Since the late 90’s Chicago’s music scene has been a constant source of excitement for me. It seems like every year some new gem comes out of the city’s endless pool of independent, creative, and adventurous musicians and labels. Old favorites like Tortoise, and their label, Thrill Jockey, continue to push boundaries while new favorites like International Anthem and Glyders demand my attention.  Black Duck is a trio of Douglas McCombs, Charles Rumback, and Bill MacKay; all veterans of Chicago’s fertile improv scene. Their self-titled Thrill Jockey debut has its roots in their collec ..read more

Today begins our coverage of Tubby’s Fifth Anniversary party with deep Kosmische zones courtesy of Tengger.  The Pan-Asian traveling family came to town on day 3 of the event to play at the outdoor stage the Tubby’s team put together by turning Field Court into a block party.  It’s hard to express how emotional this set was to see and hear.  When I first moved to Kingston, nearly 20 years ago, the idea that I would spend a Sunday afternoon in a dead-end street off Broadway doing anything other than being mugged would have been an impossibility. Instead, several hundred people s ..read more

Photo by Christopher Bruno Our coverage of the 2023 Deep In The Valley festival continues!  Has it really been four years since we last saw Sunwatchers? Unbelievable! Fortunately nothing interesting has happened since 2019 and so we pick up right where we left off. But just a few things in the interim: Sunwatchers put out the righteous duo Oh Yeah? and Brave Rats in 2020; Jim McHugh put out a pair of work-abolishin’, eye-lazer shootin’ solo records the same year; Peter Kerlin’ released a guest-filled, wide-ranging experimental solo record; and Jeff Tobias released a trio of rad ..read more

Photo by Christopher Bruno Our coverage of the 2023 Deep In The Valley festival continues!  Today we have site favorites Garcia Peoples set. Unfortunately, Danny (Guitar, Vocals) and Cesar (Drums) were unable to make it. Thankfully a friend of the band, Ryan Jewell, was on hand to play with Ryley Walker and was able to sit in. With this unique line-up, the band treated us to a single 30+ minute piece of improvisation.  Launching into free improv isn’t something new for Garcia Peoples. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things about them. They are so comfortable with it ..read more

Photo by Christopher Bruno Our coverage of the 2023 Deep In The Valley festival continues! Glyders are a Chicago based band that plays Rock and Roll. No adjectives, no modifiers, no bullshit. I was familiar with them from the Raven Sings The Blues review of their recent Drag City release, Maria’s Hunt but never had the chance to catch them live. I’m extremely grateful that they made the trek East for this event because they blew me away and I haven’t stopped listening to them since. Their record runs seamlessly through a variety of musical styles from country to VU style psych. The live show ..read more

Photo by Christopher Bruno Welcome to our coverage of Deep in the Valley 2023! The second year of our favorite Hudson Valley fest was again held at beautiful From the Ground Brewery in Red Hook, NY and hosted by our friends at Raven Sings the Blues. Thanks to everyone involved for their hospitality. I can’t wait to see you there next year. In the meantime, relax and enjoy some tunes from the day… First off here’s the day’s headliner Ryley Walker, playing in duo configuration with Ryan Jewell. While not quite full-band, seeing Ryley and Ryan together is always magical and this performance doesn ..read more

Long time Kingston/Hudson Valley residents all mourn the loss of our beloved venue, BSP. Thankfully the person behind all those great shows, Mike Amari, is still at it, bringing interesting and creative music to the area under the name Chosen Family Presents. He’s been mostly booking at the beautiful sculpture park Opus 40 but last week we were lucky to have him bring Merdian Brothers into Tubby’s for two sold shows.  Meridian Brothers is the brainchild of Eblis Javier Alvarez Vargas, the Bogota, Columbia based musician and producer. Eblis takes the traditional rhythms of the Carribean a ..read more

The Nyctaper team’s support of site favorites Garcia Peoples continues! This show was a bit of a one off at their home away from home, Tubby’s. The set opened with “Break Me Down” which I hadn’t seen them play since the now legendary “Natural Facts” release show in 2019. They worked through several of the Natural Facts tunes and two really spectacular pieces of improv very much worth your time. Garcia Peoples has a bunch of excellent shows lived up for next month. They will be part of the absolutely LOADED line up at Raven Sings The Blue’s Deep in The Valley festival. Additionally they are pl ..read more

It’s been a while since Zachary Cale was last featured on this site but a glance at his band camp page shows he hasn’t been silent. In addition to the treasure trove of already available music he has new material in the works, and we were treated to a bunch of it during this performance. While this is the last set to be posted from the Island House night at Tubby’s, this was actually the opening set of the night. With Robert Boston on keys and J.R. Bohannon on pedal steel Cale eased the audience into 5 straight new tunes. This is easy listening in the best sense of the phrase. On three separa ..read more

Purling Hiss hit the road for the first time in a while to support their new record on Drag City, Drag On Girard. Last time I saw the ‘Hiss it was a solo Mike Polizze show opening for Dungen. I can’t even remember when that was but oh it’s great to be back. Long before I began contributing here at NYCTaper I followed along with all the excellent recordings especially from the Water on Mars-era. While I would have loved to hear the title track from that one, we got a solid setlist from them closing out their second night at Union Pool, including oldies “Almost Washed My Hair” and “Run From the ..read more