Brightest Young Things

Thalia Zedek started her career as a musician in the group Dangerous Birds, whose 1982 single "Alpha Romeo" is a rare find these days. She really made her mark shortly thereafter with UZI, whose 1986 Homestead release was a landmark, not only for the Boston region but for the underground in general. It rightfully put Thalia in the company of other challenging female pioneers such as Kim Gordon. The record was re-issued by Matador in the mid-1990's to much acclaim.

Her debut album for Thrill Jockey "Trust Not Those in Whom Without Some Touch of Madness" garnered great critical acclaim, and the Adelaide performance on her Australian tour for that album even earned a spot on The Wire magazine's top 100 greatest shows ever! "Liars and Prayers" is the masterwork of her thus far impressive career. Her voice and songs have never been stronger and the full band allows her to combine the delicacy of the arrangements of her trio with the force that was her band Come.

Thank our lucky stars that Thalia Zedek agreed to do a listening party with BYT... her words and her songs...

Come see Thalia Zidek / Kohoutek / Major Stars @ Velvet Lounge Sunday 9 pm

"LOWER ALLSTON" - Written about my neighborhood of ....Lower Allston!!! Anyone who has lived here, (and ALOT of people who just passed through Boston for a few years may well have as it's an inexpensive somewhat transient neighborhood) may recognize a few landmarks mentioned in the song. The bridge for instance is the foot bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike, it's completeley trash strewn and covered with graffitti. Lower Allston is popular with alot of graffitti artists because of the train yards and industrial area, one tag that's been passed down from person to person (so I'm told) is ALERT. THe ALERT that I knew was my roomate for a time, a fugitive from the Boston Police "graffitti squad" and also an incredible artist who's painting is the cover of my first solo album.

"WIND"- This song is a little older and was inspired by a very strange show that we had in Toulouse, France. The wind in April (which is when we were there) in the south of France is so intense that we were literally getting blown across the road the entire drive up from Spain. On our way through town to the club we passed a very strange sight, a large area of maybe a mile diameter absolutley devoid of ANYTHING, grass, building , trees, quite a strange sight to see in the middle of a city. Our show was in a Spanish restaurant/dive bar and in the middle of the set during "Hell is in Hello" a really drunk African man with a beautific smile on his face wrapped his arms around me (there was no stage as it was a restaurant) mid song. I hadn't seen him come up behind me and was so startled that I fell over into the drums and everything came crashing down. People jumped up to pry him away,as he just stood there holding me in a bear hug with a smile on his face all the while and several fights ensued. Later I found out that the reason we played the strange restaurant is because the club we were supposed to play had been exploded when a huge chemical plant in town had blown up (which was the "void" area we passed on the way into town)>

"BEGIN TO EXHUME" - This song I literally "heard" and transcribed . I was in the basement and thought my roomate Eric was upstairs playing his guitar. I thought the riff that he was playing over and over must have been a new song he was working on or something. I thought it was so cool that I didn't want to interrupt him so I just sat in the basement listening. Finally after like 45 minutes I really needed to go upstirs. When I came up the stairs there was no one there, actually it turned out I was the only person at home at the time. I went downstairs and played the riff I'd been listening to (that became Begin to Exhume) into my tape recorder.