Post-rockers Explosions In The Sky embarked on a nationwide tour which brought them to Asbury Hall in Buffalo for only the second time in their career. After 20 years of making music, the band’s only other appearance in Buffalo was at the Tralf in 2008.
Setlist: A Song for Our Fathers, The Birth and Death of the Day, The Only Moment We Were Alone, Greet Death, Yasmin the Light, Have You Passed Through This Night?, Disintegration Anxiety, Your Hand in Mine, Magic Hours, Catastrophe and the Cure, Colors in Space.
Update 11/27/19: Per an email this week, this event is cancelled. The official statement reads:
Unfortunately, the Museum at Eldridge Street has cancelled the December 1 Greg Wall concert to benefit the Museum due to unforeseen circumstances. We will notify you when the event is rescheduled.
Saxophonist and composer Greg Wall, a staple on the downtown avant-garde jazz scene since the early 1990s, celebrates his 60th birthday with a benefit concert in the stunning historic sanctuary of the Museum at Eldridge Street on Sunday, December 1 at 3 p.m. Wall will perform with his longtime working bands including: Zion80, Hasidic New Wave, Portal, Klezmerfest, and Greg Wall’s Later Prophets, as well as the Ayn Sof Arkestra and Bigger Band which returns for this concert. Proceeds will benefit the Museum.
A leading figure in the Jewish music scene for over thirty years, Greg Wall is a pioneer in blending Jewish music with jazz. After early training under Archie Shepp and Max Roach in Amherst, MA, Wall finished his apprenticeship at New England Conservatory in Boston, studying and performing jazz with Jaki Byard, George Russell, and Jimmy Guiffre, and was part of the Klezmer revival scene at NEC.
After graduation he headed to New York and together with classmate Frank London, helped define the sound of “Jewish Jazz” with groups like Hasidic New Wave, Midrash Mishmash and later, the Ayn Sof Arkestra and Bigger Band, Shechina Big Band, Later Prophets and Zion80. He toured with the late Yosi Piamenta, the “Hasidic Hendrix,” and released several recordings playing original compositions alongside spoken word.
Wall played regularly at the original Knitting Factory locations, Tonic, the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, and the Stone, as well as making frequent tours abroad to Europe and Israel, maintaining a parallel career performing classic and mainstream jazz. While on the road, Wall pursued Talmudic study and was ordained as a Rabbi in 2006.
Wall is no stranger to Eldridge Street. In the early- to mid-90s he frequented the venue at a time when the landmark was dilapidated and only beginning to establish itself as in important cultural hub for families, hipsters, artists and religious and secular Jews.
My relationship with the museum goes back almost 30 years, when the restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue was the dream of a few determined, hard-working individuals. They never forgot their roots, and simultaneously became an important national cultural icon, while continuing to serve the folks in the neighborhood – It’s my kind of place.
Greg Wall
In 2009, Wall was appointed rabbi at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue in the East Village and continued to exhibit his particular blend of spirituality and avant-garde music with regular performances in the temple’s sanctuary. He was the founding Artistic Director of the synagogue’s Center for Jewish Arts and Literacy, which was an incubator for cutting edge modern music with a Jewish flavor. That practice continued, in 2013, when Wall became rabbi at Beit Chaverim Synagogue, in Westport,CT, where he’s continued to perform regularly his eclectic mix of classical and experimental jazz, Eastern European and African American roots music with a rotating group of influential musicians.
Wall’s latest release is The Book Beri’ah with Zion80, on the Tzadik record label of legendary producer John Zorn. A live recording with jazz pianist Andy LaVerne is scheduled for January, 2020.
The Museum at Eldridge Street is housed in the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a magnificent National Historic Landmark that has been meticulously restored. Opened in 1887, the synagogue is the first great house of worship built in America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Today, it is the only remaining marker of the great wave of Jewish migration to the Lower East Side that is open to a broad public who wish to visit Jewish New York. Exhibits, tours, cultural events and educational programs tell the story of Jewish immigrant life, explore architecture and historic preservation, inspire reflection on cultural continuity, and foster collaboration and exchange between people of all faiths, heritages and interests.
We live in a world of singles and streaming, and it’s amazing to see bands boast over a series of releases they’ve contributed in a year’s time. For Rochester rock duo Mud Head, the work doesn’t stop after album one. Formalizing their group in January of this year, this industrial alternative outfit has delivered a self-titled album, exclusive single and follow-up EP, all by the end of September, growing their following with every release, rocking 2019 for sure. The group’s latest EP Black Blood, Black Tongue is by no means a wrench in this roaring machine.
This EP is loaded with ruminating lyrical confessions to echo over wet drum slaps and rattling chimes, rising and falling in a progressive rock nebulous. The opening track “Sunshine Boy” has a Floyd-like overture, mimicking clocks with cymbal strikes as a brooding energy builds to the opening down beat.
Considering their lack of bandmates, this duo makes a loud bang when they emphasize their most vulnerable moments. The lyrics are relatable and expressive, without pushing towards a particular source. They know the capacities of studio recording and how to alter them, suiting the EP in an industrial armor.
Stripped clean is the final track of the EP “Hiding Beneath Ladders,” where we see the softest side of Mud Head. The meter is deceptively mixed, and the somber chord progressions lead us into an uneasy waltz. Bands with this versatility only come around once in a while, and performing their discography live would not only bring their music to new heights, but welcome them to develop their image, message and in due time, a massive following.
The masterminds behind Yes Darling, songwriters Ryan Montbleau and Hayley Jane, have just announced that they will be taking their debut album to the theatrical stage on Dec. 7 at The Double E in Essex, VT. This announcement comes just one week after their first music video for “Call Your Mother.” Using exaggerated humor, this playful duo brings to stage the reality of what many couples experience in finding harmony in a relationship. Â
“I do think Hayley and I have a pretty special chemistry together,” shares Montbleau. Of the upcoming performance, Jane elaborates, “We try to pull on every string of the heart. Not just the loving, romantic ones. Our show usually starts meaningful discussions. We take you down with us then we make you laugh. It’s real and raw.”
Attendees can expect to hear Yes Darling in its entirety with Montbleau and Jane being accompanied by a full band. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased through Eventbrite.
Jane is headlining the inaugural Harvestfest: Tribute to Mother Earth with special guest Rob Compa of Dopapod on Saturday, Oct. 19 at Woods Valley Ski Area in Central New York.
Songhoy Blues are set to release their new EP, Meet Me in the City via Fat Possum on October 18 in support of a 5-week North American tour. The band also helped kick off the United Nations Climate Change Week in New York City with a breakout performance in support of the historic Great Green Wall initiative they are helping bring to life.
The EP is their first collection of new music since the critically acclaimed album Résistance, which Rolling Stone called one of the best albums of 2017, and will be released on special edition yellow vinyl.
They recently shared two versions of the EP’s title track — one mixed by Blake Mills (Grammy-nominated producer of Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color, John Legend’s Darkness and Light, and Perfume Genius’ No Shape) and the other by David Ferguson (known for his sound engineering work with “Cowboy” Jack Clement and on Johnny Cash’s American Recordings). The title track was written by Junior Kimbrough (with additional lyrics by Songhoy Blues and produced by Matt Sweeney).
Steeped in the deep traditions of classic Malian music & desert blues fused with a youthful and super-charged sound of today, Songhoy Blues formed in 2012 in Bamako after its members had left Timbuktu, which was under siege by Islamist militants. The band released their debut album, Music In Exile, in early 2015 receiving across the board praise, including a 5/5 rating in The Guardian who claimed, “they have all the makings of African-rock crossover heroes.”
Songhoy Blues says, “We’re really happy to introduce this new EP and our English-language debut on the song ‘Time To Go Home.’ Please enjoy it and get ready for a heavy new album coming up very soon.”
On PBS’ American Masters, Will Oldham spoke of working with Songhoy Blyes, saying, “They are a Malian band that’s really trying to make sense of what they’ve been witnessing, what they’ve been experiencing, and create or transmit a message to people about what they’re seeing and how they’re trying to understand it and make change…And to think, well I want them to know that I’m trying to listen and trying to understand, and if I can give voice to some of what they’re experiencing, that they might be emboldened by this musical connection.”
Most recently, the band completed a sold out run of UK dates, recorded a live session for BBC 6 Music; filmed an episode of the new UK TV show Noughts & Crosses in South Africa; featured in a new photography exhibit called My Rockstars by Hassan Hajjaj at La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris; and collaborated with UK artist Andy Morgan on a multimedia exhibition called Music & Conflict at the Imperial War Museum, which debuted in June 2019.
Songhoy Blues are also proud spokespersons for the charity WaterAID, and have helped to raise money & awareness toward providing relief in their native Mali. They will be appearing in an upcoming documentary on climate change in the Sahel; and were featured in the award-winning documentary “They Will Have to Kill Us First”, about the plight of musicians in war-torn Mali.
While in the midst of a change of leadership, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has nominated 20 new possible inductees for 2020. These latest nominees—which include posthumous nominations for legendary rapper, The Notorious B.I.G, as well as R&B and soul songstress Whitney Houston—are bridging a gap between genres, genders and race. Something departing Rock Hall chairman Jann Wenner has been criticized for in the past. A claim which he has refuted. “Musical achievements have got to be race-neutral and gender-neutral,” said Wenner, according to the New York Times.
Nonetheless, incoming chairman John Sykes—the president of Entertainment Enterprises for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia—has made it a point to embrace the new direction that music is heading into. “The important goal is to diversify the New York foundation board, with more women, more people of color and [become] a board that reflects the artists that are now being inducted,” said Sykes, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
While new agendas are being set forward, traditional rock bands are still a mainstay of the Rock Hall of Fame. This year’s nominations include rock acts Motörhead, Judas Priest, Dave Matthews Band, Nine Inch Nails, the MC5, Thin Lizzy and T Rex, among others.
After nominations, the committee in charge of electing inductees—made up of more than 1,000 historians, members of the music history and every living Rock Hall inductee—fill out ballots with the five highest vote getters making up that year’s class. Beginning in 2012, fans have been allowed to vote who they think belongs in the Rock Hall, with the top five fan vote-getters making up one ballot. Artists become eligible to be nominated 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording, according to the Rock Hall’s official website.
The official inductees will be announced in January, with the ceremony to take place in May. The show will air at a later date on HBO.
Indie-jam band Glass Pony has been performing throughout the Capital District over the last year, with a wave of fans in tow for each performance. On November 2, they’ll release their self-titled debut album with a release show at Parish Public House that night.
“Stardust” features dense sonic elements from dreamy background vocals meshed with guitar effects and funky bass grooves. The lyrical depth offers just enough ambiguity for listeners to develop their own meaning against a backdrop of the other musical elements. When performed live, “Stardust” serves as a vehicle for standout jams with the solo section navigating to new territory before being led back into the composition by guitarist Greg Pittz.
Lyrically, “Stardust” is meant to be open for personal interpretation with the underlying theme being the search for our place in the big picture of life – the questions, insecurities and realizations that are present in every stage of growth and development, with the goal of finding and settling into our place. Guitarist Eddie Hotaling says of “Stardust,” “Everyone is ultimately the king or queen of their cosmic experience, but the discovery of that concept manifests differently for everybody. That message can be found in the lyrics, “It takes a moment / let the stardust settle down / and all your thoughts could be delivered / everybody wears a crown.”
Glass Pony’s debut album Stardust was recorded and mixed by Eddie Hotaling at The Stables in Albany, NY and was mastered by Scott Apicelli at Blue Sky Recording in Delmar, NY. Glass Pony is Chanda Dewey (drums, vocals), Eddie Hotaling (vocals, rhythm guitar) Jeff Picarazzi (bass, vocals) and Greg Pittz (lead guitar). Featured on “Stardust” and multiple tracks on the album is Matt Richards (keys, Formula 5, Annie in the Water).
Star Kitchen, the recent side project from Marc Brownstein, has announced a late-night show at New York City’s Sony Hall on Sunday, December 29 during The Disco Biscuits‘ New Years Eve run.
The band, which also features Danny Mayer (Alan Evans Trio, Eric Krasno Band), Marlon Lewis (Lauryn Hill, John Legend), and Rob Marscher (Matisyahu, Addison Groove Project), will bring their unique brand of funk and improvisation to Sony Hall on Sunday, December 29. The show will take place on place on the Biscuits’ day off in between the second and third nights of their four-night run, while also conveniently falling on night two of Phish‘s new years run, which takes place just a few blocks South at Madison Square Garden.
Following appearances at Electric Forest, High Sierra, Jam Cruise, and The Peach Music Festival, among others, Star Kitchen has been touring hard behind the project, winning fans over at each stop with fun covers, deep improv, and undeniable collaborative energy between all four players. Star Kitchen tends to bring special guests along for the ride when they play, and this show will definitely feature some ace musicians to help add to the mix. The horn section from Trey Anastasio Band—Jennifer Hartswick, Natalie Cressman, and James Casey—will be on hand to add some brass and vocals. In addition, decorated guitarist Eric Krasno will add some six-string firepower to this already stacked performance.
There are surely a few other surprises in store, as you never know who’s going to show up at a Star Kitchen show. Tickets to Star Kitchen at Sony Hall are on-sale now via Ticketmaster. Use the Presale Code “STAR” to grab yours, and make sure to RSVP via the Facebook Event Page for updates.
Boston’s Juniper today premiere their latest single “Concrete Ocean,” a song that tackles a theme of ‘aloneness,’ inspired by bassist Scott Johnson’s transfer to Boston University. The constant sensation of being surrounded by thousands of young adults his age, Johnson was still feeling isolated due to a lack of new friends and connections.
Johnson wrote “Concrete Ocean,” with band members Cam Ayer (lead vocals), Ahren Shreeve (guitar), Alejandro Marin (drums, vocals) and Sebastian Themelis (keys, vocals) aiding in the process throughout, making the track a full team effort in various arrangement aspects.
“The line “Who the fuck talks to me anymore?” in the third verse highlights that even though I would engage in conversation, it wouldn’t be about how I was feeling, or of any profound nature—merely day to day topics.”
“I look down on, the concrete ocean, with no notion, of where I’m going” refers to constantly looking out of my dorm window at the vast city and feeling overwhelmed as to whether I made the right decision to transfer, and further questioning what I was to do/what I want to do with my life now being in a completely new environment, and the calamity of both of those coming together. Feeling like I was drowning, “may it be in loneliness” identifies that this perpetual superficiality of my reality and the loneliness I felt was suffocating.
The end of the track and how it repeats the first two lines was meant to allude to the cyclical nature of my experience in transferring, and how others deal with similar issues, and how it may not be my last time having to undergo a similar experience.
A five piece band who began performing in the Spring of 2017, quickly garnered a small but strong fan base and that summer embarked on their first recording project. A 5 song EP was released in September of 2017, and the group have performed in Brooklyn, Burlington, and various venues around Boston MA in the past two years.
Since formation, Juniper have crafted their sound, which takes on a unique and eclectic energy, while maintaining a strong fluidity and purpose. Juniper derives their influence from the notion that what they have to say matters, that what everybody has to say matters. One’s voice and identity and what they experience transcends time and space, and connecting with people on that level through the medium of music is what Juniper values most.
Syracuse shoe-gazers Trench has announced a series of November dates that sees the band hitting up venues throughout the Northeast. The tour kicks off in the band’s hometown at the legendary Lost Horizon on Nov. 9.
Joining Trench at the Lost Horizon show are Rochester’s The Joke’s on Us, Boston’s reprieve., and Syracuse’s Buggin’ Out and The Same Page. Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. show are available now through Ticketweb. Advanced sale tickets are $10. Tickets the day of the show are $12.
Trench formed in 2015 when Chris Reilly (guitar/vocals) and Roberto Becerra (bass) got together. They were soon joined by Ron Ballweber (guitar) and Dan Sanborn (drums) to round out the band. They released their debut EP Sun Soaked on Flesh and Bone Records in 2016 and followed it up touring with Nothing, Thrice, Basement, and Silversun Pickups.
Their second release, 2018’s genre-spanning Ritual Love has the band visiting spaces that include post-rock, shoegaze, post-hardcore and dream pop. Speaking about the album, Reilly states, “The most important thing when writing music is to be honest and genuine, and I think we accomplished that both musically and lyrically on this record.” Ballweber adds, “We never write a song and say that isn’t ‘us.’ When you write honestly and without a conscious influence or direction then everything you create is sincere.”
Trench is part of a growing Syracuse alternative scene that includes artists such as Mattydale Music Collective, Late Earth, Lucky33, Atkins Riot, Major Player, Lily Grave and Outside Voices. Reilly, speaking to Rochester alternative culture magazine Floated recently said of the scene, “I feel like the community is stronger than it’s been in a long time…It doesn’t feel like a competition. Everyone’s moreso contributing in building a community.”
