Come together, beckons a new series
Overlooked indie pop gets a home and a spotlight at Lizard Lounge
What if there were an intimate nightclub with red rugs and low lights where you could pay $7 to sit at a table with a candle and a drink and listen to pop songs all night long?
Andrea Kremer is betting that if she builds it, they will come -- it being a music series devoted to her beloved indie-pop music, and they being the like-minded audience she's convinced is out there.
A Web development professional by day and budding music entrepreneur the rest of the time, Kremer is launching the Boston Pop Underground music series this week at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. The series, scheduled for the second Thursday of every month throughout this year, kicks off with the Candy Butchers (celebrating the release of their new CD, "Hang on Mike"), Jed Parish, and the Animators. The lineup of talented, little-known pop artists typifies Kremer's mission.
"Music with melodies, harmonies, and hooks, descended directly from the Beatles, that isn't being represented by the mainstream media," is how Kremer describes her passion. "I've often had the pleasure of introducing my friends to new music, and I'm always amazed and gratified at the reactions I get. I really see this series as an extension of that role."
Kremer, who cut her teeth booking the Boston stop on the International Pop Overthrow festival last year, hopes to establish a loose, communal space where local and national pop acts can play for receptive audiences. The model for Boston Pop Underground -- which is being copresented by local rock station WBCN and the IPO organizers -- is a Los Angeles club called Largo, where former Bostonian Jon Brion and a coterie of musician friends hold court on Friday nights.
Brion's weekly events at Largo have become famous for their free-form flow and high-profile regulars (Fiona Apple, Neil Finn, and Rickie Lee Jones among them). Boston can't match LA for resident star power, but it can aspire to Largo's reputation as a haven for serious musicians and serious fans.
"What they should do is try to get the great local talent, and people who are new to the scene, and nurture that," says Mark Flanagan, who opened Largo in 1996. "Tell musicians not to come in with a set list. Mix it up every time. Cross-pollinate. I started putting a comedian on before Aimee Mann because she's a nervous wreck and every song she sings is about being a nervous wreck. Some people get angry, but she loves it. The idea is to make it a venue people love to play in."
It shouldn't be hard. While many clubs cater to rock groups and the hordes of patrons who are more interested in yelling over their beers than listening to the music they've ostensibly paid to see, it's rare to find a space where the artists are as valued as the drinkers. The Paradise Lounge and Zuzu!, spinoffs of two local rock clubs, are trying to create a music-friendly, sit-down vibe.
But Largo has a rigid no-chatting policy. In a similar spirit, Kremer has designed coasters that read: "Boston Pop Underground encourages silence during performances. Feel free to be wicked loud at all other times."
"Boston needs this," says Stoughton native Mike Viola, a veteran performer at half a dozen Largo shows who's now based in New York and leads the Candy Butchers. "T.T.'s is a great place for a rock band, and so is the Middle East, but for a cabaret-style, night-out kind of place, there really isn't a club where people are encouraged to pay attention. You know, it's not frustrating making music or playing music or even being in the business. The frustration comes just trying to be heard."
Billy Beard, who opened the Lizard Lounge in 1995, jumped at the chance to participate in Kremer's project. A busy sideman who plays drums with local and national acts, Beard says his perspective on live performances has shifted after years of playing in countless anonymous clubs.
"As you become older and wiser and lose your delusions of grandeur, great little scenes with a great vibe mean a lot," says Beard, who's given Kremer carte blanche at the club on BPU nights. "If Boston Pop Underground could be that, it would be a dream come true for me."
Kremer, too, has big dreams for her little scene.
"I see this series as part of a larger indie-pop movement, a grass-roots effort that encompasses venues, labels, non-commercial radio stations, promoters, and fans across the country working together to promote some incredibly talented artists who are flying under the radar," she says. "I would very much like Boston Pop Underground to be a place where they can find a home."
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