Weekend Music Picks

Here are musician Ken Beasley’s top music picks on the Lower East Side for this weekend:

ALEX AND JANEL – Fri, Nov. 4 | 11PM at Rockwood Music Hall

NYC has spawned countless musical teams and collaborations through the generations, which as an artist, is one of the benefits of living here. You never know with whom you’ll cross paths and share a profound musical connection. Broadway veteran Alex Brumel and accomplished jazz singer Janel Elizabeth are two who have experienced this very thing. After getting together to play some songs for fun, they both felt that they had sparked something great, and have never looked back. As Alex and Janel, they perform and record tunes laced with easy-breezy melodies, tight vocal harmonies and unexpected chord structures.   FREE//196 Allen St. 

CAROLINE SMITH & THE GOODNIGHT SLEEPS – Sat Nov. 12 І 10pm at The Living Room

Based in Minneapolis, Minn., song-spinner Caroline Smith and her dynamically dynamite band The Goodnight Sleeps add potency to a musical movement that has grown over the last 10 years–the mixture of traditional Americana songwriting with the contemporary context of young, urban experiences. The band is quite appropriately named, as the soft touch over their arrangements along with Smith’s timeless vocal style certainly conjures visions of fluffy feather pillows and starry bedroom ceilings.   FREE//154 Ludlow St.

TELETEXTILE – Sun, Nov. 13 | 10:30PM at The Mercury Lounge

Pamela Martinez is a multi-instrumentalist in the truest sense of the word. Martinez plays violin, piano, harp and guitar. Teletextile is a musical project she created, and it is the perfect vessel in which she can explore space and time with each one of those instruments. Swaying back and forth between happy and dark, song and score, Martinez has often said that listeners should close their eyes when listening to her compositions, and let themselves be swept along their own musical journey, creating their own story to the sounds they hear. $10 //217 E Houston St

Splitting his time between performing and producing, contributor Ken Beasley primarily plays with his own roots/rock band, Ken Beasley & Co., as well as the power punk outfit, Missy Sport, while also curating the Underground at the Abrons music series on the Lower East Side.