Fate was cruel to Brian Cherchiglia on July 25th. Even though it had been rainy all day, the roof of his building had somehow caught fire. Now he couldn’t stop breaking strings. Smiling on the stage of The Rock Shop, Cherchiglia, guitarist and lead vocalist for The Bottom Dollars, swapped out his first borrowed instrument (his own had already broken) for a second. Lightouts had already taken the stage and then their gear with them, but final act and Deli Artists of July 2011 The Nuclears had a seemingly endless guitar supply in their rock arsenal, and would never leave fellow musicians in need.
But through the power of positive thinking (and drinking), Cherchiglia, Evan Berg (drums, backing vocals) and Doug Guttenberg (bass, backing vocals) persevered like professionals and rolled out a set of analog rock, suffused with blues and muddled with folk. Imagine The Raconteurs with some Cake, including a "Satan Is My Motor" cover. Near the end of the band’s on-stage odyssey, Dyalekt of Deathrow Tull joined them for a song titled "Peace and Anarchy." And peace (or the rock version anyway) inside of anarchy was just what The Bottom Dollars had accomplished, broken strings be damned. Take that, fate. Now if only the roof would stop smoldering. –allison levin
