Buffalo Nichols Trio w/ special guest Samantha Rise

The Kennett Flash is thrilled to present BUFFALO NICHOLS back at The Flash, this time with a trio!

With special guest, Philadelphia’s own SAMANTHA RISE!

SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2024
7pm show | 6pm doors | all ages
$25 ADV | $30 DOS | $5 BYOB

On his second album, The Fatalist, Carl “Buffalo” Nichols does things with the blues that might catch you off guard. There’s 808 programming, chopped up Charley Patton samples, washes of synth. There’s a consideration of the fullness of the sonic stage and the atmospherics of the music that can only come with a long engagement with electronic music. But this is no gimmicky hybrid or attempt to turn the blues into 21st century music by simply dressing it with skittering hi-hats. Nichols’ vision for the blues is of a form of music that’s intimately tied to everyday life in 2023, something that’s reflected not only in the choice of instrumentation, but in the complexities of the songwriting and the gray areas his lyrics explore. This is music that comes straight from the present, and as such, it’s a reminder that the same shit that drove the first blues singers to pick up a guitar is still present behind the throbs of deep bass hits today. The Fatalist sounds unlike any blues record you’re likely to hear in 2024.

The stakes in his music are largely personal, rather than social; Nichols is singing about his life in the first person, and about his desire to forge his own individuality in a world and a music industry that make it nearly impossible to do so. Ringing through “The Fatalist Blues”—and The Fatalist—is a simple question: Do I have any say in how things are going to go? It’s the question behind so much of the physical and psychic pain in the blues, and in a frustrating age that preaches self-empowerment and shames the disenfranchised, it’s a stridently modern question, too. By playing his music the way he wants to play it, by refusing to give up his creative control or accept anyone else’s definition of the blues or indeed his own life, Carl Nichols has tried to forge an answer. Does he have any say in how things are going to go? Let’s find out.

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ABOUT THE OPENER: Music is your birthright. Your voice belongs as it is, you belong as you are. We can’t be afraid and sing at the same time. These are the tenets and principles that guide Samantha Rise, a non-binary songcatcher and performer based in Philadelphia. As a self described ‘pollinator’ performer, their songs collect and evoke their myriad influences, across labels of genres and medium.

Samantha’s passion for music and community building are the heart of their work; a student of jazz, improvisation, social justice movements and the music that drives them, Samantha encourages a unique vulnerability with their audiences, reminding us all that music is our birthright, and a technology of healing, transformative justice and self-determination.

An award-winning songcatcher, Rise’s music is sensual and staggering in its accounts of what it means to allow ourselves to be known; giving voice to heartbreak, hope and all the spaces between, wherever words fail. Through their music, Samantha Rise invites us to listen for our own music, and to sing in the world we know is possible.

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