Author Archives: Matt

I guess the question they asked each other in rehearsal was….would you rather finger or blow?

When things are clicking onstage, the Van Burens are like a well-coached basketball team, accentuating each player’s strengths while finding cohesion and flow as a unit.  A drummer is kind of like a point guard, controlling the tempo and trying to get all the players on the same page, while the bass player is your five man, holding down the foundation (McGee is the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of bass).  In the Van Burens, the doppelgangers are obvious: Katie is Dr. J for her poetic feel, Dylan is Robert Horry for his insane confidence in clutch moments, and Raj is Jeremy Lin because he’s Asian and scores more than he looks like he should.  Smitty is our Tim Duncan for his humble, consistent greatness, and he makes this same face after someone farts onstage:

My brother Langry has a guitar sound that defies musical comparison – half innate melody, half sound scape -; the best way to describe his singularity is “Rajon Rondo-esque” in that no one, ever, could replicate Rondo’s style or Langry’s.  And Jeff, of course, is Nate Robinson piled on top of Glen “Big Baby” Davis.

In the spirit of teamwork, here’s ten people playing one piano:

Since it IS Monday

What way best to beat the blues

Like a few Haiku?

Where did General

Washington keep his armies?

In his sleevies.  Duh.

Clinton jams on sax.

grunts, moans, shudders. not a dry

seat in the White House

Poor William Henry

Harrison, he spoke too long

And was cut short-

William Howard Taft

Just a punch line for tub jokes?

Goddam Van Burens.

FDR how tall

You are.  But know one knew, as

the chair was for you.

Mutton chop sideburns

Ensure his vast legacy

Martin Van Buren

So great, Number Eight,

But the name for the ages:

Vice Prez Dick Johnson

A gambler bet to

Get Silent Cal say three words.

Prez replies: “You lose.”

Ole’ Abe may have been

Emancipator and Great

But ugly as ****

George Double-U Bush

If nothing nice to haiku

Don’t haiku at all

Thanks to Jeff for rhymes

Have your own Haiku?  Post it!

Always need lyrics.

The VBs are in the middle of a seriously busy run.  First off, w-w-wow, what a g-g-g-great audience we had opening up for Zach Deputy at the Middle East Downstairs on Friday.  We met some great new people, but felt the greatest pride in seeing familiar faces in the sea of heads at a sold-out show.  It was a high energy night, and we played one of our best sets in recent memory.  Joel, the new dude on sax, nailed it and Dylan on the bone…..I mean, it’s Dylan on the bone (on a less fun note, Dylan’s coat containing his phone and keys went missing at the end of the night…..if anyone knows anything about it, please contact us).

Unsolved Mysteries aren't always about con artists fleecing old people out of their diabetes medication money

So thanks so much to all the kind folks, new and old, who came out to rock with us on Friday; it felt like a major step forward for us.  Here’s the set:

Middle East Downstairs.  Cambridge, MA.  2.24.12

One Set:  The New One, Jeffrey’s World, Shots in L.A. > Lee Harvey Oswald, Swamp, Martin I, Killaz, Taft Punk

Continuing on our recent success, we have three – count ‘em – three gigs this week.  You can catch us at our favorite bar haunts:  The Half Door in Hartford, CT on Wednesday and The Salt Hill Pub in Lebanon, NH on Saturday.  On Friday we’ll be playing the legendary Great Gatsby party at Dartmouth College, a jazz-era-themed rager that doubles as a teetotaler’s best reason to reinstate prohibition.

The Van Burens are very excited for what we hope will be a big fun show this Friday night when we open for Zach Deputy at the Middle East downstairs. Zach is a supremely talented multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter whose toured nationally, driving fans wild with a frothy mixture of “Island Infused Drum ‘n’ Bass Gospel Ninja Soul.” He’s known as a Keller-Williams-style one-man-band, proficient at looping so as to fill out his own sound. BUT Zach the one-man-band is touring with a sick back up band right now, so that’s, like, TWO bands! Wow. The VBs just think he’s an awesome possum and we can wait for our great fans to mingle with his to create a kind of uber-scene this Friday night. We’ve been cooking up a set that’s sure to please ears right before faces melt. The show starts at 8, we go on at 9, and it’s 18+.

We have in our possession a very limited number of tickets which can be acquired by writing the VBs at vanburenmusic@gmail.com, or comment on our FB or this site. Tix can also be got at the Middle East website or at the door.

"My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them."

Thanks again to Sullivan Hall, the Indobox, and all the awesome people who came out Friday night in NYC to make a very special evening. We had a great time and were excited to see so many faces, new and old, rocking out to VB tunes. Thanks again and we’ll be back for NedFest on April 21st.

Boston and New Hampshire fans, however, get to catch us this week as we make our debut at the Cantab in Cambridge on Thursday (2.16) and return to Salt Hill Pub Newport, NH on Saturday (2.18). The Cantab is a cool lounge/bar/grill and we’ll be playing with our pals Enter Autumn, a supremely talented jazz/funk quartet who wowed us at Tommy Doyle’s in December. Show starts at 7:30, with Enter Autumn at 8:45 and the VB going on at 10:30. Click the pic for FB event and info. New Hampshirites, click the ‘Shows’ tab up above for more info about our Newport Salt Hill show.

Sullivan Hall. NYC. 2.10.12
One Set: Tranceformers, Stinkoff, The New One, Pinchback, Bledsoe, Shots in L.A. > Lee Harvey Oswald, Gary Don’t, Taft Punk

Spend any time traveling with the Van Burens and, so long as you don’t breathe in too much van air, you’ll stay conscious long enough to realize that on long car rides, and anytime they’re together for an extended time, the Van Burens fall into a highly sophisticated verbal chatter – consisting of television and movie quotes, song lyrics, inside jokes, sounds (both musical and Michael Winslow-style), and impressions of all the characters they’ve met – strung together with a conversational logic that few can interpret.  Were a band car ride t0 be transcribed transcribed, the words would appear entirely meaningless while their collective understanding of gibberish and frequent laughter at nonsense would flummox the reader.

Everybody has in-jokes with their friends, but the sheer volume of the VBs shared references (which often make their way into the group’s song lyrics) is titanic.  Mastercheese Theater attempts to pay homage to those works which hold a dear place in the VB library (don’t worry, there will be very few books.)

Starring Ethan Embry, the unfathomably Jeff King-like Steve Zahn, Hanks Himself, Jonathan Scaech, Liv Tyler, and Tom Everett Scott

That Thing You Do!  is a 1996 Tom Hanks – directed comedy about a band from Erie, PA rising from mediocrity to stardom on the strength of their hit single…..That Thing You Do!.  The band eventually crumbles under the weight of too-famous-too-fast; their wild ride that of a one hit wonder.  The VBs not only identify with the broader aspirations of the characters (we quote characters in band movies like Tony Soprano quotes Vito Corleone), but we also much like the dry, self-deprecating sense of humor the movie brings to situations we’ve found ourselves in, such as trying to come up with a band name (just as the VBs struggled, the band in the movie considers “The Chordvettes” before the trying-too-hard-to-be-a-pun “The Oneders” before landing on “The Wonders.”)

That Thing You Do!  gets other little things right about the band biz, from the eagerness to succeed (“A man in a really nice camper wants to put our song on the radio.  I’m signing.  You’re signing.  We’re all signing.”) to nights playing empty rooms (“hey, wasn’t that our fan?”); from the conflict between art and entertainment (“there he goes, off to his room to write the hit song ‘Alone in My Principles’.”) to drummers wearing sunglasses (“Well, I am the drummer.”)   Aside from the quirky real life charm and chuckles, and a fun cast (also: much of the cast learned to play music so their miming looks like a real band and not Milli Vanilli) the movie works because the songs are great and you can actually believe a band becoming famous for them.  Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne (“Stacey’s Mom”) wrote most of the tunes, and they get stuck in your ears like when you fall asleep eating taffy.

Here’s the band with the title track on the night their hubris becomes inevitable.

Every generation or so a musician comes along who changes the world. Bach, Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, The Beatles…..Johann Gambolputty stood apart from all. This is his story.

The Van Burens are returning to the City That Never Sleeps this Friday night for a BIG, BIG show at Sullivan Hall opening for a supremely awesome band: The Indobox.  This is definitely our biggest show to date in New York, and we’re really excited to debut some new tunes for our NYC crowd and share the stage with such a killer act.  Needless to say, the Patriots fans in the Van Burens want to get the bad taste of the Super Bowl off our collective palates, and what better way than to spend a weekend in Giants country?  Really, though, it’s going to be a big night and we hope to get a good turnout at our favorite New York haunt.  Click the pic of a hard-partying New Yorker for the FB event and more info.

The Van Burens had a faaaaaaaaaabulous time playing a two-set show in front of our Boston crowd Friday night.  Many thanks to the good people who came out to jam out with us and to Raj, Emily Bogrand, and Mike “The Man with No Shame” Gallagher for being our special guests.  We premiered a new tune in the first set that is huge, proggy, and nameless. Anybody got any ideas?  Here’s the set:

The Rosebud.  Somerville, MA.  1.27.12

Set One:  Stinkoff, Bledsoe, Cantina Song, Pinchback, The New One, Tranceformers, Turducken, Rocky/Raccoon, Killaz*, Arnold Timber*, Martin I*, Use Me*^, Oh Darling*^

Set Two: Let’s Dance, Jeffrey’s World, Swamp, Hardened Heart (Murder One)%, Ten Past Midnight%, Happy Birthday>L.B.$, Shotz in L.A., Gary Don’t, Lee Harvey Oswald*, Try a Little Tenderness*^, Taft Punk*

Also, the VBs have several big shows with bigger acts coming up in February, starting with our triumphant return to NYC’s Sullivan Hall next Friday the 10th, opening for the Indobox.  We also have two Boston shows this month: Thursday the 16th at the Cantab, then Friday the 24th opening up for Zach Deputy (!) at the Middle East Downstairs.  Click the pic of the ex-Prez for the NYC show.