club cafe

Pittsburgh's newest classic rock band!

On Saturday, January 25th, Club Café will host the first of a semi-regular jazz night for the 2020 year. The theme for the inaugural concert is “A Celebration of Pittsburgh Jazz Contributions,” with select recordings performed live from the catalog of Art Blakey, Billy Strayhorn, Errol Garner, Henry Mancini, George Benson and more! All performing musicians are graduates or attendees of Pittsburgh-area universities, featuring guest vocalist, Kelsey Hillock. The house band for the evening will comprise of Brad Fritcher on trumpet, Ryan Salisbury on guitar, Pat Spallinger on bass, and Dan Leon on drums. Join us as we honor those who have contributed to the robust and longtime history of jazz in the city of Pittsburgh.

Since emerging onto the music scene at age 18 as a member of the seminal rock band Green
on Red, Prophet has collaborated with everyone from Warren Zevon and Kelly Willis to Jim
Dickinson and Lucinda Williams among many others. In recent years, Prophet’s music has
been featured in several hit television series including HBO’s “True Blood,” Showtime’s
“Californication” and “Billions,” and FX’s “Sons of Anarchy.” He also co-wrote all the songs on
Alejandro Escovedo’s 2008 critically acclaimed album Real Animal.

Through his live performances with the Mission Express and solo, Prophet has developed a
reputation as an outstanding, entertaining live act and built a loyal fanbase from Albuquerque
to Stockholm. His live solo performances offer fans the opportunity to experience his songs
from a unique perspective.

Chuck Prophet is the best damn songwriter in all of roots rock and I'll stand on Alejandro Escovedo's coffee table
in John Murry's flip-flops and say that.
- Peter Blackstock, No Depression

Prophet does an impressive job of blurring the lines that separate blues, country and roots-rock.
- NPR

In his own good-humored, ramshackle way, Prophet earns his last name.
- Anthony DeCurtis

Wayne Hancock
“Wayne Hancock has more Hank Sr. in him than either I or Hank Williams Jr. He is the real deal.” – Hank III

“Hancock, who tosses out a roots mix of old country, roadhouse blues, western dance swing, boogie bop, and straight-up rockabilly, takes what was once old and makes it seem like it’s always been and always will be.”—allmusic.com

“The country music scene could do with a lot more characters like Wayne, who push the music’s limits while staying truer to its roots than any well-known names associated with the genre today.” – Slug Magazine

Since his stunning debut, Thunderstorms and Neon Signs in 1995, Wayne “The Train” Hancock has been the undisputed king of Juke Joint Swing–that alchemist’s dream of honky-tonk, western swing, blues, Texas rockabilly and big band. Always an anomaly among his country music peers, Wayne’s uncompromising interpretation of the music he loves is in fact what defines him: steeped in traditional but never “retro;” bare bones but bone shaking; hardcore but with a swing. Like the comfortable crackle of a Wurlitzer 45 jukebox, Wayne is the embodiment of genuine, house rocking, hillbilly boogie.

Wayne makes music fit for any road house anywhere. With his unmistakable voice, The Train’s reckless honky-tonk can move the dead. If you see him live (and he is ALWAYS touring), you’ll surely work up some sweat stains on that snazzy Rayon shirt you’re wearing. If you buy his records, you’ll be rolling up your carpets, spreading sawdust on the hardwood, and dancing until the downstairs neighbors are banging their brooms on the ceiling. Call him a throwback if you want, Wayne just wants to ENTERTAIN you, and what’s wrong with that?

Wayne’s disdain for the slick swill that passes for real deal country is well known. Like he’s fond of saying: “Man, I’m like a stab wound in the fabric of country music in Nashville. See that bloodstain slowly spreading? That’s me.”

Little known fact: Wayne is the only Bloodshot artist to have had their CD taken aboard a space shuttle flight.

“For me, it all comes down to timing.”

That’s how Tony Lucca summarizes the career milestones that led him to Nashville — and on the brink of his most important album yet.

As a teenager, his time as a “Mouseketeer” on the infamous Mickey Mouse Club came when he was mature enough to understand what the exposure meant for his young career — and more importantly, what it didn’t mean.

In the early 2000s, Lucca found himself at the epicenter of the burgeoning Hotel Café singer-songwriter movement in Los Angeles. A scene that eventually helped craft his critically lauded 2006 album Canyon Songs, which came during not only a creative peak, but after he had built a steady following both as a headlining artist and tour support for his fellow Disney alumni Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez in NSYNC.

In 2012, Lucca burned up The Voice stage, making it all the way to the finals on the back of his electric performances, each time performing as if he had “nothing to lose” — thanks to more than a decade of development and an already passionate fan base. Oh, and Lucca’s season still ranks as the most-watched season of the show by total audience size.

But as monumental as those moments may seem, it was his 2013 move to Nashville that may be the greatest stroke of good timing. Just as many of Lucca’s contemporaries were moving to Nashville to cash in “not on country, but on the community,” as he says, Lucca felt poised for a change. One that included elevating his own songwriting — a personal challenge that is as admirable as it is eyebrow raising to those already familiar with Lucca’s stalwart catalog.

“Truth be told, all roads lead to Nashville,” Lucca sings on his new single, aptly titled “Nashville,” in homage to the town. “You can come and go there as you please. Ain’t nobody waiting on the next big thing to come along if it ain’t a song that brings them to their knees.”

Lucca has spent his fair share of time exploring the country’s greatest music scenes. From his hometown Motown mecca of Detroit, to the hills of Hollywood, to the borough of Brooklyn. Each has made its impact on Lucca, but none quite like Nashville.

“In Nashville when you visit, people say, ‘Anything I can do for you, just let me know,’” Lucca says. “And then you move here and you realize those arms really are wide open and those people aren’t full of shit. They really do want you to be part of the community here.”

Lucca’s admiration and respect for Nashville’s songwriting community, it turns out, was mutual. He quickly found his calendar consumed with co-writes from old and new friends alike. Those include tour-mate turned co-writer and “Nashville treasure” Gabe Dixon, as well as the Grammy-nominated Billy Montana (“Sage wisdom — bit of a mentor,” Lucca says of Montana).

Lucca brought his same workman-like mentality to songwriting in his new hometown, writing “daily and diligently.” He eventually developed a songwriter residency at Midtown venue The Local, all the while touring the country.

Over those formative years at the beginning of Lucca’s Act II, the songwriter again found himself falling in love with the purity of it all. “It was restorative for me on the creative side,” Lucca says. “It was also educational as I really tuned into the creative community and Nashville rhythm.”

Throughout that process, Lucca began “salting away” the songs that really reached out and grabbed him. “Those songs that make me sit in an empty room with an acoustic guitar and go, ‘Yeah, I’d be playing this song right now even if nobody were listening,’” Lucca says.

There’s one song in particular so arresting it became the cornerstone for all the work to come after it. “I wrote something that reminded me I still have something sufficient to say, something that still matters to me — and that was the song ‘Everything’s Changing,’” Lucca says. The emotive, dynamic song became a live show stunner and the catalyst for Lucca’s forthcoming 2019 LP.

After following a long-winding path that led him to Nashville, Lucca spent years honing his craft. In the process, he found the songs that “started to feel like my expression — how I want to channel my creative energy,” as he says. “It took my whole career to get to the point where I just went into the studio and, as Ray Charles said, ‘Make it do what it’s gonna do.’”

The combination of meticulously crafting songs and freewheeling in the studio led to a record that is ready to announce Lucca as a force not just for his vocals, but also for his voice. Talk about good timing.

Sam is a musical artist located in Pittsburgh, PA. His music has been described by himself and his mom as thought-provoking, yet catchy and easy to listen to.

Contemporary singer-songwriter and Cabinet of Wonders impresario Stace pays tribute to the legendary songwriter John Wesley Harding.

Throughout the '90s and ‘00s, which included his tenures at Sire, Rhino and Hollywood records, John Wesley Harding regularly toured in a duo format with noted mandolin, accordion and keyboard player, Robert Lloyd. This was at the very dawn of Unplugged, before even house concerts. Once described as The Metallica of McCabes, the duo’s performances were acknowledged to be the high watermark of contemporary live performance (in venues that held about one hundred people).

Wesley Stace (Yep Roc) has coaxed Lloyd out of retirement to pay tribute to the legendary songbook of John Wesley Harding. All Harding’s favourites will be represented and painstakingly recreated, from Modern Rock staple The Person You Are to 120 Minutes Video of the Week The Devil In Me; via Kill The Messenger and The Truth, memorably performed on the Tonight Show, to Scared of Guns, recently amended and released on Appleseed Records’ anniversary collection.

Since Stace’s critically lauded debut "Self-Titled" in 2013, he has played many of Harding’s songs live, but here he’s happy to let his own songwriting take a backseat to the master’s: “I feel an extraordinary kinship with these songs. It’s as if I wrote them." Harding himself has endorsed this tribute: “I am deeply honored, and glad to be as far away as possible.”

Kevin Spears and Joseph Callahan, Buffalo and Pittsburgh natives, respectively, have been creating, producing and curating music both separately and jointly for some time now. From early ages, the duo taught themselves in the ways of various musical instruments while eventually switching to electronic production as well.
Combining both, ESH the duo puts on a dual show of real and electronic instruments to cultivate both old and new, and classical and modern.