“The team at The Queensbury Hotel has been amazing to work with and we chose this venue because with attendees and performers all staying in the same building, the stage is perfectly set for a memorable weekend of music and unique collaborations.”
– Mateo Vosganian, Summit Organizer and Drummer for Wild Adriatic
The lineup so far includes Wild Adriatic, Andy Frasco and the UN, Rustic Overtones, Annie In the Water, Let’s Be Leonard, Chestnut Grove, Sly Fox & the Hustlers, PJ Duo & Friends, Paradisa, and The East End Boys, with more to be announced soon.
Tickets are on sale now through Brown Paper Tickets
While you’re waiting for this year’s event, here’s the recap from 2018:
The Furious Bongos are extending the season of Halloween shenanigans and observing the unofficial holiday of Frank Zappa! They’re returning to some of their favorite venues and expanding into new territory as things are rapidly growing for this fiery band. They’ll kick off tour at The Chance in Poughkeepsie on November 1, then make stops in Albany and Buffalo. Bring your ponchos…or your best Zomby Woof costume!
When bassist/arranger Conrad St. Clair decided to tackle this project, knowing Zappa drew on influences ranging from Stravinsky to Leadbelly, he felt it was important to assemble musicians with backgrounds as farflung as Zappa’s influences. As a result, the band has a heavyweight and eclectic resume, including work with artists like Yo Yo Ma, India Arie, Mick Fleetwood, and Les Paul. This tour will also feature amazing violinist Randal Harrison and master mallet player Matt Peters, as well as Grammy-winning Jay Frigoletto on keyboards for the first half of the tour.
Since Zappa’s music was constantly evolving and adapted to the musicians he was playing with at a given time, doing a note-for-note rendition of ‘Song X‘ from ‘album Y‘ while staring at their shoes didn’t seem like the proper way to go about this project. The Furious Bongos tracked down hundreds of pages of transcriptions and quickly scribbled notes from former band members and other sources, painstakingly compared different versions of the songs, and even dug up copies of rare scores in Frank’s own hand (coffee stains included). The end result is arrangements that you won’t hear anywhere else.
The Furious Bongos understand that however people describe Zappa, safe or vanilla aren’t usually first in mind. And, they appreciate Frank’s role as an entertainer, not just as a composer It’s a show that pays respect to an iconic legacy but is still new and different and dangerous and FUN, with lots of eyebrows. Kinda like Frank.
The legendary Max Creek, featuring guitarist Scott Murawski, bassist John Rider, drummer Bill Carbone, keyboardist Mark Mericier, and percussionist Jamemurrell Stanley will make a stop at the Garcia’s at The Capitol Theatre on Friday, October 25. They also recently announced their New Years Eve performance at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA.
Titans of the jam music scene, Max Creek, have been going strong for nearly 50 years. The band has been known for embarking on extensive tours, playing as many as 200 shows a year to crowds of thousands of people.
True pioneers of electric rock jam, Max Creek has more than four decades of experience launching musical adventures with a rich repertoire of originals and uniquely interpreted gems. Each set is a journey for audience and band alike, chasing muses without a net and bringing it all back home to the roots again. The Max Creek show at Garcia’s is a unique opportunity to see the legendary band in a completely new way. Fans will be able to jam out and boogie along to Max Creek’s electrifying music in an intimate concert space.
There are times when a festival lineup drops and you immediately thinking to yourself, “Damn, I really need to go to that!” The sixth annual Resonance Music and Arts Festival which took place September 19-22 in Slippery Rock, PA is a perfect example.
Presented by Papadosio, in partnership with Mammoth Music Group and Essential Productions, itâs clear that Resonance truly gets its audience.
The festival features a diverse cross-section of music on five stages ranging from jam to jamtronica to electronic with a common thread being that it’s all music everyone in the Resonance community digs, including the arists themselves.
Along with Papadosio itself – who played four sets including a Gorillaz tribute, which was something special to behold – tons of artists played multiple sets on different stages at different times of day and night throughout the weekend, giving them a wide latitude for creativity and exploration and channeling the unique energy of each environment.
To that end, this year’s music schedule was particularly stacked, featuring two headlining sets from Tipper along with multiple performances from each of Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Umphrey’s McGee, Twiddle, Black Moth Super Rainbow, TAUK, Goose, Andy Frasco & The U.N., EOTO, SunSquabi, and Dizgo.Â
But the incredibly chill vibe of Resonance is always about more than just the music and a literal change of scenery this year went along way towards making everyone feel welcome. Held for the first time at the bucolic Coopers Lake Campground in Western Pennsylvania, there was a ton to like about this new, smaller and cozier venue and site setup.
Want to car camp? It’s included, for free, for everyone in attendance. Prefer shady wooded spots or a lakeside view? Take your pick. No matter where you setup camp, all of the stages were close by and only a short stroll from each other. No lengthy hikes, arduous hills or tedious security checkpoints to be found anywhere. As an added bonus, Resonance is BYOB-only event and the ability to go back and forth between your campsite and the stages with a beverage of your choice is priceless.
Attendees at Resonance this year were also treated to near-perfect late summer weather, featuring sunny but not scorching daytime sets and hoodie-friendly evening air. Twilight sets each night at all stages were accompanied by spectacular sunsets with surreal hues. Even a brief storm delay Saturday afternoon gave way to a delectable double rainbow.
Not to be outdone by nature, artisitic and technological visuals were equally as impressive at Resonance, with live art installations aplenty and projection mapping illuminating the dragon-adorned castle as well as an intricate web weaved into the ceiling of the barn.
In its sixth year, Resonance has found its groove and an exceptionally fitting new home for its family.
“Have an epic party for me and play my favorite records and remember all the good times we had, the music, images, and waves we caught. That’s all.” These words from Neal Casal shown on The Capitol Theatre stage, began the tribute of his life after the lights went down and Exile on Main Street had stopped playing over the house speakers. His message, hope, and dream were put on display for the audience and it wasn’t until “Moonlight Mile” started to play that everyone realized that our friend was truly gone. The crowd was so eager for this show to start and visibly sad once it finally did. All eyes were on Neal’s jacket, draped over a lone chair on stage with his guitar resting silently next to it.
This musical wake consisted of numerous segments, each focusing on different chapters of Neal’s life. The first set highlighted Neal’s earlier work and had his friends and collaborators each share songs that Casal had written, while the second set highlighted his projects with friends over the last decade. Behind the stage was a screen showing pictures from Neal’s life as well as the photos Neal took himself. Gary Waldman led us through Neal’s life between songs, telling stories that highlighted their friendship and also his experiences as Neal’s manager. The emcee’s jokes and tales had the crowd engaged and excited for each new detail he’d share with in his stories.
The two hour first set was full of beautiful solo performances, touching respects and countless collaborations from Neal’s former band members. Hazy Malaze, one of Casal’s early bands, ended the set before Peter Shapiro came on stage to thank the crowd for coming out. He regaled the audience with a tale about needing “intermission music” for the Fare Thee Well shows and how that led to the creation of Circles Around The Sun. Before leaving the stage, he announced that the stage at the Garcia Forest at the Lockn’ Festival will now be known as the Neal Casal Stage.
After a very short intermission, the tribute continued with a more upbeat second set starting with Beachwood Sparks and then the premiere of the new Circles Around the Sun lineup featuring Eric Krasno on guitar. Joe Russo also popped in for a tune before coming out with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead with Adam MacDougall filling in for Marco Benevento. After a few songs, Chris Robinson came on stage and played with a few members of Chris Robinson Brotherhood to end the set. The late hour didn’t deter the crowd or the performers, and the entire lineup came out for an encore performance of “Farther Along” and a final prayer Robbi Robb to end the night. It was a memorable, emotional evening that left everyone both fulfilled and drained after five and a half hours of music.
You can watch the entire Tribute below on Relix’s YouTube channel.
Denver, Colorado psychedelic jam-trio Cycles are making their way through the northeast this week, performing a series of shows throughout New York state as part of an extensive 2019 fall tour. Last night, the band played at Buffalo Iron Works, with Colorado’s The Magic Beans and Connecticut’s Eggy, for a commemorative night celebrating the venue’s tenth anniversary. This past Wednesday, Cycles sat down for an interview with NYS Music in Brooklyn, NY, just before performing a set at famed music club The Knitting Factory.
This was a first time appearance for the trio’s drummer Collin O’Brien, not only at the venue, but in Manhattan altogether. “I haven’t been to New York in like fourteen years,” he told NYS Music. “I’ve been freaking out walking around all day.”
It was a return, however, for the band’s guitarist Patrick Harvey and bassist Tucker McClung, whom have performed as Cycles in NYC before. “We’ve played New York a few times,” said McClung. “There was Brooklyn Bowl, and then we played at American Beauty once, for a Phish after party. That was really fun.”
“There’s a really sick jam from that [Phish] show,” said Harvey.
Sick jams were definitely in full supply for their The Knitting Factory show, which saw the band deliver a full range of musical styles, from jazz to funky-metal to soulful rock, across a dizzying set of songs that were all linked together via impeccable technical abilities.
While new to the city, O’Brien is also a relatively new addition to Cycles, at least as a full time member. The Chicago-born drummer moved to the band’s home base of Denver earlier this year and jumped on board with the band just in time for huge gigs like Arise Music Festival, Peach Music Festival, and Resonance Music Festival just last weekend. “I love it,” he said. “This has been the best summer of my life.”
He certainly fits into Cycles’ live musical experiment, with constantly shifting drumbeats and tempos thrown up against barrages of shrieking guitar solos from Harvey and slap-happy bass rips from McClung. As a unit, the band navigates an amazing balance between improvisational spontaneity and technical precision, and the results fuse together unique, often even quirky, song material with a sustained sense of freewheeling whimsy. A sense that, musically, anything could happen at any moment.
In their Knitting Factory show, they showed this resolutely. Some songs bled out into super spacey, affecting moments of trippy space rock. Other moments saw battles for highest intensity between chromatic guitar picking and dramatic drums fills—sometimes while McClung was balancing his bass on one finger like a vaudeville performer. At one awesome point in the set, Harvey broke from a melodic guitar solo to incorporate audio samples of an eighties’ sounding, glam rock tune into a hard-driving metal-funk jam from bass and drums. Does that sound odd? Absolutely. It is exhilarating and actually pretty groovy.
“I think when we first started, it used to be challenging to make it sound really full,” commenting on the three-piece driving force behind such heavily improvisational shows night after night. “But now, it just feels like I get to do whatever I want all the time. We’ve been playing together so much over the past three years, I feel like we all know where to get in and fill space, or where to leave space.”
Tucker McClung, Bass.
“Yeah, there is a lot of freedom in not having a lot of people on stage,” said O’Brien. “It’s easier to communicate ideas more instantaneously.” This sense of freedom is what gives the band the inspiration to perform a live musical game show next month, at Denver’s Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (where they will actually have many people on stage).
Tucker broke the concept down to NYS: “It’ll be one set of us performing as Cycles, but we’ll open up the night with a set of this game show. It’s going to be a super interactive experience. We might have as many as 30 to 40 people coming up intermittently and participating in the show, and we’ll be the host band for this Johnny Carson mixed with Wheel of Fortune kind of experience.”
“And,” added Harvey, “we have a game show host who is the freakin’ man! Dennis Craig. Definitely the best host any game show could ask for.”
“It’ll be a healthy amount of uncertainty,” said O’Brien. “Stuff will go wrong in the best possible way.”
Cycles Guitarist Patrick Harvey. Photo: Miles Hurley
The rest of Cycles’ schedule coming ahead has them linking up with jam scene contemporaries like The Magic Beans, Sunsquabi, and others. The trio looks forward to a huge hometown show in December: a debut at Denver’s The Fillmore Auditorium opening up for Umphrey’s McGee.
“I used to see them all over the place when I lived in Chicago,” said O’Brien. “They’re so nice. They’re just some normal guys that are like really, really freaking talented.” McClung, meanwhile, talked about seeing the six-piece staple act for the first time at this year’s Resonance Music Fest. “Yeah, they did an acoustic set which was pretty awesome. I was getting really pumped watching it.”
This week, catch Cycles as they finish their New York stretch with a show tonight at Syracuse’s The Westcott Theatre, followed by shows next week at Olive’s in Nyack and at The Hollow in Albany. While this season of touring seems to continue a road-tested sense of hardcore gigging for the band, they show no sign of slowing down, an instead an invigorated and grateful attitude for the experience.
When you’re as blessed to be doing what we’re doing, it’s foolish to be agitated at the world. Because you have this awesome opportunity to rock out. There’s nothing better than this. If there was something better than this, I’d be doing it.
Patrick Harvey, Guitar.
For more information about the band, their music, and their upcoming shows, head to their website.
For their first shows in over a year, Whose Hat Is This?, the free jazz collective of current and former Tedeschi Trucks Band members will be hitting the road for an East Coast U.S. tour this November. Featuring bassist Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie), saxophonist Kebbi Williams (Outkast), and drummers JJ Johnson (John Mayer) and Tyler “Falcon” Greenwell (Col. Bruce Hampton), the all-improvisational group will perform for the first time since the release of their second live album, Everything’s OK. Special guests on the tour include Ryan Stasik (Umphrey’s McGee) in Charleston, SC and Rachel Ann Morgan Band in Washington, DC.
Drawing on their collective experiences, Whose Hat is This? seamlessly conjure up music that combines elements of experimental jazz, funk, electronica, with unhinged musical spontaneity. The band’s debut self-titled record was released in 2017 and featured highlights from their first-ever performance, an impromptu gig at the A-Trane in Berlin.
Tour Dates:
Nov. 18 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Pour House (with Ryan Stasik’s Wondrous Band)
Nov. 19 – Washington, DC – The Hamilton
Nov. 20 – Baltimore, MD – The 8×10 (with Rachel Ann Morgan Band)
Borderland Music + Arts Festival 2019 showcased some of the best roots and rock music of today on the beautiful grounds of Knox Farm State Park. In addition to the music spread out over three stages, there were art vendors, installations, ample food and beverage options, even alpacas and axe throwing. Headlining Saturday night was Warren Haynes’ Gov’t Mule. Sunday saw Greensky Bluegrass close out the festival.
Eclectic funk/jam band The New Motif are back on the road this fall and look to branch out of the Northeast with their two-night debut run in Colorado.
With stops in NYC at The Cutting Room, two nights on Cape Cod, a Phish after-party in Providence and supporting Kung Fu leading up to a performance at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the deep psychedelic grooves The New Motif has become known for will reach wide audiences as they close out 2019 with a bang. For New Years Eve, they’ll perform at the iconic Paradise Rock Club in Boston, opening for Pink Talking Fish.
Sept. 20 – The Press Room – Portsmouth, NH Sept. 28 – MTG Pheno Cup Music & Arts Festival – Lancaster, NH Oct. 11 – LaBoca – Middletown, CT Oct. 12 – Cutting Room – NYC, NY Oct. 18 – Hawks & Reed – Greenfield, MA w/Strange Machines Oct. 26 – P.H.O.M.E. – Portland, ME w/ Strange Machines Nov. 15 – Your Mom’s House – Denver, CO – PPPP After Party w/Stig Nov. 16 – ULLR Tavern – Winter Park, CO Nov. 22 – Grumpy’s Pub – Falmouth, MA Nov. 23 – Grumpy’s Pub – Falmouth, MA Nov. 29 – Stone Church – Brattleboro, VT w/ Kung Fu Nov. 30 – Fete – Providence, RI Phish After Party w/ Meraki Dec. 19 – Port City Music Hall – Portland, ME w/ Kung Fu Dec. 20 – 3S Artspace – Portsmouth, NH w/ Kung Fu Dec. 21 – Toads Place – New Haven, CT w/ Kung Fu Dec. 22 –Bethel Woods Center for Arts – Bethel, NY w/ Kung Fu Dec. 31 – Paradise Rock Club – Boston, MA w/ Pink Talking Fish
Gov’t Mule and Warren Haynes made a stop on their Bring On The Music fall tour on September 19 with a performance at Albany’s Palace Theatre. The name of the tour is a play on the band’s new concert film and corresponding live album, Bring On The Music – Live From The Capitol Theatre, which came out in June on CD, vinyl, DVD, and BluRay.
To see the Southern rock jam band Gov’t Mule live at this beautiful and historic Albany landmark was an amazing experience. The lighting was nothing short of perfection, which added greatly to the experience.
Photo by Stephanie J Bartik
Gov’t Mule is comprised of guitarist Warren Haynes, drummer Matt Abts, multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis, and bassist Jorgen Carlsson. Haynes took the stage and commanded the crowd’s attention with his soulful vocals and guitar chops while wowing the eager fans with the first song, “Traveling Tune.” His talent is known throughout the music world and he is the inspiration of many guitar players. He was the guitarist for The Allman Brothers Band and put together Gov’t Mule with the late Allen Woody (bass) in 1994 as a side project.
There is a connection between Haynes and bass player Carlsson and Abts on drums that can be easily observed. Each band member became completely immersed in not just their individual instruments, but the songs themselves. With Haynes’ soulful voice and virtuosic solos with expansive guitar tones, Carlsson’s expert bass playing, Abts locking it in with insane drumming, and Danny Louis dazzling the crowd on keys, each tune was performed to perfection
Jorgen Carlsson on bass
With rock at its core, Gov’t Mule integrated a full range of musical styles including blues, jazz, soul and some funky rhythms. No one left the room disappointed. If given the chance to see this band first hand, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Check out the Gov’t Mules website for a full list of the band’s upcoming tour dates, ticketing, and more information.
Set One: Traveling Tune (part 1), Mule, Pressure Under Fire, Time To Confess, Lay Your Burden Down, Inside Outside Woman Blues, Unring The Bell, Endless Parade, Revolution Come, Revolution Go
Set Two: Wandering Child, What is Hip?, (with Jerry Marotta, without Matt Abts), Freeway Jam, Child Of The Earth, Lively Up Yourself, Fool’s Moon, Thorazine Shuffle, Traveling Tune (part 2)
