Craig Finn and the Baseball Project will team up again at City Winery as part of the CBGB Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
City Winery
155 Varick St.
Thursday, July 5, $25-$35, 7:30
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.cbgb.com
Last May, the Baseball Project played the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival, rocking out to a fine set of tunes from their two releases, 2008’s Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails and 2011’s Vol. 2: High & Inside, in the city where America’s pastime held its very first organized game on June 19, 1846. On July 5, they’ll be headlining at City Winery with the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn and Joe D’Urso & Stone Caravan as part of the inaugural CBGB Festival. Consisting of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey (with Mike Mills occasionally sitting in for Buck), the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn, and the Pretty Babies’ Linda Pitmon, the quartet reveals their knowledge and love of baseball on such songs as “Ted Fucking Williams,” “Buckner’s Bolero,” “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays,” “Gratitude (for Curt Flood),” “Ichiro Goes to the Moon,” “Satchel Paige Said,” and “The Death of Big Ed Delahanty,” which come off more as fun and clever tributes rather than a novelty act. “A fair weather fan is not what I am / Even though my zip code has changed,” they explain on “Fair Weather Fans,” continuing, “I might smile and enjoy where I’m currently employed / Your soul can’t be rearranged / It’s so hard to understand / It’s so hard to understand a fair weather fan.” On “Don’t Call Them Twinkies,” they team up with Finn, a Minneapolis native on a song about his hometown team. Finn joined them onstage in Hoboken, and you can expect the same at City Winery, where Finn will be featuring songs from his outstanding debut solo album, Clear Heart Full Eyes, an engaging collection of quirky tales that includes such superb tunes as “New Friend Jesus,” “Honolulu Blues,” and “No Future,” as Finn shows he has a very promising future with or without the Hold Steady, who are currently on hiatus. The evening begins with Jersey Shore favorites Joe D’Urso & Stone Caravan, who have been making good-time bar-band rock and roll for more than twenty years.