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Ahhhh, December, that wonderful time of homogenized Year End lists, stuffy holiday parties, and more people checked than an Austin hotel lobby on the last day of SXSW. This is the so-called quiet part of the year, when no one’s touring and no one’s releasing anything but their must-hear cover of Wham’s “Last Christmas.”
The Dazies and Courters are having none of that. And they certainly didn’t give you their collective hearts last Christmas, and won’t be giving them up this Christmas. Because there is work still to be done.
Today (December 8), the two Boston guitar-rock groups team up to release Seen a Ghost, new split vinyl issue featuring nine songs at just over 27 minutes. It’s an excellent complement; The Dazies’ gruff power-pop matches up well with Courters’ barroom, polished-around-the-edges brand of bratty garage rock.
As we hype the entire release below in advance of tonight’s tour kickoff and record release party at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston, our attention gets fixated on The Dazies’ weathered guitar rock anthem “Pawn Shop Guitars”, which brings us back to DGeneration’s mid-’90s Lower East Side NYC heyday.
We even asked The Dazies’ Mikey Holland about it, and the song has a very serious underlying sentiment.
“The song was written in February around the time 45 was initiating ICE raids all over the country,” Holland tells Vanyaland. “It was so upsetting and so disgusting to see blatant racism so widely accepted. One of the many vile things he’s made his priority in this country. It got me thinking about growing up in Lawrence, Massachusetts commonly know as ‘Immigrant City’. I had friends of so many nationalities and origins. We’d just kinda run wild in the streets, literally. It was a melting pot of culture. Everyone struggling and poor my family included. It was tough but I wouldn’t trade it in for the world. Got my first pawn shop guitar there when I was 13 and started a band literally the next day. The rest is history. Always dreaming of a bigger and better future for myself and the folks around me.”
Put that on your Year End list.
Check out all Courters and Dazies’ East Coast tour dates below, and give proper time to the entire Seen a Ghost record via Spotify. Featured Dazies photo by Erin Shaw.
The Dazies + Courters East Coast Tour
December 8 @ O’Briens Pub – Allston, MA
December 9 @ Pet Rescue – Brooklyn, NY
December 10 @ Willimantic Records – Willimantic, CT
December 14 @ Alphaville – Brooklyn, NY
December 16 @ The Pharmacy – Philadelphia, PA
December 17 @ KOTO – Salem, MA
