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WIB Listening Party #67: Electric Church for the Spiritually Misguided

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

featuring…

♫ Dean Zucchero: Electric Church for the Spiritually Misguided

🍺 Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

OK, so what’s it’s been? Around four months? My previous Listening Party post was a farewell of sorts – my attempt to neatly wrap up the first 66 entries before going on hiatus indefinitely. Didn’t know when or if I’d be back at it. Even now I’m hesitant, as I can no longer knock these out at the steady pace I established in the Listening Party’s first year-plus of existence. 

But with summer now in the rear-view mirror and only some lingering warmth and sunlight keeping fall and winter at bay, it feels like the time has come. June to September often feels scattered and hectic, while the onset of autumn and gradually darkening days tends to guide me back to my desk and keyboard (where I write) and to my living room armchair or the rear balcony of my apartment (my preferred listening spots).

It’s a good time to contemplate an album and a beer.

We’ll leap back in with Electric Church for the Spiritually Misguided, a 2023 project spearheaded by New York native Dean Zucchero and featuring a cavalcade of guest artists.

To wash it down, we have an alluring 19.2-ounce tallboy of Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA.

I’m feeling pretty good about this combination.

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WIB Listening Party #49: Rollin’

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

featuring…

♫ Jane Lee Hooker, Rollin’

🍺 BrewLab Steel Princess

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

“Keep On Rollin’” says the official tour t-shirt.

That’s what I intend to do today. Keep things rolling with another new album and another Belgian beer. Or three.

I live just an hour east of Germany’s border with Belgium. So a quick shot and I’m in another country, where the language is different, the people are different and the beer is just as good, maybe even better. My excuse for making the jaunt this time is an appearance by Jane Lee Hooker – a steaming cauldron of blues, soul, gospel and rock’n’roll from New York City. I reviewed the band’s show at the same venue in Verviers some four years ago – you can find it here – so this time we turn to JLH’s latest and arguably best release, the aptly named Rollin’.

My first stop in the city of Verviers after arriving in the afternoon is the St Raph, a corner pub a few houses down from the concert venue Spirit of 66. Both of them are situated on the Place du Martyr, a once lively square that’s been decimated by the one-two punch of the pandemic and last summer’s catastrophic flooding. Half the stores and restaurants on and around the square are now boarded up. It’s a depressing sight.

A Val-Dieu blonde, potent and spicy, helps to lighten my spirits and reacquaints me with the local drinking customs. The chalice of foamy goodness arrives with a small bowl of roasted peanuts, and after I’ve paid and tipped the barkeeper (the bill comes with the beer), he offers me some peppered cheese cubes as well.

Actually “lighten my spirits” is an understatement. A couple of sips and I feel frickin’ great! This is the magic of beer. There, I said it. You’re in a foreign country, somewhere you don’t speak the language, it can feel intimidating. Some decent hop juice is a surefire way to put an end to that.

A short while Iater I make my way to L’Orchestre à Pots, a specialty food shop that carries a small stock of bottles from the local craft brewer, BrewLab. I walk away with a bottle each of Brass Baron and its more exotic sibling Steel Princess – the beer I’ve chosen to feature in today’s Listening Party.        

So we’re all set. The bottle is chilled. Jane Lee Hooker is in the starting gates. Let ‘er rip.

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