SEMINAL BOSTON NOISE ROCK BAND, NEPTUNE, RETURNS!

Neptune/Rong/Hive Mind Brass Quintet/ Andrea Pensado at the Midway Cafe, Saturday June 24th.

In October 2000, I moved to Boston to take a job at the Boston Public Library. The first couple weeks after I arrived in town, I felt lonely, missed my friends, and was regretting my move. I often thought “What have I done?” About a month after my arrival, I went to see the angular Czech post punk band Uz Jsme Doma at the Middle East, and Neptune was the opening band. As I watched Neptune bludgeon their instruments made of scrap metal and saw blades that night, I felt a sense of relief, and thought “If a band this good and weird is from Boston, I think living here is going to work out”.

Neptune began in 1994 as a sculpture project by Jason Sanford, the band’s one constant member. After constructing fully working guitars out of scrap metal, he assembled a band to play them. There were many different line-ups over the years. Over time, the scrap metal guitars were joined by various homemade percussion instruments and synths. By the time I arrived in Boston, they were an absolute staple of Boston’s indie music scene, pretty much opening for every oddball touring rock band that came through town. They also toured themselves, through both the US and Europe, and acted as ambassadors for Boston’s music scene. They released numerous records. I saw them so often that if a month passed and I hadn’t seen a Neptune live set, things