Long Island's music community steps up to help out after Sandy

Rather than sitting here just thinking about how great it's been to see so many of Long Island's bands and solo artists stepping up to the plate with numerous benefit concerts and charitable activities aimed at helping those on Long Island who were the most severely affected by the onslaught of Sandy (residents of the devasted Barrier Islands from the areas of Atlantic Beach, Lido Beach, and Long Beach, and points East to Lindenhurst, Massapequa, and so many other places) I would put it out there in words ...

What I see happening throughout Long Island's music community is a common instinct to work together and help others in their times of need: By addressing this serious issue through the numerous benefit concerts and charitable activities already mentioned, Long Island's music community is comprised of true community leaders.

The efforts of artist extraordinaire Ed Ryan and his wife Rain are one shining example, the upcoming concerts headlined by Taking Back Sunday with supporting band Bayside are yet another ... and if I were to list the others I've learned about thus far, I'd be going on for quite a while. That, esteemed reader, I leave up to your curiosity and interest.

Bravo to all involved!!

-Roy Abrams
 Long Island, NY

Mayve -- Doing Everything Right: Live at Club Revolution/Rick's Rising Stars Showcase -- August 29, 2012

Taking the stage for their short but fiery 5-song set, the four musicians better known as Mayve proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they are poised to climb the next rung in the proverbial ladder of success. Their well-crafted songs are instrumentally and vocally arranged in a manner that highlights the individual strengths of each band member while merging to form a sound that they can truly claim as their own. This, in itself, is an all-too rare achievement these days, given all of the … ahem …. creatively challenged groups of hacks somehow finding their way onto radio airwaves that were, at one time, reserved for real musicians. “Wait just a f***ing minute!” you might cry out. “What do you define as “creatively challenged” or “real musicians”??” “Well,” I might respond, “you could have tuned into virtually any radio station years ago and heard artists who actually stood out from each other – and while they may have certainly been influenced by each other, they never stooped to the levels of near-apelike mimicry that seems to be the norm among music aimed towards younger listeners … the so-called "core market” of the recording industry.
 
Anyway, I digress … where was I? Oh … Mayve. The rhythm section of bassist Mike Gusman and drummer Vinny Nuzzi are one of the tightest I've heard in a long while, providing a solid launching pad from which lead guitarist James Smith and vocalist/guitarist Nick Micheline are able to take flight. Smith uses his guitar effects to create an almost symphonic layering of melody upon intricate chordal voicings, while Micheline's lean, propulsive rhythm guitar hovers just underneath a tenor voice that wraps itself effortlessly around the lyrics' melody.

Speaking with bassist Mike Gusman after the set, I learned that the band is relatively fresh out of the gate, having formed in February 2012. Gusman is the most recent addition, having joined the band in May. Given what I had just witnessed onstage, I asked Mike to explain how the band was able to get itself to that level of performance. The answer? Practicing two nights a week for four straight hours. These musicians know how to use their time productively!

Just take it from someone who was fortunate enough to have been exposed to a great number of real musicians who were creatively blessed during my years involved with Long Island’s original music scene: Mayve is the real thing on Long island today. Combining songs that actually make you want to listen with a compelling live performance that defines the band as professionals, Mayve offers an alternative to the glut of sound-alike bands heard all too frequently on the radio these days. With their combination of innate talent and an outstanding work ethic, Mayve is doing everything right. My prediction? If they continue on this path, commercial success will surely find them. Find out more about Mayve at www.facebook.com/mayvemusic

Mayve onstage at Club Revolution, 8/29/12

(photo by Eric Gordon)

 

Mayve in conversation: The Rising Stars Interview, 8/29/12

(L-R): Vinny Nuzzi, drums; Nick Micheline, vocals, guitar;

Mike Gusman, bass; James Smith, guitar

 (photo by Eric Gordon)

 

 

 

 

Joel Rafael in Conversation: The Living Room, NYC, June 19, 2012

"Be a good listener because the story is happening all around you."
-- Joel Rafael

On a beautiful late spring evening in NYC, I was lucky enough to find a parking spot on the street in the Village, and made it down to the Living Room for the 2012 Folk Alliance New Music Showcase, featuring a spellbinding live set from California-based singer/songwriter Joel Rafael performing songs from his newest album, America Come Home (with a surprise walk-on by Graham Nash). I had a chance to speak with Joel outside the venue after his performance. Read on and enjoy!

Q. That was a great set!

A. Thanks, man.

Q. How did you get involved with Folk Alliance?

A. It was something I had heard about from some other people who play music; in L.A., actually. It must have been in ’97 or 96 for the first time that I took my band out there – it was in Canada that year. They moved from year to year. At a certain point, things were really changing in Folk Alliance. On the Board, at least five people sort of got up and left because they didn’t like what was happening; the executive direction was changing; Louis [Meyers] took over as Executive Director, and I threw my hat into the ring … I got elected by the skin of my teeth but I’ve been on [the Board] for two terms now.

Q.  I was reading your bio on your website – 1978 seems to have been a pivotal year for you. What happened?

A. I had been doing stuff prior to that but ’78 was when I started approaching recording seriously. There wasn’t the kind of potential to be able to do that on your own, like there is now. But I was able to raise some money and I recorded a couple of songs. I researched where you could get a record pressed; there weren’t the templates for the artwork and all that stuff. Initially I put out a single, and then in 1980 I put out an album with a friend of mine. Actually, a couple of the songs off that album are on my new album because {the older] album had no distribution. It was really an experiment. There’s some good stuff on it, and I just felt like well, maybe I’ll put some of the songs on the new record, try to  get a little bit more exposure, get a few more ears.

Q. I’ve been listening to the new album (America Come Home) and I love it; it’s instantly familiar, comfortable, and real. You probably hear that all the time.

A. No, I don’t hear that all the time. It’s a great compliment, and I appreciate it! [Laughs].

Q. I’m hearing a cool mix of sounds in there … the Byrds; a lot of Guthrie; certainly Dylan; Tom Petty. I was telling Michael [Jensen, CEO of Jensen Communications] that the fabric of your music is woven by a master hand who knows how to put it together.

A. Well, that’s very kind, I appreciate that. You know, in the music business, you kind of have to have a gimmick. My gimmick has always been that there’s no gimmick. What you see is what you get. It’s all about the songs, and so … but it’s been really rewarding because my career has been fairly long, actually, and at this point, I’ve been able to travel on the songs and go to places like Italy and Spain, and find that there’s people there that have actually heard my songs already; it’s pretty cool. Music actually travels pretty far!

Q. America Come Home is your fourth release on Jackson Browne’s independent label, Inside Recordings?

A. It’s the fourth physical CD release; actually it’s the fifth CD release – two CDs are in the Woody Guthrie set. There’s two original records already out on the label, and there’s two albums in Songs for Woody Guthrie – Volumes One and Two.  The new one is the fifth album to come out: America Come Home [released July 17].

Q. How did you cross paths with Jackson Browne?

A. Jackson is somebody who I got onto early in his career. It’s kind of ironic that we’re working together in terms of me being on his label. It’s really awesome that he extended the invitation. You know, for someone like me to have distribution is a major thing. I’ve been following him since the very beginning; one of my kids is named after a song on his first record – “Jamaica Say You Will.” Over the years, I’ve met Jackson a number of times and eventually we started to get to know each other and he heard some of my stuff, some of which was being recorded at his studio at the time, and he invited me onto the label.

Q. How did the connection form between you, David Crosby, and Graham Nash?

A. A few years back, ultimately I ended up on the same management roster as Jackson, and then a few years back, Graham Nash’s manager [Gerry Tolman] was killed in a car crash. Within a year or so after that, he came over to the same management roster as me, and so I met Graham a couple of times; it gave me an opportunity to meet Graham and David and one day they heard some of my music. They really just kind of volunteered to sing on my stuff. It was on the Thirteen Stories High album on a song called “This Is My Country” and then after they sang on it, Crosby, Stills and Nash were out on tour [2008], and Graham started coming out after the intermission and doing that song. It was a really good antiwar anthem. This was just before the last presidential election so it was really cool for me. All of a sudden I had people calling me from Chicago and Texas and saying, “Hey, I just went to see Crosby, Stills and Nash and they played your song!”  I hadn’t even heard it yet; a few months after that they were back in California and I was at one of the shows and they actually invited me up to do my song with them. That opened up the door to be able to sing with them a little bit more, and then when this new album was coming out they both just approached me and said, "Hey, do you want us to sing on something? Just let me know!” And I said, “The title track would be awesome … "and they were glad to do it. I was quite honored for them to be a part of it.

Q. From a songwriter’s perspective, how do you view a lot of what’s being played on the radio from the major labels?

A. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the major labels. To tell you the truth, when people ask me what I listen to, I’m almost embarrassed but I gotta be honest: I don’t really listen to much. I’m pretty involved in making music. There’s a lot of music I like; don’t get me wrong. I don’t really listen to the radio much. They always say that songwriters should listen to the radio and try and pick up on what’s going on. In terms of what’s being done these days, I think there’s some great stuff out there. There’s a lot more in the pipeline now than there used to be because the music business has kind of turned into the record business. The indies are picking up the slack and bringing it back to the music business. I’m pretty active in Folk Alliance International; I go their conference every year; I’ve been on the Board of Directors for a couple of terms and so I get a pretty good feel for what’s coming in to the folk community. The folk community is alive and well. It’s cross-generational. We had a lot of young kids coming up. That first band that was on earlier, the Stray Birds, they were excellent! They’re from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I hadn’t heard them before but I know they’ll be at our conference and we’ll be showcasing them. John Fulbright is making a lot of waves right now, from Oklahoma; he just got a great review in Billboard. Everywhere he goes people have been really impressed with his songwriting. His new record just came out on an independent label. So there’s a lot of young people who are making great music and they’re not isolating themselves off in their own demographic. They’re mixing it up with the old-timers, the veterans, the people who’ve been doing it for a while, and seeking out the leaders in the field and learning from them. So there’s this great interchange of music going on in the folk community unlike any other genre. Folk music to me is almost anti-genre. You say, what is folk music? To me, it’s about anything that carries the song to the people; it could be in any style. Woody Guthrie, when he got to New York and they started calling him a folksinger, said he’d never heard the phrase “folk singer” or “folk song” until he got to New York. To him, a song was just always a song. It was a good song or it wasn’t a good song. If it's a good song, you keep singing it, and there’s a lot of different ways you can sing it. So that’s what I like about having my feet planted in the folk community even though I think my music kind of rolls over into some other areas: The folk community is my community; it’s cross-generational, you’ve got all ages there; it’s not age or youth-generated so a guy like me can continue to make music and feel comfortable in my community. You’re not pushed out when your hair turns gray.

Q. What words of advice would you have to give – not so much to the seasoned songwriter – but to the ones just starting out and testing their wings?

A. Well, I think the best advice I can give anybody about songwriting in terms of styles … one thing that I learned is that every time I think I know what the formula is to write a good song, eventually I realize the formula is that there is no formula. The other thing I would say is: Be a good listener because the story is happening all around you. Like Woody said, everything in the world is music and the story of the people is the song. So, when you’re talking with people, listen to what they have to say, listen to their story. Seek out the words that come out of their mouth that just sound like lines. Poetry and prose are just all around us all the time. The only other thing I’d say, especially to people coming up that are flooded with influences and stuff, is something that I heard Arlo Guthrie say about Woody, which was to sum up Woody’s philosophy of music and life: It’s better to be a failure at being yourself than to be a success at being somebody else. Don’t try to be somebody that you aren’t; try to figure out what it is that you’ve got to bring to the table and then just work on that. There’s gonna be influences and you’re gonna be influenced by people, and that’s all really good. Emulation is part of the learning process but eventually you come out of that with something that’s your own take on it.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT JOEL RAFAEL HERE

-Roy Abrams

 Long Island, New York

Jumpstart Tomorrow/Rick Eberle's Rising Stars/Club Revolution/June 27, 2012

For this writer, stepping into Club Revolution in Amityville on a recent Wednesday night was like stepping back in time. It had been a full decade since checking out what was happening on Long Island's original music scene. Back in the mid-'90s, Long Island was home to a thriving original music scene, virtually bursting at the seams with talent whose depth and scope resulted in a rare achievement: A top-rated radio show (The Island Zone) focused on those very artists and bands whose music drew in listeners from across the New York Metropolitan area. This, in turn, generated enough public interest to spur the venerable record store chain, Sam Goody, to initiate a weekly Saturday afternoon live in-store concert series at its Roosevelt Field location. Store manager Fred Conforti -- a self-confessed wannabe club promoter -- was an integral force in making the concert series a reality, and also championed local artists by devoting an impressive amount of store space to independent CD releases. I vividly remember receiving a phone call from Fred informing me that the aggregate weekly sales from Long Island's original artists had ranked Number Two among its overall report -- which included Billboard's Hot 100 artists. Not only were local independent artists receiving the respect and credibility they deserved through commercial radio and record retail support, there were many live venues where original music was welcomed with open arms. However, despite all the signs of an emerging scene bubbling to the surface, some of the area's largest venues routinely shut their doors to original artists, citing the success of cover bands who were regular performers at their establishments as a reason to maintain the status quo.

One young artist had become a keen student of the support structure that had been built around local independent artists and refused to take "no" for an answer from the owners and managers of those larger venues. Rick Eberle, vocalist/guitarist/songwriter for the band Iridesense, formed a coalition with two other area bands -- This Island Earth and Early Edison -- and approached the management of Mulcahy's in Wantagh with a simple yet brilliant concept: Book a show featuring full sets from all three bands, promoted heavily by all three bands utilizing all available outlets, and produce a major turnout. The triumvirate, called Pop Conspiracy Productions, achieved spectacular success with the concert. Several hundred fans turned out for what proved to be an amazing night of live original music which I will never forget. It was a triumphant achievement for Rick Eberle, whose refusal to take "no" for an answer served as both a role model for others to follow and his personal pathway to a future career.

I initially met Rick while he was still in his teens, performing with Iridesense at the legendary under-the-radar indie hangout, The Raven, back in 1994. Fast forward to 2012: Today, Rick Eberle is an established success in his own right as an artist, businessman and champion of local independent artists. He is hoping that Club Revolution (formerly Ollie's Point) will emerge as a hub of Long Island's original music scene. With Rick's involvement, I have no doubt that Club Revolution may become just that.

On Wednesday, June 27, I had the pleasure of attending an evening of live music dubbed "Rick Eberle's Rising Stars" which featured four local original bands of varying ages and genres. While I give hearty kudos to both The Royal Guard and Two Cent Sam for their solid performances, I was most impressed by the first band on the bill, Jumpstart Tomorrow. This North Babylon-based group consists of Tyler Winn (lead vocals, bass), Brandon Winn (lead guitar), Mike Falsetta (rhythm guitar), and Danny Roller (drums, backing vocals). A particularly impressive aspect of this band lies in its collective youth: The members' ages range from 16 to 18. Citing influences ranging from The Maine, Blink-182, All Time Low, 3rd Eye Blind, and Green Day, Jumpstart Tomorrow's songs are decidedly radio-friendly, and their live performance showcased just how tight these four young musicians are as a band. Drummer Danny Roller struck me as almost Keith Moon-like in his intensity, providing a bedrock of rhythm that was both metronome-perfect and brimming with exuberant energy. Mike Falsetta and Brandon Winn's guitars worked seamlessly together, with Tyler Winn's bass playing serving as the glue to the mix. Speaking with Tyler after the set, I learned that the band's close friendship was viewed by all four members as the core of their existence. My own experience has taught me that this is not only an essential element of being in a band; it is also the key component that allows a band to remain intact.

My personal pick from their live set was "Found You Out" from the band's EP, Can't Get Enough. I checked out several of the songs online and I can safely say that Jumpstart Tomorrow has a great deal of potential for success. They can write hook-laden material which beg for radio airplay, and given where they are today as songwriters, I can only expect greater things to come in the future. In my opinion, "Done With It" is the strongest track on the EP and an obvious choice for a single. The song is a winner both lyrically and musically, and Tyler's vocals -- free from the auto-tune found elsewhere on the EP -- bring the track home. Three suggestions I would make to the band are (1) avoid using auto-tune in the studio -- it's an overused effect and robs the vocals of their character; (2) practice the vocals until you get them where they need to be; and (3) focus on ensuring that the vocal performance is on the same level of consistency as their instrumental performance in a live setting. While the recording studio allows for near-unlimited flexibility in laying down a vocal track, on stage, you only get one shot.

I believe that with more time, practice, and live performance experience, Jumpstart Tomorrow will emerge as a powerful new voice of original music from Long Island. For anyone interested in checking out a promising new band, I highly recommend this one. You can find out more about Jumpstart Tomorrow (and hear some of their songs) at: http://www.reverbnation.com/jumpstarttomorrow.

-Roy Abrams
 Long Island, New York

The Island Zone Update Returns

After a 10-year hiatus, I'm happy to announce the return of The Island Zone Update. Geared towards both musicians and general music enthusiasts, The Island Zone Update, in various versions, appeared in The Music Paper, Musicians' Exchange, The Inside Connection, The Island-Ear, and the Long Island Voice, from 1991 through 2002. In its new blog format, The Island Zone Update provides global coverage for independent as well as established artists, helping to shine a spotlight on a diverse array of artistic creativity. The column features in-depth artist interviews, profiles, album reviews, and live reviews.

Coming soon ... an interview with West Coast-based singer/songwriter Joel Rafael.

While I'm at it, I'd like to acknowledge some artists and bands from the "heyday" of The Island Zone radio show (Sundays from 10-11 PM on WLIR 92.7/98.5 FM from September 1996 through August 1997) ... Ed Ryan, Wide Awake, Major Domo, Rhino Caravan, Inity, Iridesense, Bonesugar, Dynamo Hum, The Sun Kings, The Meanwhiles, Sidedoor Johnnies, Reckless Abandon, Wardance, Nancy Atlas, Kristin Mainhart, Satya, Michelle Albano, This Island Earth, Daughter Judy, Jarrod Gorbel, King Fly, Blues to Venus, Bob Westcott, Sonny Meadows, Jim Manone, and the many others whose pure talent and creative diversity produced one of the richest, most musically vibrant scenes this country has ever witnessed. Thank you all, again, for the music and great memories! (Yes, I still have the CDs from those days, and still enjoy listening to them.)

-Roy Abrams
 Long Island, New York