We’re ending our winter hiatus with our first show of 2024, at one of our favorite venues — Prototype 237 in Paterson, NJ — on Saturday May 11! We will debut three songs, two brand new pieces and one from our Unknown Cities album. Sharing the stage with JoF is grunge-blues duo Heavy Flow, and Kingston’s Hush Woods, featuring JoF collaborator Mike Quoma (he guests on “Psych Spyder” from our forthcoming album Scenes from an Unnamed Explosion) on guitar.
And later in May, we’ll begin a mini-tour with the wonderful jazz-rock quartet (trumpet and effects, double bass, drums, guitar) Thieves in Paris, which features Prototype 237 cofounder Alex Pergament on guitar!
May 30 – Art House Productions, Jersey City, NJ May 31 – Flemington DIY, Flemington, NJ June 1 – Prototype 237, Paterson, NJ June 3 – Wonder Bar, Asbury Park, NJ June 14 – John & Peters, New Hope, NJ
We are headed south this weekend for 2 shows in new spots for us — many thanks to our friend Joe Martin of 3rd Grade Friends and the Minus Drag for putting these together! On Friday, 10/18, we’ll be at Suzy’s House of Gifts in Richmond, VA, and Saturday, 10/19, at Crayola House in Harrisonburg, VA. Details below!
We had a blast last weekend playing at the Brighton Bar, Unruly Sounds and Function; many thanks to Elbaum Tanner Rocknroll Scene, Mika Godbole, and Gene Ward for inviting us to play, and to the people who came to listen! The header photo was taken by RJ Carroll, and you can check out more from that night here. Emory Hensley took photos at Unruly Sounds (below), you can check out more here. And check out Dan Gutstein’s post about Alan Merrill, and his iconic hit “I Love Rock and Roll,” here!
Hey y’all! We were in the studio last weekend, starting to record the guitar tune “Another Adventure in Red” (with Anna engineering at the Princeton recording studios). We’ve also been planning our summer, including a New England tour the first week of June (stay tuned for details!). And we’re excited about Dan Gutstein, poet and vocalist, returning to the east coast so we can resume our recording of States of America with him.
We’re thrilled about these shows next month in DC and MD, hope to see you there!
Hey everyone! We had a productive January, working on recording #4 with Bill Hafener at Silo Studios, and planning shows and releases for the spring and summer!
We’ve got one show this month, February 22nd, at The Stoltz Listening Room in Easton, Maryland, a really cool space on the Eastern Shore; you can buy tickets and get more info here!
In March, we’ll be be back at Fox and Crow in Jersey City on the 2nd, Moose Lab in DUMBO on the 15th, and Shrine and Silvana in Harlem on the 22nd and 23rd.
We’ll be releasing a new music video for “Punk Jazz,” by Cody Nenninger of Momentum Printing & Production soon, stay tuned!
And, in case you missed it, we had a track played on NPR’s All Songs Considered last month, check out the episode here!
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Feb 22 – The Stoltz Listening Room, Easton, MD
Mar 2 – Fox & Crow, Jersey City, NJ
Mar 15 – Moose Lab, Brooklyn, NY
Mar 22 – Shrine, Harlem, NY
Mar 23 – Silvana, Harlem, NY
My father had a way with words, and when one is known for having “a way with words,” it could be a very good thing, or it could be “something completely different.”
My father would say, “Measure twice, cut once.” He would say, “Don’t let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya.” And, when I’d speak with him about Joy on Fire, he’d say, “Well, it sounds like you and your friends have been as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger.”
Indeed, we have.
Joy on Fire has been “Gittin’ it Done,” so to speak. We’ve played a ton of shows in support of our Procrastination Records release Fire with Fire and, in doing so, we’ve returned to many of our favorite places: Metropolitan Kitchen in Annapolis, The Crown in Baltimore, The Pour House in Raleigh, Galaxy Hut in Arlington, Cloud Club in Boston, Radio Bean in Burlington, and Shrine in Harlem just to name a few.
We’ve also played some great new places that we love, like the Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield MA, The Terrace in Princeton NJ, The Footlight in Bushwick Bklyn, and Gasa Gasa in New Orleans.
Add to this our blazing performance at the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, which was just … Wow! And we were lucky to have the amazing band photographer Brian Jenkins shoot the show (see photos in post, more to come soon!).
Joy on Fire at the Radio Bean for the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival on Saturday night June 9, 2018. Photo by Brian Jenkins
In addition to promoting Fire with Fire, which is Joy on Fire record #2, we’ve been in various studios working hard on Joy on Fire #3 and Joy on Fire #4 (titles and more info to come). Also, there are two amazing new Joy on Fire videos – and another fantastic video coming soon.
So, yeah, you’ll see us slow things down for a minute in September, but before then, we’ll finish out summer 2018 with another string of “Heavy Duty” shows (Dad liked all things Heavy Duty. Heavy Duty is good. In fact, we secretly nicknamed him Heavy Duty when I was young.).
Yes, Yes, YES!!! Sometimes the universe throws you a bone, and we have that bone, and we’re taking it with us to Vermont this Saturday to play in the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. YES!!!
We love Burlington. A LOT. Over the past year, we’ve found a home away from home at a place called Radio Bean. It’s a super funky, eclectic, let-it-all-hang-out “bohemian utopia” where cool, friendly people thrive on live music and always make us feel welcomed and appreciated. The VT bands we’ve played with are way cool, too. We always look forward to playing The Bean and we always have a great time.
Now, we hear a lot of things when we play – people enjoy our music and get excited, often they want us to come play at some event or with their band or what have you. Many times, by Monday, when the hangovers are gone and folks get back to their daily grind, these offers have faded into foggy half-memories.
Awesome poster by Cranston Dize, click to enlarge!
Radio Bean’s owner enjoys our music and has long been involved in the jazz fest, now in its 35th year. Late one Saturday night, after our set and as folks were closing the place, he offered to get us into the festival, and we were hopeful but also understood that we may be chasing the fog come Monday. Sure enough, as we were pondering how much and how soon to pester him about it, the phone rang and he had it all set up.
So, this Saturday, June 9, at 11:30 pm, we’ll play a sweet, long, riotous set at Radio Bean as part of the 35th Annual Burlington Discover Jazz Fest. We are thrilled and honored. If you’re in the area, please come by and enjoy the music/food/drinks/energy of The Bean. If you know folks around Burlington, please send them our way. Either way, send us some love this weekend and we’ll turn it into music.
We were headed from Baltimore to New York without a drummer. We had taken the gig, as it was in a cool spot in Brooklyn, a place called Bar4. “Maybe we’ll hit Bars 1, 2 and 3 while we’re there,” I said to Anna, but she didn’t like this joke, so I only told it, like, twice.
We were meeting a new drummer the night before the gig, at a rehearsal space in Manhattan, like 22 floors up a skyscraper. Top Floor Studios, or some horseshit like that. Anyway, Chris–who we’d been introduced to over the phone by old friend, bass wiz, and general music aficionado Ted Schreiber (thanks Ted!)–was waiting for us at the studio. We’d never met Chris…but he kind of looked familiar. Maybe he just looked like a drummer.
Two hours later, and we had a pretty wicked set of music ready for Brooklyn! We were all very excited. Who was this guy? An excellent drummer who picked it up quick, and had plenty of ideas and licks. And there was something familiar about him.
The gig was with a group from New York called Dog Adrift. After each group’s set, our friend Sherif, sitting at the bar with a pint glass of gin, an aficionado himself, said, “I really dig your new drummer. And the other band was great, too! Who are they?”
“Yeah, Dog Adrift. They’re great. We’ll play with them again.”
Well, that was almost 5 years ago, and we’ve been playing with Chris ever since, have recorded two albums with him, and we’re starting a third this month.
And though we haven’t played with Dog Adrift since, we are going to play with them again: this Wednesday, at The Footlight (or Bar5 for our purposes here) in Ridgewood, NY. (Details here.)
And, as it turns out, we had met once, 20 years ago; Chris and I both grew up in the same town on Long Island.
JOY ON FIRE is excited to announce that its second album, Fire with Fire, will be released both digitally and on CD on November 1 by PROCRASTINATION RECORDS, home of 3rd Grade Friends, Penny Pistolero, and many other great bands.
Album cover by artist Bruno Gabrielli
JOY ON FIRE will be playing throughout the fall in support of Fire with Fire, with gigs in New York City, Jersey City, Allentown, Annapolis, Baltimore, Florence MA, and Burlington VT. Two of these shows—The Fox and Crow in Jersey City and The Metropolitan Lounge in Annapolis, where 3rd Grade Friends will be joining us on the bill—will be official CD release parties, where we will be performing Fire with Fire in its entirety.
Upcoming Shows:
Thursday Oct 12 – Paulie Gees, Baltimore, MD
Saturday Oct 14 – Café Nola, Frederick, MD
Friday Oct 20 – Gussy’s, NYC
Friday Nov 3 – Fox & Crow, Jersey City, NJ
Saturday Nov 4 – Alt Gallery, Allentown, PA
Friday Nov 17 – Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge, Annapolis, MD
We’ve got a lot of shows coming up next month! We are joining our friends, Bag of Humans, from Baltimore, MD, for shows in NYC and DC and then for a tour in NC, and one in New Orleans! Details below.
Then, after all of these shows, we are going to head to Mobtown Studios in Baltimore, MD again to start the third album, while we shop the second album, which is being mastered on January 9 at Salt Mastering, in Brooklyn, NY.
JOY ON FIRE will host an artist residency at SoHo’s Cupping Room Café, playing two sets every Friday in May. This residency occurs in conjunction with the completion of their second album You Will Awaken Now. They will be performing songs from You Will Awaken Now as well as from their self-titled debut and their soon-to-be-begun third album (recording to start on July 31 at Baltimore’s Mobtown Studios).
Pieces range in style and texture from epic (“The Complete Book of Bonsai, Part Two”) to punk (“Kung-Fu Tea Party”) to jazz (“World Systems”) to punk-jazz (“Punk-Jazz 3000”) to dub (“Double Dub”) to combat-rock (“Night of the Night Sticks”). All feature the innovative soloing of Anna Meadors on saxophone (alto, baritone, and often both in the same song), the fluid rock-to-jazz-back-to-rock styling of drummer and percussionist Chris Olsen, and the riff- and effects-driven chordal bass playing of John Paul Carillo.
As well as the four Cupping Room Café shows, JOY ON FIRE will be playing additional May shows in Raleigh NC, Peekskill NY, Annapolis MD, Frederick MD, Boston MA, Long Island NY, Baltimore MD, and more TBA.
These May shows are a doorway to JOY ON FIRE becoming a New York-area band (JoF was formed in Baltimore in 2009 and was a North Carolina-based band from 2013 to 2016), as Anna has been accepted to Princeton University’s Ph.D. in Music Composition Program (congratulations Anna!), and Anna and John will take up residency near Chris in central New Jersey for at least the next five years.
JOY ON FIRE will add more regular shows in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, Jersey City, Hoboken, and the Hudson Valley to the rest of their East Coast circuit and will be venturing forth to new spots in Pennsylvania, New England, and beyond.
The Cupping Room Café is located in the heart of SoHo and is one of the oldest and most classic restaurants in the area. Established in 1977, The Cupping Room Café has a proud history of offering delicious food along with a full bar and gourmet coffee bar. Artwork from local artists hangs on their gallery walls, and their long-running Music Without Borders series spotlights local and touring bands every week. You can find The Cupping Room Café at 359 West Broadway at Broome Street, New York, NY 10013. The JOY ON FIRE artist residency is open to all ages and there is no cover charge. Music begins promptly at 8:00 p.m. every Friday in May.
Special thanks to Donna Moncur of Donna Shoots Photography for the collage above, created from her photos of last year’s residency at The Winery at St. George in Mohegan Lake, NY.
— The Cupping Room Café
359 West Broadway at Broome Street, NYC
www.cuppingroomcafe.com
Every Friday in May (5/6, 5/13, 5/20, 5/27)
8-11 pm / free admission / all ages
Pieces range in style and texture from epic (“The Complete Book of Bonsai, Part Two”) to punk (“Kung-Fu Tea Party”) to jazz (