Rockwood Music Hall retains some of the atmosphere of raw promise that seems to have existed in the New York City of the early sixties, when American folk was starting to come into vogue among the youth and the resulting music was fresh and exciting. Stage 1, where I am this evening, is smaller than my tiny apartment and furnished with a few rickety tables and stools. Shows here are usually free, and feature the most obscure or emergent of underground artists. It’s a superb venue for newer musicians to showcase their music, and it is well-known enough to attract all types of audiophiles, no matter how snobby. Stage 1 at Rockwood Music Hall typically fits six or seven sets in an evening, starting at 6pm and going until 12 or 1 in the morning, so early birds and night owls can get their rock’n’roll fix.
I arrive in time to see the second set of the evening, Owen Danoff, a Romeo with an acoustic guitar and a smooth tenor voice a la Jesse McCartney, if you can imagine Jesse McCartney playing Bob Dylan and Paul Simon covers. His romantic original ballads are composed of gentle country-folk chords, accented with the western flair of Americana, on top of which his effeminate vocals float comfortably.
New York based band SisterMonk takes the stage at 8, setting up a multi-leveled tableau of instruments. When these Rockwood Music Hall regulars start playing, people immediately begin dancing. But how could anyone stand still? SisterMonk’s is a joyful, sunny sound that invites the audience to join the musical experience. Vocalist Kathy Deane’s full, earthy contralto blends elements of funk and galactic pop, making the listener feel connected with the music and the huge ideas painted in the melodic mantras. Deane doubles as the group’s drummer, playing spiritually derived beats on a djembe. Guitarist and lyricist Jody Rubel seems like two members of the Grateful Dead rolled in one, playing rhythmic, spacey licks resembling Bob Weir’s style, and writing in the transcendental lyrical spirit of Weir’s songwriting partner John Perry Barlow. But this music goes in even more experimental directions as Rubel strums Eastern-inspired riffs in a sultry minor key, using a sensual element of mystery to boost major psychedelic themes brimming with celestial ecstasy. There are world music inspirations in each song, calypso on the keys here, tribal drumbeats there. Their set visits all points on the musical spectrum: “Tarantula” is a mystical, shoegazey instrumental number while “Whisper” retains an indie rock element with airy vocals from keyboardist Tani Tilsner. Their single “The Call” magnifies the group’s sound to impressive size, lifting SisterMonk to the staggering heights of glam rock while dressed in hippie sensibilities. I would love to hear this band play at a summer festival or an outdoor venue where everyone has room to dance their heart out underneath the sky.
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| Jody Rubel and Kathy Deane of SisterMonk |
James Barry’s set starts at 9, a celebratory show for the release of his album, Embrace Yourself Tonight. From the opening note, it’s clear that this guy knows how to work a stage. A charismatic frontman and a clever lyricist, Barry holds his audience captive with an almost lunatic energy focused into recreating some of rock’s most famous postures, such as Pete Townshend’s leaps into the air, and a hint of Chuck Berry’s duck walk. His catchy, radio-ready tunes have punk’s length and uptempo attitude, but they share a lyrical gene with classic rock of the mid-70s. Barry’s voice, on the other hand, is neither rock nor punk, but high and theatrical, capable of holding attention over an excellent band and all other nonsense in the room and forcing you to listen.
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| James Barry |
After James Barry’s set, some guy hits on me and I decide that the venue is too small for me to stick around after that shit, so I head out. But first I ask Jody Rubel, the guitarist for SisterMonk, if I could possibly interview him for Hydrogen Jukebox. He asks me if I liked the music, and I say yes, thinking about all the glowing things I can’t wait to write down. Perhaps sensing that I’m a good witch, he agrees and tells me that SisterMonk plays at Penn Station every Friday night between 8pm and 11pm. I’ve never interviewed a musician in the subway before! Awesome!
So, Friday night I head out to Penn Station wondering how long it will take me to find them, and it only takes about five minutes. I find them in front of the McDonalds, and ask Jody if he remembers me from Rockwood Music Hall. He does, and we start talking, even though he still seems a little skeptical of me and my recorder. I start by asking him about his influences. “That’s such a loaded question…I did grow up with all that rock stuff in the eighties and I was very influenced by that, but then I had a radical departure from Western culture…I graduated college and became completely disenchanted and felt very disenfranchised from everything that was going on in our culture, and I did a lot of traveling in South America, and I actually ended up loving, and even worshipping the music of Bahia from Brazil. So people like Milton Nascimento, and Caetano Veloso, that whole Tropicalismo movement really entranced me for a couple years. And also the music of Bach, different kinds of jazz, I started really opening my ears and listening to a lot of different things in my early, early twenties.”
When asked more about his travels abroad, he starts the familiar narrative of the conflicted student. “I studied anthropology in college, and I started a program [in which] I was going to do visual anthropology and after only a couple months into it, I was like, this is not for me. My real interest in anthropology is learning about other cultures and traveling…So I started traveling and I came upon these towns and little villages in the Amazon, where everyone was carrying a guitar and playing music, and I loved how there were guitar shops everywhere, and I wasn’t even playing any music at that time, but I became very intrigued with music as a way of life in tribal culture.”
So after all that rich inspiration, how was SisterMonk born? Jody says it began in Ojai, California, where he, his brother, and singer/drummer Kathy Deane wrote songs about the spiritual teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. “We ended up on this zen kind of commune and started really getting into music, writing songs, and living in an army tent. Then me and Kathy ended up living in a community where we were farming, and we said that’s where the idea for SisterMonk came about. A lot of people had djembes, and it was a pretty strong tribal culture, and [those] are kind of the roots for this band.”
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| SisterMonk at Penn Station |
Encouraged by a friend and fellow musician to share their music with the East coast, SisterMonk eventually headed back to New York City to give our drearier denizens an audible taste of California sunshine. So how do they define their sound now that they’re a fully-fledged band with several albums under their belt? “The world element is really important. I know my guitar has blaring, classic rock tones to it, but to me that djembe, world, African, even Middle Eastern timbre is so vital to how the songs are written, how they’re built. Also, the lyrics are really organic.”
What seems truly organic is the songwriting process Jody describes for me. “I listen to the drum. The drum listens to my guitar. The music forms, and the music tells me what the song is about lyrically.” He cites W.H Auden and William Blake as poets who shaped his literary mind early on.
When asked about his favorite venues in New York, Jody doesn’t hesitate. “Rockwood Music Hall. Because unlike some other clubs, they really focus on the music, so it’s not a popularity contest so much as, a good band gets to play here. It’s not like some of the other places where they cater to who has a big crowd and how many bands you can squish in in an hour, just an obvious moneymaking belt. Rockwood doesn’t feel like it’s about that at all. They always have good music there. There’s always good music there, and people know where to go. Sophisticated audiences that appreciate music…Rockwood is a really bright spot in a sort of depressing scene where there’s a lot of promoters who are looking to book your band not on the basis of your music, but on the basis of how many people you can bring [in].”
Beyond the politics of local venues, SisterMonk has big plans for the year ahead. Jody tells me they are working on another album, and they would like to do more touring during festival seasons. “I would love to see us warming up for larger bands in stadiums, and just playing lots of festivals, not just in the states, but around the world.”
Hopefully SisterMonk plays a festival near you sometime, dear reader, but in the meantime, check out the song below and sample all their music here.
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