Events

[PUNK] From the opening violin-and-accordion gallop of “Did it All,” the first track on Gogol Brodello’s new Seekers and Finders (Cooking Vinyl), it’s clear that NYC’s self-proclaimed gypsy punk army hasn’t lost its moxie. Nearly 20 years on from the 1999 debut, Voi-La Intruder, and the band is sounding as purposeful and driven as ever, though perhaps a bit more reflective. Wild-eyed front man Eugene Hutz’s borderless message has never been more timely, his mission never more essential, as it is in Trump’s America. The  characters he inhabits remain nomadic outlaws, as always, but seem that much more daring against the tricky backdrop of our divided country. The band’s spirit of freedom rings through the feel of the music just as much (sometimes more) than Hutz’s writing, evident on new songs like “Love Gangsters,” “Saboteur Blues,” and “Familia Fireball,” but there’s plenty of power in the lower-key songs here as well, the vulnerable “If I ever Get Home Before Dark,” in particular. For the title song, Regina Spektor joins Hutz in a duet that pushes their idiosyncratic vocals to pleasing heights. Complete with recurring trumpet flourishes, “Walking on the Burning Coal” is classic Bordello fare, building admirable instrumental tension in three minutes. In a recent Forbes Magazine piece, Hutz clarified that making music is merely one ingredient in a multifaceted solution to what ills the world.“Just playing music doesn’t really interest me—it’s an alchemic experience, it’s just more music, and performance, and storytelling, and some psychedelic fashion here and there,” says Hutz. “I believe that creating atmosphere for thousands of people every night, a communal celebration, where their social statuses, racial things dissolve, [is] an effective remedy.” Hutz and company bring their remedy to the Rapids Theatre in Niagara Falls on Monday, September 18 with Lucky Chops.