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Gary Lucas Out and About

This fall has seen a frenzy of activity for Gary in the form of checking out some of his favorite performers, such as the legendary Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac fame who came to New York's Tramps in August for his first local appearance in 25 years. Gary was fortunate to have an audience with Peter after the show and was thrilled to hear one of his first guitar idols pronounce his "Evangeline" album "superb" (Gary had sent it to him last year when over in the UK). He also scored an autograph from the anglo/Jewish guitar god, who inscribed his battered, much played copy of the English "Then Play On" album "Peter Greenbaum" (his real name)...

Gary also checked out big man David Thomas with his reformed Pere Ubu at the Knitting Factory in September, and thanked David personally for putting a link from the Ubu site to Gary's own home page, quite unsolicited...

Also in September, Gary revved up his ongoing acid-acoustic group The Du-Tels in partnership with psychedelic folk legend Peter Stampfel for their first gig in a year or so, also at the Knitting Factory. The boys opened the show with an audience call and response session/quiz on bands that used semen-al imagery in their monikers (Cream, Come, et al) which further degenerated into a screaming flailing high energy set that romped through such classics as the "Astro Boy Theme", the Stanley Brothers' "Litle Maggie", and the current Lucas/Stampfel fave rave, the theme from "Teletubbies" (Gary's favorite TV show). And a splendid time was had by all. In fact, the boys were so pleased by the overall crowd reception they immediately booked a special xmas eve show at the venue...

Peter will also be one of Gary's special guests at his upcoming Dec. 11th 10th anniversary concert at the Knitting Factory, which will also feature special guests Danielle Gerber and Richard Barone, plus the first set in two years from Gods and Monsters (with Jonathan Kane and Ernie Brooks), and the concert debut of Gary Lucas' Big Pishers (with Jonathan, Greg Cohen, and Kenny and Larry) performing songs from Gary's acclaimed Tzadik CD "Busy Being Born" (which just received yet another rave in Entertainment Weekly—its second review there this year!, in their back to school must-have music section).

Gary also contributed some manic, feedback drenched guitar explorations as a special guest on a crazed late night set with acid-lunged vocalist Damo Suzuki of the immortal German band Can, in town for the first time with Can's original guitarist Michael Karoli and an allstar band of sympatico high rollers (including their other guitarist who is a big Lucas fan, having caught him in Germany several times live). The set was praised in the Village Voice here for its freewheeling shamanistic vibe, which at 3 in the morning at local psych dungeon The Cooler threatened to cut the zonked out crowd loose from their psychic moorings, Lucas doing what the Voice described as his "impression of a Hoovermatic"—his playing was so intense that he blew out his Gallien-Krueger amp in toto, shredding both speakers in a near incendiary display of his vaunted guitar pyrotechnique. Damo was so taken with Gary's playing that he brought him forward at set's end with big hugs all around from the band and a thunderous reception from the crowd...

Lastly Gary performed a blistering solo acoustic set on legendary free music FM NYC station WBAI during this year's CMJ Conference, eliciting great audience response from all over the NY area and into Connecticut and New Jersey, the switchboard literally lighting up after Gary finished playing with listeners demanding more Lucas music.