NYS Music 202​0

Category: News

  • SLA faces lawsuit by NYC Venues and Bars Over New Guidelines

    Angered that the State Liquor Authority (SLA) created new guidelines last week in regards to live music and ticketed events, establishments have teamed up to file a lawsuit.

    SLA lawsuit

    According to the SLA’s website, venues and bars cannot hold ticketed events, karaoke and other live entertainments. They claim that an establishment is allowed to have “incidental live music,” but it cannot be ticketed or advertised.

    “Only incidental music is permissible at this time. This means that advertised and/or ticketed shows are not permissible. Music should be incidental to the dining experience and not the draw itself. All other forms of live entertainment, such as exotic dancing, comedy shows, karaoke etc., are not permissible currently regardless of phase.”

    via SLA website

    To many establishments, they feel these new guidelines will affect business drastically. According to the lawsuit, these rules restrict “free speech.”

    “Despite the fact that coronavirus is not transmitted via sound waves, the SLA just decimated already struggling businesses. This rule prohibits lawfully operating establishments from advertising the entertainment that is lawfully available: to wit, a ban on advertising of music at food service establishments. This constitutes a content-based restriction on free speech,” the lawsuit states.

    The lawsuit was filed with the support of the New York Independent Venue Association. Forming this past summer, NIVA has been on the forefront of the #SaveOurStages movement. Their mission was and still is to get financial support from Congress to the industry. They represent over 100 independent music venues including The Tralf, Littlefield, Birdland Jazz Club in Manhattan and Buffalo Iron Works in western New York.

    The new guidelines appeared not too long after multiple raves throughout NYC got busted for illegally selling liquor and disobeying the social distancing rule.

    Bill Crowly, a spokesperson for SLA told Gothamist that large gatherings such as these can be very dangerous.

    “These high-risk gatherings would create exactly the situation we are trying to avoid, where people congregate, mingle, and create congestion at points of ingress and egress,” Crowly said.

    On the side of the restaurant/bar industry, a manager, Kim, at Littlefield said that its been a hard time reopening and that costumers have to respect that.

    “Nightlife is so vital here—I don’t know why else people would move to New York, and I feel like it’s going to die. We’re holding out as long as we can with whatever aid we can get. But this is going to change the whole landscape of nightlife in New York,” said Kim.

  • Hamilton Leithauser Announced Virtual Record Release Party

    Hamilton Leithauser announced his record release party will be held on a virtual platform for his upcoming record, Live! at Café Carlyle LP. The record release party is taking place on September 12, at 8PM EST.

    Hamilton Leithauser is an american singer-songwriter best known for being the lead vocalist of the American indie rock band The Walkmen. He is also widely known for his solo work like “A 1000 Times” and “Here They Come” His newest record, Live! at Café Carlyle LP, was recorded at New York City’s landmark Café Carlyle in January 2020. The Café Carlyle is known for being a luxurious, mural-lined cabaret venue at the Carlyle Hotel. It’s a high end establishment with a dress code and is known for having many celebrity appearances and originally opened in 1955.

    The record release party will be broadcasted from Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY where Hamilton Leithauser will be performing the album. Levon Helm Studios was established in 1975 and is famously known as an american studio and venue founded by Levon Helm who is widely known as the drummer and one of the vocalists in The Band who played Woodstock back in 1969. Tickets to the record release show can be bought here are available now and are $15 now and $20 on the day of the show. 

    For more information visit Hamilton Leithauser’s website.

  • Acclaimed Record Producer Ian Brennan to Release Inspiring Album “Who You Calling Slow?”

    Grammy award-winning music producer and lauded field-recording trailblazer Ian Brennan will release his most personal album to date featuring the Sheltered Workshop Singers’ debut album, “Who You Calling Slow?”, on Friday, September 18.

    Brennan is renowned for scouring the world in musically underrepresented regions to document singers in an uninhibited, authentic fashion. His most acclaimed recordings include artists such as Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project, and Malawi Mouse Boys. Brennan’s latest project “Who You Calling Slow?” brings him closest to home as he collaborates for the first time with his older sister, Jane — who has Down syndrome — along with her fellow workshop companions at a Bay Area adult-care facility. 

    Ian Brennan

    With Brennan’s father on hand for this cherished experience as he battled stage-four cancer (and ultimately passed just two months after the recording was complete), an unparalleled recording session took place that the world now has the privilege to hear. A diverse group of over 20 people participated in “Who You Calling Slow?,” ranging in age from early-twenties to sixties. Many of them had disabilities and no one had sung before into a microphone or attempted to play a stringed instrument.

    While Brennan enters each recording project prepared not to release it, a moment of miraculous epiphany came to light when Janet began singing “I’m not afraid of anything” from her wheelchair. The album expresses the hurt, love, and bravery of these sheltered workshop companions.

    Speaking about “Who You Calling Slow?” Brennan shares how his sister inspired him to make this album:

    Growing up, I’d witnessed my sister’s discomfort — eyes steered down sideways and hard, unable to contain her oversized tongue due to the shame — too many times to not remain vigilant and braced for a lifetime. I had little option but to make the right choice: to always side with those marginalized. Jane was diagnosed as ‘severely retarded,’ just one step above the lowest denomination of catatonic and mute. Our main connection was through music — joy expressed through dance, sadness and longing with melody. As her level of functioning has begun to diminish markedly in recent years, I knew the time was now or never to capture moments where music speaks volumes.

  • SummerStage Jubilee Benefit Announced by the City Parks Foundations

    SummerStage Jubilee was announced by City Parks Foundations to benefit free programming in the park. The benefit will take place on September 17, 2020 at 8PM across different virtual platforms. The benefit will include performances from big names like Sting, Norah Jones, and Trey Anastasio and an appearance from Billie Jean King.

    The 2020 SummerStage Jubilee Benefit Concert will help support the free parks programs and ensure they can continue. The City Parks Foundation is the largest presenter of free arts and cultural programs in New York City parks. They serve 300,000 New Yorkers each year through arts, education, sports and community building initiatives. The fundraising being done through the SummerStage Jubilee event will help fund free tennis and golf instruction, experiential, science-based lessons, buying tools and bulbs for volunteers to beautify local parks, providing training, microgrants, and coaching to facilitate their local advocacy. Donations will also help ensure SummerStage, New York City’s largest free music festival, and SummerStage Anywhere, its virtual festival, will remain free and available to all New Yorkers. At a time when public programs have been upended, destroyed, and cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s parks have remained open as some of the only public assets available to all still in these trying times. 

     David Barse, City Parks Foundation Board Chairman spoke about the SummerStage Jubilee Benefit Concert saying,  “This benefit concert will help support the important work that the City Parks Foundation does in every community, park and green space we serve in New York City. Although the concert is free, as is our usual SummerStage festival, we hope that viewers will feel motivated to support our work and make donations to keep that work going during these challenging times.”

    The benefit will last an hour and will highlight the various City Parks Foundation programs. SummerStage Jubilee will feature musical performances by Sting, Norah Jones, Trey Anastasio, Rufus Wainwright, Leslie Odom Jr., Rosanne Cash, Emily King, PJ Morton and others to be announced on top of notable advocates for CPF’s work including tennis icon BillieJean King.

    https://youtu.be/BQE9IqKPMAA

    The benefit festival can be viewed  across all SummerStage social platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitch) via live stream on Thursday, September 17 at 8PM EST. Donations can be made on the SummerStage website.

    For more information on the event visit the City Park Foundations website.

  • Drug Couple Releases Psychedelic EP ‘Choose Your Own Apocalypse’

    Brooklyn-based musical duo Drug Couple has released their sophomore EP Choose Your Own Apocalypse via Papercup. The EP draws inspiration from classic rock greats, like the Rolling Stones, Liz Phair, and REM, exploring finding that someone special to spend the end of times with.

    Choose Your Own Apocalypse

    A real life couple, as well as creative duo, Drug Couple’s music showcases the ongoing dialogue they’re engaged in, and the spirit of deep collaboration that colors their songwriting as well as their lives at home together. The pair released their debut EP Little Hits in November of 2019, establishing their unique brand of “off-kilter indie” (The Deli).

    Their sophomore EP, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, is a collection of songs about finding someone special to share the end-times with. They started writing and recording the EP back in the summer of 2016, as events were leading up to the election of Donald Trump. Drug Couple decided to make an album based around the concept of falling in love mid-apocalypse without fully realizing that’s exactly what they were doing. 

    A meditation on the idea of holding on tight to love during the worst of times, the album (as well as their recently released single “Protest Song”) proved to be oddly prescient, written long before 2020 turned out to be one of the scariest and most trying years in recent memory.  Drug Couple hopes that their clairvoyance wasn’t causal, though they’d be lying if they said they didn’t feel partially responsible for the disintegration of the very fabric of our society. 

  • Brooklyn’s Soapbox Gallery presents Electronic Looping Sounds of The Sonic Vision Looping Festival

    Soapbox Gallery, the intimate Prospect Heights performance space that grew out of the studio of sculptor Jimmy Greenfield, will present three nights of live streaming performances, from August 26-28 at 8 PM. Each performance will be dedicated to adventurous electronic looping sounds paired with video narratives.

    Electronic Looping Sounds

    Globe- and genre-trotting percussionist Will Calhoun will headline and close out the festival.  The lineup will also feature the acclaimed sound painting jazz saxophonist and film composer Hayes Greenfield and Guitars A Go Go, the ambient guitar duo of Sal Cataldi (aka Spaghetti Eastern Music) and Rick Warren, who are supporting the release of their buzzed about record, Travel Advisory. 

    According to founder Jimmy Greenfield, the festival grew out of the success of the Immersive Surround Sound Experiences performed by his musician brother, Hayes Greenfield, since the beginning of the COVID quarantine.   Here are the details on the festival’s lineup:

    August 26 – Guitars A Go Go – This is the edge-pushing improvisational partnership of two very “switched-on” Hudson Valley-based guitarists, Sal Cataldi (aka Spaghetti Eastern Music) and Rick Warren. Armed with a plethora of effects pedals and a quest for meditative and melodic adventures that span a galaxy of musical influences and attitudes, the duo has swung for the fences with the June 2020 release of their debut album, Travel Advisory. 

    August 27 – Hayes Greenfield with Ikuo Nakamura – With electronically tweaked sax, flute, kalimba, and voice, Hayes Greenfield creates lush lines and emotionally charged melodies layered into compositions that are both healing and liberating.  Accompanying images of sometimes collaborator 3-D filmmaker, Ikuo Nakamura, Greenfield enhances the visual thematic explorations of the human connection to nature by creating sound waves that stop time, and inspire fields of memory and a collective awareness, unlocking a sense of the natural world at once from above, below, inside, and out.  

    https://vimeo.com/224740378/d75ac01151

    August 28 – Will Calhoun – With an array of indigenous and electronic percussion instruments, flutes (some sacred) and his drum kit, Calhoun weaves together ever more densely packed rhythms, ones that conjure an alternate reality no less transcendent than the multi-layered sounds of nature, people, thoughts, and relationships. Performed along to images he’s taken on his journeys to places as far flung as Mali, the Australian outback, and the heart of Brooklyn, Calhoun’s compositions unify the pulse of the ancient and modern worlds, revealing the hidden and underlying connections between the sacred and the everyday. electronic looping sounds

  • Rave Organizers Continue Defending their Illegal Events

    Over the past month, illegal raves have continued to spark anger throughout Brooklyn as rave organizers claim they’re not doing anything wrong.

    Rave Organizers
    The event on Aug. 15 lead to testers and tracers being dispatched.

    According to Gothamist, Brooklyn had a reported 200 positive cases from the last two weeks. In response, test and trace teams were dispatched to the Sunset Park area.

    Regardless of the positive cases, rave organizers continued to hold two parties in the same area on Aug. 8. Being illegal, the Sheriff’s Office broke the two raves up the early morning after.

    One rave took place on 47th street in a warehouse with 200 people. There was alcohol, even though the event didn’t have a liquor license. Police arrested and charged multiple people.

    In a statement made to reporters the following Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said no one should be putting others’ lives at risk.

    “I want to be abundantly clear: you cannot organize a large gathering that’s going to put people’s lives in danger or you will suffer the consequences,” said de Blasio.

    The other rave happened only a few blocks away and also had alcohol without a liquor license. Police busted the event shortly after the 47th Street rave at 2 a.m.

    According to sources, the events had different organizers, but they coordinated the timing together.

    Nocturnal Radio Live hosted the 47th Street rave, but it wasn’t their first. On July 4, multiple raves throughout the city popped up, including one thrown by them.

    Although the events were highly illegal, the group had no problem promoting them on their social media pages.

    Rave Organizers
    Nocturnal Radio Live posted this on their Instagram page, but took it down along with their whole page.

    From a Chainsmokers concert in July to a secret rave under Kosciuszco Bridge a few weeks ago, rave organizers don’t seem to want to back down from hosting these events.

    Ulitsky and Simms, the head of Nocturnal Radio, said they provided “unity.”

    “Everything we’ve done and plan to do in the future is out of unity, not about separation and depression,” said Simms.

    Ulitsky added, “As far as people attending, we’re getting a lot of positive feedback. As long as that’s happening, we don’t feel like we’re doing anything wrong.”

  • LarkFest 2020 Cancelled Due to COVID-19

    LarkFest is a well known Albany tradition loved by it’s community for bringing guests from all over, vendors, artists, and musicians to the Lark Street Corridor in Albany. Unfortunately, this year the festivities have been cancelled due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. The festival was scheduled to happen on September 19, 2020 from 10:30AM -5:30PM.

    LarkFest

    Lark fest is put on by the Lark Street Business Improvement District. It is a celebration of everything unique and exciting about Lark Street and the creative culture of the greater Capital Region of New York. LarkFest was cancelled this year due to the inability to keep attendees safe which is the festival’s highest priority. On top of the  inability to keep people socially distancing and safe, the restrictions on mass gatherings make it impossible to make LarkFest happen this year.

    The team behind LarkFest encourages people to continue to safely support the artists, musicians, businesses, and vendors that make this event so special each year despite it being cancelled this year. LarkFest plans to be back and booming in 2021. Until then, there are a few local arts & cultural organizations that are so critical to the foundation of what makes their community unique and beautiful the team behind LarkFest want to point people in the direction to support. These organizations include African American Cultural Center, Albany Center Gallery,  Albany Symphony Orchestra, Creative Impact Capital Region Artist Fund, Irish American Heritage Museum, Palace Theatre.

    For more information on LarkFest visit their website.

  • Start Making Sense to Perform at Jericho Drive-In

    Start Making Sense announced their plans to perform at the Jericho Drive-In Glenmont, NY on August 28, 2020 at 7PM. The show will follow social distancing guidelines with attendees staying in their cars and will be followed by a showing of the film The Big Lebowski at 9PM.

    Start Making Sense is a Talking heads tribute band that even Bernie Worrel, the keyboardist for Talking Heads and a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member, thinks the band does a great job recreating the Talking Heads’ music. Worrel said, “To all you listeners… This is an appropriate title — Start Making Sense. This band makes plenty of sense to me, and is a great representation of Talking Heads’ music. So listen up and go check them out!” 

    Tickets are on sale now here and include three different tiers of pricing according to the tiers of parking. Advance pricing on the first three rows will cost $80 a car load. Rows four through six are for sale for $70 a car load with the advance pricing. And lastly rows seven through thirteen will cost $60 per car load with the advance pricing. Each car load can have up to four people at that price with an additional $10 more per person over 4 to be paid at the gate. Day of show pricing is an additional $10 more per vehicle. Doors open at 6PM. 

    For more information on Start Making Sense visit their website. For more information on the show visit the Jericho Drive-In’s website. 

  • South Farms in Connecticut to Host Socially Distanced Concerts

    South Farms in Connecticut plans to host socially distanced concerts and Comedy shows starting in late August and running through October. These socially distancing shows included upcoming performances from Grace Potter and comedian Nikki Glaser and are a beacon of hope for live music on a regular basis in these trying times. 

    The Farm will operate in the safest ways possible. People attending will be met by a staff member once inside and they will escort people to their grid placement. People will be required to wear a mask at all times they aren’t in their grid.  Tickets will be sold using a “grid” system, with 250 marked-out 8-foot squares available, each square holds two people, for purchase between $100-$160. Each square is surrounded by an additional grid for social distancing and flanked by aisle spacing. Grids can’t be combined with adjacent spaces. to create larger areas. 

    South Farms will include food trucks, a full bar serving alcohol, water and soft drinks and several satellite stands with ground markers indicating where patrons should stand while waiting in line. People can bring lawn chairs and blankets to make their grids more cozy. 

    Keith Mahler, president and CEO of Premier Concerts, spoke about the concerts saying, “Our primary concern is the safety and comfort of our audience.” This concern for safety will be taken seriously by staff members. They will enforce safety protocols, such as the use of masks and social distancing, using a “one strike and then you’re out” system, similar to if you were spotted smoking a cigarette. Hand sanitizing stations will be located throughout the venue.

    These concerts are being launched by Premier Concerts/Manic Presents and the Paletsky family which owns the 150-acre family-run South Farms and event space in Morris, Connecticut.  The upcoming concerts will represent a new model of low-capacity, all-outdoor venues, designed specifically to host concerts in the pandemic era. This model can be emulated all over the world to bring back live music. Hopefully New York can follow the lead of South Farms and bring back some live local music. 

    Several outdoor concerts are already scheduled to take place in August in Ridgefield, including two Grace Potter solo performances at Ballard Park on August 15 and back-to-back nights featuring Nick Fradiani and Javier Colon in the field next to the Ridgefield Playhouse on August 28-29. Tickets can be bought here.

    For more information can be found on South Farms website here.