Trumpets and Basses OUT NOW on pfMENTUM

Back when Out of Your Head Brooklyn was taking place at Threes Brewing in Gowanus, I invited my good friend and Signal Problems leader Danny Gouker to co-curate a cycle.  One of his more courageous lineups was a set of three bass players and three trumpet players. It worked, so he booked a recording session in a church. That worked too, so we released it under the title Sanctuary. We think this ended up being pretty damn cool, and so did the fine folks at pfMENTUM who decided to release it. Trumpets and Basses is Danny Gouker, Kenny Warren, and Jake Henry on trumpets, and Will McEvoy, Zach Swanson, and myself on basses.  Album art by the ever-amazing TJ Huff (huffart.com). Recorded at Cadman Congressional Church and mixed by Nathaniel Morgan at Buckminster Palace, and mastered by Wayne Peet at Newzone Studio. It is OUT NOW–please check the links below for a few listens, commitment free.

Party Pack ICE Album Release // August 10, 2017

Party Pace ICE Album Release, August 10, 2017 @ happylucky no. 1 (734 Nostrand Ave, BK NY) 8:00pm. Album art by TJ Huff (huffart.com). Release by Adam Hopkins & pfMENTUM. $10 door includes CD or Digital Download and complimentary refreshments. Full album for purchase and streaming via Bandcamp:

Myk Freedman & The Myk Freedmans

I am a Myk Freedman. You are maybe a Myk Freedman too, but you maybe are not. Lap steel guitarist Myk Freedman is definitely THE Myk Freeman, and he put a band together some years ago to play his amazing songs. Myk has two full books of one page songs that can be played in a variety of styles at a variety of tempos, and still work to make you feel things. A year ago, to the day, we recorded this music in Brooklyn. That day (and most days) the Myk Freedman’s were Myk Freedman (lap steel guitar), Patrick Breiner (reeds), Kenny Warren (trumpet), Jason Vance (banjo/spoons), myself on bass, and Carlo Costa (drums). You’ll notice many frequent collaborators in there, which is a good sign for a great recording. The record came out today, exactly one year after it was recorded. It is good and it is different and I think many of you out there will enjoy it. Feel free to take a few free listens via Bandcamp. If you like what you hear I recommend buying it.

The very fine people at happylucky no. 1 records (mainly and completely Liane Fredel, who paid for the recording, musicians, pressing, and did the amazing art and layout herself) did a great thing for us by putting out this record. We’d love to pay them back in some small part by selling a few of these and getting it heard by the world. I hope you enjoy it! If you do, please spread the word. You can check it all out here:

Party Pack Ice Album Preview Track

A long-standing band of mine, Party Pack Ice, recorded an album last year. The playing on the record sounds great, and I’m currently working with Nathaniel Morgan to finish the mixes. We should have a finished product by the Spring time. One of my favorite tracks on the album had two versions that I really loved, but it didn’t make sense to have the same song on the album twice. So I have released the alternate take of a song called The Stephanies via Bandcamp. Please enjoy the track free of charge! It was mixed and rough mastered by Nathaniel Morgan, and features these awesome musicians:

Patrick Breiner-tenor saxophone (solo)
Eric Trudel-tenor saxophone
Dustin Carlson-guitar
AH-bass
Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums

Out of Your Head BK Continues at Threes Brewing

Some really exciting things going on with Out of Your Head Brooklyn through the summer (and hopefully beyond!) We have found an awesome home inThrees Brewing, and are excited to have an extended run of dates for the summer.

We’ve just secured (and are very, very excited about) these dates at Threes. For May, June, July, and August we will be at Threes on the LAST Sunday of every month. Easy to remember, right? Those dates will be:

Sunday May 31
Sunday June 28
Sunday July 26
Sunday August 30

And hot off the press, to end this awesome co-curated run with Danny Gouker & Eric Trudel, here is the lineup for Sunday May 31. Huge thanks to Eric & Danny for all their work on this–these sets have been truly awesome & inspiring!

May 31 OOYH @ Threes:

Doors at 8:00p, $10 suggested donation

SET ONE (8:45p):

Matt Holman-trumpet
Sebastien Ammann-keyboard/piano
Nico Soffiato-guitar
Sam Ospovat-drums

SET TWO (9:45p):

Michael Foster-reeds
Rick Parker-trombone
Chris Welcome-guitar
Cody Brown-drums

SET THREE (10:45p):

Patrick Breiner-clarinet
Ben Syversen-trumpet
Landon Knoblock-keyboard/piano
Zach Swanson-bass

2015 Updates–Out of Your Head BK, BeepHonk, Party Pack ICE, Lubbock, 65Fen, things…

Photo by Michael Yu, 2014

Hey Friends! It’s been a little while, and maybe about time for me to post some 2015 happenings and updates. Some great things on the horizon for the return of Out of Your Head Brooklyn and our new home Threes Brewing, and some recordings that should be coming soon. Also the music series that I help curate (65Fen Music Series) is off a great start and really has some momentum–read all about this stuff below. Or if you’ve had enough, carry on! Some updates:

Out of Your Head Brooklyn:

We have a new home for the series to occur monthly at a great new venue in Gowanus, Brooklyn called Threes Brewing. We did our debut event in the space with three bands, and three VERY different sets of music. It was great fun, and a huge success all around, so we’ve been invited to return. In the interest of keeping the series fresh, and keeping attendance always up I have decided to just do OOYH BK once a month, but with three sets each night. Might as well make it a hang, right? The new venue is awesome–they have great beer, and are some of the friendliest folks around, so please try to check one of these out! The upcoming dates are:

Sunday March 22, Sunday April 19, & Sunday May 31–lineups and details coming soon. As always, please check outofyourhead.org/brooklyn for updates.

Recordings:

BeepHonk (Dave Ballou, Anthony Pirog, Mike Kuhl, and myself) is a band that came to life in Baltimore after a chance meeting on a night Out of Your Head about 4 years ago. It was so good that we made it a band, but until now had not recorded any music with the group. We went into Ben Frock’s awesome new Baltimore studio Heartwood Sound Studio. It looks like we got an album’s worth of material, so we’ll be doing something with it in the later part of this year.

Party Pack ICE is a band I started in NY, but when I still lived in Baltimore. It started as a guitar trio of myself, Dustin Carlson, and Nathan Ellman-Bell, but after doing one performance (and only one performance to date!) with Patrick Breiner & Eric Trudel both on tenor saxophones, I decided to never go back to the trio. I have a lot of music that I wrote between 2011 and now for the band, and it’s time to get it on record. In mid-March Nathaniel Morgan will be recording the band, and who knows when it will see the light of day, but I’m excited to get it down on tape.

Also, I’m hopefully finally getting the Lubbock record mastered and released. Lubbock is a Baltimore-based dectet that is very near and dear to my heart, consisting of some of my best friends and favorite musicians anywhere. We recorded a 7-track album in January 2012, with compositions by myself, Dave Ballou, Eric Trudel, and Colin Renick. I love the record, and I’m excited to hopefully soon allow it to see the light of day! Lubbock is John Dierker, Eric Trudel, Cam Collins, and Colin Renick on reeds, Dave Ballou, Brent Madsen, and Jim McFalls on brass, and Chris Pumphrey, myself, and Nathan Ellman-Bell in the rhythm section.

65Fen Music Series:

There is a great new music series happening in Flatbush Brooklyn that I am really happy to be a part of as one of six curators. 65Fen Music Series is a weekly event (every Monday night) featuring two sets of music by two different bands. Each week is curated by one of Josh Sinton, Patrick Breiner, Michael Foster, Sean Ali, Jake Henry, or myself. The greater number of curators than normal really allows for a huge range of different types of bookings, so it’s been quite different so far from week-to-week. My next week of curating will happen on Monday March 9 and feature .michael. (Michael Sachs & Michael Buishas) at 8:30pm, and Patrick Breiner’s Double Double at 9:45pm. More information and a full schedule can be found at 65fenmusicseries.tumblr.com.

Upcoming Performances:

And some upcoming performances that I am particularly excited about (please see the performances page of this site for a more comprehensive list and more details about the following):

2/27–BeepHonk performs as part of Dave Ballou’s iBeam residency

2/28–Laila & Smitty @ the Beverley House Concert in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn

3/9–Patrick Breiner’s Double Double @ 65Fen Music Series

3/18–How To Make a Mountain @ The Brooklyn Conservatory as a double bill with Sweet Talk

3/19–Double Double takes it on the road to the Carriage House in Baltimore

3/22–Out of Your Head Brooklyn @ Threes Brewing, Lineup TBA

Video: Adam Hopkins Quartet @ Evolving Music Series 1.20.2014

I had an amazing time premiering my new quartet (which will hopefully soon have a better name!) at the Evolving Music Series. The fine people who run Vision Fest run this series weekly on Monday nights, and the lineups are always worth checking out. I’d highly recommend checking the calendar and catching a show…a nice audience, and very well organized! You can check out their schedule HERE.

And some new music! This quartet is brand new and features Anna Webber and Ed Rosenberg on tenor saxophones, myself on bass, and Jason Nazary on drums.

Free Sounds: Party Pack ICE @ Douglass Street Music Collective 11.30.12

The Party Pack ICE performance last night was super fun…so much fun that I don’t think we’ll ever return to just being the trio of Party Pack. Huge thanks to Aryeh Kobrinsky for putting the night together…two awesome bands followed us, and it was a great night of music all around. PP ICE is Eric Trudel & Patrick Breiner-tenors, Dustin Carlson-guitar, AH-bass, compositions, and Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums. Here’s the full set in mp3 format…feel free to download and pass along to a friend. Enjoy!

Party Pack ICE @ Douglass Street Music Collective 11.30.12

1) Ice No. 7

2) Ice No. 4

3) Ice No. 5

4) Ice No. 1

Upcoming In September…

Hello Internet Friends!

A few shows in the NYC and Baltimore areas coming up in September. Excited to be playing creative original music written by some very talented people who are also close friends. Hope to see you out! Lots of these are conveniently located and many of them won’t cost you a dime! Here are some highlights:

Saturday 9/8–Signal Problems @ Sounds and Sounds, Launch Pad, 721 Franklin, Brooklyn NY, Danny Gouker-trumpet, compositions; Eric Trudel-sax; AH-bass; Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums, 8p, brooklynlaunchpad.org–Danny has some new music for this one, and as one of the longest standing bands I play it we’ve developed some unique Baltimore-house chemistry!

Tuesday 9/11–Out of Your Head Baltimore @ The Windup Space, 12 W North Ave, Baltimore MD, Peter Formanek-sax; Mike Cerri-trumpet; AH-bass; Jim Hannah-percussion, 9:30p, no cover, outofyourhead.org–Happy to be back at the home court playing in this great music series, kept alive by Matt Frazao and Jon Birkholz. ALWAYS my favorite place to play, anywhere.

Friday 9/14–Little Brothers @ 285 Midwood, 285 Midwood, Brooklyn NY, Nathaniel Morgan-alto sax; AH-bass; Devin Gray-drums, 8p, no cover–Really excited to be performing for the first time with trio, which as the name suggests is made up of three youngest brothers. We feel that this strongly influences our approach to almost everything, music included. The few times we’ve played instead of just hang out have been great, so check it out for FREE at Midwood. Nathaniel and Devin are both also playing in a new sextet of mine that I’m hoping to debut this Winter…looking forward to this! Improvisations and potentially some loose compositions as well.

Monday 9/17–Trio @ Kif, 219 Dekalb St, Brooklyn NY, Jacob Teichroew-sax; AH-bass; Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums, 8-10p, FREE–Standards, fun, free! Come have a drink and listen. I don’t get to play with Jacob often enough so this will be great.

Monday 9/24–Trio @ Kif, 219 Dekalb St, Brooklyn NY, Eric Trudel-sax; AH-bass; Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums, 8-10p, FREE–More standards, more fun, more free! This one features Eric’s trio who have been a group since 2007.

Saturday 9/29–Ruckus NYC @ Cooper Union, Cooper Square, NY NY, lineup TBA, 8p, ruckusnyc.tumblr.com–Still working out the details on this one, but be sure to check out the website for this very unique day-long conference taking place at Cooper Union. The conference ends with a massive concert which will feature one of my own groups TBA.

Sunday 9/30–Signal Problems @ Freddy’s Bar, 627 5th Ave, Brooklyn NY, Danny Gouker-trumpet, compositions; Eric Trudel-sax; AH-bass; Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums, 8p, freddysbar.com–Another Signal Problems gig, but this time we’ll be playing the old hits which we’re planning to record at the end of the year. This is an AMAZING lineup with great friends Sweet Talk and VaVatican both playing. Don’t miss!

Thanks for checking in. Coming in October will be more Signal Problems and an awesome new band called Denial and Error led by drummer and composer Kate Pittman on a couple of dates.

Playing the Bass in Recognizable Places…

Here at adamhopkinsbass.com we’re always trying to keep it interesting for the fans of creative music and give you something to enjoy. Which leads us to the first two photos in a series: Adam Hopkins Plays Bass In Front of Famous Buildings. And it is exactly that…me playing the bass in front of buildings that you’ll recognize. And believe it, no photoshopped images here…this is the real deal!

AH in front of the Empire State Building (Photo by Maggie Hoff):

AH in front of the Capitol Building (photo by Ashton Imaging Inc):

And there you have it…two pictures of me playing the bass in places you know. New sounds, new dates, new information coming soon…stay tuned!!!