Tag: honest folk

Charlie Parr Gets Right Down To It in Rochester

Charlie Parr walked onto the Arbor Loft stage, bundled up in a made-for-Minnesota-winters cardigan, minutes after opener Al Olender finished up her set. He sat down, settled in with his Mule resonator guitar and started to tune it. Or was he just playing?

The Rochester crowd milled about, conversing, getting a set break drink. Parr kept picking away, and it became more and more evident this was some mighty fine playing that deserves an attentive ear. And after a little while he leaned into the mic and started singing, “Can you remember what it’s like / When all the world’s filled with light / Now do you have that in your sight / Then spread it around, do.”

And Parr’s set started just like that, no welcome, no pretense, he just got right to it with “817 Oakland Avenue” off his excellent 2022 release Last of the Better Days Ahead. The crowd quickly quieted, the lights went down, and the show on Thursday, December 1st, had begun.

About 90 minutes later, after the peppy “Jubilee,” he flatly announced that was the end of his set, “Do you mind if I do the encore now?” With that he left the crowd with a stirring a capella rendition of the gospel, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna a Hold My Body Down.” He opened unceremoniously with a long guitar exploration and closed with just his voice. In between those bookends, the set was filled with the lush combination of his deft finger picking and rich voice.

Sometimes seeing an artist perform solo, even the great ones, you are left wondering what could be gained with a band or even just an accompanist. Not so with Charlie Parr. He sounded perfect all on his own. Through finger picks, slides, foot stomps and that ragged voice with unexpected range, there wasn’t empty space wanting for anything more. And modifications, like an “aggressive capo” on the mostly instrumental “Jaybird” got even more sound from that guitar.

“You know you’re at a folk show when a guy talks awkwardly while tuning his guitars.” Parr said, while tuning his guitar. He tuned quickly though, and like the way he opened his show, his tuning turned to playing without pause or hesitation. The show kept moving, with engaging upbeat songs, even if they were depressing in nature. He provided “palette cleansers” with some traditional folk blues tunes, like Brownie McGhee’s “Sportin’ Life” and Blind Willie McTell‘s “Delia,” the closest he was getting to playing a seasonal holiday song (not very close at all.) His original “On Stealing a Sailboat” referenced Arlo Guthrie in style, a romping spoken word story. No, there was no question or doubt about this being a folk show, or an Honest Folk show for that matter, the promoter closing out the year in grand fashion. We look forward to what’s in store for 2023.

The full house lent an attentive ear to opener Al Olender, a young singer-songwriter from the Hudson Valley making her third return trip through Rochester this year. She immediately connected with the crowd on catchy and clever “All I Do Is Watch TV,” finger picking and strumming her vintage electric guitar and emoting with her silky smooth vocals. Her friend Amanda Brooklyn came out to aid with sparse but well-placed harmonies. She cut through sad subject matter with engaging and humble humor, in her lyrics, with in-song jokes, and witty banter. She was admittedly nervous performing a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou,” (you wouldn’t have guessed it from her delivery) but had no hesitation baring all about her own experiences in a bad breakup on “Liar Liar.” Olender is a new voice to keep an eye out for.

Charlie Parr – Arbor Loft, Rochester – December 1, 2022

Setlist: 817 Oakland Avenue, Last of the Better Days Ahead, Everyday Opus, Sportin’ Life (Brownie McGhee), Don’t Send Your Child to War, Cheap Wine, 1922 Blues, Dog, Jaybird, Over the Red Cedar, On Stealing a Sailboat, Delia (Blind Willie McTell), Jubilee
Encore: Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down

December 4, 2022
Five Must-See Shows in Rochester This December

We’ve got five must-see music suggestions to end your year this December here in Rochester. From the 1st to the 31st, we’ve got you covered. So work off that holiday meal, take a load off your holiday shopping stress, and get down and groovy with these great shows coming to town. Get out and celebrate a full (relatively) unimpeded year of live music!

Rochester

December 1 – Charlie Parr at Arbor Loft

Right off the bat we’ve got an incredible musician coming to town on the first of the month. You can’t really go wrong with an Honest Folk show, really you shouldn’t miss anyone they’re bringing in, but this show in particular is a bit extra as the kids say. As far as folk music goes, you’re not going to get much better than Charlie Parr these days. A scraggly looking Minnesotan, he’ll finger pick some blues tunes that’ll pierce your soul, up above the lit-up East End streets.

Show starts at 8pm and tickets are $30.

December 3 – The Sadies at Skylark Lounge

Rochester has been fortunate to be a longtime regular stop for Toronto’s The Sadies. Tragically they lost their founding member Dallas Good earlier this year. Though they are persevering, getting the band back on the road just recently with a tour of Europe. They’re blowing through town with a stop at the hole-in-the-wall Skylark Lounge, where they last played mere days before the pandemic shutdown. This will both rock and roll.

Show starts at 10pm and tickets are $15/$20dos.

December 15 – Angela Perley at Abilene Bar and Lounge

You gotta love a venue with a well-curated show schedule. Danny Deutsch, who both owns and books Abilene, knows good music. So when he books a band multiple times, you should take notice. When he books a band multiple times in the same year, you better go see why. He’s got Angela Perley back at the joint after she played back this August. Time then to get out to see what her “cosmic swirl of alt-country, psychedelic rock, and amplified Americana” is all about.

Show starts at 7:30 and tickets are $12/$15dos

December 30 – Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad at Water Street Music Hall

Water Street Music Hall is closing out the year with an excellent one-two punch of live music. Rochester’s favorite roots rock reggae band Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad opens up the festive weekend with their homecoming blast. They’re bringing Notorious B.I.G. cover band The Frank White Experience and local groovers The Sideways along for the ride as well as other surprise guests. Both sides of the club will be open and rocking so don’t miss out on this night of music and revelry.

Show starts at 8 and tickets are $25 presale.

December 31 – Aqueous at Water Street Music Hall

One night later, Buffalo jam mavens Aqueous return to Rochester for some more heady goodness. Aqueous has long found a second home here and never let us down. If you’re looking for a New Year’s Eve that stretches and elongates and parties on until 2022 is no longer visible in the rear view, Water Street is the place to be. The Funky Dawgz and The Pickle Mafia round out the evening but as with Giant Panda, there are sure to be more “friends” popping up on stage.

Show starts at 7pm and tickets are $25.

That’s it for this month, see you out at the shows and see you back here next year!

November 28, 2022
The Dead Tongues Let the Music Do the Talking at Restaurant Good Luck

Honest Folk, purveyors of, er, honest folk concerts in Rochester, brought The Dead Tongues to town from Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday, May 15. The Dead Tongues, the project of singer-songwriter Ryan Gustafson, is sometimes a solo act, as it was on his previous visit to the area last summer at the Point of the Bluff Vineyard on Keuka Lake. But tonight it was a full band show, and electric at that. Not unheard of for an Honest Folk show, but not the norm either.

To prepare for this, the crowd had the opportunity to stretch their listening muscles. The band’s drummer, Joe Westerlund, started the evening with about 30 minutes of drum and electronics improvisation. Subtly shifting rhythmic electronic loops created a bedrock for Westerlund to explore his well-equipped kit, which featured all the bells, but no whistles. Even the shakes, rattles and clanks emerging from the bar, which can distract from the usual folk fare, added an unintentional surround sound effect. Inner ears and minds stretched and loosened, the previous hours of the day washed away, the crowd was ready to settle in for The Dead Tongues.

After a short break, Westerlund was joined on stage by Gustafson on guitars, harmonicas and vocals, Maddie Schuler on guitar and lap steel and Jeff Ratner on bass. They opened with the title track off of their stellar 2022 release, Dust. The album was written and recorded in a short period, a burst of inspiration for Gustafson. Live, there was no urgency though. Songs could ooze into existence and drift out just as languidly.

Older songs worked seamlessly into the set, some retooled to take advantage of the current band. On “Peaceful Ambassador” Gustafson’s harmonica meshed beautifully with Schuler’s lap steel, creating an almost organ-like effect, a unique mix of sound that would show up throughout the set. Ratner picked up the pace with a popping bass line that opened the song up into a jam featuring a searing slow burn solo from Gustafson. He strapped on the 12-string acoustic as his band continued to fizzle the song into a spacey outro that led right into “Sweet Relief,” another mellow groove that got pulled and stretched by the band.

Each song expanded their sound universe in subtle ways. “Nothingness and Everything” added a bit of reggae, some beautiful 3-part harmonies and featured a crowd-wowing guitar solo from Schuler. Westerlund continued exploring his kit throughout the night, from a softer hand drummed beat for “Pale November Dew,” to a sharp electronic beat on “Little Lies” or just flat out wowing with unique fills on the twanging rocker “Pawnshop Dollar Bills.”

It all remained rooted in Gustafson’s heartfelt and evocative songcraft, which he let speak for itself, keeping the banter to a minimum throughout the night. And these are songs begging to be heard again and again. Time to give that record another spin.

Setlist: Dust, Ebb and Flow, Through the Glass, Strangers, Graveyard Fields, Peaceful Ambassador, Sweet Relief, Pale November Dew, Nothingness and Everything, Garden Song, Little Lies, Pawnshop Dollar Bills, Won’t Be Long

May 17, 2022
Canadian Duo Ocie Eliot Provides a Beautiful Evening for Honest Folk

Jon Middleton and Sierra Lundy took a trip from their home in Victoria, British Columbia to Rochester New York. Their first time to the US as a married couple, or at least their first as the couple making up the band Ocie Eliot, 2022 Juno Award nominees for Breakthrough Group of the Year. It was also their first show of 2022.

The sparse but beautiful space in the Arbor Loft was the perfect environment to take in Ocie Eliot’s likewise sparse and beautiful music. Middleton led the way with a captivating picked guitar melody, or rhythmic strums. Lundy coaxed gently shifting organ tones or at times short melodic piano lines out of her small Mellotron keyboard. Occasionally dual harmonicas or amplified foot stomps added depth and texture. But throughout, their voices, particularly in harmony, highlighted each song, punctuated with poignant and familiar lyrics.

When you haven’t played much in two years time, even old songs can seem new. Ocie Eliot spent much of the pandemic writing and recording, releasing four EP’s in that time. Songs like “Take Me Home” felt fresh to introduce, but as noted by Lundy, it isn’t really all that new anymore. And songs written in the before-times, like “Alive and All,” though released during the pandemic, felt more like a reaction to it: “And I want to yell from a hill, I’m alive / and I want to cry out until, I am fine.”

Interspersed with their originals, they worked in some more familiar material, to this American audience at least. Covers of some of the best songwriters around in Gillian Welch’s “Miss Ohio” and Simon and Garfunkel‘s “The Boxer”, provided a bit of grounding. A more obscure cover of Youth Lagoon’s “17” provided some late show sparks however, as they took a more ownership with their own spin.

Still, the highlights came in their own songwriting. Their strengths all collided gloriously in “Coming Home,” complete with a dual harmonica interlude, and again midway through the second set on “Run To You,” with its syncopated piano and guitar elevated the vocal harmonies. Long walks on an abandoned rail line inspired “Tracks,” which worked repetitive lyrics into a near round, building to a familiar train-themed harmonica finish. An emotional Lundy explained how she sang “Forest Floor,” her father’s favorite song, to him recently on his death bed. A slow-grooving rocker that again, felt more like it would have been inspired by his passing: “Through the light softly the colours storm / And we both come to falling / Let me down easy, baby /Lay me down on the forest floor.”

A portion of proceeds from all Honest Folk shows benefit the Center for Youth in Rochester, but for this show, 100% was donated. There’s a promoter in it for all the right reasons. And they continue to bring in great folk shows to town, next up being Dead Tongues at Good Luck on on May 15. Get your tickets!

March 14, 2022
Honest Folk Returns with Joe Pug at Arbor Loft

On February 17, 2020, Honest Folk hosted Joe Pug at Restaurant Good Luck. We know now, it was just month out from a worldwide pandemic that would shut down live music and continue to disrupt it going on two years. Pug’s show would be the second to last for Honest Folk. Until he returned, exactly two years to the day, February 17, 2022.

The world had changed. Everyone in attendance had been affected in one way or another. Pug insisted that he never took anything surrounding his live performances and audiences for granted. But now, it was especially true.

He was thankful to be able to play completely acoustic, without amplification, or any technology, which he did in a midset “Deep Dark Wells.” It was something he couldn’t do in his many streaming performances.

He was thankful, though chiding his tour manager who “couldn’t read a map,” to be able to perform for the attentive Rochester audience again, even if it meant driving in from his show the previous night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Just a bit out of the way.

He was thankful to have known some of the great artists we lost since the last time he had played here. The great John Prine, one of the early losses to COVID, who he never met but respected from afar. And Justin Townes Earle, who he knew well and had toured with. Pug took advantage of his opportunity to continue to perform to pay his respects to each of their bountiful contributions to the great American songbook, beautifully covering Prine’s “Sam Stone” and Earle’s “Mama’s Eyes.”

Joined on the stage by Charlie Muench on upright bass, Pug worked his way through his own songbook, presenting his poetic masterpieces on both guitar and piano, always with his harmonica at the ready to provide some extra oomph when called for.

The crowd was quiet and attentive in the calming loft space overlooking Rochester’s East End. Each song elicited gasps of excitement would emerge from different corners of the room. It seemed everyone had their favorites, and he was working his way to get them all in. But just in case, he stayed on for an all-request encore. So someone got the “Bright Beginnings” they were hoping for, another got to hear “The Great Despiser.” The night ended on “Not So Sure,” which Joe Pug thought was a bit of a bummer song to finish with, “but it’s my fault for writing a bunch of songs that are bummers,” he quipped. Nonetheless, Rochester couldn’t have been happier to have him back, hopefully it won’t be another two years before they get to have him again.

It certainly won’t be another two years before another Honest Folk show. The next one is mere weeks away when Canadian duo Ocie Eliot comes to town to make their own bit of magic up in the Arbor Loft on March 10. Tickets are on sale now. Don’t miss it!

Set List: Hymn #35, The Letdown, Nation of Heat, Exit, After Curfew, Sam Stone (John Prine), Mama’s Eyes (Justin Townes Earle), Veteran Fighter, Deep Dark Wells, I Don’t Work in a Bank, I Do My Father’s Drugs, The Flood In Color, Hymn #101, Speak Plainly Diana, E: Bright Beginnings, The Great Despiser, Not So Sure

February 22, 2022