Record Expo, Mobile Steam Unit Live, Phil DaRosa's Faraday Etc.

It was like entering a time warp coming back from Vegas to my old stomping grounds in Boston / Cambridge this past month or so. I had never heard of the band Geph who merged with the Manian brothers from the group Mobile Steam Unit and for those of you who are old enough to remember the brilliant pairing of The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver which resulted in "I Don't Want To Love You (But You Got Me Anyway)" the 2018 pairing of Geph and MSU worked. Though I was never good at Geometry the famous axiom from Euclid "The whole is equal to the sum of its parts. Axiom 6. The whole is greater than any of its parts" proved to be true with that resulting pop masterpiece from Sutherland Brothers/Quiver as well as the live show November 2 from Mobile Steam/Geph. Sutherland Brothers did write a big Rod Stewart hit, "Sailing," written back in 1972 I do forget the year that it hit for Rod...

and the eternal Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits re-recorded "You Got Me Anyway" for a solo disc from the album named after himself ...Noone's birthday is November 5, he's 39 this year or something... and I have to say that to keep getting on his guest list. Come back to Vegas, Peter...Judy is still waiting for you! "It was 1969, a difficult time, we were laughing everyday, singing songs and blowing minds" - perfect for a Herman's Hermits show, but what do I know?

So at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge three members of New York's Mobile Steam Unit merged with Geph and it was a sheer delight. The Lizard Lounge has some bio stuff on the band so here goes:

http://lizardloungeclub.com/ev...

"GEPH is an instrumental progressive jazz metal trio riding the very cutting edge of contemporary music. With Josh Goldberg and John Tyler Kent on Chapman Stick, and Josh Merhar on drums, the three of them sound as big as a five-piece, and work to expand the modern conceptions of arranging and composing in a heavy, intense and still succinctly musical format."

Mobile Steam Unit minus Samuel Huntington opened the 10 pm program with Pat Manian saying "It's the reason you're going to hear something very unique tonight" and the band went into a Vanilla Fudge-styled "Hey Joe" (The Leaves, Jimi Hendrix, etc,) "Space Oddity" with keyboards (Jeff0 Manian,) bass (Dan Manian-oh!) and drummer/keyboardist/vocalist Pat O'Manian into an amazing "Don't Let Me Down" from Let It Be and the Beatles Abbey Road Side 2 ...exquisite performance. There were tons of cameras going off in the room so you can fetch videos off of YouTube, put Mobile Steam Unit Lizard Lounge into the YouTube search. Should be lots of them up there. Some good looking camera guy from CCTV Cambridge or Watertown TV or something was running around taping the band. There should be a law against looking that good but there, I - Judith - go digressing again. Ahh to be young and being a lounge lizard again. Perhaps the lad from Boston's version of Wayne's World, public TV, can come back to Vegas with me after Christmas but, alas, I only have a ticket for one.

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Phil DaRosa out in the waters of Martha's Vineyard has come up with a delicious new single "Faraday" - the rocker delivering an electro-pop, techno-rock, Bowie-esque underwater instant classic. This is a song that demands your attention, wave after wave, sound after sound over a pulsating beat. Very, very nice. He bears a striking resemblance to former New England Patriot Wes Welker.

With Club Bohemia vanishing (promoter Cal Cali had a Club Bohemia night on November 3 at the space beneath the Cantab,) rumors of the Cantab Lounge finally fading to black, PA's Lounge changing its name, the scene is in turmoil. Perhaps that's why I moved to Las Vegas? Coming back here it is like walking through a fog, and the torrential rain after the Lizard Lounge show didn't help my hair much either. But the durable Tom Tipton is doing something new, different and exciting, and hopefully fourth time is a charm as Out of the Blue migrates from Somerville and Cambridge over to Allston. Cambridge Day has an interesting piece on the move: https://www.cambridgeday.com/2...

And - of course - the Original N.E. Compact Disc and Record Expo is today, Sunday, November 4, 2018 from 9:30 am to 3 pm. Luckily for them the N.E. Patriots are on tonight and won't interfere with the record expo. And though I hate to break the hearts of Peter Noone and the young camera lad from the public television station, I will be watching the Patriots with a handsome man who is making me dinner so, boys, as Ten Years After's Alvin Lee said to his publicist regarding the groupies who put in a request to meet with him "The fantasy will have to suffice."