The Second Annual Gospel from the Garage concert returns this Saturday at 4 PM, bringing century-old spirituals, folk blues, protest songs, and electrified originals to the Riverside United Methodist Church in Barryville. The concert helps support local food pantries and musician and writer Mike Edison is ready to play loud, play bold, and bring the community together.

Edison, who has toured with bands like Sonic Youth and the Ramones and wrote a book about Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, joined Radio Catskill’s Patricio Robayo in the studio this week with guitar in hand to preview the show.

For Edison, Gospel from the Garage is both a performance and a purpose.

“The best thing you can do for yourself is to do something nice for somebody else,” he said. “Now more than ever, we need to take care of the people around us.”

He talked about tracing rock and roll back to its roots in Black church traditions, discovering spirituals on truck-stop cassette racks while touring with punk bands, and finding inspiration in musicians like Odetta, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie Johnson, and the Staple Singers. Those influences shape the sound he brings into the church each year.

Last year’s concert happened during a blackout that lasted nearly a full week. Power returned only minutes before showtime.

“We were ready to do it by candlelight if we had to,” Edison said. “The show was going to go on.”

During the studio visit, Edison performed a powerful rendition of the traditional “In My Time of Dying” along with a new theme song he plays with his band, the Edison Rocket Train. Both performances showed his blend of spiritual grit, blues rhythm, and rock-and-roll drive, a style he jokingly calls “go-go gospel with the shaking beat.”

He also spoke about teaching at Bethel Woods, the value of music education for both kids and adults, and his belief that even simple instruments matter.

“Tambourine is the soul of rock and roll,” he said. “You want your best player on tambourine because everybody can hear it. It lifts everything.”

If You Go

Second Annual Gospel from the Garage
Saturday, November 22
4 PM
Riverside United Methodist Church in Barryville
Route 97 by the river
Proceeds support local food pantries

Edison says he will bring protest songs, traditional spirituals, and his electric guitar back into the church for another year of high-energy, community-centered music.

“These songs of freedom have never gone out of style,” he said. “Now more than ever, we need to raise our voices together.”