HUDSON FALLS — On Friday, Sept. 23, the Strand Theatre welcomes acoustic duo Dave Maswick and Joel Brown with special guest percussionist Brian Melick.
Renowned Saratoga guitarist Joel Brown has been featured with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops, and on stages around the globe. Dave Maswick was in the early MTV hit band Blotto and has long played bass for The Stony Creek Band, a progressive country-bluegrass outfit.
As a classical guitarist, Joel Brown has traveled worldwide. His varied talents aren’t limited to classical music though. Brown is also a member of the touring group Triple Play, a border-crossing trio blending jazz with blues and folk, including members Chris Brubeck and harmonica legend Peter Madcat Ruth. Between tour dates he can be found at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs as an Artist-in-Residence.
$15 general admission/$10 seniors/$5 students. Tickets are available at the Strand Box Office; cash or check only. For more information or to make reservations, please call the Strand Box Office @ 518-832-3484. The Strand Theatre is located at 210 Main St, Hudson Falls. www.mystrandtheatre.org.
The legendary band Yo La Tengo, as captured in a city image by the legendary photographer David Godlis. Photo: Matador Records.
ALBANY — The 1962 New York Mets, a team so charmingly inadequate – 40 wins, 120 losses and 60 games out of first place – their play inspired legendary scribesman Jimmy Breslin to pen a book about them, titled “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?”
Ira Kaplan, long before he would wed Georgia Hubley and the musical pair formed their seminal band, was born in the borough where the Mets made their marvelous mess when he was five years old. Now as the story goes, despite advance calls of warning to verbally signal “I Got It!” Mets’ fielders Elio Chacon and Richie Ashburn collided into one another so often while chasing fly balls atop the Shea Stadium grass that Ashburn eventually asked his Venezuelan teammate how to say “I Got It!” in his native tongue. “Yo La Tengo!” Chacon reportedly responded and from then on out the call would bellow across that Flushing, Queens field of dreams.
Fast-forward a couple of decades and Yo La Tengo – the musical trio – was born in Hoboken, N.J. More than a dozen studio albums later, the band is making their way across the east coast and will stage a show at Albany’s Lark Hall on Hudson Avenue, Monday, Sept. 26. If you know Yo La Tengo, you know; if you don’t, google their music to learn what you’ve been missing. For show info, go to: https://larkhallalbany.com/.
Victoria van der Laan “Remembered Geometries.” Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —Victoria van der Laan shares a collection of works called “Remembered Geometries,” at Spring Street Gallery Sept. 17 – Nov. 2
An opening reception will be held 6-8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17.
Remembered Geometries presents works based on traditional housetop quilt patterns. The technical use of fabrics and thread, color, line, and texture contributes to the overall complexity and magnetism of the exhibit. Van der Laan shares her craft with brilliant, sophisticated simplicity.
In addition to the traditional sales, van der Laan presents “Pay What You Wish.” “These works are 8” x 8” stretched gallery wrapped textile sketches offered at whatever price feels good to the buyer, no floor, no ceiling. The intention of this project is to promote equitable access to art and to cultivate a spirit of generosity,” said Van der Laan, in a statement.
A portion of the proceeds sold through Spring Street Gallery will benefit Youth FX. Based in Albany, Youth FX primary mission is to work with diverse groups of youth from communities that have been historically under-served and in need of opportunities to learn filmmaking and acquire skills in emerging media technologies.
Remembered Geometries is open to the public Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 am – 1 pm and by appointment on weekends. Additional hours will be announced at: springstreetgallerysaratoga.org.
Richard Lloyd onstage at The Bottom Line, New York City with the band Television, summer 1978. A few hours later, the group disbanded. Previously unpublished photo by Thomas Dimopoulos.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — It is Friday afternoon. A steel-silver sky dangles over a blacktop lot that cradles a motorcar blazoned in gunmetal gray.
Inside the car, the beautiful tone fragments that flow from Richard Lloyd’s guitar gush from the speakers. The band is Television. The music is “Marquee Moon.”
“I remember, how the darkness doubled. I recall, lightning struck itself.
I was listening, listening to the rain. I was hearing, hearing something else…”
Just at that moment, the ring of the phone cuts through all sweetness and melancholy, and bullies its way across the Bluetooth, sounding over the speakers of the car.
“This is Richard Lloyd,” the voice says. “It looks like it’s going to rain here. Is it raining where you are?”
The wondrous season lands in Saratoga early this year. Richard Lloyd performs Saturday, May 14 at Putnam Den with his four-piece band. “Kevin Tooley, David Leonard and a new guy, Steve Geller. Two guitars, bass and drums,” Lloyd explains. Local favorites Family Tree opens the show. Lloyd says the show will feature songs from across his career. And a rich career it is.
There are more than a half-dozen solo albums to his credit, loaded with anthemic guitars and tuneful gems that in a just and more welcoming country would have returned innumerable radio hits. His craftsmanship as a six-string practitioner is showcased in a popular YouTube site someone put up heralding guitar drone theory and “the use the mixolydian scale to create a Richard Lloyd style solo.”
Then there is Television. The four-member ensemble produced two albums – “Marquee Moon” and “Adventure” during their initial forage through the late 1970s – and a created a presence whose influence to this very day cannot be overstated.
“Marquee Moon” in particular is hailed far-and-wide as a musical masterpiece. You have to wonder if he’s tired of talking about. “I’m just glad it still sells,” Lloyd responds, with a chuckle. “Forty-five years later, and I still get paid.”
He was born in the fall of 1951 in Pittsburgh – six years after the end of World War II, and at the start of the Cold War. “People at that time were in a strange halfway state – between the exhilaration of recovery from war and the threat of nuclear annihilation,” he reflects in his 2017 memoir “Everything Is Combustible.”
Lloyd was a New York City kid at a time when the city was ripping apart at the seams. He hung out at Max’s Kansas City and memorably recalls going to see the New York Dolls at the Hotel Diplomat.
“I was taken aback by the audience,” Lloyd says. “Everybody was dressed to the nines – and they were more interested in each other than they were in the band. The band facilitated this scene, but it wasn’t like a normal concert where people are paying attention to what’s onstage.” It was a time when bands were starting to play in front of big crowds in large arenas. “It was very cut-and-dried. Performer. Audience. Performer. Audience. All of a sudden there was a break in that. And that’s what it was like at CB’s as well, because if you played there regularly you got in for free, so there was always a lot of talented people there – not just musicians, but journalists and photographers and actors and writers. It was a very interesting time in New York.”
Lloyd and Television were instrumental in what was to transpire at CBGB. The Mercer Arts Center – the only showplace in town for creatives in 1973 – had collapsed in a heap of rubble on an August afternoon.
“It fell down, while I was on my way (there), in a car driving from L.A. to New York,” said Lloyd, while sitting in a car traveling from New York to New Haven.
“And you’re in a car now. Hopefully nothing’s falling down anywhere,” was the sequence of words that tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“I. Hope. Not,” he replied.
Lloyd was living in Chinatown with Terry Ork. An assistant to Andy Warhol, Ork was perhaps inspired by Warhol’s sponsorship that had initiated the blooming of the Velvet Underground a decade earlier and engaged in doing something with a band in a similar way. It was their visit to a Manhattan club on an audition night, that produced the first meeting between Lloyd and transplanted Delaware schoolmates Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine.
“It was a cabaret club. People like Liza Minelli and Peter Lemongello played there,” Lloyd says. Verlaine played three songs on his audition night. That 10-minute set led to the collaborative formation that eventually became Television.
Looking for a place that would let them play on a public stage, they found a dive on the Bowery and approached the owner – as the story goes – while he stood atop a stepladder fiddling with the canopy in front of his bar, convincing him he should showcase live original music in his bar. That owner was Hilly Kristal. The club was CBGB. Despite the moniker depicting what Kristal had imagined his bar showcasing (the acronym represents Country, BlueGrass and Blues), a new wave of creative people would discover the venue as a place to unveil their talents – Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie and The Ramones, among scores of others.
“It was like throwing a three-year-long New Year’s Eve party. It was a lot of fun. We made a rule that you had to play original music. No covers. Maybe one, if you did two – you’d never play there again,” Lloyd says. “We weren’t very good in the beginning. Technically we were pretty crappy. But there was an impulse there.”
By the spring of 1975 and a few short years since Lloyd had gone to watch the New York Dolls perform, Television was opening for the band.
“It seemed that time represented a sort-of changing-of-the-guard. What do you recall of those shows?” I asked Lloyd.
“Well, somebody’s got to go on first, so, yeah, we did,” he said.
“Any memories that stand out?”
“Malcolm McLaren wanted to manage us, and we said no,” he says of the British impresario who worked with designer Vivienne Westwood and was at that point working with the Dolls.
“So, he went back home to England to get his own band going.”
“He put together a band based on all of the things we were doing,” Lloyd says. That band was The Sex Pistols.
“Does that ever bug you?”
“Ah, only when it got written up as history – that it started in London. And it didn’t. It started in New York,” Lloyd says. “America is so big that you disappear in it, whereas if you’re in England and you make a splash, you’re in the daily papers for Crissakes.”
In early 1977, Television’s debut, “Marquee Moon” was released and hit the Top 30 in the U.K. But America was asleep. The second album, “Adventure,” was issued in 1978. Later that year I smuggled myself (nobody checked ID’s in those days) and a palm-size Instamatic camera into the Bottom Line club to watch the band play. Lloyd wore a black button-up shirt, which I know not from memory but in a blurred, ghostly image that somehow has survived to this day. Patti Smith sat across the table, transfixed by the music coming from the stage. We all were. The band was mesmerizing. The next day the band was no more.
“We broke up. That’s right. That was our swan song,” Lloyd says. “We didn’t tell anybody, but we already knew we were going to disband.”
The members of the group embarked on their respective solo careers, and there have been a few get- togethers resulting in one studio album. He puts little chance in the band getting together in the future.
“It’s amicable, but we’re not going to be playing together again. I don’t see that happening. Tom’s semi-retired, or retired completely,” Lloyd says.
Lloyd estimates he worked about two weeks in the first two years of the initial wave of the pandemic, but he’s now back out on stage performing. So far, so good. He says he continues to carry close-to-heart the works of philosopher and mystic G.I. Gurdjieff.
“He was a very interesting fellow and well worth looking up,” Lloyd says. “It was all about being aware. Being conscious. Inhabiting your life more fully. I don’t go to church, so it’s my spiritual interest.”
An interest in visual art has seen him produce his own works. He’s sold a couple of hundred of his paintings in recent years.
“I color. I’m crazy about rich, vibrant color,” Lloyd says.
“The same could be said about sound.”
“You bet. Sound and light – they’re related. They’re just octaves away from each other.”
Richard Lloyd performs with his band Saturday, May 14 at Putnam Place, 63A Putnam St., Saratoga Springs. Also appearing: Family Tree. Doors open 8 p.m., show starts at 9. Tickets: $15, putnamplace.com.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – The following upcoming shows are scheduled to be staged at Universal Preservation Hall, 25 Washington Street, Saratoga Springs. For showtimes and ticket information, go to: universalpreservationhall.org.
Friday, Jan. 28: Hipster Assassins. A collaborative endeavor of virtuosic talent that came together in New York City at the historic Zinc Bar in 2010. Over the next 2 years the band had a weekly Monday night residency at Zinc where it started to develop its own sound playing both originals and covers. Since its inception, the band has played all over the world, including Montreal Jazz Fest, and the Jazz Cafe in Costa Rica, and plays once a month at NYC’s famous 55 Bar.
Saturday, Feb. 5: Bakithi Kumalo. South African bassist, composer, and vocalist. He is most known for his fretless bass playing for Paul Simon for over 30 years and on the 1986 album Graceland, in particular the bass run on “You Can Call Me Al.” Kumalo is going on tour performing with The Graceland Experience. This unique show will feature Bakithi performing the entire Graceland record, one of Paul Simon’s biggest, along with a selection of world music as well.
Saturday, Feb. 12: Howard Jones, Rachael Sage. Howard Jones Acoustic Trio is an intimate stripped-down trip through Jones’ 30-year music career. Featuring Jones on electric piano, Robin Boult (Roger Daltry, Dave Stewart) on acoustic guitar and Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo, Belinda Carlisle, John Paul Jones) on chapman stick, the show delivers a fresh take on Howard’s best-known hits. Howard Jones first burst upon the contemporary music scene in 1983; His first two albums “Human’s Lib,” and “Dream Into Action” were worldwide hits.
Also appearing: The 6-time Independent Music Awards winner Rachael Sage will perform songs from her recent Billboard Charting album “Character,” along with select pieces across her repertoire of 14 albums and her new collaborative side-project, Poetica. Rachael will be joined by Kelly Halloran on violin (Michael Franti, Tom Morello).
Future shows at UPH include: Ladysmith Black Mambazo (March 5), The Screaming Orphans (March 12), and The Spa City Guitar Festival (March 18, 19 and 20).
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Performing Arts Center this week announced the return of its resident companies — New York City Ballet and The Philadelphia Orchestra — to their summer home in Saratoga in 2022.
The diverse season features SPAC premieres and debuts by women and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) composers, choreographers, performers, and conductors, alongside iconic masterworks of the classical repertoire.
NEW YORK CITY BALLET returns with the full company from July 12 – 16, with its roster of more than 90 dancers under the direction of Artistic Director Jonathan Stafford and Associate Artistic Director Wendy Whelan, accompanied by the New York City Ballet Orchestra, led by Music Director Andrew Litton.
The Company will present four programs including the full-length story ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream; an evening dedicated to 20th Century Masters highlighted by Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace, returning for the first time since 1967; and a program showcasing works by contemporary choreographers including new pieces by Jamar Roberts and Pam Tanowitz, and the return of Justin Peck’s In Creases, gracing the SPAC stage for the first time since its World Premiere at SPAC in 2012. Back by popular demand is also a special “NYCB On and Off Stage” presentation designed to introduce the season with an intimate, up-close look at selected excerpts from the Company’s repertory of ballets that will be featured during the residency.
“After two long years without the full New York City Ballet in residence at SPAC, it is tremendously exciting to be announcing the return of the full Company in July 2022,” said Elizabeth Sobol, president and CEO of Saratoga Performing Arts Center, in a statement.
“It will be a perfect celebration of their return with timeless works of Balanchine and Robbins, SPAC debuts by Jamar Roberts and Pam Tanowitz, the return of Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace, beloved story ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and NYCB On and Off Stage. The latter, born from the need to conform to COVID guidelines in 2021, was a format that was immensely popular with audiences. It will be a perfect kick-off to the residency – as both an intimate behind-the-scenes look at NYCB as well as a poignant reminder as to how far we will have come since March of 2020,” Sobol said.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA’s three-week residency (July 27 Aug. 13) will feature Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Aug. 10–13) leading four programs including a finale featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Highlighting the residency is the return of world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma (Aug. 5) and violinist Joshua Bell alongside star soprano Larisa Martinez (July 29). Making their 2022 SPAC debuts is a diverse roster of artists including fourteen-time GRAMMY nominee Ledisi singing the music of Nina Simone (Aug. 3), pianist and NPR host Lara Downes (Aug. 4), soprano Angel Blue (Aug. 12-13), 26-year-old superstar violinist Randall Goosby (Aug. 11), and Philadelphia’s premier contemporary ballet company, BalletX July 27), performing a new work choreographed by NYCB’s Tiler Peck.
Also featured will be more than a dozen SPAC premieres including the East Coast Premiere of Contact by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts composed for the genre-crossing ensemble Time for Three (July 28). SPAC’s popular film nights will also return to delight audiences of all ages as the Orchestra accompanies, live to picture, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban– in Concert (July 30) and The Princess Bride in Concert (Aug. 6).
“SPAC’s ambitious and artistically inspiring programming continues our effort to bring significant contemporary works and iconic classics that have never been performed at SPAC to our stage, while also presenting a record number of works by BIPOC and female composers throughout the season,” said Sobol.
Tickets will be available beginning on March 7 for members (tiered by level) and on March 16 for the general public. New for this season, evening performances will be held at 7:30 p.m.
SPAC will continue to monitor health and safety guidelines mandated by New York State and the CDC and will adjust ticketing and safety policies accordingly.
The season kicks off at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12 with NYCB On and Off stage. For a full detailed listing of performances, tickets, and other information, go to: spac.org.
BALLSTON SPA – The Brookside Museum 2021 annual fundraising campaign“Preserve the Porch!” raised $20,720, and added a $10,000 match from an anonymous doner, making the total amount raised $30,720.
The funds will go directly to replacing storm windows and repairing Brookside Museum’s iconic front porch, which was built in 1792 and remodeled in the 1830s in the popular “Greek Revival” style. The grand piazza is in need of reconstruction with crisis concerns for both safety and appearance.
“Support for our ‘Preserve the Porch!’ campaign is a major win for the Saratoga County History Center,” said Sean Kelleher, Vice President of Membership and Community Engagement. “The ability to fund the restoration of the iconic porch and storm windows will provide stabilization for the Brookside Museum in the future, and will allow visitors to safely access the museum, grounds and library for generations to come.It would not have been possible without support from the community. We thank our community for its continued efforts to help preserve this treasure, which is an important part of Saratoga County’s history.”
The Saratoga County History Center is dedicated to preserving and sharing the diverse histories of Saratoga County. In addition to Brookside Museum, the History Center offers a variety of innovative, exciting, and educational programming online.Visit the website ,www.brooksidemuseum.org, and social media accounts (@SaratogaCoHistory) for news and announcements.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – The Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation presents “Saratoga Springs Train Stations: Architecture and Impact” with author Richard Chait, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 25. The virtual program will take place on Zoom and Facebook for a suggested donation of $10 or more.
“I am very pleased to be speaking about one of my favorite subjects, train stations, especially those in and around Saratoga Springs. Like their architecture, train stations have such an interesting and rich history,” Chait said, in a statement.
Through the years there have been many railroads that have served Saratoga Springs and the surrounding area. These have included the following lines: Rensselaer & Saratoga Railroad; Thomas C. Durant’s Adirondack Company Railway; the Fitchburg Branch of the B&M Railroad; Saratoga, Mount McGregor and Lake George Railroad; Hudson Valley Railway Company; and the D&H Railway with its main line and Adirondack Branch.
Throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, Saratoga Springs was a premiere travel destination, and the D&H Railway Station would be a hub of activity welcoming tourists, business people, and college students. “Much of the train station architecture in Saratoga Springs has been lost over time so it is exciting to host this virtual program that not only highlights the buildings but also the long-term impact they have had on our community,” said Nicole Babie, Membership & Programs Director.
One station that remains is located at 117 Grand Ave. It was originally the Adirondack Company Railway office and station and later became part of the D&H Railway’s Adirondack branch. The Foundation preserved the building and used it as its office for many years.
For additional information or to register for the virtual program, visit www.saratogapreservation.org or call 518-587-5030. Everyone who pre-registers for this program will be emailed a Zoom link in advance and will receive a link to the recording.
Founded in 1977, the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that promotes the preservation and enhancement of the architectural, cultural, and landscaped heritage of Saratoga Springs.
GLENS FALLS – The Park Theater has announced a variety of shows that will be staged throughout January at its venue in downtown Glens Falls, located at 14 Park St.
Jan. 20: The Park Theater presents ‘Third Thursday Jazz’ with The Matt Niedbalski Trio featuring saxophonist, Adam Siegel. Tickets: $10. Showtime: 8:30 p.m.
Jan. 21: Hiroya Tsukamoto. The musician has been wowing audiences all over the world with his eclectic, immersive and mesmerizing performances.Tickets: Early Bird – $15; Day Of Show – $20. Showtime: 8 p.m.
Jan. 26: The Park Theater hosts Rochmon Record Club. Hosted by Chuck Vosganian, this listening party will focus on Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle” (1976). Tickets: $12. Showtime: 7 p.m.
Jan. 27: ‘Live & Local’ featuring a special jazz concert with Laura Roth and Hui Cox. This event will salute the months of self-sacrificing efforts by the essential workers of the Glens Falls Hospital and will include drummer Mike Clark, and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, along with special guest, Ray Agnew. Tickets: $20.Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
Proof of full vaccination required for performances, and the wearing of masks indoors when not eating or drinking is encouraged.
For the full performance listing or to purchase tickets, visit: www.parktheatergf.com, or phone the box office at 518-792-1150.
SCHENECTADY – Proctors Collaborative has entered a partnership with the American Red Cross for the upcoming show, Come From Away.
Come From Away is the true story of 7,000 stranded passengers and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships. Performances are Tuesday, Jan. 25- Sunday, Jan. 30.
January is National Blood Donor month, and the American Red Cross will be on hand for various performances for ways to volunteer, donate to their organization or to give blood.
“Come From Away highlights the importance of community and the generosity of spirit. We are so grateful to the Proctors’ community for supporting the Red Cross mission and for their generosity. Their support helps ensure we can be there 24/7 for whatever may come. This community is our rock,” said Kevin Coffey, Regional Chief Executive Officer, American Red Cross Eastern New York Region.
