Upcoming events.
Oneida, There, more TBA
Sometimes even the longest journey ends close to where you started. Throughout the teens, Oneida pushed further and further into abstract, atmospheric sounds, recording long haunting compositions that couldn’t have been more different than the pulsing, hammering anthems of their past. But now they return with Success, their most guitar-centric, rock album in decades. It kicks off with “Beat Me to the Punch,” a song that is minimal like the best Ramones songs are minimal, pared back to beat and melody and a limited number of guitar chords. It’s an uncomplicated pleasure from the get-go, and if it’s ripped in half later by a corrosive guitar solo, well, what did you expect? This is Oneida.
Oneida has long straddled gray-area boundaries between the NYC punk/psych/rock world and the art/experimental world, playing at gritty rock clubs and elevated cultural institutions, including the Guggenheim, MoMA PS1, ICA London, MassMOCA and the Knoxville Museum of Art. The band has been known for extended live improvisational performances, collaborating onstage with Mike Watt, members of Flaming Lips, Portishead, Boredoms, Yo La Tengo, Dead C, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and many others. Oneida’s members juggle a wide variety of other music projects. Drummer Kid Millions has played with Spiritualized, Royal Trux and Boredoms and releases solo compositions under his own name and as Man Forever. Shahin Motia founded noise-punk’s Ex Models and currently plays in Knyfe Hyts. Kid and Fat Bobby perform and release music as People of the North, and Bobby has a band called New Pope (postpunk/minimalist duo/trio) releasing a second full-length this year (Shinkoyo).
“We've been in the woods for a long time, doing very challenging, fucked up and psychotic things and sharing them with the world and expecting people to keep up,” said Kid Millions. “We honestly did not try to make something more straight ahead but it came out that way.”
To understand how Oneida got here, you have to consider the pandemic, which beat them down first, then set them up for a joyous, triumphant return. The band had booked studio time to record the first of these songs in March 2020, but as the lockdown intensified, they canceled those dates and spent the next 15 months kicking themselves for missing their window. It would end up being the longest break in playing together since Fat Bobby and Kid Millions started messing around in bands in their junior year of high school. Oneida’s five members hunkered down in their various locations—Bobby in Boston, Kid Millions, Shahin Motia, Hanoi Jane and Barry London scattered across Greater New York City—and wrote material. “We had this large and growing collection of songs,” Bobby remembered. “Like everyone who works in some productive, creative way, you get used to the fact that sometimes the faucet is open. Sometimes the faucet is closed. This time faucet was wide open.”
As the pandemic eased, Oneida got back together again in May of 2021, renting a studio in Rockaway Queens so they could play and record together for the first time in over a year. There were no songs and no agenda. The idea was just to improvise together for two days to see what came out. No one in the band knew whether they’d still be able to play together in the same way, with the same intensity after so long apart. But the magic was still there. “That was a really powerful experience for us,” said Bobby. “There was something very productive about oscillating between that freeform experience and the new set of songs that are honed down and as minimal as we can get.”
With that session under their belts, Oneida reconvened at Spaceman Sound in Greenpoint Brooklyn in September 2021, working with engineer Tom Tierney to capture the new songs in the stripped-down rock and roll sound they seemed to demand. “We wanted to play very, very simply in our own idioms and own vocabularies,” said Bobby. “But it’s funny. It’s a record of rock songs. Some of which have two chords. Some only one.”
No band is an island, so of course there are influences—the fuzzy clangor of the Velvet Underground, the keyboard-stabbing exhilaration of the Clean, the paranoiac lyricism of Suicide, the giddy wallop of the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” the time-bending open-ended-ness of Can. Still, the main factor in Oneida’s sound is Oneida, specifically the band’s willingness to go where the music takes them, without too much calculation or premeditation.
“One thing that’s important to me about our band is we really believe in following impulse and instinct,” said Bobby. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be conceptual. We’ll often have ideas and pursue ideas. We just have a lot of faith in the process of moving forward with some blindness and to try and like remain open to whatever chaos directs us. I think it’s funny and awesome that it seems to have resulted in an accessible bunch of music that sort of sounds like you’re at a rock show.”
Moving forward has always been important to the members of Oneida, but if you keep moving forward long enough, it might just bring you home. At Oneida’s first post-pandemic show in July 2021, the band played its landmark, single-note-hammering classic “Sheets of Easter,” then launched into all new material. The connection between the new songs and the old one was palpable, in the banging rhythms, the blasts of keyboards, the motorik motion that can go on forever or stop on a dime. Sometimes the journey takes the shape of a perfect O.
Moss Kissing, Abdu Mongo Ali, Kamari Carter, Jake SG
Moss Kissing is a musician, performer and an audiographic researcher based in Lisboa. His live shows draw from a diverse range of sources; dubstep and techno form the basis of his sound and performance art and underground metal infuse his stage presence. Primarily, his work aims to stimulate dancing and movement, acting as a conduit back to the feelings he has experienced in queer spaces, raves and festivals. Self-described as Scott Walker with Breakbeats, there is an element of tongue in cheek in his work, yet he is completely serious. As for production, Moss uses an audiographic approach. Using sounds from his environment and from the people who populate his life, to create ruminated textures that combine with complex rhythms and throbbing bass.
Abdu Ali is a Baltimore based music artist, producer, poet, and multidisciplinary artist who works in sound, video, social practice and performance. Their work often interrogates ideas of race, gender, and sexuality that manifests as poetic inquiries of identity, promoting liberation from oppressive ideologies and encouraging self-determination. Their work also centers promoting authentic Black queer legacies and narratives as our histories are often subjected to distortion and erasure. Performing across the United States and Europe, through their energetic visceral live shows, spiritualizing audiences, they have been anointed as a cosmic, punk, and soulful tempest on stage.
Kamari Carter is a New York-based artist primarily working with sound, video, installation, and performance. His practice circumvents materiality and familiarity through a variety of recording and amplification techniques to investigate notions such as space, systems of identity, oppression, control, and surveillance. Driven by the probative nature of perception and the concept of conversation and social science, he seeks to expand narrative structures through sonic stillness.
Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez likes to make it nice. He plays big big beats. Sometimes he goes too fast, but usually pretty slow. He likes it when things come together. He’s very attached to stuff but he’s working on it. He plays the cello and the computer and writes words. Mostly, he’s a lucky boy. jakesokolovgonzalez.com
The David Liebe Hart Experience, with babybaby_explores
David Nkrumah Liebe Unger Hart, also credited as D. L. Hart, (born April 19, 1957) is an American musician, painter, puppeteer and actor. He is best known for his appearances on Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, performing bizarre puppetry and singing in a variety of voice characterizations.[1] He is also known in the Los Angeles area for his role as a puppeteer on The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Program, a local public-access television cable TV program, and for performing with his puppet "Doug the Dog" just outside the Hollywood Bowl and Los Angeles Music Center after shows, where he is known to many concert goers simply as the "puppet man". He has also been known at times as David Hart, David Lieber Mintz,[2] David Unger Hart, David King Liebe Hart and DL Hart.[3]
BE NORMAL! A Fest in Providence, RI
The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die
Nuvolascura
Malevich
Hundreds of AU
Aseethe
Frail Body
New Forms
sevenbasicplots
Doom Beach
Burr
The Dreaded Laramie, Cinema Stare, Plastyc Peachez
The Dreaded Laramie is a power pop band based in Nashville, TN. They recorded their forthcoming debut LP with producer/mixer/engineer Dave Schiffman (PUP, NOBRO, Olivia Rodrigo). The new record comes on the tail of their 2022 EP, “Everything A Girl Could Ask” (produced and co-written by Rozwell Kid’s Adam Meisterhans), which Punk News described as “gender bending … marbled with sickly sweet, hyper feminine vocals encapsulated by indie rock tinged boppy pogo punk and sprinkled with sudden moments of very macho displays of musicianship.” In 2023, The Dreaded Laramie conquered a 60-city tour across North America, joining festival lineups from Gainesville’s Fest to Montreal’s Pouzza Fest, and sharing stages with the likes of Soccer Mommy, Bad Moves, Rozwell Kid, and Tsunami Bomb.
RIYL: Weezer, No Doubt, The Darkness, Charly Bliss, Frankie Cosmos
An Evening of Dark Arts III
"An Evening of Dark Arts III" is the third installment gathering of dark arts and music. Artists will have space to display and sell their original artwork along side of some the best heavy live acts New England has to offer.**Please note that any artwork hanging on the walls at the venue is not part of the show. This is a one night only event**
BANDS:
Falls Of Rauros
https://fallsofrauros.bandcamp.com
1476
Obsidian Tongue
https://obsidiantongue.bandcamp.com
Plagues
Dysthymia
https://dysthymiaband.bandcamp.com
ARTISTS:
Ben Fortier
https://www.benjaminfortier.com
Jeffrey Blvcklung
https://blackbarncollective.co
ARTmuffin
https://artmuffin.myportfolio.com
https://artmuffin.storenvy.com
Strega Serpente
https://www.instagram.com/strega.serpente
Additional artists TBA
Kai Lance & Nadav Brenner Duo w/ Ryan Kowal Trio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybgV1SOAIeA
Join us for a special night of duets with guitarists, Kai Lance & Nadav Brenner. Kai & Nadav both study at the New England Conservatory, and share a deep love for the jazz tradition, folk music, and improvisation, etc. The music will cover lots of ground including interpretations of their favorite tunes, some original compositions, and open improvisation.
Dan Pomfret, Marina Murray, Olivia Dolphin
Dan Pomfret
Dan Pomfret is a rapper/singer/songwriter from Providence RI whose mission is to infiltrate the minds of beautiful people and plant seeds of melodic motivation. The co-founder of Providence Party Hip Hop band Toad and the Stooligans and Providence prog rock outfit The Morgana Phase, Dan skittishly drifts between lanes of genre like a neurodivergent race car.
Dan Pomfret music: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/danpomfret/new-game/
Toad and the Stooligans: https://open.spotify.com/track/535FTgdQ5ueVoX6h3fMoFa?si=fKV9o5i5QhqTmRkB4vzUVA
The Morgana Phase: https://open.spotify.com/track/4AoAOwHRMlyBC7DO9YGzW8?si=yQXpK6T9SZWmhuP3VkcBCg
Marina Murray
Marina Murray aka “Rina” is a singer/ songwriter/ looper originally from Rhode Island, currently living in Upstate New York. With her keys and her loop pedal, Rina creates eclectic tunes with genuine lyrics, soulful beats, and rich vocal harmonies. She excitedly anticipates the release of her second EP “Rare Form” this summer.
Bandcamp: https://thatrinamusic.bandcamp.com/album/truest-form-ep
Olivia Dolphin
Driven by lyrics, Olivia Dolphin is a singer-songwriter from Providence, Rhode Island. Her use of lyrical poetry tells stories we can all relate to. With a touch of magic, her music centers on finding community, self-love, and a way to move on even when you don't want to. Supported by her full band, there’s an effortless ability to craft up such unique sound within the realms of indie pop and alternative rock you won’t want to miss.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lividol
Bandcamp: https://pitchandprose.bandcamp.com/album/lion-hearted-blood
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lividol
Marisa Anderson w/ Footings & EDT
Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. Her deeply original work applies elements of minimalism, electronic music, drone and 20th century classical music to compositions based on blues, jazz, gospel and country music, re-imagining the landscape of American music. The New Yorker calls Anderson ‘one of the most distinctive guitar players of her generation’, while NPR refers to her as among ‘this era’s most powerful players’ . Her work has been featured in Billboard, Rolling Stone, NPR, SPIN, Pitchfork, the BBC and The Wire. Festival appearances include Big Ears, Pitchfork Midwinter, Le Guess Who and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival.
In addition to her solo work, Anderson is sought after as a collaborator and composer. Swallowtail, her second record in duo with drummer Jim White will be released May 10 on Thrill Jockey Records. 2024 also sees the release of the feature film score ‘ A Perfect Day For Caribou’, as well as appearances on records by Charlie Parr, Myriam Gendron and Big|Brave. Past projects include 2021’s Lost Futures with guitarist William Tyler, and contributions to recordings by Matmos, Tara Jane O’Neil, Beth Ditto, Sharon Van Etten and Circuit Des Yeux, among others.
Classically trained, Anderson honed her skills playing in country, jazz and circus bands. and currently tours extensively throughout Europe and North America.
‘One of the best emotional mediums in the field of solo guitar, Anderson is a master of lovely melancholy.’ - Pitchfork
AS220 Youth Open Mic - Mic Madness
Youth Open Mic is back and in full effects at AS220! Pull up on February 28, 2024 to AS220’s Main Stage and peep some of the most talented young people in the city do their thing on the stage! And yes, you can sign up to perform too - as long as your between the ages of 14-21! Tell a friend to tell a friend!
Josephine Foster w/ Omnivore
Josephine Foster is a Colorado composer and performer whose “music plays games with our ideas of time and space” says The Guardian. The Nashville Scene describes her work a”fusion of art song and American folk music” and the former opera student is “known to breathe new life into archaic forms, embodying the cultural archaeology of Harry Smith’s old weird America, and has lent her characteristic mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to over two decades of recordings” writes Blank Forms.
You might call Ms. Foster’s eerie warbling old-fashioned, except that it evokes a scrambled past that exists only in her own vision: mountain songs that never were, spaced-out hybrids that never will be. – The New York Times
Josephine has released some twenty albums, each a sui generes song cycle drawn from her own singular songbook, performed solo or leading various ensembles (occasionally under band guises: Mendrugo, the Supposed, Born Heller.) Peripheral but not insignificant are her unorthodox arrangements of 19th century German Lieder, the folkloric collection of Lorca, or her musical settings of Dickinson and other poets. Foster is a poet herself, as well as visual artist.
On stage or in recording she collaborates with free players from folk and avant-garde, such as Michael Hurley, Keiji Heino, Gyða Valtýsdóttir, Sonny Simmons, Paz Lenchantin, The Cherry Blossoms, Victor Herrero, Jason Ajemian, The Master Musicians of Joujouka, Daniel Blumberg, Shahzad Ismaily, Heather Trost, Chris Scruggs, Lorena Alvarez, Moon Bros, Alex Neilson, Ed Askew, Susan Alcorn, Michael Zerang, Lori Goldston, Brian Goodman, Eric Chenaux, Louis Landes Levi, David Pajo, Alasdair Roberts, Victoria Williams, Hamza el Fasiki, Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh, Les Fils du Détroit, Kath Bloom, and Zoh Amba.
A nomadic spirit living between the US and Spain Josephine performs at venues such as Cafe Oto, Zebulon, MoMA PS1, Constellation, Issue Project Room, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, Tangier American Legation Museum, Paradiso, Tonic, Arkaoda, Chicago Cultural Center, Les Instants Chavirés, Beirut Art Center, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, EMPAC, Trans-Pecos, Barbican, Monasterio de Santa Maria de las Cuevas, Troubadour, Andy Warhol Museum, ZDB, Palazzo Biscari, Trinosophes,ODA, Musée national Eugène Delacroix, Brown’s Diner.
Some past festival appearances include Big Ears, Le Guess Who?, London Contemporary Music Festival, Donau, ArthurFest, Liverpool Biennal, ATP, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Etcetera, KRAAK, Million Tongues, Counterflows, Stockholm New Music Festival, Suoni per il Populi, Incubate, Green Man, Platform, Serralves, Mimi.
On her latest offering Domestic Sphere, Josephine performs solely with her electric guitar and then subverts the usual range of her voice to embody other frequencies and sounds beyond the surface layer of the songs .
Godmother (Fire) and Spellbinder (Takuroku) are two recent solo records that brought front and center for the first time Josephine’s own synth arrangements. Mystery Meet and What is it that ever was? , collections of improvised song experiments released as CD-R’s in 2006, are now available in their first vinyl pressings on Feeding Tube records.
Olneyville Sound System, Rope Trick, SWRM, Freakbag
OLNEYVILLE SOUND SYSTEM
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067159322269
Swampy, sludgy, hot and stripped out "anti-blues" from Providence noise rock legends, led over the decades by the core duo of Dan St. Jacques on bass and Adam Autry on drums.
ROPE TRICK (PHILLY)
Cosmic rock duo touring their new ep "Red Tide." Based in Philly but formed in Providence by members of Queen Elephantine. Indy Shome on guitar/vocals and Nate Totushek on drums.
SWRM
https://www.instagram.com/swrm_pvd
Psychedelic synth rock duo featuring Alec K. Redfearn on synths/voice and Matt McLaren on drums.
FREAKBAG
https://www.facebook.com/freakbag666
Wyrd noise punk tornado served up by Hana Ko, Johnny Sneeze, and Joe Drummer.
Shape Note Singing Workshop
Looking to join a welcoming community that shares your love of music? Join ours! You are invited to a free workshop about Shape Note Singing at on Saturday, April 13 from 3-5 pm in downtown Providence at AS220. This inclusive workshop celebrates the collective voice in four-part harmony. No experience needed, just a love of music and a spirit of fun. Snacks will be provided. All voices welcome!
If you can’t attend the workshop, please drop by our open singings every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Thursday of the month, 6-8 pm, at 148 Power Street. Reach out to shapenote@brown.edu with any questions!
Dru Cutler w/ Dr. Jones
Dru Cutler is a Brooklyn, NY based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist as well as co-founder of Unit J, a Bushwick music space, which has hosted hundreds of shows and was nominated for “Best Live Music Venue” on Brokelyn.com.
Over the last several years, Dru has been tapped for creative projects including working as the music director at The McKittrick Hotel, organizingand performing with a large ensemble for the Brooklyn Museum’s sold out “Night of 1000Bowies”, and orchestrating a live musical celebration of The Big Lebowski soundtrack for the Brooklyn Bowl.
As a recording artist, Dru Cutler has released the albums Familiar(2016) & Bring Closer the Distance (2018), in the process working with Grammy award-winning producers Dave McNair (Bob Dylan, David Bowie) and Scott Lehrer (Philip Glass, Rufus Wainwright).
“He’s at the fringe of the millennial generation, perhaps distanced enoughto poke gentle criticism with someauthority.” His latest album, Will to Mend(2023) was released in September via United Masters. It was mixed by Tom Tierney of Spaceman Sound, and mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson.
The record and subsequent music videos were well received by fans and critics alike. It garnered significant streams, playlisting, and views across Spotify, Youtube, and socialmedia platforms, ultimately leading to an east coast fall tour run with his band.
Tor Johnson Records presents Dreamwell, Horsewhip, Riverbed, Razed
Tor Johnson Records Presents
8pm doors, $10
-Dreamwell - https://dreamwell.bandcamp.com
-Horsewhip - https://iodinerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/consume-and-burn
-Riverbed - https://riverbedhc.bandcamp.com/music
-Razed - https://razed401.bandcamp.com/
The Punchline Academy Live Tour
https://fullblastbooking.net/tour-for-life/
In 3 years, TOUR FOR LIFE has raised over $43,000 for Mental Health charity, and featured Ghostface Killah, Onyx, Kool G Rap, Sheek Louch, Cormega, Nems, 38 Spesh, Cappadonna, Rah Digga, Rittz, Dizzy Wright, Canibus, CL Smooth, R.A. The Rugged Man, Brother Ali, and many more.
Just as importantly; we have raised more awareness than we ever thought possible after just 3 years. We have generated so many conversations, gotten many people within the Hip Hop community to “TALK ABOUT IT”, partake in self care, and open up what has been a closed door for decades now. Tour For Life is saving lives, and changing lives for the better, while spreading love, knowledge and support for both mental health management and indie music. Our events include on-site therapists offering free sessions, live artists/painting and community mending art projects, raffles, mental health professionals distributing promo materials/literarure and other self care resources, and of course amazing live music performances. These are shows like no other, and we are truly blessed to have the talented and compassionate staff at MHC help us take on the frontlines of such an important fight.
