To celebrate a decade of songwriting and playing music, Joe Yoga has put together a Retrospective NYC Tour – five venues, seven days, ten years of songs. Each show in the tour is centered around a different theme, signifying the stops and signposts along his journey over the past ten years.

Joe Yoga

As a singer/songwriter Joe Yoga regularly plays venues all over NYC. He released his most recent album, Life Out East, in September 2010. Joe’s album of earlier recordings collected from now-unavailable releases, The Dreamless Sea, is available for free download at bandcamp.com.

On November 1^st, the tour began at the Sidewalk Café with songs from The Dreamless Sea. The intimate setting was a perfect compliment for this collection of songs. On stage, Joe Yoga stood alone with his acoustic guitar, delivering a performance that was powerful, honest, and captivating. Raw emotion, heartbreak, frustration, and sudden joy broke through these songs, as Joe shared music from the dreamless sea, revealing poetic lyrics, sincere melodies, and the landscape of his heart.

Find out why Joe Yoga is one of NYC’s beloved musicians as he continues the rest of his retrospective tour, taking the audience through his own evolution as an artist over the past decade. You do not want to miss the rest of these shows!

Joe Yoga Retrospective NYC Tour dates:

Tuesday Nov 1 @ Sidewalk Café. 10pm – THE DREAMLESS SEA

Thursday Nov 3 @ Gizzi’s 7-9pm – RARITIES / B-Sides / Never-Before-Played (with special guests Marlon ‘Marbar’ Kaltenborn and Brooke McGowan)

Thursday Nov 3 @ God Tastes Like Chicken. 10:30pm – WILD CARD

Saturday Nov 5 @ Underground Asylum – LIFE OUT EAST

Monday Nov 7 @ Niagara – ALL NEW SONGS

More about Joe Yoga …

In addition to his solo work, Joe Yoga plays regularly in NYC with his band Downward Dogs.  He is also part of the performance-art comedy mock rock supergroup Kill the Band and plays in the greatest rock and roll band in the world, Coach, his side project with Andrea Tarka.

As a stage performer, he was featured in Natalie Underwood’s Buckle Up, in Kill the Band (Audience Choice Award Winner, 2010 Frigid Festival) and in Ramblings of a Gentleman Scumbag (Imperial Award / Donor’s Choice, 2010 Frigid Festival).

Joe Yoga is a regularly featured performer at John Murdock’s God Tastes Like Chicken. He also writes poetry and schedules spoken word performances and readings of his work at various venues in Manhattan and the NYC area.

Joe produced “Grudge Match: Music vs. Comedy”, which featured the best up and coming musicians and comedians in the NYC. He also produces the annual Christmas spectacular, “A Very Yoga Christmas”, a holiday staple in the NYC arts scene, which will be celebrating its 4th year in 2011.

Visit Joe Yoga’s website at www.mrjoeyoga.com for a full calendar of his events, shows and performances, and “like” his page on facebook to keep up to date with Joe’s various projects!

Life Out East can be purchased from iTunes or amazon.

The Dreamless Sea is available as a free download at bandcamp.

Related Posts:

• Following The Path Of Yoga
• Interview With Mads Jeppesen: Somewhere In The Dark
• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• Last Looks At The Happiest Medium In 3-D – Pull Your Glasses Out
• Early Risers / Night Owls … Come With Me – Help Save UNDER St. Marks

interview done by Karen + Stephen Tortora-Lee

Mike Milazzo – The Show from Mads Jeppesen on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever seen Mike Milazzo play the guitar then you already know what an amazing experience it is to watch him – his fingers fly effortlessly over the strings producing almost unbelievably complex sounds that are not only beautiful and powerful but raw and real.  As a songwriter Mike has the ability to find the core of what connects us all and finesse it into thoughtful words and haunting melodies.  As a singer, Mike’s voice is earnest and true; evocative and filled with emotion.  He takes you on a journey with every line he sings, and it’s not until he’s strummed his last note that you’re able to break the hypnotic spell which his music has cast over you. You only have to sit through one of Mike’s performances to know that he is one of the best musicians around.

For those not lucky enough to be able to see Mike perform in person, he’s working on getting a new album out called “The Show”.   Mike Milazzo took some time in between gigs to chat with us about what inspired him to write these songs, what the differences are between collaborating and going solo, and he finally solves the mystery of who, exactly, “Mr. Barry” is.  Read on …

You’ve got an album coming out called “The Show”. Tell us a little bit about the songs that you chose to be on that album. What do they mean to you?

MM: All these songs came out of the Manhattan experience of being at Under St. Marks and hanging out with the open mic crowd.  A lot of the songs were developed at Penny’s Open Mic.  A couple of the songs besides “The Show” (which is really the core of this album) that I like a lot are “Love is A Cage” and “Angels”.

“Angels” started out as a song about how friends of mine were having some problems and struggling with their singing voices, but how they could start finding their confidence. The rest of the song veered off into my own spirituality, and my spirituality, as if angels were singing to me, representing the angels in my life. But my songs are about a lot of different things, and mean different things to different people. I think songs should be like that.

The title of the album is very evocative … it can mean The Show as in “The performance”, or The Show as in … “the big reveal”. What does “The Show” mean to you?

It means a little of both. Yes a performance, but on another level Life itself  is The Big Show.  The most important message of the album is “just make it happen“.  It’s the lesson I’ve gotten from working at Penny’s – that if you have an idea you should start out with what you have and build on it … the more you work on it the better it becomes.

A lot of people ask me what some of the lyrics of “The Show” mean.  For instance, there is a line in”The Show” about Mr. Barry, that everyone ask me about.   “Mr. Barry” as a phrase just rolled off the tongue well. He’s really the composite of a lot of people in my life. So “Mr. Bary” is really whoever you want him to be. It originally was from Barry Manilow but “Mr. Manilow” just didn’t roll off the tongue as well. When people listen to the song I imagine them adding their own layers of meaning and experiences for their own versions – their own “Mr. Barry”s of what they see in the song.

How long has The Show been in the works?

I’ve been putting it together from a lot of pieces since the last album (The World Outside) came out.  So for a couple of years now.

The few songs that I’ve heard from that album are amazingly complex as well as deeply thoughtful. Where does your inspiration come from?

In general most of my songs are from my relationships, with women, girlfriends, but also relationships in general. Many of the new songs on this album came from me workshopping and performing in front of people. For example, the song “The Show” is about my experiences with those performing at Penny’s Open Mic. I like story songs, songs about characters and people, which helps me to get out of the relationship box. I tend to write about relationships, I just take a slice of life and tell a story about it and it’s those stories that people seem to be able to relate to.

You’ve got a solo career as well as a collaborative career. How do you find yourself working differently alone than with other people?

I get a lot out of working alone, I can definitely go deeper when I’m working on a solo project, but sometimes it’s hard examining your own emotions so intently all the time for months and months and months without taking a break. When I collaborate I can get out of myself and go in a different direction than I would on a single project. It keeps me from getting too self absorbed and keeps me fresh.  I have more breakthroughs while playing in my other bands (Broken Arrow, Cutleri, Kill The Band, The Boardlords, Anacoustic Mind) and come back to my own material refreshed.

With The Boardlords, I get to satisfy my lead guitar jones, playing lead guitar in a punk band. With Kill the Band, I get to express my comedic side, playing a character, and its more of a cabaret act. With Cutleri and Anacoustic Mind, I get to play mandolin, which is an instrument I don’t get to play a lot. I love using different instruments, and playing different styles of music.

I get a chance to do things I wouldn’t normally do all on my own. I can move into a direction musically which I wouldn’t move in by myself and so it helps expand my range as an artist. I feel like I began to be a part of a lot of bands because I’m inherently lazy, but I’ve discovered by balancing my collaborative work with my solo work its really helped me become more of a storytelling songwriter. Now I have a lot more range from all the work I do and it shows in the songs I write.

As far as collaboratively, I know you’re doing a lot of work with Killy Dwyer and Kill The Band. That’s got to be a lot of fun for you. Tell me about that experience.

Yeah, that experience really helped pull me into this whole scene.  Joe Yoga and I went from just being sort of backup for Killy to being a part of this comedic cabaret with Killy as this mock rock icon battling against the boardrooms of America.  It’s really a lot of fun, and Kill the Band has become one of my regular gigs.   My work with them has given me a lot of breakthroughs that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t been part of that experience.

You’ve got an IndieGoGo campaign going right now that’s got around a week left.  I know how important it is for a solo artist to gain support form the community. How can people learn more about you and support your upcoming album?

This campaign is something I learned from being part of this community of artists over the last few years.  It’s about not only making art, but making art the way you want to.  With so many people in this scene having the same sort of goal, it just seems like IndieGoGo or KickStarter is now the smart way of doing these sort of projects.  It becomes sort of a “pay it forward” sort of thing. Mads Jeppesen From Finland is using IndieGoGo for his film Somewhere In The Dark and it’s a great example of how these things can work to take artists’ concepts to a whole other level with this method of making projects happen on a bigger scale than they could have before things like KickStarter and IndiGoGo existed.

I felt it was really important to do it for myself, and also do it for my other friends. I’ve contributed to a lot of projects and being part of these communities it just make sense to pitch in a little where you can to make it happen or find people outside of the community and see if they can help.  Sometimes it just becomes a problem of finding a patron. Other times patrons are looking for people they want to support and IndieGoGo and other campaigns are a great way to build awareness with new people who might not have heard of us before.

Bonus Question! You can tell me anything you want. Tell me a joke, give me your favorite quote or lyrics … or recipe … promote a cause … tell me something else about The Show that I may have not asked … anything! The mic is yours …

Through Horse Trade Theater Group, Under St. Marks Theater, and Penny’s Open Mic, a community opened up that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I’d never have known them without them creating this space for artists to come together.

So many good groups of musicians and performers got their start at Under St. Marks Theater. It’s a great place for a lot of networking with supportive people. Right now, it is in risk because the building is for sale. There’s a campaign for Horse Trade to save the theater from being another venue destroyed in NYC. I Just wanted to get that message out again because it’s a really good thing that has really changed my life.

Mike!  Such a pleasure to learn more about the man behind the music.

For those of you who want to help this amazing man get his album realized you can go to his Indie GoGo page  … for a donation of just 25 bucks you can get a copy of his first album “The World Outside” and you’ll also get that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that you helped the amazing Mike Milazzo get his next album out there for the world to enjoy.  In a world of Britneys couldn’t we all use a little more Mike Milazzo?  So go there now!

Related Posts:

• Early Risers / Night Owls … Come With Me – Help Save UNDER St. Marks
• Following The Path Of Yoga
• Last Looks At The Happiest Medium In 3-D – Pull Your Glasses Out
• Interview With Mads Jeppesen: Somewhere In The Dark
• “Kill The Band” Knocks ‘Em Dead (Frigid Festival 2010)

Linda Evangelista is the source of the oft-quoted line “I won’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.” I’ve often paraphrased and said that I won’t get out of bed before six a.m. unless a number like that is mentioned. Yeah, well … how about a number like over 5 million?

Let me explain …

Regular readers of The Happiest Medium know that UNDER St. Marks Theater is one of the theatres that I return to time and time again.  It’s where I first laid eyes on Killy Dwyer and Kill The Band, it’s where Alex Bond did her staged reading of Late Nights With The Boys, it’s where Penny Pollak holds Penny’s Open Mic and where Gigi LaFemme holds Revealed Burlesque. It’s where I saw Heidi Grumelot make a sock puppet into something much more in Donnie and the Monsters.  UNDER St. Marks is home to not only an army of downtown theatre artists but also to countless people who sit in the audience and shower them with love.  People like … me.

Well, this news had hardly hit the grapevine before all of downtown took it as a call to action — and very quickly Save UNDER St. Marks was formed.  Please join the group and throw your support behind this if you value all the precious gifts Horse Trade Theater Group has been able to funnel through this space.

So what does this have to do with getting up early?

Well, on Thursday, April 7 · 6:30am – 8:30am Save UNDER St. Marks is having a televised breakfast Event -

We want to invite you all to come out on Thursday morning at 6:45AM (yes AM) to join us in Showcasing the Horse Trade Talent at UNDER St Marks on NY1. Roger Clark will be there to interview us about UNDER St. Marks.

There will be two segments shot, one at 7am and the other around 8am, between the two segments we will run it open mic style with folks jumping up to do short 5 minute sets, the theme will be OWN IT.

We need a good turn out to show NYC that this is so important that even Artists are willing to get out of bed at 6AM and represent.

So if you can stay up all night and get there early — or if you can get out of bed, get yourself purty and look alive — please come join me at UNDER St. Marks on Thursday, April 7 · 6:30am – 8:30am.

Do it because there are moments when you need to join your voice with others in order to make a difference.  And this is one of those moments.

I’ll see you there.  Right?

~~~

More Info about UNDER St. Marks:

UNDER St. Marks is a downtown performance venue with a rich history. An experimental theatre space since the 1970’s, this 45-seat basement theater is now home to a wide variety of performance artists including The BTK Band, Penny’s Open Mic, Revealed Burlesque, Thank You Robot, Adam Wade, Tanya O’Debra, The Management, Little Lord, the Rising Sun Performance Company, No Tea Productions, Wide Eyed Productions, Animal Parts, Subjective Theatre Company, The Pumpkin Pie Show, and the FRIGID New York Festival.

Related Posts:

• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Heidi Grumelot
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On GiGi La Femme
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Penny Pollak
• Following The Path Of Yoga

Joe Yoga (photo by Brooke McGowan)

Every now and then an artist comes into your life whose music is so dynamic, powerful and moving that you just have to know the stories behind the songs.  When you’re lucky enough to know this artist personally, and he’s someone that you’ve always had a great time hanging out with, you’ve got no choice but to sit down in a noisy bar, buy him a drink (Arbita Turbo Dog), and find out where all this gut punching, heart wrenching, hand wringing music comes from.

Meet Joe Yoga – bass player for Kill The Band but amazing solo artist in his own right who currently has two albums in circulation.  You can download (Free!  December Only!) his first album The Dreamless Sea which is a compilation of his favorite songs from his earlier days.  Life Out East is a full album of new songs that were written over a year and it’s currently available on iTunes.

Over the course of an evening Joe  Yoga tells me how he’s able to juggle two different musical personas, how Life Out East will take you on a journey from heartbreak to healing, and even tells me a pretty funny joke.  Eventually.

Photo by Cathryn Lynne

Joe Yoga! So excited to be here with you! You’ve got two albums in circulation right now – The Dreamless Sea which is a collection of your earlier music, and Life Out East. Tell me a little about those albums.
JY: The Dreamless Sea is more or less a “greatest hits” record. I had put out four records under the name Cognition Ignition Decision . . .

Was that just you?
(Laughing) Yeah, it was just me. And it was just stuff I was making on my 4 track. It spanned from 2002 to the end of 2007 and I’d put out 4 records but they were tape only, distributed to my friends, so I culled the best out of them and used that to make The Dreamless Sea.  Life Out East is a proper album.

How long has Life Out East been in the works?
Pretty much since I put out the last Cognition Ignition Decision record, I started thinking about Life Out East and started writing the material and laying down preliminary recordings for it. So – late ’08 through the end of this year. But the bulk was written in ’09 and early 2010.

Is there anything floating around out there that isn’t on an album right now?
Oh yeah I have tons and tons of songs that I’ve recorded that I’ve never finished or that were bad recordings. So I never made them into proper recordings. I’ve been writing songs for 10 years now so there’s a lot out there.

(Laughing) So since you were just a little kid.
I think I was bigger then, but you get the idea.

Your solo sound is very different than your Kill The Band sound. Are these just two sides of a very complex musician or do you have two completely different personas when you perform?
Well, yeah, I definitely put on a different persona with Kill The Band, because Kill The Band is Kelly [Dwyer]’s project and Kelly’s music. I have some input into arrangements, and what I’m doing but we’re basically there to fulfill Kelly’s vision. So nothing that I really do creatively enters into it – almost at all. Which is fine with me – because I’ve always been in bands anyway where I was just working on other people’s material and I enjoy it. Right now it’s really my only opportunity to play bass in a band and it’s my only opportunity to work with Kelly.  And I love working with Kelly.

How long have you known each other?
We met in ’08.

Wow!
When I started coming around to Penny’s Open Mic in March or April ’08.

It seems like you’ve know each other forever.
Well, she’s like my BFF, man! Kelly and I are very different people but we do have very similar artistic wavelengths and I really appreciate and love what she does and I’d be happy to work with any project she’s involved in.

So were you a core member of Kill The Band then? Was there a Kill The Band before you?
Kelly was writing her songs on Pro Tools or whatever, and performing them solo with backing tracks. And then she got into Frigid and wanted to do a live band show and got together with the people she was working together with at the open mic- me, [Mike] Milazzo, and Bamboo [Silva]. So she put it together and we all gelled really well. I worked with Mike on a bunch of different musical projects so it just seemed like a natural fit.

To get back to your stuff now – your songs on Life Out East are really mournful.
I agree.

It’s like the kind of album I’d put on to get over a breakup. Yet every time I hang out with you, you seem really happy. How’s that?
The material for the album was written and conceived and recorded while I went through a pretty protracted break up with this girl. It was brutal – you know how people are awful to each other – so the breakup is all over this album. How I felt about it is all over the songs, a lot of the songs are about the breakup, about the relationship, how I felt coming out of it. That would explain why the album’s really mournful because it was a sad time of my life. But I, at the same time, consider myself to be a happy person. And honestly a lot of that is because I’m no longer in the breakup anymore. (laughs)

I’m happily married but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to get my heart stomped on. I had some really bad breakups and gosh, this album took me right back to that. It’s a very evocative album and it’s very soulful.
Relationships and breakups and interpersonal connections are really easy things to write songs about.

For you! Not for everybody . . .
Well, for a song writer. I guess my task is to present it in an interesting way that will make people relate to it.

And you’re both? You’re the lyricist and the composer – you’re everything?
For my stuff? Yeah. I wrote all the music, lyrics, played all the instruments on the album. I’ve recorded albums with bands before but I was definitely going for a certain aesthetic with this album where I wanted it to be solely me and my vision. Not necessarily my “vision” – you can have a vision and have other people execute it, like a playwright, but I really wanted this to be a presentation of mine, musically.

And The Dreamless Sea too?
Yeah, that’s all me. That’s how I’ve been writing and recording for the longest time. The stuff I do at home is always me.

And is it words first, music first, or whatever comes first, first?
Pretty much whatever comes first, first. Sometimes I’ll come up with a riff or a chord progression that I really like or I’ll be playing just 2 chords and come up with a melody I really like, or some times a word or a phase and want to build a song around that and then do it.

So it really varies from song to song. But usually it’s just me fucking around on guitar or in my notebook and thinking “Hey, that would make a good song, this is something I really enjoy, this is fun to play, this would sound really good.” So I develop it.

What if you wanted to add a sound and you didn’t play it? Would you ask another musician in? Or actually – is there an instrument you don’t play?
There’s tons of stuff I don’t play. If I had access to a studio and lots of money to pay an engineer to record, and could pay musicians to appear on the album then that’s something I’d do. It’s not something I’m opposed to. It’s just very hard to coordinate when you’re not paying people and when you don’t have the money set aside to reserve space in a studio. If I’m doing it in my apartment it’s a lot easier for me to just knock it out.

But if you met a really great harmonica player . . . or musical saw player . . .
I’m fortunate to know a lot of great musicians . . . and when I had the release party I had a couple of my friends come up – Mike Milazzo and BZ Douglas, and Michelle Leona, and Christen Napier from Cutleri and Mouth from Kill The Band, among others, and I had them come up and play on individual songs and they learn the parts and that was great fun. So it’s something I want to pursue. But it’s really hard to organize – everyone’s really busy including me, and resources are scarce. But in the future, definitely.

Let’s make a little footnote – hey everybody: if you’re interested in playing with Joe Yoga . . . get in touch!
Definitely! I would love to put a band together.

So who are your musical influences? I know it’s a cliche – but I want to know who helped you find your sound.
It really runs the gamut. I’m influenced by everything from Delta Blues to classical music. I started really writing songs when I got heavily into Velvet Underground. I really like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, The Pixies, Neil Young and The Band and Mission of Burma and Steely Dan.

There’s a band out of Boston called Hallelujah The Hills that I really love. They’re kinda new, they’re trying to break out.  I’m big fans of theirs and just hearing a few of their albums, they really influenced my songwriting.

Really? Wow – that’s nice to hear . . .
Yeah . . .

It’s nice when new artists are influencing other artists.
I saw them randomly at some free show on Sound Fix. They put on, to this day, one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and I bought the album at their show and absolutely fell in love.

(Laughing) That’s terrific!
They’ve given me some advice. It’s nice to see a band that’s doing it – touring, has the record deal and is making it happen.

Well, you’re making it happen too! So, as far as your album, I have some favorites. Is it okay to have favorites?
I think it’s natural. . .

These are the ones I liked the best so these are the ones I wanted to know about on Life Out East which I’ve listened to a bunch now. I love “Bad Hero” and “Gone” and “Queen Bee” . . . “Small Hands” is just aching and “Tell The Wind” sounds like it has this amazing story behind it. Tell me about those songs – what are their stories?
“Bad Hero” was inspired by a book I was reading about an archetype – the old aging hero passing the torch on to the next generation of heroes, and the one young woman who’s conflicted about whether or not she wants to be the hero . . . whether or not she thought she’d make a good hero . . . this whole idea of: how do we become who we are, and how do we fit into other’s idea of ourselves? With the breakup coloring the whole album, it was very “well this person wants me to be a certain way and I can’t do that”.

“Gone” is another fairly standard breakup song about the distances between two people and how, after the breakup scene you see them and, where you would have left together before, you now go your separate ways. It talks about the distances between two people and how that’s kinda sad.

“Queen Bee” is a straight up love song, and I don’t think I write a lot of straight up love songs – but that was one where I was just inspired to.

“Small Hands” is a devastatingly personal song and deliberately cryptic about a friend of mine. I think the song speaks for itself.

Don’t tell me any more about it then, I understand.
And “Tell the Wind” is (I don’t know if it comes across) is very sarcastic. Someone who puffs out their chest and claims that they’ll do this and you kinda respond by saying “Tell the wind. Don’t tell me, just do it”. And that was inspired by a specific conversation I had with my girlfriend at the time. We had had this fight and I came home drunk at 2 in the morning and I picked up the guitar and wrote the song right there — and that doesn’t happen a lot for me. But I was really feeling it that night and it all came out in pretty much one shot.

You can really feel that – there’s only one word – Epic. It’s like this big epic story. There’s this huge emotion behind it.
Yeah – it’s something that doesn’t really happen for me. I was going over it “you say you might / you say it’s fine” . . . and I laid it down with the vocal that night. The next morning I re-recorded it.

I can’t wait to go back and listen to the song again! I love knowing this now!
There’s a line “so tell the wind” and that’s kinda my superficial and petty emotion but it totally worked for what I was going for.

And who is Cody in the final song? It sounds very personal. (My husband, Stephen, thinks Cody is a dog – like old Yeller. I do not think this).
It’s funny, I did another interview and they were like “I think Cody is a person” . But Cody is the city is Cody, Wyoming.

Oh, how funny! Well there you go.
I went out West, summer of ‘09. I’d been out to Oregon and Washington, but this was my first real trip to the high desert – the plains, Utah, Mormon country. The person I was with, she wanted to go to Cody because that was where she was born and spent the first 10 years of her life and she’d wanted to see how it had changed and so I’d gone along for the ride.

Here was this city of Cody which had found it’s niche as a tourist town, living off its history and it had stayed that way, contrasting with New York City which is just never the same city twice. There’s a famous quote – “New York City will be a great city if they ever finish it”. I hope they never stop building New York City. New York is not the kind of place that will find a thing and stick with it. It will always be changing and evolving and that’s the kind of place I want to live. It was also built out of this idea – to tie in to the break up, but also thematically to the album – this is about coming back to New York City and the idea that you don’t really see something fully without time and distance.

(Laughs) Yeah. Oh, yeah.
You have to be removed from it physically to see it from the out side. Because when you’re inside all you see is buildings. But when you’re out side you can see a skyline and you get perspective on it. With time, it gives you the sense to see it emotionally. You’re going to get a different view of a breakup emotionally. A year later you will see it completely differently.

You’re outside of it just the way you’re outside of a city coming home to it. And when you’re outside of a relationship, good or bad, you definitely have a different perspective on it. And it can make you re-think things you felt, you can learn about yourself and why you were feeling those things.

“I was so angry!” But a year later, now that I was thinking about if for so long, and being removed from it – now I know why I was so angry. Why I couldn’t articulate it at the time . . . that’s the theme that runs through the whole album: To see something unique you need time and distance to heal.

That’s really profound!
That’s why I put it last, because I feel like that sums up everything I’m agonizing about over the course of the album – I start off sorta sarcastic, then it’s fast songs, then I’m in it, then the second half it’s me stepping back and I’m sorting it out, then everything blew up and now I’m seeing where things land and by the end of the album I’m kinda out of it and I can see the tea leaves so to speak – I can read it much better.

I can’t wait to go back and listen to it again with all this new perspective! So then what’s the one song you love to perform – that makes you feel amazing every time you play it?
Definitely there’s a few – I love to perform Panic Attack especially if I’m in the mood for it. And when I nail that song I feel like I’ve done something right. Cheater is a great song because it’s a strong combo of something that’s really good for my voice and good for my playing style so I almost always nail that song when I play it.

Small Hands – I can always really get into – it seems like whenever I play that it always shuts the crowd up. And I always feel like that allows me to get really deep into it. The deeper I can get into a song, the more I can give the audience to listen to. And also No Wings. I love that chorus and I love the way I’ve arranged it when I play it live.

Speaking of you playing live – where can people come see you perform next?
I have 2 big shows, the first is A Very Yoga Christmas – at Under St. Marks which is my annual Christmas show (this is the 3rd annual). I’ll be playing with my band COACH . . . it’s me and my friend Andrea Tarka on drums, me playing bass. We call ourselves the greatest drum and bass band in the world. And the greatest rock and roll band of all time!

We play once a year because the world can’t handle it more than once a year. We play every year at Yoga Christmas. We’ve settled into a nice groove with that. That’s gonna be great – everyone’s gonna be there . . . Michelle Leona, Eric Clark, Ceili Clemens, The Odortones, John Murdock, Tim Warner, Jon Savoy, Jen Perney, Mr. Marbar, Mike Ogletree, The Sisters Rock, Penny Pollak, Natalie Underwood, and Umberto MacDougal.

It’s fun music and the 2nd half is the cream of the crop of solo performers of the downtown scene. That’s gonna be something really special.

Then I have a solo show which is Jan 11th at Sidewalk Cafe which is me for an hour, hopefully some special guests if I can wrangle them up. That’s at 9:00 pm.

Terrific! Okay, now my favorite part of the interview. Bonus question – you can tell me absolutely anything you want. Tell me a joke – give me your latest cause, recite some poetry . . . tell me what you want for your birthday. Or give me more information in case my questions weren’t thorough enough. The mic is yours!
I have a joke!

Photo by Cathryn Lynne

OH! Good good!
Why did the suicidal chicken stop in the middle of the road?

I don’t know . . .?
To get to the other side.

(dead silence) Um . . . (then uproarious laughter at the badness of the joke)
Get it? The other side?

Yes. I get it, I get it.
Get it? He’s suicidal? So he stops? So he gets hit by a car? To get to the other side?

(laughs) Oh . . . that’s ah . . . yeah yeah – wanna tell me another joke?
Wow . . . (recovers) A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says “Why the long face”?

Hahahahahahahahaha!
And the horse says “Because my alcoholism is destroying my family!”
(both dissolve in laughter)

BETTER! Much better! Well thank you Joe Yoga!

Thank you Karen!

~~~

So, if you’d like to catch Joe Yoga at his next Kill The Band gig, he’ll be at Alter Ego this Sunday the 19th, and then you can check out his solo shows mentioned above.  I’ll see you there!

Related Posts:

• Joe Yoga: Retrospective NYC Tour
• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• The Terrible Manpain Of Umberto MacDougal: The Total Package Of Manpain (2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Interview With Mads Jeppesen: Somewhere In The Dark
• Early Risers / Night Owls … Come With Me – Help Save UNDER St. Marks

Okay, so – yeah . . . maybe Alter Ego is actually not usually appropriate for children.  But you can be there, thinking of them!  Because this Sunday – December 19th Alter Ego is having a very special Toys for Tots benefit performance party  – at Fontana’s which is exactly the place you wanna be thinking of wee Tots as you knock back your fifth tequila of the night and watch exotic belly dancing, alternative underground comedy, twisted freak folk music, avant garde antics, sultry modern dance, break-dancing straight from the streets, bawdy burlesque and Santa Elvis!

Entrance is free HOWEVER you MUST bring an *unwrapped* gift for a child. Cash donations are also accepted but not as fun.

Doors open at 7:30pm. Show starts downstairs at 8pm. Holiday fun party is upstairs in the main bar directly after the show until the wee wee hours!

Related Posts:

• Following The Path Of Yoga
• It’s A Double Header Of Our Favorites – BALLS! And KILL THE BAND!
• The Terrible Manpain Of Umberto MacDougal: The Total Package Of Manpain (2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Wasabassco Extravaganza: Better Than Promised … Night One
• Wasabassco Burlesque – Celebrating Seven Years And Still Going Strong

For those of you who attended the Happiest Medium’s 1st Anniversary Party (in 3-D) you may have seen these slide shows already. They feature the great performers we had there, and some of their upcoming projects. Here is the main slide show with the normal as well as 3-D-ified images that will jump out at you if you look at them with ChromaDepth 3-D glasses.

And let me thank all our performers and sponsors one last time -

Ahmond, Monica Bauer, Charites, John Fico, Jeff Grow, Paolo Javier, Kampfire PR, Kill the Band, MTWorks, Karen Tortora-Lee, and  Franca Vercelloni,

Now to look at the slides…

Because we loved Kill The Band so much we made a slide-show just for them. It can be enjoyed with or without glasses, but if you went to the party, pull your glasses out now!

Don’t forget to catch their monthly show – Alter Ego.

Related Posts:

• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• Following The Path Of Yoga
• It’s A Double Header Of Our Favorites – BALLS! And KILL THE BAND!
• Joe Yoga: Retrospective NYC Tour
• Open Mic Night And Post-Irene PARTY!

We’re still coming down from the amazing party that was held (in 3-D!) on Monday night – celebrating The Happiest Medium’s first year.  If you were lucky enough to be at the party you saw some wonderful performances.  If you missed it – I’ve got some great news for you.

This weekend you can get you fill of BALLS! The Testosterone Plays of Monica Bauer . . . and afterward you can get your Girl Balls fix with Killy Dwyer and Kill The Band as they open and close ALTER EGO with their avant garde comedic punk rock performance art and antics!!  If you don’t have enough balls in your life, this is the weekend to get your fill . . .

BALLS! The Testosterone Plays of Monica Bauer will have a limited 16 performance run at the Workshop’s Main Stage Theatre (321 W. 36th Street, 4th Floor between 8th and 9th) from November 19th – December 5th.  That’s starting tonight, kids, so if you didn’t have plans for a Friday night – you do now!

The evening features two one-act plays with all-male casts: Made for Each Other (a bittersweet romance written specifically for actor John Fic0) and Two Men Walked into a Bar (two Marine veterans from very different wars [Vietnam and Iraq] meet in a seedy Alabama bar at 3am for drinks, revenge, and maybe even murder as they face off over their wives) starring  Aaron Gonzalez, Nick Ruggeri, and John Fico.

Tickets are $18 and can be bought online at www.BrownPaperTickets.com.  For more information please visit www.TheaterWithBalls.com

~~~

THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, you can spend Sunday night at ALTER EGO: VAUDEVILLE SURREAL!  (Ignore the information on the card at the right – Alter Ego is being held at: Fontana’s Bar // 105 Eldridge St New York, NY)

Alter Ego is monthly alternative performance show which features an array of juicy variety for you to sink your teeth into.  Hosted by Killer Killy Dwyer and A SECRET SPECIAL SCOTTISH BEARDED GUEST WITH OODLES OF MANPAIN!, this performance party offers up a steaming serving of alternative dance, music, comedy, performance art and burlesque acts! Get out of the chill and into the hot hot heat of ALTER EGO!

I’m going to rock out my Sunday by doing both – but you can do any combination.  AND if you can’t get to Alter Ego this week – don’t worry.  It’s going on EVERY 3rd Sunday of the month. It’s free and it will blow you away.

Hope to see you there!

Related Posts:

• Last Looks At The Happiest Medium In 3-D – Pull Your Glasses Out
• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• Early Risers / Night Owls … Come With Me – Help Save UNDER St. Marks
• The Children!!!! Who Will Think Of The Children??? – Alter Ego Will. They Always Do
• BALLS! – Come See What Goes On In The Minds Of Men

Killy Dwyer, Joe Yoga, Mike Milazzo and Bamboo Silva

I thought it was a very good sign that my latest obsession, Lady Gaga’s pulsating, driving song Teeth, was blaring as I entered Under St. Marks to get ready to see Killer Killy Dwyer’s latest offering “Kill The Band” which is not just the name of her band, but which is also the name of the show that’s part of Frigid Festival 2010.  I saw it as a good omen not just because I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head these last few weeks, but more because the song is the type of song that gets down into you and makes you bop in your seat and I figured a gal who was serving up Gaga as the appetizer must have the all-you-can-eat-buffet to back it up.  Musically speaking, of course.

Kill The Band (photo by Craig Schober)

Kill The Band is a little real, a little rehearsed, and a whole lotta rockin’ out.  If you’ve come to Under St. Marks to laugh … you’re in luck.  But if you’ve come to laugh AND to see a great live show performed by a great band, you’ve hit the trifecta (or the thing that comes before the trifecta).  Killy Dwyer, along with band-mates Mike Milazzo (on guitar), Joe Yoga (on base), and Bamboo Silva (beat-boxing) do an incredible job of balancing smart with funny with catchy (THERE’s your trifecta).  With songs like Girl Balls (I’m not your f*ckin GPS, bitch find your own way) and Clone U I was sold.  But nothing could have prepared me for the Kumbayah moment when the whole audience joined in on the chorus of Ben Kinsley (no one respects an Indian or a Jew unless they’re played by Ben Kingsley!).  Trust me, it was touching.

Aside from the songs themselves, Killy does a spot on “Dear Future Killy” note to herself from a very young “Past Killy” (To be opened 20 years in the future in March 2010) where she gushes about the wonders of Times Square (and how she will spend EVERY SINGLE NEW YEAR’S EVE THERE when she moves to New York) and notes how she will mark the passage of her career as a Broadway Actress by which Les Miserable character she is going to be playing.

With her very talented band backing her up, and playing the fall guys for many of her routines one is reminded of a sideways-world Spinal Tap where all the other band members are Derek Smalls, constantly being under appreciated.  Of course, again, it’s all in good fun and the joke’s on Killy as she’s left to work out Girl Balls against an unfinished track when she pushes her band just a little too far.

While there’s no doubt that each of the quartet serves as an invaluable member of this show, as well as this band, I must say that the addition of sound effects from the beat-boxing Bamboo Silva (both to the musical numbers as well as to some of the comedy routines) elevates this band into a whole other stratosphere.  Silva is able to bind everything together in a way I’ve never quite seen done before, and it’s an amazing thing to watch him work with these talented musicians.

The evening is outrageous, infection and raucous.  On a scale of 1 to 10, this group goes to 11.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike
• Early Risers / Night Owls … Come With Me – Help Save UNDER St. Marks
• Following The Path Of Yoga
• Brrrrrr! Temperatures Are Dipping! Must Be Time For FRIGID 2010!
• Lickin’ With Bricken – An Interview With Bricken Sparacino

Okay, okay, so these last few days have been relatively mild, I admit.  Even that giant pile of grey gunk that the plow flung upon my curb which – at it’s all time high – reached up to my shoulders has now evaporated enough to reveal the mounds of garbage that were piled there so eagerly just before the snowstorm hit a few weeks ago.  So, in all fairness, it’s not really “brrrr” worthy out there.  Still, don’t let that stop you from getting in the Frigid spirit!

This morning while you were nestled all snug in your bed, the Frigid Fairy came down the chimney and … hell … I don’t even know where I was going with this.

BUT, what I do know is that today is the start of the Frigid Festival, which is something we take very seriously here at The Happiest Medium!  For more information please visit the official Frigid site and check out the blurbs for some of the shows that are on deck.  And also check this spot often, because we’re going to be covering some really good 1 hour shows.  Here’s what we’ll be reviewing in the next few days:

Fishbowl - Written by Mark Shyzer

“Shockingly funny and equally moving, Mark Shyzer’s Fishbowl slyly reveals the connections between five outrageously hilarious characters: a nerdy schoolgirl obsessed with physics, a nihilistic teenage hipster, a gin-soaked divorcee, a perky aerobics instructor and an octogenarian with an odd sense of humour… all played by Shyzer.”

The Red Room   Wed 2/24,9:30,Fri 2/26,6:30,Sat 2/27,3:30,Tue 3/02,6:30,Sat 3/06,9:30,Sun 3/07,5:00

It or Her – Written by Alena Smith

“Somewhere between Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure  and The Tell-Tale Heart, this provocative dark comedy explores the basement of a suburban home where Andrew has devoted himself unconditionally to his incredible collection of figurines.  Suffering the loss of The Red One, he seeks to uncover The Ultimate Arrangement before his hideout is invaded, and his dark secret is revealed.”

The Red Room  Wed 2/24,6:30,Fri 2/26,8:00,Sun 2/28,2:00,Mon 3/01,6:30,Thu 3/04,8:00

“With delightful and poignant tales of a Southern Songstress and her gay family, Alex Bond and David Carson read selections from Ms. Bond’s novel and transport you to Dallas 1977, a magical time before HIV/AIDS, but not before ignorance and prejudice. A favorite at the 2008 San Francisco Fringe and the 2009 Fresh Fruit Festival.”

UNDER St. Marks Wed 2/24,6:00,Sat 2/27,7:00,Mon 3/01,9:00,Fri 3/05,6:00,Sun 3/07,2:30

“A physical exploration of limits, perspective and chocolate cake.  Rooted in physical comedy and set to music, it takes a magical look at the mundane where two people stumble into the extraordinary. It peeks at human loneliness and hits up against reality’s glass ceiling to poke about in the breathing space beyond.”

UNDER St. Marks  Fri 2/26,6:00 PM,Sun 2/28,1:00 PM,Mon 3/01,7:30 PM,Wed 3/03,7:30 PM,Fri 3/05,9:00 PM,Sat 3/06,8:30 PM

Directed by: Samantha Jones

“In a narcissistic attempt to win her family’s attention, Abigail decides to perform the greatest stunt of all- attempted suicide. When her childish venture turns into unexpected reality, Abigail finds herself trapped in purgatory – a warped version of her apartment with two exits.  Heaven or Hell. As a result of her foolish mistake, there is atonement and penance to be paid… and time is running out.”

UNDER St. Marks  Thu 2/25,10:30, Sat 2/27,10:00, Sun 2/28,7:00, Wed 3/03,10:30, Sat 3/06,5:30

“KILL THE BAND IS THE ORIGINAL, COMEDY ROCK AND ROLL, ANTI-CABARET! Coinciding with the release of their first concept album, KILL THE BAND takes you on a cleverly comedic, musically theatrical trip through the band’s breakdowns and breakthrough.  Free CD with every ticket!”

UNDER St. Marks, Wed 2/24,10:30 PM,Fri 2/26,10:30 PM,Tue 3/02,7:30 PM,Sat 3/06,10:00 PM,Sun 3/07,4:00 PM

“Rather than abuse her, Leslie’s alcoholic father would buy her shoes, drag race the lawnmower, and burn the neighbor’s bills, while her mother managed a doomed Christian bookstore and prayed in tongues over Leslie’s ailing sister. Leslie’s storytelling navigates a humorously tragic journey through childhood with frighteningly endearing characters.”

UNDER St. Marks Thu 2/25,7:30 PM,Sat 2/27,4:00 PM,Thu 3/04,9:00 PM,Fri 3/05,7:30 PM,Sun 3/07,1:00 PM

Related Posts:

• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Penny Pollak
• Following The Path Of Yoga
• Review- Legs And All (Frigid Festival 2010)
• “Kill The Band” Knocks ‘Em Dead (Frigid Festival 2010)
• Mike Milazzo — Open Mike