Wanted: Boston Concert Photographers
August 10, 2009
Boston area photographers who would like to discuss shooting photos for Exploit Boston! at concerts around Boston, Cambridge and Somerville should get in touch.
Boston Music Blog Roundup #1
July 30, 2009
Boston is percolating with many awesome blogs dedicated to sharing their love of bands from Boston and beyond. This is the first of a new weekly Boston music blog roundup series. If you write for a Boston music blog and you’re not in our “Around Boston” list o’ sites (over on the right) — let us know where we can find you!
Tea Party Boston: The girls of Tea Party Boston have been sharing their love of Boston on their new blog since May. Read the interview with the always awesome Hallelujah The Hills.
Bradley’s Almanac: Brad Searles made it down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina area for XXMerge – the 5-day 20th anniversary celebrating Merge Records, July 22-26. Read his blog for the write-up about XX Merge happenings and view the photos at Flickr. Photo of M Ward and Zooey Deschanel at XXMerge by Brad Searles.
Ryan’s Smashing Life: RSL’s latest viral video spotlight is musician/actor/comedian Miles Fisher’s cover of “This Must Be The Place” by The Talking Heads. Ryan’s Smashing Life will be tweeting from Newport Folk Festival next week with reviews and photos, too.
Boston Band Crush: The gang of music lovers over at Boston Band Crush are hosting a rock and roll spectacle on August 29th called “One Night Band” — they have impressively assembled a huge group of Boston musicians who will divide into teams and create a band that day and then later perform at The Middle East Downstairs. The show benefits Zumix, a youth music organization located in East Boston. Read Boston Band Crush’s interviews with musicians who are participating in One Night Band.
Melophobe: For those of us with a short attention span, Melophobe’s 50-word music reviews are a must-read.
Inspired and Inspiring — Bleu’s new album comes to life
July 18, 2009
Unfortunately it’s not all that unique of a story — amazing band gets signed to a big label, releases an album and then gets dropped right as their next album is about to be released. Or in the case of two of my favorite Boston bands in the late 1990s — Talking to Animals and Splashdown — the labels produced each band’s first album but never released them. Not that I’m still bitter or anything.
So to see Bleu release A Watched Pot this week (July 14, 2009) is nothing short of inspired and inspiring. Back in 2005 he was all set to share the album with the world but found himself dropped from Aware/Columbia Records along with other artists and employees during a label “reorganization.”
A lot of musicians would understandably have just given up. But Bleu worked to get those songs back from the label so he could eventually release the album elsewhere (Artist Garage/Fontana Distribution). And it’s all finally happening for him today. Amazing and awesome!
A Watched Pot is a gem of pop rock awesomeness — eleven songs of awesomeness to be precise. Read the full tale of how “A Watched Pot” finally came to life on Bleu’s community site.
Listen to A Watched Pot then buy it!
And it doesn’t matter if you can’t get into his music (though I’ll never understand why) — everyone should buy this album to support someone who stayed true to his creative pursuits.
Bleu is sharing his adventure to bring A Watched Pot to life at YouTube, Ning, Facebook and Twitter — the least we could do is give a little something back. Buy A Watched Pot digital downloads at iTunes or Amazon.com. If you buy the album from Newbury Comics website, your CD will be signed by Bleu (while supplies last).
Music video for “Come ‘N Go”
See Bleu in Boston on July 24th
Bleu called Boston home for a while during and after attending Berklee and then he relocated to Los Angeles in June 2006. His Farewell to Boston show included the first time the rock and roll spectacle known as Bang Camaro performed on stage. Here are some of my photos from that night.
He will be back in town to celebrate the release of A Watched Pot on Friday, July 24th at TT The Bear’s Place joined by Hooray for Earth, Air Traffic Controller and another favorite band of mine, Count Zero. Get there early — Count Zero goes on at 9.
Sooz is a concert photographer and Exploit Boston! publisher. Follower her and Exploit Boston! on Twitter.
Bleu at TT The Bear’s Place, November 2006, Photo by Sooz