NYC

Sweeter And Sweeter: A Night Out With Doc Honey

by K Hank Jost | Feb 19, 2024 11:03 am

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Doc Honey
Windjammer
Ridgewood, NYC
11/16/2024

It’s an undeniably special thing to watch an ensemble come together. Pay attention when your friends say they’re starting a band. Go to every show you can make it to. Listen deeply and remember each one.

I am proud to say I knew most of Doc Honey before they ever started, particularly drummer David Gruber and bassist Cesar Acevedo. I remember when the two of them first started talking about the jam sessions they were having with a new guitarist and songwriter. I’ve written about him for this publication in the past, his name is Ian Taylor, and he’s a talent to keep an eye on. The excitement my longtime friends Cesar and David had toward this burgeoning musical relationship has proven itself in spades. Saturday night at Ridgewood’s Windjammer, Doc Honey absolutely blew the roof of the joint. 

I’ve seen them play several times. I’ve seen Ian himself in different bands. I’ve jammed with Cesar and Dave, and never have I heard this group of musicians sound so good.

Songs beginning with honky-tonk folk feel crescendo into stratospheric screams and barbaric yawps. Instrumental sections split between three leads (two guitars and a viola) wind baroque little sonic vines, all while the cinderblock and mud rhythm section drives their unwavering, faithful tempo into the dirt. Taylor’s reckless stage antics jive in complimentary contrast to his band’s disciplined drive.

The setting couldn’t have been better for this newly revealed bombast. Windjammer is one of those little gems in NYC that feel like they’ve been plucked out of some small town and stapled to an urban streetcorner. A shanty-shack dive with the pool table inconveniently placed, a dart board to duck under, redneck bric-a-brac décor, and drinks cheap enough to lose count of. The perfect environment for Doc Honey’s aurally travelled mixture of rock genres.

Budweisers cold and sweating, we were all caught wondering if the ceiling was going to fall or if Doc Honey was gonna slam Bob Dylan into Waylan Jennings. Either way, something cataclysmic and iconoclastic was bound to happen.

And it did. Over and over again through a ten-song set. Every surprise retrospectively obvious and necessary, wefted tight, and barreling on into the next.

These boys have really made something special together. I’ve only two questions for them. I’ve always only two questions for them: When’s the record dropping? And when’s the next show? I gotta tell everybody not to sleep on either.