Soul of the City: New York City
If you’re lucky enough to live in live music strongholds like New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Boston or Chicago, there’s something good to go to literally every night of the week. It isn’t always the national headliners, of course, or indie-blog buzz acts that make the rounds, either—it’s the tireless musicians who form the backbone of every local music community and the tireless music hounds who come out to see them week after week.
With that in mind, welcome to Soul of the City, where we’ll be checking in on city-specific scenes and getting the lay of the live music land from local correspondents from time to time. To kick things off, here are a few dispatches from the unslept city. If you want to wax on a bit about your local music scene—NYC or otherwise—and give us a scribbler’s tour of local haunts, drop Chad a line at cberndtson[at]gmail[dot]com.
Shayni Rae’s Truckstop (Mondays at the National Underground, Lower East Side)
I first heard Kevn Kinney the same way a lot of folks in the Northeast do: through his longstanding association with Warren Haynes and other heavyweights of the jam scene. His catalog of honky-tonk-ready, folk-blues nuggets includes at least one great (and regionally iconic) song, Straight to Hell, and every time you see him you’re hard pressed to figure out why he’s a well-known quantity in the southeast but nowhere else.
Anyway, Kinney’s in New York often—he splits his time between the Big Apple and Atlanta—and apart from one-offs, opening slots and scooting back down South for gigs with Drivin ‘n’ Cryin’ and others, he holds it down every Monday night with the weekly (and recently revived) honky-tonk series Shayni Rae’s Truckstop. The titular Shayni Rae, of course, is Kinney’s wife, and the National Underground is a kind Houston Street nook, co-owned by Gavin DeGraw and his brother Joey.
This, friends, is a greasy slice of Monday night country-soul nourishment, and apart from the regular contributors, which include Kinney, drummer Anton Fier, and the wily Madison Square Gardeners, the Truckstop has played host to impromptu appearances from Norah Jones, Audley Freed, Cat Popper, Gov’t Mule’s Andy Hess, and Gavin himself, and members of the Drive-By Truckers and other big guns have also been spotted there. Good scene. Sob into your beer a bit but come out feeling better than when you went in.
READ ON for more of the debut edition of Soul of the City…
Jim Campilongo Electric Trio at (Mondays at the Living Room, Lower East Side)
“Sonic architect” is another of those frequently-bandied-about music crit terms for a purveyor of heady music, but when Jim Campilongo hoists his Fender Telecaster, it really does feel like a great escape from harsher realities. His playing—all those flights, bent notes and offbeat tones—suggests he seems to think of guitar as voice, Hendrix-style, and not just guitar as stringed instrument. He plays often around New York—and is a member of Norah Jones’s Little Willies side project and countless other groups—but his latest residency is a late night Monday set-up at the Living Room: just Campilongo, his trick bag, and a bassist and drummer. A tad mellow at times, but then perfect in that regard for a cool, calming Monday night.
Jenny Schienman (Tuesdays at Barbes, Park Slope, Brooklyn)
I have jazz wonk pals from parts elsewhere in the country who foam at the mouth over any regional Jenny Scheinman appearance like it’s the Zeppelin reunion, and they frequently take me to task for how little—and I’ll admit, it’s embarrassing—I make it to Scheinman’s Barbes residency.
No question Scheinman is one of the most exciting players—jazz, or any other—in the world right now. Along with the two albums she recently released—one instrumental, one vocal—and her regular slate of frontwoman and sideperson gigs and an inexhaustible number of collaborations, Scheinman maintains this humble weekly summit of brilliant improvisation, tucked unassumingly into a back room the size of a shoebox but long on personality, on a cafe-strewn drag in Park Slope.
In addition to all the facets of her playing, Scheinman is also a pleasure to watch because her eyes dart and she makes expressions alternately beatific and mesmerized–she feels what she’s doing so much and she’ll go wide-eyed whenever a bassist or guitar foil hits a certain pattern and start to drag her bow again. This past Tuesday she was with a familiar collection of players—bassist Todd Sickafoose, drummer Rudy Royston and guitarist Steve Cardenas (who also plays often with Campilongo)—and it’s such a total mindfuck to think that such new-jazz royalty will assemble for less than 100 people while it’s still light out in a cozy back room on a Tuesday evening to do what they do.
Scheinman’s Barbes thing makes Tuesday—undoubtedly the shittiest day of the week, because Mondays mean both weekend afterglow and Monday Night Football—just a little easier to deal with. Thanks Jenny. Please, for the love of god, keep doing what you do.
Dred Scott Trio (Tuesdays at Rockwood Music Hall, Lower East Side)
Keyboardist Dred Scott’s Rockwood residency is about three years old and has already yielded one terrific album (available for free download here.) He’s collaborated a bunch with RatDog saxophonist Kenny Brooks and many others, and a chance sit-in with RatDog some time back led me to investigate the man further than I had in the past, to discover that Rockwood on late night Tuesdays is one of the most consistently great residencies on the Lower East Side. Plus, it was a product of happenstance: Rockwood opened in January 2005 as primarily a singer/songwriter venue, but Scott was able to get the owners to take a chance on a regular jazz trio in a noncritical spot during the week. Signed, sealed, delivered.
Really, it’s a depressurizing experience: it’s too early in the week to be out so late and Dred’s almost never on before midnight, but he’s so comfortable in the room and with his collaborators, drummer Tony Mason and bassist Ben Rubin, that every performance is an intimate bop clinic, alternately a deep chill and an edge-of-seat level of intensity. If you’re lucky, you’ll get their excursion through Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard”—captured with gusto on the Rockwood live album.
good new column…although I’d have to object to Boston being a hub for live music…it could certainly be worse, but we’re getting killed with the early curfew and current lack of mid sized venues (with the Avalon being under construction). That being said, the BoFA Pavilian had a good summer. Alright, I’m rambling…but will look forward to future installments of Soul.
As far as Boston not being a hub for live music, I would have to entirely disagree. The Avalon is under construction and they’re building a House of Blues that will showcase two venues within it’s walls, and the Wilbur theatre is opening up in a few weeks with a season of good acts already on the roster (Mogwai, Dandy Warhols, TV on the Radio, Grace Potter), which adds to the medium sized venue listing.
Above all else, Boston is the college capital of the world, any booking agent who runs an act through NYC and plans to go to Chicago at some point would have to have his head up his ass to pass up a set at The Paradise
I understand the gripes on Boston, certainly–that 2 a.m. pack-up time (and most bars, during the week, are 1 a.m.) can be a total buzzkill when the night is rocking. But in addition to the charms that Andrew mentioned–I miss Avalon, too, but not its sitelines, claustrophobic standing spaces or Manhattan-priced drinks–there’s an enormously vibrant Cambridge/Somerville scene that’s dominated by roots/blues/Americana but draws in all kinds of musicians and some of the city’s most devoted music fans. Balance your Boston night right and you can see a headliner then skip over to Cambridge and catch a wide variety of different groups any night of the week at Toad, or the Plough & Stars, or Atwood’s or the Lizard or any other. Good times.
Kevn Kinney rocks. As a Brooklynnite, I am thrilled he is in NYC part time and I am hoping he will eventually do a NYC-based full length electric show with his current band Sun Tangled Angel Revival (S.T.A.R.). Of course I love any Kevn Kinney, solo, with his friends, or with any band he assembles. Kevn Kinney is one of the best song writers I’ve heard in a long time, and I am chompin’ at the bit for a full-length NYC electric show. Yeah, even us New Yorkers love “southern rock.” Why, cause it is American rock music at its finest.
Check out Kevn’s S.T.A.R. cd Comin’ Round Again or his MacDougal Blues, long out of print and now available on itunes. Kevn is a contemporary lyrical gem and is up there with Bob Dylan in my opinion.
Be sure to catch Kevn at one of Shayni Rae’s Truckstop shows if you can. You won’t regret it.
Sincerely,
Angelemerald
Andrew, while I don’t disagree with many of your points, the problem is that the new House of Blues is not even close to completion, and while we seem to get the “big” acts in town at the Fleetcenter and Great Woods, A LOT of the smaller jam acts have lately been skipping Boston on their way up to Burlington, stopping in Troy, Albany, and/or Providence instead. The Paradise is a great venue but is often overbooked with more indie/rock acts and it’s tough to catch a good show there (especially on the weekend). I was unaware of the Wilbur opening up…that will be a nice addition. And yes, the Cambridge/Somerville region can be a great spot as well…the Somerville Theater has been stepping it up with acts like Josh Ritter, Amos Lee, Ryan Adams, and even the Black Crowes (and Yonder is there later this fall).
Could be that just the bands I look forward to seeing are skipping town, who knows. But the fall linuep for Boston is looking a little better!
You should do a feature on the scene at Nublu, easily one of the most vibrant scenes anywhere in the city. If you want to focus on one night, Forro In The Dark’s wednesday residency is off the hook and always packed until 4 am.
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