(le) poisson rouge

Inheriting the group's leadership from his father in 1982, Bachir Attar has guided the Master Musicians of Jajouka through one of their most fulfilling periods. Under Attar's direction, the group, which beat novelist William Burroughs called a "4,000 year old rock & roll band" and www.crittersbuggin.com called the "ancient founding family of trance," has collaborated with international artists including the Rolling Stones, Ornette Coleman, Maceo Parker, Sonic Youth, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Indian composer, DJ, club promoter, and tabla player Talvin Singh produced the ensemble's 2000 album Searching for the Passions.

A native of the northern Moroccan foothills of the Rif Mountains, Attar was born to be a musician. Descended from a long line of government-sanctioned musicians, including the royal court musicians for seven kings prior to the occupation of Monocco by France and Spain, he began studying percussion at the age of four. Attar was still a youngster when the Master Musicians of Jajouka were recorded by the late Brian Jones, shortly before his death from drowning in 1969. The album The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka was released two years later. In addition to his involvement with the Master Musicians of Jajouka, Attar has maintained an active career as a soloist and recording sideman. During frequent trips to Paris, London, and New York, he collaborated with Deborah Harry, Ornette Coleman, Maceo Parker, the Rolling Stones, and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. A solo album, The Next Dream, was released in 1992 and was followed by In New York, recorded with influential improviser Elliott Sharp, in 1994.

Anthony DeCurtis is a Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone and has been writing for that magazine since 1980. He is also the author of Rocking My Life Away: Writing About Music and Other Matters and the editor of Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Contemporary Culture. His essay accompanying the Eric Clapton box set, Crossroads, won a Grammy in the “Best Album Notes” category. He also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. Anthony DeCurtis edited the new collection Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer.

Augusta is the daughter of musician and critic Robert Palmer. She is an artist, scholar and filmmaker who holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University. She has also written about film for indieWIRE and Filmmaker, and has taught film history and criticism at N.Y.U., Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, and the School of Visual Arts. The Hand of Fatima, her new documentary about Robert Palmer and the Master Musicians of Jajouka, marks her debut as a solo director.

As musician, writer, and record producer, Lenny Kaye has been intimately involved with the creative impulse that marks the music. He has been a guitarist for poet-rocker Patti Smith since her band's inception more than thirty years ago, and is the co-author of Waylon, the life story of Waylon Jennings. He has worked in the studio with such artists as Suzanne Vega, Jim Carroll, Soul Asylum, Kristen Hersh, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as his own solo muse. His seminal anthology of sixties' garage-rock, Nuggets, has long been regarded as defining a genre.You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, an impressionistic study of the romantic singers of the 1930's, was published by Villard/Random House in 2004.

Lenny was born on December 27, 1946, in the Washington Heights area of upper Manhattan, New York, along the Hudson River in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge. Growing up in Queens and Brooklyn, Lenny originally began playing accordion, but by the end of the 1950s, had dropped the instrument in favor of collecting records. His family moved to North Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1960 where Lenny attended high school, and later, college, graduating Rutgers in 1967. Though he majored in American History, his true avocation was musical, and it was there that he first began playing in bands, on a college mixer and fraternity circuit later immortalized in Animal House. His first gig, with the Vandals ("Bringing down the house with your kind of music"), was at Alpha Sigma Phi on November 7, 1964.

His uncle, songwriter Larry Kusik ("A Time For Us" from Romeo and Juliet; "Speak Softly Love" from The Godfather) took note of his lengthening hair and musical commitment, and asked him to sing on a song he'd recently penned with Ritchie Adams, once of the Fireflies ("You Were Mine"). It was the fall of 1965, and folk-protest was in the air. Lenny soon found himself in Associated Recording Studios on Times Square, recording "Crazy Like A Fox," along with its flip side, "Shock Me. " The resultant 45, issued under the name of Link Cromwell, was leased to Hollywood Records, a division of Starday Records located in Nashville, Tennessee, and released in March of 1966. It garnered a Newcomer Pick of the Week from Cashbox ("A rhythmic bluesy folk-rocker with a pulsating beat") and was issued in England as well as Australia; but failed to move in the charts. Though hardly a smash, it did give Lenny a sense of himself as a musician, and inspired him to continue performing and playing. His group at the time, The Zoo, worked a college circuit ranging from New York to Pennsylvania; this early experience has been captured on a live album issued by Norton Records, Live 1966.

Moving back to the city, Lenny began writing reviews for Jazz and Pop magazine; branching out to such nascent rock publications as Fusion, Crawdaddy, and Rolling Stone. He became the music editor of Cavalier, a men's magazine that at the time was also publishing the early short stories of Steven King, and would write a monthly column for them until 1975; and the New York correspondent for the British weekly, Disc. As a free-lance writer, he would write for a wide range of periodicals, including Melody Maker, Creem, and edit such publications as Rock Scene and Hit Parader throughout the seventies.

While working at Village Oldies on Bleecker St. in New York, he met poet-singer Patti Smith. On February 10, 1971, he backed her at a reading at St. Mark's Church on E. 10th St. When they resumed performance in November of 1973, their artistic efforts bore fruit as one of the major rock bands of the 1970s. Lenny produced Patti's debut single ("Hey Joe / Piss Factory"), and performed as part of her Group throughout the decade, as reflected in four Arista albums: Horses (1975), Radio Ethiopia (1976), Easter (1978), and Wave (1979).

Following the PSG's final performance in September of 1979, Lenny joined the Jim Carroll Band, as well as fronting his own Lenny Kaye Connection. He co-produced Suzanne Vega's first two albums, including her 1987 hit single, "Luka," which was nominated for a Grammy as Record of the Year. He has been nominated three times for Grammy awards in the liner notes category for boxed sets on the sixties folk revival (Bleecker and MacDougal), white blues (Crossroads), and progressive rock (Elektrock); and has co-authored a comprehensive hall of fame with David Dalton (Rock 100).

In 1995, he reunited with Patti Smith and has been a part of Her Band since, creating five studio albums, a retrospective, and celebrating the thirtieth anniversary release of their landmark debut album, Horses.

The Kropotkins are a punk/Delta blues, New York-Memphis collaboration playing together since 1992, and this benefit marks their first performance in NY in 3 years.

The Kropotkins' new CD, Paradise Square, officially to be released in January, will be available at the show. It is only the third CD released by the group.

In 1991, Jonathan Kane and Dave Soldier discovered for themselves the fife-and-drum music of Sid Hemphill and Othar Turner in north Mississippi, and formed The Kropotkins, a band that introduced punk blues, using rickety banjo, bass drum, snare, and fiddle (Mark Feldman and Charlie Burnham) and slide guitar (Dog). The Kropotkins feature singer Lorette Velvette from Memphis and the classic punk drummer, Mo Tucker (Georgia, USA) of the Velvet Underground, a part now filled by Samm Bennett (Tokyo) or Alex Greene (Memphis). Though the band performs infrequently, due to the widespread domiciles of the players, it produced two cult favorite CDs and a third will soon be released with production and performance by Doug Easley (Memphis).



The Kropotkins at Poisson Rouge are:

Lorette Velvette (Hellcats, Tav Falco, recorded w. Sonic Youth, Jessie Mae Hemphill) vocals, guitar

Charlie Burnham (Cassandra Wilson, James Blood Ulmer, Henry Threadgill), violin

Dave Soldier (Thai Elephant Orchestra, Soldier String Quartet, John Cale, Bo Diddley), banjo

Dog (Mark Deffenbaugh) (John Cale, Souxie & the Banshees), guitar

Alex Greene (Iggy Pop, Jim Dickinson, Reigning Sound), bass drum

Jonathan Kane (February, Rhys Chatam, LaMonte Young, Swans), snare drum

Voice, guitar, mandolin, banjo and flutes. Kruth has 9 solo albums, co-leads the world music ensemble TriBeCaStan and has worked with Allen Ginsberg and Violent Femmes.

Robert Poss fell in love with electric guitars and basses at an age when he still believed one plugged them directly into a wall socket. He memorized the Fender Catalog and passed through a succession of rock and blues cover bands before discovering punk in the late '70s and staring to write, record and release his own material. He joined Rhys Chatham's ensemble in the early '80s and remained a core member for several years. He also began performing and recording the music of eclectic electronicist Nicolas Collins, whom he had known since the mid-1970s.

Eventually Poss realized that the sound of feedback, distortion and ringing overtones was "the cake, not the frosting" and began trying new ways of writing songs by layering simple chord patterns over drones and looped riffs. It was his initiative that gave rise to Band Of Susans in 1986, and his early experiments became the foundation of their sound.

Band Of Susans went on to release two EPs and five LPs (all produced by Poss) before disbanding in 1995. Interviewed in The Wire magazine, Steve Albini stated that "I think Robert Poss...is an enormously underrated guitar theorist. A lot of his approaches to the density of guitar are completely overlooked in any discussion about guitar..The way he structures the song around the drone instead of finding a drone to fit into the song I think is wholly unique."

Poss has also performed and recorded solo, and with Bruce Gilbert, Phill Niblock, David Dramm, Alva Rogers, and Ben Neill, among others, and has produced records by The Meat Joy, Combine, Tone, Skulpey and Seth Josel in addition to Band Of Susans. In 2005 he began collaborations with choreographers Alexandra Beller and Sally Gross.

Born in Pittsburgh, Eric Andersen belonged in the early sixties together with Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan to the Greenwich Village folkscene in New York. His best-known songs from that time are “Violets of Dawn,” “Come to My Bedside” and “Thirsty Boots” (the latter was recorded by Judy Collins and several others). In 1966, he made his debut at the Newport Folk Festival and that same year he starred in the Andy Warhol movie Space. In 1970 he took part in the Festival Express tour across Canada with the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band and others. In 1972 he issued his most successful (and sold) album Blue River. The tapes of his follow-up album Stages got lost, but were found back more than a decade later and issued in 1991 as Stages: The Lost Album. In 1975 he performed at the opening show of the Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, at Gerde’s Folk City in New York, and again in Niagara Falls. After several albums (country/rock/folk), he issued Ghosts Upon the Road a highly recognized album in 1988. In the early 1990s he formed the trio Danko/Fjeld/Andersen together with Rick Danko (The Band) and Jonas Fjeld and three albums were released. It lasted nine years before the next solo album Memory Of The Future (1998) was issued. This “dreamy and introspective music” album was followed by You Can’t Relive The Past (2000), which contains some blues songs and a selection of songs co-written with Townes van Zandt.

Ned Sublette is a singer-songwriter and author. Trained as a composer and classical guitarist, his albums include Kiss You Down South (forthcoming), Cowboy Rumba (Palm Pictures) and, in collaboration with Lawrence Weiner, Monsters from the Deep and Ships at Sea, Sailors and Shoes (Excellent). His best-known song; Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly, was released in a version by Willie Nelson in 2006.

A frequent collaborator with Vidas Perfectas music producer Peter Gordon, Sublette is a longstanding member of Gordon’s Love of Life Orchestra.

Known for his work integrating musical, cultural, and political history, he has published three books: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo Chicago Review Press; ASCAP Deems Taylor Award winner); The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square (Lawrence Hill Books; Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year for 2009); and The Year Before the Flood (Lawrence Hill), a memoir of living in Louisiana in two different eras. In collaboration with his wife Constance Sublette, he is currently working on The American Slave Coast, about the slave trade in the making of the US economy.

Hitchiker originated in New York City in the mid 1990's, when 10,000 Maniacs guitarist and song writer Rob Buck and singer-song writer, percussionist Daniel Chauvin(formerly of the English band WILD FRONTIERS) came together to form the group.

Along the way - saxophonist, composer, producer, and former Maniacs sideman, Tony White - joined the group.

The band has a number of honorary members as well. Chief among them is Bachir Attar of the Master Musicians of Jajouka. They have been honored by his presence at numerous live gigs and were fortunate enough to have him appear on their debut CD "THIS IS US" (The clip "See Right Thru" above features Bachir on the Gimbry).

Another of their collaborators has been legendary jazz musician DAVID AMRAM. Amram was the main music man for the beat poets and performed with the likes of Jack Kerouac, not to mention scoring the classic film "THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE" and playing French horn with Dizzy Gillespie's band for forty years!

With the passing of their dear friend Rob Buck in late 2000,the group asked famed New York City Session guitarist AL MADDY to join the group. Al had been jamming with them and they are honored to have him appear with them live as well as playing on their recordings.

Another of their closest allies and visionary consultant is famed New York City artist, poet and director Stephen L. Smith. Smiths artwork appears on all of the groups recordings as well as being featured here on this page. His painting titled "THIS IS US" was the groups first CD cover and appears as the background to this page.

Chauvin and White have dedicated themselves to carry on the sound and the legacy this group has built. Based on their superior musicianship and inspired stage presence a Hitchhiker show is one you won't want to miss.

Their line up currently consists of Daniel Chauvin, Al Maddy, Micheal Delia, Empee Holwerda, Latif Bannani, Tony White.

Ladell McLin, guitarist, singer, and songwriter originally from the South Side of Chicago.

Ladell has been described as a cross between Lenny Kravitz, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix, with a lot of cosmic consciousness that takes you traveling. He possesses an unforgettable soulful guitar feel and his hellified solos leave you unable to exhale until he’s through with you.

For a true picture of where this amazing music comes from, you have to turn back the clock a little, back to when McLin used to play guitar for hours each day in his bedroom. Because he was always surrounded by music, it made sense that Ladell would be musically inclined. He was born to singer Marsha McLin and jazz drummer Lamont Braswell. His cousin, Marshall Thompson, was in the Chi-Lites and his brother is blues drummer Andre Cotton. Ladell grew up in a world of rehearsals and gigs that would take members of his family away until dawn.

In those days, McLin assumed he would wind up playing drums. He loved the rhythm and once even fell asleep with his head nestled into his father's bass drum during a band practice. But, as his brother began spending more time on the road, backing Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells, his drums were around less and less.

Ladell soon found an old guitar in his aunt’s basement. "It was some weird kind of electric," he remembers, "with just three strings. One of the guys in my brother's band had left this amplifier down there, and my auntie kept all these old Chuck Berry records there too. So I found a cord, plugged in, and started playing along. That was it: Just like that, I fell in love with the guitar."

All his friends in those days were into hip-hop, which Ladell also dug. "But the blues stole my heart," he says. "That's what I practiced all day. I was deep in the 'hood, my window was open, my amplifier was blasting, and all these people were hanging out in the alley. I'm playing Chuck Berry, Hendrix, or even Van Halen, and they're going, 'What the hell is going on up there?'"

When Ladell was 16, an opportunity came, on one of his brother Andre’s jobs, as the guitar player in a Chicago blues club decided to slip away with a girlfriend for a few minutes.

"He asked me if I wanted to come up and play," Ladell recalls. "My brother said it was okay. The bass player got upset; he didn't think I'd know what to play. But I held my own. Then the other guitar player came back and said, 'You sound good. Keep playing.' And that was cool."

Encouraged, Ladell began to stretch out more often around town. He sat in with blues guitar master, playwright, and educator Fernando Jones and his brother Foree Superstar. His performance earned him a place in their band. He began to jam at Buddy Guy's Legends, the city's and arguably the world's top spot for blues.

Initiated into the house band at Legends, McLin learned onstage from the best in the business: Koko Taylor, Johnny "Guitar” Watson, and Buddy Guy himself. He even got to play at the prestigious Chicago Blues Festival while still in his teens, sharing the stage with Fernando Jones, Derek Trucks, and Pine Top Perkins.

When he hit the road with Eddie Burks for an engagement at Tramp's in New York, his life took a permanent turn.

"Chicago is a huge city, but when I got to New York I was amazed, like a deer in front of a car," he laughs. "I said to myself, 'I think I can live here.' And a couple of years later I just woke up one day and said, 'That's it. I'm moving to New York.'"

Good fortune soon came in the form of an audition to tour with James "Blood" Ulmer. McLin got the gig, along with hip-hop drum virtuoso Swiss Chris (currently touring with John Legend), and bass player Jeremiah Landess. The three formed a bond that would endure through their jaunt with Ulmer through Europe and continue after their return to New York.

As the core band behind Stand Out, Chris and Landess connect with McLin's sound as he conjures dreamy imagery in the ballad "House I Built," teases with the playful seduction of "Mona Lisa," gets “Hooked” (co-written with David Johansen of the New York Dolls), and delivers a bitter commentary on "Rich Man's Lounge." But when the music speaks for itself they're there too, as in the closing track, "Universe," in which McLin and Vernon Reid of Living Colour join in one of the most hair-raising guitar dialogs on record.

Produced by fast-rising studio ace Brian Devine (Seedy Gonzales, Spanish Speaking Psychics), Stand Out brings McLin to the highest level of guitar. From lightning runs and razor-sharp hooks to siren-like wails that shatter into eruptions of passionate dissonance, he draws inspiration from his heroes and blasts it back with his own furious, personal eloquence.

THE TEHRAN-DAKAR BROTHERS (TT-DB) is the brainchild of Iranian sax player SohrabSaadat. Fueled by improvisation, Sohrab blends original melancholic melodies, and those of his native Iran, with Persian, African and African-American rhythms.

Altogether, Sohrab calls his music new world trash. His music molded by his international background. And he believes that music is a social-cultural media which expresses and supports domestic and international social issues.

In December of 2008 Sohrab started TT-DB, with Masamba Diop (on talking drum) and Mar Gueye (on sabar) both from Senegal. But since then he added up following NY muscians: Damon Banks (bass), Brandon Ross (guitar),the Senegalese Sheikh Tairou M’Baye (sabar) and Jean-Marie Collatin-Faye (djembe), Lukas Ligeti (drums), Ladell Mclin (guitar), Al MacDowell (bass) and Yvette Perez (vocal and voice).

The members for the POISSON ROUGE show are: Sohrab (voc & sax), Swiss Chris (dr), Derek Nievergelt (b) and John Kruth (mandolin).

Besides performing with his band Sohrab has been also performing and recording with: Ornette Coleman, Salif Keita, Hassan Hakmoun, Dawoud, Butch Morris, PYROLATOR, THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA and many other musicians and bands around the world and in NY.

His show at THE STONE was video taped and broad casted by CHANNEL 4 in March.

Since June he has been also very active as a musician in supporting the Green Movement in Iran. He has been performing solo and with TT-DB at rallies at Columbus Circle, Washington Square Park, in front of the UN and on the Brooklyn bridge. He also participated in panels and represented the Iranian music community in NY. At these occasions he has been interviewed by various media people, such as CNN and VOICE OF AMERICA.

Many of his Iranian fans call him the green sax or green voice of the Green Movement.

Watch: Jun 24-Union Square