Drug Rug

A Little Boston-scene Incest Goes A Long Way

Drug Rug Gets By With A Little Help From Their Friends

By Meredith Turits

Photos by J.B. Galusha

Finding the right people to bring your artistic vision to fruition can be just as important as the vision itself. For Boston's Drug Rug, what began as a quiet songwriting confessional between brand new sweethearts has grown into a wide-ranging team effort where people from all over the band's very particular social web. After listening to Drug Rug's self-titled debut on Black and Greene Records, it's clear that the band's music isn't just about the relationship between Sarah Cronin and Tommy Allen. It's really a big, messy soup of artistic friendships and direct, person-to-person influences.

"It's so incestuous!" guitarist/vocalist Tommy Allen yelps, jesting about Boston's interconnectivity. This network is Drug Rug's lifeblood.

The story can mostly be traced back to Cambridge's The Middle East Club, a venue that needs no introduction in these pages. Long a centerpiece of Boston's rock community because of its unique ability to host national stars in its basement and still maintain a neighborhood hangout vibe in its two upstairs dining rooms. The Central Square venue has coddled many bands in their infancy, bands like Helms, Mad Man Films, Tiny Amps, and The Lot Six. Familiar faces don't just appear on its stage, either - from slinging drinks to selling tickets, Boston band members are everywhere. Heading up the downstairs bar is Adam Shaw of Lost City Angels, working the door are Faces on Film's Mike Fiore and Matt Price of Movers & Shakers, and downstairs you'll find Mel Lederman and Dave Norton from Victory at Sea. Allen, who has worked the door at The Middle East for five years, met vocalist, guitarist and Middle East sound engineer Cronin there.

"It's definitely cool to work at the Middle East," says Allen. "Because you see so many shows and you learn the business aspect of playing shows. How the payout works and room rental works. All the costs of everything. It's certainly helpful. It's also the kind of place where it's okay to take time off and go on the road if you need to and still come back to work."

Beyond those who work there, though, is a strong presence from members of many Boston-area area bands and their own circles of friends. It's something about the atmosphere, the familiar faces weaving in and out of packed shows, the mix of famous new international bands, old timer has-beens and local bands just getting started, all rubbing shoulders. It's no wonder that Allen and Cronin found their spark at the venue, too.

The couple began playing songs together, songs that Allen says "I've never been comfortable showing to anyone until I met Sarah." They formed Drug Rug in April 2006 and after a few months, they decided to track a demo. And the band, already having spent time with Boston music personalities outside of their Middle East involvement - Allen in Reports, The Beat Awfuls, Tiny Amps and more, and Cronin in The Beat Awfuls - knew exactly whose help they needed. Drug Rug recruited Carter Tanton of Tulsa and Township and Julian Cassanetti of The Lot Six fame to record and produce the demo, which ended up as half of Drug Rug's current self-titled release.

"Carter recorded the album and they both produced it, so they had a lot of input about how the songs started as acoustic and then turned into full rock songs," Cronin says. Both Tanton and Cassanetti appear on the record as well, providing bass and drums to many of the tracks. It was at that point that Drug Rug, the little basement project, took on a life of its own.

"Around that time, we were both playing in the Beat Awfuls and we had a seven day residency at PA's Lounge," Allen begins. "On the second day of the residency, the band that was supposed to play didn't show up, so Drug Rug played. We caught the attention of this guy, Jeremy Black. He's the drummer of Apollo Sunshine, and they really liked us."

The haphazard show turned into a check from Black's own imprint, Black and Greene, to finish recording the rest of the songs with Tanton at his Narrow Lab studio in Allston.

"When we were finishing the last four or five songs, we brought in a bunch of people to help us, so there are a lot of different guest appearances on the record," Allen says.

he last days of recording brought in members of the Dead Trees, Viva Viva and Mad Man Films, to sparingly name a few. In Tanton's small, homegrown studio, the songs evolved like strange species of duckbilled animals on a long lost Pacific island. In their final state on record, the songs run amock without regard to sensible rhyme or reason. Alan Lomax nursery rhyme field recordings hold hands with Lou Reed tambourine jams while Black Oak Arkansas records play at half speed. It sounds creepy, but it's not. Tanton and crew morph this trippy nightmare material into a playful, Technicolor vision of the world through childlike and non-judgmental eyes.

"We want our sound to reflect the spirit of youth and fun," Cronin affirms. I think we were both comfortable enough in our song writing process to allow other people to come in and help shape the way things turned out. I love being able to have the freedom to just let someone else turn a song into what it becomes," Cronin says. "It's kind of like being in a candy store and you're like, 'I want to try this one!'"

Heavily influenced by the kitchen sink production styles of The Beatles, Tanton's analog-only tracking added another dimension to Drug Rug and their rotating cast.

"On 'Lie Lie Lie' there was just one mic in the middle of the room but six or seven instruments and we had to do it like, 30 times to get the balance right," Allen recalls. "[There were] six of us huddled around this old RCA mic in the middle of Carter's driveway. It was my brother John [Allen of Viva Viva] on floor tom and tambo, Julian on melodica, Carter on xylophone, Jesse [Gallagher of Apollo Sunshine] on sax, myself on lap steel, and Sarah on guitar and vocals. The more we played the song the more I could sense Sarah getting bored or sick of it, and so each time you could hear her singing get a little stranger and weirder. I think to keep us entertained, herself included. It was definitely my favorite song we recorded." On top of "Lie Lie Lie," "Cut the Meat" was also recorded around one mic. "We recorded it the five of us: John, Carter, Julian, Sarah, and myself," Allen recalls. "We played it once then switched up our sounds slightly and played to the recording a second time, leaving plenty of noises but just two tracks, one mic."

Allen attributes a lot of the record's rustic aura to Tanton's one-time "obsession" with eBay and old recording equipment, and it shows through on the recording, which sounds like a compilation of orphaned '60s 45s. But this is a very real band today. Their "permutable incarnation," as Cronin puts it, only recently solidified with the addition of George Lewis, Jr., formally of Mad Man Films, and Allen's brother John, known best with Viva Viva. With Drug Rug's now permanent line-up and their in-and-out through spectrums of sound and personalities, Allen and Cronin still treat their one-on-one dynamic as the core of the band.

"I think one of the reasons we started to get more shows playing together was that people were interested in the dynamic between us," Cronin says. "At that point, the songs weren't very technically together. But, from what I've heard from other people, they say that we have sort of a strange-to-describe energy on stage between us that's hard to pin down. I think it's because we're always stealing peeks at each other," she quips.

"It's really changed a lot now that we're more comfortable playing the songs," Cronin proceeds. "Now we're able to not stare at each other the whole time and it projects a lot of energy into the audience."

The adorable factor involved with the band has led to lots of Mates of State and Matt & Kim comparisons, but Allen and Cronin seem to have grown a little tired of the couple-rock gimmick appeal.

"I'm careful because I don't want people to think it's contrived," Allen says. "That's a big fear of mine. Especially because I think that a lot of people think it's really marketable right now and we don't want to be mixed with that."

For now, the band is focused on a bigger picture - the band, the friends, the family and the fans. At Drug Rug's recent Boston CD release party, a PA's Lounge packed with friends and collaborators made way in the front row for several band members' moms. The album is already riding a wave of national buzz through music press and otherwise and it's difficult to recall a more well-liked Boston band from recent memory.

"It's hard to imagine what would have happened if we didn't know people like this," Tommy humbles. "We probably wouldn't have played that show, Jeremy might not have seen us, and we might not have even met."

Cronin smiles in what seems like the most perfectly appropriate moment. But even without Allen's declaration, it's clear that nothing about Drug Rug is contrived. Especially when Cronin gushes, "Everything's possible because of our friends."

www.myspace.com/drugrugdude