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Jewel To Sparkle At Lena Show
Perhaps I was dizzy from the gratis Sprite and the blueberry muffins that Atlantic Records plied me with at their New York City headquarters last week, but I’ll admit it straight out: I was completely enamoured with Jewel Kilcher. The vocally soaring, angelic 22-year-old singer/songwriter with a neo-hippie past too Tom Robbins to believe looked…
Read MoreWeezer Barely Gets Feedback-Spewing Alterna-Rock Spaceship Off Ground
Weezer’s Central Park Summerstage benefit Saturday looked like the MTV Beach House: Kennedy threatened to drop in at any minute on the frolicking throngs of baby-dolled and beatnicked kids at Rumsey Playfield. Little wonder Rivers Cuomo almost failed to get his feedback-spewing alterna-rock spaceship off the ground. Plodding lethargically through “In The Garage,” “Say It…
Read MoreLines in the Sand: Young Biologists Save the Threatened Desert Tortoise
The sun creeps over the jagged Coxcomb Mountains, Joshua Tree National Park’s eastern-most border, and falls lightly onto the valley floor ahead. Chris Collins steers a battered Marine van down a narrow, bumpy gravel road. The vastness and seclusion of the surrounding Colorado Desert is breathtaking. But Collins and his five post-graduate volunteers are silent…
Read MoreB-Side: True Confessions Of A Music Journalist-Turned-Monster
What a monster I’ve become. I met The Figgs’ Pete Hayes while I was schlocking coffee. Spinal Tap references ensued. I proved my musicianship in a fit of name dropping: Arty Fufkin (“Polymer Records”), Stumpey Joe, Viv Savage. They were all I needed to know. The Figgs had just been signed to Imago and were…
Read MoreWagner Acoustic Again for ‘Bloom’
Although his music has been compared to that of James Taylor, Michael Penn, Jeffrey Gaines and Suzanne Vega, Saratoga Springs resident Benjamin Wagner has his roots in a somewhat louder tradition. While an undergraduate at Syracuse University, Wagner led a jangly alternative-rock aggregatioin called Smokey Junglefrog, which opened concerts for Dada, the Samples and the…
Read MoreThey Might Be Giants: Dr. Seuss Meets Dr. Stephen J. Hawkins
John Flansburgh may rock legions of disenfranchised, flannel-clad youth, but he ain’t no slacker. Calling from his New York City recoding studio Sunday, half of Brooklyn’s alterna-rock team, They Might Be Giants (TMBG) was busy mixing an upcoming live EP. Short of breath and apologetic, Flansburgh’s Sunday was no day of rest. “I’m kind of…
Read MoreBenjamin Wagner’s Caffe Lena Debut
Benjamin Wagner may just be the nicest guy in the Capital District. For some reason, he just exudes friendliness, onstage and off. The 22-year-old, a recent transplant to Saratoga Springs, does not look like the typical introspective songer/songwriter type. For one thing, except for the lack of a rich tan, he could easily pass for…
Read MoreThat’s The Way It Is
These days, Benjamin Wagner is a 22-year-old singer-songwriter in Saratoga Springs trying to make a name for himself with his debut CD “Bloom.” But when he attended college four years ago, Wagner wanted to be “the next Walter Cronkite.” “No shit,” Wagner muses. “That’s what I wrote on my college application to Northwestern — which…
Read MoreNew Albums Spring Up
Last week, Soundcheck heralded the arrival of spring with a story about “One More Monster,” the debut from the band Bloom. This week, Soundcheck continues the theme of spring-in-bloom — or maybe Bloomin’ Spring? — by announcing the release of “Bloom,” the new album-length CD by Saratoga Springs’ Benjamin Wagner. After the long, cold winter,…
Read MoreSuburban Soul
From the quotations pulled from Coleridge, Dickinson, Eliot and Ovid in the liner notes, it’s safe bet that Benjamin Wagner’s “Always Almost There” is a record better suited for serious listening than background music at a keg party. The material here is highly personal, well-crafted and features some of the finest local talent ranging from…
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