Even after eighteen intense years of bouncing, bellowing and soul-baring your way to the top, some successes strike when you’re not looking. While The Wombats were hard at work remotely constructing their fifth album Fix Yourself, Not The World from LA, London and Oslo, a new generation of TikTokers were sending the band viral by making over 600,000 videos – some viewed over 100 million times – around the opening lines of the Oliver Nelson remix of their 2015 Glitterbug album track ‘Greek Tragedy’: “We’re smashing mics in karaoke bars, you’re running late with half your make-up on”.
“I think one influencer made a video of her dancing, singing the opening, and then it took off and every man and his dog were doing it,” says singer Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy of a viral breakout that has seen the remix streamed 30 million times, the original track 120 million (sending it gold in the US) and add 2.4 million to their monthly Spotify listeners since January 2021. “Someone sent me Charlie Puth singing it like whilst having some granola. I guess people were searching ‘what is this song?’ It turned out that remix was on some Hed Kandi compilation [Dusk ‘Til Disco, 2015] and that was the only outlet for it. It’s cool that random celebrities are singing the opening lines to something I wrote a long time ago, it’s great that it’s doing well but it’s just completely random.”
The success of the ‘Greek Tragedy’ remix is further illustration, if any were needed, of The Wombats’ ability to remain relevant to new generations of fans through the timeless power of their songwriting alone. Formed at the Liverpool Institute Of Performing Arts in 2003, they were the three-headed guitar pop sensation – Murph, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis – that erupted out of Merseyside with Top Twenty hits like ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’ and ‘Moving To New York’ during the late-‘00s indie rock explosion, stamped their mark on the era with 2007’s fervidly melodic debut album A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation, and then transcended it. By 2011’s This Modern Glitch (a UK Number 3 hit) and 2015’s Glitterbug (Number 5) they’d easily hurdled the shift to streaming and become a playlist phenomenon thanks to tracks such as ‘Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)’, ‘Techno Fan’, ‘1996’, ‘Emoticons’ and their online secret weapon ‘Greek Tragedy’.
Murph’s magnificent way with melding deeply infectious melodies with dark, wry and surreal confessions from his fractured psyche and shame-filled romantic history – combined with the band’s gradual embrace of the synthetic tones and textures of modern pop – endeared them to new waves of young streaming fans (over half are under 24) and has seen their popularity continually expand. Their sets at festivals such as Reading & Leeds would draw the biggest crowd flockings of the entire weekend, and the UK tour for 2018’s Top 3, silver-certified fourth album Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life (home of ‘Turn’, ‘Cheetah Tongue’ and post-row domestic confessional ‘Lemon To A Knife Fight’ and currently nudging 300 million streams) culminated in a celebratory show at Wembley Arena, complete with dancing wombats.
“Top five gig ever,” Murph remembers, “I’m very proud that we’ve stuck in like some dirty little warthogs. It hasn’t been the easiest road but we’ve always kept our focus and it’s paying off…I thought it was gonna stay in that mid-2000s indie rock phase forever and then swarms of younger people are now getting into the band and finding the older stuff.” Testament to the strength of your songwriting? “I think for me it’s a combination of hard work and that lyrically and musically we’ve always done what we like. I’ve never tried to tone it down for any commercial gain. I like weird, odd lyrics, crazy titles or strange concepts for songs. I struggle to write songs that come from more of an accessible or blander place.”
Not a band averse to internal frictions, The Wombats took a well-earned break after the Beautiful People tour wrapped up at Reading & Leeds 2019 and reconvened early in 2020, first as a group at Murph’s home studio in LA where a “bedrock” of four or five songs came together, then working and recording remotely throughout 2020 once lockdown hit, marshalled by a variety of producers including Jacknife Lee, Gabe Simon (Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey), Paul Meaney (Twenty One Pilots, Nothing But Thieves) and regular Wombats desk-man Mark Crew. “The plan before we started was David Byrne – a decent amount of brass going on – meets LCD Soundsystem,” Murph says of the album’s intended direction. “All I had in the back of my head was to keep it real and as organic as possible and not throw the kitchen sink at it. Then we ended up throwing the kitchen sink at it. Somehow the kitchen sink just appears no matter how much I’d like it to disappear. It’s great, but we’ve absolutely lobbed everything at it again.”
With Murph in Highland Park in Los Angeles, Tord in Oslo and Dan in London, discussing each day’s plan via Zoom, then recording separately and sending individual files to the producers to mix into the finished tracks, the recording was “pure madness, to be honest. Dan and Tord can be like fire and ice and the fact that I was away and disconnected made things madder than they needed to be. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
The Wombats have the bond and experience to power through such setbacks however; Fix Yourself, Not The World turned out to be a remarkably cohesive, inventive and forward-thinking guitar pop record, and arguably their best yet. Incorporating cutting edge electronica, pop and R&B elements into the melodic energies of classic new wave, alt-rock and indietronica, it’s a record that will appeal equally to fans of Talking Heads, New Order, The Cure and Charli XCX. It also finds Murph turning a psychological corner: where Beautiful People… was full of semi-comic stories from the brink, or the midst, of meltdown, Fix Yourself, Not The World – as its title suggests – reads more like a self-help manual for the domesticated malcontent.
“The pandemic and all the social upheaval massively influenced the idea that the most powerful thing I can do as a human being is to shake my fist at myself rather than shake my fist at the outside world,” Murph explains. “There was this Jungian theory about if you change something within yourself or your actions, you immediately change something in society as a whole.”
Throughout the album, there’s a whole lot of fixing going on. The trash disco funk punk of ‘You Flip Me Upside Down’ – set in James Murphy’s Brooklyn wine bar The Four Horsemen, if not one of his catchiest fever dreams – has Murph admitting “I don’t wanna sit around and just get high” as the hedonistic life loses its lustre in the head-clearing rush of fresh love: “It’s aware that the party scene is not gonna be as fulfilling as I may have thought it was in the past,” Murph says. On ‘This Car Drives All By Itself’, a melting pot of space pop, acid house, The Tom Tom Club, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ and gang chant punk, he repurposes the concept of the self-driving vehicle as a topical metaphor for coming to terms with humanity’s helplessness. “I thought that that was a great way of saying, we row but the universe steers,” he says. “We’re not in control as much we think and I want to learn to be okay with that.”
Where Beautiful People… spotlit the plate-flinging paranoias behind marital bliss, Fix Yourself… focusses more on the transformative release of romantic commitment. ‘Wildfire’ is a heat-hazy tribute to his wife, ‘If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming With You’ an electropop ode to obsessive devotion, ‘Ready For The High’ a sultry buzz rock note-to-self to accept the good times now they’re here. Portishead-esque ballad and first release ‘Method To The Madness’ pinpoints his honeymoon in Barcelona as the breakthrough moment when Murph decided to dump his demons and “fuck my sadness”, and even a song called ‘Everything I Love Is Going To Die’ is an upbeat New Order/Cure homage about trying to live to the fullest while we still can. “Icarus was my best friend,” Murph sings, “so I’m gonna make him proud in the end”.
“I’m maybe learning to start not beating myself up so much,” Murph says. “There’s only a finite amount of time that we have in these ridiculous vessels of ours and we should try to enjoy it. The whole album is kind of about not trying to control anything but just completely letting go.”
Well, not completely. Dotted with snippets of Murph discussing the everyday niggles and irritations that drive him to distraction, ‘Worry’ details the superstitions, paranoias and idiosyncrasies tormenting him daily, from needing everything to be in multiples of three to an irrational fear of mariticide. “It’s supposed to be inside the head of someone who’s losing it a bit,” he explains. And the space rock ‘Work Is Easy, Life Is Hard’ finds just as much fear and confusion in the bark of the online attack dog.
“It’s about cancel culture,” Murph says of pointed lines like “why don’t you chop my tongue out?” and “you don’t speak for me”. “The toxicity of social media. One of my friends said there’s no room for nuance in anyone’s opinions or views on the world, you’re either with us or you’re against us. I think people are sucked into a vortex of pretty bad ideologies when I feel like wouldn’t it be nice if we formed our own ideology individually and talked about them properly, rather than shoving them down people’s necks or cancelling people for not agreeing with us? Where is the conversation, because it’s not gonna progress anywhere without being able to talk to one another intelligently. Maybe the things you’re talking about are far, far, far too complex to be put in 280 characters.”
The Wombats, on the other hand, are becoming pan-generational masters at weaving the complexities of the everyday struggle to stay sane, happy and psychosis-free into forty-five minutes of exuberant future rock, as ever more young streamers are discovering in their millions. As their unstoppable ascent continues, next year they headline London’s O2 Arena. Ready for another high?
Primus Announces 46-date, coast-to-coast extension of its wildly popular
‘A Tribute To Kings’ Tour, paying tribute to Rush
The tour finds the band performing Rush’s ‘A Farewell To Kings’ in its entirety
The second leg of ‘A Tribute To Kings’ will include its first stops in Canada and feature special guests Battles, Black Mountain, and The Black Angels
Primus has announced an extensive, 46-date, coast-to-coast extension of its wildly popular ‘A Tribute To Kings’ Tour, paying homage to prog-rock legends, Rush. ‘A Tribute To Kings’ will find the Bay area trio performing Rush’s 1977 album ‘A Farewell To Kings’ in its entirety, following a set of their own music. As bassist Les Claypool told Rolling Stone, the tour is about paying tribute to a band that has given him so much inspiration over the years.
“Hemispheres was my first concert,” Claypool said, referring to Rush’s 1978 album and tour. “Originally we’d always kind of joked around about doing Hemispheres…but we settled on Kings, because A) it was the first Rush record I ever heard and B) it contains ‘Cygnus X-1,’ which has always been my favorite Rush tune. It seems to be a good one for us to tackle; 2112 seemed a little obvious.”
The announcement follows the massive success of the first leg of ‘A Tribute To Kings,’ which was long-delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s just the latest in a long series of Rush-related milestones for Primus, who first opened for their musical heroes in 1992.
“Geddy, Alex and Neil had been superheroes to Larry, Herb and I in our teens,” Claypool recalled, “so when we all became pals while touring together in the early ’90s, we were pretty delighted; partially because of the musical geek-out factor but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar, turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric.”
Kicking off in Oklahoma City before winding its way throughout the US, the second leg of ‘A Tribute To Kings’ will also include the tour’s first stops in Canada, beginning with two dates in Toronto on May 13-14. Rush was formed in Toronto in 1968. The second leg will also feature special guests Battles, Black Mountain, and The Black Angels.
A special pre-sale, including VIP upgrade options, will go on sale at 10am local time today (12/14). Tickets go on sale to the general public at this Friday, December 17th at 10am local time. For ticketing and show info, please visit www.primusville.com/tour
Primus will once again partner with On Location & CID Entertainment for the ‘A Tribute to Kings’ tour to offer ticket packages that include one premium ticket, invitation to a Q&A experience with Primus, exclusive VIP merch, and more. For full details, visit https://www.cidentertainment.com/events/primus-tour/
LETTUCE Thursday, April 21 Empire Live 7pm doors * 8pm show
Artist Presale: Thurs. 12/9 at 10am local (Code: LOVE)
On-Sale: Fri. 12/10 at 12pm ET/9am PT
No matter how far we comb the outer reaches of the galaxy in search of the funk, it eventually finds us—or it does not.
You see, funk lives, grows, breathes, and blossoms. Like any living thing, it needs to be fed in order to flourish. LETTUCE both feed the rich history of funk and also combine it with strains of hip-hop, rock, psychedelia, jazz, soul, and go-go. The GRAMMY® Award-nominated six-piece—Adam Deitch [drums, percussion, arrangement], Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff [guitar], Erick “Jesus” Coomes [bass], Ryan Zoidis [alto, baritone, tenor sax, Korg X-911], Eric “Benny” Bloom [trumpet, horns], and Nigel Hall [vocals, Hammond B-3, Rhodes, clavinet, keyboards]—once again break rules, push boundaries, and uplift on their sixth full-length studio offering, Resonate [Round Hill Records].
“Funk is a living and breathing thing with a ton of sub-genres,” affirms Deitch. “Our goal is to add our own stamp to that by moving things around and bringing in jazz chords, psychedelic passages, big horns, and elements from the instrumental side of hip-hop. Funk is known as a very tightknit artform. We extend the template with improvisation on the spot. It forces us to react, pay attention, and listen to each other. By combining everything, we try to add something to the culture we love so much.”
Reverence for this culture rings out loud and clear throughout a catalog of fan favorite releases. Their discography comprises Outta Here [2002], Rage! [2008], Fly [2012], Crush [2015], the EP Mt. Crushmore [2016], the live album Witches Stew [2017], and Elevate [2019]. The latter lifted LETTUCE to new heights. Notably, it garnered a 2020 GRAMMY® Award nomination in the category of “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” and bowed at #1 on both the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums Chart and iTunes Top R&B Albums Chart. Elevate also soared to the Top 15 on the Billboard Jazz Albums, R&B Album Sales, and Heatseekers Charts. Not to mention, it put up 3 million streams within six months, and simultaneously received acclaim from BrooklynVegan, Billboard, Rolling Stone, NPR, and more.
Throughout 2019, LETTUCE siphoned all of this energy back into the studio. Written and recorded during the same Colorado Sound sessions that spawned Elevate, the band brought Resonate to life alongside iconic producer and engineer Russ Elevado [D’Angelo, The Roots, Erykah Badu].
“Russ had worked with all of our heroes,” smiles Deitch. “When we found out he was a fan, we were completely blown away and super inspired, so I ended up writing more than I’ve ever written for a record. He made us play our best. We came in extra prepared and tried to have a plethora of tempos and feels. There are rap vibes, trippy moments, and old school soul. Everything flows.”
“We hadn’t been in the studio for at least four years,” adds Zoidis. “Of course, we’d played together a ton on tour. Deitch is constantly writing and thinking of our next musical move though. By the time we got in, we had so much material and were focused. It was an empowering moment for the band. We were in a place where the chemistry couldn’t have been better. We got to capture it on tape with Russ at the controls.”
“It’s exploratory,” “Shmeeans” elaborates. “Some aspects represent our past, and other aspects represent our present and future. It’s the most we’ve ever recorded at once, so we really present a full picture.”
LETTUCE introduces this picture with the first single “Checker Wrecker.” Drawing on a longstanding collective passion for Washington, D.C. go-go music, they welcome scene legends Big Tony Fisher of Trouble Funk and Tyrone “Jungle Boogie” Williams of Rare Essence into their ecosystem. Funk guitars and simmering horns dip in and out of a percussive pocket before the track struts into swaggering chants, “Put some stank on it,” backed by warbling synths and spacey organ. Plus, Shmeeans drops “one of them funky solos.”
“Go-go is the missing link between hip-hop and funk,” says Deitch. “Tony has played with us in D.C., so we asked him to join us in the studio. ‘Jungle Boogie’ was down, too. The song is a happy moment of connecting the dots.”
Upheld by deft riffing, hummable horns, and “Tower of Power energy,” Resonate ignites with the boisterous “Blaze,” which the band kicked around live for years. “If you’re a classic LETTUCE fan, you’ll know it,” smiles “Shmeeans.”
Meanwhile, “Moksha” would be born from a moment of fate. Exploring the edges of psychedelia, legendary sitarist Indrajit Banerjee blesses the tune with sitar conjurations floating in and out of ethereal guitar transmissions.
“I bought a sitar at a pawn shop in Austin,” recalls “Shmeeans.” “However, I needed to learn how to tune it. I ended up finding Indrajit online. He invited me over to his house and helped me with tuning. It took a minute, but I realized he was this master player. We’ve had him jam on stage, and he’s on the record now. It’s a really cool, serendipitous story.”
Nearing the nine-minute mark, the closer and title track “Resonate” sees the band once again tread new territory. “It’s definitely a mood piece,” adds Deitch. “There’s a meditational vibe. It’s where we’re at now. You can relax to it—or smoke a joint to it. The title is up for interpretation. If you let good vibes resonate with the people around you, they’ll hit hearts, minds, and souls.”
“Jesus” concurs, “It’s important to us for the attendee of our concerts to experience a really great feeling and after that to Resonate it out to the rest of the world wherever they go and to whomever they meet.”
In the end, LETTUCE are more alive than ever on Resonate.
“I want you to know you’re listening to a bunch of best friends who have been playing together for more than 25 years,” Deitch leaves off. “We were major parts of each other’s lives before the band. It’s a true democracy. We all agree on the vision. We like to hit people in the heart and in the gut as opposed to the head. Maybe, you want to put Resonate on and dance or just grab the aux cord where you are, plug it in, and play it loud.”
Jesus adds, “I hope fans take away a sensation of genuine emotion and personal transformation.”
“Hopefully, Resonate stamps a moment in time for you,” concludes Zoidis. “It touches on all of the important funk sub-genres that made us who we are. Funk definitely found us. No matter how hard we try to put it down, it takes over and makes sure we’re doing what we’re here to do!”
How Do You Love?, the sophomore LP from L.A. power-pop outfit The Regrettes, is a an album about the most universal of emotions: love. Throughout the record, 18-year-old frontwoman Lydia Night details the rise and fall of a relationship—from that first rush of butterflies, through a destructive break-up, to ultimately finding peace and closure.
The album arrives on the heels of a few explosive years for The Regrettes. In 2018, the band— currently rounded out by members Genessa Gariano (22, guitar), Brooke Dickson (24, bass) and Drew Thomsen (22, drums)—released their critically acclaimed Attention Seeker EP, as well the passionate standalone anti-Kavanaugh anthem “Poor Boy,” which ELLE deemed “a feminist call to arms.” The group also dominated the year’s top summer festivals, from Coachella to Reading + Leeds, landing on the covers of LA Times and LA Weekly and earning praise from the likes of Rolling Stone, Billboard, USA Today, Variety, and The Guardian. Together, the group has graced the stages of CONAN and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, toured extensively across North America and Europe, and garnered widespread acclaim from NPR, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, Consequence of Sound, and many more since the 2017 release of their breakthrough debut album, Feel Your Feelings, Fool!
Taking that momentum in stride, The Regrettes are excited to move into their next era. Night, who wrote the vast majority of lyrics on How Do You Love?, came up with the idea after writing a group of songs about her experiences in various real-life relationships. From there, she says, she “realized that they all fit together and tell a story.”
This story begins with a spoken-word poem, as Night diagnoses the listener as being “infected” with a “love disease.” From there, the album is off to the races: the first song is the recently released standout “California Friends,” a danceable track about the excitement—and the nerves—that come with meeting someone new. “[It’s about] not knowing your feelings towards that person, really,” Night says, “but your gut is telling you that you like them, or love them, but you just know that it’s not what’s easiest [for you].”
A little less than halfway through the record, with the sauntering “Stop and Go,” Night pumps the breaks a bit: “Stop before we lose control,” she sings, “Let’s take a breath before we go, go, go.” She explains that the song is about realizing that her new relationship isn’t perfect: “A lot of times,” she says, “at the beginning of a relationship, there’s just nothing wrong. But then the problems start popping up. [You discover] there’s a lot you don’t like about the person—a lot of [qualities] you don’t think you can be with.”
By “Dead Wrong,” these problems have become insurmountable for Night. And in the last quarter of the record (“Go Love You,” “Hasn’t Hit You,” and “Here You Go”), she makes the decision to leave—and she’s not looking back. “I feel strong in this decision and I am right,” she says of the emotion that inspired those latter songs. “I’m doing what’s best for myself—have you learned that yet for yourself?”
Although Night ends up alone in her story, the tone of the album’s closer (and title track), “How Do You Love?” is hardly bitter. Instead, it’s a self-reflection on the journey of falling in and out of love—with hope for the future: “It’s about finding bravery through [love],” Night says. “It’s about learning and accepting that, yes, you went through a shitty breakup, but that’s amazing—because all that means is next time you’re in a relationship, you know so much more about yourself and about what you want.”
Returning to Night’s original diagnoses of the listener being “infected” with love, the record makes it very clear that The Regrettes are infected, too—but that’s not a bad thing. The band hopes that the album will provide “the cure,” by showing listeners that no matter how they’ve experienced love—whether it’s romantic, platonic, or self-love—they’re never alone.
** This show has been rescheduled from 10/2/21. All tickets purchased for 10/3/20 and 10/2/21 will be honored on December 17.
This show is part of the NYS Music Jam For Tots Concert Series. Please bring a new unwrapped toy for our collection box and help bring holiday cheer to those less fortunate.
More than 30 years after starting his full-fledged music career with The Samples, Sean Kelly continues to delight fans with music that transcends genres, age and shatters the rules of the established music industry. Throughout his career, Sean has been the driving influence of 20 albums and over 1 million records sold.
Sean started playing guitar at age 16 listening to Neil Young, Rolling Stones and Jackson Browne. Those influences mixed with his own poignant and timeless lyrics, a unique and striking voice and a mind for melodies led to songs like Little Silver Ring, Feel Us Shaking and Wild River. For many fans, these aren’t new songs or old songs, but anthems to their lives that represent the first time they met their wife or the joys of their times at college.
The Samples are more than a band – they represent a culture of fans and music that go beyond who happens to be playing in the band at any given time. There have been many members of The Samples, but Sean Kelly has been the consistent factor throughout all of the changes.
Sean’s journeys across America have taken place in rental cars, tour buses and pickup trucks that would have literally taken him to the moon and back over the last quarter of a century.
Date: April 1st & 2nd **DATES ARE RESCHEDULED FROM THE NYE RUN. ALL TICKETS PURCHASED FOR THE ORIGINAL DATES WILL BE HONORED.** Location: The Palace Theatre Address: 19 Clinton Ave. Albany, NY 12207
Performing to critical acclaim for over 20 years and over 3000 shows, Dark Star Orchestra
continues the Grateful Dead live concert experience. Their shows are built off the Dead’s
extensive catalog and the talent of these seven fine musicians. On any given night, the band will
perform a show based on a set list from the Grateful Dead’s 30 years of extensive touring or use
their catalog to program a unique set list for the show. This allows fans both young and old to
share in the experience. By recreating set lists from the past, and by developing their own sets
of Dead songs, Dark Star Orchestra offers a continually evolving artistic outlet within this
musical canon. Honoring both the band and the fans, Dark Star Orchestra’s members seek out
the unique style and sound of each era while simultaneously offering their own informed
improvisations.
Dark Star Orchestra offers much more than the sound of the Grateful Dead, they truly
encapsulate the energy and the experience. It’s about a sense of familiarity. It’s about a feeling
that grabs listeners and takes over. It’s about that contagious energy…in short, it’s about the
complete experience and consistent quality show that the fan receives when attending a Dark
Star Orchestra show.
Dark Star Orchestra has performed throughout the entire United States, including a sold out
debut at Colorado’s Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater, plus shows in Europe and the Caribbean
with the band touching down in seven different countries. DSO continues to grow its fan base
by playing at larger venues for two and even three-night stands, as well as performing at major
music festivals including Bonnaroo, Milwaukee’s SummerFest, The Peach Music Festival, Jam
Cruise, Wanee Festival, SweetWater 420 Festival, Mountain Jam, and many more.
In addition to appearing at some of the nation’s top festival, Dark Star Orchestra hosts its own
annual music festival and campaign gathering, titled the “Dark Star Jubilee”, currently in its
eighth year where DSO headline all three nights and are joined by a mix of established and up
and coming national touring acts. Beyond the shores of the United States, DSO has taken its
internationally-acclaimed Grateful Dead tribute to the beaches of Jamaica in the dead of winter
for the past six years, with their event appropriately titled ‘Jam in the Sand’. Featuring an
ocean-side stage, DSO sets up camp to perform shows for four nights along the tropical sands
of an all-inclusive resort, selling out the event each year for hundreds of lucky attendees.
Fans and critics haven’t been the only people caught up in the spirit of a Dark Star show. The
band has featured guest performances from six original Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh, Bob
Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Vince Welnick, Tom Constanten and
even toured with longtime Dead soundman, Dan Healy. Other notable guests have included
Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman of Phish, Keller Williams, Warren Haynes, Steve Kimock, Peter
Rowan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and many more.
“For us it’s a chance to recreate some of the magic that was created for us over the years,”
keyboardist and vocalist Rob Barraco explains. “We offer a sort of a historical perspective at
what it might have been like to go to a show in 1985, 1978 or whenever. Even for Deadheads
who can say they’ve been to a hundred shows in the 90s, we offer something they never got to
see live.”
Date: April 1st & 2nd **DATES ARE RESCHEDULED FROM THE NYE RUN. ALL TICKETS PURCHASED FOR THE ORIGINAL DATES WILL BE HONORED.** Location: The Palace Theatre Address: 19 Clinton Ave. Albany, NY 12207
Performing to critical acclaim for over 20 years and over 3000 shows, Dark Star Orchestra
continues the Grateful Dead live concert experience. Their shows are built off the Dead’s
extensive catalog and the talent of these seven fine musicians. On any given night, the band will
perform a show based on a set list from the Grateful Dead’s 30 years of extensive touring or use
their catalog to program a unique set list for the show. This allows fans both young and old to
share in the experience. By recreating set lists from the past, and by developing their own sets
of Dead songs, Dark Star Orchestra offers a continually evolving artistic outlet within this
musical canon. Honoring both the band and the fans, Dark Star Orchestra’s members seek out
the unique style and sound of each era while simultaneously offering their own informed
improvisations.
Dark Star Orchestra offers much more than the sound of the Grateful Dead, they truly
encapsulate the energy and the experience. It’s about a sense of familiarity. It’s about a feeling
that grabs listeners and takes over. It’s about that contagious energy…in short, it’s about the
complete experience and consistent quality show that the fan receives when attending a Dark
Star Orchestra show.
Dark Star Orchestra has performed throughout the entire United States, including a sold out
debut at Colorado’s Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater, plus shows in Europe and the Caribbean
with the band touching down in seven different countries. DSO continues to grow its fan base
by playing at larger venues for two and even three-night stands, as well as performing at major
music festivals including Bonnaroo, Milwaukee’s SummerFest, The Peach Music Festival, Jam
Cruise, Wanee Festival, SweetWater 420 Festival, Mountain Jam, and many more.
In addition to appearing at some of the nation’s top festival, Dark Star Orchestra hosts its own
annual music festival and campaign gathering, titled the “Dark Star Jubilee”, currently in its
eighth year where DSO headline all three nights and are joined by a mix of established and up
and coming national touring acts. Beyond the shores of the United States, DSO has taken its
internationally-acclaimed Grateful Dead tribute to the beaches of Jamaica in the dead of winter
for the past six years, with their event appropriately titled ‘Jam in the Sand’. Featuring an
ocean-side stage, DSO sets up camp to perform shows for four nights along the tropical sands
of an all-inclusive resort, selling out the event each year for hundreds of lucky attendees.
Fans and critics haven’t been the only people caught up in the spirit of a Dark Star show. The
band has featured guest performances from six original Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh, Bob
Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Vince Welnick, Tom Constanten and
even toured with longtime Dead soundman, Dan Healy. Other notable guests have included
Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman of Phish, Keller Williams, Warren Haynes, Steve Kimock, Peter
Rowan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and many more.
“For us it’s a chance to recreate some of the magic that was created for us over the years,”
keyboardist and vocalist Rob Barraco explains. “We offer a sort of a historical perspective at
what it might have been like to go to a show in 1985, 1978 or whenever. Even for Deadheads
who can say they’ve been to a hundred shows in the 90s, we offer something they never got to
see live.”
The unlikely partnership between acoustic guitar pioneer Leo Kottke and Phish bassist Mike Gordon continues as they tour in support of the long-awaited Noon, their first new album in 15 years. Couching late-night melancholy in a summer lilt, Noon features 11 tracks of warmly askew folk-pop, intricate playing, and the intimate third voice created by Kottke and Gordon, two of the most accomplished and idiosyncratic instrumentalists in American music.
As creative as it is dextrous, under other circumstances, Noon might be hailed as a breakthrough third album from a young band. The return of an American guitar legend, Noon marks Leo Kottke’s first studio record since his last collaboration with Gordon, 2005’s 66 Steps, though he’s continued to tour constantly.
Beginning his career on John Fahey’s Takoma label in 1969, Kottke virtually invented his own school of playing with his distinct, propulsive flatpicking. As a co-founder of Phish in 1983, launching a solo career in the early ‘00s, Gordon’s own big-eared musical vocabulary has created both a boundary-pushing discography of studio and live releases and helped shape a generation (or two) of improvisers.
The pairing of Kottke with Gordon began some two decades ago, when Gordon — a longtime fan — audaciously overdubbed a bass part over Kottke’s 1969 solo track “The Driving of the Year Nail” and hand-delivered it to the veteran Minnesota guitarist. The result was 2002’s acclaimed Clone.
Noon also finds the duo joined by Phish drummer Jon Fishman on five tracks, including a bopping low-key cover of Prince’s “Alphabet Street.” For Kottke, bringing Fishman into the fold has been a long time coming, having first struck up a friendship with the Phish drummer prior to his collaboration with Gordon when the drummer approached him after a gig and struck up a conversation. Though Noon largely captures the sound of an acoustic guitar playing with electric bass, and there are a lot of live-in-studio performances, it is also far more than the sound of Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon playing in a room together. Recorded in New Orleans and Vermont, with music exchanged by file, tape-sealed boombox, sheet music, and face-to-face, Noon is the musically visible part of a conversation between Kottke and Gordon, his junior by 20 years. A panoramic collection of small, strange moments to parallel the serendipitous turns of its extended five-year creation, Noon is a collaboration as singular as its musicians.
*** PLEASE NOTE: For The Wood Brothers performance, fans are required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of the event OR full vaccination for entry.
*** All fans must have received a negative COVID-19 diagnostic test within 72-hours before entry to the facility and provide printed proof of a negative result prior to entering the venue. Or, be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (at least two weeks after final dose) and provide proof of vaccination – either the original vaccination card, a printed copy of the vaccination card or a NYS Excelsior Pass along with a matching Photo ID.
*** Masks are also required at all times for attendees, regardless of vaccination status, except while actively eating or drinking.
The Wood Brothers didn’t know they were making a record. Looking back, they’re grateful for that.
“If we had known, we probably would have been too self-conscious to play what we played,” reflects bassist/vocalist Chris Wood. “At the time, we just thought we were jamming to break in our new studio, so we felt free to explore all these different ways of performing together without worrying about form or structure. It was liberating.”
Recorded live to tape, those freewheeling, improvised sessions became a vast pool of source material from which The Wood Brothers would go on to draw ‘Kingdom In My Mind,’ their seventh studio release and most spontaneous and experimental collection yet. While on past records, the band—Chris, guitarist/vocalist Oliver Wood, and drummer/keyboardist Jano Rix—would write a large batch of songs and then record them all at once, ‘Kingdom’ found them retroactively carving tunes out of sprawling instrumental jam sessions like sculptors chipping away at blocks of marble. A testament to the limitless creativity of the unharnessed mind, the record explores the power of our external surroundings to shape our internal worlds (and vice versa), reckoning with time, mortality, and human nature. The songs here find strength in accepting what lies beyond our control, thoughtfully honing in on the bittersweet beauty that underlies doubt and pain and sadness with vivid character studies and unflinching self-examination. Deep as the lyrics dig, the arrangements always manage to remain buoyant and light, though, drawing from across a broad sonic spectrum to create a transportive, effervescent blend that reflects the trio’s unique place in the modern musical landscape.
“My brother came to this band from the blues and gospel world, and my history was all over the map with jazz and R&B,” says Chris, who first rose to fame with the pioneering trio Medeski Martin & Wood. “The idea for this group has always been to marry our backgrounds, to imagine what might happen if Robert Johnson and Charles Mingus had started a band together.”
‘Kingdom In My Mind’ follows The Wood Brothers’ most recent studio release, 2018’s ‘One Drop Of Truth,’ which hit #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and garnered the band their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Americana Album. NPR praised the record’s “unexpected changes and kaleidoscopic array of influences,” while Uncut hailed its “virtuosic performances and subtly evocative lyrics,” and Blurt proclaimed it “a career-defining album.” Tracks from the record racked up roughly 8 million streams on Spotify alone, and the band took the album on the road for extensive tour dates in the US and Europe, including their first-ever headline performance at Red Rocks, two nights at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore (captured on their 2019 release, ‘Live At The Fillmore’), and festival appearances everywhere from Bonnaroo to XPoNential.
Moon Hooch started in the NYC subway platforms in 2010. They are currently touring the world. “I‘m realizing more and more every day that you can make anything happen for yourself if you really want to,” says Moon Hooch horn player Mike Wilbur. “You can change your existence by just going out and doing it, by taking simple actions every day.”
If any band is a poster child for turning the power of positive thoughts and intentions into reality, it’s the explosive horn-and-percussion trio Moon Hooch. In just a few short years, the group— Wilbur and fellow horn player Wenzl McGowen and Ethan Snyder—have gone from playing on New York City subway platforms to touring with the likes of Beats Antique, They Might Be Giants, and Lotus, as well as selling out their own headline shows in major venues around the country.
*proof of vaccine or negative test results needed for all show’s entry
Date: November 26, 2021 Location: Parish Public House Address: 388 Broadway Albany, NY 12207
Doors: 8pm Show: 9pm Age: 18+
The Deadbeats have been playing for almost 30 years, following in the footsteps of the Grateful Dead. There are so many tribute bands out there. The Deadbeats put their own spin on things, which sets them apart from the average Dead Cover Band. Based out of NY’s Capital Region, The Deadbeats have played thousands of shows along the East Coast, from Canada to Key West. Mike Johnson and Denise Parent have been playing with The Deadbeats since it all got started, back in the early 90’s. Brian Miller came on board in the early 2000’s! These three players have kept the band together for almost three decades, and they have not missed a beat. In 2019 longtime friends and fellow musicians Brian Mangini (Ominous Seapods, Raisinhead, Moepods) and Dan Gerken (Groovestick, Timbre Coup) officially joined to add some incredible rhythm and color to the band’s tapestry of sound.
In 2021 AND 2020 they ranked in the Top Four Favorite Bands in the Hudson Valley’s Chronogrammies! Saratoga Living Magazine ranked them in the Top Five Local Tribute acts of 2019. They were voted Best Jam Band of 2017 in The Capital Region of NY, and they took second place for Best Cover Band and Best Tribute Band. After 28 years, the band is still rockin the music of The Grateful Dead, JGB, Phish, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Band, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin and so much more. They also play a few of their original songs, which have very become popular with their fans. Currently The Deadbeats venues all around NY’s Hudson Valley and Capital Region. Their Grateful Dead inspired shows are a celebration of improvisational, jamming rock & roll. As a result of playing over a quarter of a century together, they have amassed a large and loyal following of fans who appreciate the open ended, participatory nature of their performances.
Working without a net, their set lists, arrangements, and jams are all left open to the inspiration of the particular moment. They are known for crafting their shows around songs their fans have requested. Every set of music is created in the moment, with the help of their fans and without a set list. It is a unique experience and it has been this commitment to these musical and philosophical ideals that has set The Deadbeats apart. The Deadbeats have never played the same set twice, due to an inexhaustible musical repertoire, and they are always adding more songs to their impressive catalog of songs. They are actually able to please most of the people most of the time. Keep tabs on Facebook and mark your calendars, and come check out a show soon
*proof of vaccine or negative test results needed for all show’s entry
Date: November 26, 2021 Location: The Hollow Bar + Kitchen. Address: 79 N. Pearl St. Albany, NY 12207
Doors: 8pm Show: 9pm Age: 18+
Eggy is the group that brings balance to your musical diet. The band offers timeless songwriting both lyrically and in composition creating works worthy of repeated consumption. Drawing influences from classics like Bruce Hornsby, CSNY, Herbie Hancock, & the like; Eggy is the fresh but familiar music you’ve been craving. Their debut album “Watercolor Days” (released March 2019) reflects the band’s fine palate & musical breadth.
Michael Goodman (bass/vocals), Jake Brownstein (guitar/vocals), Dani Battat (keys/vocals) and Alex Bailey (drums/vocals) work in tandem, sending sizzling musical ideas across the stage from years of sharpening their craft together. The result is an original & organic musical blend inspired by their heroes of the past and present.
In a live setting moving lyrics & four piece harmonies coupled with eclectic improvisations create performances that take on a life of their own. Eggy’s music offers the full pallet of emotion & style and invites you to share in the experience!
Proof of Vaccination or Negative Test results required
An evening of Grateful Dead tunes
Born from the depths of the 2020 Pandemic, this group of Capital Region veteran musicians came together for what felt like necessity. With the stalling of the music industry, a creative outlet was desperately needed for these 5 individuals. What was first a casual get together playing some gratefully-inspired tunes quickly escalated into a singular goal of putting together a live stream. Something special happened during these early sessions and a “one-and-done” livestream turned into something much more.
The group of Joe Davis (Formula 5), Mike Urbon (Knot Dead), Mike Cassels (Stone Revival Band, Jocamo, Knot Dead), Mike McDonald (Formula 5, Knot Dead) and Doug Klein (Slipknot, Robanic, Knot Dead) were re-inspired playing the timeless music of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Ratdog, and others. While existing in an endless sea of 1970’s era Grateful Dead tributes, this group strives to separate itself with a dedication to unique arrangements of setlists and song segues, utilizing extended improvisation, playing deeper cuts from all eras of the Dead, JGB, and Ratdog songbook, as well as an emphasis on the vocal arrangements of these tunes.
