Photo by John Dixon
Charlie Halloran
On Sunday, Adam Hucke released his 10-song debut album, Adam Hucke’s Music for Nerds Presents Madam, I’m Adam, with a raucous show at the Old Rock House. Opening up were Tommy Halloran (whose brother we write about below) and the Sleepy Rubies, which shared membership with Hucke’s own band. That group reflected the players on Madam, I’m Adam, which features nine, genre-ranging originals, with a capper of The Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow.”
Live, Hucke ran through the 10 songs in order, starting out with the lovely pop of “That Girl” and “The Vegetables are Singing.” From there, you had ballads and shanties and psych ragers and for that final cut, an everybody-gets-a-solo turn through “She’s a Rainbow,” which had to have pushed the 20-minute mark, Hucke lightheartedly, but firmly, pushing each player to really blow it out on their moments in the spotlight. Impressive, too, was Hucke’s ability to shift between a bottle of Jameson and what appeared to be a bottle of rose, alternating vigorous sips of each gig juice as he pushed through the band’s set.
Though known as a trumpet player of some skill, he didn’t break out the instrument for the gig. Not once. But… he did at the after-party.
At McGurk’s, a good number of the players and fans assembled for a bit more partying, this time with the musical accompaniment of that bar’s every-Sunday-tradition, Falling Fences. Nipping at a new bottle of rose, Hucke joined for some trumpet and some vocals and some glad-handing of friends and it was quite the party, so strong that one local booking agent simply fell to the ground in what seemed to be rapturous joy. Now that’s a party!
Charlie Halloran’s in The News: Last summer, we profiled STL ex-pat Charlie Halloran, who was coming through St. Louis for a series of shows with a jazz group from his adopted hometown of New Orleans. He’ll be heading back to St. Louis with another group this September, if all goes as planned. And he’ll have a new(ish) album to promote when that mini-tour arrives here.
Here’s the description of Ce Biguine from Charlie Halloran's Bandcamp page, where you can sample/purchase the work: Ce Biguine, recorded straight to 78 rpm acetate disc at Twerkophonic Studios in New Orleans, captures the dance music of the French Caribbean circa 1950. Music for dancing, music for beach combing, music for ice melting in a fine rum. The CD even comes with a vintage rum punch recipe from tiki honcho, Jeff the Beachbum Berry!
Halloran tapped friends from Tuba Skinny, the Iguanas, and fellow St. Louisan, Tom McDermott, to make this album, a welcome addition to any cocktail party, lawn party, or cookout. The inherent pops and scratches from the unusual recording method only add to the balmy atmosphere.
Christian Schaeffer of the RFT recently caught up with Halloran in NOLA and wrote an excellent primer on the album’s background and recording process; that’s an interesting story in itself.
Sights and Sounds: A new track from the album Welcome to St. Lucius by Antony Lucius has been featured on Pit LDN. The London-based Soundcloud page can be found here, as well as the downloadable cut “Be Ocean, Not Wave.”
From the “all press is good press” files, Columbia’s Hooten Hallers, featuring St. Louisan Kellie Everett, got an interesting review at Noisey, a Vice outlet. The reviewer liked the trio’s newest album well enough, but also wanted to slap the group’s face for cultural appropriation. We won’t ruin the rest of your read with further spoilers.
GoFundMe pages with a musical bent aren’t new, though they usually support something along the lines of an album or tour. Occasionally, though, they support something larger, like an entire club. The family behind the new/old venture George’s on 66 are looking for community support to reboot the family venture, known in different eras as George’s Visions and Danno’s. The onetime disco, located in southwest St. Louis County, has been a music club for many a year, and the ownership’s looking for $45,000 in seed money. The page raised about $1,000 in the first few hours, and we’ll be curious to check in on this one in a week’s time.
And, in full seriousness, we’re looking for some filk musicians who call St. Louis home. (If you have to look up the definition, that’s probably not you.) There are a couple of events in the coming months that involve filking, and we’d love to highlight some folks in the scene. Throw a line to: thomascrone314 at gmail. Thanks in advance, you characters.
With news of The Urge playing an upcoming Wayback Pointfest at Riverport, we went in search of a good, old video of the band on YouTube, maybe playing some long-gone place like Mississippi Nights. We weren’t expecting, though, to find a video of Ireland’s top wedding band, which happens to share a name with STL’s long-running funk/rockers. There’s really no relevance to posting this video beyond the obvious, but sometime’s that’s enough.
