Tugboat Annie

by Matt Ashare

When Tugboat Annie moved from Buffalo to Boston two years ago, they brought more than just their guitars, bass, and drums with them. "We didn't want to make any new friends," jokes bassist Jon Sulkow, "so we brought all our friends with us -- 10 or 12 made the move together."

Not that Sulkow and the rest of the band were complete strangers to the Boston scene -- they'd recorded their debut CD at the now defunct Birddog Studio in Lower Allston, and they released it on the local indie Sonic Bubblegum. But bringing friends along allowed them to replace their original lead guitarist with another Buffalo expatriate (Jay Celeste) last year, and moving to Boston marked a turning point in the band's attitude toward making music.

"We'd been together for three years in Buffalo, where [singer/guitarist] Mike [Bethmann] and I went to college together," Sulkow recalls. "But we really weren't working that hard in Buffalo -- we were practicing once a month or so. Then, we moved right after the CD came out on Sonic Bubblegum, and we started practicing like four times a week."

As a result, by the time Tugboat Annie -- who took their name from the 1933 film -- recorded their second CD, last year's Wake Up and Disappear, the Pixies and Replacements influences of their salad days had tightened into a darker, denser melodic churn that brings to mind a less loopy Archers of Loaf with the emotional intensity of Superchunk and Sunny Day Real Estate. At recent shows, the foursome (rounded out by drummer Tim) have been angling in toward more hypnotic textures.

"When Jay, who wasn't our original guitarist, joined the band, he added his own interest in ambient stuff," Sulkow points out. "And I think bands like Spiritualized and Stereolab are becoming bigger influences for us. But we're still interested in good old American loud indie rock."