Live: Tommy Stinson / Karla Rose @ Rare Form, 06/16/2022

Tommy Stinson was in rare form Thursday night.   Rare Form Brewing Company in Troy, to be specific.  Tommy Stinson – the lifelong rocker from Dogbreath, The Replacements, Bash & Pop, Perfect, Guns N’ Roses, Soul Asylum, and Cowboys in the Campfire.  Strumming his pistachio-colored acoustic guitar and singing his heart out, singer/songwriter/sideman/frontman Stinson delivered gems from his solo albums Village Gorilla Head and One Man Mutiny, as well as his groups Bash & Pop and Perfect, to an adoring crowd. 

Casual and charming, the Hudson resident has been lately been touring intimate backyard performances with guitarist Chip Roberts as Cowboys in the Campfire.  Thursday, he was accompanied by Karla Rose, who opened the show solo on guitar and vocals and then joined Tommy later in his set on violin and vocals, adding a sweet dimension to his rock and roll energy.  Rose is a Brooklyn resident, and also performs with a three-part-harmony vocal swing trio called The Tickled Pinks.

Karla Rose after the show: “I try to read Tommy’s mind to see if he is going to pull something different this time, but that’s kind of the fun of live shows right?  The spontaneity, and sometimes if it’s an oopsy, we just crack up and I think I get a better response than actually hitting it, nailing it!  I’ve known him for about nine years, and we’re pretty comfortable with each other, and it’s just fun always.  I think that he digs the more intimate, that’s his whole point in doing the smaller shows it seems.  His fans seem to really like it, because it’s like you’re just hanging out in the living room with him, playing songs.  I’m new to the violin and we did a couple of shows on the west coast last fall, and I was nervous, but he’s so patient and sweet and kind and it actually worked out really nicely.  I almost miss it, because now we are facing the audience when we perform together, but when we would go into the middle of the audience we would face each other, and so it was like a conversation, it was really engaging.  So maybe I’ll convince him to angle the microphones a little bit more!”

Photo Gallery by Leif Zurmuhlen