Category Archives: lohud.com

Big day coming for Jennifer O’Connor

Posted on February 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

Jennifer O'Connor

Jennifer O’Connor

Jennifer O’Connor, the singer-songwriter and proprietor of The Kiam Records Shop in Nyack, New York, has a spectacular new album, “Surface Noise,” coming out next Friday, March 4.

That’s the same day she makes her debut at the Tarrytown Music Hall as she enters the home stretch of her tour with bad-ass indie singer-songwriter Neko Case.

I wrote about O’Connor’s album early in February, calling it “the best new album I’ve heard so far” this year. A month — and many other new albums — later and my feelings haven’t changed. It’s a great album that shows off an artist who has grown and developed a richer, more nuanced sound.

O’Connor hits Tarrytown with Case at 8 p.m. Friday, March 4. A few tickets remain in the side orchestra sections at $48, and about 100 balcony tickets are still available at $38. Go here to get your tickets online. It’s a great way to give O’Connor a nice Lower Hudson Valley welcome-home, and to experience a great show. (If you can’t make it to Tarrytown, you have a chance to check out O’Connor’s full set during her official record-release show at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge on Monday, March 7, with wife Amy Bezunartea opening. Doors are at 6:30 p.m. Go here for tickets, which are $12 in advance.)

Christopher Vaughan of The Journal News/lohud.com, sat down with O’Connor recently to talk about her big day. Go here to read his interview.

 

 

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Posted in Concerts, lohud.com, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Recordings, Singer-Songwriter

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Nyack’s Bill Irwin puts on his ‘Old Hats’ again

Posted on January 21, 2016 | Leave a comment
Bill Irwin in the world premiere run of "Old Hats" at Signature Theatre Company. (© 2013 Joan Marcus)

Bill Irwin in the world première run of “Old Hats” at Signature Theatre Company. (© 2013 Joan Marcus)

Scroll to the bottom of this post for access to a special 2-for-1 ticket deal for Bill Irwin’s “Old Hats,” which returns to Off-Broadway next week. Then click through to read the full story.

 

You know Bill Irwin.

Maybe you didn’t see him on Broadway, clowning around onstage in baggy pants in “Fool Moon” 1n 1993, or playing the comical Mr. McAfee in “Bye Bye Birdie” in 2011.

Maybe you didn’t grow up with him as Mr. Noodle on “Sesame Street.”

But if you watch “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Law and Order SVU,” or “Sleepy Hollow,”  you’ve probably seen him playing everything from psychologists to over-the-top villains.

Bill Irwin as the title character in "Uncle Vanya" at Lake Lucille, NY, in 2007. (©2007 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

Bill Irwin as the title character in “Uncle Vanya” on Lake Lucille in New City in 2007. (©2007 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

Or maybe you saw him locally, in some of the summer plays on Lake Lucille in northern New City. He appeared as the title character in Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” in 2007 and the clown Radish in Chekhov’s “Platonov” in 2008.

He’s a versatile actor who admits he works hard to stay that way for a practical reason: to pay the bills. (The Lake Lucille shows may be an exception since they’re labors of love for all involved!)

“It isn’t really an aesthetic choice as much as it is just trying to make the monthly nut,” he told me recently as we sat down for a chat for The Journal News/lohud.com.

He says he and wife Martha Roth take the need to pay the bills pretty seriously.

Bill Irwin clowns around as Radish in Chekhov's "Platonov" on Lake Lucille in New City in 2008. (©2008 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

Bill Irwin clowns around as Radish in Chekhov’s “Platonov” on Lake Lucille in New City in 2008. (©2008 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)

“Everybody has a monthly nut, but we have a chant: Monthly nut, monthly nut!”

Irwin and David Shiner, his partner-in-clowning, are returning to the New York City stage next week for a return engagement of their 2013 revue “Old Hats” — with splendid young singer-songwriter Shaina Taub as their onstage foil, master of ceremonies, and music director, filling the shoes of quirky chanteuse Nellie McKay, who originated the part.

The show was a delight the first time around, and sounds like it’ll be just as much of a hoot this time — with some changes that’ll make it well worth seeing again.

Check out my FULL INTERVIEW by clicking here, or pick up this Sunday’s edition of The Journal News on your local newsstand.

GO HERE FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO GET 2 TICKETS FOR THE PRICE OF 1.

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Posted in Broadway, Interview, lohud.com, Off-Broadway, Theater

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Visual artist Doris Laughton finds inspiration in New City

Posted on September 2, 2015 | Leave a comment

Doris Laughton in her studio in New City. (Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News)

Doris Laughton in her studio in New City. (Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News)

I had the great opportunity to finally get to chat with Doris Laughton, a wildly creative multimedia artist and notable neighbor on South Mountain Road in New City.

Her “splat” sculptures have earned her the nickname of “splat lady,” but her work — with her art and her dedicated stewardship of her unique home, designed by 20th century painter and potter Henry Varnum Poor, who also lived on “The Road” — goes well beyond that. The house has been owned and occupied by artists for all but a couple of years in the five-plus decades since it was built — first Judith Freedman Deming, who was Poor’s niece and a  founder and longtime proprietor of Fiberworks in Nyack, and, since 2008, Laughton.

Go to lohud.com to read the full interview with Laughton.

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Posted in Art, Interview, lohud.com

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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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Posted in Interview, lohud.com

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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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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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Posted in Interview, lohud.com, Movies

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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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