The Howl

Things

pastor — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:38:09 +0000

The Howl Upcoming Dates:

Friday, Febuary 6, 2009
The Lucky Dog Music Hall
Worcester MA
with Bow Thayer & Perfect Trainwreck, The Dirty Truckers

Friday, February 13, 2009
Church, Boston MA
with SKULLFUNKED, UNCLE BILLY’S SMOKEHOUSE, THE CHANGE UP , THE HOWL, BRIAN JARVIS
The Howl starts promptly at 9:00PM

Friday, February 27, 2009
Ralph’s, Worcester MA
with Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse

check the schedule for more

January 2009

pastor — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:57:19 +0000

Read more about The Howl’s Tuesday residency at The Lucky Dog below

from Worcester Magazine

The Howl evolution
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Residency rings in change

By Jeremy Shulkin

When bands make statements about “changing” their sound, fans get nervous. They ask in hushed tones why their favorite band’s sound needed tinkering. Then, the blogs catch on, ranting about how the new album will never live up to earlier material.

Finally, they all line up outside a concert venue to catch the live show where the band’s new material will debut, creating an atmosphere of uneasiness, an impending dread that’s found only among a herd of cows in a slaughterhouse corral. This is why good bands never change. They “evolve.” The Beatles evolved from pop hit-makers to psychedelic hit-makers, retaining the gorgeous melodies, beautiful harmonies, and boyish energy that made them famous in the fi rst place. U2 moved from regional political rock to arena disco rock over the course of a decade — slower than a glacier over the plains when put in comparison to modern day performers like Fall Out Boy and Liz Phair — ending with the anthemic arena rock of their last two albums. Radiohead, arguably the most popular credible band in the world, has been dynamically evolving since 1993, when they started out as another post-Nirvana alternative rock band.

For a local example of minor tweaking trumping grandiose overhauling, Worcester’s The Howl (Troy Gonyea on guitar/vocals, Brooks Milgate on keys, and Duncan Arsenault on drums) is in the midst of evolving. With a recently renewed Tuesday night residency at the Lucky Dog Music Hall, the band has added a new member (bassist Jeremy Curtis) and some tinkering to their set lists.

“The residency idea came up as a way for us to get together every week to rehearse, which we were doing already, but with the idea that we would share with whoever wanted to listen the band learning new songs, trying covers, and practicing our set,” Arsenault says. The Howl’s sound, at its core, is the same as it has always been: gritty feedback-laced blues-rock that calls to mind Led Zeppelin and Cream, with Gonyea’s vocals adding a deeper dimension to the guitar/bass/keys/drums line-up — think Jim James of My Morning Jacket or Paul Westerberg in the Replacements’ song “Left of the Dial.”

What’s impressive about The Howl’s small evolution is that it’s happening at all. Most bands whose infl uences died or broke up before the age of digital music (the Howl’s Myspace page cites Muddy Waters, Stax Records, and the Faces) only aim to recreate the sound of their idols, rather than personalizing it, synthesizing it into something organic. Gonyea and his bandmates, each with a strong knowledge of their instruments, songcraft, and sound manipulation, don’t seem content to simply rehash the past. “I am glad that we don’t come off like a retro band,” says Arsenault, “Although those infl uences are there, all of us are huge fans of new music and new ideas.”

Their music has caught on with the right people. The Howl spent early 2006 on a Midwestern tour, opening for Robert Randolph and the Family Band, released their latest album Megahorn Breakdown Suite to positive reviews from a wide array of media including the Boston Phoenix, and they’ve been nominated for a 2008 Boston Music Award in the category of Outstanding Blues Act.

The opportunity of a renewed residency at the Lucky Dog will present the Howl with even more chances to craft their sound in front of appreciative audiences, and just as Radiohead’s evolution made it possible to sell their newest album online to adoring fans, we should all do The Howl a favor and check out www.myspace.com/thehowl, where Megahorn Breakdown Suite can be downloaded. The band is working on an EP which will be available soon, and then onto to a full-length follow-up. The Howl play at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday nights at the Lucky Dog Music Hall — which has the coolest collection of local band promo posters in the county — located at 89 Green St. in Worcester.

Tuesday Residency Continues

pastor — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:01:42 +0000

Telegram.com review of The Howl’s Tuesday Residency

Worcester’s Local Music Myth
Pat Clark

There is a Myth about Worcester’s local music scene, that Worcester is home base for many original metal acts that could care less about making a buck, wedged between scores of cover bands reciting familiar chants, making sure to keep the crowd comfortable.

Take, for example, the Green Street Strip just off of Worcester’s Kelly Square. On any given weekend night, stand in the middle of the street and you’ll be weighed down by the sound seductions from both sidewalks, absorbing both walks of life. One end of the street you may hear a lone guitar strummer singing “Sweet Caroline” in bitter harmony with drunken jibber jabbers, while on the other end you might heed to the sound of a rapidly deep base tone accompanied by death himself loosing his voice on the microphone.

For the most part, the myth holds true, but if you know how to navigate through the electronic circus and build up enough incentive to leave your home on a cold Tuesday night, you’ll come to find that that’s not all there is.

In late October on a rainy Tuesday night, I found myself circling the middle of the street trying to gravitate toward what musically made sense. I glanced to the bar on the left and was witness to a huddle of scandalous young women inhaling a smoked conversation in the rain while exhaling their curiosity toward me in the middle of the street. The eyes of two made a few obvious glances toward my way, hinting they may need a quarterback to join their huddle, while the other three were surely blocking the goal line. I thought aloud with slow reverberation for a second, damning my knee injury this season and uneasily turned toward the opposite end of the street. “Throw me a bone,” I thought.

Shaking off the rain like a wet dog I opened the doors to The Lucky Dog venue to hear a Howl of unfamiliar honesty that everyone should experience at least once in her or his life.

The Howl is a three-piece musical act, with each triangular point seemingly representing quest, fortitude and fortune.

An accordion player who knew what he was doing and also expanded his abilities to the piano, a drummer with a rhythmic representation for maintaining the right sensation, and a guitarist-singer with the right kind of knack for blurring the lines between soloing and keeping the rhythm, accompanied by a voice of a thousand echoing mountaineers but not the kind that yodel off of some eminent cliff, but the breed that spent the entire dire day climbing an undisclosed path to the summit just to recognize the beauty that connects the environment to the human.

In laymen terms, he tapped into a voice that will immediately send shivers down your spine, not because of the words he puts together (because you can hardly hear what he is saying) but his sensational tone and the influence it portrays off the walls.

The Howl plays every Tuesday night starting around 9:30 at The Lucky Dog, until at least the end of November, with a show at Tammany Hall Nov. 25. Here is a link to the band’s Web site, where I’m sure someone keeps it updated for shows and contact information: http://churchofthehowl.com/.

Not everyone around this neck of the woods is performing hardcore metal or serving-up bar favorites. Worcester’s local music scene has many other talents that reside outside the realm of metal and cover acts. Most myths have falsehoods if you have the desire to look for them.

Tuesdays In September

pastor — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:35:15 +0000

Welcome

pastor — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:28:13 +0000

updates June 08

pastor — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:58:25 +0000

OK, then.Plenty of “goings on” going on behind the scenes with us right now. We’ll keep posting the details here, so watch this space…

For now here’s some quick answers to some questions we’ve been getting:

1. Yes, The Howl has a new line-up. Brooks Milgate on Piano/Organ and Duncan Arsenault on Drums.

2. We’re putting together a tour for this Fall, but yes The Howl will be doing some local dates before then.

More soon. End transmission.

Thank you all,

The Howl