Rob Trucks

Dexter and Sara behind the Apollo Theater

If it is fitting that we meet Dexter Romweber and his sister Sara at the Apollo Theater (and it is), it is perhaps even more appropriate that we record their performance behind the historic venue, specifically a relatively dark and frozen sidewalk alongside 126th Street.

Cross paths with Damien Jurado, say on a misty autumn afternoon more representative of his Pacific Northwest home than ours, and you will recognize a physical presence, a sturdiness not unlike a former high-school-lineman turned football coach. Which is not an endeavor usually known for sensitivity.

From the archives of "Possibly 4th Street," a video column in which we've invited musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, here's some excellent footage of Bowerbirds performing in a Williamsburg Surf Shop.

Rob Trucks

Outside Monster Island

After they re-released Hymns for a Dark Horse, but before they recorded, let alone released, their most recent Upper Air, the Bowerbirds (primary members and off-stage couple Phil Moore and Beth Tacular) met us just a block from the Williamsburg waterfront. Across the street, an electrical power station hummed. Down the street, jackhammers and condo construction dust, signs of the changing (pre-recession) Brooklyn shoreline. All obvious counterpoints to a moveable acoustic duo that's gotten a lot of press for their solar panel-powered, AirStream-sheltered homelife in the austere hills of North Carolina.

They play the Bowery Ballroom this Friday, December 4 and Union Pool on Saturday, December 5.

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

Trail of Dead headlines the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Friday, February 27 [tix] and Bowery Ballroom on Saturday, February 28 [tix] .

Rob Trucks

Trail of Dead in the Niagara basement

Possibly 4th Street
Number 27 (Part One)
. . . And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

by Rob Trucks

Just six days before the release of their sixth full-length, The Century of Self, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead hold a press day in New York City. Which is a lot easier now that founding members Conrad Keely and Jason Reece call Williamsburg, rather than Austin, home.

But February in the city often means snow one day followed by a balmy sixty degrees the next. And these things have to be, you know, planned in advance. Besides, Conrad's keyboard needs electricity. So on a warm Wednesday afternoon in the East Village, three AYWKUBTTOD members, enthusiastically primed with Blood Marys, perform two songs (or three Century of Self album tracks) within Niagara's starkly bright back room. Meanwhile, across the street in Tompkins Square, a makeshift religious service solicits sinners in unseasonable shirt sleeves.

Trail of Dead perform "Bells of Creation"

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

The Explorers Club plays the Mercury Lounge, February 5 and the following night at Maxwell's in Hoboken.

Possibly 4th Street
Number 26 (Part One)
The Explorers Club

by Rob Trucks

Call it refreshing when a band steps into the confessional willing, ready and able to acknowledge its sins of influence.

Not that the Explorers Club has a choice. For even school-of-rock dropouts will detect the Beach Boys' orchestral shadow--frequent falsetto within four-part harmony on such retro-titled tunes as "Don't Forget The Sun" and "Summer Air"-- throughout the band's aptly titled debut, Freedom Wind.

So what's behind a contemporary Charleston, SC-based collective conjuring California pop from forty years before?

Well, in addition to the commonality of "very sunny and very hot" beaches, Club composer Jason Brewer believes the sound of seasonal sweetness "has not been done justice since the 60's." And that includes not only the pioneering and paternal Boys, but groups like "the Association, Jan and Dean, the Yellow Balloon, the Zombies, the Left Banke and many others."

And just about thirty yards from the westernmost edge of Long Island (the Socrates Sculpture Park of Long Island City), the summer sun arrives on cue. But so does the similarly summery (and free) wind, which plays unambiguous and unharmonious havoc with our audio. Pardon our breathiness.

The Explorers Club Performs "Don't Forget the Sun"

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

Akron/Family headlines and curates the Knitting Factory's farewell party this Wednesday, December 31. Tickets are $35 and still available here.

photos by Rob Trucks

Possibly 4th Street
Number 25 (Part One)
Akron/Family

by Rob Trucks

By the time the three (or more) members of Akron/Family take the stage for their show-closing, year-closing, Knitting Factory-closing set on December 31, six months will have passed since we spent the better part of an afternoon in the backyard of the band's last remaining New York outpost. (Thankfully we can report that their MySpace page has been updated in the interim).

Seth Olinsky's moved back to Pennsylvania from New York, Dana Janssen down to Tobacco Country, and Ryan Vanderhoof has left the band completely. Only Miles Seaton remains in Brooklyn.

Following three songs by the collective's now three-man core, we sat down with Olinsky to discuss the differences between free folk and freak folk, Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman and how a band that once lived together now functions from three different states.

Akron/Family Performs "A Lake Song"

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

photos by Rob Trucks

Possibly 4th Street
Number 24 (Part One)
Bonerama

by Rob Trucks

This is how it's supposed to be done.

Just over a year ago, we accompanied the seven-piece, trombone-heavy, New Orleans-based brass band Bonerama to Midtown. They parked their van just south of Radio City, unloaded the trailer, and set out an empty snare case. Hundreds of sidewalk-blocking tourists, twenty minutes, and three songs later (including a memorable rendition of Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean"), the band is 70 bucks (a Possibly 4th Street record) and immeasurable goodwill richer.

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

Part one of his Howlin' Rain interview is over here.

Ethan Miller talks about food in his Chelsea Hotel room

Possibly 4th Street
Number 23 (Part Two)
Howlin' Rain

Who:

Ethan Miller of Howlin' Rain

When:

Late afternoon, April 1, 2008

Where:

Third floor, Chelsea Hotel.

Tell me the name of a book you've read at least twice.

Let me think. Let me think. Um, God I'm so bad at these kinds of things. Like these are all these like compartmentalized, categorical like things that people like Joel (Robinow), who just played keyboards, like he would have this stuff. Like, it's all there. He's got it all memorized. And I'm so bad. I'm like, 'Have I read this? Yeah, I did.'

Shit, man. Books I read twice? I think I read Puzo's The Godfather twice. That's a really profoundly awesome book.

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

Howlin' Rain opens for the Black Crowes tonight, October 28 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Tickets are $55 and still available here.

My Name is Ethan: photo by Rob Trucks

Possibly 4th Street
Number 23 (Part One)
Howlin' Rain

by Rob Trucks

Just before our prearranged meeting time six months ago, Howlin’ Rain leader Ethan Miller tumbles from a white-paneled van (parked, thankfully) on 23rd Street, looking ever so much like a Jason Lee body double for My Name is Earl.

At the time, Miller’s band, the rock-and-roll pride of California’s Humboldt County, had just been offered the opening slot on the Black Crowes fall tour six months away (New York happens tonight at Hammerstein Ballroom). The group is justifiably juiced, as this is an uncommonly good match: the more retro-than-not Crowes with Miller’s collection of neo-psych groovists. For yet another Jason Lee reference, know that the Rain could’ve easily served as musical doubles for the Billy Crudup-led Stillwater in Almost Famous, such is the magnanimous nature of their ‘70s rock vibe.

Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run intermittently here at Sound of the City.

Broken Social Scene returns to the city this Friday, October 24 at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. The show is sold out.

all photos by Rob Trucks

Possibly 4th Street
Number 22 (Part One)
Broken Social Scene's Brendan Canning

by Rob Trucks

“It's a very strange experience for me, I must say.”
—Brendan Canning

Us too.

Siren Festival 2008 is hot and crowded. Not only in front of the stages (and behind the stages) but on the boardwalk and the beach.

In a mere matter of hours Brendan Canning and his Broken Social Scene bandmates will close the Stillwell stage in front of a crowd that stretches from just short of the boardwalk out halfway to Surf Avenue. But playing acoustic guitar on a teeming seaside is not his thing.

So Frankie and Annette we’re not. Though this is the first Possibly 4th Street where both the film crew and the performer stood a good chance of taking home that most unwanted of shore souvenirs, sand in the underwear.

And yet we persevere. Through heat, a mass of half-naked humanity (and not always in a good way), and a certain grittiness where you do not want grittiness.

And so just three days before his first solo album, Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning’s Something For All of Us . . . (if you don’t think branding’s important, just ask Lindsey Buckingham), band co-founder Canning plays a song so new that for today, at least, it's called "Song at Coney Island."

Brendan Canning Performs "Song at Coney Island"