So let’s get ready for summer…

The Gregg Rolie Band will be rolling into Nippertown for the free Alive@5 concert in Albany’s Riverfront Park on Thursday, June 17. Keyboardist-vocalist-Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Rolie was a founding member of two multi-platinum bands – Santana and Journey.

And of special interest for all of you bass players out there – Alphonso Johnson, an alum of both Santana and Weather Report, will be holding down the bottom end in Rolie’s band.

In support of his sophomore album, “My World 2.0,” 16-year-old tween heartthrob Justin Bieber is heading out on a 40-city tour this summer, which will be bringing him to Albany’s Times Union Center on Wednesday, August 25. Special guest Sean Kingston will also be onboard for the tour.

Tix are slated to go on sale for the TU Center show at 10am on Saturday, March 27.

Tix are slated to go on sale to the general public on Monday, March 29.

Here’s a quote from EMPAC’s exhibition page:

The artworks in the exhibition deploy helium, parabolic flight, rigging, and digital effects. They feature floating performers, an upside-down kitchen, an isolation tank and skateboarders freed from physical laws. They evoke the golden age of space exploration and the dreams of the counter-culture. Dancing on the Ceiling is a provocative convergence of time-based photography, sculpture, installation, and video.

And here’s a documentary video showing Denis Darzacq photographing street dancers in a Paris suburb in a quest to capture them midair:

The exhibit opens this Thursday, March 18 at 6pm with an artist reception (and free exhibition catalogs while they last).

But wait, there’s more… At 7pm, there’s a talk by special effects legend Douglas Trumbull (“2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters,” “Star Trek,” “Blade Runner”), followed by a free screening of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of science fiction cinema, “2001: A Space Odyssey” on EMPAC’s massive 56′ concert hall screen. That, my friends, is worth the trip right there.

The show will be open daily from noon to 6pm and continues through Saturday, April 10. Now if I could ONLY get that Lionel Ritchie song out of my head…

Former Albanian Peter Hanson returns to Nippertown to host a screening of his feature-length documentary film, “Tales From the Script,” at the Spectrum 8 Theatres in Albany at 6:30pm on Wednesday. There’s just one opportunity to catch it on the big screen, but there will be a Q&A session with director Hanson immediately following the showing.

For his film, Hanson – former arts writer for The Times Union, arts editor for Metroland and editor-in-chief for The Source – interviewed such Hollywood screenwriters as Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon”), John Carpenter (“Halloween”), Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption”), William Goldman (“The Princess Bride”), Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”) and dozens more – 46 screenwriters in all.

Music for the film’s soundtrack is credited to TJ Raider – better known to Nippertown music fans as Imagining Lennon musician, Tom Raider of Delmar.

The film was produced in conjunction with Hanson’s book of the same name published by IT Books.

Sam Bush

During the second of two hour-plus sets at The Egg in Albany on Friday night, Sam Bush and his band had two or three dozen young dancers bobbing and bopping in the back corners of the theater. A friend turned to me and said, “He’s the Jerry Garcia of bluegrass.”

The music of mandolinist-fiddler Bush is still rooted deep in mountain bluegrass – he opened with a pair of classic Bill Monroe tunes – but he ventures far beyond those musical boundaries, as he’s been doing consistently since his days leading the pioneering New Grass Revival.

On Friday night, he continued to break new ground – most notably with a wild, instrumental fiddle medley, wrapping up the first set with an echo-laden take on David Essex’s “Rock On” that slid into a traditional Irish fiddle tune and then crashed into a climactic, high-wattage blitz through Jean Luc Ponty’s “New Country.”

His second-set takes on Buddy & Julie Miller’s “The River’s Gonna Run” (dark and ominous) and Jeff Black’s “Wanna Do Right” (Band-like laid-back funk) were equally inventive, as Bush fired up edgy bottleneck playing on his resonator mandolin, while Scott Vestal traded in his more traditional five-string for an electric synth banjo to create rumbling, Hammond B3-like organ swells.

Prog-rock-like instrumentals – including “The Mahavishnu Mountain Boys” and “Laps in Seven” (in a 7/4 time signature) – showcased the jaw-dropping instrumental virtuosity of Vestal, guitarist Stephen Mougin, bassist Byron House and drummer Chris Brown, in addition to Bush himself. But the band also knew when to pull back the reins and play it straight and simple, as they did with magnificent results on the aching “Gold Heart Locket.”

Photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

Read my review in The Times Union

SECOND OPINIONS:
In The Daily Gazette, David Singer wrote, “The best received songs, like ‘Where There’s a Road,’ came when they laid off the lyrics and passed the solos around, moving from Bush on the mandolin to Stephen Mougin on acoustic guitar and Scott Vestal on a wicked banjo. While Bush was the man to watch, these guys all produced every time they got the light, which was often, sometimes two or three times on a hot tune.”

THE SAM BUSH BAND SET LIST

Uncle Pen
Big Mon
Where There’s a Road
Ridin’ That Bluegrass Train
Circles Around Me
Out on the Ocean
Blue Mountain
River Take Me
New Country

On the Road
Revival
The Mahavishnu Mountain Boys
Gold Heart Locket
The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle
Wanna Do Right
The River’s Gonna Run
Bringin’ in the Georgia Mail
Laps in Seven
ENCORE
Up on Cripple Creek/Cripple Creek

(left) Stephen Mougin, Sam Bush, Byron House and (right) Scott Vestal and Stephen Mougin

Chris Brown

On Saturday, May 8, the Main Stage on the Parade Grounds will be hosting performances by acoustic rock ‘n’ reggae tunesmith Trevor Hall (1pm), the Constellations (2:15pm) and the newly indie power-popsters OK Go (3:45pm).

Here’s a clip of Trevor Hall:

It’s the second time around for OK Go, who also played the Tulip Fest back in 2006. See their latest video here.

Admission to the Tulip Festival is, of course, free. Stay tuned for details as more bands are added to the schedule.

1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … The first album I ever bought was actually a casette tape of Paula Abdul. I can’t remember the name of it now, but it’s the one that had “Straight Up,” “Opposites Attract” and “Cold Hearted Snake” on it! I bought Debbie Gibson’s cassette shortly after that.

2. THE FIRST CONCERT THAT I EVER SAW WAS … First concert… All my friends will tell you their first concert was New Kids On The Block. Call me crazy, but for some reason I wasn’t all that in love with NKOTB. So, I sat that show out. But I did not miss Boyz II Men at the (then) Knickerbocker Arena! It was so exciting. I will never forget that concert.

3. THE FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT I EVER OWNED OR PLAYED WAS … The first musical instrument I ever owned was the clarinet.

4. THE FIRST SONG THAT I EVER PERFORMED IN PUBLIC WAS … The first song I ever performed in public was Whitney Houston’s “One Moment In Time” at the Charlton Bicentennial Celebration. I was in 4th grade. My outfit was complete with an enormous gold scrunchie in my hair. We have the VCR home videos to prove it.

5. THE FIRST BAND I WAS EVER IN WAS … The first band I was ever in was not a rock band or a pop band but the Charlton Heights Elementary School Concert Band, playing – you guessed it – the clarinet!

Jessica Layton takes a break from her WNYT-TV duties to join Benita Zahn (WNYT) and Jerry Gretzinger (WRGB) performing as “The Singing Anchors” in concert at The Linda in Albany at 8pm on Saturday.

FILM: “The White Stripes: Under the Great White Northern Lights” @ the Black Swan, 66 Broadway, Tivoli. Music documentary film about the 2007 Canadian tour for the White Stripes’ “Icky Thump.” 7:30pm.

MUSIC: Doyle Dykes @ Lillian’s Restaurant, Saratoga Springs. Acoustic guitar master comes to town, presented by Saratoga Guitar. 7pm. $10.

MUSIC: Mat Kearney and Ingrid Michaelson @ Northern Lights, Clifton Park. Two acclaimed alt-popsters share the headlining slot, while acoustic soul singer-songwriter Angel Taylor opens the show. 8pm. $22.

MUSIC: Celtic Crossroads @ The Egg, Albany. Seven world-class musicians claim “to do to Irish music what ‘Riverdance’ has done to Irish dance,” in this benefit concert for Albany’s Irish American Heritage Museum. 7:30pm. $30.

LIVE STREAMING: Disco Biscuits @ Livestream. Thursday night’s Disco Biscuits concert at The Egg is sold out, but tonight you can catch the band’s CD release party for “Planet Anthem” live online from Philadelphia. 8pm. Free.

Cheyenne Marie, Daniel Martin Moore, Dan Dorff and Ben Sollee

Ben Sollee is a musical monster, and, of course, I mean that in the best of all possible ways. He’s a classically trained cellist, who in recent years teamed up with the eccentric, utterly charming banjo-gal Abigail Washburn. Together they’ve made several Nippertown appearances at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (opening for Doc Watson) and The Egg (opening for Abigail’s band Uncle Earl).

He’s also a member of the Sparrow Quartet – which includes Washburn, fiddler Casey Driessen and a banjo player by the name of Bela Fleck – who have played at The Egg and the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.

His latest project is a collaboration with fellow Kentuckian singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore, who made his debut in 2008 with “Stray Age” on the venerable indie rock label Sub Pop.

Together, Sollee and Moore recorded the album “Dear Companion” – with Jim James of My Morning Jacket handling the production chores – in an effort to raise awareness about the mountaintop removal process of extracting coal that continues to this day in the Appalachian Mountains.

On Tuesday, Sollee and Moore brought their “Dear Companion” tour to The Linda in Albany, and it was a thoroughly gorgeous and exciting evening. No, Jim James wasn’t there, but I doubt anyone missed him. Fiddler-guitarist Cheyenne Marie and percussionist Dan Dorff rounded out the band, and they were stellar.

While there was a subtle environmental theme that ran through several of the evening’s songs, Moore and Sollee are wise enough to know that you’ve got to have the music to back up the message. And they certainly did.

Moore’s solo turn on “Flyrock Blues” was the most blunt ecological statement of the night, while in “Only a Song,” Sollee sang, “I wouldn’t make a sound if I wasn’t so angry,” before acknowledging in the chorus, “This is only a song/It can’t change the world.”

Of course, he’s wrong. Music can change so much, and most likely every person in the theater on Tuesday night walked out feeling better than when they walked in.

Maybe it was Moore’s hushed intensity on songs like “The Old Measure” and “That’ll Be the Plan.” Maybe it was Marie’s sultry vocals on the vintage blues nugget “Romance in the Dark.” Maybe it was Dorff’s show-stealing body-percussion dance during “Bury Me With My Car.” Or maybe it was Sollee’s brilliant touch on the cello – whether he was bowing, plucking, strumming and even fingerpicking.

A magnificent and uplifting show…

Photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

Read my review in The Times Union.

SECOND OPINIONS:
David Singer wrote a review for The Daily Gazette, but we can’t find it anywhere on line.

BEN SOLLEE & DANIEL MARTIN MOORE SET LIST

Something, Somewhere, Sometimes
My Wealth Comes to Me
Needn’t Say a Thing
Only a Song
The Old Measure
Bury Me in My Car
Romance in the Dark (Lil Green)
That’ll Be the Plan
Try
Flyrock Blues
It’s Not Impossible
Dear Companion
Sweet Marie
Jubilee (a cappella)
ENCORE
Chocolate Jesus (Tom Waits)

Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee

Cheyenne Marie and Dan Dorff

Jimmy Cliff performing a the Palace Theatre in Albany, October 3, 1989. Photo by Martin Benjamin.

Here’s this year’s roster of inductees:

• ABBA will be inducted by the BeeGees’ Barry and Robin Gibb
• Genesis will be inducted by Phish’s Trey Anastasio
• Jimmy Cliff will be inducted by Wyclef Jean
• The Hollies will be inducted by Steve Van Zandt
• The Stooges will be inducted by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong
• David Geffen will be inducted by Jackson Browne
• Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman and Otis Blackwell will be inducted by Carole King

And among the musicians scheduled to perform at tonight’s induction ceremony are Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael (of Maroon 5), Faith Hill, Chris Isaak, Ronnie Spector, Eric Burdon, Peter Wolf, Train’s Pat Monahan and Fefe Dobson.

1.) Co-creator of the series is David Simon, the man behind one of our all-time favorite television series, “The Wire.” His cohort on “Treme” is writer-producer Eric Overmyer (“St. Elsewhere,” “Homicide”).
2.) “Treme” is set in the troubled, post-Katrina times of New Orleans, one of our favorite cities.
3.) The series centers around the lives of jazz musicians and the Crescent City’s second-line culture, and well, you know how we feel about music – especially New Orleans music.

The series is slated to debut next month, but now we’re even more excited after viewing the new extended trailer for “Treme,” which just happens to feature the music of one of Nippertown’s finest musicians, West African drum master Yacub Addy and his Ghanaian music ensemble Odadaa!:

The music is “Ring Shout (Peace of Mind),” the opening segment of “Congo Square,” the epic 14-movement suite composed by Addy and Wynton Marsalis and performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Odadaa!

I was fortunate enough to be able to follow the creation of “Congo Square” from the first rehearsal – at The Egg in Albany in January, 2006 – to the world premiere in New Orleans’ Congo Square three months later, and it was one of the most thrilling musical experiences of my life.

Go here to find out more about “Congo Square.” If you want to hear and see “Congo Square,” a 2-CD set is available, as is a DVD of a performance from the 2007 Montreal Jazz Festival.