My time as director and curator of the creative music series The Ivy Room Experimental & Improv Hootenanny in Albany CA is soon coming to a close as I am moving (back) to NYC. The reins have been placed in the capable hands of veteran local musicians Suki O’Kane and Alan Korn. They are sure to curate some great programs in the coming year.
The Ivy Room has had some unbelievable evenings of music (and visuals) – Ralph Carney, David Slusser, Dale Sophiea, Bruce Anderson, Ross Hammond, Scott Amendola, Phillip Greenleif, Lisa Mezzacappa, John Shiurba, Myles Boisen, John Hanes, Mark Growden, Chris Grady, Seth Ford-Young, Michaela Peterson, Weasel Walter, Laurie Amat, Amy X. Neuburg, Peter Conheim, Scrote, Motoko Honda, Emily Hay, Rent Romus, Morgan Guberman, Pat Spurgeon, Jonathan Segel, Allen Whitman, Suki O’Kane, Lords of Outland, O-Type, Pluto, Dub, Al Alvarez – some real heavies on the local scene. The chance to collaborate and hear these folk has been a highlight of my time here.
a recent Ivy Strangelet set:
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The idea behind the series has been to bring together different music scenes in the spirit of new collaboration and improvisational inspiration, to keep things open and fun. To have it be a musicians hang and give fans a chance to hang with them. To be able to drink and talk -all for free. Damn, that’s seems almost Utopian.
The series centers around new, creative and experimental music, but that has never been a measure of what goes on there. What matters most is a passion for improvisation, originality and no boundaries. No genre. We’ve tinkered with the format of the evening a few times (the original inspiration was a conversation with my friend, Scrote, who told me about the scene at some clubs in Berlin, where DJs trade sets and jam/overlap with crazy live experimental shit – often till dawn – on a Wednesday). But Albany is no Berlin and it’s been hit and miss.
Ordinary folk, people who’ve just stopped in and stayed after hearing it for the first time, find the whole thing interesting and praise the music and the vibe as being really great. So why is the series struggling? What is it? Maybe we’ve failed as promoters. We’ve certainly promoted it, but how do you tell people to ‘read this great book, see this great show’? People are busy, right? Guess you just gotta keep at it and let that word of mouth flow…
However, business is business and – even with management that has been as supportive as Ken McCowan (and before him Eric Leppo) has been – if the bar can’t make some money (for themselves and for the musicians), well another cultural event dies on the vine.
So if you live in the SF Bay Area, please go check it out.