I had adventures yesterday and discovered a new favorite band that you need to know. How’s that for a lede?
It was the second Tuesday of June and all My Gentle Readers should know what that means, John Platt’s On Your Radar. This time I did something I haven’t done in ages, met someone for dinner before the show. Friends are important to me. Food is important to me. Food with friends is very important to me. There’s a synergy. I’m only half joking. Look back on Wise Madness and you’ll find stretches where I went months without breaking bread with someone. Gen came into New York on NJ Transit, so I met her at Penn Station. That’s the great thing with an unlimited MetroCard. I don’t worry about going out of my way or getting off the train and back on.
The train she planned on taking never came, she took the next that came half an hour later. I had planned on meeting her at the Jersey Transit waiting room. I could sit and relax till she came. I didn’t do that because even though the waiting room is fairly new, built sometime in the last 20 years, it has no Wi-Fi or cell service. Can you believe that in this day and age? Dunkin Donuts has Wi-Fi, but Penn Station doesn’t. I ended up waiting for her outside sitting on a not so comfortable statue which was basically a block of stone cut so it was difficult to sit on. I wanted her to be able to find me, so I took a picture of the statue and sent it to her. Then I photographed what I saw across 7th Ave, to my left, and a selfie that showed what’s behind me. To make sure she got a complete picture I then sent her an x-ray. It was the Wikipedia picture of a skeleton, but it could have been me. She found me even though she hadn’t received the all-important x-ray.
I’m a bit obsessive about getting to OYR before doors open and making sure things are running smoothly. I ended up doing that before we ate. I had to reserve one more table than usual. When we got in Greg Klyma, the only performer I knew was about to sound check, so I got my schmooze in. I should make a list of all the people that have played both the Budgiedome and On Your Radar. Greg would be on that list.
After checking the sound check Gen and I went to Mikey’s for dinner. I tried something new, their bacon dog. It was scrumptious. Peter talked about meeting us, but he couldn’t make it. We were joined by his friend, Alan, or Allan, or Allen, or I’m totally forgetting his name. The smart money is on the last.
We got to the show after doors opened, Horror of Horrors! Not that it made any difference I sat at my usual table with Fred and Gen joined us. Alan/Allan/Allen aka AAA sat behind us with Marty and late Peter joined them. This was the first show in four months that wasn’t a sellout, but the room filled nicely.
Greg Klyma was on first. Greg’s style is for music and banter to blend seamlessly; it’s a concept album of a performance. There’s a sense that it’s one piece of art in separate movements. You know you’ll laugh, you know that you’ll tap your feet, and you know that you’ll sing along. He’s very much not a sensitive singer-songwriter. It’s not that he’s not sensitive or a singer or a songwriter; it’s that his songs are never, “She broke my heart and my feelings are epic.” He’s a Budgiedome veteran of long standing.
I have no idea why the next act is billed as Hugh Christopher Brown as you can see the website is Chris Brown & Citizen Band. He performed the show with the band and shared the spotlight with Kate Fenner. I’m believe they are married. The bonded over singing Gregorian Chants. That is not a joke. She’s a hell of a singer. The music is not New Age, but it affected me like New Age. It’s music that has charms to calm the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend the knotted oak.
Last up was The Anna/Kate Band. Their name made me immediately think of Anna & Elizabeth. Their opening locked in that association. John did not introduce them. Kate stood on stage alone without an instrument. We wondered what was going on, then we heard Anna’s pure voice from the back of the room. She stood in the dark holding what looked like a cell-phone flashlight. Kate joined in, a song that was part duet and part intricate harmony as Anna took the stage. That’s exactly the kind of theatricality that Anna & Elizabeth might do. I loathe to say “theatricality” as it makes you think of showbiz and glitz. This is not Spinal Tap doing Stonehenge. There is artifice but artifice that comes across as purity. After that they held the audience in the palm of their hand.
They started as a duo, Two Queers and a Uke but found they needed more to express all they had inside them. They needed a bass singer, pretty much meant having men in the band. While the focus is always on the two women the band is not an appendage but a necessary part of the music, as the orchestra is in opera.
Their songs range from the traditional, as the opening song, to songs that sound like upbeat pop songs, as long as you don’t listen to the deep lyrics. You know, that sweet spot I love. While their songs are choreographed performance pieces, their banter is genuine, spontaneous, and at times silly, another sweet spot. They were a revelation and all those I spoke to felt the same way. I made sure to talk to them. I needed to know them and needed them to know me. When I got to them Peter was already talking to them about Falcon Ridge and I invited them to Budgiedome. If they played the dome, even as a duo, they would create a sensation. I know my fellow Budgiedomers and my audience.
Gen had to make her way back to Penn Station and I joined her. Our train had one of those unexplained waits between her stations so that she missed her Jersey transit train even though we lucked out and caught an E train running on the F line to W 4th Street. That’s lucky because the E stops at Penn Station and the F is a block away.
We decided that we had two missions, to get ice cream, and to find one of the pianos that are scattered across the City for three weeks in June. They are painted by local artists, outdoors, and free for anyone to play. Gen is a pianist. Our original plan for the day was to trapes around the city looking for pianos and have Gen play them while I videoed. Life got in the way and she couldn’t get in early enough for that, but this was at least an homage. We checked online and saw that there was one at Penn Plaza East. I thought that was the plaza out in front of Penn Station on 7th Avenue, the East side of the Station. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t on 33rd street which is blocked off to traffic and has tables set up. We asked a security person and he told us where it was; in the walkway between 33rd Street and 34th. We found it, but it was covered. We need to find out what hours they are open, so we can have our piano adventure. We got ice cream from a truck and headed back to Penn where she made her train.
Wise Madness 