Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
That's right folks, everyone's favorite all-male hard rock Lady Gaga (+ other female pop artists) cover band returns to Boston — this Thursday night at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge! Be there, or be having less fun than the rest of us.
And here's a little taste of the tunes...
In case you missed out on seeing Boston's premiere all-male hard rock Lady Gaga cover band at the Midway this past weekend, you're in luck: we got the whole thing on tape! Well, technically on built-on digital flash hardrive but, you know, whatever. The audio quality is a little rough (because isn't it always?), but you get the gist. You can watch a playlist of the full set over on YouTube, but here are a few gems from the night: "You & I"
"Bad Romance"
Plus we had a few surprises this time in the form of non-Gaga female pop artists (because frankly, Gaga's catalog is kind of limited, and we needed new material). Like this:
In anticipation of this Saturday's Alejandro & the Fame show at the Midway Cafe in JP, we put together another quick demo of one of our songs. So, sorry, this isn't a new Lady Gaga song, but rather a better version of an already existing Lady Gaga song, done by us. This isn't the final mix or master, but it's a good idea of how we rock (and if you really feel like bringing the mosh and punching someone in the face, fast forward about 3 minutes for the breakdown 'cause it's awesome)
Quick update about a few events I've got coming up. One, I'll doing a show THIS Friday, December 14 at the All Asia in Central Square, Cambridge with my / Boston's premiere all-male hard rock Lady Gaga cover band Alejandro and the Fame. These shows are always a blast for everyone involved, and are almost always guaranteed to sell out, so make you get there (lookin' at you, People On The Other Side Of The River Who Missed Our Last Show Because It Was Allllllll The Way In JP Oh BooHoo). Admission is a scant $6, and we hit the stage around 10:30pm! I'm also excited to announce that I'll be performing a short set for MORTIFIED at Oberon on Saturday, December 22. For those who haven't heard of this, MORTIFIED is a night of performance in which real-live grown adult humans read horribly horribly embarrassing things from their high school journals / AIM transcripts / etc, and hilarity ensues. And so, during my set, you'll be treated to some particularly painful gems that I dugout from my high school and middle school songwriting notebooks. Ever wonder what kind of angsty tunes I wrote when I was 14 (including "Dot of my 'I'" and instant never-classic "Fuck You Hotchkiss Lane")? Here's your only chance to hear them live! More information to come when I got it.
And finally, I was asked to write up a few scripts for the 2nd Annual Boston One-Minute Play Festival at the Boston Playwrights Theatre, January 5-7. I believe the evening as a whole contains about 100 one-minute plays (yes, really, but c'mon, that's barely an hour and a half!), so I'm sure there's going to be some great variety. And if you don't like a play, well, just wait one minute! I will say that writing a play, complete with a status quo, conflict, rising action,and denouement is remarkably more difficult than you might expect it to be, but I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with (and I should be blogging a bit more about it soon over at their website).
That's all for now, folks! See you Friday!
First of all, thanks to everyone who came to our Alejandro & the Fame show this past Saturday. We completely sold out the venue, which is always a cool feeling*, plus Shaymus Moynihan and the gang at the Midway treated us with some truly fantastic hospitality while we were there. (Read: free drinks) Anyway, point is: it's Monday, and after a hard day of writing, I've got a new piece up at Five By Five Hundred about time. We could all use more free time, yeah? And yet, somehow, no one blames the government. Maybe they're taking all of our free time, hrmmm? Even though it's supposed to be free?
Yes, I know, that sounds ridiculous. But it made for a fun little flash fiction sketch.
*Although, at the same time, it was kind of depressing, because apparently people come out in droves to see 5 guys shredding their way through Lady Gaga songs, but no one cares about original music. But I digress.
Boston's premiere all-male Lady Gaga cover band plays the Midway Cafe in JP! Doors at 8pm! Be there! I can literally walk my equipment over to the club from my house! Wooohoo!
Oh yeah, and here's the Facebook event. Whoops. Sorry, I got excited.
And remember: just dance, motherfuckers
Tonight. Alejandro and the Fame rocks your favorite seedy drag club in downtown Boston. Drag queens upstairs; all-male glam rock Lady Gaga cover songs downstairs. You've been warned.
Not really; just the Milky Way bar/restaurant in Jamaica Plain. Great pizza, great drinks, great rock and roll; Alejandro and the Fame will be headlining tonight's Halloween show. Costumes encouraged! Come on out for a night of glitter, mohawks, distortion, and monsters.
We've been working on these for about a month between recording, mixing, and mastering, but I'm finally satisfied with the results — and I hope you are as well! All instruments were recorded/engineered by my, except for the lead vocals which were done by Paul Cantillon (aka "Cody Grey"). We'll be sending these out to some clubs as we try to book some more shows, so keep an eye out for our updated events list. In the meantime, enjoy, and tell your friends to do the same. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/1035013" height="200"]
Here's another look at one of our new Alejandro and the Fame demos — "Telephone" by Lady Gaga (featuring Beyoncé). It's still a little rough, but you get the idea. And I mean, c'mon — Beyoncé's breakdown has never been this hardcore.
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/19498710"]
Alejandro and the Fame: Boston's premiere all-male Lady Gaga cover band. Putting the fucking metal into Lady Gaga since 2011.
....Or, more accurately, brand new Alejandro and the Fame demos of Lady Gaga songs, because that's what we do — glam rock Lady Gaga covers with more Mohawks, more glitter, and more balls. Here's a preliminary mix of "Paparazzi" that was done on my laptop over the weekend. It's still not the final version, and we've got a few more tunes to come for your listening pleasure, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/18819764"]
For those who missed (or those who simply want to relive it), here's the complete (minus the talky parts) Alejandro & the Fame on the Day Before the Rapture. It was pretty epic [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz9Z5AOnGBA&w=480&h=303]
Read MoreI have to apologize for the radio silence here at ThomDunn.net over the last few weeks. Layne Anderson, a close friend and former roommate of mine, passed away unexpectedly on April 7th, and as much as I've kept up with everything (well, almost everything), time has been rather a blur. I've chronicled the situation as impersonally as possible over at FiveByFiveHundred.com in two posts — Shark Grief, about my own grieving process, and iWake, which as entirely fictional account of a some inappropriate gallows humor inspired by the situation of which Layne would have most certainly approved. Meanwhile, this week's entry steps away from the morbidity and explores the quantum mechanics of one night stands as interpreted through Bell's Theorem, using the Shrödinger's Cat experiment as a proof. Hopefully, that sounds ridiculous (and ridiculously intriguing) enough for you to check out Shrödinger's Cat Call, also over at FiveByFiveHundred.com.
Also in the last two weeks, we've officially opened Sons of the Prophet at the Huntington, which is then moving to the Roundabout Theatre Company Off-Broadway in the Fall. Plus, I did some filming for Art & Design of the 20th & 21st Centuries and the Boston Print Fair, did a small reading of my new play, True Believers (which is set at a Comic Book Convention and features a cameo by the Cyborg Head of Stan Lee, among other things), and started rehearsals and arrangements for my (wait for it) all-male hard rock Lady Gaga tribute band, Alejandro & the Fame, which is going to be every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. Come check us out on May 20th at the afterparty for Propeller Theatre Company's all-male production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Huntington's B.U. Theatre.
Woo. Okay. I think that's it. Tune in next week for your regularly scheduled programming.
