The Hudson Valley’s busiest goth triple-threat, musician/DJ/burlesque queen Tryst La Noir, has returned with a new single that’s as “raw, dirty and wild” as love itself, a sonic blast entitled “Goddamn!”
Tryst’s latest is another preview of tunes earmarked for her as of yet untitled third album slated for release in Spring 2025. Earlier this year, Tryst and her collaborator, Brooklyn-based producer/guitarist Steve Woodzell, unleashed a duo of singles from the album “Bathwater Blues” and “Oh Lover”.
Tryst says, “In comparison to my previous albums, this will be my most vulnerable yet. I have been experimenting with instruments and sounds that I never had before. And when it comes to the writing process, especially the lyrics, I am not sugarcoating anything.”
The fierce “Goddamn” bears some of the hallmarks of Tryst’s greatest musical influences, including Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey, Morphine, and even the bluesy love laments of jazz songbird, Billie Holiday. “I really love old blues music from the 40s, along with 60s psychedelia, 80s goth, 90s grunge and post-punk. My music is a mash-up of all these styles, with an accent on full-on passion and energy.”
Tryst’s newest single slams a slow industrial groove, accented with a dense mix of fuzzy guitars, impossibly big beats, howling synths, and her caterwauling vocals. Lyrically, the song profiles a fiery love affair that sparks a combustible attraction between lovers that comes with an overdose of both passion and toxicity.
But music is just one facet of Tryst’s busy career. She also works as a DJ at leading area clubs, including Pearl Moon, Colony Woodstock, and The Avalon Lounge. Tryst also serves as a performer and host of a series of burlesque nights produced by Strangehouse, an event and video production concern she runs with her partner, musician/videographer Byron Frayne.
Look for Tryst La Noir spinning at Kingston’s Unicorn Bar for its Bowie Birthday Ball on January 24 and her ongoing Friday Night Fever at Colony Woodstock on January 3. She will also bring her burlesque spectacular to the Colony on Valentine’s Day.
For the past quarter century, a trio of future-forward NYC-based musicians have been deftly navigating the boundaries between King Tubby-style dub, Delta Blues, electronica, 70s-styled jazz fusion, metal, ambient, noise- and progressive-rock to the delight of discerning audiences and delighted critics alike. On Saturday, December 7, this triumvirate, Harriet Tubman, provided a 90-minute set of unparalleled sonic and melodic creativity for the culmination of the latest season of soul-stirring concerts at Poughkeepsie’s Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center curated by Elysium Furnace Works.
Harriet Tubman was formed 25 years ago by some of the most versatile and ferocious players on the scene: guitarist/vocalist Brandon Ross (Cassandra Wilson, Lounge Lizards), bassist Melvin Gibbs (Decoding Society, Henry Rollins), and drummer JT Lewis (Sonny Sharrock, William Parker, Whitney Houston). They take their moniker from Harriet Tubman, an African-American woman born into slavery who was renowned as a liberator of other slaves who, like she, chose to seek freedom by escaping to the North. She accomplished this with the help of a secret network of safe houses, or “stations,” on what was known as “The Underground Railroad.” Together, the trio has waxed five critically acclaimed albums, including I Am A Man (1998), Ascension (2011), and their latest, The Terror End of Beauty (2018).
Many of the original compositions performed commence with tightly structured melodic heads before departing for improvisations that venture into noisy, fierce dissonance. But for all the stylistic departures and daring atmospherics, the underlying melodies and phrasing are a mournful and beautiful blue. Maybe like Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, a favorite comparison often pulled up by critics, Harriet Tubman is a blues band in disguise – a genuinely original one unchained from the 12-bar, 1-4-5 form, one completely abetted rather than undermined by the technology they wield.
In his work with vocalists like Cassandra Wilson and Jewel and his excellent solo discs like Costume (2004), Ross is coveted for his delicate acoustic guitar work. In Tubman, he is unleashed and fully electrified. He’s most often the one creating the backdrop, with washes of gentle chording and loops that serve as the sonic undercurrent for Tubman’s tunes. Then he turns his Fender Twin to 11 and stomps on his numerous distortion pedals, filters and wah-wah to conjure soaring solos that square the root of Hendrix, Sonic Youth, saxman Albert Ayler, and another great avant-garde guitarist of a generation only slightly before, Michael Gregory Jackson.
Once called the “egg in the meatloaf” by his one-time band leader, the late Ronald Shannon Jackson, Gibbs’s bass playing is as solid and rootsy as it comes. He uses his five-string fed through a massive Ampeg speaker cabinet to provide rib-shaking sub-harmonic riffery. These are usually unadorned and repetitive four to five-note lines that anchor the band. However, much of the uniqueness of the Tubman sound comes when Melvin stretches the limits of the bass. His lines are often heavily distorted and looped, and he frequently holds down the harmony for the band with his chording on tunes like “Farther Unknown.” On several, Gibbs was the main texture, laying down his repetitive echoed drenched textures, often with a string generator, over which he laid down furious sheets of sound solos.
Drummer Lewis provided an adept circle of rhythm to keep the trio firing on all cylinders. But what may be most impressive is his restraint. Several times in the set, JT just sat out completely, adding a more intimate dimension for the duet and interplay created by his guitarist and bassist.
Standouts in the set were the aforementioned “Farther Unknown” and “Green Book Blues,” the latter is a nod to the famous travel guide written in the 1930s that helped African-American road trippers get safely from one place to another. This tune included a great deal of melodic tension, with a cool reverse-delay effect on Ross’s guitar during his fuzzy, screamy solo providing a ghostly ambience.
The trio offered up an excellent take on the bluesy ballad, “Where We Stand,” from their acclaimed 1998 debut disc, “I Am A Man.” Ross’ melody evolves slowly, with subtle volume swells, over Lewis’ chattered cymbal work. It was an unhurried purple lament, a sad lullaby with spacey overtones. A higher energy approach came to the fore with “Adapted,” the set opener also from their debut disc, and “The Terror End of Beauty” the title track of their latest album.
After a brief flowing intro, “Adapted” kicked in, driven by a strong, kind of prog-rock, odd meter beat by Lewis and Gibb’s busy percolating bass. Ross’s solo was brisk, leaning on blues and chromatic side-stepping smears. This tune showcased JT’s deft drumming, with his building to numerous crescendos introduced with tight rolls to fire Ross’ soloing. “The Terror End of Beauty” was introduced as a tribute to the late avant-garde guitar pioneer Sonny Sharrock. An evocative climbing and descending minor chordal pattern played by Gibbs devolves into a fierce noise extravaganza, one that was pure Sharrock and made a Sonic Youth rave-up sound like Yacht Rock. Noise and dissonance led to even more furious strumming and, finally more dark, unnerving majesty when Ross, like Sonny, employed a slide and some furious fist bashing and atonal tapping on his guitar.
Seeing a healthy crowd support this kind of exploratory music in the Hudson Valley was heartwarming. Some audience members even traveled up from the Big Apple for this event. James Keepnews and Mike Faloon, the duo behind event curator Elysium Furnace Works, should be commended for their dedication to bringing “vanguard artists” like this immensely talent trio to our area.
In 1986, Bob Mugge, the foremost documentarian of music giants, decided to make a film about jazz’s greatest living improviser, the “Saxophone Colossus” himself, Sonny Rollins.
Prior to tackling the mighty Rollins, Mugge had created acclaimed documentaries profiling Latin pop star/political activist Ruben Blades, proto-rapper Gil Scott-Heron, soul/gospel legend Al Green, intergalactic jazz visionary Sun Ra and a bevy of reggae’s biggest stars at 1983’s Sunsplash Festival.
To capture Rollins, Mugge would first travel to Tokyo for the world premiere of his “Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra” with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. The director then sought to contrast the pageantry of the symphony hall by documenting Rollins at what he called a “bread and butter gig,” a typical performance by Sonny and his four-man touring band of the time.
In search of a suitably dramatic background, Mugge first attempted to get approval to film Rollins and band on a Circle Line Jazz Cruise on the Hudson River in Manhattan. When this fell through, Mugge lucked into something that proved even more unique. It was a concert already on Rollins’ schedule that would take place upon a rock stage at one of America’s most impressive earthworks, the sculpted rock quarry Opus 40 in Saugerties, New York.
Created by pioneering artist Harvey Fite between 1939 and his death in 1976, Opus 40 is a world-famous sculpture park and museum with 50 acres of meadows, forested paths and bluestone quarries — including 6.5 acres of earthwork sculpture — in the heart of the Hudson Valley in Saugerties, NY. Called “the Stonehenge of North America,” Opus 40 welcomes more than 20,000 visitors yearly. It has also been the site of scores of concerts by artists like Richie Havens, Pete Seeger and Jimmy Cliff, theater stagings ranging from Macbeth to Hair and numerous films and music videos, including Amanda Palmer’s version of Pink Floyd’s “Mother.”
But no event would have the lasting impact of the performance by Rollins on August 16, 1986, one which is cemented forever as the centerpiece of Mugge’s recently re-released and expanded documentary, SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS.
“When it came to planning my next film, I thought what would be more interesting than doing a film on the greatest living jazz improviser,” recalls Mugge. “Sonny’s wife and manager Lucille also wanted to show that Sonny was still playing great, the best of his career perhaps. As a nice coincidence, they were then preparing for the world premiere of Rollins’ concerto taking place in Japan, so we filmed that then the Opus 40 show.
“Opus 40 is a sculpture rock quarry made by another lone genius” Mugge continues. “The monument coming out of it (the 9 ton, 14-foot tall bluestone monolith called “Flame”) proved to be the perfect opening image for the film. It embodied the ‘Saxophone Colossus’ which I knew would be the title of the film, which is also the title of one of Sonny’s most heralded albums.”
“I can’t remember how we originally booked Sonny, but a week before the concert I got a call from Mugge,” says Tad Richards, a writer, visual artist and Fite’s stepson who has run the Opus 40 non-profit with his wife Pat since 1986. “He said they were making a film and that the Circle Line gig fell through and needed to set something up quickly. He had seen us on Sonny’s itinerary and wondered if they could film it. I said we’d be honored.
“Neither of us really knew what we were getting into as holding concerts was still relatively new here and we had no idea what filming would entail,” continues Richards. “To say we were pleasantly surprised, that doesn’t do it justice.”
The film kicks off with the jaw-dropping “G-Man,” a 15-minute plus excursion where Rollins proves he is indeed the world’s greatest jazz improviser.
As the camera pans down from the monolith, we come up from behind to see Sonny Rollins and his band on the rocky stage with a huge audience in the foreground. After the simple four-bar head is repeated a couple of times, Rollins is galloping off, digging deeper and deeper, with rapid-fire chromatic licks and arpeggios alternating with long held notes and basso growls, often powered by cheeks puffed out from circular breathing. Every so often, he returns to the head and you think he is winding down, just to go off again for another few minutes of profoundly melodic and deeply emotional improvisation. With every new chapter and return, Sonny ups the energy and excitement, seeming to spiritually levitate the large and intensely focused crowd seated on Opus 40’s spacious lawn.
“’G-Man’ proved as much as anything else that he was at the peak of his powers,” adds Mugge. “It became the centerpiece of the soundtrack CD and the film.”
The real drama came later, when in the midst of a long solo improvisation in which he prowled the stone stage like a panther, Sonny Rollins decided to leap off it onto another stone outcropping six feet below.
Tad Richards recalls: “I was sitting with Lucille Rollins on the lawn, stage right, when Sonny suddenly disappeared, stage left. The audience gasped, Lucille especially, and everything stopped. And then, still out of sight, Sonny started playing again, so powerfully and beautifully that everyone in the place assumed it was part of the show, even the musicians. You can see them in the movie; first shocked, then laughing as he starts playing again.
“After a few minutes, Sonny is still playing, still out of sight and Lucille says – ‘I’m a little worried, can you go and check on him?’ So I did and I found Sonny lying on his back, playing with the cameraman standing over him. We waited until he finished his solo and then helped him to his feet.
“Sonny asked how long we wanted him to play and I said I would stop the concert right then, if he needed medical attention. ‘No man,’ he growled, “I’m going to finish the gig’ which he did standing, propped up on one foot. Afterwards, two of our volunteers who were EMTs took him over to Northern Dutchess Hospital where they confirmed he had broken his heel.”
Another witness that day was local saxophonist Gus Mancini.
“What happened was that Sonny was doing one of his long solos, quoting every song there is between these incredible improvised riffs,” remembers Mancini. “Suddenly, he leaps from the flat stone stage to one below and disappears. After a slight pause, he starts playing again, for a long time, still out of sight. Everyone kept wondering where he was. Turns out he broke his heel and was taken off in a golf cart. I actually saw him the next day on TV in a cast and was amazed at how much longer he played at the concert, with his foot in that condition.”
Mugge concludes: “It was a very surreal moment that became famous in the jazz community even before the film was finished.”
The film soundtrack CD, “G-Man,” includes other remarkable performances from that day at Opus 40. These include lengthy outings on two Rollins’ classics, “Don’t Stop the Carnival” and “Tenor Madness,” but none as fiery as the concert and film opener.
I have had the pleasure of seeing Rollins a half dozen times over the years. These included shows at NYC’s The Bottom Line, the Village Gate and his legendary 80th birthday show at Carnegie Hall, where he played for the first time on stage with Ornette Coleman. I also saw the discussed Circle Line Cruise show, a week after his outing at Opus 40.
The Circle Line concert was, with little doubt, one of the three best shows I’ve ever seen. At it, Rollins played with his casted foot elevated, laying back in a Lazy Boy Lounger! It was typical of the Sonny shows I saw. He started off with an equally exciting and lengthy version of “G-Man,” building and digging deeper with each passing minute, without ever being boring or repetitious. He did an even more amazing and lengthy exploration on Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” the encore of this boat show. I saw him do the same thing on his opening number shortly thereafter at The Bottom Line show.
After these first numbers, I always asked myself if I should just leave. What more could he possibly do to impress, entertain, enlighten? I had certainly gotten my money’s worth. It was always pure musical gladiator stuff – creativity, craft and soulsmanship of the highest order from a lone genius. A performance checkmate in one move.
Today, 90-year old Sonny Rollins lives the quiet life in Woodstock, N.Y., retired from playing due to respiratory issues linked to his being in downtown NYC on 9/11. You can enjoy him speaking about his life and craft, and at the height of his improvisational powers with his Opus 40 performance and footage from his never-released concerto with Mugge’s new expanded Blu-Ray version of the documentary.
For more jazz goodness, check out Tad Richards’ Listening to Prestige, a multipart book series and blog that is chronicling all the releases from this great independent jazz label of 50s and 60s (530 and counting to date). For the past 22 years, Gus Mancini has been performing live every Sunday morning on WDST/Radio Woodstock’s “Woodstock Roundtable with Doug Grunther,” as well as gigging with numerous outfits including his rotating cast of improv warriors, The Sonic Soul Band. And for another spirited but definitely less awe-inspiring musical chapter from Opus 40 past, catch this writer performing “Divine Nonchalance” with his Spaghetti Eastern Music under the monolith at a show on Labor Day 2018.
The first and most comprehensive history of the birthplace of punk music, CBGB, has just been re-issued by Trouser Press Books, an all-music imprint headed by veteran music journalist Ira Robbins.
A History of CBGB – by Roman Kozak
Originally published in 1988 and out of print for decades, This Ain’t No Disco: The Story of CBGB is a warts-and-all history of the legendary Bowery venue related by nearly 100 of the insiders who performed, worked and braved pre-gentrification Downtown NYC to witness the birth of punk music. Written long before the legend overtook the reality — while the club was still open and most of the principals alive — this is the real story told in gritty, outrageous and sometimes hilarious detail by onetime Billboard Magazine editor, the late Roman Kozak. The 2024 edition includes a new forward by Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, 12 pages of photos by Ebet Roberts, and a post-script by Ira Robbins that takes the story forward from 1988 to the October 2006 shuttering of the club.
Kozak’s book includes unguarded quotes from CBGB found Hilly Kristal, Joey and Dee Dee Ramone (the Ramones), Chris Stein and Clem Burke (Blondie), Richard Hell and Richard Lloyd (Television), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Annie Golden (The Shirts), David Byrne (Talking Heads), Seymour Stein (Sire Records) and many more.
As a member of several of the more than 10,000 bands that performed at the club in its 33-year run, it was a treat to take a trip back … without having to once again experience the foul ambiance of its legendary and always-broken bathrooms!
CBGB came about when its owner, Hilly Kristal, a wannabe singer, left his former bar in the West Village for the grimy Lower East Side to escape the noise complaints of his Greenwich Village neighbors. His short-lived attempt at a country music venue, one with sure to fail breakfast time gigs, would be shelved when Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd of Television lied their way into a performance in March 1974. Television’s stint would shortly attract other bands, including The Ramones, the first act signed to a major label, a quartet that could crank out 20-song sets in 17 minutes or less. By the end of the year, CBGB, which would initially feature other kinds of music along with comedians, would become an all-rock venue.
The first two years of CBGB would be hand-to-mouth, with Hilly living on a cot in the back of the club and supplementing his income by buying a truck and starting a moving business, one that employed his favorite starving musicians like the members of The Shirts. Various musicians and staffers humorously relate memories of dodging the many “care packages” left on the floor by Hilly’s dog, Jonathan, and the suspect quality of Hilly’s infamous chili and hamburgers. Mink Deville claims Jonathan was the source of the crabs he got four times in the seedy but beloved club. And there is much talk in the book about the decrepit bathrooms, for their sub-Third World sanitary conditions and where the truly brave might partake in the classic drug-and-sex combo. “You could always see four feet in the bathroom stall,” said Dick Manitoba.
The book contains interesting facts about the humble and initially stumbling beginnings of the early CB’s bands who would become legends, including Blondie and Talking Heads. Elda Stiletto and busy backup singers/present-day cosmetic company giants, Tish and Snooky, tell of Blondie’s early days, the gestation in Elda’s band, and false starts as Angel and Blondie and the Banzai Babies before settling on a firm lineup anchored by drummer Clem Burke. Another memorable night was when Talking Heads and The Shirts auditioned together. Hilly loved the first because they were “neat” and carried “very little equipment.” And though they didn’t reach the commercial heights of other early CBGB bands, The Shirts would prove Kristal’s favorite. He would go on to manage them, secure their three-album deal with Capital Records, and a role for their lead singer, the now busy actress Annie Golden, in Milos Foreman’s movie version of the Broadway musical Hair.
The Dead Boys – photo by Ebet Roberts – the History of CBGB
CBGB began to pick up steam with the arrival of Patti Smith, who had a four-day-a-week, seven-week residency in Spring 1975. Kristal compares the excitement to comic Lenny Bruce’s residency at the Village Vanguard when Hilly was helping manage the club for owner Max Gordon. The two-week CBGB Rock Festival in July 1975 wouldn’t bring in a huge amount of cash, but it generated tons of press from outlets like The Soho Weekly News, Village Voice, etc. Writer Legs McNeil, the man who popularized the term “punk” appropriated from a favorite term of TV’s Kojack, called CBGB “a juvenile delinquent hangout, where everyone was equal because they were broke.” To Richard Lloyd, it gained traction because “it was a reaction to hippie stadium music.” By 1976, the club started making money, and one of the essential ingredients of success began to happen: the girls started coming in droves, according to Tish and Snooky. In July 1976, CBGB invested in a new sound system, which would be ripped off then replaced, making it the best-sounding live room in New York City and maybe the world. It became a venue that would attract artists from around the globe, including the then-unsigned Police, who played for an audience of 10 in July 1977.
There is lots of good dish on Hilly’s failed ventures, like his short-lived CBGB Theater on Second Avenue, the proposed punk rock sitcom, TVCBGB and his ill-fated management of another popular attraction, The Dead Boys. The book also relates how CBGB’s slow burn rep as the birthplace of punk was usurped a bit by the UK – the rapid rise of the Sex Pistol and the appropriation of the spiked hair and torn t-shirt originated by Richard Hell. When the club launched it was the only game in town for bands playing original music, a refuge where virtually anyone could get a shot at their Monday audition nights. But by the 1980s, CBGB would have competition from new clubs like Hurrah, The Ritz, Danceteria, The Peppermint Lounge, the Mudd Club and more. But most would not survive the decade.
But even with all this buzz, CBGB-style punk was “poison as far as record companies were concerned.” Except for Blondie, whose breakthrough came from a disco infusion in their #1 singer “Heart of Glass,” CBGB bands didn’t move platinum units of vinyl or CDs or get much radio airplay. Bands like latter-day favorites, the chainsaw-wielding, car-blowing-up Wendy Williams and her Plasmatics, had to make their living on the road.
The History of CBGB – Owner Hilly Kristal, photo by Ebet Roberts
In the mid- and late-1980s, CBGB would birth another musical genre – hardcore. It’s Sunday hardcore matinees did big business at the door but not much at the bar, as many devotees were underage or straight arrows who didn’t drink beer. One CBGB barkeep recalls: “We could make $2,000 at the door and only $200 at the bar.” Bands like Murphy’s Law, Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Bad Brains, The Beastie Boys, and Damage were featured; some also on cassette-only releases of live performances on a CBGB imprint created with Celluloid Records. Many of these and other new artists would have their albums featured at a new satellite, CBGB’s Record Canteen.
Kozak wraps up his history in 1988, well before the legend was glammed up via the 2013 feature film and the ridiculously “reopened CBGB” restaurant at Newark Airport. Trouser Press’s Ira Robbins provides a coda detailing Hilly’s losing battle with his landlord and the August 2006 benefit concert that attempted to save the club. (Note: this reporter did PR for that event pro-bono during his agency days. He also had his electric mandolin stolen at the club! The first gig by my long-running project, Spaghetti Eastern Music, took place at CBGB Gallery in 2003).
Kozak’s tale concludes with one of many significant observations in the book from guitarist/writer/record producer Lenny Kaye, a thought posited on the Lower East Side’s new monied residents.
“The key and glory of CBGB is that they’ve never gotten too big for their britches. They’ve never gone above their own Bowery station…even though the Bowery is above its own station now.”
For all the live performances at the expanding multitude of Hudson Valley venues, none may match the bold sensibility championed by the edge-pushing curators at Elysium Furnace Works. Led by James Keepnews and Mike Faloon, EFW’s mission is, in its founders’ words, “to present the work of vanguard artists in settings as dedicated and uncompromising as the art itself.” The final event of their momentous 2024 season will surely deliver on this promise when the electric, eclectic, and deliriously intense power trio, Harriet Tubman, cuts loose at Poughkeepsie’s VBI Theater at Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center on December 7 at 8 pm.
Harriet Tubman was formed in 1998 by guitarist/vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis. They take their moniker from Harriet Tubman, an African-American woman born into slavery who was renowned as a liberator of other slaves who, like she, chose to seek freedom by escaping to the North. She accomplished this with the help of a secret network of safe houses, or “stations,” on what was known as “The Underground Railroad.”
Before joining forces, Gibbs built an eclectic discography collaborating with artists including Ronald Shannon Jackson, Arto Lindsay, George Clinton, and Henry Rollins. Ross has done the same in his work with Cassandra Wilson, Don Byron, Henry Threadgill, Tony Williams, The Lounge Lizards, Jewel and more. JT Lewis has divided his time between studio and live work with an a-list of leading names in jazz, R&B and pop, including Whitney Houston, Sting, Bill Laswell, Sonny Sharrock, and William Parker. Together, the trio has waxed five critically acclaimed albums, including I Am A Man (1998), Ascension (2011), and their latest, The Terror End of Beauty (2018)
The music of Harriet Tubman is both familiar and fresh, a unique blend that allows the listener to experience the music free from distracting labels of style or genre.
Several critics have likened their style to a free jazzy, future-forward extension of the musical terra firma first laid down by Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. There are also elements of Delta Blues, King Tubby-style dub, electronica, 70s-styled jazz fusion, metal, ambient, noise- and progressive-rock.
While Ross may be best known for his mannered acoustic guitar work with vocalist Cassandra Wilson, he is genuinely liberated in this trio, like Harriet Tubman herself. Ross conjures spacious textures and loops as the backdrops to melodies and solos that often impart a white-hot fire, as captured on “Farther Unknown,” the opener of their latest album. Gibbs was once called “the egg in the meatloaf” by his former boss, the late great drummer/bandleader Ronald Shannon Jackson of the Decoding Society.
In this band, he provides the sub-harmonic foundation for their wildly wonderful and unpredictable sonic excursions, alternating between deep, steady grooves punctuated with thunderous chords and rapid-fire melodies of his own. Drummer Lewis provides the beats, which are polyrhythmic, funky, tribal, and swinging. Lewis functions at the conductor, creating the pulses and crescendos that propel the surprisingly dense sound produced by the trio. Harriet Tubman has a bit of everything for anyone with open ears, – free jazz, metal, blues, electronica, noise, swing, funk and dub – often co-existing happily in a single bar of music.
Elysium Furnace Works’ 2024 season has brought Hudson Valley music lovers some of greatest names in jazz with an experimental edge. Past concerts have featured local guitar hero David Torn, The Matthew Shipp Trio, legendary Ornette Coleman collaborator bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and trumpeter Peter Evans. Fans of experimentally-minded guitarist should also consider checking out EFW’s November 16 event at VBI with AM/FM. This power duo of guitarist Ava Mendoza and violinist Gabby Fluke-Mogul synthesize a heady brew of avant-jazz, blues, and noise – radically upending experimental music(s) past, present, and future.
Harriet Tubman will perform on Saturday, December 7 at 8 PM at the VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center at 12 Vassar Street in Poughkeepsie. Tickets are $30 in advance and $40 at the door — advance tickets are on sale here.
Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Band, The Guess Who, Leonard Cohen, and Alanis Morissette. Rush, Justin Bieber, Drake, and The Weeknd. Where would the world of rock and pop be without the contributions of these great artists?
Many music lovers don’t realize that the stars above have Canadian roots. And even fewer realize that one of New York City’s most popular and longest-running music venues, Webster Hall, was also the brainchild of folks from up North, the Ballinger Brothers. The story of how they rose from a hardscrabble youth on a remote farm in Ontario to reign supreme in the NYC nightlife scene for a quarter of a century is the subject of Party Boys, a rollercoaster ride of a memoir by Lon Ballinger.
Lon Ballinger and his brothers Steve, Peter, and Buster created not only Webster Hall but a legion of Canadian venues where over 40 million people danced, laughed, listened to great music, and, in many cases, connected with the loves of their lives.
The Ballinger Brothers grew up poor on a family farm with a beloved but overbearing mother and an alcoholic father, a psychologically damaged war veteran who would (figuratively) head out for a packet of cigarettes and never return. Their nightclub empire, which first revolutionized the industry in Canada and then NYC, would spring from Lon’s impulse buy of a pizza oven and open his town’s first pizza parlor in October 1973. As with many of their ventures, they would turn it into a success, cash out, and move on to another enterprise. After the pizzeria came a laundromat, which financed their first foray into nightlife.
Lon and his brother’s inspiration to get into the disco biz came from two unlikely sources. The first was the classic television show, I Love Lucy, and its portrayal of the nightclub run by Lucy’s bandleader husband, Ricky Ricardo. The second is when they detoured from a planned road trip to Mexico to New Orleans (to drop off a hitchhiker they picked up who was carting 400 hits of purple microdot acid to Mardi Gras) and then San Padre Island, where they saw their first big-time disco.
With monies from the sale of their laundromat and Lon’s earnings from his sideline in real estate, the brothers opened their first club, Ballinger’s Danceteria, a cavernous two-level musical funhouse in Cambridge, Ontario on Halloween 1979. Here they would learn the hard lessons about what made a club prosper: booking great acts like James Brown, The Band and homegrown stars-to-be like Brian Adams and Loverboy; the value of having professional security and the golden rule of nightlife — treat the ladies right and the men will follow.
Ballinger’s would be one of the first clubs to feature giant video screens, leading to the creation of their own weekly TV series, Canamerica Dance. Ultimately, they would depart Ontario for the big city, Toronto, creating the country’s largest club, the 200,000 square foot Big Bop in 1986, followed by smaller satellites, The Boom Boom Room and Rockit. They also had an outlandish idea that never got off the ground due to the recession of the late ‘80s, The Judicial Museum of Canada. The latter was slated to be housed in a circa-1850 courthouse, Canada’s oldest, serving as a combination dance and music venue with a museum dedicated to the history of the country’s legal system and crimes.
Lon, what the hell were you and your brothers smoking?
The big-dreaming Ballinger Brothers were seriously over-leveraged when the financial crisis hit, with $5 million in renovation and real estate loans. When they realized there was no way to rescue their Canadian club empire, they turned their sites on New York, taking over the site of The Ritz, which, at that time, was a shell of its former self, much like the city itself.
The brothers’ experiences operating Webster Hall are the heart of the memoir. It would take three years of negotiations with the community board, liquor commission, and their landlord before they had approval to open the four-level nightspot in October 1992. Ballinger’s book includes plenty of juicy tales of navigating a plethora of dicey issues with the Mob, the Hell’s Angels, crooked politicos, and, of course, troublesome VIP guests (I’m talkin’ to you Bill Murray, Mark Wahlberg, Hillary Clinton, Bobby Flay and Rudy Giuliani!). Lon also proudly proclaims Webster Hall’s role as an early promoter of hip-hop and EDM culture by giving gigs to aspiring stars and via their venture, Webster Hall Records, which notched 30 chart-topping dance releases. There are also rosy memories of artists like Lady Gaga, Moby, and Ed Sheeran, who honed their craft in early career performances on the venue’s multiple stages. Lon also discusses their early embrace of the digital realm. Webster Hall pioneered online ticket sales and what may have had the first website ever created for a nightclub. He also humorously relates how the site’s domain was hijacked and later reclaimed after a legal battle with a porn purveyor.
Some of the book’s best parts are Lon’s memories of fantastic events during the brothers’ 25-year run at Webster Hall. Prince is called “the greatest talent ever to grace our stage” thanks to a 2005 performance with a 35-piece orchestra, a milestone witnessed by an invite-only audience of 350. Also fondly remembered are Madonna’s Pajama Party for the release of Bedtime Stories in 1995, Bill Clinton’s Presidential Announcement Party in 1996 (where the Commander-in-Chief “made eyes” at one of his brother’s wives), and Paul Simon’s live recording in 2011, where another genius joined him, David Byrne. From 1992 – 2017, Webster Hall hosted nearly 30 million people and showcased 10,000 musical acts.
Ballinger’s book also includes many tales of the cut-throat side of the Big Apple’s nightclub business, namely their longtime battles with another promoter and sometimes partner, Bowery Presents. In 2016, the Ballinger Brothers agreed to sell the venue to a Russian oligarch and entertainment mogul, Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center, for $45 million. Like many stories and experiences here, that would be an event full of surprises and drama. The Ballingers would hand over the keys to their kingdom in the wee hours of August 17, 2017, after a final wild night featuring a performance by Skrillex, an EDM artist whose fame they helped foster.
Lon’s book concludes with a valuable bonus section: “Lon’s Practical Advice for Running the Best Business in Your World.” Here, he provides 30 pages of his hard-earned wisdom on what it takes to succeed in any business – from building good relationships with your community, customers, and partners to advice on branding, marketing, insurance, taxes, and lawyers (be wary of the latter).
After selling Webster Hall, Lon Ballinger and his wife moved to the Hudson Valley, where they bought and refurbished The Stewart House in Athens, a breathtaking boutique hotel on the Hudson River. They now operate this hospitality gem, hosting their friends and guests at the beautiful and historical 1883 Stewart House Hotel.
Bio: Sal Cataldi is a musician, writer and former entertainment publicist living in the Hudson Valley and NYC. He is leader of the band Spaghetti Eastern Music and member of the ensembles Guitars A Go Go, Vapor Vespers and spaceheater. He is also the host of “Reading In Funktamental” on WGXC 90.7 FM/Wave Farm, a monthly/Apple Podcast show where he speaks to the authors of the books on music he reviews here at NYSMusic.com
Her famous dad may not have played the renowned festival, but Moon Unit Zappa certainly was a hit when she ventured to Woodstock to discuss Earth to Moon(Deyst/William Morrow Books), her acclaimed memoir of growing up in the unconventional household of her iconic musician dad, Frank Zappa.
The October 12 event was sponsored by The Golden Notebook, Woodstock’s premiere independent bookshop since 1978. The shop’s co-owners, Jacqueline Kellachan and James Conrad, have brought many outstanding writers to town for lively readings, including notable musicians like Blondie’s Chris Stein and Steve Earle. To accommodate the 100 attendees, the event was moved from The Golden Notebook’s cozy location on Tinker Street to the larger Mountain View Studios.
With wit, humor, and humility, Moon addressed the cost of being raised by her largely absent genius father (who she idolizes above all others) and controlling mother – a woman whose anger arose, in no small part, due to her father’s constant philandering. Moon also discussed her much-varied career as an MTV and VH-1 VJ, an actress, author and the founder of an upscale food concern, Moon Unit® Tea. She also conversed on her spiritual quest to rise above the challenges of her youth and become a better parent to her daughter, Mathilda. And, of course, there was plenty about her time in the spotlight helping to create what would become her father’s biggest hit, “Valley Girl.” For a more in-depth look, read our earlier review of the book here.
In true Zappa tradition, the event kicked off with an unannounced surprise. It was a high-energy performance of “Valley Girl” by Mona Freaka, a quintet of teenage girls from Woodstock who truly captured the punky and snarky spirit of Moon and Frank’s original recording.
Martha Frankel, the Executive Director of the annual Woodstock Bookfest, moderated the discussion with insight and humor that matched the tenor of Moon’s wonderfully rich memoir. Frankel began by saying that the Zappa household was “truly the epicenter of lax parenting.” She added what would’ve been her advice to Moon’s parents if she had known them – “If you’re going to be doing bad shit, you probably shouldn’t let your kids have diaries!” Moon credits her lifelong interest in writing to her parents in the book, who gave her a new leather-bound diary every year. These diaries provided much of the source material for her memoir.
In the Q&A with Frankel, Moon discussed the many challenges she faced in writing the book. It was a process that took place over four and a half years and several drafts. Due to the well-publicized squabbles between Moon and her three siblings generated by her mother’s uneven distribution of control of her father’s legacy in her will, she mentioned how her first go at the book was “a f*ck you draft that I ultimately decided to throw out.” Another thing she first left out of the early drafts of the book was the chapter on the whirlwind created by the unlikely success of “Valley Girl.” Unfortunately, this sudden fame came to her during her “awkward teenage phase.” The fact that this novelty tune was the massively productive Frank’s most significant commercial success was something he greeted with chagrin.
Midway through the event, Moon Zappa teared up reading the chapter where she and her brother Dweezil are invited into Frank’s most sacred space – the rehearsal hall. They each got their turn at the mic, as their father conducted the band with a wide smile.
Moon also shared some humorous and heartbreaking facts not covered in the book. These included her unlikely teenage crushes: the stern ABC newsman Sam Donaldson, humorist Spalding Gray and comedian Sam Kinison and how, though she was hugely impressed with it, she was “mortified by my father’s music … largely because it wasn’t lady friendly.” She also mentioned her idea of pursuing a documentary where she would interview the many women her father had affairs with over the years. She also observed that she and her siblings are all “serial monogamists” and very attentive parents, an oppositional reaction to their experiences with their parents.
Like the book itself, Moon’s discussions of her life with her parents are anything but a bitch fest. Even with their many faults, Moon’s love and admiration for both came through. Moderator Frankel would comment more than once during the event that Moon was “probably the most forgiving person on the planet.”
To hear more, check out the extensive interview with Moon on my podcast, “Reading Is Funktamental.”
Can a collection of short stories that delves deep into the hearts and souls of musicians be both entertaining and inspirational? The answer is yes, and New York City-based musician, author, artist, and producer Dawoud Kringle proves it with his new book Bedtime Stories for Musicians and Other People.
Dawoud Kringle (aka Dawoud the Renegade Sufi) is a musician and published author whose first two books, “A Quantum Hijra” (a Sufi science fiction novel) and “A Mansion with Many Rooms” (a collection of poetry and short stories) received critical acclaim. His writing appears in several online magazines, including doobeedoobeedoo.info and others, as well as his Substack page.
Dawoud’s music has been described as sounding like “Hans Zimmer and Jimi Hendrix fighting over a beautiful princess from another galaxy.” A fan said of one of his performances “This is the moment when the beings of Mount Olympus allowed us to hear their chief musician.” He has performed in the US and Europe, appeared on many recordings, including 13 self-produced solo albums. A skilled improviser who often improvises entire concerts, he also has experience composing for film, theater, dance performances, and his own neoclassical compositions. Recently, Dawoud had introduced the Dautar into his music, an instrument he designed and commissioned to build that combines the guitar, sitar and cello.
With this experience, Dawoud is uniquely qualified to execute this literary project. His first book in almost nine years, Bedtime Stories for Musicians and Other People is a captivating collection of fictional short stories that takes you on a journey through the lives of musicians across all genres and periods. This eclectic mix of drama, adventure, humor, tragedy, fantasy, mysticism, science fiction, and experimental literary form explores the power of music and the trials and rewards of life itself.
The variety of tales in this collection is truly inspirational. “Kamaludeen and the Djinn” is the story of the 13th-century Moorish equivalent of Niccolo Paganini and his tragic love affair with a djinn. “The Talking Drum” follows the history of a magical drum from its beginnings in the Songhai Empire, to a hip-hop club in Houston in 2012. “The Scroll and the Five Poisoned Animals” explores a similar theme, beginning in pre-dynastic China and concluding in present-day Chongqing. “Chatbot” is a science fiction story that starts in 2042 and tells the story of a musician whose AI assistant achieves sentience with unforeseen consequences. “An American Drama” is a story in three parts, each narrated by the main characters: a dying outlaw country singer, a blues guitarist, and a Native American bassist. “Professor Hieronymus Peabody and the Dead Musicians” is a humorous story of a mad scientist who builds a time machine and sets up “reaction” sessions with deceased musicians such as Mozart, Liberace, and Jimi Hendrix.
These and many other immersive and enchanting storytelling make “Bedtime Stories for Musicians and Other People” a fascinating read. Each story speaks from the hearts of musicians as they navigate the tumultuous waters of creative expression and their lives.
Kringle’s writing demonstrates his deep knowledge of the full scope of music history, literally from the days our Cro-Magnon ancestors first learned to beat a drum. His imaginative tales are related with a melodic flow that makes this complex and inspired collection a surprisingly breezy read. Kringle’s latest is his most accessible to date – one that marries his profound musical scholarship with a world of wildly imaginative premises that will delight and inform music-lovers.
Additionally, Dawoud Kringle is a multi-discipline visual artist, audio engineer, and occasionally does stand-up comedy as a hobby. He is a member in good standing with Musicians For Musicians, and the New York Composer’s Circle.
In 1978, Christina Crawford published Mommie Dearest, a stunning memoir/exposé about the hardship endured growing up with her cruel and unbalanced mother – screen legend Joan Crawford.
While there is no brandishing of coat hangers a la Crawford in Earth to Moon (Deyst/William Morrow), Moon Zappa’s new memoir presents the disturbing realities of growing up as the eldest child of rock legend Frank Zappa and his neglected, bossy, and controlling wife, Gail.
First off, let’s talk about Frank Zappa. Undoubtedly, he is one of my favorite all-time musicians – as a composer, guitarist, and socio-political commentator. I adored his early works with the original Mothers of Invention, albums like We’re On In It for the Money and Burnt Weeny Sandwich, and also his early- to mid-‘70s output like Hot Rats, Overnight Sensation and Roxy & Elsewhere. And while he lost me for a while in the ‘80s, he was back at the top of my list with his final works, The Yellow Shark and Civilization Part III.
Like Picasso and other uber-productive artists, Frank was completely and utterly self-absorbed. As beloved and admired as he was by his children, he saw very little of them – spending nine months a year on the road. And when he was home, he rose every day at 5 pm and headed to his recording studio in the basement. Also, like Picasso, he was the ultimate horndog. Zappa carried on countless affairs while on the road and even under his own roof (one groupie reportedly lived under the piano in his home studio). The latter made his wife, Gail, a very unhappy woman who often took her frustrations out on her children. And it was her firstborn, Moon, who was the main sounding board for her woes and the chief recipient of her ire.
Like her father, Moon is a supremely talented individual—a writer of several books, an actress, an entrepreneur, a spiritualist, and a bit of a comedian too. The genesis of this book goes back to her fifth Christmas, when she received the first of her hardback-bound journals from her parents. This is something that would become an annual tradition and launch her lifetime practice of chronicling life events and her feelings.
“I partly wrote this memoir as a reclamation, to tell my version of what happened in my childhood and early life as a gift to myself, as a map that charts how and when I ended up as an adult,” she writes in the introduction to her book. “Growing up doesn’t end when you become an adult…Make peace with what hurts and head toward joy… Write your future with the ink of today.”
Moon’s sketches of childhood begin with her memorable name, Moon Unit. I had never heard that the “unit” stood for Frank’s belief that her birth made the family a true entity. When she is still way too young to hear it, her mother shares that “pushing you out of my vagina gave me the best orgasm of my life.” The Zappa household is bedlam. There are various band members, the Zappa-sponsored groupie/girl group, The GTOs, visiting rock royalty like Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, scenester oddballs, and truly mentally unbalanced freaks like Wildman Fischer crashing through at all hours. She hates that her parents didn’t wear underwear. Above all, Moon craves “stability and structure.” She is frightened of the basement room where his dad keeps the suitcases he uses for touring. She believes there are aliens living down there (UFOs were one of Gail’s woo-woo obsessions). Moon would seek protection from the imaginary aliens from an unlikely source – two invisible camels. At four, she tries to run away to Hollywood and the famous Schwab’s Drugstore where Lana Turner was discovered, intent on becoming an actress.
When Moon gets mad that her birthday is being celebrated after her younger brother’s one September, her mother puts her in a cold shower. Gail tape records her screams and plays them back to a horrified Moon. She decides then and there that she doesn’t want to be anything like her mother. When Frank is away on tour, she will head to the soundproof vocal booth in his home studio to “scream away” her stress.
While Frank’s absence looms large in her life and this book, some cherished moments are chronicled. In one, they visit the zoo to see a cheetah Frank and Gail have adopted. Frank gets her a commemorative coin with “Moon Unit Is Beautiful” imprinted on it. When she is nine, they share a private moment where Frank shows her his favorite records: Erik Satie, the Goldberg Variation and Johnny Guitar Watson. He then gifts her his huge collection of 45s.
Gail shares with Moon her obsessions, one of which is the witchcraft her mother employs against Frank’s many groupies. At 11, Moon casts a spell of her own on a school bully. Moon hangs up her pointy hat and broom when her classmate is injured falling off the monkey bars.
In an attempt to bond with her dad, Moon slips a letter under his studio door to reintroduce herself to him. This will lead to their collaborative effort, the hit song “Valley Girl.” Moon’s impression of a So-Cal Valley speak is modeled on a girl she meets at a bar mitzvah. It will be Frank’s biggest commercial success and Moon will be thrust into the promotional spotlight though horrified by her teenage acne. Ever the needler, Gail will tell her that Frank wouldn’t give her writing credit or money until she insisted he do so. “Earth to Moon” is the phrase Gail will deploy to disparagingly gain her attention.
The success of “Valley Girl” will lead Moon to an acting career, her first on-screen kiss with Erik Estrada on the TV series CHiPs, and her first date with actor Emilio Estevez. To have time for her career, she will be put into a school with other young entertainers, including Janet Jackson and Jason and Justine Bateman, the latter who becomes a lifelong friend. This will be followed by roles in films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and stints as a VJ on MTV, with her brother Dweezil, and later VH-1. Moon and Dweezil will also star in their own short-lived TV series, Normal Life.
One of the most moving parts of the book deals with Frank’s battle with terminal prostate cancer. Gail thinks it’s ironic that he got the kind of cancer that would impact his ability to have sex with women… other women. Another revelation is that Frank will ask Gail for a divorce several times during their marriage, and during his final illness, to be with a German woman named Gerde. Moon will overhear (and be horrified by) her mother speaking with a New Zealand groupie who wants the dying Frank’s “seed” to have a child. We hear about his compulsion to continue to work and the Friday “Margarita Nights” where Frank is entertained by the likes of The Chieftains, Ravi Shankar, Tibetan monks, Tuvan Throat singers and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. We also hear how Gail makes Moon sell her home to pay for Frank’s treatment… as the genius musician had no health insurance.
With Frank’s death, the family unravels, largely due to Gail’s machinations. She lies, saying he died without a will and in debt. She will sell his music catalog twice and go on a real estate spending spree before also ending up financially strapped. With Gail’s death from lung cancer, after Moon helps nurse her in her final days, she will set up the uneven distribution of power and assets between her children, which will lead to their current legal battles and estrangement. It’s “the final perfect chess move,” one that sews the family chaos that persists to this day.
But Moon will also come to admire her mother’s strength, and to have a bit of sympathy for her suffering at the hands of Frank’s artistic self-absorption and roving eye. “She never deserted her post as our leader in battle. Even if she helped perpetuate the war.”
With the parents passing, Moon’s life is still a battle and an object lesson in achieving self-realization and peace. In the book, she describes her marriage and divorce and a truly horrifying chapter on the life-threatening illness of her then three-year-old daughter, Matilda. She will move to Taos, study and teach meditation and yoga online, start a successful tea company, and continue her very fine writing. She comes to the realization that her mother’s actions are what set her free to be herself.
Near the close of the book, she writes of her parents: “Together, the two of you taught me the hard lesson that you can die before you die and live beyond your death. As a duo, you created the map and destroyed the key.”
Moon Zappa will in Woodstock at the Golden Notebook Bookstore on October 13 at 1 pm. For details, visit goldennotebook.com/events.
The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild will present BIO-SPHERE, a unique sonic collaboration between environmental sculptor Ian Laughlin and renowned composer/percussionist David Van Tieghem. This free performance will take place Sunday, August 4 and 2pm in front of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s Office Complex located at 34 Tinker Street in Woodstock.
David Van Tieghem is an American composer and sound designer known for his philosophy of utilizing any available object as a percussion instrument. In his long career, Van Tieghem has performed and composed for numerous films and productions as well as collaborating with Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Talking Heads, David Byrne, Deborah Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, Adrian Belew, Jerry Marotta, John Zorn, Sylvia Bullett and Happy Traum. Along with many other awards, Van Tieghem was the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for Music Composition (2007).
Originally from New Zealand, Ian Laughlin is a multi-media eco-artist who first achieved notoriety in New York City’s Lower East Side in the 80s. A resident of the Hudson Valley since 1990, Laughlin has been dedicated to exploring injustices and finding solutions to the many challenges facing the planet through his many notable art installations and acoustic sculptures. His work can be found at his website.
BIO-SPHERE is the latest Laughlin-Van Tieghem collaboration and it’s sounding the alarm about PFOS, the so-called ‘forever chemicals,’ endangering our species and planet.
“My sculpture utilizes tanks and piping to present a model for water purification of carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’,” says Laughlin. “It is sonically designed for composer/percussionist David Van Tieghem to signal that alarm in a bold musical way.”
Recent Laughlin and Van Tieghem works have included Chilling Effects and Glacial Survival Instincts (2023) and Lunasa and Pitchfork Chamber Music (2021), the former of which also included collaboration with Laughlin’s partner, the singer/songwriter Sylvia Bullett. Laughlin created the cover art for Bullett’s latest album, All Knowledge There Transcending. Videos of these works can be found here.
Founded in 1902, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is a regional center for the arts located in Woodstock. From its 250-acre mountainside campus and its arts and performance center in the village of Woodstock, it offers an integrated program of exhibitions, performances, workshops and artists’ residencies. For info, visit here.
