What’s NOT Cancelled This Saturday: Anna Dagmar, Anothony da Costa and Caitlin Canty at First Acoustics

Red Molly at First Acoustics most recent show, the Saturday before superstorm Sandy arrived

Superstorm Hurricane Sandy changed around plans for a lot of people and it’s got to be acknowledged that for those most affected things won’t be the same again and such recoveries as may still be in store could be a long way off.

One way in which things changed for many, although much less drastically, is that music performances touted by Noticing New York as alternatives for those eschewing the Ratner/Prokhorov-owned “Barclays” Center were cancelled.

Coco Wilde, who runs First Acoustics cancelled the Saturday, November 3, 2012 evening performances of Suzie Vinnick appearing that night with Friction Farm.  (In terms of time frame, that Saturday night was the evening preceding the marathon that the Bloomberg administration belatedly cancelled.)  So, although I had promised this as one Saturday night’ alternative to Barclays fare it didn’t happen.  I don’t know if it was any more irksome for those determined to go out and entertain themselves in that week following the storm that although Coco cancelled the First Acoustics night, the Barclays Center was open for a basketball game that night.  During the recovery fray, the city and MTA mobilized special bus service in support of the event at the 18,000 seat arena.  If you remember, the subways weren’t coming to Brooklyn.

Coco says that Suzie Vinnick and Friction Farm will now perform in next year's 2013/2014 season.  She says those with tickets for the cancelled night can use them for the next season performance, use them instead for (or bring friends to) another concert this season, or she will refund them.

Another event that didn’t happen was Shepley Metcalf’s Thursday, November 1st performance at the Metropolitan Room singing the songs of Laura Nyro.  Lower Manhattan was still without electricity at that point and that meant the Metropolitan Room on 22nd Street just west of the Flatiron building was dark and closed.  And it would have been quite difficult for us Brooklynites to get to anyway without subways and no special supporting bus service for the establishment supplied by the city and the MTA.

Shepley Metcalf at the Metropolitan Room on the 10th

I can report, however, that nine days later with power restored to lower Manhattan together with much of the subway service linking Brooklyn to Manhattan, Shepley did make her second scheduled performance at the Metropolitan Room.  The place was packed.

I can also advise you that this Saturday’s First Accoutics evening featuring Anna Dagmar, Anothony da Costa and Caitlin Canty is going ahead as planned.

Metropolitan Room coming attraction for Pia Zadora

First, to bring you up to date, Shepley’s performance was ultimately wonderful and whereas in looking forward to it I wrote about Barbra Streisand’s period of covering Laura Nyro songs, in her show Shepley mentioned that too and unveiled a curious little surprise in that regard: She invited everyone in the audience for a visit downstairs following her performance so that she could prove she had pictures of a young Streisand attending her father’s wedding to her step-mother.  (Noticing New York has been paying special attention to Streisand recently given the questionable lapses associated with her performance at the “Barclays” Center so this extra coincidental connection to our cousin Shepley is interesting.)

I couldn’t help noticing, while at the Metropolitan Room, that they had posters up for upcoming performances by Pia Zadora.  I don’t know what others in the world who don’t have the associations with Ms. Zadora that I do think of her.  There’s an ample variety of reasons people are apt to think a lot about Ms. Zadora, starting with the fact that she famously starred as the Martian Princess in the 1964 film  “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”  My associations involve a fun-to-tell story (but I won’t tell it here) story that involves my good friend from high school, Randy Morrison going back to when Pia was performing in “Henry, Sweet Henry,” the Broadway musical adaption of the “The World of Henry Orient” with Don Ameche.  Pia does a wonderful version of “I Thought About You,” one of our favorite songs, a song that claimed our attention mightily when it ws performed as a duet by Cynthia Holiday and Jim Malloy, backed by the Bob Cunningham trio, at First Acoustics.

You may want to know that the most recently held First Acoustics performance, held the Saturday before that odd Sunday the subways were closed in anticipation of the pending storm, went spectacularly.  The women of Red Molly, called back repeatedly by applause, found themselves confessing that they had run out of encores, and had to improvise.  Penultimately, they sang our entrancing favorite, an a capella version of Susan Werner's "May I Suggest."  And they finished up- I recall the suggestion came form the audience-  with "Fever."

Abbie Gardner after Red Molly's performance

Afterwards, I was able to confirm by talking to Red Molly’s Abbie Gardner that her, separate-from-the-group “My Craziest Dream” performance was going to involve backup support from her musician, song-writing father.  I don’t know if it actually happened since that event was scheduled for November 3rd in Dobbs Ferry and Westchester, as we know, was also exceedingly challenged by power problems.  It’s a performance I someday want to catch.

I knew I was going to love seeing Red Molly at First Acoustics a second time and since I last saw them they have been very busy writing dulcetly superb new songs.  The extraordinary pleasure I hadn’t experienced before was seeing the energetic Union Street Preservation Society.  Their music went straight into my preferred playlist afterward and I told Coco she has to plan on having them back again, sooner rather than later.  I told her she had to because, as extraordinarily good as they were that Saturday night, I argued we were only getting 80% of what they were capable of: They are regularly a five member (sometimes more!) band and one of their number had taken off that night because his wife just had a new baby.  If they are this joyously good at 80%, I said, think what they will do at 100%.

Union Street Preservation Society at First Acoustics the Saturday before the subways were shut down

It turns out that Union Street Preservation Society has a background performing at Freddy's, the local bar and music venue that was razed along with a lot else to make way for the "Barclays" Center.  They performed there not long before it was closed and they have now been performing at the new, reincarnated Freddy's farther out in Brooklyn the third Friday of every month.  Union Street Preservation Society guitarist David Leiberman also recommends an upcoming integrated performance they will be doing with Andy Statmen and his trio at Barbès in Red Hook, January 17, 2013.  Red Hook was hard hit by the storm and Barbès soon hosted benefit concerts for storm relief.

I think that Mr. Leiberman, who was front and center much of that First Acoustics night, was taken, when I talked with him after USPS's performance, with my idea that any musicians deigning to perform at the highly subsidized "Barclays" Center should kick back their subsidy so that we can reduce by maybe $20 per, the cost of tickets to real local music entertainment in Brooklyn.

What to expect this Saturday night?  You could just let yourself be in for a surprise. .  That’s a fabulous way to approach the Saturday nights of life. . .

I have not yet heard any of the three acts performing Saturday night but the beauty of the internet is such that its connectivity makes it so easy to peek and guess about what the future might hold.

Here's video of Anna Dagmar . . . would you say there’s a classically yearning relentlessness to the rhythms?  Like an old Irish or English folk song?  Coco assures me that on Saturday Dagmar, a pianist, IS bringing a classical quartet to back her up.




And here is a video for Anothony da Costa . . .  Quiet, exact,  rolling guitar picks and wistful remorse?





Lastly, not leastly, we have video of a Caitlin Canty ballad, one of four videos up her website. . . This is slow and pretty; she also has video of faster music.



Hope to see you at the concert in Brooklyn Heights Saturday.  More information about First Acoustics and the rest of this season’s performances is available and linked to in this article: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, Alternatives To The Scandalously Spawned, Scandalously Named Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center: Protest & Locally Nurtured Concerts.

More Alternatives As You Shun The LIBOR Scandal Center: Shepley Metcalf Singing Laura Nyro At Metropolitan Room & Reminder on Red Molly

Planning on shunning the Barclays (LIBOR scandal) Ratner/Prokhorov arena?  Here are some alternatives if you are interested in good music.

This Saturday Evening: Hot Ticket of Red Molly and Union Preservation Society

Let me put this reminder first since I couldn’t fit all the bounty in this post’s title: Red Molly and the Union Preservation Society are performing at First Acoustics this Saturday, October 27, 2012, at 8:00 PM.  I suggest both getting tickets in advance and arriving early as this is an especially hot ticket.  (First Unitarian Congregation at the corner of Pierrepont and Monroe Streets in Brooklyn Heights)

Red Molly at First Acoustics Concert March 19, 2011

I I rank the perfect blending harmonies of Red Molly extraordinarily high as an experience, having seen them at a previous First Acoustics evening.

I wrote about them and songs they perform like May I Suggest” (by Susan Warner) together with more about the offerings this First Acoustics season here: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, Alternatives To The Scandalously Spawned, Scandalously Named Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center: Protest & Locally Nurtured Concerts.

Red Molly's Abbie Gardner Above with Pat Pictor: They sing a duet Wictor wrote,  “A Little Love Is Gonna Do”

I also have my eye on Red Molly’s Abbie Gardner.  In the above post I wrote about her “My Craziest Dream” album of American Songbook music, with her father providing some backup and performing his own “Staten Island” composition.  I see that Gardner, in her own right, has another Unitarian-hosted “swing dance” coffee house appearance (“Common Ground” Community Concerts- Get it?) with the “The Craziest Dream Band” up in Dobbs Ferry, New York coming up on November 3rd.  (South Presbyterian Church, 343 Broadway, Dobbs Ferry NY)  I wonder what pleasures are in store and if her father will be there backing her up?

The multi-membered Union Preservation Society opening Saturday night for Red Molly sound like they can provide some really raucous fun but they also have a sweet, simple Shaker song demonstrating their wares on their website.
 
First Acoustics Concert: Buskin & Batteau and Freebo

Freebo at First Acoustics earlier this month with Buskin and Batteau joining him on stage

The previous First Acoustics concert, the beginning of the month was  Buskin & Batteau and Freebo.  Freebo is fantastic at relating to the audience and I liked the fact that he also ventured to talk politics- politics I took a shine to.  Still when I talked with him during the intermission he said he was quite conscious about how the core to his work is a message of inclusion.

Marshall in background backing up Buskin & Batteau

Buskin & Batteau go way back with a solid reputation so I don’t need to burnish it more. . .

. . .  I found myself fascinated watching percussionist Marshall Rosenberg backing them up, mostly playing the drums with his hands, occasionally brushes.  What was most fascinating is not what Marshall played- it was what he didn’t play.  He had all sorts of minimal effects and was prone to use them minimally.  I talked with him afterward and he said he was incredibly mindful of the importance of the “spaces” in the music.  Watching him involved almost Hitchcockian suspense: You could see Marshall’s eyebrow rise. . . you could feel something was coming. . . whenever it came it would be perfect . . . what would the perfectly-picked punctuation be?. . . in his intent look you knew he knew exactly . .  and then Gloriosky!  Something so minimal and just right!  

Shepley Metcalf Performing Laura Nyro Songs at Metropolitan Room

Cousin Shepley Metcalf will be back again at the Metropolitan Room, this time performing the songs of Laura Nyro.   She’ll be there Thursday, Nov. 1st at 7 pm and Saturday, Nov.10th at 9:30 pm.   When Shepley was last at the Metropolitan Room she was interpreting the songs of Fran Landesman (which you can read about here)

Nyro is an influential  '60s songwriter performer, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who died in 1997.  Shepley’s usual  repertoire is American Songbook so this is considered something of a departure for her though Nyro “fuses elements of soul, folk, jazz and Broadway tradition” to create the Nyro sound that has a lot in common with the songs of the Songbook.  In her last semi-detour from the Songbook Shepley called attention to Fran Landesman as a songwriter.  Landesman wrote one jazz standard,  “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most,” considered to be part of the Songbook.  Her other songs unveiled relatively recently with music composed by Simon Wallace provide numerous candidates for addition.  (Her songs started as poems.)

Nyro songs included in Shepley’s new “Can You Surry?” set include “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Eli's Coming,” “And When I Die,” and “Billy's Blues,” “Emmie,” “Luckie,” and “I Never Meant to Hurt You.”

Since the subject of Barbra Streisand may be on the minds of people shunning the “Barclay’s” arena environment, we might note that Streisand, a Nyro fan, covered Nyro’s above mentioned, “I Never Meant to Hurt You.”  Streisand also famously covered Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End,” even giving her twelfth album the name of that song which album also has Nyro’s “Time and Love” and “Hands Off the Man (Flim Flam Man)”.

Below is a video teaser for Shepley's upcoming Nyro song gig at the Metropolitan Room.



Tickets are now ready for purchase from the Metropolitan Room by calling ( 212-206-0440) or visiting the web.

Shunning "Barclays"

So those are some of the current bounty of alternative choices for those participating in my suggested seven year shunning of the so-called “Barclays” Center.  (If you need to catch up: I am suggesting the Ratner/Prokhorov arena be shunned and that both patrons and performers eschew going there for at least seven years- or until the arena goes bankrupt so that ownership gets taken back and given to the public.)

You don't have to shun the "Barclays" Center: You can also enjoy the above performances as I suggest even if you don’t participate in the shunning.  (And I can’t swear that any of the performers mentioned and promoted here have taken an oath to avoid the arena- though maybe they will.)

If you are one of those deciding to patronize the arena and decide to also come to any of these performances you will probably realize that, with them, you are getting far better value and a much more intimate venue.  If nothing else the water is vastly cheaper than $4.50 water bottles they are selling at the arena.  The water at First Acoustics, like the water at Freddy’s Bar (a local music venue the arena displaced through eminent domain abuse) is free.  I haven’t checked but New York water is likely also free at the Metropolitan Room.

The tickets at the Barclays (and all the other associated charges- whether or not you expect them) are expensive, expensive enough so that you may feel fooled and foolish paying them. . .  But the thing to remember is that with all the public subsidy that Ratner and Prokhorov are pocketing and the harm they have caused the community, every ticket the arena sells actually costs a lot more.

That is why I am asking that Barbra Streisand write a $700,000 check to compensate the public for all the subsides that went to Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov for her two concerts at the arena.  We may applaud Ms. Streisand for her political support of President Obama but what would really do the most to  make the world a better place would be meaningful acts on everyone’s part, including Ms. Streisand’s,  to forestall a world where as Mr. Obama tells us the “economy grows slower” because “a few folks are doing very well at the top [like Ratner and Prokhorov] and everybody else is getting squeezed. [Like the residents of the neighborhood evicted by them and the taxpayers subsidizing them] ”

The fact of the matter is that not everyone has to shun the arena in order for it to fail: Lots of people can go to it, lots of performers can decide to perform there, putting subsidy in the Ratner/Prokhorov pockets.  But profits are made at the margin.  All it takes is for a reasonable percentage of possible patrons and quality performers to shun the arena for what it is and represents, and it can go down in a well-deserved spiral of decline.