As with the previous one, this newsletter is going out earlier than it normally would to make sure that you subscribers have a more-than-fair shot at tickets. 

Tennessee-based Heather Mae — with the storytelling depth of folk, the grit of alternative rock, and the infectious hooks of indie pop — will be fresh off tour dates with Flamy Grant and Crys Matthews (who has twice played the Bellows Falls Opera House). Olivia Nied shares the bill with songs both thoughtfully poignant and unabashedly celebratory, from tender acoustic to sizzling electric.More info and tickets. 

He was backed by tenor sax virtuoso Michael Zsoldos, Berklee College of Music’s Rich Greenblatt on vibes, Hartford bassist Steve Bulmer, extraordinary drummer Tim Gilmore, plus Sarah Clay on flute for select numbers. Full videos start going up daily — one per day in performance order — at www.stage33live.com/binge and www.youtube.com/stage33live on Wednesday, October 29, but here's a little sizzle reel.

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After wrasslin' with updating the system drivers and BIOS and every other thing, our aging but well-loved production computer is just plain unable to support Secure Boot, so it's stuck in now-unsupported Windows 10 hell. Which isn't terribly worrisome for the time being, but it'll get to be an issue. We're not willing to try to brute-force a Win11 install, that's a much riskier near-term disaster-in-the-making than not having security and OS updates.Every non-performance-day Stage 33 Live thing happens on the production computer, from art to email, audio mixing to video editing, website maintenance to uploading content.The current one was a custom job and it's been rock solid (not counting that internal drive issue a couple-three months ago that we were able to easily resolve)... but now there's this end-of-OS-life malarkey.It's strictly a work machine, not an entertainment center. No gaming or like-that, but the video editing with multiple mostly-4K sources ends up being some really heavy lifting.

"Why aren't you running a Mac?!", the Mac fans cry, alarmed. Mostly because of Mark's past experiences with buggy and crashy Macs in a production environment. (To be fair, that was long ago and there was a parade of interns constantly doing weird off-script stuff to the machines.) In terms of replacement cost, an off-the-rack Mac Studio or Mini with an M4 Pro chip and i7 processor is roughly comparable to a decent Windows machine — though Windows is upgradable with new components down the line while Mac mostly ain't. (There undeniably used to be a performance gap between Mac and Windows, with Mac being the clear winner... but they're really neck-and-neck these days if judicious choices are made from the get-go.)Frequent large Windows updates don't bother us in the slightest, by the way. Win Pro OS allows latitude for when updates get installed, so there's no unexpected downtime. Is Windows bloaty though? Yeah, Windows is bloaty."Why aren't you running Linux?!", the Linux fans cry, alarmed. Because even though we love the idea of Linux, we've never found a flavor that could run all the programs we want it to run, and frankly wasn't a PITA.Getting a strictly-editing and -creation machine into a stable state and then air-gapping it is a great choice when that's practical. But a really lot of what we need to do requires being online — we'd need to get and maintain a second computer, and go through the pretty-much-daily hassle of transferring files via discs in order to maintain the air gap. Adding bottlenecks to the workflow isn't at all what we want.We found a well regarded builder who can put together a 24-Core Intel 14th Gen Core i9-14900KF Turbo Processor and a NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5070 graphic card with 12GB memory (which benchmarks better than the Quadro RTX 2000 ADA with 16GB); ASUS Prime B760M-A AX MATX motherboard with Intel B760 chipset; 64GB RAM, expandable to 192GB; 2TB SSD hard drive; 850W power supply; a basic liquid cooler; and all the other normal accoutrements of computers these days, except more. (No firewire though, don't need it.)

It's not gold-plated and it's not overkill for what we need it to do, but it clocks in at about two grand. Ouch. That'll thoroughly wipe out the safety net we've been building the last few years... but that's why we have a safety net. (Enormous gratitude for nickels and dimes and quarters and dollars dropped in the blue jar at shows, and online donations from time to time or a check in the mail, and the occasional small grant! We're a 501(c)3, it's deductible and not a penny goes to payroll since we ain't got one of those — we're all volunteers. It's a terrible business model.)

We spec'd prices for all the components, and at retail we'd end up with parts costing not much less than having it built. Computer-building isn't one of our areas of expertise, so the few bucks to have someone professional do it is money well spent.Pretty sure we're gonna get it. Haven't yet though, still working up the courage to lay out the dough. 

Michael Tarbox writes songs anchored in rock ‘n’ roll, backwater blues, hillbilly music, and country — rough-hewn, immediate, and hard-won. The Chicago Reader calls his singing “ageless.” His gospel-tinged electric guitar playing, tough as Texas barbed wire, brings it all together. Tarbox’s songs have been used in the television shows Sons of Anarchy and Supernatural.“My inspirations are musicians from a world that’s vanished. I let them guide me, but my goal is to create something new,” says Tarbox.Tarbox began his career with The Tarbox Ramblers, a hard-hitting quartet that released well-received albums on Rounder and played countless shows throughout the U.S. and Canada. The group featured both Tarbox’s own songs and his unusual arrangements of old blues and string-band music. Robert Plant saw the band play and recruited them, on the spot, to open a string of concert dates. The Washington Post called The Tarbox Ramblers “a force of nature.”“At the heart of Tarbox’s music is his guitar, as raw as it is charismatic. It creates an electricity that courses through every song.” — Twangville“Homemade rock and roll with a dose of rattlesnake venom and gospel-drenched howling.” — All Things Considered“Tarbox is the most evocative and distinctive blues-roots artist to come down the pike in ages.” — The Calgary SunAt Michael’s request, Wojcicki will open. Wojcicki is the musical vehicle for Matt Sharff, a refugee of the late ’70s / early ’80s NYC punk scene, when he performed at storied venues like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. His music betrays the influences of rock and roll, Americana, punk, and prog. He’s shared stages with Emmylou Harris, The Jayhawks, Bill Kirchen, Roky Erikson, NRBQ, Richard Lloyd, The Misfits, and Bernie Sanders among others, and has recorded and performed with Adam Yauch (Beastie Boys), T-Bone Wolk (Hall & Oates), Buddy Cage (New Riders of the Purple Sage), Jon Carroll (Starlight Vocal Band), and more.

More info and tickets.