Lanusa + Soul'd Out NYC + Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak @ The Way Station

8pm- Lanusa
Genre: Soul folk
For fans of: Ianne La Havas, Valerie June, Ani DiFranco

The heavy influences of Soul, Jazz and R&B vocals and feel focused in stylistic new folk sound topped with lyrical philosophizing that sometimes requires a bit of picking apart. A lot of love and a lot of purpose. Dark, wide, soaring and earnest. Garners atypical rhythms and a solid backbeat.

"Large audiences with short attention spans are often wary of complex chord changes and atypical tunings. But, resting smoothly and simply atop the guitar, Lanusa’s voice consummates the essence of songwriting, manifesting melodies as pure as air and as addictive as wine, enticing the palette well after the conclusion. And her lyrics, born of a certain philosophical inertia... hit home with resonating pungency."
-the Budding Review, 2010

https://lanusa.bandcamp.com/album/noah-feels-august-like-i-feel-august

9pm- Soul'd Out NYC
Genre: Soul
For fans of: Aretha Franklin, Bill Withers, King Curtis, Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Stax Records, Southern Soul

Soul'D Out NYC is a nine piece band featuring vocalist Aliah Sheffield on vocal. The band is composed of four horns (Trumpet, Trombone, Alto Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone) and a rhythm section (guitar, bass, drums and keyboard). It was created in December 2011 by French Pianist and band leader Olivier Court.
Through original compositions and arrangements, our purpose is to bring back to life a certain type of sound from the late 60′s early 70′s Soul, Jazz and Gospel.

www.facebook.com/thesouldoutband
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm6p3nttvrk

10pm- Comic Tales 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