Holiday Sing-a-Long Schedule

I'll return to my regular sing-a-long schedule on Wednesday, January 7th. And I'll be adding a new sing-a-long at a new venue for the new year... details on that soon.

Wednesday, Dec 24 - no sing-a-long
Thursday, Dec 25 - no sing-a-long -- Merry Christmas!
Friday, Dec 26 - sing-a-long at Lark at 10 and 11am with one of my fabulous subs
Wednesday, Dec 31 - no sing-a-long
Thursday, Jan 1 - no sing-a-long
Friday, Jan 2 - sing-a-long at Lark at 10 and 11am with one of my fabulous subs
Wednesday, Jan 7 - Lloyd resumes his regular schedule

L

Two shows, a feature about you, and more in this week's FN

All sing-a-longs are on this week

I'll be back at all my Brooklyn sing-a-longs this week. See you there.

Wednesday at 11 at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg
Thursday at 10:30 at Dean Street in Prospect Heights
Friday at 10 and 11 at Lark in Ditmas Park

Lloyd

Family movies: do they still make 'em?

The Flying Newspaper took a two-week hiatus while I workshopped the musical I wrote with Roy Nathanson (and recovered from the workshop). But it's back:

A Scary (but serious) Question in this Week's Flying Newspaper

This week's Flying Newspaper answers a question that's been on the minds of many

Trees near you... in this week's newsletter

This week's Flying Newspaper features my most asked-about song

Sing Back, Brooklyn! is back. Read about it in this week's newsletter

Family sing-a-long event this Saturday in Brooklyn Heights

This Saturday, October 4th, at 11am is the first Sing Back, Brooklyn! of the season. Sing Back! is a monthly event for families at the Brooklyn Historical Society. It's different every month but it's best described as a sing-a-long variety show. This first one is going to be almost entirely sing-a-long -- and play-along! I'll have digital songbooks (that I'll post here and elsewhere shortly) so you can follow along on the words and the chords. BRING INSTRUMENTS.

Our theme this month and next is "home." The actual buildings we live in, yes, but also the intangible qualities that make one feel at home. If you've written a song or poem that fits with this theme, bring it. Write your song out neatly with some chords if you'd like me and others to play it with you.

Reserve your space here here. The event is free and open to all but if you're able we request a $10 donation per family (to help keep these cool events in this beautiful space happening). Give this if you can in person at the event. But most importantly, come to the event. I want to see you.

See you soon--
Lloyd

This week's Flying Newspaper is all about books

Here's issue 4 of The Flying Newspaper, my weekly newsletter

:

Help me make a grown-up musical

Yesterday my friend Roy Nathanson and I launched a Kickstarter for a musical we've been working on for over two years. It's called Trashed Out and will feature his longtime band, the legendary Jazz Passengers. Inspired by and adapted from Paul Reyes' incredible nonfiction book, Exiles in Eden, Trashed Out is a musical about the housing crisis in Florida and the people who lived through it (and are still living through it).

Trashed Out was chosen for a fall residency at BRIC. Best known for putting on the Celebrate Brooklyn concerts in Prospect Park, BRIC also has a newly-renovated space near BAM where they support artists developing new projects. In late October and early November we'll have 10 days to workshop the show culminating in two intimate work-in-progress performances on Nov. 7th and 8th. We have to do a Kickstarter to make this residency happen. We need money to pay musicians and actors, to fund the creation of video projections that are essential to the show, to build props, and to buy a lot of smaller necessities.

Please watch our video (we spent a lot of time on it) and read about our project here. Donate what you can. We have a lot of cool rewards: CDs, posters, two different meet-the-Passengers soirees, and of course tix to the show.

- Lloyd

CLICK HERE to visit our Kickstarter for Trashed Out

The Flying Newspaper issue 2

I call The Flying Newspaper "a companion" to my weekly sing-a-longs. It's a newsletter but only sort of. I do put info about upcoming shows and other projects I have going on in there but I'll also throw in historical tidbits, stories I've heard, quotations, jokes, lyrics and chords, background on songs, pictures to color, and other stuff I find interesting.

There are two versions of this week's companion. One is the general edition and features a guitar to color. The other is a special Williamsburg edition that explains the (small) price increase at my Knitting Factory sing-a-longs this fall.

Come to one of my sing-a-longs and I'll give you a copy made out of real paper.

My Brooklyn sing-a-longs resume Wednesday, September 3rd

I'll be back in the middle in the crowd starting Wednesday, September 3rd at the Knitting Factory.

New this fall: each week I'm going to give away free copies of The Flying Newspaper, a one-page newsletter of sorts. It will have lyrics, stories behind the songs, chords to songs, poetry, pictures to color, news of upcoming events, reading lists, and other stuff I feel like putting on there.

I'm also going to have songbooks available for use at all my sing-a-longs this fall. So you can sing along to every word.

Fall 2014 schedule and details: 

Wednesdays at 11am
Knitting Factory, Williamsburg
$5 a family (starting Sept 3)

Thursdays at 10:30am
Dean Street, Prospect Heights
$8 a family

Fridays at 10 and 11am
Lark, Ditmas Park / Flatbush
$5 a family

For addresses, phone numbers, and websites for these venues, click on the links to the right.

See you thar.

L

Online sing-a-long July 22nd

I'm going to do my first online sing-a-long on Tuesday, July 22nd at 11am. Hopefully the first of many.

Will you tune in? Just head over to Concert Window and follow their instructions in order to buy tickets. This first one is pay what you want (minimum $1).

Be part of history! Seriously. I'm planning to do a lot of these and I need your input on this first attempt. I've got all sorts of things to configure-- camera placement, lighting, microphone set-up, equipment I plug into my laptop-- and really only you, the viewers at home, can tell me whether these elements are working or not. I can preview my performance, check my volume and basic visuals but the sing-a-long won't be recorded for me to watch later so I can't fine-tune without your help. Please help! I want to bring the fun of our Brooklyn sing-a-longs to fans who have moved to other states, other countries, and drastically different time zones.

Lloyd

No Knitting Factory sing today -- Summer session starts July 2

There will be no sing-a-long at the Knitting Factory today, June 25th.

The summer session will start next Wednesday, July 2, at 10am. My bandmate in the Deedle Deedle Dees Chris Johnson will be your leader for July and August.

Lloyd

Summer singalong schedule

First the bad news:
- I'm taking a break from my weekly singalongs for the summer.
- Tuesday sings at Five Spot in Clinton Hill won't happen at all this summer


Now the good news:
- My bandmate in the Deedle a Deedle Dees Chris Johnson is going to take over my Wednesdays at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg and my Thursdays at Dean Street in Prospect Heights. Note: Knit sings will start at 10 until the World Cup ends (or until we get the okay to move them back to 11-- in later rounds of the Cup there will be less games so we might be able to return to 11 before the whole tournament ends)
- My friend Jon Sampson will lead Fridays at Lark (and Wednesdays at Dean St til end of August) . You can find out more about him at cocreativemusic.com.
- I'll be back in my weekly slots after Labor Day

Questions?

You can always write me at lloydhmiller AT gmail DOT com or text me at 9178730685.

Lloyd

Knitting Factory sing is at 10 today -- and til the end of the World Cup

The Knitting Factory bar opens at 11am during the World Cup because games begin at noon. So until the tournament is over singalongs will start at 10am.

See you there--
Lloyd

I'm back + new shows

I'm back at my sing-a-longs!
After missing some sing-a-longs due to South by Southwest and my work on a third-grade musical production of the Tempest, I'm now back at all my weekly Brooklyn sing-a-longs. Info on all of them can be found at the top of the sidebar on the right.

I added some new concerts!
Click on the performance tab at lloydhmiller.com for info on the first Deedle Deedle Dees NYC concert since January and two more Sing Back! Brooklyn events at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Set list from Saturday's abolitionist show at Brooklyn Historical Society

I'll try to add some more links to this later but for now here's what I played at Saturday's show at Brooklyn Historical Society. The show was a celebration of the anti-slavery movement in connection with their new exhibit In Pursuit of Freedom, an exploration of abolitionists in Brooklyn.

Thanks, Red Hook Ramblers, for being my band for the day and turning it into a real dance party!

(did I mention I'm going to start recording an album with RHR starting in early March featuring many of these songs?)

Tub-Tub-Ma-Ma-Ga-Ga

longtime fan favorite, appears on American History + Rock-n-Roll = The Deedle Deedle Dees in full rock band form and on S.S. Brooklyn in a stripped-down sing-a-long version

Down by the Riverside

old American spiritual 

Henry Box Brown

one of the Deedle Deedle Dees' signature songs, appears on Freedom in a Box

Marching Through Georgia

one of my favorite Civil War songs 

Trapped in the Attic

inspired by Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, original version written with fourth graders in Brooklyn

Sojourner Truth

appears on Strange Dees, Indeed, co-written with a kid in MA for a musical about the history of Northampton

Weeksville

brand-new song about Brooklyn's thriving all-black neighborhood, a community that arose after New York made slavery illegal... but pre-Civil War. 

, 

Follow the Drinking Gourd

awesome Underground Railroad song. we played a rock-n-roll arrangement that was a nod to the folky one Pete Seeger did with the Weavers 

Keep the Hate Mail Comin'

brand-new song I wrote after seeing an awful piece of hate mail sent to Henry Ward Beecher. a tribute to him, Hank Aaron, and other heroes who received vicious correspondence but kept on with their important work.

John Brown's Body / John Brown

the Union army marching song combined with one of the original Deedle Deedle Dees songs

Special guest at my Feb. 1st abolitionist show at BHS: Red Hook Ramblers

Red Hook Ramblers, NYC's greatest New Orleans-style jazz band, are going to be the featured guests at the February installment of my monthly series for families at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Sing Back, Brooklyn!

BHS just opened an amazing new exhibit called Brooklyn Abolitionists: In Pursuit of Freedom. Read the NYTimes piece about here here. My show will be a musical introduction to the exhibit for families. And with the Ramblers onboard it's sure to be an old-fashioned dance party as well as an afternoon of education and shared stories.

Showtime: 3pm
Cost: FREE

Donate winter coats at my sing-a-longs Jan 14-17

Bring your gently-used winter coats to my sing-a-longs this week. I'll take 'em to my local precinct for New York Cares.

This week's sing-a-longs:

Tuesday at 11:30am
Five Spot Soul Food, Clinton Hill

Wednesday at 11am
Knitting Factory, Williamsburg

Thursday, 10:30am
Dean Street Restaurant, Prospect Heights

Friday, 10am
Lark Cafe, Ditmas Park


L