Hello All!

Here we go: Join us June 1st for another event in our ongoing Liberty Street House Concert series, this time featuring a really amazing musician from Louisiana, Trip Wamsley. Although his instrument is the bass guitar, his approach to playing and performing goes way beyond the confines of the instrument, from burning phat grooves & super musical phrases to hi octane guitar solos (yes, guitar solos - played on the bass) and atmospheric soundscapes. Check out his latest release Here:

Trip & I got to play together on "Legoland Empire: Gaurd The Point", a project assmbled, recorded mixed and produced by another local artist Allen Wentz (Cornwall NY). This project also featured Rob Michael (guitar) from San Francisco, making it a true nation internet collaboration. 

We're super excited to be able to bring this phenomenal musician to Newburgh & the Hudson Valley. I hope you can join us!

As usual, we will be streaming the event on our streaming page. 

"I started playing in April of 1982. My father was a band director whose school had a Peavey T-40 bass and TNT 100 bass amp that weren't being used. He brought them home and got me some lessons with a family friend, and I was off from there. My first bass heroes were Paul McCartney and John McVie. From there I went on to: Geddy Lee, John Taylor, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, Brad Lang of ABC, Del Palmer, Tony Butler, John Giblin, Mick Karn, Percy Jones, Steve Harris, Martin Turner, John Entwistle, Tony Lewis of The Outfield, Steve Swallow, Jerry Peek, Anthony Jackson, Sting, Guy Pratt, Tony Levin, Michael Manring, Jimmy Johnson, Abe Laboriel, and tons of non-bass players like Alex de Grassi, Will Ackerman, Arvo Part, Tuck Andress, and others. 

I immediately realized that I was playing a BASS GUITAR and that I had all of the guitar techniques available to me. So playing solos seemed like a good idea. But having no chops, no time, and no idea what I was doing, I really just made noise. I had some kind of a fuzzbox, and I was glad that I could make the bass feed back like Hendrix. It was fun. Then one day after NEVER getting any calls for gigs I realized that I didn't know how to play bass. I learned. I get gigs now. I have played everything from jazz (badly, I might add) to punk to prog-rock to funk and pop and R&B.

About style and the solo thing: I don't see chops as art. Chops are tools. That's all. I see tunes as colors and shapes, and I actually try most of the time to use as few notes as possible. I try not to use forty-five where three will do. Whether I succeed or fail is up to the listener.

As for my style, I have been playing for about twenty-eight years. I am still in the shadow of my influences, and I am still searching for my voice. So in other words, I haven't been playing long enough, nor do I know enough or have I had enough life-experience to discuss "my style." The listener must be the judge."

Here are the videos of our 3 performers from the July 2nd House Concert, taken from the streamed video file. I might at some point organize videos onto a seperate page, but I'll just post 'em here for now.

Trevor Exter:

Lobelia:

Steve Lawson:

Hey All -

We've a bit of bad news - our friend Todd Reynolds Won't be joining us. He's on his way to CA to care for his mom who's in the ICU as of this writing. We wish her a speedy recovery, and sae travels for Todd.

Meanwhile, the show will continue as scheduled with Steve & Lobelia. And it's gonna be great! :)

Greetings all comers! We're starting our series off with a bang, and some amazing musicians! We'll open up at around 6 pm, and the music should starts around 7 ish or soon after. We're asking for a suggested donation of $15, all of which goes to the musicians. You can also bring a vegetarian dish to share; get in touch with us to discuss. We will have food & drink here; bring anything else you'd like to drink.

RSVP by emailing Lshc[AT]nailmusic[DOT]com. I'll respond with our address, and we can discuss any details and answer any questions.

Now, let me introduce you to our GREAT performers:

1) STEVE LAWSON

It may be a deeply uncommercial move to be so diffuse, but Steve’s entire career has been an ongoing experiment at making the music that means something to him, and then using the internet to make that available to like-minded listeners. We do know a few things:

• he’s a solo bassist who spends a lot of his time making very unbasslike noises.
• He’s an ambient experimenter who likes pop tunes too much to go strictly soundscape, but is way too atmospheric to sit comfortably in the ‘instrumental rock’ category.
• His electronica leanings produce some amazing hi-tech sounds, but he resolutely avoids programmed beats, making the eventual hybrid of jazz, electronica, ambient, new age and ‘new acoustic’ influences infuriatingly hard to pigeonhole.

10 albums into his career, there’s a definite ‘Steve Lawson’ sound to just about everything he plays on. Playful yet melancholic, possessed of a naive melodic quality whilst flirting extensively with dissonance and darker timbres to create this soundtrack to the inside of his head. Don't take my word, have a listen to his latest: 

Steve and I did a fabulous project last year called "Waves Across The Pond", which you can check out Here. 

2) LOBELIA 

Born in the US amd now living in London, Lobelia is one of those exceptional songstresses who can get right to the heart of the matter, with a voice that really does feel as if she's reaching into your soul. I've seen her perform and she's mesmerizing. Her crystal clear vocal quality (..perfect pitch..?) and stellar guitar technique brings something really special to each performance. From her own website:

In these days of musicians counting myspace plays and friend requests as a way of measuring popularity, it's easy to forget that not too long ago the much lamented MP3.com was making stars of its own (and paying them, no less!) with independent artists racking up ten of thousands of plays. And some whose play count went from tens to hundreds of thousands, and then to millions. 
Enter singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist Lobelia, whose profile on that original indie music portal lead her to places most independent musicians only dream of - lucrative sponsorship deals, a publishing contract and a feature in Billboard magazine. Playing in a duo with acclaimed British bassist Steve Lawson, Lobelia's sound blends hook-laden adult pop with a more spacial ambient sensibility reminiscent of David Sylvian, Talk Talk and The Blue Nile. Singing songs of love and loss, her star is once again on the ascendancy, with the coming year promising at least two new albums and more touring in Europe, the US and further afield.

And her latest disc, one of the best collections of cover tunes I think I've heard. Have a listen for yourself:

3) TODD REYNOLDS 

We are really thrilled to have this cat join our party. It's really quite amazing that he's going to be here; so amazing, in fact, that I'm composing a little piece for us to play together.

Todd Reynolds, violinist and composer, is known as one of the founding fathers of the hybrid-musician movement and one of the most active and versatile proponents of what he calls ‘present music’.  The violinist of choice for Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Bang on a Can, and a founder of the string quartet known as Ethel, his compositional and performance style is a hybrid of old and new technology, multi-disciplinary aesthetic and pan-genre composition and improvisation. Reynolds’ music has been called “a charming, multi-mood extravaganza, playful like Milhaud, but hard-edged like Hendrix” (Strings Magazine), and his countless premieres and performances of everything from classical music to Jazz to Rock‘n’Roll seem to redefine the concert hall and underground club as undeniably and unavoidably intertwined.  He’s played as soloist with Yo-Yo Ma, toured with John Cale, Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren, continues to create new electronic and chamber music collaborations (Typical Music, Sxip Shirey, Zoe Keating and Adam Matta) and has enjoyed orchestral, Broadway and commercial careers along the way. His ongoing collaborations with composers, visual artists and performers such as Theo Bleckmann, Luke DuBois, Michael Gordon, Phil Kline (The Reynolds’ Etudes), Bill Morrison, Evan Ziporyn and many others, continue to contribute to an ever-expanding book of music, Nuove Uova,  and to his ultra-flexible concert-theater format, Still Life with Microphone (Gale Gates, Flea Theater, The Whitney Museum at Altria). He has just released his double CD set, Outerborough  on Innova Recordings, featuring InSide, a collection of his own music, paired with OutSide, music written by a veritable who’s who of contemporary composers.