Geno’s is planning a memorial night at the club in honor of the club’s late namesake. Watch Listings for details. Geno’s son JR, who’s been running the club for years now, says the PA system will be set up for people who’d like to pay their respects with music, but that bands will not be scheduled, in all likelihood. Would it hurt you to raise a glass to one of the Portland music scene’s patron saints?
As Fast As’s February 18 gig with the King Pin Wrecking Crew at the Big Easy was their last in Portland for a while. The band will be traveling with Unwritten Law for the large part of a month, after a two-night stay at the Bowery in New York City with Josh Kelley, February 21 and 22. Unwritten Law are Warped Tour/Sno Core types who’ve been around since the mid-’90s and have been on Epic and Interscope Records, but now find themselves with Lava Records. You might remember a single called “Seein’ Red,” which made the alt-rock radio rounds. They’ll be taking As Fast As to the West Coast, with six dates in California, plus time in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Kelley is a soulful vocalist from Hollywood Records who accompanies himself on piano and guitar. The combination implies Octone Records will be pitching As Fast As to both the alternative rock and adult alternative sets. Word is the new album will be out in May. No word on a title, though.
What’s Matt Newberg been up to? The former Maybe Utah frontman and solo songwriter is now the music director at the Hyde School, a private institution upon which the Portland Press Herald was recently lavishing praise. He recently organized a songwriting session with Hyde parents John Hiatt, Michael McDonald, and Don Cook and Hyde student songwriters. Then, on February 21, the kids performed a one-hour set that was broadcast live on WBLM and WCLZ simultaneously. Further, February 22 (tonight, if you picked up the Phoenix as soon as it hit the streets in Portland), the students performed their songs on the stage of the St. Lawrence, at 8 pm. Apparently, “the three [famous] musicians will be on hand at the performances and may play a song or two, but the focus will be on the students and the songs they create.” Okay. we’re sure audience members will be focusing on the kids and not John Hiatt. Sure.
Be on the lookout for Mark Nelson. The solo songwriter has a new album out, called World Gone Cool, that he recorded in his own Phaedo Studios. (Phaedo was famously a witness to the death of Socrates — the “Sibilance” staff doesn’t know why we know this.) Nelson says he’s got a gig coming up in March at Acoustic Coffee for a Maine Songwriters Association showcase, but he doesn’t have the date pinned down yet.
