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The Portland Phoenix
8 days a week
BY JOSH ROGERS

The two-day Coaxial music festival (showcasing bands from Portland and Northampton, Massachusetts) ends today, with a concert at SPACE featuring the Hot Tarts (see this week’s "Beat Report"), School for the Dead, and S&M. There’s a song on The Chain CD that perfectly captures the landscape and climate which the School for the Dead inhabit. On "Uncomfortable," Henning Ohlenbusch takes us "Driving through this high-school town/ You’ve gotta roll the windows down/ If you want to melt the/ Snow I know we can." The jingle-jangle of bells and keyboard over upbeat acoustic and snappy snare make for a joyful, bittersweet sound — the same feeling you get, well, driving back through the town you grew up in on a sunny, mid-winter day: happy, depressed, weird. With a voice something like that of Ira Kaplan, or maybe Lou Reed, or even John Flansburgh, Ohlenbusch presides over catchy indie pop hooks. Act two of Coaxial V: Mayhem starts tonight at 8 p.m. 18+. $5. Call (207) 828-5600.