Jim Baumer

Maine-based indie rocker Jim Baumer is releasing his latest batch of songs on "Living in Some Strange Days." This release emanates from a space of darkness and deep pain, with music hearkening back to a time when indie rock ruled college radio in the mid-1990s. Many of the tracks on "Living in Some Strange Days" originated during the latter part of the pandemic, when Baumer says he was “locked in my basement wondering if I’d ever play live again.”

Music has been Baumer’s path forward following the aftermath when his son, well-known environmental activist and poet, Mark Baumer, was killed in 2017. Picking up his old Yamaha guitar he’d had around the house for 20 years, he took it out of the case and started to play. He states “I’ve been playing it ever since.”

LISSD is a mix of acoustic rock, rooted in 70s music and artists like Arlo Guthrie, Lou Reed, Big Star, and others. The one-man-band electric songs like “Spaceship Flying Saucer Bluze” and “Soros Jam” are influenced by angular indie bands of the 1990s like Pavement, Silkworm, and channels some 70s T Rex and other influences, too, especially the grittiness of Lou Reed’s solo material from the late 1980s and early 90s.

Baumer remembers music that never shied away from the topics of the day. TNT (True North Truckers) speaks to freedom and protest and tilts against so-called leftists and their locking down of dissent in Canada and elsewhere.

The final track, “Kick the Darkness” takes the refrain from Bruce Cockburn’s “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” and offers a glimmer of hope for anyone who thinks that we might be living through strange days.

Benjamin Bunker

Benjamin Bunker is a local songwriter and accomplished loop artist. His project, Beds, has been a fantastic addition to the local community. Ben's showcases and willingness to reach out to other musicians is appreciated by music lovers throughout New England.