In 2022 Rosali came to Tubbys and played the best set of music, by a significant margin, I saw that year.  I always enjoyed her records.  She is a masterful writer who brings raw-nerved honesty and beauty to life in every song.  But what happened that night was something totally unexpected.  Backed by David Nance’s band, Mowed Sound, they made those songs sound alternately like your favorite blanket during a thunderstorm or a freight train coming at you full speed.  This felt like seeing The Band and Dylan finding their footing or Neil Young’s first jams with Crazy Ho ..read more

Something truly magical happens when a band mixes extreme volume with extreme repetition. When you add atypical melodies, tones, and time signatures the result is a wildly transcendental, disorienting and psychedelic listening experience. Few people do it as well as Horse Lords.  I first heard about Horse Lords from EricPh’s post on this site back in 2015 and was immediately drawn in. I instantly knew this was the music I wanted in my life. The blending of polyrhythms and microtonality of West Africa with the propulsion of krautrock and the intensity of the best live punk band you’ve eve ..read more

It’s been a minute since Real Estate has graced the site but our relationship with the band goes back to their early days playing clubs in Brooklyn. In fact, their label, Domino, released a set recorded by Nyctaper as a bonus LP to their 2011 album, “Days.” All these years later the band is still writing excellent material, still playing great shows and still finding cool ways to engage their audience.  This show was semi-secret. The band and Tubby’s arranged to not fully announce it until a few days’ prior. They also arranged to break Tubby’s tradition and do no pre-sale tickets and no ..read more

Photo by Claire Hewer Brooklyn’s OPTO S remind me of filthy subway cars, John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, and streets at nighttime shiny with recent rainfall. Musically, they sound indebted to Suicide and the No Wave bands of the early 80s. Which is appropriate considering their name refers MTA subway nomenclature specifying a type of train operation—they’re a New York band through and through. We caught OPTO S earlier this month opening for the mighty Oneida at Bushwick venue Rubulad. The band are no strangers to live recordings, having released Human Indictive / Live on ESP Disk (also ..read more

Sky Furrows is the meeting of Albany’s Burnt Hills and writer-poet Karen Schoemer. They sound something like Sonic Youth, Slint, and Kinski in a blender—psych- and post-rock instrumentals buffeted by Schoemer’s sung-shouted intonations. While Phil Donnelly (drums), Mike Griffin (guitar), and Eric Hardiman (bass) keep a tight rhythm section, Schoemer recites stories, dreams, and observations. From “Shopping Bags,” off of Reflect and Oppose: “A man and a woman in a suit and gown pose for a photographer in front of the river. They look as though they’re dressed for a wedding. People do that, the ..read more

I’m appreciating more and more that the bands I love who I would regularly see in Brooklyn have made Tubby’s a regular spot. It’s like Union Pool north and you just might spot someone you recognize. We saw SAVAK there last year with Chris Brokaw and again in December with New Wet Kojak. This time the band showed up augmented with a second drummer, SAVAK-regular Matt Schulz joined by Jeff Gensterblum set up in the center of the Tubby’s floor. The two pounded away for a really unique set. The more drummers the better I always say! This set features a few songs I hadn’t heard live from SAVAK, li ..read more

Back in the 90s I don’t think New Wet Kojak played all that often, but whenever they played in NYC it was 21+ and I was left—literally, in one instance—standing outside. Fortunately for their reunion after fifteen or so years of dormancy (theirs, not mine) I’m well past drinking age so here we are with the first of three dates the band did in December. In case you’re not familiar, New Wet Kojak is the louche-rock side-project/supergroup of Girls Against Boys‘ Scott McCloud (vocals/guitar) and Johnny Temple (bass) with Geoff Turner of Gray Matter (guitar), Nick Pellicciotto of Edsel (drums), a ..read more

When you know, you know: after a friend recommended it, I made it a mere 30 seconds into Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band’s album Dancing on the Edge before hitting the buy button. I also didn’t wait for Dancing on the Edge to arrive in the mail before buying Send Flowers from Davis’s other (previous?) band, State Champion. The arrival of Dancing on the Edge carried with it a flyer with tour dates, leading me to wind up at this show you’re about to listen to. The perfect digital/analog progression of discovery. And what a discovery it’s been: I’ve probably listened this album more than any ..read more

I first became aware of Primitive Air’s Drew Piraino sometime in 2016. He had recently moved to the same weird, obscure, little suburb of Kingston, NY that I had been living in for the past ten or so years. This “town” is so small you cannot get mail delivered to your house. Everything must be picked up from the post office, which is a converted porch attached to someone’s home. Seriously. One day I went to pick up some records I had been waiting for and while the post lady gathered them up, I noticed another stack off to the side. I asked about them and she said, “Yeah, some other guy gets l ..read more

Our friend and fellow taper noah_s caught Seawind of Battery and ragenap live at Troost a few weeks back. We were excited to to post his recording and in the meantime Mike and Joel were similarly excited—so much so that they released this recording on Eiderdown Records as Chaos LIVE Preserver which you can grab at Bandcamp. Here’s the review and recording from noah_s: Full Disclosure: I have been one of ragenap’s (Joel Berk) beta listeners since he began putting his jams into recorded form. I would listen to demos & rough mixes he recorded the night before early in the morning while ..read more