{"id":10995,"date":"2012-02-26T12:26:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T16:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=10995"},"modified":"2012-02-26T12:36:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T16:36:00","slug":"the-stone-lonesome-at-rockwood-music-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/26\/the-stone-lonesome-at-rockwood-music-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stone Lonesome at Rockwood Music Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stone Lonesome<\/a> headlined a set at Rockwood Music Hall<\/a> last night. I had it on the calendar for a while, but I was sure we couldn\u2019t make it. In fact, last Monday, I saw Zach Jones<\/a> (1\/2 of The Stone Lonesome) when he drummed for The Vanity Belles<\/a> and I told him we wouldn\u2019t be able to make this show. Read to the bottom to see what changed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been aware of The Stone Lonesome for a while, entirely due to our love of Zach Jones.\u00a0 The first time we saw Zach was July 2011, and here\u2019s one of the things I wrote about him that night:<\/p>\n

The link from his name above is to a group he is in with Emily Long called The Stone Lonesome. They have an album<\/a> out that Zach sings a bunch on as well and I am really impressed with his voice (listen to the second song, Bridge to Nowhere). I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be hearing about him a lot and hopefully seeing him a lot as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notice the link on \u201cThey have an album\u201d. You can stream it for free to judge for yourself, or buy it for a whopping $5 (or more!).<\/p>\n

I would describe them as sometimes traditional country, sometimes new country (more of a rock-tinged country), sometimes closer to just rock. To cover that in a bigger umbrella, let\u2019s just call it Alt-Country. Yup, that feels right to me. Lois and I both really love Country music (go ahead, judge<\/em>, you\u2019re wrong). There\u2019s not much of it in NYC, so The Stone Lonesome is a wonderful breath of fresh air (as are The Vanity Belles).<\/p>\n

Emily Long<\/a> is the other half of The Stone Lonesome. She has a number of projects, including the one linked to her name, which is her Rock persona. She has a wonderful voice that takes on a number of qualities\/character, depending on what emotion she\u2019s sharing with the audience. On roughly half of the numbers she reminded us of classic Cyndi Lauper. She\u2019s also quite theatrical in her delivery, projecting her emotions, taking you on a visual journey.<\/p>\n

\"EmilyLong\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zach sings with a purity that I would describe as sweet<\/em> (and I don\u2019t mean that in a unmanly way). On a number of songs (in particular the above-noted Bridge to Nowhere), he reminds me of John Denver at his best. In The Stone Lonesome Zach plays rhythm acoustic guitar, quite nicely. In other bands, he\u2019s typically the drummer, one of the best we\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

\"ZachJones\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what proportion they each write of the songs (or whether every one is a co-write), so I\u2019ll give them equal credit here. The songs are great (verify the claim, please). Each of them sings lead (typically on different songs, rather than handing it off from verse to verse). In all songs, they blend fantastically for enough harmony to satisfy us.<\/p>\n

Last night, they were supported by three of our favorite musicians, left-to-right on stage:<\/p>\n

Greg Mayo<\/a> on electric guitar and background vocals. Two nights after fake-complaining that I didn\u2019t get to see Greg play guitar, I got my wish fulfilled. Greg is awesome no matter what genre he\u2019s playing and he was totally true to the Alt-Country sound yesterday. He was highlighted a number of times. Thanks Zach and Emily for that! \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

\"GregMayo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tony Maceli<\/a> on electric bass. We love Tony and it was a complete surprise to see him there. He stopped tweeting last September (apparently, 114 lifetime tweets was the perfect<\/em> number). Of course Tony did a terrific job.<\/p>\n

\"TonyMaceli\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryan Vaughn<\/a> on drums, cajon, percussion and washboard. Yes, washboard<\/strong>. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve seen someone break out the washboard. By the crowd\u2019s reaction, I\u2019d say it had been a while for most of them as well and they seemed as pleased as I was to get another taste.<\/p>\n

\"RyanVaughnWashboard\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More importantly, Ryan is always a creative drummer\/percussionist. He removed one of the toms and replaced the seat with his signature (amazingly beat up) cajon. He\u2019s one of the best cajon players you\u2019ll see, but rather than restrict himself to the cajon, he paired it with the floor tom and cymbal and occasionally the snare as well. When he wasn\u2019t playing the cajon, he used the kick drum instead. A superb job all around.<\/p>\n

\"RyanVaughnCajon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a shot of everyone (except for Ryan):<\/p>\n

\"TheStoneLonesome\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They closed the show by giving the band a break. Zach unplugged his guitar and they each stepped away from their mic. In a 100% unplugged manner, they blew us away and brought a hush to the full house at Rockwood. Awesome job and quite a shift from the rest of the set.<\/p>\n

We bought this giant CD at the show. It was black (unusual) and didn\u2019t fit in our CD player, so perhaps they ripped us off. They called it a vinyl<\/em> edition, perhaps that\u2019s code for doesn\u2019t work<\/em>. \"Winking (OK, that was a really bad attempt at a joke, sorry.)<\/p>\n

The records are numbered, so perhaps one day we\u2019ll be rich off this collector\u2019s piece! Zach\u2019s father hand-drew each cover (I don\u2019t know how well it will come across in the photo, but it looks great in real life). We think that each numbered record comes with a unique story in the included liner notes. Basically, a loving, thoughtful way to package an album that is good enough not to require these (much appreciated!) adornments.<\/p>\n

\"WordsAndWhiskeyFrontCover\"<\/a>\"WordsAndWhiskeyBackCover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"WordsAndWhiskeyLinerNotes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a turntable, but I never<\/strong> use it. I have a USB-turntable that I bought specifically to rip my ancient, large record collection. Unfortunately, I was wholly unsatisfied with the fidelity (and process) and stopped after one album. So, I knew I wouldn\u2019t rip this either. We bought it to support them (and force them to sign it). I also bought the digital version so that I wouldn\u2019t have think about ripping this. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

Now, how did we attend a show we were sure we couldn\u2019t? On Monday, our schedule for the week seemed set in stone. Starting on Thursday, everything went into a tailspin (but in the best possible way) and we got to reevaluate. We still feel badly about not attending the shows we were originally planning to on Saturday, but both of us were buzzing the whole way home thinking about how happy we were that we ended up seeing The Stone Lonesome.<\/p>\n

Thanks Zach, Emily (and Greg, Tony and Ryan) for making it a very special set!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stone Lonesome headlined a set at Rockwood Music Hall last night. I had it on the calendar for a while, but I was sure we couldn\u2019t make it. In fact, last Monday, I saw Zach Jones (1\/2 of The Stone Lonesome) when he drummed for The Vanity Belles and I told him we wouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[1179,715,1367,493,829,1178,610,1032],"class_list":["post-10995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-2","tag-emily-long","tag-greg-mayo","tag-music","tag-rockwood-music-hall","tag-ryan-vaughn","tag-stone-lonesome","tag-tony-maceli","tag-zach-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10998,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995\/revisions\/10998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}