Webster Hall April 17-2009

Show Review: The Felice Brothers


Having seen The Felice Brothers two times before, I had an idea for what I was in for. The band that hails from the Catskills played a headlining show at Webster Hall in New York City on Friday, April 17th 2009. They are currently touring to support their new album Yonder is the Clock, the second on the Team Love record label and fourth album overall. It’s always a treat to see the energy and soul that the brothers bring to the stage when playing a live show.

Felice Brothers - Live at Webster Hall

As a friend and I arrived early, I was happy to see James Felice mingling with the crowd members. Just about every time I’ve seen the band, I’ve also seen James among the audience members before or after the show. That’s one reason to see this band live - their connection with the audience. Not only do they captivate with their lyrics and intensity, but they entertain with their comments and chemistry.

After getting a poster signed by James and purchasing the new album (on CD only….no vinyl release yet), we went to get a beer and secure a spot close to the stage. Webster Hall was a decent sized venue, with a lot of good bands that have swung through there. Apparently there are other floors and sections of the bar/club but we didn’t get to see them. We were planted in the main concert hall watching Willie Mason play a short acoustic set before The Felice Brothers took the stage.

The opener had some fine tunes, but it was clear that the growing audience was awaiting for the headliners. The band members began to slowly take the stage, one by one each playing a slow jam. Christmas, on bass came out and was joined by a different drummer than I was used to. Simone Felice, one of the brothers, usually filled that role but news of a solo project that he was going to focus a little more time and energy on created the opportunity for Jeremy Backofen to take over behind the drum kit. Jeremy, also known as “The Searcher”, produced the Felice Brothers albums and has worked with Simone on drums so he was more than a suitable replacement.

The Felice Brothers - Live at Webster Hall

Christmas and the Searcher were then joined by James and Ian Felice, each tuning up and beginning to form the opening song. The crowd cheered when Simone then emerged from the back, banging on a big bass drum and theatrically walking around the stage. While he wouldn’t be on drums the whole night, he was here to support his brothers and everyone was more than glad for it.

They launched into “The Big Surprise”, the opening song from the new album. The video is included below:

The show that followed just kept getting better and better. They mixed in new tunes like “Cooperstown”, “Run Chicken Run”, and “Chicken Wire” and also played some of their older ballads like “Ballad of Lou the Welterweight” and “Goddamn you Jim”. The floor felt like it was going to fall out from under us because of the foot-stomping that was going on. The band played what felt like an endless encore set….mainly because after every song they would announce “We’ve got one more song to play” that drove the audience wild each time. The show ended with violin/washboard player Farley launching himself into the drumset and joining the band for a final bow.

If you haven’t seen the Felice Brothers live…do yourself a favor and buy a ticket to the closest show near you. They won’t disappoint.

Taken from our friend Sean Walsh at his live music blog

Setlist of Pittsburgh Show 4-22-09: Jimmy is Sick!

Marlboro Man
Take This Bread
Run Chicken Run
Goddamn you Jim
Love Me Tenderly
Katie Dear
Chickenwire
Cooperstown
Marie
Greatest show on Earth
sounded like you and me kid we should stick together?
Frankies Gun
Ballad of Lou the Welterweight
sounded like Momma put your foot on the gas repeated?
Memphis Flu Townes van Zandt's: Two Hands
Farley Song
LetMe Come Home
Penn Station
Show was pretty good, Christmas sang two songs this time. Farley managed to knock a crash symbol off its stand by way of pounding it with his washboard. James was pretty sick and unfortunately it showed occasionally when he would start coughing up his lungs while singing. Considering how sick he appeared, he put on a damn good show anyways. Though I worry with the way those boys pass the whiskey bottle around, that the Louisville show will feature all of them in a rather sick state. Great show overall. Feel free to use any of that or none of it for the blog, doesn't bother either way, I know it isn't much anyway. But real quick, from looking over the blog, am I to understand that the gent playing the drums for them is not Simone? Thats all I got, laters

Luke


Luke thanks a lot i am sure someone will post a comment to help a few of the spots you didn't know the title to -editors note

Carly review of 4-16-09 Trocadero show

The Trocadero—Philadelphia, PA

Having talked to the guys at the Birchmere (and made them spaghetti), their tour manager put myself and two friends on the guest list for Philly; I originally hadn’t planned to go to it since I was catching them on Friday in NYC. I am SO glad that I went!! As a couple people have pointed out, this show might be considered one of the brothers’ best, and I tend to agree. An EPIC two-hour set (the list has been posted before) along with a rowdy, enthusiastic crowd made for a fantastic time (although I did get kicked by one of two crowd surfers. Yeah. Crowd surfers). This was the first time I saw them do Big Surprise as the first song (at the Birchmere they opened with Run Chicken Run), which I thought was cool but I felt it was a little polished for them...a little too thought-out. They all seemed to have a great time, which to me is one of the most important factors of a good concert. Once again Simone was missed but as someone else pointed out, Farley has somewhat picked up the crowd-pumping reigns since Ian seems too shy to go that way.

The crowning part of this show was the encore. Although I don’t have an exact setlist (I thought Chaya grabbed it?) what I can remember is a sustained, crazy excitement as they played one of the longest encores I’ve ever heard, transitioning from barnburner to barnburner after opening up with two slower songs. We had Two Hands, Let Me Come Home (a new favorite of mine along with Marie, which they also played but left off the list in NYC the next night), Where’d You Get The Liquor (I think) and Glory Glory, during which a few kids from the audience clambered onstage and sang with the boys!! One of my biggest regrets from my three-day marathon of Felice shows was not jumping up there with them. Next time, though!

On to NYC!!

will upload pics when i get home

Glide Magazine review South Burlington VT Higher Ground 4-18

Higher Ground, South Burlington, VT 4/11/09
By Doug Collette
April 22, 2009



On the Felice Brothers' most recent appearance at Higher Ground, these siblings from New York’s Catskill Mountains picked up right where they left off from last September at Higher Ground.

Well, almost. No doubt they kept the crowd aroused with uproarious drinking songs like "Whisky in My Whiskey" (though a cross section of the audience left during more subdued tunes like "Helen Fry"). And the quintet was savvy enough to finish their set with two of the more upbeat tunes ("Penn Station" and "Run Chicken Run”) from the splendid new recording Yonder Is the Clock, just prior to which that had tendered two tunes rife with biblical images that, appropriate for the eve of Easter Sunday, nevertheless was not what the 125 or so attendees had been doting on.

But this reciprocal love affair waxed more than waned under a full moon outside. The Felices’ engendered a rabid response because their music radiates such an earthy authenticity: the quintet utilizes washboard, fiddle and accordion combined with icy organ tones to maintain sparse textures of folk, country and blues. And there’s a deceptive simplicity to their songs that mirrors the Brothers’ eccentric attitude: the opening tune, "The Big Surprise," may have caught the audience off-guard, but the cinematic quality of the lyrics, finding voice in front-man Ian's singing and guarded demeanor, was inescapable.

As it was much of the night when the band’s chief vocalist stepped atop the drums to sing, flailed at his antique electric guitar in a paroxysm of emotion or deferred to his burly good-natured brother James for comic relief as the latter led a sing-along on "Where'd You get Your Liquor From?”

Whether or not it gives you pause to consider why so many of this young band's songs contain recurring references to death (“St Stephen's End”), guns (“Hey Hey Revolver”) and alcohol (the two aforementioned), the fact of the matter is the quintet--even without brother Simone who's on a temporary leave from touring -perform in such a disarming fashion, Felice Brothers can charm you wholly and completely into their world.

updated tour dates!

Wednesday 22 | Mr. Smalls Funhouse, Pittsburgh, PA - more info
Friday 24 | Headliners Music Hall, Louisville, KY - more info
Friday 24 | WFPK - Live Lunch, Louisville, KY - more info
Saturday 25 | Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN - more info
Tuesday 28 | Bottletree, Birmingham, AL - more info
Wednesday 29 | Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA - more info
Thursday 30 | Rhythm and Brews, Chattanooga, TN - more info


May 2009
Friday 1 | Barley's Tap Room, Knoxville, TN - more info
Saturday 2 | Berkeley Cafe, Raleigh, NC - more info
Friday 22 | Buffalo Creek Music Festival, Lexington, VA - more info
Saturday 23 | The National, Richmond, VA - more info
Sunday 24 | The Garage, Winson-Salem, NC - more info
Tuesday 26 | Down Home, Johnson City, TN - more info
Wednesday 27 | Southgate House, Newport, KY - more info
Thursday 28 | Rumba Cafe, Columbus, OH - more info
Friday 29 | Bottom Lounge, Chicago, IL - more info
Saturday 30 | Terrace @ University of WI, Madison, WI - more info
Sunday 31 | 400 Bar, Minneapolis, MN - more info


June 2009
Thursday 4 | Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA - more info
Saturday 6 | Dante's, Portland, OR - more info
Tuesday 9 | The Independent, San Francisco, CA - more info
Wednesday 10 | The Independent, San Francisco, CA - more info
Saturday 13 | Troubadour, West Hollywood, CA - more info


July 2009
Saturday 18 | Master Musicians Festival, Somerset, KY - more info
Saturday 25 | Floydfest, Floyd, VA - more info

Ithaca Setlist 4-21-09

Ithaca set list
1. Big Surprise
2. Love Me Tenderly
3. Marlboro Man
4. Take This Bread
5. Murder By Mistletoe
6. Run Chicken Run
7. Whiskey in my Whiskey
8. New Song From Christmas (not buried in Ice)
9. Chicken Wire
10. Marie
11. Greatest Show on Earth
12. Goddamn you, Jim
13. Ballad of Lou the Welterweight
14. Frankie's Gun
15.Desert of galileah (new song, it was called this song from an earlier set list)
16. White Limo
17. New song from Christmas (referred to it as a Jazz number, "foot on gas" was a part of the chorus)
18. Memphis Flu
ENCORE
19. St. Stephen's End
20. Cypress Grove
21. Farley's Solo song
22. Let Me Come Home
23. Two Hands
24. Penn Station

Jared Riviere

Major update! Tommorrow at 800pm

You may want to alert your readers that WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, will be broadcasting a recording of the 9/11/08 Felice Brothers and AA Bondy show from the Linda Norris Auditorium on "Live at the Linda," at 8:00 pm Eastern on Wednesday evening (tomorrow), April 22. You can listen live at www.wamc.org.

thanks to the Midhudson Juggling Club for the tip

i am not going to be home.

someone tape it for me!

digger

The Onion review

Yonder Is The Clock

A
by Steven Hyden April 7, 2009
Yonder Is The Clock




It says a lot about these desperate times that a band that quotes Mark Twain and makes records in converted chicken coops feels very much of the moment. Such is the case with upstate New York folkies The Felice Brothers, who survey a nation trapped between poverty and prosperity (in both the past and the present) on the terrific Yonder Is The Clock. “Sometimes the things you do, they come back at you,” sighs turpentine-swilling singer Ian Felice on the war-torn ballad “All When We Were Young”—and isn’t that something we’ve all learned the hard way lately? The burden of survival is living to regret everything you’ve had to do in order to endure, and it weighs heavily on the people who populate Yonder Is The Clock, whether it’s the “Boy From Lawrence County” selling out his friend for a job, or the lovelorn loser singing to a woman he can’t provide for in “Katie Dear.” These are all-American songs of devastation and alienation; they’re also loads of fun and damn hilarious much of the time. Maybe reliving the Great Depression won’t be so bad after all.

Carly's Review: The Birchmere April 15

And so begins my epic three-nights-in-a-row-of-Felice Adventure!!

Night 1: April 15 @ The Birchmere, Alexandria VA

The Felice Brothers’ 4/15 show at the Birchmere was not as high-voltage as other times I’ve seen them live, but it was a good, solid show. The super-intimate setup of the Birchmere (stage is only about 2/2.5 ft tall, low ceilings) drew the standing crowd close into the Brothers’ rambling, rambunctious sound and even people sitting at tables along the periphery were bouncing in their seats. I had been aching to see them play since I’d last had the pleasure (November 08) and had brought along some friends who had never been to a Felice Brothers concert—the set they played was a great mixture of fast/slow and new/old songs from their repertoire and they sounded GREAT (aside from Searcher’s mic being off for the first third of the show).

I was skeptical going into this show because I knew that Simone—my favorite Felice—was not going to be there, and as most Felice Brothers fans know he is one of the most charismatic performers around. As far as playing is concerned, Searchbag can more than hold his own (some people with drum knowledge say he’s even better than Simone) but he lacked Simone’s magnetism—and that wasn’t a bad thing. It was a treat to actually be able to pay attention to the other brothers; I hadn’t noticed before Ian’s quirky hopping dance and James’s expressions while he rocks out on the accordion (and while playing Marie, one of their absolute best new songs).

Highlights of this show: Marie, Two Hands + Let Me Come Home (great pics to round out the encore), and my #1 favorite song of theirs: Her Eyes Dart Round.
Not sure how I feel about: the song Farley sings (“Lay Me Down”) and the lack of Simone.

ON TO PHILLY!

Billy Brock's Setlist and Review Ringwood Public Library

(the audience is dominated not by fans, but by town folk who are out on a Sunday afternoon to support their library.)

(Boyz are sick, with ian losing his voice and james completely unable to sing except for the background parts on run, chicken, run.)

(boys are introduced and enter stage right each holding books in their hands and reading like little schoolboys! Farley, ian and jeromy all read to the audience and a good laugh is had by all!)

The setting in Ringwood library was not a favorite of the boyz, as seats are placed throughout the entire setting, with only sporadic ability to dance near the stage…. the boyz clearly did not like this and lovingly mentioned it a number of times during the set as the audience was clearly acting like they were in a library! This muteness translated up to the stage where the boyz needed all the energy they could get to keep them going but weren’t going to get it this day.
The performance had its moments and for me, it was a joy to be anywhere near these guys and their music…but coming off a trocadero show in philly a few nights before that was off the charts incredible, this one felt “tired”…as they would admit to, during, and after the show.
Although a subdued performance, it was quite interesting to watch how they coped with the lack of vocals, and lack of energy. The adjustments they had to make were worthy of the admission price. Not everyday is sunshine, but there is something special about cloudy days as well. Christmas sang his captain Ahab in the tradition of buried in ice and played ian’s guitar while doing it…gotta love this cat’s vocals! Keep em coming, Christmas! Stunningly enough, farley head dove into the drums to effectively end the show! I would’ve bet against that act, in this “formal” setting!

(Stage entrance with book readings)
Big Surprise
Love me tenderly
Take this bread
Memphis flu (james stops singing during this song)
Desert of galileah? Ian tune? Or cover?
Ruby mae
Boy from Lawrence county
Helen fry
(Commentary about playing in the library)
Run chicken run
Frankies gun
Captain Ahab (Christmas vocal with yodeling)
2 hands
Farley’s song for grandpa
St stephen’s end
Penn station /farley rap/penn station
(farley drum rush to end show)



Thanks Billy...

Billy Brock's Setlist philly 4-16 and review

Not in order


Big surprise
Memphis flu
Frankies gun
Eyes dart round
Helen fry
Goddamn you jim
Buried in ice ( Christmas vocals, ian bass)
Farley song for his grandpa
Boy from Lawrence county
Ballad of lou
St stephen’s end
Cooperstown
Katie dear(not sure if they did this)
Cincinnati queen
Run chicken run
Chicken wire
Take this bread
Love me tenderly
Greatest show on earth
Whiskey
Whered ya get the liquor?
Murder by mistletoe
Penn station (closed regular set with this as farley crashed into the drums)

(encores) (not sure of the order and also, I think one of the above songs is in the encore part as well)
2 hands
Ruby mae
Glory, glory/will the circle be unbroken/glory, glory
I wanna come home

This was absolutely the best show I have ever seen of the felice brothers and ranks as high as a grateful dead show for me, as the energy level never dissipated the entire show! These guys were on from start to finish! They absolutely mastered their music and had a blast doing so! The audience was very responsive as well…with body surfing on the floor, fist pumping all over the place and dancing throughout the theatre!!

New Song: The Captain's Wife

The Captains Wife from The Birchmere in Alexandria VA on April 15, 2009

Village Voice review Felice Brothers at Webster Hall

Live: The Felice Brothers Do Guns, Vagrants, Wild Chickens at Webster Hall
By Michael Downes in Featured, Michael Downes, The Felice Brothers, live
Monday, Apr. 20 2009 @ 11:30AM


VIDEO OF LOVES ME TENDERLY FROM WEBSTER HALL

VIDEO FRANKIES GUN


VIDEO RADIO SONG


"This song's about baseball..." Only three tunes into their Friday set, and the Felice Brothes cut straight to "Cooperstown," the nearly seven-minute ballad about an 18 year old Ty Cobb's first ever at-bat. The band's ramshackle slow numbers probably sound better live from a meadow near their Catskill mountain home (Webster's PA was built for volume, not nuance). But de facto frontman Ian Felice certainly knows his Americana, hollering about Jesse James and Doris Day, transporting depression-era lyricism into this century with ease: "With a toothbrush and a comb/Five dollars and a dead cell phone, oh Lord/No photo ID/No past to torture me." James Felice claims to have grown up on Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt records; the rest of his band seems more into dive bar country music than delta blues, but it's clear they've listened to more than the obvious Dylan and the Band tapes. For anyone drowsy from Fleet Foxes' "How Dope is this Pine Cone" a cappellas and Bon Iver's anemic, heartbroken blathering, a Mark Twain reference like "Yonder is the Clock," is a bucket of ice water to the face.

"This song's about the influenza..." The fast tunes (usually about guns, vagrants, wild chickens, or some combination of these) were less literate but a lot more fun. The players pushed as close to the crowd as possible; everyone sang but Christmas, the gangly bassist, and all took turns balancing precariously on the bass drum. The band passed around whiskey for "Whiskey in my Whiskey," which prompted further reckless handling of the percussion-- During the encore, fiddler Farley murdered the already chipped crash cymbal with a washboard and dove headfirst into the kit.

"This song's about being generous to your neighbors..." Only three Brothers are named Felice, but as all six prepared to leave the stage, James grabbed everyone by the shirt for a final curtain call. He pledged to the audience, "You're all like family," and, all at once, they took a bow.

Webster Hall 4-17 review

I don’t often review shows, but last night was amazing! It’s been just over a year since I first saw one of my favorite bands, The Felice Brothers, at The Echo in LA. After seeing them again briefly at Outside Lands in August, I had my third FB encounter last night at New York’s Webster Hall and I must say this band has reached mind-blowing levels on stage. Maybe it was the energy from playing in their home state, but last night these guys performed like super stars. Their intro brought all the band mates on stage one by one with a very cool instrumental building into their first number. This included brother Simone parading on stage whacking a massive bass drum which rattled the venue. The whole gang was on fire last night, trading instruments and time on the mic as they brought many of their hits to life in a refreshing new way. Occasionally they passed a bottle of whiskey amongst themselves to keep up the charm. I wish I had some pictures to share, but my iPhone would not do them justice. When the encore finished my mind was at ease, my ears were tingling and my arm was sore from hoisting my beer to every song at least five times as I sang along. Good job brothers Felice! Hope to see you again down the road.

Pete (Ears of the Beholder)

pics from Northhampton

Pics/ Pearl St Northhampton 4-18-09

Show highlights:

The debut of Dave Turbiville on drums for one tune. Searcher moved over to guitar. Searcher has got to leave soon to start rehearsal for the Mice Parade tour, So Dave will be thrown into the breach soon.
The debut of a new Christmas song, not sure of the title "We been had" is a line that stuck out. Pretty good number. Crowd interplay was mediocre, lots of calls for "Radio Days" which i think meant Radio Song. Ian again did his "All you need is love, thats what John Lennon said, Do you believe that? I believe that!" during Take this Bread. very nice. The Skip James tune Cypress Grove got a good ride as did the always popular White Limo.

4/18 Northampton Ma Pearl St setlist

1-Memphis flu
2-Cypress Grove
3-Run Chicken Run
4-Murder by Mistletoe
5-New Christmas Song "we been had ?"
6-Whiskey in my Whiskey
7-take this Bread
8-greatest Show on Earth
9-Loves me Tenderly
10-The Big Surprise
11-Chicken Wire
12-white Limo
13-ruby mae
14-Marie
15-Where'd you get Liquor?
16-Penn station
17-Goddamn You Jim
18-Frankie
19-St Stephen
20-Lay me Down (Farley Song)
21-Helen Fry
22. Glory Glory

thanks weemant for the help with this

PHILLY 4-16 REVIEW

Having Band-like fun with Felice Brothers

By Jonathan Valania

For The Inquirer

Impersonating the Band hasn't been a decent-paying gig since Scorsese filmed The Last Waltz in 1976, but judging by the full-up crowd at the Trocadero Thursday night, the Felice Brothers seem to be on their way.

Actually, impersonating sounds a little too dismissive and I like these guys, so let's go with evoking or carrying on the old, weird Americana tradition of the Band.

Besides, the brothers have the pedigree (they hail from the Hudson River valley), they've paid their dues (busking in the subways of New York, going acoustic at the Newport Folk Festival, woodshedding at Levon Helm's Barn Burner), and, more important, they are naturals, having just released Yonder Is the Clock, their fifth casually brilliant album of the aforementioned old, weird Americana.

Of the five Felice Brothers standing onstage at the Troc, only two were actual blood brothers named Felice: waifish singer/guitarist Ian Felice, who looked like Dylan '63 and sang like Dylan '68, and bearlike keyboard/accordionist James Felice, who looked like a young Hank Williams Jr. in his beard and Zorro hat. The third blood Felice Brother, drummer Simone, has elected not to tour this time out, and was replaced by Jeremy Backofen, who, in tandem with snake-fingered bass player Christmas Clapton, gave the band's two-hour set the requisite chugging heft.

Fiddler/washboard-picker Greg Farley seemed vested with the responsibility of maintaining the band's rowdy live rep as he flailed around the stage like a gorilla on roller skates and intermittently bashed the drummer's cymbals with his washboard. A large part of the charm of the Felice Brothers' live show is that you get the distinct impression they would be having this much fun even if nobody showed up. There is something about the way they all smile when they play, as if they shared some wonderful private joke that you want in on - kind of like The Basement Tapes.

Much like the albums, Thursday night's show alternated between barn-burning hoedowns in the Poguesian tradition of everyone-grab-an-instrument-and-make-a-joyous-noise (a stomping "Chicken Wire" and a howl-at-the-moon "Memphis Flu") and sweetly downer folkadelic introspection (a Wilcoesque "The Big Surprise," a stately "Cooperstown").

Especially noteworthy was a ripping spin through the subterranean homesick blues of "Penn Station" and a positively grand and otherworldly "The Greatest Show on Earth," which is one of those unforgettable songs where you know something's happening, but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?

CHOICE VIDEO: From the Troc 4-16

The Felice Brothers Conquer the Troc (4-16)

Editors note- I did not write this review it's taken from the Delaware Journal News


"We're just a bunch of dirt bags, you know that right?" asked Ian Felice, the sandpaper-voiced singer of The Felice Brothers Thursday night at The Trocadero in Philadelphia.

By that point in the show, it was clear the band from upstate New York that grew up in the shadow of The Band and Big Pink, did not take themselves too seriously.

With a stage littered with guitars, a fiddle, a washboard, an accordion, a keyboard and drums, The Felice Brothers threw down a boozy 2-hour performance that exceeded even lofty expectations following the brilliant one-two punch of their last pair of albums, 2008's "The Felice Brothers" and this years' "Yonder Is the Clock."

It's impossible to see this band, which got its start busking in the subways of New York, and not think of The Band. With every member of the band taking over vocals throughout the night and blending their rustic voices with an authentic down-home country sound, it felt like you were in the middle of a more sinister, darker "Basement Tapes" session.

The Felice Brothers are undoubtedly part of a rollicking triumvirate of young bands with Old Crow Medicine Show and The Avett Brothers, keeping the Americana movement alive.

Delaware music fans might remember them as the opening act for Bright Eyes at The Grand in Wilmington last year. (The band is on the independent label Team Love, founded by Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst in 2003.)

But their more acoustic-based, more subdued performance in Delaware was nothing like the band as a rabble-rousing headliner, which seemed like they just might have been under the influence of any number of the drugs and alcoholic beverages referenced in their set.

The wild combination of the burly accordion player known only as Christmas, the frantic man alternately holding the fiddle and a washboard named Greg Farley and the transcendent vocals of Ian Felice was almost too much to handle at times.

Here's the top ten moments of The Felice Brothers at The Trocadero:

10. Christmas opening his song "Whiskey in My Whiskey" by saying, "This song is about getting drunk and killing your wife," to a roar of the crowd. And then finishing the song with the verse, "I put some whiskey into my whiskey/I put some heartbreak into my heart/I put my boots on the old dance floor/I put three rounds, Lord, in my Eleanor."

9. Ian Felice's mid-song Beatles reference: "All you need is love. That's what John Lennon said. I believe it! Do you believe it?"

8. The stunned look of security when they saw crowd surfing during "Frankie's Gun" at a concert featuring a flannel-wearing band with a fiddle player.

7. "Buried in Ice," a song on "Yonder Is the Clock." Probably the only song written about Walt Disney's head. And especially the only one that can give you chills.

6. Their inspired cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Two Hands," giving a show filled with downright dark and menacing imagery a silver lining:

I got two hands
I wanna clap my hands together
I got two legs
I wanna dance to heavens door
I got one heart
I gonna fill it up with up Jesus
And I ain't gonna think about trouble anymore

5. Ian Felice leaping onto the bass amp and playing his guitar with the microphone as a slide. I've never seen Robbie Robertson do that!

4. The stone-cold brilliant performance of the song, "The Greatest Show On Earth," with the line, "There's a deer head looking at me/It's blowing my mind away."

3. The understated acoustic opening set by stand-out singer/songwriter Willy Mason. Check his 2007 release, "If the Ocean Gets Rough."

2. Two fans leaping on stage during the night's final song, "Glory Glory," the Felice's homage to The Carter Family's "Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)." The band let the grinning fans take over lead vocals. One of the fans, wearing Christmas' hat, let out an orgasmic shout of pure joy during the final jam: "It's a barn-burner!"

1. Greg Farley closing out "Penn Station" by bravely launching himself into the drum kit, Kurt Cobain-style during the encore. How many kits do they go through each tour?

News Journal Wilmington DE

More Pics from Alexandria April 15

Olivia Dean thank you

Chorelinechiquita thanks for the setlist and video links

Alexandra VA 4-15-09 setlist (Carly's)

Run Chicken Run
Big Surprise
Loves Me Tenderly
Whiskey in my Whiskey
Cooperstown
Chicken Wire
Ruby Mae
Memphis Flu
Captain's Wife (new!)
Greatest Show on Earth
Desert of Galilee (new!)
Goddamn You, Jim
Helen Fry
Murder By Mistletoe
Marie (awesome!!!!)
Frankie's Gun
Her Eyes Dart Round (my #1 favorite song of theirs--they were debating
at the show whether to play this or the Ballad of Loe the Welterweight
but I said to Ian, "Please play her eyes dart round, it's my
favorite!" and he said "It's your favorite?" and I said yes and he
played it.)
Penn Station
---
Encore: St. Stephen's End
A song sung by Farley (Editor's note, assuming this is the song i call "Lay Me Down"
Two Hands
Let Me Come Home

Simone Felice's Live Debut with the Duke and The King

Buy tickets here


At Union Hall in Brooklyn.

A historic night, and a super cozy venue.

May 20th.

I am sure most of us have heard his single "If you Ever Get Famous" for the past month or so. The recent announcement by Simone that he is indeed going his own way, certainly brings those lyrics into focus, a little more clearly. I will try to get thos lyrics out soon.

Felice Brothers At Valentines in Albany April 10 2009 review

Like real estate, live shows come down to three things: location,
location, location. This was proven again during The Felice Brothers
April 10 show at Valentine's in Albany, NY.

This concert couldn't have been any more different than the band's
September appearance in Albany at the Linda Norris Auditorium. At The
Linda show the crowd was confined to their seats and mostly sat
politely with their hands folded while the band played. Valentine's?
This was the polar opposite.

They opened the set as they have at many shows during this tour,
coming on stage one at a time with The Big Surprise. After that they
launched into Loves Me Tenderly, which pretty much set the stage for
what was to be a raucous night of sing-along, washboard-slamming,
guitar-pounding fun. I would have jotted down the complete set list,
but a pencil in my hand would have been nothing but dangerous to the
people standing near me.

It was interesting that they mix things up a little, too. You can
imagine a band getting tired of playing a crowd pleaser like Frankie's
Gun night after night, but they brought it down with a funky beat that
gave the song a decidedly fresh groove.

The comparisons to Dylan and The Band that music critics lean on when
reviewing The Felice Brothers are getting extremely old. You
understand how wrong they are when you see these guys in a bar or
dancehall.The vibe at Valentine's was more like punk shows that I've
seen than anything else: rough, raw, and with pure energy that spilled
off the stage.

Rob Madeo

Uncut Magazine Yonder is the Clock Review (5 out of 5 stars)

The Felice Brothers have aptly taken the title of their new LP from a line in The Mysterious Stranger, a post-humously published novella by great American writer Mark Twain, author also of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, classics both of a literary Americana as evocative of a glimmering mythic past as anything you’ll find on Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music, that repository of “the old, weird America”, or, for that matter, The Basement Tapes.

The Mysterious Stranger, in contrast to those fabulist confections featuring Tom and Huck, was a bleak satire about mankind’s general wretchedness, wholly unsparing. In it, the Young Satan, nephew, apparently, of the senior Satan of Biblical disrepute, is an angel come to earth to reveal to his gathered acolytes that life is meaningless, their God nothing more than a vast indifference. The chapter from which this album takes its name ends with an astonishing tirade against the coarse manipulation of popular opinion by seeded minorities – religious and secular – and the submission to their will of the craven majority, whose servile obedience, hypocritical acquiescence and self-serving spinelessness is apparently boundless.

Twain’s bitter rant – withering satire worthy of Phil Ochs or Randy Newman – has an obvious contemporary relevance to post 9/11 America, the rise of the religious right and a ‘war on terror’ inspired by a conniving cabal whose greed was disguised as patriotism, all opposition to their calamitous adventure denounced as treasonous betrayal. The public’s complicity in all this would have been sad confirmation for Twain of their disastrous gullibility, not much having apparently changed in the 100 years since he wrote The Mysterious Stranger.

That book’s eternal pessimism gusts like a cold hard wind through Yonder Is The Clock, which occupies an allegorical landscape as vividly imagined as the world described by Dylan on John Wesley Harding, that dusty bowl of cruel despair, bad things heading its way. The Felice Brothers have previously been no strangers to the raw hurt of things, the desperate scrabbling of the bereft and oppressed, life’s losers pinned to a wheel of pain and left to hang until their hands rot off. You think, for instance, of songs like “Rockefeller Druglaw Blues” from 2007’s Tonight At The Arizona and “Frankie’s Gun” from last year’s The Felice Brothers, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Uncut Music Award. These were grim tales of young men driven to crime by economic circumstance, songs that lent voice to a put-upon underclass with the empathetic vigour that Woody Guthrie inspired in the young Dylan. Nothing they’ve done before, however, has in this respect been as angrily sustained as it is here, on an album of growling protest and noisy rage, the picaresque adventures of The Felice Brothers replaced by harsher narrative lines.

“Get the boys, turn on the show,” are the album’s opening words. In other circumstances, they may have been an instruction to strike up the band, bellowing entertainment to follow. Here, on a song called “The Big Surprise”, plaintive piano, dolorous bass and drums that sound like someone trying to knock down a wall fall in behind Ian Felice’s weary vocal lead, the group sounding as forlorn as the orchestra on the Titanic, the ship of state The Felice Brothers have been sailing on now listing fatally beneath them, going down with all hands. The track’s eventually exclamatory tone, its forecast of a hard rain coming, is repeatedly echoed on the album, with an accumulative sense of impending calamity reminiscent of “Love And Theft”’s “High Water (For Charley Patton)” or an old blues holler like “When The Levee Breaks” (one of the album’s highlights actually is an old blues holler, a raucous version of Elder Curry’s “Memphis Flu”, a fire-and-brimstone musical sermon about the 1928 influenza pandemic in the South).

The Felice Brothers have previously invited comparisons with The Band, as much for the way they have sometimes looked, as on the cover of Tonight At The Arizona, as for the music they’ve played, which has sometimes recalled Music From Big Pink and The Band. The Band’s influence, which has at times been overstated to the cost of their own unique songwriting talent, is not as immediately apparent here as it was on The Felice Brothers. Key tracks like the wracked waltz of “Buried In Ice”, the eerie, slowly unfolding “Ambulance Man” and whispered lament of “Sailor Song”, for instance, are reminiscent with their woozy, weird clatterings and off-kilter instrumental voicings, of the Tom Waits of Mule Variations.

When The Band are recalled here, it’s not so much the breezy folk and bucolic country of The Basement Tapes that come to mind. “Chicken Wire” and the hugely combustible “Run Chicken Run” are broadly redolent of the loud bracing roar The Band made with Dylan at the January 1968 Tribute To Woody Guthrie concert at Carnegie Hall, when they rocked the joint with raucous versions of “Dear Mrs Roosevelt”, “The Grand Coulee Dam” and “I Ain’t Got No Home”. The latter, especially, would not be out of place here alongside the rowdy, gospel hoe-down of “Penn Station”, where much stomping of feet, rasping harmonica, Cajun fiddle and massed voices hint at the demented exuberance and hysteria of a revivalist church meeting, someone doing stuff with snakes and people talking in tongues.

The bruised heart of Yonder Is The Clock is probably located in four long ballads. The yearning “Katie Dear” is a musical letter home, ostensibly from someone serving time, although it could as easily be a letter to loved ones from a US soldier, sent down the years from anywhere from Valley Forge to Fallujah. “All When We Were Young”, meanwhile, evokes a childhood destroyed by war, the singer’s home-town, which could be Boston or Basra, destroyed by a downpour of bombs, the final minute or so of which is tearfully beautiful. Elsewhere, “Boy From Lawrence County” is about people who kill for money, in this case the bounty for Jesse James, that even friends of the outlaw are tempted by. Even better is the seven-minute “Cooperstown”, a hymn to a vanished America that finds a sad echo in the closing requiem of “Rise And Shine”, the record’s closing track.

As a State of the Union address, this bold and often brilliant record is less inclined towards optimism than, say, Springsteen’s admirable Working On A Dream. Despite the coming of Obama, the record predicts that for many the years ahead will continue to be bleak, to which extent it shares the same concerns for America’s vulnerable sub-classes expressed on parts of Neil Young’s new Fork In The Road, and, from what you hear, the imminent new Dylan album, Neil and Bob among the elite company The Felice Brothers may yet increasingly keep.

ALLAN JONES

Citizen Dick.org review of Yonder is the Clock

I like the idea of how undiscovered bands get record deals. I sometimes have this idealized image of a band toiling away at tiny bars while suited record store execs whisper quietly in conference about whether or not the band is poised for stardom. Of course, I’m well aware this isn’t how it all goes, but it’s at least intriguing to consider the basic premise. We also cover a lot of debut records in our business and I often imagine the immense tension and excitement surrounding a band’s first nationwide release. The interim between discovery and first release is no doubt a whirlwind time for bands, and the uncertainty has to be simply overwhelming. One of the things endearing about discussing independent music is that none of this really matters at this point. What’s ultimately important is that music and artistic creation is always front and center with indie bands. Half of our feature bands still have day jobs and moonlight as aspiring rock gods. We get to follow the progression, from discovery all the way through a band’s stylistic improvement. This is always unique to think about. The Felice Brothers, an upstate NY alt-country outfit has an album hitting the shelves today, and their “discovery” in a NY subway station rattling away at homemade and battered instruments is, at least, a cool ass story. Add in the retro and raucous sound of their sophomore effort, Yonder is the Clock, into the mix and we’ve got a recipe for fun this April.

Yonder is the Clock is successful on two important levels, vibe and instrumental consistency. These brothers have a panache for turning back the clocks to emulate some Woodie Guthrie infused with a modern edge. Lawlessness and sweet southern sentimentality wash this record with a dirty and gravelly layer of value. Ian, Simone, and James Felice all hail from the Catskill Mountain region of New York, and this kind of psuedo-backwoods charm is all over this album. “Penn Station” is the second track on the record, and Ian Felice’s hardened and weathered vocal delivery is purposeful in its true countrfied vibe. To continue the overall vibe, the album meanders through slow burners and washboard banging upbeat tracks. The five-piece was discovered playing at a subway station, and it’s incredibly easy to picture these guys sitting awkwardly in a concrete jungle belting out country jams in an almost stereotypical fashion. It’s tracks like “Run Chicken Run” and “Chicken Wire” that stomp and square dance this strange image home. You know the iconic image of a group of rag tag renegade misfits blowing into milk jugs and banging pots and pans on a country front porch? Yeah, these are those guys. The vibe is harnessed and emitted well here. Nothing tricky, but super delicious in its twang.

Yonder is the ClockThe second major boon to Yonder is the Clock is its storytelling and well rounded lyricism. ”Katie Dear” is a certifiably amazing track about halfway through, connecting plucky synthesizers to heartwarming lyrics. Katie Dear, make me a a road map with those brown old eyes I love . . . I’ll sing you a jailbird song. “Rise and Shine” and “Ambulance Man” are tracks where Ian Felice restrains his vocals and tells stories of yearning. Our best country standards are about grizzled narratives of heartache, and The Felice Brothers certainly keep this convention close to home here.

The danger here is pigeonholing The Felice Brothers into a country quintet spitting out Appalachian jams, as this sells them extremely short. Live show reviews have alluded to energy and humor, but this new release is loaded with instrumental largeness, as well. To put it short, the subway days are long gone and this is an excellent bonus for us. ”Buried in Ice” is a prime example as James and Ian go to town with a dissonant piano intro and violins and rattle-snake shaker percussion creates more than a simple country twang. These guys are keenly aware of arrangement and how it connects to emotional content. Accordion sounds, sweeping synths and entire horn sections are also present. The previously mentioned stomper, “Run Chicken Run” toes the line between square dance and European, fiddling and crashing cymbals all the way to its close. This album works best when all parts of the equation mesh together. Ian’s gravelly, Marlboro Red style vocals, James and Simone’s artistic instrumentation, and added cast members of horns, organs, and fiddles all create a conglomeration that is beyond those early subway performances.

This second full length marks a progression for The Felice Brothers, and while the sound is plucked straight from a time machine, there’s a lot to like in a modern sense. When listening to this album I kind of wish I could have caught an impromptu street-side performance a few years ago. There’s a rich and emotional structure to the construction of the tracks and even on the most mellow songs it’s obvious these guys love what they do. Pick it up today and fall in.