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Foreigner @ SPAC July 2nd 2015

Interview: Wanderlust headliner Trevor Hall

Trevor Hall is an accomplished singer and songwriter, producing an eclectic mix of acoustic reggae, rock, and sanskrit chanting. He broke through the music scene very early in his music career, joining sold-out tours with top musicians such as Michael Franti, SOJA, Brett Dennen, Jimmy Cliff, Steel Pulse, Matisyahu, The Wailers, and Colbie Callait. Trevor projects a refreshing universal message,…

Photo Gallery: John Mellencamp with Carlene Carter @ The Landmark Theatre – May 6th

photos by Paul Marconi

Perhaps nothing better exemplifies Modest Mouse’s unusual mix of fame and indie-cred than the difference in the two venues the band played on its swing through New York last weekend.

The first show, in Buffalo’s Asbury Hall, was held in a converted church downtown. The second, in Cornell’s Barton Hall, a World War I airplane hangar. Modest Mouse packed them both, though Buffalo provided a more intimate setting compared with the seemingly endless mass of people in Cornell’s field house.

Modest Mouse 4/17/15 Buffalo, NY at Babeville

The band played a mix of deeper cuts and songs from the band’s new album, “Strangers to Ourselves,” its first new release in eight years.

Even with the eight year hiatus, Modest Mouse doesn’t miss a beat, and songs from the new album meshed seamlessly with tracks from the early 2000s.

Or longer, in some cases. At the Cornell show, the band broke out the song “Sleepwalking” from its 1996 album “Interstate 8.” Lead singer/guitarist Isaac Brock told the crowd it was the first time the band had played the song live in 15 years. Likely recognizing the irony of the announcement on a college campus (a fourth-year Cornell student would have been 4-years-old when the song was released), Brock joked the crow could “tell their grandparents.”

Those grandparents will probably know what the students are talking about, too, because even 11 years after “Float On” became an unlikely smash hit and eight years after the album “We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” was certified Gold, Modest Mouse is still a big name. The band has been able to have it both ways. Mainstream enough to carry a large college spring concert full of students who were in middle school when the last album was released, but indie enough to still make sense playing a much smaller venue in the Asbury.

This is due almost completely to Brock, who as one of two original band members left, molds the band’s sound to his weirdo sensibilities – he told Rolling Stone in March that the band did “100 or-some takes” on each song until they had “no idea why we’re doing this again.”

Modest Mouse 4/17/15 Buffalo, NY at Babeville

Brock’s stage presence might be surprising to those who have heard of his reputation for being somewhat ornery. He was the opposite at both shows, taking time to mix it up with the crowd on multiple occasions with hyper, if not somewhat strange, asides. At the Cornell show, Brock detailed an adventure trying to jog around the field house’s track that ended in a coughing fit. He also displayed a George Costanza-esque interest in marine biology, as he called out for someone in the crowd studying the topic to explain what was up with starfish on the west coast.

But those chats only came so often, as Brock kept both sets (close to 2 hours apiece) focused on the music. Highlights of the Buffalo show included “The Tortoise and the Tourist,” from “Strangers,” and “The World at Large,” a single off 2004 release “Good News For People Who Love Bad News,” to open and close the pre-encore version of the set. But along the way there were detours to throwbacks like 1996’s “Doing the Cockroach” and, to open the encore, “Dramamine.”

The Cornell set featured a similar mix of new and old. The crowd seemed to particularly take to the brass instrumentation on “This Devil’s Workday,” and an extended version of “The Good Times Are Killing Me,” which closed out the initial set.

Modest Mouse 4/19/15 Ithaca, NY at Barton Hall

Brock’s the star, no doubt, but the equipment crew has a legit claim to be MVP of each show. The 8-member band was able to seamlessly shift instruments and formations for each song. How else could be a band be expected to perform nearly 20 years of music?

Both sets featured “Float On,” which, despite being the band’s best known hit, isn’t guaranteed to be played. It was, however, placed unceremoniously in both shows, neither the opener or closer – just another song to the band, one that just happens to have been a No. 1 hit.

Modest Mouse managed to fit in a Rhode Island show at Brown University between the Buffalo and Cornell shows. A logistical nightmare, you could imagine, but the band might just have a thing for Ivies. “I’m still waiting to hear back,” Brock joked with the Cornell crowd about his application to the school. It seems he’s done just fine without it.

Modest Mouse 4/19/15 Ithaca, NY at Barton Hall

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Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad to release BRIGHT DAYS, their new Americana album, May 18 on Easy Star Records!

  Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad is set to release their brand new Americana album BRIGHT DAYS, May 18th on Easy Star Records.

BRIGHT DAYS is the follow up to 2012’s COUNTRY, which at the time showed an Americana approach not yet heard by the Panda faithful.

The highly anticipated BRIGHT DAYS follows their 2014 Fall release STEADY, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Reggae Chart, #1 on iTunes’…

REO SPEEDWAGON added to CMAC schedule

REO Speedwagon will perform August 13th, 2015 at CMAC (Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center) in Canandaigua, NY

Fronted by iconic vocalist Kevin Cronin, REO Speedwagon is a band where the main constant over the decades is a never-ending desire to give their all to their fans, year in and year out. Formed loosely in the late ‘60s at college in Champaign, IL, REO (named after…