We had a coupla kinda lean shows (which is to be expected from time to time), but the next three really should oughtta sell out.
We never count on that happening, but — like the lean shows — it happens from time to time... so getting tickets in advance is never a bad plan.
We didn't learn until after this show was booked that Alex Radus is BF Bike Project's Bonnie's cousin! Pretty cool.
John Gorka on Alex Radus: "A remarkable artist... excellent guitarist, songwriter and singer... moves across multiple genres with effortless virtuosity... worth going out of your way to hear."
Alex Radus learned from some of the nation’s best finger-pickers at the Augusta Heritage Center. He was a staple at NYC’s Sidewalk Café in the early aughts, performing alongside Regina Spektor, Nellie McKay, and the Moldy Peaches. He was selected as a 2024 Falcon Ridge Folk Fest Emerging Artist and voted a “Most Wanted” artist to return to the Main Stage in 2025.
Lil' Rev — entertainer, music historian, and author of the Hal Leonard Ukulele Method — on Stu Fuchs: "Respectfully pushes the Ukulele to brave new heights, while keeping one foot rooted in a number of time honored traditions."
Stu Fuchs is a classically trained improvisational multi-instrumentalist blending mindfulness and music, from bright and playful to relaxed and meditative. His concerts are like a combination of a summertime lawn bowling party, a mystical poetry reading in a Bedouin tent, a smoky jazz club, a nuanced recital hall concert, and heart-opening meditation class.
Alex Radus and Stu Fuchs split the bill in a 3:00 matinee on September 27. Tickets are $20 in advance through stage33live.com, or at the door as available. Advance tickets guarantee entry. Only 40 tickets will be sold. All ticket proceeds go to the performers. The performances will be recorded and filmed.
The case has been made that punk music (real punk, not the manufactured-outrage stuff) and folk music (real folk, not the corporate-syrup stuff) are basically the same thing, especially in terms of philosophical overlap. Still, it comes as a surprise how many singer-songwriters coming through our room with acoustic guitars have deep punk roots.
Roger Clark Miller, founding guitarist of the influential punk band Mission of Burma, has a new acoustic album out. It's unlike anything he's done before, and he's done a LOT of things, performing nationally and internationally as a solo artist and in a wide variety of bands and ensembles either as leader or co-leader. He’s also a writer, a respected music historian, and more. The new album is called The Green Man.
To our great delight, he's coming to play Stage 33 Live in support of this album on October 11. A 3:00 matinee, no less. And he's bringing Michael Tarbox with him. Michael writes songs anchored in rock ‘n’ roll, backwater blues, hillbilly music, and country — rough-hewn, immediate, and hard-won. 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.”
Holy cow.
Sunday, October 11 at 3:00. Tickets are $20 in advance through stage33live.com, or at the door as available. Advance tickets guarantee entry. Only 40 tickets will be sold. Advance sales will close at midnight the day before the show, or when 40 tickets are sold.
An evening of exceptional performing songwriters, Rupert Wates with The Early Risers (from Saxtons River!) opening.
7:00 PM on Sunday, October 18. $20 in advance through stage33live.com or at the door as available; advance tickets guarantee entry. Only 40 tickets will be sold.
Though British by birth, Wates has been hailed as “a prime figure in American music.” Since 2006, the London-born, Oxford-educated, award-winning songwriter has made his home between New York City and Colorado, performing throughout North America and Europe. He has released 12 acclaimed solo albums earning international airplay, and has received more than 50 songwriting awards. Dozens of recording artists have covered his songs on their albums.
While the doors to large venues and big festivals are open to him, he has a great fondness for intimate listening rooms where the focus is on connection and storytelling. He captivates audiences with his haunting, eclectic blend of acoustic, melodic art/folk infused with elements of jazz and cabaret.
The recognition that regular people are what make the world extraordinary is reflected in his vivid, sophisticated songwriting that by turns is vulnerable and bold, featuring intricate lyrics and memorable melodies, exceptional guitar skills, and his smooth, expressive voice.
Ashley Storrow and Putnam Smith joined forces as The Early Risers in 2015 and have since toured across the country, from Maine to Texas to California to Vancouver, BC at notable venues such as Club Passim, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and the High Plains Public Radio concert series. Rootsy and lyric-driven, The Early Risers feature close vocal harmonies and arrangements on an array of instruments. Their debut album Making Life Sweet went to #1 on the national Folk DJ Charts.
Stage 33 Live podcast — episode theme: B'BYE
The Stage 33 Live podcast has come to an end (for now at least). Past episodes will continue to be available at stage33live.com/podcast but they'll probably disappear from most of the services.
The usually-daily performance videos on our YouTube channel will keep coming — that's at youtube.com/stage33live
If you want to be alerted when we post new clips, subscribe to that YouTube channel and click the bell icon when you do because if you don't you won't get the alerts. Thanks for your diligence.
We knew that the podcast field was saturated before we dipped our toes in, so it's not really a surprise that at the end of its first year, uptake hasn't been anywhere near strong enough for us to warrant the time and effort needed to keep doing it.
It was a fulfilling exercise, but everything we do is on a volunteer basis with a skeleton crew, and those limited resources can be put to better use.
In the last hundred eighty days, episodes have been accessed in Germany way more than the USA. Yay, Germany! Japan came up in third place. Other listening countries include Austria, Singapore, Pakistan, France, Brazil, Agentina, Mexico, South Africa, Syrian Arab Republic, Bangladesh, Oman, Peru, and Venezuela.
We will welcome all of you whenever you're in the area.
Thanks for taking this ride with us, we appreciate you.
Lost and Found
This rain slicker was left at the last show — is it yours?
A couple people asked if we'll be showing public domain movies on Thursdays in February again this year. Should we?
No war movies this time if we do, the war movies were brilliant but such downers... we'd probably stick with comedy and horror double features.
Some of the titles going into public domain on January 1 include:
City Lights (Charlie Chaplin's classic romantic comedy)
Pardon Us (Laurel and Hardy's first feature-length film)
Monkey Business (Marx Brothers comedy)
A Connecticut Yankee (fantasy comedy adaptation of Twain's novel)
Frankenstein (Starring Boris Karloff as the iconic monster)
Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi as the famous count)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Horror film starring Fredric March)
If we do it, entry will be by donation (with all proceeds going to support Stage 33 Live's mission). Last time we said $5 suggested donation at the door, nobody turned away for lack of money. So basically the same thing as last time but with fewer words. Which is not something we tend to do. Use fewer words. We always use more words. In pleonastic frenzies.
Ever-worsening bot haven Facebook has given itself another flush down the ol' shitter.
Meta officially launched its global subscription model that applies paid tiers across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Meta AI.
Pay to play. Our visibility, already hammered and sinking, is going to keep plummeting unless we give the billionaires money we don’t have. Good luck with that, billionaires.
We’re already their product… the advertisers pay them for access to us. Now they want us to pay too.
Essential functions like clickable links are now locked behind paid tiers. Business and creator tiers (ranging from $14.99 to $499/month) tie search priority and algorithmic visibility directly to paid subscriptions. And the standard individual plans ($2.99 to $19.99/month) don't even remove ads from your feed.
OMG.
Social media sucks, but it still feels like something we need to do. We’re already on BlueSky @stage33live.bsky.social where we’ve been spotty about posting to our whopping 36 followers. We set up a subReddit ages ago but never really figured out how to use it, and when we tried to share our posts to other subs their mods rejected them… so that’s done nothing but languish. What do we do next? TikTok? WeChat? Truth Social? (Just kidding about that last one.)
A hearty Thank You to our seasonal underwriters!
We're entirely run by volunteers from stem to stern, and all donations go toward the costs of keeping the wheels on this thing. We squeeze every penny, and we'd be so happy to squeeze yours.