Spaghetti Eastern to Close Out Bethel Woods’ Season of Horizon Happy Hour Concerts

Spaghetti Eastern Music, the genre-leaping musical venture led by our hardworking culture scribe, Sal Cataldi, will close out the season of Horizon Happy Concerts at the renowned Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on Wednesday, September 10, at 5 pm.

Since its opening in 2006, Bethel Woods has served as one of America’s foremost music venues, with a 15,000-seat amphitheater, indoor performing arts center, and museum located at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Festival. Attractions featured during its current season have included The Dave Matthews Band, Neil Young, Cyndi Lauper, Avril Lavigne, Def Leppard, and Luke Bryan. The season will conclude with shows by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Judy Collins, on December 4 and 11, respectively.

In 2023, Bethel Woods began complementing these headline shows with free concerts on its smaller Horizon Stage featuring notable emerging artists, many from the Hudson Valley. The lineup has included Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society, an ensemble led by the percussionist who performed with Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock ’69, Mike Edison’s Rocket Train Deluxe, and Guerilla Toss, the experimental rock and punk band whose drummer, Peter Negroponte, serves as curator for the Horizon Stage events.

With Spaghetti Eastern Music, Cataldi traverses three distinct musical styles: acid jazz-fueled electric guitar instrumentals, lush ambient soundscapes, and bare-bones acoustic vocal balladry straight out of the Nick Drake school. He debuted the project with the critically acclaimed 2016 album, Sketches of Spam, which has been followed by many well-received EPs, singles, and several soundtracks for films and dance. The New York Times writes, “Cataldi’s original instrumentals and acoustic vocal tunes have a beat unmistakably his own,” while Time Out New York has praised “the delicate guitar work and the hauntingly moody atmosphere he conjures.” Spaghetti Eastern has been labeled “beautiful, unique and perfect” by WFUV’s Mixed Bag, “charmingly melodic and off-center” by WFMU, “a wild ride” by Radio Woodstock, and “the perfect sonic tonic for these troubled times” by Psychedelic Baby Magazine.

In advance of the Bethel Wood performance, Spaghetti Eastern Music has released a new single, “The Hard Blues.” It’s a killer instrumental that fuses downtempo breakbeats and tribal percussion, with ambient synth textures and searing electric guitar.  To listen, visit his Spotify page or view the dreamy YouTube music video created for it here.

Cataldi will be joined at the September 10 event at Bethel Woods by Irish folk artist Ailíse and New York-based songwriter/producer Ryan Power, for the fourth and final event of the series. In September, Spaghetti Eastern will also be performing at City Winery Hudson Valley, Colony Woodstock, and ArtPort Kingston. Two of his ambient-flavored film scores will be featured in Arts Mid-Hudson’s forthcoming exhibition, Sound and Vision: Exploring the Dialogue Between Music and Art, running from September 18 to October 19. 

For more information, visit Bethel Woods Horizon Happy Hour