Basilica Soundscape festival on the horizon
The Basilica Soundscape festival, to be staged September 12-14, is becoming an increasingly popular alternative event – almost, in co-organizer Brandon Stosuy’s words, an “anti-festival.” For the third year in a row, Basilica Hudson’s Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone are working in collaboration with Pitchfork senior editor/director of events Brandon Stosuy and Brian De Ran of Leg Up management to program the weekend. In contrast to other large-scale festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza, Basilica Soundscape is curated with the ethos that “Each band makes sense and bleeds together in some way, and there’s a very definite reason why they were selected.”
Where once Basilica Soundscape was pulled together from close friends and contacts, this year it has expanded, with industrial titans Swans and Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire topping a bill that also includes Deafheaven, Tim Hecker and White Lung. Here’s the roster so far: On Friday, September 12, Leg Up will present Michael Chapman, the New York psych band Endless Boogie, a performance from Gamelan Dharma Swara orchestra, Tim Hecker, Tom Hawk, Julia Holter and a set from Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, who will perform material from his upcoming solo album, Music for Heart and Breath.
Saturday’s show will feature a lineup of Swans and Deafheaven and will be rounded out by Vancouver-based punk group White Lung (as well as a reading by White Lung frontwoman Mish Way), readings by Perfect Pussy frontwoman Meredith Graves and Mira Gonzalez, a set by Guardian Alien with additional solo sets by their drummer Greg Fox (of Liturgy, Ben Frost, Dan Deacon and Zs) and a set by nomadic dream-pop artist Emily Reo.
Visual artist Sterling Ruby will create large-scale quiltlike flags as backdrops for the main stage. In between acts will be readings, art exhibits, performance art and food provided by a variety of local farm-to-table vendors. Tickets cost $35 per night, $60 for the weekend and can be obtained at https://bss14.bpt.me.
This year’s Basilica Soundscape will take place the same weekend as Groundswell, an afternoon exhibition event at the Olana State Historic Site, located just five minutes from Basilica Hudson. Produced by Wave Farm’s WGXC and the Olana Partnership, Groundswell (Saturday, September 13 from 2 to 6 p.m.) features site-specific performances and works by Kenseth Armstead, William Basinski, Steve Bull, Jane Carver, Ellen Driscoll, Michael Garofalo, Mckendree Key, Hélène Lesterlin, Jack Magai, Man Forever, Laura Ortman, Mau Schoettle and Bryan Zimmerman, set amidst one of the Hudson Valley’s most breathtaking viewsheds.
Meanwhile, expect metal and avant-garde music at the Basilica Soundscape festival, and a closer sense of connection to both the performers and other audience members. “It will be more like the Ma-and-Pa version of a festival,” Stosuy said. “It just feels smaller and less Wal-Martesque.”
Basilica Soundscape festival, Friday/Saturday, September 12-14, $35/night, $60/weekend, Basilica Hudson, 110 South Front Street, Hudson; (518) 822-1050, https://Basilicahudson.com, https://bss14.bpt.me.
Rock and Roll Circus with author talk on Friday; BCB Art hosts related exhibition
Basilica Hudson at 110 South Front Street in Hudson will host an evening with film and television director, artist and author Michael Lindsay-Hogg on Friday, August 8 from 8 to 11 p.m. A pioneer in music video, Lindsay-Hogg’s extensive professional credits include directing the Beatles’ Let It Be and Brideshead Revisited. His directorial stage credits include Agnes of God on Broadway and the original production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart at Joe Papp’s Public Theatre.
Lindsay-Hogg will do a reading from his memoir, Luck and Circumstance, followed by a screening of the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus, created by Mick Jagger and Michael Lindsay-Hogg and starring Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithful, the Who, Eric Clapton, John Lennon assisted by Yoko Ono and the Rolling Stones. It was shot over two days in December 1968. It was not seen by any audience anywhere for 28 years until it was screened at the New York Film Festival in 1996, after it had been rescued by Allen Klein. Admission to the screening costs $10 on a sliding scale.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s father was an English baronet who lived mostly in Ireland and Spain. His mother, Geraldine Fitzgerald, was a Warner Brothers movie star who won acclaim as Bette Davis’ best friend in Dark Victory and performed in William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights. She spent time with Hollywood’s elite: Laurence Olivier, Charles Chaplin and Orson Welles, with whom she worked in New York at the Mercury Theater and in other productions.
Lindsay-Hogg writes of how he wended his way into this exotic, mysterious and seductive world, encountering as a small boy the likes of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst, playing hide-and-seek with Olivia de Havilland, serving drinks to Humphrey Bogart and discussing life with Henry Miller. At the book’s center, an offhand comment made to the author about his mother’s relationship with Orson Welles leads Lindsay-Hogg to question his father’s identity in this moving, deft and illuminating memoir.
For more information, visit www.basilicahudson.com.
BCB Art at 116 Warren Street in Hudson will host an opening reception for an exhibit of paintings and drawings by Michael Lindsay-Hogg on Saturday, August 9 from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will remain on view through September 7. “You Game? I’m Game” will feature unique works on canvas, board and paper, deftly rendered in paint and colored pencil. They evoke the feeling of “one-frame movies” full of character, intrigue and innuendo. For more information, visit www.basilicahudson.com.
