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Cafe 939 full
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Ryan's Smashing Life Presents: Runaway Dorothy / Gus + Scout / Beautiful Small Machines
Friday, May 18, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Springing from the creative mind of music blogger Ryan Spaulding (founder and editor of the acclaimed Ryan's Smashing Life and brought to life on the stage of the Red Room at Cafe 939, this very special evening offers Boston audiences three talented acts on the rise. This night offers elements of singer-songwriter folk, Americana, Southern rock, blues, country, and pop.
It took a journey of 500 miles to unite the members of Runaway Dorothy. All hailing from the South, Dave, Brett, Evan, and Sammy did not come together as Runaway Dorothy until mutual friends and good fortune brought the foursome together in New York City’s outer borough of Brooklyn. It wasn’t until Runaway Dorothy's Dave Parnell met North Carolina’s own Ryan Adams of Whiskeytown by chance, that he garnered the confidence to pursue his own music. The band has stirrings of Americana, Southern rock, and country in its veins. Coming off an epic 12-show run this year at SXSW, including a spot on Ryan's showcase with Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz, Runaway Dorothy is set to release its sophomore album, The Wait, in June.
Bluesy rock outfit Gus + Scout formed and began making its guitar-driven roots music about a year ago while attending Brown University. Members Gus Wenner and Scout Willis have known each other since childhood, when they were neighbors growing up in Idaho.
Also featuring performances by Beautiful Small Machines.
$10 advance, $12 day of -
Jaggery / Foolish Ida / Heather Christian & the Arbornatus
Saturday, May 19, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]"Torture chamber pop." "Darkwave jazz." "Siren rock." These are a few of the many attempts to describe the sound of Jaggery, an art-rock collective that weaves harp, viola, piano, contrabass, and drum kit into a universe of its own, setting the scene for "one of the most beautiful voices in modern music." Powerful enough to harness the fiery churnings beneath a volcano as well as the ethereal light of a dying star, frontwoman Singer Mali's voice regularly leaves listeners viscerally stunned and with goosebumps. She is flanked by a rotating lineup of musicians and instrumentation, including Daniel Schubmehl's West African approach to the drum kit with jazz influences, Tony Leva's funky upright bass, Rachel Jayson's avant-classical viola, and Petaluma Vale's glistening Celtic harp and backing vocals.
$10 advance, $12 day of show -
Lauren Shera / David Ramirez
Friday, June 1, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Lauren SheraLauren Shera is a New York native who grew up surrounded by an eclectic range of performers. Her original songs and soulful voice combine to create a sound that is both powerful and melancholy. On her second and most recent album, Once I Was Bird, with the help of producer Andy Zenczak, Shera weaves an opulent sound using an eclectic array of instruments including mandolin, violin, cello, banjo, ukelele, pump and pipe organs, trumpets, and more. It is destined to become an unforgettable and deeply moving listening experience. When she isn’t performing solo, Shera performs with the Monterey-based female trio Honeymoon.
David Ramirez is an American multi-instrumentalist proficient at both guitar and drums. He is a former member of the bands Hypnolovewheel and King Missile, and currently performs with Dump.
$10 General Public -
Jake Hill and Deep Creek / Jim Hanft and Samantha Yonack / Bell & the Bees
Saturday, June 2, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Jake HillJake Hill is a singer-songwriter from Plymouth, Massachusetts, from across the country, and from down the street. He has miles on his voice, blisters on his fingers, and stories to tell. Hill's band, Deep Creek, has been playing together for a number of years. Deep Creek is composed of Kit Carlyle on lead guitar and banjo, Dave Robertson on upright bass, and Larry Anzuoni on percussion. These are a group of full-timers who transform Hill's midwestern romanticism and northeastern work ethic into a blue collar bible of Americana songs that will break your back and your heart.
L.A.-based singer-songwriter Jim Hanft's songs carry both the comfort of familiarity and the excitement of discovery—and they're gaining him a stream of praise from fans, tastemakers, and even Hollywood film executives seduced by his honestly told stories of life's quiet moments and turning points, relations and temptations, loves, and losses. Accompanied by musical partner Samantha Yonack's pure harmonies, Hanft creates a modern musical landscape rooted in the raw, yet nuanced strength of his words and performance.
Also featuring Bell $ the Bees.
$10, General Admission -
KIN – Rodney Crowell & Mary Karr
Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 7:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Rodney Crowell & Mary KarrGrammy Award-winner Rodney Crowell and New York Times best-selling author Mary Karr in their one-of-a-kind show will treat audiences to an evening filled with music from their forthcoming album KIN, as well as poetry, readings, and storytelling at its finest. This will be the second show of the night.
The tour will support the release of KIN: Songs by Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell, due in stores on Vanguard Records, June 5, 2012. Produced by Joe Henry, KIN is a unique collaboration of two storytellers from different worlds, blending verse, melody and poetry into a seamless masterpiece. The album also marks Karr's entry into the world of music.
Karr is an award-winning poet, best-selling memoirist, and unstoppable force in the literary world. Her works have been embraced with an avalanche of rave reviews from nearly every major newspaper in the country. Her memoirs Lit, Cherry, and The Liar's Club were all best-sellers. The latter spent over a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list and kick-started the memoir craze. Karr has taught at Harvard and Syracuse University, where she still holds a chair in literature. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim, a Radcliffe Bunting Fellowship, The Whiting Writer's Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Karr adds yet another title, songwriter, to her pedigree with the release of KIN.
$25 General Public -
KIN – Rodney Crowell & Mary Karr
Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 9:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Grammy Award-winner Rodney Crowell and New York Times best-selling author Mary Karr in their one-of-a-kind show will treat audiences to an evening filled with music from their forthcoming album KIN, as well as poetry, readings, and storytelling at its finest. This will be the second show of the night.
The tour will support the release of KIN: Songs by Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell, due in stores on Vanguard Records, June 5, 2012. Produced by Joe Henry, KIN is a unique collaboration of two storytellers from different worlds, blending verse, melody and poetry into a seamless masterpiece. The album also marks Karr's entry into the world of music.
Karr is an award-winning poet, best-selling memoirist, and unstoppable force in the literary world. Her works have been embraced with an avalanche of rave reviews from nearly every major newspaper in the country. Her memoirs Lit, Cherry, and The Liar's Club were all best-sellers. The latter spent over a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list and kick-started the memoir craze. Karr has taught at Harvard and Syracuse University, where she still holds a chair in literature. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim, a Radcliffe Bunting Fellowship, The Whiting Writer's Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Karr adds yet another title, songwriter, to her pedigree with the release of KIN.
$25 -
JBM
Thursday, June 7, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
JBMJBM (Jesse Marchant) will be the Red Room's featured artist in residency for the month of June. He will take the stage with support from our illustrious Boston locals on June 7 and 14.
Not Even In July is an improbably stunning feat from a man who, until this point in his life, had never considered being a musician or playing his songs live until this year (he's now shared the stage with St. Vincent, Elvis Perkins, and Tallest Man on Earth). It plays out like a painstakingly elegant, yet brutally honest break-up letter written by Marchant and addressed to many: a lover, a dying friend, a piece of himself, and a passing phase of life. But it's also a love letter to what comes next, and to finally coming home.
$10 -
Kéren
Friday, June 8, 2012, 7:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]Vocalist Keren Tayar will perform her original music as well as sounds from her collaborative project with Berklee student, Manasseh David Israel called Jungle Fires.
Free -
JBM
Thursday, June 14, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
JBMJBM (Jesse Marchant) will be the Red Room's featured artist in residency for the month of June. He will take the stage with support from our illustrious Boston locals on June 7 and 14.
Not Even In July is an improbably stunning feat from a man who, until this point in his life, had never considered being a musician or playing his songs live until this year (he's now shared the stage with St. Vincent, Elvis Perkins, and Tallest Man on Earth). It plays out like a painstakingly elegant, yet brutally honest break-up letter written by Marchant and addressed to many: a lover, a dying friend, a piece of himself, and a passing phase of life. But it's also a love letter to what comes next, and to finally coming home.
$10 -
Hildegunn Gjedrem / Banda Magda
Friday, June 15, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Norwegian singer and composer Hildegunn Gjedrem leads a band of five, performing her own songs in a mixed style of jazz, pop, rock, and Scandinavian folk music. Signed to groundUP Records/Ropeadope Records, she just released her second album Share Your Secret. She can also be hear performing with ensembles like the Bjorkestra and Snarky Puppy. Fueled by the bands dynamic musicians, the music is beautiful, lush, and emotional, creating a unique audience capturing live music experience.
The fun and exciting ensemble Banda Magda blends French repertoire, original music, and songs from all over the world arranged in the Banda Magda way, and sung in English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, and Japanese. Banda Magda is celebrating their new album 12 French Songs in the spring of 2012.
$10 General Public -
Nightmare River Band / Letterday / XNY
Friday, June 22, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Nightmare River BandThe Nightmare River Band is coming to your town whether you like it or not. Somebody should probably let the band know that people like it. A lot. Indeed, the group's signature sound of raucous alt-country is best appreciated at their live shows.
The Nightmare River Band has drawn comparisons to alt/folk/country contemporaries such as Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers. While this sound is rapidly gaining popularity and bandwagon jumpers, the Nightmare River Band is continuing to do just what they've done since their formation, taking their music on the road to bring the Nightmare to your town.
Since their inception in 2001, Boston's Letterday haven't tried to refine, rework, or reimagine the possibilities of "pop-rock," "pop-punk," or any other pop-related, guitar-driven, hyper-hyphenated genre that has been applied to their music from the start. Rather, they've simply tried to stay true to what they've valued most: writing and performing good songs with unmatched earnestness and enthusiasm.
Jacob Schrieber didn't know that Pam Autuori had opened for Ani Difranco, the Hush Sound, Ryan Cabrera, and the Cab when he heard her indie edge through the shared wall of his apartment in Boston. Little did Autuori know that Schrieber was listening to her songs and mimicking her vocal effects on drums—honing his skills and transforming what is usually the backbone instrument in a band and making it his voice. Together their songwriting is an interesting duet of lead drums and wailing vocal. The duo quickly formed XNY, whose sound and style could knock out any wall, and blow the roof off the place, too.
$10 -
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey / Father Figures
Wednesday, June 27, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Jacob Fred Jazz OdysseyFor its 21st album, the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey reaches into the dark annals of its hometown's history and emerges with a masterwork:The Race Riot Suite. Written, arranged, and orchestrated by Chris Combs, the album is a long-form conceptual piece that tells the devastating story of the 1921 Tulsa race riot-a real estate-driven ethnocide occurring under the guise of citizen-dispensed justice. The oil-elite, civic government and local press colluded to take advantage of a racially tense climate in Jim Crow-era Oklahoma, resulting in the death of hundreds of black Tulsans and the destruction of an entire city district.
Father Figures is a band of five friends from Brooklyn, making music that blends the composed and improvised into something that is wild, yet accessible. It is Zombie Jazz, and it is not your grandfather's music... unless your grandfather juggled knives.
$12 advance, $15 day of -
Jay Nash
Friday, June 29, 2012, 8:00 p.m.Cafe 939939 Boylston Street
Boston MA 02115 [Map]
Jay Nash, East Coast native and rock troubadour, has been blessed with the kind of excruciatingly rustic voice so rarely heard on record. Emerging into the national spotlight from the same Los Angeles music scene that gave rise to Sara Bareilles, Katy Perry, and many other current pop luminaries, Nash has shared the stage with everyone from the Counting Crows and Maroon 5 to Keb Mo and Dave Mason (and Sara and Katy). He has logged more than a thousand live performances and sold more than 35,000 albums without ever having signed a conventional record label deal. He writes songs that are at once clever and down to earth. Although subdued at times, his voice articulates a quiet power that commands the attention of his listeners. Jay Nash is a "lifer." He’s a musician dedicated to the craft of songwriting and the life of the rock 'n' roll road show. His loyal fanbase was built brick by brick. See him once, and you will join them.
$10 advance, $12 day of show