Greetings, friends. Hard to believe we are finally in the home stretch leading up to an election day after a campaign cycle that has made the scariest of Halloween costumes seem tame. While not everyone ended up feeling the Bern as many of us had hoped, regardless of whoever your candidate ended up being, at this point it is safe to say many people are feeling burnt out.
Hopefully, next week won’t birth a racist paradise or nuclear war or any more references to Anthony Weiner ever again in modern times (let that be the last one), and we can all continue to go back to the rat race and mumbling into our coffee cups. In case that doesn’t work for you, I do have plenty of good news about upcoming rock ‘n’ roll concerts to whet your appetite for life anew and help you face the days ahead.
Mid-November will see two excellent bona-fide concerts for punk and hard-rock fans hit town. Both are on the same night. Whichever you attend, you cannot go wrong. They provide just another example of the consistently great talent coming through Kingston on a regular basis these days.
On Friday, November 18 the legendary Hudson Falcons will be at beloved local dive bar Snapper Magee’s for a night of exciting and over-the-top guitar playing courtesy of band leader and national working-class treasure Mark Linskey. The New Jersey band consists of respected veterans who bring swampy swagger to songs with punk and roll feet planted firmly on the ground. This is a great chance to see them planted in a local club, as the band is very well traveled and highly regarded. One of their songs is called “Sleep, Drive, Rock ‘N’ Roll, Repeat,” so you get the drift.
Showtime is 10 p.m. The support acts are also fun and rowdy. For a low punk-rock price of five dollars you can’t go wrong and will have plenty of money left for PBR.
Phantom Sleaze from Catskill, who will open the show, is a younger but full-of-heart street-punk band who just recently played the Upstart Anti-Social Campout in Durham towards the end of the summer. Local favorites White Knuckle Rodeo return to town as direct support, bringing their Ramones worship and rubbery bass lines to the venerable bar one more time in what is sure to be a memorable performance from yowling and scowling tatted up frontman Cookie and the boys. Bastards Brigade also support and I am less familiar with Bastards Brigade, but with a name like that how boring can it be? Sounds like you might need to bring a football helmet. My guess is that they are Eddie from Patriot’s other band, so that should be cool.
Ripple music artists Geezer will headline a rare four-band stoner rock bill at The Anchor, also on November 18. One of the more popular regional acts, Geezer take the slow lane fuzz of Black Sabbath, combining it with more revved-up boogie rock for a very big sound. The night is their cd release party, and it will be one to try to remember.
Sharing the bill all the way from Boston is the band Worshipper, recent signees to famed label Tee Pee Records (Sleep, Earthless, etc.) and often heralded as one of the best live bands going these days.
Of the band’s big rock, classic and proto-metal hybrid sound, Worshipper’s Bob Maloney tells me,” Our goal was to exist in a space that flows between a variety of genres. We all come from some diverse backgrounds, mostly loud, heavy influences, but we all grew up on really melodic and dynamic bands like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and BOC for sure, so that sort of song crafting has definitely rubbed off on us. But on the other hand we also didn’t want to come across as an obvious throwback band, either, so we’re careful to not tip our hats too far in one direction or the other.”
Psych rockers It’s Not Night: It’s Space are the third act on the bill, rounding out a great year supporting their Small Stone Records-endorsed release Our Birth Is But A Sleep And A Forgetting. The heady name and titles are fitting as this group is known for wild and ambitious jams that forego limits most rational bands place on themselves at the expense of creative freedom.
Opening the night is a rare short set by my solo project Walking Bombs, hot on the heels of releasing a new collaborative EP called Peace Quest on Bandcamp this past Monday. Peace Quest is six tracks ranging from industrial to grunge to acoustic. It was mastered by grunge legend Tad Doyle!
I’ve got a live band put together for the night, featuring half of the band Surmiser (Jay Andersen from Surmiser engineered my EP) and NYC bassist Laurie Safdie. I can’t do many gigs any more for awhile as work, moods and my mom’s dementia make touring impractical, so I hope to see some of you that night.
Until next week, love and laser beams.
Join the family! 
