Mascara Music: BUZZ

 

BOSTON BAND CRUSH
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Show/Contest Crush: Mascara (CD release) / Ho-Ag / Super 400 / Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling at the Middle East this Friday / win a pair of tickets!
If this one has somehow slipped under your radar you might want to get it checked out. The buzz is at chainsaw levels for Mascara's new album, Fountain of Tears, and the bill for this Friday night's CD-release show at the Middle East upstairs is guaranteed to pack, and rawwwwk, the joint: Mascara Ho-Ag Super 400 Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (say, we know them!) Friday, January 29th The Middle East Upstairs 480 Massachusetts Ave // Boston, MA 18+ // $9 adv & $10 dos // 8pm doors PLUS! We've got a pair of tickets and Mascara's new CD (Fountain of Tears) to give away to one lucky winner! To enter, just leave a comment on this post (say anything you like!). We'll pick a winner Friday morning by random drawing. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK BACK FRIDAY MORNING TO SEE IF YOU WON!!
We even [...]

Boston Phoenix On The Download
MP3 of the Week
MASCARA, "B261"
Next Friday will see the release of Fountain of Tears, the latest full-length installment of fabulously bent garage prog from Boston's own MASCARA.  Chris Mascara tells us that Fountain pays track-by-track tribute to a host of trailblazing iconoclasts and tragic heroes, from murdered poet Federico Garcia Lorca to undersung soul singer Jackie Wilson.  The latter is honored here with "B261" (the number a reference to his anonymous grave marker), and it's no "Lonely Teardrops" - "B261" is a charging beast of trantrum-esque vocals, barreling drums, and temperamental guitars caught up in beastly tunings.  Maybe it's just because it's Kramer on the boards, but the whole thing whisks us back to simpler times in indie rock, when all we craved was controlled confusion - of which there'll be plenty at Mascara's Middle East release party next Friday, January 29, with Ho-Ag, Super 400, and Do Not Fosake Me, Oh My Darling.  [...]

Feature Crush:  C. D. on Songs, 01/14/10
Mascara - "B261"
Christopher Mascara (yes, that is is real, unchanged name - or at least that's what he told us) is, above all, a showman. He's such a showman that the Rock Band guys (yes, Rock Band again) had him don one of those spandex suits with ping-pong balls on it to motion-capture his moves. "B261" is the real deal, however, with no digital animation or special effects.
This really isn't a problem, Mascara is a special effect unto themselves. Each song - and this one is no different - is like its own little mini-show. Maybe that's what they're getting at with the title of this record (that comes out in five short days) - Mascara seems able to flip a switch and launch a fountain of tears, laughter, hysteria and every other extreme emotion with little effort. "B261" is no different, hitting like a series of explosions embodied not just in Mascara's vocal calisthenics but the entire ensemble's ability to ramp things up, explode, and then [...]

The Consumer Index: January 2010
What the Connoisseur staff is obsessing over this month. (Trust us. You'll like this stuff.)

3. THE BIG WEEP
Chris Mascara (the real-life model for Rock Band's lead-singer avatars) has a new album out. It's titled FOUNTAIN OF TEARS, but the crunching tunes make us fist-pump, not cry.
$9.99, mascaramusic.com.

Winter warmers
 
Local rockers drop it like it's cold
By MATT PARISH  |  December 30, 2009
Here we are, finally — winter. This is where those New England training wheels come off and you decide whether you're truly a local. Sure, some bands take the easy route and have album releases through the summer, enticing you to shows with back-patio barbecues and all-night rooftop after-parties. In January? Not so much. These bands have nothing but their jams to draw you in, but take a listen — they are totally worth the wet socks.
MASCARA | Middle East upstairs | January 29 | Mascara's Fountain of Tears might be one of the year's weirdest local offerings. Not '80s Boredoms weird, but like Joni Mitchell's head-scratching jazz phase, as played by a spaced-out garage-prog band that drives a van with a wolf mural. CEO Chris Mascara leads the trio through this maze of left turns and campy echo-chamber melodrama. There's a seven-minute noise-drone monologue about high school [...]