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Final Solo Show 5/6/22 - Knitting Factory (Brooklyn)

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Final Solo Show 5/6/22 - Knitting Factory (Brooklyn)

Howdy,

It’s been a pan-while, officially at least, and I hope you’re doing well. Just writing to say that I’m doing a solo show, a final one of these, this Friday, at the Knitting Factory here in Brooklyn, along with the mightily awesome Empty Country and equally awesome Field Mouse. Pretty sure I'm playing first, or I should be, so hopefully see you there on the early side.

That’s Friday, May 6th, at the Knitting Factory, Brooklyn

Doors are at 7:00pm

Show starts 7:30pm

Tickets: Here

This show was originally set up last summer, then postponed due to COVID to the winter, then postponed again and now, suddenly it's here. And unless I’m forgetting something (likely) this is the first solo show I’ve done in 2 1/2 years (?), since that round of three Wrenses Alien shows w/ Cymbals Eat Guitars at the end of 2019...? All of which means both that I haven't practiced in 2 1/2 years now(…!) and that being that Empty Country is Joe from Cymbals Eat Guitars' new project, just saying that there just might be one last trotting out of a few meadowlands chestnuts in a full-group context...you know, maybe..

As far as it being the last of this type of solo thing...I’ve been doing these, these solo-sets-with-loop pedals, of older wrens songs & songs from this pending wrens record (along w/ a rotation of like the same four cover songs - ha) for the last 15+ years. They’d been a way of doing something slightly different & outside of the band context (while still doing wrens songs and not having to mount a whole solo thing proper); a way to keep some level of activity going wrens-wise while the making-of-the-record ground on from bad to sadness and back again over 10 years etc. And as I think about it, solo shows were also sort of a way to not have to say ‘no’, something I admittedly have some trouble with, to offers for the band to play since about 2010, even if they were sorta a distant-second-place consolation prize.

Now because of how things have played out band-implosion-wise over the last couple of years, and since last fall in particular, these songs & album will now come out as a new project/new name etc. (this is getting close to a whole update thing, but I’ll save that for after this show) and so this is the last ‘charles from the wrens’ solo show. From here on it’ll be, if it happens at all, a new full-band thing, which if two of our three youngsters have their way, would be billed as ‘Telemuffin’ or ‘Bagel Anew’…ha (I’m leaning slightly less carb-heavy).

So up next, after this show, an update on what & when this album/project will be and a putting the wrens years to rest…

And thanks as always,

charles

(show flyer by Zoë Browne)

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Show tonight w/ & for Beth Campbell, how I got to know her, our still coming-together plan to collaborate re: this next record, copies vs originals, and losing to Wu Tang…

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Show tonight w/ & for Beth Campbell, how I got to know her, our still coming-together plan to collaborate re: this next record, copies vs originals, and losing to Wu Tang…

I’m doing a solo set of some of the songs from this finally-now-done album today, Wed., January 8th around 6:30pm at the Kate Werble Gallery (83 Vandam St., NYC), as part of the closing party for the artist Beth Campbell's own solo show…So a bit about my dumb art ideas, how I got to know Beth, originals vs copies, and our still-coming-together plan to collaborate related to this new album…:

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Solo Show at artist Beth Campbell's Own Show's Closing Party 1/8

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Solo Show at artist Beth Campbell's Own Show's Closing Party 1/8

If you wanna hear some of this now-done 10-year recording, I’m gonna be doing a solo set of some of the songs this Wed., January 8th around 6:30pm. 

What makes this esp. nifty is that it’s for the closing party for the artist Beth Campbell's (an actual genius and just my favorite) own solo show, How Do You Know I Am Not A Liar, at the Kate Werble Gallery (83 Vandam St., NYC (Beth’s show runs through this Friday, 1/10/20)…

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Reschduled!: Esopus Project Launch Party & Solo set Mon., 12/14/15

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Reschduled!: Esopus Project Launch Party & Solo set Mon., 12/14/15

Mornin',

Just a brief & less-brief note w/r/t the Esopus project...first the brief. 

The launch party for the ltd. ed. Esopus Foundation/Magazine project I did w/ the bonkers-ly amazing artist Beth Campbell has been re-scheduled for Monday, Dec. 14th, 7:00-9:00 at Beth's studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And I'll be playing a short-ish solo set including the song Three Types of Reading Ambiguity from the upcoming album, which was the focus of the project w/ Beth...[READ ON]
 

 

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Kevin & Charles playing P.S. 154 Benefit Show

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Kevin & Charles playing P.S. 154 Benefit Show

It has been a while, non? Even as four years of work on the album finally wrap up, actually leaving the house to climb on a stage, in front of people and flail a guitar like a man drowning.

Kevin & I (that's charles) are playing a benefit show for P.S. 154, a public school here in Brooklyn at which (full disclosure) our oldest attends kindergarten. So yes, daddy is singing for text books & pencils...[READ ON]

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Charles u-streaming live duo show with jazz guitarist Chris Crocco

Feeling the CMJ burn yet? Tired of indie rock pushing you around? I actually am and I haven’t left the house in years.

Well, if you’ve ever seen us (wrens) play and thought, “wow, I wish the one on the right would just put aside those cloying songs of heartbreak and loss so that I could really take in the guitar work” – ok, the odds you’ve said that without actually being me, are probably slim - then friend, I’ve got a show for you...

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Charles solo at Jennifer O'Connor's "Tower of Song" series

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Charles solo at Jennifer O'Connor's "Tower of Song" series

Charles will be playing a little differently solo (than the usual loop-happy set, hidden behind a veil of electronics and studio trickery), as part of the wonderful Jennifer O’Connor’s new monthly “Tower of Song” series at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn on Tues. Feb. 8th. Also on this one are the equally estimable Richard Baluyut (of Versus) and Kendall Meade (of Mascott).

It’s sort of a round-robin affair with all four onstage, each playing their songs in a row, maybe talking a bit about them etc…

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Solo Show - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's

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...

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the Rock Shop

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the Rock Shop

May come as a surprise, may probably not, but I, charles, am not only not the coolest person in the band, I’m not even the coolest person in our house. In fact, the arrival of children has now cemented my ‘not even by a long shot’ status.

Don’t usually make too big a deal of it, but I love indie rock enough in general, and the band Palomar in particular, that I married into it. Hence the move to Brooklyn a few years back, starting me on my own personal cool-makeover...
 

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Show - Brooklyn, NY @ the Rock Shop

On Wed October 06, 2010 Charles will be playing in Brooklyn, NY at the Rock Shop.

More about the show...

Howdy,
charles will be playing a solo show at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn, next Wed., Oct. 6th opening up for our dear pal Tim Kasher, who’s usually fronting a little band called Cursive, but currently hitting the highway supporting his new solo album, the Game of Monogamy (which is wonderful, by the way).

Charles will be hacking his way through some new songs demo’d or on the drawing board for the next Wrens album as well as his usual Sultan’s variety of bad effects pedal choices and looping and studio trickery. Maybe a cover song too…possibly a new shirt…

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Reminder Nudge...

...Dear New Orleans benefit comp released today...

Just a little reminder that the Dear New Orleans benefit album is released today via your preferred places of musical e-commerce (iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and eMusic) and includes our song Crescent from our own forthcoming album. You can read tons about it here (or just hit the “page down” button).

...& debut performance of Crescent w/ Bird of Youth tonight

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The Wrens National Two-City Tour

Maybe “national” is a stretch. Ok, even “tour” is a stretch. But with two consecutive nights’ shows booked for the first time in at least one SXSW ago, (Philadelphia, May 21st at the First Unitarian Church and Baltimore, May 22nd at Sonar), this, for us, constitutes a tour...
 

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Haiti Benefit show, January 27th, at the Bell House (Brooklyn)

As mentioned last week, we’re playing as part of a larger benefit show for Haiti, and details (as well as tickets) are available today.

The show is Wednesday, January 27th, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, doors open at 6:00, and 100% of the proceeds will be split between Save the Children and Partners in Health.

All sets are short, stripped-down affairs and we should be on about 9:15 or so. Although with a line-up like this, it’s worth making a full evening of it...
 

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20th Anniversary Maxwell’s Shows (last minute & final details)

Here are the hastily-assembled details for our 20th Anniversary shows tonight & tomorrow.we’ll be joined by our old friends (literally), 12:01. We played with them exactly 20 years ago when we both just starting out in southern New Jersey.

And per voting consensus, our set list will be some kind of re-ordering of these old chestnuts...

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Show - Washington, D.C. @ the Black Cat

On Fri November 20, 2009 we'll be playing in Washington, D.C. at the Black Cat.

Tickets available here.

More about the show...

The wrens 20th anniversary rolls on and into our nation's capital.

Ok, while not really a part of the official 20th shows at Maxwells, in an effort to get ready for those, there's a pretty good chance we'll be blowing the dust off some some weird back-catalog chestnuts as well as cramming for some new songs.

Hope to see you there,
the wrens

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Third show added for 20th Anniversary (Meadowlands start-to-finish)

Howdy,

Just dropping by our own electronic ghost town to say that we’ve added a third show for our 20th anniversary / mirthday shindig – an early show for Friday, Dec. 4th at 7:30. In keeping with our theme of…um, having themes, this show will be the Meadowlands record, top-to-bottom. We’d tried setting this up last year to put that baby to bed, but it never really came together. This will be the one time you’ll probably ever hear ’13 months in 6 minutes’ or whatever it is and ‘ex-grille confection’, although I think we tried that one live once. Anyway, thanks to the folks that requested this - very flattering.

So that nicely ties up the three anniversary shows in a Ghosts-of-Wrens-Past (old songs request),
-Present (hilariously, the 6-year-old Meadowlands) and -Future (new ones) way that would make Tiny Tim proud. And in show order, no less.
Tickets here and more info on the other two shows here (two posts down).

No County for Old Wrens and their Stories

And if you come by, maybe we’ll pour some sherry and regale you with the story of the time we walked one end of Hoboken to the other, handing out demo tapes to every bar & club in town – including Maxwell’s – in the hopes of securing one of the many lucrative live concert bookings that seemed just a lucky break away in the big city (that’s Hoboken in this story). And how we were surprised to find most of the bars closed.

It turns out both that it was the evening of January 1st – you know, the day after the busiest tavern day of the year – and that we were jackasses.
(It was also New Year’s Day 1990 but that part of the story is more about how old we are, not how dumb we were.) And come to think of it, that pretty much is the story.
Gaston, my son, it’s not much of a story, true, but hey…

Hawaii Four-0

And forgot to mention that if you’ll be attending the Dec. 3rd show, that also happens to be Kev’s special birthday (starts with a ‘four’, rhymes with ‘sporty’). And hilariously or sadly, depending, he’s the baby of the band. Tempted to say BYOCake but if we get it together we’ll have some there.

As always, thanks,

the wrens

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20th Anniversary Show #2 at Maxwell's

On Fri December 04, 2009 we'll be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's.
Tickets available here.
More about the show...
The second of our “We’re Twenty Years Young” shows. This night is the All-New-Wrens-Songs show, or at least as many as we can pull off.
Oh yeah, we’ll have some as-yet-to-be confirmed friends’ bands from the days of yore playing as well.
Details here (one post up).

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20th Anniversary Show #1 at Maxwell's

On Thu December 03, 2009 we'll be playing in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's.
Tickets available here.
More about the show...
The first of our “We’re Twenty Years Young” shows. This night is build-your-own setlist so email us to tell us what you’d wanna hear. Preferably pre-Meadowlands, just to make it worth the trouble typing.
Oh yeah, we’ll have some as-yet-to-be confirmed friends’ bands from the days of yore playing as well.
Details here (two posts up).

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