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Note
to readers: A logistical problem prevented us from running
the profile of local musician Nate Buccieri that is teased
on this week’s cover. It will appear in an upcoming issue.
ROUGH
MIX
O
GIVE ME A HOME: MotherJudge is looking for another spot
to host her now-legendary Wednesday-night open mike series,
which no longer calls the Fuze Box home. A couple weeks back
she got the news that her Wednesday-night slot was being given
to a DJ displaced from the Power Company across the street.
The Power Company, also owned the Fuze Box folks, apparently
received noise complaints from neighbors about the disco dance
parties that took place there on Wednesdays. MotherJudge was
told by the Fuze Box manager that she’d have to slide over
to a different night to make room for the DJ, who also brings
in a crowd. Perhaps a Thursday or a Sunday.
“I’ve
tried Sundays,” she says, “and I’ve realized that musicians
are tired on Sundays.” MotherJudge doesn’t take her open-mike
hostess duties lightly, and she has tested many variables
before settling with an equation that works—which is proven
by the popularity of her open-mike nights regardless of venue
changes. And she has found that Wednesday seems to be a good
choice for many reasons.
And Thursday is out too. After MotherJudge moved her series
from the Larkin to the Fuze Box last spring (the two clubs
are right around the corner from one another), Paddy Kilrain
took over as Larkin open-mike host—and, according to MotherJudge,
they were nice enough to change it to Thursday to not compete
with her.
“They
would have loved it if I had taken this dead night,” MotherJudge
says of the Fuze Box’s suggestion of a Sunday-night event.
But for her, the amount of energy it would take to inform
the public and retrain them to head to her open-mike on a
different night seemed overwhelming. “I felt I should move
on,” she said.
“Sometimes
when things go south it’s best to move on,” she says, noting
that she sometimes sees crisis as an opportunity—and she’ll
regroup and look for another place to inhabit. “It’s always
nice to create something where there’s nothing.”
In the meantime, she’s busy finishing up the first CD in a
series of live open-mike performances and getting a Web site
up and running. Keep checking hiddencity.com for updates on
when and where the series will start up again.
 FREE
PRESS: The first issue of Screed, a free
magazine filled with poetry, prose, musings, artwork, a CD—there’s
even a transcription of a song on the back cover that you
can learn and whip out at office parties—hit the streets a
couple weeks back, and we’d like to tell you where you can
get yourself one, but we don’t think there are any left. Try
Last Vestige on Albany’s Quail Street, or Uncommon Grounds
on Western Avenue near the UAlbany campus. There were initially
bunches of them dropped all around the city of Albany, but
most, if not all, have been snarfed up.
Screed
is a project by the members of Miss Mary’s Art Space to
benefit that space. The CD, the hardworking effort of Kitty
Little’s Matto, was a huge hit. There are songs by so
many of Albany’s great bands, and folks are clamoring to get
their hands on one. If enough people harass Matto, he may
make another run of them.
Speaking of Kitty Little, check out their new Web site,
kittylittle.com, designed by Nick Forte. If you’re
like us, you’ve been awaiting this arrival, and it beat all
of our expectations. It’s really cute, as you can imagine,
and it’s replete with images of sweets and candy, band info,
pictures, fliers and the like.
ROCK
& ROLL RADIO, LET’S GO: The Kamikaze Hearts, along
with Planetary Group, are in the midst of a huge PR and college-radio
campaign, and they’re shipping out their new eponymous CD
to hundreds of college radio stations. They’ll also have their
song “Beverly Hills” featured on a CMJ compilation, Certain
Damage—which is sent to the magazine’s subscribers and
CMJ reporting schools. It’ll be out May 5. Check out kamikazehearts.com
for information and funny pictures.
—Kate
Sipher
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Columns
& Opinions
