Philip Sandifer Doctor Who Reading + Brukelele Fest 3 + Cuervo Jones + Brandi & The Alexanders + Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak @ The Way Station

3:30pm- Philip Sandifer Doctor Who Reading

5pm- Brukelele Fest 3

Cat Smith

I’m one girl with a ukelele who does an Amanda Palmer cover or two, so if forced to compare my sound to anyone elses, it’s probably her. Succinctly, just describe me as Nerd Rock at its finest.

5:30pm- Kelly Kilcoyne

Genre: Nerd Folk

For fans of: Jonathan Coulton

Book geek. Cardio kickboxer. Singing Pirate. Ren Faire nerd. Sword fighter. Ukulele enthusiast.

6pm- Katie Pierce

Singer, songwriter, player of many instruments and teacher of small children.

6:30pm- Sarah Bisman

Genre: Folk covers and originals

For fans of: Jonathan Coulton, Emilyn Brodsky, and general quirk.

7pm- Ariah Noetzel

Genre: Indie/folk

For fans of: Ingrid Michaelson, Sara Bareillis, Laura Marling

Ariah is a silly student from New York who likes making music and puppies.

soundcloud.com/ariahlikestrees

ariah.bandcamp.com

8pm- Cuervo Jones

Who is Cuervo Jones?

Combining catchy melodies, driving rhythms, and powerful guitar, this dance punk power trio exploded on NYC scene in 2013. Pulling from the best of their favorite bands: the Ramones, Arctic Monkeys, and the Strokes, Cuervo Jones will be in your head long after the last cymbal crash and barre chord have faded out into the night.

http://cuervojones.bandcamp.com/

9pm- Brandi & The Alexanders

Genre: Soul/R&B

For fans of: Aretha Franklin, Sharon Jones, D’Angelo, James Brown, Jack Black’s band at the end of High Fidelity

Brandi & The Alexanders perform God damn soul music! We play that good old fashioned, good grinding, good roaring, ain’t nothing wrong with getting down tonight baby and feeling the floor now music.

www.facebook.com/brandiandthealexanders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tyo3RTt2_Bs

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