Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh’s family affair

Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, and Bullseye

By: JIM SULLIVAN

8/15/2006 3:53:23 PM

Kristin Hersh

It’s a family affair. Really. You can argue that any rock outfit is family up to a point, but there was more to it last Friday night at the Middle East downstairs. Kristin Hersh, singer/songwriter/guitarist of the headlining Throwing Muses and the opening 50 Foot Wave, is married to Billy O’Connell, her long-time manager and the father of her four boys. Muses bassist Bernard Georges and drummer David Narcizo have been in the band for æons. And the line-up of Hersh’s punkier 50 Foot Wave includes Georges and drummer Rob Ahlers. Hersh started the Muses in Newport with her half-sister Tanya Donelly (who went on to front Belly) when she was 14. So she saw nothing wrong with inviting her Amherst-based, Newport-raised pal Greg “Skeggy” Kendall to bring his two kids — bassist/singer Lucas, 12, and drummer Dana, 11 — and their four friends to play the middle part of this bill. They’re called Bullseye.

Before the gig, I ring up Hersh to see how she’s coping with bringing both of her bands on tour. “I don’t know if I can even do this. It’s quite a workout to play with either one of them. It’s like an athletic event. 50 Foot Wave is like racing down the stairs. With the Muses, it’s getting lost in notes and chords of music, leaning on autopilot.”

Backstage on Friday, she corrects herself. The Muses had just played a festival in Iceland — the first gig in three years. “I was playing these chord clusters in different positions. No more autopilot.” She’s still worried about the two sets. “Something about the resonance of 50 Foot Wave, it shakes my body. But playing with the Muses, it shakes other things.”

50 Foot Wave roar and clang, with Hersh peeling off abrasive guitar shards. It’s loud, smart punk that drops back and charges forward. During the break, Hersh sips a beer and sighs, “This is confusing for me.” On stage, the Bullseye kids deliver eight tunes of hooky punk pop including the Kinks’ garage-rock classic “I’m Not like Everybody Else.”

The Muses are the icing on the cake, conjuring a beautiful, anguished mood with angular songs, artsy, oblique, mercurial, and full of nature references. “If you dumb it down, you can make money,” Hersh says after the set. “I didn’t dumb it down. I know no one’s questioning my motives. I get the benefit of the doubt. The listeners are going to take the ride with you as long as you’re not going to lie to them.”