Red Shaydez!

OK let’s talk some sh**t!

Sorry for the potty mouth.  Just trying to introduce my next guest appropriately.

Red Shaydez is a Do it your-selfer whose name I have heard countless times over the past few years. She is a busy woman and talent. A hip-hop artist, producer, videographer, public speaker, educator, and youth mentor, Red has been nominated and/or won several Boston Music Awards including Breakthrough Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, 617 Session artist of the year and I am sure there are many more coming.

I had the opportunity to sit with her on a rainy day at The Record Co in their brand-new facility, which is gorgeous.

I was also fortunate to have a former guest - the awesome Brandie Blaze - join me as a cohost, which is why this episode is a two part-er.

I had a great time talking to Red and Brandie – The first episode is just Red and yours truly – part two is when Brandie Blaze enters the room and then we really start talking some sh**t.

Argh.  Sorry.  Potty mouth.

Right when I first started ATB in 2016, emails asking to be a guest were few and far between.  One of the first requests I ever got that year was from my next guest, who I never actually met until this past summer.

Musician Justine Covault had herself just started her band Justine and The Unclean.  She’s someone who gets stuff done.  From co-founding female-fronted rock festival

WhistleStop Rock to starting a monthly residency at The Plough And Stars with 'The Mess Around', Justine has ventured into new territory with her new label Red On Red Records.

Her support and enthusiasm for the Boston music community and for her roster of (mostly) Boston bands are infectious, so much so that the great Sir David Minehan of The Neighborhoods and Woolly Mammoth Sound is collaborating with her to offer Red Mammoth Concerts.

I’ll let her tell the story. I just wish she had an extra swizzle stick to give me.

Linnea Herzog is someone you don’t miss when you walk by her. Or see on stage.  And I would surmise at her day job as a neuroscientist at The Broad Institute, you can’t miss her there either.

Musicians are smart.  But some are smarter than others, especially when you get a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University where Linnea studied how taste and spatial information are processed in the rodent hippocampus.  Linnea is actually our second musician/scientist we’ve spoken to at The Broad Institute.  A few years ago, we talked with Infectious Disease Expert, Professor at Harvard University, and musician Pardis Sabetti.

Anyways, Linnea is all punk and glam and a fearless rock star. Having got to the Rock and Roll Rumble finals in 2019 with her former band Powerslut, when the pandemic hit, she decided to go in a new direction with her new band Linnea’s Garden. Linnea is a do-it-yourselfer, and she certainly does it all.

Her debut EP, “Nowhere Friday Nights,” is out now on Red on Red Records and she is preparing to release a full length shortly.

I hoped to publish this episode before they played at The Sinclair in Cambridge, MA, but life got in the way a bit.  So while I missed the opportunity to plug her Sinclair show, she already has several more lined up this fall.  I was able to get a recording from the Sinclair show that you can hear at the end of this conversation, so make sure you stay for that!

Linnea was a great chat and I had a fantastic time talking to her.

I saw my first show at Once Ballroom in Somerville a few years ago, entering the building, wondering if I just walked into a bar mitzvah, or as JJ Gonson first thought when she saw the room for the first time, a high school prom.

But on the raised stage I saw the band, Dada. That was only the first time among many. Mostly I was there for the infamous Boston Emissions Rock and Roll Rumble, where the place transformed into a community of music fans and bands who supported each other and the music for which Boston is famous.

JJ Gonson saw the room not as a ballroom, but as an opportunity to share her love of music with the world. That may sound a bit cheesy, but JJ is all about the music.

Starting off as a rock photographer, (she is responsible for the Elliott Smith self-titled album cover as well as his Roman Candle album), she eventually began to manage Elliott’s band Heatmiser and then Elliott himself before he left us all too soon.

ONCE was to become a catering company but soon morphed into one of the great, unique independent venues in Boston. COVID hit hard, unfortunately, and ONCE had to close. But the community JJ worked so hard to pull together through music, well, pulled together to raise money to try and keep ONCE alive. And while the venue did eventually have to close, she was able to go virtual with the ONCE Virtual Venue to give musicians the ability to continue playing for people.

It also gave JJ the opportunity to search for another location, which she found at Boynton Yards. I’ll let her talk about that. But JJ continues to fight for venues, Boston music, and the musicians that make up this amazing city, through her incredible work with Save Our Stages and the National Independent Venue Association.

Suffice it to say that we are all fortunate to have our friend JJ Gonson on our side.

When COVID first hit Boston and we were sequestered in our hobbit holes, we decided to offer a window for everyone to see and hear live music for a musical respite from the pandemic.

One of our guests on this program that we called #TogetherAtHome was the awesome Wolff Sisters.  These three sisters and musicians, who are also fellow 2020 Boston Music Award winners for Americana Artist of the Year, invited me into their home to chat about their last album Queendom of Nothing.

But their most recent release is a single called Boston Town and I immediately put it on my daily playlist.  These talented sisters, with Rebecca on acoustic guitar, Rachael on electric, and Kat on keys, along with their fantastic vocals and harmonies create a sound that The Boston Globe called one of the 15 Best Fall Albums of 2019.

They sound great, the harmonies are as wonderful as three sisters singing together can be, and they are looking forward to making more music and hitting the road to reach others in Boston Town and beyond.

I was very happy to sit with Knar Bedian, Founder and Editor in Chief of Sound of Boston music blog.  I discovered Sound of Boston before I started Above The Basement and I am a huge fan.  I asked Knar on in the early days of ATB and she politely refused.  But I kept at it and finally got her on the show.

Knar loves Boston, and like many of us, she wants to make sure people know how amazing and vibrant the Boston music scene is.  But even beyond that, as a proud Armenian-American, Knar is a tireless activist, working to draw attention to the terrible violence and oppression happening in her ancestral Armenia.  Sound of Boston has also been vocal about oppression here in Boston, as she recently wrote a great piece called A Musician’s Guide to Black Music History and Anti-Racism Resources, an anti-racism and music-focused educational resource to help create a more inclusive, safe, and just community (and music scene) for everyone.

We had a great conversation and I love the line they use on their site -

“While the world waits for a ‘Boston Sound,’ Sound of Boston is here to show you that it already exists—you just have to know where to look. 

Like so many of the Boston musicians we have talked to, Avi Salloway from the band Billy Wylder is a very thoughtful guy who has learned that as an activist, you need to understand how to be an ally.   

Avi just released a new EP called Whatcha Looking For and we were fortunate enough to hear a few tunes from it. He has played music around the globe, from working with Israeli and Palestinian youth to develop creative nonviolent tools for social change with the Non Profit organization Heartbeat, to his travels to Standing Rock to unite with the native-led nonviolent movement to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.  

Avi shows up.  

Not only does he show up, but he does so with some pretty incredible musicians, notably Tuareg guitar master, Bombino, and other renowned artists like Jack Johnson, Pete Seeger, Celia Woodsmith of Della Mae, and a slew of other Boston musicians who make this city a great place for the arts.  

His belief in the power of music to unite and face challenges is incredible and if we could all have his kind of optimism, the world would be a better place.

Juliana Hatfield!    

If you did not know, Juliana is a Boston native and still resides in the city. You may see her finishing up her 10…ok maybe 5k run if you can pick her out from the crowd of masked runners.  She likes the anonymity and this isolation in the time of COVID fit her very well – or at least it didn’t change much for her - as she is a restless artist and will always find something to do with her creativity.  

With 26 or so albums under her belt, 19 of those solo studio albums, as well as her latest album 'Blood', she is a terrifically prolific songwriter and artist. If you haven’t heard her Police and Olivia Newton-John cover albums, you are in for a treat.  

From her previous bands Blake Babies, Some Girls, The Lemonheads, and her own band The Juliana Hatfield Three, Juliana is a constant force. Her latest album 'Blood' is, and I quote, "...a brutal and critical look at modern human psychology and behavior; at personal and societal sickness." While that sounds pretty deep and dark, Juliana says, “But it is fun, musically”.  

So there you have it.  

You should check out her live performances streaming from Q-Division Studios she has been doing once a month.  

My co-host this week Ike Walker and I had a nice chat with her and she is really fantastic.