Ponder, known for spelling their name with a lower-case “p” and as one of Buffalo’s up-and-coming alt-rock/jam groups, is hitting the road on June 23 in Rochester for their eight city tour across New York and for the first time ever, Vermont.
Courtesy of ponder’s website.
Ponder was formed in 2015 as a solo project of songwriter Gabriel Birkby, but quickly morphed into a band and has become a Buffalo fan favorite. This is their first time hitting the road since 2017 when they visited spots stretching from Buffalo, clear through New York City. They’ve undergone some major line-up changes within the last six months and the group is now somewhat of an amorphous funk/rock powerhouse and are known for constantly having their friends in music hop-up on stage.
The band’s lineup setting out for the summer tour consists of Gabe Birkby on vocals/lead guitar, Andy Hogan on bass, Paul Sottnik on keys, and Rochester’s Marcus Peters on drums.
Tour dates:
June 23 – Funk n’ Waffles – Rochester, NY (w/ Mother Funkin’ Planets & Freeway Revival)
June 27 – Radio Bean – Burlington, VT (w/ The Schroons)
June 29 – Parish Public House – Albany, NY (w/ Vicious Jimmy)
June 30 – Lot 10 – Ithaca, NY (w/ Amongst the Monks & Lucky Old Sun)
July 6 – Thin Man Brewery – Buffalo, NY (w/ Amateur Hockey Club)
July 13 – Mojo’s – Jamestown, NY (w/ Cold Lazarus)
July 21 – Funk n’ Waffles – Syracuse, NY (w/ Barroom Philosophers)
July 27 – Cobblestone Music Festival – Buffalo, NY
For more information visit their website or their Facebook or Instagram. Their music can be found on Spotify and iTunes.
The Top Dawg Entertainment Championship Tour touched down at the Northwell Health outdoor amphitheater Theater at Jones Beach State Park in Wantagh, New York on May 30 and gave the audience every bang for their buck. The tour consists of Kendrick Lamar, SZA, ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, SiR and Lance Skiiiwalker. SZA is currently still out due to her vocal cords being damaged but the rest blew the crowd away in her absence in a one of a kind show.
Kendrick Lamar – photo by Nora Hones
When arriving at the event, the parking lot was packed with people from every age range which would be an unexpected gem when going to a rap concert but that’s what you get when you have a headliner like Kendrick Lamar– it’s more than understandable. With his recent win of the Pulitzer Prize he has shown his worth to all generations. The set opened up with Lance Skiiwalker who performed only one song and then moved on to Ab-Soul who performed three songs.Than SiR entered the stage. SiR wasn’t an artist I had previously known but he’s not someone I’m going to forget after seeing him perform. During his set he had to deal with technical difficulties where there was no sound and then where only his vocals and none of the backing tracks or live accompanying band came through the speakers but he handled it like a champ and ended up performing through it anyways.
Next came Jay Rock who put on a show performing,“King’s Dead” off of Black Panther: The Album, which was one of the first singles off the record that was released, to the crowds excitement. Even though the song features Kendrick Lamar, Future, and Jay Rock on the studio version the fact that only one of the three was on stage was barely noticeable because of the amount of energy and devotion Jay Rock was putting into the song. Next ScHoolboy Q came out on stage to perform his set list and this is when the audience really started to get excited screaming along to their favorite songs including “Collard Greens” which cut short just before Kendrick Lamar’s verses leaving the the audience hungry for Kendrick Lamar to appear.
Than after all the waiting and anticipation the king finally made his appearance standing on a stage half way above the stage and opened with his hit song, “DNA” with the background behind him reading “Pulitzer Kenny.” He proceeded to perform an array of songs from his albums, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, To Pimp a Butterfly, Untitled Unmastered, DAMN and Black Panther: The Album. To the crowds delight and my own he performed quite a few songs Good Kid, M.A.A.D City which was a welcomed and exciting surprise. He said that he just felt like playing songs of his old stuff to the crowd which everyone was more than happy with screaming along to every word.
He continued to wow the crowd performing, “X” which features ScHoolboy Q, 2 Chainz & Saudi in the studio recording with ScHoolboy Q live and “Money Trees” with Jay Rock and performed, “King’s Dead” for a second time which the crowd wasn’t expecting in the slightest and from the look of Jay Rock’s face when Kendrick Said something along the lines of, “Let’s do King’s Dead again” he wasn’t either. The show ended on Kendrick telling the crowd he hadn’t been to Jones Beach since 2011 and he wanted to kick it up a notch and performed his hit song, “Humble” twice. Once with barely any music and with the crowd just singing the entire song and then once with the full music and Lamar accompaniment. To quote the guy behind me talking to his friend about what he was going to do after the show saying, “I guess I’m gonna cry myself to sleep tonight, idk man” sums up the show experience, unbelievable and sad that it’s over.
Imagine being in a band and living the rockstar life in your 20s—touring, recording, the whole bit. Life happens and you part ways for a mere 44 (Go Orange!) years. Then imagine getting a second chance to write a fresh record and perform live with the group of your youth. That’s the story of Syracuse Area Music Awards (The SAMMYs) Hall of Fame inductee Jukin’ Bone. For years, the band never quite received the recognition they deserved until now. And this recognition sparked the idea to get together and work as a group again. NYS Music sat down with Joe Whiting and Mark Doyle to discuss the past and present of the roots rock band.
Creating the Initial Group
Joe Whiting, a Skaneateles, NY native, and Mark Doyle, hailing from Auburn, NY, met when they took part in a jam session hosted by a music teacher. They were aware of each other for a couple years and things clicked the first time they played together. Whiting and Doyle played a couple of gigs with some rotating musicians-“bits and pieces”- before they formed a real group. Doyle said the group’s formation was “serendipitous” and formed around 1968.
Doyle was teaching guitar lessons at Music Mart, a music store that used to be in Auburn. Dick Howard, a bit of a local legend and shop owner, introduced Doyle to their would-be drummer: Tom Glaister. Tom was out on a Salvation Army truck delivery when he stopped by the store to say a quick hello to Howard. “[Doyle and Glaister] hit it off and somehow he ended up in the band. These things just happened” according to Doyle. Doyle then met George Egosarian at “The Beach” on Marshall St. in Syracuse. Though it’s not there today, it was a space that was across from what’s now Pita Pit for those familiar with Syracuse’s Marshall St. today. It was a big grassy area next to a parking lot where the “hipsters” used to hang out, smoke weed, drop acid, etc. Egosarian started on bass in the group and later transitioned to second guitar. John DeMaso eventually joined the group and became the bass player. Glaister left before the second album, and his talents were so great they opted to replace him with two drummers to fill the void: Danny Coward and Kevin Shwaryk.
Record Deal and Name Change
Before the group was called Jukin’ Bone, they were known as Free Will. Free Will signed with some promoters that worked with Concerts West on the premise that they could help the band secure a record deal. The band played a brutal showcase in New York City that was five sets a night for five consecutive nights. The showcase attracted A&R scouts from various record labels to sign new talent. The band’s efforts were rewarded when they received two record deal offers: one from Janus Records and a “better” offer from RCA. The band signed with RCA.
RCA had strict union policies and mandated that their artists record only in their studios. When someone ratted the band out to RCA for recording a demo at a non-RCA studio, RCA said they had to change the name. Whiting recalled that they had to record the demo again in RCA’s studios just as a formality.
“The first RCA album was a disgrace” according to Doyle. Their producer, Lewis Merenstein, had the vision to record a live album at Electric Lady Studios. Live albums can be a great way to capture the live energy, but their final product was greatly compromised by the hippies off the street in attendance and the “buffet of booze and drugs.” The group would stumble up to the stage to perform multiple takes and the “least offensive takes made the record.” That was Whiskey Woman. The second album was slightly better because it was recorded in the studio, but it still wasn’t what they considered their best sound. That was Way Down East. Neither album adequately captured the essence of Jukin’ Bone’s sound.
Eventually, RCA bought the band out of their agreement before they recorded a third album. “By then the wheels started to come off in all aspects.”
Besides the recording, the group shared their music on tour all around North America, from New York to Minnesota, Florida, Texas, and more. They opened up for the Allman Brothers, ZZ Top, The Kinks, and John Mayall just to name a few.
While opening for John Mayall at a college in Rochester, the power went out not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5 times! This was a rocky start as this was during their first song. But they earned fan support as they persevered and played through it.
Though their tour life was relatively mild, they did manage to crack up a few Winnebagos in their travels. When traveling to Texas, they’d drive without stopping from New York. “You gotta be young and high” to do those drives.
The Interim
Before they reunited as a group, Doyle and Whiting kept up with their musical careers and continued their friendship even as the band parted ways. Whiting did stints with Bobby Comstock who had a few hits in the late 50s, Elf, and Savoy Brown. He really focused on his own band for years which opened for Van Halen.
Doyle, who also had an interest in production, worked on a number of records playing and producing. Doyle found that working with great producers was a fantastic way to learn. He played with Meat Loaf and spent time with the record producer Tom Dowd. He saw how to bring performances out of musicians when he observed Arif Mardin in the studio with Andy Pratt. He also hooked up with David Werner and learned from that experience how NOT to produce a record.
Unfinished Business
Fast forward to 2017/2018. The band finally earned the recognition they deserved in the Syracuse community. Whiting called Doyle and asked him “what if we got together and made the record we never got to make?” Doyle didn’t even have to think about it before saying yes. George Egosarian and John DeMaso were also on board and they got to writing.
Prior to this, Doyle had played on a couple of Jimi Hendrix project albums for an Italian record label. The head of the label contacted him ten years later and asked about leasing the early Free Will music. (Not Jukin’ Bone!) This call happened to be the day after Whiting phoned Doyle and this gave them a way to fund the new record.
Aptly named, Unfinished Business is a true Jukin’ Bone masterpiece comprised of all new material. They wrote from scratch, not relying on any residual music from the past.
The first song written was “Nothin’ to Lose.” The old Motown song “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” was stuck in Doyle’s head, and was a sentiment the group felt with this fresh chance. They eventually came to “Ain’t Got Nothing to Lose” to substitute in the song instead. Egosarian, “the master of the unobvious phrase,” got to work on the lyrics which Joe fine tuned later. They were off and running with the rest of the album from there.
The old Gibson SG was used on the new record; Egosarian played it on “End of the Bar” just to have it on there. When asked about how his voice has held up all these years, Whiting says he doesn’t really have a secret in terms of maintenance. He feels has a better high and low end than he ever did, and he feels his voice has held up because he says, “I never shut up.”
They recruited Syracuse University professor Josh Dekaney to play drums on the album. They wanted a percussionist with a classical training like their former drummer. The album was recorded as they wrote between Doyle’s home studio and More Sound Recording Studio and engineered by Jason “Jaco” Randall and Andrew Greacen.
They went into this new project with no expectations. They just wanted to make good music and set the record straight!
Key Tracks: Nothing to Lose, End of the Bar, Gris Gris
Shows in August
With the new album comes live shows. Jukin’ Bone will be playing two nights at Auburn Public Theater in Auburn, NY. The shows are August 17 and 18, and there may be future live dates depending on how this goes. More show information can be found here.
Don’t miss a great opportunity to see some local legends doing what they love once again!
Primus Setlist: Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers, HOINFODAMAN, Too Many Puppies – Sgt. Baker, American Life, The Desaturating Seven, The Valley, The Seven, The Trek, The Scheme, The Dream, The Storm, The Ends?, The Pressman, Welcome to This World, My Name Is Mud > Jerry Was a Race Car Driver, Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver (Encore)
Hudson Taylor, an Irish-Americana Pop duo of brothers Alfie and Harry Hudson Taylor have released the video for “Old Soul,” off their recent EP Feel it Again, which charted in the Top 5 on the Irish album chart. The video was filmed during the band’s homecoming show at Dublin’s legendary Olympia Theatre and features guest vocals from Gabrielle Aplin.
The duo recently toured the United States for the first time, supporting Aplin, and returned to Ireland where they performed to sold out crowds, as they did in Europe and the United States. Hudson Taylor will play summer festivals in Ireland, the UK and continental Europe, including high-profile spots at the UK festivals Leeds/Reading, Latitude and Isle of Wight, as well as Benicassim in Spain. The brothers will return to the UK and US for headlining tours in the fall.
Aqueous is on the road in force this summer, starting out their summer at Disc Jam Music Festival. Lead singer and guitarist (Uncle) Mike Gantzer joins host Andy Hogan for episode 5 of Empire State Music Podcast. Listen on “>iTunes, via Simplecast and below on Soundcloud.
The Salt City’s annual rite of summer, Taste of Syracuse, kicks off Friday June 1 and runs through June 2, 2018. The annual free festival pairs the region’s foods and music in Downtown’s Clinton Square. This year’s headliner is ’90s alt-pop icons, Smash Mouth.
The fest’s claim to fame is the $1 food samples from the various eateries set up in the square. You can find the full dollar menu here.
Other than the food, Taste of Syracuse also provides a great free look at the wealth of musical talent from Syracuse and surrounding areas. With three stages, there is no shortage of music to be found. Things get going at noon Friday with Just Joe on the Clinton Square Stage, Peg Newell and Robyn Stockdale on the Erie Boulevard Stage and Max Scialdone on the Main Stage.
https://youtu.be/1X0BB-61s6Q
Music continues throughout the day with soul being the theme on the Clinton Square Stage. Tanksley performs at 6:30 p.m. followed by Israel Hagen’s Stroke at 7:45 p.m. Prime Time closes out the night at 9:30 p.m.
The Erie Boulevard Stage gets funky Friday night with a double shot of Root Shock and Sophistafunk. The two Syracuse bands recently paired for a mini-tour together called the Salt City Shakedown that also included Syracuse’s Skunk City. Root Shock won the 2017 SAMMY award for Best New Artist and also captured the NYS Music March Madness title that year. Country Swagg and Hard Promises close out the Main Stage Friday night.
Saturday gets started at noon with Lori Ann singing the oldies on the Clinton Square stage. Syracuse’s master of the slide guitar, Colin Aberdeen will get funky on the Erie Boulevard Stage at the same time.
Colin Aberdeen performing at the Dinosaur BBQ in April 2017
The Main Stage on Saturday will feature Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at at 1:30, followed by the folk rock stylings of Poor Tim, featuring Shawn “Big Sexy” Smith, a former contestant on NBC’s The Voice and Justin Smithson, who has performed at Carnegie Hall.
Chris Eves and the New Normal follow Poor Tim. The New Normal’s single “Green and Blue” was recently included on Relix magazine’s June Digital Sampler. You can listen on Spotify below:
Country act, Grit and Grace and the latest “Vinyl Albums Live” set, “The ’90s Mix Tape” follow. Closing out the main stage and the festival is ’90s pop group, Smash Mouth.
Other acts performing on Saturday include Grateful Dead tribute act Dark Hollow, hip hop from Joe Driscoll and the Brownskin Band, Americana from the Old Main, and funk from Skunk City on the Erie Boulevard Stage.
The Clinton Street stage features the soulful alt-rock of the Black River, Tim Herron and Great Blue, Soul Risin’ and the Barndogs DELUXE.
Attendance to the two-day festival is free. For the complete schedule, see below.
The air gets warmer, the sun sets later, and lines begin to form around the blocks of the Italian Ice shops that were boarded up all winter: summer is around the corner. There is something special about the transition from spring to summer that seems to put a smile everyone’s face and gives people hope for what is to come. While there is always reason to be optimistic about the summer fun you’ll have and the love you might find along the way, it is also important to avoid blindly believing everything is going to turn out the way you planned it in your head. Bayside’s “Montauk” provides a cautionary look at the darker side to the end of a summer fling, and proclaims a warning to what might happen if you get too involved with someone who you know you may never see again.
The punk band Bayside has deep roots in New York (they are named after the Queensneighborhood where they formed), so it is not out of place that they wrote a song dedicated to one of the state’s most famous vacation getaways. When most people think of Montauk they often have wonderful memories of their time on the beach, eating lobster with their families, or visiting the Montauk lighthouse. However, when Bayside wrote “Montauk,” they made a conscious decision to avoid all of the pleasant memories they might have had and took a more negative, yet humbling, approach to writing about the seaside town. They wanted to remind people that unfortunate circumstances can occur in amazing places, and sometimes saying goodbye is the hardest part of life.
“Montauk” tells the story of losing a love at summer’s end. The narrator had to say goodbye to a lover he ended up caring about more than he originally intended. Even though he knew the fling would end once the leaves began to change, he didn’t think it would hurt so much when the relationship actually ended. He knew the consequences to falling in love with someone in such a short amount of time together but he took the risk anyway. The narrator is filled with angst, misery and fear that he will never love again, and an even worse fear that he will regret losing his lover for the rest of his life. While anyone who has had their heart broken knows that in time it is possible to love again, the song provides a rational warning not to get too involved with someone you realistically may never see again after such a short period of time.
Although it has never been confirmed, many fans believe “Montauk” was inspired by the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet) in which a painful breakup leads to a young couple undergoing a controversial medical procedure to have their memories wiped to forget it all. The movie takes place, in part, on Long Island and Montauk is where the two lovers always plan to meet, much like the lovers in Bayside’s “Montauk.”
While “Montauk” may provide a cautionary measure about what could happen at the end of a summer fling, it is just that: cautionary. Sometimes it’s worth it to take the risk with someone, even if you don’t think you’ll ever see them again. If you find someone who made you happy, even if they left your life forever after a couple of months, it is important to learn from the past and remember how hard it was to end things; but it’s equally as important to appreciate the joy you once felt.
‘Montauk’ Lyrics:
It’s getting cold
Thought it was too soon to tell but it was terribly old and as the heartbeat slows to a heartless crawl
The lights went out,
The lights went out and darkness filled the house on tiring night under a Long Island sky
I thought I’d known the consequence,
But sweetness,
Can you believe this?
This mess we’ve made of it
This mess we’ve made of it
In years to come it might make sense,
But sweetness,
Can you believe this?
Just what’s become of it?
What’s become of it?
If you hear this and you think you’re ready,
Then meet me in Montauk where we’ll write out in the sand,
“Here lies the destiny of two hurt souls afraid to be cured again.”
That could be our epitaph
I thought I’d known the consequence,
But sweetness,
Can you believe this?
This mess we’ve made of it
This mess we’ve made of it
In years to come it might make sense,
But sweetness,
Can you believe this?
Just what’s become of it?
What’s become of it?
I thought I’d known the consequence,
But sweetness,
Can you believe this?
This mess we’ve made of it
This mess we’ve made of it
In years to come it might make sense,
But sweetness,
Did you foresee this?
Just what’s become of us?
What’s become of us?
San Francisco-based ticketing platform, Ticketfly took its entire network offline Thursday after having fallen victim to a cyber attack. The company’s shutdown affects ticketing to all of Syracuse-based promoter, Creative Concerts‘ events.
Creative posted the following to their Twitter account earlier Thursday:
Ticketfly is currently experiencing issues causing all Ticketfly powered websites (https://t.co/fJQGhjwyrp) to be down. Until the issue gets resolved tickets, tickets to ALL Creative Concerts shows can be purchased The Sound Garden Syracuse and at the Saranac Brewery Gift Shop.
Creative Concerts promotes shows throughout Central New York, including concert series at Saranac Brewery in Utica, Good Nature Brewing in Hamilton and Paper Mill Island in Baldwinsville, among others.
Ticketfly‘s main website has a simple banner with a message stating the reason for the outage. The message says that Ticketfly has determined it has been the target of a cyber incident and has taken all systems offline until the issue is resolved.
The company has not said if any user data was compromised as a result of the hacking incident. Until the incident is remedied, Ticketfly is asking customers to purchase tickets for shows at the venues or other brick and mortar ticketing locations.
Teddy Midnight, the Brooklyn-based live electronic band, dropped their newest EP, titled French Press, at its release party at Pianos NYC on April 26. The EP has a jazzy feel to it. It’s sample heavy, but it doesn’t feel like it is when listening to it. It doesn’t sound like something you’ve already heard; it’s got its own originality to it. One of the ways it’s able to do this is with it’s blend of new and vintage synths, keeping the music unpredictable. It uses combinations of Disco, Soul, 90s House, New Wave, Techno and a little Hip Hop, into non-stop, dance party vibes to keep itself intriguing to the listener.
The EP starts off with the song “Say it Loud!” which is an all instrumental track except for the very end when the title of the song is said. It has a very, almost “New Order” feel to it which mostly comes from the repetitive drum machine acting as a backbone to the song. It then moves into the song “Eclipse (Go There)” which is also an instrumental track but more upbeat and best illustrates the intended Hip Hop feel. This sounds like a song that you might hear in a dance club soon. Both songs are good, but slightly repetitive and long. Each song lands close to the six and half minute mark, and for someone not particularly knowledgeable or invested in electronica, it was hard to sit through without having some repetitive pieces of the song to anchor onto, like a chorus.
Then French Press takes a turn with its next song, “Come Over (feat. Tara Lawton & David Schnurman).” You finally get to hear some vocals and the fact the song is six minutes long is barely noticeable, unlike like the previous songs. The album then goes into “Mind the Gap,” which is another instrumental piece. It is very upbeat and has a lot of change-ups that make it one of a kind and continually interesting; this is important since it’s almost nine minutes long. The next song is “Not Enough” which starts off saying, “It’s not enough baby. It’s just not enough,” building up with the tempo in the song. The techno dance party feel increases with those lines appearing often in the change ups of the song. This song, much like “Come Over,” was easier on a listener like myself who might not have as much experience listening to instrumental electronic music. Even though it only really landed on those simple phrases throughout the song, it acted as a point of destination for the song to loop itself back in. The EP concludes on an instrumental version of “Come Over,” which was good, but knowing what it sounded like with the lyrics it felt like it was missing something slightly important to its overall feel. It was able to convey the emotion through the music but, without the words, the listener is left without a direction in which to run those emotions.
The six song EP has a run time of 41 minutes, which is long but, if you’re into mellow synthesized electronica, this definitely could be an album for you. Even the dance party songs have very mellow undertones to them to make the EP something the listener can just close their eyes and disappear into. Not being someone who previously listened to much electronica music, this album wouldn’t necessarily be something I would pick up to listen to regularly, but it was a satisfying mix of those mellow, almost entrancing, undertones, and upbeat, “can’t sit still while listening to” overtones. First time listeners might want to start by dipping their toes in and starting with “Come Over” or “Not Enough.”
Teddy Midnight will perform next on June 1 at Olives in Nyack, NY. And be sure to check out the entire EP available on SoundCloud and Spotify
Creating the Initial Group
Primus Setlist: Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers, HOINFODAMAN, Too Many Puppies – Sgt. Baker, American Life, The Desaturating Seven, The Valley, The Seven, The Trek, The Scheme, The Dream, The Storm, The Ends?, The Pressman, Welcome to This World, My Name Is Mud > Jerry Was a Race Car Driver, Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver (Encore)
