Charmboy

The humidity was high, and the activity beehive-like. The band gear was loaded into the Garage. The in-case-it-rains tents came out. The younger library staff wheeled out racks of CDs and DVDs for the garage sale, along with crates of records (Hope you like Melanie). Even VHS and cassette tapes.

Charmboy and Beware! The Other Head of Science were the line-up for “Garage Bands in the Garage at the Albany Public Library.” The third-Friday-of-the-month free summer concert series is the brain-child of librarian Sarah Clark, who pulled double-duty on Friday as Charmboy’s bassist. In an effort to shed her mild mannered, book-pushing, shusher image, Sarah donned a wig and rock-star sunglasses to hit the concrete bunker of the garage/loading dock. Joined by rock steady drummer Scott Smith and blistering guitarist Eric Hadler, Charmboy kicked off the show with a stellar set of ’70s-tinged rockers.

Matt Ferguson revealed that his band Beware! The Other Head of Science’s performance was to be a “stripped down, just the hits, no-nonsense affair.” I pushed him on the no-confetti issue, and he said, “Our confetti use has been under review since we discovered that the silver streamers may not actually be as bio-degradable as we had first believed.” Undaunted, B!TOHoS launched into an energetic set of songs well known to their die-hard following, who quickly rushed to the front of the band, who played to them eye-to-eye. One new number on the theme of LARPing was debuted to keep things fresh.

The garage sale drew many happy bin-browsers and earned the library some extra funds. I am regretting passing on that Melanie vinyl.

Review and photographs by Matt Mac Haffie

Next up on the library’s Garage Bands in the Garage free concert series are Grainbelt and the Knyghts of Fuzz at 6pm on Friday, August 20.