AKIVA

 

There are songwriters who dress themselves up in mystery, whose alluring gaits to and from the dressing room always leave us wondering and entranced. And much too often, we are let down by these enigmatic personalities because we all too often find them to be pretentious, self-absorbed, or dishonest. I’m generalizing of course, but you get the picture. When the curtain is lifted, the wizard is painfully mortal. In comes Akiva. Both his manner and his music are refreshingly honest, unpretentious, and even (drum roll please) fun. With Akiva, what you see is really what you get. His music is organic, groovy, and playful. Comparisons can be made to guitar-toting male songwriters like Jack Johnson, G. Love, and Matt Costa, but Akiva seems even less made up. He earnestly wants to play for us and play with us, before and after the gig. In this way, an Akiva performance is like hanging out. Even when it’s just him, a guitar, and a microphone – a format that has taken him all over the country on several occasions – we always feel that friendly glow of familiarity, warmth, and home. And there’s no place like home, right?

CAROL THOMAS

 

Carol Thomas and husband Joe Knipes just had a beautiful baby boy, and expectations are high. After all, Aedan Cladius Richard Knipes (whose first name means “little fire” in Gaelic) is named after a bishop, an emperor, and a king, and his parents are pretty incredible musicians. Joe Knipes is an established jazz guitarist with years of experience and a great daddy. And Carol Thomas…well…she’s quite an incredible songwriter in her own right. Mommy – who is Jamaican and Grenadian with a pinch of Chinese, Arawak Indian, and Scottish/Welsh thrown in there for good measure – is blessed with one of the most powerful set of pipes Long Island has ever heard (she lives in Queens by the way…which is, contrary to what some people may believe, on Long Island), and has a penchant for knocking down the walls of preconception. Carol is as much Radiohead as she is Nina Simone. She both embraces her ethnicity and refuses to be bound by it, and that’s what’s most satisfying about her work. And though she’s had her hands full for the past nine months, Carol will return to little cafes and intimate spaces in the area soon and will present heaping portions of memorable, genre-bending music. 

NEIL CAVANAGH

 

Thirteen Seven Ways of Looking at Neil Cavanagh[1]:

 

I. A man and a guitar

Are one.

A man and a guitar and Neil Cavanagh

Are one.

 

II. I’m not sure which I like more,

The beauty of what is

Or what might be –

Neil Cavanagh’s song or

Neil Cavanagh playing a song.

 

III. Someone’s playing Jeff Buckley.

No, it’s Neil Cavanagh.

No, it’s the score to a real cool movie.

 

IV. He once mistook the quiet of the room

After a conversation as an improvisation

By Neil Cavanagh.

 

V. People are getting together at The Pisces café.

Neil Cavanagh must be coming to town.

 

VI. O, commuters of Babylon

Why do you imagine retirement

When Neil Cavanagh is an earphone away?

 

VII. Neil Cavanagh hit the note.

He was a big part of everybody

Hitting a note everywhere.

GREG FINE

 

 The contrails of Greg Fine’s voice will most likely dazzle you as good as any squadron of jets high above Jones Beach. He soars and dips and circles and speeds with precision, power, and grace. And what he spells out are not bigger-than-life proclamations of love (“Will you marry me, Julia?”) or country (“Happy Fourth of July!”) but rather things more intimate, less-clichéd, and, perhaps, more three-dimensional. In his work, a narrator seeks redemption, a voice considers spirituality, and clarity finds harmony. If it sounds ethereal, it is. At its best, Greg’s music feels not of this earth. His love for the ambient is evident, but is never put forward at the expense of sacrificing the song. The only problem is that Greg Fine seems to perform in public as often as an annual skywriting show. This makes the few pieces of music he has released that much more precious, rare, and beautiful. See him if you can though, especially when he plays with friend John-Flor Sisante, an incredibly talented musician and songwriter as well. Together, they set the sky ablaze.

PHILIP A. JIMENEZ

 

On a cool winter evening in mid-January Huntington, producer/multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter Phil Jimenez steps out of his studio for a bite to eat. 

His life, like the previous sentence, is made up of hyphens. Hyphens show connections between words or, sometimes, parts of words. Phil, likewise, is a kind of hub for Long Island music. He has been making a living recording many of us in the tri-state area now for the past seven years. Before that, he played rock star for a bit in the very-catchy band Wheatus. He also writes and performs his own slice of beautiful, wide-open American folk music in a myriad of projects including Beat Radio and Easy Anthems. In a way, Phil is like the town of Huntington itself – everyone knows Huntington and, in a way, Huntington knows everyone. What shall it be tonight? He thinks looking over Main Street atop the hill that is the municipal parking lot next to the Huntington Cemetery. It’s only a brief hiatus from the work there is to be done, the promises there are to keep (to himself, to family, to others), and the miles to go before he sleeps.