+Emergency Group- New York City free rock, hailed by Aquarium Drunkard as one of the “most thrilling improvisational rock units working today.”

+Heavy Lidders- Philly psych rock featuring members of Dire Wolves, Elkhorn, and Kohoutek. RIYL Meat Puppets, Giant Sand, and SST-era Screaming Trees

+Deep Brain- Alt pop "caring trio just trying to help. service. pleasure."

Dot Dash presents

+Leopardo- Arty, indie, psych-pop from Switzerland! Alpine alt-folk mixed with Country Teasers/The Fall outsider jams.  They are wrapping up their US tour here at Mama Tried, supporting their new LP "SIDE A / SIDE B on Dot Dash Sounds!

+Danny Arakaki Band- Singer/guitarist from local psych rock heavies, Garcia Peoples.  Arakaki has worked with a who's-who of heavy hitters in the rocknroll world on his pastoral, expansive "Tumble in Shade" LP - who will be joining him for this one?  Come out and find out!

+Childless- New local art-punks, driven by brittle, spikey guitar jabs and primal heavy beats - catch them now before they blow up!

Sponsored by Hornitos Tequila

Poster design by Gabrielle Dellesandro

On the second Monday of each month our friend and neighbor plays selections from his library of classic disco and soul videos.

+Harbor Haunts- is a three piece from Brooklyn playing dynamic original songs inspired by 90s indie rock

+Evan & The Grays- Here, there, and everywhere. Evan & The Grays exist in the fourth dimension

+Sophia Stewart & Valerie Marchesi- Sophia is a singer-songwriter in Brooklyn. Valerie writes guitar-driven songs about big feelings + small observations

+Prison-

+Mike Polizze (Purling Hiss)-

+DJ Miss Hap-

+Sloppy Heads- Shambling/pretty, structured/disintegrating

+Peter Stampfel and The Atomic Meta Pagans-

+Tom Hamilton & Peter Zummo- Continuing their 30-year world tour across the electro-acoustic divide, TOM HAMILTON (electronics, modifiers) and PETER ZUMMO (trombone, special transformers) celebrate their Mama Tried debut with a cross-examination of their transprovisational attitude. Neither on the verge of exhausting their beat-thing metaphor, nor willing to squander their resources on a second CD, the duo eschews the popular notion of including a gratuitous "guest artist" in order to enhance their singular vision of a greener planet. "An uncommon instrumental pairing, these seasoned downtown improvisors form an unusually stimulating duo" -- The Wire

Sponsored by jim Beam

+Roman Angelos-

+Serena Jost-

+The Scene is Now- formed in 1983 and remains active to the present day. While one critic described them as “NYC’s most criminally neglected band,” certainly they have not been denied critical praise. The New York Times extolled “the sort of zany humor one might expect to find in some netherworld between Tristan Tzara and Spike Jones. The instrumental juxtapositions are consistently surprising, often hilarious, but there is no novelty for novelty’s sake. Every sound has its place.” Their current lineup is Chris Nelson, vocals and guitar; Greg Peterson, guitar; Steven Levi, cornet; Cheryl Kingan, baritone sax; Bob Bannister, bass; and Blake Lindberg, drums.  Their forthcoming vinyl LP After Cadmus will be released this year.

+Corset Lore- Corset Lore serves up a cutting vision of dance-minded humanity hijacked and controlled by extraterrestrials on an asteroid. The songs themselves are infectiously hook-laden and give me earned body aches from hard dancing. Essential listening for anyone who digs synthpop, chiptune, artrock, or electronic dance music with dystopian subtext and depth. Imagine an alternate version of early Depeche Mode fronted by Kate Bush performing on the set of the 90s Total Recall but as a Nintendo game.

+Voodini- a spiked punchbowl of sonic oddities, blending high-octane surf, sleazy blues, and garage rock with a dash of Black Magic. A distorted love letter to vintage jukebox tunes... they’re your mother’s favorite rock ’n’ roll band.

+The Mighty Fine-

+Lookout Honeys-

+The Midnight Confessions-

+DJ Lupe Loop-

+Food drive for Food Bank NYC

+Too Bad Guitar- two bad guitars and the occasional synthesizer

+Famous Log in History- DIY Art-Punk-Fractured-Pop

+Dr Evilletown & A. Helicopter- Saxophone and guitar use the backdrop of 15 + years of friendship to navigate an improvised sonic landscape

+Jan Bell-

+Nan and the One Night Stands-

+Girls on Grass (duo)-

+Milo Jones- psychically enhanced misty water-color mammaries

+Creatures- foot stomping psychotic fugues

+Animal Piss, It's Everywhere- psychoactive country cracker barrel

An evening of improbable “duets” with our city’s decaying infrastructure & the east coast’s finest solo performers, selected by Mr Mike of Sleeping Giant Glossolalia, in the shadow of the BQE:
Overcalc - alchemical electronics & guitar propulsions courtesy of Multicult leader Nick Skrobisz, Baltimore 
Ornament - Joe DeNardo of Growing in solitary confinement, protest music in its purest 
Dream Skills - nature sounds & bird calls recontextualized through modular synthesis 
watergh0st - voice and guitar via Chuck Roth in collaborative combat w/ unlikely environ 
Hatecliff - shedding the harp in favor of grindcore adjacent avant-prog 

+Luke Schneider- new age pedal steel music

+Royal Arctic Institute- instrumental, post-punk, cinematic jazz

+Pure Waves- ambient country and instrumental psych-folk

+The Spatulas- Super catchy, strum and jangle with some serious Velvets/Flying Nun Records vibes, all held down with a groovy beat from Miranda Spatula and her band, soon to be relocating to the MidWest!

+Son of Dribble- Brooklyn debut from this Columbus, OH outsider-garage, guitar rock outfit.  New LP on Minimum Table Stacks!

+Discreet Charms- local art-garage rockers return to Mama Tried to celebrate the release of their debut LP (fingers-crossed!)

Sponsored by Hornitos

+Rose Thomas Bannister- The long-awaited third album, and second vinyl release, by singer-songwriter Rose Thomas Bannister is finally here: The Little Wren.
Adopted as a child and raised by militant Christians, Bannister was enticed from the Lord's army by a library copy of A Coney Island of the Mind and escaped with her glove box stuffed with illicit "secular music" cassettes. 

Bannister's first record, A Cruel, Cruel Woman, was warm, twangy, and almost unknown. Her second, The Sewing Room, was a slow-blooming underground hit of subdued, mystical folk. Her new record, The Little Wren, is Bannister's most ambitious. 

Her highly specific biblical imagery takes on a darker edge than on The Sewing Room, without sacrificing pathos or wit. On the “B” side, she moves away from the Old Testament with a song cycle based on Macbeth. She's focused obsessively on familial betrayal and naturalistic symbols, experimenting with shifting time signatures and tonal surprises.

Bannister has worked with a notably eclectic range of musicians and artists. This record features a significant contribution from the late pedal steel legend Susan Alcorn. Other collaborators and guests include Bob Bannister, Pat Gubler, Debby Schwartz, Gary Foster, Concetta Abate, Lenna Pierce, Charlie Rauh and Jessica Pavone. 

The record was recorded and co-produced by Greg Talenfeld in OK Records in Nyack, New York. Cover art is by the visionary Baltimore artist and musician Liz Downing, with design by Alfra Martini.

+Psychic Lines- Phil Jacob’s confusing melodies and musings with a good dose of sax, carried by bassist Dann Baker and drummer Nancy Polstein. Like Leonard Cohen leading Sonic Youth into Gerry Rafferty’s underwater lair. “There is something intensely cinematic in the way Psychic Lines sets the scene.” (Atwood Mag)

+SWRM-

+Wide Right-

+Matt Hunter and the Dusty Fates-

+Hidden Things-

+Sloppy Heads- shambling/pretty, structured/disintegrating

+James Mcnew & Jennifer O’Connor- awesome + awesome

+kid millions & Sarah Bernstein- The long-standing collaboration between electric violinist/vocalist Sarah Bernstein and drummer Kid Millions unleashes hallucinatory improvisation of driving and expressive high-voltage intensity. Existential poetry punctuates the rhythmic and sonic space, to unnerving and mesmerizing effect.

Sponsored by Jim Beam

+Jude- is a singer, songwriter, producer and visual artist from Long Island, New York. After relocating from the east coast to Los Angeles in the summer of 2021, they began working on writing and recording what would become their debut EP, Accidental Daydream. The album, a fitting introduction to Jude’s seriously fun approach to pop, blends the enduring guitar rhythms of early Strokes with the earworm melodies of The Beach Boys. Jude is now based in Brooklyn and records under the mononym JUDE.

+bear dog- is a new band led by Buffalo native Tim Henderson, joined by a rotating group of childhood friends. Influenced by classic singer-songwriter and soul music as well as high school favorites Alex Turner and Hamilton Leithauser, bear dog blends soulful heartland vocals with catchy indie rock melodies. bear dog's upcoming single "in the morning in the evening" is Henderson's first release since "Used Cars" with Timothy Alice & the Dead Star Band. 

+Domestic Drafts- is the songwriting project of Andy Cush, who can otherwise be found playing bass and singing in Garcia Peoples. 'Only the Singer,' the band's debut album, was released on Glamour Gowns Records in 2025. Taking cues from the likes of Neil Young, Bill Callahan, and Richard Thompson, his songs blend melancholy and wry humor, destined for soundtracking half-remembered evenings in cozy locales, mingling with the scent of beer and cigarettes.

On the second Monday of each month our friend and neighbor plays selections from his library of classic disco and soul videos.

Live Band Karaoke! - karaoke but backed by a live band. This document is a way to sign up to participate.

You are welcome to sign up in any open box. Please don't erase someone else's name and put your own in! Also please be thoughtful about not signing up for too many slots, especially singing slots (no more than 2 singing slots per person, please!).

We'll have time to do ~30 songs all told, and so ideally that means we'll have everything figured out ahead of time. It's important to know who's playing what instruments ahead of time particularly so people can get a chance to go over the song on their own (in the past when we've done this, there hasn't been any rehearsal beforehand the day of the event).

One difference between this and machine karaoke is that we need to make charts for the band for each song. Some of the songs on this list already have charts, others we might only make a chart for if it seems like a band is going to come together to play it. You can add songs to this list that you don't see here, but keep in mind it will need a chart as well as players to actually happen. Grabbing the chords off a guitar tab site is a dicey proposition, they're often lacking information or have wrong information. We like a high information, concise, clear chart! We'll have iPads to read the charts off of.

Songs don't have to happen at karaoke exactly in their original form. If you want to do something in a slower tempo or different key etc, you can make a note of it. Making a whole new arrangement that's different from the recorded version is hard to do sans rehearsal and not recommended. We'll defer to the singer of the song for basic decisions, but keep in mind that a band might not be able to change what key the song is in on the fly. Planning ahead is best!

You know ‘em, you love ‘em.

+Zwei Null Zwei- Eli Janney, Geoff Sanoff, James Canty, Sohrab Habibion: DC expats living in NY, making music inspired by Düsseldorf and Dorf on Golf.

+Slant of Light- is a band with members in New Haven County and Western Massachusetts.

+Deep Essence- is a band consisting of 2/3's of the short lived mid 90's trio The Great Unraveling (Randy Davis and Tonie Joy). This new collaboration is rounded out by bassist Steve Strohmeier, long time Baltimore maestro and multi-instrumentalist most recently co-piloting Midnight Sun.

+Nan Rando- punky, rocky, catchy, really great songwriting and amazing guitar licks

+Glorious Reunion- angular alt pop. Ffo The Strokes if they were interesting

+Diceholes- Is it country…? But what country? Is it western? Or is it a cistern? It holds all your tears of joy, fear and whiskey. Misery and gin maybe too. The sounds might be a bit dusty (as the kids say) but the heart is full of love and lust (in the dust!) Ladies and Gentlemen. We’re all Diceholes.

+Bull Thieves- Formed in Brooklyn in 2009 by three Texas ex-pats (Lance Scott Walker, Birdlikebats, and Nicholas Phelps), Bull Thieves played shows around NYC and released one self-titled album before going underground in 2011. As Walker pivoted to work on his books about Houston hip-hop (Houston Rap Tapes, DJ Screw: A Life In Slow Revolution) and the other band members relocated, they continued to collaborate on new material from afar. In 2024, Walker fully rebooted the band — this time with his best friend, the artist Joan LeMay (Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors From the Songs of Steely Dan) playing bass and sharing vocal/writing duties. As the core duo of a larger collective that includes the original Bull Thieves as well as Houston producers Stenographer and JGtheengineer, Walker and LeMay play a noisy grade of indie rock that descends from the Texas punk they grew up on, with threads of shoegaze and the rap and jazz/funk/R&B back catalogues that have informed their work as writer and artist. Bull Thieves released the 7-inch "Pasture Kills" b/w "Wild Own" in May 2025, and an album is coming this summer.

+Gladys- Subversive songs about seltzer. With a hint of psychedelia. Exceptional trousers courtesy of the bass player.