SARATOGA SPRINGS — Robert Burke Warren will discuss his new book “Cash on Cash: Interviews and Encounters with Johnny Cash,” with Chuck “Rochmon Record Club” Vosganian at Northshire Bookstore this week.   

The event takes place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 16.

Music has played a major role in Warren’s personal life and his career has included stints with RuPaul – “the singer of my first band, when I was 17. He was 20,” Warren recalls, The Fleshtones, and auditions for the B-52s and The Ramones. In 2016, he published his debut novel “Perfectly Broken” – a splendidly entertaining volume of words he synopsisized to this journalist as “Musicians in love, musicians behaving badly—and the people that love them.” In January, he co-hosts the David Bowie Birthday Bash in Manhattan. 

“Cash on Cash,” published by Chicago Review Press in September, offers unprecedented insight into one of the most significant American cultural figures of the 20th century.  

As an interviewee, Cash was an exemplary communicator to an astonishingly broad spectrum of people: always open and articulate, part friend, part spiritual authority, part flawed hero. Throughout a decades-long career, as Cash took risks, embracing new technologies, formats, and attitudes, he cleaved to a simple, core message of unvarnished truth.

Cash’s story, told in his own words, shines unfiltered light on a journey of archetypal proportions that resonates still in this comprehensive collection of interviews and feature stories, some widely published and others never previously transcribed, culled from the 1950s through the early days of the new millennium. 

“Cash on Cash” is available at Northshire Saratoga. The bookstore is located at 424 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. Call 518-682-4200, visit: northshire.com. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Mallory Graham and Scott Tyler, collectively known as the Folk-Americana duo The Rough & Tumble have relentlessly toured since forming as a band in 2011. On Saturday, Nov. 20, they perform on the regional stage at Caffe Lena.  

“Living on the road full-time in a small camper, with two big dogs (Mud Puddle and Magpie Mae) for the last 8 years – until last week, when we settled in New Hampshire,” says Graham.  “We’re looking forward to spending more time in the Northeast.”

Show time is 7 p.m.on Nov. 20. Go to: caffelena.org. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — It is story was born in Saratoga a long time in-the-making that will make its landing in living color in the Spa City this month.

IT is called “The Supernatural Strings of Vampwyre,” a 32-page comic from the mind of Zack Lynch, launching the first book of what he hopes will be a quarterly publication with his new enterprise Blue Shack Comics. 

“The first time I ever got to go to a comic shop was on Broadway (in Saratoga Springs). My mom took me and it was like a magic portal,” says Lynch, who subsequently grew up reading ‘Conan’ and ‘X-Men’ –  “the two mainstays I read as a kid without fail, and after that pretty much everything Marvel put out.”

By the 1990s, Lynch began working for comic book companies, first as an intern and later graduating to doing coloring and production design. “Comics have been a part of my life forever, since I was a kid, and it’s been in my career wheelhouse for the past 30 years now,” he says.  

Earlier this year, he assembled a creative team in anticipation of launching a local comic book company and estimates approximately 50 brainstorming meetings have been held at Desperate Annie’s on Caroline Street – “that has been quite a creation hub for us” – since May.  

“I hired a team of professionals and knowing how every position works really helps. It takes about six people to put together a comic. You’ve got your basic creator – who comes up with the idea; your writer; you have to do sketches to get an idea of what the book is going to look like, then it goes to a penciller, an inker, a colorist and a letterer,” Lynch explains.  “Then all of that comes back to me for design layout and printing.”

The end result is Blue Shack Comics’ first issue: The Supernatural Strings of Vampwyre – a kid-friendly story about an AI rock star who deals with the experiences that all humans experience, Lynch says, from growing up, to figuring out who and what we are. 

Book 1 is on its way back from the printers. Book 2 begins production next month and is slated for release in the spring. The hope is to release a new book on a quarterly basis. Lynch – who wears the title of creator, writer and editor of the book, also launched a Kickstarter campaign. 

“I am the financier, and it is costly, but an interesting part is that it’s also being financed by old classic comics which are now exceptionally valuable. I have quite a large comic collection, and for this book I’m selling comics to make a comic,” Lynch says. 

“The Supernatural Strings of Vampwyre” is slated to make its premiere Nov. 12-13, during Comic Con at the Saratoga Springs City Center. It will also be available at the website: vampwyre.com, where more information about the publication may be found. 

“The Supernatural Strings of Vampwyre.” Creator & Writer – Zack Lynch; Artistic Concept Designer – Kim Vincent Harris; Pencils – Jason Baroody; Inks – Mark McKenna; Colors – Ross Campbell; Letters – Dezi Sienty; Graphic Design – Tyrus Christiana. 32 pages, color, $6. Go to: vampwyre.com. 

ALBANY – Original Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison and noted touring member Adrian Belew have announced they will bring their popular ‘Remain In Light’ concert on the road in 2023, in celebration of the band’s iconic 1980 record. 

The 19-date tour kicks off in Denver on Feb. 16 and stages a show at Empire Live in Albany on March 8.

Harrison and Belew will perform songs from the early 1980s period of the band’s history, and will be joined by a powerhouse band, including former members of Turkuaz, Julie Slick on bass, and Yahuba Garcia-Torres on percussion. 

Harrison played keyboards with The Modern Lovers in the early 1970’s (“Roadrunner, Roadrunner, Going faster miles an hour… with the radio on” if you don’t know), and joined the Talking Heads in time for the recording of the now-four-piece combo’s debut LP, “Talking Heads ’77.”  Belew worked extensively as a session, guest and touring musician with numerous artists and ensembles, including the Talking Heads during the early 1980s.    

 “’Remain In Light’ is a high point in my career,” Harrison said, in a statement. “Adrian and I had often discussed the magic of the 1980 tour and the sheer joy it brought to audiences. It is such a delight to see that joy once again in the audiences on the current tour.”

To purchase tickets, visit: remaininlight.net.

SCHENECTADY — A four act Rock N Roll/Doo Wop Spectacular will be staged at Proctors Theatre, 432 State Street, Schenectady, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 19.

Headlining the show is the legendary Chubby Checker. The singer grew up in South Philadelphia and formed a street-corner harmony group at age 8. His first hit record, “The Class” was released in 1959. By the summer of 1960, “The Twist” became a #1 hit, introducing the concept of couples “dancing apart to the beat” and leading to a revolution in dancing.

Co-headlining the show is The Doo Wop Project – stars of five Broadway smash hit shows like Jersey Boys and Motown: The Musical. 

Also performing: The Duprees (“You Belong to Me,” “My Own True Love,”), and regional fave Trish Anderson – the lead singer of the Bluz House Rockers. Tickets are on sale at Proctors Box Office, by phone at 518-346-6204 and on line at proctors.org.

GLENS FALLS —The Adirondack Theatre Festival staged its annual film festival Oct. 13 with a regional premiere of a short documentary featuring the band Blondie performing a culturally path-breaking concert in Cuba in 2019. 

The opening night screening of “Blondie: Vivir en la Habana” staged at the Charles R. Wood Theater and included a Q&A between ATF Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld and the film’s director Rob Roth. 

“I realized afterwards how these cultural exchanges are really important,” said Roth, regarding the band’s concert, which was part of an official cultural exchange between Havana and New York City. “It was perfect timing, because the previous administration had opened up a dialogue with Cuba and we just made it, because the next administration just shut it all down.” 

It was Blondie co-founder and guitarist Chris Stein who was the driving force behind the journey. “He would tell the manager: ‘Just get us to Cuba. Just get us to Cuba,’” Roth said. Ironically, Stein wasn’t ultimately able to make the trek, due to illness. 

Blondie burst out of the Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s scene in downtown Manhattan in the mid-70s with their self-titled debut (most notably featuring the songs “X Offender,” and “Rip Her To Shreds”), and its follow-up LP ‘Plastic Letters.’ It was their third release, ‘Parallel Lines,’ that gained them national attention with the hit “Heart of Glass” in 1979 – and it is from this period and on into the ‘80s with the subsequent hit songs “Rapture” and “The Tide Is High” that the 18-minute documentary focuses its soundtrack. 

“I didn’t really know how I was going to shoot in a communist country. It just came to me one day: I’m going to shoot it on film, 8mm and 16mm. And I think that had a much more deep effect, because it’s almost like a lens of time that they’re stuck in, and also the lens of what I call metaphysical; the magic happening around them,” said Roth, adding that he first struck up a friendship with Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry during the 1990s, when they both attended weekly Tuesday night parties at Jackie 60 nightclub in New York City’s meatpacking district.  

“Only one time did my cameraman have a problem with officials – I don’t even know who they were, but they came out of nowhere. We were shooting on the street and the camera moved to what I think was a government building of some sort, and they were there like – that!” said Roth, snapping his fingers together for emphasis.  “But, they were pretty cool about it. We just had to not shoot that building. I don’t know what the building was. And I don’t even want to know what it was,” he said with a laugh.  

Roth – a longtime collaborator with Blondie, has also worked on projects with David Bowie, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, among others.  

There was initial interest in using some archival footage tracing the band’s origins to New York City in the ‘70s, but Harry wasn’t particularly keen to the idea. “She doesn’t like to go to the past a lot. I was creative director of her memoir ‘Face It,’ and it was like pulling teeth,” he laughed. “She doesn’t like to go back. And it’s funny because we keep toying with this idea of me directing a film about her – so that would be even harder!” 

Just before the entourage’s landing in Cuba, there were expressed concerns about whether the residents of the communist country would even have had the ability to know who the band was.    

“While we were going there, Debbie and I were discussing whether they even knew the music,” Roth recalled. “When I was shooting, at one point there was a balcony and a family – from the grandparents down to the grandchildren and: they were all singing. It was ‘Heart of Glass,’ or ‘The Tide is High.’ And they knew it. It was clear. The music had gotten there.”

“Blondie: Vivir en la Habana,” had its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021. The Adirondack Film Festival, presented by ATF for the seventh year, ran Oct. 13-15 and presented its programming in a hybrid mode – both in-person and online – with live screenings at the Charles R. Wood Theater and Crandall Library in downtown Glens Falls.