On Sun January 23, 2011 Charles will be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's.
More about the show...
Charles solo show benefiting the Project Matters (w/ good friends Cymbals Eat Guitars etc.).
Charles (with a probable Greg, and a possible Kevin) will be playing a solo show on Sunday, January 23rd (w/ old pals Cymbals Eat Guitars and Escape Directors, Carah Faye Charnow) to benefit The Project Matters.
Here’s the official Project Matters mission statement/general description, from their site:
******The Project Matters ( “TPM” ) has been established in the memory and honor of Benjamin High a young musician from Freehold, New Jersey and the founder of his band Green Arrows.
The Project Matters believes in the importance of music, music education and how the musical arts benefit all of society. The primary focus of TPM is to discover aspiring musicians 21 years of age and younger and provide them with, among other things: funding, business, legal, emotional support and educational opportunities. Currently, TPM is building a network of experienced musicians who can offer advice with touring, performance, production, post production and related subjects as the careers of our young musicians unfold.******
Why we’re playing…
The more personal backstory goes something like this, at least as well as I can remember it…a few years back, Oct. of ’06 to be exact, we got a super nice email from someone named Ben who wrote because his band, Green Arrows, and a friend’s band, Joseph Ferocious, had combined to cover our song Happy at a co-headlining show at the Stone Pony and he wanted to share along a link for us to - you can see it here.
…which of course, is really flattering, even putting aside that they played the song better than we did. Around the same time, his friend, Joseph began taking lessons from me – ostensibly guitar stuff, songwriting, recording etc. although when you see where this is going, you’d be right in thinking there wasn’t much I’d be teaching him.
By the next summer, Joe had started recording at our studio what eventually became his first album, also eventually settling on a band name of Cymbals Eat Guitars and Ben was onboard playing bass, while still working on his own Green Arrows music.
We were only just a few day into recording when – and I’ve written this a dozen times now and can’t seem to find the right way to say it – Ben died.
Besides the tragedy of someone passing so young, Ben was just one of the sweetest, most sincere, and wise-beyond-his-years folks I’d ever met. And talented. This show is also serving as the official release party of the posthumous debut for Green Arrows and the record, which I’ve now listened to in its entirety a dozen times, is heart-breakingly wonderful.
If there’s any fairness in the indie world, you’ll be reading about it on a few best-of-year lists next December.
Each band/performer, myself included, will be covering one of Ben’s Green Arrows songs from the album. I'll also be playing another new song with Joseph from Cymbals Eat Guitars.
So with apologies to Ben’s mom and brother, who started the Project Matters and are organizing the benefit/release show, for the very late announcement on all this, we hope to see you there…
the wrens