Mike Donovan plays a solo show with openers History Teaches (featuring members of Magik Markers & Sunburned Hand of The Man) at Stage 33 Live in Bellows Falls on Monday, May 14.
History Teaches member Ron Schneiderman of Brattleboro has been a formative influence on the psychedelia of the New Weird America non-genre and its offshoots. In addition to his own music, he’s run specialty labels and distribution, and co-organized the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival with Matt Valentine in the early 2000s.
Don’t know about that largely under-the-radar local history with international influence? Recommended short reading:
“Folk Music’s New Genre Benders” from the Utne reader in 2004
www.utne.com/community/folkmusicsnewgenrebenders
Excerpt from the book “Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk” by Jeanette Leech
https://tinyurl.com/brattfreefolk1
Mike Donovan’s lo-fi psych-folk-rock legacy goes back to Sic Alps, a band he co-founded in 2004 that was admired by the likes of Pavement and the Fall. In addition to his solo work he also formed the The Peacers, and has had fingers in The Ropers, The Church Steps, NAM, Big Techno Werewolves, Sounds of the Barbary Coast, and Yikes. His latest solo full-length, released in April, is called “How to Get Your Record Played In Shops.” The vinyl pressing and cassette copies have both already sold out (yes, cassettes are still a thing too).
This performance is a stop between Montreal and Greenfield, just days before Donovan leaves the country for a European tour.
Doors at 6:00 PM at 33 Bridge Street in Bellows Falls VT. This is an all-ages listening event. Admission is a recommended $5 minimum donation, more if you can; all of it goes to the musicians for burritos and gas money. Stage 33 Live has intimate seating for 40, plus standing room. The performance will be documented for later broadcast and webstreaming.
Stage 33 Live is celebrates humanities, science, spoken word arts, and music by documenting performances during live listening events on a simple stage in a former industrial building. Stage 33 Live is a nonprofit endeavor run entirely by volunteers, and is infused with the best parts of post-industrial small-town rural New England come-together and can-do Yankee bootstrap ingenuity and hard work. We’re not a plush performance theater or a state-of-the-art recording facility. We’re just good folks doing this fine thing. www.stage33live.com
