NYS Music 20​14

Author: Jess Collier

  • moe. to ring in 25th year at the Palace

    moe.canalside6-19-14-50moe. will ring in their 25th year as a band with a two-night run at the Palace Theatre in Albany.

    This will be the second year in a row that Jim, Vinny, Rob, Al and Chuck will take the stage at the Palace Dec. 30 and 31. Fans are hoping for a special pair of shows to start moe.’s silver anniversary. Band members wore suits for every show in their 20th anniversary year.

    Last year, moe. opened the New Year’s Eve show with the band rising out of the stage and playing five acoustic songs before a sweet segue into the electric part of the set. In their third set, after midnight, they were joined onstage by the horn section from Conehead Buddha, plus the Paul Simon cover “Late in the Evening” was aided by a few of the band members’ children on various instruments. The show included three debut covers, including an amazing version of “Spanish Moon” by Little Feat, plus two bust-outs that hadn’t been heard since 2012. Each of the moe. band members donned furry animal costumes for a set, some of which showed up again in other 2014 shows.

    The Conehead Buddha horns are slated to join moe. again this year for the 12/31 show. That late announcement, coming two-and-a-half weeks before the run, has been a bit controversial among moe.rons. The horns were an exciting addition last New Year’s Eve, but they’ve joined the band for a number of New York shows in the last year including moe.down, Buffalo and the Saranac Brewery shows in Utica, all of which are considered hometown shows for moe. in one way or another and tend to be highly attended by regular fans. Some .rons who value the unpredictability of a moe. show have complained that the setlists are too similar when the CB horns join the band, but others have faith in moe. to bring the heat and continue to surprise their fans.

    moe. formed at the University of Buffalo in 1989, and they moved to Albany in the ’90s to develop as a band. There they grew alongside Conehead Buddha on the Albany jam band scene.

    On the 30th, the popular Vermont-based jam band Twiddle will open for moe.

    It’s been too long for many moe.rons. The band has been taking a break from the road since they wrapped up a West Coast tour Nov. 8 and played at, One More for the Fans, a concert celebrating the songs of Lynyrd Skynyrd, in Georgia in mid-November. They haven’t played an East Coast show since September.

  • Lettuce Funks up Upstate Concert Hall

    Lettuce spent a funky Tuesday night in Clifton Park on their fall tour through New York and the rest of the Northeast.

    The Upstate Concert Hall gig started out with a fun set from Exmag, a three-piece electronic act from Brooklyn that likes to call their music things like “future-funk” and “future-soul.” They included samples from songs like Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” in their act and had heads bobbing.

    Then Lettuce took the stage, and the crowd really started to get down. The Brooklyn-based funk group tore through a setlist full of old favorites and new jams that forced everyone in the venue to get up and dance.

    lettuce upstate concert hall

    Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff and Erick “Jesus” Coomes lead the band on guitar and bass, respectively, but the horn duo of Ryan Zoidis and Eric Bloom really laid down the funk. Neal Evans’ keys and Adam Deitch’s drums tied the sound together. A highlight was when a female vocalist with a crazy set of pipes joined the band on stage for a few songs, giving the tunes an extra edge and power.

    Catch Lettuce November 15 at Bear Creek Music Festival in Florida, at Brooklyn Bowl in early December, or hit up one of their shows on their recently announced January-February tour across the country.

    • lettuce upstate concert hall

  • Gogol Bordello Bounces Through Burlington

    The show started with Eugene, of course. Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello is very much about making music as a collective, but at the same time it’s very much about lead singer Eugene Hutz, a thickly accented Ukrainian with Roma (Gypsy) ancestry who moved to Burlington, Vt., in 1992 as a political refugee with his family.

    Traditional Gypsy music was piped in as a shirtless Eugene, wine bottle in hand and guitar strapped to his back, strutted onto the stage Saturday night at Burlington’s Higher Ground, for what the band called on Facebook a“long awaited homecoming show.”

    Eugene was soon followed onto stage by the rest of the band: violin player Sergey Ryabtsev, bassist Thomas Gobena, drummer Oliver Charles, guitar player Michael Ward, accordion player Pasha Newmerzhitsky, and Pedro Erazo-Segovia and Elizabeth Sun, who both do vocals and percussion.

    Lutz played the guitar and sang the beginning of “Illumination” telling the crowd, “You are the only light there is for yourself my friends.” The rest of the band joined in after a verse. That lighter song made way to “Ultimate” a song with a heavy up and down beat that got the entire crowd jumping already, just two songs into the show.

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    They went on to rock through 15 more songs — including five from the band’s newest album, Pura Vida Conspiracy released in 2013 — plus four encore tunes. They also ripped through older hits like “Start Wearing Purple” “Think Locally, Act Globally” and “Not a Crime”.

    The crowd was super engaged, with the entire floor area bouncing with the beats. The pit was intense and sweaty but not too scary, and crowd surfers popped up here and there but weren’t a regular occurrence. The frantic rhythms did chill out at points to drum jams and bass solos, then they would pick back up again, working the audience into a frenzy.

    Eugene was a lot of fun, asking the crowd, “Ya dig, ya dig, ya dig, ya dig?” and interacting plenty in between songs. He yelled to the audience to start a circle pit, and he spilled red wine all over the audience as he used the same hand to hold up his mic and bottle, while he shook his guitar in the air with his other hand. He even made fun of audience members toward the end of the show for acting like they were tired. Saturday was the second in a two-night run for Gogol at Higher Ground, and Eugene said he had tired them out too much.

    The other band members were all interesting characters, too. Elizabeth looked like she wanted to cast a spell on you as she waved her arms around and leaned into her mic. Pasha, who looked like a British soccer hooligan, somehow made accordion playing look sexy as he energetically pumped the instrument. Pedro added some hip hop elements as he growled into the mic and pounded a drum he had strapped to his chest.

    With eight people on the stage, you’d think it would turn into a bit of a mess, especially when they’re all as energetic as this crowd of musicians. But they placed platforms at the front of the stage, so Eugene could jump up there when the spirit took him, or Elizabeth and Pedro could flank him on there when there was a big vocal moment, or Thomas could jump up when the bass line was featured.

    At times the movement looked coordinated, but at others, it seemed as though musicians were coming, going and lounging around on stage doing their own thing, giving it a feel of a Gypsy camp.

    There were two cameras filming the entire show, one from in front of the stage and one from farther back, for a documentary being made about the band, so watch for shots of Higher Ground when it comes out!

    Gogol Bordello has several other dates coming up around New York state, including Port Chester Saturday, July 19; Clifton Park Tuesday, July 22; and Rochester Saturday, July 26. To see their show date, go to www.gogolbordello.com. For info about other shows at Higher Ground, go to www.highergroundmusic.com.

  • Gypsy punk With Gogol Bordello Coming to Burlington, VT

    Gogol Bordello 2013 Press Photo

    Gogol Bordello is bringing its Gypsy punk craziness to the Higher Ground Ballroom in Burlington, Vermont on July 11 and 12.

    The band plays a rousing form of punk rock heavily influenced by gypsy music and punctuated by lead singer Eugene Hutz’s thick Ukrainian accent. Hutz’s first American home was Vermont, after his Ukrainian family left their home following the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and shifted through a string of Eastern European refugee camps.

    Their website includes an interesting artist’s statement that describes their mission:

    “Gogol Bordello’s task is to provoke audience out of post-modern aesthetic swamp onto a neo-optimistic communal movement towards new sources of authentic energy. With acts of music, theatre, chaos and sorcery Gogol Bordello confronts the jaded and irony-deseased.

    We chose to work with gypsy, cabaret and punk traditions. It’s what we know and feel.”

    The band released its sixth studio album in 2013, Pura Vida Conspiracy, and they have been touring around the world since then to promote it. They are just getting off a two-month-long jaunt through Europe, and they’ll be in Burlington after a few gigs in Canada.

    Higher Ground is located at 1214 Williston Road in South Burlington. For tickets or more information, go to www.highergroundmusic.com.

  • Lucky Jukebox Brigade keeps the Waterhole Hopping

    An enthusiastic crowd danced the night away at the Lucky Jukebox Brigade’s free show at the Waterhole on Thursday June 12th.

    Lead singer Deanna DeLuke wasn’t feeling well that night, with what she described as a “sore throat/cold/cough/laryngitis mess,” so the band made some changes to the lineup to compensate. Ragliacci, a side project featuring Lucky Jukebox Brigade percussionist Kristoph DiMaria on guitar and tuba player Andy Burger, opened the show with some fun gypsy folk-style tunes.

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    After they wrapped up, Lucky Jukebox Brigade took the stage. The Albany-based band, which formed in the fall of 2010, sounded like a band of gypsies as they began. DeLuke’s smoky voice was soft and strained but beautiful as she strummed her baritone ukelele. The horn section – Burger on tuba, Chris Weatherly on euphonium and trumpet, and Jimmy Affatigato on saxophone – played long, mournful notes and bass player Geppi Iaia, percussionist Kristoph DiMaria and drummer Carl Blackwood kept things driving.

    One of the fun things about this band is they switch things up a lot. Band members switch around instruments relatively frequently – they probably did a little more of it due to DeLuke’s sore throat, but it’s clearly at least part of the regular act. Some of the most fun I had was watching DiMaria sing a song that was clearly a story, and the dramatic gestures he used as he told it.

    In addition to changing up instruments, they also often switch their sound. Many of the band’s songs sound like a band of gypsies holding a carnival; one song, “Carnivultures,” even has someone acting as a carnival barker, boasting about sideshow acts. But their music samples from a variety of other styles as well. Some bordered on ska, hip hop, punk and funk, while others have a ’50s feel to them. The variety kept surprising the people bopping along on the dance floor.

    Most songs seemed to be original tunes, but they did blend in a few covers, including Blind Melon’s “No Rain” and the No Doubt ska tune “Spiderwebs.” In the end, they had plenty of music to keep the crowd dancing till well past many people’s bedtimes on a school night. In the end, DeLuke said she had a lot of fun. “The crowd was so warm and energetic that I felt better as the night went on,” she said in an email after the show.

    The band’s second album, Familiar Fevers, is scheduled for release July 18. They will play a WEQX-hosted album release party along with Black Mountain Symphony that night at 8:30 p.m. at the Hollow Bar + Kitchen in Albany.

    For a taste of the new album, watch the cute video they just released for the song “Bend at the Marsh,” where they play their instruments while playing on a playground and then get in a big squirt gun war.

    You can also check them out at an Alive at 5 after party at the Hollow June 19, and when they open for Rusted Root on June 28 at the Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park.

    The music keeps going through the summer at the Waterhole with free music each Thursday night through the venue’s Party on the Patio series. Go to www.saranaclakewaterhole.com for more information.

  • Lucky Jukebox Brigade to Party on the Waterhole Patio

    Lucky Jukebox Brigade Waterhole The Lucky Jukebox Brigade plans to visit the Waterhole on Thursday, June 12, as part of the legendary Saranac Lake venue’s Party on the Patio free Thursday evening outdoor concert series. The band, a seven-piece from Albany, recently had a successful showing at this year’s Albany Tulip Fest.

    The band formed in October 2010 from what the band calls a “hopeful Craigslist ad.” Featuring a variety of horns, plus a bass, ukelele and two percussionists, the band, which bills itself as an indie cabaret band, has an old-school sound that invokes carnivals at times, and at others, ’50s swing, and is reminiscent of bands like Beirut, the Dresden Dolls, Gogol Bordello and Modest Mouse.

    The Lucky Jukebox Brigade is now promoting its sophomore album, Familiar Fevers ahead of their Waterhole performance.

    The Waterhole, at 48 Main St. in Saranac Lake, has a full slate of Thursday night bands set to play on its outdoor patio every Thursday night from 6 to 10 p.m. to get your summer weekends started. For more information about the summer season, find the Waterhole on Facebook or go to saranaclakewaterhole.com.