{"id":418599,"date":"2026-10-04T17:44:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T17:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/418599\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T17:44:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T17:44:29","slug":"get-lost-in-music-with-69-year-old-pop-star-nirosta-steel-at-exclusive-orlando-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/418599\/","title":{"rendered":"Get ‘lost in music’ with 69-year-old pop star Nirosta Steel at exclusive Orlando show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NirostaNirosta Steel Credit: Avery Tang<\/p>\n

Nirosta Steel, aka Steven Hall, is having one of the most incredible years in his musical life, and that\u2019s saying something for a pop outsider whose creative path has taken him around the world and intersected with the likes of Alan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Don Cherry and Arthur Russell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nirosta Steel\u2019s recently released double album, My Skyscraper, not quite a reissue but not an entirely new album either, became an unlikely hit with a new generation of young fans drawn in by its adventurous, intimate, genre-curious dance music. Hall, now based south of Chicago in Champaign-Urbana, wondered, \u201cWhat do you do if you\u2019re a pop star at 69?\u201d First off, he was able to quit driving for Uber.<\/p>\n

Since Skyscraper took off, Hall has been a whirlwind of activity: interviewed by The Guardian, a pair of headlining shows at New York\u2019s Pyramid Club, and plans for more recording and touring afoot. As part of this wave, Nirosta Steel plays Orlando Monday, for reasons that are just as unlikely and yet heartwarming as so much in his life currently is. Orlando Weekly sat down with Hall for a freewheeling conversation about it all. \u201cMy husband calls me Mr. Tangent,\u201d he warns us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all true. Hall is eschewing Miami, Gainesville and Tampa stages in favor of Orlando, specifically Will\u2019s Pub. The reason is simple and heartfelt: He wants his 104-year-old mother \u2014 a self-confessed Madonna fan comfortably ensconced in Waterford Lakes \u2014 to be able to see and hear him play this new music that\u2019s seemingly taken the world by storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been my biggest fan all my life, and she supported me for many years just so that I could do music. So this is my way of showing her the fruits of her labor,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

As befits a restless creative spirit who has lived around the world \u2014 Glasgow, Boulder, New York, Hong Kong \u2014 he has left a trail of creative work in Orlando. The hints he drops are tantalizing: a demo written here called \u201cChristmas in Florida\u201d; the Skyscraper track \u201cFirst Love,\u201d recorded at his brother\u2019s Orlando home; work done with Michael \u201cQ-Burns Abstract Message\u201d Donaldson<\/a>; even a long-ago gig at the SpaceBar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[The song] \u2018Lost in Music\u2019 starts off with something about my experience in Bradenton, where I learned about the \u2018stingray shuffle.\u2019 When you\u2019re going into the water, you have to shuffle your feet to disturb the stingers,\u201d he tells OW. \u201cI was joking with the band that we were going to do like Morris Day and the Time when they all start dancing in unison, but we didn\u2019t have enough time to rehearse it for the show in New York. I just did it myself, and the crowd loved it \u2014 I like making a fool of myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reason behind all of this \u2014 the Will\u2019s Pub show, our conversation, Hall living his best pop-star life \u2014 is My Skyscraper. Out this summer through the label Ulyssa, everything about it is audacious, off-kilter and striking. For starters, it\u2019s a maximal double LP (\u201cWho\u2019s going to buy a double album?\u201d Hall wondered). The cover image is a striking picture of a young Hall staring at the camera like a sweaty hybrid of Iggy Pop and David Byrne, and the music within is a dreamlike genre collage of disco, synth-punk, soul-pop, devotional music and funk. The past blends into the future on an infinite sonic horizon, with music from 1984 through 2025 assembled and reassembled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a song for seemingly every mood on an album that ranges from scratchy Lou Reed-ian urgency to wide-eyed lo-fi soul. But where My Skyscraper truly wins is in a carefree playfulness that pervades the entire album.<\/p>\n

\u201cA sense of playfulness is really important because that includes being very open to taking chances and making mistakes,\u201d Hall says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soon after the album dropped in June and Hall held the finished product in his hands, he got an inkling that his life was about to change dramatically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t really hit me until I got to New York, and not only was asked to sign some of the albums, but also to sign someone\u2019s iPhone,\u201d he marvels. \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m in a movie about myself, like I\u2019m playing myself in a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the recent seismic shifts in Hall\u2019s life, this is not the only part of his life worthy of being captured on celluloid. Taken as a whole, his entire journey seems fantastical, full of chance meetings, far-off places and music \u2014 from studying with Ginsberg, Burroughs and Don Cherry at Naropa University to taking in the scene at the mythical Poets\u2019 Building in New York, where he might run into Richard Hell or Bob Dylan. And of course, there\u2019s his very long friendship and creative partnership with Arthur Russell, the innovative composer, producer and musician. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word I\u2019m using lately for music people who do music together is \u2018fellowship,\u2019\u201d says Hall. \u201cOur friendship evolved into a very deep fellowship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This fellowship would result in beautiful work from both Russell and Nirosta Steel. Hall sings on Russell\u2019s \u201cA Little Lost\u201d and \u201cMy Tiger, My Timing,\u201d while the posthumous Russell album Love Is Overtaking Me started out from collaborations between the two. After Russell\u2019s passing in 1992, Hall would pay tribute to his friend in Arthur\u2019s Landing, a tribute act formed by friends and former Russell accomplices to honor his work. Russell\u2019s drumming even features on two tracks on My Skyscraper. The presence of Arthur Russell never seems far from Hall, whether it be on record, in snatches of memory, or moments of synchronicity and serendipity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were performing together in places downtown, including the Pyramid Club, now Club 101, where I just performed in New York,\u201d says Hall. \u201cIt all comes around in this very fancy, convenient circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Become a part of Nirosta Steel\u2019s ever-expanding circle Monday at Will\u2019s. Fast Preacher opens, making the night even more of a party.<\/p>\n

7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5, Will\u2019s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave., willspub.org<\/a>, $16.89.<\/p>\n

\"Stay<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Bernie\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

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This article appears in Sept. 30-Oct. 6, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nirosta Steel Credit: Avery Tang Nirosta Steel, aka Steven Hall, is having one of the most incredible years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1623,165533,71030,147260,165534,165535,139,7719,141,140,165536,7720],"class_list":["post-418599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-apple-news","tag-arthur-russell","tag-electronic-music","tag-live-music-in-orlando","tag-my-skyscraper","tag-nirosta-steel","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-concert","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-steven-hall","tag-wills-pub"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}