Friday, March 14   9:00 p.m.
Mohawk Patio   (912 Red River St)

  Black Helicopter - Buick Electra
Download   |  

Since their first live performance in 1999 to their second full length release on Ecstatic Peace! In 2006, Boston’s Black Helicopter have been riding a fine line between mechanical, grinding cyclical rhythms, sparse yet intricate airy psychouts, and simple pop melodies. Black Helicopter’s first release, That Specific Function (Traktor7, 2003) was an unintentional concept record, putting covert tape recordings of a jobless, alcoholic lotto addict to work for them. Lyrically, the rediscovered convenience store recordings were a godsend, easily allowing the band to fall into character with the downtrodden protagonist as he slurred diatribes of sexual abuse, misogyny and life’s not so rich pursuits to his captive listeners and their unseen tape recorder. The release found the band a small but faithful audience and earned them several paragraphs of critical praise. During the recordings for their second release, a chance connection with Boston heroes Mission Of Burma (former BH Guitarist Jeff Iwanicki pitched and co-directed the Burma Documentary, Not A Photograph) led to another once in a lifetime bro-down with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and co-collaborator/old friend Andrew Kesin. A demo CD changed hands, and this led to the 2006 release of “Invisible Jet” on Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! Label. Since the release, the album has hit the college radio charts hard, hitting the top ten at more than a handful of stations, including the #4 for 2006 spot at MIT’s highly influential station WMBR. Several high profile shows supporting Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth and Shellac left the boys with a desire to get drunk in other places with different people, so the band decided to get in the van in 2007 in order to see if they could stir up some shit.