Straight Angular in the Boston Phoenix?

That's right a band that I play bass and sing harmonies for is on the front page of the music section in the Boston Phoenix! Right after I wrote two very depressing articles this happens...

That's the way life goes - when things are good they will get bad, and when things are bad they will get good. Remember that always all you guys and girls out there.

So here are some links and screen shots!

Here is the link to the front page of the music section:
The Boston Phoenix Music Page

I’m not too sure how long we will be on the front page so, I took a screen shot while we are currently up there!




Here is the link to the article they wrote about us: Anything and everything: StreightAngular just want to know what's now


Just in case you don’t trust my links… here is the full length article by Barry Thompson.


"Anything and everything
StreightAngular just want to know what's now
By BARRY THOMPSON October 7, 2009

People never like to label themselves. Or, at least they shouldn't.

A musician who's comfortable summarizing what he does with a phrase or two probably isn't a very good musician. When asked to describe one's band, the right tack is to sidestep the question, or else offer a bewildering response. For their part, StreightAngular have a knack for making correct choices — and taking them to extremes.

"I had a vision of making music that wasn't just love songs. It would incorporate love, but would be more of a commentary on things around us, things that humanity is going through at this moment," says Al Polk, as he sips coffee with his wife and drummer, Theresa Polk, at the South Street Diner. After doing the White Stripes duo thing for a while, they filled out with Andrew Mello on bass, Adam Strock on guitar, and Michell Barys (also of Brunt of It infamy) on trumpet. "So, StreightAngular spawned from seeing garbage on the streets, buildings, skyscrapers, homeless people, models, magazines, and things like that. If a love song one day were to be written, it might be love for a robot. Or a person. StreightAngular is more about freedom, actually."

Hold on . . . "Girl with a Tambourine" isn't a love song?

"Sounds pretty lovey-dovey," Al admits, after reciting a snippet of its lyrics, which pertain to spandex and escalators. "I think all our songs are love songs, actually."
Once you cut through the abstracts and the contradictions, StreightAngular make their own kind of sense. Curious listeners are encouraged to indulge in this logic this Friday at the Whitehaus DIY collective in Jamaica Plain, and next Friday at P.A.'s Lounge.
Being a nascent, amorphous band, StreightAngular can roll untethered toward anyone's expectations, and they gleefully indulge this freedom on their first outing, After and Before. There's a dancy protest anthem, "Mission Has Failed," a chunk of updated proto-punk, "Empathetic Environmentalist," down-tempo synth-rock on "Open Your Eyes/Take a Picture," surfy fare on "HOTTIES," and two songs that remind me of the Pixies, "Are You Ever Satisfied" and "On the Washing Machine." (Then again, for some reason, every song ever reminds me of the Pixies.)

"Nowadays, with technology at our hand, we can listen to any kind of music from any region, any time period," Al observes. "Maybe that's an overload of things in the brain. On the album, I bet we ripped off everyone. We probably ripped off Paula Abdul and Kiss and anything that was floating around. Like if, when I was a baby, the window was down and Phil Collins was playing somewhere."

Being the multi-tasking sort, Al Polk is also head honcho of Polk Records, a well-regarded local stable since 2007 that's dedicated to throwing eclectic, round-robin-style showcase shindigs.
"I was inspired by the late '60s, when people knew each other and would play on each other's albums," he explains. "I saw this scene in Festival Express? it was Janis Joplin and the bass player from the Band. They were sitting on a couch, singing a song together. They're legends in our time, period, but back then they were just friends. They were just like us, trying to make music, and that's basically why I started the label. I wanted that community."

Funny he should mention the late '60s, given the way After and Before nods to the late '70s and the '80s. When I broach that subject, he tells me how much he's been influenced by the Baroque and Romantic periods of classical music. "It's like everything's connected. We divide things by decades, just because that makes it easier for us. What are these decades and days and years? The sun goes up and the sun goes down. You listen to the '90s, and sometimes you're like, 'Wait a second, that sounds like '80s!' There are these transitions, and I think that's what we're waiting for now. Some people are like, 'What's now?' "

STREIGHTANGULAR + THE WOODRO WILSONS + TOM THUMB Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain October 9 at 8 pm www.whitehausfamilyrecord.com STREIGHTANGULAR + RED QUIET + LADDERLEGS + 16 LIPS + AHMAHLLAMAH + DJ GHETTO BLASTER P.A.'s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville October 16 at 8:30 pm 617.776.1557 orwww.paslounge.com "


And finally as a special treat, were going to be giving away our new CD “After and Before” for free!




Download: Straight Angular: After and Before

Or you can copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?t1ettonvwnx

So download the CD for free, read the article, and share both with everyone you know! These are exciting times, and I feel it's only going to get better.

I have a lot more updates to come! Stay tuned : )!

So your a "starving artist"?

What is a starving artist?

Well the literal definition would be - one who creates things who just so happens to be hungry. Hungry for what you may ask? This part of the definition can be skewed - is this artist hungry for calories or is he hungry for people to view his art? I do think in most cases it is the latter. How does one become like this? I like to imagine this scenario.

Picture a summer day, just a few hours afternoon as the sun begins its retreat out into the western sky. In the distance you can hear little Timmy with his OshKosh B'Gosh outfit, stomping on the pavement of his parents drive way.




Martha, his mother - who is of course toiling in the kitchen, hears the triumphant little steps of her 7 year recent vaginal spawn. Intrigued to know what he is all fired up about, she looks out the window and sees her son flailing a piece of paper around, darting to the house; while in the background the roar of the school bus fades away.

Nearly out of breath Timmy opens the screen door and yells in an enthusiastic manner, "mama mama look at the grade i got on this drawing!!!"
Martha takes the sheet of paper only to see a horribly scribbled man flying a kite in a crayon field of orange and green. "Wow this is amazing!" she lies encouraging her young boy, "You could be the next Picasso!"
"Really mama, isn't he a famous artist?!" Timmy spoke with big dilated dreams in his eyes.
"Yes son, he sure is - why don't you keep drawing..." she responded with a careless encouragement.

Little did she know what kind of monster she had just created. The words "famous artist" have now been branded in Timmy's malleable mind.

Fast forward 15 years. Our little Timmy is now 22, and has worked very hard on his art. He is much better now and in fact, he thinks he is so good, that he is still perusing his childhood dreams of becoming a famous artist. His mother long ago stoped caring about his art because she realized she was still supporting her son. So now he is starving for attention. Once his mother kicks him out, poor Timmy will go out into the world (most likely the nearest city) yelling with clenched fists, "Mom I'll prove to you that I will become a famous artist!"



If you go to any big city, you can see hundreds of these "Timmy's" pedaling their art on the street, playing music, dancing, reciting horrifying poetry, or doing what ever art thier mothers said they were good at.

Artists are sad people. They try to change the world by being original... but really they just want to prove their families wrong, because deep down inside, they know you need to make money in this world... with out money you are nothing and no one cares about you.



So, all you starving artists out there - get a job. No one cares about your art except for you and maybe your similarly pathetic girl friend.

God damn I am a hypocrite.