This Week in the Hudson Valley: Dec. 2-9
BASIC is back in Kingston and the Wolfman returns to Troy, while Francesca Hoffman, Julie Beth Napolin, and Kendra McKinley release new albums.
This week there are several Hudson Valley album release shows, and many readings and talks at Bard College, and also performances from Ezra Feinberg, Harriet Tubman, Jason “Wolfman” Martin, and Wobbly at various stops along the river. Find out what you can do below.
Monday
Surrealist poet-philosopher Will Alexander presents at Bard College two days in a row, with the lecture “Hyper-Spacial Rotation: Poetic Circular Deepening” at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 2 in RKC 103 on campus, and a poetry reading at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 3 in the Bito Conservatory Building. Alexander is the author of 20 books and has taught at the University of California, San Diego, New College (San Francisco, CA), Hofstra University, and Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, in addition to being associated with the nonprofit organization Theatre of Hearts/Youth First, serving at-risk youth.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Attend the lecture or poetry reading at Bard College.
The film “Anora” is about, “a young sex worker from Brooklyn, meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.” The 2024 romantic comedy drama features Mikey Madison and Paul Weissman, and was written, directed, and edited by Sean Baker. Upstate Films has extended the movie locally in Saugerties with Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday screenings this week.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Head to Upstate Films.
Tuesday
Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq/Koyukon) is a mixed-media visual artist whose family hails from the North Slope and Interior of Alaska, and speaks here about her work at 5 p.m. in CCS Bard College Classroom 102, part of a series co-presented by Forge Project and CCS Bard.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Find out more information here.
Kimberly Juanita Brown lectures on “Photography, Antiblackness, and the Politics of the Visual” 5:30-7 p.m. in the Clark auditorium on Williams College campus with a 5 p.m. reception in the Manton Research Center reading room. “Kimberly Juanita Brown (Dartmouth College) examines photography's long history as tethered to global histories of antiblackness that have ritualized ways of seeing for the viewing public. She unpacks what she calls a ‘cartography of the ocular’ as one of the important ways to measure legibility in images of violated black subjects.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Find more information here.
Wednesday
Tubby’s Kingston is back open after a brief holiday break last week with, “a night of folky, primitive ambient, lofi jazz adjacent psychedelia,” from Scree, Ezra Feinberg, and the duo of Jr Bohannon and Dave Shuford.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance here.
Thursday
I wrote recently about, “BASIC, the group named after an obscure record from 1984 put out by underground New York legends, guitarist Robert Quine and drummer Fred Maher. That record was full of programmed drums, ambient drift, and guitar explorations, and completely out-of-step with what was then considered cool. Quine said in 1997, “On Basic, the drums are too loud and this and that but that's the way I wanted it…. If people don't appreciate the damn thing, I have no interest in banging my head against the wall.” You get the feeling that the new BASIC — Chris Forsyth, Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery — have the same attitude, even if the sound is different.” This is my favorite new group this year, even if Millevoi has left, and Doug McCombs (from Tortoise, and Forsyth’s Solar Motel Band) has replaced him. Show of the week, for sure, with the Chris Brokaw Rock Band and New Orthodox at Tubby’s.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show.
Friday
Julie Beth Napolin’s “Only the Void Stands Between Us” album (below) came out on Nov. 29, while P.G. Six’s “Murmurs & Whispers” one of last year’s best records. See them both tonight at The Avalon Lounge in Catskill.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show.
"Fighting," the first single from Francesca Hoffman’s forthcoming album, "The Aftermath," was released in late November, and, “Written in 2022, it is largely a song about anxiety, but it is also about finding resilience and hope during a time of great uncertainty and despair. When life keeps knocking you down, but you have no choice but to figure out how to keep getting up, over and over again. So you do. I'm really proud of it, and I hope you enjoy it,” Hoffman wrote on social media. Hoffman has an official release show at 7:30 p.m. tonight at her own Unicorn Bar in Kingston.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show.
Jason Wolfman Martin is back in Troy, at No Fun tonight. Above, he had a new song released last month on a Halloween-themed compilation. You might know him from years ago as one of the ever-changing members of Bunnybrains, or you might have heard me play one of my favorite Wolfman songs (below) on the radio.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show with Gay Tastee and The Scurves.
Saturday
In Newburgh, the Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists and Assemblyperson Sarahana Shrestha are discussing, and canvassing for, the Hudson Valley Power Authority Act, a state bill that would replace Central Hudson with a people’s utility at 1 p.m.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Sign up to help at 1 p.m.
Gold Star Fridge is a pop-up show featuring art magnets and other works by Hudson Valley artists Sludge Thunder, Corinne Beardsley, Rakel Stammer, Nick Bach, Julian Rose, Caroline Burdett and the Peltzman Kids at Curious, Kingston’s new newstand.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Turn out 6-9 p.m.
The end of Nonchalant Gallery’s time on Main St. in Catskill comes with this 6-9 p.m. event with Simon Tosky, Luca Pearl, Ryan Rusiecki, Journey Woods, Nick Bloomstein, Luka Carter, Danielle Norris, gallery owner Otto Ohle, and Maya Englehart.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Turn out 6-9 p.m.
Harriet Tubman are, since 1998, guitarist/vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis. “Harriet Tubman was an African-American woman born into slavery in 1822 in the southern US state of Maryland. Tubman is renowned as a liberator of other African-American slaves who like she, chose to defy the system of Slavery and seek freedom by escaping to the North. She accomplished this with the help of a secret network of safe houses, or ‘stations’ on what was known as ‘The Underground Railroad.’ Far from being underground, Ross, Gibbs and Lewis have collectively performed with some of the most important musical innovators and visionaries of the last half of the 20th century: Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Herbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill, Tony Williams, Don Pullen, Tina Turner, James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock, Leroy Jenkins, Cassandra Wilson, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lawrence ‘Butch’ Morris, and many others.” Tonight Elysium Furnace Works brings them to the VBI Theatre at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, in Poughkeepsie.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show.
“Rising tenor saxophonist Zoh Amba performs in collaboration with Wobbly (aka Jon Leidecker of Negativland), using machine listening apparatuses in feedback with Amba's powerful sounds.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy tickets in advance for this show.
Sunday
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Turn out to this free show Sundays at 6 p.m. at The Avalon Lounge.
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Original and attributed reports from around the Hudson Valley.
Dedication
The late Jacob and Barbara Walthour, two former Hudson business owners, were honored Nov. 30 with a dedication of a portion of Warren Street after them. Elena Mosley, executive director of Operation Unite NY, and many others have lobbied for the dedication since at least last September. Mosley said in an article last year in HudsonValley360 that, “This is significant because this is the location where the Walthours purchased and established the Savoia Bar and Restaurant.”
Meanwhile, across the Hudson River in Catskill, the year is 2024 and yet the Greene County Legislature still cannot provide its own citizens with a live webstream of public hearings and public meetings that should be made widely available to the public. It turns out, though, that Greene County has the time and the money to install cameras outside their building so they can watch you. But you cannot watch them. Weird.
Other local Substack stories
Copake’s Mayuko Fujino collects all of the local December bird walks for you.
Catskill’s Niva Dorrell has this post-election results view.
Hudson Valley Sounds
Hudson Valley-based Kendra McKinley, “paints on her clothes and makes music for smoking weed with your bra off.” Her new single, with a delicious drum sample and a building melody, came out Nov. 1 (below).
Released earlier in 2024
Helen Rose organized two Catskill For Asheville fundraisers for hurricane relief this fall. On July 12, she released her latest album (below).
Hudson-based crooner Stephen Bluhm released his orchestral pop album on April 19, 2024. He has a large cast of locals backing him including Francesca Hoffman (who has her own album mentioned above), Jonathan Talbott, David Woodin, Stephen Sanborn, Jordan Gunn, Maya Yokanovich, Daniel Hoke, Ser Konvalin, JJ Silvey, Alex McLaughlin, and Tin Yan Lee.
Catskill-based Gary’s Dream released the song “Edges” (below) in July. The band includes Vive Tilson, singing and on bass; Ryan Surrano on guitar; Wesley Harper on keyboards and electronics; and Shelby Surrano on drums. The song was recorded at Basement Floods Records in Catskill. They describe themselves as a, “band circling themes of love and nostalgia with shoegaze and grunge-flecked dream pop.”
On Oct. 31, the band released another single, “Dancehall Doom.”
In other news…
Donald Drumpf Theatre: Television Oligarchy or a Series of Distractions
This week’s episode of the radio theatre show “Donald Drumpf Theatre” is called "Television Oligarchy or a Series of Distractions." The fascist president-elect loses his consigliere this week while continuing to keep the cameras rolling. Opening theme includes clips from Rod Serling; Bill Cosby; Jon Stewart; Larys Strong; Andrew Weissmann; Rudy Giuliani; Donald Drumpf; Eric Cartman; Richard Nixon; and Kent Brockman. Thanks for the songs from Golden Earring ("Twilight Zone"), Black Flag (“TV Party”), and Talking Heads (“Television Man”). Clips and excerpts from Victor Laszlo, Louis Renault, and Rick Blaine from “Casablanca;” Bernie Sanders; Michael Ian Black; J.L. Cauvin; Desi Lydic; Amber Ruffin; Kara Swisher; Nicolle Wallace; Seth Meyers; Donald Drumpf; Stephen Colbert; Randy Savage; Jimmy Kimmel; Grace Kuhlenschmidt; Roy Wood, Jr.; Jenny Hagel; John Berman; and Lawrence O'Donnell. Episode 214.
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