For the past few weeks, I’ve been revisiting the music of Boston band Karate. I discovered their fluid explorations of indie rock in fall 2004, after moving to Massachusetts for college. That August, Karate had released their final studio album, Pockets, and the following summer they’d break up. I never even saw them play—I was too young to get into many of the shows I wanted to see, and traveling to Boston proper from suburban Waltham, where I lived, proved to be a challenge too.
Farina lives in Chicago now. Before the pandemic, he’d frequently play at Cellar Door Provisions in Logan Square as part of a guitar-and-mandolin duo called the Last Kind Words, which specializes in new interpretations of prewar Americana. I look forward to seeing that band, at least, in person. v
