These are videos that I like: Ryan Blotnick’s Kush, live at Rockwood Music Hall

 

ryan-blotnick-kushToday’s featured video comes courtesy of guitarist Ryan Blotnick, performing the song “Lunenberg” at NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall.  That song is one of my favorites on his new release Kush… a recording with plenty of good songs to choose from.  A write-up of Kush will be appearing on this site later this evening.  Be sure to check back in for that.

The video is dark and only captures part of the song.  It doesn’t feature any trains or holiday lights or passing scenery or the other kind of stuff that floats my boat.  But, damn, this rendition of the song is wonderful.  You always hope that the live performance brings out elements of a song while still honoring the studio version, and that it gives off a different kind of energy.  You don’t want a replica of the studio version but you also don’t want the live version to turn its back on the original either.  This clip of “Lunenberg” captures so much of what we hope for in the live performance.

Your video personnel:  Ryan Blotnick (guitar), Michael Blake (tenor sax), Scott Colberg (bass), RJ Miller (drums) and guest:  Jonny Lam (pedal steel).

Update:  Here’s an additional video from that same show that Ryan Blotnick just uploaded.  This is the song “DX7,” which also appears on Kush.

And if you don’t feel like waiting for my write-up of Kush to post later today and just want to go buy this album right now, you can scoop it up (and listen to it, too) on the artist’s Bandcamp page.