April Show Notes
Coming to you halfway through may :-*
Excuse my lateness, April made me carsick. It’s always an emotionally intense month for me, seasons changing makes me feel so hard because I am, of course, an empath. Beyond the weather’s mania and the trees blooming and everything rendering in HD; it was my partner’s last two weeks in the states before his visa expired, my last month at the job I have spent three years at, my first trip West since college, & my college friend’s memorial. I spent more time feeling and processing this month than moshing and singing, though the shows I did make it to were stellar.
I am unemployed and abroad, subletting my room for the month. I am feeling pretty overwhelmed and unstructured, but I am so grateful that, for the first time in years, I actually want to be traveling. Since moving back to New York in 2023, I never wanted to leave. I spent the years prior moving constantly, COVID sent me from Colorado to Connecticut to LA to Montana to Utah to Scotland, culminating in a semester in Prague during lockdown before finally returning to my college house in Colorado. I spent the months after graduating driving across the country then living in Glasgow. I had so little stability, a complete lack of structure and consistency, which made me feel completely attached to the city when I finally found my footing again. I needed to be there, I needed to be building a life, and I was so scared if I left for any period of time that life would disappear completely. New York is funny like that, it becomes your whole universe, the longer you stay uninterrupted, the less you see the world outside of its boroughs.
I am so grateful to finally have enough stability in my life that I have begun to welcome discomfort. I quit the job I loved because, after three years, its comfort began to feel uneasy, like things had gotten too easy. I love living in New York because it feels like every day I have to overcome something, whether that be a diabolical train delay or audacious door staff, I always feel like I’ve accomplished something. But I’m still so comfortable there, because it’s home no matter how much there is to traverse. What’s harder is leaving and navigating places where you don’t know the rules, the language, the norms. The discomfort feels alien, and that feels welcome after so long in a place that feels steady. I have earned the comfort of the city, but I always learn so much more in the unfamiliar. I am ready for that discomfort, that unknown.
I missed a lot of shows in April because of my PNW travels, and I am missing even more this May while I am back home. I open Instagram and find myself longing to be at my friends’ Union Pool and Baby’s shows, then I feel the whiplash of realizing I could just take a $30 flight to Belfast or Paris or Lisbon and unlock a brand new experience. Or I could drive down the road to the beach and sit in my car eating a fish supper and watching the sea like all the old Scottish people in the carpark. I could be present. I don’t know what the next month entails, but I know it will make me feel, which is to say it will teach me. For now, enjoy this short issue of Show Notes, and get excited for the May issue, which will include guest reviews from so many tasteful and talented friends who I’m happy to pass the torch to in my absence.
Caroline Strickland 04/01
The Venue: Union Pool
The Team: Me, Cat, Ben; ran into everyone.
The Smell: Glossier You, the Blue Ridge Mountains, hot wind, sweet decay, campfire smoke, and the first day of spring
I wrote a full show notes report on this show for COPY, read the rest here!
Zachary Mezzo String Ensemble 04/12
The Venue: Stone Circle Theatre
The Team: Me and Ben
The Smell: Hinoki, hangover sweat, Church, pine, and an amazing cologne someone near me was wearing. It was woody and romantic and I am longing to know its name.
The Scene: Hi Cool Kids! Where dark academia and the slacker uniforms meet. There was a lot of warmth in the room even with everyone sporting lots of blacks and greys. A sweet buzz of chattiness, but also full of many different disparate groups, not a singular scene. This made sense given how many musicians were in the room, and it was very comforting for me, as someone who only recognized Zach. There were over 20 players, so it was cool to have moments at the beginning where the musicians outnumbered the audience, a shift in visibility and power dynamic not often felt at a show. I love when there are parents in the crowd, you know this about me. I sat a few rows back, there were also pews open on the side and a balcony above. I went to a trendy Ridgewood restaurant before and felt like a schmuck because it wasn’t as good as Pollo Loco and it was way more expensive. I felt shy and didn’t look around too much. Plus, once the show started I was too mesmerized to ever break my soft, distant focus. There were two Boys With Cameras circling around during the performance, sometimes I’d snap out of sound when I could identify one of them in my peripheral, the familiar image of trying to hold a camcorder gently while not breathing at all.
The Show: I’m gonna be so real with you and confess that I was skeptical going into this. I met Zach a few months ago, he was playing violin for my friend Alana and played for Christopher Emond the same night and colored their performances so vividly. Those who know anything of my taste will know I am a lover of strings, a violin or cello has so much more emotional demand over my heart than a guitar or bass ever could. Shortly after buying tickets I actually read into what the performance was and realized I had misunderstood; what I thought was an album release party where Zach would play through some of his songs with an arrangement of talented friends, was actually a totally improvised noise/drone string ensemble. I know very little about music in a technical sense, but something about this description made me doubtful. I was like…how could that sound good. How could people playing totally different shit based on a few prompts ever sound nice? I thought, maybe it’s gonna be like performance art, like it’s not supposed to sound good.
I don’t know shit. This was so good. I was hypnotized. Music would flow from song into noise into a single sound. Players flipped their bows upside down and sometimes just strummed at their strings. The full range of each instrument was about to shine , I heard sounds I had never heard before. I have no idea what this note means but during the performance I wrote, “I never knew strings could whine, I thought they only chimed”. One of the standing bass players who was giving Taxi-Driver-Meets-Clown (compliment, not a read) changed his hat each time the timer/section ended, which made me feel more aware of what was going on and because of this visual cue, I know that the yellow hat song was my favorite. The whole thing was punk as fuck, so fun to witness and so beautiful to hear. Zach had recommended moving around the to be able to hear different instruments more, which I wish I had done, but I felt glued to my chair and nervous to distract from anything in front of me. If I did move, it would have been to get a better view of the cellist with a hasidic-type-skullet. He seemed to be bouncing the whole time.
The Moment: Everyone was having so much fun! I loved the music but what I loved even more was watching all the players get to do shit (I assume) they normally don’t get to. People laughed as their sounds and methods got more absurd, laughing like actual evil geniuses because they were. I love watching people play, getting to see this childlike instinct to experiment and break rules and look at each other and feel encouraged by mischief. I realized at the end of the show, via the ensemble breaking into song, that it was Zach’s birthday. What an awesome way to celebrate, in a beautiful theatre with talented friends who get to just romp about and play for an hour.
iPhone Presence: 2/10. So tasteful.
Grumpy w/ Natalia Catalan & Tex Patrello 04/29
The Venue: Union Pool
The Team: Went alone; ran into/gabbed/danced with Grace, MJ, Alana, Natalia, Agnes, Elise, AJ
The Smell: Orange slices after soccer, Max & Ruby’s birthday cake, all natural bug spray, and maple syrup at a cheap diner.
The Scene: A dreamlike gentle, courteous, and energetic crowd. A room full of warmth. If the world behaved the way this crowd did, I’d be devoid of social anxiety. One of the best and most admirable qualities a person can possess is being a warm greeter, being able to put aside whatever’s on your mind or whatever weird interaction you just had and looking at someone with a smile, asking how they’ve been and reiterating how nice it is to see them. Loose oomfs and complete strangers moved with the grace and cordiality of close friends. People were dressed dooown, ranging from straight from work fits (me) to circus-like flair. Like Zach’s show, there wasn’t a feeling of a singular scene but the connection across disparate groups. A good range of ages and aesthetics. Not entirely white people, which is the experience I’ve had at many Union Pool shows. The room was full all night long, a sold out crowd for a Wednesday night in Williamsburg.
The Show: Full crowd all night long is no exaggeration. I came from work, arriving 10 minutes into Natalia Catalan’s set and I couldn’t even make it into the crowd. I stood in the very back, adjacent to the door person, resting my big ass bag on a booth and making no attempt to see the stage. It would have been a fool’s errand, two tall ass guys directly in front of me, 100+ people in front of them. Instead, I practiced listening and trying to understand without visuals. I have sung Natalia’s praises to whoever will listen. Her recent release is one of the most sincere and exciting things I’ve heard all year. Though I love witnessing her and Alana Markel’s twinflame play on stage, it’s was so easy to hear the synchronicity and spontaneity in their voices. I wish I could have seen Rory Dolan tearing up that sampler. Shit sounded craaaaazzzzyyyyy, so expansive and unexpected and oftentimes totally different than the recorded tracks. The little breakdown moment ending I Want Him to Love Me, or the cheering sample during Put It Down that started to feel like waves crashing. I imagined him hitting the sampler like KAVARI hitting 200bpm on the decks, full of relentless energy and a keen awareness of momentum, Hayley Williams head banging. Where Rory complicated, keyboardist Warner Meadows grounded; keeping a lively yet rooted rhythm on every track, picking specific moments to get groovier. I get the sense that Warner is such a good player it would be virtually impossible for me to tell rehearsed material from complete improvisation. I loved the keys on Waist the most.
Lost in the smoking area’s constant flow of conversation and lack of fresh air, I sadly missed most of Tex Patrello’s set. No one warned me that I should have been there for it, but I don’t know how much a heads up would have helped as I was depleted from a long shift and simply needed to chain smoke and catch up with MJ. The few songs that I did catch were awesome. She was so theatric, a real performer, landing somewhere between Lana’s old Hollywood elegance and a weird program on Nickelodeon late at night. Her look and production felt celestial, but her steadfast, deep vocals kept me on earth. I think all avant/art-pop should be paired with her level of emphasis on performance. It felt like a damn pageant show.
So, who was gonna tell me about Grumpy? I felt like the last person in the world, which is to say at Union Pool, to learn of them. I was up front, standing between Grace and MJ and a dozen people who were close friends and/or admirers of the group. I got it instantly. The set started with just lead singer Heaven Schmitt on stage, and the rest of the crew appeared just before Heaven whispered a verse. They were so funny I teleported to a comedy club during Heaven’s whole bit on this bizarre cello hung on the wall. Grace turned to me amidst the laughter, “I feel like I’m watching the Mona Lisa get painted”. Totally. Diego looks exactly like who I imagined I’d marry when I was 12, and they played the clarinet and the cello, not really knowing how to play either but sounding great nonetheless.
All of the production soared, the band was so tight and their instrumentation so complex, the perfect environment for simple and heartfelt lyrics. They sang about taking Photobooth pictures with your crush at the Apple Store and getting Sprite in your water cup at the Fast Food Establishment. Heaven didn’t want to sing the Sprite song, but passionate pleas from the crowd willed it into existence. The band had choreography to act out all of the lyrics. “I’m never doing that again. I’m a serious artist now. This one is called ‘Cool Ranch’”. The band erupted into laughter.
The last song of the night moved me to tears, though I had been verging on them just from laughing so much the whole show. It was called OBL, One Big Life. What are you gonna do with this one big life? It was raw and anthemic and rooted in the experiences of being a band of trans people touring a hostile country. “We’re all trans tonight”. The lyrics stayed aligned with their routine simplicity, and they were so sharp and profound. The first verse celebrated being on the road with your best pals, “We’re so happy we could die”. The next verse observed the hateful eyes of onlookers, “They’re so happy we could die”. The clarity and cleverness of the lyrics mixed with thunderous and intricate instrumentation touched me in a way that Kimya Dawson did all those years ago. High fucking praise.
The Moment: My favorite song of the whole night was Grumpy’s The Whale. I just loved this one so much. I’ve not smiled that much at any other show, besides Jonathan Richman; my joy there felt linked to witnessing something, whereas during Grumpy’s set, my elation stemmed from being brought in to something. The Whale was a symphony, complete with the carbon-fiber-3D-printed printed cello that allegedly no one knew how to play. Before beginning, Heaven looked into the audience and asked faces behind me if they wanted to join in. “They’re shy, they’ll just sing from down there”. I love when a singer who has been playing the guitar all night puts it down and gets to channel all that extra energy and all those extra limbs into their singing, a voice you’ve heard all night suddenly sounding three times louder. Heaven’s uninhibited vocals were joined by Diego on stage, and their old friends in the audience. Hearing beautiful voices behind me perfectly harmonize with the performance I watched in front of me was a totally new live music experience for me. Took one time and now I am totally convinced that every single musician should be placing backup singers or even players within the crowd.
iPhone Presence: 2/10? Idk I was in the front.
MAY UPCOMING GIGS
May 16
Jeanne River w/ Benjamin Formerly & “Jason Powers” @ TV Eye
Do not miss this one
Veronica Everheart w/ Star’s Revenge & ideasforconversations @ DiamondHeart
Concert and a fight
Boxxer @ Baby’s
Baby Dance → free!
May 17-18
Lost Grrl Found @ TV Eye
“The only play with a mosh pit”
May 21
Cashonlytony’s & Holidays in United States @ LPR
More people on the bill toooo
May 22
Boxxer & Cab Ellis @ the boxing ring
Honesty idk the name or address of the place but yall know which one im talking about
Trinity Ace w/ Superfan & Christopher Emond @ Baby’s
Others on the bill tooooo these are just the ones i know :)