Downtown Albany
Parish Public House hosts Hamell On Trial on Thursday, May 11 at 7:00 PM.
Tickets | $19.04
Hamell on Trial is the musical alias of New York-based folk punk hero Ed Hamell. A one-man explosion, he is loud-as-war one minute, stepping off the microphone to whisper to an enthralled audience the next. This is a dynamic performance informed by politics, passion, intelligence and the all-important sense of humor. His caustic wit and devil-may-care attitude has long been a favorite of anti-establishment icons Aesop Rock, Kimya Dawson, Ani DiFranco and the critical elite inciting Rolling Stone magazine to call him "Bald, bold and superbad!" Henry Rollins says "Hamell is a one man rock show!" He has been described as "Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson, and Joe Strummer all rolled into one" by Philadelphia Weekly and a "one man Tarantino flick: loud, vicious, luridly hilarious, gleefully and deeply offensive" by the Village Voice.
Hamell tours the world constantly, seemingly enjoying every performance challenge. From larger stages and theaters, winning the coveted Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to house concerts and DIY underground spaces, this is a man who clearly loves to play. Armed with a battered 1937 Gibson acoustic guitar that he amplifies mightily and strums like a machine gun, a politically astute mind that can't stop moving, and a mouth that can be profane one minute and profound the next. His performances invoke thoughts of the great, rebellious satirists and social commentators of the past: Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks. Hamell is a great mind with acoustic punk rock mixed with a seeker's soul. There's no way around his obscenity but in that is a willingness to fight for the free thinkers of the world. Don't we need that now more than ever?
