Upcoming: Bill Malchow & Go Cup All Stars @ Rodeo Bar this Friday

From the desk of Bill Malchow...


All right! Headed up to NYC this weekend.   Let's all hang out at the Rodeo Bar this Friday.  10:45pm is the start time.  Free Peanuts!

Also I'll be joining Alex McMurray at his Joe's Pub debut this Sunday.

As you know Isaac hit New Orleans pretty hard.  Wife, Dog and I evacuated to Monroe, LA. prior to the storm. It was our first evacuation. We brought too much stuff.  We came back to no damage, except that our landlord had looted our freezer of tater tots.   Lot of folks outside the levee system were not so lucky.  Come out to one of the shows and I'll tell you more...


Friday, September 14, 2012
Bill Malchow and the Go Cup All Stars
The Rodeo Bar
375 3rd Avenue
(27th Street)
New York, NY
(212) 683.6500
10:30pm 1:30ish
$FREE
Tim Luntzel - bass
Dan Rieser - drums
Dion Tucker - Trombone
Scott Bourgeois - alto sax/tenor sax/clarinet


Sunday, September 16, 2012
Alex McMurray
Joe's Pub
425 Lafayette St
New York, NY
Get Tickets
$15

Upcoming: Alex McMurray / Cristina Black @ Joe's Pub

Price: $15 / 9:30 PM / September 16

Show Description

If Alex McMurray's songwriting seems a bit dour at times--okay, most of the time--well then that's totally intentional. "Like Blanche DuBois in Streetcar," he says, "I find sorrow to be quite a beautiful emotion. Loneliness can be nice." And he'd know. A New Orleans fixture since the '80s, the guitar slinger is now widely recognized as the embodiment of the downtown New Orleans lifestyle: sketchy bars, cracked sidewalks, fallen-down houses, tattered hearts, broken spirits, discarded chicken bones. He's often compared to Tom Waits; they both have whiskey-throated voices and share a curious ability to find inspiration in the degenerate, not to mention an obsession with the Ninth Ward. Except McMurray actually lives there.


“The most talented songwriter in New Orleans.” -Antigravity
“Tom Waits-ian pathos cut with a Big Easy sweetener.” -Nola.com
“One of the best young songwriters in the country.” -Gambit Weekly
“He sees things we all see, but shows them in a new light.” -GoNola.com
“One of the best songwriters working today.” -OffBeat

                                                                   ---

Often compared to Nico and Fiona Apple for her smoke-and-honey character voice, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Cristina Black maintains a cabaret-like propriety while drawing on the curious looseness of her former home, New Orleans. A classically trained harpist and pianist from age 4, Black turned to pop songwriting more recently when she took up baritone ukulele and began crafting uncommon confessional songs about things like love, money, death and disaster. Her debut album, The Ditty Sessions, is the result of a magical collaboration with an all-star Big Easy backing band that included Alex McMurray on guitar, Brian Coogan on keys and the late Alex Chilton (of Big Star fame) on bass. Galactic’s Ben Ellman oversaw the sessions at his own Number C studio in Uptown New Orleans. Standout track “Purple Houses” describes the anxiety of watching Hurricane Katrina swirl towards the Gulf Coast. The set also addresses drug addiction on “These Days”, infidelity on “All I Want” and the plight of the wealthy on the fan favorite “Drunk Rich People,” which was recently featured on NBC’s prime time hit Parenthood. Live, Black hops from uke to piano, performing with her New York-based band.

Now Available: The Ditty Sessions EP!

I am proud to announce the release of my debut EP, The Ditty Sessions! Recorded in my former home, New Orleans, in September 2009 by Ben Ellman (Galactic), the album features five original songs played by an all-star band of Crescent City characters, including Alex McMurray (guitar), Brian Coogan (keys) and Alex Chilton (bass). I handle ukulele and vocals.


I first attempted songwriting from a puddle of mud. I’d fallen there on the sidelines of a New Orleans parade in 2006, during the first Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina busted up the city. I remember thinking if I just had something to hold on to, a stick or something, maybe I could pull myself up out of that mess. That metaphor became the first line and theme for “All I Want,” and stayed with me for months after I returned to New York City, my home since 2004. The song, by then fully formed, was playing over and over in my head, its aching, minor-key melody pushing me through the confusion of post-Katrina life.


That tune and the rest of them found their way out of me through a hundred-dollar baritone ukulele, which I took up later that same year, inspired and schooled by Brooklyn singer-songwriter Michael Leviton. I’d been a musician all my life. I’d studied classical piano, harp and voice as a child and made my living as a professional music critic for about a decade. But it was only when I learned to serenade my friends on that little axe that I realized my own melodies were valid, and so were my thoughts on things like love, money, class, death and disaster. Finally, I merged the two, and that’s why The Ditty Sessions exists.


Listen to tracks from The Ditty Sessions HERE.