Consider the Source announces a tour of intimate, seated performances in support of their recently released Acoustic/Electric Hybrid Album. For the first time ever, the band will be taking out their collection of acoustic instruments from around the world in addition to their signature axes to perform the album in full plus more. Many of these instruments will be new sights and sounds for western crowds. CTS cites Central Asia as an influence on this album in addition to the Eastern European, Turkish and Indian music they have been exploring their whole career. Be sure to secure your tickets in advance for this one of a kind live musical experience.

More about CTS & the Hybrid album…

Sci-fi fusion trio Consider the Source began in the underbelly of NYC performing improvisational heavy sets soaked in Indian and Middle Eastern styles. Once the band realized they had something truly original they decided to take it on the road leading to 15 years of touring the U.S. in addition to Israel, Germany, Turkey and a trip to India. Their studio catalog has evolved into a wide range of progressive rock, classical, jazz and Eastern European music mixed with many other styles from around the world. The band’s sound is always evolving and has led them to constantly chase something new and exciting.

Consider the Source is living a purpose, a life together, having fun and creating art. Their most recent release is titled Hybrid Vol. 1 | Such As A Mule, a reference to the mix of electric and acoustic tracks. The album brings the full CTS exploration, with an additional host of instruments – Uyghur Dutar, Banjo Bass, Dabuka, Dombra, Ukulele Bass, Djembe and more. It’s a strange thing to bring in a term like ‘Post-World Music’, but perhaps it is the best way to describe what is happening here. Consider the Source is not a world music band playing eastern European or Middle Eastern music, they are students of music and culture respecting the vast tradition and taking it into the 21st Century and beyond. This cultural fusion might also be a good descriptor, but in the end these terms fall short in describing the power and creativity at play here.

Whether captured in studio or experienced live, one message is clear – The Nth Power believes in the healing power of music. This all-pro trio delivers a transcendent blend of soul, funk, rock and rhythm and blues with multi-part vocal harmonies and lyrics that attest to the power of love. Featuring guitarist and vocalist Nick Cassarino, drummer and vocalist Nikki Glaspie and bassist Nate Edgar, the band has been flooring audiences with incendiary live performances since they first assembled in New Orleans during Jazzfest in 2012. Touring in support of their new studio release, Reverence, The Nth Power taps into an energy that will inspire you to dance, groove, make love or just stand there with goose bumps.

Known for her mesmerizing stage presence and powerhouse vocals, Shira Elias is one of the most captivating performers in music today. Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Shira began singing and performing at an early age. Her passion took her to New York City, where she cut her teeth in the world of live music.

In 2014 Shira joined Brooklyn’s 9-piece funk band, Turkuaz, and spent the last 6 years with them touring nationally & internationally. Shira recorded six albums with Turkuaz and played shows across the globe at legendary venues like The Fillmore, Red Rocks Amphitheater, The Blue Note Tokyo, New York’s Terminal 5 and Bonnaroo. Alongside a plethora of noteworthy achievements, the group opened for George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, and toured with Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew of The Talking Heads.

In the Spring of 2020, Shira finally released her debut solo album, GOODS the EP, under her own name and her adventure as a solo artist took flight. Shira finds her sound in the space where R&B, pop, funk and soul collide, in tandem with deeply personal songs and an electric live show.

In 2021, Shira’s desire to further discover her own sound as an artist saw her part ways with Turkuaz and dive head first into her self titled project and collaborations with other artists. At the forefront of a Shira Elias show, whether belting out a high energy funk tune or serenading an r&b ballad, is her remarkable ability, through her powerful voice and performance, to make people connect with themselves and music.

Puss N Boots—the charming trio featuring Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson, and Catherine Popper—first formed in 2008 as a live band performing around Brooklyn. With a repertoire anchored in Americana, country, folk, pop and rock, the band became an outlet for Jones, Dobson and Popper to switch instruments and allowed them to showcase a different side of themselves than on their various solo and side projects.

After years of live performances, the trio decided to make a full-length album which resulted in their 2014 debut No Fools, No Fun. Comprised of originals and covers, studio recordings and live performances, the album was praised by Rolling Stone, Paste, American Songwriter and led to TV performances on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and CBS This Morning.

The group has opened for Neil Young and appeared at numerous festivals including the Clearwater Festival, Green River Festival, and the Newport Folk Festival. In 2019, Puss N Boots performed “The Grass Is Blue” at the GRAMMY MusiCares charity event honoring Person of the Year Award recipient Dolly Parton.

Following release of their Christmas EP Dear Santa… in 2019, Puss N Boots returned with their 2nd full-length album Sister in 2020. The album is a fetching collection of originals written by the band members collectively and individually, mixed with loving covers of songs by Tom Petty (“Angel Dream”), Dolly Parton (“The Grass Is Blue”), Paul Westerberg (“It’s a Wonderful Lie”), and Concrete Blonde (“Joey”). Jones, Dobson, and Popper each take turns delivering lead vocals and also pick up multiple instruments throughout the album trading off on guitar, bass, and drums.

About Norah Jones

Norah Jones first emerged on the world stage with the February 2002 release of Come Away With Me, her self-described “moody little record” that introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon, sweeping the 2003 GRAMMY Awards. Since then, Jones has become a nine-time GRAMMY-winner. She has sold 50 million albums and her songs have been streamed six billion times worldwide. She has released a series of critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums—Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), The Fall (2009), Little Broken Hearts (2012), Day Breaks (2016), Pick Me Up Off The Floor (2020), and her first-ever live album ‘Til We Meet Again (2021)—as well as albums with her collective bands The Little Willies, El Madmo, and Puss N Boots featuring Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper who released their second LP Sister in 2020. The 2010 compilation …Featuring Norah Jones showcased her incredible versatility by collecting her collaborations with artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Outkast, Herbie Hancock, and Foo Fighters. Since 2018 Jones has been releasing a series of singles including collaborations with artists and friends such as Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy, Thomas Bartlett, Tarriona Tank Ball, Rodrigo Amarante, and Brian Blade, some of which were compiled on the 2019 singles collection Begin Again.

About Sasha Dobson

Sasha Dobson is a dynamic New York jazz singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She grew up in a family of accomplished jazz musicians including her father, the great pianist Smith Dobson (Red Holloway, Bobby Hutcherson, Art Pepper); her mother, the endearing and sought-after jazz vocalist and educator, Gail Dobson; and her brother, multi-instrumentalist and prodigy of jazz drums, Smith Dobson V. At the age of 12, Sasha wowed the crowd performing at the Monterey Jazz Festival with her family and had since toured worldwide with her own band and Norah Jones, opened for Neil Young and Willie Nelson, and been a featured artist at Farm Aid. Since her debut album Modern Romance, produced by GRAMMY Award winner Jesse Harris, Sasha has collaborated with many leading musicians. She is currently working on a forthcoming EP with bassist and producer Don Was and drummer Jay Lane. She has been making NY appearances with her latest jazz project, a supergroup featuring Peter Bernstein, Neal Miner, Dred Scott, and Ian Hendrickson-Smith.

About Catherine Popper

Catherine Popper is a North Carolina native who has performed and recorded with numerous artists including Hem, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Levon Helm, Karen Elson, Rhett Miller, Willie Nelson, Peter Rowan and Tony Rice, Norah Jones, Tommy Stinson, Alejandro Escovedo, She and Him, Jesse Malin, Boy George, Brian Fallon, Larry Campbell, and Jack White. She played in a pit orchestra for Head Over Heels on Broadway in 2018 and will be joining the pit for the upcoming musical, Diana in 2020

HANZOLO is a 7-piece band from Upstate New York, toting an explosive and emotional sound that mixes soul, jazz, rock, and funk. Their songs are dance-ably fun with thoughtful lyrics, backed up by a bright horn section.

HANZOLO recently won the EQX Battle of the Bands and opened Albany’s annual Pearlpalooza music festival. They have opened for bands like Lawrence, Wild Belle, and *repeat repeat. HANZOLO released their first album Table Butter in 2019 and followed up with their second album HANZOLO in 2021.

HANZOLO’s music has been compared to table butter; Soft enough to spread, yet hard enough to keep its shape.

Since their inception in early 2018, The Q-Tip Bandits have emerged into the Boston music scene as an energetic and vibrant act that continues to touch audience’s hearts while getting them up on their feet. Their smooth yet powerful sound is backed by the raw energy of rock and the coolness and colors of R&B and funk — with palpable grooves coated with savory, soul-inspired riffs, anthemic horns, and meaningful lyrics

let’s just get this out of the way: we don’t like our name either. it makes us sound like a bruce springsteen cover band, or a prison group, or something. but we can’t change it; that’s the name of the rotterdam, ny neighborhood where our band started, and no matter how many times we try to call ourselves something different it just feels wrong. we’re the e-block, from the e-block. plain and simple. welcome to the neighborhood.

we’re into indie r&b — nobody really knows what it means but we love the classics and we love the new stuff, too, and we try to play like soulquarians and write like they used to do out in laurel canyon. we’re big on musicianship, geeks for the liner notes, but above all we’re about making stuff that feels good to listen to.

our band was founded by multi-instrumentalist luke pascarella (blame him for the name) who soon added his neighbor, drummer dom toma, to the band. in 2017, dom added saxophonist james soren after meeting at suny albany. in 2020, longtime neighbor devin tetlak kind of just joined, which is really cool because he’s insane on keys. that’s our core four, but we play and record with a lot of friends — bassists aaron ginsburg and joey farber, pianist bryan le, guitarist anthony ‘ace’ campoli. you might see them at a show or hear them on a record.

it’s a friendly neighborhood here at the e-block, and it’s only getting bigger. in the past year we built a studio and started producing for new friends, like r&b wizard souly had. we got lots more on the way in 2022 — hope you can join us for the action.

The curious thing about being a fan of brasshouse? You’re pretty much talking about being into one solitary but extremely unforgettable band: the amusingly monikered Too Many Zooz.

The musical style was “branded” by drummer King of Sludge, who recognized that there was no worthy existing classification for the New York trio, whose other two members are the equally unclassifiable Leo P (saxophone) and Matt Doe (trumpet).

“Brasshouse is a high energy musical conversation,” Matt insists. “Though I honestly don’t think there is a good way to describe it in words. It’s about many different feelings and sounds and emotions.”

Or as KOS so decisively puts it, “I don’t really care about what’s happening in music — I just make art that I enjoy making.”

It’s exactly this indifference to convention and trend that has garnered Too Many Zooz a fanbase that KOS describes as “wide-ranging and fanatical.” One of those fans? In 2016, Beyonce asked them to perform with her at the Billboard Music Awards…and it’s quite possible they got just as much attention as did she.

After two years, a gazillion live performances and four EPs, their debut album Subway Gawdz (an unsubtle reference to their birth in the underground stations of NYC), was released to enthusiastic acclaim in 2016. Its sound was truly like nothing else, with inescapable grooves that take in dub, soul, funk and ska, utterly exhilarating horn blasts that shoot right up your spine, and, of course, equal doses of fun and attitude.

And right now, TMZ are riding higher than ever, surely poised for the leap into genuinely widespread international recognition that was likley inevitable since they first set foot in an NYC subway station. Indeed, following a deal with Ministry of Sound, their single “Warriors” racked up major play on Radio One (if you think you haven’t heard it, when you hear it, you’ll quickly realize you already have), followed by high-profile remixes from the likes of Armand Van Helden and KDA.

Then, UK sensation Jess Glynne penned lyrics and added vocals to morph the song into “So Real (Warriors),” which has been generating massive buzz while climbing the European charts. In the meanwhile, a live video for “Car Alarm” has furtively racked up more than 500K views in one week.

But surely signaling their mainstream “arrival”? A Canadian KFC commercial featured the band and their songs — so don’t be surprised if listening to their music suddenly makes you hungry.

Though they’ve also been up to more serious matters. Leo, in fact, was asked to play at the BBC Proms Charles Mingus tribute at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall in August 2017 — certainly no small honor.

Yet for all this, the forward plan for Too Many Zooz, is, as ever, constant touring. The reason is simple: it’s their outrageous, electrifying live performances that consistently continue to add the numbers to their growing worldwide legion of fans. Autumn 2018 will take them coast to coast, from Seattle to Houston to Philadelphia, and across Europe, with stops in Krakow, Strasbourg and Marseille, amongst others.

“I don’t think there’s any recording that can do a live performance justice,” reckons Matt. “You’ll see people of all different colors, creeds, genders, ages, sexuality at our shows. I really can’t find a constant between them…besides liking our music — haha.”

But for everything that’s happened in the last couple of years, the trio aren’t actually all that surprised by their success.

“I always knew we had something special,” Leo enthuses. “Thousands of people everyday loved our music…and I knew it would just continue to spread.”

In 2016, Karina joined Marco Benevento’s band on bass, replacing Dave Dreiwitz (Ween /Joe Russo’s Almost Dead). In the many U.S. tours, trips to Japan and the UK since then, Karina has developed a permanent and powerful presence in the band, playing headlining shows, festival sets, and opening for bands such as Vulfpeck, Dispatch, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Guster, and many more.

Aside from her gigs with Benevento, Karina’s musical résumé has almost grown too large to keep track of, but includes highlights we’d be remiss to exclude: a performance on the Today Show with Julia Michaels, a now-famous soundcheck at Madison Square Garden with Phish, playing in the backing band (in front of Howard Stern and co. at Radio City Music Hall) on America’s Got Talent with a flame-spewing helmet on her head, gigs with the Everyone Orchestra alongside members of moe., The Disco Biscuits, Soulive, Robert Randolph, + many more) and finally, the formation of her own band.

Karina put out two singles in 2019: Plants and Elevator, as well as two more in 2020 (City Kids & Dirty South) – the songs have garnered six-figure streaming numbers + air time on Satellite radio. A few live highlights include opening for Khruangbin at The Capitol Theatre, playing moe.down and Hulaween, and a plethora of headlining shows for ravenous fans. The group has welcomed special guests including Nels Cline, Robert Walter, Skerik, + more. And this is just the beginning for the young NYC-based bassist.

The Deadbeats are a five piece Grateful Dead Tribute act with a history of over 25 years together. They are based out of NY’s Capital Region and have played thousands of shows along the East Coast, from Canada to Key West.

2020 marks the beginning of the five piece band. With the addition of rhythm guitar, the band is poised to go even deeper into the Grateful archive and be able to pull out even more of that classic sound the Grateful Dead catalog emanates.

Saratoga Living Magazine ranked them in the Top Five Local Tribute acts of 2019. They were voted Best Jam Band of 2017 in The Capital Region of NY, and they took second place for Best Cover Band and Best Tribute Band.

Longtime members Mike Johnson, Denise Parent and Brian Miller have kept the band together for almost three decades, and they have not missed a beat. Brian Mangini (Ominous Seapods, Raisinhead, Moepods) and Dan Gerken (Groovestick, Timbre Coup) add some incredible rhythm and color to the band’s tapestry of sound.

After 27 years, the band is still rockin the music of The Grateful Dead, JGB, Phish, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Band, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin and so much more.

Currently The Deadbeats play in Kingston and Albany regularly, and can also be found playing all around NY’s Hudson Valley and Capital Region.

Their Grateful Dead/Phish inspired shows are a celebration of improvisational, jamming rock & roll.

As a result of playing over a quarter of a century together, they have amassed a large and loyal following of fans who appreciate the open ended, participatory nature of their performances.

Working without a net, their set lists, arrangements, and jams are all left open to the inspiration of the particular moment, drawing in the crowd as active participants in the creative process rather than just spectators. It is a unique experience and it has been this commitment to these musical and philosophical ideals that has set The Deadbeats apart.

The Deadbeats have an inexhaustible repertoire, and they are always adding more songs to the 300 plus catalog. They are actually able to please most of the people most of the time.

Mark your calendars and check out a show soon!