NYC Scene Report – Ferry Townes, Brooke Moriber, & MANICBURG

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Ferry Townes letting someone know she’s “Still Mad,” Brooke Moriber bringing an amazing event back to The Bitter End, and MANICBURG inviting us to their “Silken Pavilion.”

* If there’s anything people should know by now it’s to not get on the wrong side of folks from Staten Island (I mean … Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to f*ck wit). This rule applies to Ferry Townes, who on her recently released single reveals she’s “Still Mad” at an ex.

Ferry Townes is the performance moniker of indie pop singer-songwriter Julia Gargano, who chose the name as an homage to the Staten Island Ferry (still the best way to see the Statue of Liberty for free), and “Still Mad” is off her debut album, Side Effects of Happiness, which was released earlier this year via Licorice Pizza Records.

Townes describes her songs as being like, “Intense, never-sent letters, filled with raw overshares that one might only say with brave thumbs, but not their mouths,” adding that much of her work “was born out of a need to say things we should, but don’t.”

The video for “Still Mad” features her just a bit outside of Staten Island, as the clip was shot at Saguaro National Park in Arizona, and in White Sands, New Mexico. There isn’t any ferry service there, but Ferry Townes has clearly arrived.

* One of NYC’s queens of country-pop, Brooke Moriber, is back in the city this fall, and with her return comes the return of her bi-monthly Nashville In New York series at The Bitter End.

For the series, Brooke hosts, and joins a roundtable of hand-picked artists who each perform songs, and tell the stories behind them.

The next event is November 9th (and they do sell out, so if you want tickets, get them early), and there’s a chance those in attendance will hear Brooke perform a song or two from her recently released EP, All Heart.

Can’t wait until November to hear her amazing voice? Let the video for her standout single, “So Do I,” hold you over until the show.

* Closing things out this week is something wonderfully bizarre from the bi-continental duo MANICBURG.

MANICBURG consists of NYC native Ray Lustig, a composer/performer who teaches at The Juilliard School, and Italy’s Luigi Porto, who’s known in his country’s underground, and experimental scenes. Combined they’re creating music that’s bold, theatrical, and creatively bonkers.

Their upcoming self-titled album with be out on October 25th via Respirano Records, and they have a video for the song “Silken Pavilion.”

I’m not sure I have enough words to properly prepare you for what you’re going to see, and hear when you click play, but imagine if The Doors had originally met, and practiced at Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s mansion from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you’ll kind of have an idea of MANICBURG’s “Silken Pavilion.”

How could you not want to click play after reading that description?

For more of the best of NYC’s indie music scene, come back next Wednesday, and check out the archives for previous columns.