Entertainment for the RussianMix Tenth Anniversary Party will make your shoes fly off your feet with the insane trumpet/accordion/guitar trio Sunnyside Social Club. Formed by members of The Stumblebum Brass Band & Amour Obscur, two guys that have respectively been in New Orleans for no more than five days each and those memories have been erased by whiskey consumption.
They have managed to capture the NOLA sound so well that they recently made a NOLA native living in New York for the past ten years so nostalgic for home that she cried right there on the street where they were busking. Classic blues like “Saint James Infirmary,” reworked modern pop songs, and originals about everything from drinking too much to being rejected by a burlesque dancer to having a love/hate relationship with Xmas are all in their repertoire. There's something for everyone, and you are guaranteed to be drinking and dancing. Soulful blues accordion like you've never heard backs up a gruff Louie Armstrong-esque croon with growly nasty trumpet solos and upbeat marching style drums to keep you going.
I first encountered accordionist Matt Dallow and singer-trumpeter Josh Irizarry separately: Matt when he was a member of The Drunkard’s Wife, and Josh as the juggernaut of the Stumblebum crew. Co-founding Amour Obscur, Matt served up raunchy burlesque/cabaret tunes about sex and whiskey. Josh, as leader of the Stumblebums, blasted out dirty and intense jazzy blues through a bullhorn with accompanying tuba and drums. Both bands have been Mehanata Bulgarian Bar regulars. The combination of these bands’ key members into the Sunnyside Social Club supergroup mixes the best of both worlds. Sunnyside, though recently formed, has played all over the city, including Downhouse Lounge, Mehanata, Cobra Club, Radio Bushwick, Red Room, Radegast Hall, rooftop parties, and of course, many NYC Subway platforms.
To round out the evening, yours truly, DJ Poodlecannon (Mehanata, Gemini & Scorpio) and DJ Vovan (RussianMix founder), two mainstays of the NYC global music scene, will keep you dancing with their eclectic mixes from as many of the languages of the five boros as they can fit into one evening.
