Albany, NY (February 10, 2006) - Albany's Brian Kaplan Band (BKB) will return to Clifton Park with a new, all-star lineup on Friday, February 10th at NorthernLights. They will join Metroland's 2005 Best Pop Band, Hector On Stilts, and the hotly tipped, Winter Pills from Northampton. Albany's My Last Sunrise will open.
BKB was on performance break since September 2005 so founder / song- writer, Brian Kaplan, could focus on writing new material, work on a forth- coming album, named "All My Best Days", and play a series of reunion shows with his former band, touring veterans, Conehead Buddha. Kaplan also used the downtime to retool BKB.
"I was really happy with what we (BKB) had achieved in terms of our live show, particularly since January (of 2005), but I wanted to push further. In many ways, this new band is a dream of mine - putting together some of the best, most exciting musicians I know. I can't wait for BKB fans to hear us now."
The new BKB features keyboardist Brian Mangini (Ominous Seapods, Raisinhead), Conehead Buddha founder, Chris Fisher, on drums, guitarist Rob Cohen (Funk Squad, SoulConFusion), bassist Colin Almquist (Lynch, Voodelics) and newcomer/recent Crane School of music graduate, Erin Slater, on backup vocals. Fisher is also co-producing All My Best Days with Kaplan.
Kaplan, vocalist/guitarist/trombonist, first honed his substantial chops in Conehead Buddha, appearing with Blink 182, Guster, Ben Kweller, Rusted Root & Jerry Garcia Band among others. In demand as a studio & live player, Kaplan has also leant his prodigious instrumental skills to Antigone Rising, moe, Jupiter Sunrise & Leftover Salmon. Kaplan relocated to Albany after graduating from The Crane Music School at SUNY Potsdam.
BKB has appeared with Zox, Paranoid Social Club, The Samples, Common Rotation, The Push Stars, Lo Faber (God Street Wine), Seven Nations and more. BKB will cap this month with an opening set for BB King's 80th Birthday Bash on Saturday, January 28th at the Palace Theatre.
All My Best Days is currently scheduled for release late winter 2006. For media inquiries, contact Jeff Mirel at 518-935-4858 or email: pressdesk@3000revolutions.com
Date: Friday, February 10, 2006
Location: Northern Lights, 1208 Route 146, Clifton Park, NY 12065
Time: 8:00 PM
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Ale House Winter Party - Benefit Concert Promises Afternoon of Music, Food, Fun and Friendship
This weekend the Ale House in Troy will host the Will Burger Benefit. The benefit will take place on Saturday, January 14th from noon to 4pm. Music will be provided by Kevin Maul, knotworking, Hayseed, Leigh Gibson, and Lucky 57. Children's fun including magic by Brisky. All donations will go directly to the Burger family who are incurring unusual, unexpected and costly expenses.
On Thanksgiving morning 6 year old Will Burger woke up with a headache that turned out to be a rare malignant brain tumor called an anaplastic ependymoma. It was blocking one of the ventricles in his brain, and caused "water on the brain" which led to the headache. Surgeons at NYU were able to successfully remove the entire tumor, but an estimated six week course of radiation is required in order to help ensure that no menacing cells were left behind. He will be treated at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where they offer proton beam radiation - a very expensive but effective type of radiation designed to limit any secondary damage to young brains.
Please come out and party with the Burgers to share some fun, good energy, love and friendship. All are invited whether you already know the Burgers or whether you'll be new friends after the party. No mention of illness will be made at the party. It's about having fun.
Learn more
On Thanksgiving morning 6 year old Will Burger woke up with a headache that turned out to be a rare malignant brain tumor called an anaplastic ependymoma. It was blocking one of the ventricles in his brain, and caused "water on the brain" which led to the headache. Surgeons at NYU were able to successfully remove the entire tumor, but an estimated six week course of radiation is required in order to help ensure that no menacing cells were left behind. He will be treated at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where they offer proton beam radiation - a very expensive but effective type of radiation designed to limit any secondary damage to young brains.
Please come out and party with the Burgers to share some fun, good energy, love and friendship. All are invited whether you already know the Burgers or whether you'll be new friends after the party. No mention of illness will be made at the party. It's about having fun.
Learn more
Plug in with Bipolar
Bipolar is:
Mark Petronis - Lead Guitar
Patrick Lee Michaelis - Lead Vocals
David Tyo - Rhythm Guitar and Vocals
Peter James - Drums and Percussion
John Durden - Bass Guitar
Hometown: Saratoga, New York
Genre: Hard Rock
Booking Info: bigpete@bipolarmusic.com
Website: www.bipolarmusic.com
How long has the band been making music together?
We’ve been rocking for about a year and a half now. Mark actually joined up in May of 2004 for internship credit from U of Miami, which was certainly a cool thing to get college credit for. Things went so well that summer that after he graduated in December he signed up with Bipolar on a permanent basis, so the five of us have been together full time since December of 2004.
Where do you call home?
We’re based in Saratoga, where we all grew up, except for Patrick who’s from Montana. Pat was actually visiting New York when Dave saw him performing in Saratoga. Dave convinced him to audition for the lead singer slot, and the rest is history.
How would you describe your music in five words?
Ass kicking, head banging rock.
Tell us about the new CD. What is it's title and why? What is it like? What can you tell us about the experience you had while putting it together?
The new CD is called Rupture. The idea behind the title is that the CD as a whole is very explosive, and the music kind of the gives the idea that it’s just bursting out of the speakers and slapping you in the face, hence “Rupture.” We like to think of it as a straight up hard rock album, but we have a couple of power ballads thrown in there for good measure.
As far as the actual process of recording it, the whole thing took about seven months. It was recorded, mixed and produced by Bipolar’s own David Tyo, with of course input from us all. Dave is really the mastermind behind it all though.
We actually added a couple of tunes at the end of the recording process that we had written in the months we were producing the album. We went back and forth with whether or not to add them, but in the end we felt the tunes added so much to the album that we couldn’t NOT put them on the album.
If you guys could play a show with anyone you wanted to, who would that be?
Hmmm, that’s gonna require six different answers. If anyone of us could sit in with any band we wanted it would look something like: Mark – Black Label Society, Dave – The Doors (of course not possible) or Blues Traveler,
John – Tower of Power, Pat – Allman Brothers Band, Pete – Metallica. If the entity that is Bipolar had the chance to play with any one band, then it would probably have to be Dream Theater. Anyone of the guys in that band can maybe be called “The Best … In The World” with a straight face, and the fact that they’re all in the same band is just absurd. Yeah we’re all big Dream Theater fans.
What is your favorite thing to do when you're not making music?
We’re so damn busy these days between work and Bipolar that no one has time to do anything else! Wow, yeah that sounds like a joke but after work we come home and practice, or write, or record, or take care of band business and on the weekends we gig. Let’s hope it all pays off in the end.
What was the first concert you ever attended?
Mark – Chicago at the now defunct Starlight Theater. That place was cool because the stage was in the center and it rotated so you could see everything. Pete – Dave Matthews Band at SPAC. Pat – Heart at Billings Montana at the Metra (that’s right, Heart). Dave - Beach Boys at SPAC. John – The Monkees, also at the spectacular Starlight Theater. Interesting side note is that Weird Al opened up for them.
What should a crowd expect at one of your shows?
We’re happy and very proud to say that the band you hear on the recordings is the same band you’ll see when you come to our show. In fact we may be even better live because there is so much more intensity when we’re all playing together. It’s a shame that we even have to say that “Yes, we can actually do all this live…” but so many bands now (more often in the Power Pop/Punk/Post Hardcore milieu that’s so popular right now) just sound nothing like they do on the album. Without saying the name of the band…alright God damn it I will: The song Helena by Chemical Romance. I love the song on the album, but then I heard them “try” to do it live, and the band is sloppy and the “singer” can’t hit half the notes on the album. I was just really disappointed and I think about all the kids who are into these types of bands now, go and see them live, and they just suck. So they gotta walk away thinking “Wow, that sounds nothing like it does on the album.” So to sum all that up, when you come see us live we make sure you walk away saying “Wow, those guys really get it done live.”
What's the weirdest reaction you ever got from a fan?
Oh, all the typical things you hear about: body part signings, completely inappropriate drunken behavior, etc. One chick got just about completely naked up on stage at a show at the venue formerly known as Club Caroline in Saratoga Springs. We’ve also got a fan that’s got a Bipolar tattoo. Crazy.
How do you psyche yourselves up before you go on stage?
Unfortunately we don’t have anything cool to say here. Truth be told too many of our shows have involved setting up our own PA, and after an hour and a half to two hours of setting up and sound checking, we usually just grab a beer and start playing. However, now that the album is coming out we’ll only be doing shows at venues that have their own damn PA, so hopefully soon we'll be able to tell you about some crazy backstage rituals because we’ll actually have the time to perform them.
Would you be willing to share your comments on the local music scene and what it's really like to be a part of it?
Albany has its things that it’s good for. Metal and hardcore goes over really well, punk and pop do fine, but there aren’t too many bands in the area who really define the genre we belong to which is hard rock. We're not talking rock, pop/rock, or alternative rock, but straight up ass kicking, bass thumping, and guitar pummeling hard rock. That’s why we do a lot of shows in New York City where we quickly build a buzz and every time we go back there it just gets bigger and bigger. It’s hard to reach a lot of people in our area because no one’s just going to be walking by Northern Lights, hear us play, then call their friends and tell em’ to a hop a cab down to see this band Bipolar, which is what we get at CBGB or Continental. That said, we do have a real strong following in this area, and with some of the new material being released at various online mediums, it’s only getting bigger. On the international level we are currently ranked #5 in Hard Rock on GarageBand.com. We’re happy to say that the band 10 Years is ranked number 1, and considering they just went Gold and you can’t turn on the radio without hearing the song ‘Wasteland’, we feel like we’re in a pretty good spot right now. All we can say is if you’re coming out on January 7th, don’t show up too late or we're not sure that there’s gonna be room for you…
Bipolar will celebrate the release of their new CD "Rupture" with a release party at Northern Lights on Saturday, January 7th. Special guests are Kingscastle and Distant By Design. Doors open at 7pm.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Bass Superstar at The Armory - Tony Levin set for New Year's Eve show in Albany
Rock music bass players are a lot like baseball umpires: the best ones are those that you never notice while they are going about their duties. The lack of shouting matches with a hot-tempered manager means that the correct on-field calls are being made by the umpire. Likewise, an anonymous bassist is a sign of a competent musician that dares not steal the spotlight from the lead guitarist. The result is a lack of recognized superstars for these denizens of the four-string axe.
Tony Levin is the exception to that rule. The Woodstock resident, best known for his stints with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel and for being one of the most in-demand studio musicians in the history of rock and roll, has carved out the unique distinction as being the world's most high-profile practicioner of this traditionally overlooked field of performing art.
After attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and playing in the Rochester Philharmonic, Levin met drummer Steve Gadd, who introduced him to playing a higher level of jazz and rock. He traded in his Ampeg baby bass for an old (at that time) Fender Precision bass, which was his only instrument for many years.
In 1970, Levin moved to New York City and joined a band with Don Preston of The Mothers of Invention. Soon after, he began working as a session musician and through the 1970's he played bass on many albums. In the late '70s wanting to do more live playing, Levin joined Peter Gabriel's band, who he had met through producer Bob Ezrin while recording Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare and Lou Reed's Berlin. Tony has played with Gabriel, both on the road and in the studio, ever since.
It was in these early years with Gabriel that Levin developed his playing of the Chapman Stick. The song Big Time, from Gabriel's So album, inspired the development of Funk Fingers, which are chopped off drumsticks used to hammer on the bass strings. Levin credits Gabriel with the idea.
On Gabriel's first album, Tony met Robert Fripp and in 1980, after having played on Fripp's solo album Exposure, he became a member of the '80s incarnation of progressive rock icons King Crimson.His resume of studio work is astonishing, having played on some of the most popular albums of the last twenty years as well as on some that are unknown to all but the most tuned-in. Credit include working with such diverse talents as Joan Armatrading, David Bowie, Al Dimeola, Peter Frampton, Gov't Mule, Pink Floyd, and Sarah Mclaughlan and many dozens of others.
His behind the scenes efforts in the recording of John Lennon' s Double Fantasy are recorded for the ages in an audio clip that Levin freely shares with visitors to his website. On it, the ex-Beatle is heard walking Levin and others through the rough cut of the album's signature track (Just Like) Starting Over.
The urge to perform on the live stage afflicts most great musicians, and the road has been beckoning Levin as of late. To satisfy that craving, he has been hopping planes to hook up with The California Guitar Trio for a string of western gigs as well as making some guest appearances with The Jim Weider Band in the northeast. Those select dates will include that band's upcoming New Year's Eve show at Albany's newly refurbished Washington Avenue Armory in a dual-headline billing with Pink Floyd tribute band, The Machine.
Weider, former guitarist of legendary The Band, was last seen here in the Capital Region at April's Tech Valley Times "Y2 Anniversary" in Troy. His all-star ensemble is currently supporting his critically acclaimed Project Percolator release, which can best be described as fusion rock that picks up where Jeff Beck left off during his Wired / Blow By Blow period of the mid-70's.
Tickets for the 8:00PM New Year's Eve (Dec 31, 2005) show are $10 in advance / $15 at the door and available online at www.TechValleyConcerts.com and at The Armory box office. The show is all-ages. Children under 12 enter free (no ticket required). There are no service fees for tickets purchased online before Dec 24.
Tony Levin is the exception to that rule. The Woodstock resident, best known for his stints with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel and for being one of the most in-demand studio musicians in the history of rock and roll, has carved out the unique distinction as being the world's most high-profile practicioner of this traditionally overlooked field of performing art.
After attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and playing in the Rochester Philharmonic, Levin met drummer Steve Gadd, who introduced him to playing a higher level of jazz and rock. He traded in his Ampeg baby bass for an old (at that time) Fender Precision bass, which was his only instrument for many years.
In 1970, Levin moved to New York City and joined a band with Don Preston of The Mothers of Invention. Soon after, he began working as a session musician and through the 1970's he played bass on many albums. In the late '70s wanting to do more live playing, Levin joined Peter Gabriel's band, who he had met through producer Bob Ezrin while recording Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare and Lou Reed's Berlin. Tony has played with Gabriel, both on the road and in the studio, ever since.
It was in these early years with Gabriel that Levin developed his playing of the Chapman Stick. The song Big Time, from Gabriel's So album, inspired the development of Funk Fingers, which are chopped off drumsticks used to hammer on the bass strings. Levin credits Gabriel with the idea.
On Gabriel's first album, Tony met Robert Fripp and in 1980, after having played on Fripp's solo album Exposure, he became a member of the '80s incarnation of progressive rock icons King Crimson.His resume of studio work is astonishing, having played on some of the most popular albums of the last twenty years as well as on some that are unknown to all but the most tuned-in. Credit include working with such diverse talents as Joan Armatrading, David Bowie, Al Dimeola, Peter Frampton, Gov't Mule, Pink Floyd, and Sarah Mclaughlan and many dozens of others.
His behind the scenes efforts in the recording of John Lennon' s Double Fantasy are recorded for the ages in an audio clip that Levin freely shares with visitors to his website. On it, the ex-Beatle is heard walking Levin and others through the rough cut of the album's signature track (Just Like) Starting Over.
The urge to perform on the live stage afflicts most great musicians, and the road has been beckoning Levin as of late. To satisfy that craving, he has been hopping planes to hook up with The California Guitar Trio for a string of western gigs as well as making some guest appearances with The Jim Weider Band in the northeast. Those select dates will include that band's upcoming New Year's Eve show at Albany's newly refurbished Washington Avenue Armory in a dual-headline billing with Pink Floyd tribute band, The Machine.
Weider, former guitarist of legendary The Band, was last seen here in the Capital Region at April's Tech Valley Times "Y2 Anniversary" in Troy. His all-star ensemble is currently supporting his critically acclaimed Project Percolator release, which can best be described as fusion rock that picks up where Jeff Beck left off during his Wired / Blow By Blow period of the mid-70's.
Tickets for the 8:00PM New Year's Eve (Dec 31, 2005) show are $10 in advance / $15 at the door and available online at www.TechValleyConcerts.com and at The Armory box office. The show is all-ages. Children under 12 enter free (no ticket required). There are no service fees for tickets purchased online before Dec 24.
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