Manic Presents / Premier Concerts Guest Post:
Welcome to our second Redscroll blog of 2019! This week’s blog is full of exciting announcements and upcoming shows. Just announced at College Street Music Hall we have José Gonzálzes & The String Theory with a special full chamber orchestra performance on Saturday (3/23); Virginia emo/indie band Turnover host an eclectic line up featuring Turnstile and Reptaliens on (5/9); husband-wife folk/soul duo JOHNNYSWIM bring their Moonlight Tour on Saturday (5/18); California indie/folk duo The Milk Carton Kids perform on (6/19); and a Hot Tuna and Dave Mason co-headline show on (8/20)! And just announced at Space Ballroom, we have alternative rock mainstays the Meat Puppets on (5/14) and tickets are on sale now!
This week’s show schedule begins Sunday (1/20) at Space Ballroom with King Tuff’s Infinite Smiles Tour featuring special guests Stonefield and Dust Hat. On Monday (1/21) as part of our weekly Manic Monday series at Cafe Nine we have Whatever We Are with Robbie Chemical. On Tuesday (1/22) we have Bob Woodward at College Street Music Hall and our week finishes on Wednesday (1/23) at Space Ballroom with Vacationer and special guest Sun Parade. Be sure to grab your tickets and RSVP today before it’s too late!
CONTEST TIME! Enter for a chance to win a pair of tickets to Vacationer with Sun Parade at Space Ballroom on January 23rd!
Enter here: https://goo.gl/forms/
Keep your eyes peeled for even more exciting announcements and we’ll see you back here next Thursday!
Upcoming Shows…
Sunday, January 20th
King Tuff
King Tuff w/ Stonefield, Dust Hat
$20 ($18 adv)/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
Space Ballroom – Hamden
INFO: When asked to describe the title track from his new record, Kyle Thomas—aka King Tuff—takes a deep breath. “It’s a song about hitting rock bottom,” he says. “I didn’t even know what I wanted to do anymore, but I still had this urge—this feeling—like there was this possibility of something else I could be doing… and then I just followed that possibility. To me, that’s what songwriting, and art in general, is about. You’re chasing something, there is something out there calling to you and you’re trying to get at it. ‘The Other’ is basically where songs come from. It’s the hidden world. It’s the mystery. It’s the invisible hand that guides you whenever you make something. It’s the thing I had to rediscover—the sort of voice I had to follow—to bring me back to making music again in a way that felt true and good.”
After years of non-stop touring, culminating in a particularly arduous stint in support of 2014’s Black Moon Spell, Thomas found himself back in Los Angeles experiencing the flipside of the ultimate rock and roll cliche—that of an exhausted musician suddenly unsure where to go or what to do, held prisoner by a persona that he never meant to create, that bore little resemblance to the worn out person they now saw in the mirror. Thomas was suddenly at odds with the storied rock and roll misfit mythology that he’d spent the past ten years, four full-length albums, a handful of EPs, and multiple live records, unwittingly bringing to life.
“At that point I had literally been on tour for years,” recalls Thomas. “It was exhausting. Physically and mentally. At the end of it I was like, I just can’t do this. I’m essentially playing this character of King Tuff, this crazy party monster, and I don’t even drink or do drugs. It had become a weird persona, which people seemed to want from me, but it was no longer me. I just felt like it had gotten away from me.”
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://ticketf.ly/2NE8kqU
Monday, January 21st
Whatever We Are w/ Robbie Chemical
Free with RSVP (or $5 at the door)/21 and over/Doors at 7PM
Cafe Nine – New Haven
INFO: It started with four friends. Just three guys and a girl in a studio, each with wildly different personalities and dreams, but all united in their support of each other. Before they knew it, almost by accident, they were recording some of the most powerful material of their careers, moving into a house together, and launching one of the most exciting new names in music: Whatever We Are.
The group’s four members—Gabrielle Ross, Chris “Trippz” Michaud, Joey Castellani, and Ian Biggs—had spent the majority of their careers as solo arts, but the energy when they wrote and recorded together was undeniable, so they embraced the new direction and uprooted their lives to move into a shared house on Long Island where they could make music in their living room-turned-studio-space full time. As a result, these songs represent not only a clean start artistically, but also a fresh new outlook on life. At times calling to mind modern chart toppers like The Black Eyed Peas and Twenty One Pilots, Whatever We Are’s music blurs the boundaries of genre as it melds four distinct voices into a singular whole. The group is a true democracy, with each artist contributing equally to the songs, and it’s built upon a deep foundation of friendship and passionate belief fueled by the unique personalities and backgrounds of each band member.
RSVP HERE: https://ticketf.ly/2Fk5nbc
Tuesday, January 22nd
Bob Woodward
$35-$55/All Ages/Doors at 6PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wished he’d recruited Woodward into the CIA, “His ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn’t be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique.”
Therein lays the genius of Bob Woodward – a journalistic icon who gained international attention when he and Carl Bernstein broke the deeply disturbing news of the Watergate scandal. The book they wrote – All the President’s Men – won a Pulitzer Prize.
Watergate’s theme of secret government is a common thread throughout Woodward’s career that has spawned 19 books – all national bestsellers – 13 of them #1 – more than any other contemporary nonfiction author. His 19th book, FEAR: Trump in the White House, was published on September 11, 2018. In the process Woodward became the ultimate inside man. No one else in political investigative journalism has the clout, respect, and reputation of Woodward. He has a way of getting insiders to open up – both on the record and off the record – in ways that reveal an intimate yet sweeping portrayal of Washington and the budget wrangling, political infighting, how we fight wars, the price of politics, how presidents lead, the homeland security efforts, and so much more. His work is meticulous and draws on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president.
As a speaker, Woodward pulls the curtain back on Washington and its leaders to captivate audiences with stories that are sometimes surprising, at times shocking, and always fascinating. He blends stories that are both up to the minute and from the past (to provide historical context). Woodward speaks as he writes – crisp and concise – and helps people get behind the spin to understand what’s really going on in the halls of power in an age of 24-hour news, social media, and snarky politics.
Professionally, Bob Woodward is currently associate editor for The Washington Post where he’s worked since 1971. He has won nearly every American journalism award, and the Post won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for his work with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal. In addition, Woodward was the main reporter for the Post’s articles on the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks that won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Woodward won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2003.
The Weekly Standard called Woodward “the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever.” In 2003, Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward “the most celebrated journalist of our age.” In listing the all-time 100 best non-fiction books, Time magazine has called All the President’s Men, by Bernstein and Woodward, “Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history.”
Woodward has co-authored or authored 13 #1 national best-selling non-fiction books. They are: All the President’s Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976), both Watergate books, co-authored with Bernstein. The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979) co-authored with Scott Armstrong, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984), Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-87 (1987), The Commanders (1991), The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994), Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (1999), Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004), State of Denial: Bush at War Part III (2006), and Obama’s Wars (2010). Woodward’s other national bestselling books: The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat (2005), The Choice (1996), Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom (2000), The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (2008), The Price of Politics (2012) and The Last of the President’s Men (2015). Newsweek magazine has excerpted six of Woodward’s books in headline-making cover stories; “60 Minutes” has done pieces on seven of his books; three of his books have been made into feature films.
In November 2017, the online learning portal MasterClass released “Bob Woodward Teaches Investigative Journalism.” In it Woodward reveals the lessons he’s learned during his 45-year career, teaching students what truth means, how to uncover it, and how to build a story with it.
Woodward was born March 26, 1943 in Illinois. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and served five years as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County Sentinel (Maryland), where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://ticketf.ly/2yONjAn
Wednesday, January 23rd
Vacationer (feat. Kenny Vasoli of The Starting Line) w/ Sun Parade
$15/All Ages/Doors 7pm
Space Ballroom – Hamden
INFO: The third full-length from Vacationer, Mindset is built on delicate melodies and crystalline rhythms that seem to alter the very texture of the world around you. Ornately composed but breezy in energy, Vacationer’s warm-hearted dream-pop perfectly mirrors frontman Ken Vasoli’s intentions in making the album. “The objective was to write songs that remind me how my brain needs to operate for my own wellbeing and happiness,” Vasoli says. “That’s where the title comes from—the record’s filled with all these reminders that put me in a good mindset for the day.”
Despite its often-euphoric effect, Mindset began in frustration for Vasoli. After countless false starts on the follow-up to 2014’s Relief, the Philadelphia-based musician decided to completely upend his creative approach. While Vacationer’s previous albums came to life in close collaboration with fellow members Matthew Young and Grant Wheeler, Vasoli shifted his focus from songwriting to production and worked entirely on his own for months on end. During that time, he immersed himself in exploring the nuances of Ableton and analyzing the construction of beloved albums by artists like the Beach Boys, Barry White, and Curtis Mayfield.
“Those albums feel like the magic moments that I’m always chasing after in my own music,” says Vasoli, who co-founded Vacationer in 2010. “It’s such an unbelievable display of production and composition happening at the same time, and it inspired me to keep that integrity of ’60s and ’70s record-making while using the technology that I’d been studying.”
With his love for making music reignited, Vasoli locked in his vision for Mindset upon penning a song called “Entrance”: a lush and luminous track that opens the album with swirling harp arpeggios and shimmering synth. On “Magnetism,” Vacationer maintains that dreamy mood and reveals the band’s newly embraced experimental sensibilities with its gently dizzying arrangement. Described by Vasoli as “a love record in every sense of the word,” Mindset also delivers a valentine to his dog Waldo with “Strawberry Blonde,” an uptempo serenade infused with sweetly guileless storytelling. And on the sublimely hazy “Being Here,” Vacationer matches flashes of psychedelia with softly instructive lyrics capturing the message at the heart of the album (“Seeing the trees for the leaves/And all the grass for the weeds/Going to sleep for the dreams”).
When it came time to sculpt Mindset’s elaborate yet unfussy soundscape, Vacationer paired up with producer Daniel Schlett (selected for his ambitious and masterful work on Ghostface Killah’s 36 Seasons). “I was talking to Daniel about that Ghostface record and how I couldn’t believe there were no samples on it, and he just looked me and said, ‘Oh—you wanna use the studio as an MPC,’” recalls Vasoli, referring to MPCs as “the classic stand-alone sampler and gold standard in beat-making.” Working at Schlett’s Brooklyn studio Strange Weather, Vacationer enlisted a cadre of world-class musicians to offer their interpretations of Vasoli’s demos. “I can only imagine how it felt for Brian Wilson to make Pet Sounds, and I’m not comparing the experiences at all, but I got a taste for what it’s like to see your ideas played out by people with some amazing abilities,” Vasoli says. Once they’d completed those recordings, Vasoli and Schlett assembled the album by merging elements of the live performances with the electronically crafted material from Vasoli’s home studio. “We dismantled everything, then chose what we wanted to use from different sessions,” says Vasoli. “We had a total blast sampling the players, sampling ourselves, and deciding what to leave raw.”
At the end of the years-long process of creating Mindset, Vasoli found himself more self-assured in his artistry. “I used to always feel like I was in over my head, but now I feel so much more empowered to take my ideas and get them down on tape in a way that’s true to what I hear in my mind,” he says. Not only key in shaping the album’s distinct and elegant sound, that sense of self-possession ultimately reflects the essence of Mindset. “A lot of this record is about experiencing things as they happen, and not giving into the pressure of anxiety and depression—especially since those things are so easy to creep up on you,” says Vasoli. “That was a big struggle for me to get out of in the early stages of this album, but then the music I was working on ended up being my solution. My hope is that it works the same way for anyone who hears it.”
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://ticketf.ly/2zaRkiK
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENTS
Saturday, March 23rd
José Gonzálzes & The String Theory
$35-$40/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Performances by Jose Gonzalez of his two decade long repertoire with an orchestra.
The performances included stirringly original renditions of songs originally found on González’s three celebrated solo albums: 2003’s breakthrough debut VENEER, 2007’s IN OUR NATURE, and 2015’s VESTIGES & CLAWS.
Founded in 2007, The String Theory is a Berlin and Gothenburg-based artist collective, think tank, and experimental chamber orchestra that explores the outskirts of contemporary classical music, electro, noise, Neue Musikm and pop by means of workshops, studio recordings, and live performances. In addition their collaboration with González, The String Theory have formed artistic co-operations with a stunning range of musicians and artists, among them include Einstürzende Neubauten, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, El Perro Del Mar, Tocotronic, Dieter Meier (Yello), Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Tindersticks, and many others.
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 1/18 @ 10AM: https://ticketf.ly/2ssyUX2
Thursday, May 9th
Turnover w/ Turnstile, Reptaliens
$23-$27/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Front man Austin Getz doesn’t blink when asked to sum up Turnover’s third full-length, Good Nature.“Learning,” he replies. “This whole record is about learning. Opening your eyes to new things, going out-side of your comfort zone, and learning to grow into something new.”The album’s unique blend of musical and spiritual growth is immediately audible on the opening track, “Super Natural,” a late-summer idyll of intertwined guitar parts and laidback vocals. Listening to how the leisurely “Nightlight Girl” melts into a more propulsive selection like “Breeze,” and the way Good Nature flows together as a seamless whole, it’s also evident that the foursome has been paying closer attention to how artists from earlier eras made full-length albums: the range of textures, tempos, and dynamics on Good Nature are influenced in part by bossa nova, cool jazz, electronic music, and psychedelic grooves. This influx of new influences and inspiration, navigated by Peripheral Vision producer Will Yip, results in the band’s best album to date. Good Nature comes from a place of calm and contentment, nurtured by looking inward.
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 1/18 @ 10AM: https://ticketf.ly/2LIJZvI
Tuesday, May 14th
Meat Puppets w/ Sumo Princess, Stephen Maglio
$20/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
Space Ballroom – Hamden
INFO: The Meat Puppets’ story begins with idle time spent in the wide-open spaces of the Phoenix area during the early 1980s. Friendly high school acquaintances, Bostrom and Curt Kirkwood were in the dawn of their twenties, unemployed and “starting to hang out because we were the only guys home,” the drummer recalled with a laugh. “Cris was going to school at the time, so we would lay around waiting for him to get out, and then he would join us as a trio. We began to make such a hellacious racket that we knew we were on to something.”
The collective influences in play ran the gamut—classic rock, British prog, the Dead, Zappa, Beefheart, fusion, the jazz avant-garde and, of course, punk rock, which had enjoyed a tight knit but robust scene in Phoenix since the mid-to-late ’70s. But the fascinating take on hardcore that can be heard on Meat Puppets, the band’s 1982 SST debut, had more to do with punk rock’s ethos of creative freedom (and Arizona’s psychedelic history) than with any calculated musical strategy. “Curt was trying to play in straight bands and getting kicked out,” Bostrom recalled. “I told him, ‘No—in this day and age you can be anything you need to be, and this band is going to support your weirdness.”
Throughout the ’80s, the Meat Puppets found a crucial advocate in SST. Founded by Black Flag’s Greg Ginn, the trailblazing indie label emboldened the trio to follow their whims from one artistically brazen record to the next, and spearheaded a national touring network that gave them hard-earned exposure. Still, the hardcore kids devoted to the likes of Flag didn’t always take kindly to three longhairs whose punk was infused with Neil Young. “I got spit on so much,” Curt said. “I would get spit in my open eyeball and come offstage with loogies dripping off the guitar. It was hideous.”
But the band persevered, and by the late ’80s a dependable legion of Meatheads had accrued. “It was the attrition of the naysayers going away,” Curt recalled, “and not bothering to come and waste their money and waste our time.” But the same nonstop cycle of touring and recording that allowed the band to gather their following was also threatening to burn it out. “We were trying to do this to make a living,” Bostrom said, “so we were definitely interested in new opportunities.”
Major labels had begun to pluck the best of what was then called college rock, but the Meat Puppets weren’t the easiest sell. “We were not punk enough, and we were too punk,” Bostrom said. Eventually a deal was struck with London, and the Meat Puppets’ second album for the label, Too High to Die, became a gold record with a breakout single, “Backwater.”
During the fall prior to that album’s January ’94 release, essential groundwork was laid. Nirvana, touring in support of In Utero, asked the band to open some shows in October. A couple of nights into the stint, Kurt Cobain told Kirkwood that Nirvana was taping an MTV Unplugged soon, and that he needed the brothers to guest at the performance in New York. “He said he couldn’t play the guitar parts,” Kirkwood said with a chuckle. And so “Lake of Fire” and “Plateau,” two of Cobain’s favorite tunes off of one of his favorite albums, Meat Puppets II, became staples of MTV when the network was still a taste-making behemoth. As Kirkwood saw it, his songs were being interpreted by a once-in-a-generation talent. “That’s a special voice,” he said. “That’s like a George Jones voice, somebody that’s immediately recognizable. A Neil Young voice.” A quarter-century later, the Nirvana association continues to be a catalyst for fandom. “It’s been the most constant vein that draws people in,” Kirkwood said.
Despite such achievement, the Meat Puppets hit a wall not much later. No Joke!, the follow-up to Too High, was strong, but lightning didn’t strike twice. The majors were quickly losing interest in the indie scene they’d been exploiting, Cris’ drug use had become a dire problem, and Bostrom was at a crossroads. “I needed to get a life,” he said. “I’d been on the road for 15 years.” Post-Nirvana sales and royalties had given everyone some savings, so we could afford to part ways.
Kirkwood and Bostrom remained on good terms. A computer enthusiast who built a thriving career in information technology, Bostrom became the band’s webmaster and oversaw their ambitious Rykodisc reissue campaign in 1999. By the time Kirkwood assembled a new Meat Puppets lineup for 2000’s Golden Lies, Bostrom was happily settled into his work and family life. Cris, once again happy and healthy, and Curt reunited for 2007’s Rise to Your Knees and three well-received subsequent albums. The Meat Puppets continued to grow and impress as a live act, though the set lists mostly acknowledged albums such as Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun, which had long been recognized as landmarks of alternative music.
Meatheads should go ahead and add Dusty Notes to the canon, on record and onstage. “When we had it pretty much done,” Curt Kirkwood recalled, “Derrick said, ‘You know what people are gonna do after they listen to this? Listen to it again.’”
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://ticketf.ly/2LpXznQ
Saturday, May 18th
JOHNNYSWIM
$28-$30/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Much like families, bands go through it all together.
As a unit, they face life’s ups, downs, highs, lows, trials, tribula ons, tragedies, triumphs, and everything in between. They change, learn, and grow as one. However, Los Angeles band JOHNNYSWIM doesn’t just seem like a family; it is a family. At the core, husband-and-wife—Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano— translate the memories, moments, and milestones on their journey into spirited, slick, and soulful anthems steeped in singer-songwriter tradi on, yet amplified by alterna ve experimenta on, rock energy, and pop ambi on.
The music moves as the couple’s life does, scrapbooking unforgettable experiences in melody like an eternal keepsake of their relationship.
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 1/18 @ 10AM: https://ticketf.ly/2Ma3MVf
Wednesday, June 19th
The Milk Carton Kids
$35-$45/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Waltzing into disaster and its aftermath, The Milk Carton Kids’ “All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do” arrives from ANTI- Records on June 29.
The new project marks the first time that acoustic duo Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale have brought a band into the studio with them. “We wanted to do something new,” Pattengale says. “We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we’d been before. There arose some sort of need for change.”
“Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a bigger sonic palette,” says Ryan. “It was liberating to know we wouldn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars.”
Since their last studio album, “Monterey” (ANTI- 2015), life has changed dramatically for The Milk Carton Kids. Pattengale has moved to, and is now producing records in Nashville. Ryan is now the father of two children and works as a producer on “Live from Here with Chris Thile,” the reboot of “A Prairie Home Companion.” A break from years of non-stop touring, Ryan says, has yielded “space outside of the band that gives us perspective on what the band is.”
But it’s not just the addition of the band here that creates something new. National politics left Ryan feeling disoriented and mournful. Pattengale’s relationship of seven years ended, and he found himself unexpectedly needing surgery for cancer. (He is cancer-free now, and accidentally broke his cigarette habit in the process.)
Though they didn’t approach the new album conceptually, a theme of shattered realities began to emerge out of the songs that sparked to life. Recent events provided a bruising background for the record, yet the project is somehow bigger than any personal grief. Two-part harmonies ride acoustic guitars high above the haunting landscape created by the presence of the band, as if Americana went searching for a lost America.
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 1/18 @ 10AM: https://ticketf.ly/2st3EY2
Tuesday, August 20th
Hot Tuna, Dave Mason
$39.50-$75/All Ages/Doors at 7:00PM
College Street Music Hall – New Haven
INFO: Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, perform with a well-honed and solid power – always in the groove from their years of experience and mutual inspiration. Started as a side project during Jefferson Airplane days, the constant, the very definition of Hot Tuna, has always been Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The two boyhood pals have never wavered in one of the most enduring friendships in Rock history.
From their days playing together as teenagers in the Washington, DC area, through years of inventive Psylodelic rock in San Francisco (1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees), to their current acoustic and electric blues sound, no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna. At the 2016 Grammys, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards.
“Jorma Kaukonen is a force in American music, equally adept at fingerpicked acoustic folk and blues as he is at wailing on an electric.” – Acoustic Guitar
Guitarist and vocalist, Jorma Kaukonen is a highly respected interpreter of roots music, blues, Americana, and popular rock-and-roll. Jorma’s repertoire goes far beyond psychedelic rock; he is a music legend and one of the finest singer-songwriters in music. Jorma tours the world bringing his unique styling to old blues while writing new songs of weight and dimension.
“Jack Casady is virtually unparalleled–and yet he has one of the most truly unique electric-bass voices in rock…he can melt into a supportive role but when opportunity knocks, he bursts forth with creative lines–both simple and ornate–that are unlike any you’ve heard” – Premier Guitar
One of the most unique innovators in the sixty-year history of the bass guitar, Jack Casady made his sweeping melodic mark helping to create the “San Francisco Sound” with legendary rock group Jefferson Airplane. Jack went on to track with Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Warren Zevon, members of the Grateful Dead, John Lee Hooker, and Gov’t Mule. Casady, regarded as one of rock’s greatest bassists, is certainly one of its most original.
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 1/18 @ 10AM: https://ticketf.ly/2M9pF7b
**Tickets are available for all these shows in the shop (cash only for ticket sales) without the online fees. **