NYS Music 20​18

Category: Artist Profile

  • Lespecial: A Power-Rock Trio, Where They’ve Been, and What’s Coming Next

    About three quarters through the Fall/Winter 2018 tour, power-rock trio lespecial brought their unique style of genre bending jams to Putnam Place and joined me for a conversation about who they are, where they’ve been, and what’s coming up next.

    The show at Putnam Place was a much-anticipated stop for the region since their set at Adirondack Independence Festival this past summer where lespecial played a high energy set that enraptured the audience and grew the regional fan base significantly. The heavy grooving trio is composed of Luke Bemand (Bass/Synth/Percussion/Vocals), Jonathan Grusauskas (Guitar/Synth/Sampler/Percussion/Vocals), and Rory Dolan (Drums/Sampler/Percussion/Vocals.) The three childhood friends, who grew up in Connecticut and are now based in New York and Boston, have a lifetime of experiences to draw on in their creative process. Individually they are musical powerhouses, and together they won’t be stopped.

    Emily VanderWiel: This fall/winter tour has been quite extensive so far and you’ve covered a lot of ground since September. What have been some highlights of the tour so far?

    Luke Bemand: The Lespectacle show we do every year is usually a highlight for us, it’s our Halloween show, we collaborate with our friends at The Reliquarium and do an interactive art space. This year we did it at their space in Rhode Island where we had two stages.  Some of our favorite producers and bands were there; Freddy Todd, Bella’s Bartok, we collaborated with our friends Supersillyus and that for us is our big yearly event. It’s the eighth year we’ve done it… so that’s always fun. It’s stressful and insane but it’s fun and we’ve done it in Brooklyn the last five years so being closer to Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut is cool for us.

    EV: I saw some video from Lespectacle, there were a lot of nice pro shot videos.

    LB: Yeah! That was all this guy!! (pointing to his brother and lespecial road warrior Sean Bemand)

    LB: Another fun one was Jacksonville with Moon Hooch, and we just announced a show in Burlington, VT with them on December 29 at Higher Ground. Looking forward to that, those guys are really cool, with our friend Honeycomb too.

    LB: Honeycomb is a beatboxer from Northampton and we’ve collaborated with him for a couple years, playing festivals in the Northeast but we hope to collab a lot more.

    EV: There’s been a lot of new material popping up at shows, do you guys have a new album in the works?

    LB: We have a ton of new material, we have enough for a new EP or a new album. We’ve been putting out a lot of live clips of our newer stuff. We have a new track with Zion I that we’ve been working on and playing out at shows. We have a lot of different things in the works, but the focus has been on touring and with playing out so much it’s hard to get in the studio, but we’ve been rehearsing, together a lot more and writing a lot. The easiest place for people to hear our new stuff is to come out to a show. Definitely within the next year we’d like to put out a new EP or a full-length album.

    EV: The tour has been covering a lot of ground, so there is certainly a lot of opportunity for fans to get out and see the new material at shows… it looks like you guys are busy straight through New Year’s?

    LB: Yeah! Next week we are in Baltimore with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, at Rams Head Live… that’ll be cool and then we are back up to Hartford for more of a hometown show in Connecticut at Arch Street Tavern and then our New Year’s run is going to be Pacific Standard Tavern in New Haven, The Snow Barn in West Dover, VT…which is an awesome place, we did it last year, played two sets and it was a lot of fun, and then Aqueous on New Year’s Eve in Buffalo. Now with Moon Hooch show in Burlington added, it will be four shows in a row.

    EV: You guys will probably be ready for a break after that?

    LB: (Laughs) There’s no breaks!

    EV: What a great way to ring in a New Year though, that many exciting shows back to back…

    LB: Totally, those are really exciting. It’s fun because it’s a couple headlining shows and then a couple supporting shows for bands that we like and that we enjoy playing with. Then January we are going to be headed out to Colorado and we are going to be announcing a whole bunch of other January dates, so there’s no real breaks. People will say “how was the tour?” and it’s like, wait? It’s not over yet! It’s just never stopping, which is both good and bad. We don’t do a full on two-month tour but we will play for a couple weeks and be off for a week and play for a couple weeks so it’s cycles that kinda keep going. It keeps the wheels going, we keep writing on the road.

    EV: As far as the song writing goes, do you all write? How does your creative process work?

    LB: It’s definitely a collaborative process, one of us could come up with an idea for a song, like maybe Jon will have a riff for a song or something like that and we take it to practice and then we kinda add our parts. There’s never anybody that says here’s a song and this is your part, and this is your part, etc. The whole writing process is very much that somebody can bring an idea to the table and then everyone… it’s the ideas that build. So there’s that give and pull when there’s no band leader and we write our music as a trio.

    EV: The show you guys have booked for tomorrow night is a cool concept. Can you tell me a little about that?

    LB: So, it’s at the Brighton Music Hall and it also happens to be Jon’s birthday. What’s cool about it is that we are doing one set of originals and one special 90’s “Headbangers Ball” set. Balkun Brothers are playing with us and doing a Nirvana set… pretty excited about this show because we all grew up listening to this music.

    EV: You’re finishing the year out strong, ending one hell of a tour with a show with Aqueous in Buffalo!

    LB: Yes, we are for sure looking forward to that, love those guys. It should be a good time! It’s not the end of the tour though, we will be announcing some dates out west soon so people should definitely keep an eye out for that.

    EV: Thanks for chatting with me guys and I know I will be catching a few of these shows along the way and I will definitely see you at The Town Ballroom! Have a great show tonight!

    Lespecial is one of the hardest working bands out there right now and there is so much opportunity to get out and see what they can do. Next up is a special show for Luke Bemand’s Birthday at Pacific Standard Tavern, followed by The Snow Barn in West Dover, VT, Higher Ground with Moon Hooch & Honeycomb, and ending the year with Aqueous at The Town Ballroom.   2019 tour info is available on their Facebook page.

    Check out this MKDevo recording of “The Vessel” from the Brighton Music Hall in Boston, MA on 11/17/18.

  • History of Wyllys to keep the Party going late after The Disco Biscuits

    The jam scene in the Northeast is as healthy as it has ever been, with bands regularly touring across New York State, building audiences and markets in the process. When the shows are over and the crowd still has energy to keep the party going, that’s when DJs and post-shows come into play. During the upcoming Disco Biscuits run at The Palace Theatre this weekend, post-shows will be great in number, with J.E.D.I. performing late-night Friday, Scumdog Millionaire$ at Parish Public House on Saturday, and uptown at The Low Beat they will present ‘History of Wyllys’ featuring MoonSine and Sex on Decks. The latter of these will be going very late after The Disco Biscuits close out The Palace, and feature a variety of beats from Wyllys spanning the history of his career as a DJ. Wyllys spoke to NYS Music about what to expect from the late night performance and what it’s like touring as a DJ.

    wyllys

    Pete Mason: Your upcoming performance in Albany celebrates the History of Wyllys, featuring MoonSine and Sex on Decks – what can we expect from a set of music spanning the history of your career?

    Wyllys: My career will always start with ambient and drum and bass. I had always loved spacey music and the very second I heard drum and bass for the first time…LTJ Bukem-Logical Progression, that was it. I wanted to DJ. After that I will slide into Nu Disco where I will be joined by MoonSine. Zac and I have been collaborating for quite a while and he was the first keyboardist for Space Disco which we played many great gigs under. After that we will take house music till the end with a good friend of mine Sex On Decks. Dan has been playing many of the same rooms and festivals with me for years so I felt it was time we got together and flowed. B2B is an art form and it takes someone like Dan to make it hum. He has a great ear and style.

    PM: How and where did you get your start in the music industry?

    Wyllys: I started learning how to do lights and sound with Rane. I was also writing a good chunk of the lyrics for them along with my dear friend and killer writer Dave Griffin. Alan from Rane, who is now president of Telefunken, gave me my first set of decks and it was ON after that.

    PM: What were your early gigs like and what is touring as a DJ like?

    Wyllys: So much terror when you first start gigging. Really it’s about balancing the sound from your headphones with the monitor and PA and a lot of times there would be this NASTY slap back delay that fucked with your beatmatching. Plus I was playing all vinyl which comes with its own sets of challenges such as the bass feeding back through the needle or the bass moving the needle around the wax. After about a year I was more comfortable but the trick is to never get “too” comfy so as to keep learning and stay on your toes. Back then I was doing small shows in Hartford with Rane and a few other bands. Very modest and slow build to what I am doing these days.

    Touring as a DJ is interesting. I have worked on all sides of the ball in this industry and the “DJ Tour” can get weird quick. I rarely could afford a TM and since I was a TM it all came easy. However things can get out of control quick with no one to put you in check. It was never about ego with me, just getting into trouble and making piss poor decisions. I felt like I had finally “made it,” paying the bills with guarantees and what not. But when that happens you literally have to gig to survive and that sucked a lot of the joy out of it for me. Once it starts feeling like work it’s time to examine the situation.

    https://soundcloud.com/wyllys/for-jordan

    PM: The Hustler Ensemble was a notable period of Wyllys’ evolution – bring us back to that era and how the sound changed with musicians on stage with you.

    Wyllys: The scene needed a funk and disco version of DJ Logic’s previous excursions. Jay was a huge influence on me in that regard. I loved Nu Disco but the BPMs were too slow for prime time sets. I felt that adding musicians would be just the reinforcement I needed and push me out of my comfort zone. I was lucky enough to have Jen and Natalie as my core and bandleaders and they taught me so much about how to communicate with players effectively and how to prepare everyone as best you can before show. Rehearsal was not all that frequent because I would have people coming in from all over but the nature of it all was improvisation with a set of “heads” or tracks we start from. I look back on that time as my biggest period of musical growth and it made a LOT of people very happy. In the end the universe has bestowed a gift to you and it is up to you to share it…to bring people joy. We did that in spades!

    PM: Your live sets and mixes dive deep – without revealing secrets, where are you finding these funky undiscovered gems?

    Wyllys: Oh I can tell you right now (and Jon ‘The Barber’ Gutwillig will tell you the same) that Juno is a great place for underground tracks both on vinyl and digital. Crate digging is still huge for me too. If you are a DJ that plays vinyl the key is to form a relationship with your record store owner. They will get to know your taste and have a pile of wax for you to listen to. That inevitably will lead you down many wormholes with artists and genres you had never heard before.

    PM: You’re playing a post Disco Biscuits show on Saturday, November 24 – how have the Biscuits influenced your musical interests and performances, and what is their legacy as they approach 23 years in the jam scene?

    Wyllys: I really don’t even know where to start here. I had been DJing for 3 years before I actually saw them and when I initially heard them there was no “trancefusion” in their wheelhouse. Once they started that mutation it was over. You take that and their revolutionary inversion and dyslexic techniques and you have a juggernaut of a band. Their influence on me is quite massive. Sammy (Altman) was a master of drum and bass as well as Allen (Aucoin) and they showed me how to layer melodic content as a way to shape the narrative under the flurry of drums and percussion, to take the audience on a journey without sacrificing the pulse. They also taught me not to fear improvisation but to know that sometimes your ideas are going to fall flat on their face and you have to persevere, you have to get past it with grace and energy. The audience is going to respect that despite you just dropping a track at the wrong moment.

    Their legacy will always be that marriage of electronica and rock and roll and really, being the last TRUE jamband in the scene. I don’t think any band is going to touch what they do every single night. They have always been the punk rock of the scene in that DIY/take no prisoners way and “Bisco” is truly a culture all of its own. That raw and untamed energy they bring is that of a team that leaves it all on the field every single game. I feel blessed to have supported many of those games over the years and look forward to more.

  • Behind the Gear: Ryan “ShwizZ” Liatsis

    Ryan “ShwizZ” Liatsis is the guitarist and frontman of the power rock trio ShwizZ. A well-respected group in the scene, ShwizZ is a 3 member group who are incredible at their respective instruments, and perform a wide range of progressive rock music. Ryan uses a fairly unique rig compared to other players on the scene, using a digital modeling pedalboard rather than analog pedals, and utilizing a MIDI-trigger board to play chords for added textures during his songs. Check out ShwizZ’s performance from Disc Jam this past June, footage courtesy of mkDevo.

    Ryan Liatsis
    Photo Benny Rodriguez

    Guitar: Music Man EVH Wolfgang Special
    Amp Head: Mesa/Boogie Express 5:50 Plus Cab: Mesa/Boogie Widebody 1×12 Pedalboard HeadRush Pedalboard w/ Boss Expression Pedal Keith McMillan Instruments SoftStep 2
    Keyboard Korg Krome Music Workstation w/ sustain pedal

    Jared Lindquist: Why do you put your amp head under your cabinet?

    Ryan Liatsis: This just made the most logical sense when I got the amp, though I do like to think of it as my signature move! I like when the speaker is as close to ear level as possible so you can hear what is actually being captured by the mic and therefore EQ better for the stage. That and for my particular amp (Mesa Express 5:50) the head was heavier than the cab, so it just felt right to put the heavier piece on the bottom.

    Ryan Liatsis

    JL: When did you make the switch to the modeling pedalboard?

    RL: Very recently! It’s been about 2 months with the modeler and I’m a big fan. I’m currently using the Headrush FX pedalboard. I am completely happy with the tone of the overdrives and distortions as that is extremely important to me. The switch over to the modeler has just made life easy on stage with being able to switch patches with one button and digital storage. Having a gate on the input and EQ section on the master output is extremely helpful too. The best method I’ve found is to get rid of all the speaker cabinet models on your patches. I just use the FX and occasionally the amp head models right in to the front of my amp. I haven’t tried it using the xlr outs to a PA speaker, though I imagine that’s where the speaker cabs would come in handy. This past year has seen a huge leap with amp modeler technology and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more and more pro players using them.

    Ryan Liatsis

    JL: Did you model the effects after your analog pedals?

    RL: I tried as best as I could, though I wasn’t exactly going for that. I think that every piece of gear just has its own flavor and you should put that to use. So instead of trying to recreate my boutique analog pedals, I decided to just see if I could get tones I like and was comfortable with out of the Headrush. Which, much to my surprise, I did! It seems about every 2-3 years I decide I want to change my tone to better fit my needs. I’m sure some new product will catch my eye a few years from now and I’ll adapt to what it has to offer. It’s a lifelong quest and I don’t think there’s an end, just a journey of different sounds and tones. Tone has a lot to do with creating your signature, but more importantly it’s your fingers and note choices. And as I mentioned I’m just a big fan of having different tones for different songs. The good thing about this current amp modeler I’m using is it has an fx loop, so I can insert any of my analog pedals in to the chain of each patch if I really wanted to.

    JL: What are some of your favorite pedal combinations?

    RL: Well, I am all about mixing overdrives and distortions…and now amp models. I use delay, but not much unless the song calls for it. I barely use modulation like phaser and chorus and also rarely use reverb unless for some ethereal washy effects. On my analog board I had 6 different overdrives, just for different flavors. I found I was getting bored of just having 2 overdrive sounds. One of my favorite combos is the Vox Trike Fuzz and the T-Rex Tone Bug. Putting the Fuzz first gives it quite a quality. You can hear what I mean on the guitar solo of the ShwizZ track “Hog Thai.”

    JL: What’s going through your mind when you’re deciding which effects to use?

    RL: Well, the options are limitless with effects these days. So just like with writing, deciding on a tone is really about what sparks your emotion and hits your ear in that special way. But to give you a theoretical answer, a big part of my decision is the type of tune we’re playing. If it’s agreed we’re going for a certain vibe or sound, I’ll cater to that style. Such as if we say this part of the tune should be like a 70’s disco feel, I’ll probably be using some phaser with a clean Fender-ish type sound. Overall, I don’t go crazy on the effects, I find the simpler the better most of the time.

    Ryan Liatsis

    JL: Who are some of your inspirations as a player?

    RL: Too many to name! So I’m going to go with my top 5. Frank Zappa – need I say more? Chick Corea – I was introduced to Chick’s music at a young age and it inspired me to learn jazz and fusion. Specifically, the later electric band stuff always blew me away. He was always one of those music god’s to me who could just play whatever line came in to his head at that moment with no hesitation. Sill on a quest for that level like the rest of us. Frank Gambale – My drummer buddy introduced me to Gambale when I was about 20 and my mouth hit the floor. How can somebody get away with playing bebop lines that fast with sweep picking and overdrive!! Steve Khan – I studied with Steve for 2 years. He’s probably one of the most underrated and unknown guitarists on the planet and he’s played with all the greats and been on tons of studio recordings. His chordal work puts most to shame which struck something in me. I love the chordal movement aspect of guitar and keyboard and it’s something I don’t see enough of unfortunately in today’s music. Slash – Yes it’s true, I was obsessed with Slash from age 16-18! I just wanted to be him, the playing, the image, he was the whole package. I transcribed a lot of his solos when I was younger, my favorite of all time being the ending solo on Paradise City, complete shreddage!

    JL: Who are some of your favorite contemporaries on the scene?

    RL: Kung Fu is my all time favorite of our scene, if you can call the rest of us contemporaries because they basically blow everyone out of the water! Dopapod, Mungion, The Southern Belle’s and The Fritz. My ears always tend to get caught by those bands who have their own unique style. There’s so many bands out there, great bands even, but some bands just have their own sound and you know it’s them playing instantly, which is the most important thing to me.

    JL: You’re one of the only guitarists I’ve seen that uses a MIDI-trigger board to play chord samples live, what inspired you to start doing that?

    RL: Well, necessity really. A power trio can be a thing of beauty. BUT, I’m very much in to chordal structure and movement and I always thought drums, bass, guitar and keys was the perfect instrumentation for my tastes. The thing about ShwizZ is that I play loud and sometimes very heavily distorted guitar sounds, so playing chord melody doesn’t quite give the effect desired. After our keys player and second guitarist left I said…well just how the hell am I gonna do this?! I didn’t want to play to a click or with backing tracks, so I thought, what if I can just do what some organ players and even bass players do with their feet using pedals, except polyphonic. It took a bit of cash and a lot of experimentation with different pedals and pieces of gear until I came across a handy dandy app that could do it all and be controlled by a simple trigger pedal that connected with a USB cable. I would simply record each chord I needed for that particular part or song and could save each song file as their own entity. It adds a little more switching of sounds between songs but it’s worth it to have the phantom 4th member laying down that bed of chords. Below is a link to a video I made that goes in to a bit more depth on how the system works.

  • Mark Anthony Manning: The story of a rising 20-year-old Albany singer

    The 20-year-old man’s voice soared as he played the piano in a minuscule practice room, eyes shut as he swayed to the music and several veins appeared across his face and neck. The dim lighting and tight space made the experience feel more intimate and hearing his voice echo sonically through the surrounding walls projected the impression of a cathartic release of pent-up energy and passion.

    Mark Anthony Manning had invited me to meet him there at the Massry Center for the Arts in the College of Saint Rose in Albany. He is currently a junior student there and studying towards a bachelor’s degree in Music Industry. Performing a few original songs on the black Steinway & Sons piano which he’d penned, he said that he mainly plays pop and R&B music, is a songwriter, and he has two music-related jobs.

    First, he has been working as a wedding singer for Silver Arrow Band, a company which performs at festivals, corporate events, private functions, and weddings, since early summer. In Manning’s case specifically, he travels with them across the state to perform a collection of requested songs for people’s weddings. Silver Arrow Band has won numerous accolades, including WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards every year since 2016.

    “It’s by far the best job I’ve ever had. There’s just so many musicians and you just get offered gigs. I’ve never been to a wedding with like the same exact band, it always like switches out because it’s a company,” Manning said.

    According to him, he usually gets paid at least $500 or $600 per wedding, although it depends on what musical instruments and how many fellow Silver Arrow Band members are brought for the wedding performance. “It helps me pay the bills and I like getting to travel with them,” he said.

    His second stint is being the frontman and lead singer of his own live student band, called Mark Manning and the Sexy Bitches.

    His fellow bandmates are Joseph Taurone on the drums; Gabriel Klinger-Horn playing the guitar; Sam Walczyk on the bass; Dan Carr who is in charge of synth, auxiliary percussion, and can substitute for drums guitar and bass; and finally, Kyle Robinson and Amy Branham who both serve vocals and play the piano too. All are St. Rose students, whom Manning met when he was still a sophomore, and they collectively rehearse together every Monday night.

    Manning first met Klinger-Horn during a college party early last fall where after some small talk, Manning expressed his desire to start a band. He was surprised when Klinger-Horn revealed he plays the guitar and knows of two peers, Taurone and Walczyk, who play the drums and bass. Over time, the remaining members joined but ironically, the band did not have an official name yet.

    It was not until the day of their very first performance together, which occurred at the Rice House — a venue that showcases local collegiate and young adult music talents — in Albany back in October 2017. He noted that that was the night the band made a name for itself in the Saint Rose community and the overall local music scene.

    “That day, I was like, ‘I don’t even know what to call us, guys.’ But there was this other band called Hasty Page and one of its members, Josh Morris [who serves vocals and plays the drums] said ‘Mark Manning and the Sexy Bitches’ as a joke,” he admitted. “I then slipped and said it accidentally onstage. But the performance was so much fun and looking back now, we weren’t really friends back then and we’ve since improved so much. It was the first night we really clicked and bonded. The name just stuck since then.”

    In fact, he recalled that eventually, people from Silver Arrow Band once saw him perform with his own band, and they asked him if he was interested in working for them too as a wedding singer.

    Having started to write songs upon entering college, Manning said “right now, all our songs are about relationships, unreciprocated love and how they don’t work out.”

    “I have not one happy song,” he joked.

    Regarding his songwriting process, it “usually starts with me getting my feelings hurt in some shape or form, and I’ll come to practice and I tend to have the chords first, before getting the melody and tempo. I mean, every song is different though. Some songs, the melody will come to me first in my head before I work on it with the piano.”

    Originally from Long Island, he identifies himself as “maybe a baritone but I’m definitely not a tenor. But I wouldn’t just say I’m a bass either.” Among his sources of inspiration are Beyonce, John Legend, Daniel Caesar and Kirk Franklin. He personally enjoys gospel, jazz and soul music.

    “My three siblings, cousins and I were all like a gospel and sang a lot of gospel, and it was cute that we were all family and being in church,” he recalled his childhood days. “We were called like The Manning 6, but eventually, they all grew out of music and I just didn’t.”

    After Manning began trying to take piano lessons in second grade, then fourth grade, and again in tenth grade, it was not until attending St. Rose where he had to take four semesters of piano to genuinely improve his piano proficiency.

    He was also highly active in musical theater growing up, particularly when he attended Patchogue-Medford High School in Suffolk County, Long Island.

    In terms of high school musicals, he played Gary Coleman in “Avenue Q,” Mr. Black in “Wild Party,” The Wiz in “The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical” and Donkey in “Shrek the Musical.” In college, his credits include playing Seaweed J. Stubbs in “Hairspray” and Mitch Mahoney in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

    “It just feels like this was something I was born to do, I don’t want to do anything else,” he concluded. He hopes to eventually move to California sometime after graduation to grow as an artist. He even wants to become head of A&R — standing for artists and repertoire, they choose certain artists to get signed and develop their brand — of a music label someday.

    “In California, there’s so many record labels and young people out there chasing their dreams,” he said. “I just feel like the resources are more open there. If you want to be noticed by someone important, that’s the place to go. But I really believe in myself and have so much faith. You have to, no one else is going to if you don’t.”

    For now, Manning maintains a website at iammarkmanning.weebly.com and has an upcoming extended play coming out in either October or November.

    This article was originally published by The Spot 518. is property of Spotlight Newspapers in Albany, N.Y., and appears as a special to NYS Music. TheSpot518 and NYS Music work in partnership to provide readers with in-depth coverage on the local music scene in the Capital District and New York state, respectively. For more, visit TheSpot518.com.

  • El Modernist wins WEQX Battle of the Bands, opens Saturday’s Pearlpalooza

    El Modernist WEQXWill Fredette of El Modernist walked into a conversation that included radio personality Jeff Morad of WEQX. The radio station just concluded the second round of its annual battle of the bands competition. It pits four bands against one another to determine who opens Pearlpalooza, a large all-day block party in the middle of Albany. On this night it looked like Fredette’s band wasn’t going to be it. His band lost, earning first runner-up honors to Dooojj.

    Fredette extended a hand and thanked Morad for the opportunity to play. His El Modernists had just played a tight set. Despite the short 20 minutes, the four came out hot. They got the Friday night crowd on their feet with a lively punk act that contrasted against the popular jam and garageband sound across the scene. If he was dejected by the loss, he didn’t show it. The kid’s toothful grin made it look like he just earned the job.

    “Nice burp you had there,” Morad said, complimenting Fredette for appearing loose enough on stage to let out a belch into the mic. The lead singer admitted to downing a drink just prior to taking the stage. He felt the air bubble crawling back up from his gut as he was introducing the band to the crowd. He laughed as he later explained what was a pending dilemma in his mind. Should he back away or just own it?

    He shrugged it off. “I had to own it,” he said.

    El Modernist came out with, not so much a devil may care attitude, but more of an affable and earnest personality between them. Afterall, the band wasn’t supposed to be there. The collection of bands playing in this year’s competition included recognizable names. Acts that had CDs to sell at their merchandise table in the back of Jupiter Hall. The four of them just formed as a band. They only played their first gig together on St. Patrick’s Day five months before.

    “Honestly, that first set… we liked that opportunity,” said Will Hahn, El Modernist’s drummer and occasional rapper. The 15 minutes allotted to each band in the preliminary rounds was like doing a late night show on television. Just enough time to do a quick highlight of the band’s act. “Get it done and leave people wanting more.”

    It was enough to have judges bring the band back to the final round, and the gratitude was expressed yet again on stage. The largest crowd out of all the rounds gathered for the last act to see who would win. There were members from other bands, promoters and manager scattered around. The local music community was in one room. As if in tune to the fact, Hahn announced he created a Spotify playlist, “We Are Albany NY,” to market all of the local bands online.

    “Every single band in every round we played with was a great band,” said Hahn. “Not only that, but very supportive. Awesome people to work with. Fun part of the event was that you get more people to play some shows with.”

    These newcomers were going against veterans. Honey Suckle Vine, though relatively new to the local scene, had played together out West before moving into town. Joey Jaquez, who often sported a mean harmonica, fronted the four-piece band that brought a blues flavor to the party. Dooojj, who beat out El Modernist in the second round, was a good four-piece garageband. Then, there was Bendt.

    The members of Bendt knew how to embrace the local music community. Before taking the third round, Matt Plummer knew to thank and compliment his competitors. Hahn said he couldn’t “be mad” to losing to a bunch of guys like them. In the final round, taking the stage after El Modernist, with each of its four members sporting a T-shirt from Girl Blue, Good Fiction, Stellar Young and Hasty Page. If any one band knew how to win, it was Bendt. The band’s grunge style won Schenectady County’s Battle of the Bands last year.

    El Modernist, however, stood out with elements of punk — screaming guitar riffs and electric drums. The four each graduated from the College of St. Rose’s prestigious music program. They’ve messed around with other bands before coming together in March, blending various influences and creating something entirely their own.

    “El Modernist seemingly came out of nowhere to take us all by surprise with their performance at the finals,” said Morad, after the four earned the coveted Pearlpalooza slot. “It says a lot about them when you consider they knocked off the likes of Bendt, Honey Suckle Vine and Dooojj!”

    Morad said El Modernist pulled away with the win because of it’s “high energy, engaging and unique.”

    “Going from the wild card slot and winning it, I was little surprised,” said Joe DeTillio, El Modernist’s bass player. “Aside from that, it was so cool.”

    The opportunity now places El Modernist in the same company with Good Fiction and four different national acts coming in to Albany to play Pearlpalooza: Kitten, The Greeting Committee, Caroline Rose and Superorganism.
    “The four other bands are all national acts that blew everybody away at the 2018 SXSW Fest in Austin,” said Morad. “We’re glad to have been able to put them all together on the same day — for free! Not to mention, but I am mentioning, all four national acts are female fronted, cause girlpower.”

    El Modernist is already on the move. After the band sets the scene for Pearlpalooza this Saturday, at 1 p.m. and follows up with a gig at Savoy Taproom at 9:30 p.m. The band released its debut single “Up” on all available streaming services, including the band’s Albany-centric playlist on Spotify.

    This article was originally published by The Spot 518. is property of Spotlight Newspapers in Albany, N.Y., and appears as a special to NYS Music. TheSpot518 and NYS Music work in partnership to provide readers with in-depth coverage on the local music scene in the Capital District and New York state, respectively. For more, visit TheSpot518.com.

  • Listen to Orchard Lounge Camp Bisco VIP set with Allen Aucoin

    Formed in Chicago over eighteen years ago, the DJ collective known as Orchard Lounge is made up of Ben Silver, Spencer Lokken and Bethany Lokken. Looking back over an almost two-decade career we start to see some festivals and events that pop up on the radar more often than not. We caught up with Orchard Lounge’s Bethany Lokken to see if we could expect more shows in the coming months, like we’ve seen throughout the year. Well it doesn’t sound like we’ll see a full-fledged tour, it looks like there’s certainly more to come on the horizon, especially after their VIP set at Camp Bisco.

    When asked if Orchard Lounge will start to tour again, in the traditional sense, Bethany Lokken had this to say: “It’s just been great to get back out there as a trio over the past year or so. We’ve had spurts of touring and periods of downtime, just like any other project that’s been at it as long as we have. We’re getting back out there, but we’re not forcing anything. We’re not pushing tours because we’re at a point in our careers where we want to focus on quality over quality – 100% of the time. We’ve just been focusing on the rooms that make sense. The sound systems that make sense. And we promise we’ll bring you the music that makes sense. We’re looking forward to the future, and we’re staying focusing on what’s right in front of us to bring you all the best shows possible.”orchard lounge camp bisco

    Orchard Lounge is no stranger to Camp Bisco, and this year marked their tenth performance at The Disco Biscuits annual summer music festival – again returning to Montage Mountain in Moosic, Pennsylvania. A quick review of their 2018 touring schedule and we see two visits to Cervantes’ Masterpiece in Denver. The room is known for cultivating unique lineups and “supergroups” in the jam-rock and electronic music scenes.

    Allen Aucoin from The Disco Biscuits makes appearances on both OL bills from this year with Denver’s Tiger Party and again with DJ legend LTJ Bukem. Both times Aucoin joined the trio during their set for live drumming accompaniment. Little did we know these shows were actually giving us a sneak-peak of what went down at Camp Bisco for the late night VIP set, as well as a glimpse at variation of a new project – SilverFameus – that is debuting at Satellite Ranch Music & Arts Festival this coming weekend in Pennsylvania.

    The Orchard Lounge VIP set at Camp Bisco was prefaced by some of the most intense downpouring we’ve seen since last year – notably around the same time at Camp Bisco. It’s become sort of tradition there. After thirty to sixty minutes of huddling in the Main Stage tent with five thousand of your closest friends, the fans emerge and diligently trickle back out into the festival grounds to see what remaining music they still can before the night is done.

    The window of non-precipitation lasted for about an hour, with Orchard Lounge taking the stage as a trio for the initial third of the set. Moving downtempo tracks textured with high-energy, transient deep house define the mood, Disco Biscuits drummer Aucoin took the stage about half way in, with Ian McGuire joining on the keys shortly after. Aucoin and McGuire are more than familiar with each other’s style – both play in livetronica improv trio CIA, which also includes Particle bassist Clay Parnell. The two click seamlessly with each of the different members of Orchard Lounge, check it out here for yourself:

    You can catch Orchard Lounge in their natural state (the trio) next Friday, Sept. 7 in New York City. Their last play in New York was an exclusive show at the Museum of Sex that people are still buzzing about. When they return to play Brooklyn’s Elsewhere next week they’ll be joined by the infamous Doc Martin, who has been DJing since he started in San Francisco back in 1986, as well as Risky Disco’s Greg D.

    That new project SilverFameus, featuring Ben Silver and Allen Aucoin, will hit its first sets of ears this Sunday, Sept. 1 at the Satellite Ranch Music and Arts Festival. Attendees will also see Eliot Lipp, Joe Nice, Tweed, Horizon Wireless, Space Bacon, Newpy Hundo, and Bad Leather along with forty other artists total between Saturday’s and Sunday’s performances.

    “Just like anything new or old, it’s going to evolve. The music hits on the deeper side of house and techno… we’ll spare you that bio cliché that pitches our music as ‘undefinable, mind-bending crossover of genres X, Y and Z’. The music is growing. It’s electronic and it’s organic – much like people. We’re not putting a label on it. Ben and I have been cultivating this for a while now, and we’re looking forward to the test drive this weekend.”

    Orchard Lounge, Ben Silver’s solo project, DrFameus, SilverFameus and CIA share a common thread as part of the artist family at Full Circle Music Productions – stay tuned to their calendar for announcements and upcoming events.

  • CIA and Let’s Danza! bring similar lineups but different sounds to Kind Mind Campout

    Going to a festival means making decisions on what music to see, and what you might miss out on as a result. If you are headed to Kind Mind Campout in Minot, ME this weekend, you’ll have plenty of EDM and electronic-infused jambands to choose from, but two of these artists, CIA and Let’s Danza!, offer a unique pairing, back to back on the Maine Stage this Saturday, August 4, and should not be missed.

    Let’s Danza!, the Philly-based reincarnation of Brothers Past, includes Clay Parnell and Tom McKee (both of BP), Ian McGuire (MJ Project, Sonic Spank) and a rotating drummer, while CIA is Clay Parnell, Ian McGuire and Allen Aucoin (Disco Biscuits, Dr. Fameus). Aucoin will fill in on drums for Let’s Danza! at Kind Mind, something he has done on occasion in the past. The Danza! drummer changes from show-to-show, with other regulars behind the kit including Mike Greenfield (Lotus), Scotty Zwang (Ghost Light) and Kito Bovenschulte who plays with Parnell in Particle. CIA and Let’s Danza have overlapping lineups, but their sounds are starkly different.

    CIA Let's Danza

    CIA is 100% pure, live improvisation, a trait rarely found among bands in the jam or EDM scenes. As bassist and founding member of Brother’s Past, Let’s Danza! and CIA, Clay Parnell stresses that they don’t have any songs to work from, and it’s all improv in the moment. “We’ve had guests over the years and fucked around with ‘material,’ but we just get on stage and we jam – the whole thing we are improvising. There‘s a couple of styles we like and we can read each other as we play, but we don’t have a computer with us on stage, so it’s open and free and we have zero clue how the set will flow or be composed.”

    Parnell isn’t kidding when he says that this is unique to freely jam for an entire set. “There’s not a whole lot of bands out there that just get out there and jam. We try not to stop over the course of a set. Ian teases and leads the melody and he takes us many places, but we just don’t stop jamming.” The lack of material helps CIA to push forth into the unknown with each set. “When you don’t have any material to go into, you don’t have any choice but to get in there and improvise with your fellow musicians and make it better. It’s a whole thing and that’s what I love about us and it keeps me coming back. That’s what CIA is about.”

    Then there’s Let’s Danza!, which features the same lineup as CIA, but includes Tom McKee (keys) from Brothers Past. Parnell describes how the latest incarnation of Brothers Past came about: “The group is a project that was designed to have myself, Tom McKee from Brothers Past and Ian McGuire both on keys, where Tom would do the keyboard parts and Ian would play guitar on his synth rig, and that would allow us to delve back into the Brothers Past catalog. We approach our sound together and the two keyboard styles are complimented.” Whereas CIA will take an entirely improv set, Let’s Danza has songs, vocals, sequences and compositions and although three-fourths of the players are the same, there will be decidedly different things to expect from each set. Parnell continued, “I’m looking forward to differentiating something between the two sets, and doing them with an overlap of personnel and back to back. We haven’t played Maine since Great North in 2016 and I remember the crowd energy from that set, so we are looking forward to following that up this weekend.”

    When asked who the boss was of Let’s Danza!, Parnell replied “It’s myself and Tom McKee, it’s one way that we are expressing ourselves, but it’s really the three of us. McKee and I are collaborating together, we live three blocks away from each other and he has a studio he owns and operates, so we hang out a lot having done Brothers Past stuff together. Let’s Danza! is one way that we can keep playing electronic music together.”

    And that Philly scene where Brother’s Past, CIA and Let’s Danza! arose from? Well it’s as vibrant as any other big city scene. “The jazz scene has been thriving and has always been huge, especially the pop and rock scene. It’s as bedroom community for New York musicians. Most people that comprise the bands of the big NYC based acts are Philly based musicians. A ton of people are working out of NYC but they are Philly based. The Disco Biscuits are the pillar of the Philly jamband scene, and Lotus, Brothers Past and all collaborations stem from that.”

    Kind Mind Campout kicks off on Friday, August 3 in Minot, ME. Catch Let’s Danza! From 6pm-7pm on the Maine Stage, with CIA following from 8:30pm – 9:30pm also on the Maine Stage.

  • Taina Asili is Shaking Up the Status Quo

    Taína Asili is a rising Puerto Rican musician and social justice activist from Albany, NY whose music is breaking into the mainstream while bringing forward a powerful message of justice. One of the ways she is accomplishing this is by performing at several prominent festivals in New York, Rhode Island and Michigan this summer.

    Taina Asili courtesy of her website. Photo by Kiki Vassilakis

    With her recent performance at The Women’s March on Washington last year and her latest music video “No Es Mi Presidente (Not My President),” which was premiered in Rolling Stone and called the 2017 International Women’s Day anthem by Latina Magazine, she’s growing more and more awareness from the general public not only on social justice issues but on the way music can be a platform to bring those issues forward.

    Asili works either as a solo artist or with her dynamic eight-piece band which combines powerful vocals with an energetic fusion of Afro-Latin, reggae and rock. They offer a sound that spans continents, inspiring audiences to dance to the rhythms of rebellion. Taina Asili has been creating music for social change for 23 years and has toured all of the world.

    Asili is dedicated to using her art, specifically her music, as a tool for personal and social transformation. Asili’s writing is based off of liberation themes and so is her activism in political prisoner liberation, prisoner justice, climate justice and food justice movements. She has an MA in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College and is known for, in addition to her performance and activist work, facilitating arts workshops for both youth and adults.

    She has an array of projects this summer you don’t want to miss which can be found below:

    – June 8 and 9 -Asili will premier her new documentary “Resiliencia”, about Puerto Rico’s resilience after last year’s hurricanes, at Providence’s largest festival, PVD Fest and performing on the City Hall Stage with her full band – Providence, RI
    – June 10 -Performing for over 45 thousand people at Motor City Pride – Detroit, MI.
    – June 14 – Participating in The Human Rights Conference – NYC Pride
    – June 22 – Participating in The Rally – NYC Pride
    – July 14 – Joining the lineup of performers for Hamilton at the Hill Art Center 50th Anniversary celebration “Sankofa, The Legacy” at Proctors Theater – Schenectady, NY.
    – July 18 – Asili will be offering two songwriting workshops at the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance pre-festival conference, Culture Camp located just outside of Ithaca – Trumansburg, NY.
    – July 21- Performing for her third time at the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance located just outside of Ithaca – Trumansburg, NY.
    – July 22- Asili and her band will be opening for Chilean musician Pascuala Ilabaca at the well-known Music Haven Concert Series – Schenectady, NY.

    For more information visit her website.

  • Local Folk Singer Zan Strumfeld Serves a Cold Dish of Folk Music

    The bottom of Zan Strumfeld’s Bandcamp page says it all. She describes her music through hashtags — acoustic, fingerpicking, folk, indie. Familiar adjectives and verbs used to help draw fans into her book of belonging; the last of which, however, is something that’s less likely to be typed into any search box: winter folk.

    Her tags don’t mislead you. Her 2017 release Book of Belonging is a string of soulful songs about heartbreak, loss, and often times tripping over the mistakes of falling back into the bed of an ex-lover.

    “While all my songs are personal to me and often specific, I want people to walk away with feeling connected to them through their own experiences,” said Strumfeld. “Which is usually the case for all music anyway.”

    Book of Belonging:
    This is my book of belonging:
    How I’ve never belonged to anyone, any place, any time.
    This is my story of longing:
    How I’ve longed for someone every day of my life.
    And then I met you.
    I’m lost from that,
    And I hold onto that,
    So this whole damn thing is for you.

    Strumfeld’s voice and acoustic guitar dominate in each recording, with a little bit of bluegrass and a smidge of Gillian Welch, whose name she drops on the second track “New Girl.”

    “I love Gillian. She’s ballsy,” said Strumfeld. “[She] sings about beauty and darkness, all with this gorgeous voice that truly never gets old. And her musical chemistry with her guitarist Dave Rawlings is the kind of musical relationship I crave. It’s flawless.” Strumfeld said the song was inspired after a night of running into not one, but two ex-partners. Michael Gregg, who plays banjo with the band, was listening to Welch with her that night. In addition to Welch, Strumfeld listens to mostly female songwriters — Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Laura Marling, June Carter.

    This winter folk music lulls you in like a hot cup of coffee next to a warm fire in February. But, like the cruelest of fates, the point of the year that promises love on Valentine’s Day is also the month when most couples split. “Second Plate” wraps you into a false sense of security being alone, never minding you’re stuck in the same routines of brewing coffee and fixing dinner for two.

    Strumfeld is a writer. The metronome for her speech sways a little slower. With a pensive stare, she takes in her surroundings while fully engaged in conversation. Like the late Tom Wolfe, she is saturated into the moments that surround her so she can later write about it. When her stint with newspaper journalism ended at Spotlight News, she picked up and moved to Iceland to be a farm hand. She said she wanted to know how it felt.

    Strumfeld gets to writing only when she’s inspired. That inspiration comes in spurts that maybe spans once every two years or so. Not by coincidence, that’s about the same time interval between each of her broken relationships. The raw emotion from each romantic bond severed is poured into lyrics. She said it’s almost understood now that when a man comes into her life he is committed to one of two outcomes: a relationship, or a song.

    Part of that emotional cycle includes what had been an on-again, off-again relationship with live performances. The songs would come, followed by the performances, and then it would stop until the inspiration came back again. Last year, Strumfeld deviated from that pattern. Last September, she was asked to perform at Sydney Worthley’s CD-release party at Jupiter Hall. The band she had asked to perform on her own CD agreed to perform. A few more pieces were added to the band as a one-time fling for the live performance, but afterward, they all wanted something more. Practices were scheduled and more gigs were planned. They fooled around and fell into a band.

    This article was originally published by The Spot 518. is property of Spotlight Newspapers in Albany, N.Y., and appears as a special to NYSmusic. TheSpot518 and NYSmusic work in partnership to provide readers with in-depth coverage on the local music scene in the Capital District and New York state, respectively. For more, visit TheSpot518.com.

  • Behind the Gear: Chris Duffy

    Chris Duffy is the bassist of Denver-based band the Magic Beans. Chris is one of the most well-respected bassists on the scene, as well as one of my favorites. If you listen to the Beans’ recent album, Casino Cabaret, you’ll hear Duffy’s bass prowess exemplified in songs such as “Inventor”, “Casino Cabaret”, “Mr. Scientist”, and my personal favorite, “Hanky Panky”. He knows how to keep a groove going! Check out some more of Chris’ playing in this Beans set from their Fox Theatre show last March.

    Bass

    Lakland 55-02 Deluxe
    Chris Duffy

    Amp

    Markbass Little Mark Tube 800 w/ Markbass Standard 104HF Front Ported Cabinet & 104RF Rear Ported Cabinet
    Chris Duffy

    Pedalboard

    Signal Chain: One Control Iguana Tail Loop MKII 5-channel Loop Switcher

    Loop 1: Boss OC-3 Octave

    Loop 2: Markbass Supersynth

    Loop 3: Source Audio Soundblox Bass Envelope Filter

    Loop 4: Moogerfooger MF-101 Lowpass Filter (w/ Moog EP-3 for Cutoff Frequency)

    Loop 5: Boss CEB-3 Bass Chorus > Earthquaker Devices Avalanche Run reverb/delayChris Duffy

    Interview

    Photo credit to Conor McMahon photography

    Behind the Gear: Did you take any inspiration from some of your favorite artists when you were building your current board? Who are some of your inspirations as a bass player?

    Chris Duffy: As far as bass players go, Dan Kurtz of The New Deal totally changed my approach to playing bass through pedals, specifically in a livetronica/dance setting. He is the master. When I saw his foot riding expression pedals for an entire show, some crucial things clicked. My use of a sub-octave/ distorted tone through the Moogerfoooger Low-Pass Filter is directly inspired by Dan. No one manipulates their live bass tone so freely on this scene. Except, ya know, Squarepusher (laughs). THAT dude is a mad scientist. As far as I can tell, his current pedal board is some obscene number of expression pedals controlling a few rack-mounted effects processors.

    If you or anyone reading knows the details on Squarepusher’s rig, please let me know, it’s fascinating. Or Dan Kurtz’s, for that matter. What a bunch of hyenas. I’ve only been interested in Squarepusher’s rig since seeing Shobaleader One videos a year or two ago, but Dan Kurtz has been influencing me since I was 16. Growing up listening to and emulating Flea means I’ll always have some envelope filters in my rig. The Source Audio is nice because it can save 6 settings, which I’m always experimenting with. It replaced my Pigtronix EP-1 Envelope Phaser, which I got after working a Turkuaz wedding and talking with Taylor Shell. I really need to fix that pedal, it’s the tits. I wish it was smaller!

    BTG: What is the one pedal on your board you couldn’t live without?

    CD: Definitely the Moogerfooger MF-101 Low-Pass Filter. I use that pedal on literally every jam the Beans go into. I probably over use it, but whatever. It gets me fired up, and that’s important in a jam band, since the flow of energy between the artists and the crowd is so fluid and tangible. If you’re having fun, they’re having fun, and vice-versa. I want to add more expression pedals for it. That’s the great thing about Moogerfoogers, you can control almost every knob on the thing with a designated expression pedal. In a perfect world I’d have four or five on my board, but that takes up so much room. Right now I only have the one controlling the filter cutoff frequency. In the future though… I’ll be Squarepusher!

    BTG: What are some of your favorite pedal combinations to play with?

    CD: Octave through envelope filter sounds are always fun. I’ve been loving the Markbass Synth through the MF-101. Throw some delay on that and suddenly I’m an EDM producer. Speaking of delay, I’m working on a sustained lead tone for taking melodic solos higher on the neck. Some sort of compression/distortion pedal that I have yet to find, through the MF-101, into the Avalanche Run, maybe some chorus. The Avalanche Run is a perfect delay/reverb for bass. That tone knob keeps things from getting too muddy. God I love that pedal.

    BTG: Do you remember the first time you were exposed to the use of effects pedals?

    CD: Flea’s tone on the “Around the World” intro led me to buy my first pedal, a Boss overdrive. Then I got into jam bands, Kurtz, Brownie, Ryan Stasik, Mike Gordon; I started copying everything those guys were doing. As I said, The New Deal changed everything.

    BTG: What drove you to pick a Lakland to use as your main bass?

    CD: Ryan Stasik of Umphrey’s McGee. It’s a Skyline 55-02 Deluxe that I bought new in 2006 without even trying one, just because I loved Stasik so much. I’m lucky that they sound so punchy and play perfectly, or else I would have been f***ed! Laklands are the truth. But don’t be like teenage Duff. Play before you buy!

    BTG: Who are some of your favorite contemporaries on the scene currently?

    CD: Man, there are so many great players out there. On the Denver scene, Tim Philpott has got to be my favorite. Everything he plays is so in the pocket and seems well thought out, yet he stays creative and interesting. Another killin’ Denver homie is Tucker McClung, who is simply fearless and slaps like a mothertucker. On the bigger picture, Richard Bona really gets my blood pumping when I hear him. His Jaco-like pocket 16ths are so bouncy and energetic, it makes me run and pick up my bass and start running syncopated afro-beat rhythms to a click. His playing with the Joe Zawinul syndicate makes me want to do laps around the house. Who else, Thundercat of course. I listen to a lot of techno and house DJ sets, lots of the Boiler Room videos get me going, especially people like Solumun and other folks on the Diynamic label. On the jam scene, there’s just so much talent. It’s like with every note you can hear people sorting through all the amazing stuff they see on the internet, and we’re all just mushing it into some ever-developing Mother-Groove. I guess thats what music is now, right?