Last week Joe Crookston set the bar very high for future Sundilla shows, but this Friday, January 22, Joe’s good friend Greg Klyma will do his best to reach that bar… and don’t bet against him. Showtime is 7:30 and admission is just $10, $8 for students, and free for children 12 and under. We’ll have free coffee, tea, water and food, though as always you are welcome to bring whatever food or beverage you prefer. We’ll also see outside temperatures that are considerably warmer than we had for Joe’s concert. (We have no control over the weather, of course, but after those frigid two weeks we’ve just come out of, I’ll take any reminder of warmer weather that I can get.)
Some people are born to be storytellers. Consider Greg Klyma’s introduction to the world: he was born in Buffalo, New York… in January. On his dad’s bowling night. His dad who was a garbage man, no less. If you can’t get a few stories out of that, you were meant to be doing something else; Greg Klyma is doing exactly what he was meant to do.
Greg grew up in that blue collar town with a blue collar work ethic and an appreciation of blue collar fun. In August 1998, after being fired from the last real job he had, Klyma took that ethic out on the road, honing his songwriting, storytelling, musicianship, and presentation at venues and festivals across the US.
Greg has taken a deep look at his life on the road, and dubbed himself the Rust Belt Vagabond. In his own words, “I’m nomadic and have been more or less for over a decade now. Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit. the Manufacturing Belt. It’s commonly referred to as the Rust Belt which is where I’m from. Manufacturing Belt Nomad didn’t have a meter I liked. Rust Belt Vagabond however.”
Traveling from the Rust Belt to FEMA villages with guitar and mandolin in hand, capturing the stories of the people he’s met and seen for over a decade, Greg has honed his songwriting and storytelling while developing a show that lands somewhere between the worlds of Steve Earle and Steve Martin – it’s literate, witty, visual, sometimes comical and forever building on tradition while seeking its own voice.
Along the way, Greg has managed to release five critically-acclaimed CDs, and has opened for Todd Snider, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Fred Eaglesmith, & Jimmy LaFave among others, shared the stage with Jonathan Byrd, Anais Mitchell, Tom Bianchi, Danielle Miraglia, Anthony da Costa and other friends.
Mountain XPress says that Greg is a “singer/songwriter with an Arlo Guthrie-esque voice who writes socially conscious ballads and acoustic-guitar ditties thick with hippie happiness that assume audiences are both smart and able to laugh.” I’d say they pretty much described Greg perfectly; they did a pretty good job of describing the Sundilla audience, too. Sounds like a marriage made in heaven!
So be sure to join us this Friday, January 22 at the AUUF to see Greg Klyma. Admission is just $10, $8 for students, and free for children 12 and under. You can always find more information on our website: www.sundilla.org. AND, if all goes as planned you can listen to an interview with Greg at www.offbeatauburn.com. The interview is scheduled to take place Tuesday and should be online later that day, so keep checking. (That’s www.offbeatauburn.com; bookmark it today, because we think you’ll be visiting it often.)
