The Beatings take post-punk matters into their own hands
It's not easy to go it alone if you're an artist or a band, no matter how dedicated or ambitious. No label, no budget, nobody watching your back. Then again, sometimes the hardest-won roads yield the most satisfying rewards. Just ask the Beatings, a staunchly independent noise-pop foursome from Boston whose refusal to compromise has led to frustrating delays in getting its music to the public but whose stubborn streak has translated into near-perfect payoffs of post-punk muscle and melody.
''Holding on to Hand Grenades," the band's first full-length album in four years (and its fifth recording overall, counting three EPs), officially comes out next week on the Beatings' own Midriff Records imprint. But the celebrations start sooner, with a CD-listening party at the Plan at Great Scott tomorrow night and a CD-release bash at T.T. the Bear's on Thursday.
By then, everybody will be in on the secret: ''Hand Grenades" is an expansive, ferocious, and lovely riot of five-alarm distress and contemplative ennui. It is by turns prickly, pretty, and blown-to-the-brim with scorched sonic diatribes that take doubt and disquiet as a given.
The sense of tumult that surges through tracks such as the Bob Mould/Sugar-y ''Feel Good Ending" or the grunge hangover of ''False Positive" makes perfect sense for a band that's always lived on the knife edge of uncertainty and resolve. Especially when it comes to making their own music.
''We recorded the album in the fall of 2004, and at that time we had no idea what was going to happen with the record," says bassist-singer Erin Dalbec. ''We knew we wanted to take our time with it, and I'm relieved that it's finally coming out, and in the way that we wanted it to come out. It sounds much better than anything we've done before."
The Beatings recorded ''Hand Grenades" with Tim Shea (Black Helicopter) at Analog Divide in Allston and then mixed the tracks with producer Paul Q. Kolderie at Camp Street Studios in Cambridge.
''They're very committed to what they're doing," Shea says of the band's approach. ''They're really putting everything into it -- more so than most bands I've come across. They're really striving to do a lot with their music, make it bigger, and they've made a lot of sacrifices."
In fact, the Beatings had the album in the can last year. They held off releasing the disc, however, initially hoping to shop it to an independent label with cash and clout behind it for maximum distribution and exposure. During the interim, the band issued a teaser EP, ''If Not Now, Then When?" The title was meant to be a question aimed at both the band and the world at large: If not now, when exactly might the Beatings get their due?
The band's handful of self-financed cross-country tours had gone over well. The Village Voice and
Instead, the Beatings, which also includes singer-guitarist Tony Skalicky and drummer Dennis Grabowski, draw their sound from the musical experiences that shook them awake in adolescence: the Pixies, Husker Du, Superchunk. Like their predecessors, the Beatings' proto-metallic clang -- an angular, jarring, and epic roar, fed through a sinewy gristle of guitars, bass, and drums -- is both unsettling and exhilarating.
Dalbec claims her own formative musical influences ''are all over the map" (Blondie, Mamas and the Papas, Sonic Youth, Roy Orbison -- her first concert), and while she hears those Pixies and Husker Du comparisons a lot, she doesn't quite get it.
''It's definitely a compliment," Dalbec says. ''I would rather be compared to an awesome band than one I didn't like. But at the same time, I don't necessarily hear the Pixies in what we do. But maybe I'm so far inside of it, I don't hear it."
Bishop's blues: It's been seven long, often hard years for blues-rock renaissance man Elvin Bishop, a founding member of the iconic Paul Butterfield Blues Band and a guitarist whose musical resume reads like a who's who of rock and blues history. The Chicago blues veteran has done it all in his 60-plus years: jammed with Jimi Hendrix; backed Bob Dylan when he plugged in at Newport; sat in with B.B. King and Albert Collins; and even scored a top five hit in 1976 with ''Fooled Around and Fell In Love." Bishop, who in the old days used to play between 200 and 300 dates a year, hits Scullers on Wednesday for a rare East Coast appearance in support of ''Gettin' My Groove Back," his first disc of new material in seven years.
The album's title refers to Bishop's personal struggles in the wake of the death of his 22-year-old daughter, who, along with his ex-wife, was murdered in 2000. It's understandable, then, that on ''Gettin' My Groove Back," Bishop's trademark good-time party vibe and raucous sensibility are tempered with angrier, grittier sentiments (''What the Hell Is Going On"; ''Come On Blues"), as well as hopeful ones (''I'll Be Glad"). The disc is leavened by helpings of the funkified roadhouse blues-rock that has been Bishop's bread and butter for decades. Ultimately, ''Gettin' My Groove Back" is a worthy testament to music's healing, redemptive powers, as well as Bishop's own.
Bits & pieces: Tonight A little band that calls itself the Rolling Stones takes over TD Banknorth Garden tonight and Sunday. Elsewhere, the Stones' onetime competition, the Beatles, may be no more, but you can still see and hear Beatlejuice, featuring Boston's Brad Delp, who'll conjure the Fab Four at Johnny D's tonight and tomorrow. A reunited Camper Van Beethoven, which plays what used to be called ''college rock" back in the band's '80s heyday, headlines the Middle East Downstairs. Tomorrow Bourbon Princess's smoky chanteuse and namesake Monique Ortiz goes solo at Zeitgeist Gallery. The Bad Saints are at Sally O'Brien's. The roots-rocking Irreverends headline the Abbey Lounge. Sunday The annual Noise magazine's ''Maxie Awards" ceremony, which honors its picks for the best on the Boston music scene, gets started at 1 p.m. at the Middle East Upstairs. Monday British dub-rock upstarts Hard-Fi headline the Middle East Downstairs. Wednesday Emily Grogan continues her Wednesday night residency at Toad. Thursday Piano man Billy Joel is in the house at TD Banknorth Garden.
