PapaSweenBean’s Friday Night – 4.26

PapaSweenBean’s Friday Night – 4.26 – by Liam Sweeny.

Tonight, I went out, as I always do on a Friday night, to catch a few shows. And I started out with a real loser. No, just stop. How could you think I would ever call a musician that? The loser was in my shirt pocket. A brand new (new to me) Samsung s23 FE. 50 Megapixel camera, they said. Yeah. Way to live up to the no-hype, Samsung. I’ll still take it over Apple because Steve Jobs killed my sensei and never said why.

So I walk into Mean Max, a cool new (?) spot on Monument Square in Troy. Beautiful, beautiful day. Front door’s open, seating outside, a slow trickle of patrons and it’s got a real open feel on the inside. I think it does microbrew. Check for me; go there and buy microbrew. If you can’t, then I’m wrong.

James Mullen is jamming out on an acoustic up front. Good stuff, of course; you may know him from Seize Atlantis. You may also know him from being an alum of our esteemed publication, Xperience Monthly. So I’m cajoling James to return to his byline. But with my eyes; I wouldn’t interrupt his set with it. I’m neither drunk nor yearning to hear “Mustang Sally.”

So I record him playing a song, and the loser of the night, my Samsung phone, recorded it all asunder. And I had to jet because I had a few places to be. I gave James my patented sayonara and off I went.

I used to live in deep South Troy, down the hill from Hudson Valley, so the drive to North Greenbush was a trip down memory lane, if that lane suddenly acquired a roundabout. They really didn’t need that, but I’m ten years out, so what the hell do I know?

The Bunker in North Greenbush is a pretty high-end place. But anywhere where the staff have to wear matching clothes is high-end to me. It’s real nice, dark earth tones and stone wall sections and square metal seating, outside decks, and a bunker below opening up to a firepit outside. But the coolest part of the place was getting their sound check on.

Welcome Lucid Street.

When a band is made up of good friends, they end up being pretty tight, and Lucid Street was pretty tight. The best way I can describe the band is this. Alright, so singer Cait Tizzone is a presence onstage and she’s hard not to pay attention to. Ephemeral and affable, filled with about a hundred pounds of earnest sincerity (I don’t know what people weigh.) And even though her voice could make Werner Herzog hum along (look it up, this is a teaching hospital) you’ll hear the drummer bust out some crazy fill, and now your eyes are on him. And then the guitar player is playing a cover so good that they could’ve been playing it on the radio, so then you’re watching him work the neck. Then the bass player bounces off something tasty and you’ve got your ear trained on what he’s doing.

That’s what a good band does.

What a good camera does is take good fucking shots, and as good as Lucid Street is, my new phone is that bad. So yes, I got pictures, which means you got pictures. And the video of their original song “Dragon’s Keep” will not be seen, but it will be heard.

So… bounce.

Now I’m cruising down Second Street in Watervliet to get to Patrick’s Pub to catch a little bit of Kilashandra. Kilashandra is an Irish band, which is fitting, seeing how Patrick’s Pub is a pretty Irish place. Now the last time I spent time in that bar was when it was called BeeCee’s, and hopefully I’m not offending anybody when I say back then it was a dive. But Patrick’s is the opposite. It really balances the look of a high-class establishment with the openness of a simple neighborhood joint. Big kudos to Patrick’s.

And holy shit was it packed.

Mark Emanation was jamming acoustic. I didn’t know the names of everybody else, but they all sounded great. And like I said, it was packed; I didn’t stay long.

So…. Bounce.

Donnie MaGoo’s, Karaoke, Matty D presiding. He busted out some cool stuff, but I couldn’t find anything to my fancy. I have a specific voice. The lovely and uber-talented Deb Zep-Douglas showed up and sang “Cry Me a River,” the Julie London version. Matty D sang a different version prior. Seth Casale showed up, Xavier Morris, a bunch of other people. Matty’s karaoke is becoming a scene where actual musicians stop by to try their luck singing really hard shit.

Dig it.

And that was my Friday night.

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