Parkville gets all the hype as the hip 'multi-cultural' neighborhood of the moment (i.e., where suburban whites will drop a few bucks at the Piolin chicken place on a Friday night before hurriedly getting the fuck out), but I think East Hartford is just as interesting-- especially the Main St. section of Rte 44, where there's a cool-looking indie food store or restaurant every couple of feet-- plus it's a much easier neighborhood to drive through and the parking's way better. I'm mentioning this, even though you probably don't give a shit, because The Only Place That Ever Felt Like Home is a new-ish DIY spot in East Hartford, tucked in the basement of an old brick factory building, and it's got a lot going for itself so far; the walls and floor are all concrete and brick, which seems to help the sound a lot, plus it's in the middle of a parking lot off the street so it's not one of those basement venues where you end up driving around the block a few times just to find a parking spot. And, if you get the urge for a soda or something, there's a little plaza right at the end of the street, with like a chinese place and a dollar store and stuff (at least I think there was a dollar store).
I got there yesterday just as Snotrocket were playing their last two songs, though not before I walked through the wrong factory door a couple of times. Even though I caught them for only about 3 or 4 minutes, Snotrocket (which is Tim from Dead Uncles/Groomers and Dan Katz from Book Slave/Swift Moving, among others) (I hope I got that right) sounded pretty good. Not that I remember what the songs specifically sounded like, since we're only talking about 3 or 4 minutes here and my brain doesn't process that fast, but it was good, catchy rock. Much better songs than Groomers, although that's an unfortunate sentence. Supposedly Snotrocket will recording a demo later in the month, and then I won't have to worry about relying on my shitty memory after that.
Blessed State have progressed a ton since their demo last year, or even since I saw them the last time in April. It's actually gotten to the point where the new songs are so much better that I don't even want to hear them play the old songs anymore, although they only played a couple of old ones on Saturday anyway, so it's not like I suffered too much. There seems to be less processing going on with the guitar sound now and more straight-ahead punchy rocking instead, plus they seem to be trying more post-punk type twists with the new songs instead of just building a guitar wall, Noel Gallagher-style (ha ha, I just compared Blessed State to Oasis, that's pretty funny) (fuck you). The new songs are NOT all Hüsker Dü-- that's what everyone says, right? I gotta keep up with these things-- but the Wipers comparison still stands, so there you go. Potentially they'll be recording enough new songs for a 7" or 12" EP soon, that oughta be pretty hot.
Birth of Flower's new 7" is out, two songs recorded with Will at Dead Air Studios which sound heavy as fuck, but not in a cheesy obvious doom/sludge sort of way, more like that weird '70s Euro acid-prog record that everybody talks about on record collector message boards but nobody owns because it was a private press and there was only one acetate. I've seen some bands, and not many of them have bettered the set that Birth of Flower played in a little 18' x 18' basement room last night. Birth of Flower are the best band in Connecticut right now, and that's about it.
Birth of Flower, "Masters in Suspicion"
Blessed State, "Head Space"
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