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 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.
Madison Square Garden was given a heavy dose of uptempo funk on Saturday September 28 as the entire arena was surging with energy as Fearless Flyers and Vulfpeck brought their A-game to a sold out MSG.
Fearless Flyers, one of Vulfpeck’s many side projects, opened the night. Right out of the gate they came out swinging with heavy bass lines at an incredibly quick pace. All dressed in fighter pilot jumpers, the band was cool and clean as they ripped through each song.
Vulfpeck came out to a roaring arena, its members being announced one by one. They started the set with their incredibly upbeat “Animal Spirits” and went quickly into “Cory Wong.” After each song, the band moved seamlessly around the stage, changing instruments and showing off their incredible versatility.
After several songs, Antwaun Stanley joined the band on stage for “1612” which sent the fans into a frenzy, and appeared to be the climax of the night until the band got the crowd singing the chorus to “Back Pocket,” the intensity roared on for the rest of the night.
Vulfpeck Setlist: Intro, Animal Spirit, Cory Wong, My First Car; Daddy, He Got a Tesla; Smile Meditation, Running Away, Baby I Don’t Know Oh Oh, 1612, Funky Duck, Aunt Leslie, Wait For the Moment, Back Pocket, Beastly, Christmas in L.A.,Dean Town
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.
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.
