If It's Too Loud...

The Green River Festival is one of our favorites of the year. It always seemed to slide under the radar no matter how great their line up has been, but the past few years have seen it get national attention. They've announced the initial line up of their 2025 edition, and this one is certain to make Green River a destination festival. Headlining the 2025 Green River Festival are indie rockers Mt. Joy, Australian phenom Courtney Barnett, and the already legendary Waxatacheee! They also have current indie favorite MJ Lenderman and the intriguing pairing of Julien Baker and TORRES! Aside from that are other If It's Too Loud... favorites such as Kathleen Edwards, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, and Merce Lemon. As always there are bands we're not as familiar with, but we have seven months to do our research and become enamored with new favorites! The Green River Festival will take place June 20-22 at Franklin County Fairgrounds in Greenfield, MA. "Plan Ahead" packages are n...

The Thing in the Spring has been a southwest New Hampshire staple for quite a while now, sporting some of the most eclectic line ups around. This is especially impressive since Keene, NH (and Peterborough before it) isn't exactly the hippest or most metropolitan of areas. They certainly know what they're doing, especially since the 2024 festival is four days of amazing music. The whole thing kicks off on Thursday night with an eight band bill that includes Modern Fools, Paper Castles, Jake McElvie, and Rick Rude. Friday is a rager that boasts The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, and Prefuse 73. Saturday gets a little weird with Earth, J. Pavone String Ensemble, The Huntress & Holder of Hands, and Sunburned Hand of the Man. Sunday is my personal favorite and features Buck Meek, Jolie Holland, Mal Devisa, and Lily Seabird. Of course, there are many, many more artists playing that all deserve our attention. The Thing in the Spring will take ...

Wilco have been hosting a three day festival every other year for a while now, and we just haven't been able to make it to one yet. That might need to change for 2024 as the line up is bonkers. There are obviously multiple sets from Wilco planned for the weekend, but they brought their A-game with the rest of the line up. Highlights include the brilliant country-rock of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, the artsy post punk of England's Dry Cleaning, the influential power pop of Nick Lowe and Los Straightjackets, the Americana of Iris Dement, Wednesday's alt-country meets indie rock, Chicago's new favorite indie rockers Horsegirl, the hardcore punk of Soul Glo, more Chicago indie rock from Ratboys, and a ton more music! Plus, non musical entertainment like John Hodgman's Comedy Cabaret, the Song Exploder podcast, and more. Solid Sound 2024 will once again take place at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA from June 28-30. Tickets and more information can be found here . The ful...

The Town and the City Festival continues to be one of the best smaller festivals in the northeast, and this year's line up is stellar. Held throughout Lowell, MA, this year's festival will be held April 26 and 27. In 2024, Robyn Hitchcock returns and we'll also get long standing indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Americana artist Amythyst Kiah, Swedish singer-songwriter Sofia Talvik, and Boston indie pop sensations The Q-Tip Bandits. The festival also includes some of our absolute favorite local artists including Akrobatik, Burp, Colleen Green, Jen Kearney, Linnea's Garden, Muck & The Mires, One Fall, Orbit, Roger Miller, Sapling, Subpunch, The Chelsea Curve, The Shirt & Shoes, Tysk Tysk Task, and many, many more. And this is just the initial line up, with more to come in 2024! Two-day passes go on sale today at 10:00 am for the special low price of $45 until November 30. For more on The Town and the City Festival, check out the festival's website .

We've dropped the ball in telling you about the Bellforge Arts Center's line up this year, and for that we apologize. Located on the former grounds of the Medfield State Hospital (just visiting the site to see the old buildings is highly recommended), Bellforge "... nurtures community, creativity and self-expression through the arts."  August closes out with three upcoming free with RSVP concerts. They have two Summer Sounds shows left: Thursday August 24 with Summer Cult and Senseless Optimism and Thursday August 31 with Dino Gala and Cape Crush! This Saturday is Flow at the 'Forge - Celebrating 50 Years of Hip-Hip which features performances from Brandie Blaze, SeeFour, and ExitFame.  In September they switch things over to ticketed events. September 9 sees a performance by alt-rock legends Buffalo Tom. September 16 and 17 is the Commonwealth Fest, a two day festival curated by Cousin Stizz and featuring Supersmashbroz, Michael Christmas, Jiles of Van Buren, and...

Towards the end of Modest Mouse's headlining set on Saturday night, Isaac Brock commented that he can normally ignore about half of the bands during a festival, but In Between Days just kept making him want to watch every band from the very start of the day. I ended up having the same experience. When I looked at the schedule, there were some bands I wasn't that familiar with or hadn't been able to get into previously, so I figured I'd have some downtime to casually eat some food from the food trucks, or play some free classic arcade games at the pop-up arcade, but instead for ten hours (ok, at one point I did stop to shove a quesadilla in my face for five minutes) I was just blown away watching band after band after band! I got there a couple of minutes late, and Quincy's own Gypsy Moths were already rocking the Arbella Insurance stage. Their classic Boston garage rock set the stage for the festival perfectly without sounding anything like any of the other bands on...

Mint Green can be a lot more pop than I typically get into, but there is something about the band I can't seem to resist. Even the snobbiest of us love a great melody and a catchy song, and even at their most pop Mint Green still have just enough edge to their guitars to keep it from going too pop for me (personally). Since we first discovered them back in 2018, they just keep releasing amazing single after amazing single. Plus, singer/guitarist Ronnica just has that little something special to her voice, especially when she really goes for it. Not many bands can pull off covering artists as diverse as Katy Perry, Phoebe Bridgers, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but most bands aren't Mint Green.  You can watch the video for "Body Language" below. For more on Mint Green, check out the band's website , and be sure to catch them at In Between Days on Sunday the 20th on the Arbella Insurance Stage at 1:00. For more information and tickets, head over to the festival's website...

If you've been reading If It's Too Loud... for a while now, you'll know that we love Carissa Johnson. We definitely aren't the only ones as she's one of the most buzzed about artists to come out of Boston in the past ten years. Every local music blog seems to explode every time she releases new music, and with good reason. Johnson has this perfect sound that mixes indie rock, garage rock, and pop in a way that can appeal to basically any music fan. At times it's a very mainstream sound, but even as mainstream or pop as Johnson's music sometimes gets, it always has just enough of an edge to it to keep even the snobbiest of us happy. Plus, Johnson can write a song like no other. As great as it has been watching her play in various small clubs in and around Boston, it's going to be fabulous to see her rock a large festival stage. You can watch the video for "Merry Go Round" below. For more on Carissa Johnson, check out the artist's website , a...

The first band playing the main stage at this year's In Between Days is Paper Tigers. They're an Allston based band that formed in 2019 through a Craigslist ad. In the four years they've been a band, Paper Tigers have received a ton of accolades, and I'm actually quite shocked they only formed such a short time ago. Last year they played Boston Calling, and once you hear them, you'll understand why they're such a beloved band in the Boston music scene. They play an ultra-catchy version of mainstream alt-rock. Mainstream can be used as a derogatory term, but for Paper Tigers it's a compliment. This is the kind of band that would be blowing up all over the airwaves if there was still modern rock radio in Boston, and still are just one song from a national explosion. If there are any rock bands in Boston that could be poised to be The Next Big Thing, it's Paper Tigers. (Plus, their drummer, Cutty, has been filling in for Tysk Tysk Task for the past few mont...

If you take our recommendation and see The Gypsy Moths at noon on Saturday, you potentially saw ten hours of music and probably want a rest for a bit on Sunday. You'll need some extra energy to stay fresh for Trampled By Turtles and Lord Huron, so I'm sure you'll want to sleep in at least a little that day. But, you're going to need to get to In Between Days before noon to make sure you catch Sweet Petunia. I can't remember when I first discovered Sweet Petunia, but they have been high on my list of must see Boston bands for a while. (It just hasn't worked out, unfortunately.) Their bio lists them as a "queer freak-folk band," but I personally think they sound a bit more traditional folk than freak-folk implies. Madison Simpson and Mairead Guy have some of the finest vocal harmonies in all of folk. Their music is absolutely lovely and completely captivating, and will be the perfect way to ease you back into festival mode. It's also the perfect way ...

If you're going to In Between Days, you're already planning on seeing Modest Mouse, Sunny Day Real Estate, Lord Huron, and Trampled By Turtles. But, this year's festival features some amazing local bands playing earlier that are well worth your time. Today we explore why you should get there before noon on Saturday for The Gypsy Moths. Boston has a long history of fantastic garage rock. Our latest discovery are The Gypsy Moths, who have been kicking around since 2014. They're on Rum Bar Records, which is a great way of telling that they are legitimately great. Their Bandcamp profile refers to them as "Garage soul shakers," and that pretty much nails it. Their music is rollicking garage rock with killer soul horns and vocals. They have a vintage yet modern sound. It sounds like it could have been released pretty much any time between the late 70's and now, but in a way that only a Boston garage band could. They stick out a bit from the rest of the line up, ...

In the past few weeks, there have been some happenings over at the In Between Days Festival headquarters that have us even more thrilled about the upcoming event of the summer. First off, the schedules have been announced. The best part of the schedules is that there are no overlapping performances! I haven't seen a festival do this in years, and it's such a refreshing change. At every festival I've been to in the last ten plus years, I have to make a decision between two bands I was there to see, or at the very least having to leave one stage early to get over to catch another artist. That won't happen with In Between Days! Weakened Friends end at 5:45 pm, Sunny Day Real Estate starts at 5:45 pm. Perfection! The next is the release of the festival map. In other festivals, a second or third stage can be tucked away from the main action and is easily forgotten about, or fans can have to choose between staying in a killer spot by a stage and missing out on what's goin...

Hailing from Quebec, CRABE's new single is an interesting one. Sung entirely in French, the song is about the lack of noisy and crazy music in Quebec's festival circuit. (At least, according to the email they sent us. I speak zero French, so I can't confirm myself.) "Festival" is an outrageously noisy and disjointed song, barreling into multiple directions at once and sometimes sounding like you're standing in the middle of an arcade. This is all while somehow maintaining being a rock song, and one that has an odd groove all its own. It's completely unique and challenging, but fantastic for those reasons.  You can listen to "Festival" below.  Notre-Dame De La Vie Intérieure, the new album from CRABE, will be out May 3 on Pantoum Records. For more on CRABE, check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp .