The Phoenix

ID Check: Alex Brown-Whalen

Flying-V prodigy

By: CAMILLE DODERO

1/26/2006 8:04:43 PM

Heavy-metal axe strapped over his shoulder, Alex Brown-Whalen sure knows how to shred. It’s his first time practicing with all the members of Boston-based art-rock-instrumental trio Devil Music Ensemble — multi-instrumentalist Brendon Wood, electric violinist/synth/bassist Jonah Rapino, and drummer Tim Nylander — and they’re working through Alex’s original songs. Cramped together among amps and random equipment in a JP-basement rehearsal space, they try a wordless progression he’s named “Electric Storm.” A couple times, Alex forgets parts he’s written, but with Wood’s instructive prodding (“Are you sure you only want to play that chord once?”), he refines his works to Nylander’s improvised beat, with Rapino thumping along on bass. Once or twice, Alex even rips into a few face-melting bars of metal-chord rock he’s just added.

“Sweet,” compliments Wood.

Alex Brown-Whalen (“I have two last names”) is nine, somewhat mumbly and shy, with porcelain-doll eyes and a light spray of freckles across his pale cheeks. He is a fourth-grader at the Joseph P. Manning School in Jamaica Plain, where his favorite subject is recess. He wears black sneakers, dark pants that bunch around his ankles, and adult-size rock T-shirts that fall just above the knees on his child-size frame. His favorite bands are the Misfits, Green Day, Slayer, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden. Sometimes Alex squiggles their monikers on his arms in ballpoint-pen tribute — like pretend tattoos. Asked about his limb-scribblings, he shrugs, “It’s just something I do.”

Alex owns a Gibson Dean Flying V, a gift from his family that stands nearly as tall as he does. For almost two years, he’s taken one-on-one lessons from Wood, the thickly bearded founder of Devil Music Ensemble who can play everything from analog synths and banjo to bass clarinet and guitar. In the last four years, DME has toured the country performing movie-house scores for silent films like F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the 1922 Western Big Stakes. Together, they’ve also participated in Glenn Branca’s 100-guitar composition Symphony #13 and separately enlisted 40- and 20-piece orchestras to execute their individual contemporary-classical works before live audiences. And so DME is just the sort of arty assembly that welcomes experimental configurations, like rocking out with a V-slinging fourth-grader.

When the band had a Wednesday show booked at Great Scott in Allston this past September, Wood invited his star pupil to join he and Rapino for a guitar-heavy live adaptation of DME. It was Alex’s world debut. Beforehand, Rapino crammed in a last-minute practice session in the men’s room. On-stage, Alex was decked out in a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt circa 1973. On his little knuckles was what appeared to be the word ozzy inked upside-down. His parents were there — his dad actually videotaped the show — and so was his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Amica. (“She was dancing,” Rapino remembers, grinning.)

Four months later, Alex smiles bashfully and says, “I did pretty good.”

Wood beams, “He was awesome!”

There was one major hitch: his friends couldn’t come. Great Scott is a 21-plus venue, it was a school night, and Devil Music went on after 9 pm — normally the nine-year-old’s bedtime. So when the three-piece finally finished their new six-song release Go! (Mass Distribution), they invited their youngest collaborator back. This Saturday, January 28, he’ll help headline an all-ages CD-release show, an early-evening MassArt bill of under-18 bands. Bands like Undecided Youth, a Marblehead junior-high gang whose Web site lists members’ “rock idols” alongside their “best friends” and “favorite colors.”

Back at practice, Alex keeps pace with his collaborators two decades his senior, his eyes darting from musician to musician, as they run through the three songs they’ll do at MassArt. But when someone asks Alex the titles of the arrangements he’s dreamed up, he can’t remember. “I have the names written down at home,” he says unsurely. “They’re just on a piece of paper. In my desk.”

But they rock. So much that when Alex snaps a string on his Gibson, Rapino teases, “You’re rocking too hard.”

Alex smirks bashfully. He seems pleased with that suggestion.

Alex Brown-Whalen plays with Devil Music Ensemble this Saturday, January 28, at Massachusetts College of Art, North Hall, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston | Also appearing are Undecided Youth + the Conversions + the Abraham Lincoln Brigade | All ages | 5 to 9 pm | 617.427.3267.