The Wrens at The Bell House. (Photos © 2009, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
It’s been more than 10 years since The Wrens released the great “Meadowlands” album — which seems only right given the band’s tagline:”Keeping Folks Waiting Since 1989.”
But Charles “Pedal Boy” Bissell is deep into production on the followup album, and promises it’s nearly finished.
Kevin Whelan and Charles Bissell of The Wrens at The Bell House. (Photos © 2009, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
Posted in Benefit, Music, Pop and Rock
Tagged Charles Bissell, Kevin Whelan, P.S. 154, The Bell House, The Wrens
Tammy Faye Starlite channels Marianne Faithfull at Joe’s Pub on May 13, 2014. (Photo © 2014 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
Who is Tammy Faye Starlite, really?
I’m sure I don’t know — aside from the fact that she’s also known as Tammy Lang.
While I’ve seen her out and about and out of character in public, I’ve never really interacted her when she’s not playing a role.
She’s a talented singer — and a very good judge of musical talent, based on the people she gets to play in her various bands, especially drummers, who’ve included Pete Thomas, Ron Metz, and Dennis Diken — who seems to have chosen a very challenging career path. Continue reading
The Feelies perform as The Willies in Jonathan Demme’s 1986 movie “Something Wild.”
Music and film fans will get a rare opportunity to see some time travel at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, N.Y., on Sunday, June 1, when The Feelies take the stage.
The band is booked at the celebrated film center as part of “Something Wild: The Films of Jonathan Demme,” a festival that runs through June 11 to celebrate the director (and longtime Feelies fan) of “Something Wild,” “Stop Making Sense,” “Storefront Hitchcock,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Philadelphia,” and many, many more.
The Feelies are taking the stage after a screening of Demme’s dark 1986 romcom (did that conflation even exist back then?) “Something Wild.” The truly wacky movie about two good-hearted, but not exactly honest, people (Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels) searching for truth and love, features The Feelies (playing The Willies in the movie), along with a superbly curated soundtrack of pop songs from the era. Continue reading
Posted in Movies, Music, News, Pop and Rock, World Music
Tagged Jacob Burns Film Center, Jonathan Demme, Something Wild, The Feelies
Tom Wopat brings his vast songbook to Rockwells in Pelham, N.Y., on Friday night. (Handout photo)
It’s difficult to hear Tom Wopat’s name without thinking of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” the hit TV show that made the dark-haired Wisconsin native and his blond co-star John Schneider pin-up boys for teens for years.
Find out what Wopat’s has to say about his days in The General and where his career has taken him since then in my interview with him for The Journal News/lohud.com. Check it out online now by tapping or clicking here. To see it in print, pick up a copy of The Journal News on Friday.
Time Fite (Photo © 2009 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
Tim Fite’s Phoney Store at the Beam Center in Brooklyn. (Photo © 2014 Steven P. Marsh)
Tim Fite‘s a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and social commentator who’s proved his humor and fluency in a number of styles, from pop, to country, to rap.
He got onto my radar back in 2008 or so when he started performing in the persona of a well-groomed, seersucker-suit-wearing, bumpkin-ish country singer. His shows in the late ’00s usually featured backup videos layered with multiple versions of himself on various harmony vocals and instruments, sometimes including a backpacker guitar.
Tim Fite with two Phoneys, the product of his latest project. (Kickstarter)
Posted in Art, Music, News, Pop and Rock
Tagged Beam Center, Brooklyn, Kickstarter, phoney, Sexy Leroy, smartphone, Tim Fite
The Feelies at The Bell House, Gowanus, Brooklyn, on April 25, 2014. (Photos © 2014 Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
The Feelies may have lost their home base when Maxwell’s went out in style with a Hoboken block party last year. But they haven’t lost their soul, as they proved Friday night.
They took the stage of The Bell House in Brooklyn on Friday night and played two red-hot sets.
The Bell House is thee closest thing to a home club the Passaic County, N.J., quintet has these days. Former Maxwell’s co-owner and booker, Todd Abramson has been booking bands at the first-class Gowanus music venue for some time now.
Guitarist Bill Million and bassist Brenda Sauter.
(Click through to the jump for more photos and info about The Feelies’ upcoming shows.) Continue reading
Posted in Music, Pop and Rock, Review
Tagged Andy Peters, Bill Million, Brenda Sauter, Dave Weckerman, Glenn Mercer, Stan Demeski, The Bell House, The Feelies, Todd Abramson
Eisa Davis in the spotlight at Jack in Brooklyn on April 23, 2014.. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh)
The magnificent Eisa Davis, who you’ve probably seen somewhere on TV if you didn’t meet her, like I did, through “Passing Strange,” is not just a singer and actress, but an accomplished playwright as well.
Posted in Concerts, Music, Off-Broadway, Pop and Rock, Theater, Uncategorized
Tagged Eisa Davis, Jack, Passing Strange, Rebecca Naomi Jones
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs at NYC”s Mercury Lounge on April 21, 2014. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
The first time I listened to the latest album from Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, All Her Fault, I was left wanting more Holly and less Brokeoffs. There was something about Golightly’s albums from her early days as a solo artist (post-Thee Headcoatees) in the 1990s that really touched me.
Maybe it was her damaged, smoky vocals or her equally damaged-sounding persona. Or maybe I simply liked her voice.
But all that seems buried in her latest release. I wanted more Holly.
But maybe that’s exactly the idea — to leave the listener wanting more. It takes a bit of active listening to get to that, but the eureka moment is well worth the effort. Itstrikes me as more personal and less superficially accessible than those that came before. But it winds up being a brilliant, honky-tonk-inflected personal statement of a pretty together couple. Continue reading
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman arrived in the United States a quarter century ago after spending eight years as essentially a nonperson in the Soviet Union, his homeland. After finally being permitted to emigrate to the West, the former refusenik has tried hard to stop talking about those dark days.
After years of playing many concerts every year, he’s settled into a schedule of a smaller number of carefully selected appearances, always performing superbly, but always on the hunt for the sweet spot. As he tells me in a conversation for lohud.com/The Journal News: “On some good days — it’s not always happening — but when it’s happening, it feels great. There’s like an exchange of energy, which is very much real and tangible, between public and artist. So when that happens it feels really good.”
I spoke with Feltsman in advance of his concert Wednesday evening at Bedford Chamber Concerts (St. Matthews Episcopal Church Fellowship Hall, 382 Cantitoe St., Bedford, NY; 914-522-5150).
Posted in Classical, Concerts, Interview, Music
Tagged Bedford Chamber Concerts, lohud.com, Russia, The Americans, The Journal News, Vladimir Feltsman
A dangerous man: Tony Torn as Pere Ubu at Joe’s Pub on March 25, 2014. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
About midway through the show on March 25, the flabby, shirtless man on stage at Joe’s Pub — his face still bearing the image of the Polish eagle albeit runny with sweat — stepped out of character as Pere Ubu, the king of Poland.
It’s at this point in the show that I’d be introducing my special guest, said actor Tony Torn But I can’t, he added.
So he invited the audience to join him in a chant:
“Stew has flu. Stew has flu. Stew has flu….”
After chanting that a few times, any disappointment I might have been feeling about the absence of Stew, Tony Award-winning creator of “Passing Strange” and leader of the rock band The Negro Problem, vanished as Torn returned to character and carried on with the set.
Sure, it would have been nice to see Stew sit in with this talented band of actors and musicians. But he deserved to stay home and nurse his illness. And Torn and company managed to provide an extraordinarily entertaining evening without their announced special guest.
I had wondered how Stew fit into this mad plan of creating a band to cover Pere Ubu songs in character from from the Alfred Jarry’s 1896 French play “Ubu Roi.”
Torn, happily, answered the question from stage.
This show, “Ubu Sings Ubu,” wouldn’t have materialized at all if, some years ago, Stew hadn’t let Torn sing what he called “one of his crazy punk rock songs.”
He didn’t explain exactly when or how that occurred, so I can only guess it was in a workshop of some sort. Continue reading
Posted in Concerts, Music, News, Off-Broadway, Review, Theater
Tagged Passing Strange, Pere Ubu, Stew, The Negro Problem, Tony Torn, Ubu Sings Ubu
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? 