It seems that I am now playing double bills every show! On January 25th, The Rungs will play a benefit for Educate the Children, a not for profit organization that provides education and skill development programs to women and children in Nepal. The benefit will be held from 4-8pm at Lot 10 in Ithaca. Immediately afterwards, I will head over to another venue, The Haunt in Ithaca, to sing with my fav band, The Sutras! What are the odds of both shows happening in the same night? Lets just hope my crazy cold goes away by then!
A talented writer and indie music supporter at emerging indie bands music blog reviewed The Rungs EP! It brightened up our day to read such beautiful words about our music, and we’re feeling very thankful for the indie music support that websites like this create.
When we started playing our first shows a little over a year ago, I wouldn’t have predicted us evolving into a ‘real band.’ I guess it all depends on what you define as a band, but now we have an EP out, a real music release! And I have stickers now. Band stickers! So based on the music release and sticker scale, I’d say we’re getting pretty close to real band material.
Boy were those first few shows rough. I made silly mistakes, forgot chords, mumbled mixed up lyrics, and the list of goofy errors goes on. Thankfully, Diwas exercised the most amazing patience with my newbie musician growing pains. Because you have to start somewhere right?
The Rungs early days
Okay lets be real here, I still do all of those things at our live shows, but at least less frequently!
The point is, if any closet musicians are out there reading this, then run out to your nearest open mic! Don’t be afraid of sharing your music because releasing it to the world and letting go of the hesitations is one of the most rewarding feelings! Take it from me and my new EP 🙂 And take it from folks who are supporting indie musicians, like our generous emergingindiebands.com reviewer.
And now for a little recap of our show at Felicia’s, opening up for Gabriel Tavares and Powder the Moon.
Every Sunday night, Felicia’s hosts free music from 7pm to 9pm. The popular local acts and small touring bands that are drawn to this delicious cocktail bar always ensure good quality, consistent Sunday night entertainment.
It is one of those cozy small venues that has a nice warm vibe no matter how many people are in the audience. A good turnout really packs the place and it is quite the squeeze to make it to the bar or a comfy lounge seat across the room. We were lucky to have a moderately squeezy kind of night 🙂 and intimate type of show, (the first set of seats are only a couple of feet from the mic stands!)
Recently having left my day job due to a repetitive motion injury, (I haven’t written much about that because it is no fun 😦 music is way better and has been the most therapeutic activity, hence our catch phrase, ‘music is the best medicine’ !!! 🙂 ) I was just tickled to see friends from work in the audience. How nice of them to come out and support the band!
We also wore matching shirts that night, from our friends at House of Thoughts clothing company in the United Kingdom. Great shirts and we felt so pro with the matched look.
What made this particular show even more special was that it was the release of a live CD that Gabe had recorded in 2005 when he was invited down to New York city to share a gig with the band Faith at CBGB’s 313 Gallery. The show was one of a series of farewell shows that were scheduled when the legendary Bowery club lost their lease. Aptly named, ‘Live at CBGBs 313 Gallery’, the cd has a great raw roomy feel to it and you can almost make out Gabe hitting the strings of the guitar, just like at the live show. Powder The Moon is a male female duo with Gabe on guitar and Laura Penman on the upright bass. At the show Sunday night, they performed songs off the album and new originals. I love the addition of the upright bass and female vocal touch to Gabe’s solo sound! (Hopefully Powder the Moon will release a live cd someday tooo 🙂 )
Powder the Moon
Speaking of CD releases, we’re working on that one! It’ll happen soon, but for now, help share our music on soundcloud and youtube
The Gates is a new-ish, (okay I still consider it new even though it has been over a year!) bar and venue located in Cornell University’s college town. They’ve got a cool upscale interior design, a nice decent sized stage, and a great sound system. My favorite thing about the place is that they serve kombucha on tap! This Friday we will be opening for Diwas’s other band, Photoreal at The Gates!
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!
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?!
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.
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.
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! 🙂
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.
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.
therungsband.com 