Saturday, May 6: For quite a few years now, Flying Cat Music has quietly been bringing a special class of folk talent – both Americana and world – into the small-but-acoustically-and-visually-stunning space at the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoenicia. The room tends to be not only packed, but also attentive in that endangered listening-room way.
Our first order of business here is clerical. It is to be called Colony now, not the Colony Café, as we have long been conditioned to think of it: that stylish, on-again off-again hotel/restaurant/venue that has been standing there all cool and Euro on Rock City Road just past the Green in Woodstock since 1929.
Saturday & Sunday, April 29-30: There is an old Zen proverb that you may have heard: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day, unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” I like to imagine that the organizers of Basilica’s famous 24-Hour Drone Festival feel similarly about the agency of drone-based music: Those with the least patience for it are those who need it the most.
Friday, April 28: As a young band, B4tB simply smoked the clubs of New Paltz and environs. Most people who caught them by accident would thenceforward catch them on purpose.
Saturday, April 29: Jazz bassist, producer, composer, electronic music pioneer: Malcolm Cecil has quietly had about as varied and storied a music career as one could quietly have. He won a Grammy for engineering on Stevie Wonder’s greatest record, Innervisions. His innovative duo Tonto’s Expanding Head Band made what is widely considered to be essential early electronic music, and was, in a bizarre turn, recently referenced on TBS’ popular show People of Earth.
Saturday, April 22: “I have a large seashell collection that I keep along all the major coasts.”
Sunday, April 23: The North Carolina new-old-folk quartet Mipso aims for an archaic string band sound with a matching set of timeless Americana personae, intending to betray little if any evidence of the modern world within the musical and thematic confines of their songs. They really miss the mark, and in a wonderful variety of ways.
Including: Robert Sarazin Blake at Rocket Number Nine in Kingston, Irish accordionist Máirtín O’Connor and trio at St. Paul’s Church Hall in Red Hook, James McMurtry at Helsinki in Hudson, The Dream of Gerontius performed at Bard, JBM Trio at Gomen Kudasi in New Paltz, Munich Philharmonic String Quartet at St. George’s Church in Newburgh, Homage to Louis Moreau Gottschalk at Fisher Center, and acoustic blues workshop and concert with Ari Eisinger at A.I.R Studio
4/8: Frampton Comes Alive, with its full-face cover, was ubiquitous. In terms of sales, it keeps company with Rumours, Thriller and a tiny handful of others.
Friday, 3/24: A master of many styles and a man with an utterly distinctive voice, the Dylan sideman and solo artist will play his axe, the Vox Continental. He’ll perform with Frank Carillo and Cindy Cashdollar.