The Blue Ribbons/Muddy Ruckus

$15/$20

"The Blue Ribbons’ latest album, 2024’s “Forever, But Not For Long,” has plenty of pop hooks. Or rather, it had plenty of them before the band took sledgehammers and scalpels to most of the pretty bits.

“It took a while to get the bones of some of the tunes down just so we could break them,” bandleader James Rohr told Herald with a laugh.

Local champs the Blue Ribbons are a pop band in the same way that the Beatles or Steely Dan or Television are pop bands in that they like pop but “aren’t too precious about the songs,” Rohr said.

Jed Gottleib - Boston Herald

Muddy Ruckus is a "darkly inventive" rock duo according to the New York Music Daily. Guitarist Ryan Flaherty and drummer Erika Stahl of Portland, Maine play a grungy style of railroad indie punk blues. This stripped-down power-duo blends rootsy guitar and edgy percussion on a suitcase drum kit, and is known for a full rock band sound.

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