It may not be electronic, but there’s an element of technology in Neptune’s upcoming performance at the Lily Pad in Inman Square as part of Together Boston this year. Bear with us a moment.
“[Neptune] are doing a performance where they climb on top of a large ladder and drop water into a bucket that has pickups on it,” explains Jesse Gallagher on the phone from New Orleans, about the band, who play on May 18. “It goes through a huge chain of effects that a couple people are manipulating.” He laughs before adding, “That’s pretty weird.”
Weird is kind of what Gallagher, and by extension Lily Pad, does best. The former Apollo Sunshine frontman moved into an apartment above the modest single-room venue on Cambridge St., formerly known as Zeitgeist, around eight years ago, and has kept their schedule booked with an eclectic variety of performers ever since. Any given night could bring a classic jazz trio, a tango show, local rock bands and just about everything in between, and for Gallagher, the more bizarre the better.
“I’ve always been interested in making psychedelic art, whether it’s music or visuals or whatever,” says Gallagher. “That’s why the Lily Pad for me has been great. A lot of people can push the envelope there and I can still feel good about booking abstract things. We have capacity of about 100, so you don’t have to bring a million people to feel like it’s a good show. There are always these weird shows here where people say, ‘I can’t believe that guy played here and no one knew about it.’”
That makes Together a great excuse for Gallagher to recruit a host of local like-minded friends and collaborators for a suitably strange week of performances. In addition to Neptune, the May 18 show features prolific electronic instrumentalist and producer Keith Fullerton Whitman (aka Hrvåtski) and free-form music collective Sunburned Hand of the Man, all of whom have never shared a playbill together despite living in close proximity.
“There are just a lot of people that are in the neighborhood that when they’re all compiled together, it makes a great show,” says Gallagher, who will also be bringing Thrust Club, Lilys, and psych-rockers Major Stars and Sleep Crimes to the Lily Pad for this Together takeover. “There’s amazing talent in Boston, but there’s not always a local scene for those people. Any of those bands could travel around Europe and be headlining big shows, so it’s kind of funny that here they all live within a couple blocks.”
In addition to Neptune’s science fair-inspired symphonics, Gallagher promises further visual stimulation to complement the music: think video footage manipulated live on projector screens. It’s an opportune moment for the area’s progressive, forward-thinking artists to show off their wares, and Gallagher is committed to making it as wonderfully weird as possible.
“That’s the angle for the week,” he says, “making it trippy and psychedelic.”
TOGETHER BOSTON AT THE LILY PAD. 1353 CAMBRIDGE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FOR SCHEDULE + TICKETS VISIT TOGETHERBOSTON.COM
