Another Night at Arlene’s

Made it down to Arlene’s Grocery located at 95 Stanton Street, New York, NY. The Statues of Liberty were playing there once more. I have seen the threesome multiple times at Arlenes and it is always a good time. Once again they put on a good show doing a mix of their newer material and then pulling out some of the classics from Banana Fish Zero (BFZ).

For those of you not familiar with the trio, there is John Law on vocals and guitar, Prince Hal on Bass, and Hitomi on the drums. Together they just have a special sound-part punk, part pop, even a bit of metal. John Law has got a good voice and just a cool delivery-both visually and vocally. Behind him through out is Hitomi, this little Japanese girl, with killer boots, amazing beats, and this ability to just hypnotize if you start watching her back there.Add to her drums Prince Hal’s bass, which just filled the room. No need for keyboards or another guitarist to fill this sound. His bass has it covered.

So the trio can play and they have a bunch of material, from Crushing to Chocolate Cake, to their one rap tune-Jigglebum. And as I said they did bring out the Banana Fish Zero (BFZ) material doing one of my favorite tunes, Beautiful. Banana Fish Zero was John Law and Prince Hal’s first band from a few years back. So it was nice to come back to all of this and hear these again. It had been a few months since my last fix.

Arlenes is one of those venues I am routinely wandering over to. I have seen too many acts in that room. They always have a good crowd and the bands are good too. You go and see the act you came for but you do want to get there early or stay late and check out the acts preceding or following your act. You don’t know what you will see.

That was the case this time around. I got their while inFiction was working through their set. At first I was not overly impressed, maybe I was just numb from the cold. But as I warmed up and enjoyed my first rum and coke, I started to like the band’s sound. It was a three piece. They rocked. They were kind of heavy. The guitar player covering the vocals, reminded me of Eddie Vedder or someone from that vintage. He enjoyed his leads and he could play too. So in coming out to to see my Statues caught another act with some promise.

After the Statues, Ellis Ashbrook, a four piece came on. They had a cute keyboard player, a guitar player who did some pretty neat stuff and a solid drummer and bass player keeping them going. The tunes were somewhere between jazz and funk and did have their moments instrumentally. Once again a pleasant surprise. Granted I was shuffling between Arlene’s two rooms during their set, but still what I caught was nice and I will hopefully see them again. Hopefully, I will see both inFiction and Ellis Ashbrook again.