This Week in the Hudson Valley: Oct. 14-Oct. 20
Films in Delhi and Chatham; a Good Cause Eviction vote in Hudson; Photay in Kingston; and tune in the 'Bridge Music' on the Mid-Hudson span
MONDAY
SOUND at The Avalon Lounge, Catskill. California-based composer, producer, and musician Chuck Johnson performs, with Saapato (the music project of upstate-based multi-instrumentalist Brendan Principato) opening.
SOUND at Joust Cafe, Catskill. Music for Furniture (above) improvise for free every Monday morning at this cafe on Main St. FREE
TUESDAY
ACTIVISM at City Hall, Hudson. Local housing advocates have been working on the affordable housing crisis, and this effort to have the city of Hudson opt-in to New York’s new Good Cause Eviction law will lead to a vote at this Common Council meeting at 6 p.m. I also have other stories about this issue in Hudson here, and in Catskill, here and here. FREE
WEDNESDAY
SOUND at The Avalon Lounge, Catskill. Nico Soffiato, guitar, and Dean Sharp, on drums, are playing this week as part of the Avalon’s free admission early experimental show series.
THURSDAY
FILM at Story Screen, Hudson. The Columbia County Sanctuary Movement screens an immigration-focused film at the latest incarnation of the ever-changing three-screen movie theater on Fairview Ave. at 7 p.m. “Únase a nosotros la próxima semana el 17 de octubre para una poderosa proyección de película que reúne los viajes únicos de 4 inmigrantes de todo el mundo. Sus historias de resiliencia, esperanza y nuevos comienzos te dejarán inspirado. Nos encantaría tenerte con nosotros mientras experimentamos esta hermosa celebración de la diversidad y la humanidad inos vemos allí!”
FRIDAY
SOUND at Tubby’s, Kingston. Photay is the nom de plume of electronic naturalist, experimental-pop beatmaker, and composer Evan Shornstein. Photay’s fifth album is “Windswept,” named for a synthesizer patch called “wind.” This is also the debut performance for Casino Grade, which is M. Geddes Gengras, Drew Piraino, and Cory Plump. This is the show I am most excited about this week locally.
FILM at Crandell Theatre, Chatham. The FilmColumbia festival kicks off tonight and continues until Oct. 27 with all sorts of cinema, including director Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” (above), the documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” the documentary “No Other Land” (made by a Palestinian/Israeli collective and filmed in the West Bank), and “A Real Pain” a comedy with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. Columbia County resident and fabulous actor Walton Goggins is honored by the festival too, with a few screenings of his work.
SATURDAY
SOUND in Kingston. Notice Recordings show with Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, from Chicago; Adrianne Munden-Dixon, a violinist, improviser, and composer; Korean improviser, composer, and experimental music performer Leo Change; and fiddler, improviser, and composer Cleek Schrey from Virginia; performing, beginning at 7 p.m.
FILM at Bushel Collective, Delhi. The Bushel Collective screens the documentary “How to Power a City” by Melanie La Rosa at 7 p.m. “The film explores a series of renewable energy success stories not often highlighted in mainstream media,” they crow, and promise a Q&A with the director afterwards, for a suggested donation of $10. The collective is showing the movie as part of their current art exhibition, “Symbiocene Era: Artists Envision Environmental Symbiosis.”
SUNDAY
SOUND at The Falcon, Marlboro. Afrofusion band Wazumbians from Ghana perform.
ONGOING
SOUND at Mid-Hudson Bridge, Hudson River. Joseph Bertolozzi's “Bridge Music” is a sound-art installation featuring the Mid- Hudson Bridge as the instrument itself. Bertolozzi sampled the sounds of bridge’s surfaces, including guard rails and girders, as he beat on them with various mallets. His compositions using those sounds reached the Billboard Top Twenty Classical and Classical Crossover album charts in 2009. Now there are Listening Stations on the pedestrian sidewalk of the bridge and a 24/7 microcast on 95.3-FM in Johnson-Iorio Park in Highland and Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie. Chronogram reports it will be active through Halloween. FREE
ART at Turley Gallery, Hudson. Kristen Mills “Seats for Everyone” show is up through Oct. 27 with lots of boxing materials, such as the “Cardboard Cockpit” (above). There’s also a transmission art video, “Waiting Room,” from 2022.
ART at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Woodstock. Click above to watch an interview with Betsey Regan, one of 44 artists in “The Doll Show” that is up through Nov. 24 in Ulster County. There are hundreds of dolls from private collections in the exhibition, and at the Guild.
Last week’s reviews
While everyone else was staring at the sky, or staring at their phones pointed at the sky, hoping to glimpse the northern lights on Oct. 10, me and about 11 other people heard what was probably the most transcendent moment locally this week. Before Peter DiStefano (of Porno For Pyros) and Mike Baggetta (of mssv) performed, II.VI.X (above), took the stage, and Columbia County-based poet Karen Schoemer and Albany-based guitar/electronics player Eric Hardiman (both from Sky Furrows) and drummer Kid Millions from Oneida mesmerized with a half hour of improvisation for the few souls watching. Hardiman’s guitar and electronics were the melody for me, but Schoemer’s cut-and-pastiche phrase inducing, or those incredible drums, were other paths for listeners to follow.
Clifford Allen, who last year released the amazing book, “Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on Rogeuart,” posted on social media the above photo of the Oct. 12 performance at the VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center in Poughkeepsie. “A stirring reading by poet Yuko Otomo (above) in trio with Rob Brown (left, alto sax, flute) and Daniel Carter (trumpet, woodwinds). It was, needless to say, a great and fascinating performance/experience.”
Jonathan Richman (above) returned to Kingston, New York for three sold-out shows last week at the Unicorn Bar. Richman had been there before, when the space was The Beverly, and on Oct. 8, after playing the first several songs in the rechristened room, Richman called to new owner Francesca Hoffman across the crowd, to tell her the new space still sounded good. “They made some changes,” he said. “Just don’t make it any deader,” he told Hoffman, referring to the sound of the room. Read my full review of Richman’s first show in Kingston last week with drummer Tommy Larkins here.
Storm King, the Hudson Valley sculpture park, hosted pop star Charli XCX on Oct. 10 for a promotional event to sell more copies of her new “Brat” remix album. She played the new album in front of a giant sculpture of the vinyl version, and Hudson Valley-based music writer Will Hermes wrote, “The LP replica above felt a bit like the 2001: A Space Odyssey obelisk — which was perfectly fitting on a lot of levels.” The remix album is still there for you to hear through Oct. 14.
Chrissy Rossettie Sakes shot this (cropped) photo of Catskill’s Amy Rigby returning to her former town to play a sold-out show Oct. 12 at The Avalon Lounge in Catskill with her husband, Wreckless Eric. He will be performing at Tubby’s in Kingston next week.
Local notes
“Wandering Soul,” a song by Copake-based Slink Moss Explosion, is included in the Netflix series “Unstable” season two, episode seven…. Hudson-based Babehoven had to first cancel a recent show at Tubby’s, and then their entire European tour as singer Maya Bon first got laryngitis and then caught COVID-19 within the same month, “which caused one of my vocal cords to be paralyzed,” she wrote on social media…. Meanwhile, Catskill-based singer-songwriter Lily Konisberg was out of town last week playing Philadelphia; Boston; Portland, ME; Hamden, CT; and New York City…. Art Omi held a groundbreaking Oct. 5 at their new 190-acre hilltop site in Chatham.
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