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On the weekend of April 5 and 6, The Underwater Sunshine Festival began with a bang at Bowery Electric in the East Village.
The creators of the festival, Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz and co-founder Barbara Rappaport delivered a sensational set list in an intimate and cool venue. In addition to the festival nights on Saturday and Sunday, Jesse Malin will also kick off the weekend with a VIP set on Friday night.
The Underwater Sunshine Festival is returning to New York for 2019 this weekend. Underwater Sunshine is curated by Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz and co-founded with Barbara Rappaport.
Duritz and Rappaport founded the festival to pair independent music artists with passionate music fans. “It’s honestly my favorite time of year. I love when everyone shows up in New York and, for a week or so, I get to just drown in great music,” Adam said in a statement.
.Underwater Sunshine — also the name of Counting Crows’ 2012 album, which debuted at no. 3 on the Billboard Top Rock chart — is name of the music festival run by him and co-founder Barbara Rappaport. The Underwater Sunshine Festival launched last October with a two-day event, and will be returning to New York City’s Bowery Electric for two more days of programming on April 5th and 6th. Among the participating artists for the April 2019 edition are Jordan Klassen, Eric Hutchinson, Red Wanting Blue, Amy Vachal, Maria Taylor and Roan Yellowthorn.
This is day one of two of the free-with-RSVP Underwater Sunshine Fest at Bowery Electric, and there’s some cool stuff like the legendary Cyndi Lauper guesting with Hollis Brown, NYC punk lifer Jesse Malin, rising NYC indie rockers Wild Pink, and more.
“Counting Crows' Adam Duritz doesn't need much of an introduction -- and neither does his songwriting. Duritz has long been lauded for his confessional poetics -- a lyricism that ranges from agonizingly beautiful to torturously transcendent. Much of the early expressiveness of the Counting Crows was rooted in Duritz' internal struggles with a dissociative disorder that he's since managed to tamp down. But the craft is always there.”
As it happens we are chatting with Counting Crows singer and songwriter Adam Duritz on the very day that the parade is scheduled to celebrate the latest NBA championship by his beloved Golden State Warriors. As it happens the Los Angeles area-based frontman, originally from Berkeley, opted to avoid the victory parade, but he is eager to discuss basketball.
“Is there a shelf life for bands when they reach a certain age? As the acts and seminal albums of the early ‘90s start marking their quarter-life anniversaries, it’s a question that clouds over the steady pour of reunion tours, reissued albums and other celebratory ephemera of a scene that can sometimes seem like one more trick to ride out fame.
But it just feels different with Counting Crows. Perhaps because the milestone is nothing the musicians ever cared to be cognizant of and one they could have just as easily glossed over with a steady career since day one.”
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“There’s a number of advantages to having a 25-year career in music. For starters, it’s a solid indicator of stable employment. It’s also damn good way to turn a summer road trip with your buddies into a cross country tour. For several years running, Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows has parlayed his summers into something approximating work. “It’s great to get paid for your road trips,” he says. “I’ve been on the same road trip for 25 years now. As a musician, that’s always extremely doubtful, so whenever you can have it, that’s a big positive.”
So proud to see Underwater artist “Hawks and Doves” featured by Rolling Stone this past week! “…Anderson wrote half of his new album, From a White Hotel, while still in prison, making peace with his past along the way. Released this summer, the record tackles social oppression, personal demons and the darkness that haunts all of us, offering apologies one minute and anthemic rock the next. Although recorded with his new band Hawks & Doves, From a White Hotel shines its spotlight on a new, improved Anderson: sober, sharp and ready to make up for lost time.”
“It’s been 25 years since Adam Duritz and his Counting Crows band mates released their brilliant debut album, August And Everything After. In the quarter century since then, the Bay Area band have sold over 20 million records and toured the world over probably hundreds of times.”
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