Karaoke with Seth, and BBQ to die for. January 4, 2025.
Photography by Joshua Scarselli.
Her New Knife / Bruiser and Bicycle / Mall Goth @ El Dorado, 1/1/2025
Byrdhouse Records presented the first show of the year at El Dorado with Philadelphia’s Her New Knife. Bruiser and Bicycle and Mall Goth provided support.
Photography by Timothy Reidy.
Week One: Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week “Propaganda Machine”
Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week Airs EVERY WEDNESDAY at 6pm EASTERN Only on RadioRadioX.com
This is Jesse Sample. We all remember the pandemic. No matter how you cut that deck, 2020 was a stressful year for us all. Do you remember the high hopes we had for 2021? We all hoped that 2021 was gonna be a time for us to shed all that baggage and move onto a healthier thing. Droves and droves of wild stuff just kept happening. That news cycle never slowed down. Every day and often more than once a day some new psycho headline drops.
We are now stepping into 2025, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve adjusted my expectations. Everyone in New Jersey has a UFO story, AI is reconfiguring our place in the world, and your boy just put out a 53-track album. I don’t see this ride slowing down in my crystal ball. Do you?
So, assuming we are speeding toward chaos, what’s the plan? How should we direct our efforts? That’s a question we all must answer for ourselves. My plan is to make music and to get closer with people. 99.8% of the people I know have good well-meaning hearts. I want to spend more time with them and communicate better.
Thanks to all of you tuned into RadioRadioX. This is the Freak of the Week, “Propaganda Machine.”
A Year of Marathons – The Weird Side of the Internet
A Year of Marathons – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.
I’d love to run a marathon. See now, me writing this is like people coming up to me saying they want to write a book. Could they sit at a laptop every day for months trying to figure out how to tell a story in 70-80,000 words? Sure. I could run a marathon if I rand like three yards at a time, stopped for coffee and beef jerky, slept on the side of the road or at least caught a few naps – by that definition, I could run a marathon. And I’d live to. Soon as I’ve got a month with nothing better to do. And a good pillow that travels well.
But I cannot, under any stretch of imagination or exercise of hubris, imagine that I could do what 55-year-old Belgian runner Hilde Dosogne did. She ran a marathon. Then she woke up the next morning and ran another one. Then the next day, another one. At one hundred-and-fifty consecutive marathons, she beat the women’s record for that feat. But she kept on, until she was tied with the men’s record, resting after 366 consecutive marathons.
She paid the price, putting her body under tremendous strain, but aside from the swelling of the joints known as bursitis, the main toll was on her mental health, having to get up every morning knowing you were going to get up and run a marathon.
I really gotta give it up to Hilde Dosogne. Every day knowing you’re going to get up and do something that people spend months training to do once. I mean, does she have three-hundred and sixty-six oval “26.2” stickers for her bumper? Can she even see out of her back window? It would be funny as shit if she doesn’t have a single oval sticker. She may not even have a car. She may even have just been running to a good coffee shop and back every day.
Prog Digest – An Xperience Column
Prog Digest – An Xperience Column – by Klyde Kadiddlehumper.
Happy New Year, Louis!
Happy New Year, Billy Ray!
And who won the One Dollar?
Well, who really cares – Louis not only had the champagne, lobster, and cracked crab, but Ophelia to boot.
The new year is always filled with hope and all that jazz – and, inevitably, comes up a little short of our expectations. Mind you, most of us have high expectations for the new year. And we also usually find ourselves going, “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out!” to the old year.
Well, not this year, people! The streak ends here! We will not be fooled again! You won’t find me bowing to the porcelain god at the end of the year! No siree, Bob. Not this guy. Nope.
But Klyde, just how do you plan to avoid this end-of-year case of phooey?
This year, it’s a two-pronged attack.
Yes – I know. Fighting a war on two fronts is a strategy with failure just waiting to happen (just ask the Germans … well, ok, part of it DID have to do with the weather on the Eastern Front). This, however, is not a war.
This is a strategy guaranteed to make things ok.
Front number one – concerts. Now, I am going to be looking at progressive stuff right now. Some may or may not come anywhere near. However, there will be some that are available online or somewhere later on. In all, live music is the start of a solid approach.
But Klyde, who are you looking to see?
Here is a list, just to start:
Kraftwerk
Steven Wilson
The Musical Box
Dream Theater
Steve Hackett
Umphrey’s McGee
Tesseract
Haken
Jeff Lynne’s ELO
The Alan Parsons Live Project
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets (I have no idea, but am going to find out)
That should do to start. There are certainly more, but these are all the ones of which the news has come to Harvard. There may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.
On to front number two.
More music I’ve never heard of. Or, more than likely, you – even if you are a massive proghead – have likely not heard of. Sorry for the lousy grammar.
For anyone who has been a faithful reader (not that I think there are any – this is really just a completely self-absorbed monthly form of therapy), you will have heard me speak of Prog Magazine. It really is the necessary go-to reference for all things old and new in the world of Prog. Once upon a time, there was a real CD enclosed with each issue (I have a pretty good number of them).
Now, it’s a download link in the magazine.
Here are some things that have been around over the last few years.
Currently on the playlist is a sampler of music from the band Twelfth Night. Originating in England in the ‘80s, they reformed in 2007 and 2014. Really fun stuff.
Pallas – another 1980s “neo-prog” band – and they are still around. 2023’s “The Messenger” is full of all the pomp and bombast you’d expect. Just plain cool.
The Fierce and the Dead’s 2023 album “News from the Invisible World” was runner-up as Prog Magazine’s Album of the Year. Steven Wilson was Number One. Wonderfully complex and still lyrical. Yeah – no wasted time here.
Some of the links are for label samplers. For example, Bird’s Robe Records showcased 18 bands and tracks. Bands like clayhands, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Arcane, Kodiak Empire, and many more.
My sanity already being in question, this is just going to be the manner in which I cope and refine the art of being a functioning lunatic.
If I can do it, so can you. Get out of the damned house and see a show where you have no idea what is going on. Listen to music you buy the way we all used to do it: walk into a record store (when you travel, seek them out) and buy something where the album cover looks cool or maybe disturbing.
Now – get off your fat a$$ and start something that we all know you will not regret.
Happy Freakin’ New Year.
Until next time.
Klyde
“New Year’s Eve” @ No Fun, 12/31/2024
No Fun rang in the New Year with Brule County Bad Boys, as is tradition. Earlier in the night, the crowd got into a frenzy for Leftover Crack, supported by Grief Group.
Photography by Timothy Reidy.
More from Timothy Reidy …
Zakk Sabbath / Zoso / The Iron Maidens @ Empire Live, 12/30/2024
Empire Live was absolutely packed for these three hard-rocking bands.
Photography by Timothy Reidy.
Zakk Sabbath
Zoso
The Iron Maidens
Park Theater Foundation Presents January 2025 Shows
The Park Theater Foundation presents a variety of shows at The Park Theater throughout January 2025.
01/10/25:
‘The Park’ presents internationally-renowned guitarist and singer-songwriter, Ariel Posen, with opening act, Ivan Gabriel, live on January 10th, 2025. Tickets: Early Bird – $25.00 | Day Of Show – $30.00. Doors: 6pm | Showtime: 7pm.
01/16/25:
Experience an evening of jazz with The Matt Niedbalski Trio featuring Tyler Giroux (trombone), Rob Lindquist (piano) and Dylan Perrillo (bass) live on Thursday, January 16th, 2025. Tickets: $10.00. Doors: 7:00pm | Showtime: 7:30pm.
01/31/25:
Enjoy an evening of laughter and fun with acclaimed NYC comedian, Adam Mamawala, live on January 31st, 2025. He has appeared on Comedy Central, MTV, BET, Amazon Prime and SiriusXM. Most recently, Adam has toured as Dane Cook’s feature act, performing on 20 shows at iconic venues such as The Fillmore in Detroit, The Met in Philadelphia and NYC’s Beacon Theatre. Tickets: Early Bird – $22.00 | Day Of Show – $25.00. Doors: 7pm | Showtime: 8pm.
For the full performance listing or to purchase tickets, visit <www.parktheatergf.com>.
Further Information:
The Park Theater Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in the Glens Falls community by providing a venue for quality and affordable entertainment and educational opportunities in the performing arts.
The Park Theater Foundation would like to recognize the support of the City of Glens Falls, as well as their season sponsors The Queensbury Hotel, NYS Music, Gallagher Insurance, Future Technologies, Finch Paper LLC, Adirondack Trust Co./Amsure Insurance, Glens Falls Hospital, Cifone Construction Co., Glens Falls Chronicle, Hoffman Car Wash, NBT Bank, Cerrone Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (LARAC), Edward Jones | John M. Gable, Lake George Mirror, Price Chopper/Market 32, Glens Falls National Bank, KEENA and Sidekick Creative.
For more information on events, membership or volunteer opportunities, visit <www.parktheatergf.com> or phone the box office at 518-792-1150.
###
For media enquiries contact:
Anita MacDonald
Marketing – Park Street Hospitality, LLC / The Park Theater (14 Park St., Glens Falls, NY, 12801)
E: marketing@pshospitality.com | P: (518) 792-1150
FB: @TheParkTheaterGF | IG: @theparktheatergf
DJ Parsons – An Xperience Interview
DJ Parsons – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.
RRX: How are you doing today?
DJ: I’m good. How are you?
RRX: Keeping busy, that’s for sure.
DJ: That’s always a good thing.
RRX: Yeah, I thought it would be cool to just chat with you a little bit. Um, so you are a master luthier?
DJ: I am.
RRX: I don’t know if I pronounced that right. Hopefully – I went to Albany High so I pronounce things wrong.
DJ: I’ve had people ask me if it’s a new religion and I say, no, it’s not Lutheran, it’s luthier.
RRX: That’s funny. Tell us a little bit about what you do, how you got started, and the services that you offer.
DJ: Well, I went to Galloup School of Lutherie in Michigan. I came out of there in like ’08, and I started my guitar tech business in Boston. It was a very successful shop, and one day, one of my customers came to me and said, “You really should teach people to do what you do.” The main reason that I started the school was that there was a lot of work going on out there that was not very good. So, I wanted to teach people to do the work the way that I do it, the right way.
I’d been running the school for like 15 years and had a very successful school in Massachusetts. It pretty much got shut down during the pandemic. My wife and I were living in Massachusetts, and we have two sons who live in this area, one in Niskayuna and one in Glenville. We said, if we don’t move out there, we’re never gonna see anybody. So we came out here, and now we have four grandchildren, and it’s really been great. I didn’t know if I could reboot the school in this area or not. The first place I looked at was in the Frog Island Schoolhouse. I figured, what better place for a school than a schoolhouse? It’s worked out very well. I’ve been doing it for three or four years in that location. Overall, I’ve graduated probably 70 or 80 students. Now there are 70 to 80 luthier guitar techs out there that weren’t there before that I trained. And that’s my mission. You know? I’m 71 this year, and my mission is to put as many good luthiers out on the market as I can.
RRX: Oh, absolutely. I know just from being in the music scene and being in a band myself … I know a lot of guitarists who don’t know how to do their own setups, and they always depend on other people to do it.
DJ: And again, the reason I started the school was most guitar players spend their whole life looking for a decent setup. When a person brings a guitar to me to be set up, I have them play it for me. The way they play informs the way to do a setup. Unfortunately, most guitar techs set up guitars the way that they play, and that’s not good. What good is that?
RRX: Correct. That makes sense because everyone has their own signature sound, their own signature style. It’s just like when people try to backline amplifiers at a show; you’re not gonna get the sound that you’re looking for from somebody else’s amp.
DJ: Right.
RRX: That’s something that I know you are very adamant about is getting people set up on the sound that they want. Set up the way that they want it, not the other guy.
DJ: That’s right. My students have been a mixture of people that wanna do this part-time or full-time themselves. Probably a third of the people that I train just wanna do their own setup. My standard course, the students come once a week for an hour. It takes about six months to train them to where I give them a certificate as a luthier.
But what’s taken on a lot of speed in the last couple of years is people coming in from out of state. People come in to take my course from all over the place. When they do that, I do a two-week accelerated course where they come and meet with me two hours a day for two weeks. I mean, it’s like a fire hose, but it works out well because there are very few people in the country that do what I do.
RRX: Yeah, that’s awesome. So – people who are traveling in – obviously, their time is limited, so you accelerate the program, and you’re squeezing in a bunch of knowledge into a very short period of time.
DJ: Yeah. And there’s a pretty good network of Airbnbs in the area. So they tend to stay there. Now, on that training, the weeks don’t need to be consecutive. I had a guy come in May, and then he came back in August to finish it up. In fact, I prefer that. I mean … if we go back-to-back, it’s just a lot of work for me, you know?
RRX: No, it makes sense.
DJ: As I say, it’s constant, it’s nonstop. Typically, I have about a dozen students at a time. I like to keep it at about that number because then I can be flexible. As I say, my students come for an hour a week, but it’s not always the same day, and it’s not always the same hour. They have that flexibility to mix it up a little bit. I teach seven days a week, usually until about noon or one o’clock, and then the rest of the time it’s with the grandchildren. So that’s what I do
RRX: How young should a guitarist start learning how to do their own setup?
DJ: I’m about to take on my youngest student ever at 13 years old. I’m also now teaching only my second woman student ever. Which just seems kind of weird to me. It just seems to me that women are more detail-oriented than guys are, but I guess I have to admit that it’s a male-dominated discipline.
RRX: Well – for all of the women guitarists reading this – definitely hit DJ up!
DJ: The thing I wanna emphasize about the school, though, is it’s a lot of fun. I still do repairs on guitars. And one of the cool things about having people learn from me is that I’ve got a very structured way of teaching. It took me a long time to put the curriculum together, and it’s a progressive thing. But every once in a while, something cool will come through the shop, and we’ll do what I call a sidetrack, ie: a broken neck, lifting, bridge, that type of thing, and they’re able to see that. I mean, your value as a guitar tech or a luthier has a lot to do with what you’ve been exposed to. And probably the number one thing about that discipline is troubleshooting. If somebody walks in the door, they’ve got a situation. You basically just say to them, “I’m on it,” and you take care of it. If it’s nothing you’ve seen before, you pick up the phone and call DJ and say, “DJ, what am I gonna do? I haven’t seen this before.” So my graduates are calling me all the time.
RRX: That’s awesome. I have two guitarists in my band, and my one guitarist literally only owns one guitar. It’s an amazing Les Paul from the ‘70s, but I’ve seen it when his headstock broke off, and he had to send it out to get repaired. My other guitarist, on the other hand, had nearly 70 guitars at one point.
DJ: Oh my God. You know, the old T-shirt? You can never have too many guitars.
RRX: Yeah, exactly, but I mean … when you are a guy that only has that one guitar, I think it’s really important to be able to adapt these skills. And then, if you’re on the flip side of that, and you have a whole bunch of guitars … I imagine each guitar might have a different kind of setup because that’s the reason you have different guitars for different sounds.
DJ: Yes, they all do.
RRX: I think you’re providing a great service. Like you said, it’s a rare service. Not a lot of people are doing this, but the more you get in there, the more they will.
DJ: The Guitar Center in Albany reached out to me a couple of years ago and had me train a couple of their people to work in their stores. A couple of the guys that I’ve graduated have gone on to be the lead guitar techs for Guitar Center. So, that’s kind of gratifying.
RRX: Absolutely. Is there anything that you would wanna stress to people out there if they have someone in their family that plays guitar or they play guitar themselves … what would you say to encourage them to come on in and see what you’re all about?
DJ: It’s probably one of the coolest things you could ever wanna do. As a guitarist, I’m sure you know it. One of the guys that I’ve known for a long time is the roadie for the Rolling Stones for God’s sake.
RRX: Wow.
DJ: Yeah. I mean … there’s nothing cooler that you could ever want to do, and it’s a great way to change careers if that’s what you’re looking to do.
You could work in your home, you control how you meet with the public, and there’s no better way to make a living. And you can make a living doing this. You gotta put the work in, and you gotta be well-trained but you can do it! So I would say, just give a call, drop a line, and we can discuss the school.
Parsons Guitar Repair School
www.parsonsguitarrepairschool.com
pgrschool41@gmail.com
(518) 704-5208
Frog Island Schoolhouse
66 East St., Unit D
Mechanicville, NY 12118