Lyle Brewer celebrates 'Learning Curve' at the Lizard Lounge

The Boston guitarist marks his new solo album with a release show in the Cambridge basement he knows best, next Thursday, Nov. 12.

If you have spent any late nights in the basement under Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, you have probably watched Lyle Brewer play guitar from about six feet away. Next Thursday, Nov. 12, he is back at the Lizard Lounge, and this time the night is his: an album release show for his new solo record, *Learning Curve*.

Doors are at 7 p.m., music at 8 p.m., and tickets run $25 to $30 through Eventbrite. The Lizard Lounge holds about 105 people, so this is a small room for a big night. Buy ahead.

*Learning Curve* is, by WUMB's count, Brewer's 13th solo album, ten songs that draw on Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Other tour listings describe it as mixing folk, rock and jazz, which is a fair map of where Brewer's playing has always lived.

A spring 2025 listing said his album *Promise Ring* had been tracked and mixed and was due later that year, and Brewer was drawing on it, along with *Juno*, *Get It Together* and *Hold On*, in a Passim livestream this past May.

In our records Brewer has played the Boston area more than any other market, 26 shows, and the Lizard Lounge has been one of his regular haunts. Plenty of local fans first heard him here as a sideman: he has been a frequent guest with Club d'Elf on their late shows in this room, sometimes alongside players like Mister Rourke, Sam Gilman and Amy Bellamy. That history gives a release show here a hometown weight that a bigger, fancier room could not.

Brewer also teaches. He is on the faculty at Berklee, and his guitar clinics there and at Passim's School of Music are part of how a lot of younger players around Boston know his name. If you play, it is worth watching his hands.

The Lizard Lounge itself is a good place for a record like this. It is a close, underground room at 1667 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with the kind of quiet crowd that actually listens to a solo guitarist.

So go hear the new songs in the room they were made for. Get there when the doors open, find a spot near the front, and let the guitar do the talking. By the end of the night you will understand why Boston keeps him busy.

Sources: WUMB Calendar: Lyle Brewer album release (wumb.org); Lyle Brewer & Ferland tour dates (Humanitix) (events.humanitix.com); Passim: Lyle Brewer (passim.org); Passim School of Music: Lyle Brewer live stream (passim.org); Berklee: Lyle Brewer faculty profile (college.berklee.edu); Berklee: Summer Guitar Sessions clinic with Lyle Brewer (berklee.edu); NHPR community calendar: Lyle Brewer (2025) (nhpr.org); Lizard Lounge: Club d'Elf featuring Lyle Brewer and Sam Gilman (lizardloungeclub.com); Lizard Lounge: Club d'Elf featuring Amy Bellamy, Lyle Brewer and Mister Rourke Late Show (lizardloungeclub.com); Lizard Lounge Club (lizardloungeclub.com); Tickets: Eventbrite (eventbrite.com)