Acoustic soul rocker Buggy Jive ties for 'Songwriter of the Year' honors at “Eddies” Capital Region music awards ceremony

Soul rocker Buggy Jive took home Songwriter of the Year honors at this year's Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards (Eddies) ceremony, which took place Sunday night at Proctors Theater in Schenectady; he shared the honors in a rare Eddies tie with folk singer-songwriter Caity Gallagher.

"Thanks y'all, this one's really special," said Buggy from the stage. "I'm a songwriter!"

He then pretended to blind audience members by reflecting the spotlight onto the metallic award and into the crowd. Like a monster.

This is Buggy Jive's 22nd Eddies nomination and 7th win, including four consecutive wins for Music Video of the Year from 2021 to 2024. He performed his song "Make Me Water" at the 2022 Eddie's Awards ceremony, closing with a rap to honor his hometown of Schenectady and the Proctors stage.

ABOUT THE EDDIES

Founded in 2019, the Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards Show and the Hall of Fame serves to shine a light on the incredible talent of the local music scene – past and present. Hundreds of individuals, groups and companies working in the artistic, technical, managerial, media and support areas of the Capital Region music industry are nominated every year. The Eddies are a part of Proctors Collaborative.

ABOUT BUGGY JIVE

BUGGY JIVE is a soul rock singer-songwriter quietly uploading music from a basement somewhere in Upstate New York. Equal parts Zeppelin and D’Angelo and Prince and Joni in sound and sensibility, his lyrics often mine the literature of the past to make sense of the present – from Ellison to Morrison to Eliot to Didion – delicately balancing the heaviness with humor.

Recent accomplishments include:

• opening slots for Macy Gray’s “Reset” tour and Ben Folds' New Year's Eve show;

• a feature as a “Top Shelf” entry for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest;

• Songwriter of the Year, Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year wins for Upstate New York’s “Eddie” Awards;  and

• official and curated showcases at Folk Alliance International northeast and midwest regional conferences (NERFA and FARM).

The artist is a graduate of Niskayuna High School in Schenectady, New York and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. He may or may not have quit his most recent day job in digital communications at an educational non-profit headquartered in New York's Capital Region. He lives in Delmar, NY, with his wife and two daughters.

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Acoustic soul rocker Buggy Jive debuts with official showcase at Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA)

Soul rocker Buggy Jive has been selected to perform an official showcase on the main stage of the annual Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference, taking place Nov. 21-24 at the Holiday Inn in Portland, Maine.

"This year, we received a record number of applications, with 190 talented acts vying for a spot," said NERFA in a press statement. “Our dedicated team of judges: Marissa Levy Lerer (The Listening Booth), Emily Read (One Longfellow Sq), Elena See (Folk Alley), Don Sheldon (Valley Stage Productions), and Lisa Schwartz (Cambridge Folk Festival), worked tirelessly to review each submission and select 20 standout Official Showcase Artists.... Please join us in celebrating and congratulating the exceptional artists who will be gracing our stage this year."

This will be Buggy Jive’s first time at the NERFA conference; the songwriter is also set to perform a DJ curated showcase at the Folk Alliance Region Midwest (FARM) at the behest of folk radio legend Wanda Fischer of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The full listing of NERFA’s official showcase artists follows:

In addition to the official showcase, Buggy Jive is looking forward to performing at late-night private showcases, including Mehuman Ernst’s “Wish I Wrote It” showcase on Friday (where he’ll perform a cover of Prince’s funky Joni Mitchell tribute, “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”) and a set for Ron Olseko’s live streamed “Folk Music Notebook” showcase Saturday.

ABOUT NERFA

NERFA (Northeast Regional Folk Alliance) focuses on serving, strengthening, and engaging the Northeast regional folk music community. Our mission is to provide professional development and advocacy for artists, venues, and music professionals within the umbrella genres of folk, roots, and Americana to ensure the vitality of the community and the sustainable pursuit of a life in the arts. More than 700 performing artists, presenters, promoters, agents, managers, folk DJs, and others actively engaged in contemporary and traditional folk music attend NERFA’s annual music business conference each November. NERFA is governed by a volunteer board of directors that has been engaged in ongoing efforts to make it more of a year-round organization in order to best meet the needs and serve the interests of Folk Alliance International members from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC to the provinces of eastern Canada. The NERFA conference features several jam-packed days and nights of music showcases, song swaps and jam sessions; informative workshops and panel discussions (most pertaining to the business of performing or presenting folk music); one-on-one mentoring and peer group sessions; an exhibit hall; open mics; communal meals, and lots of informal conversation and networking.

ABOUT BUGGY JIVE

BUGGY JIVE is a soul rock singer-songwriter quietly uploading music from a basement somewhere in Upstate New York. Equal parts Zeppelin and D’Angelo and Prince and Joni in sound and sensibility, his lyrics often mine the literature of the past to make sense of the present – from Ellison to Morrison to Eliot to Didion – delicately balancing the heaviness with humor.

Set for a Fall 2025 release, his forthcoming album Icarus Ascending promises 13 new acoustic soul rock songs contemplating songwriting and storytelling, love and literature, and the festering fears of a divided nation.

Recent accomplishments include:

• opening slots for Macy Gray’s “Reset” tour and Ben Folds' New Year's Eve show;

• a feature as a “Top Shelf” entry for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest; and

• Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year wins for Upstate New York’s “Eddie” Awards.

The artist is a graduate of Niskayuna High School in Schenectady, New York and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. He may or may not have quit his most recent day job in digital communications at an educational non-profit headquartered in New York's Capital Region. He lives in Delmar, NY, with his wife and two daughters.

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Buggy Jive performs song commissioned for Troy Music Hall

BUGGY WRITES:

Here’s a short sample of the sonic adventure that was the KALEIDESCAPE event at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, October 14, 2023.

Thanks to Sophia and Sam of Organ Colossal and everyone involved in producing this wonderful show.

Here’s more on the commissioned song I wrote for the event, “Elvis Stepped Away from the Mic,” including annotated lyrics down below.

FROM THE TIMES UNION:

Just weeks ago, Jive got a jump on the Kaleidescape event and made his Troy Music Hall debut opening for Macy Gray.

Jive recalls that a little while after receiving the Kaleidescape email, he got panicky and tried to dredge up whatever Troy history might have lodged in his memory from his days at WMHT, where he worked on documentaries about local communities. Instead, he’s relying on his experiences as an audience member at the Music Hall.

[Buggy Jive] recalls great nights with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Randy Newman [at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall], to name only a few. But Jive seems to have fixated on a 2013 show by Elvis Costello when the star spontaneously stepped away from the microphones, trusted the hall and performed one song without amplification. “The audience was more attentive to that song than the entire rest of the show,” recalls Jive.

So how will that inform his new song? “Well, I don’t want to give anything away,” replies the artist, using a line heard frequently from theater people but rarely from musicians.

FROM NIPPERTOWN

Buggy Jive recently opened for Macy Gray at the hall and was able to experience first hand the magic of the room. “I got to sing from that stage for the first time just last week and wow, I usually don’t like reverb but singing into the NATURAL reverb of that room, the vocals seemed to go on forever and smooth out every flaw. It was magical.”

He isn’t kidding. We were at that show, and his use of the acoustics of the room really became part of the original sound he was producing on stage.

“As I understand it, the acoustics were nice enough when the hall was first built, but the secret sauce came later with the installation of the pipe organ and the curved space beneath it at the back of the stage,” he explained.

Buggy’s original song is inspired by concerts he has personally attended there. “I’m going to play a quiet acoustic song inspired by the many favorite artists I’ve seen at the hall over the years: Michael Hedges, Randy Newman, Hancock and Shorter, Difford and Tillbrook (of Squeeze), Sweet Honey in the Rock and Cecile McLorin Salvant all get name-checked. I tend to go all in on shows with stripped-down performances, solo or duo; the hall is really the perfect room for that kind of intimate presentation.”

Specifically, though, the song’s refrain is a callback to a specific memory Buggy Jive holds dear from 2013. “There was a magical moment during an Elvis Costello solo acoustic show where he stepped off mic and delivered a song without amplification, relying completely on the acoustics of the hall. As I say in the song, the organ is the hall’s ‘accidental amplifier of love and light.’”

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LYRICS

ELVIS STEPPED AWAY FROM THE MIC

On the eve of Joni Mitchell’s birthday in 2013
Elvis stood on this stage to offer love and understanding and peace.
And a failed singer-songwriter was there to learn a few things.
(That songwriter was me.)
Elvis was all alone, except for 4 guitars and 88 electric keys.
And with that organ high above and the curved space beneath,
That accidental amplifier of love and light,
The best moment of that night
Was when Elvis stepped away from the mic.

I’ve seen and heard some legendary
Quiet realness in this sanctuary.
Randy Newman, all by himself.
Michael Hedges, all by himself.
And Hancock and Shorter,
And Difford and Tilbrook,
And Sweet Honey in the Rock.
And Cécile McLorin Salvant.
(And just the other day?
Me and Macy Gray!)
See: you can really hear a song make its case
When it’s stripped to its essence up on this stage.
With that organ above reflecting time and space,
That accidental amplifier of love and grace.
And the best moment of all those nights
Was when Elvis stepped away from the mic.

I was in the front row, parquet right,
But as one of the few black men in the room that night,
Floating around in the back of my mind was the
Elvis situation of 1979.
At a Holiday Inn in Columbus, Ohio,
Elvis lost his cool and also his mind.
With some jive-ass slander of Ray Charles and James Brown
He drunkenly tramped the brothas down.
But in attacking those brothas, he inadvertently
Attacked a little black fan boy in Schenectady
(That little boy was me.)
There’s a time and place for me to get all mad,
But these days I’m just filled with a constant sadness.
Be it accidentally or intentionally,
All your heroes will let you down eventually.

So forget about peace and love
But hold on to understanding.

Elvis finally apologized three decades later
To Questlove and to me via Okayplayer.
We’re all a little wiser and a lot more grayer.
It was just 20 days before he stepped inside
This house of prayer.
Where you can really hear a song make its case
When it’s stripped to its essence up on this stage
With that organ above reflecting love and passion.
That accidental amplifier of truth in action.
“Accidents will happen.”
My deepest memory of that night,
I was sitting there in parquet right,
In reflections of love and light,
Elvis stepped away from the mic.

Following first live performance in years at the Eddies Awards, soul rocker Buggy Jive releases ode to hometown of Schenectady

Soul rocker Buggy Jive has released his new single “Make Me Water” to digital platforms.

He performed his song at last evenings Eddies Awards ceremony, closing with a rap to honor his hometown of Schenectady and the Proctors stage.

Nominated in four categories, the songwriter took home honors for RnB/Soul/Funk Artist of the Year and Music Video of the Year (for “Tiptoes”).

ABOUT THE EDDIES

Founded in 2019, the Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards Show and the Hall of Fame serves to shine a light on the incredible talent of the local music scene – past and present. Hundreds of individuals, groups and companies working in the artistic, technical, managerial, media and support areas of the Capital Region music industry are nominated every year. The Eddies are a part of Proctors Collaborative.

ABOUT BUGGY JIVE

BUGGY JIVE is a soul rock singer-songwriter quietly uploading music from a basement somewhere in Upstate New York. Equal parts Zeppelin and D’Angelo and Prince and Joni in sound and sensibility, his lyrics often mine the literature of the past to make sense of the present – from Ellison to Morrison to Eliot to Didion – delicately balancing the heaviness with humor.

Set for a Fall 2025 release, his forthcoming album Icarus Ascending promises 13 new acoustic soul rock songs contemplating songwriting and storytelling, love and literature, and the festering fears of a divided nation.

Recent accomplishments include:

• opening slots for Macy’s Gray’s “Reset” tour kickoff in Troy, New York and Ben Folds' New Year's Eve show in Saratoga Springs, New York;

• a feature as a “Top Shelf” entry for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest; and

• Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year wins for Upstate New York’s “Eddie” Awards.

The artist is a graduate of Niskayuna High School in Schenectady, New York and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. He may or may not have quit his most recent day job in digital communications at an educational non-profit headquartered in New York's Capital Region. He lives in Delmar, NY, with his wife and two daughters.

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New York State Writers Institute presents songwriter forum with Buggy Jive, Taina Asili, Michael Eck and Buggy Jive

FROM THE NYS WRITERS INSTITUTE:

The Art of Songwriting:
Taina Asili, Michael Eck, Bryan “Dr. Buggy Jive” Thomas
Friday, April 26, 2019 7 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, University at Albany Downtown Campus.

The Capital Region’s most acclaimed singer-songwriters talk about the challenges and pleasures of their work. Free and open to the public.

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Taina Asili, musician and activist, is the leader of local AfroLatin fusion group, La Banda Rebelde. Billboard featured her in a list of “11 Songs of Protest & Resistance by Latino Artists,” and The Huffington Post named her #2 on a list of “12 Freedom Fighting Bands To Get You Through the Trump Years.” Her songs are frequently featured on Democracy Now!

Michael Eck, writer, musician and host of WAMC’s American Roots Series, has produced four solo albums and is a member of several local bands. The Village Voice said, “Somewhere between lovelorn cowpoke and sardonic folkster is nose-pierced Albany NY dad Michael Eck, whose sharp lyrics and quick-witted guitar reflect all over like a broken mirror and shine with liberation like a tossed-aside wedding ring.”

Bryan “Buggy Jive” Thomas evokes Prince and Lenny Kravitz, but with a strong literary hook. The Times Union named him “Best Male Singer-Songwriter” for his 1999 acoustic hip-hop debut, “Radio Plastic Jennifer,” and his soul rock epic “Ones and Zeros” was Metroland’s 2002 “Album of the Year.” His new music video, “Stole My Stealing from Eliot,” a quirky homage to T. S. Eliot shot in London, Paris and Albany, is available on YouTube.

We join the Capital Region music community in mourning the passing of musician and journalist Greg Haymes, who died Wednesday, April 10. Greg had been scheduled with Taina, Michael, and Bryan on our Art of Songwriting panel discussion.

NOTES FROM THE BUNKER: ‘How to Write Another Song About the Moon’

BUGGY WRITES:

A few weeks ago, during the Super Worm Moon phenomenon, a back-and-forth in casual conversation presented itself as a possible song lyric.

Even as I was improvising a quick melody into my iPhone, I was asking myself, “Am I really writing yet another song about the moon?”

So: How to Write ‘Another Song About the Moon’ is a new, short film about building a song from scratch, starting with only a click and a quasi-improvised vocal track.

It condenses 4 hours of fly-on-the-wall studio footage down to about 4 minutes, immediately followed by the official music video.

J. Eric Smith wrote some beautiful words about the song.

“Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.” – Joni Mitchell

For Caroline and Greg.

NOTES FROM THE BUNKER: Black Spaces

BUGGY WRITES:

Last year they briefly let me out of the hole to take the train down to New York City to see Ava DuVernay in conversation with Jelani Cobb as part of the New Yorker Festival.

“Black Spaces” – the opening track on the Buggy Jive Mixtape – was inspired by that conversation, in a happy mashup of references to Selma and Compton and Camazotz, and written on the train back upstate.

Shhhhh.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Buggy Jive (@buggyjive)

Buggy Jive · Black Spaces (for Ava Duvernay)

It’s also available on Spotify, if that’s your thang.

Here’s the Duvernay/Cobb convo.

And if this clip doesn’t make you cry, I don’t know what will.

Cheers to the heroes.

NOTES FROM THE BUNKER: “Connoisseur”

Today they let me out of the hole to visit the museum. An hour’s drive into Western Mass.

I pictured it being homier. Old-timey. Like the house in “American Gothic”.

(Yes, I know he didn’t paint “American Gothic”.)

But still: it is a museum. High-ceilings. Long grey walls. Light from above.

Ropes.

I am eyeing “Connoisseur” when she approaches me.

All along the walls of this room it is Rockwell vs The Abstract.  And coming out the other end.

But “Connoisseur” is the center of this exhibit.

“I don’t understand. Did he do these, too?”

I think for a bit. I only know what I have read on the accompanying placards. Skimmed, really.

“I think these are just examples of him playing with abstract art. Since he wasn’t in that world.”

Quiet.

“So he was trying to figure what the painting within the painting would look like. They’re studies.”

I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about. But I’m just summarizing what’s on the card.

The card is right there. Right in front of her face.

But: she asked me.

And: there’s something I don’t understand myself. Which may be the source of her confusion.

“The end result was more like Pollock, though. These aren’t very Pollocky. Maybe there’s some missing link paintings we’re not seeing.”

My sentences rise at the end as if I’m asking a question. Now I look more confused than she does.

And now, she is not confused at all. She is absolutely certain.

“We need this.”

I smile. And nod. But I’m not catching her meaning. She continues.

“We need him. This. All of it. ‘The Four Freedoms”… the Lincolns… the one about the Peace Corps…”

She does not mention “New Kids in the Neighborhood” or “The Problem We All Live With”. I hear those titles in her ellipses.

“People of all different backgrounds getting along, helping each other out. We need this.”

Yet: I do not hear say “Southern Justice” in her ellipses.

Still: I have no response. I just smile and nod.

I have been unable to approach “New Kids in the Neighborhood” and “The Problem We All Live With”. Indeed, I have been the new kid in the neighborhood, I have lived the problem we all live with. My entire life. Indeed, I am the, ahem, “new” kid in this museum today. The only, only one.

So I have passed by those particular paintings more than once on my way through the museum today, more intrigued by the people who’ve been able to stop and stare and contemplate the failure of it all without knees giving way, without smashing to the floor, without dissolving into a puddle of their own tears.

“I like your hair,” she says. “It’s very Basquiat.”

I laugh. “I just cut it back yesterday. So it’ll be a month or so before I can bring it up into a bun like he did.”

“No, no bun. I like it just the way it is. Beautiful curls.”

I want to make a joke to draw a parallel to my hair and Basquiat with Rockwell and Pollock. Like: it’s a study. Hair Connoisseur. Or something.

But instead: more quiet.

“Are you an artist?”

“Visual, no.”

Quiet.

“Just… a connoisseur.”

There’s a joke. Smaller. She laughs.

“Music. I make music. Songs. I try to, anyway.”

“Music. Of course.”

Quiet.

“Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“Nice meeting you, too.”

We awkwardly step away from each other.

“To ‘The Four Freedoms,’ I say, raising an imaginary glass for a toast.

“Yes, to ‘The Four Freedoms.’ Have a good day.”

NOTES FROM THE BUNKER: “I am an invisible man”

my hole is warm and full of light

yes, it is full of light

there is no brighter spot in all of upstate new york

you can’t make me come out you can’t make me ha ha

you can’t make me ha ha ha ha ha

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Buggy Jive · Lights