Train of Fools, 2010 Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys, 2010
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All ticket sales are handled by our box office service, Brown Paper Tickets.
    Tickets are available online, or through a 24/7 call-in box office.
See our Ticket Info page.
    Calendar
July 2010
Archived     Mar     Apr     May     Jun     Jul     Aug     Upcoming
 Members receive 20% discount on most shows. Tickets sold at door cost additional $2.
Doors open 30 min. before showtime. Please, no earlybirds!
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
     
1 2
The Improv Club
3
Holiday Weekend Open Mic
4
Closed for Independence Day
5 6 7
Poetry Open Mic
Featured Reader: Alan Casline
8
Open Mic
9
Kevin Welch
10
"Voices Remembered"
11
John Gorka
12
13 14
Emerging Artist
Mary Leigh Roohan
15
Open Mic
16
The Red Lions
17
Jack Williams
18
Greencards
19

20 21

22
Open Mic
23
Dyer Switch
24
Woods Tea Company
25
Railbird
26 27 28
Emerging Artist
Halicarnassus
29
Open Mic
30
Boréal Tordu
31
Throwdown Bouquet


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Friday, Jul. 2  •  8 PM     The Improv Club
$15 advance / $17 at the door
  Don’t Look Now, You’re Laughing!


Enjoy not just watching, but actively guiding this enthusiastic company of actors and stand-up comics through a variety of hilarious scenes based on audience suggestions. The Improv Club's family-friendly show is suitable for anyone who needs a good laugh between the ages of 8 to 88.
     The Improv Club consists of nine stand-up comics and experienced stage performers who believe the shortest distance between two people is humor. The company consists of Judi Clements, Marcy Hausman, Chas Heritage, Jon Hausman, Peggi Perrone, Scott Hooker, Steve Smoller, Julie Phillips and Ed Miller.
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Saturday, Jul. 3     Holiday Weekend Open Mic
$3   7 PM sign-up • 7:30 show



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Sunday, Jul. 4     Closed for Independence Day
     
 


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Wednesday, Jul. 7  •  7 PM     Poetry Open Mic
$3 at the door   Featured Reader: Alan Casline
 


Alan Casline has published a number of collections of poetry and has written on watershed wisdom, folklife, natural history, sustainability, and local poetry. Beginning in 1975 in Canton, New York, he edited and published Rootdrinker, a magazine of watershed poetics, art, and non-fiction.
     He has published several volumes of poetry, including Birdsfoot (1985), Some Late Thursday Night Poems (2007) and Grandfather Carp (2009). His Benevolent Bird Press has published a number of collections of poetry by local writers.
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Friday, Jul. 9  •  8 PM     Kevin Welch
$16 advance / $18 at the door
  With Opener Marc Douglas Berardo
www.kevinwelch.com | www.marcdouglas.com



Nashville singer-songwriter Kevin Welch started putting out alt-country albums back in 1990, before alt-country was cool. The native Oklahoman explores the human condition in a low-key manner that recalls Guy Clark, and his songs have been covered by Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, Trisha Yearwood, Ricky Skaggs, and the Highwaymen.
     He has just released his first solo album in eight years, A Patch of Blue Sky.
     Opener Marc Douglas Berardo "sounds like a fishing-town Bruce Springsteen (in Nebraska mode), a soft-toned Don Henley, or a James Taylor with a literary side. The comparisons to singer-songwriter greats are infinite. They're also apt." —Fairfield County Weekly
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Saturday, Jul. 10  •  8 PM     “Voices Remembered”
$15 advance / $17 at the door
  A Tribute to Steve Goodman, Dave Carter, Kate Wolf and Stan Rogers. Featuring Susan Trump, Stuart Markus, Joan Kosby and Terry Kitchen
 


Join us as we celebrate the music of four brilliant songwriters. All of them left us too soon, yet each left behind an incredible number of wonderful songs. Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans" was a big hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972. Although Goodman never achieved much commercial success during his life, he was awarded two Grammies posthumously. Dave Carter was known for mystical, spiritual songs such as "When I Go," but was equally at home with train and "road" songs.
     Kate Wolf wrote over two hundred songs in just fifteen years, including "Give Yourself to Love" and "Across the Great Divide."
     Stan Rogers, one of Canada's best-loved songwriters, created strikingly vivid portraits of working people, particularly those who labored at sea. He wrote such gems as "Barrett's Privateers" and "The Mary Ellen Carter."
     Performers at this tribute are multi-instrumentalist and regional favorite Susan Trump, Falcon Ridge Festival regular Terry Kitchen, Stuart Markus from the up-and-coming trio Gathering Time, and Joan Kosby from the duo Alien Folklife.
     Whether you are already a fan of one or more of the songwriters we are honoring, or just want to hear an evening of great songs performed with skill and sensitivity, this show is for you.
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Sunday, Jul. 11  •  7 PM     John Gorka
$25 advance / $27 day of show
  With openers The Buskers
johngorka.com | www.thebuskers.com



Rolling Stone Magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of the New Folk Movement." For more than two decades, John Gorka's keen ear has picked up the stories of those along his path, folding them into poetry and song. His keen perception and trademark wordplay combine with an emotive baritone to create a listening experience that produces "goose bumps all over." (New York Times) He's smart, fun, unaffected, and just plain excellent at his job.
     Getting the night off to a fun start is New Hampshire trio The Buskers. With old school instruments and some serious chops they ignore boundaries between jazz, folk and rock blending all three in a crowd-pleasing, happy amalgam.
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Wednesday, Jul. 14  •  7 PM     Emerging Artist Breakout
$5 at the door   Featuring Mary Leigh Roohan
www.myspace.com/maryleighmabey



Saratoga Springs teen singer/songwriter Mary Leigh Roohan takes the stage with a degree of charm, confidence and talent that marks her as a natural for a future career in music. She has a lovely, simple voice well-suited to her spare folk guitar arrangements and a knack for writing engaging ballads. Her debut performance at the Caffe last spring was glowingly discussed for weeks afterwards.
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Friday, Jul. 16  •  8 PM     The Red Lions
$15 advance / $17 door
   
www.myspace.com/theredlions



Featuring the original songwriting and vocals of Ithaca artist Eric Margan, the Red Lions offer exquisite, sophisticated orchestral pop music. Accompanied by guitar, keyboards, reeds, bass, and drums, Margan’s arrangements are way above average.
     His songs are "brilliantly informed by Impressionism, classic rock, and chamber and adagio musics with a dash of smoky nightclub jazz. Expect Stravinsky to spice the slow sonics, Gershwin to walk side by side with rapture, Ravel to pull in fog and rain, and Weill to spike the decadence factor throughout a conceptually based song cycle revolving around love, loss, anomie, and desperation." —Mark S. Tucker, Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange.
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Saturday, Jul. 17  •  8 PM     Jack Williams
$18 advance / $20 door
   
www.jackwilliamsmusic.com



A veteran of club and festival stages coast to coast, Jack Williams is known for his excellent guitar playing and classically Southern songwriting and persona. His original material bears hints of Stephen Foster, Jimmie Rodgers, and Hoagy Carmichael, all filtered through the mist of Appalachian mountain music.
     "....his artistry...is nothing short of amazing. Dazzling picking, expressive voice, unique and interesting songs." Rich Warren, WFMT "Midnight Special," Chicago IL.
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Sunday, Jul. 18  •  7 PM     The Greencards
$22 advance / $24 door
   
www.thegreencards.com



“The Greencards are a little island of Truth and Beauty in a sea of artifice and mediocrity. What a fine group, and what a great collection of songs.” —Rosanne Cash

For the past five years this fast-rising Sugar Hills Records recording trio has toured the globe with their country-tinged music that ranges from uplifting love songs to poignant ballads, all of it fresh and inventive. In the process they have accumulated numerous awards and acclamations, from the Americana Music Award in 2006 for "Emerging Artist of the Year," through tours with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, to Grammy nominations in 2008 and 2010.
     Australia native Carol Young plays bass and sings most of the songs; fellow Aussie Kym Warner picks the mandolin and bouzouki, while Eamon McLoughlin of England plays fiddle and viola.
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Friday, Jul. 23  •  8 PM     Dyer Switch
$15 Advance / $17 door
   
www.dyerswitch.com



The versatile and engaging Dyer Switch Band brings together hard-driving renditions of traditional tunes from first-generation bluegrass giants such as Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley with their own fresh and innovative originals inspired by diverse genres.
     Performing since 1992, the line-up features the distinctive vocal and instrumental versatility of Tom Benson (mandolin, vocals, guitar), JoAnn Sifo (guitar and vocals), Bob Altschuler (banjo and Dobro), Nick Viscio (fiddle and vocals), and Randy Jennings (bass and vocals).
     The band was inducted into the New York State Country Music Hall of Fame, and was nominated for five consecutive years as Bluegrass Band of the Year by the Northeast Country Music Association.
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Saturday, Jul. 24  •  8 PM     Woods Tea Company
$18 advance / $20 door
   
www.woodstea.net



This Vermont stringband performs a winning combination of Celtic tunes, bluegrass, sea shanties and folk songs, interspersed with plenty of down-home wit and camaraderie. Labeled "Vermont's hardest working folk group" by National Public Radio, the line-up features Howard Wooden on bass, guitar, and bodhran; Tom MacKenzie on hammered dulcimer, banjo, guitar, ukulele, and keyboard; and Patti Casey on guitar, flute, penny-whistle, and clogboard.
     The trio is renowned for its rich vocal harmonies and delightful, warm humor.
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Sunday, Jul. 25  •  7 PM     Railbird
$15 advance / $17 door
   
www.myspace.com/railbirdmusic



Saratoga Springs’ own Railbird is the latest band poised to break out of the Northeast music scene onto a national stage. Their ever-evolving sound has been compared to Kate Bush, Beck, and Syd Barret. They are frequently described as a combination of 1960's psychedelia and contemporary, minimal art-rock.
     Bandleader/songwriter/vocalist Sarah Pedinotti (“a talented young singer/songwriter on the rise.” —Billboard) is a natural storyteller who finds inspiration in the fiction and poetry of writers such as William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and W.B. Yeats. Railbird’s debut disc was listed as #8 in Billboard’s editors’ picks and hailed as "a great indie band set to break out." They have an indescribable, ethereal charm that is truly captivating.
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Wednesday, July 28  •  7 PM     Emerging Artist Breakout
$5 at the door   Featuring Halicarnassus
www.myspace.com/halicarnassusmusic



Halicarnassus is a four-piece experimental rock band from Queensbury. Their emotive, hard-driving original compositions translate well to the acoustic format they'll play in at Caffe Lena. The band features Sheldon Reeves on guitar and viola, Jacob Lavin on guitar and trombone, bassist Bryan Carr, and drummer Katie Merrill. They all share in vocals.
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Friday, Jul. 30  •  8 PM     Boréal Tordu
$15 advance / $17 door
  With opener Lissa Schneckenburger
www.borealtordu.com



“They are a light-hearted, improvident, unenterprising people, more fond of the fiddle than the hoe.” —Edward Elwell on the Acadians of Maine, 1878

. . . And in 2010, representing today's generation of Acadian-Maniacs and inspiring the populace to forget toil and care, comes Boréal Tordu. More than a revival, this is the reinvention of a culture almost lost to a new generation. The result is a rhythmically unstoppable, lyrically fantastic blend of French-Canadian traditions with original Americana sensibilities.
     The band features fiddler/accordionist Steve Muise, and Acadian singer-songwriter and dobro player Rob Sylvain, known for his work in the band Douce with Matthew Doucet of Lafayette, Louisiana. Rounding out the rhythm section is Pip Walter on guitar and backing vocals, and Andy Buckland on upright bass.
     New England fiddler and singer Lissa Schneckenburger will open the show. She's a winsome, sweet-voiced singer who brings new life to old ballads and a skillful, dynamic fiddler who captures the driving rhythm and carefree joy of dance tunes old and new.
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Saturday, Jul. 31  •  8 PM     Throwdown Bouquet
$12 advance / $14 door
   
www.greenwichcsd.org



Reunited at last! Throwdown Bouquet emerged on the local music scene as a popular college band back in the mid-90s. Led by Greenwich native Josh Chambers, this rock band featured sassy, youthful songwriting and bouncy pop arrangements. Post-graduation years took the members in separate directions, but fate has brought them all back to the area for the summer, and tonight we’ll catch up on the news, and enjoy old favorites such as "Sugar Coated," "When I’m Alone," and other ditties bound to make you wonder where the last ten years went.
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Photo:
Train of Fools
© 2010, Joseph Deuel
Photo:
Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys
© 2010, Joseph Deuel



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