He won’t recreate 1978 for you, he’ll blow your mind instead. Eric's new album Transience is coming out in May "…we all thought he’d just play a few songs from his new album, “amERICa”, a few classics from his Stiff Records years, and we’d go home after hearing “Whole Wide World”. But this was not a night of an old rocker going through the motions. It was an evening of pure rock and roll; an evening of performance art with a garage-rock flavor.It was a combination of Neil Young’s “Ragged Glory” era, Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music”, and any album in the Sonic Youth catalog. Songs began with layers and layers of different frequencies of noise and ended with these sounds blending into the next tune…" --Scott Hudson, Argus Leader / Live Ledge __ Wreckless Eric is Eric Goulden. He was given the name to hide behind. After a while he realized he was stuck with it. Onstage he hides behind nothing, he tells the truth with big open chords, lilting enchantment, squalls of feedback, dissonance, bizarre stories and backchat. Eric began his recording life on Stiff Records in 1977 with his enduring hit Whole Wide World when he was little more than an ex-teenage art student. Eventually he sidestepped the mechanics of stardom to become Britain’s biggest underground household name, much loved and often underestimated. He shuns the dictates of nostalgia and doesn’t do comebacks for the simple reason that he never went away. His 2015 album ‘amERICa’ reminded those who’ve kept the faith and new generations of fans what he’s all about. “Many artists of Wreckless Eric’s era and tradition have imitators, but few of yesteryear’s outliers can catch up with their descendants, let alone best them. amERICa is that rare record.” --Pitchfork Forty three years of touring and recording have left Eric in good shape. He’s coming to town.

**A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Columbia Land Conservancy** VISIONARY WOMEN
: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World by Andrea Barnet Change is sometimes sparked by unexpected characters—outsiders whose clarity of vision and strength of purpose can catalyze a revolution. VISIONARY WOMEN: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World (Ecco; On-sale March 13, 2018) is the story of four renegades who profoundly shaped the world we live in today. Together these women—linked not by friendship or field, but by their choice to break with convention—showed what one person speaking truth to power can do. Rachel Carson warned us about poisoning the environment; Jane Jacobs fought for livable cities and strong communities; Jane Goodall demonstrated the indelible kinship between humans and animals; and Alice Waters urged us to reconsider what and how we eat. With a keen eye for detail, Andrea Barnet traces the arc of each woman’s career and explores how the work of these visionaries collectively changed the course of history. While they came from different generations, Carson, Jacobs, Goodall and Waters found their voices in the early sixties. At a time of enormous societal upheaval, all four stood as bulwarks against 1950’s corporate culture and its war on nature. Consummate outsiders, they each prevailed against powerful and mostly male adversaries while also anticipating the disaffections of the emerging counterculture. All told their efforts ignited a transformative progressive movement while offering people a new way to think about the world and a more positive way of living in it. About the Author Andrea Barnet is the author of All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930, which was a nonfiction finalist for the 2004 Lambda Literary awards. She was a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review for twenty-five years, and her journalism has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Elle and the Toronto Globe and Mail, among other publications. She splits her time between the Hudson Valley and New York City, where she lives with her husband, the painter Kit White. Visionary Women is a finalist for the 2019 PEN/ Bograd Weld award for biography.

Volume is a FREE reading & music series featuring prose, poetry and a short DJ set. Every second Saturday at 7:00 pm at The Spotty Dog. Books are available for purchase and signing. This month's writers include: LUC SANTE’s books include Low Life, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, and The Other Paris. He teaches at Bard. VALERIE HSIUNG is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of three full-length poetry collections, including e f g. Poems can be found or are forthcoming in the Nation, the Believer, PEN Poetry Series, and others. Born and raised in Ohio by Chinese-Taiwanese immigrants, Hsiung is now based in New York. JILLIAN MEDOFF is the acclaimed author of the novels This Could Hurt, I Couldn’t Love You More, Good Girls Gone Bad, and Hunger Point, which was made into an original cable movie. Along with writing novels, Jillian has a long career in management consulting. Followed by a short DJ set.

Join us for The Spotty Dog Trivia Night. Since 2006, we've held this bi-weekly trivia event. Teams of up to four people compete against each other over four rounds of 15 questions, a worksheet of (usually) 20 questions, and four bonus questions. The winning team gets their bar tab on the house. Anyone can play. See you there!

Spotty regular and friend Charles Washington brings us a mix of dance and hip hop grooves.

The Baltimore artist, supporting his upcoming album, Cruel Child, being released on Friday, April 5th on Epifo music. With Bill Lee (Hudson, NY) and Underground River (Binghamton, NY) opening!

Nearly 13 years since his proper debut as Viking Moses, Baltimore musician Brendon Massei is slated to release his fifth album, Cruel Child. As one would expect from someone who is noted for having consistently toured since 1993, Cruel Child offers a dozen dusty and deep and wistful explorations of the soul, written in such a manner they could only have come from a master traveler of dark and imposing paths both literal and philosophical.

Yet in darkness, light; it would be wrong to fully assume that Cruel Child is an album that wallows in its misery. Yes, Massei sings with a deep and haunted voice reminiscent of Mark Lanegan, Will Oldham, and David Eugene Edwards, but like those masters, Massei is adept at hiding beautiful, tender, and positive messages that are shrouded in mystery and melancholy. The power of devotion to love can be found in the swampy gospel grunge of “Let The Trouble Pass,” the slow jam R&B rhythm of “Killing Kind” builds upon the tension of impatience, and the desolate power of bleak country emboldens the unfolding beauty of love in the one-two knockout album-closing punch of “A World So Full Of Love” and “Take Tender,” both of which are astonishingly beautiful love songs presented in a heartbreaking arrangement not seen since Townes Van Zandt.

Cruel Child is an album of dark sounds, to be sure; it is a beautiful darkness, though--one that should not be feared, but embraced. It is an album that unfolds itself slowly; its foreboding and lonely trails growing lighter on subsequent listens, revealing hidden beauty and truth with every visit.

-Joseph Kyle

The trio of Josh Rutner (saxophone) Terence Murren (string bass) and Otto Hauser (drums) play music of Sonny Rollins’ 1957 Blue Note recording “A Night at the Village Vanguard,” a highly influential album that paved the way for piano-less, jazz groups and exploratory interpretations of the standards. These three fixtures on the Hudson Valley jazz scene have appeared together in different groups but make their debut in this lineup exploring this repertoire.  

Join us for The Spotty Dog Trivia Night. Since 2006, we've held this bi-weekly trivia event. Teams of up to four people compete against each other over four rounds of 15 questions, a worksheet of (usually) 20 questions, and four bonus questions. The winning team gets their bar tab on the house. Anyone can play. See you there!