Saturday, February 29, 7:30 PM: VickiKristinaBarcelona Plays the Music of Tom Waits
“My advice is to delay your heartbreak and see them now ” — Penny Arcade
VickiKristinaBarcelona is Rachelle Garniez, Amanda Homi and Terry Radigan, a power trio of seasoned music veterans dedicated to re-imagining the songs of Tom Waits via inventive three-part harmonies and a treasure trove of instruments including banjos, bottles, squeezebox, and zills. They create a world of sound at once powerful, playful and poignant.
Seasoned singers and songwriters, each a hybrid story-teller and multi-instrumentalist in her own right, join forces to salute the tragicomic lyrical genius of the Waits songbook. Picture the Triplets of Belleville disguised as Depression Era hobos riding the rails across America stopping to play dance parties and funerals along the road to nowhere.
Three distinct styles form a captivating original mix, greater than the sum of its’ parts, never failing to amaze and delight audiences of all stripes. Collectively, they have worked with artists including Jack White, Jackson Browne, Jane Siberry, Patty Loveless, Dan Penn, Ray La Montaigne, Thomas Dolby, and Taylor Mac.
Genre-fluid native New Yorker Rachelle Garniez is known as a certified free spirit. She is at home in many worlds, from busking to theater stages all over the world. Rachelle has released 6 albums; her influences ranging from Tin Pan Alley to klezmer and Latinesque Soul. Her story songs have been described as “romantic, rhapsodic and casually hilarious.” (The New York Times)
Globe trotting adventuress Amanda Homi was born in London. Her colorful songs reflect the music of her travels from Carnival in Rio to the rhythms of Bollywood and raucous Gypsy weddings. She was the 2015 Independent Music Awards best story song recipient. “Amanda Homi covers a lot of musical territory in a masterful, yet adventurous way…an enchanting journey” ( Roots Music Report )
Grammy-nominated songwriter Terry Radigan mixes her gritty Brooklyn girl sensibility with a deep respect for classic American roots, country, and soul. She has had her songs covered by a wide variety of artists including Ashley MacIsaac, Trisha Yearwood, and Anúna. “Radigan gets inside the pathos of love like no one else. A jazz noir sound with pop sensibilities. A stunning collection of songs.” (Mademoiselle)
Tickets: Front row–$25 in advance, $30 at the door; General admission–$20 in advance, $25 at the door.
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Saturday, March 7, 8:00 PM: Darlingside
“It’s over now / The flag is sunk / The world has flattened out,” are the first words of Extralife, the new album by Boston-based quartet Darlingside. While the band’s critically acclaimed 2015 release Birds Say was steeped in nostalgia and the conviction of youth, Extralife grapples with dystopian realities and uncertain futures. Whether ambling down a sidewalk during the apocalypse or getting stuck in a video game for eternity, the band asks, sometimes cynically, sometimes playfully: what comes next? Their erstwhile innocence is now bloodshot for the better.
Hope arrives in the form of Darlingside’s signature superpower harmonies, drawing frequent comparisons to late-60’s era groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash; Simon & Garfunkel; and The Byrds. And yet, their penchant for science fiction and speculative futurism counteracts any urge to pigeonhole their aesthetic as “retro”. The four close friends construct every piece of their music collaboratively, pooling musical and lyrical ideas so that each song bears the imprint of four different writing voices. NPR Music dubs the result”exquisitely-arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop”, and calls Extralife “perfectly crafted”.
Darlingside perform all of their music around a single vocal microphone, inviting audiences into a lush, intimate world where four voices are truly one. Their 2016 performance at the Cambridge Folk Festival “earned an ecstatic reception and turned them into instant stars”, according to The Daily Telegraph. The band tours regularly throughout the United States, Canada, the UK, and Europe.
TICKETS: $30-$45
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Saturday, March 28, 7:30 PM: Session Americana
“It’s right there in the name for this ultra-gifted, rotating collective of singers and multi-instrumentalists. And sprawl is a good word when it comes to the Boston-based group’s raucous live shows, which were initially built around the community concept of traditional Irish seisiúns. The group, whose members have played with a variety of acts including Patty Griffin, Josh Ritter and the J. Geils Band, expertly blends vintage American roots music styles — from country to jazz to rock — in a rowdy but deft fashion.” – Rolling Stone
Session Americana (Boston) is a rock band in a teacup, or possibly a folk band in a whiskey bottle. This band/collective of talented musicians crafts a musical experience unlike any other. On stage is a collapsible bar table wired with microphones, a vintage suitcase recast as a kick drum, an old Estey field organ, a pre-war parlor guitar, a mandocello and all of its smaller siblings, a harmonica case fire damaged when Jack’s bar went up in flames and graffitied by Depeche Mode roadies, and an assortment of other instruments that get passed around in this freewheeling modern hootenanny. The anything-could-happen feel of a Session show depends on craft that’s not accidental or easily won; they bring a kind of ease and genuineness to this timeless music, sometimes presenting the latest batch of original songs, sometimes reaching back into depths of the American “song bag”.
Tickets: Front row-$30 in advance, $35 at the door; General admission– $25 in advance, $30 at the door.
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Saturday, April 25, 7:30 PM: The Restless Age
The Restless Age is a collaboration – a harmony of Will Bryant, Lee Falco and Brandon Morrison. Each player brings a unique song and voice to the bandstand, as the trio spans generations and genres.
The members of The Restless Age have been a premier rhythm section throughout New York’s Hudson Valley for the past half-decade. As the house band for Amy Helm’s ‘Oh to be Home Again’ at Levon Helm Studios, they performed behind Donald Fagen, John Sebastian and Graham Nash, as well as being Kate Pierson’s (The B-52’s) touring band in support of her 2015 debut album ‘Guitars & Microphones’. During that same year they toured the U.S. & Canada supporting the The Waterboys and The Gipsy Kings along with fellow Hudson Valley singer-songwriter Connor Kennedy.
Lee Falco, Brandon Morrison and Will Bryant rose to national attention backing Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, as “The Nightflyers” on his 2017 national tour.
Now, with their harmonious indie rock, The Restless Age steps out as a unit of songwriters, singers, and instrumentalists.
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Saturday, May 16, 7:30 PM: Pamela Means
Pamela Means, singer-songwriter and jazz musician, with “mad guitar-and-vocal skills” (Time Out New York) has toured throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, selling tens of thousands of her seven independent releases along the way.
A multi-talented performer, singer, songwriter, composer and producer, Pamela Means’s multiple honors include being named Falcon Ridge Folk Festival’s “# 1 Most Wanted New Artist,” “Wisconsin Folk Artist of the Year,” “Wisconsin Female Vocalist of the Year,” and her politically provocative album, Single Bullet Theory, was voted 2004’s “Outmusic Outstanding New Recording.” Pamela was twice voted “Best Acoustic Act” of the year in her hometown of Milwaukee, WI; and after setting up shop in the bustling ‘burbs of Boston, Mass., Pamela was nominated for an “Outstanding Contemporary Folk Artist” Boston Music Award. Curve Magazine calls her “one of the fiercest guitar players and politically-rooted singer-songwriters in the music industry today.”
From recording her first tape in the living room of Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie, Pamela Means has gone on to share stages with artists including Ani DiFranco, Pete Seeger, Indigo Girls, Joan Baez, Howard Zinn, Angela Davis, Eve Ensler, David Strathairn, Neil Young, Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens, Patty Larkin, Melissa Ferrick, Violent Femmes, Television, The Radiators, Leo Kottke and Janis Ian. Pamela has performed at notable venues such as the Newport, Falcon Ridge and Clearwater Folk Festival(s), SXSW Music Conference and, internationally, at the eminent Woodford Folk Festival (Australia), Stockholm Pride (Sweden) and Jazz Cafe Alto (The Netherlands). She has also composed for and licensed music to PBS, independent filmmakers and folkpoet Alix Olson’s multi-award-winning film and CD projects.
With virtuosic musicianship, razor wit and a disarming sense of humor, Pamela Means is building a vibrant and remarkable career, delighting audiences from Anchorage to Amsterdam to Sydney to Stockholm to Honolulu and New York. Thrilled audience members often exclaim they’ve never seen anyone play guitar like Pamela. As Ani DiFranco said to her, “you groove so deep, so deep I can’t get out. And I wouldn’t want to.” We guarantee you won’t want to either.
Tickets: Front row–$25 in advance, $30 at the door; General admission $20 in advance, $25 at the door
