Lizard Lounge Club

Chameleon Rift
2023-07-26 20:00 - 23:00 (America/New_York) | Lizard Lounge, 1667 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Chameleon Rift make their Lizard Lounge debut!

Chameleon Rift is a newly-formed jam band out of Boston, MA featuring members of Bearly Dead and Krewe de Roux, with roots in rock, blues, jazz, and funk. With varied setlists and extensive improvisation, no two Chameleon Rift shows will ever be the same.

Poetry Jam NorthBeast Regional Slam #2
2023-07-23 19:00 - 22:00
Poetry Jam-NorthBeast Regional Slam #2

MUST BE 21+

The second of two consecutive Sundays featuring a four-team regional slam. The Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam will host three guest regional teams. Always a super-popular event, this evening will feature teams from NH, RI, and one of our own two teams.

Pressure Cooker
2023-07-22 21:00 - 2023-07-23 00:00
Pressure Cooker returns to the Lizard Lounge!

We are Pressure Cooker. We write and play roots reggae, rocksteady and ska music. We are proudly based in Boston, and have been making original music since 1997.

We’ve released seven full-length albums and performed live over 20+ years, with some of the greats of the genre here in Boston, around New England and in a few other places throughout the United States. The music we’ve made is available worldwide.
Pressure Cooker

Tracy Bonham
2023-07-21 21:00 - 2023-07-22 00:00
Tracy Bonham at the Lizard Lounge!

MUST BE 21+

Bonham’s debut, The Burdens of Being Upright, achieved Gold Record status in 1996, spawning the chart-topping hit “Mother Mother” which has remained a powerful anthem for disenfranchised youth all over the world.
Due to major shake-ups in the music industry Bonham’s second release, Down Here (Island), was significantly delayed. While continuing to tour the world including several dates with Lilith Fair (1997 and 1998), the industry’s landscape had become unrecognizable. This inspired Tracy to rethink how she approached the music business and her songwriting. She asked Island Records to end her multi-record contract and with that newfound freedom, she relocated to Los Angeles to make her third album Blink the Brightest (Rounder / Zoé). This collection of songs became fan favorites with beautiful melodies and heartfelt messages of perseverance after tragedy, unrequited love, and broken dreams.

In 2003 and 2006 Bonham appeared as the featured vocalist and violinist in Blue Man Group’s arena tours (The Complex, How To Be A Megastar 2.0) in which she sold her self-released EPs (Bee EP and In The City & In The Woods) in rock arenas all over the United States. She sold over 12,000 CDs on her own (an unprecedented achievement for that time without record label, management, or radio play) and was able to self-fund her next album.

In 2010, Bonham released Masts Of Manhatta (Engine Room Records) and continued to procure a more mature audience while maintaining the quirky humor and edginess of her first escapades in songwriting. Bonham has released several more albums to wide critical acclaim, has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno multiple times and has landed several songs in feature films and popular tv shows.
Tracy Bonham is an artist who has never ceased growing and has never stopped challenging herself, her own talents, or her audience. As PopMatters aptly describes “Bonham, from the beginning and increasingly over time, is a riveting, complicated maker of pop music.” Her album, Modern Burdens, made Rolling Stone’s Top 50 albums of 2017, which they describe as “a lovingly penned postcard to Bonham’s past self, and a fascinating look at where she’s at right now.”

In early March 2020, Tracy showcased new material on a West Coast tour with the plan of recording an album upon her return home to New York. On the nearly empty plane home on March 15, 2020, Bonham made the decision to shift gears knowing that it would be some time before another tour could take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking action during quarantine, Tracy uncovered the finished recordings for what would become an entirely new endeavor called Melodeon Music House, pointing toward a younger audience who she lovingly calls her “young music enthusiasts”. This new enterprise combines her original material with original music education curriculums inspired by School House Rock, Electric Company, and Sesame Street. Teaming up with her touring partner, Rene Hart (renowned jazz bassist), Tracy Bonham & Melodeon Music House will release their first album entitled Young Maestros Vol. 1 on April 16, 2021, on Melodeon Music House Records.
Tracy Bonham

The Attractors/Riki Rocksteady All Stars
2023-07-20 20:00 - 23:00
The Attractors make their Lizard Lounge debut with Riki Rocksteady!

M﻿UST BE 21+

The ATTRACTORS were created by Westbound Train trumpeter and Void Union co-founder RICH GRAIKO in 2011 as a way to pay homage to 1960’s era Jamaican and American instrumental groove music.
Formerly the Brooklyn Attractors, the group’s core line-up underwent a major change in 2017 when bandleader Rich Graiko made the move from New York, back to his hometown of Boston. Despite this change the group continues to incorporate some of the top musicians in the Boston and New York reggae, Ska and Jazz scenes, on it’s recordings and live shows.
Jamaican percussion legend LARRY McDONALD (Bob Marley, Taj Mahal, Gil Scot Heron, Lee Perry), guitarist ANDY BASSFORD (Toots & The Maytals, Monty Alexander, Burning Spear), Trombonist BUFORD O’SULLIVAN (easy Star Allstars, Scofflaws) and Pianist Key Stewart (Skatallites, Soulshot) are a few of the musicians who you might see playing with the group on a given night, as well as the most recent iteration of the core line up: Bassist THADDEUS MERRITT (Westbound Train, the Toasters), Drummer JESSE HAYES (Void Union, the Toasters), Saxophonist JC SKA COHEN (Westbound Train, Void Union) and Jazz Guitar extraordinaire CHRIS BROWN (Chris Brown quartet, Metallica).
The group has released three full-length studio albums, Good Evil Alchemy, The Move, and Love Bombs (Jump-Up Records), as well as one live album, Live In NYC (Rarebreed Records), and are currently working on their fourth studio album.

The Attractors

This wildly talented group of New England-based Ska and Reggae Allstars is sure to get your blood pumping!
Fronted by 20 year Boston Ska and Reggae veteran Riki Rocksteady (lead vocals, rhythm guitar and harmonica), the Allstars have a core nucleus consisting of Boston Ska and Reggae mainstays, Thaddeus Merritt, Chris Brown and Jesse Hayes, and rotates in special guests and friends that Riki Has made over the years.
The Riki Rocksteady Allstars fam includes members of The Skatalites, Westbound Train, Big D & The Kids Table, Void Union, The Toasters and so many more, and are guaranteed to bring the fire! These seasoned musicians leave NOTHING To be desired and are sure to get the crowd on their feet and feeling the rhythm!”
Riki Rocksteady

The Reckoning Crew
2023-07-19 20:00 - 23:00
The Reckoning Crew pay tribute to the acoustic music of the Grateful Dead

MUST BE 21+

The Reckoning Crew brings together stalwart members of the Boston Grateful Dead scene to present an authentic emulation of the Dead’s iconic acoustic performances captured on the “Reckoning” album. Not limited to just this period of the Dead’s career, The Reckoning Crew, featuring David Rubin & Ian Brenckle from Diamond Blues, Gordon Fromm from Skull and Roses, Mike Verge from Torn and Frayed and Ben DeUrso of Citizens’ Dead, has a deep love for all of the material of the storied songbook, and showcases that along with a fierce focus on improvisation & communication for a real good time!
The Reckoning Crew

Poetry Jam NorthBeast Regional Slam #1
2023-07-16 20:00 - 23:00
Poetry Jam NorthBeast Regional Slam #1

MUST BE 21+

The first of two consecutive Sundays featuring a four-team regional slam. The Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam will host three guest regional teams. Always a super-popular event, this evening will feature teams from CT, Boston Poetry Slam, Lowell, and one of our own two teams.

Heavy Necker and Hambone Skinny
2023-07-15 21:00 - 2023-07-16 00:00
Heavy Necker return to Lizard Lounge with Hambone Skinny!

MUST BE 21+

Heavy Necker are on a journey to become Peabody, MA’s premier rock band. Their tight turning mixture combines influences from jazz, blues, poetry, and soul while honoring the ages of hard-hipped guitar driven music through modern personalities.
The band have been friends for quite a while now. Chris (vox,guitar) tried to start bands before but nothing ever stuck until Mike D (drums) and Keith (bass) picked up and started playing. “We want nothing more than to perform our music at the highest level that we know we’re capable of and have fun taking chances while doing it” Chris has stated as a mission of sorts. Mike D quickly added “and if we don’t then we’ll at least fool the idiots.”
Heavy Necker

Come Getcha Some (Rum Bar Records) SOUND Gritty, lo-fi, punk-fueled blues delivered by a Cambridge, Mass.-based duo, featuring Hambone on guitar/vocals and Steph F’s brutally direct drumming. At times redolent of Robert Johnson cut through with elements of the Ramones and Led Zeppelin, the overall result is raw enough to make the White Stripes sound like Journey.
Hambone Skinny

Club d’Elf with special guests Duke Levine and Kevin Barry late show
2023-07-14 22:00 - 2023-07-15 01:30
Club d’Elf returns to the Lizard Lounge for a double header with special guest Duke Levine!!!

MUST BE 21+

Club d’Elf returns to The Lizard for another stop on its ongoing 25th Anniversary tour, with a line up that is a fan favorite: Duke Levine, Kevin Barry, Paul Schultheis, Mister Rourke, Mike Rivard & Dean Johnston.

Club d’Elf has been helping audiences lose track of time for almost twenty five years with its mesmerizing synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk. Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard and drummer Dean Johnston, each Club d’Elf performance features a different line-up, drawn from a constellation of some of the most creative improvisers from the jazz, DJ, rock & world music scenes of Boston, NYC and beyond. The band’s music draws from a startlingly wide spectrum of styles, including jazz, hip hop, electronica, avant garde, prog-rock and dub. Under the tutelage of member Brahim Fribgane (who hails from Casablanca) the band has absorbed Moroccan trance music, which is now an essential part of the mix. Diverse audiences are drawn to Fribgane’s mesmerizing oud stylings, and Rivard’s commanding playing of the Moroccan sintir. Trance forms the central core of the Club d’Elf aesthetic, weavingtogether the band’s various influences.
In April 2022 the band released its latest album, ‘You Never Know’,which rose to #2 on the Relix chart. The record unfurls upon kaleidoscopic clouds of spiced smoke, shifting from chopped dub-jazz through trance epics that reimagine Boston as a city of bazaars. Club d’Elf pay tribute to the music and musicians who have been primary influences, with half the album being covers of gnawa, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Moroccan band Nass el-Ghiwane, and Frank Zappa. The other half consists of original music inspired by Rivard’s personal journey into darkness following a near death experience in the remote jungle of the Peruvian Amazon.

“You Never Know is a wide ranging romp, full of serenity, chaos, longing, improvisation and peerless musicianship inspired by music from India and Morocco as well as the maverick jazz of Miles Davis and Frank Zappa.” – Banning Eyre, Afropop Worldwide

“Crushed between the borders of Morocco, jam band land and the kingdomof avant-garde jazz lies Club d’Elf…James Brown-meets-Sun-Ra.” – JedGottlieb, Boston Herald

“Sounds like the lovechild of Pink Floyd and George Clinton, dropped in Marrakesh…some deeply psychedelic music.” – Marlon Bishop, WNYC

Club d’Elf with special guests Duke Levine and Kevin Barry early show
2023-07-14 19:30 - 22:30
Club d’Elf returns to the Lizard Lounge for a double header with special guest Duke Levine!!!

MUST BE 21+

Club d’Elf returns to The Lizard for another stop on its ongoing 25th Anniversary tour, with a line up that is a fan favorite: Duke Levine, Kevin Barry, Paul Schultheis, Mister Rourke, Mike Rivard & Dean Johnston.
Club d’Elf has been helping audiences lose track of time for almost twenty five years with its mesmerizing synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk. Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard and drummer Dean Johnston, each Club d’Elf performance features a different line-up, drawn from a constellation of some of the most creative improvisers from the jazz, DJ, rock & world music scenes of Boston, NYC and beyond. The band’s music draws from a startlingly wide spectrum of styles, including jazz, hip hop, electronica, avant garde, prog-rock and dub. Under the tutelage of member Brahim Fribgane (who hails from Casablanca) the band has absorbed Moroccan trance music, which is now an essential part of the mix. Diverse audiences are drawn to Fribgane’s mesmerizing oud stylings, and Rivard’s commanding playing of the Moroccan sintir. Trance forms the central core of the Club d’Elf aesthetic, weavingtogether the band’s various influences.

In April 2022 the band released its latest album, ‘You Never Know’, which rose to #2 on the Relix chart. The record unfurls uponkaleidoscopic clouds of spiced smoke, shifting from chopped dub-jazz
through trance epics that reimagine Boston as a city of bazaars. Club d’Elf pay tribute to the music and musicians who have been primary
influences, with half the album being covers of gnawa, Miles Davis,Joe Zawinul, Moroccan band Nass el-Ghiwane, and Frank Zappa. The other
half consists of original music inspired by Rivard’s personal journeyinto darkness following a near death experience in the remote jungleof the Peruvian Amazon.

“You Never Know is a wide ranging romp, full of serenity, chaos,longing, improvisation and peerless musicianship inspired by music
from India and Morocco as well as the maverick jazz of Miles Davis andFrank Zappa.” – Banning Eyre, Afropop Worldwide

“Crushed between the borders of Morocco, jam band land and the kingdomof avant-garde jazz lies Club d’Elf…James Brown-meets-Sun-Ra.” – Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald

“Sounds like the lovechild of Pink Floyd and George Clinton, droppedin Marrakesh…some deeply psychedelic music.” – Marlon Bishop, WNYC

Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light with Kyle Morgan
2023-07-13 19:00 - 22:00
Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light return to the Lizard Lounge with Kyle Morgan

M﻿UST BE 21+

ith songs as sweet and biting as the nectar and venom in her voice, Rachel Sumner has been captivating audiences throughout the northeast with her exciting new band Traveling Light. While their instrumentation and textures show roots deep in bluegrass and traditional folk music, Sumner’s lyric-forward writing and penchant for snaking chord progressions demand something beyond folk conventions, highlighting the acrobatic range of her brilliant bandmates Kat Wallace (fiddle/harmonies) and Mike Siegel (upright bass).

Sumner is no stranger to the stage. She spent her early career on the bluegrass circuit, singing and writing with the genre-bending Boston group Twisted Pine. Since setting out on her own, Sumner’s songs have been critically acclaimed, winning the Lennon Award in the folk category of the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison);” earning her a spot in the Kerrville New Folk Competition; and being chosen two consecutive years by WBUR/NPR as one of the top Massachusetts entries in the Tiny Desk Competition.

Originally a classical flutist from the dusty Mojave desert, Sumner relocated from California to Boston a decade ago intending to study Composition and Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music. While at school, she found herself in the orbit of roots musicians like Molly Tuttle, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and John Mailander who introduced her to a trove of traditional music, started her off with a few chords on the guitar, and encouraged her to write her own songs. In the short time since, Rachel has become one of the most vital voices in Boston’s thriving roots music scene. Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light will release their debut LP in the summer of 2022.

Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light

Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Kyle Morgan grew up in central Pennsylvania, where he spent countless Sunday mornings amidst the broken strains and coffee breath of his church congregation. His first record, Starcrossed Losers, became the alias under which he would go on to release two more, Bind Us Anew and Strange Hesitations, each featuring his distinctive conglomeration of Americana styles, from stripped-down acoustic ballads and love-lorn parlor laments to roaring alt-country and throwback 60’s rock’n’roll. His latest record and label debut, Younger At Most Everything, was released by Team Love Records in February, 2022. “Morgan’s acoustic folk songs are universally appealing for fans of the genre: sometimes sparse, sometimes lush, and often descended from the Paul Simon-to-Fleet Foxes family tree.”
Kyle Morgan

Poetry Jam-Poets vs Rappers
2023-07-09 19:00 - 22:00
Poetry Jam- Poets vs Rappers

MUST BE 21+

One of the Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam’s most popular yearly events is back for the first time since restarting post-shutdown!! A night of friendly competition between cousins: poets and rappers. Some of our finest poets will meet some of our finest MC’s for a showdown not to be missed. We will have a special guest hosting the event and an open mic will follow the slam.

Jack Grace with The Weisstronauts and The Buttercups
2023-07-08 20:00 - 23:00
Jack Grace at the Lizard Lounge with the Weisstronauts and the Buttercups!!!

MUST BE 21+

Jack Grace has spent decades on the road in the US, Canada and Europe, playing his “Country Rock with a Bossa Nova Twist”.

He has performed with a wide variety of artists, from Gordon Lightfoot to Jerry Lee Lewis to Norah Jones, Doc Watson to Fishbone, Merle Haggard to The Meters and his original songbook of many genres blends with them all. He is an accomplished finger-picking solo performer that could make you laugh or have you shed a tear, as well as a storied band leader, comfortably riding his well worn power trio into a dance frenzy or leading his decadent 7 piece outfit (complete with The Broken Mariachi horn section) deep into his sometimes humorous, yet often heartbreaking repertoire.
Jack Grace
The Weisstronauts are instrumental Twang Surf Psych Spy Rock for the 22nd Century founded by guitarist Pete Weiss. No one sounds like them, nobody could.
The Weisstronauts
Chandler Travis has had a long and checkered career in the world of show biz, beginning in the seventies bringing comedy and music all over the U.S. and to the nationwide television audience on such programs as the Tonight Show, the Midnight Special, and Dick Cavett. Along the way, they released an album and appeared on stage with everyone from Bonnie Raitt to Bruce Springsteen to especially good pals NRBQ and George Carlin (with whom they toured for many years) to Elvis Costello to– well, you get the idea.

The Buttercups is a duo Chandler and his longtime drummer/collaborator, Rikki Bates on drums.
Chandler Travis

Dwayne Haggins w/ special guest James Burke
2023-07-07 21:00 - 2023-07-08 00:00
Dwayne Haggins at the Lizard Lounge!

M﻿UST BE 21+

He’s been described as “the love child of Hank Williams and Otis Redding.” “The John Legend of rockabilly.” And even, “the ‘what-took-you-so-long?’ fusion of Elvis Presley and Marvin Gaye.” At every performance, whether in a venerable metropolitan concert hall or a grimy dive in an anonymous strip mall, Dwayne Haggins is always at work. Adding new subtleties to an obvious melody line. Reinterpreting a time-worn lyrical cliché to imbue it anew with genuine feeling. Unleashing a gentle cascade of vocal acrobatics when least expected (and hence most effective) — never for show alone, but always to express a likewise unanticipated nuance of feeling: a whisper of love, a curse of anger, a groan of pain, a whoop of joy that feels, paradoxically, both surprising and inevitable at the same moment.
Dwayne Haggins grew up in many places, but when he talks of “home” these days, he means Framingham, Massachusetts.
Since early 2017, Dwayne has been on a quest to make a living playing music, leaving his mark on dozens of bars, restaurants and clubs scattered across eastern and central Massachusetts. His distinctive sound, which delivers a brand new take on the traditional country-blues and soul that he loves, has generated a rare sense of excitement and possibility throughout the area’s musical community.
Likewise, the exponential growth of his devoted audience likely signals that a move to larger venues is inevitable, and perhaps imminent. Which is no doubt one reason why Dwayne’s recent shows in local venues have taken on a new intensity, a sense of immense potential chafing at the limits of its current constraints. These days, each performance feels like a special occasion, a chance perhaps to experience the end of the beginning, the last page of prologue to a brand new story that already has the makings of a modern classic.
Though always a lover of music and an appreciative listener, Dwayne himself didn’t pick up a guitar until age 18. One evening he happened to turn on the Conan O’Brien show just in time to see Sturgill Simpson, a beacon of integrity in modern country music, perform his song “Living The Dream.” Thanks to that well-timed moment of inspiration, the guitar soon became Dwayne’s constant companion. By age 20 he was writing his own songs, and was well on the way to finding his own voice to sing them.

Notably, Haggins has shared the stage with acts such as Keb Mo, Joe Bonamassa, Ronnie Earl, George Thorogood, Eric Gales, Samantha Fish, and Suzanne Santo.
Dwayne Haggins

Four Piece Suit
2023-07-06 20:00 - 23:00
Description of event goes here.
