Mercury Lounge

showview

Please note: All events are 21+ unless otherwise noted.

Wed 11/19

$10

http://www.myspace.com/aabondy
http://www.superphonicrecords.com/aa_bondy.html
Recorded and mixed in a month at The Red Barn in Palenville, NY in January 2007, “American Hearts is dark and sardonic but it's not as claustrophobic, tortured nor troubled as you'd expect. The record is actually quite beautifully stark and stripped-down and well played, filled with great melodies and warm production. The songs are wonderfully influenced by an amalgam of folk and blues, filtered through the mind of someone who knows what makes a great rock song breathe. - cnet.com

http://www.myspace.com/thegentleguest
The Gentle Guest is Eric Rykal and friends. Their music is bottled in Eau Claire, WI, for the most part, near the Chippewa River in the living room of a little blue house. Their sound can be found somewhere between the Great Depression and 2008.

After the release of The Gentle Guest's first EP no less than a year ago, and six-months of stagnant creativity, Rykal, the individual, instigator, and inspiration behind the project, spent a night in an empty bar in St. Paul, MN, witnessed a performance by a wayward Portland band, became inspired, and suddenly felt the need to write this album.

We Are Bound To Save Some Souls Tonight is the band's debut full-length and was written by Rykal on a rainy weekend, this past April; it was recorded during the first few weeks of summer with the help of a slew of Amble Down regulars, and has been performed all over town and throughout the region since its conception. The album's ten tracks give off an Americana feel with a bit of rustic blues mixed in, all containing the folklore of overridden hobo tales in their story-telling and theatrical lyrics.

http://www.myspace.com/motelmotel
http://www.motelmotelmusic.com/
The four grievous angels who comprise Motel Motel steal the candlelight, bali hai wine, shotguns and steam trains from forlorn honky-tonkers like Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt and escape without being smothered by the alt-country label. Unlike their more direly nostalgic peers, New York-based Motel Motel imbue the gothic storytelling of their forebears with a nubile energy that suggests they're living just as hard but having more fun. Eric Engel's ecstatic tremolo invites semi-relevant comparisons to The Cave Singers and Timo Sullivan's raucous stage presence places them solidly in the aesthetic pantheon of contemporaries like Dr. Dog and Drug Rug. Literate, classic, occasionally baroque; Motel Motel isn't riding a wave or clinging stalwartly to a movement so much as they're hunkering down for a long run at rock relevance.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=36465114
http://www.lowanthem.com/
The Low Anthem formed as a contemporary folk duet from Providence, RI. Member’s Ben Miller and Jeff Prystowsky met playing in the wood-bat leagues of rural Connecticut in 2003. They began a collaboration with classical composer Jocie Adams in November 2007. Their landmark 2007 release “What the Crow Brings” was independently produced by the band and has received great acclaim from major press across the country. Their rapidly expanding fan-base spans all ages remarkably, as the duo appeals to hipsters, housewives and grandparents equally. Writers have typically drawn comparisons to Tom Waits, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan, but you will hear strains in their music from remote Appalachia to the Delta; an urban immediacy, and a timeless grounding in the great American roots music traditions.

The Low Anthem have recorded three full-length records, toured extensively with 100 shows in 2007, won Best Album of 2008 from the Providence Phoenix, received national radio play, and are building a legitimate fan base across the Northeast.