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View ProfilesPublished September 6, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
As a music journalist, I get a little worn out quoting touring bands on how they feel about coming to Vermont. To be fair, it's the nature of the promotion game. But it gets tiresome listening to musicians (often disingenuously) say how much they enjoy their little stopover gig between New York and Montréal. So it's refreshing to encounter an artist who really does have a special place in their heart for the Green Mountains.
"Burlington? Man, let me tell you something ... I fucking love that town," Adam Weiner told me by phone. The front person for Philadelphia rock and roll outfit Low Cut Connie didn't try to hide his admiration as he talked about his band's upcoming show on Saturday, September 9, at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington. "It's one of my absolute favorite places to play in the world."
Weiner has the receipts to back up the claim. Between Waking Windows appearances, shows at the late, great ArtsRiot and playing Grand Point North in 2017, he's brought the various iterations of his band to Vermont time and again.
I first caught Weiner and company about a decade ago when they played at the Monkey House in Winooski. It was as electric and invigorating a rock show as I've ever seen, in a club or an arena.
Low Cut Connie play the classic breed of rock and roll with a hint of indie sleaze — think Jerry Lee Lewis meets the Strokes. The often-revolving lineup essentially serves as a vehicle for Weiner's songs.
Live, Weiner takes the band to another level, pounding his piano with violent, sexual energy as he leaps atop it to engage the crowd, all flopping hair and wildly waving limbs, like a televangelist on coke. That Monkey show stuck with me and many other Vermont fans. I was surprised to discover, however, that it wasn't actually Low Cut Connie's first in-state appearance.
"We played the Monkey over 10 years ago to maybe six people," Weiner recalled with a laugh. "I might be exaggerating the numbers, to be honest."
Fortunately, he stuck with it, and the band quickly became a local favorite. Low Cut Connie's Higher Ground show will feel like a home-away-from-home gig — one to which they won't show up empty handed. Their new album, Art Dealers, drops the day before the show.
The band's last studio effort, 2020's Private Lives, was a double album recorded over months at multiple studios. By contrast, Art Dealers sees the group return to its DIY roots.
"Doing [Private Lives] that way made a huge mess for three years," Weiner said. "And then I had to figure out what the hell to do with it. So when it came time to cut Art Dealers, I thought, Shit, I know how to do this. I've got a great band, some good songs. Let's knock this out in a week."
True to his word, Weiner and his band recorded the basic tracks for the record in three days. It's the quickest, dirtiest record Low Cut Connie have made since their debut, Get Out the Lotion, which was recorded in 2010 in a garage in Gainesville, Fla., at former guitarist Neil Duncan's house.
"This record is a culmination of a lot of things, really," Weiner said. One was "Tough Cookies," the quarantine-era broadcast series in which he appeared at home on his piano, putting together what he dubbed a "soul music variety show."
"Doing 'Tough Cookies' was such a big deal for me," he said. "Not only because it was a way to keep interacting with fans, but it made me do something I hadn't had time to do in years: practice."
The constant cycle of touring with Low Cut Connie gave Weiner precious little time to play his piano when he wasn't onstage. On "Tough Cookies," he ran through a wide swath of covers, from Prince's "Little Red Corvette" to "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
"It was so cool to learn from those songs and see how other people write music. I learned a lot about writing," Weiner said. "And, yeah, it probably informed how I wrote on Art Dealers. But I don't really think too much about my songwriting. I just do it. It's like your sex life: It's not to be discussed too freely."
It's a big year for Weiner and Low Cut Connie. He has codirected a documentary, also called Art Dealers, that chronicles a run of the band's shows in 2022 at New York City's Sony Hall and Blue Note, intercut with footage covering Low Cut Connie's entire history. A testament to the band's devotion to live rock and roll, the film will premiere at the Richmond International Film Festival in Virginia on September 30, followed by screenings closer to Weiner's home base in Philadelphia and Asbury Park, N.J.
"We've been around for over 12 years now," Weiner said. "It's been like running at 80 miles per hour and never stopping, even during the pandemic. I don't really do the reflection thing too much. I'm always on to the next thing. But I'm really, really proud of this film."
As for the new record, Weiner couldn't think of a better town in which to celebrate its release than Burlington.
"There are plenty of audiences full of people who want to look cool," he said. "But some people are more interested in feeling good than worrying about looking cool, and Burlington is like that. I feel like, when I come to town, I can get everybody to loosen up and feel good. That's what I do — that's my job."
Cheers to Weiner and Low Cut Connie for making Vermonters feel good, even all those years ago when there were only six of us in the Monkey.
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