Do you plan to play any new material at these shows?
No. A few people have asked about that but no, it’s all songs that people have heard before in varying degrees as far as how much we’ve played them. It’s nothing new and there is no talk of doing new things at this point. It really was going to be one show at first. Then it seemed to make sense to add another. I got Jonathan Adelman from Paradigm involved because I didn’t want to be the one negotiating. He’s done great work with both Damien and me in the past. He was generous enough to offer his services, and he thought two shows should be good. I think at one point we were talking to the Bowery at first and they suggested five shows. I was like, “No, no, no. Come on, let’s take this slowly and make it enjoyable for everyone.” I wanted to make sure we don’t jump the gun on it. I hope that if this goes well we can get together maybe once a year for a summer show or a festival. It depends on the interest and, obviously, in this current state of the industry, you’ve got to be really selective about what you decide to go out and do. Granted, our venues aren’t huge but they went really nicely and that was encouraging. So, maybe there’s a calling for a yearly get together for God Street Wine.
Gramercy is a new venue for God Street Wine, but the band has a long history of playing Irving Plaza. Can you talk a little about your decision to play those two rooms?
Gramercy was my first thought, even though the Bowery kind of came calling first. I was more familiar with the Gramercy more recently. I played the Bowery a few years ago with Damien and Lisa, but with Lisa we’ve done the Gramercy two times in the last year or so. I just like it—it’s a great feeling in the room, there’s a great sightline. It sounds good, it looks good and it feels good. So that was my original thought: well let’s do it there. It’s a nice size, around 600 capacity, and I thought it would be perfect. When the first few shows sold out really quickly, the suggestion to play two more at Irving came up and Irving, we have such a history there I don’t know how many times we’ve played there in the past but it was kind of a milestone place for us. We started off in the Nightingale bar, then we moved to the other bars downtown and then, finally, the Wetlands. We became regulars there and the next stop was Irving Plaza. It’s just a proper venue, not that the Wetlands wasn’t, but Wetlands was kind of a funky, different venue whereas Irving Plaza has the big stage, big lights, big sound and a big rectangle room. There is a balcony and chandeliers and all that kind of thing. We did multiple night runs there and even a New Year’s show. It felt like home at a certain point.
I remember coming back with Damien and it feeling so small and having all these memories about playing there with God Street Wine. Of course, nobody in this little Irish singer/songwriter operation knew anything about it but it definitely has a special place. The fact that it changed names to the Fillmore and is now going back to Irving Plaza makes it even more appropriate for our little reunion there. Since the Wetlands is gone, I think this is the closest thing to our stomping grounds for sure.
In addition, God Street Wine is playing Jam Cruise in January. What led to the decision to play that gig?
That’s the only other thing we have booked. I can truthfully say that—we’re not hiding anything from anyone. Jam Cruise came along as soon as the reunion shows in New York were announced for July. People came calling saying, and I said, “No more shows, unless you want to book a nice cruise for me” as a joke. And then we got the Jam Cruise offer so we had to take it. There’s a reason that we’re not a band still, and we’ve all got other things going on in our lives that are the main focus. Let’s keep this fun. We are doing two shows on the cruise. We might consider something for later in 2011 but as of now, that’s it. The four in New York and the two on the water.
Do you have any plans to have Jason Crosby or any of the latter day members of the band sit in at Gramercy or Irving shows?
As far as other members, former members or guest members, as of now there are no plans for any guests to sit in. These won’t be like the last shows we did in ’99 where we had everybody combined at the Wetlands. While fun, that was a lot of people on stage. These shows will be the original five guys and one of our long-term sound engineers, Brian Duffy. He’s agreed to come in from Pittsburgh and engineer these shows in between other work that he’s got going on. That’s going to be great to have him because we’ll have someone who really knows the band out front dialing it all in. And Mike Weiss will be on stage with us doing backline and various things so that’ll be cool.
If people from our past or other guests stop in—if Nels Cline is knocking at the back door and wants to play a guitar solo—I wouldn’t say no to that. But, as of now, there are no plans. We pretty much wanted it to be the five guys reuniting for the cause and as well to honor Paul.
These shows are slightly bittersweet not only because of Paul but another kind of really old-school fan and friend, named Michelle, passed away just a couple weeks ago. It was in her basement that we played last year for Paul, and she died tragically a few weeks ago in Pennsylvania so there will be that element as well. So along with what should be a really joyful time and some pretty high music, these shows will be tinged with sadness because those two people who were close to us, Paul and Michelle, won’t be there. But we certainly will play in their honor and I would like to think that they’d dig that.
No Comments comments associated with this post