Throughout the month of January Funktional Flow has been holding down a Wednesday night residency at Buffalo Iron Works, with each week bringing a different theme. After hosting luau and funk nights, January 23, was billed as an unplugged evening.
The amps may not have been turned up to 11, but the energy in the room sure was. Be sure to check out the last night of the run on January 30, when they close with a Flow-and-Friends set, featuring support from Sentinel 6.
Ska has come a long way since its origins in the Caribbean in the 50’s. The upbeat, syncopated style of music has caught on around the globe, adapting to the cultural nuances in places far and wide. It has spilled Upstate with Some Ska Band and their 9-track debut release, It’s Going Down, which shows off how adaptable ska music can be.
The opening track “Forty Thieves” was inspired by author and sax player, Charles Benoit, who spent time teaching in Kuwait and absorbing all the cultural influences of the city. The instrumental ditty pulls from classic literature for its title and snippets of Middle-Eastern-style riffs.
Everything I know about ska, I learned from Benoit, a ska-aficionado (or ska-ficionado, if you will). Benoit is one of eight members of the Rochester-based band. Mary-Jude Vacca and Shad Froman take on the vocals. Will Browar keeps the beat and hits things. On guitars are Joe Sims (bass), David Keller (lead), and Miles Pierce (rhythm). Joining Benoit in the brass section is Neil Pierce on trumpet. After years of playing originals (and some songs originally by other artists), the eight of them made their way into the studio to lay it down.
The title track “It’s Going Down” is another little gem, that demonstrates their musical prowess. The deep, heavy rhythm creates a perfect backdrop to showcase Vacca’s rich, sonous voice. The “Obligatory Drinking Song” is a sing-a-long fan favorite at live shows. The album wraps up with an instrumental version “American Skalines,” a song that usually includes a spoken-word script when played live.
Whether you’re a ska-ficionado or a newbie to the genre, you’ll get a kick out of It’s Going Down.
Key Tracks: Forty Thieves, End Of The World, It’s Going Down
The popularity of Vulfpeck, a low-volume funk band is on the rise. Founded in 2011, the group started in venues holding only 3,000 people. Today, Vulfpeck has announced an upgrade to a one-night-only performance at the worlds’ most famous arena, Madison Square Garden.
Vulfpeck will be headlining the New York City show on Saturday, Sept. 28, alongside The Fearless Flyers, a side project featuring bassist, Joe Dart. The debut will be the quartet’s second-ever live performance.
Tickets to see Vulfpeck at Madison Square Garden will be available Friday, February 1 at noon through Ticketmaster. They will also be available to purchase on Saturday, Feb. 2 at Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and the Beacon Theatre box offices.
Syracuse punk band Bridge Under Fire is doing the unorthodox. They are releasing four new songs from their new EP through four different record labels. NYS Music is premiering the L.R.S. Records single, “Self-Unemployed.” Check it out below.
Bridge Under Fire is a Syracuse-based punk/hardcore band with a discography that includes two full-length albums, two EPs, a split 7″ single and several compilation contributions. The new untitled EP has been released in four parts across four labels and through four different media outlets.
Syracuse labels, L.R.S. Records, Aux Records, Moron Manor Media, and Counter Culture Cassette Company each released one song from the band today.
Band leader and L.R.S. Records owner, Mark Turley, described the project this way:
After releasing our last full length in 2017, the band was discussing other options than just writing more songs to be an EP or album. We decided to write singles rather than songs that fit together content-wise onto an album. The results were interesting and different than what weâve done so far. Through L.R.S. we had these relationships with the other labels and thought this would be a different way to release our music.
Mark Turley
To celebrate the release of the new music, Bridge Under Fire will host a show at Spark Contemporary Art Space in Syracuse on Feb. 22. Also on the bill that night is Sympathy Band, Talk Wrong and Dimladia. For more information on this show, visit promoter After Dark Presents’ website. To check out more of Bridge Under Fire’s work, visit their Bandcamp page here.
Turley also hosts a weekly podcast called Long Range Sarcasm (L.R.S.) with Nick Oliver. It is available on iTunes and Google Podcasts. The podcast features news and music from the L.R.S. stable of artists as well as other Central New York musicians.
Bridge Under Fire’s brand new single, “Self-Unemployed” is available below as a NYS Music exclusive release. Check it out.
Over the course of the past year, The Pixies recorded an upcoming record at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hurley, near Woodstock. Known for working with diverse and legendary artists including, The Band, Herbie Hancock, Fleet Foxes, and Sufjan Stevens, the studio is housed within the bones of the former St. John’s Church, built in 1896. Once used for hallowed prayer and song, the structure of the building now lends itself to create the ideal acoustic environment to support the Pixies’ experimentation with sound and dynamics.
Due in September, the record is produced by Tom Dalgety (2016’s Head Carrier). Fans will be able to take a special journey into the history of the band and the making of the still untitled album through a 12-part podcast, titled “Past Is Prologue.” Hosted by New York Times best-selling author Tony Fletcher and produced by Signal Co. No1, the episodes will begin June 27, and will air weekly until the album drops.
Fletcher, having written popular biographies on The Who’s Keith Moon and R.E.M., is inviting listeners inside the recording process. He says, “Thanks to the unprecedented access, we can all experience how their magic gets tracked, taped and transmitted.”
Commenting on the scope of the podcast series, Signal Co. No1 co-founder Michael Simons shared, “While the emphasis of the podcast will be on the creation of the new album and looking forward, we were very interested, from a story perspective, in the way history has shaped who the Pixies are, and how and what they are creating now, how the past creates the present.”
Watch the trailer, here.
As if it wasn’t enough, the band will be going on tour with Weezer as co-headliner. You can find them coming to New York on March 12 at Madison Square Garden in NYC, and March 14 at the Times Union Center in Albany.
Girl Blue has a passion for music, vocals and a stage presence to draw you in – listen. The stage name of Arielle O’Keefe, Girl Blue is one of the Capital District’s emerging singer-songwriters, alongside peers Sean Rowe, Sydney Worthley, Sawyer Fredericks, and Moriah Formica. On Thursday, January 24, she will open for Dar Williams at Cohoes Music Hall.
O’Keefe’s drive for music goes back to her childhood in Bayshore, Long Island, where she started playing piano at age 5 and guitar at age 12. From this, she sees music adhered to her identity, throughout her life. “It’s sort of a raging ambition inside me, it feels like all I have is this thing to work on.” After a move to Dallas during high school, she headed north to New York City and finally to Albany, to move her career forward. She chose her stage name, Girl Blue, from two musical inspirations – the Nina Simone album, Little Girl Blue, which she listened to a great deal growing up, and the Stevie Wonder song “Girl Blue,” where the character described was much like Arielle.
Girl Blue received broad exposure when her first single, “Fire Under Water,” was picked up by Spotify for New Music Friday, and was eventually placed in a Las Vegas tourism commercial. From there it went viral, racking up over 2.5 million plays. This led Spotify to pick up her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” a stripped down version of the original. “I would play with vocals and looped them along with one or two guitar lines. The song is so emotional and almost creepy. I wanted to do something that was really broken down and make it a little more epic, so I covered it with just vocals and guitars, then went in and produced the final version.”
When O’Keefe is on stage, she commands attention to her performance. “When I was younger, I went to different types of venues, hip-hop showcases and singer-songwriter performances and saw singers that you have-to-listen-to, instead of being forced to listen. I do that for myself, making it so that people have to lean in.” After 14 years, this has developed into Girl Blue’s remarkable stage presence.
A range of vocal inspirations – Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack, Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos – as well as comparisons to Carole King, Laura Marling, Bonnie Raitt and Jeff Buckley, give you an idea of the powerhouse-vocals and songwriting Girl Blue has in her skill set. She looks towards Frank Ocean as one of the defining voices of the current generation. “He has a voice with character and is a talented singer, who has that intangible quality to translate emotion through his voice. He makes people feel, and that will stand the test of time. His style has been copied over and over already; that says a lot if everyone wants to be Frank Ocean.”
Last May at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, Girl Blue performed as part of Capitol Records Live, an event bringing together a half-dozen local artists to take on the songs of The Beatles’ – The White Album and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Singing “Glass Onion,” “Blackbird,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Getting Better,” her performance stood out among a lineup that included Wild Adriatic, Eastbound Jesus and Let’s Be Leonard.
Currently, Girl Blue is recording with Dan Dekalb and Jimi Woodul from Dark Honey, with plans to release a stripped down album in May, and the full album slated for later this year.
On March 2nd, Girl Blue will perform at The Linda in Albany with Belle Skinner and Zan Strumfield, but first, she opens for Dar Williams at Cohoes Music Hall on Thursday, January 24. Tickets are still on sale.
Girl Blue posts monthly exclusive songs and behind the scenes content online on Patreon. Click here to subscribe and support her work.
Japanese Breakfast had the crowd dancing, jumping and swaying as they shared the band’s enthusiasm on January 18 at Brooklyn Steel. Michelle Zauner’s solo project has developed a fanbase eager to dive into the group’s experimental blend of shoegaze, indie pop and rock. Joined by drummer and producer Craig Hendrix, Deven Craige on bass and her husband Peter Bradley on guitar, this tour features an expanded live ensemble, complete with NYC-based string section Quartet 121, Aaron Rockers on trumpet and Adam Schatz on sax.
Zauner has a persona influenced by Bjork and other animated performers. Walking out in a whimsical white dress with coils of fabric attached, her engaging and infectious attitude transformed the stage into her own personal, musical playground. Kicking off with “Machinist” using modulation effects to augment her voice, the set came alive with colorful lights and large visuals as they went into “In Heaven.”
The band’s energy was dynamic, and Zauner shifted from guitarist to full frontwoman as she sang about lust and indifference to the ethereal, marching groove of “Road Head.” The crowd journeyed from high energy, endorphin-releasing rhythms to the somber admissions of heartache in “Boyish,” a haunting dream-like song, which wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Twin Peaks.
When 2016’s Psychopomp was released, Zauner was dealing with the grief of her mother’s death. She continued to channel her thoughts on love, heartbreak and trauma in 2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet. At Brooklyn Steel, she gave us her personal story, alongside projected collages of old family photos and videos during a stripped-down acoustic performance of “Till Death.”
The night began with a couple of strong openers. Meg Duffy of Hand Habits played an electric solo set blending vocals, effects and guitar prowess into passionate, sometimes melancholic soundscapes and melodies. Things got moving with Cincinnati-based WHY?, as rapper and singer Yoni Wolf led the band through a tight, eclectic mix of alternative rock and hip hop.
Japanese Breakfast has seen a lot of activity recently including headlining tours, festivals and new releases. The band has also been busy scoring the soundtrack for “Sable,” an upcoming open-world video game, due out later this year. Zauner’s ability to transform her raw emotions into extroverted performances continues to attract and delight new audiences.
Boston based alternative rock band, Guster launched their 2019 tour in support of their new release, Look Alive at Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park, NY on January 16. Supporting Guster was Burlington Vermont singer Henry Jamison who had a February 8 released album, Gloria Duplex.
Guster set list: One Man Wrecking Machine, Terrified, Stay With Me Jesus, Diane, Hello Mr. Sun, Backyard, Architects and Engineers, Look Alive, Manifest Destiny, Doin It By Myself, Come Downstairs and Say Hello, Gangway, Overexcited, I Spy, Satellite, Long Night, Demons, Mind Control, Amsterdam, Barrel of a Gun, Hard Times (audience choice), Hang On, What You Call Love, Happier.
On Thursday January 17 The Revivalists closed a sold-out two night run at The Beacon Theatre, bringing that sweet New Orleans soul to Broadway. The high energy critically acclaimed rock band had a packed house on their feet, and in the palm of their hand, as they moved through new and old songs for the entire night. From the first verse of the popular new song , “All My Friends,” the audience was lured to get down with each of the eight band members.
It’s actually hard to believe that everyone in Manhattan didn’t hear this show. Guitarists Zack Feinberg, two-drummer-setup Andrew Campanelli and Paulet “PJ” Howard, pedal steel player Ed Willams, bassist George Gekas, saxophonist Rob Ingraham and keys and trumpet player Michael Girardot incorporated the twang from pedal steel, a rich guitar sound, NOLA style horns to roar a full Rock n Roll sound – shaking the hollowed halls of the Beacon Theatre. The extremely talented lead singer, David Shaw made this sold out audience get out of there seats and sing every lyric at the top of their lungs.
David Shaw is one of the top frontmen in music today; a full package blend of entertainer and musician, with such a powerful voice and meaningful lyrics. He commands and manipulates the audience with ease, having even the casual fan singing their hit song, “Wish I Knew You”. He shined on a cover of The Rolling Stones “Miss You,” adding his own style and sound to the classic. It was a joy to see Shaw perform from a place of joy and share that with a captive audience.
The Revivalists are a hard working band that embody a direction that music deserves to be going in. Selling out two nights at the historic Beacon Theatre proves they are well on there way to achieving that. I highly recommend their new album Take Good Care and really look forward to seeing where this band goes next.
