Asleep at The Wheel will be bringing their tour celebrating the music of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys to The Egg this Sunday, March 8. Their tribute album, Still The King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys came out this past week and included guest appearances from Willie Nelson, Del McCoury, George Strait, Amos Lee, The Avett Brothers, and many more. Asleep at The Wheel has been going strong for over 40 years and show no signs of slowing down.
Bob Wills is of course one of the originators of Western Swing and is considered “The King” of it. Throughout the ’30s and ’40s Wills and his Texas Playboys toured throughout the country becoming early stars of American country music. They were a dance band with a country string section that played pop songs as if they were jazz numbers. They have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame, and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ray Benson has said that he is still amazed me how well this music, born in the 1920s and ‘30s, thrives in the present day.
This is the only Upstate New York show before the band heads south and west for the remainder of the spring. Tickets are still available at The Egg’s box office and online. The show has a 7 PM start time, so don’t be late for this great Sunday show to finish up your weekend.
Country duo Love and Theft will be will be performing at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill, Destiny USA on Thursday March 5. The show is for all ages and tickets are just $10.00 in advance and $15.00 at the door.
Love and Theft is sure to bring down the house with songs such as “Whiskey on My Breathe” and “Night That You’ll Never Forget”. What a better way to start your weekend than a night out with friends enjoying this duo’s love for country music!
Music starts at 8:00pm and tickets can be purchased on line here.
For more than a quarter century, The Machine has been recreating Pink Floyd experiences across the world with spectacularly produced light and video shows and tight musical performances. On Friday, March 6, they bring their Floydian touch to Poughkeepsie’s Chance Theater.
The New York based quartet has built its reputation as one of the finest cover bands touring. Critics laud The Machine’s precision and fans praise the experiential nature of each show. They play a diverse mixture from Floyd’s extensive catalogue and each show provides something new. On any given night, they might take requests from fans, play entire albums, or share the stage with entire symphonies. The Machine has played festivals such as Bonnaroo, sold out large arenas, and they bring their renowned gig to Poughkeepsie’s historic Chance Theater on March 6.
The show is at 7:30. Tickets for The Machine at The Chance can be purchased here.
Thursday March 5, St. Vincent takes the stage at a sold out show at Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, NY. This is one out of only two stops in upstate New York during this tour. St. Vincent just won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album. Congratulations to her for the award on the self titled album.
St. Vincent is multi talented singer songwriter with an established reputation. Her distinctive electric sound intrigued David Byrne, of the Talking Heads, leading to a great collaborative album back in 2012. It is nice to see and hard to believe that tickets were originally on sale for 25 dollars. Even though Water Street is sold out try to pick up some tickets. Do not miss out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY-WAu_SqWs
Doors at 7pm show starts at 8pm.
St. Vincent’s next stop in New York state is Clifton Park on March 7.
The newest and funkiest beep on the musical radar of the NY scene is Beau Sasser’s Escape Plan. The high-powered collaboration is led by the one and only Beau Sasser on the Hammond organ, vocalist Mary Corso, dueling guitarists Justin Henricks from Way Down/The Chronicles and Danny Mayer from Alan Evan’s Playonbrother with drummer Bill Carbone from Max Creek, fusing together rock ‘n’ roll attitude with a strong funk foundation. The funky five piece has been traveling across the country and back to bring a fresh, explosive sound that drops jaws and blows mind with serious guitar shredding, fierce rhythm and soulful key pounding.
Check out Beau Sasser’s Escape Plan TONIGHT Feb. 27 at The Putnam Den in Saratoga Springs with The Nth Power. Doors are at 8:30 pm with music starting at 9:30pm and a cover charge of $15 at the door for the 18+ event. Click here to buy tickets in advance and to guarantee that you won’t miss out on a great show. The last stop for the Escape Plan of their winter tour will be Saturday Feb. 28 at the historic Nectar’s in Burlington, VT.
I was lucky to catch up with Beau Sasser to talk about his escape plan, covering rock classics and highlights of their winter tour.
Susan Rice: What are you escaping from and what’s the plan?
Beau Sasser: The show is an escape for the audience for a little while, our goal is to create art through music and connect with the crowd and share in that journey, and its an escape for us too! The plan is make the world a better place through feel good music. The band has such a great vibe, we just want to share that with the audience.
SR: How did you come to assemble the Escape Plan band members?
BS: I’ve played with our drummer Bill Carbone in various bands over many years. We played together in the Melvin Sparks Band and now currently in The Z3. I met our guitarist Danny Mayer 3 years ago when Alan Evans(Soulive) put together his own group Alan Evans Trio which became Playonbrother, we traveled and played together alot over that time. I’ve connected with guitarist Justin Henricks and vocalist Mary Corso more recently in the last year or so and invited them to come play Funk Night at Bishop’s Lounge in Northampton, Ma, a weekly gig we do each Wednesday. This band really came together on those gigs and we realized quickly that it was something special.
SR: You’ve been touring heavily all over the area to promote your new sound. How have fans been responding to your new collaboration?
BS: The response has been really incredible! A ton of buzz around this group and we’ve had alot of support and great shows, I think its fun for the fans to watch the evolution of a new band and be involved in the process.
SR: What are three key factors for having a fantastic funk set/show?
BS: I would say we try to keep energy, crowd connection and high voltage onstage vibe at the forefront of our live show.
SR: When I saw your show at The Hollow in Albany on February 13th, you covered Frank Zappa, The Allman Brothers and Earth Wind and Fire. How do you pick which songs/artists to cover? Are the songs difficult to funkify?
BS: We’ve been careful to pick some choice covers that fit in the funk vein. We love Frank Zappa and have a pretty good arsenal of FZ covers that are more from his seventies era band that really leaned on funk music a little harder than some of the other eras. Also we really try to take advantage of our double guitar situation, incorporating a few Allman Bros. tunes which lean more towards a southern rock vibe, we try to do our own arrangements to make them fit the show. “Taxman” by the Beatles is another cover we have been working on and we’ve taken more of a James Brown approach to it, utilizing two guitars in a rhythm/comping situation, making it easy to put some funk sauce on it.
SR: Your Winter Tour is coming to an end. What was your favorite part? Would you change anything in particular? What’s next for the Escape Plan?
BS: As the winter tour comes to an end I would have to say the highlight was our week run in California, we played House of Blues and had members of Fishbone, Pfunk, Umphrey’s McGee and Snarky Puppy join us onstage. Unbelievable vibe during the show and it was certainly a great party! The other highlight would be our show last weekend in our hometown of Northampton, MA at Iron Horse Music Hall. So many friends and family and great to play for the hometown crew here where it all started. That show was recorded and is being spread around the internet, the band played great and there is wonderful sound quality on that recording. The only changes we are making are to keep working on perfecting our set and our overall live concert experience, we’ve been using lights and lasers in the show on some choice performances and I’d like to make that a more regular part of the show. Up next is recording our new album which will come out in April, our spring tour that will bring us to jazz fest in New Orleans, and then festival season when all this snow melts!!!!
Check out their live performance of “Love is Free” from Church of Boston on January 10 below.
Hudson’s Club Helsinki will be treated to a blues fusion Sunday, March 1 as members of North Mississippi Allstars unite with Anders Osborne. The performance is the fifth in five days for the collaboration known as North Mississippi Osborne and the ninth of a twenty-five show U.S. tour.
As their name suggests, the North Mississippi Allstars, composed of brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson and Chris Chew, hail from the Magnolia State. Their debut album, Shake Hands With Shorty, was nominated for the Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy and the band has been nominated for the same award twice more. Osborne, a native of Sweden, hitchhiked across the globe making music as a teenager before finding a home in New Orleans. Osborne’s resume includes performances with Phil Lesh and Friends, Karl Denson, and Galactic.
In support of their recently released album Freedom and Dreams, Osborne and the Allstars have joined forces to tour the nation. Their Southern blues will shake up Club Helsinki Sunday night.
Doors are at 6 p.m. and the show is at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here.
Upstate New York rock band, Hard Soul, have successfully completed their Kickstarter campaign in raising over $12,000 to fund their latest EP, Fairer Shores and touring needs. The local Albany band had over 150 backer’s support them on this mission proving the dream of Rock n Roll is far from dead. Kickstarter is a crowd based, fund-raising site for creative projects that helped Hard Soul and millions of others reach goals from the help of friends and supporters.
“The outpouring of support from all the fans has been absolutely incredible and very humbling,” said Hard Soulfront-man Johnny Salka. “We’re beyond excited for the opportunity to hit the road and share our music in front of new faces and cities later this month.”
Hard Soul consists of guitarists Johnny Salka, Steve Thompson and Nick Kossor, bassist Ryan Klaeysen, drummer Mark Podbielski, all contributing to vocals of original heartfelt lyrics. The band’s LP Heart of Plaster from 2014 grabbed regional attention as the Albany Times Union placed them on the “Best Records of the Year” list. The first single off their latest EP “The Sweetest Heart” was released on January 20th with a laid back music video. Fairer Shores drops on February 24th on CD and digital formats with limited-edition vinyls later this year.
Eager to share their new music with loving fans, Hard Soul is kicking things off at The Hollow in Albany on Friday Feb. 20 where they will be opening for Frank Iero (formally of My Chemical Romance) to start their Winter Tour of Upstate NY and beyond. The show starts at 8pm with $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Get there early to support local music from Hard Soul as they bring their modern-day rock with vintage soul to Pearl St.
JJ Grey & Mofro will perform at The Egg on Thursday, February 19 at 7:30 PM as part of the American Roots & Branches concert series. JJ Grey & Mofro’s blend of front porch soul, funk, R&B, blues, southern rock and down-home storytelling has made them a popular fixture on the American roots music scene for the past decade. The NYC-based band The London Souls, who draw inspiration from British bands such as Cream, The Beatles and The Hollies, will open the night.
Tickets are $28 and are available at The Egg Box Office at the Empire State Plaza, by telephone 518-473-1845 or online at Theegg.org
Umphrey’s McGee, the midwestern-based progressive jam rock band, will be playing shows in Syracuse and Albany on their current North American tour. The dates follow recent appearances at The Beacon Theater in New York City and The Paramount in Huntington, where reported on two consecutive nights of fantastic performances.
The sextet’s first Upstate stop will be the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse on February 20. Tickets are on sale now, priced through Ticketmaster at $39.90. Umphrey’s will be supported by Long Island act, TAUK.
The tour will make its way to Albany’s Palace Theatre the following evening. Tickets for the show can be purchased for $36.55. An official aftershow at the Hollow will feature local band, Mister F.
While Umphrey’s McGee is known for its tight, high-energy live sets, the band’s latest studio release, Similar Skin, offers a genuine, accurate presentation of their signature sound. Getting to know the album is a helpful preface to seeing Umphrey’s live show; it can be streamed on Spotify or purchased on iTunes. Additionally, Umphrey’s surprised fans with a release of The London Session, recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios in 12 hours time.
Follow for upcoming coverage on both the Syracuse and Albany concerts on Twitter and Instagram.
The Hudson Valley’s own Fred Gillen Jr. is set to release his ninth studio album this weekend, and he’s not doing it alone.
This Sunday, February 8, Fred will be performing a CD release show at EMBARK@EMC, a cozy performance space at 925 South Street in Peekskill. Joining him will be special guest Laura Bowman, a singer-songrwriter originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia, and a full band including Paul Magliari (drums), Jeff Eyrich (bass), and Matt Turk (guitar/mandolin).
Sunday’s show starts at 4:30, and the $15 entry includes a copy of Wage Love.
Fred Gillen Jr. has performed at venues large and small throughout the country, connecting with his audiences through heartfelt performances of melody and lyric embracing the tradition of folk music with his own character.
St. Vincent is multi talented singer songwriter with an established reputation. Her distinctive electric sound intrigued David Byrne, of the 
