(2nd Annual) Upstate Summer | Bklyn Sounds 5/22/2024—5/28/2024

Another short guide to rhythm-improvisation-community vibes in the Hudson Valley + Shows: Maria "Mange" Valencia / Randy Weston Tribute Band / Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy / "Latinoise" / and much more

Welcome to Bklyn Sounds’ second annual “Upstate Summer” preview, initiated and explained into being last year. This year’s is a less individual-show guide than a mapping of the area for those who want to engage with the area’s live music through Dada Strain’s “rhythm, improvisation, community” lens. These are the places I turn to for musicking options when I’m upstate, which tends to be often during the summer months. (Always been so: I got shipped Upstate and to the Jersey Shore a lot as a kid.) Though there are also certainly a ton of excellent individual shows/festivals below for the months between Memorial Day and Labor Day, for those who need a more targeted plan.

Upstate musicking has been a kind of long-time passion project: I get joy seeing interesting individual bookings in existing venues, or new set-ups for shows (and mini-festivals) in far-away hamlets, or the growth of institutions who want to create artful experiences and spaces in unexpected locations — or people working in culture infrastructure who just wanna support all of it. So, before we go any further, kudos to all the folks who are trying to will something into being up there. The entire world needs it.

Let’s start with individual events. There are some great long-time returnees happening this summer. 

Glen Falls House Summer of Joy (Glen Falls House, Round Top, Greene County) is a program of weekenders produced by the folks behind Greenpoint’s Good Room, at the small hotel compound of the out-of-the-way Glen Falls House. Events take place all day around a pool and outdoors, and at night in a separate bar/lounge building which turns into an absolutely fantastic club. Last July’s Universal Lessons weekender, co-produced by Love Injection and musclecars, was my favorite multi-day/-night dance-party of the year (and it’s happening again). But every weekend contains great possibilities.

The crew from Dope Jams (Oak Hill, Greene County) have three weekend-long, camping-heavy events planned for their creek-side Locust Grove space. Future Sound of Nature (June 21-23) is helmed by Soul Clap and DJs for Climate Change, and includes an excellent selection of techno- and live electronics-minded folks from upstate and Brooklyn, including lots of folks associated with the (now-Upstate-based) Bunker party. In The Open (July 12-14), a party heavy on great younger DJs/players, many from NYC and Canada, returns for a second year, with the bigger names being Toribio, JTC (aka Dan Millinix), PLO Man, Lamin Fofana and Michael Magnan. And then there’s Dope Jams Open-Air (Aug 2-4), a variation of which Paul Nickerson has been booking/curating at Locust Grove for a few years now; as expected, this year’s lead selectors — Joe Claussell, Charles Webster, Traxx — are massive *and* Dope Jams family. Paul, Shawn Dub and Alex From the Wood and other regulars will be on-hand as well. The whole thing is a pastoral house-music dream.

The other returnee, if only to say good-bye, is Shaker Mountain (Aug 30-Sept 1 @ The Adobe of the Message, Lebanon Springs, Columbia County). Founded in 2017, it’s been a beloved community getaway in a variety of upstate locations, always featuring an incredible line-up of NYC DJ, live-electronics and ambient sets, with the (spendy) tickets also including home-cooked meals, caffeinated beverages, snacks, etc. I’ve never been to Shaker Mountain but no one I know who’s played or gone (many people) has done anything but rave about it. Many Bklyn Sounds regulars are on the bill this year, but wonderful wildcards include Patti Kane, Rimarkable, Photay and Greg Fox. This one feels special.                

Stepping away from the sub-bass and drum-machines for a moment: Produced by Baryshnikov Arts and curated by Japanese multi-instrumentalist, Kaoru Watanabe, the inaugural Bloodlines Interwoven Festival of Art + Diaspora (June 10-16 @ Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Tivoli, Dutchess County) features contemporary creative music and storytelling. Early-week programs are heavy on artist dialogues, the concerts really begin on Thurs the 13th. But the line-up of musicians straddling the improvised and composed worlds is startling: Adam O’Farrill, Alicia Hall Moran, Amir ElSaffar, Maeve Gilchrist, Mino Cinelu, Nasheet Waits, Susie Ibrarra, and numerous others, will play in existing and new combinations. (Bonus: considering the level of talent, individual night tickets are very reasonably priced.)  

Steve McQueen’s Bass

On the art-meets-music tip, Dia:Beacon (Beacon, Dutchess County) has a potentially excellent exhibit for musickers: the film-maker Steve McQueen’s installation Bass (through April 2025) takes over Dia’s industrial basement in a way that (on the surface, at least) seems similar to Carl Craig: Party/After-party a few years back. It’s a synchronization of colored-hues and changing light, to the raw space, and to audio recordings of live low-end rumbles and basslines. (There’s a good Siddhartha Mitter piece on it.) I’m visiting as soon as I can - and maybe have more to write on the topic.

On the wonderful Upstate spaces tip: 

It seems like the great sculpture park and museum Opus 40 (Saugerties, Ulster County) is hosting more and more excellent shows — partial thanks to local music-event producers Chosen Family (more about whom in a sec). They’re bringing the Sun Ra Arkestra (July 5-6) for their annual visit, but additionally, have a pretty wonderful program of late-afternoon/early evening shows, including Nick Hakim (May 29), a Bunker party with Mike Servito and Camille Altay (June 16), the cumbia punks Son Rompe Pera (June 30), the raga of Biryani Boys (July 21), Arooj Aftab (July 25), and Beings, the now-named quartet of Zoh Amba, Steve Gunn, Shahazad Ismaily and Jim White (Aug 8). There’s much more.

Having just hosted its still-bouncing-around-calendar flagship, 24-Hour Drone last weekend, the industrial-era cathedral Basilica Hudson (Hudson, Columbia County) is having a relatively mellow programming summer. Relatively. The big summer to-do is hosting Kim Gordon’s The Collective tour (June 12), which should sound gargantuan in there. But mostly, Basilica is limiting its summer concerts to Jupiter Nights, its every-other-Thursday series presenting talented locals; which this summer includes Cleo Reed (June 20), YATTA and Joy Guidry (Aug 20), and a program devoted to Bard College’s MFA Thesis performances (July 11), which, if you know all the great musicians who’ve come out of (and teach at) Bard, you know is worth the punt. 

If there is one club I would encourage anyone who loves live music to pay attention to in the Hudson Valley, it's Tubbys (Kingston, Ulster County), which is basically one of the best booked joints in the Northeast. Not so much dance music, but Tubbys mixture of indie, global, improvised, experimental, local, international sounds, is pretty astronomical, about as Dada Strain as weekly curated bookings get upstate. Just in June, Tubbys hosts Marisa Anderson (June 4), Bitchin Bajas (June 7), Basic and Ryan Jewell/Ryley Walker duo (June 8), Tashi Dorji, Dave Rempis and Matchess (June 19), and Quasi with Marnie Stern (June 29), and that’s just at first blush. If you’re upstate and care about live music, you should sign up to their updates.  

Another great spot, if a little less consistent in its bookings, is The Falcon (Marlboro, Ulster County), a good barbecue restaurant with a wonderful patio, which has been known to host a good mix of jazz, local roots and improvising musicians, and global music acts. They’ve got the Zimbabwean sextet Makoomba (July 5) and mostly local folks. 

One of the area’s great historical theaters is reopening this summer under new management. Bearsville Theatre (Woodstock, Ulster County) is now operating under the auspices of Peter Shapiro (Capitol Theater, Brooklyn Bowl) and managed by the mighty Frank Bango. It’s old-school Woodstock vibes, so it’s gonna be mostly folk, rock, jamming and heritage artists shizz, so prolly not as consistently on-Dada-brand. But hey, I love Iris DeMent (June 26), and Billy Bragg (July 19), and Mountain Goats (July 27) and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Aug 22). And these kinds of places, booking solid shows for audiences three nights a week, are essential for the overall ecosystem.

Also good are oddballs like Love, Velma (Elleville, Ulster County), which describes itself as “a private social club located in a secret rumpus room, for fans of high quality live music and the performing arts.” Again, while I’ve not been, reports have been uniformly excellent; and while only one thing on their (admittedly sporadic) schedule jumps out — New Jazz Underground (June 1) — it’s because another show by a great South African band was canceled due to visa issues. One to keep an eye on — and potentially nurture.

Guerilla Toss

One thing you can’t not talk about when discussing summer Upstate live music is Bethel Woods (Bethel, Sullivan County), the shed/performing arts complex built on the footprint of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Honestly, the less said about its main pavilion stage (aging rockers, ridiculous ticket prices) the better. But to Bethel Woods’ credit, their Horizon Stage books young, up-and-coming and local artists all summer long, and for two nights they’ve somehow booked the mighty art-dub-glitch punks Guerilla Toss (Aug 10-11). That will be well worth the trek. 

One other musical institution requires a mention for any Upstate musicking follow: Creative Music Studios (now Creative Music Foundation) was founded in Woodstock in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso, as a “a nonprofit organization focused on improvisation and musical cross-pollination.” Though only Sertso remains with us, CMS’s work continues. Currently helmed by drummer Billy Martin (exec director) and programmed by the mighty violinist, gabby fluke-mogul, CMS still throws incredible improvised shows and workshops with great musicians (primarily in Kingston). The next one is May 26th. All details are on their InstaGram.

One last link before I go — and, if any of the above is of interest to you, it may be the most essential. I mentioned how Chosen Family Presents is doing exceptional booking work at Opus 40 and at other Hudson Valley venues. Well they’re doing God’s musicking work by putting together a thorough-as-hell monthly concert guide for the area: Good and bad shows, ones they promote and not, excellent one-line previews, the absolute works. I’m jealous. Here’s May’s. If you need a regular Bklyn Sounds for Upstate New York, the Chosen Family site or their IG is required reading.    

This Week’s Shows:

The great new David Murray Quartet, in which New York’s eminent tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist is joined by pianist Marta Sanchez, bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Russell Carter, just dropped an excellent new album, Francesca. Now they’re back at the Vanguard. Hopefully this second-year-running stand will become an annual go-to. Some 8p sets are already sold-out, but tickets for all 10p remain. (Wed 5/22 - Sun 5/26, 8p & 10p @ Village Vanguard, Manhattan - $40)

A cornerstone at Principé, Lisbon’s essential global-futurist-dance label, Angola-born DJ Nigga Fox (nee Rogério Brandão) has been making increasingly abstract drum-machine compositions within the Portuguese capital’s batida community for over a decade. (So much so that he even made a record for the IDM classicists at WARP.) But in the club, he rips. On Wednesday, he plays with the excellent Lagos-born New Yorker Akanbi. Expect heavy “African drum-machines” representation. (Wed 5/22, 10p @ Bossa Nova Civic Club, Bushwick - Free before 11p/$10) Nigga Fox is also playing Friday at Run P’s Quench party, alongside the host and the resident Say3. (Fri 5/24, 10p @ Friends & Lovers, Crown Heights - $10)

Respect to Gabriela and Eli Escobar that the weekly Romance party has ingratiated itself so deeply into the calendar. On the surface, it is like the best ‘80s dance party ever, without the irony or (almost) any of the obvious hits, but plenty of primitive sequencers, Italo and freestyle, pop melodies and beats that at the time seemed to express hope for the future. Maybe this middle-age nostalgia for hope is what keeps me coming back and fascinated. The dancing is pretty fun too. (Thurs 5/23, 9p @ Gabriela, Williamsburg - FREE)

Guaranteed cosmic disco energy at Good Room, where once-and-future Loft host Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy pays a visit for her semi-annual throwdown, accompanied by the mighty Barbie and Paul Love Injection. With John Gómez and hyanna in the Bad Room. (Fri 5/24, 10p @ Good Room, Greenpoint - $15)

Massive multi-generational, all-locals, triple(-plus)-bill in one of my favorite dancing spaces in Bklyn. Danny Tenaglia’s name as an NYC legend doesn’t get bandied about nearly as much as it did two decades ago when he was teaching a generation of global underground wannabes what it means to DJ for ten hours at a time. Knows more about big-room disco-house records than just about anyone I can think of. Other records too. On top of that, you get sets from the mighty musclecars and the wonderful Rissa Garcia — plus, a second room featuring Miho Hatori, DJ Raquel, and Snare. Highest Recommendation! (Fri 5/24, 10p @ Sugar Hill Disco, Bed-Stuy - $30/ridiculous VIP option)