The Cut-Up | Issue One | Spring 2016

to the first issue of The Cut-Up. Welcome We’re launching this publication from an old-fashioned conceipt that folks still want to

find a space in the physical realm to share their ideas on art and culture and politic, something more than a click of a button thumbs-up quasi social experience on a device while potentially building a lasting artifact of our times that’s more than ones and zeros waiting to be swiped away.

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Bending the Strings with: Craig Edwards

by Brian Slattery

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Waxahatchee, I’ll Love You Forever All The Same. by Stephen Chupaska

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Violent Mae by Chip McCabe

Our initial ambition is to cover the culture of southern New England from Bridgeport to New Haven, New London and onto Providence and northward toward Middletown, Willimantic, Hartford, Springfield and Northampton. By design this will include the music, arts, and small businesses of the region with a smattering of politcs for a little spice and flavor.

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What About the Voice of Geddy Lee?

by Donny Levit

Our name references the William S. Burroughs writing technique (notably put to fine use by the likes of David Bowie & Kurt Cobain) and we think its an apt description of the unpredictable amalgam of culture we’ll present from issue to issue.

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On The Road with... Roz and The Rice Cakes

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Envigorating a Creative Community

by Hannah Gant

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Record Stour Tour... Willimantic Records

by Dave Brushback

With hope, this first issue will keep you busy for more than a hot minute with its mix of music, art, poem and prose. We have a few items that will be recurring from one edition to the next including band tour reports, record shop spotlights, a dedicated poetry page, a featured prose piece, a center spread highlighting the visual arts, and even our own own advice column.

As well, The Cut-Up will feature special guests each issue and this go round we’re proud to have Kid Millions of Oneida/Man Forever and Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond as well as an interview with Robyn Hitchcock for your reading pleasure.

And we’ll always offer a slew of record and show reviews for both national and regional acts, art reviews and gallery features, and try to highlight small businesses and entrepreneurs who are making a difference in our communities.

We are hungry for your ideas and input so please stay in touch. If you are interested in writing or submitting works for consideration, please reach out. Letters to the editor, advertising inquiries, and all other correspondence are always welcome at thecutupnewengland@gmail.com.

the cut-up a zerowork reactor

Flipping Through 45s with Sir RoundSound

Whydoirock? by Bradley Sheridan 12

A Little Q&A with... Robyn Hitchcock 13

Wu Tang vs Shkreli :: Art of the Deal

by Kid Millions

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The Cut-Up Gallery .::. Collage featuring Ellery Twining, Steve Dalachinsky, Danielle Capalbo, Richard L. Martin

16

Rock Snaps from Peter Detmold

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Titus Andronicus & Craig Finn

by Michael Walters

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I AM SHE by David Madasci The Mountain Goats by Riley Jay Esposito

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Scott Malbaurn Interview by Jason Silva

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The Replacements by Ellery Twining

Issue One :: Spring 2016 Publisher

Richard L. Martin

Margo Price by Paul Boudreau 21

Summer of ‘68: Hyde Park, London, England

by Nick Saloman

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A Poetry Page: Seth Howard, Ken Cormier, Richard L. Martin, and Steve Dalachinsky

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Lake Street Dive by Paul Boudreau

Contributors

Kim Abraham Paul Boudreau Dave Brushback Danielle Capalbo Stephen Chupaska Ken Cormier Frank Critelli Steve Dalachinsky Peter Detmold Riley Jae Esposito David Freeburg Hannah Gant Seth Howard Donny Levit David Madasci Daphne Lee Martin Chip McCabe Kid Millions Nick Saloman Bradley Sheridan Jason Silva Brian Slattery Jeffrey Thunders Ellery Twining Michael Walters

Quiet Giant by Chip McCabe

The Waco Brothers by Paul Boudreau 24

Phonosynthesis, Bilge Rat, Orice Jenkins, The Suitcase Junket by Chip McCabe Nervous Dogs by Michael Walters

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Columbus Theater Cooperative

by Daphne Lee Martin Dear Auntie Advice Column

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The Anti-Queens by Jeffrey Thunders The James Hunter Six & We Like It Like That

by David Freeburg

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Mount Moriah by Chip McCabe

Cover Art

Peter Maphee / Swamp Yankee A Publication of

New London Music Festivals, Inc.

No. 19 Golden Street | New London, Connecticut 06320 thecutupnewengland@gmail.com

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty” - Henry Miller

3 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

Bending the Strings with: Craig Edwards Whether he’s singing and pulling a big tone out of a fiddle, drawing out the notes on an accordion, picking the blues on a guitar, or thrashing a banjo, Craig Edwards is a musical force, around New London and as far away as West Virginia and France. The world—in the form of dozens and dozens of musicians, from his years at Wesleyan to a half-hour spontaneous bow lesson from legendary Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport— taught him to play. And in the past few years, in addition to relentlessly gigging, he’s been doing some teaching of his own.

“It’s funny how you have an image of who you are, what your role is, and how you fit into this larger musical, social, professional world,” Craig Edwards said. “It only gradually dawns on you when that’s changed.” For a long time, he said, “I thought of myself as trying to get ahead.… Then I realized that I was there. That it’s not all still in the future, and some of it has been in the past for a while.

And once you understand that, then you have to recalculate what you want to do next. So running the Monday session for all these years is one way to give back.”

show up and play softball and have a picnic. It was totally idyllic.”

“I was still pretty young to dance,” Edwards said. “I was just getting out of second grade. But I thought the music was pretty cool.”

In Staunton, VA, where his family moved next, he started really learning how col it was. He picked up guitar when he was 10 and was in a rock band by the time he was 12.

“We were all interested in blues and the bluesrock thing, and I would haunt the cutout bins in Woolworths,” Edwards said. “They would punch a hole in the record when it was overstocked., and they’d be marked way down. The first record I got was Johnny Winter’s Live, which I still think is one of the best rock records made.”

But rock’s move into prog didn’t impress the young Edwards; it wasn’t the sound he wanted to make.

And as he learned more about guitar—often by reading Guitar Player—he noticed that his idols had idols of their own. Clapton had Robert Johnson. A lot of them had B.B. King. But then “you’d read an article about B.B. King and he’d talk about Bukka White.” As rock gods were dropping out, or dying young, all around him, he realized he didn’t want to stop playing music at 28. “And I got this Howlin’ Wolf record and thought, ‘this guy is old and he’s still cookin’.” He saw Taj Mahal on a late-night TV show and thought, “oh man, that’s it.”

If it had been a few years later, Edwards might have gone punk. Instead he went trad. “The last year or so we were in Staunton,” Edwards said, “I was delivering the Washington Post, and I found a Gibson L-00 in the classified ads. I got my parents to drive me to DC and I checked out this guitar and I bought it.” He was 14. He started figuring out country music with a friend named Thornton Bowman who “had a killer country and old-time voice and he was a good guitar player already. He was the first person I sang harmony with and we put together arrangements for two guitars. And we were at church camp and there were girls around, so it was really important to be able to play guitar for the girls.”

The old-time jam sessions Edwards runs at John’s in Mystic are just the beginning.

Edwards was born in Charlotte, NC in 1960. His father was a minister; his mother an academic.

They lived all around North Carolina when he was a child, ended up in Cambridge and New Haven while his mother obtained her Ph.D. He first heard fiddle music as a kid, when he went to dances with his dad, who was also a caller. One summer, he said, “we lived in Mt. Washington, MA, in the Berkshires. It’s this little town near Mt. Everett.

It had 30 year-round residents and 100 people in the summer, but it was basically a really old Massachusetts farming community.”

“It was like living in a Norman Rockwell painting,” Edwards said. “The road was unpaved and there were fallow fields everywhere.” When cars drove up the road, the drivers “would get out and talk for 15 minutes. Nobody ever just drove by. And afterward, you’d see the dust hanging in the air.”

Every Saturday night his dad would call a dance, and “three local old guys came and played music,” Edwards said. Sunday morning was the church service. Afterward, “about half the people would

His family moved to Baltimore when he was 15, and Edwards was pretty much off to the races.

He started playing fiddle and figuring out honky tonk on the guitar. And he started going to music festivals, seeing everyone from John Prine and Bonnie Raitt to Doc Watson and the Plank Road Stringband.

He went to Wesleyan for college and played bluegrass, old-time, and other styles of music with a polymath prodigy named John Holtzman on banjo, the now-ubiquitous Kevin Wimmer on fiddle, and Tom Randall on mandolin, who would become a long-time musical partner in crime. He got to tour Nova Scotia and hang out with fiddle heroes Melvin Wine and Ernie Carpenter in West Virginia.

Ernie was “a real sage. He was very articulate in this stately old mountaineer way.” On a van ride from Elkins, WV down to Bluefield, he listened as Carpenter played the now-classic Elk River Blues in the backseat with a friend for a long time.

He was a substitute teacher just out of college to make ends meet and formed the Little City Stringband, which would go on to make its mark on the old-time music world and morph into the Swamp Cats and the Zydecats, which is still active today. In the fall of 1985, Edwards said, “I saw a poster for a job at Mystic Seaport. It was a day job where I’d be able to do traditional music, and I’d be able to climb around on ships, which I’d never

thought about in my life.” He got it—full-time with benefits—making him the third of three musicians on staff.

“It was open year-round,” Edwards said, “and a musician would be put in the tavern exhibit. It had a wood stove and a big bay window. I’d be in there four days a week, doing the music shows every day. So I was in that tavern all winter long with my instruments.”

The musicians at Mystic Seaport formed the sea chantey band Forebitter in 1987, which performed at the Sea Music Festival in 1988. He moved to Mystic in 1990 and went to France in 1991, which led to a decade of trips to Europe . “We were an American chantey band that, because of my interests, explored how the chanteys were derived from African-American work songs. So we didn’t sound like an American band trying to imitate British and French bands.”

He taught a young man named Dan Spurr to play banjo about 15 years ago. Spurr went on to be in the Can Kickers. Edwards then put up some posters offering to teach lessons. By 2006, he “acquired as many students as I wanted to carry,” teaching 18-20 hours a week. “You learn more when you’re teaching than your students ever do.”

These days he works on exhibits at Mystic Seaport and still performs there on a regular basis. He also runs a symposium for the Sea Music Festival. He plays contradances with the Dead Sea Squirrels, zydeco with the Zydecats, traditional American with the Root Farmers. He’s also playing Sweet Mercy’s Dr. John-inflected grooves. It’s a living. But the music itself—the deep well Edwards has dug and keeps drawing from—is what makes a life.

“In a music that is essentially a social music, your measure is not by any means necessarily what you do professionally, or how many gigs, or how much money you have,” Edwards said. “It’s partly your own sense of how you’re approaching your musical and aesthetic goals—being able to sit down and render music that you feel is valuable and that you’re doing it well.”

That music “has developed a profound meaning because it’s been a part of people’s lives, and they’ve imbued it with meaning,” Edwards said.

“It’s proof that humans can construct something that doesn’t hurt people and can carry you through for a long time.”

So sometimes, when he has a spare moment, Edwards heads down to the center of Mystic and just plays on a street corner. “I don’t care if someone gives me money,” he said. “What I care about is that somebody walks by and gets what I’m doing, and it makes their life better.”

- Brian Slattery

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23 Green Street New London, Connecticut 06320 Serving New London since 1933

Waxahatchee, I’ll Love You Forever All The Same.

It’s recent and sudden, but I’ve developed an unconditional love for Waxahatchee. Here’s how we met.

Though there is a touring, live incarnation, Waxahatchee is better described as the recording project helmed by Katie Crutchfield, a 27-year old singer-songwriter from Alabama, though according to Twitter, she’s now based in Philadelphia. If forced to cram them into a specific bin at record shop, “indie-rock” would suffice. There’s some 90s slackerstoner guitar sounds on the majority of their songs, along with some razory folk rock. But those are broad strokes. I saw them on whim in the spring of 2013 in Brooklyn .

Waxahatchee had a gig at the now shuttered Glasslands Gallery, a performance space on a formerly industrial stretch of Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. It’s now part of the new offices for Vice Media.

Glasslands was a fantastic place to see a show.

Wooden sculptures that looked like blown apart staircases hung on the walls and white clouds hung above the stage. It looked really cool and I’m not the only one who misses the place.

Anyway, I had a free night and saw who was playing -- Waxahatchee. Never heard of them. It turns out, Crutchfield and friends were in Brooklyn as part of a tour in support of “Cerulean Salt,” the band’s very well received second album, as I was later to learn.

I can’t remember so much from the show apart from band’s “We’re closing with a cover” bounce through Paul Simon’s “The Boy In The Bubble,” which owed much the Blue Aeroplanes’ excellent version. I also recall standing behind two guys, much younger than I am, who didn’t know the song. I felt smug. Old, yes, but smug, mind you.

So, when Waxahatchee released its third long-player 2015’s “Ivy Tripp,” I nodded and acknowledged its existence and heard some the songs on the radio.

I liked it. Around Christmas, I started to put the album’s cheapo-synth pop number “La Loose” on my mixes and playlists I made for friends. Then, “Under A Rock,” began the seduction.

It sounded like the rock music liked in my high school years in Connecticut in the 1990s.

Crutchfield singing “maybe” throughout the song is full of soul, a mix of Southern country air blended with big city exhaust. And there started the Spotify evangelism and putting the band into heavy rotation on my stereo at home and on the iPod while on my long evening walks around my neighborhood.

Though it wasn’t until the middle of March that my affection for them turned into something else. It felt like when you notice the temperature plummet on a summer day right before a thunderstorm hits.

The atmosphere around me changed. There and Waxahatchee become one of my a“unconditional bands,” along with Massive Attack, Kendrick Lamar and Belle and Sebastian. For me, “unconditional bands,” are not the same thing as my favorite bands.

Now, if forced to confess, I’d call R.E.M. my favorite band. I’d shout it aloud to my captors and demand the hostages go free. I have all of the albums, more than few 45s and 12-singles and even a couple of bootlegged concerts.

But with R.E.M. I get critical. R.E.M. would upset me sometimes. Then I’d have to take a breath start to think and then type words such as “context.” Like I’ll argue till my top teeth fall out that “Ignoreland” ruins the mood of “Automatic for the People,” but it was written during the end the Reagan-Bush era and they wrote political songs, so you have to consider that. Or I have to consider that. Or I feel obliged to consider that.

Now, with my unconditional bands, I’m anti-critical.

I’m pretty much fine with whatever they want to do and what whatever they did before they became recipients of my glowing love.

For instance, earlier this spring when Kendrick Lamar surprise released a mini-album. I was thrilled. I put the new songs on and they’re excellent. What the hell, it’s the new Kendrick Lamar album. Same goes for the new Massive Attack EP. Lead cut “Dead Editors,” is a collaboration with UK hip-hop star Roots Manuva and it’s brilliant. It comes on and I’m instantly pleased. Last month I chatted for a while at a bar with my friend Jeff Terich, the music editor of San Diego CityBeat and founder of the music site Treble, about Belle and Sebastian’s “Girls In Peacetime Want to Dance.” Some fans and critics didn’t like the album’s cheeseball disco sound. Fair enough. Me? It was the new Belle and Sebastian album. It was great. Let’s put it on next.

Granted, I do write about music and culture. And on the best days and if I’ve had enough sleep I can attempt to make a cogent arguments about songs and albums. And maybe one day something will happen that will lead me to attach conditions to my love for Katie Crutchfield’s wonderful Waxahatchee.

For now, though, we’re spending all morning in bed and every dinner is by candlelight.

- Stephen Chupaska

The Hempsteadys El Amor de los Muertos

Quiet Giant loom

Violent Mae Kid

Daphne Lee Martin Fall On Your Sword

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Someone’s somewhere actually does. We’re all in it together. Make your voice heard.

telegraphrecordingcompany.com

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Violent Mae ‘Kid’ Telegraph Recording Company

It was over two years ago when Becky Kessler stood on stage at Arch Street Tavern in Hartford, Connecticut and somewhat sheepishly announced, “So, yeah, we’re called Violent Mae now.”

The well read story is that Kessler, already an award-winning singer/songwriter, entered Floyd Kellogg’s Casa de Warrenton Studio to record her debut full length album and exited with not only Kellogg’s amazing production but a new band mate as well. Kellogg’s astute accompaniment would, almost by default, turn Kessler from accomplished neo-folk singer to front woman of a new and an amazingly powerful project. Having Kellogg along for the ride only made sense both in the short and long term. Fast forward to the tail end of 2015 and Violent Mae have dropped their second album, the ethereal masterpiece Kid, this time as a more cohesive unit.

“Big difference,” says Kessler via email when asked about the difference in recording a second album knowing going into it that this was now a project of a full-fledged ‘band.’ “The songs were all new to Floyd when we recorded Violent Mae. We played most of Kid live a bunch before bringing them into the studio and had a pretty clear idea how we wanted Kid to sound before we started tracking.”

“Yeah the first was wide open to its aesthetic while recording,” adds Kellogg. “This one after playing out and developing other recording techniques we had a pretty solid blueprint going in.”

That blueprint is one fit for a multi-level, sonic mansion - a structure that looms in the distance like a glistening castle in the sun. Calling themselves ‘dynamic fuzzy low rock’ in their bio, Violent Mae haul in a wide array of influences with a net that casts out across the entire indie rock landscape. Equal parts vibrant and mysterious, Kessler and Kellogg have meticulously created a sound that both intrigues and delights. From the raucous, upbeat opener, “In The Sun” to the monolithic intensity of tracks like “Neon Halos” Violent Mae are painting with both broad strokes and yet a finite attention to detail. They are the musical equivalent to that favorite movie that was so dark, so shadowy in every context; yet so

addictive it required multiple viewings in order to attempt to unravel every poignant message.

“A lot of people think it’s a conscious decision, because the darkness in the music seems so contradictory to my personality,” says Kessler. “But it’s definitely honest.”

Honest it is, and they have been justly rewarded as such with a rabid fan base. That’s not just speculative hyperbole either. Glance at the previous winners of the Connecticut Music Awards from the last three years and Violent Mae is all over them: Best New Band in 2013, Best Indie Rock Band two years running. These are awards tallied from fan voting across Connecticut and beyond, and while popularity contests are by no means the best way to justify artistic works, it would appear this time around that the public at large got it right.

Add to that a growing list of magazines, radio stations, blogs, and websites that are singing the praises of Violent Mae and Kid. But Kessler and Kellogg remain humble as they continue to build towards something special.

“It’s been really positive,” says Kessler. “And we do pay attention to what people write about us, sometimes too much. Not a lot of money in this so appreciation from fans and writers goes a long way for us.”

“Yeah the reaction has been great,” added Kellogg.

“I do find reviews entertaining…it’s interesting to see how people feel the music.”

As long as Violent Mae continues to make such honest and emotive music it appears there will be plenty of people willing to feel it. Is Violent Mae the best band coming out of Connecticut right now? The answer to that question, no matter what you answered, would be nothing but speculative opinion. How do you measure something as arbitrary as what is “best” when it comes to music? Are they one of the brightest? Without a doubt. Two records in (and really only one written from scratch as a full-fledged band) and it feels as though Violent Mae may be poised for greatness.

One listen and it’s hard to deny that they certainly have all the potential for it.

- Chip McCabe

THE TELEGRAPH

New & Used Vinyl, Books, CDs & DVDs

19 Golden Street | Downtown New London, Connecticut

Flipping through 45s with Sir RoundSound Iron Knowledge “Show Stopper” Tammy Records Youngstown, Ohio, 1972 From the first fuzz-drenched bass heavy moments of “Show Stopper”, the 1972 funk bomb by Youngstown, Ohio’s Iron Knowledge, you know you’re in for a monster. I first heard “Show Stopper” on Chains & Black Exhaust, a 2002 compilation of funk rock assembled by Chicago collector Dante Carfagna. The album is filled with cuts by heavy soul bands with a love for the fuzz: Black Merda’s “CynthyRuth”, Preacher’s “Life is a Gamble”, The Young Senators’ “Ringing Bells Pt. 2” … it’s a ferocious collection well worth seeking out.

Of course, fuzz found a natural home in soul and funk music. Borrowing a little back from the rock and rollers, soul musicians used fuzz boxes to beef up the intensity of the guitar and give their songs a psychedelic twist. Try to imagine the Isley Brother’s 1967 dancer “Why When Love is Gone” without Ernie Isley’s killer guitar lead, or the Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” without Dennis Coffey’s fuzz wah. The sound has surfaced again recently in the Budos Band’s 2014 afrosoul meets 70s heavy rock LP Burnt Offering, and in Charles Bradley’s sublime 2016 cover of Black Sabbath’s “Changes”.

In 1972, Iron Knowledge were a group of teens living in a post Jimi Hendrix world with soul groups like Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament Funkadelic making liberal use of the psychedelic rock sounds, and rockers such as James Gang experimenting with funk. John Warren (vocals), Jimmy Vass (guitar), Milton Van Blalock (guitar), Gary Blalock (bass) and Larry Johnson (drums) had to come out with guns blazing if they wanted anyone’s attention. And so they did. They traveled up to Cleveland and recorded a song that earns the name “Show Stopper”. With it’s relentless fuzzed out bassline, ripping guitar solo and thunderous drum break, the record has become an underground classic that every funk DJ wants in their box.

Alas, the attention they hoped for never came.

In an unpublished 2006 interview, bassist Gary Blalock was shocked that their record was sought after. “No man, I didn’t even know anyone out there knew about us. You’ve gotta be kidding me man.” The song was issued twice: once in 1972 as an A-side, then again in 1975 as a B-side to a novelty version of “Who Put the Ram” (my copy is the 2nd issue). A couple of years later, they surfaced with a disco funk single called “Give Me a Little Taste of Your Love”. And that was that for Iron Knowledge: just one earth shattering jam that I’m glad lives in my record box.

- David Freeburg

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What About the Voice of Geddy Lee?

a story from Rock n’ Roll Lies, 10 Stories written by Donny Levit

If

someone were to ask me to define the term “douchebag,” I’d have to be exceedingly particular while engaging in such an endeavor. I’ve found the term douchebag to be invaluable in certain instances when it really is the only useful, descriptive term. Although the term has been referenced by others as far back as my high school years, I did not see its great versatility until quite recently. In a single evening, I stumbled upon no less than three species of douchebags and have been nothing less than enlightened by the linguistic pleasure I have attained from the term. I can now ride the subway and properly categorize a person who will not let go of the annoyance of being jostled in an extremely crowded subway.

not sure if my dislike for Power Windows is based on its mediocrity or if I’m simply biased against it due to my failed concert attendance. Rush came back later that year to the Nassau Coliseum and Hartford Civic Center, both options which I passed.

Genus: Douchebag Species: D. straphanger

Now it is has been theorized—and never proven mind you— that Rush is a “guy band.” That they were made for guys to air drum with Neil Peart during one of his solos that one could mark the timing of the revolutions of our fair planet. This “guy band theory” has been verbalized by many a gal I know. Heidi Slagwerker—who I had a crush on in college when I was a freshman—once stopped by my room unannounced. I was trying to play it cool when she gently and seductively handed me a Baby Ruth bar. We discovered we were both fans of Caddyshack and she and I loved the pool scene. We discussed Bill Murray, Ted Knight, and that awful actress who played Maggie O’Hooligan—the one with that ... haircut. I was

In this instance, the jostlee has been apologized to by the jostler, however the jostlee still sees fit to provide them with a speech. A non-apologyacceptor is a genus of douchebagery that rates with some of the more frustrating of the douchebag genera.

In reference to this particular story, you will soon be introduced to the following species:

1 The “rowdy meathead post-frat boy classic rock concert goer” douchebag.

2 The “it would make sense to be helpful but instead I’m going to be unhelpful by using rules that are not germane at the moment” douchebag.

3 The “I’m not a racist just a sociological observer of my surroundings but I actually am a racist” douchebag.

I was bitter.

I was broken.

In a conciliatory move, Ned Tabachnik bought me the Power Windows concert tee shirt. While I appreciated his gesture, there is an unspoken law that one may never wear a concert tee shirt from a concert one did not attend.

Certain rules are sacrosanct.

The series of unfortunate events that have conspired against me began with sophomore year in high school when Ned Tabachnik asked around about who wanted to see Rush’s Power Windows tour that was coming to Madison Square Garden a few months later. As luck would have it, I was home from school that day due to an unending nosebleed. It was one of those Ned Tabachnik events that took place on a single school day that went unmentioned to me until a few days before the actual show that February. By that point, I could have gotten a single ticket across the Garden from the other ten guys, which wasn’t at the time a palatable option.

I was mad at Rush and I have never been a fan of Power Windows. In the spirit of honesty, I am

The curious part of my love for Rush is that I literally stopped listening to them for about 7 years between 1990 and 1998. I dutifully held onto my record collection, which would follow me wherever I moved. Classic rock—with the marked exception of Neil Young—took a back seat to the fertile music of The 1990s.

“What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high?

Does he speak like an ordinary guy?

(I know’em and he does) And you’re my fact checkin’ cuz.”

This itch needs to be taken rather seriously. Said itch is in no way a trifle; more a rite of passage that an individual deems necessary to experience.

In this case, the itch is to see the band Rush in concert.

Geddy Lee: bassist, keyboardist, and in the top 5 of greatest rock n’ roll singers since August 1968.

And probably the greatest to come out of Canada.

“Goodnight room Goodnight moon Goodnight cow jumping over the moon Goodnight light And the red balloon Goodnight bears Goodnight chairs Goodnight kittens Goodnight mittens…”

From a 1997 song called “Stereo,” these lyrics are some of the most beloved by Pavement fans.

There are certain life events that simply cannot be missed. Mind you, these are not matters of life and death; they are more like an itch that needs to be scratched before one comes to their end.

Alex Lifeson: the guitarist. Originally named Aleksandar Živojinović. The Serbian-Canadian hails from British Columbia and makes a guitar mathematical. The best of the old and new math.

Pavement’s main songwriter and guitarist is a man named Stephen Malkmus. His songs are filled with odd, sharp, obtuse, and often very funny lyrics.

Pavement broke up in 1999, but not before they made me fall in love with Rush all over again.

In my douchebag research, I’ve noted that with few exceptions, douchebags are a monophyly, meaning all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together.

Neil Peart: the drummer who can make more sounds per second than any drummer in existence. And the primary songwriter for the band. Admittedly admired and criticized for his warlock and assorted middle earth themes.

“May I read you a bedtime story?” asked Geddy Lee. The inquiry was in no way a formality. I just knew he would offer another option if I made that request. But of course, Geddy Lee could do no wrong and could curate my bedtime reading whenever he liked. That night, Geddy Lee put me to bed by reading me Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Goodnight Moon. I couldn’t recall hearing it since I was a child. Geddy Lee had a fairly normal speaking voice. And when he read me the following, I knew all would be ok.

This was the timeframe when I fell deeply in lust with Nirvana, learned all there was to learn about every band that came out of CBGB, listened even harder to Sonic Youth, and one other very important band: Pavement.

I greatly enjoy the debating of this terminology, especially the issue of how binomial nomenclature should be properly utilized.

It dawns on me that some of you may not know the band members of Rush. Unlike other bands, it is a short list—a trio that has not changed personnel in 40 years. One can depend on Rush.

So I am honored to introduce you to the following:

I

awoke from a deep sleep to a figure sitting at the foot of my bed. He was slim and had a pony tail. I sensed a Canadian presence. His energy was peaceful. He was there to help. And I instantly trusted him.

Stephen Malkmus allowed me to remember that night back in college when Geddy Lee read me the bedtime story. After a Pavement concert one night at the now defunct Roseland Ballroom, I went home and simply couldn’t sleep.

And I knew what needed to be done.

hoping for the best.

Heidi Slagwerker saw the 2112 poster—Rush’s February 1976 release—that I proudly scotchtaped over my bed next to the Kiss poster. She understood the Kiss poster was ironic, but the Rush poster was not. Heidi equated those who listened to Rush with the zit-faced high school boys who played Dungeons & Dragons in their basements on Saturday nights, and obsessed over vinyl when it once wasn’t that cool to obsess over. I was so unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons that to this day I misspell “Dundgeons” by adding an extra ‘d’ after the ‘n’.

“I know you store all of your prized Rush records in plastic. I know you buy a new needle for your record player whenever you pull them out. I know you want to have your testicles removed so you can sing like Geddy Lee,” Heidi, my once crush once told me.

While I disagree about her castrato surgical procedure accusation, she is correct in all other instances. And yes, I loved the voice of Geddy Lee. After Heidi Slagwerker left my dorm room, I ate the Baby Ruth bar and got into bed very early that night. I was depressed and fell asleep to A Caress of Steel, Rush’s 1975 album. I remember humming along with “Bacchus Plateau,” the fifth movement of their six-movement song “The Fountain of Lamneth,” a 19:57 epic that takes up the entire second side of the album. ***

I needed to listen to every Rush album in chronological order and would later purchase the Rush albums I missed during the years I forgot my beloved band: Roll The Bones—1991 Counterparts—1993 Test For Echo—1996 These albums are—to put it nicely—hit and miss.

But my taste was rekindled once again, and I longed to see this band in concert. Each time Rush would be brought up in conversation, I felt left out. And it pained me in a way that it pained me when I didn’t kiss Juliette Babineaux that night when we were out listening to Rubén González at Cafe Brasil in New Orleans.

7 Those select lost opportunities that haunt one throughout their life.

indeed belong to the genus “rowdy meathead postfrat boy classic rock concert goer” douchebag.

I didn’t buy tickets to see a Rush show until 2013.

But now, on a warm and cloudless June evening, I would return triumphant to the Jones Beach Amphitheater on Long Island. Rush would be framed by the the Great South Bay and I would slowly sip an overpriced beer and revel in the glorious sound of that which is Rush. I would be caught up in the nostalgia of being ticketed for urinating in public 20 years ago when my very close friend Zepp and I went to see Jethro Tull. We were innocently micturating an “X” in the sand and brush. We paid the price.

Douchebags B through E chortled as if they were in a bad high school musical. They even stood in a straight line—the look that happens when a director doesn’t pay any attention to the 35 kids in the chorus. Douchebag A spun around and highfived Douchebag C. Douchebag B fist bumped Douchebag E. Douchebag D threw up a little. Just a little.

While I would not refer to the following as a documentary, I want to assure you that every single part of the remainder of this story actually took place.

With a minimum of arm-twisting, I convinced my wife Veronica to join me in this experience.

She was pregnant and a gamer about the whole endeavor. I created a Rush primer that I played for her weeks before we went. We were prepared.

She loved the album Moving Pictures but thought 2112 was bloated. In addition, we were to have a wonderful pre-Rush meal at my second cousin’s home a mere 20 minutes away from the festivities.

My second cousin is a wonderful guy and also happens to be one of two vegans I know who isn’t annoying about being a vegan. He is a wonderful guy, a wonderful cousin, and a wonderful vegan.

As we pulled into the Jones Beach parking lot, I was predicting the order of songs, paying the parking lot fee, and considering a purchase of vegan literature. I was humming “New World Man.” My wife was holding her belly and being very patient with me. Our child would see Rush in utero.

I was already a very proud father.

The sound was a pop. I didn’t think much of it as I was too busy arguing with myself over which song they would open up with. But the left side of the car sunk a little. And the eyes of the group walking by were focused on our left front tire, which was extremely flat. People were doing that pointing thing.

Moments later we pulled into the parking spot next to the first douchebags—plural in this case— that we would come across that evening. These gentilhommes were drinking Coors Light, and looked like they bought their clothes at the bloated person section of an Abercrombie & Fitch. Our car lumbered painfully around a tight corner, stopping a few cars away from the group of douchebags.

Douchebag A approached our car. He was smiling a warm, non-douchebag smile. I wanted to apologize to him. I had judged him wrong. He was surely coming to help; to see if we needed to call a tow truck or to help put the spare on. “Nice car, he said. Nice flat. This is gonna be a fun night for you.

Enjoy the show, winners!” He burped one of those cheap beer and gas station convenience store Funyons smelling burps, solidifying that they did

And then they were off. The parking lot cleared out.

And we had 17 minutes before Rush would begin.

Now I know that some may think we should have locked the car and have gone into the Amphitheater. But I simply was not going to let my pregnant wife sit in a dark parking lot after the show ended at 11:00 at night. And after examining my spare, I noticed it was in desperate need of air.

And we were in desperate need of a tow.

The local tow company explained they would arrive in 45 minutes and that they could only tow us to Wantagh—the closest town from the theatre. And as we waited, I could hear the distant synthesizer of “Subdivisions” opening up the show. It was dusk, and the aqua concert lights bounced off Neil Peart’s massive, glistening drum set. I walked to the Port-o-Potty and heard the first chords of “The Big Money,” their song based on a section of John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. Trilogy. My heart sank as I micturated and heard Geddy Lee sing the following words.

“It’s that old time religion It’s the kingdom they would rule It’s the fool on television Getting paid to play the fool…”

We were finally in Wantagh at 10:30 p.m. after waiting in the parking lot and listening to a significant amount of the concert. We were towed to a suspect gas station with bad lighting and a sea of oil stains. There was a sign in the window of the small glass area that said “We Sell Deviled Eggs” except someone had scratched out the two D’s and the final E. The edited version read “We Sell Evil Eggs.” And we patiently waited for a AAA tow truck that would then tow us all the way back to Brooklyn. Our Coney Island Avenue service station told me they’d let us leave the car there overnight.

My wife was tired, yet far more patient than I was. I hoofed it across the street to buy a few waters and corn muffins at the Dunkin’ Donuts.

When I returned, I was less than pleased to see the service station attendant hovering over the passenger window and gesturing in a less than peaceful way. I darted over and asked my wife if everything is ok.

“He doesn’t like us sitting in his gas station,” said Veronica. She was non-plussed about this.

“Those are the laws,” he said. “You need to move your car.”

His name may or may not have been Harvey. He was wearing one of those throwback attendant shirts that said Harvey, although I supposed he could have borrowed it. He wore a Mets baseball cap that looked like it had been coated with pine tar.

“Sir, you realize we can’t move the car without a new tire,” I offered; attempting calm. In addition, I offered him a corn muffin but he declined. This surely would make him plussed.

“Those are the laws,” he repeated. “I will need to call the police soon. We cannot be too congested.”

And here he was. The “it would make sense to be helpful but instead I’m going to be unhelpful by using rules that are not germane at the moment” douchebag.

“My friend,” I said.

The man wasn’t my friend. I hate that I said that.

I don’t like when people use that term when it is both inaccurate and patronizing and I was being both. “I don’t see one other car in this service station. I can assure you we won’t be long.”

Luckily the tow truck pulled up before things could have gotten complicated. I gave Veronica my second bottle of water. “I need to pee,” she said.

The tow truck was huge. One of those vehicles that would piggyback the car to Brooklyn.

“Call me Justice,” said our second tow truck guy of the night. It was almost midnight and Veronica still remained calm. She was walking back from the

Dunkin Donuts.

“I hope the bathroom wasn’t raunchy,” I said. “I’ve smelled better. I’ve smelled worse,” she said.

Killer deadpan.

“This is Justice,” I said, introducing him to Veronica.

“You two better keep me entertained. I haven’t slept in 28 hours.”

I turned back to catch one more glimpse of Harvey.

A 1998 Honda Odyssey had just pulled in to the station and Harvey was pumping it with gas. He turned to the truck and saw me. And while he was a hundred feet away, he no longer was Harvey. Geddy Lee was pumping the gas. And he was staring back at me, with a genuine smile.

We

*** started our journey back to Brooklyn that would probably take an hour and fifteen minutes or so.

We’d take local roads back, and snake up North Conduit Avenue to Linden Blvd. as we cut through Brooklyn. At midnight on a Sunday, we wouldn’t hit any traffic.

I could tell Veronica was the first to notice that it wasn’t just a piece of dirt or birthmark under his eye.

Justice had a teardrop tattoo. Now while I’m no expert in prison life, I had a basic sense of what that meant. Veronica was able to put a tough question lightly.

“So, Justice, the tat. Did you murder someone or get bad things done to you in prison?”

“Neh. Almost made it to prison once. Almost murdered a guy. But it’s for show. Don’t worry you two; good folk are safe in my front seat. I got this to scare the shit out of anyone who’d fuck with me in some of the darker neighborhoods. Don’t take it as a racist comment. I am speaking purely about statistics. We all know that.”

And now you have been introduced to the “I’m not a racist just a sociological observer of my surroundings but I actually am a racist” douchebag.

I had to bite my tongue. And Veronica had to do the same. I turned to my right and caught her peripheral. Her left cheek was hollowed out, surely because she was threading her tongue between her teeth and biting down hard.

We made it to Brownsville with probably about 20 minutes left. “Brownsville,” Justice said, rather hard on the letter ‘B’. “Man my teardrop would come in handy here. I don’t get how you two nice people could live in Brooklyn. But hey, we all gotta do what we gotta do.”

We stopped at a traffic light next to an all night White Castle. “Man, I could go for a bag of those things,” Justice said. I was looking to my right, exchanging “let’s just shut our mouths for a few more minutes” glances.

I caught a glimpse of the White Castle window, and I was convinced I saw Geddy Lee inside. He was sipping a large fountain soda. And he was staring back at me, with a genuine smile.

By

*** the time the key was in the door, it was 1:30 a.m. and Veronica was washing her face. I got her a huge glass of water, and tucked her in to a chorus of “Don’t worry about its,” “Just relaxes,” and “Try to come to bed soons.” She knew I was wired and would take some time to wind down.

I poured myself a large Russki Standart and turned to the baby’s nursery. Something was off. We had just finished cleaning it out even though it was a bit early to do so. The only two items in the room were a rocking chair and my acoustic guitar hanging on the main wall.

The acoustic guitar was gone but I couldn’t remember putting it anywhere. I peered around the corner and saw Stephen Malkmus on the rocking chair quietly strumming the guitar. I paused.

“I had the feeling you needed to talk. I hope you don’t mind me being here so late. I’m eating the Thai food that was in the fridge.”

“That’s alright. Stephen. Malkmus.”

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8 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

“Just call me Stephen,” said Stephen.

selected Dr. Seuss’ The Sneetches and sat down.

“I know you’re going to hate this, but I have to ask you about a song lyric meaning.”

I pulled out some blankets and extra pillows and got us some beers.

He strummed the guitar. He was tuned to D A D A B E.

Stephen, Geddy, and I made a blanket fort and we fell asleep to Geddy reading us Dr. Seuss.

“What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? Does he speak like an ordinary guy?”

Spoke/Sang Stephen.

Of

“Have you met Geddy Lee?” I asked.

“Nope. Can you believe this? I’ve never seen Rush.

Just like you.” “So why did you write those lyrics?”

I asked. There was a long pause.

I was pretty embarrassed. I was asking the most uncool question you could probably ask Stephen Malkmus.

“Yeah. Well…”

Another long pause.

Then he got that look on his face like he was about to howl. As if he was about to sing that part of “Unfair” off of Crooked Rain, Crooken Rain.

“Take it neighbor, ‘Cause you’re my neighbor, And I need favors, you’re my neighbor…”

Then the look on his face became peaceful.

“Cause they sounded right. I don’t know. Honestly, I really do wonder about the voice of Geddy Lee.” Stephen finished the Pad Thai and started in on the Pad See Ew. “You’re hungry.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to get back here for hours. Sorry your tow truck guy was such a racist douchebag.” I didn’t even want to ask how he knew that. The nursery was far away enough from the front door that I wasn’t sure if I heard a knock.

It was a quiet knock if it was a knock at all.

“Stephen, did you hear that?

“Nope, I was chewing. Do you know that thing when you can miss significant parts of a conversation because you’re chewing?”

I went to the front door. Our peephole had been covered with paint before we moved in. The knock came again. It was gentle. At 2:30 in the morning, a gentle knock was still a bit odd.

“I know it’s late,” the voice in the hallway said. “I just want to apologize about tonight.”

I opened the door and there was Geddy Lee. He was in jeans and a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.

I gestured towards the nursery and he paused for a moment. He took off his sandals and placed them in the front hall.

Stephen Malkmus and Geddy Lee exchanged familiar, warm glances. Stephen was enchanted without being irreverent. So was Geddy.

“Care for some Thai, Geddy? It’s good stuff.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

They sat on the floor next to each other; the place where the crib was going to be. They seemed like close friends as they picked at the same take-out container with plastic forks.

Man, could the two of them form a Supergroup.

“So Stephen,” Geddy said; the mischief becoming evident. “What is it about the voice of Geddy Lee?” “Oh man, Geddy, you’re going to get me on a lyric I wrote 15 years ago?” Stephen asked.

“Hey, I can remember lyrics I wrote in 1974.

Actually, that’s exactly why I don’t write the lyrics anymore.”

“I have to say,” said Stephen, “If we were hanging like this 15 years ago, I wouldn’t need to write that lyric.”

“Well, do you think I speak like an ordinary guy?” asked Geddy.

“Not ordinary, Geddy. But man, I’d listen to you read the phone book and I’d like it,” said Stephen.

At that point, Geddy walked up to our small set of books we were buying for our baby. You know, the favorites you have to place in the nursery. He

into the nursery.

*** course they were both gone when I woke up. I was sitting in a fallen blanket fort the next morning when Veronica came

“I won’t ask,” she said, and handed me my coffee.

Geddy and Stephen had washed out the takeout containers and even placed them in the recycling.

Good guys. Really good guys.

I

*** saw Geddy Lee one last time. It was 10 minutes before my son’s Bris. The mohel was setting up and our son was calm and sleeping in his crib. I needed a moment to be quiet for a bit with him.

I closed the door to the nursery and there was Geddy Lee, sitting in the rocking chair.

“The room looks great,” Geddy said. “You made it fun without it being too cute. And aesthetically pleasing, may I add.”

Boy was I proud when he said that.

He managed to have gotten my bass guitar into the baby’s room without any of us seeing him do so.

“Do you like ‘Red Barchetta?’” Geddy asked. It was one of my favorite Rush songs ever.

“We’ll consider this a Bris warm-up.”

“Geddy, my bass is pretty cruddy. I got that for my Bar Mitzvah. It’s not in good shape.”

“It looks like the $89 Sam Ash special,” he said.

“Indeed it is.” We both laughed.

“Looks good to me. I still have my bass I got for my Bar Mitzvah. Kids seem to want to upgrade their instruments every month nowadays. You committed to your bass. That’s pretty cool.”

And Geddy played a quiet “Red Barchetta” that I never thought was possible.

After he was done, Geddy walked over to the crib and gently touched the baby.

“Hey, you don’t mind if I stay for the Bris, do you? I brought my own yarmulke.”

We gathered in the living room and Geddy Lee simply became part of the family that day. When I entered the living room, I noticed Stephen Malkmus was sitting on the sofa next to my Granny. Stephen would later help her to the table.

He wore the yarmulke we got for our son. It had a ring of colorful cars on it that looked great on Stephen Malkmus.

They ate bagels with a lot of lox and capers. They hugged Veronica. They kissed our baby on the forehead. Then Geddy and Stephen quietly slipped out the front door.

I still haven’t seen Rush. I never thought I’d say this, but that’s fine by me.

9

ON THE ROAD WITH...

Roz and The Rice Cakes “we went on tour in march of 2016 down to austin. it had been about a year since we’d hit the road for that big of a run and honestly i was a little nervous; would anyone still come to the shows? are we still relevant? in a world of ever changing music trends and an over-saturated music scenes, the idea of touring and releasing music can feel strange. this tour was different for us and was perhaps one of the most inspiring and heartening experiences we’ve had as a band. the shows our friends helped us host were thoughtful and well curated. the people and bands we met were lovely, creative, and progressive. even SXSW, which is always chaos, was somehow different. i feel very privileged and thankful to be able to tour, make music my life, and have the opportunity to experience a variety of communities around the world making truly radical art and music.”

- Roz Raskin

casey and justin playing at the carolina theatre in greensboro, nc. (photo jorge vieira)

roz in the bluebonnets. some friends of ours recommended that we take the scenic route from galveston to austin to see the wildflowers bloom. totally worth it. (photo jorge vieira)

rice cakes at the pedicab shop. our buddy joel (a badass musician and pedicaber) threw together an epic show for us at hot shop pedicab shop at 3am on the last night of sxsw. needless to say he rules.

this is us playing the market rooftop bar at sxsw after the rain finally subsided. (photo jorge vieira photography)

this was taken at the broadberry in richmond, va. our friends night idea put out an album that night and packed the hell out of that place. the whole night was pretty epic.

this was at happy homie fest in austin during sxsw. this show was magical, off the beaten path from the craziness of downtown austin, great people, great lineup of bands.

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Envigorating a Creative Community in Downtown New London Over the last several months, New London has watched as the former El n Gee Club has been transformed into a community makerspace called Spark. As the organizers and members celebrate their grand opening, we asked leader Hannah Gant to tell us about their plans, business model and how it all works for the common good. Here’s what she had to say:

Spark Makerspace is a community organization I am a central part of in New London, CT that is opening this summer. I consider myself an artist operating in the economy with Spark containing elements intended to cause ripple effects in how we as people organize ourselves.

I am motivated by the belief that everyone is uniquely gifted in multifaceted ways, yet our education and economic systems do not help people grow into this uniqueness.

We have inherited an extractive, industrial, and entropic system that inhibits human development and sucks the life out of life. The given design of how we are in economy together is needlessly blocking a generative value flow causing fragmentation and inefficiencies leading us as a people embedded within a living planet on a downward spiral.

My involvement in Spark is an attempt prototype a generative way of being in economy that recognizes and appreciates the uniqueness of individuals and the places they are rooted in together. The resulting resonant alignment of people, high functioning teams, and place growing together will unlock an upward spiral leading to thriving genuine wealth and health along all dimensions.

Cultivator is a name I have assigned for this as a new type of entity in the community economic development landscape.

Spark’s holistic membership-based structure is inclusive of everyone and everything--individuals, businesses & community organizations, and anchor institutions--that share a home in this compact economicallydepressed New England shoreline urban environment of New London, a couple hours in between Boston and NY. Spark is identified as a communityrun workshop and learning center.

Individuals engage along a spectrum of sharing time, talent, and money to collectively manage / steward a makerspace, artspace, and coworking space facilitative of creative expression and exploration.

A retail space for products made by members is also part of the mix as an economic opportunity. Potential developments down the road that make sense to me as part of the cultivator context include a thrift store, a lending library of things and a creative reuse & salvage center.

Spark is cooperatively organized with a member-led and staff-supported design that shares work according to talent and interest, establishing a context that feels playful because people are largely doing what

they want to do. This allows for a governing structure that does not require traditional management to force work to happen. There is a central team with satellite groups supported to operate with a high degree of autonomy. Care is given to an enculturation & orientation process that ensures members function well together as teams and understand what is essential about Spark—sparking individuals in a way that sparks place—so that all activities consistently follow a shared set of principles.

The center (Board of Directors inclusive of all staff) exists to anchor administration of Spark as a high-functioning organization and coordinate individual members to actively lead various workstations, participate in guild-like “meetup groups,” and produce skill-sharing & -building classes and workshops that generate programming. If a creative space does not exist within the auspices of Spark there is a process by which members can self-organize and be supported to develop this new space on behalf of the whole community.

At the individual level Spark has Leads, Working Members, and General Members. Leads play a stewardship role in some way and have the option of not paying financial dues. Working Members contribute $30 / month plus some work like a reception shift in a space, teaching a class, and being sourced according to talent and interest.

General Members contribute $55 / month to access over 10,000 square feet of productive spaces with no obligation to work.

Small business & community organization members benefit from Spark by reducing overhead costs through use of the shared spaces & equipment, increased efficiencies through easy collaborations with other productive entities in network, as well as access to the community of Working Members who are helped to “work” in ways that spark community & place. More established business and anchor institution members (including municipalities) will benefit through accessing auxiliary resources to fix and improve their things and systems. These group members’ financial contributions will be caseby-case depending on volume of use with some experimentation of revenue-sharing in addition to a conventional flat rate.

The phase one business model of Spark includes income from membership dues, classes, commissions on sales in the retail outlet, and grants and donations.

The design of Spark as a cultivator is not solely in service of individual development. There is a strong cultural drive to collaborate in service of vitalizing place. The civic muscle engendered through Spark is a response to the current way we have organized ourselves in which individuals are discouraged from taking an active role in the tending and stewardship of their places

because this is considered the work of government and other entities.

Through guild-like meetup groups and crowd-sourcing events the Spark community will generate community-serving ideas that become things / projects anyone can opt into. Spark will support these things to realize their potential through the collective resourcing of its robust physical infrastructure, social infrastructure that optimizes the talents of each individual, and a shared pool of money available to seed and support developmental work. Some of these things will grow into what are sometimes named as “social enterprises” that do not necessarily “launch” to fly off on their own, but rather perpetually stay within the Spark network, nurtured into a symbiotic existence with a percentage of income flowing back into to support the operational costs of Spark.

The cultivator could be understood as a grassroots cooperative business incubator existing to help people in

a place step into vocational working roles within activities that are valuegenerating. This differs from the incubator model in which individuals referred to as entrepreneurs are supported to start private businesses agnostic of impacts.

Phase two includes sharing income from profitable projects begun within the Spark community that will generate livelihoods and private equity for members who are core to those respective entities.

A maturely established cultivator designed to help people grow and collaborate on projects that result in shared money presents amazing potential to act in ways unconstrained by the imperfections and pathologies of the current financial market system. What might a high-functioning creative, collaborative, civically engaged community do with surplus financial capital?

- Hannah Gant Get involved in making Spark happen by stopping by Golden St. in New London or visiting the spark.coop website. Follow Hannah’s thoughts about midwifing a new reality at hannahgant.com.

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RECORD STORE TOUR...

Willimantic Records One of the things I’ve found with worthwhile records stores is that sometimes there’s a trick to finding them, like when the old Phoenix Records was above a tea shop on Bank Street in Waterbury and the only way to get to the staircase was through a slightly hidden door at street level that wasn’t really marked, or with the basement stores in Boston like In Your Ear and Armageddon. Such is the case with Willimantic Records, which lists an official address of 744 Main Street, but is actually underneath the building, so to find the store you have to go around the back and enter through Riverside Drive.

Finding it is worth the effort, though, because one of the things I’ve learned since moving away from Connecticut and seeing what the other states have, is that Willimantic Records is definitely one of the top­tier independent record stores in New England. Now, most record stores I’ve shopped at tend to fall within one of two categories: the old­ guy rock’n’roll stores that carry almost nothing but dusty old vinyl, where there’ll be tons of classic Kinks and Beatles LPs but you’ll hardly ever find anything newer than the ‘80s (although these are sometimes the best places to stumble onto forgotten/little­known punk records!), and then there are the stores that carry mostly brand new stuff ­­like those spiffy 180 gram ‘reissues’ and Record Store Day releases and so forth ­­but don’t have any of the classics from decades past that you might be looking for.

Willimantic Records is one of a handful or so stores I’ve been in that actually covers both of those bases, so there are new sealed releases for sale as well as dollar bins full of classic vinyl, and pretty much everything in between. And I do mean everything: there’s bins for spoken word releases, “World” music and stuff from different countries, old soul and hip­hop records, even a “celebrities” bin with Evel Knievel records and so forth. On one of the walls there’s a display of Philco/Ford “Hip­ Pocket” records, which you used to be able to play on a portable record player as you drove around in your car, and then right below the Philco display is the section of old shellac 78’s, which I’ve never touched because apparently they’ll snap into pieces like nothing if you’re not careful.

The best part, though, are the tons of indie and punk releases that make up the majority of the store, from the classic stuff like the Mission of Burma and Naked Raygun singles above the door to the best of the newest stuff, since Joe (the owner) has a really good ear for those things.

Willimantic Records might be the new kid on the block – less than half the age of relative newcomer Redscroll Records down the road, for instance (another excellent store well worth visiting, by the way) – but Joe’s been involved with underground music since the ‘80s, playing in bands like Bimbo Shrineheads, Wormdoom, and Vermonster, as well as running the Tulpa Productions record label. This dedication to local and obscure bands is apparent

as soon as you walk through the door, where right in front of the cash register is a display case where you’ll always find quirky cassette­-only releases from local bands for cheap, as well as flyers advertising the bands that will play in­store, with shows happening about every other week or so.

Also right inside the door is where Joe sometimes keeps his collection of “things found inside records”: old autographs, clippings of reviews, and photos that people cut out of newspapers and put inside their records for safe­keeping, only to leave them there when they traded in their vinyl collections, and some of which are very amusing when you find them decades later (remember when newspapers cared enough about music to devote the top half of a broadsheet to a review of a lousy Neil Diamond concert? No, you probably don’t).

I can’t even begin to think of all the cool records I’ve found at Willimantic Records, mostly because my memory is pretty bad, but also because what I’ve actually enjoyed picking up the most whenever I stop by are the self­-released cassettes of bands like Priests, The Gotobeds, Downtown Boys, etc – bands that played at the store when they were just starting out and left their tapes there, only to go onto bigger and better things (like having ‘real’ record labels release ‘real’ records for them and so that they don’t have to bother with dubbing their demo tapes at home and stuff). If all that isn’t enough, the store also serves as an art gallery for local artists, as well as having the coolest t­-shirts: a Willimantic Records logo designed to look like an old Edison Records phonograph cylinder, or something like that.

- Dave Brushback

Willimantic Records

744 Main St, Windham, CT 06280 Phone: 860-450-7000 Hours: Wednesday-Friday: 12–7pm Saturday:11am–6pm, Sunday:12–5pm Monday & Tuesday: Closed

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A little Q&A with...

Robyn Hitchcock

Quiet Giant ‘Loom’

Q: You just played a rather intimate show here in New Haven, Connecticut to an adoring audience. What are your thoughts on returning to the city to perform again after some twenty plus years?

Telegraph Recording Company Blending musical worlds can sometimes be catastrophic. “Don’t cross the streams, Ray!” A hearty ‘what were they thinking’ all around is unfortunately a byproduct of trying to cram sonic square A into sonic circular hole B. Yet every now and then it works and it works so well it blows the lid off the whole damn magic box. And when you peek inside?

When you glean what’s inside? It’s something so pure and so beautiful, this musical baby with the soft skin and the smile that melts hearts. It touches the very essence of the soul in the most untainted of ways.

A: It was fun. I think we got more people into Cafe Nine than we got into Toad’s Place 21 years ago.

Connecticut’s Quiet Giant were at one time, very recently, known by the moniker loom. Now they’ve emerged with a better name and a debut album called loom. To be even more precise, they’ve emerged with a new name and an album that’s going to be, and should be, viewed as one of the best to emerge from this small state with the big music scene. Quiet Giant have blown the lid off the proverbial magic box. They’ve produced a musical offspring from the marriage of two eclectic and often times downright weird genres that on paper probably shouldn’t work out this well. Jangling, dance-able indie pop and ambient shoegaze? Each so bent on creating certain atmospheres that seem so contradictory on so many levels, yet here, in this space of twelve tracks, brought together in holy matrimony. Until death do us part.

A: Illustrious! Well, it’s lasted, which is pretty amazing. My career has outlived most cats and dogs but can’t compete with an elephant. I’m very lucky to make my living out of doing what I love most.

So discreet I could never tell you’re leaving me...

Quiet Giant are built around two things first and foremost – the angelic, swooning vocals of front woman Danielle Capalbo, and some seriously nimble and penetrating guitar work. This is the canvas on which Quiet Giant begins each painting, filling in those happy little trees and happy little clouds with elements from a broad palette of influences. There’s the obvious homages to acts like the Pixies or Mazzy Star but Quiet Giant are so beyond simply riffing on their favorite riffs written by someone else two decades ago. Instead Quiet Giant have created a sound that is truly unlike pretty much any other act, certainly in their own backyard and very possibly beyond. Very far beyond.

Q: Last year, you released your 20th studio album as a solo musician, The Man Upstairs. That’s a pretty impressive feat by any measure but especially given the short attention span of today’s quick fix culture.

Did you dream of such an illustrious career when you got started as a musician

Q: When did you first start making music and how did your first bands form? Were there specific musicians you’d seen that inspired you to get into the game A: I started trying to write songs in 1970. My first art school band was in 1972. My first serious band, The Soft Boys, formed in 1976. My first decent songs appeared in 1979. So, yes, I had a long apprenticeship.

My father was a very imaginative man and I came of age in 1967, so inspiration grew on trees in the world I was in.

Q: You are currently touring with the very talented singer and songwriter Emma Swift? How did you all come to know each other and hit the road together A: Emma is my partner in life and love. In the winter of 2013 we started singing together in a damp seaside apartment that Charles & Emma Darwin once lived in, and took it from there...

Q: You both gave us a rather wonderful cover of David Bowie’s ‘Sound and Vision’ to close out the night in New Haven. Why were you drawn to that song in particular to pay homage to Bowie?

In the mood to dim the lights, don the headphones, and drift away from this shitty, white noise-filled world for awhile? Try “High/Mighty” or “Forever Fear” on for size. Two of the better examples of how Quiet Giant can force their shoegaze and heavier elements to engulf you from head to toe. Those vocals soaring over those nighttime riffs and star-filled atmospheres can be chill-inducing when allowed to be. In the mood to move a little, to shake your ass while pretending like no one is watching?

Give “A Long Glow” or “In Color” a ride. Both would have the most entrenched members of rhythm-less nation bopping around the house like a reject from a Cyndi Lauper video with a catchy array of indie rock meets pop sensibility.

A: Sound And Vision lends itself well to harmonies, I guess. And it’s poignant, self-reliant, and short.

Quiet Giant is a much more fitting epithet. They’ve sneaked right up on us in roughly a year’s time and started to guide us through a dizzying array of outside nonsense with clues to the great mysteries that need solving.

Mysteries, such as, how can four people come out of nowhere and steal that part of our hearts reserved for the music we love? (They’ll return your ring when you’ve figured it out, Agent Cooper.)

A: You get the best and worst of things in America. Enlightenment and ignorance slide past each other without communicating at all. The same mentality that spawned McCarthy and demonised socialism is still at work in Trump and much of the GOP. A toxic fusion of greed, bigotry, superstition, and utter denial of man’s impact on the environment - all packaged to sell to the desperate masses. Yet all my friends here are liberal hipsters with progressive views. I’m backing Bernie!

- Chip McCabe

This article previously appeared on the blog Lonesome Noise

Q: Did you ever work with Bowie or have interactions with him over the years?

A: Sadly, no.

Q: As you criss-cross America on tour, do you have any thoughts on the state of the nation especially the climate of the current political circus, errr Presidential campaign that is?

- Rich Martin

13 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

Wu Tang vs Shkreli :: Art of the Deal “The game of chess is like a sword fight, you must think first, before you move.”

- from the film Shao Lin vs Wu Tang and used in “Da Mystery of Chessboxing”

When Wu Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers) was released in 1993, Martin Shkreli was ten years old.

Cut to 2015, that same financier and so-called pharma-bro purchased an exclusive one-of-akind Wu Tang album called “Once Upon A Time in Shaolin.” for $2 million. “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin” was a grand experiment. In this current environment of instant digital distribution the RZA (aka Robert Diggs, the main architect and producer of the Wu Tang Clan hip hop collective) and the Wu Tang Clan wondered what the value of a one-ofa-kind album might be. They would produce just one copy, the sessions would be heavily guarded and the final product would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Even though the Wu Tang’s fortunes and influence had waned over the last decade, this album was highly anticipated and the band claimed that they received an offer of $5 million before the record was even finished.

After teaming up with online auction start up Paddle8, the album and associated material was sold to an anonymous bidder. The Wu Tang claimed that the buyer wasn’t interested in broadcasting their purchase.

After a few days however, the world learned that the purchaser was a guy who’d been in the news as the villain head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a company that was purchasing rare and undervalued life-saving drugs and ratcheting up the price exponentially. The hue and cry that followed painted him as a perfect internet antichrist; a catch-all receptacle for everything that’s wrong with the health care system, white people and the 1% all in a weasely package. The bonus was that Shkreli was active on social media, holding bizarrely open online video chats with teenage girls (with a backdrop of a Marshall amp and guitar), constantly speaking with the media, tweeting and creating non-business related content.

This faceless swarm of worker bees does not APPROVE of the purchaser of “Once Upon A Time in Shaolin.” There’s a certain naiveté at work here, or put another way, “What the fuck did you expect?”

All the while TMZ, the mutant appendage of American for-profit tabloid journalism, gins up outrage by shooting a quick interview with Wu Tang member Ghostface Killah (we never see the context, Ghostface is on the street somewhere and seems distracted) and broadcasting the resultant brief and edited exchange with hyperbolic editorializing. In brief, Ghostface thinks that Shkreli is a “shithead” and that the album should be released to the people. RZA goes on the record that the sale went through before Shkreli’s “business practices came to light.” It’s an absurd situation. When you enter the rarified chambers of obscene money, you don’t get to decide whether the person behind the dollars is worthy of the purchase. Or do you?

Actually in the world of high-end art purchasing, that’s exactly what you do. It’s not enough to have the money to buy the artwork. It’s often more about the kind of person you are and the kind of collection you have. An art buyer is attempting to enter into a closed society through the purchase of a limited edition art work. This reality colors the nature of high finance and the paranoid undemocratic nature of extreme wealth and the notions of “old” and “new” money.

What brought me to this topic though is the horror of Shkreli’s videos related to this beef. As I age I’m realizing that no matter what class tier or vocation we belong to, we’re all being exploited

and discarded in some way. We’re in a society that covets youth because youth spends their parent’s money freely. And by speaking directly to the youth, we perpetuate an environment where youth adopts these self-aggrandized myths. The new myths of youth like Silicon Valley’s obsession with “disruption” and destruction are fed to youth and end up spewed back out in mutated form.

Shkreli feels as if he deserves respect from RZA and Ghostface because he paid $2 million for their album. But in reality all he did was buy something.

The reality of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” is that $2 million probably did not go very far. Let’s say that all tolled it cost them $1 million to produce the thing. You have all the management, all the lawyers, all the production, the travel, the artist fees, auction house percentages and the rest of the bullshit. So let’s say maybe you clear $1 million profit. And and then tack on what was donated to charity (RZA claimed that a “significant amount was donated”)? So the product was not profitable.

It was an art project that Shkreli purchased and perhaps as a commercial product it was a failure.

But it was no less of a failure than the last couple of Wu Tang albums (check the sales figures - they are really low).

So Shkreli feels slighted by his idols and creates a video where he’s drinking wine with a chorus of hooded goons calling Ghostface Killah his “son.”

He’s claiming that he created the man - let’s not even talk about the image of a white man calling an elder black man his “son.” He was also telling Ghostface that he would erase all his verses from the album. This felt psychotic. All of a sudden we’re talking about the defacing of a work of art. It would be like if Picasso insulted a patron who then decided to take a razor blade to the work of art he purchased. How does it connect with ISIS and how they destroyed the antiquities of Palmyra?

This chorus of disrespect got me thinking about the theme of Iggy Pop’s latest record, “Post Pop Depression” and the character Pop created. He told the New York Times, “In American life, because it’s so hyper-competitive, what happens when you’re finally useless to everyone except hopefully not yourself? What happens then? And can you continue to be of use to yourself? I had a kind of character in mind. It was sort of a cross between myself and a military veteran.”

So I’m seeing Ghostface as a veteran and a victim in this idiotic war we wage against ourselves in this country. Money does not give you the license to insult your elders. Shkreli is puffing as if he’s on the same level as these old gods who have served us: the rabble. What rights are conferred on the people who pay for our existence; the people who are our bosses? Perhaps at the same time you can imagine an assembly line worker watching as the managers take crow bars to the trucks as they exit the line.

But it’s not even that. It’s a single work and it’s now owned by Shkreli, a dude who seems to relish the celebrity that he’s acquired through nefarious activity.

But who the fuck cares if Shkreli paid a lot of money for something?

Shkreli is the living embodiment of C.R.E.A.M. (“Cash Rules Everyting Around Me” - arguably the greatest track on the Wu Tang’s first album 36 Chambers) and perhaps that’s the horror he’s facing and why he’s lashing out. He’s realizing that he cannot buy respect from the artists he venerates so he tries to draw attention to the capital exchange that occurred. In a way he believes he has bought their respect. But he’s actually just bought a piece of art.

Unfortunately for all it’s wit, Ghostface’s video response to Shkreli’s threats was a ten minute ad for his 21st century elixir, “Wu Goo” a kind of hash oil vaping product that he claims cures cancer.

In a TMZ interview done with Shkreli after he posted his anti-Ghostface video, the interviewers can barely contain their bemused contempt for their subject, but to Shkreli’s credit, he acts and speaks in an uncanny parallel to Bob Dylan’s famous “Don’t Look Back” interview with a Time Magazine journalist.

After a long and delightful rant by Dylan, Time’s journalist pauses, and with a barely perceptible smile asks Dylan, “Do you care about what you’re saying?”

Dylan replies outraged, “How could I answer that if you have the nerve to ask me that?”

TMZ asks Shkreli, “So we listened to the words [in the Ghostface insult video], the question is what emotion was behind [them]? Was it real or was it comedy?”

Shkreli responds angrily, “It’s real, it’s 100% real, everything I do is real. What kind of a question is that?”

TMZ, “How’s the album by the way?”

Shkreli, “It’s none of your business. . .I paid the money so you won’t know.”

So now we sit and wonder whether this work is safe with this guy who’s butt is hurt by a couple of passing insults from the artists with whom he longs to connect.

- Kid Millions Kid Millions is a drummer and composer who has new album with Harry Taussig out now for RSD 2016

The Cut-Up Gallery .::. Collage

Ellery Twining “western expansion”

Ellery Twining “why voting matters”

Ellery Twining “planets are autonomous”

Steve Dalachinsky “whirldman” Steve Dalachinsky “X mocks the spot”

Danielle Capalbo “Watching Out for You”

Danielle Capalbo “How To Explain Death (To Your Child)”

Danielle Capalbo “Hot Rock (For Loren)”

Richard L. Martin “The Shaming of Cain” Richard L. Martin “A New World Order”

16 T H E C U T \ U P _

Rock Snaps from Peter Detmold

N e w L o n d o n

The Sex Pistols at Brunel University Uxbridge, England Friday December 16, 1977 At the tail end of 1977, my friend Hugh and I had scraped together enough money to head over to London, hoping that we could check out some of the “punk rock” scene that we’d been reading about. We booked tickets on Laker Airlines ($300 round trip!) and planned a ten-day stay. Upon our arrival in the UK we heard about a hastily set up tour by the Sex Pistols that would have minimal advance advertising, hoping to avoid any interference from local authorities. The quick tour was dubbed the “Never Mind The Bans” tour and no specific dates were publicized – just the promise of about ten gigs in the time leading up to Christmas.

Rather miraculously, on our first night in London, we caught the single radio ad for the following night’s show in nearby Uxbridge. The next morning we got up and out as quickly as possible and found our way to this Uxbridge place – the last stop on the London Underground’s Metropolitan Line. Once there, we located Brunel University and bought our tickets at the nearly empty student union. (Tix cost the equivalent of three bucks.) There was no one around in the early afternoon, but by show time there was quite a crowd waiting to get into the gymnasium through a single door. (Think of the Who in Cincinnati.)

The door remained closed as the Pistols did their sound check. It was cold and a light rain was falling. A sign went up announcing that the show was sold out. Tension outside mounted and a window was broken, allowing a dozen or so to squeeze into the still locked venue. When the door finally opened the crush increased and it took a while to funnel into the gym. Inside it felt brutally hot after standing outside in the chilly damp for two hours or so.

The crowd seemed evenly split between university students and the Sex Pistols London fan base. The stage set up was as basic as it can

get – a bass amp, a guitar amp and a drum kit.

Hanging behind the stage was a crudely spraypainted backdrop that declared “The Pistols Will Play.” I’d lost Hugh in the throng outside earlier – we didn’t find each other until after the gig had ended.

Someone played Jonathan Richman’s “Egyptian Reggae” repeatedly through the sound system, probably testing the PA in a suddenly filled room.

And I noticed that we weren’t the only Americans in the audience – the four Ramones had arrived in a balcony to one side of the stage. (I learned later that this was the only time that they witnessed the Sex Pistols play.)

Suddenly, and without any announcement or fanfare, the four Sex Pistols mounted the stage and things got going. The sound was not great, but then it usually isn’t in a gymnasium. Paul Cook on drums and Steve Jones on guitar were terrific and dispelled any notion that they couldn’t play their instruments – a common criticism of most punk rock bands back then. New bassist Sid Vicious held his own as well. Main man Johnny Rotten wore an odd broad brimmed straw hat and seemed unhappy about everything that was going on.

The band played pretty much everything they’d recorded, including b-sides. One new song was debuted, the unfortunate “Belsen Was A Gas”.

The crowd pogo-ed and sang along to the “hits” – “God Save The Queen”, “Pretty Vacant”, “Anarchy in the UK” and “Holidays In The Sun”.

The crush of the crowd was intense. The band left the stage after about an hour, but actually came back for an encore – repeating “God Save the Queen”. And then they were gone. The floor of the now emptying room was covered in discarded clothing – scarves, hats and jackets.

I’d somehow lost a sweater. I found Hugh and we made our way back to London.

We’d seen the opening date of the tour, which lasted another eight days. Once this little tour of England ended, on Christmas Day, the Pistols would head to the U.S. and quickly crash & burn.

Hugh and I headed home and began plotting our own band, which eventually would be called the Reducers.

Morning Mojo

Tuesday’s from 9am-12noon on WCNI 90.9 FM streaming live on iHeart Radio and Tunein. wcniradio.org & Facebook.

Blues, Soul, Funk and a whole lotta enthusiasm!

Every other Tuesday from 6-9pm WCNI 90.9 FM New London, CT wcniradio.org facebook.com/derangedradioanne

Homegrown WESU 88.1 Middletown, CT with your host Robbie DeRosa Thursday 5:05-6:30pm wesufm.org for the live webcast

Rebroadcast friday at 7pm on cygnusradio.com

DEAD AIR RADIO Hugh Birdsall, Peter Detmold, & Paul Sweeney Wednesdays 6-9pm WCNI 90.9 New London, CT

17 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w

Titus Andronicus & Craig Finn Toad’s Place, New Haven, CT - March 25, 2016 The synergy between Craig Finn and Titus Andronicus on the No Faith/No Future/No Problem Tour is not unlike the vodka soda (with a splash of OJ) the surly bartender poured me twenty minutes before The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn took the stage. Craig Finn’s aesthetic derives from his cool, bouncy lyrics and the stories they tell. While the trio proved to be satisfying, a touch of the hard stuff adds an entirely different dimension.

Enter: Titus Andronicus. The fire from these NJ/ NY road dogs ultimately falls squarely on lead singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles’s shoulders. Some might find Titus Andronicus hard to swallow but with each passing minute, their unique brand of (punk) rock and roll grabs with a nervous energy and a reckless abandon. They mean fucking business. As for the tour’s Connecticut stop, Toad’s Place in New Haven provides a unique and nostalgic setting. Proof being that exactly two Good Fridays previous, Finn, with The Hold Steady, were in town playing the same damn place. Standing patiently before the stage, It’s easy to imagine it wouldn’t feel much different (eyes squinting at bright mobile phone screens, aside) if it were 1983 and I was waiting for a gym shorts clad Henry Rollins to appear with the rest of Black Flag.

Craig Finn casually took the stage like it was the twenty fourth show of the tour— business as usual. After strumming openhanded through his opener “Maggie, I’ve Been Searching for Our Son,” Finn addressed the audience candidly which significantly contributed to the intimate experience his solo outing demands. For the second song, he took to the opener off his debut solo album “Clear Heart, Full Eyes.” The mood was set and the audience was in for a very personal experience while Finn conducted his band through a setlist comprised of songs that spanned not only his solo career, but his previous bands efforts.

After inviting Titus Andronicus’ keyboardist Adam Reich onstage, they started in on “Certain Songs” from The Hold Steady’s 2004 introductory album Almost Killed Me. While the audience was visibly excited and screamed along (CERTAIN SONGS, THEY GET SO SCRATCHED INTO OUR SOULS!), the biggest surprise was patiently saved for the conclusion. The familiar bass notes from Lifter Puller’s (LFTR PLLR) stream-of-consciousness saga, “Nassau Coliseum” moved the audience out of CT and into a dingy MPLS bar. Chronicling the narrator’s ill-fated sojourn to a legendary arena on New York’s Long Island, I can’t help but notice just how fitting the song choice was— not only as

their closer, but played with Craig’s road-weary ‘deadbear’ adorned Telecaster.

After a break long enough to take a leak, smoke a cigarette, and order another vodka soda (with a splash of OJ), Titus Andronicus walked on stage. Clad in his own band’s tour tshirt, lead singer Patrick Stickles challenged the crowd to be decent and respect each other. While Titus Andronicus fringes on punk rock’s most articulate and historical leaning, Patrick didn’t hesitate to describe punk’s ethos as artistic freedom as a state of mind rather than “nihilistic aggression.”

After the stern (parental-like) warning, the band fired away with “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future” from 2010’s The Monitor.

With three (3!!!) guitars driving the momentum, all energy seemed to be utilized as the band traversed their discography like the setlist depended on slivers of paper, a sharpie, and a hat.

Every song the band played took up its own unique moment in time. There is no better example of this than when the band, seemingly out of nowhere, dived headfirst into “A More Perfect Union” and took the audience along with them. While I was immediately caught off guard, there was a sense of relief that came with screaming “because tramps like us, baby, we were born to DIE!!!” After sending up particularly raw renditions of “Fired Up” and “Dimed Out,” the band set their sights on the the longest song about self-loathing they’ve ever written and I’ve ever heard. “The Battle of Hampton Roads” clocks in at over fourteen minutes which gave me ample time to finish my drink (vodka soda with a splash of OJ) and ask the tired, cranky bartender if he’d ever seen Nirvana (there or anywhere).

As soon as the “too old for this shit” bartender shrugged my insane/out-of-the-blue-question off, the third guitarist signaled the end of the song by soloing the dramatic bagpipe ending.

I spun around thinking the show to be over when Stickles called Finn back out. Titus Andronicus with Craig Finn went into a VERY rousing rendition of The Replacements’ glorious, superfucking-cool song “Bastards of Young.” I sang along with my fist in the air just like 3/4’s of the crowd. The ending song finished as abruptly as it began. The excited audience’s growing call for “one more song!” signaled it was time to leave. As I was making my way towards the exit, the house lights came up and I felt a sense of relief that the No Faith/No Future/No Problem tour ended without an encore. Fuck encores.

- Michael Walters

L o n d o n

18 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

I AM SHE

Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong Alexey von Schlippe Gallery Groton, CT Sometimes art unexpectedly raises or examines questions we may not have thought or wanted to ask. Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong’s solo exhibition “I AM SHE,” is art that functions and succeeds on that level.

Currently installed at the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art “I AM SHE” consists of twelve individual works of ceramic sculpture and installation.

Individually as well as collectively, these aesthetically compelling works utilize the variability and subtleties of porcelain media to fullest effect. Working variously with glazed, unglazed, translucent, and raku-fired media, Armstrong sparingly adds color, objects, and words to create a subtle elegance that characterizes the collective work.

Beyond an aesthetic response is a visceral response to the feminist and humanist issues Armstrong presents. For some pieces, the emotional impact is immediate.

For others, the artist’s words, statements, and titles supply the essential context: The impact of “Fade Away,” which is swept into a corner of the gallery by its own painted white broom, crystallizes only upon reading its two-word title.

Similarly, “Family, Community Country, World,” thoughtfully reconsiders the iconic “Mother and Child” in a twenty-first century context, while “Soul Sister,” with words inscribed in muted graphite across the unglazed porcelain surface, speaks for herself.

Just weeks before the opening of “I AM SHE,” I was approached by a student during the closing reception for an Alexey von Schlippe retrospective. The show marked the centenary of the artist’s birth, and filled all four contiguous galleries that make up the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art. The undergraduate journalism major had sought me out to discuss UConn’s controversial plans to close the AvS Gallery in July of this year.

The Mountain Goats Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong ‘Family, Community, Country, World’

She had a single question for me. “Why should students care about having an art gallery on the UConn campus at Avery Point?” I responded that the Gallery and its programs create and provide a cultural context for students’ college experience—a context that is authentic, diverse, questioning.

Over the weeks following that brief discussion, I thought at times about how I could have given a stronger response to the student’s question. After working with Armstrong to install “I AM SHE,” I knew what I wished my response could have been. So I was delighted to see the same student at the “I AM SHE” opening reception, standing in the midst of Armstrong’s installation. I explained that my revised response to her question, “Why should students care about having an art gallery on the Avery Point Campus?” was “ Go see the exhibition ‘I AM SHE’ and then let me know if you still have a question.”

Her immediate and expansive smile told me she no longer had a question.

Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong’s “I AM SHE” continues at the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art through April 16th. The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, which has presented art of this caliber for twenty-four years, will continue to exist only through July. Unless…

- David Madasci David Madacsi is Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut and co-founder of the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery

College Street Music Hall New Haven, CT - April 2, 2016

The Mountain Goats were one of my favorite bands I’d never seen live until April 2, when they came to College Street Music Hall and enchanted with a unique show that shifted around their discography and even debuted a new song.

The night perfectly captured their essence: it was deep and emotionally intense - somber at times - but it was also highenergy and interactive, fun and funny.

I learned the Mountain Goats are not afraid to dig up some feelings you’d prefer left buried—and somehow, by the end of the night, you’re grateful they did.

Unfortunately we missed opener William Tyler of the Silver Jews and Lambchop— my friend had just gotten his phone stolen, and for the hour leading up to us walking through the doors we (*mainly, I) had been freaking out about it. We never got the phone back, but we got to the show and even though my nerves were going crazy, we were still excited— especially because our seats were absolutely flawless.

From start to finish, we were drawn to engaging performances, and the all-too-real lyricism of front man John Darnielle. The band also fit a cover into their set, of “Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise” by Trembling Blue Stars.

One of the night’s most memorable moments came when John took a solo set—telling a few short stories, getting political and then performing a cappella an unfinished, unaccompanied tune called “Wizard Level.”

Before he launched into the song, John said he would release it for free if enough people donated to the Reproductive Justice League - his National Abortion Access Bowl-A-Thon bowling team. In reality, the money goes toward a great organization called the Carolina Abortion Fund. (Seriously, look it up!)

The song itself John described as “sad and lonesome Mountain Goats, not yelling Mountain Goats” (which is a pretty accurate breakdown of their discography, honestly).

He wasn’t kidding. It was a somber song, but with lyrics like, “Trying to get to Wizard Level / not everybody gets there,” it was also hard not to laugh. It was unclear if that’s what we should have been feeling, until John broke the tension by giving us a half smile and the audience joined together in laughter.

The comic relief was great, but what’s even better was knowing that John made this political issue a priority; in our present state of political affairs, it’s super important to talk about this stuff - and it’s unforgettable that he used his allotted set time to do so.

Altogether, that blend of somber, real depths and positive high-energy were the hallmarks of the show, which appropriately ended with another emotional catapulting into a downright exciting double-encore. After a speech about clarity, John performed No Children, Up the Wolves and This Year; the crowd went wild.

- Riley Jay Esposito

Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong ‘Swept Away’

Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong ‘Soul Sister’

Do you care about the arts & culture?

Want to help spread the word about something wonderful that you’ve seen or heard and think others should too?

Consider writing for The Cut-Up and adding your voice to the conversation.

Drop us a line: thecutupnewengland@gmail.com

We were able to be adventurous and I was able learn a bit more about who I was as an individual.

Being forced to face yourself and deal with yourself when you are a teenager living on your own. Then returning back to CT after that experience I think I was just in a better place mentally.

JS: Growing up in New London County, I can remember meeting people that were into such different things. You had to go out and meet people with a particular interest to gain that knowledge.

High school was important as Fitch brings together Groton and Mystic. The art classroom there was interesting. Did you have Mr. Brown?

Roots of Artistic Expression:

Scott Malbaurn

The following is a conversation between artist and curator Jason Silva and Scott Malbaurn, artist and current Director of the Schneider Museum in Ashland, Oregon.

Jason Silva: What was your early connection to art in general?

Scott Malbaurn: I’ve always been interested in the visual arts. Something that was kind of passed down to me through my father’s mother, my father, all drew. We all responded to the visual arts.

Then meeting other likeminded individuals from elementary school through high school. That really solidified my choices in regard to making art and it being a permanent part of my life.

JS: Being that you’re from Southeastern Connecticut, attending Fitch High School and taking part in the cultural output of New London County in the mid to late 1990s; how did that time and environment influence you?

SM: The big thing about growing up in Southeastern CT, we’ve spoken a bit about subcultures, and I would definitely say that it was the subcultures that kind of created a context and the outlet for young people. There were not many art galleries unless you traveled to New Haven, Providence, Boston or New York. So I would say that other individuals who were slightly older that we could look up to were very influential. Then responding to what they were doing. People like Adam Cooke, Ryan Meyers and close friends Brian Anderson and Judd Hertzler. Having someone like Rich Martin and his friends creating places like T.A.Z. (Temporary Autonomous Zone) in New London provided that context and provided an outlet for people to congregate. It provided the cultural hub of sorts for artists to come together.

JS: At that time there were multiple underground communities all focused on different forms of culture. Compared to today, back then there wasn’t much communication between individuals focused on different creative approaches and movements.

Nowadays there’s an overall blending of music, art and style. Rock and hip-hop, musicians and artists, skateboarding and fashion.

SM: Subculture wise, within skateboarding there’s a lot of creative individuals. It’s a very creative outlet. There’s something very special when you are able to have a tribe of sorts. It’s a shared sensibility among people that gives you a great way to communicate and bounce ideas off of. Going through high school and having that was very important. But then a huge shift for me was moving. Buying a Greyhound bus ticket and heading west to California.

JS: That was motivated by skateboarding?

SM: It was motivated mostly by skateboarding, yeah. And a close friend, Judd Hertzler had left the east when he was in the 10th grade for skateboard reasons. He went to San Diego. Then after high school he moved to Sacramento to be close to his videographer and some teammates. So another local artist and friend Aaron Smith and I bought bus tickets, packed a bag of clothes, a large duffel bag of art supplies and made the trek out to Sacto and lived there for a year before coming back east to start college. It was getting out of my comfort zone of home and going to a city. Culturally somewhat different but still a lot of young creative individuals doing amazing things from visual arts to music.

SM: Mr. Brown had a very large art class that he taught in. The curriculum at high school, once you went through the beginning courses, you could sign up for some of the more advanced courses that provided a lot of freedom for the students.

There was also a generous amount of art supplies that we were able to get our hands on that allowed us to experiment. To not see the materials as being too precious and then working with your peers in that classroom. Lynn Jadamack, Jessica Wolcin, Brian Anderson and a handful of other talented individuals doing there own thing made you want to discover your own approach. So those classrooms and being able to set up easels and stretch large canvases and getting to work with the materials was an excellent way to learn.

JS: As a student, being allowed freedom to explore -- where anything can happen is important. It’s almost like his approach to letting things be open is what was needed.

SM: Yes, that works extremely well for some people and others might need more structure.

There were other art teachers that could provide that structure, but having that sense of freedom and sort of impromptu critiques about the work was also helpful and educational. I think it just became a great think tank atmosphere. Like being at the right place at the right time. Surrounded by so many individuals that were creative and motivated. It was just a very inspiring environment.

JS: At that time there weren’t many places to show artwork. I do remember events in Mystic.

SM: The Emporium. Yeah, I do remember going to see art shows and it striking a chord with me. Thinking, this is where I want to be. This is the type of environment I want to be in. I want to be surrounded by art and artists. Going to see openings and seeing Michelle Gemma’s photographs and being able to have conversation around art. Many people would graduate high school and go off to nearby cities and that permitted them to come home often on weekends and holidays to share the type of things they were able to learn. They would bring that back to the hometown and we could see that rubbing off onto the slightly younger generation.

JS: Given now, your new perspective, do you have any thoughts on what young artists can do in relation to not having a connection to a big city?

SM: Create your own scene. Find those with shared sensibilities. Even those whose sensibilities contrast with your own and except them for creative individuals who are also trying to pursue their passion. Try to create opportunities to get together in each other’s studios and share artwork.

To do it as often as possible and stay open minded.

Try to look forward, toward the future of what you’re doing and how you can improve and get better.

JS: Constantly looking at artwork and discussing ideas…

SM: There’s an importance in being able to say something that is negative. You can’t take anything personal. I learned that at a young age. When I would be in a critique class in college I would say to people – please do not hesitate to say whatever comes to mind. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. Giving others that license to just open up and just start blurting things out. Maybe ten things are said and maybe just a few will connect and provide an ah-ha moment. Like that’s what I was looking for, that’s what I needed. If people are not opening up then they’re not permitting the opportunity for critical discourse and things are just not moving forward. You’re not learning as much as you can. You’re not really providing the opportunity for growth.

JS: Through all of your years of education and working professionally in an arts administration role, it’s great to see you now directing a museum.

SM: I think it’s important for the audience there, younger artists to hear about museum and curatorial work. It was never something that I sought out to do. It just always came out of taking advantage of opportunity. Of saying yes to people who asked for help or assistance with their projects and trying to step up to take responsibility. When I was in Baltimore studying at MICA, there was the H. Lewis Gallery. A co-op gallery that put on excellent shows and I really wanted to exhibit some of my friends work. I went to the gallery and inquired about being able to organize this exhibition. They invited me to join the co-op, which I was hesitant to do because you had to work hours without getting paid and I would have rather been in my studio. I said yes and that became a very important learning experience for myself.

Working with others in a cooperative gallery space, organizing exhibitions, providing a venue for bands.

You learn a lot from the actual doing. Instead of sitting in the classroom learning about museums and galleries you’re able to put it into practice and learn from your mistakes. Your success and your failures. Then when I moved to New York people remembered me from the H. Lewis Gallery and they would ask if I would organize similar exhibitions for some of the more commercial galleries where they were working. I would say yes because I would think of all my artist friends who have great work in their studios and the great opportunity to get it into a public space.

JS: Do you have a particular way in which you approach organizing exhibitions?

SM: It depends on the space. What’s going on in the art world today. What sort of topics are being discussed. What I’m seeing happening in the studios. It’s kind of like taking a step back and taking a macro view and trying to connect the dots by bringing it all together in a cohesive way where the work contrasts and compliments each other.

Maybe we’re working with a theme to begin with or maybe the theme is just emerging and happening organically.

JS: Is it difficult to find balance between the role of being an artist and a museum director?

SM: It comes down to how do I maintain the energy to do it. I make a deal with myself that I’m going to get thirty hours a week in the studio in addition to the forty hours a week working at the museum. Through eating well and being active, doing yoga everyday helps keep my mind clear. To be healthy and not over do it, by choosing art over partying. Staying busy in the studio is important.

When I do have a conversation with a gallery director or curator who says I would love to come to your studio there’s no hesitation. Things are happening. It is to not wait until someone says I want to come to your studio before getting to work.

If you can maintain a constant steady practice artwork will be made - and then you do have to be social. Nobody is just going to discover you and knock on your door and say I heard there’s an artist that lives here. So you do have to be social and connect with people. It’s very important.

JS: Any advice for the younger artists starting out?

SM: To know who you are is probably one of the most important things. To know who you are and be confident in that. Also, keep an open mind.

See and do as much as possible. As an artist you have to continue to make work. Create a place for yourself to make art. Whether it’s your bedroom, your living room or a studio space. You can’t just be working in a vacuum. You have to have people coming over your studio to give you critiques.

Being open to hearing what people have to say will help you develop. Find a space. Get your friends artwork together. Put on an exhibition. Then throw a party and celebrate.

Contact email and social media: scottmalbaurn@hotmail.com // instagram: scottmalbaurn silvajason@me.com // instagram: _silvajason

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20 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

The Replacements ‘Let it Be’

Rhino Reissue

When I discuss the importance of music of the rock/pop era with people, I am anchored to the brilliance of two distinct records: Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Joni Mitchell’s Blue. This is a purely emotional point of view; although I think each album is a stellar musical composition unto itself- regardless of commercial or critical accolades. The Replacements were never afforded such advantages.

I recently purchased the Twin-Tone re-issues of the first four Replacements records; a collection of one EP and three proper LP’s. In Mystic Disc owner Dan Curland’s own words “The best album titled Let It Be is by The Replacements.” So it was, and so let it be.

Holding the cover of Let It Be in yr hands was in itself an experience, as all great cover art should be. But for those of us who came of age with images of topographical oceans, moving pictures, and pinball wizards before we could delineate the media message, we became completely enthralled with this picture of four regulars on the stale, shingled roof. We were the Shingle Roof Revolution. The Replacements delivered that information.

My best friend got into a life or death fight with his parents during his junior year in high school and appeared at my bedroom window on the second floor. “hey, open up- my mom and I are fighting…”

“I’ll be right there.”

I open the window as my mom opens my bedroom door.

Underground are compatriots, as well as Jim Croce and Carole King; and not simply culturally, but musically as well. Is Bob Stinson on the level of John Cale, or Carole King? Of course not. But that was the point. Bob Stinson was Bob Stinson. Paul Westeberg was Paul from Minneapolis. Tommy was Tommy. Chris Mars was Ringo.

Let It Be unites the various threads that were happening all around us in a most precise presentation. A simple reading of the song titles tells us as much: “I Will Dare” - a sincere take on confronting impending age “Favorite Thing” - the desperation of identity “We’re Comin’ Out” - the first pure rally cry for kids of divorce, pre-Nirvana “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” - punk infused critique of the “system” “Androgynous” - the first punk iteration of trans equality / foundation societal politics “Black Diamond” - a KISS cover! / making the unhip cool again “Unsatisfied” - universal longing in pure form “Seen Your Video” - a concise critique of the music industry

“Kevin! Did you think we couldn’t hear you climbing up the roof?”

“Gary’s Got a Boner” - punk screed about another element of society stacked against the regulars

His hands were resting on the window ledge, but his feet were gripping the shingles at a specific slope.

“Sixteen Blue” - a perfect insight into relating the struggles of youth identity through aged eyes

“Sorry, Mrs. Krueger…” Kevin addressed my mother with her remarried name.

She always kept her composure when someone would accidentally defer to my father’s last name, while simultaneously cataloging that slight for future offensives. And Kevin knew it. It saved his ass that night.

“I have Louise on the phone already. I saw you walking through the backyard to the patio roof.”

But that is exactly what the four Replacements meant to us. And to their audience: they made it seem that anything was possible- and it was intoxicating.

Let It Be defines the inherent dichotomy of music at the time. Several characteristics of accepted traditional and underground music inform ‘Let It Be’- doo wop, indie rock, hardcore punk, 70’s rock, and a new strain that truly set them apart from their contemporaries- an emotional vulnerability not heard since the halcyon days of AM radio. The New York Dolls and the Velvet

“Answering Machine” - anticipating the malaise of technology in a most succinct manner The lyric concurrent to the entire statement of Let It Be is within “Androgynous” now something meets boy and something meets girl they both are the same they’re overjoyed in this world same hair revolution, unisex, evolution tomorrow who’s gonna fuss? and tomorrow Dick is wearing pants tomorrow Jane’s wearing a dress future outcasts and they don’t last today the people dress the way that they please the way they tried to do in the last century and they love each other so….

A revolutionary recording that discussed our possible future in its totality.

- Ellery Twining

Margo Price

‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’ Third Man Records Country music has taken quite a beating in the last few years, and rightly so. Generally over-produced, slickly packaged and delivered to the masses with a fine, corporate sheen, it’s been more a mix of pop and rock with just enough twang to hold its place in the genre. But in the last few years, a handful of artists have started a groundswell that just may return the music to its glory days of the 1970’s. Since 2013, male artists like Sturgill Simpson, Parker Millsap and Chris Singleton have become deep breaths of fresh C&W air.

Enter Margo Price. After toiling in Nashville for more than ten years, her first album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter has exploded onto the scene in such a way that she is seemingly staking a claim to the renaissance on behalf of the ladies.

Her vocal styling is delightfully classic, yet hints at an alternative sound - think Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Maria McKee all fused into one.

Her songs are delicate and deeply introspective in one breath, sassy and rowdy the next. Price admittedly wears her heart on her sleeve and her songwriting is a reflection of that. From losing the family farm and her first born son on “Hands of Time” to the regretful reflection in “Hurtin’(on the Bottle),” it’s evident she’s had more than her share of heartache and hard times. Thankfully, she has no problem getting back up and dusting herself off, either. Her sass and resilience bursts through on tracks like the take-no-crap stomper “About to Find Out” and the bluesy, fed-up “Four Years of Chances.”

But it’s the throwback country sound that rises to the top of Price’s debut effort. “Since You Put Me Down,” “Desperate and Depressed” and “This Town Gets Around” are tracks steeped in the tradition and tones of the greats before her – Lynn, Wynette and Dolly Parton. And to be sure, her stellar backing band, the Price Tags, lend just as much to the early accolades of the album as Price’s vocals and honest songwriting. Their ability to create that authentic sound appears effortless and is no more evident than in the exceptional lap and pedal steel guitar work woven into almost every track. Hear the strolling, piano tickling on the jailhouse tale, “Weekender” and you’d swear you were sitting amongst the regulars inside a Memphis honky-tonk.

After being turned down by several Nashville record labels, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter fell into the very capable and masterful hands of Jack White and his Third Man Records. And with that fortuitous event, the next true country savior had indeed arrived. Margo Price has broken out of the gate in full stride to join the likes of Simpson, Millsap and Singleton. Saving country music is no easy task but with her first take, it appears she is up to the challenge.

- Paul Boudreau

10 Steamboat Wharf, Mystic, Connecicut 06320 | 860-536-1312 | mysticdisc.com

Summer of ‘68: Hyde Park, London, England Photos & Text by Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond In 1968, while London was still swingin’ (just about), Blackhill Enterprises began promoting free rock concerts in Hyde Park. Your correspondent was 15 at the time, and well into the burgeoning psychedelic music scene. I lived in St. John’s Wood, just a few minutes walk from Abbey Road. In fact, my mate, Steve, resided in the flats, Neville Court, on the right hand side of the sleeve of the Abbey Road album. I went to school in Marylebone Road, right opposite the courthouse where John & Yoko were done for drugs, and only a short way from the short-lived Apple Boutique. I tell you this in order to establish, not my cool credentials, but more the convenient geography of my youth.

One of my mates at school was a guy called Charlie Webber, now a resident of Long Island, whose elder brother Steve played organ in a psychedelic band called The Geranium Pond. Steve knew I was into music, and being a thoroughly decent chap, more or less took me under his wing by lending (and occasionally giving) me albums. He turned me on to The Grateful Dead, Blue Cheer and many more. He also took me to a ‘freakout’ in an abandoned embassy building in Piccadilly. I remember there was a band playing in an upstairs room with a light show going on. This must have been in 1967, because I recall feeling rather intimidated by all the long haired guys and beautiful hippie chicks, to the extent that I never asked who the band were. They were great, but I still have no idea who I saw.

In the Spring of ‘68 he asked if I fancied going to a free concert in Hyde Park. By this time I’d turned 15 and I was far more self-confident. My hair was longer, my clothes were trendier. It’s amazing how quickly one can mature in the space of 9 months when you’re that age. Anyway, Steve & I went along and saw wonderful sets from Roy Harper, Tyrannosaurus Rex, a superb new band called Jethro Tull, and headlining, Pink Floyd. Syd Barrett had just departed, and new guitarist Dave Gilmour was making his mark. As a direct result of this gig, I started going to the Marquee Club, where Jethro Tull were kicking off a Friday night residency, and my life changed from then on.

That Summer, there was another free festival in Hyde Park, so I made my way there armed with my Instamatic camera, and made a bravura attempt to blag my way backstage. I remember going up to the guy at the gate to the backstage area and telling him I was a photographer from Melody Maker. He wasn’t taken in, and told me succinctly in two short words to go away.

I was not so easily deterred, and made a quick circuit of the area. Stevie Winwood’s newish band Traffic were headlining, and I noticed that their transit van was making up part of the perimeter fence, so when nobody was paying attention, I rolled under the van and found myself miraculously backstage.

I immediately climbed on to the side of the stage, making sure that everyone could see I was carrying a camera. I figured that now I was actually there, my Melody Maker story would carry more weight. It didn’t matter, because nobody questioned my presence.

I only had one black and white film in the Instamatic, and I’d already used a couple of frames of the 12 available. First I took a shot of The Action, who were just about to change their name to Mighty Baby.

Then Juniors Eyes came on stage and I allowed myself 2 photos of them. Their bassist, who went by the name ‘Honk’, actually had a short chat with me between songs, asking who I worked for. ‘Melody Maker’ I replied, to which he responded: ‘Cool’. Too right..I felt totally cool. Then The Nice took the stage. I really liked The Nice, I’d seen them at The Marquee a few weeks earlier, and I had their ‘Emerlist Davjack’ album, so I decided I should take a picture of each member. Up next were the Pretty Things, I was running low on film, so I restricted myself to 2 photos.

One of Phil May, and one of the rest of the band. I was saving my one remaining photo for Traffic, which meant I was unable to take any pictures of the Pretty Things’ drummer Twink scaling one of the speaker columns, dancing crazily on top while they swayed dangerously, before launching himself spectacularly into the crowd. It must have been about a twenty foot drop.

There was an audible collective gasp as Twink disappeared into sea of hair and suede, from which he emerged seconds later, climbed back on stage and continued drumming.

Strange to think that some 24 years later, I actually made an album with Twink. Traffic rounded off the show, and I intended my last picture to capture the whole band, but I somehow missed Chris Wood.

When the gig was over I swaggered out of the backstage area through the gate at which I’d been refused entry. As I left, the guy who a few hours earlier had told me to ‘eff off’, gave me a quizzical look. I smiled at him, waved, shouted ‘wanker’, and ran off into the leaving hordes as fast as I could.

These are the photos I took that day.

- Nick Saloman

Left column (top down) Keith Emerson, The Nice; Phil May, Pretty Things; Traffic; two of Lee Jackson, The Nice. Right column: Brian Davison, The Nice; Davey O’List, The Nice; two of Junior Eyes; Twink, Pretty Things

21 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

22 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

A Poetry Page Seth Howard Night Blossoms in the Old Capital Here I am in the shadows cast by your enigma.

The sea swells under me, in a dim lit town.

The night footsteps that drip in rivers of mist,

before the lanterns I left by the wayside.

Here, by the petals of dusk, the musk of her fragrance pressed into

my mind. I come to a shrine in the twilight,

a shiver of stars.

So the seasons spin like tops, & a bell chimes in the distance.

I draw water from the well, the moon (a green insect) skims

along the surface. I remember her as she had been,

her imprint in soft wax.

I muster up the strength for one last word,

on her lips the discourse of a bygone age.

Solemn the hours I spent alone, by the bench that rests above the river.

The people pass, seemingly unaware

of the dilemma they now face.

Here I am by the storefronts, the liquid moons

that run along the cusp.

I wake in some other place, my mouth moist, the cycles of a dream still churning.

Here, in the evening bloom, the night fetters

burst like clay, a lambent shrine quivers.

She grows heavy in the twilit days, the late awakening of our times.

Left with nothing, or just enough

I watch the sway of trees, the deepening inks of dream.

Ken Cormier Cemetery I was in a cemetery. It was early in the morning. The sun was a Spanish sun. Everything smelled like oatmeal. What more can I say? There was a girl there. We had been riding bicycles. We were pretending to be an old married couple. She was the daughter of my father’s friend.

I can’t remember her name anymore. She is probably sitting in front of a television right now. She is worried about dying, and so am I. We have spent our lives reading different books, driving different routes, subscribing to different magazines. That day we rode all along the perimeter of the cemetery, and eventually we parked under the old oak tree at the top of the hill. We kissed, and later I was ashamed. She was older than me by three years at least. I took my shame to bed, and after that I remained silent. I added it to the pile of things that made me fret for my immortal soul. To me, life was a series of tricks and traps. My neighbor Mitchell asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette, and so I did. We met in the woods behind his house. Two of his friends were there. They were older than me, and they wore jean jackets and swore. Mitchell lit the cigarette and handed it to me, and when I puffed on it they all laughed. I felt proud and embarrassed all at once. A week later, I lay in bed grinding my teeth with regret. I was sure I’d be punished someday for what I had done. My family never went to church, so I didn’t know how to pray. But I begged God anyway. I begged him to let me live, and to let me parents keep loving me. I cried into my sheets until I fell asleep. The next morning I felt different. In the daylight it all didn’t seem so bad. I rode my bicycle in the cemetery. I sat under the old oak tree and let the sun warm my skin. It wasn’t so bad, I thought. We all live for a little while, and then we die. I looked out over all those gravestones and imagined the regrets and worries that had been planted in the dirt. I fell asleep. It wasn’t so bad.

Richard L. Martin Chick Corea i

and the fire lifted its wings and bore the page upwards among the ashen rain islands of diminishing soot, the receding, collapsing sores of the source the words and letters withdrew freeing themselves to the smooth steady spherical currents of air rising and falling with liquid billows

ii

hard upon the circular ruin stravinsky and the cool, smooth jazz muse drink tea, copulate and conceive

Steve Dalachinsky John Coltrane (for Amiri Baraka) John Coltrane A bitter wind blows thru A LOVE SUPREME & people are still waiting for the Ascension with their eyes closed teeth clenched & fingers crossed John Coltrane old news is still news assasination integration racism large schism & Africa? is it still in Interstellar Space?

John Coltrane the cicadas were buried in my head long before I ever heard them Kennedy King X Kennedy King X looking at the moon does not seem so strange you do, John Coltrane, cause me to go on wandering the Sea of Japan in my Bare feet does not seem so strange my language a thing of the past the star fish & crab in their own universe my universe does not seem so strange I want to talk about I want to talk about You John Coltrane John Coltrane John Coltrane i have taken the leap with you though the impression I get as the Countdown approaches is that things are still spiraling downward & are not, John Coltrane, made up of 3 Little Words Where is the Promise – is it on Mars Jupiter Alabama?

Things are not what they used to be & yet they are John Coltrane My grandmother it was said

sang her own kind of spirituals while working on some underground railroad in a faraway land Dear Lord Dear John Coltrane where are our eyes?

Can we open them on a Moment’s Notice?

WAKE UP WAKE UP John Coltrane it is not we who live this LUSH LIFE but Life Itself as Death & the Blues wait impatiently to follow John Coltrane what are WE Waiting for?

The consequence of compassion can be nothing more than 3 Little Words these 3 little words that too many find so easy to say Europa - Hollywood - Apple do you think we will ever give that space? Have that space? insects serenity joy Are the Offerings we make all the wrong kind?

John Coltrane were you living in the crescent of the Void ? can there really be Peace ON Earth? do Dawn & Dusk truly intertwine? the light’s way up now the shadows too so I guess they do we do somewhere down the line John Coltrane always exploring new territories I am there with you my voice was mumbling about beauty long before my lips ever moved the world is in revolution has long been in revolution we’ve only to ask the SUN oh John Coltrane John Coltrane I haven’t slept again & I’m sure there are people out there doing the same thing barely breathing waiting for the breakfast wagon to arrive the air is electric with a new season another drought has passed another hurricane I’m still here though the cicada’s time has ended John Coltrane some creatures suffer so long for what seems so little is there really a “GRAND DESIGN” ? what does a diamond prove ?

John Coltrane the world is a dangerous place full of windex cell phones & fax machines women washing windows on windy days comrades serving coffee on clear mornings with the movement thru the trees the realist music there is - shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh John Coltrane it’s all about good food & press passes John Coltrane let’s not talk of torture or birdsong of bondage or passage booked i’ll acknowledge there’s hope if you play me another solo just play me another solo play me another solo play me another solo

23 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w

Lake Street Dive

The Waco Brothers

Nonesuch

Bloodshot Records

‘Side Pony’

L o n d o n

‘Going Down in History’

As far as women’s hairstyles go, nothing screams individuality quite like the side ponytail. Youthful and quirky, bold and energetic, the 80’s-born coiffure undoubtedly makes one sit up and take note of the originality of its owner. So when Lake Street Dive decided on Side Pony as the title of their new album, their keen sense of self-awareness was spot-on.

LSD’s third release picks up where they left off after the smashingly successful Bad Self Portraits in 2014. While Side Pony continues to show the band’s affinity for classic rock, soul and R&B from decades several times removed, it is thoroughly brushed with their modern sound and energy. This is no more evident than on “I Don’t Care About You,” a Muscle Shoals-soaked track combed out with a more modern-day guitar riff. “How Good It Feels” is steeped in 60’s soul, while the mid-tempo Cocker-esque “Close to Me” and lead single “Call Off Your Dogs” could have easily blared from the radio of a brand new 1976 Ford Pinto. “Hell Yeah” moves like an 80’s-styled pop rocker while the very danceable “Can’t Stop” allows the album to creep up into the new millennium.

The band’s ability to deliver their wide variety and range of sound is the reason they exploded onto the music scene two years ago. Rachel Price’s powerful vocals brim with attitude and confidence while the backing harmonies and diverse musicianship of Bridget Kearney(bass, piano, organ), Mike Olson(guitar, trumpet, Mellotron) and Michael Calabrese(drums, percussion) complete this band as one of today’s most unique and original. Their collective skill is on full display on the album’s signature track, “Mistakes.” The wistful ballad opens with Olson’s forlorn trumpet and accompanying Fender Rhodes piano steadied by Calabrese’s eloquent backbeat and Kearney’s electric bass. Once Price begins to lament yet another doomed attempt at romance, it becomes clear that the song is something special.

Following up the rabid success of Bad Self Portraits would be a challenge for this band whose star continues to rise. The music and lyrics (all four band members have singular writing credits) on Side Pony are undeniably top-shelf. Combine this with signing a record deal with the larger, deeper Nonesuch label and securing Grammy Award winning producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton) to man the controls, Lake Street Dive proved to be up to the task. This album was simply about making music together, being themselves and doing their own thing as a band. And just like the title track suggests, LSD certainly ‘rocks the side pony.’

- Paul Boudreau

Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, the Waco Brothers latest release could be filed under the cliché of “good things come in small packages.”

But make no mistake – there is nothing cliché about it. Going Down in History, the band’s tenth studio album and first new material in over a decade, is a 10 track, quick-hitting tornado of straight up rock and roll tinged with choice British punk.

The Waco Brothers became the brainchild of quasi-frontman Jon Langford, member of the 80’s-born British punk outfit The Mekons, upon moving to Chicago in the mid 1990’s. Looking to expand on his former band’s enthusiasm for American country music, Langford formed the Wacos and they quickly found a home in the burgeoning alt-country genre. Now more than 20 years later with Going Down in History, the band’s signature “Cash meets Clash” sound is less about Johnny and more like Joe (Strummer).

On tracks like “We Know It,” “Had Enough,” and “Building Our Own Prison,” Langford’s vocals - Brit accent and all – apply a punk-infused filter on half the album. And just like any respectable punk band, The Waco Brothers are comfortable weighing in on today’s political landscape.

“DIYBYOB” references executive orders and global warming while “Building Our Own Prison” takes a moment to question the “progress” of the big box stores against the death of small business. To be sure, Going Down in History is more rock than punk. But the band knew just the right sonic blends – fuzzy, frenetic guitars here and well-placed backing harmonies there – to make this one of their best efforts yet.

The album also includes two well-done covers. Their version of the Small Faces “All or Nothing” is a tribute to their late friend and Faces member Ian McLagan and has a rousing chorus that lends it to sound like an 80’s rock anthem. Jon Dee Graham’s “Orphan Song” is done in a raucous, sing-a-long style and is the only track that harkens back to the Waco’s more familiar alt-country roots of the last few decades.

It is interesting that the first line of the first song, “DIYBYOB” states, “this is the first track from the last album/no one knows which way this ship will head.” Couple that with the album title and it is reasonable to question; are these veiled hints the Waco Brothers are considering putting the wraps on their 20-plus year tenure? After such a fine release, it seems unfathomable to answer that in the affirmative. Here’s to hoping there’s more Waco history to be made.

- Paul Boudreau

24 T H E

Phonosynthesis

C U T \ U P _

Want to get funky? Looking for something to shake your ass to on a Saturday night? Hartford’s Phonosynthesis has what you need. Born out of the ashes of the award-winning jazz fusion act, The Isaac Young Quartet, Phonosynthesis are not your daddy’s jazz trio. Deftly mixing elements of funk, soul, and reggae upon a foundation of traditional jazz, Phonosynthesis are easily one of the most danceable bands to come out of Connecticut in some time. Their newest full-length album, the aptly titled Grüvhaus, moves and boogies, rocks and rolls, and cuts just about every rug it can find. What has changed outside of the moniker is the addition of vocals to the mix on half of the tracks, handled by bassist/guitarist Jon Dostou. But fans of the old IYQ should not be in of fear some regression to standard pop tunes. This outfit can still jam out with the best of them. - CMC

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‘Grüvhaus’

Bilge Rat

‘Townie Garbage’ Released back in January, the debut EP from New Haven trio Bilge Rat is a raucous and glorious homage to the time when “grunge” was the biggest and best buzz word your band could get hit with. Filled with dissonant guitar work, the occasional odd time signatures, and enough overall angst to set your bedroom on fire, Bilge Rat hold nothing back on this EP. The songs here range from somewhat dreary to completely mangled as Bilge Rat pour about 25+ years of fuzzed out influences into a blender and hit the high speed button without putting the top on, allowing everything to spew all over the kitchen. Don’t expect them to clean up the mess when they are done. Highly recommended for fans of late 80s and early 90s alt rock – the kind that could get nasty and truly depressive before slick production, radio singles, and MTV got their greasy hands on it. - CMC

Orice Jenkins ‘Soar’

Hartford-area resident and vocalist, multiinstrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, Orice Jenkins has delivered possibly the most silky-smooth album you’ll hear out of Connecticut this year. Jenkins’ new album, Soar, is a the sonic equivalent to the smoke fluttering to and fro, rising from the ends of a hundred clove cigarettes and cigars in a New York City jazz club during some of the genres most accessible and popular decades. Jenkins writes music that both jazz aficionados and novices alike can appreciate, tossing in the occasional elements of soul, R&B and hip-hop to keep things pleasantly unpredictable. Add in a small handful of enjoyable guest-appearances and Jenkins has pieced together an album that not only shows off his ability as a songwriter and a musician but highlights his composition and arrangement skills as well. Simply put, Jenkins is a talented dude with a bright future, and Soar is the perfect mouthpiece for anyone willing to take part in his journey. - CMC

The Suitcase Junket ‘Dying Star’

Matt Lorenz, the mastermind behind Vermont’s The Suitcase Junket, could quite easily fit the description of the quintessential ‘mad scientist.’ With an artistic aesthetic that includes salvaged and repurposed materials, Lorenz is able to create honest and downhome tunes with a “dumpster guitar” and a pile of what most people would consider garbage. But a wise person once said that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure and for Lorenz that junk certainly becomes treasure when he uses it to create his version of feel-good blues.

As The Suitcase Junket, Lorenz has just unleashed his brand new record, Dying Star, and it’s a fantastic blend of varying shades of Americana as he traverses the pantheon of distinctly American styles of music to cherry pick at their finest moments. From the rambunctious, album opening, title track, to the sneaky, slithering charm of a track like “Let Go,” Lorenz is a master at taking an album built off of a highly personal zeal and making it feel completely communal. All told it’s an experience well worth sharing. - CMC

Nervous Dogs

‘Avenida Sevilla’ 7” Aesthetically speaking, The Nervous Dogs are easy to write off as another Gainesville punk rock band. The feeling is instantly lost as soon as ‘Avenida Sevilla’ is played loud through bedroom speakers. The Quinney brothers (Fiya, Holopaw), Patrick on guitar/vocals and Ryan on drums are rounded out by Grabass Charleston and Stressface bassist/vocalist Dave Drobach. ‘Avenida Sevilla’ starts out with the E.P.’s title track. Beginning with a powerful, distorted, downstroked guitar that quickly builds to frustrated gang-vocals that can only come from the cheap beer and whiskey soaked throats commonly associated with Gainesville punk. Just shy of one minute forty seconds, it’s a medium paced, downbeat outburst about having nothing to do in a sleepy community except to climb the walls with an anticipation that can never be fully quenched. The second track, ‘Tailgator Party’, is the biggest departure from the trio’s previous band’s efforts. It picks up where The Misfits left off if Danzig would have been a warm keg drinkin’, southern gentleman instead of an asshole. The standout track of the three songs would be ‘Walk With Difficulty.’ An upbeat, honest, and halfway heartbreaking account of slowly losing a loved one all to soon.

Optimism is found in the shortest song on the record with Ryan looking back at the good times with no regret but more of a realization of life. - MW

25 T H E

Having trouble navigating the choppy waters on the river of life? The Cut-Up’s Auntie is here to help. Send us your dilemnas and she’ll point you toward the path forward.

Dear Auntie, I have a friend who went on vacation with her husband. While the couple was away their teenage daughter had a huge drinking binge party with wall to wall people who spent the night. The next day a bunch of friends helped clean up the place so the parents couldn’t tell.

My question is if my friend asks me if anything happened while they were gone what should I say?

Signed, Worried

Cooperative Breathes New Life Into Historic Theater Through Music The Columbus Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island, has become a hot spot for live performances from local and indie to national and international folk musicians. The cooperative spirit of the place comes through in everything they do there, even landing it on the radar of the New York Times. I sat down with Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky, Bryan Minto, and Florence Wallis- some of the folks who brought it back to life, and talked about the vision and challenges of the project.

First, a little history of the Columbus Theatre: 1926: It was built by Domenic Annotti based on an 1889 Italian Opera House design by Oreste Di Saia, making it retro for its time, but ideal for the acoustic performances it would host. It opened on November 1st with 1,492 seats, the number that inspired its name.

1962: The Berberians, a husband and wife who met singing Opera opened the theater, and after a brief run of performances, closed down.

1963: After television took over most American living rooms, live venues had to find ways to keep the public coming. The Berberians overhauled the building splitting the balcony into a smaller theatre, the Columbus became a full time movie house at the suggestion of Ed Volante, who had been the projectionist there for its occasional silent films since it opened. Fun fact: Ed continued in his employ as the projectionist at the theatre for 50 years until his death in 1976, and along with the original silent movie organ, it’s rumoured that his ghost is still there and makes an appearance from time to time.

1970s: As malls and multiplexes became the new standard, many of the old theatres had to once again shift gears to stay open. The Columbus was no exception and it followed the path of many other venues into “Adult Entertainment”, screening films you couldn’t see just anywhere, including some Hollywood releases like “A Clockwork Orange”, “Last Tango In Paris”, and “Midnight Cowboy”, all X-rated.

2000: While so many venues eventually opted to go non-profit to keep the spaces active in a world where TV, and now Netflix have pulled people farther off the path of going out for live entertainment, Jeff Prystowsky says “a different philosophy has guided the progress, or lack of progress” of the Columbus, still a family owned venue, driven by the passion and history of the opera singing family. Independent Film returned to the theatre and it hosted annual Opera events as well as a film festival until it needed to be brought up to the new fire codes Rhode Island had imposed after the tragic Station fire in 2003. The building stood vacant for some years until...

“Everything was an accident.” -Ben Knox Miller 2011: The Low Anthem returned home to Providence from an international tour promoting their fourth studio album Smart Flesh where they’d been playing similar small theatres. They were in need of a home that served the dual function of a rehearsal and recording space. They were no strangers to a shared living and creative space, having recorded Smart Flesh in the winter of 2010 in the abandoned Porino’s pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, RI.

Located in up-and-coming Federal Hill, the Columbus was across from a music store they frequented and drummer Jeff Prystowski and singer Ben Knox Miller wondered at the aging sign that said “opening soon” in the windows. Also in the windows were old newspaper clippings about its history and the Berberian family. They tracked the family down and got a walk-through, learning that the “opening soon” sign was just for show to keep people from breaking the windows. You know the story, it was love at first sight. They cracked a deal to use the balcony floor as a recording and rehearsal space, and did so for about a year while the owners took on renovations.

Not much about the building has really changed, despite its many uses. It still has some of the “museum quality” vaudeville-era light fixtures and projector. “It’s been treated with such reverence, there’s these beautiful antiquated technologies because no one ever cared to upgrade it” says Miller.

Since the theatre’s renovations and re-opening, it has hosted an amazing array of shows, from legacy names like Wanda Jackson to modern arbiters of American Roots music like soul singer Charles Bradley, the Drive-By Truckers, Jay Farrar, and John C. Reilly.

For bands asking “Hey, can I make an album there?” the answer is yes. They have both analog and digital set-ups and the whole building is wired up depending on whether you want to get the large room sound downstairs or the small, more intimate sound of the upstairs balcony room. That’s just what The Low Anthem have done with their forthcoming fifth studio album, they took their time and recorded multiple versions of the songs in different rooms.

Roz Raskin, who brought her band The Rice Cakes in to record their latest release, says “It was one of the most magical and haunting experiences, but also very comfortable place to record.”

As to the future of the Columbus, the crew are optimistic. The venue has been very successful with the new folk-oriented programming and after three years, they’ve developed the routines, the community and the staff to keep things running smoothly. So when the band hits the road again after the Spring 2016 release, the Columbus Theatre should keep humming along. I, for one, am hoping to attend a 100-year anniversary with these fine folks in 2026.

In the meantime, here are few of the upcoming shows worth a trip to the Columbus: April 26: The Thermals, Summer Canibals April 29: Dan Savage – Savage Love Live May 1: Matthew Logan Vasquez (of Delta Spirit) May 5: The Barr Brothers May 6: Waxahatchee, Circuit Des Yeux May 7: Eleanor Friedberger, Icewater May 8: Vetiver, The Range of Light Wilderness May 29: Luna, Long Trees June 23: Bonnie “Prince” Billy Tickets and more info available at: columbustheatre.com

- Daphne Lee Martin

Dear Worried, This is a difficult situation to be in. On the one hand everything worked out really well and assuming no one was hurt, the kids took the responsibility to clean up after themselves. On the other hand there was a profound lack of judgement on both sides. Parents leaving teenagers home alone is almost always a recipe for disaster.

Your responsibility in this situation is loyalty to your friend. I suppose in your head your could make a case for “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her”, but if she ever found out you knew about this party and did not tell her, it could affect the trust you have between you.

If you end up in a situation where she asks what happened, you should not lie.

You can tell her that she should sit down with her daughter to talk about what happened. You won’t be telling tales on the daughter or covering up for her party.

Good luck,

Auntie

Dear Auntie, If a person does not look me in the eye when I am speaking to him/her should I trust them? Any suggestions on how I could test the person in other ways?

Sincerely, Carrie Dear Carrie, Eye contact is one way to gauge the sincerity of communication, but looking someone in the eyes is not always an indicator of truth. Experienced liars can be quite good at staring someone in the face and speaking with conviction.

Conversely, some very truthful people can be terrible at making eye contact in conversation. They could have asperger/ autistic tendencies or cultural influences that make eye contact inappropriate.

If you are questioning the validity of a communication, most likely you are picking up on micro- expressions that the person is making, or changes in their tone or body language that indicate discomfort or a desire to flee the situation. You may even observe anger or expressions that do not match up like nodding the head yes while adamantly denying something.

A person that is lying may stroke their throat or cover their chest to indicate discomfort.

My advice is observe interactions with this person and pay attention as they communicate with you and others. An abrupt change in their stance, facial expressions and even their breathing can indicate a lie is happening. Interactions with others are especially important to observe if this person is in a subordinate position, as you could make them nervous just by being above them in position. When you have a base line for their regular speaking style you will have a better ability to spot the inconsistencies or changes that indicate a lie is happening.

Trust your gut,

Auntie

C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

26 T H E

The James Hunter Six

C U T \ U P _

Daptone Records

Hold On!

For his fourth record, British soul man James Hunter brought his horn driven, organ drenched bluesy r&b to the ever talented folks at Daptone Records.

Recorded on analog tape and presented in glorious mono, the resulting LP sits confidently alongside other modern soul classics in the Daptone discography by artists such as Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and the Sugarman Three.

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The Anti-Queens

with Slip and Fall & Flapjack Attack 33 Golden, New London, CT March 31, 2016 Hailing from Toronto, Ontario The Anti-Queens Set their sights on the states with a 26 date tour throughout the south and east coast of America. One of those 26 dates was spent at 33 Golden st in New London, ct on March 31, 2016. New Haven’s ska/punks Slip and Fall kicked off the night and set the tone for a truly great weeknight show. Hardcore punks Flapjack Attack from Westbrook, CT ended the night in a loud fast and sweaty fashion that made that icing on the cake even sweeter.

However it was The Anti-Queens who definitely stole the show.

Three women up front ( Emily, Mary, and Valerie) and Kurt banging the drums on the backside, with a huge rock and roll style and swagger playing 45 minutes of fast paced punk rock that would fit in well in the heyday of the late 1970’s in a small club In the Bowery section of Manhattan. The Anti-Queens have that “It factor”. They have style, they have attitude, and they have the catchy hooks that tickle you down to the marrow of every bone in your body. Singer/guitarist Emily Bones snarls through the fast paced set with the attitude and raspiness of Joan Jett, Guitarist Valerie Knox and bassist Mary Deth are great accompanists jumping around and signing the backing and gang vocals while drummer Kurt Dickson hold it down on the backend. By sets end the crowd was at the edge of the stage (which is not the norm at local shows) The Queens were sweaty, they ripped through the set that would make The Ramones happy.

They showed us that the myth of Canadian bands is not true. The Anti-Queens showed everyone at 33 Golden st that they are a forced to be reckoned with. By next year at this time this band will be one of the best bands in North America.

- Jeffrey Thunders

The tunes range from fast steppin’ dancers (“Stranded”, “(Baby)Hold On”) to bouncy ballads (“This is Where We Came in”, “Something’s Calling”), and draw from that late 50s early 60s rhythm and blues sound when hints of blues, jazz, pop … even a bit of surf, all blended naturally. Hunter’s voice is both gritty and smooth (think Ray Charles) as he navigates moments of heartache and joy. Much like his Daptone label mates, Hunter’s sound transcends the “retro” label by putting quality songwriting first. The record is timeless high quality soul from start to finish.

We Like it Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo Written & Directed by Mathew Ramirez Warren www.latinboogaloo.com

Latin Boogaloo was the sound of young Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1960s, speaking English, being influenced by Motown and rock & roll and absorbing the enormous cultural shifts brought about by the civil rights movement and the backlash to the war in Vietnam. It was a break with the tradition of the “pure” Latin music of the older generation, while at the same time an arena in which they could assert and celebrate their Latin identity. And it was deliciously funky.

We Like it Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo takes you on a soul swelling journey through the rise and unfortunately rapid fall of this infectious sound.

Captivating and often hilarious stories come straight from the mouths of legends such as Joe Bataan, Johnny Colon, Ricardo Ray and Pete Rodriguez while a soundtrack overflowing with boogaloo classics bursts out of your speakers. The film is filled with magical moments (watching Joe Bataan touch the keys of the long neglected church basement piano the he played as a child was a highlight) and gives you a rich sense of this vibrant yet overlooked period. It’s wonderful to see boogaloo receiving much deserved attention over the last decade via re-issued albums, compilations, young bands picking up the boogaloo torch (Ray Lugo & the Boogaloo Destroyers, Spanglish Fly), etc.

This kickstarted documentary is both a result of that attention and, hopefully, a catalyst for a new generation of musicians and dancers who Like it Like That!

- David Freeburg

May 07 Wild Sun May 13 The Miths May 14 The Fabulous Miss Wendy May 18 Strawberry Johannah May 19 Dallas Moore May 20 Cruel Miracle, Rocket Queen,

& Flight of Fire May 21 Frankie Ranks & The Freeloaders May 27 Phonosynthesis May 28 Accidental Seabirds, Quahogs Jun 02 Carrie Nation &

The Speakeasy, Gallows

Bound and Thank God For Science Jun 03 The Red Penny’s,

Brother Zack & Sister Helen Jun 04 Sad Plant Record Release Jun 17 Suspect, Zero Holds,

Flapjack Attack, Latch

NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT

Belle of the Fall Earthbound

Beautifully recorded. Lovely vocals. Simple but effective instrumentation. Persistently understated. A playful slow-dance. “They’ll” probably play the fun tracks on the radio.

And although they are a welcome distraction, those tracks aren’t necessarily characteristic or representative of Belle of the Fall. This is a serious duo. Is the sexual tension I sense intentional? Is it honest? Is it soulful? No matter - I FEEL it.

Mandatory Stream of Consciousness comparisons:

Sarah McLachlan fronting Simon & Garfunkel.

The Milk Carton Kids. The Civil Wars. A 21st Century Johnny and June Carter Cash mixed with The Everly Brothers if Quentin Tarantino produced the tracks.

Emitt Rhodes Rainbow Ends

Being an abused husband can be top-tapping and melodic. Clean. Well-recorded. All the right notes (for better or worse). Actually, Emitt is fairly badass for an old softy. Shit - now I actually feel sorta sorry that this swell fella had to experience hard times... Peace be with you, Emitt Rhodes! Thank you for reminding us that heartbreak is poetic, natural, and (in a weird sorta way) enjoyable!

Mandatory Stream of Consciousness comparisons:

Imagine the songs that might have been written if Jackson Browne had married Patti Boyd instead of George Harrison. Imagine that Harry Chapin and Steely Dan started writing songs together. Imagine Christopher Cross mixed with late-career Bee Gees, and Jeff Lynne produced it.

The Record Company Give It Back To You

Yes. This is exactly what I need to hear: selfhelp for badasses. Riffy acoustic country blues. Heavy front porch music. Great bass player. Appropriately sloppy - loosely in the groove. “It feels so good doin’ what you want when you know you shouldn’t.” Holy shit - the bass player plays with a slide.

Mandatory Stream of Consciousness comparisons:

Beggar’s Banquet meets Big Star. Led Zeppelin III meets late-career Black Crowes.

Less fashion-conscious and self-absorbed than Jack White or The Black Keys. Blackberry Smoke could have been this real, but Zach Brown could Never be this real. Keith Richards will love this band.

27 T H E C U T \ U P _ N e w L o n d o n

Mount Moriah ‘How to Dance’ Merge Records While I enjoy perusing the occasional ‘most anticipated albums’ list, I don’t partake in them myself unless specifically asked. However, when the calendar flipped and another dying year gave birth anew if I had made one of those lists you can bet the farm that the new one from North Carolina’s Mount Moriah would have been there, probably somewhere very near the top. Since the day I accidentally stumbled across their mesmerizing, self-titled debut album I have been completely hooked. Their music is in pretty semi-constant rotation in my house, my car, at my desk. So consider this all full-disclosure, but do not doubt it the least, when I tell you that Mount Moriah’s new album, How To Dance, is one of the best things you will hear this year, bar none.

Somewhere on a dusty back road, top down, sun shining, this album is blasting from car stereo speakers and it’s perfectly placed among the green grass, the lush forest whizzing by, the hair billowing, and the smiles flashing. Somewhere on a dance floor in a lonely bar, lights dimmed, two lone bodies clutched tight to one another in the name of love and comfort, this album finds a home. Somewhere a good deed is done, something so simple yet something so profound and lifechanging, and this album will be playing in the background. How To Dance is all of these albums and more. Mount Moriah has seen to it yet again that your most remembered moments – the most painful, the most cherished, the most beautiful – could all have a soundtrack if you wanted them to.

Got a lot of people telling me how to dance…

It’s not uncommon for a Mount Moriah experience to begin with the poignant lyrics and equally poignant delivery of Heather McEntire. Her locution is detailed, filled with loves won and lost, geographic and other specifics, and intimate moments frozen in time that prove as equally cathartic for the listener as it probably does for the writer. The voice that delivers them is honest and pure and sails on the winds of her band mates with aplomb. Her Mount Moriah partner in crime since day one is guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, Jenks Miller. Miller’s guitar work is astute and intoxicating yet far from overpowering. He and longtime bassist, Casey Toll, are more concerned with setting the tone, taking each track for a soothing walk, than they are unwarranted musical histrionics. Together they all form a well-oiled Americana machine churning out wholly original and timeless albums, of which How To Dance will surely be looked back at fondly as one of their greatest achievements.

Mount Moriah exist somewhere in a world where gilded, 70s alt-country, shoegaze-laced indie rock, and the weary souls of a thousand singersongwriters from the folk/blues/country pantheon come together to swap stories and riffs over a bottle or two of the hard stuff. There’s an overwhelming feeling on How To Dance that they are exploring and delivering some of their innermost secrets. Tracks like “Little Bear,” “Baby Blue,” and the stellar title track feel like empirical testimonies to our collective humanity. While tracks like album opener “Calavander” are captivating stories spun in varying shades of alt-folk backdrops.

We all have things we’re afraid to show…

To accompany the journey, Mount Moriah has also spread their wings in a more easily tangible sense. They’ve never been a band afraid of the occasional string backing, employing them as far back as their debut album, and again on this album as well. On this record though trombone and baritone sax make appearances on select tracks, including the aforementioned “Calavander” and “Cardinal Cross.” Add in organ, pedal steel, and a lovely array of backing voices, and the accouterments here are both varied and well-placed throughout. It’s as if they decided to take out the detail round brushes and add the occasional embellishment to their sonic portrait, and it pays exceptional dividends.

From start to finish Mount Moriah have delivered a highly emotive and completely enjoyable experience. It’s an album that even after multiple listens can still become so engrossing that the ice cream will be left melting on the kitchen counter and the tea kettle will be screaming for help while one lyric or one subtle movement sends you utterly reeling.

Simply put, and with all hyperbole set aside, it’s just that good.

- Chip McCabe

this article was previously published on TheMetalDad.com