Archive for the ‘Show Coverage’ Category

For those of you who have been asking where we’ve been.

Thursday, September 3rd, 2015

Here’s the beginning of the answer:

From Vanyaland‘s article Boston Brains: With Renewed Focus and a New Record in the Works, RIBS Return as a Duo

With Sunday’s Swervedriver show fast approaching, we asked them where the hell they’ve been for the past two years. Turns out, that Queens show was a turning point.

“When I joined RIBS, Keith told me his dream was to open for Queens of the Stone Age,” says Oquist. “When that finally happened, and I told that story to the security guard outside the venue, he said ‘sounds like it’s time for a new dream.’ Driving back, that sunk in a bit. It was time for a new dream. The next thing we release is going to set us on a course. We needed focus. We decided to spend all our time writing. Blake [Fusilier, bassist] set off to pursue a solo career; we decided not to resurface until we’d made some real progress. So this isn’t a reunion. We never left. This has been a period of redefinition and rediscovery. We’ve been grinding.”

Adds Freund: “Momentum can be a beautiful thing but it can also be dangerous. Sometimes your momentum can swallow you up. We made a conscious decision to let that go in order to take some time to reflect on what the future could sound like.”

Show Review of Packtucket, RI 1/29/13 at the Met

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

GoLocalProv:

RIBS from Boston finished off the night with their post-punk/industrial sound that was shrieking and extremely dark, if you like Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails and TV On The Radio along with a soulful tinge then these guys are your cup of tea. A performance featuring “Kiss”, “Even”, “Gateway Drug”, a cover of Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”, “Brains”, “Alarms” and “Destructo” rocked the stage and was simply magnificent. RIBS have an EP out called Russian Blood that’s fantastic, some of the best music from Boston you’ll ever hear. Another wonderful night of live music at the best music venue in Pawtucket, log on to themetri.com for more info on shows.

PHOTOS: Great Scott 7/23/12 Taken By Daykamp

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

“RIBS put on quite the show during Night #1 of the Boston Accents Funeral Party. Not only did they have a a ton of music and electronic gear hooked up, but they brought their own light show. There were so many cords and cables on the stage you’d think they had the Ark Of The Covenant up there.* They opened with Placebo’s “Pure Morning,” a sign of the indielectro rock that would mark their powerful set.”

View them here: http://daykampmusic.com/2012/08/01/ribs-great-scott-7-23-2012/

Boston Metro: Russian Blood Album Release Show Review

Monday, May 28th, 2012

On the spectrum of rock music, guitar-laden hard rock is underrepresented in the Boston — and, honestly, national — rock scene. Boston-based RIBS took action to change that on Friday night at their album release party at T.T. the Bear’s.

The energetic power pop pumped up the fairly full rock venue in Cambridge, a good showing for the holiday weekend. With cuts from their latest take, “Russian Blood” on full display, the punchy guitars of tracks like “Destructo” and the single “Kiss” called to mind alt. rock acts from the ’90s.

Other songs were simply straight-forward rockers with simple chord progressions… regardless, with a minimal, but effective, light display, a solid stage presence and an emphasis on the reverb, RIBS lock in their spot as one Boston’s top local rock acts.

Link: http://www.metro.us/boston/entertainment/article/1144131–short-take-ribs-t-t-the-bears-5-25

Russian Blood Boston Record Release Show 5/25

Friday, May 18th, 2012

BOSTON, MA: Friday 5/25/12 @ TT The Bear’s Place w/ Suicide Dolls & Yoga Girls

The Boston Phoenix Makes “Kiss” MP3 of the Week

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Part 1:

It feels like forever since Boston rock band RIBS released the one-two sonic punch of their Locrian Singles. That was January 2011, and since then, the pulsating quartet has been hard at work meticulously crafting their EP follow-up, Russian Blood.

Primed for explosion, the first single, “Kiss,” was released today via the promo video above, and it’s also available as a free download. The track is a slow-burning sledgehammer of a tune, taking RIBS’ murky, underwater rock sound and adding a welcome heaviness the band hinted at on previous standouts like “Brains Out” and“Please Don’t Go.”

But “Kiss” is just a taste — the entire Russian Blood record is a potent post-modern mix of layered riffs, space-shot hooks, and dizzying atmospheric sounds; it’s music for a different mindset and one that should launch the band into the national realm just as we predicted back in our Class of 2011 feature around the timeLocrian dropped.

Grab the mp3 below, and tune in to Boston Accents on Sunday, May 20 as we’ll premiere the entire Russian Blood EP and have the dapper gentlemen of RIBS hanging out on-air in the WFNX studio. That Friday, May 25, they’ll drop the record at T.T. The Bear’s Place in Cambridge on a pretty killer bill with Autochrome, the Suicide Dolls and Yoga Girls, and then RIBS head down to New York City the following night for a release party in the Dirty Apple alongside Viva Viva and Frank Smith at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly.

Let’s all make out.

Part 2:

From the very first riff of RIBS’s rumbling new single “Kiss,” it doesn’t take long for the sonic seismograph to start tracing a zigzag across your headspace. The quartet’s first release since the one-two suckerpunch of last January’s atmospheric Locrian Singles, “Kiss” is a pure growler, a sledgehammer of a tune that wedges its way into your ears and sprawls across four eerie minutes, eventually striking a low-down choral groove that only serves to momentarily stop the song’s pounding ritual. “Kiss” is the fitting first-strike single off RIBS’ new Russian Blood EP — a textured, modern hard-rock record that’s dark, meticulous, and crafted with a gunslinger’s precision. We rarely feel earthquakes here in Boston – 08.23.11, never forget – but RIBS will shake up T. T. The Bear’s next Friday, May 25, as they drip Russian Blood on a sterling rock bill alongside Connecticut rabble-rousers the Suicide Dolls and the mysterious Yoga Girls.

Tune in to Boston Accents this Sunday at 8 pm when RIBS crash the WFNX studio in Lynn.

Boston Globe 5/4/12 Russian Blood Release Show

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

The Boston Globe has some nice things to say about our upcoming EP and record release show.

Read it here:

http://bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2012/05/03/mixing-business-with-pleasure-mixing-business-with-pleasure/kU699d3kS7qr6UUmqEjlMP/story.html

Chris Oquist and Keith Freund, the guitar/vocals and drums half of local four-piece RIBS, are coming from somewhere a bit more researched than the average new band.

On a recent night out over drinks in Allston, Freund thinks back on an industry conference panelist’s idea of top-down bands versus bottom-up bands.

“A top-down example was like Destiny’s Child,” says Freund. “They were picked out by a label and forced down to the masses through a huge infrastructure of radio and money. Whereas there was this rapper named Bone Crusher who came up out of Atlanta selling mix tapes out of the back of his car, building it for himself.”

Freund stops to ponder the utility of both models, but Oquist doesn’t need much time to decide.

“I’m pretty sure I’d rather be Destiny’s Child than Bone Crusher,” he says with a shrug.

RIBS, a band with a music business sense incubated at Berklee, has deployed its searingly loud music in small doses so far — a single here and there, basically, since 2010 — and Freund sees each song playing off different sides of that dynamic. He notes that songs like last winter’s “Please Don’t Go” worked like regular publicity angles and garnered great local press, while others like “Queen of Hearts” have taken on viral lives of their own on fan-created YouTube videos and Reddit. It’s a solid analytical approach that they’ve adopted toward their work; but time as a band has also taught them the benefits of loosening up and simply rocking out.

Freund woke up at 2 p.m. on this day, caught in the middle of a mix-down binge of “Russian Blood,” the EP they’re set to release with a show at T.T. the Bear’s on May 25. It’s an epic mix of high octane stuff — post-rock/metal scorchers poured into vaguely pop molds with Billy Corgan levels of immodesty. The band puts on a serious light show onstage — over 55 cables need connecting before every set — and this music was built for it.

RIBS is Freund’s first band, assembled during his last semester in school through band-wanted ads that name-checked stylistic touchstones like Muse and Smashing Pumpkins. He ended up with childhood friend Blake Fusilier, a second guitarist in shredding prodigy Justin Tolan (featured in Guitar Player magazine at age 18), and Oquist, who had been drumming in a black metal band.

Oquist came from the school’s music business department and went about things from that mind-set in the beginning — working out a pro-looking Web presence, booking tours, fiddling with schedules for YouTube teasers. Still, a few years on the circuit helped reveal some new truths. Oquist found himself at Boston’s trend-setting Rethink Music conference last week and started to notice the unfortunate focus of lots of upcoming bands.

“Everyone is looking for a silver bullet,” he said. “What can Foursquare do for me? What does Instragram do? Can I be a Pinterest band?” It all seemed pointless, he decided, if everyone stopped paying attention to their own music. But RIBS comes off like a new-fangled hybrid — taking advantage of a well-resourced background and launching a perfectly haywire creative adventure from there.

“Russian Blood” is thoroughly DIY — mixed at Freund’s apartment, recorded in their practice space — but it carries itself like a really big deal. There are cement-grinding atmospherics out of Trent Reznor’s playbook and canyon banshee wails echoed from long-lost U2 anthems. It’s full of the visceral joys of music — the growl in the bass, the gleefully dissonant guitars; concerns that seem far removed from counting online friends and Twitter followers. There are epileptic moments that threaten to rattle apart at every bolted-down connection, bringing to mind ’90s electro-noisers like Braniac. The song designated as the lead single, “Kiss,” is a totally unruly pummeling from off-centered, fuzzed-out bass, and gut-check drums.

Freund says he’s learned to let go a little bit — after two years and a couple mini-tours and even a concussion suffered during one show’s overexcited guitar swapping. But he’s still a fiend for lists — he can pull them up on his iPhone in seconds: lists for three days before the show (make sure the club has a tech rider), lists for a day before the show (make sure Oquist has drum mallets), lists for sound check (put phone in airplane mode). He has lists for lists, and he isn’t giving them up soon.

“Hey, the lists help me worry less,” he says. “It means I can just go out and play when it’s time.”

RVA Mag Show Preview: RIBS at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA 5/10/11

Monday, May 9th, 2011

On Tuesday May 10th, Strange Matter will host a show that will feature Historic, Ear Theory, RIBS, and Collen Applegate. I had the chance to catch up with three of the members of RIBS, a Boston-based band who is playing in Richmond for the very first time. Y’all make them feel welcome, ya hear?

RIBS is Keith Freund on vocals and guitar, Blake Fusilier on bass and vocals, Justin Tolan on guitar, and Chris Oquist on drums. Keith and Blake grew up in Atlanta, and then transferred to Boston for school at Boston University. They heard about a “shred guitar prodigy” by the name of Justin Tolan who was, incidentally, also from Atlanta. Talk about fate. Keith and Blake weren’t to meet Justin, however, until Keith responded to a “band wanted” ad that listed Radiohead, Muse, and Aphex Twin as influences. As it turns out, it was Justin’s ad, and the two became three. A little later, drummer Chris Oquist joined the band and they started making music together. Now they are a band on the move, nominated for The Boston Phoenix/WFNX Best Music Poll and named one of The Boston Phoenix’s Eleven Bands to Watch in 2011.

Enough bio stuff. Let’s get to the interview.

OK guys – what the heck does RIBS stand for? Why the mysterious capitalization?

It’s a well-kept secret.

Then you won’t mind if I make something up for all those curious Richmonders?

Have at it. [Note: I have a dirty mind, so none of the suggestions I have are safe for work, nor germane to the band’s style, so I shall refrain.]

I’ve read about how you guys met and how the band started, so I’ll skip those questions and go to my number one favorite question I love to ask musicians. What was your FIRST favorite album?

Keith: Beach Boys, Greatest Hits.

Keith, I’ve read that many of your musical influences haven’t made their way into your music thus far. Do you see the Beach Boys making into your repertoire somehow?

Keith: [chuckle] Not any time soon.

Blake: Outkast, ATLiens. I really didn’t start LISTENING to music until I was a teenager.

Keith: When I was a kid I listened to oldies with my parents. After that, radio rap and other stuff. I developed my own taste later.

[Justin enters the room. We had just been talking about whether the band had ever played RVA before (answer is NO, as mentioned earlier), and Justin chimes in that he has been in Richmond before – for a flood. He tells me he rode down the street in an innertube. I share with him the hope that he does not bring a flood with him this time. He echoes this sentiment, not commenting on the implication that he might have the power to control the weather. He then answers my favorite first album question.]

Justin: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins. I was seven years old and my sister had been listening to the album and didn’t want it anymore. I loved it, but my parents went through with a sharpie and marked out the eff words in the liner notes.

READ MORE: https://rvamag.com/music/tuesday-night-check-out-ribs-at-strange-matter.html

Ryan’s Smashing Life: Great Scott Review 5/5/11

Monday, May 9th, 2011

“With a bizarre and unique system of neon strip-lights, that stretched far from the stage and pulsed with each drum beat, RlBS demonstrated tonight that for a band to have a chance to really blow up they must go beyond simply addictive music. These days you must, like the light show, project so powerfully that your success seems inevitable. RIBS started their tour like this, this evening at Great Scott, and from here they’ll go far.”

Photo: Mark Jenko

LINK: http://www.rslblog.com/2011/05/ribs-at-great-scott.html

Weekly Dig RIBS Profile – May 2011

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

By Steve Church:

RIBS have never shied away from their comparisons. Likened by fans and critics to such hard line, atmospheric rock monsters as Nine Inch Nails, Deftones and Muse, the Boston quartet embraces these associations as both a testament to their established musicality and an indicator of form towards attracting new fans. And after earning Reddit.com’s topvoted music post of all time within a month of releasing 2010 EP British Brains, (amongst other accolades) it’s clear that RIBS is a band that can flourish beyond the similarities.

“We’re not one of those bands that are like, ‘Oh, you can’t compare us to anything,’”

says guitarist and lead vocalist Keith Freund. “I think that what we do is rock music that’s meant to give you chills—anything that goes from something soft to something loud in a short period of time. [With] bands like Deftones and NIN, I definitely see the comparison there.”

High school friends Freund and bassist Blake Fusilier formed the basis for RIBS, writing music in Atlanta together before attending college in Boston in 2005. The two spent their time shaping and experimenting with sound while actively searching out new members to round out the group, discovering drummer Chris Oquist and guitarist (and fellow Atlantian) Justin Tolan, in Boston’s metal scene. Freund and Fusilier found their potential bandmates’ interests extended far beyond those of your average metalheads:

“I met Justin, who was this shred guitar prodigy. I was hearing about him through a lot of rumors, and he was in Guitar Player magazine,” says Freund. “Then I found out that he was into a lot of the same stuff that I was in to—Muse, Radiohead, Aphex Twin. That piqued my interest.”

Oquist appealed to Freund and Fusilier in much the same way, telling them right off the bat that his favorite artists were Paul Simon and The Beatles. With influences ranging from metal to electronic to ‘60s pop and four incredibly talented musicians on board, RIBS had its final lineup by March 2009. The band set to work on their first EP, British Brains, a guitar-driven effort in industrial doom and gloom mixed and produced entirely by Freund. A year later, Freund posted the completed British Brains on Reddit.com, where its ratings skyrocketed and sold 600 copies in the first week. For their next record, RIBS tapered their mechanical appeal in place of a more dance-worthy post-punk on 2011’s Locrian Singles.

RIBS have now cracked the local rock scene, garnering praise across Boston for their complex songwriting and fiery live performances. They’re currently working on releasing their next EP, Russian Blood, expected later this year. In the meantime, it’s all about performing in new and innovative ways. Incorporating vibrant lighting displays with their music, RIBS have set a standard of performance for Boston acts, and they promise something special—though they’re keeping quiet—for their east coast tour kickoff before snaking their way south towards Atlanta. And they’re hoping to pick up some new fans along the way.

“Our live show makes use of a lot of different elements,” says Oquist. “It’s about trying to pull people out of the usual experience of a show and doing something that is more immersed in what the music is about. That’s sonically, lyrically and visually a lot in terms of a live performance.”

RIBS
WITH LIGHTS RESOLVE
AND ART DECADE

THURSDAY 5.5.11

GREAT SCOTT
1222 COMM. AVE.
ALLSTON

617.566.9014
9PM/18+/$9

GREATSCOTTBOSTON.COM
RIBSTHEBAND.COM

SOURCE: http://digboston.com/listen/2011/05/ribs/