happy birthday, sufjan
Today, July 1st, is Sufjan Steven’s birthday. My original plan was to release a big essay today about my experiences with that madman over the last 13 years or so, but it’s not quite done and won’t be for a bit (turns out I had too many experiences). So for this week, I put up some photos from last Friday’s show in Kingston with Emerald Ground Water and Bruiser and Bicycle. More on that below.
Overheard is performing an ‘unplugged’ set at Dromedary Festival on August 30th. We’re sharing a bill with friends such as King in Yellow, Bel Simek, $500, Cathedral Ceilings, and, somehow, Yo La Tengo. See you there? Get tickets here.
Misc. stuff I’m into:
Movies:
Materialists [2025, dir. Celine Song]. Between Materialists and Zohran winning the NYC Mayoral primary, June 2025 is a resounding victory for our nation’s broke New Yorkers.
Music:
The new Laura Stevenson record Late Great (very sad);
The new Lorde record Virgin, which may be my favorite of hers so far;
The new Callous Daoboys record I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven (very stupid [positive]);
and the new Little Simz record Lotus! She has a Song Exploder ep out now about the song Free.
I saw Godspeed You! Black Emperor last week with Em and Patch, and that show was completely transcendent. I cried, it rocked, I was completely moved. Got some CD’s too. Pioneer Works is a good venue. Gonna talk about bad venues below.
also a reminder that I released an anxious electronic dance track a few weeks back.
Books:
Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming, concerning the joys and fears of being a diasporic Puerto Rican.
Stuff I’m Not Into But etc. etc.:
We must protect future mayor Zohran Mamdani from the islamophobic smear campaign being enacted by the ruling class at all costs. :) Nothing will stop our hot commie summer
Lately it seems like most bar venues are a disaster. Spaces that opt to host performances seem to forget that we are bringing patrons to their bars who buy drinks, and decide to dump overhead costs such as sound fees, merch cuts, door runners, and the like onto the very performers they give the stage to. As if they are owed for doing us the ‘favor’ of letting us play our songs on their stages, as opposed to us laboring for their benefit.
It’s for this reason that I’ve found a lot of comfort in my friend David Grollman’s Tiny Slices apartment series, where a Tiny Slices team (David, Webb Crawford, Rute Ventura, and I) scour the city and surrounding areas for performers and friends to bring into David’s East Village co-op for twenty-minute sets of music, experimentation, poetry, stories and short films on the last Sunday of every month. There’s a vegan potluck, there is sometimes a cat, there are a lot of clocks, and the vibes are generally wholesome, even if the performances can sometimes be dark, disturbing, or challenging.
At the most recent Tiny Slices, I recruited my friend and bandmate Kenny Hauptman to perform under his moniker Larry Locust, and he roped me into joining on guitar and harmonies. Getting to spend Sunday practicing his tunes (which I genuinely love, beyond the point of just ‘they’re my friend’s songs’), slammin’ hot dogs, and then performing those tunes in a small room of acquaintances, bookending a set of poetry opposite a multitimbral exploration of East River field recordings, I felt the kind of fulfillment that bar venues can’t seem to give me anymore.
That said, my most recent bar venue show reminded me why we bother with the skinflint nature of booking in the first place. On Friday, Overheard shared a bill with Emerald Ground Water and Bruiser and Bicycle, two groups whose evolutions we have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand. After stressing about logistics, we had our minds and bodies soothed by the Larry Locust House Special Gumbo, and were full and ready to embrace what would be a fantastic rock show.
Bruiser and Bicycle blew the roof off with rock music, jumping between time signatures, synths, and guitars, a ferocious intensity somehow spilling through soft vocal performances. Immediately after, Emerald Ground Water, acting as the centerpiece of the night, channeled Irish folk and ethereal musicianship to make a set that was, in a word, transportive. Strings, flutes, shakers and the rattle of singular bass notes carrying a cappella performances felt as if I was watching a forgotten history. While jumping around to take my photos, I found myself mouth agape in awe at these two groups, who I’m honored to refer to as friends, bringing a kind of raw talent and artistry that almost makes me forget I might have to pay the sound guy out of pocket at the end of the night. I wanted to be stressed about following up those two performances, but unfortunately for my anxiety, Overheard is a really fuckin’ good band, and we killed it too.
Moral of the story: art over bottom lines. Community over cash. Don’t fuck over your performers, especially when they’re this god damn good.
Stay tuned.
- Will