Meet The Band
No, not that "The Band". (well, I do highly recommend Robbie Robertson's memoir Testimony.) I want to introduce you to the STORYTOWN band. These folks are taking our home demo “sketches” and making them better and stronger and ready for prime time. So here's the band:
Drummer Tony Cruz was recommended to me by my friend, the very multi-talented Daphne Rubin-Vega, for whom Tony also plays drums. Tony is originally from “da Bronx” (his words), studied at Berklee College of Music, and has an MAT in Music Education from Lehman College. He subbed on Broadway for 10 years, playing in, among other things, Hairspray and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tony has toured with the Boston Pops Orchestra and continues as a hired gun in multiple groups and styles, ranging from big band to fusion (to whatever genre you’d pigeonhole STORYTOWN into). Tony plays with cesium clock accuracy, time-wise, and he does this crazy fast triplet hi-hat thing with a ghost note on the snare that makes me want to play fast shuffles all night long.
Bassist Rick Wagner was raised in a small town in the coal mining region of northeast Pennsylvania. He was recommended by another talented friend, singer/songwriter Emily Duff, on whose first album Rick appears. Rick started playing bass professionally at the age of 16, in “barns, bars, and brothels” (his words :-) throughout northeastern PA. Rick moved to New York City in 1981 and has played with, among others, The dB's, The Silos, Hearts & Minds, the Paul Collins Band, Ruby On The Vine, the Emily Duff Band, and Alan Paul's Big In China. A very intuitive and musical bassist, Rick also sings backup, a key ingredient in the STORYTOWN sound.
Keyboardist Charly Roth was recommended by yet another talented singer/songwriter friend, George Gilmore. Charly grew up in Philadelphia, by way of Princeton , NJ. As far as I can tell he has inherited the “hardest working man in show business” title from James Brown by being the busiest and most versatile musician I have yet to meet. Focusing just on highlights, I can report that Charly plays keyboards (Ozzy Osbourne, Rick Derringer & Edgar Winter, Suzanne Vega, Garland Jeffreys [currently], Lenny Kaye, STORYTOWN ), bass (Blessid Union of Souls), and drums (Denis Leary’s Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll TV show, Liza Colby Sound). He’s an experienced NYC session musician who is also Musical Director of Murderers’ Row, a NYC-based collective that regularly performs musical tributes to the world's best artists and albums. For readers of this blog, you know that Charly has the task of whipping my keyboard parts into greatness.
I don't have much to say about myself. I play guitar, sing, and write and arrange the songs. I have played in a number of bands in NYC over the years, not as illustriously as my bandmates, and I took a long detour into technology along the way.
SAVE THE DATE! STORYTOWN plays its first gig at 8pm on April 19 at the Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 1, 196 Allen Street, NYC. 1 set only. NO COVER. We WILL be selling t-shirts!
(Illustrations by Alison Colby)