[FM] REVIEW: "Live From New York" Takes the NYC Scene On The Road

[AsbellMD@aol.com]

Thanks so much to Tom for that lovely review of the "Live From New York" show.

I thought people might also like a little "insider's" perspective. Also, you 
can skip to the bottom for some quick clarifications/corrections to some of 
Tom's points.

The artists of "Live From New York" have all played a significant role in my 
life since my move to New York City 2 years ago. After all, it was the lovely 
and talented Sam Shaber, whom everyone (and I mean, EVERYONE) involved with 
acoustic music in New York seems to know, that officially introduced me at 
the 1998 NERFA conference to Edie Carey. I've been working with Edie 
extensively ever since (and needless to say LOVING IT!).

Around the same time, I was "introduced" to Teddy Goldstein, the 
hysterical-yet-still-somehow-sensitive "lerve"-song writer. Strangely, as it 
turns out, Teddy and I were friends back in the 3rd grade at Episcopal 
Academy in the Philadelphia suburbs. In fact, he and I were caught stealing 
candy from our teacher together and forced to write letters home to our 
parents about how sorry we were (I swear our morals have significantly 
improved).

Chris Smith, former music editor of Performing Songwriter, used to attend 
Columbia University, so we lived pretty close to each other and we ended up 
dragging each other to a lot of shows in The City. On the top of his list of 
favorites was Anne O'meara Heaton, whom he took me to see at the Postcrypt. 
Needless to say, I saw a LOT of Anne Heaton shows over the past 2 years.

Then, I met Andrew Kerr when he wanted to play an Indiegrrl show at Passim! 
Yes, an Indiegrrl show. I believe Edie and Sam were on that bill, and they 
both gushed about how great he was, so I went to see him back in Manhattan a 
few days later and fell in love with his hip-hop vibe and his extremely funny 
stories. And they keep getting funnier every time I hear them. When Andrew 
plays "Me and Buddha" and does a call and response with the audience (we all 
get to sing "Buddha, you been drinking"), Matt Smith and I have sort of 
started a trend of pretending to be totally drunk when we sing the response, 
messing up the words and the timing and generally being really rowdy (not 
something you usually get to do at a folk show).

Ina May is probably the only one whom I didn't really know before "Live From 
New York" came together, and she adds a more serious musical focus (that's 
not to say that the others don't play serious songs, however) to the group. 
She has a soaring Shawn Colvin-esque voice, and melodies, both vocal and 
instrumental, upon which I'm actually surprised to find myself reminiscing 
all the time.

The first "Live From New York" show was actually not at Club Passim. It was 
conceptualized as a Folk Alliance Conference informal showcase, with which 
Matt Smith immediately fell in love. But, it took a while to get the booking 
at Club Passim, and in the meantime, we did a show at The Living Room in New 
York which actually broke their attendance record with something like 96 
people in that tiny little room. We did record that show at Passim, however, 
and that's what is on the compilation CD-R. We are also continuing to record 
all the shows throughout this week of touring.

The big effort right now is in booking this show at college campuses. I've 
been representing the group at NACA conferences, and they just played a very 
successful show about 2 months ago at Hamilton College.

A quick correction to Tom's posting...the LFNY sub-page was actually 
originated on Edie Carey's website (www.ediecarey.com/lfny.html), not Andrew 
Kerr's. It was designed by Danielle Eberhart, who did the rest of Edie's site.

I should mention that the Club Passim show scheduled for 7 pm tomorrow has 
sold out. We've added a 2nd show at 10 pm, and the artists will be varying 
the songs significantly from one show to the other.

Best,
Matthew Asbell
Asbell-Baker Artist Management

<< "Live From New York" Takes the NYC Scene On The Road
by Tom Neff <tneff@grassyhill.org>