Richard Lloyd & the Sufi-Monkey Trio Legendary guitarist, founder of Television Plays here Friday at 4pm and at 9:30pm

And on Saturday, KaiserCartel do a free in-store show at 3pm

Then on Tuesday, April 28, Paleface plays their free in-store at 4pm

First up: The Sufi-Monkey Trio currently consists of Richard Lloyd on vocals and guitar and harmonica, Billy Ficca from Television on drums and Keith Harshtel on bass.

Free shows here Friday April 24
In-store 4pm
Evening set 9:30pm

“it’s not often you get to see one of the legends of the guitar for FREE. He’s a man worth seeing live. Of course, he should be more than a minor rock star. He was a founding member of Television, the first house band at CBGB’s, the band that turned a dump on the Bowery (initially founded as a country, bluegrass, and blues joint) into the most famous punk club in the world. The band released Marquee Moon, one of the great rock debuts, and one of the great guitar albums, of all time. Then the band broke up in 1978, having existed long enough to be legendary, but not quite long enough to be famous. Lloyd’s solo work is much less well-known than his work with Television, and in many ways much simpler: he calls it “heavy, heavy pop.”

He’s a rock guitarist, and the songs he writes are chunky and riff-based, straightforward, unpretentious, and amp-shakingly good. As his influences, he names Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, and Mike Bloomfield. But he also had a pretty good teacher: Jimi Hendrix.

Few people other than Richard Lloyd now remember Velvert Turner, Lloyd’s best friend growing up who also happened to be a student and protege of Jimi Hendrix. Lloyd studied guitar with Velvert and with Jimi himself, and the songs have stayed with him ever since. With this tour he’s releasing an album of Jimi Hendrix covers, which he calls “paying a debt of an influence that I always kept hidden.” See richardlloyd.com