Andrew Vladeck

NEWS ~ Reviews from The Road

Andrew’s touring in support of The Wheel is going great (Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, AM-NY, Grimygoods).  And In Europe they’re calling Andrew a “poëtische woordengoochelaar” (Rootstime)!

Andrew’s band The Honey Brothers has been garnering lovely reviews for their festival shows - Wanderlust Festival (New Music Exchange), All Points West (MTV),  Osheaga (Montreal Gazette), with a preview for Bumbershoot and West Coast Tour (NO DEPRESSION). 

Andrew was able to catch up with his band of neighbors Balthrop, Alabama out in California on their epic cross country tour (Portland Mercury, Albuquerque Alibi) in support of similarly epic “Subway Songs / Cowboy Songs.“

In between all this Andrew recorded a quick live record/video of my current show with the uber-talented Dawn Landes at Saltlands in Brooklyn.  Look out for the release of several videos and etc this fall in conjunction with Fall US Tourdates.

Lastly, just a note to check out the new podcast feature - the RSS feed is on the right side of this page.  It’s up on itunes and you subsribe as you would with any podcasts.  Andrew will be updating it often (weekly?), with various curious things.

Posted on 08/19/09 at 12:39PM | Filed under: news | Leave a Comment

Blog ~ All Over The Map

Where am I?  This summer has me playing all over the USA like some warped Where’s Waldo wandering minstrel.  Absurdly busy.  Suffice it to say, thanks to you and various forms of wildlife (more on that in a minute) it has thus far been a memorable and frequently great summer.  What’s more, it’s awesome to see all my various projects totally rocking and getting great notice for our efforts.

First off, as you know, I just came out with a hot new record, produced by Kyle Fischer.  This review from The Netherlands came in last week, not everyday I’m called a “poëtische woordengoochelaar” (Rootstime).  My Summer Record Release Tour for The Wheel took me up the East Coast, my first shows in DC and Philly and headlining the Mercury Lounge here in NYC.  I caught many of you good people (thank you very much!) ~ and then west to Hotel Café in LA, where local press had some nice things to say (Grimygoods), and I had a delightful time catching up with friends and eating Mexican food.

Then, a week for a family vacation in Virginia.  Family, Beach, BBQ, venomous snakes… I was hiking with my mom in the middle of a Virginia cypress swamp when all of a sudden she was bit on the heel by a cottonmouth snake (aka water moccasin, aka pit viper, aka bad news).  But she was a trooper, and after 3 days in the hospital with plenty of anti-venom to go around, she was well on her way to a good recovery with a story to tell.  It took my legs (and my psyche) about a week to recover from sprinting like a banshee several miles through the woods for help.  Next year let’s stick to the beach and sharks, riptides and the like.

After that, everything was comparatively uneventful.  The only wild animals to contend with were Fleet Foxes and Arctic Monkeys, who we found amidst at the Canadian Border crossing station at 9 in the morning.  I haven’t seen so many quiet, bearded, rockers in a linoleum tiled waiting room in my entire life.   Yes, within the week I was off to a spate of rad festival gigs with The Honey Brothers.   We loaded in by tram to the top of Squaw Valley for the Wanderlust Festival, where we shared the stage with favorites such as Andrew Bird, Broken Social Scene, Kaki King, Sonya Kitchell, and Amanda Palmer (who joined us on stage for a rousing yet curious “We Are The Champions”).  (New Music Exchange).  You can rock harder at 9,000 feet because the air is thinner. 

We rode the plane back east with half the performers, singing “American Pie.”  Then off to All Points West, seemingly in Jersey (but officially NY State – don’t tell The Boss) where I was delighted by Vampire Weekend and The National (oddly, both bands have people who went to the same college as us Honey Brothers), and most of us slogged through the sumptuous mud in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.  As soon as our set was over we had leave for Osheaga in Montreal, where be played in the most wonderful deluge, to lovely, spirited people.  Beforehand our manager reassured us we wouldn’t get electrocuted playing in the rain, which helped us enjoy singing in one gigantic communal shower.  As it was my bandmate DS’s hometown, he made sure we warmed up with some good food - Schwartz’s - and we made sure we got lost in the old city in search of French brunch.  These were our first shows in a while, and were thrilled be what people had to say. (Montreal Gazette).

Also, I was able to make a cameo with my beloved Balthrop, Alabama out in California as well.  It was like scoring a trifecta. (Portland Mercury, Albuquerque Alibi). I was glad to catch them on their first Cross-Country Tour, playing both Country and Subway songs for the teeming masses.  They even got to play with their Brooklyn neighbor Josh Ritter in Fargo, North Dakota.  Cool! 

In between all this I managed to record a quick live record of my current show with the uber-talented Dawn Landes at Saltlands in Brooklyn.   I’ll look to release several videos and audio of some of these tracks in tandem with my Fall US Tour and The Honey Brothers shows at Seattle’s Bumbershoot in September and West Coast Tour (Interview in NO DEPRESSION). 

Photos posted on Facebook and Flickr.  Button-links above.

See you out there!   And for pete’s sake, let’s please support the Health Care Initiative - let’s try and decrease the amount of human pain and suffering in our fair land… ya know, smile on your brother and all that stuff!

Posted on 08/14/09 at 12:46PM | Filed under: blog