I've Been Quiet But Busy: Folked Up, Record Plants, Fruit & Flowers, Sweet Spirit, Michael VM, The Vansaders, and More

Sweet Spirit at Johnny Brenda's

What Have I Been Up To?

There was a time, back in the early days of CoolDad Music, when I would write recaps and reviews of just about every show I attended, no matter how large or how small. As I've become a veteran, jaded blogger, I've done less of that. I'm not complaining here because it's 100% my own choice to do all of this, but it's a fair bit of work to put together a post about even a small show if I want to include pictures and all that kinda stuff. Sometimes, I just get lazy.

I still attend a shit-ton of shows, though. Here's a round-up of what I've been up to in the last week or so.

Let's Get Folked Up!, Watermark, Asbury Park, NJ

On Wednesday, May 16th, I attended the inaugural Let's Get Folked Up "writers' round" presented by Chris Brown and Megan O'Shea in conjunction with Nashville recording artist Jo Smith. In addition to Smith and Brown, the line-up for this first show in a proposed series included J.T. Makoviecki of Jackson Pines, Renee Maskin of Lowlight, and Matty Carlock.

Jo Smith

Chris Brown et al

Artists took turns sharing songs and stories over the course of two sets before finishing up with a group performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." It was a pretty laid-back evening in a beautiful space with waves crashing just outside the windows behind the stage. I'm hearing that the next installment will happen in July; and, if last week was any indication, it's definitely something worth checking out.

Thursday with the Dickmans, Independent Record Pressing, Bordentown, NJ / The Outpost, Asbury Park, NJ

On Thursday morning, Chris Dickman and I headed over to Bordentown where Randy Now has organized a tour of the new Independent Record Pressing plant which sits just a few minutes away from the Man Cave. We got a walkthrough of the production floor and saw vintage and new vinyl presses pumping out titles from bands like Radiohead, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Menzingers, and Snail Mail. It was pretty damn cool, especially to know that it's happening right in our backyard.

Fruit & Flowers

That evening, Chris & Amy managed to get me into a party that surf, skate, swim lifestyle brand Volcom were throwing at Asbury Park's Outpost. Fruit & Flowers, long a favorite of ours around here, were providing the musical entertainment. I, amazingly, hadn't seen the Brooklyn band since Austin; and it was nice to see that they could still blow me away. Earlier this week, Fruit & Flowers left for their first-ever tour of the UK.

Sweet Spirit / The 1910 Chainsaw Company, Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA

I already wrote briefly here about what a tough day Friday was. As the day wore on, I made the last-minute decision to head down to Philly to catch Sweet Spirit at Johnny Brenda's.

Sweet Spirit is a project featuring Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen of A Giant Dog along with Josh Merry, Jake Knight, Jon Fichter, and Danny Lion. Where A Giant Dog are glam punk, Sweet Spirit are more soulful, more poppy. Ellis, though, is probably the most charismatic presence in live music right now. It doesn't matter which band she's fronting. And, I hate to put this kind of thing on artists who don't know me from a hole in the ground; but Ellis and Cashen have "been there" for me at times when I really needed it. Catching them at this show was really a no-brainer for me, and they didn't disappoint.

Sweet Spirit

I only brought the point & shoot and spent most of the set enjoying myself rather than shooting. Openers The 1910 Chainsaw Company were a nice surprise. To me, they sounded like what you might get if you crossed Pavement and The Beach Boys.

The 1910 Chainsaw Company

Side note: Philly is like 30 miles further from me than Brooklyn, but the drive on Friday was about 30 minutes shorter each way than my usual trips up to Brooklyn. I'll be heading down there more often.

Michael VM / Metal Mountains, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY

After taking Saturday night off from shows in order to spend some time with the family, it was back to it on Sunday for an early show at Mercury Lounge. Our good buddy Michael VM made the trip up from North Carolina with his family to celebrate last year's release, the happiest man on earth. I reviewed the album right around its original release, and it finds Michael in a quieter more contemplative place following his marriage, his move from NYC to NC, and the loss of his mother. He played live with a band that included several members of his former band, The Everymen, as well as his father, Ray. The songs translated well to a live setting and were as moving as they are on the record.

Michael VM

Duo Metal Mountains opened. Helen Rush (vocals / guitar) and Pat Gubler (guitar) delivered, maybe, the mellowest, most low-key set I've ever seen. Metal Mountains' Facebook bio reads simply, "Quiet in the noise..." and that's pretty spot-on.

Metal Mountains

Pastrami from Katz's after the show.

Kali Masi / The Vansaders / Have A Good Season, The Saint, Asbury Park, NJ

On Monday, I headed over to The Saint to catch The Vansaders, Have A Good Season, and Chicago post-hardcore / emo-ish band Kali Masi. Emily was working the door. Scotch LaRock showed up. Alex. Billy. Neil. It wasn't a huge crowd, but there were lots of familiar, friendly faces.

Have A Good Season do the 90s fuzzy guitar indie thing (Dinosaur Jr., Built To Spill) really well, and it's always cool when I catch one of their sets. I was saying to someone over the weekend that I've never seen The Vansaders turn in a bad set, and last night was no different. Just big gut punches of punk-inspired anthems. Kali Masi played to the small Monday night crowd as if they were working a packed room, which is always good to see.

Have A Good Season

The Vansaders

Kali Masi

Things ended relatively early -- always a bonus after a busy few days.

So, even though it's been quiet here at the site, I've been pretty busy. I've got a few interesting things lined up this week that I'll share with you before the coolfamily and I head down to Savannah for the long weekend.

Interview: Chris Brown and Megan O'Shea Talk About Getting Folked Up at The Watermark on 5/16

Nashville to Asbury

On Wednesday, May 16th, Let's Get Folked Up! comes to The Watermark in Asbury Park. The brainchild of Chris Brown, Nashville's Jo Smith, and Megan O'Shea, the evening will be a "songwriters in the round"-style concert featuring Brown, Smith, and a host of some of the best singer / songwriters in the Asbury music scene. If things go well here, and I'm sure they will, there's the potential for Let's Get Folked Up! to become a recurring series that brings together artists from Asbury, Nashville, and beyond to share songs and stories and maybe even interact with the audience.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let's talk about May 16th. I sat down at The Annex in Asbury Park last week with Chris and Meg to get the lowdown on the inaugural Folking.

Tell me a little bit about Let's Get Folked Up.

Meg: Chris and our friend Jo Smith from Nashville pulled me into it a few months ago with the idea of creating a bridge for Nashville artists to bring them here and get them involved in our music scene. And we're really excited about it.

We have an amazing line-up. Jo Smith isn't around here too often, and I'm so excited for her to get involved in our music scene and meet everybody, make friends, and expose her music to everyone here.

Who, in addition to Jo, is on the line-up for the inaugural session?

Chris: Matty Carlock, J.T. Makoviecki from Jackson Pines, Renee Maskin from Lowlight, and myself.

And what's the format?

Chris: Songwriters in the round. When Jo and I met in December playing a show, we got to talking. We were just going to try and trade off and help each other out with shows. But Jo loved the songwriters in the round idea because it's huge in Nashville. And I think it's a great concept. It's a listening room-style thing. There are stories. There are narratives. It evokes "Storytellers" or "Unplugged" from back in the day when we were kids. It's such a cool thing for artists to communicate together.

I knew that Jo knew Meg, so I reached out to Meg and said, "Maybe we can all brainstorm this and turn it into a recurring series."

Is everyone onstage all at once?

Chris: Yep. Someone will do an opening set. Then the rest of the acts will join. There will be a collaborative song at the end (that we haven't figured out yet).

So is it a planned set or more improvisational?

Meg: A little bit of improv, I think. We're gonna just let the artists kind of roll with it and see what stories they come up with, what songs they're in the mood to play.

How did you hook up with Jo?

Chris: She was booked to play at Anchor's Bend for a Christmas show that my dad and I were playing. We just got to chatting. She's super-sweet and super-talented, and she was eager to get into this scene more. Jo is an established artist, and she just wants to see if we can bring more Nashville artists to Asbury; and, maybe in the future, bring some Asbury artists down there.

Nashville is a huge music city in the way that Austin is a huge music city, and I think it would be cool to have that bridge to Asbury.

How did you end up at Watermark?

Chris: I played something similar there in, shit, 2011? It was Emily Grove, myself, Michael Dante Summonte, my buddy Andrew Holtz, and Michael Brett. It was the first time I ever met Emily, Michael, and Michael. Andrew and I were best friends from high school, college roommates.

I remember looking back at the photos from that show, and the room was so elegant. I had talked to [Watermark owner] Russell [Lewis] back then about how they never designed it for music, but acoustic music sounds so good in there. It bounces off the windows. Just the aesthetic of it with the ocean behind you and everything…

I reached out to Russell about it. They're usually closed on Wednesdays anyway, and he said sure. We thought it would be a fun, elegant, last hurrah before summer when this place gets crazy again. 

You've talked about potentially making this a series. Would it be resident at the Watermark or do you think you'd move it around?

Meg: We talked about maybe bouncing from venue to venue. There's so much here. It would be silly not to take advantage of it.

Chris: Places like The Anchor's Bend, Danny Clinch's Gallery, even House of Independents could be really cool. There are so many different rooms with their own cool aesthetic.

In a general sense, is it important to you to bring outside acts into Asbury to inject some fresh sounds into the scene?

Chris: I think so. The music scene in Asbury is very diverse, and it could only benefit from becoming more diverse. All of a sudden, you expose an artist from Nashville to this scene and people think, "Hey. I can do a country number." It doesn't have to be a punk rock town or an indie rock town or a folk singer town. Even with people recently being frustrated by the lack of hip-hop or R&B categories at the awards… ...I say why not? Music is the universal language.

Do you have plans for any future installments or is it just wait and see at this point?

Chris: Kind of tentative at this point. Maybe not June, but maybe July to give more time for planning. We do want to see how this one goes. But we've already had a solid outpouring of interest from people who want to participate. I'm already thinking of different line-ups in my head of people we could bring together. Even putting the most polar opposite personalities on the stage could be fun! Maybe the singer for a punk band with some soft-spoken, folky artist.

I'm really interested in the whole dynamic of having everyone on stage at once, playing off of one another, taking it wherever it goes…

Chris: Even the cues you take from whatever song an artist might choose without any prompting. I'd love to see it evolve into something where maybe even the audience gets involved.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Meg: It's going to be a great night. We have such an amazing scene around here, and I'm just really looking forward to pushing our artists further and seeing what they do when they're put on a stage together.

Chris will be playing. Meg will be emceeing?

Chris: Yep.

Meg: Yeah. I'm excited. Each and every one of the participants, I know pretty well; and I've seen all of them do amazing things in the years that I've known them. It's going to be fun.

Let's Get Folked Up! takes place on Wednesday, May 16th, at Asbury Park's Watermark on the boardwalk. It features Jo Smith, Chris Brown, Matty Carlock, Renee Maskin, and J.T. Makoviecki. Doors are at 6pm, and $10 gets you inside.

More NJ Tiny Desk Contest Submissions: Chris Brown, J.T. Makoviecki, We're Ghosts Now, where is my spaceship, Dentist

Deadline Submissions

Last week, I shared with you a few of the submissions from New Jersey artists for the 2016 Tiny Desk Contest. Since then, the deadline of February 2nd has passed; and I've come across a few more. I even helped make one.

Good luck to everybody, and thanks so much to Dentist for trusting me to help make theirs.

Here are the latest.

Chris Brown (Asbury Park), "Son"



J.T. Makoviecki (Jackson), "Knees, Eyes, Hands"



We're Ghosts Now (Freehold), "On the Road"



where is my spaceship (Hackensack), "those drugs"



Dentist (Asbury Park), "You Say"