14 FRIDAYS continues with THE YEARS Friday August 13th 6 - 8pm FREE
In the courtyard of the Village Gate
274 N Goodman St. rain or shine
The Years play a garagey folk-rock kind of music, sort of in the style of Peter Laughner, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, etc., and yet really unlike any of these, and completely original. The group is led by the 67-year old Ed Downey, a singer and songwriter who in his career has explored a wide range of music. In the mid sixties he was a jazz saxophonist in Detroit, a follower of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and so on. Then he was asked to play in a Sonics-style garage rock group called the Silver Satans. A boyhood friend of Mike Davis, who went on to become the bass player of the MC5, Ed sat in on a few of that groups' early shows, when they featured a horn section, with Fred "Sonic" Smith playing alto and Downey on Tenor. This pushed him in a more rock'n'roll direction, and the early seventies saw him playing in a hard rock group called the Right On Time Rangers, which at one point played a (notoriously disastrous) show opening for Elephant's Memory, fronted by John Lennon. Eventually eschewing the music business altogether, Ed Downey nonetheless kept on playing and recording music throughout the 80s, 90s, and 00s, generally moving in a quieter, more intimate, acoustic direction, which nonetheless showcased his startlingly original, poetic lyrics, his dark, sardonic wit, and his famous growly voice, and at the same time, moving in a more experimental direction, finally arriving at the experimental, improvisational music of the Blood and Bone Orchestra. But now he has returned to the rock'n'roll with his new group, the Years, which includes former members of the Blood and Bone Orchestra - Chris Reeg, and Ed's son, Ian Downey. They can be as quiet and sweet and sad as a Hank Williams ballad, or as loud and crazy as the New York Dolls.
