Roost and The Mountain Carol will warm up the Adirondacks this fall with a performance on Friday, Oct. 11 in the Recovery Lounge at the Upper Jay Arts Center. The all-ages show starts at 8 p.m. with a suggested donation of $5.
Roost, a five-piece dance punk band from Burlington, with three members hailing from the 518, released their debut EP in January 2019, with a follow up EP due out in November. This summer the group hosted a new event in Vermont, the Alder Brook Campout, which they hope to be an annual tradition. They’ve performed alongside The Mountain Carol before and have gone on to play The Monopole in Plattsburgh together a few times.
The Mountain Carol, a synth-pop group from Plattsburgh, initially took form via two reclusive childhood friends from the backwater town of Saranac, New York. Guitarist Austin Petrashune returned home from Hong Kong where he had spent years playing the fiddle, while, in the middle of the woods down the road, songwriter Charles Wilson had forsaken drums in favor of channeling his imagination through the piano and a broken Casio keyboard. Once reconnected, the band found its ideal balance when they reached out to local impresario Matt Hall, a multi-talented Syracuse-cum-Plattsburgh fixture known for his many independent musical releases. The Mountain Carol seems intent on expanding the conventional role of a band, releasing music as well as video and mixed media art projects in conjunction with their mysterious fan club/utopian life cult “The Divine Council.” Don’t miss their show at Upper Jay Arts Center on December 10.
Umphrey’s McGee has released the first batch of tour dates for next year for their ‘Hindsight 20/20’ Tour, including two-night runs in New York City, Detroit and Asheville, which will all have umVIP packages available. The tour will also be making a stop in Pellham, TN at The Caverns, where UM will perform in a gorgeous underground amphitheater.
The Caverns in Pelham, TN
The tour kicks off with a two-night run at Beacon Theatre in New York City on January 17 & 18, and then the band will stick around to play Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn. The tour will then make its way through PA, stopping at Stage AE, and the month of January ends with a two-night run at The Filmore in Detroit, MI. The tour continues into Tennessee, where UM will make a stop at The Carverns on February 13.
Additionally, Umphrey’s will welcome The New Deal for a handful of dates, as well as Billy Strings and Empire Strikes Brass. The Toronto-based live electronic trio returns with new drummer Davide Di Renzo, joining Jamie Shields (keyboards) and Dan Kurtz (bass) to create the third incarnation of the dance party powerhouse, The New Deal. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Billy Strings takes the stage in Asheville with his unique take on psychedelic Americana, after Asheville’s own Empire Strikes Brass opens the two-night run with their blend of high energy brass, funk, and rock.
See the full list of Hindsight 20/20 Tour dates below, tickets are on sale now.
Umphrey’s McGee Tour Dates
Jan. 17 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY Jan. 18 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY Jan. 19 – Brooklyn Bowl – Brooklyn, NY Jan. 23 – Penn’s Peak – Jim Thorpe, PA* Jan. 24 – Stage AE – Pittsburgh, PA* Jan. 25 – Express Live – Columbus, OH * Jan. 29 – Clyde Theatre – Fort Wayne, IN* Jan. 30 – MGM Northfield Park – Northfield, OH* Jan. 31 – The Fillmore – Detroit, MI* Feb. 1 – The Fillmore – Detroit, MI * Feb. 12 – Soundstage at Graceland – Memphis, TN Feb. 13 – The Caverns – Pelham, TN Feb. 14 – ExploreAsheville.com Arena – Asheville, NC^ Feb. 15 – ExploreAsheville.com Arena – Asheville, NC^
* with The New Deal
^ with Billy Strings and Empire Strikes Brass
Umphrey’s has also just announced Hall of Fame: Class of 2018, a robust collection of the best of the best live tracks performed by the band in 2018 as voted on by the fans. Available in a limited edition, double LP set featuring splattered three-color vinyl, this year’s HOF collection contains four-and-a-half hours of music and enough improv to confuse pop fans everywhere.
With his autumnal tour schedule this year, Keller Williams will be making two fall stops in Upstate NY with shows in Albany at Skyloft on October 24 and Syracuse at the Westcott Theater on October 25. Williams is an artist who defies categorization. With his dynamic and unpredictable live performances, he has developed a reputation for his genre-defying work and creativity.
Williams is constantly evolving as an artist, with 24 studio releases and countless eclectic side projects. After just releasing his latest studio album Add on May 31, Williams is set to come out with his 25th studio release SPEED on November 22. SPEED will feature his bluegrass outfit Keller and the Keels, comprised of Keller on vocals along with progressive flatpicker Larry Keel and bassist Jenny Keel. The record will be their reinterpretation of popular songs with their psychedelic, Appalachian bluegrass style, including Fiona Apple’s “Criminal,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Slow Burn,” Weezer‘s “Island In The Sun,” and many more. This will be the group’s third collaboration together, following their 2006 release GRASS and the all-covers album THIEF, released in 2012.
Williams inhabits an equal parts entrancing and perplexing center of a Venn diagram that includes…bluegrass, jamgrass, musical humorism, satire, and instrumental prowess that combines flatpicking sensibility with Phil Keaggy-style ingenuity.
Justin Hiltner – The Bluegrass Situation
Check out fall tour dates below, for more information and tickets, go to Keller William’s website.
Keller Williams 2019 Fall Tour Dates
October 11 – Eureka Springs, AR – Hillberry “The Harvest Moon Festival” *
October 12 – Live Oak, FL – Sewanee Roots Festival *
October 17 – Columbus, OH – Woodlands Tavern
October 24 – Albany, NY – Skyloft
October 25 – Syracuse, NY – Westcott Theater
October 26 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts
November 1 – New Orleans, LA – Tipitina’s *
November 2 – Asbury Park, NJ – The Stone Pony
November 7 – Edmonds, WA – Edmonds Center for the Arts #
November 8 – Bremerton, WA – Admiral Theatre #
November 9 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom #
November 10 – Bend, OR – Tower Theatre #
November 15 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Ballroom
November 16 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
November 22 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
November 23 – Denver, CO – The Ogden Theater @
December 5 – Brevard, NC – 185 King Street
December 6 – Carrboro, NC – The Arts Center
December 27 – Savannah, GA – Southbound Brewing
December 28 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
* with Keller & The Keels
^ with Grateful Grass ft. The Infamous Stringdusters and Oteil Burbridge
# featuring Keller Williams’ Pettygrass
@ with Grateful Grass, Keller & The Keels, Love Canon
Resonator Festival, being held this Saturday at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, is what happens when your wildest musical daydreams get a chance to come to fruition. With a curated lineup of the best of NYC’s underground music scene, you’ll find once in a lifetime sets where two acts come together on stage to exchange ideas through performance, including supergroup collaborations you’ve always wanted to see, and some you’ve yet to imagine. Innovative, groundbreaking and forward thinking artists join forces with others to explore the boundaries of modern sound.
An extension of a belief in beauty through collaboration, Resonator Festival celebrates and showcases this musical movement. Hosted by Resonator and National Sawdust, this event will be nothing short of a party, where the sounds of hip-hop, jazz, R&B, soul and rock come crashing upon each other.
There’s nothing complicated at Resonator Festival: good friends, good vibes, and good music. When people of color, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and beyond are given the space to freely exist, and the equal representation they deserve, there is no limit to the change that can be made in the world.
This year’s festival is Saturday, October 5, with shows from 4-7 pm and 8pm-12am. NYC ensemble ShoutHouse will be collaborating with hip-hop dancer/choreographer Quilan Arnold, MC Nuri Hazzard, and soloist Connell Thompson, premiering new songs by Will Healy, Jesse Greenberg, and Alix Goffic, with support from the Brooklyn Arts Council. For more info visit National Sawdust for details.
Schedule:
Music all-day by: DJ Likwuid
Show 1: 11pm – Midnight: Royal Khaoz x QNA 10pm – 11pm: ShoutHouse 9pm – 10pm: Edward Spliffington Big Band 8pm – 9pm: OJ in the Yams
Show 2: 6pm – 7pm: Olivia K x Jahlani Roberts Steel Pan Orchestra 5pm – 6pm: EARTHTONE x MNFST 4pm – 5pm: WSABI Fox x Dizzy SenZe
Common, an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy and GRAMMY-winning artist, actor and activist, returns to the Apollo Theater stage on Tuesday, October 8, to celebrate the release of his second book, Let Love Have the Last Word and his latest studio album, Let Love.
This one-night-only New York City concert will showcase Common’s own unique and personal stories of the people and experiences that have led to a greater understanding of love and all it has to offer. Jamilla Woods joins Common as his special guest this evening. Visit the Apollo Theatre website for more information.
Starting on Thursday, Oct. 3, Capital Records Live! will be returning to the stage with another installment of this unique entertainment series. Designed as a way to display the Capital Region’s musical talent, Capital Records Live! began in spring of 2018 with a tribute to the Beatles and continued that fall with a celebration of music from 1969.
Taking place at Schenectady’s GE Theatre at Proctors, with this latest installment—Dark Blue Sea—Capital Records Live! gives its interpretation of the phrase, “Together, I lost myself with you.” Teaming with Collar City-based collaborative dance company, Synergia Dance Project, this will be a three-act narrative dance performance that will bring film and movement to the stage, in addition to the musical performances of pop-rock band, Dark Honey, Eddie Award-winners Girl Blue, and indie folk-pop duo, The Sea The Sea.
With narratives from Chromoscope Pictures and artistic director/choreographer Nadine Medina, this production will explore the concept of loss. Combining the abstraction of dance with the raw power of live music and stunning multimedia visuals. The audience will get to experience live performance in a new, innovative matter.
Tickets for Capital Records Live!Dark Blue Sea, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, are available at the Box Office at Proctors, 432 State Street, Schenectady; by phone at 518.346.6204; and online at the Proctors website.
In advance of their upcoming fall tour, which starts in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, October 2, Break Science has shared the downtempo and lyrically esoteric single, “Oshun.”
“This song is a dedication to Oshun, the Goddess who governs love and freshwaters,” shared Break Science keyboardist and producer Borham Lee. “She is the protector of the poor, healer of the sick, the bringer of music and dance, prosperity and fertility. With this song, we hope to invoke the divine feminine essence of nature to instill a higher thought and create spiritual balance.”
With over a decade of creation under their belts, and arguably among the artistic pioneers of the mid-2000s electronic music explosion, the duo –comprised of keyboardist, producer and jazz pianist, Borahm Lee (Pretty Lights Live Band) and funk, hip-hop drummer extraordinaire, Adam Deitch (Lettuce) – adds a layer of intrigue and depth to their music with the incorporation of Deitch’s live drumming and Lee’s real-time performance behind the synthesizer and keyboard.
Break Science Fall Tour Dates
10/2 – Washington, DC – Gypsy Sally’s 10/3 – Brooklyn , NY – The Brooklyn Bowl 10/4 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry 10/5 – Asheville, NC – Asheville Music Hall 10/10 – Salt Lake City, UT – Soundwell 10/11 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile 10/12 – Portland, OR – The Star Theater 10/16 – Minneapolis, MN – The Varsity Theatre 10/17 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Stache @ The Intersection 10/18 – Chicago, IL – The Chop Shop 10/19 – Indianapolis, IN – The Mouse Trap 11/29 – Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall 11/30 – Philadelphia, PA – Ardmore Music Hall
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.
The Empire State Youth Orchestra has announced the 2019-2020 season which includes: a 40th birthday celebration for the organization, a concert with an ESYO alumnus who is assistant principal cellist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a tour to South America.
The organization is comprised of 13 performing ensembles and the successful CHIME (Creating Harmony Inspiring Musical Excellence) program. ESYO will also participate this season in two national music cohorts: Presto Sistema USA, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute PlayUSA. ESYO’s Symphony Orchestra will once again be led by music director Carlos Agreda.
This year also marks the organization’s 40th birthday. In celebration, there will be a concert on Saturday, Nov. 2 at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.
Hailing from the Capital Region, Kenneth Olsen, the assistant principal cellist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will also be joining Agreda. The Times Union will be sponsoring the November concert.
This upcoming season is particularly exciting. We have the celebration of our 40th Anniversary and also the appearance of an amazing soloist, who once played in ESYO. We are also going on an international tour to Argentina and Uruguay. But, on top of that, we are working on our new partnership with the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall that will bring a greater value to arts in the Capital Region.
Carlos Agreda
Since its founding in 1979, the Empire State Youth Orchestra (ESYO) has challenged and inspired young people to achieve excellence through music in a rigorous learning environment leading to high-level performance opportunities. Over 600 youth from the Capital Region of New York and western New England are selected by audition each year for the ESYO program. They then participate in one of the ten performing ensembles that collectively give approximately 30 performances a year. In 2015, ESYO launched ESYO CHIME (Creating Harmony, Inspiring Musical Excellence). ESYO CHIME seeks to expand access to music in underserved communities making sure that every child has access to musical excellence regardless of economic status.
ESYO concert attendees are once again able to use Access ESYO to attend the concert. Access ESYO allows ticket purchase for as little as $1.00 per seat, and will be sustained through a pay-it-forward campaign inviting donors to deposit the cost of a seat in an online ticket bank. For more information on ticketing click here.
2019 – 2020 Concert Dates
*locations and times
are subject to change
Nov. 2 – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall – Troy, NY
Nov. 4 – Shaker Junior High School – Latham, NY
Nov. 24 – TBA
Dec. 6 – TBA
Dec. 15 – Massry Center for the Arts, College of Saint Rose – Albany, NY
Dec. 19-22 – Proctors Theatre – Schenectady, NY
Feb. 1 – Crossgates Mall – Albany, NY
Feb. 12 – TBA
Feb. 13 – TBA
Feb. 27 – Massry Center for the Arts, College of Saint Rose – Albany, NY
Mar. 9 – UAlbany Performing Arts Center – Albany, NY
Mar. 29 – UAlbany Performing Arts Center – Albany, NY
Apr. 1 – Proctor’s Theatre – Schenectady, NY
Apr. 26 – Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
May 1 – TBA
May 2 – Arthur Zankel Music Center, Skidmore College – Saratoga Springs, NY
May 3 – Brown School – Schenectady, NY
May 10 – Massry Center for the Arts, College of Saint Rose – Albany, NY
May 17 – Massry Center for the Arts, College of Saint Rose – Albany, NY
May 31 – Saratoga Performing Arts Center – Saratoga Springs, NY
June 20 – GE Theatre at Proctors – Schenectady, NY
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.
