On December 12, the Albany Symphony performed works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael Torke, and Viet Cuong. The concert was centered around these composers due to their age; they were all under 30 when the pieces were written.
The conductor, David Alan Miller, held a pre-concert talk where he discussed the Beethoven pieces and talked with Torke and Cuong. In the discussion with Torke, he talks about the inspiration for his piece, Ash. Written in 1988 after his mother’s death, the piece is one of Torke’s characteristic “color pieces”, aptly named for the colors he associates with key signatures due to his synesthesia. The piece is in f-minor, a darker key, to match the title.
Miller’s next interview was with Viet Cuong, a rising young composer. His piece, Extra(ordinarily) Fancy, is a sequel to his 2017 piece, Extra Fancy. The double oboe concerto utilizes multi-phonics, an extended technique on the instrument. He was inspired by Baroque music, specifically Vivaldi. Cuong also talked about his use of Shepard tones. In short, it is an audio illusion that makes the music feel like it is constantly rising. He was inspired by the endless stairs from Super Mario 64. This concert was supposed to premiere a large orchestral work by Cuong, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is now planned for next fall.
The Concert
The concert started with the Overture and finale to Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus ballet. The dramatic beginning is greatly contrasted by the rich melodies. The finale is strikingly similar to Beethoven’s Third Symphony as he used the same melody in that finale as well, a staple of Beethoven.
They next moved onto Torke’s Ash. The piece has an obvious darkness that is aided by the key. There is a lush texture to the piece with many rich harmonies as well. The middle section modulates to A-flat major, also utilizing syncopation to give the piece a different feel. It also utilizes a technique similar to Beethoven. By using octaves and unisons in the strings, it adds intensity and builds tension within the piece to lead to the climax. Beethoven pioneered this technique, and Torke uses it to its full extent.
Photo Credit: Bryan Hainer
The concert then went to Cuong’s Extra(ordinarily) Fancy. The harpsichord shows that Baroque influence that Cuong talked about in his interview. The piece is very conversational, having one oboe be “fancy” and one be “extra fancy”. The use of multi-phonics here is genius as it creates a whole new voice that can mimic the first oboe, but is decidedly different. The conversation between the two soloists is common, but Cuong brings it to a new level using the extended technique.
Photo Credit: Phil Parsons
The concert ended with Beethoven’s First Symphony. As his first symphony, Beethoven builds on the great composers before him: Haydn and Mozart. Written at the turn of the nineteenth century, Beethoven began to break away from the traditional classical form, establishing himself as the preeminent composer in Europe.
For more information on the Albany Symphony and their upcoming events visit their website.
Live music venues in New York such as the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, State Theater in Ithaca and Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo started 2020 with great lineups for the year to come. While walking through Times Square on March 12, however, came the first of many announcements of the Coronavirus and its restrictions that affected every aspect of society since.
Take the 2020 Love Rocks NYC event at the Beacon Theater, for example. The marquee annual music event raises money for a common goal: to help feed New Yorkers who are too sick to cook or shop for themselves and do it through the healing power of live music. With emerging news of COVID-19, the sold out theater restricted attendance to press and artists only, capped at a 300-person maximum. Ticket holders who could no longer attend would use a link to stream the show, a familiar practice that, with the pandemic taking hold, would be the only way to see live music in the foreseeable future.
Love Rocks NYC featured various artists and actors including Rochester, New York native Steve Gadd (Eric Clapton, Paul Simon) on drums for all performances. Highlights of the star-studded evening included special guest performances by Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Dave Matthews, and The Black Crowes. Before closing his three-song set, with Peter Gabriel’s classic “Sledgehammer,” Dave Matthews told everybody, “Now after tonight I have to remind y’all to go home and stay by yourselves, wash your hands, and don’t listen to the President.”
Being inside the theater that night to see the most special guest, Mr. David Letterman, who reunited with Paul Shaffer for the first time since the Late Show ended in May 2015, was a treat for all. Letterman made light of these newly presented restrictions for the live music entertainment world, quoting Tom Petty’s song “Letting You Go.” “It’s a restless world, uncertain times you said hope was getting hard to find.”
Letterman elaborated, “after listening to that song, tonight it occurs to me that when things are hard, harder than they’ve ever been, even more troubled, you have got to look for something positive and one of the great gifts, one of the great blessings of life, honest to God, is live music.” These words continued to echo across the Beacon Theater, and worldwide to this day, as major live music performances have no definitive return.
David Letterman (Beacon Theatre, 3/12/20)
New York State has a rich, vibrant live music scene that immediately reacted to the cancellation of the year’s major music events. Local artists across the State have since found ways to fill the void. Central New York’s John McConnell immediately took to Facebook Live offering interaction with his audience. As McConnell reflects on the overall changes in live performances, he says, “There was a time where you could play a soulful song in a venue and open your eyes to something other than a cell phone in your face. Wallpaper gigs help pay the bills, but do not always feed the soul.”
Another immediate stand out is Jess Novak, who utilized the streaming app Twitch to bring AM and PM live music to the quarantined masses. Some of us found our silver lining at The Gear Factory in Syracuse, being able to collaborate at the creative space with musicians like Ben Shearer, who would normally be on the road. Even though large live music events remained out of question, New York’s outdoor landscape in the spring and summer allowed Colloca Estate and Grace Tyler Estate Wineries to act as venues, so McConnell and Novak could still perform to a live audience, until temperatures brought in the impending “Frost.”
To offset the eventual change in weather, which would end live music outdoors, many local and major musicians alike continued with virtual options, some with a simple twist of fate. In Spring, Phish started “Dinner and a Movie,” a free weekly streaming event. Each week featured an archival release of a live Phish concert with the goal to raise money for their non-profit, The Waterwheel Foundation, towards a food empowerment project. In late September, the Dinner and a Movie series ended with the announcement of Trey Anastasio’s “first-of-its-kind” eight week virtual residency called “The Beacon Jams” at the Beacon Theater.
All eight weeks were free to stream on Twitch and encouraged viewers to donate to the Divided Sky Fund that will focus on delivering quality care and compassionate treatment for those suffering from addiction. Trey has been a major advocate for progressive treatment of addictions since his personal struggle and subsequent recovery in Upstate New York, culminating in this Divided Sky Fund. The community responded by raising over a million dollars, many donors will even receive an autographed print of the event by Artist Jim Pollack and Trey Anastasio. A total of 5,300 copies were signed.
To paint the picture of what has occurred inside the Beacon Theater during its residency you, have to go to Rochester’s live music photographer, Jake Silco. Silco captured the essence of every night with its lit up backdrop in all of its glory – with the band facing brick, opposite of where the crowd would normally be. The empty Beacon Theater seats were alive with full stage lighting intertwined. A new face on screen from Buffalo, NY was pianist Jeff Tanski, he helped Anastasio rehearse for over 150 hours for the Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” shows in a Manhattan Studio in 2015.
Now to the rhythm section that was on site every week who has collaborated with Trey since 1999: Tony Markellis (Bass), Russ Lawton (Drums), Ray Paczkowski (Keyboards) and Cyro Baptista (Percussion, Paul Simon) helped kick the nightly grooves off. It was only appropriate that the whole residency started with an Anastasio solo song titled “Corona,” with its lyrics shouting: “When Corona touches oceans and the judgement comes at last, when all of this over and the truth meets the past.”
The song ends appropriately with a reference that all of us want right now, reiterating “when all of this is over.” As if this wasn’t enough to start the October residency, there was a Sinatra/Beatles studio-like string section who assisted from weeks two through eight. Named on the spot as the “Rescue Squad Strings,” the quartet was comprised of Anja Wood, Rachel Golub, Katie Kresek and Maxim Moston.
During week five, Syracuse native and drummer, Jon Fishman, came down to help resurrect Anastasio’s Ghosts of The Forest composition with Jennifer Hartswick (TAB), Celise Henderson (Lizzo), and Jo Lampert (Joan of Arc, David Byrne) on backing vocals. Ghosts was written as a tribute to Chris Cottrell, Anastasio’s life long friend.
The final musicians that joined for weeks seven and eight were Natalie Cressmann (TAB) on trombone and James Casey (Lettuce) on saxophone, who made the trip to New York from Kauai, Hawaii.
Attached to the Theater at The Beacon Hotel was where I was able to stream the shows as close to the source as possible, with the floor vibrating beneath you. Just as the same Times Square I walked through the day of COVID-19’s arrival, this same city has been subject to a “Story of the Ghost” [town] since. The Upper West side that would usually be flooded with 2,001 fans before and after the show was desolate and many of the performers could be spoken to after each night’s gig. Gone are the days in front of the State Theater in Ithaca being able to speak to Anastasio about his old club dates at The Haunt.
After the October 23 Beacon Jam, I spoke briefly with Anastasio, 6-feet away via a mask of course, on the Broadway street corner about the great Jazz musician Theloinus Monk. I had enveloped a copy of Monk’s Tips For a Gig: 20 Gig Tips From One Of The Greatest Jazz Masters Of All Time by Thelonious Monk for the occasion. When presented with it and his knowledge of Monk he exclaimed,” Yes, of course! Oh I love it!, I will read it! I’ll put it up and tack it on the wall for the next show, alright see ya later”
The following week October 30, to help create a festive vibe of Halloween weekends past on the empty Upper West side a Halloween PhanArt Card.
A quick “Happy Halloween buddy!” to which Anastasio replied on the go, “Thank you my friend!” Jon Fishman also received some PhanArt, with a request if he was planning on staying in NYC for a cover of Derek and the Dominos “Got to Get Better in a Little While.” Fishman’s Facebook posts will show his active political engagements and how in his home state of Maine he has been elected for two three-year-seats on Lincolnville’s Board of Selectmen.
One of Monk’s tips “a genius is the most like himself,” immediately dismisses a request for a cover song, but it could have been appropriate for the band and soulful backing singers to rejoice on Eric Clapton’s lyrics: “Revolution all across the land, just like Sly, You got to take a stand, please don’t hurt nobody, don’t knock nobody down, give them a helping hand to get up off the ground”
Italian illustrator, Moreno Chiacchierra who composed Frank Zappa’s comic art work in 1982 during a tour of the country inspired the art exchanges with Jon and Trey. In the just released What Calls You Home documentary, Anastasio comments on his relationship with Fishman. “So um, I count every minute playing with him as a blessing , I hope it’s me , if one of has to go first, because I don’t want to be on earth without having him to play music with.”
Monk’s tips are debatable as an influence over the course of eight Fridays, “In Rounds” where the band performed more than 150 different songs without a single repeat and not one cover. One major influence on Anastasio is Frank Zappa, especially after the just released 2020 Documentary Zappa. Trey produces the same non-stop work ethic in various compositions. New solo material produced during quarantine at his Upper West Side apartment, just blocks from the Beacon, called Lonely Trip was incorporated in the residency. He also helped The Roots come back to life on the Tonight Show. Anastasio was Jimmy Fallon’s first in studio musical guest since the lock down at Rockefeller .
When Jon Fishman accepted his local Syracuse “SAMMY Lifetime Achievement Winner Award” in 2015 at the Dinosaur BBQ he referenced sneaking out of his Halton Rd. house to make the short trip down “the errant path” to Manley Fieldhouse to see Zappa perform live.
Fishman was spotted last fall in attendance at a metal band show for Cattle Decapitation at Wescott Theater in Syracuse. Now, The Errant Path is a weekly radio show announced by Jon Fishman on Sirius XM. After hosting Bootsy Collins on air in November, his latest December episode amongst various jazz tracks included Frank Sinatra’s “Drinking Again” and John Lennon’s “Mind Games.”
At the 2017 SAMMY AWARDS CNY local, Megan Voss, was the only woman to be honored in its Hall of Fame. She brought her husband, producer, Eric Clapton and drummer Steve Jordan to the event. Like Anastasio who teamed with Relix for Beacon coverage, Jordan just participated as the musical director with them for America’s “Bird Calls” benefit concert – a virtual celebration of the life of Charlie Parker that raised money for the Jazz Foundation of America.
A New York City native, Jordan will be the musical director for the upcoming Play On CBS music special, benefiting racial justice and hunger across the nation. A quick nod to another Syracuse native and fellow Lifetime Achievement award winner in 2017, and Frank Sinatra’s conductor for 10 years, Vincent Falcones. His arrangements have been revisited.
Fishman and Anastasio, alongside other members of Phish, sang acapella on Sinatra’s “Send in the Clowns” during the final moments before midnight at Madison Square Garden, where the band rang in the New Year to start 2020 with its appropriate closing lyrics “Well, maybe next year.”
My grandfather Frank Romano (Falcone Cousin) remembered seeing Vinnie perform in 1948 at the Inn Between Restaurant in Camillus, New York with, “Vinnie on piano, Norm on Bass, and Sal the saxophone player.” Frank (Romano) reflected on Sinatra’s and Falcone performance at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on August 25th, 1975 as well.
Speaking with Saratoga Springs native, Tony Markellis, outside the Beacon Hotel before making the trip back upstate that day, about an infamous Utica gig from the past. I got his input on Monk’s Tips as well.
Markellis, who in his lifetime has seen Jimi Hendrix perform twice in New York State – once at Buffalo City Memorial Auditorium on March 23, 1968 and the other at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadows, New York on August 23, 1968, delivered his esteemed thoughts.
We immediately switched gears to talk about Ray Paczkowski’s playing on the keyboards every night, Markellis said, ” He’s brilliant, I mean his playing is so unlike anybody, he’s kind of playing like Monk in a rock setting that nobody does and he makes it work.”
Tony Markellis (Beacon Hotel 11/21/20)
A brief conversation happened with Paczkowski outside the Beacon, just minutes before he casually walked in and performed on the Phish Classic “You Enjoy Myself.” We spoke about drummer and producer Brady Blade. Packowski played with Brady, Trey, Tim Reynolds, and Tony Hall under the Dave Matthews and Friends Arena tour, that came through Rochester and New York City in the December of 2003. He referenced how great it was collaborating with Brady, but went on to quickly say, “His brother Brian Blade, is a whole ‘nother trip”
soule monde (Onondaga Community College 11/23/13)
Well, Ray certainly knows his stuff because just last week Brian Blade along with Christain McBride and Chick Corea were nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental for a 2021 Grammy. Like Chick Corea, who performed at Onondaga County Community College’s “Legends of Jazz Series” in September 2014, Ray Paczkowski and drummer Russ Lawton have also performed at the Frederick Marvin & Ernst Schuh Recital Hall back in November of 2013. The duo performed outside of the Trey Anastasio Band under the name Soule Monde that operates as a highly funky, Afro beat improvisational keyboard and drum performance.
When James Casey was asked about his interpretations of Thelonius Monk’s tips, he said it was required reading in college. As a drummer I stated “make the drummer sound good” in turn Casey replied “that’s what it’s all about.”
On top of his studies at Berklee was saxophone player Sam Kininger, out of Utica, New York, who was referenced under the Beacon Marquee as well. “I’d watch Sam play every Sunday and Tuesday night, never, ever making my 9 a.m. class on Monday or Wednesday because we were all out there until 2:30, taking it all in. I had learned my vocabulary there.” Markellis also commented about “Uticat” Kininger. “Of Course I know Sam! He’s one of the greats!” Sam Kininger started 2020 live and funky in front of crowds in January and February at Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs. He also performed with Lettuce on November 20, 2019 at the Stanley Theater in Utica.
Sam Kininger (Stanley Theater 11/20/19)
On the final evening of The Beacon Jams in Upstate, NY from October 25, 2002 at the Stanley Theater was reminisced by everyone on stage. Anastasio plays off the band, of a great night where “the plaster fell from the ceiling,” the band was booming and the unison of the crowd “was rocking to the beat of the humanity.”
Via Eliza’s production assistance and the Twitch live stream to an empty theater, under the name “romanoorange,” I was able to get feedback on a night that all of us from Liverpool, NY were in attendance can still remember, the balcony “pulsating to the music.” Drummer Russ Lawton touched on Monk’s Tips and Utica by saying, “Thanks for passing the tips on to me, so great. Of course I love the tip that if you’re not a drummer you still need to count. When you have people grooving with you it’s the best,.UTICA, best rocking show ever!!!”
In light of the trend to give back during COVID-19, perhaps Phish could release the show as an archival release with proceeds going to the Stanley Theater? After all, don’t they owe them for structural damage?
Before heading back Upstate for the winter, just a couple blocks from the 1929 palace for motion pictures and vaudeville (Beacon Theatre), The New York Historical Society is currently running a live exhibit Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution on Bill Graham, one the most influential concert promoters of all time. What would he propose for how live music should be viewed going forward? Maybe testing around the corner at the West 69th Urgent Care that offers three forms of walk in tests for COVID-19 before being able to enter the Beacon? What would the artists who make up the exhibit say?
After Beatlemania, John Lennon celebrated his 31st birthday at The Hotel Syracuse on October 9th 1971, his final live on stage performance was with Elton John at Madison Square Garden on November 28, 1974 He also found a silver lining in his “isolation” only releasing material from The Hit Factory and his home at the Dakota Building.
Roger Waters, who carried on touring to bigger venues like the Carrier Dome created “The Wall” between him and his audience making the restrictions as part of the performance. Perhaps we could utilize the size of the newly redone Carrier Dome with its 50,000-person capacity for a socially distant live concert or continue with the virtual options to help raise money for a cause by revisiting Paul McCartney’s infamous performance at the Carrier Dome on September 23, 2017.
Bruce Hornsby just helped honor our front line workers at Upstate Hospital in Central New York with a virtual concert that raised more than $500,000 in donations. Upstate Foundation reimagines gala with virtual Upstate Strong COVID Relief Benefit Concert featuring Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers Dec. 4.
Maybe the cosmos have the answer, where live performances have never stopped.
“The Sky Church is still here, as you can see,” according to Hendrix at Woodstock. On December 2, 2020, a meteor crashed into Earth’s atmosphere above Central New York where dogsledder captures the meteor on video after an ‘explosive’ boom. The next show at Tully Lake on December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will form “Christmas Star” the first visible “double planet” in 800 years. Like Little Feat’s lyrics “So it seems that the world keeps on turnin’ but so what I don’t doubt it, it just keeps on the move.”
We all have to keep moving to the beat of humanity into 2021.
The penultimate SNL episode for 2020 brought Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band together in Studio 8H for the first time, and their first public performance in four years. This SNL episode also featured Tonight Show musical director Questlove in a sketch on classic versus modern rap.
This week’s episode was hosted by NYC born and raised Timothée Chalamet, who gave a shout out to his mom, who was featured in the 90s sketch Massive Headwound Harry. Chalamet gave a musical interlude during his monologue, talking about his love for New York City, and was joined by Pete Davidson to talk about a Staten Island Christmas.
“Ghosts” was the first song of the night, a track off the recently released Letter To You. For Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s second song, a Christmas lit SNL stage framed an energetic performance of “I’ll See You in my Dreams.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYW-DIG-CV4
Rolling Stone reports E Street Band founding bassist Garry Tallent and violinist Soozie Tyrell had to skip the SNL performance due to COVID-19 protocols. Springsteen tweeted earlier in the week, “Garry and his family are fine as is Soozie, but we thank Jack Daley of the Disciples of Soul for sitting in.”
Despite having a career starting in the 1970s, Springsteen did not appear on Saturday Night Live until 1992, on an episode hosted by Tom Hanks.
Bruce Springsteen last appeared on Saturday Night Live on the 2015 Christmas episode, performing “Meet Me in the City” and “The Ties That Bind.” SNL returns next week with Kristen Wiig and musical guest Dua Lipa.
Each Sunday evening from 7-9pm you’ll find EQXposure on WEQX, featuring two hours of local music from up and coming artists. Tune into WEQX.com this Sunday night to hear new music from NXNES, Sarah King and many more!
WEQX has long been the preeminent independent station in the Capital Region of New York, broadcasting from Southern VT to an ever-expanding listening audience. NYS Music brings you a preview of artists to discover each week, just a taste of the talent waiting to be discovered by fans like you..
This week’s featured artist is NXNES (pronounced ‘Nuns’), from whom you’ll find brilliant song crafting, with each piece of music is clever and well thought out, as it intricatley weaves heavy emotional content across an addictive and appealing set of sounds.
NXNES’ music resonates deep, and is sonically wide, using rumbling low end frequencies and steady beats to leave sonic space for the listener to acclimate to balance of message and entertainment.
The brainchild of Jo-Jo Rose originally from New Bedford, MA who now calls Albany, New York home. Striving to corral the culture’s hearts and minds into logical, self affirming, wellness by way of truth; holding a mirror to society and himself in order to gain a sober perspective of all things. His goal is to magnify and celebrate the greatness of blackness and black culture in an honestly unapologetic way.
For WEQX’s Pearson, “every once in a while an artist comes across that is does something different enough to turn us on our ears, NXNES is that artist. While straddling pop, ambient, and free form, the music is so appealing and then there is the rich story telling, each piece of music tells a clear and concise story, which is exactly what songwriting is all about.”
On this classic Black Sabbath tune. Sarah King adds to the field of great artists who have brought a twist on this brilliant anti-war song. Gov’t Mule, Cake, Ween, and Faith No More come to mind, but none of those bands stripped it down and gave us such a haunting glimpse into exactly what disgust was buried in the fury of the lyrics and harmony.
Sarah King’s acoustic rendition is chilling, and cuts to core of the song, a treatment so honest and pure that it is as powerful as the original.
Brother Kody debuts today with “This is Right,” the first solo original music from Eddie Hotaling, guitarist and vocals for Albany’s Glass Pony. With a talented group of musicians lined up on the album, the solo indie-folk/rock project provides an outlet for music written and released as a result of quarantining this year.
Included on “This is Right” are Scott Apicelli (drums), Drew Costa (rhodes) and Ominous Seapods‘ Tom Pirozzi (bass) who help bring this song to life. A song about the day Hotaling’s sister got engaged, his (now) brother-in-law invited the family and friends down to Queens to be there for the surprise. “I am grateful that my sister married somebody who cares about her the way she deserves and I was inspired to write this song about that day.”
The name Brother Kody comes from Hotaling’s family dog, a Siberian Husky that he raised from a puppy when he was younger. The pup grew to be a part of the family, and the moniker Brother Kody stuck. Hotaling shares his thoughts on the release of “This is Right”:
I decided to lead off with this song just because it was recorded first. Originally, I had planned on doing a full album instead of just a single. This is one of the songs that was going to be on the album but I wanted to give it to my sister and her husband as a wedding gift so as the wedding got closer I decided to go into the studio to get it down first with the intention of starting the rest after. Things got busy and I kept pushing working on the album back but I had this song pretty much done so I decided to just release singles as I finished them instead of trying to get them all done before putting anything out.
“This is Right” was originally recorded at Blue Sky Recording in Delmar, NY in the fall of 2018, and free time in 2020 gave Hotaling a chance to add pieces to the arrangement and finish it up.
Artwork for the album is by talented Irish artist Mairéad Hannon, who Hotaling met on a trip to Galway, Ireland in 2018. “She has a very interesting style and I’m very grateful to her for letting me use this piece to go along with the song.”
Hotaling handles vocals on “This is Right,” as well as acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel, percussion, and handled recording, production, mix and mastering of the track. For more info visit Brother Kody’s website.
A surprise for anyone who caught any of the eight weeks of The Beacon Jams – “What Calls You Home” – a 17-minute short documentary featuring interviews and behind the scenes footage was released on Thursday, December 10. .
Created by the MSG Entertainment team, “Whatt Calls You Home” features exclusive performance highlights and in-depth conversations with Trey Anastasio and members of the production who helped bring the virtual residency to life.
The Beacon Jams was an overwhelming success – held at the historic Beacon Theatre, Trey along with his band and several special guests performed 151 original songs (with no repeats) and more than 20-hours of live music. Over eight weeks, hundreds of thousands of fans tuned in for the live streams, and in turn helped raise $1 million in donations for the Divided Sky Fund, part of Phish’s WaterWheel Foundation, which will help fund a drug treatment center in Vermont.
“What Calls You Home” is a fascinated look at how this unique residency came together at such a critical time in the music industry and across the nation and world, a true tribute to the power of live music.
Read NYS Music’s reviews of each weekend of The Beacon Jams here.
NYC crooner Paul Loren today releases his new holiday song, “Hold On To Christmas,” with an accompanying video is a wistful love letter to NYC. The song fits the holiday season this year just right, a gentle and passionate voice asking us to hold on, something we’ve all needed to do throughout this hectic 2020.
Filmed walking throughout the city (socially-distanced of course), Loren strolls among Christmas trees, holiday decorations and ice skaters, reminding us that the simple pleasures in life can fill us with the holiday spirit.
A native New Yorker, Paul was raised on a rich legacy of soul, classic pop, as well as the Great American Songbook, and in those musical idioms he feels most at home. Loren takes elements from early R&B, jazz and Brill Building pop, crafting his music with an ear towards timelessness.
Loren released “We’ll be Together Again” in July, and previously his song “Gonna Take a Little Time”- filmed at an indoor shuffleboard hall in Brooklyn complete with tiki drinks and bowling shirts – premiered on Parade.com in 2019. Loren has performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and for Jennifer Lopez at her birthday gala.
Leading a new generation of soulful crooners, Paul Loren is a singer, songwriter, producer and consummate entertainer.
I started singing at 3 years old along with the little 45rpm records my mom would play and start ed playing piano at 4 years old. The voices I remember most and identify with are Ray Charles, Frankie Valli, Sam Cooke, Sinatra, Aretha, Otis, and Tony Bennett. Growing up in New York, Billy Joel was also a big influence.
Paul Loren
The last few years have been filled with a series of breakthroughs for Paul as he performed on his first National Tour in support of Brendan James, opened for “The Temptations” as part of Stamford’s Summer Concert Series “Wednesday Night Live”, and sold out Joe’s Pub at the Public in NYC multiple times.
Back in June, photographers working with NYS Music, with no live music to shoot, began looking at the venues we hold so dear. These independent music venues across New York State are in a battle for survival with the COVID-19 pandemic still not waning and relief held up in Congress.
Over the summer and fall we saw venues closed for the foreseeable future, including The Jazz Standard in Manhattan. Venues are rallying their supporters to help as best they can at this time, including The Palace Theatre in Albany offering up a stream of moe. on Friday, December 11.
Venues in New York and beyond are stuck in limbo, but they aren’t gone – not for good – so long as we can find resolution and relief at the state and national levels. The Heroes Act has passed in the House of Representatives, and there is still a chance for a relief bill to be passed before the end of December.
With the winter setting in, venues will continue to go virtual for live performances, waiting for the time that we can bid this great pause farewell and welcome crowds back.
We start this month’s photo gallery series in Central New York at The Stanley Theatre. Visit NIVA to find out how you can help venues across New York, and the country. We need to #saveourstages and preserve live music for when this is over.
Named for Chilean street dogs, the music of Quiltro is a tribute to the street dogs living in the Andes village of Farellones. Hearing howls during nights spent in those high Chilean mountains is birthplace of Quiltro’s music.
The trio collaborated with Eric Segalstad at Sabi Sound in Colchester, VT to record their debut, which has the feel of a soundtrack for a dystopian sci-fi film that has yet to be made.
The emotional journey found through the album will set you at ease, wake you up, drive you into a groove and leave you looking to replay the debut immediately after. Peaks and valleys are found throughout the nine-track album, fitting perfectly into the ups and downs of the real world.
Quiltro brings together a range of sounds, influences, and emotions through band members Mark Taylor (guitar, keyboard), Mike McKinley (bass) and JD Hoffmann (drums), creating a psychedelic wall of sound that brings to mind Neal Casal’s Circles Around the Sun. Quiltro is quite simply excellent modern psych rock.
The tracks flow into one another, with an overall ambient, lo-fi feel – with a touch of Reznor & Ross sprinkled in. “Knight Riding” channels Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine,” while “Apollo” has a haunting presence in the vein of Lespecial.
Bassist McKinley, a native of Albany, sets the tone on “Dark Matter” with a driving bass intro, then shifts into a melodic groove on “In Reverse” with Mark Taylor’s ambient guitar shining. The two final tracks, “Antilla” and “Field of Cities,” build up slowly from their valleys to peaks. You don’t realize you were climbing until you summit. The journey that Quiltro’s debut takes you on is one that Circles Around the Sun fans will find easily accessible and keep you coming back another round.
From La Bamba to Kiko, having gone Disney and recording a holiday album, Los Lobos has been around for nearly half a century and continues to break new ground with their blend of Tex-Mex, country, R&B, rock and roll, and traditional Mexican songs. Louie Pérez, drummer, guitarist and lyricist for Los Lobos has faced the struggle of the music industry shutdown, but looks forward to “Still Home for the Holidays” livestream from Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, CA on Friday, December 11 at 10pm ET/7pm PT.
In 2019, Los Lobos released Llegó Navidad, a Latin Christmas album recorded in Los Lobos’ home in East Los Angeles, featuring Spanish-language holiday songs. Translating as “Christmas in here,” the first holiday release from Los Lobos continued to demonstrate the versatility of a band well-versed in mixing rock n’ roll with blues, folk, soul and traditional Mexican music. Instead of relying on over-played seasonal standards for Llegó Navidad, Los Lobos and friends researched and collected nearly 150 different traditional (and not-so-traditional) Christmas songs from North, Central and South America.
Los Lobos (L to R) – Louie Pérez, Conrad Lozano, David Hidalgo, Steve Berlin, César Rosas
Pérez talked with NYS Music over the weekend about the current state of writing with bandmate David Hidalgo, how venues and bands are faring at this time, and the legacy of Ritchie Valens.
Pete Mason: Louie, thanks for speaking with NYS Music today. How have the past nine months been for you and Los Lobos?
Louie Pérez: We’re just kind of dealing, have had quite a break you know, I guess this break is kind we’ve all been needing for a while, but what a terrible way to get it.
I’m dying to get back on the road again, but it’s just kind of very surreal at this point. It seems like a life I had a long time ago. It’s only been seven or eight months now I guess. I don’t know what to expect, that’s another conversation we can have another time, but I don’t know what the future of live music is going to be. It can be different that’s for sure. I’m hoping that we can still get some solutions for next year so that we can get back to live music, especially because there’s only so much we can stream, I think, at the end of the day.
I don’t know what the future of love music is going to be really. Nobody’s got an answer yet and hope we have some in the spring because with a vaccine out there, there’s got to be some ways we can have shows. I don’t really know what the face of live music will look like in the future. I can’t see it being back to our old normal.
There’s love for the musicians out there, I think their careers evaporated overnight. For myself, I was leaving on a Friday morning for Colorado, we were gonna do a run of shows for a week there. And at 10 o’clock in the evening my wife walked in and says “I’ve been watching the news all night. You better check with your roadmaster but look what’s going on.” I was scheduled to leave at 6 in the morning so I called our booking agent and he called back and it all went away. It was all gone. That was the last thing I heard about that.
When something like this happens, it feels so cataclysmic, you can’t help the banality of the whole vibe as just so, so strange. It just feels like it’s the end of a time concert, especially for musicians. It’s been really hard time for a lot of musicians, we’re okay, we’re getting by, we’re all right, and I’m glad my wife and my kids are safe. And, and that’s all we can do at this point.
PM: Working with up and coming musicians from across New York State, we see it, we hear it and know the reality some bands are facing: looking into other alternatives, taking studio time, hoping to stay afloat, until we can have music back.
LP: Yeah, it’s good to know that the community, the sense of community is there for musicians. I think all of us in general, we just put our nose to the grindstone. We do what’s right in front of us, as musicians, we get a gig here, a musician gets a studio gig, or a guy gets a road gig for a couple of weeks. However it works, we do what’s in front of us, and there’s some crosstalk obviously, between us, but to know that when things get as bad as it has gotten, that there is a community that we can look to and there is support among all of us to try to help each other out. That’s the good thing, the only thing that I think that we can skim off the top of this pandemic, is that we realize that, that there is that sense of family and community. Especially at a time where we’re united, it’s just so at risk of disappearing lately. Let’s see what happens after, after February.
PM: I’m hopeful for what happens in January, because we’ll be able to get some relief. So we have that and a lot of local music venues are going to be able to breathe a little bit easier with the passage of the RESTART Act, but they’re not out of the water even then. Hopefully there’s more long term change. So all the local musicians can make it because big bands don’t become big bands overnight. They start out small.
LP: Yeah, that’s right. I was just reading a pretty interesting piece. Not a lot of revelations and things that we know as musicians. This is a piece in The New Yorker a couple months ago that is a pretty good piece to talk about, art in the digital age and really kind of the nuts and bolts of what really goes on in the gig economy as far as musicians go, and how really, a lot of us are very fortunate and a lot of us are just in there just trying to get by.
PM: So with your holiday stream on Friday, Los Lobos researched the songs to include on your holiday album Llegó Navidad. How did the Christmas album come together and what will we hear on the stream this week?
LP: Well, it’s the first time we’ve ever done a Christmas record. In all of the years that we’ve been together. We just celebrated this past Thanksgiving 47 years as a band. So the first time we ever can say, ‘Well, this is way overdue.’ And then in looking around for a studio to record it in, we discovered a studio in East Los Angeles where we grew up. So we’re really going home for the holidays on this record, which would throw a really interesting spin on this thing, and we spent a good part of a few months in the studio in East Los Angeles, literally around the corner from where my mom would pay our utility bills at the 1st Street grocery store. That’s how personal it was, and it was great.
We had a couple people, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, do a search and curate so we can get all the songs together. We spent a few days just going through material and ended up with the songs, it’s a Pan-Latin record. At first I gave this a lot of thought of all the Mexican Christmas songs but it just was stunning how many songs and Christmas music there is all over the place, all over Latin America so we have quite a few to choose from. and that’s how it went together and it was really well received and we toured behind it around the holidays last year.
We just got this idea that everybody’s been doing these festivals online and we’ve thought ‘Well, let’s do one ourselves.’ We got all our friends together and we’ll put something together and we’ll have a bunch of bands contribute songs and it’ll lead to us headlining the live stream. We’ll do a lot of the Christmas songs so we can pepper in a lot of popular songs as well from throughout the catalog.
It’s quite a lineup. We’ve got Southern Avenue, John McCauley of Deer Tick, Greyhounds, and Los Cenzontles, which is a great group from the Bay Area. They have a cultural center where a lot of young kids come to learn about music with their culture, which is Mexican culture so they’re going to do some traditional songs. So we got all this rock music, we get some traditional music thrown in there, and we have a group that is going to be doing some traditional music but more electrified, so it’s a great mix. A friend of ours, Gilbert Guerrero, he’s going to be our emcee. They’re really looking forward to it. It’s been fun putting it together, and of course I have to mention that it had some hair pulling, and here we are down to the wire. It’s gonna be fun.
PM: For Eastcoasters, where is Solana Beach in relation to Los Angeles?
LP: South L.A., on the way to San Diego, it’s a great vibe. It’s kind of a roadhouse venue. And it’s where people just kind of show up. The Rolling Stones actually did an unannounced show there a few tours back. It’s a really great room that people love and it sounds great. We did one there and they have a good crew and facility that worked with our people to get this livestream happening and try to make it as seamless as possible, because it is not easy doing these live streams. And if they’re live, if you get some kind of dropout somewhere, there’s nothing you can do about it live, like live television used to be in the ‘50s
PM: There’s a raw aspect to it that I enjoy because we see a lot of local bands that are attempting it, and I think they were the first to jump in because they were more needed, and the bands that are up a level and more established, they have their cache of videos they can they can air and plan something more professional and take care of more folks because they can bring in lighting and sound.
LP: These gigs that we’ve been doing virtual, we’ve been doing some since July. We did Philadelphia Folk Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and it’s a weird thing. We show up at the studio, we do a 45-minute set for this gig, and then we do 30 minutes separate for some other gig, and then we do four songs for this; we pretty much work from two o’clock in the afternoon to eight or nine o’clock in the evening. And by that time we’ve already done half a dozen gigs. Then we just set them all up. We used to joke about phoning it in and that’s exactly what we’re doing now. That’s what everybody’s doing.
PM: You’ve been writing with David Hidalgo since high school. How has your writing evolved, particularly in the last year, given that you may not see him as often. Has there been any alteration to your writing method?
LP: As far as the pandemic is concerned, in COVID times, it just doesn’t exist, we haven’t really worked on anything. To begin with because we work and tour so much, we work on so many other different projects that we can write on demand when we have a new record, then at that point, we go into writing mode. I’d like to say we’re writing all the time, but the fact that we work so much, the notion of going back to the hotel room to write a song, it’s just nuts. You can’t do it. And then to get home for such a short amount of time, we just completely immerse ourselves in family and things that we need to do. So we rarely get a chance to write songs when we’re not making a new record.
But in the years sinceHow Will the Wolf Survive?, the idea of sitting together in a room and writing together, it just doesn’t happen that way, we do it by correspondence now. It’s just unnecessary because of the fact that our time is at such a premium. I am the lyricist and he’s the musical component; yes, we split up the chores that way, but there’s more dialogue than that. To call him just the musical side and my separate lyrical side, that would be discounting ourselves, because we are songwriters any way you look at it, and ultimately we do go through everything, before we present it to the band. That’s the only thing I think that’s changed over the years, it’s just a logistical thing because we just don’t have the freedom of time. I can’t think of anything that I enjoy more than sitting down and working on a song and writing, but you just can’t get to them.
PM: I did want to ask about La Bamba, because I, like many others, discovered you because of the movie. I think what caught me off guard more was not only that Ritchie Valens was so young, but he was very influential and you guys really kept his voice alive. I don’t know if we’d be listening to his music as much if the movie hadn’t been made, since for a generation, that was the first introduction to his brief but important career. Los Lobos continue to celebrate his music and Chicano music. How do you look at Valens after all this time?
LP: Rolling way back to when we were kids, we were into music. We would buy 45s and I just remember that “La Bamba” was always part of that stack of 45s that showed up at like a backyard party or something. I didn’t really understand as a young kid or an early teen the importance of who this was, until probably about the time the band formed in 1973. He went hand in hand with this Mexican-American renaissance, a Chicano movement of us Mexican-American kids who grew up here, were born here and pretty much homogenized to American culture, that we had this renaissance, where we all kind of discovered our culture.
Ritchie Valens was the musical thing that just goes along with the traditional Mexican music and floated to the top, so everybody discovered a lot of things about musical heritage. He was an important figure then, and after about 10 years of being a band that played traditional Mexican music, we found ourselves playing electric music again in the punk rock clubs in Hollywood, and “Come on, Let’s go” and “La Bamba” were no brainers, they just became part of the set. Of course, when we would play it back then, in punk rock clubs in basements of Hollywood neighborhoods, we’d crank it up and we played it way too fast.
What finally happened was, we got offered by Ritchie Valens’ family, they presented the idea of making a biopic movie on his life. They asked for us and we said OK, we went into the studio and the rest is history – a traditional Mexican song became the number one hit around the world. It’s quite a statement, and at the same time, that your band became a household word. Now Ritchie is where he deserves to be and what we all continue to do is try to keep that legacy alive. He’s as important a figure as Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, all of those; he just fits right into the short 17 years that he lived.
