Zig at the gig is a long-form interview-style show. The host Dave Deitke is a full-time Musician from Cleveland, OH. Who plays in an original band called C-level and teaches an adapted music class. Zig at the gig started as a podcast for Negative Space, a non-profit art gallery, promoting events and artists from the galley. The show has grown to include all facets of entertainment, including artist authors and musicians.
Episodes
4 days ago
4 days ago
Interview with Arad Evans of The Whimbrels.
The Whimbrels is an outer-borough masterpiece. The sound is dense, polyrhythmic, hard, and sweet, hooks and riffs to save your soul pop out at unexpected moments. The players’ credits--The Glenn Branca Ensemble (dating to the 1980s), The Swans, J. Mascis--predict the guitar- driven, sonic onslaught of The Whimbrels, captured on their startling debut. A Whimbrels show involves racks of guitars, tuned in different and unconventional ways with the players constantly switching between them. The Whimbrels album showcases this. There are counterpoint choirs, dueling e-bows phase against each other, chunking, poly- and cross- rhythmic interludes, soaring arias of distortion from Westberg and Evans’ strangely melodic and inventive guitar. Evans’ and Hunter’s vocals front a three-guitar line up tuned every way but normal. The ax men are veterans with contrasting styles that come together in a potent whole. The beats are smart and unrelenting. The album concludes with the instrumental Four Moons of Galileo, four short sections with the inner two framed by shimmering walls of descending, slowly evolving harmonies. The title recalls the four moons discovered by Galileo, suggesting the many more then lurking unknown in space.
ARAD EVANS (guitar, vox, primary songwriter) was a member, recorded and toured with Glenn Branca’s ensemble from the 1980’s until Branca’s death a few years ago. He is founder and still performs with Heroes of Toolik. In addition to Branca, he has played with Quiet City, Rhys Chatham, Ben Neill, John Myers’ Blastula, The SEM Ensemble, The New Music Consort, Virgil Moorefield’s Ensemble and many other groups. “A truly inventive and surprising guitar player.” (Rick Moody, The Rumpus Aug. 25, 2016).
Facebook: The Whimbrels
Instagram: the_whimbrels
Wednesday Jul 16, 2025
Wednesday Jul 16, 2025
Interview with : Robert Scheffler
Songwriter, singer and guitarist Robert Scheffler has been called a “songwriter’s writer” and
“unquestionably one of the best performers in the New York area” by local reviewers. Previous
record releases include Needles (EP), Pretty Town and Life of Luxury (including tracks produced
by Jim Rondinelli [Wilco, Matthew Sweet]). His work has appeared on dozens of TV shows and
several short film soundtracks. One song, “Rendezvous,” figured prominently (and dubiously) in
a movie that The New York Times labeled “an unpalatable mush.” The film wasn’t great but it
wasn’t all that bad–Emmy Rossum was in it.
When Scheffler isn’t writing songs, he’s making furniture. His partner John knew his latest
project was all but finished when Scheffler started making trips to the lumberyard.
https://www.instagram.com/robertscheffler_music/
Wednesday Jul 09, 2025
Wednesday Jul 09, 2025
Interview with Chris Stamey.
Chris Stamey began writing and playing music in grade school in Winston-Salem, NC, in the
mid 1960s, in what is known now as the Combo Corner scene. In 1976, while studying music
composition at UNC-Chapel Hill, he self-released Sneakers, one of the very first American
“indie” records. The following year, he relocated to Manhattan to play and record with Alex
Chilton in the burgeoning CBGB rock scene, then formed The dB’s with fellow Carolinians Will
Rigby, Gene Holder, and Peter Holsapple, with whom he made several acclaimed records of
original material, including Stands for deciBels (self-produced with Alan Betrock)
and Repercussion (produced by Scott Litt).
During the next decade and a half in New York, Stamey worked with a wide variety of
musicians. He recorded well-received solo records for A&M and Warners and was a part
of Anton Fier’s Golden Palominos project, alongside an international touring cast that
included Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Jack Bruce (Cream), Carla Bley, and Bernie Worrell
(Talking Heads, George Clinton). He continued recording and producing upon returning to NC
in 1993.
His recent releases include The Great Escape, Lovesick Blues and Euphoria, as well as Falling
Off the Sky with The dB’s and A Brand-New Shade of Blue with the Fellow Travelers. As a
producer and a featured singer/songwriter with the Paris-based Salt Collective project, he
collaborated with Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Juliana Hatfield, Richard Lloyd (Television),
Matthew Sweet, Peter Holsapple, and Susan Cowsill, among others. As a producer, arranger,
and mixer, he has worked with over a hundred artists, including Ryan Adams, Alejandro
Escovedo, Kronos Quartet, Flat Duo Jets, Skylar Gudasz, Branford Marsalis, Tift Merritt,
Le Tigre, Those Pretty Wrongs, and Yo La Tengo.
From 2010-2018, Stamey was orchestrator and musical director for an international series of
concert performances of Big Star’s classic album Third, alongside Big Star’s Jody Stephens, Ray
Davies, members of the Posies, R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, Wilco, and Yo La Tengo; Thank
You, Friends, a concert film of these arrangements, was released by Concord in March 2017. He
currently tours as a member of Jody Stephens’s Big Star Quintet, whose line-up includes Mike
Mills (R.E.M), Pat Sansone (Wilco), and Jon Auer (Posies). His original radio musical about the
early ’60s in Manhattan, Occasional Shivers, premiered nationwide on Christmas Day 2016. A
“songwriting memoir,” A Spy in the House of Loud (Univ. of Texas Press), was published in
2018, followed in 2019 by his first printed collection, New Songs for the 20th Century, with a
companion two-disc CD (Omnivore Recordings).
open.spotify.com/artist/1i7YYagcULgnW5Qilsto1d
music.apple.com/us/artist/chris-stamey/4034250
youtube.com/channel/UCG3O3S8Zg_WJoz2uTt_duig#
instagram.com/mrstamey/?hl=en
facebook.com/chrisstameymusic/
twitter.com/chrisstamey
songkick.com/artists/186319-chris-stamey
bandsintown.com/a/78299-chris-stamey
deezer.com/us/artist/1279457
tidal.com/browse/artist/3611403
qobuz.com/us-en/interpreter/chris-stamey/515742
audiomack.com/chris-stamey
music.amazon.com/artists/B008LPNC4M
@chris-stamey.bsky.social
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
Interview with Bennet Cerven of The Trouble Notes.
Hailing from three different continents, The Trouble Notes blend folk traditions from around the world with a driving, modern energy that transports audiences on a musical journey like no other. Their signature sound, led by Bennet Cerven's virtuosic violin melodies, combined with Florian Eisenschmidt’s dynamic guitar rhythms and Julian Lardis’ powerful percussion, creates a truly immersive live experience. Having played at some of the world’s most iconic festivals—including Glastonbury, Boomtown, and Fusion Festival—their performances are not to be missed.
TICKETS for Thursday July 3RD Negative Space Cleveland OH:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-trouble-notes-at-negative-space-cleveland-tickets-1286009261319
The Trouble Note's Info
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Interview with John Leon of The Royal Arctic Institute. John returns for the third time to talk about The Royal Arctic Institute's new self titled album.
The Royal Arctic Institute is a cinematic instrumental post-jazz group from New York City. They have been recording and releasing records since 2017. Since forming in 2016, the band has been a revolving door of different musicians comprising several different lineups. The current lineup is composed of drummer Lyle Hysen (Das Damen, Arthur Lee), guitarists John Leon (Roky Erickson, Summer Wardrobe, Abra Moore) and Chris Robertson (Elk City, James Mastro), and bassist David Motamed (Das Damen, Two Dollar Guitar, Arthur Lee, Townes Van Zandt). The band name is a reference to the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. All four members of the Royal Arctic Institute have spent decades playing in various ensembles, working as studio musicians, backing musicians, and touring musicians.
This self-titled fourth full-length recording from The Royal Arctic Institute is the first to include guitarist Chris Robertson. According to the band, Robertson is a crucial addition to the group, as he provides an added dimension to The Royal Arctic Institute sound and creative process, particularly because this debuts the group as a two guitar quintet. The decision to present this new album as a self-titled record is tightly connected to the band’s excitement about their current musical direction.
The new album also marks the first time The Royal Arctic Institute is working with Ray Ketchum of Magic Door Recording. Ketchum, often noted for his engineering and recording work on the last handful of Guided by Voices albums, helped steer the band towards an approach which allowed for a rich and fully developed sonic experience. Ketchum’s keen and well attuned ear in the studio made it possible for The Royal Arctic Institute to focus more on the nuances they had been developing on previous releases, something apparent on “Twigs Of Cries, Feathers Of Sobs.” As guitarist John Leon points out:
Wednesday Jun 04, 2025
Wednesday Jun 04, 2025
Pete Francis founding member of Dispatch returns to Zig At The Gig.
Tickets for June 13th.
Pete Francis Tickets for June 13th Winchester Lakewood OH
Long Legged Fly C-Level and Pete Francis Pre- Save Link
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/clevel/long-legged-fly-feat-pete-francis
Pete Francis Heimbold grew up in Riverside, Connecticut, taking early influence from the reggae music of Bob Marley along with classic songwriters like Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell. While attending Middlebury College in Vermont, he connected with fellow musicians Chad Urmston and Brad Corrigan. The trio formed Dispatch, a rangy roots-inspired indie band who became a fixture of the East Coast club, festival, and jam circuits. Between 1996 and their 2002 hiatus, Dispatch released four studio albums and a live record, building a sizable audience through heavy touring and grassroots promotion. Francis stepped out in 2001 to make his solo debut with So They Say, an album that bore some resemblance to his work in Dispatch and contained several songs they had played live together. When the group officially announced their hiatus, he kicked into gear, issuing a prolific string of albums through his Dragon Crest imprint. In addition to solo releases like 2003's Untold and 2008's Iron Sea and the Cavalry, he also teamed up with Craig Dreyer for the 2006 joint album Everything is One. Meanwhile, Dispatch continued to gain new followers despite their hiatus and in 2007, they reunited for a charity concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. After a surprise sellout, two more dates were added, both of which also sold out. Francis then teamed up with fellow New Englanders Barefoot Truth for a 2009 EP, then issued his fifth solo album, The Movie We Are In, in 2010.
In 2011, Dispatch officially reformed and resumed touring and recording. Although the band occupied much of his focus, Francis continued to record on his own, releasing 2013's Immodal Implozego and a 2015 compilation, Dragon Crest Collective, Vol. 1. In 2019, after three more studio albums with Dispatch, Francis left his longtime group and resumed his solo career in earnest. For a few years he focused on singles and EPs like Humble Down and Sun Fuzz, both of which were released in 2021. He also built his own home studio and began self-producing his music. With its vibrant electronic sounds and drum loops, 2023's PTRN SKY! marked a tonal shift for Francis and was his first home-recorded album. The following April he explored his reggae influences on the sunny EP Neon Light Blind.
Wednesday May 28, 2025
Wednesday May 28, 2025
Interview with Steve Short of Brahctopus and formally of Stationary Pebbles.
June 13th Pete Francis of Dispatch with C-Level, and Brahctopus at The Winchester Lakewood OH.
About Brahctopus.
Brahctopus is fronted by a ukulele-wielding vocalist with a passion for lyricism. Three unique guitarists and a keyboard wizard feed off one another for ripping solos and lifting harmonies while the bass and drums create rhythmic bliss.
The most recent release is an episodic concept album that coincides with the first volume of a graphic novel, the Proto Terrestrial Freedom Movement. Available on all streaming outlets!
Wednesday May 21, 2025
Wednesday May 21, 2025
Interview with Ryan Fletterick of Songs For An Unknown God.
Songs For An Unknown God" is the musical project of Cleveland-based folk singer-songwriter Ryan Fletterick. He is known for his evocative storytelling and stripped-down acoustic style. Ryan's music is described as a blend of confession and meditation, with songs that aim for the soul rather than the charts. Wax Mage Vinyls https://waxmage.com/products/songs-for-an-unknown-god-100-miles
Tickets June 13th Pete Francis, C-Level, Songs for Unknown God, and Brahctopus
Wednesday May 14, 2025
Wednesday May 14, 2025
Brooklyn-based goth-folk duo Charming Disaster’s upcoming album The Double—their seventh full-length release—explores the world that exists behind the one we know, featuring songs inspired by nature, mortality, magic, ritual, and literary genres ranging from science fiction to Victorian horror. The new album was co-produced by band members Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris with longtime collaborator, recording engineer Don Godwin. All but one of the ten tracks were recorded at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, MD, with one song recorded by circus music composer Peter Bufano in Boston, MA. The Double will be released on CD, as a 12-inch colored vinyl LP, and on all digital platforms on May 16, 2025. The vinyl will be released in a 2-disc package that also includes Charming Disaster’s 2024 compilation Time Ghost, a collection of singles released over the last decade.
The Double invites listeners to step across the border of an alternate reality, where spells are cast, time travel is possible, plants are taking over civilization, and vampires lurk in the shadows. Adventures in the darkness lie beyond the threshold.
The album’s ten songs include “Black Locust,” a lullaby about mortality; “New Moon,” a magical nature ritual; “Trick of the Light,” a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; “Time Machine,” in which Charming Disaster change the past and start over again; “Scavengers,” a walk in the woods with vultures and bones; “Beautiful Night,” a defiant response to struggles with depression; “Vitriol,” a tribute to artist Thomas Little, who turns guns into ink; “Haunted Lighthouse,” a swashbuckling sea voyage; “Gang of Two,” a true crime adventure; and “Green Things,” a love letter to what grows between the cracks (and its inevitable takeover).
The album features an array of talented collaborators. Co-producer Don Godwin, who has worked on Charming Disaster’s entire discography, contributed bass, drums, and horns as well as engineering and mixing. “Haunted Lighthouse” features Broadway percussionist Mike Dobson along with circus composer Peter Bufano, who played piano and accordion and engineered the track at Cirkestra World Headquarters in Boston, MA (with additional tracking at Tonal Park). “Scavengers” features cello recorded by Kate Wakefield of the duo Lung, who also created the string arrangement for “Beautiful Night.” Stefan Zeniuk of Gato Logo contributed saxophone to “Green Things.”
In conjunction with The Double, Charming Disaster is releasing the second edition of their “oracle deck” (similar to a Tarot deck). The Charming Disaster Oracle Deck contains 72 cards (including 12 new cards for the second edition), each representing one of the songs from Charming Disaster’s discography. The cards feature illustrations commissioned from more than thirty different artists. The deck can be used as a divination tool, or as a visual accompaniment to Charming Disaster’s music. The duo themselves use these cards in their live performances to determine the set through the element of chance.
Charming Disaster was formed by Bisker and Morris in 2012, inspired by the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the American Folk tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret. Together the duo write songs that tell stories about myth, magic, and mortality, using two voices to explore dark narratives and characters with a playfully macabre sensibility.
On their critically acclaimed albums Love, Crime & Other Trouble (2015), Cautionary Tales (2017), and SPELLS + RITUALS (2019), Charming Disaster explored death, crime, folklore, and the occult. On Our Lady of Radium (2022), they turned their attention to science and explored the life and discoveries of pioneering scientist Marie Curie. On Super Natural History (2023), they united the natural world and the metaphysical realm in a musical cabinet of curiosities.
The duo put out two releases in 2024: Time Ghost, an album-length collection of songs released as singles between 2013 and 2024; and Dance Me to the End of Bela Lugosi’s Lovesong, an EP of covers paying tribute to a few of the band’s influences: Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus, and The Cure’s “Lovesong.”
In Charming Disaster’s live shows, the duo combine vocal harmonies and clever lyrics with ukulele, guitar, and foot percussion, with a cabaret-influenced performance style that straddles the line between concert and theatre and has been described as “haunted vaudeville” (Splice Magazine).
Charming Disaster’s music has been featured on the spooky hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale. They have opened for legendary cello-rock ensemble Rasputina, Goth icon Voltaire, and Amanda Palmer’s punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. Their concerts have captivated audiences across the United States and in Europe. They have appeared alongside storytellers, comedians, fire eaters, puppets, burlesque artists, poets, and circus performers. Recent appearances have included Joe's Pub in NYC, Atlanta’s massive pop culture convention Dragon Con, Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, the Rochester Fringe Festival, Philadelphia’s Science History Institute, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, Cleveland's WizbangCircus Theatre, and the Coney Island Sideshow stage, as well as sundry bars, art galleries, theatres, bookstores, libraries, train cars, mausoleums, and museums.
LINKS:
Website: www.charmingdisaster.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/charmingdisaster
Instagram: http://instagram.com/charmingdisasterband
YouTube: http://youtube.com/charmingdisasterband
Bandcamp: http://charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1RjkfhamohczSXjFy5WcZh
The Double preorder link: charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/album/the-double
Tickets : Charming Disaster at The Foundry Cleveland June 5th with Cowboy Princess Brigade
C-Level Pete Francis Tickets :
Wednesday May 07, 2025
Wednesday May 07, 2025
Knox Chandler’s career has spanned for over four decades including long stints as a member of The Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cyndi Lauper band, extraordinary experiences in recording and performing live around the world. Chandler’s also performed, recorded, arranged and produced, working with acts such as REM, Depeche Mode, Grace Jones, Marianne Faithful, Natalie Merchant, Tricky, The Creatures, Dave Gahan Paper Monsters and The Golden Palominos etc.
Knox spent a decade residing in Berlin, Germany, while he explored sound-scaping. He developed a technique he calls “Soundribbons, which he recorded and performed in its own right as well as applying it to different genres and mediums . He composed, recorded, toured, produced, and wrote string arrangements for Herbert Grönemeyer, Jesper Munk, Pure Reason Revolution, The Still, TAU, Miss Kenichi and the Sun, Mars William’s Albert Ayler Xmas, Rita Redshoes, Them There, The Night, etc. While living in Germany received a Post Graduate certification in education and was the head of the guitar department at BIMM College.
Chandler returned to the States to be near family and now resides in the New Haven Connecticut area.
The Sound is the solo debut of much-travelled musician / producer / arranger / painter Knox Chandler. This project is a musical / visual memoir depicting the shift in his surroundings from the urban to the rural, specifically the Connecticut shoreline off the Long Island Sound and the impact of this dramatic change of environment on his consciousness and the art-work that leads to.
At The Sound ‘s core is Chandler’s “Soundribbon” style of meditative, powerfully cinematic instrumental performance on guitar, accompanied by upright bass and percussion which comprises the audio component of the release. The visual portion is a book of paintings, photographs, sketches and written meditations, interpreting nature through technology. The blending of these mediums is Knox’s attempt to make the diaristic intent of his music explicit. The Sound is being released on Knox’s new label Blue Elastic on May 30. The album is available on digital download and on streaming platforms on its own, or the book comes with a download code.
https://knoxchandler.bandcamp.com/
https://knoxchandlermusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/knox.chandler.3/
https://www.instagram.com/knoxchandler/
C-Level Pete Francis Tickets :