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Every Sunday - Thanksgiving Sunday Off
SUNDAY BLUES BRUNCH
and blues jam open mic
Hosted by the PHILLY BLUES KINGS, featuring an open mic (12 to 1:30) for blues players followed by the Philly Blues Kings (1:30 to 3).
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$4 at the Door, 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm
No reservations needed. Grab your favorite axe, a bottle of wine and some friends and head on over. Mouth watering brunch, coffee and espressos will be served all day. What a great way to begin the new week with a happy stomach and an ear full of some of the best blues in the east.
http://www.phillyblueskings.com
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Friday, December 14, 2018
THE NAKED SUN
LOVE? SAID THE COMMANDER
Cutting edge music growing in Philadelphia |
Concert - $15 online advance / $18 door
Dinner - 6pm, Showtime - 8pm
The Naked Sun may or may not have coined the phrase, but “honest rock” has unquestionably been their ethos since their start back in 2011—and few bands embody its spirit like they do. With songs that echo the rawness and sincerity of the cities around which its members grew up—Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia—the band blends the basics of roots rock and folk with layers of bolstering piano and organ, intricate pedal steel leads, and melodic choruses backed by satisfying vocal harmonies. Rooted in the songwriting of frontman Andrew Wesley Harris, The Naked Sun strive equally toward Petty’s pop genius, Springsteen’s storytelling, Dylan’s social consciousness, and the energy of My Morning Jacket.
http://wearethenakedsun.com/
Love? said the Commander is a duo from the Philadelphia area made up of Kate Hall, a sad gal who sings and plays guitar and bass, and Chris Bishop, a less sad guy who plays guitar. Both have been playing music in different projects for many years, but the pair met in the winter of 2018 via a Craigslist ad. It was Kate's desperate, last ditch effort at finding a musical partner and Chris's first all too easy attempt at meeting that perfect singer - a fact that has created a grudge Kate will hold on to for many years to come.
https://www.facebook.com/lovesaidthecommander/
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Saturday, December 15, 2018
TRACY GRAMMER
“Tracy Grammer is a brilliant artist and unique individual. Her voice is distinctive, as is her mastery over the instruments she plays.”
- Joan Baez
“One of the finest pure musicians anywhere in folkdom.”
- Boston Globe
“Her pure voice conveys the simple truths of these songs; her gifts as a musician are like that of a painter who is a master of chiaroscuro, offering light and shadow at every turn.... A treasured part of my music collection.“
- Mary Chapin Carpenter |
Concert - $15 online advance / $18 door
Dinner - 6pm, Showtime - 8pm
TRACY GRAMMER is one of contemporary folk music's most beloved artists. Renowned for her springwater-clear alto, perfectly intoned violin, and guitar playing that is by turns percussive and delicate, Grammer is also a gifted storyteller whose incantations add a rare mixture of vulnerability, intimacy, and hard-won insight to her performances. As one fan puts it, "With Tracy, it's never just about the music; it's a soul journey."
And what a journey it has been. Grammer rose to acclaim as half of the "postmodern, mythic American folk" duo, Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer. From 1998-2001, the duo released three internationally celebrated, chart-topping albums featuring Carter's mytho-poetic Americana songcraft and in 2002, toured with Joan Baez, both as featured artists and Baez's bandmates. Called “the new voice of modern folk music,” the duo was clearly in its ascendancy when in July, 2002, Carter suffered a fatal heart attack mid-tour. He was 49; Grammer, 34.
Determined to honor the duo's trajectory and bring Carter's songs, and those of other favorite writers, to broader audiences, Grammer kept to the road, releasing several solo and archival recordings, including 2012's LITTLE BLUE EGG (Red House Records), the #1 most-played album on Folk Radio in 2012 with that year's #1 most-played song.
Grammer is currently on tour celebrating the release of LOW TIDE, her first album of original songs. "I've been a writer all my life, but it was never my intention to be a songwriter," she says. "However, the road has curves we can't see at the outset of the journey. At some point along the path, writing songs became the most effective medicine for the pains and unresolved questions of my life. LOW TIDE is an album of revelations, confessions, and ultimately, healing. I am proud of the writing and utterly thrilled with the sounds. I took risks. I tried new approaches. I told the truth, and delivered my multitudes. My eleventh album is the first one that really sounds like me." Co-produced with long-time touring partner Jim Henry, LOW TIDE was released January 19, 2018 on Grammer's own label, Tracy Grammer Music, and is available through Fish Records in the U.K.
Grammer plays theaters, coffeehouses, and festivals across the United States and Canada regularly, and has traveled to Europe and Japan. She holds the record for the most consecutive appearances at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and performs in a variety of configurations, with Jim Henry (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Burns Sisters, Susan Werner), Paul Kochanski (Lori McKenna, Threesies, Nields), Lorne Entress (Lori McKenna, Catie Curtis, Mark Erelli) and David Chalfant (Nields, Stephen Kellogg) rounding out her ensembles.
In addition to touring, Grammer is the director of the Dave Carter Legacy Project. Her publishing company, Tracy Grammer Music, administers licenses for Carter's catalog of music. She is writing a memoir and curating a new musical monologue called words + music based on her life with, and beyond, Dave Carter. Tracy lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts with her beloved Miss Kitty.
http://www.tracygrammer.com
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Friday, December 21, 2018
ROOTOLOGY
KICKING DOWN DOORS
Rootology: " ......their raw, fluid brand of Americana sounded aged and smoky, soaked in Kentucky whiskey - most apparent when they did their gypsy-jiving best on a cover of the traditional "Deep Elem Blues."
- Phila Inquirer
KDD: The music of songwriting team Autumn Walden (vocals) and Ernie Tokay (guitar/vocals) with special guests. Coming to you from Little Spiders Music Studio in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. |
Concert - $15 online advance / $18 door
Dinner - 6pm, Showtime - 8pm
Rootology is a great new Roots/Americana band featuring some of the best musicians and vocalists in the area. Under the big tent of American music, their repertoire includes, Electric and Acoustic blues, Bluegrass and Old-time music, Folk, Folk Rock and Jazz. Wanamaker Lewis is on electric and acoustic guitars, banjo and vocals, Larry Feldman is on mandolin, fiddle, lap-steel and electric guitars. Larry has played with many luminaries including Lester Chambers. Larry cohen is on electric bass. Larry is a tremendous musician who was a founding member of Skyline a ground breaking bluegrass band featuring world reknowned banjoist Tony Trischka. Highlights of the band include Larry’s tasty and dynamic bass solos. Rounding out the band is Drummer Chuck Lindsey. With a deep, smoky baritone voice, Chucks adds a great flavor to the band both on lead and harmony vocals. All together this versatile band create very exciting, and satisfying Americana/Roots music.
http://www.rootology.us/
Kicking Down Doors (KDD) hails from Philadelphia and is a multicultural roots/rocker, soul and folk group and its sound is influenced by the diversity of its members and their musical backgrounds. Together with the group’s instrumentation and arrangements led by Ernie Tokay and the vocal stylings of lyricist Autumn Walden, KDD has been leaving patrons in venues wanting more at every listen. The band’s songbook of original tunes range from rock to easy listening, to energetic dance/groove to blues, country and folk and is ripe with simple introspective, memorable and relatable poetic lyrics penned by Walden, that are poignant, captivating, and in the moment reflective. Kicking Down Doors has recently released a collection of 10 original songs on its new CD – NOW, a mélange of music that takes you with them on their evolutionary ride that defines the Kicking Down Doors sound.
https://kickingdowndoorsband.com/
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Saturday, December 22, 2018
PHILLY GUMBO
For more than three decades Philly Gumbo has been bringing its unique mix of New Orleans R & B, blues, funk, soul and reggae to East Coast audiences. It is groove music that inevitably leads to dancing. |
Concert - $15 online advance / $18 door
Dinner - 6pm, Showtime - 8pm
Philadelphia Sunday Sun - One Saturday night 35 years ago at Taker’s Cafe in Maplewood Mall in Germantown two men began to play music for an eclectic crowd, one pounding an old upright piano and the other delivering soulful vocals via a beat-up microphone and tiny amplifier. Within a few songs they had people up and dancing. That was the beginning of Philly Gumbo, perhaps Philadelphia’s longest-living current band, which has been bringing a unique mix of black music styles—New Orleans R & B, funk, blues, soul. Reggae, even Afrobeat—ever since. Indeed Philly Gumbo championed authentic New Orleans music in Philadelphia, not the “Dixieland” jazz most people associated with New Orleans back then but R & B and “Mardi Gras Indian” music that at that time was not widely known. The band instigated annual Mardi Gras celebrations in Philadelphia, a tradition which continues today. With a mixed racial line-up and sometimes political lyrics, Philly Gumbo has played most every venue in Philadelphia, opened for such legends as Buddy Guy & Jr. Wells, Dr. John, The Mighty Diamonds, Rick Danko & Levon Helm of The Band, Mutabaruka and others, and often had such noted musicians as Todd Rundgren, David Lindley, Fats Domino guitarist Teddy Royal, avant-jazz sax player Byard Lancaster and others sit in with them. As the Philadelphia Inquirer declared that Philly Gumbo is “the area’s tastiest musical ragout of New Orleans parish soul, blues, reggae and dense funk” while Vintage Guitar Magazine noted that “On South Street, Philly Gumbo ruled the funk scene when The Roots were mere seedlings.” Twice a “Best of Philadelphia” selection by Philadelphia Magazine, Philly Gumbo remains the area’s best groove band, a musical force that crosses ethnic boundaries that will no doubt have people up and dancing again when they return to the Northwest and take the stage at Alma Mater in Mt. Airy on Saturday, April 2, 2016.
Four of the six members of Philly Gumbo live in Germantown or Mt. Airy and four out of six have been with the group since 1980; a fifth has played off and on with the group since the Eighties. Of the four original members, drummer Tim Hayes has played with such greats as Wilson Pickett, Little Milton and Johnny Shines, guitarist Pete Eshelman, who also leads Zydeco A-Go-Go, was the only American member of Philadelphia reggae band Roots Vibration, bass player Bert Harris was a member of African music ensemble He Kuumba and leads Jazz Planet, and keyboardist Randall Grass played with the Nigerian pop group Bongoes & The Groovies. Saxophone/flute/trumpet player Richard Orr, who last year became a full-time member after being first-call substitute for decades, has played with Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes among other top R & B groups as well as the ground-breaking world-fusion band Siembra. Powerhouse vocalist India Rex, the latest in a long line of great Philly Gumbo singers, is a generation younger than the other members of the band but despite her youth has a tremendous feel for “old school” R & B and blues singing. The diverse backgrounds of the band members makes for extraordinary versatility and an ever-shifting mix of music.
“We never set out to be recording artists or famous,” notes founding member Randall Grass.” Our only goals were to play the music with authenticity and to be the best groove band in the area. It’s funny, in our early years people thought our material was mostly original because the New Orleans R & B and much of the reggae just wasn’t well-known. Now, after many years of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and tv shows like Treme’, all of a sudden we’re playing familiar material.”
Philly Gumbo was the catalyst for one of the most unique musical and cultural scenes Philadelphia has ever known, when they pioneered live music at Bacchanal at 1320 South St. The bar, owned in part by artists Joe Tiberino and Ellen Powell Tiberino, brought together a unique mix of people, poetry , art and music; Philly Gumbo played there to packed houses virtually every Saturday night for 10 years.
“There’s never been a place like Bacchanal in Philadelphia before or since,” notes Grass. “All kinds of people came in there—young, old, black, white, Latino and Asian, gay and straight, artists, students, doctors, bikers, lawyers, drug dealers, working people, people from the projects even the occasional movie star. It was a kind of free zone.”
The band, was also a regular at the fabled J.C. Dobbs, and appears in the documentary film “Meet Me On South Street” and kicked off the first annual Jambalaya Jam at Penn’s Landing.
https://www.facebook.com/phillygumbo/
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Monday, December 31, 2018
ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S BASH
Welcome to our second annual New Year's Eve Bash featuring the music of MINAS and a delicious late dinner and BYOB celebration... complete with drums and a samba line!
Buy your tickets early, last year was a sellout! |
$45 online advance / $50 door - space permitting
10:00pm until 1:30am
Join us for our second New Year's Eve Bash!
After their smash Dec. 31 show here, the MINAS Quartet returns with equal, if not more energy, playing upbeat sambas and originals, leading up to an exciting count-down to midnight with everyone playing percussion and parading around the venue. Bring drums, percussion and noise makers from home, then top it off with some dancing. We promise you a memorable night - the ones who attended last year are still talking about it, and can't wait for this year's party!
Guests will arrive at 10:00pm and enjoy an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord buffet from 10 to 11pm. A delicious roast beef au jus dinner complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, broccoli au gratin, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls and cheesecake dessert will be served. A vegetarian spinach lasagna casserole option will be available, as well as fresh ground and brewed coffee. BYO wine or champagne is welcome. The music will begin at 10:30pm. The festivities will include audience participation in a samba line complete with hand drums, noise makers, and a count-down to midnight. Chairs will be available, but most people will be on their feet moving to the music!
Minas Quartet takes Brazilian and American roots to create a sound that is fresh and innovative, from ballads tinged with melancholic traits of Blues and Choro, to Folk coasting on the subtle coolness of a Bossa Nova pulse, to upbeat Sambas elaborated with instrumental jazz improvisation, scat singing and whimsical whistling. With recordings of original music and a collection of over 100 songs, Orlando and Patricia’s compositions have been compared to classics by Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Capturing the essence of great songwriting with memorable melodies, inventive harmonies, and poetic lyrics, the music of Minas is engaging and timeless.
http://www.minasmusic.com |
