The New Professionals in NYC on January 19th

Made it down to the New Professionals show, which was at a new place down on the outskirts of Chinatown. As always it was a good show, but a very different from the usual guitar dominated sounds of the New Professionals. This time around Karen Curious had with her a new drummer, whose name I should have written down, and Amalia from Mad Juana, playing keyboards and some viola.

Some really neat and different sounds and songs with that combination of Karen doing bass and vocals, the new drummer who was solid, and Amalia with the keyboard and viola and back up vocals. The song that I remember at this point was no doubt an anti-war protest song,”Stop the Killing” (?) with some neat vocals, and some viola that must have been run through some effects. Not sure who or what was making the sounds but again different. I would say there was three or four new songs and another three or four of the standard repertoire.

I had gone mainly to wish them well as they are they headed out on a tour and then heading into the studio to work on a sophomore album. They always put on a good show so what better way to start the weekend. So it was a surprise to see they had evolved into something completely different and not only that but to see that it worked so well!

Add to this the fact that a guitar player was in tow for that show, the upcoming tour and the studio time, but last minute bailed, leaving them with no guitarist. Considering that happened that day, i believe, and that tradtionally the New Professionals were a four piece with guitar front and center, that show becomes even more interesting. I do hope the rest of the tour works out as well as that show did!

Anyway, That was the big event for the weekend. I know I had posted that Lourds and Jason Liebman were playing out on Friday night, but I got to start using a calendar or go to my own site. . . I woke up Saturday morning thinking I was going to go and check out one of those acts Saturday night. I went to the web to confirm and quickly realized they were done, both had played the night before! Duh! All this technology and I still do not know what day it is.

Anyway, do check out the New Professionals at New Professionals. Sadly no details regarding the newest evolution of the band, but I am sure the site will catch up at some point.

Bob Schaffer
January 22, 2006