Jon Sheckler Standard Electric + Gretchen & The Pickpockets + Comic Tale of Tragic Heartbreak @ The Way Station

8pm- Jon Sheckler Standard Electric
Genre: Jazz
For fans of: John Scofield, Mike Stern, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Elvin Jones, Bill Stewart, Jeff Hamilton

A new project featuring new arrangements of jazz standards. Featuring Karl Markgraf and Aron Caceras, Standard Electric is focused on the Ray Brown saying. “If your gonna play that again, put a new dress on it!”

“Ones to watch.” - All About Jazz

www.shecklermusic.com

9pm- Gretchen & The Pickpockets
Genre: Alt. Rock
For fans of: Lake Street Dive, Amy Winehouse, Fleetwood Mac

Hailing from Durham, New Hampshire, Gretchen & the Pickpockets is a band whose unique blend of rock, jazz, and soul - coupled with an insatiable appetite for playing shows in New England and elsewhere - has gotten them a great deal of attention in a short amount of time.

“...I came across a band that has to be one of the most unique musical groups I’ve heard in years; and that is no exaggeration.” — Danielle Cooper, TBubble

“I loved Gretchen and the Pickpockets debut EP, “Stop,” which was released in 2013. Loved it. I’m so happy they didn’t stop there. Why? Because I LOVE their debut self-titled full-length. This is one of the most promising young bands on the Seacoast, and (I seem to say this a lot – which is testament to the quality that exists here … ) one of the most promising young bands in existence today. Anywhere. Big on rock, big on soul, big on fun. Those are the keys to an excellent band, and an excellent record.” — Christopher Hislop, Seacoast Online

www.gretchenandthepickpockets.com
https://soundcloud.com/gretchenandthepickpockets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huZJlSEEplw

10pm- Comic Tale of Tragic Heartbreak
“You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life.”

So said Sherwood Anderson in his great book, Winesburg, Ohio. Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak knows all about accidents. Of birth. Of place and strange times. Of music heard through screen windows in summer, of lonely faces in discos while blizzards raged outside in the Northern night.

What’s a young criminal to do? Read every book he can get his hands on, obsess over record club 45s, play the theme song to MASH over and over on a rented trumpet, lose a thousand fistfights till he finally wins one. Ride a stolen bike, a bus, a train, get out.

Years later, redemption at last. Robert Whaley is just about where he should be. Compared to everyone from David Byrne to Leonard Cohen, he’s been welcoming audiences into a private world of enchantment and debauchery, and oh the influences are clear: Anderson (words and emotions), Fossee (dance and controlled hysteria), poetry (Artaud and
O’Hara).

Whaley had a lot of practice riding the line between rock n’ roll, performance art, and stand up comedy as the front man for The Niagaras, a legendary force of Manhattan’s live music scene of 80s and 90s, when a wild front man could dance on bar tops and swing from the
rafters without getting banned, except for when he was:

“Lunacy? Spectacle? And music too??”- Rene Chun, New York Times

No wonder the attraction included a “celebrity” following – everyone from Ethan Hawke to
Kevin Spacey to Gwyneth Paltrow to the good people in Anthrax.

As a songwriter, Whaley has covered a lot of ground and has shown range through a number of outlets. He cowrote and recorded the original score for the feature film, Joe the King, starring Val Kilmer, and has also written for the stage –his rock musical Wrong Way Up ran off-Broadway at NYC’s Zipper Theater. He is currently working with playwright Matthew Freeman on a musical adaptation of the great 1908 novel, Buried Alive – now titled Selling Sacred Objects.

Meat Market Lullaby, the second album from Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak, reflects an obsession with pre-1974 soul, filled with nuance and tender bitter sweetness. Jazz pianist Mara Rosenbloom sets the tone with her loose/attacking, touch on grand piano and Rhodes. Pete O’Connell lends a sophisticated sense of drive and counterpoint as both bassist and co-arranger. Whaley’s long-time collaborator, lead guitarist and singer, Tony Grimaldi, shines with masterful harmonies and chunky guitar lines. Chris Schultz, percussionist with Blue Man Group, shimmers, cascades and of course, rocks.

Recorded live in the studio with a minimum of overdubs, a maximum of misfit charm, and this: “Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.” (Sherwood Anderson, again.)

www.comictalesoftragicheartbreak.com