Eric Margan

The Blues Will Have To Do - Live

2009-06-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Blues Will Have To Do - Eric Margan & The Red Lions from Green Grass Reality on Vimeo.

WAMC Review

2009-06-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

"When they started at 7PM there were already around 40+ people in the room. By the time they had finished playing “Midnight Book”, the audience count had swelled to at least 60+ people! Eric’s vision of cinematic chamber pop was carried out by a well prepped band, which seemed to need minimal directoral cues. I have to say the string section duo and flutist added an animated & eye-catching visual to what was a generally laid back but professional band presence. It was a very appreciative audience."

Andy Gregory

Christian Rich

2009-05-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Watch the new video from Christian Rich, the Electronica-Hip Hop-R&B-Pop group that Eric and Jim play bass and drums with. The video is on MTV2 and the live band is phenomenal. We're playing Webster Hall in NYC on June 9th and The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on June 20th.

Christian Rich - Famous Girl from CHRISTIAN RICH on Vimeo.

Why I love playing in Ithaca.

2009-05-10T17:16:00.001-07:00

Damn, Ithaca!

2009-05-09T17:12:00.001-07:00

You guys know how to rock.

Rev Hall, The Linda

2009-04-26T12:50:00.001-07:00

Hey, thanks to everyone that came out to the show last night at Rev Hall! It was arguably our best performance to date. We will be playing a radio show for CRUMBS Nite Out at The Linda on June 25. It will be a live performance in front of a studio audience for about an hour. Howard Glassman is the host and will interview the band after every two songs. The episode is then professionally mixed and aired on WAMC then posted on CRUMBS.net to stream. Check out the Linda at: wamcarts.org

Cooking with The Red Lions

2009-04-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Phil Spector

2009-04-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Phil Spector, legendary record producer responsible for the famous "wall of sound," was found guilty of 2nd degree murder today.

For the past two weeks I've been listening repeatedly to Leonard Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man", which was produced by Spector. I first heard it at Landon Marcus' house and it really blew me away. Not to mention that it has inspired some great ideas for arrangements and sounds to use in the future.

Upon reading the news, I looked at all of Spector's credits on Wikepedia. I didn't realize that Spector turned the abandoned Beatles recordings of the "Get Back" sessions into an album:"Let It Be", which featured his extensive arrangements and reworked versions of the songs. He's done some astounding work, most of which I haven't even listened to yet.

It's troubling that madness can exist in someone so talented... I will still regard him as a genius, of course. I suppose he's just a bit crazy, too.

Mark S. Tucker reviews "Midnight Book"

2009-04-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange by Mark S. Tucker

There are a number of what we can quite easily categorize as 'most intelligent musics' in the Western culture—and, by extension, on the planet. Progressive rock is one of them. In its heyday, it spawned the Moody Blues, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Yes, Genesis, and an august catalogue of overachievers. Progrock fused multiple modes to come up with a rock-based genre that has persisted as an extremely influential catalyst still growing in its latter-day effects (though itself generically on the wane). In Midnight Book, 22-year old Eric Margan is living proof that the mode inspires superior craftsmanship and processes. He woodshedded in a prog ensemble and then left to put together this extravagant pageant rightly described by promo lit as magnificent, massive, grandiose, and cinematic.

The disc isn't progrock but much more an elaborate example of vaulting pop prog primed to transform the charts on a level with something Danny Elfman might produce. Midnight Book is brilliantly informed by Impressionism, classic rock, and chamber and adagio musics with a dash of smoky nightclub jazz, a form perfectly suited to his often whispery voice. Expect Stravinsky to spice the slow sonics, Gershwin to walk side by side with rapture, Ravel to pull in fog and rain, and Weill to spike the decadence factor throughout a conceptually based song cycle revolving around love, loss, anomie, and desperation. The large session crew, satisfyingly aided by a prog staple, the mellotron, orchestrates the suite as a seamless chaptered processional almost an opera.

The arrangements here are way above average, the quality that most puts Margan in an Elfman stratum, though I'd sift that through E.S. Posthumous and Tony Carey. The strength of his technical talents matches the passion of the intuitive, both promising that, with a debut this overwhelming, his is a name we'll be hearing much more of as the years go by. Hollywood should be snapping Margan up as though he were flowing gold. Not only are the lyrical qualities of Midnight Book many pegs above the crowd, but the guy also plays everydamnthing: guitar, contrabass, vibes, Hammond, flute, celeste, harpsichord, harmonium, and mellotron. Existential romance by way of Byronic refrains has rarely been this evocatively stated.

We're big in the Netherlands.

2009-04-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

The following is a post from "Here Comes The Flood", a blog in the Netherlands.

Eric Margan likes to tell stories with his music. He is the leader, resident multi-instrumentalist, and composer of Eric Margan & The Red Lions, a New York band that is all about careful arrangements and lush melodies enhanced by strings and brass.

The recording of the Midnight Book album took two years, which might have hampered the continuity of the sound, but the songs flow into each other with ease, forming a lazy flowing river with dangerous undertows. Captain Margan pilots his ship and tells the passengers what has happened. It is sad story about a marriage that ends in tragedy, but with his gift for soothing music you keep listening.

Taking cues from the classics (using the drowning of Ophelia in Old Man River) and 60s pop (The Blues Will Have To Do) this album is on a par with The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love. Margan is only 22 and he is already writing major league music.

Daily Freeman reviews Midnight Book

2009-04-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

Red Lions offer sophisticated ‘Midnight Book’

Check out my friends

2009-03-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

I went out to dinner with Tom Desisto last night, the legendary recording guru who co-produced and mixed "Midnight Book." If you aren't familiar with his work and studio, be sure to check out desistomusic.com.

We're also scheduling a band photo shoot with Jenny Brover, who is an amazing photographer. Check out her work at jennybrover.com.

CD RELEASE DAY!

2009-03-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! "Midnight Book" is officially released. If you live in upstate NY, you can buy them at The College of Saint Rose Bookstore in Albany NY or Golden Harvest Farms in Valatie NY. I'll have more retailers selling them on consignment in the next few weeks. If you own a business or work at a place that would sell CDs, please email me!

We also have a mail-order store: visit cdbaby.com/emarganrl or our Paypal store, which also has t-shirts available!

Also, tonight I'll be doing a solo acoustic set at Banjo Jim's in NYC. I'll be playing precisely at 8:20, and I'll have CDs with me. See you there?

Midnight Book CD Release show a success!

2009-03-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who came out to the show in Albany on Friday night. We all had a great time and enjoyed playing for you. Our next show in Albany is on April 3rd with the great "Ashley Pond Band", Jared Funari, and an old friend of mine, Roger Mason's band "Jets and Snakes". Hope to see you there, and check back for photos from the show!

Pre-CD Release Party at Bowery Poetry Club-NYC

2009-02-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

The February 21 pre-CD release party will take place at the Bowery Poetry Club at 308 Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. Eric Margan and the Red Lions will take the stage and introduce the theatrical tale that is the Midnight Book. Attendees will get a sneak peek chance at advanced copies of the Midnight Book release. A second release show has also been scheduled for March 13, 2009, at Valentines, in Albany, New York.

Tickets at the Bowery Poetry Club are available for $10.00 at the door. Eric Margan and the Red Lions will perform at 10:00p.m. For ticketing and event details visit www.bowerypoetry.com or 212-614-0505.

Midnight Book - NeuFutur Review

2009-02-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

http://neufutur.com/?p=7054

Posted by James for neufutur.com

There are a number of acts that are currently creating music right now that I would call good, but I would have to downgrade them to “passable” just so I could get the proper amount of distance to the “great” that I would assess to Eric Margan & The Red Lions. “Midnight Book” should be seen as a “must-have” album, right alongside the discographies of Frank Black, Cake, and Sonic Youth. Without one hint of weakness here, the album should be taken as a singular entity, with song titles acting only as markers for individuals. Seriously, “Midnight Book” is the best album I’ve heard in 2009, and I believe that will still be the case in late December, as well.

“An Ocean Blue” is the first track on “Midnight Book”, and the solid nature of the track is exactly what is needed to ensnare listeners and ensure that they will stick with the album through all its different tacks, approaches, and general twists and turns. The track itself is important due to its opening position, but even if the song ended the disc it would be interesting. “Bay of Naples” has a panoply of different actions taking place in its borders. The quiet, almost-whispered vocals hide amongst the softly-strummed guitar, while the much more voracious piano line threatens to swallow up the lower
end occupied by the aforementioned pieces. Amongst these different sounds, a harmony is reached that would easily make it onto alternative and college radio stations, right alongside the Devendra Banhart and DiChristina releases.

“You Are A Ghost” has more pomp and circumstance to it than prior tracks on “Midnight Book”; the track links together 19th century musical styles with jazz and even a Voltaire (singer) type of braggadocio. It is really the instrumentation that shines the brightest during “You Are A Ghost”, even if the vocals are coy and call listeners like the mythical Siren; the bouncy instrumentation here hides a tight arrangement that will keep with listeners well after the disc is put down. “I’ll Never Know” immediately pushes the instrumentation into the laps of the listeners; while the dramatic swell of the band fades away soon after, the vocals here pull double duty in providing lyrical direction and harmony abound.

Top Tracks: Without the Sun, Midnight Book

Rating: 9.4/10

Eric Margan & The Red Lions – Midnight Book / 2009 Self / 12 Tracks /

Red Lions Roar - Times Union Review

2007-12-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

My fave new local music discovery of the past month is Eric Margan and the Red Lions, who were simply fabulous at Valentine's two weeks ago, opening for Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned. Elegant, sophisticated and refreshingly open-hearted, singer-guitarist Margan pens wonderfully literate and melodically inventive songs that he has orchestrated for a most unusual but oh-so effective ensemble of musicians featuring drums, bass, keyboards, violin and two flutes. This is chamber music for the 21st century, and it simply sparkles.

Margan and the Red Lions next step into the spotlight at Red Square (388 Broadway, Albany) at 8 p.m. Friday, where they'll share the stage with hometown heroes Palatypus, Brooklyn's Basement Band and Boston folk-rockers Grimis. If you'd like to hear a taste before then, log on to http://www.myspace. com/theredlions.

Greg Haymes can be reached at 454-5742 or by e-mail at ghaymes@timesunion.

Seeger Recording Session

2007-10-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Pete Seeger recording session
Current mood: excited
Category: Music

I'm going to be playing bass on a 2-day recording session at the Clubhouse in Rhinebeck NY with Pete Seeger and another folk singer named Roland. Pete Seeger is going to play banjo. Be sure to check out Pete Seeger on Wikipedia. He wrote classic songs such as "Turn, turn, turn" and "Where have all the flowers gone" as well as being a recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.

Left to Right: Pete Seeger and Roland.

Pete Seeger in 1944. (Note Eleanor Roosevelt in the crowd)

John Lennon Songwriter Scholarship

2007-02-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Good news.... I am one of two state finalists from New York in the 2007 John Lennon Scholarship. The only bad part is I have to wait until the summer to know if I win anything... but if you feel like looking at the list, it's right here.

Oh, and I am recording a couple new songs... they're not quite done yet. I'll post a bulletin when they're up.

The Plan

2007-01-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

I currently have about six more songs in the process of being written/recorded. I'd like to have them finished by May, at which time I will start putting a band together to play them live, hopefully in NYC. The needed instrumentation will likely be: 1 drummer, 1 bassist, 1-2 violinists, 1 cellist, 1 flutist.