Dave Derby Gig Memory Story Featured in Book for Irish NHS

Great Gig Memories

From Punks and Friends

An autobiographical story Dave Derby wrote about a gig his old band, the Exactones, played in Honolulu in 1985 is featured in a new book called “Great Gig Memories From Punks and Friends." The book will be released soon through Hope Collective in Ireland. All proceeds go to the Irish NHS.

The book features writing by members of Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Fugazi, the Only Ones, Shudder to Think, L7, the Stupids, James Chance and the Contortions, The Members, Stiff Little Fingers, UK Subs, New Model Army, the Cure, and many more artists and writers.

More about the book: "Great Gig memories is a collection of Favourite Gigs. Recalling some gig memories from Punks and their Friends. Reminding us of great times gone and great times to come. Celebrating Community, Solidarity and Hope. All proceeds go to NHS Charities Together.

Featuring over 200 contributions from bands such as UK Subs, The Ruts, Paranoid Visions, Crass, Gang of Four, The Cure, SLF, Rollins Band, Stano, Shudder To Think, DOA, Hagar The Womb, Crass, Vice Squad, The Vulpynes and so many more."

Dambuilders "Shrine" cover

Check out this excellent cover of Dave Derby’s band Dambuilders’ 1994 single, “Shrine” performed by Party Gator. It’s been out a while but we recently discovered it through a mutual friend. We love this!

Check it out here

Reveal Records Gramercy Arms/Dave Derby Deep Catalog

In preparation for the Spring 2021 release of the third Gramercy Arms full album on Reveal/Magic Door, Reveal Records UK has compiled a series of Dave Derby and Gramercy Arms outtakes, demos and b-sides. Look for links to “songs of the day” coming soon.

Check out the recordings here

https://gramercyarmsdavederby.bandcamp.com/

Photo by: Gabriel Wasylko

Dave Derby ONCE Somerville YouTube

Dave’s virtual concert for ONCE of Somerville, MA on May 15th is available to watch on YouTube. His performance consisted of a number of Dambuilders songs including “Shrine,” “Burn This Bridge,” “Smell,” “Smooth Control” and others.

Check it out here:

Winterlight on NBC Show "The Village" S1E2

We are thrilled to say that our song "Winterlight" was featured on Episode 2 of the new NBC drama "The Village." Almost the whole song plays over the show open. https://bit.ly/2CFs7if

Gramercy Arms at Impedance & Resistance - April 15th: Berlin Under Ave A

A full band version of Gramercy Arms will be performing as part of the Impedance & Resistance series curated by the Love Hangover  with David Schramm (Yo La Tengo, the Schramms) and Franklin Bruno (Nothing Painted Blue)’s band the Human Hearts on Tax Day, April 15th at Berlin in NYC. “Impedance & Resistance features full sets from the bands above providing inspiration, interspersed with speakers providing information on economics, taxation and our current political situation”

https://www.facebook.com/events/263492474394155/

Dave Derby solo show - April 12: American Folk Art Museum

Dave will give a rare acoustic solo performance of songs from Gramercy Arms, his solo albums and his former band, The Dambuilders on April 12th at 5:30 PM as part of the songwriter series at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC.

https://folkartmuseum.org/

https://folkartmuseum.org/programs/upcoming

The Person Most Likely to Destroy You

As we are gearing up for making our next record we are going to be releasing a few songs from the Gramercy Arms vaults. This song was originally recorded in 1998 and left to age like fine whiskey until Dave Derby revisited the song, re-wrote the lyrics as well as a new melody for the chorus and was mixed in 2018. 20 years in the making!

The song features Phoebe Summersquash on drums, Rainy Orteca on bass, as well as Dave Derby and Mark Lizotte on guitar.

Check out the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loOzFGjugN4&feature=youtu.be

The song is now out on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and basically anywhere you can get music. For the single we continued our collaboration with Gramercy Arms collaborator/singer/songwriter/artist/raconteur Renee LoBue who gracefully contributed another one of her gorgeous pieces of artwork for the single.

Untogether Single Release

We recently released a new single called “Untogether,” which was “loosely based on recent events” in the aftermath of the divisive Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings. Dave Derby describes it as a song about a person whose lifelong dream is in danger of being thwarted by dark secrets in his past reaches out to friends to ensure their cooperation and hint that he might have in fact have some dirt on them. The band shot a lo-fi video of the song replete with re-enacted bar fights and copious beer drinking.

The song was written by Derby and mixed by Ray Ketchem. The song and video features performances by Gramercy Arms members Claudia Chopek, Renee Lo Bue, Verena Wiesendanger, Ray Ketchem, Lysa Opfer, Jamie Kilguss, Richard Alwyn-Fisher, Gary Burton, Rafa Maciejak, and Rainy Orteca.

Release Date: 11/1/18

Available for download at: iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Google Play, Pandora, Deezer, iHeart Radio, Tidal

Untogether Credits:

Written by Dave Derby (Passive Aggressive Music)

Performed by Gramercy Arms

Mixed and Mastered by Ray Ketchem

Artwork: Original Handmade paper collage, “Overauthority” by Renée LoBue 

Art Direction: Ray Ketchem

January 17th show at HiFi Bar in NYC

We will be playing at the glorious Hi-Fi Bar at 169 Avenue A in NYC's lovely East Village on January 17, 2015 at 8 PM. We are busy booking a number of shows in the new year.

Very nice write-up of "Seasons of Love" here at the Sacramento State--KSSU blog! Read it here

About a Boy features "Always in Love"

We are very pleased to say that our song "Always in Love" was featured in the opening sequence of "About a Boy" last night (11/19/14). Check out a clip here or see the full episode here. Also you can see our music video for the song.

Nice write up

We got a very nice write up in Musoscribe.  Among many nice things in this review, Bill Kopp, the writer says, "The Seasons of Love is short-listed for Musoscribe’s best albums of 2014 ..." 

Gramercy Arms - October 10, New York City show

Gramercy Arms will be playing at Hi Fi NYC on 10/10 at 8 PM! Hi Fi is the site of the legendary club Brownies!

Gramercy Arms - Los Angeles 11/15

We are thrilled to announce that we will be doing a show in Los Angeles on 11/15 at the glorious Hotel Cafe at 9 PM. More details to come.

Dave Derby & Friends 10/11 @ Cuisine en Locale - Somerville, MA

Dave and Boston-based friends and collaborators will be playing songs from the Dambuilders oeuvre is well as Gramercy Arms at Cuisine en Locale on 10/11 as part of the The Cavedogs, Drumming on Glass, Flying Nuns, The Gigolo Aunts as part of the "WMBR Presents Pipeline! At 25: 50 Years of Boston Rock" festival occurring between September 12 – October 12. Check out more about the festival here.  More details to come.

New (old) Dambuilders available

My old band, the Dambuilders, record Islington Porn Tapes is now available on Spotify: The Dambuilders – Islington Revisited 

The album was first released on the Berlin-based Cuacha records in 1994.

Gramercy Arms on Australian National Radio

We just did an interview with ABC Australia's Paul Gough. Check it out here

New things

We just did a live performance of "Novemberlong" on Break Thru Radio which should be up soon. Here are some photos from it.

Also Dave just did an interview with Australian Broadcasting Network.

Dave and Sean

selfie

Renee and Claudia

Our video for "Beautiful Disguise" is up and available here

Read our press release that gives a little bit of behind the scenes persective on the video

Gramercy Arms and director Tryan George have teamed up to create a haunting and gorgeous video for the band’s second single “Beautiful Disguise” from their second album “The Seasons of Love.”
Featuring performances from Lloyd Cole and Joan Wasser (Joan As Police Woman) who sing a duet on the recording, the experimental short film evokes comparisons to “Lost Horizon”-era David Lynch and even Grey Gardens.
Fittingly for the NYC based collective--which revolves around songwriter and producer Dave Derby (The Dambuilders, Lloyd Cole) and musicians from Luna, Guided by Voices, Nada Surf, The Throwing Muses, A Girl Called Eddy, Mascott and others--the video was an artistic collboration between Derby, George, Wasser, Cole and stylist Karen Levitt.
“We wanted to go for a classic 60s French New Wave approach to making the video,” explains Derby. “Before shooting we spent a fair amount of time discussing the back-story of the characters and let Joan and Lloyd go with what they thought made the most sense for their characters.”
Wasser and Cole play an eccentric and emotionally isolated musical duo who are living in a decaying mansion amidst remnants of their former glories. Wasser’s character parades through the house in flamboyant costumes while Cole’s is detached and obsessive. The house—a late 19th century mansion in New Haven, Connecticut—is a character itself. 
The video was made during a small window between Cole and Wasser’s hectic touring schedules and was deliberately experimental. “There’s a concept in there but it’s fairly blurred,” explains Derby. “Tryan (George) kept pushing to take the video in weirder places and we embraced those polar opposites. None of us wanted to make a typical video and the goal was to be almost anti-video.”