Once bad puns sink their fangs, it’s hard to let them go. It’s hard to let go of bands too.
On that note, two Boston bands that I muchly enjoy are setting sail into the big bright suns of our tomorrows. Namely Soft Focus (who played at the first bostonnova party) and the Doctor’s Fox, whom I wrote about last year in the Boston Phoenix.
These bands are pretty different, but are both special in their own ways. Soft Focus will be playing their last Boston show this Thursday at the Elks Club in Cambridge (with Chandeliers and Strange Fuzz), before two-thirds of their corps head to Los Angeles to continue their quest to break into TV work. At last word, the band still hopes to put out a couple of EPs, and who knows what else, with the first EP coming out pretty soon (although not in time for the show). In the meantime, here are a couple of videos from Soft Focus’ set at the bostonnova launch party at Johnny D’s earlier this summer, shot by the great Chris Newell.
The first one of these bostonnova exclusive videos is called “Hey You” and is the lead single from the forthcoming EP, and the second one is the one of the band’s newer songs (and my favorite of their set) “Yip Yap Cracker Jack.” For the time that they were around, Soft Focus were a pretty clean, upbeat, energetic little trio that managed to put together some solid jangly pop-punk tunes and put on some cool shows. Best of luck to these guys, who have good things ahead of them together and apart. (and don’t forget to monitor their bandcamp page for EPs!)
Meanwhile, the Doctor’s Fox are going to relocate their home base to Chicago, with a facewell show next Friday at the Middle East (with Ryan Jackson Troika, OTP, Philip Cohen, and Sun People). While Chicago is a huge city and a great music town, I think I feel pretty confident saying that they don’t have a band that sounds like the Doctor’s Fox—which is great for them and a bummer for Boston (until they come back). They last time I saw these guys, my ears didn’t get a rest and my belly didn’t get a beer until the end of their set. I just had to stand, watch, and pay attention to the constantly changing, creative architecture of their songs. A musician’s band to be certain, and a group of guys that can play lilting, funky, ‘violin-rock’ in more styles than the ice cream man has ice pops.
Enjoy their wry, hummably subversive video, “Living Simple,” and giant hugs Mr. Foxes! See you next weekend.
boston nova 