Category Archives: Interview

Stellar lineup pays tribute to Young Marble Giants’ “Colossal Youth” in Manhattan Thursday 

Posted on August 23, 2015 | 3 comments

YMGCY

Stuart Moxham of YMG says he’d give, well, something precious to be in the New York audience. Read his comment after the jump.

What happens when a couple dozen veterans of the New York-New Jersey indie rock scene join forces to put on a tribute to a near-perfect — and perfectly simple — album released 35 years ago by three young, relatively inexperienced Welsh post-punk musicians?

We’ll find out at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, when the gang convenes at The HiFi Bar in Manhattan’s East Village for “An NYC Tribute to Young Marble Giants ‘Colossal Youth.'”

The show, organized by Dumptruck bassist Tom Shad  and Renée LoBue, Elk City’s singer, will feature a slew of performers playing and singing the songs from the influential cult album’s 15 all-too-brief songs.

More after the jump.

Different singers will tackle the Young Marble Giants catalog. Here's a montage of a few of the vocal assignments posted on the event's Facebook page.

Different singers will tackle the Young Marble Giants catalog. Here’s a montage of a few of the vocal assignments posted on the event’s Facebook page.

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Posted in Concerts, Festivals, Free, Interview, Music, Pop and Rock

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Dobbs Ferry celebrity photographer Peter Freed focuses on women in their prime

Posted on August 6, 2015 | Leave a comment
Photographer Peter Freed poses in his Rye studio with the black and white portraits he took of women aged 35 to 104 for a book he is working on. (Photo: Joe Larese/The Journal News)

Photographer Peter Freed poses in his Rye studio with the black and white portraits he took of women aged 35 to 104 for a book he is working on. (Photo: Joe Larese/The Journal News)

Photographer Peter Freed, who has spent much of his career taking pictures of celebritis,  has a “war room” in a modern house in Rye crammed with 120 striking black and white portraits of women — each a “landscape of the face,” shot without makeup and reproduced without retouching or Photoshop alteration.

The 8-by-10 prints cover the massive table in the center of the room, with the spillover ringing the room on the floor and the credenza.

The Dobbs Ferry-based photographer’s subjects, ranging in age from 35 to 104 (Beryl Barnett), are all “extraordinary women in their prime,” Freed says. They’re all for a book called “Prime.” He’s nearing the deadline for his Kickstarter to fund the publication, and needs help hitting the goal.

For more on his project and his fascinating life, check out our conversation at lohud.com now, or read it in print in Sunday’s edition of The Journal News.

 

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Naama Potok, Chaim Potok’s daughter, does his memory proud onstage

Posted on August 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

IMG_0063Actress Naama Potok recently completed a run as the female lead in Aaron Posner’s sympathetic stage adaptation of father Chaim Potok’s novel “My Name is Asher Lev.”

Her role at Rockland County’s Penguin Rep Theatre was a triumphant return to the stage after a hiatus. She recently reflected on her family heritage and her art with me in an interview for The Journal News/lohud.com.

Check out our conversation at lohud.com.

From left: Naama Potok (The Women), Max Wolkowitz (Asher Lev) and Howard Pinhasik (The Men) in “My Name is Asher Lev,” at Penguin Rep Theatre.

From left: Naama Potok (The Women) and Max Wolkowitz (Asher Lev) in “My Name is Asher Lev,” at Penguin Rep Theatre.

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Posted in Interview, lohud.com, Theater

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Oscar nominee Kristi Zea talks Rockland, new project

Posted on August 6, 2015 | Leave a comment
When Kristi Zea moved to her hilltop home in Valley Cottage in 2004, she says, “I realized that it was really kind of perfect.” (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)

When Kristi Zea moved to her hilltop home in Valley Cottage in 2004, she says, “I realized that it was really kind of perfect.” (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)

Kristi Zea‘s work creating “environments” for film in her role as a production designer takes her around the world, but she always comes back to Rockland County, which she has called home for two decades.

She gives Upper Nyack movie director Jonathan Demme and his wife, Joanne Howard, the credit for that.

“I had been working with him for several years and he suggested that we come up here and have a look around,” two-time Oscar nominee Zea told me in a recent conversation.

While mainstream movie work pays the bills and has given her a satisfying career, Zea has a labor of love that is nearing completion after a decade of work: a documentary about a late modern artist, “Everybody Knows … Elizabeth Murray.“

Read the whole interview at lohud.com.

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Deli man Ziggy Gruber dishes out Spring Valley recipes deep in the heart of Texas

Posted on July 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

Deli man Ziggy Gruber, right. (Cohen Media Group)


Third-generation deli man Ziggy Gruber never set out to star in a movie — all he wanted to do was help keep the kosher deli tradition alive.

David Ziegfeld Gruber — who caught the deli bug 38 years ago at his family’s Spring Valley restaurant, Cresthill Kosher Deli — possesses an oversized personality, the gift of gab and an unquestioning love of the hearty fare that sustained his ancestors.
Those characteristics helped propel him into the lead of “Deli Man,” a culture-and-cuisine documentary released on DVD earlier this month.
Gruber talked with me about his Rockland County roots in an interview published Saturday in The Journal News and online at lohud.com. Go here to read the full article. 

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Hamell on Trial is guilty — of speaking his mind

Posted on July 8, 2015 | 2 comments
Ed Hamell, ordinary suburban single dad by day, is a ferocious punk-folk singer-songwriter who goes by Hammell on Trial. He has a new album, “The Happiest Man in The World. ”(Photo: Joe Larese/The Journal News)

Ed Hamell, ordinary suburban single dad by day, is a ferocious punk-folk singer-songwriter who goes by Hammell on Trial. (Photo: Joe Larese/The Journal News)

I had the great pleasure a few weeks ago of spending an hour or two at lunch with Ed Hamell, a unique singer-songwriter I’ve admired for many years. He’s a doting dad by day who’s been living quietly in Ossining while unleashing his raw, punk-influenced songs on the road.

He’s on the road at the moment, and should be in Las Vegas getting ready for a live album recording session at Southwestern Recording Studios on Thursday. He’s waxing all new material that he feels really good about.

“I think its going to be my toughest, most uncompromising stuff yet,” he tells me. “It’s about the decline and fall of America.”

Heady stuff, indeed.

His next show near home is scheduled for Aug. 7, when he appears on a bill with Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez at Daryl’s House Club in Pawling, New York. Doors open at 5 p.m., with the show at 9. Tickets are $15.$25 and available by tapping or clicking here.

Meanwhile, here’s a taste of our conversation:

Offstage, he’s Detroit’s dad, a regular guy — albeit an unusually outgoing one.

Onstage, as Hammell on Trial, he’s a sweaty, Red Bull-fueled ball of energy, singing his highly opinionated lyrics loudly while bashing away furiously on an amplified pre-war Gibson acoustic guitar. He even does what he calls a “face solo,” shaking his head wildly from side-to-side, relaxing his facial muscles to achieve a thoroughly comical, rubbery effect.

Read the full interview on lohud.com. TAP OR CLICK HERE NOW.

 

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Posted in Folk, Interview, lohud.com, Music, Pop and Rock

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INTERVIEW: Little Feat’s Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett join Orleans & Friends at Tarrytown Music Hall Friday night

Posted on May 14, 2015 | Leave a comment
Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett (Photo by Emily Spires

Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett (Photo by Emily Spires

Throwback Thursday’s got nothing on Friday night’s lineup at Tarrytown Music Hall.

The acoustic duo of Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett of Little Feat, the legendary rootsy band that’s been going strong since 1969, opens the evening for New York’s own Orleans, which formed in Ithaca in 1972.

That’s four decades of rock ‘n roll!

These artists will be doing a string of shows together in the coming weeks.

The Music Hall gig is “the first show we’ve ever done with them,” Barrere tells Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? by phone from his Los Angeles-area home. “This’ll be an interesting soiree.”

“John Hall [Orleans’ frontman] and I have been swapping mp3s of different songs and stuff, and I think they’ll probably play a couple with us,” Barrere says. “Fred and I will do our usual acoustic opening set and we’ll get a little help on a couple of songs. And then they’ll do their set and we’ll probably jump in at the end of theirs. So it’ll be kinda cool.”

While the two acts haven’t played live together before, Barrere notes that he and Tackett share some history with Hall, who was a Democrat who represented the Hudson Valley’s 19th Congressional District from 2007 to 2011.

“John played on the original recording of [Little Feat’s] ‘All That You Dream,'” way back in 1910 or something like that,” Barrere says with a laugh.

Barrere and Tackett share a lot more history than that, though.

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From hip hop to Microsoft

Posted on May 12, 2015 | Leave a comment
Bruce Jackson says that, no matter his job title, his personal goal has always been helping people. (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)

Bruce Jackson says that, no matter his job title, his personal goal has always been helping people. (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)

Bruce Jackson used to rub elbows with hip hop figures like Heavy D, and Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Now he’s a corporate lawyer for Microsoft. The Mount Vernon, New York, man spent some time sharing his story with me for The Journal News/lohud.com. Check out the full interview by tapping or clicking here. Or pick up a copy of Tuesday’s edition of The Journal News at a newsstand.

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Ron Fierstein, longtime music manager, returns to his roots with new book about Polaroid-Kodak lawsuit

Posted on April 28, 2015 | 1 comment

Ron Fierstein’s new book takes is about Edwin Land, one of the founders of Polaroid Corp. Land and Polaroid launched an epic battle against eventual rival Kodak. “It’s a fantastic story almost of operatic dimension,” Fierstein says. “They went from being mentor-protégé to arch-enemies over 60 years.” (Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News)

I knew Ron Fierstein’s name from his successful career managing singer-songwriters such as Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. And it occurred to me that he might be related to a Broadway macher.

What I didn’t know was that Fierstein, who moved to Chappaqua from Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood two decades ago, had a successful career as a patent lawyer before he helped Vega navigate to her early success.

He’s quit the music business and spent the last several years writing a book about the historic case he worked on while an associate at Fish & Neave in New York City: Polaroid vs. Kodak.

Fierstein took some time the other day to meet me in his Bedfore Hills office and talk about his life, his multiple careers, and the new book: “A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War.”

The book is a remarkably detailed account of a Land, a fascinating and brilliant man, and the souring of the relationship between his company, Polariod, and Eastman Kodak, its longtime “mentor” and friendly competitor.

Tap or click here now to read the full interview at lohud.com.

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Posted in Books, Country, Folk, Interview, Music

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How Facebook helped Porter Carroll Jr. launch his second act in music — with Hall & Oates

Posted on March 31, 2015 | Leave a comment
Porter Carroll Jr. (Photo by Michael Nelson For The Journal News)

Porter Carroll Jr. (Photo by Michael Nelson For The Journal News)

Drummer Porter Carroll Jr. and some classmates from Woodlands High School in Westchester County, New York, made a big mark in the music business with the band they started in 1970, before they graduated  — an act that evolved into the  R&B group Atlantic Starr.

After a decade and a half with the band behind hits like “Circles” and “Touch a Four-Leaf Clover,” Carroll struck out on his own as a solo artist, but quickly turned to songwriting. Eventually, tastes changed and that work dried up, leading Carroll to give up the music business – forever, or so he thought.

He went to work hawking haberdashery at Bloomingdale’s and then moved to a long-running gig  in advertising.

Like all good things, that came to an end — in a layoff that put Carroll on the unemployment line for quite awhile, until he got a completely unexpected Facebook message that landed him a gig with Hall & Oates, turning him into a rock ‘n’ roller at age 52.

Read my interview with Porter Carroll Jr. and learn the rest of his remarkable story by tapping or clicking here to visit lohud.com, or pick up a copy of Tuesday’s edition of The Journal News at your local newsstand in Westchester, Rockland, or Putnam county.

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