Ian Axel, Field Mouse, Allison Weiss

So I went to a concert the other night at Cafe 939.

Cafe 939 is run by Berklee, which is a music college. The Cafe's claim to fame is that it is the ONLY all-ages music club in Boston. Which is fairly impressive. They stay all ages not by censoring their musical acts, but simply by not serving alcohol. They literally have all kinds of acts. Check out their website if you feel like it. It's a neat place.

The reason I went to Cafe 939 was, of course, for the lovely and talented Allison Weiss. She's fantastic. Look her up if you haven't already. I talk about her a lot. Because she's amazing. But that's not why I'm writing.

The two acts that opened for Allison were a guy named Ian Axel and a band called Field Mouse (that, interestingly enough, Allison plays bass for. One of the guys who worked at the club said he's never seen an artist open for themselves...haha). So I didn't have any feeling toward Field Mouse. No negative or positive. They were just loud. I couldn't hear what the singer was singing about because the rest was too loud. Eh. But the other opener, Ian Axel, was great. He doesn't have a record done (yet). He just sat down at the piano and played with his whole body and his whole heart. It was really amazing. And he had a great voice and his lyrics were straight from the soul.

That's what I love about these unsigned artists like Weiss and Axel. They don't have to write songs for anybody, so they just write what they feel. And you know what? It's better than all the manufactured shit out there now. It's real. Ian could (and did) tell us the story behind the inspiration for every song he sang us. So did Allison. It was incredible. And what courage it takes to get up there and reveal that depth. It takes more guts to get up on stage as an unsigned musician than it does to be an actor. Because actors are trying to be someone else. Musicians, or at least these musicians, are just singing from their hearts.

So my goal for the semester is to explore the Boston music scene. Ian Axel was an unexpected delight. I have no doubt that there is more brilliance out there waiting to be found.