Music – Page 5

Photoreal / The Rungs / DJ Diwas at The Gates

So many overdue updates!!

We’ll have to begin where I left off, the Photoreal show at The Gates in Ithaca’s college town, all the way back on the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was definitely a cold night, something in-between rain and snow was coming down and icing the ground. Still, despite the unpleasant weather, a great group of friends came out to support the bands. Photoreal is Diwas’s main musical project with his good friend Dan. These guys have been playing music for years together, touring and recording with the former psychedelic rock band Ayurveda. Since the band split ways, they’ve been redeveloping their sound and live show as Photoreal! It is electronic, poppy, and straight rockin’, something like Chromeo meets Skrillex with intricate live guitar throughout.

It was our first time opening for them, so of course I was super excited! Photoreal uses these bright floor lights that change colors throughout the set, and since we were right before them, the lights were set up for our set too. This was my first time playing in front of such bright floor lights, and boy I was just like a little kid staring into the sun. Every time I looked down, my eyes locked right into the lights in a weird trance. I completely forget where we were at mid song a couple of times! Oh stage lights and your trickery!

Following The Rungs, Photoreal put on a great show, and Diwas, after already pulling a double by playing in two bands in a row, made it a triple and performed a DJ set for the last hour of the night!

Lyrics

Ride Lyrics

Ride, by The Rungs

Seems I’m in no hurry yet to get where I’m going so I might as well enjoy the ride

A scene sandwiched in between the same framed window and the always looking over me sky

Even though you’ve been through hell, you can’t quit now you’ve gotta go pick yourself up and get a move on

Tell me what you’re waiting for, a day a week another year another year another year gone

I’ve seen waste arise from haste and so I’m taking my time

Buildings and trees stationary streamed along the way I’m going rolling wheels radio on

(lyrics written by Mandy)

Music

A Halloween Haunting

This will be my most memorable Halloween yet!

When All Hallows’ Eve rolls around, the local rock shows get spooky.

While the Rungs did not have a Halloween show, I did get a chance to be a part of one with The Sutras! They are the only band in town that rocks out with a theremin, the instrument behind the creepy flesh tingling whistling sound featured in countless sci-fi and horror movie soundtracks.

The instrument was invented by Leon Theremin in Russia in the 1920s, after he worked as a radio engineer for the Red Army and developed a specialized antenna to serve as a motion detector. He noticed that when he moved his hand around, the pitch produced by the ‘Radio Watchman’ changed, and it could be used to play songs!

For The Sutras, the theremin’s quivering notes are the perfect addition to their complex, psychedelic arrangements, adding a haunting touch to the high energy jams that the audience gets lost in.

On this particular night, creepy and unexplainable things began to happen when the theremin’s blood chilling sound filled the air. Diwas was in the audience and managed to capture a photo of the madness that ensued…

We also managed to sneak my ipod in for a video, before the creatures came out of the woodwork!

Music

Ithaca Porchfest 2013

Porchfest is a neighborhood festival where bands use porches as stages. It takes place each year in September for a full day of music and dance through the streets of Ithaca’s fall creek neighborhood. This year, over 100 bands spread out on porches across the neighborhood and rocked out as audiences walked, biked, and danced up and down the streets and sidewalks. From classical to roots rock to country to pop to reggae to punk rock and from Appalachian to Brazilian to Irish to Swedish to Zimbabwean, porchfest celebrates all types of music.

We played on a particularly special porch. It was the house that we first lived in together when I moved to Ithaca and the house that we started playing music in together! Coincidentally, at the very time that we moved out, one of our friends moved in. So, when Porchfest rolled around, our friend was kind enough to open the porch up to our music.

The weather was sunny and cool, our friends filled the street in front of the porch, and we blasted our tunes through three little amps. Porchfest is something I look forward every year as the summer ends. It is a sign of fall, a chance to share our music with new listeners, meet new people, discover new bands, and play on a porch! Who doesn’t want to rock out on a porch?!

Porchfest is catching on in other towns! See if your town is one of them or learn how to start one in your neighborhood! http://www.porchfest.org/porchfests-elsewhere/

Music

Great Vibes at The Nines!

Saturday night we played at one of our favorite venues, The Nines, in Ithaca NY. It is actually the very place where we met, about 5 years ago. (I think it was 5…maybe 6? this is too much math already 🙂 )

Anywhoo, a band called Schooner from Durham NC had contacted us about playing a show together on their ‘Neighborhood Veins’ album release tour. After checking out their music and digging it, we were psyched to share a bill with them.

at the nines sept 2013

We hadn’t been making it up to The Nines very much over the past year, so we thought, ‘Lets play there! Don’t you miss that place?’

It turned out to be the perfect location for Schooner and us to tear it up! I’ve never been to a show there that didn’t have a great vibe. Not sure what it is. The people? The Pizza? (You must try the deep dish if you are ever in Ithaca!) It’s funny how some spaces and locations just don’t work. No matter how much people try to doctor a place up and re-brand, there is just something about it that is off. Then there are places that for no explainable reason just work. Something is special about them. The Nines is like that, it just feels good to be in that place. We will definitely be playing there again!

Here is a clip of our Feist cover from the show, My Moon My Man.

About us, Music

Eric Johnson at The Blue Note

Last weekend was the first weekend in a while that we didn’t have any shows booked, so we decided to get out of town for a little inspiration and catch Eric Johnson live at The Blue Note! We’ve been so busy lately running around with work and other projects, it was the perfect time to relax and go out for a band-date night.

At The Blue Note, we sank into our tightly packed seats and enjoyed superb music, tasty drinks and of course, each others company 🙂 It was just what we needed!

And we have a little list of guitar greats to see live that we’re slowly working on. Last year we saw Steve Vai in Rochester, and now we’ve got Eric Johnson checked off the list too. He laid down a great performance, accompanied by Mike Stern on guitar, Chris Maresh on bass, and Anton Fig on drums.

Exploring the things that inspire me to make music is teaching me so much about myself and how funny the mind works. Sometimes I just want to lock myself up in solitude and bust out songs that are piling up in my head, and other times I need a change of scenery to enjoy all of the beauty and art and music that surrounds me. Catching Eric Johnson live was a nice change of scenery, to take in and appreciate all of the amazing talent and experience and musical work of these guitar greats. Might I add, in this age of electronic music, DJs, etc (all stuff that I dooo love, but..) long live guitar! 🙂

Gear

Vox Pathfinder

Who says you can’t have two of the same thing? A few years ago, one of our friends let us borrow their Vox Pathfinder 15r, a solid state amp with 15W of power, an 8″ bulldog speaker, gain, gain boost, tremolo speed & depth, spring reverb, and 2 band EQ bass & treble. At only 18 lbs and a little over a foot tall, we were very impressed with the sound that came out of this little guy! After we returned the amp to its owner, we just had to get one of our own.

Now, about 3o shows and a year later, we realized that just one Vox Pathfinder is not enough. Its just too sweet of an amp. Hence, our recent addition to the family 🙂

Gear

The cables are in order!

After a busy couple of weeks of shows and practices here and there, this just feels good. Lets get the gear!

Live

Playing Gigs – Be Flexible!

The LOT 10 show went magnificently well! The guys from the touring act, Sool, had some old friends in the Ithaca area, so there was a nice little vibe of reunion in the air. I also learned a surprising lesson in flexibility. These guys are of a slightly older generation, and it seemed to be a later than usual night for some of their friends. Although they were scheduled to play last, they asked us to switch with them so that they could play earlier and relieve their friends of staying up super late. Diwas and I didn’t really think much of it. Here it was their show, they were only in town for one weekend, and they hadn’t seen some of these friend in many years, so of course we were like, ‘hey guys, its your show, whatever you want!’ From their response, it was evident that they were not used to playing with bands that were so flexible. Man, imagine how awkward and rigid the night would have been if we were like, ‘No guys, sorry, the line up has already been discussed, we can’t change it.’ Ha! That would have taken the fun right out of it! So anyway, the lesson learned is that when it comes to gigging with other bands, the key to having fun and ensuring a smooth event is flexibility. Things are constantly changing and you’ve just gotta roll with it. That night, with such good attitudes all around, the music was that much better. Both The Fly Rods and Sool rocked it! And here is a little home video from the first song of our set, BFF.

Live

Friday night gig!

Well, after all of our groovy Sunday sets since the birth of the Rungs, (we’re just over a year old now!), its about time for a Friday night gig! We will be hitting the stage at Lot 10 in Ithaca tonight with our local friends, The Fly Rods, and touring rockers, Sool. We have some friends in town who have been super supportive of our music and through them we were connected to Sool, who contacted us to open for them when they came through Ithaca on a summer mini tour. I feel so lucky to have such supportive friends! (I think it helps that they like our music too 🙂 ) And after the shaky performance last weekend, I’m hoping for an awesome night tonight. It’ll make for a perfect end to the week! Plus with this line-up, Fly Rods, Rungs, Sool, its just gonna be rockin with high-energy-dance-to-the-grooves-feel-good-vibes.

Sool: http://www.soolmusic.com/

The Fly Rods: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Fly-Rods