{"id":43767,"date":"2019-09-17T09:43:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T13:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=43767"},"modified":"2019-09-17T09:43:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T13:43:26","slug":"on-stage-rose-of-the-west-at-boot-and-saddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=43767","title":{"rendered":"On Stage: Rose of the West at Boot and Saddle"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Denny Dyroff<\/strong>, Entertainment Editor, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rose of the West<\/p><\/div>\n

Rose of the West, which is headlining a show on September 17 at Boot and Saddle (1131 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, 215-639-4528,www.bootandsaddlephilly.com<\/a>), has a contemporary sound and, at the same time, a sound that could have put the band in heavy rotation on MTV in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Fronted by Gina Barrington, Rose of the West sounds a bit like Echo and the Bunnymen with a female singer instead in Ian McCullough or The Cure with a chill girl vocalist in place of Robert Smith. There are also heavy similarities to Bat For Lashes.<\/p>\n

Rose of the West — Gina Barrington, vocals, guitar; Thomas Gilbert, guitar, synthesizer; Erin Wolf, keyboards, vocals, harmonium; Cedric LeMoyne, bass; Dave Power, drums \u2013 makes music that is hazy, dreamlike and warm and chilly at the same time. Barrington\u2019s vocals are simultaneously lilting and crystalline.<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee-based band is touring in support of its debut album which came out earlier this year on the Communicating Vessels label.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe record came out back in April,\u201d said Barrington, during a recent phone interview from her home in Milwaukee. \u201cRight now, I\u2019m packing up for this two-and-a-half-week tour of the East and Midwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to make the record in Birmingham, Alabama. It took about six months with three trips total \u2013 two with the band and one with just me to do the mixing. It was a great experience. They call Birmingham the \u2018Magic City\u2019 and there is a darkness to the album.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did have some analog gear we used. It was a blend of analog and digital because I write a lot and I usually use computer. It was a really good studio to make this record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrington went a roundabout way to fronting her own band.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in Milwaukee,\u201d said Barrington. \u201cI learned music from my grandfather, who was on orchestra director. He had me practice and practice and I hated it. I was playing piano, violin and flute. I wanted a guitar and he said not until I learn things better. But he gave a guitar to my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrington was quick to leave Milwaukee when she had the chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stayed there until I was 16,\u201d said Barrington. \u201cThen, I quit high school and started traveling for work \u2013 in Europe and mainly in Italy. I started modeling when I was really young \u2013 not the best job but it offered me an outlook on life and an education I wouldn\u2019t have gotten elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to experience a lot of the world at a young age. I was tall so I did a lot of runway modeling. I pretty much cut it off in my mid-20s. I always kept Milwaukee as my home until I was in my 20s and moved to L.A. I came back to Milwaukee in 2006 because I needed a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first moved to L.A., I met some friends who were musicians and started dating one of them. I realized I was attracted to dating musicians. Then, I thought about my boyfriend and realized \u2013 I don\u2019t want to date you, I want to be you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a closet musician for 10 years. I didn\u2019t know what to do with that stuff. I had done a couple bands in L.A. and then came home to Wisconsin. I started writing again by myself after three years of a bad marriage. I made an EP and it got good response when it came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowly, her music career evolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout five years ago, I had this collection of songs,\u201d said Barrington. \u201cI had a band called Nightgown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrington formed Nightgown in 2014 but personal conflicts tore the group apart. Like a Phoenix, Rose of the West spring from the ashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas (Gilbert) stalked my shows because he really liked my songs,\u201d said Barrington. \u201cEventually, he came up to me and said he wanted to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201csomething\u201d was to form a band and that band is now Rose of the West.<\/p>\n

Video link for Rose of the West —https:\/\/youtu.be\/B_wRXBwofeA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The show at Boot and Saddle, which has Blood Sound and Absinthe Father as the opening acts, will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.<\/p>\n

If you have a musical project with somewhat dreamlike songs performed by a wide array of guest musicians in the studio, you might just have a project called Pretend Collective.<\/p>\n

And if that project produced an album filled with top-flight songs and interesting musical ideas, you could call the LP, \u201cPretend Collective.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, if you wanted to introduce that album with a \u201cvinyl album release party\u201d in the project leader\u2019s hometown, you could hold the celebration at one of the top clubs in said hometown.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mike Reilly<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s exactly what Mike Reilly is doing when he celebrates the release of the self-titled debut by Pretend Collective with a hometown concert on September 18 at Johnny Brenda\u2019s (1201 North Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, 215-739-9684,<\/p>\n

www.johnnybrendas.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been recording this album over the last two years while doing other gigs,\u201d said Reilly, during a recent phone interview. \u201cI\u2019ve been putting these songs together for the last 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPretend Collective\u201d officially dropped on September 13 through the charitable label The Giving Groove with half of all album proceeds directly benefiting Nu\u00e7i\u2019s Space, which provides mental health services to music industry members.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00e7i\u2019s Space is a charity based in Athens, Georgia handpicked by Reilly, who envisions ending the epidemic of suicide and inspiring a culture free of the stigma attached to brain illnesses and its sufferers by supporting a community-wide effort that focuses on education, prevention and access to appropriate treatment for musicians.<\/p>\n

The album is Reilly\u2019s project \u2013 an ambitious endeavor that has benefitted from the help of a long list of world class players, producers, engineers, assistants, visual artists, filmmakers and more than 30 singers.<\/p>\n

Reilly has made a name for himself as a songwriter\u2019s drummer touring, recording, and writing with Hoots & Hellmouth, Ha Ha Tonka, The Spring Standards, Matt Nakoa, Freddy and Francine, and many others.<\/p>\n

His resume includes extensive work in the theatre world– offstage in pit-orchestras, on-stage in new and old works alike, and even originating the role of the villain, Jessup McElroy, in \u201cRed Roses, Green Gold,\u201d the 2017 Off-Broadway jukebox musical featuring the music of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter.<\/p>\n

The recorded ensemble for the making of the \u201cPretend Collective\u201d album consisted primarily of working Philadelphia and New York musicians, many of whom tour globally, play on Broadway, and collaborate with some of the biggest names in music.<\/p>\n

Some of the main contributors were Aur\u00e9lien Budynek (Marky Ramone, Cindy Blackman Santana), Jaron Olevsky and David Streim (Amos Lee), Jonathan Davenport (Dirty Projectors, Buried Beds), Bryan Percivall (Britney Spears) and Tom Deis (Uni Ika Ai, Via Audio).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis band on the record has never officially played together,\u201d said Reilly, whose actual hometown is King of Prussia. \u201cThey\u2019re all friends of mine \u2013 and some of the best players I know. I\u2019m just thrilled with the personnel on the record. Most of them were in the studio with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were in the studio with Reilly \u2013 but not all at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started recording in late 2017 \u2013 one or two days a month,\u201d said Reilly. \u201cI finished tracking in late 2018. I did most of it at Sine Studio in Center City and some stuff at my home studio in Kensington. All the recording we did made it onto the record.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that this is done, I\u2019m moving back to Brooklyn next week. I do voice-over work in New York. I do a lot of theater stuff. And, I do a lot of live playing in New York\u2026a lot of bar gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reilly is an accomplished songwriter but pounding the skins is his main gig.<\/p>\n

According to Reilly, \u201cI\u2019ve been playing drums since I was eleven years old. I\u2019m thirty-seven now. I play a lot\u2014for fun, for livelihood, for human connection. There are a lot of ways to approach it, but I sound my best when I\u2019m making the other players sound their best. That means I have to listen. When I want to listen deeply, I close my eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been banging around on the piano since I was seven. I mostly do it alone. There was never much formal technique at play, but there was always a lot of play at play. There has always been curiosity, and on the other side of that, I found songs no one else had found.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty years, dozens of bands, a ludicrous CV, and a trip or two around the world later, I find myself with a finished record. Don\u2019t give me your arrangement or production ideas\u2014it\u2019s mastered. It\u2019s done. No more space for creative input; thank you, we\u2019ve done all that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy we, I mean the members of Pretend Collective. It\u2019s not quite a band, but don\u2019t hold us to that. It\u2019s rather a vast umbrella that keeps figuratively dry and creatively significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want people to love what\u2019s coming through the speakers, you\u2019ve got to love what you\u2019re laying down, what you\u2019ve discovered together. I love these players and I love what they have brought to this music. Enthusiasm for this record was really shared across the board. Imagine what we can do together. That\u2019s what we mean by Pretend Collective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video link for Pretend Collective \u2013 https:\/\/youtu.be\/TzQVCSl1ZbQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The show at Johnny Brenda\u2019s, which has Andrew Lipke and Erik Kramer as opening acts, will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times Rose of the West, which is headlining a show on September 17 at Boot and Saddle (1131 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, 215-639-4528,www.bootandsaddlephilly.com), has a contemporary sound and, at the same time, a sound that could have put the band in heavy rotation on MTV in the 1980s. Fronted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8457],"tags":[7426,12448,12447],"class_list":["post-43767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-d-arts-entertainment","tag-featured","tag-mike-reilly","tag-rose-of-the-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43768,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43767\/revisions\/43768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}