Ithaca Night Bazaar kicked off their summer festival series on Thursday evening, May 19, with hometown favorite, Jimkata. The captivating trio returned to the stage in Ithaca for the first time in six years. Jimkata fans were engaged and elevated as the 90 minute set of mesmerizing synths included fifteen years of hits plus “Wanna Go” and “Wait for You” from Bonfires, the bands most recent album.
Jimkata performs at the Ithaca Night Bazaar. Photo by Allison Marie.
Harmonizing their talents since grade school, Evan Friedell, Aaron Gorsch and Packy Lunn have developed a paradise for their fans to get lost in with a visual and lyrical approach like no other band out there. Their distinctive sound and catchy hooks will be sure to take you on a moving wild ride.
Setlist: Die Digital, Wild Ride, Wait For You, Wanna Go, Writing On The Wall, Feel In Light, Jumping Out of Airplanes, Blessings in Disguise, Bonfires, Innocence, Ride the Wave, Weight of Paradise, Release. Encore: Won’t Let You Down, Nightshade.
Packy Lunn of Jimkata. Photo by Allison Marie.
Jimkata Tour Dates
May 27 – Pueblo, CO – ARISE Festival 2022 May 29 – Chillicothe, IL – Summer Camp Music Festival June 16 – Asbury Park, NJ – Wonder Bar June 17 – Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory June 18 – Beach Haven, NJ – HopSauce Fest 2022 Aug 19 – Sherman, NY – Beyond The Blue 2022
Indie artist awfultune has released her newest album, Eden, along with a trio of singles including ‘Sweet Talk’, ‘Wild Tune’ and ‘Sad Love Song’. Eden is the artist’s fifth studio album.
PC : Shervin Lainez
Released on April 29th, Eden is a project that dives deep into awfultune’s personal life and past heartbreaks in a way that many can relate to. The low-key, but engaging composition of songs like ‘picking up’ and ‘sweet talk’ makes listeners reminisce on the shy excitement that comes from a new love interest while ‘shut up!!!’ and ‘soda’ deal with the fall out of a relationship as well as underlying trauma and complications.
Along with an album, awfultune also released an accompanying illustrated storybook. Showcased on her Instagram, each chapter focuses on a different song from the album. The bright and bold illustrations perfectly depict each individual message.
PC : Shervin Lainez
Awfultune, also known as Layla Eden, is an indie pop artist from Upstate NY. As a trans woman, her music is heavily intertwined with her personal journey and adapting identity. She stands as an advocate for anyone who has ever felt alone or at odds with themselves.
Ithaca-based singer Ariel Arbisser embraces the darkness within with her new single ‘Bloodshed’. This is her first release since her 2021 album, Risk of Love.
The powerful songstress uses the new single as a vehicle to express her personal struggles. We’ve all had moments where we struggle not to become whatever we’re fighting against, whether those issues stem from trauma, frustration or injustice, but while listening to ‘Bloodshed’, listeners can take a moment to stop fighting and give in, if only for a few minutes.
“It feels valid and warranted, It’s the side we try to hide and keep tamed that comes out to fight when we’re at our limit. “
Ariel Arbisser
The multi-talented singer has delved into many sections of the art world including musicals like “Rent”, “Little Women” and “Candide”, as well as plays like “Museum” and “The Maid”. Arbisser also wrote, produced and starred in the original web series “Sex, Drugs, A Cappella”.
In addition to starring in theater productions, Arbisser has also traveled around the US teaching her “Sing It Like You Mean It” module, along with other workshops. The module employs tools from the Meisner Technique to help singers become more comfortable and connected during their performances.
PC : Drew Bordeaux
Since 2018, Arbisser has been working on her personal music while helping those around the country learn new performance techniques and ideologies. In 2021, she returned to Ithaca to finalize and release her debut album, Risk of Love, after previously singing with groups like The Funx and Frisky Business.
Nominated in 2022 for Best Bluegrass Grammy, Béla Fleck hits the road on his GRAMMY winning album “My Bluegrass Heart” Spring Tour. Fleck will stop in New York on April 6th at the State Theatre of Ithaca, April 8th in Albany at The Egg, April 10th at the Patchogue Theatre and April 13th at Tarrytown Music Hall.
After the sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall and the Ryman, Béla Fleck decided to extend his “My Bluegrass Heart” that will feature a variety of musicians.
Béla Fleck’s title for his album, My Bluegrass Heart was inspired from the classic “My Spanish Heart” from Tony and Chick Corea who he decided to dedicate the album too. Although this is his third run of the tour, Béla Fleck continues to keep the tradition of sharing music between generations.
“We’re reuniting the incredible first band—but with one change. Fiddler Stuart Duncan joins Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Bryan Sutton and me. It’s time for the banjo player in the band to practice feverishly, because keeping up with this gang is no joke. It’s also one of the great joys!”
-Béla Fleck
The core group of bluegrass musicians that play with Béla Fleck include New Grass Revivalist Sam Bush, fiddle player Stuart Duncan, bassist Mark Schatz and dobro player Jerry Douglas, alongside Chris Thile, Molly Tuttle, David Grisman, Brian Sutton, Edgar Meyer, Sierra Hull, Billy Strings, Tony Trischka, and fiddle avant-gardist Billy Contreras.
In anticipation of their debut EP, Broken Dance, set to release on May 6th, Gooseberry has dropped the titular track of their forthcoming project. The Brooklyn band, consisting of Asa Daniels, Evin Rossington, Sam Rappaport, and Will Hammond, is slowly building an underground following.
Recently, the band placed in the Final Four in NYSMusic’s March Madness 2022 bracket, and their newest release continues to highlight their talent.
Gooseberry
Gooseberry’s music is a magnificent blend of soulful R&B and indie-pop. Their newest release continues to showcase this amalgamation. The titularly titled track, “Broken Dance,” features a happy yet inquisitive piano roll. Accompanied by a melancholic violin and intimate lyricism, the track wonderfully captures the antonymic feelings of intimacy and loss.
The four-piece talent will also be touring the American Northeast. In New York, they will return to the Bowery Electric on April 14th and to Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory on May 21st. Additionally, the band will also pass through the Finger Lakes region and will play at Grist Iron Brewing on June 11th.
TOUR DATES
04/13 – O’Brien’s – Boston, MA
04/14 – Bowery Electric – New York, NY
04/16 – Transparent Clinch Gallery – Asbury Park, NJ
05/21 – Knitting Factory – Brooklyn, NY
06/11 – Grist Iron Brewing – Burdett, NY
Gooseberry is set to have an exceptional 2022, for more information on the band and to pre-order Broken Dance, visit gooseberryband.com.
Guitarist, songwriter, and singer Jim Miller of the band Western Centuries passed away unexpectedly from cardiac arrest while on tour in Boston last week. Miller was 69 years old and his passing has been felt hard on the Americana and acoustic roots musical communities. Outside of his songwriting in Western Centuries, known for its biting social commentary and insightful phrasing, Jim Miller was a founding member of Americana pioneers Donna the Buffalo and also collaborated with musicians like Dirk Powell, Rosie and Richie Stearns, Jim Lauderdale, Ginny Hawker, and Tim O’Brien.
Western Centuries was formed around three very different, but complimentary, songwriters: Jim with Cahalen Morrison and Ethan Lawton from Seattle. At live shows, the three would trade instruments, swap leads, and share the stage in a manner unusual for most Americana and country bands. Part of this stemmed from Miller, who loved to perform, but was always humble and soft-spoken about his own contributions to the music and the community.
Jim Miller was born in Boston in 1953 and lived for a time in Colorado. As a child, he spent much of his boyhood on the Canadian prairies around Saskatchewan, singing in the Saskatoon Boys Choir and getting introduced to roots music through his parents. An early experience at a Jimi Hendrix concert and exposure to the folk music concert series at Yale University brought Miller deeper into the fold. He later formed Donna the Buffalo with Tara Nevins in graduate school and was a key member of the band for fifteen years, touring heavily throughout the country. Miller cut five albums with Donna the Buffalo and was a key part of their early sound.
He was also a respected lepidopterist (scientist who studies moths and butterflies), earning a PhD from Cornell University. Though he toured all across the United States and over to the United Kingdom and Europe with Western Centuries, his lifelong quest for understanding moths took him to even further corners of the globe; he was especially an expert on moths in South America. In addition to all the music fans left mourning by Miller’s passing, there are also many in academia who are speaking now in remembrance of how he influenced them directly and encouraged their careers.
Miller ended up meeting Cahalen Morrison and Ethan Lawton at jam sessions around the town after moving to Seattle. The three formed Western Centuries as a way to explore an urban nexus of country that drew from their own roving influences, like Morrison’s Southwest origins, Lawton’s interest in early soul and reggae, and Miller’s groove-laden history of song building. The band recorded four albums with Free Dirt Records with their most recent album, Call the Captain, released in 2020 and called “truly diverse” by Rolling Stone Magazine. The band had just finished recording a new album when Miller tragically passed away.
Ithaca is a town in New York State, and was originally a place in Greece. However, the Ithaca that we’re here to discuss is a music group from London, whose new album, They Fear Us, will be out July 29th.
So now that we all know why we have gathered here today, let’s talk about the first single from that album, which is also the title track for They Fear Us.
The genre tags for this album are a mix of metal and hardcore, with the sub-genres listed as melodic hardcore and emotional hardcore. If you fine readers are aware of hardcore, you’ll know that it is usually based off of slamming riffs, screamed vocals, attitude, and a no holds barred use of power.
As the track begins you’ll hear some intense vocal work, and they have a lot of the hardcore sound. The guitar riff is rooted in that genre as well, and has a cool, bouncy feel going on.
As things progress there is a heavy Killswitch Engage influence, and that holds through the chorus section too, while the vocals remind me more of the cleans from Miss May I; both of those bands are amazing, so hearing their influence here is a reminder of that, and of how much they really inspired other bands.
While the full They Fear Us album won’t be released for another 5 months, we feel that you should go check out the single on Bandcamp today. They may not be breaking much new ground in terms of the genre, but what Ithaca put together is quite good, and we eagerly anticipate their next release.
Buffalo’s Organ Fairchild, winner of NYS Music’s March Madness in 2021, will head out on tour this winter for 10 stops over February and March, 9 of which are in New York. They’ll kick off their tour on Thursday, February 3rd at Hickey Tavern in St. Bonaventure, then perform at Duende at Silo City on Friday, February 4.
One year ago, the band marked the release of single, “Seepin’,” from the long-time Buffalo jam band veterans, whose members have a history on the jam scene dating back 40 years. Joe Bellanti (organ and keyboards), Corey Kertzie (drums and percussion) and Dave Ruch (guitar) make for a mean trio that has been years in the making.
They’ll also link up with Syracuse’s Sophistafunk for a pair of shows in early March. With additional shows in Rochester, Ithaca, Albany, the Adirondacks and Southern Tier, there’s no shortage of shows for New Yorkers to get down with Organ Fairchild’s tasty Buffalo funk and grooves.
