playing screamo garbage metal in a toolshed. But you stick with it long enough and you make something worth listening to.
Each member of The Dreamtoday had their own individual personality.
There was the moody frontman, of course, handling the vocals and rhythm guitar. He was silent except for when he sang with a kind of Layne Staley grit. The dried blood across his fretboard spoke volumes.
There was the goofy bassist, a Krist Novoselic-type joker, who positioned himself stage center. He wore a Santa hat, handled his ax like a giant banana, and clearly enjoyed connecting with the audience more than anyone else in the band.
There was the aloof lead guitarist who wore giant earmuffs and, much like Nigel Tufnel, regarded solos as his trademark.
Finally, there was the meat-and-potatoes drummer in back, whose muscular style could fit in with a thousand other bands, but he happened to fall in with this lot, and he liked it that way.
The Dreamtoday set was one of those sets where you hang on every sound and nothing feels accidental. Every electric fart, hiccup, and whistle was integrated into the performance, which veered back and forth between Dinosaur Jr.-inflected hardcore postpunk and humming, ambient interludes. You couldn’t always tell what counted as a song, strictly speaking, and what did not – and you didn’t care. Maybe their recent LP A Static World will offer more insight, but you'll have to buy it online because they sold out their last copy at the Sil on Monday night.
Hunting AccidentsHunting Accidents
Closer Hunting Accidents concluded the night with a somewhat lumbering selection of post-rock instrumentals.
Three bands up, three bands down. And the clock hand hadn’t even hit eleven. The bartender was still dropping nuggets. The poolhall junkies were still circling the table. And the woman on the e-date was still doing all the talking. Not bad for a Monday night. Much like Life in Jurassic Park, Music finds a way. You just need $10 and to know where to look: the backroom at The Silhouette Lounge.
