Mar Sala + Thurston Ray + Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak @ The Way Station

8pm- Mar Salá
Genre: Flamenco-pop
For fans of: Rosario, Bebe, La Mala Rodriguez

Based in Brooklyn, Marta Hernández, (aka Mar Salá) is an international singer songwriter, a musician from Seville, Spain. With the collaboration of many accomplished musicians from all over the world, she mixes Latin sounds such as Rumba Flamenca, Brazilian rhythms and Spanish Pop, with Swing and Rock. Marta’s original compositions are a cross over between the Flamenco air of Seville and the eclectic sounds of New York City.

She has a total of 3 albums in the market: Primavera (2008) Take Me to Bahia (2009) and her third album, Entre 2 Rivers (2014), produced by Alejandro Zuleta, an accomplished composer, musician, singer and producer from Colombia, has the collaboration of LA SHICA in her version of LOS CUATRO MULEROS.

“Mar Salá is pure energy, like a volcano in control.” Jose Miguel López. Radio 3.RNE

For press, pictures, latest videos and concerts, please, checkwww.marsalaband.net

www.marsalaband.net
www.facebook.com/marsalaband1
https://soundcloud.com/mar-sal-band
www.reikiwilliamsburg.com

9pm- Thurston Ray
Genre: R&B/Soul
For fans of: Jill Scott, Meshell N’degeocello, Bobby McFerrin, Rahsaan Patterson

Smooth, soulful, and jazzy are a few words that may describe the musical style of singer-songwriter, Thurston Ray. However it’s described, the Thurston Ray sound has been crafted to take the listener on a journey through emotions, melodies, and sweet inspiration. Thurston Ray is a bass-baritone vocalist who blends groovy soul music, jazzy vocals, and uplifting messages about real life and love.

After a brief hiatus, Thurston Ray is happy to be back at The Way Station to share some new music, and promote a crowd fund campaign to support an upcoming project.

www.thurstonray.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/ThurstonRay
https://twitter.com/ThurstonRay

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