James Barry + The Synthetic Blues + Dan Ashwood + Josh Savage @ The Way Station

8pm- James Barry
Genre: power jangle folk punk pop
For fans of: Guided By Voices, Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Lowe, Big Star, The British Invasion

James is an actor/musician best known for his involvement in acclaimed cult hit plays, like Les Frere Corbusier’s “Here’s Hoover”, Yale Rep’s “These Paper Bullets” and both off and on broadway productions of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”. After 2 years playing rockabilly legend Carl Perkins on the 1st nation tour of “Million Dollar Quartet”, James is glad to be back home in Brooklyn and proud to share the pop songs he has been writing. Growing up in Northeastern Connecticut, his imaginary friends were the Beatles, and in 1991 he bought Diamonds and Pearls by Prince and God Fodder by Ned’s Atomic Dustbin on the same day at a Caldor (R.I.P.).

“James Barry is an absolute revelation. He’s familiar to Capital Region theatergoers from his extensive work at Berkshire Theatre Group, but he’s never held an electric guitar there. He wails. Wow, he just wails.” Michael Eck (Albany Times Union)

“As Perkins, the writer of Blue Suede Shoes struggling to come up with another hit song, James Barry captures the character’s existential angst while serving up delicious lead guitar licks and strong vocals.” TEDRIN BLAIR LINDSAY (KENTUCK.COM)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesbarrylovesyou
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=coGdsNdH9oc
http://www.reverbnation.com/jamesbarry8

9pm- The Synthetic Blues
Genre: Chamber Pop / Alternative / Punk
For fans of: The Magnetic Fields, Randy Newman, Ben Folds, Cole Porter

A self-proclaimed punk band, The Synthetic Blues is an understated voice of rebellion in a cacophonous world. Performing tightly-arranged tunes inspired by the traditions of American pop music, songwriter Dave Neff is backed by upright bass, banjo and ukulele. Together they take a dark-humored look at loneliness, selling out, self-worth, faith, love, abuse, and death.

Neff’s songs are “raucous... tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating” (Tucson Weekly), “Sesame Street meets South Park” (drunk girl at a show), and “simple” (Neff’s mother).

“I hope the songs speak for themselves,” Neff says aloud to himself, alone in his apartment, writing The Synthetic Blues’ band description in third-person, hoping whoever reads it is intruiged enough to listen. “After that, everything else is just a sales pitch.”

www.thesyntheticblues.com

10pm- Dan Ashwood
Genre: Post-industrial / Avant-rock / Psychedelic pop
For fans of: David Bowie, John Maus, Kate Bush

Dan Ashwood is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and animator from Minnesota who has been recording genre-defying DIY pop music and a variety of other atmospheric disturbances for as long as he can remember. His music veers wildly between angular postpunk to progressive funk to baroque spacepop to druidic shoegaze without batting a single lashmite. But who wants to bat those poor lashmites, anyways?

“Infectious!”-The Current
“Like some kind of Prince/Roy Orbison collaboration that you never knew you wanted!”-Snap Judgement
“Better than most of these other Latter-day R. Stevie Moores!”-Informed Opinion
“Baltimore is Hot!”-R. Stevie Moore

danashwood.com
danashwood.bandcamp.com

11pm- Josh Savage