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Wonderful Spells
By C.D. Di Guardia
Photo by Erin Yunes
Wonderful Spells are, quite literally, a homemade band.
The home, in this case, was the Moore household, where Bo Moore and his younger brother Jamie grew up. Extended family member Josh "J-Raff" Carrasco was the kid who always ended up staying for dinner. "He's been my best friend since kindergarten," explains Jamie. Nick Moon is the most recent addition on guitar, and even he has been hanging out with the band for years. No part of Wonderful Spells has been artificially produced, preserved or provided by the band - it's all handcrafted and personal for the band. To them, this is truly what it means to be a musician.
Drummer Carrasco, guitarist Moon (formerly of both Shore Leave and Reverend Glasseye's ensemble) and the Moore brothers each look like they stepped out of a time warp, fresh from the mid-'70s. "We're lucky, it's coming back," shrugs Bo Moore, and he's not just talking about the clothes.
A spin through Wonderful Spells' debut is like taking a floppy-haired journey back through the world of shag carpeting and vintage instruments (before they were "vintage"). The sound is straight out of the Thin Lizzy era of rock: rollicking drums push a strong backbeat while the bass plunks out a solid, woody tone under the dual-guitar attack. It's a little fuzzy around the edges, a little buzzy in the corners and exquisitely visual. The elder Moore says that songs all maintain a strong visual aspect in the minds of the band during the writing process. "I don't know how you could make an album and not know what the sound looks like," he wonders aloud. "When we make songs, we know what 'color' the song is."
What brings this colorful sound to life? For one, it's the instruments themselves. "Everything we use is 'vintage,'" states guitarist and resident gear-head Moon, who spends his days working at Rockin' Bob's guitar shop in Somerville. "It's nice having a guy in the band who can fix anything," smiles Jamie.
Moon is the newest addition to this young band, playing his first show in September. "I pretty much knew all the songs anyway," he says, having learned them by hanging around the practice space. The band set up their own recording studio, in which they recorded their own album. They then created their own album artwork and held practice space shows, at which they sold t-shirts that they, of course, created by hand. "No shirt is the same," glows the elder Moore. The band actually has the necessary tools to sew and screen their own t-shirts in the practice space. "Basically all of our friends wanted Wonderful Spell t-shirts, and they all didn't want to wear the same one as each other," he says. "They took the longest time to make," agrees younger brother Jamie, a visual artist who also creates all of the flyers for the band as a piece of public artwork.
This is how the younger brother saw it all along. "There really are these three elements to being in a band," he explains, "One of them is visual art, another one is being a recording artist and the other one is being a performer." Moore sees recording their own music and creating their own artwork as important as writing and performing. "They're all intermingled," he says.
Wonderful Spells released an EP in May and hope to have their full-length record ready sometime this month. Moon, who recently acquired an analog multitrack machine, looks forward to recording the next record all analog. "I'd like to release a bootleg of new material," says Bo, who doesn't seem to care that bands don't usually make bootlegs of themselves. "It'll just be a hand-release, screen printing it ourselves," he plans aloud, continuing to thoughts of a viral You-Tube episodic series a la "The Monkees" to which the band already has the first few episodes written.
"These days, you kind of have to treat it like a small business," says Moon, who relishes being part of such a hand-made project. "The days of waiting for Big Daddy Label guy are over!"
"Everything we've done has been very organic so far," explains Bo Moore, "You need to be a multidimensional creative organism."