Archive for the 'Music' Category

Starless Nights — that’s what I’d call the Museum of Natural History’s Starry Nights Live Jazz. I thought since it was held in the Rose Center, they’d turn the lights all low and fill the planetarium with a dazzling display of constellations. Instead, there was the understated decor of white tables and candles underneath the planetarium. It looked elegant but there was hardly any seating for the packed event. Security even harassed me for sitting on the floor (I was the first or the only one), till I moved a whole 5 inches to the side.

Complaints aside, Starry Nights is a must-attend summer event.  For a mere $4, I got a filling tapas platter of cheese, bread, delicious cheeses, and fruit.  It really exceeded my expectations.  You can view the complete menu on their website.

Admission itslef was donation based, which is awesome.

I thought the music would be sub-par, background music, but it was talented, riotous energy.  Winard Harper Sextet has to be one of the best jazz groups I’ve seen in a while.  The drummer — Mr. Harper himself — spastically beat the drums in the most frenetic and powerful spirit.  They’re going to be playing several other concerts this summer, so make sure to catch them live.

The next Starry Night will be the first Friday in August.  Don’t miss it!

I didn’t know what to expect from Freestyle Love Supreme at Ars Nova. I knew Shockwave (Chris Sullivan) would be showcasing his awesome beatbox and improv skills, but that was about it. I had never been to Ars Nova before and it’s a hip little place, which was a complete surprise because the street where it’s located is pretty unimpressive.
There was already a crowd in the lobby when I arrived. Lucky for me, I had reserved a ticket in advance because the people standing in front of me in line were told the show was sold out, but they could be put on a wait list. They happily agreed to wait.
The crowd was full of mostly hip looking young people that all seemed to know one another. There was a real sense of community; you know that feeling you get when you go to a show and it’s obvious that a lot of the people there have been there before and think of the show as their own
discovery? There was a collective anticipation that something amazing was about to take place. It was indeed the funnest show ever!
Freestyle Love Supreme is freestyle musical improv comedy and it feels so fresh and original. They do comedic totally made up freestyles based on suggestions from the audience and I’ve never seen anything like it. They freestyled about Harry Potter; Jean-Claude Van Damme;
Flint, Michigan. There was a whole song about porn taken from the performers’ true life stories. I especially enjoyed UTK the INC (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who did an amusing bit about discovering porn on the internet and watching videos while his girlfriend was away.
Nothing is as funny as the truth and there was so much relatable truth in this show. They brought an audience member onstage and asked her about her day and freestyled about that. Two-Touch (Anthony Veneziale), the charismatic host, interviewed the for some reason reluctant audience member. She volunteered, so I don’t know why she was giving such vague answers and being so standoffish. Regardless, the results were really funny and Two-Touch had a great sense of humor about it, so what could have been a lost moment in the show turned out to be one of the funniest. Then they acted out her day. Shockwave provided the beats and movements as her body and Lin-Man (Lin-Manuel Miranda) was her mind, so he provided the words with the other guys interjecting as the different characters in her world. It was hilarious.
The great thing about this show was that there was no weak link. The music, the beatboxing, the freestyling and the comedy were all successful. The performers were all equally smart, confident, and funny. J-Soul (James Monroe Iglehart) was impressive in what was apparently his first full show with the guys. As a group, they were so talented that they made it look easy and the crowd was completely enamored with the performers. The audience was so completley engaged the entire time. I cannot stress this point enough: they had us for the whole time!! That is a very rare thing in comedy, especially improv. I didn’t feel like there was a noticeable low point in the action at all. It was incredible.
FLS is on their way to the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal from July 12-22. So unless you can swing a trip to Montreal to see them (which I actually considered after seeing this show) you’ll have to wait till they get back. Keep checking their website for upcoming dates!! You will not be disappointed.

I love Town Hall!! The time on the ticket said 8:00 and guess what time the concert started? Pretty much at 8:00. Yay! I love when things start on time. The lights blinked in the lobby and people filed into the theater for the opening acts: Jonathan Rice & David Bazan. I very much enjoyed them. They both had a similar style; very Bob Dylan folky, heavy on the imagery and simple guitar playing, but I liked it.

Another trait they shared? They were both low talkers. I would guess maybe this was because they’ve only played in smaller venues before or maybe it was simply a technical issue. I could hear them perfectly when they were singing but not at all when they were talking between songs, which was frustrating. They were both fun though. Jonathan Rice led the audience in a sing a long and David Bazan sang a funny song about reviewers. Gulp. Hope he likes me!

Ben Gibbard was flawless. Playing solo really spotlights how incredibly talented he is. He played his solo stuff, stripped down versions of Death Cab for Cutie songs and a couple of covers: Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and Nirvana’s All Apologies. He also did a cover of Iron & Wine’s cover of one of his Postal Service songs “Such Great Heights”. I was hoping to hear his cover of The Backstreet Boys classic “I Want it That Way”, which I heard recently and it’s awesome.

Oh well. He played “Lack of Color”, so I was satisfied.. And yes, I still have a crush on him. le sigh.

There was only a short break between each act, probably about 10 minutes, which was nice. It made for a quick evening of music. When I looked at the clock on the way out, it read 10:30!

In conclusion, I love Town Hall! It’s the perfect venue for singer-songwriter types. I saw Regina Spektor there and I’m going to see bright eyes there in a couple of weeks and I really hope that others like them start playing there. It’s a cozy intimate setting and you get to sit down and relax and not have to worry about some teenager stepping on your toes or blowing pot smoke in your face while you’re trying to enjoy the music. Yes indeed, I’m old. I no longer enjoy standing around for hours waiting for the band to come on because the venue wants to sell as much alcohol as possible. All in all, a fun night of music at my favorite new venue. If you like Ben Gibbard and folky singer types, you would love this show. No more NYC tour dates, but they’re playing tonight in DC at Club.

A collage of lesbian pornography at the Metropolitan Opera makes us question the boundaries between Art and smut. It would’ve been cause for scandal if any one of the girl-on-girl images contained within the painting in question had been arbitrarily taped to a wall, but situated within the setting of The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, Richard Prince’s Madame Butterfly takes on more significant meaning.

The painting exists to shock the viewer. According to curator Dodie Kazanjian, Richard Prince—an artist already known for his rather explicit photographs—was specifically selected as one of the artists who could “bring highly idiosyncratic and challenging perspectives to the exhibition.”

Prince was commissioned “to capture on canvas the operas being given new productions, with a focus on their heroines.” His portrayal of Madame Butterfly engaged in various sapphic acts certainly challenges preconceived ideas of the Japanese geisha who killed herself after discovering her American husband had married an American woman.

“I went to the opera. It was Madame Butterfly. I fell asleep. When I woke up the music was by Klaus Nomi and Cio Cio San had turned into a lesbian and refused to commit suicide. It was a German ending,” state the block letters (in the typical fashion of Prince’s joke paintings) superimposed over the photographic montage. Like David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, Prince’s Madame Butterfly uses homosexuality to confront race and gender stereotypes. As a lesbian, Prince’s leading lady rejects expectations of her to be a sex object designed to please men, which in the opera was her calling as first, a geisha, and then, a wife. Prince’s heroine choses life in both a physical (she “refused to commit suicide”) and social (her mental state is not destroyed by ill-requited love) sense. Although the painting is orderly—rows of equal-sized photographs all in black-and-white—its message deconstructs the mysogyny of “the most often-performed opera in North America.”

While Prince’s painting is the most overtly sexual contribution to the exhibit, it’s perhaps not as problematic as Wangechi Mutu’s Love’s a Witch, Orfeo’s Underworld Coronation for Euridice. The heroine’s body is desmembered. Barbie-like legs explode across the canvas. At least John Currin’s Helena looks like she’s in the throes of passion.

Some patrons have been so disturbed by the graphic content at the Gallery Met that they’ve walked right out. The good news for those who don’t blush so easily is that you don’t have to have a ticket to the opera to visit the gallery. It’s free and open as late as 11 PM, through this Saturday, May 12. And, if you do go to see an opera, don’t be surprised to find that they are oftten as sex-tinged as the heroine paintings. After all, what do you think inspired the artists?

Is it just me?? Am I just that fucking trashy or does everyone hate to tip the bathroom attendant lady?

Don’t get me wrong- she was lovely, kind and even suggested that I de-static my top, but you know- I really don’t see the point of having a bathroom attendant at all! And- YES, you people- of course I DID tip her (I’m not that tacky). Although it meant I had to dig into my bag/wallet/pocket/bra/money-stash with my freshly washed hands to pull out dirty money, then wash my hands all over again (cause who isn’t fucking OCD these days?). I must admit, though- my top did look much better sans static.

So, hey- Crash Mansion’s pretty cool with it’s mongo space and all, so I went to catch a few bands on Friday, 5/4. They started with an open bar at the beginning of the night- ahh… just my style.

SO… THE BANDS:
Missed the first band cause the promo didn’t clearly say what time the first band went on.

Aloud was cool and had a good following- lots of people in the crowd. They had great energy and the band had an awesome comradery apparent to the audience. Two really strong singers- music was really good, good sound, but to be completely honest a few of the tones hurt my ears. I think it may have just been the microphone- maybe??

Radio America was good with kind of an eccentric sound, although the energy level dropped a bit when they came on. They were good though and there were some really great solo moments by the band.

Caffeine hit the stage and blew me away with their mad, hot sound. Talk about energy- they were exploding. They’re from the UK and are about to head out to tour Hollywood. Their CD is good too, but you really should try to catch these guys live to capture their ‘Fuck ya’ energy. And, who doesn’t love guys with a British accent?? Catch them at The Bamboozle this Sunday.

Overall: Great roster of bands, cool space. Although, I swear I lost about a decibel of my hearing- maybe tomorrow my ears will stop ringing? 4 bands may have been a bit too much to squeeze into the night- last band was playing close to 1 in the morning and the crowd had pretty much gone home by that point- which was really too bad as they were the best band of the night.

Rock on till next time…

Groggy, groaning, gurgly noises.

My head is killing me and WHERE are my PANTS??!! Well, let’s see… the last thing I remember was something about Left Foot on Blue- OH MY GOD… that’s right- last night I was at Disco Crisco Twister!!!!!

*****FLASHBACK TO LAST NIGHT*****

I arrive cool and collected to Arlene’s Grocery, a trashy little place with great style- just the kinda place where ‘Drama Queen’ shirts, converse sneaks and red leopard skin dresses abound. There’s a crowd playing FlipCup (and yes- it’s a drinking game).

Dana Sterling (Queen of Amateur Female Jello Wrestling) and Annie Rocks (Music Promoter Extraordinaire) have teamed up once again to bring back the game of Twister, but this time with a twist- they’ve added a colorful slippery Crisco-like substance to the game board. And, believe me- this game is a lot more interesting than it used to be.

The Ramblers, the house band, plays the Disco Crisco theme song with guest singer Stephanie from Rotten Cheri. An event with it’s own theme-song sounds like a good idea to me. Food Will Win the War had a different sound- go East Village!

DJ Skintight kept the great tunes coming when the bands weren’t playing. Colin, Alan and Jessica were our Emcees for the evening.

COLIN: Let’s lube this shit! (The slippery stuff is added & the games begin.)

Right Hand Green, Left Foot Red. I will survive, hey, hey.

ALAN: From here I feel like a proctologist with all these butts in the air. Dana is lubing up Becca, the birthday girl.

COLIN: That’s dangerous right there.

Right Foot Yellow, Left Hand Blue.

COLIN: This twister board has a mind of it’s own.

ALAN: Next time we should do it with a Ouiji board- I like the idea of evil spirits telling you where to go.

Dana takes on the board. I need some hot stuff baby this evening. She’s a very freaky girl, the kind you can’t take home to mother.

Left Foot Green, Right Foot Red. It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight.

GUY ON TWISTER BOARD: He’s fuckin’ drippin’ sweat on me, dude— just go!

Left Foot Yellow, Left Hand Red. Just beat it, no one wants to be defeated.

Unexpectedly, this game of twister turns into twister in your underwear. Dude on board starts losing his boxers, but cannot move, lest he lose the game of twister. He’s not about to back down. Dana and Becca wrestle his boxers off of him. People- we now officially have erotic, lubed up, naked Disco Crisco Twister and everyone is covered in green goo.

Kindergarten takes the stage with an animated performance and fresh punk/funk sound. The NY moon is beautiful. They start losing their clothes, too.

BECCA: When in doubt, get naked!

Everyone on the dance floor is in their underwear- the undies have taken over!

Overall: It’s juvenile in the best possible way, it’s ridiculous, its fun! Come alone or with friends- play or even just sit on the sidelines and watch the action from an unsticky vantage point. It was kinda a mix between a frat party drunken brawl and a child’s sweet, innocent birthday party. I don’t even remember who won, but I would definitely do it again. Catch Disco Crisco Twister monthly.

Now, let’s see… what happened to my pants??

John Vanderslice lets his fans get up on stage and sing with him. That’s how much fun he is. More about that later. Now for the review. The lineup for the evening was Chris Mills, St. Vincent, and John Vanderslice at The Mercury Lounge and it was possibly the best $12 I have ever spent. What a f-ing amazing show and I’m not a big cusser so that means something…something awesome.

The show kicked off with the weak link in the lineup: Chris Mills. He was kind of a dramatic 80s pop/rock singer/songwriter/guitarist and he played with a piano player and so it kinda reminded me of The Boomtown Rats, though just not as memorable. If you had a tape of theirs in your car and you knew all the words, you would sing a long and have a good time, but that’s about it. He was good, but when St. Vincent came on, I completely forgot about him.

By the way, St. Vincent (Annie Clark of Polyphonic Spree fame) is my new obsession. I can’t remember the last time I fell so hard for a musician that I had never even heard of before. She sings, plays guitar, bass, piano, synth, and does all this cool programming stuff. She’s charming and delightful and a seriously skilled and interesting guitarist. She was like…I don’t even want to insult her by comparing her to other female singer/songwriter types. Do yourself a favor and check out her myspace page or better yet see her live cause I don’t think she’ll be playing tiny venues for much longer. Look for her album coming out soon on Beggars Banquet.

Anyway, as I was saying, John Vanderslice lets his fans get up on stage and sing his songs karaoke style while he plays along. Seriously. If you go to his website, you can email him and tell him what song you want to sing or play bass with and he picks one person from each show to come up and do just that. Tonight’s lucky guy was Kevin and I was so jealous! Later in the show, he brought up five audience members to sing backup on “me and my 424″. He was the funnest and so down to earth and he really wants to be friends with his fans and include them in the show. He took requests, he charmed the audience, he gave away a Seiko watch! The audience loved him and he loved us and he didn’t want to leave; so he just kept coming up with more songs to play. Surprise guest Erik Freilander even made an appearance on a couple of tunes and he brought back Annie Clark for the finale. And that’s not all!! At the end of the night John announced that they would be sticking around for a dance party! Yay! He’s doing a show at Union Hall in Brooklyn on Sunday and I already have my ticket. If you can’t make that show, he’ll be at the Mercury Lounge again in September. Please for the love of all things musical do not miss this show. I love music so f-ing much (there I go again with the cussing) and this night reminded me why and I would tell John Vanderslice that right now if I could, but he’s probably out having breakfast with his fans.

Tuesday night at Smith’s Bar on West 44th and 8th ave is a fascinating slice of New York. But it’s more than just New York, it’s America. But of course, it’s more than just America: It’s the Whole Wide World.

Sabrina, the karaoke mistress has been rocking the mic and turntables at Smiths for nearly 4 years now, and has seen a little bit of everything. The locals, the tourists, the greenhorns who came to New York to make it on Broadway, or at Juliard, the drunken bums who stroll in off the street, heck, sometimes the occassional methadone-junkie from the Times Square of old.

8th avenue in the 40’s is a fascinating creature in the urban jungle. Evidenced by the DVD and Peep-Show shops, it still clings to the seediness of the Times Square of Travis Bickle and Ratso Rizzo directly to it’s East. (Now home to Disney and MTV)

Evidenced by the Irish Pubs and grills up and down the avenue, it still remembers the Hell’s Kitchen history of The Westies, the Irish gang that laid claim to the down and dirty ‘hood throughout the late 20th century.

Smith’s, who has been around since 1954 and I’m sure saw more than it’s share of The Kitchen’s stories its heyday still serves up greasy Irish Pub fare to go with it’s $5 pints and liquor bar, graciously keeping the boozy karaoke madness on one side of the establishment, and the dining quarters on the other.

On one random Tuesday night when Karaoke is really popping, I encountered a pack of Australians on an Ameircan walkabout who after enough Jagerbombs, treated us all to a horribly off-key rendition of Land Down Under.

A corporate automotive business team from L.A. decided to make Smith’s their location for a night in New York, and a very pretty blonde named Yvette finally worked up the gusto to treat us to her very personalized version of Shania Twain’s Feel Like a Woman.

The Smiths regulars are a jolly, friendly bunch who’ve turned their love of singing to pre-recorded music into friendships outside the karaoke joint. My own karaoke buddies Sarah and Drew, a preciously cute couple who work on various Broadway shows treated us to Nina Simone’s Feelin’ Good.

And I headed out right after some old timer I’ve seen once or twice before brought the real spirit of the night home with none other than Billy Joel’s ballad to Gotham: New York State of Mind (A Smith’s staple.) Thank God the drunk with stains on his jeans couldn’t read the number-code for Freebird in the song-book.

Though Sabrina could focus a little more on hosting the karaoke, and less time flirting with patrons and asking people to pose for pictures, if you want a slice of everything that Times Square once meant and what New York will always mean to the world; (a place to SHINE!0 then Smith’s is your destination to sing your heart out to the Greatest City in the World.

MTV2 and the American Museum of Natural History join hands for SonicVision. A step beyond your average laser-light show, it fuses iPod-worthy music with mind-bending graphics. Minus a few oddities, it should be more popular than it is.

Mainly rock-tinged electronic music from the early “aughts” (as we’re taught from Gideon to call the 00s), SonicVision features a great mix by Moby. Radiohead, U2, David Bowie, Coldplay, Queens of the Stone Age, Prodigy, The Flaming Lips, Fischerspooner (who provide the music to The Wooster Group’s “Hamlet”), Spiritualized, Audioslave, Stereolab, Boards of Canada, David Byrne and Brian Eno, Goldfrapp, Zwan (The reunited Smashing Pumpkins’ new album is due out July 7, but does anyone know who the official members are yet?), and White Zombie are the soundtrack.

The psychedilic graphics will have your eyes (and heart!) racing through the universe as if you’re on an amusement-park thrill ride. Grasping for the armrest even though you’re not moving and flinching as if the graphics seemingly falling from the dome could actually hurt you, you walk out of the show laughing at yourself. In the context of a science museum, SonicVision perhaps is a subconsious reminder of how complex our bodies are. Our intellect and our eyes and ears can at times tell us two different things.

While most of the show feels like you’re trapped inside a video game or traveling through space, there are three dreamscapes that don’t work well: two verge on demonic and the other seems hoaky in its feel-good, uplifting message. The computer-generated art works much better when it stays within the realm of the abstract.

The movie “Night at the Museum” presupposed that after the American Museum of Natural History closes for the evening, all the animals come to life. Ravenous dinasour skeletons may not be the cause, but something’s to be said for the fact that the museum closes at 5:45 PM every day. The early closing time means the museum is losing out on a whole slew of money-earning nine-to-fivers. Behold SonicVision. Held on Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 and 8:30, it is geared toward teens and twenty-somethings, who are more into music than science. Cha-ching! The museum has found a way to target a fresh audience.

Maybe it was just the snowy night Uncool Kids went, but the museum apparently needs to do a bit more marketing. Seven-year-olds came tearing down the hall after the first showing, but come time for the second showing the planetarium was half-empty. The 8:30 show produced an odd mixture of older kids with their cool parents alongside early twenties hipsters and daters. The two-for-one coupon, great music, and breathtaking graphic art make SonicVision a great alternative to going to the movies. Check out the trailer here.

Oh My God, Roxy Baby, What were you thinking? Rollerskating at NYC’s infamous club The Roxy is a brilliant idea, I must admit- but, man you better be absolutely desperate to lace up your roller skates and boogie out on the floor. I mean, Roxy, I know you’re about to close your doors forever and all and everyone wants to share a piece of your final historical last hoorah, but this was a bit much.

Waiting in line outside in the freezing temperatures, okay fine, it is NY afterall- then once finally inside another line awaits so you can buy tickets- okay this is all still understandable. But then- as I went to pick up my skates, the madhouse ensued. A mob of people were pushing and trying to figure out where to go. Roxy, you can do better- this was totally unorganized chaos. My frustrated fellow waiting mobsters and I had formed an ameoba-like blob where the most pushy, obnoxious people got their skates first.

Once I was finally birthed through the cervix of people to the front of the NON-line, the exhausted, overworked people behind the counter graced me with news that they didn’t have my Womens Size 7 skates available (nor one size smaller, nor two sizes larger). Eventually, I settled for a pair of Men’s Size 5’s, but was actually given a Size 4.

So, with toes painfully crammed into my skates (cause hell- I was not going to go back through that birth canal to try to get a less painful pair). I mean, come on… I had already been waiting for an hour! Once I finally made it to the skating rink (aka the dancefloor) it was really quite fun- the kind of fun complete with giant disco ball and enormous fluffy red hearts hanging from the celiing.

You do have to watch out for the handful of super-skate freaks that swerve wrecklessly in and out of the crowd at death-defying speeds (it’s pretty cool to watch them though, with all their fancy twirls and dance moves). Okay, so maybe I fell once- but, this nice stranger scooped me up and gently sent me rolling on my way again- narrowly avoiding a pile-up.

After skating around for awhile I had to rest my aching squenched toes- ouch.

Overall, it turned out to be fun, but Roxy, wish you woulda fixed the inexcusable mass free-for-all chaos in the rental skate/coat check dept, otherwise it’s not worth the trouble. Oh, and everybody- if you do go- this event is even more fun if you go with a boy/girl/other to skate with hand in hand, but also great with a group of friends. ‘The Last Spin’ is on Friday, 3/9 and will be featuring DJ Julio.