All photography at Ives Park by Catharina Christiana, C3 Photography.

Then after working hard all week, I went to the nicest concert venue I’ve ever been at to see Everclear, Live, Filter, and Sponge! All the bands were great, but Sponge and Filter stood apart, for me. The thing that impressed me most, though, was the venue itself – Ives Concert Park in Danbury, CT. A very easy, hour long, all highway ride, Ives is on the campus of Western Connecticut State University. Entering on a path through the woods, you suddenly come upon a clearing and a big, beautiful lake! The reserved seat section is very small, and the lawn section is even smaller. They had delicious food trucks there if you happened to get hungry, but the coolest thing was that the stage was on a gazebo built on the lake, so the lake was the backdrop for the bands! It was the most idyllic setting I’ve ever seen a show at! And they have some big shows there! I noticed Warren Haynes, Tony Bennett, The Specials, and Moe had already been through, with some other good shows still to come this summer! This place is great, and well worth the ride! www.ivesconcertpark.com.

     Sadly, I was forced to miss my friends in CKS, who played Bearsville Theater that night, and my friends in Pure Gravy, who were at The Colony Café in Woodstock. I had been eagerly anticipating both of those shows, but then the Ives show came up, and choices had to be made. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

     The Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, The Rosendale Street Festival, and Bob Dylan at SPAC were also this weekend, but I could not fit any of them into my busy schedule! I did have a wonderful weekend though, and am conserving my energy for two Phil Lesh shows at The Capital Theatre tomorrow night and Tuesday!

     Pearl Jam recently announced plans to tour this Fall! Starting in Pittsburgh on October 11, the tour will visit 21 cities in 56 days, finishing in the band’s home town (where else) of Seattle on December 6! Local shows are in Brooklyn, at Barclay Center on October 18 and 19!

     This will be my last column until after Labor Day! I’m taking a much needed and well deserved vacation! Reservoir Music will still be open, but unless something earth shattering happens in the music world, this column will remain dormant until September 5, when I will return to the pages of The Townsman, as well as the websites, www.reservoirmusiccenter.com, www.brooklyncowboys.com, and www.hvmusic.com. There will, however, be a column next week that will give you whatever live music picks I already know about for August and the beginning of September, information I had originally intended to include in this column, but space and time limitations have forced me to bring that to you next week.

     Here are this week’s picks!

     Thursday, July 25 – The week starts not with a bang, but a whimper, as THE EAGLES fly into Bethel Woods. They’ve seen better days, but they’re still The Eagles, they still have a gazillion hits that you’ve heard too much on the radio, but they will be great again when played live! More exciting to me, is GRACE POTTER AND THE NOCTURNALS at Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown! GP and The Nocturnals are one of the newer, younger bands that have caught my ear in recent years. They’re really good, and fun to watch, and, as I already said, Cooperstown is a lovely place to spend the day! Even more exciting to me is the PAUL WELLER invasion of New York! Paul was the frontman, songwriter, lead singer, and guitar player in Punk/ Pop/ New Wave band, The Jam, who modeled themselves on The Who, and while not as exciting as The Who in the glory days (I mean, who was? Answer – Nobody!), The Jam still managed to stand out on the virtue of their excellent songwriting and production skills. Since they broke up, Weller has distinguished himself with a string of well crafted, catchy songs that rock! He’s a fantastic songwriter and makes hit records! Tonight at The Apollo Theater, an amazingly tiny place compared to what it looks like on TV!

     Friday, July 26 – Here comes the weekend! PAUL WELLER is at Webster Hall tonight, another amazing venue to see him! My pal, CHUCK MEAD, formerly, and occasionally, currently, of the most influential Country-Rock band of the 80’s and 90’s, BR5-49, is also around! Chuck is the real deal, as I’ve stated repeatedly every time he comes to town, and tonight he’s at Hill Country Barbecue in Manhattan, where the food, women, and music, are all to die for! King of the Surf Guitar, DICK DALE, starts a two night engagement at Brooklyn Bowl, and, further upstate, at The Capitol Theatre, DICKIE BETTS will run through just about every hit that his former band, The Allman Brothers Band, ever had (he wrote most of them), aided by opening acts, THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS and THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND!

     Saturday, July 27 – DICK DALE concludes his stint at Brooklyn Bowl, and PAUL WELLER ends his New York run with a show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, but the place to be tonight is the Prospect Park bandshell in Brooklyn, where ROBERT PLANT will present his latest project, THE SENSATIONAL SPACE SHIFTERS!

     Sunday, July 28 – Today is a great day to spend in Norfolk, CT, because Infinity Hall, a marvelous and ridiculously small and beautiful venue, is presenting two very special shows! An afternoon show will feature teenage ukulele virtuoso, JAKE SHIMABUKURO ( check him out on YouTube, especially his show stopping version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), and an evening show with pedal steel virtuoso, ROBERT RANDOLPH AND HIS FAMILY BAND! It’s a long ride, but a beautiful one, and to see this level of musicianship from two fabulous artists, in one day, at this venue, is truly something special! Go early, spend the day, eat in the delicious restaurant attached to the venue, and prepare to have your minds blown by these two stellar musicians!

     Monday, July 29 – WKZE, our area’s best radio station (since it’s been programmed by Rick, host of the Evolution show, which is heard Wednesday nights at 10 PM on WKZE, 98.1 on your FM dial, and online at www.wkze.com), has been playing a new band who has jumped out of the radio to demand my attention! That band is DAWN MCCARTHY AND BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY, and they are at Town Hall in Manhattan tonight! Their remake of the Spencer Davis group hit, “Somebody Help Me” is as good as the original, and several of their other songs have really caught my ear. This is good music, and I’m betting this show will be memorable!

     Thursday, August 1 – Tonight features a very special show at Iridium in Manhattan! MORELAND AND ARBUCKLE, an up and coming band from Kentucky, who tore up Bluestock at Hunter Mountain two years ago, will be in the house! These guys are amazing! Their guitar player plays a homemade cigar box guitar with guitar and bass strings on it, and he plays both parts! I expect big things from these guys. They could be the next ZZ Top! I’ll post some video from their Bluestock appearance on the web versions of this column this week, online at Midnight on Wednesday.

     That’s it for now. See you next week with my live music picks for August and the beginning of September, and there have already been some killer shows announced! While I’m on hiatus, I will still be doing my radio segment on John Madeo’s Little Delaware Jamboree radio show, every other Monday night between 8:30 and 9:00, so please tune in at 91.3 FM, or online at www.wioxradio.org. Next show is August 5, and I’ll see you back in The Townsman and online in September.

     Enjoy the rest of the summer!

     Greetings! Hope everyone had a wonderful extended weekend for Independence Day. I know I did! It was a weekend filled with great people, parties, and future memories! I did manage to squeeze in one super awesome show on Friday night at The Bearsville Theater. The The Band Band rocked the house and channeled the spirit of the original Band, beautifully!

     Now, as I mentioned, these guys cover the music of The Band, (hence the name, which I shorten to simply, The Band Band, and may not be so confusing if you think of it as The (The Band) Band. Get it?). But it’s not so much a tribute band, as a recreation of The Band’s music! And TTBB are quite upfront about this. They say, “We don’t do our arrangements. We do their arrangements!” And they do them well, recreating The Band’s music note perfect and channeling the spirits of Rick, Levon, Richard, Garth, and Robbie to a remarkable degree! Not an easy task! The Band’s music is deceptively complex! It may seem like basic Rock n Roll, but, believe me, it’s more complex than that, and not easy to recreate, but they do it, and they do it well!

     Drummer, Vinny Nicosia, has Levon’s style down, again, not easy. Seems simple and basic, but what other drummers can nail it? Trust me, very few! Bassist, Gary Solomon has Rick’s licks covered, even down to the scroll bass and manic stage presence that Rick always exhibited! Garth’s and Richard’s piano and organ licks are perfectly covered by multi-instrumentalists, Jack Kraft and Mike Corbin, and even Robbie’s idiosyncratic and iconic guitar leads are matched note for note, in style and substance, by guitarist, Josh Radin!

     Now, please don’t misunderstand me. These guys are not slavish imitators! They play The Band’s songs and arrangements, but they are their own players! They don’t try to look or act like the original players, but somehow they do! It’s probably not conscious, but they are so in the moment that the essence of all the original members comes shining through! You never think anything like, oh, this is good, but it pales beside the original. No, it’s actually just as good, just as entertaining as the original! Sure, it would blow everybody’s minds if Rick, Levon, and Richard returned from the dead to play with Robbie and Garth, and the historical importance of it would be almost too much to bear, but that ain’t never gonna happen! The Band is gone forever, and these guys carry the torch! It’s the closest you’ll ever get to the music of The Band in a live setting, at this point!

     The show was totally entertaining, never boring, and a splendid time was had by all in attendance! I would go see The The Band Band anytime I could, and I highly recommend that y’all do the same! More info at www.thethebandband.com.

     Live music picks for this week are:

     Thursday, July 10 – Lots of music tonight, but all in the city! Upstaters will have to wait till tomorrow to rock! Brooklynites can start tonight, with FURTHUR at Barclay’s Center. This will be their first show since Bobby Weir fainted at The Capital Theatre last April, and I’m guessing that here, in the Dead’s East Coast stronghold, they will be back like gangbusters! If you’re not in the mood for a big arena show, try Reggae legends, SLY AND ROBBIE, original Wailers and the best rhythm section in the history of Reggae Music, at Irving Plaza! I’m sure they’ll be surrounded by A list players, so if you’re a Reggae fan, this is must see TV! Zydeco veteran BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO is at BB King’s (request their smokin’ version of Clapton’s “Why Does Love Have to be so Sad”), and Woodstock’s favorite son, CONNOR KENNEDY, makes the trip to Manhattan to rock The Rodeo Bar!

     Friday, July 12 – Founding member of Traffic, guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, DAVE MASON, returns to The Bearsville Theater. For more of Dave’s history and my thoughts regarding his music, please reference last week’s column at www.reservoirmusiccenter.com, or www.brooklyncowboys.com, on the blog pages. Suffice to say that if he shows up, this will be a great show! For the harder rockers amongst you, original Dictator, ANDY SHERNOFF, debuts at Market Market in Rosendale! Andy has been around the Punk scene since the beginning, and his work as player, songwriter, and producer is quite extensive. This show is highly recommended, and I will be there! More info on Andy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Shernoff.

     Saturday, July 13 – The BEARSVILLE SESSIONS series continues at The Bearsville Theater with ONE HIT WONDERS! The band is composed of top Woodstock players, and this series is always entertaining!

     Sunday, July 14 – Spend the day in Cooperstown. FURTHUR’s at Doubleday Field at 7 PM! Visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. Stroll the streets before the show. Eat dinner. Hope the weather co-operates.

     Tuesday, July 16 – The musician’s band, NRBQ, performs at BB King’s in Manhattan tonight!

     Thursday, July 18 – Downstate we’ve got ALICE COOPER at The Beacon Theater, and upstate, try my friend, FOSTER MCGINTY at The Bearsville Theater. Foster was fabulous last time he played here!

     Have a great week!

It seems to be a little bit of a slow week for live music. Normally, I have to sort through around 400 events to pick the ones I recommend. This week, there were less than 250! I suppose it has something to do with July 4 falling on a Thursday this year. That’s this week’s excuse. What’s next week’s? Well, holidays seem to slow everybody down for a while, especially when it’s summer, and we don’t even need an excuse to kick back. Anyway, there’s still some great opportunities to groove on out to some great live music, so here we go.

     Wednesday & Thursday, July 3 & 4 – Apparently, everybody in the world is spending the holiday home with family or out at a party with friends, because there are no music events to speak of, but I’m sure some smaller local events will pop up at the last minute, so keep attuned to your local listings for July 4.

     Friday, July 5 – AMY HELM hosts the second FRIDAY NIGHT AT LEVON’S BARN, and THE THE BAND BAND returns to The Bearsville Theater, making tonight a Band night all over Woodstock! The The Band Band covers The Band, and they do it well! Up in Saratoga, PHISH returns to SPAC for their annual July Fourth weekend, continuing Saturday and Sunday.

     Saturday, July 6 – Hudson Valley’s rockin’ this weekend! The city, not so much, except for this week’s Pick of the Week, THE FLAMING GROOVIES at Bowery Ballroom, tonight! You may never have heard of these guys, because they have a ridiculous name, and they’ve been around since San Francisco psychedelic days, so they might’ve sort of slipped through the cracks of most people’s musical conciousness! In their original incarnation, when the great Roy Loney was writing all their original material, The Flaming Groovies were one of the all time greatest roots rockers ever to come down the pike! After Loney went solo, around 1980, the band became sort of a 60’s jukebox, peppering what original material they still had with radio hit nuggets from The Stones, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and others of a similar ilk from that era. Still a great band, just a different band, and this is the band that’s playing at Bowery Ballroom tonight. But these guys are no cover band! They really are more like a jukebox! Their version of “And Your Bird Can Sing” is virtually indistinguishable from The Beatles, and their version of “River Deep, Mountain High” is the only version, of the many that have been recorded, that compares favorably to Tina Turner’s original! Anyway, it’s a rockin’, fun night out, so if you’re in the neighborhood, check ‘em out! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!

At The Belleayre Mountain Music Festival, Country superstar DWIGHT YOAKUM will rock the house! Request his version of The Grateful Dead’s “Truckin”!

     Sunday, July 7 – DAVE MASON, one of the co-founders of Traffic, (with Stevie Winwood), makes an appearance at City Winery in Manhattan, prior to next week’s show at Bearsville Theater. If he shows up, expect to be surprised. Mason is an underrated guitarist, and of course, everybody knows what a great songwriter he is (“Feelin’ Alright”, “We Just Disagree”), but his guitar chops seem to have flown below the radar! He is one of the best rock guitarists around! Also fairly unknown, is that he played on records by Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, The Rolling Stones, Delaney and Bonnie, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Steven Stills, Ron Wood, and Fleetwood Mac, amongst others! Mason actually joined Fleetwood Mac for a hot minute, and recorded one album with them, “Time”! He was also slated to be the second guitarist in Derek and The Dominos, but quit before the band got into the studio, which worked out well for everybody, because Duane Allman took his place, but that’s the league he’s in as a guitarist! Mason does have a reputation for canceling gigs, so you might wanna call ahead to make sure he’s coming.

     Tuesday, July 9 – Last year at The Bearsville Theater, THE GRANDMOTHERS OF INVENTION put on one of the best musical displays I had seen in a long time! I’m sure tonight’s performance at Iridium in Manhattan will be even better! Second Pick of the Week!

     Alright folks. That’s it. Have a safe and happy Fourth, and I’ll see you next week! And please don’t forget to tune in to The Little Delaware Jamboree on WIOX radio, 91.3 on your FM dial, and on the web at www.wioxradio.org, every other Monday night at 8:30, where I appear as a guest to discuss the events and news that I write about in this column. Next show is this Monday, July 8.

     See ya!