In honor of the Jefferson R. Burdick Collection of more than thirty thousand baseball cards--dating from 1887 to 1959--Spectrum has organized an exciting Friday night event. Starting at 6:00 p.m. in the Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, early-comers can meet William C. Rhoden and be treated to a pre-show signing of his book Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete.

At 7:30 p.m., enjoy a lively panel discussion about our card collection and its relationship to baseball. Panelists include:

Sean Kirst, columnist at the Syracuse Post-Standard and author of The Ashes of Lou Gehrig and Other Baseball Essays
Dale Murphy, retired Major League Baseball player
William C. Rhoden, sports columnist at the New York Times
Sharon Robinson, educational consultant, author, and daughter of the great Jackie Robinson

After the panel discussion, the supergroup The Baseball Project (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, and Linda Pitmon, with a special guest appearance by Mike Mills) will perform a very special set, with songs inspired by the Museum's baseball card collection.

Tickets are still available for tonight;s event (4/13).

The Red Krayola also play a NYC museum tonight (and tomorrow) (the Whitney).

Julianna Barwick and Grouper play one tonight too! Their show is at the Guggenheim where Cold Cave and Zola Jesus (with help from JG Thirwell) also have shows coming up. Tix are still available for tonight's show and for Cold Cave's too. Zola Jesus goes on sale on 4/18.

The Baseball Project also played Maxwell's the other night, but have no other upcoming dates at the moment. Check out the new video for 2010 song "All Future and No Past" below...

Continue reading "The Baseball Project playing a baseball (card) event @ the Met tonight; Cold Cave tix on sale; Grouper tonight too"

words & photos by Lori Baily

The Baseball Proiject headlined a show at Maxwell's on Thursday night. It was before their set over the weekend at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, MA...

Wilco headlined, and Mavis Staples was their lead-in, but there was six hours of music before them Saturday at Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass.

The warm, sunny afternoon made for perfect festival conditions for a series of sets by Wilco-curated bands which alternated between a pair of stages set up in outdoor courtyards on the Mass MoCA grounds.

Alt-rock supergroup the Baseball Project brought together Mike Mills of R.E.M., Steve Wynn of the Miracle 3 (and formerly of the Dream Syndicate), Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 and journeywoman drummer Linda Pitmon to perform songs that were, in fact, mostly about baseball. Call it good, clean, nerdy fun.

With a rollicking rock 'n' roll sensibility, the foursome sang a tune written after a night out drinking with now-retired pitcher Jack McDowell, advocated for the inclusion of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix on the list of starters who have thrown perfect games (Haddix kept one going for 12 innings in 1959 before losing in the 13th) and threw in a couple of Minus 5 tunes, including "Lies of the Living Dead" and "Aw Shit Man." [Hartford Courant]

Mike Mills was filling for Peter Buck at that show and at the one in NJ on Thursday, where everyone was having a good time - performers and audience alike.

I know nothing about baseball or I would've been entertained even more. Scott McCaughey joined opener Dennis Diken for a couple of songs at the end of their set. The guys (and gal) in both bands are all really sweet and down to earth, Mike Mills even requested that he not be "lit like a lead singer, cause I'm not a lead singer."

More pictures of the NJ show, below...

Continue reading "The Baseball Project played Wilco's Solid Sound Festival & Maxwell's w/ Dennis Diken with Bell Sound (pics)"

by Andrew Frisicano

Scott McCaughey w/ Eugene Mirman @ The Bell House (more by Lori Baily)

Bassists/guitarist Scott McCaughey and guitarist/bassist Peter Buck collaborate quite a bit. First, they both play in R.E.M. Recently, both backed Robyn Hitchcock as part of the Venus 3 on his spring tour. Those shows were a combination of opening dates for the Decemberists (like at Radio City) and headlining shows. The band's June 11th show at the Bell House was the latter.

McCaughey and Buck also play as the Minus 5. And, with Steve Wynn and drummer Linda Pitmon, they form the Baseball Project (appropriately, a group that composes baseball themed songs).

Wynn and Pitmon are prolific in their own right. Both just gigged as part of Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3, performing Medicine Show by Dream Syndicate (Wynn's old band) at the Bell House on June 27th. A live recording of that show is available at The Archive. (There's another of those Medicine Show gigs coming up in LA in July.)

The a-four-mentioned musicians pack into the tour van this August to play an amalgamated series of shows, billed as "An Evening with The Minus 5, the Baseball Project, and the Steve Wynn IV Performed by Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck, Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon." Part of that will be a gig at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Wednesday, September 23rd. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 10th at noon.

If that's not enough, you can catch Buck on the recently reissued version of R.E.M's 1984 album Reckoning (though not McCaughey -- he didn't join the group till the '90s). R.E.M. are also releasing a 4-song live digital EP on July 9th, and a 2-CD live album later this year.

All Minus 5 + Steve Wynn + friends tour dates below...

Continue reading "Steve Wynn played Medicine Show @ the Bell House ++ Minus 5 & the Baseball Project touring, playing Bowery (all dates)"