Yet another week of MONSTER jams then NYNT at Mardi Gras, Austin, and L.A.
by Jonathan
As New York Night Train prepares to chuga chuga all the way to Mardi Gras and El Lay (check my calendar for details and tell your amigos), one week of fantabulouso parties still remain.
Wednesday, Jan 23, Motor City (127 Ludlow, Lower East Side, Manhattan), 10pm, FREE: Tonight we not only have the power of Robin Zander, but… OK, we don’t have Robin Zander, or even Bunny Carlos, but I will instead be dwarfed by two of NYC rock’n'rolls towering figures. The first, Mr. Brad Truax is the deep bass behind such outfits as Jah Division, Home, and Soldiers of Fortune, and formerly of White Magic, The Woods, Broke Review and many more, current tour manager for the likes of Animal Collective and Blonde Redhead, and Daddy’s barkeep. The second, Mr. Bill Whitten, who forced to cancel last week’s DJ gig due to personal “illness,” is of course the lungs, guitar, and brains behind NYC institution Grand Mal, and formerly led Geffen Records noize rockerz St. Johnny. Cool cats and local mensches of the first degree, both are also tasteful r’n'r connoisseurs of the first degree. Can’t wait gate!
Thursday, Jan 24, On! Sixties Discotheque Party, Beauty Bar (231 E. 14th, East Village, Manhattan), 11pm, FREE: We may change the name of this thing to the far more cumbersome but less ambiguous title. “Shakin’ All Over Under Sideways Down!” if there is agreement among all boardmembers involved. This partee’ is a collaboration between the NYNT’s Soul Proprietor Mr. Jonathan Toubin and musical encyclopedia on wheels and rock machine, the indomitable Ms. Melissa Fanni Tutti - turning dance music platters centered smack dab in the center of popular music’s greatest and most diverse decade. Making a go at channeling the variety inherent in the playlists of the discotheques and radio of the era plus much of the stuff that was too underground at the time to get there, we attempt to cover soul, garage, freakbeat, boogaloo, AM radio pop, British Invasion, electric blues, girl groups, bubblegum, frat rock, late r&b, early funk, early psychedelics, discotheque schmaltz, boogaloos, tropicalia, yé-yé, latin delights, etc. Get it? ON! C’mON, turn ON!
Friday, Jan 25, Ants In Yr Pants Dance Party, Savalas (285 Bedford, Williamsburg, Brooklyn), 10pm, FREE:
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Friday night New York Night Train’s Ants In Yr Pants Dance Party will not only feature the Conductor, but a curiousity so grotesque that you may never see anything like it again, the monstrous Scylla that better known in Brooklyn as simply “Golden Triangle“. This freak of nature is an unpredictable six-headed twelve-armed monster that is capable of spinning anything and demanding that you dance. And, after this hoodang, if there’s anything left of our hero, he will be drifting between this mighty beast and tomorrow night’s Charybdis on Monster Island… OK not really Charybdis – he’ll actually just be caught between Scylla and more Scylla…
Saturday, Jan 26, Golden Triangle Birthday Party, Live With Animals Gallery (Monster Island, 210 Kent Avenue at Metropolitan, Williamsburg, Brooklyn), 8pm, $5:
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Has it already been a year since NYC first sampled the forbidden fruits of the Golden Triangle’s fertile harvest? Though addictive, and even sometimes lethal, its offerings induce a rush of such tremendous sensuality that spectators from all corners of the tri-state are willing to sacrifice anything to merely bask in the blinding glow for only a half-hour. The Triangle’s epic coming of age story, one you mustn’t forget spans seven entire dog-years, from infancy to toddlerism, hasn’t only been marked by the conflicting synthesis of both triumph and tragedy that typifies only the finest and most universal classics of the literary canon, but is also the contemporary embodiment of the Sphinx’s renowned riddle from Sophocles’ second Theban play, Oedipus the King:
What is the creature that walks on twelve legs in the morning, twelve legs at noon and twelve in the evening?
The answer, my rabid little sonic junkies, is the indubitable power of the timeless cacophony and artful mayhem of the one, the only, the mighty - Golden Triangle. Now wipe the drool from your festering mouth and here this…
The arthropodal hermaphroditic birthday child will perform alongside Knyfe Hits, Red Dawn II, and Robot Death Cult. New York Night Train’s Mr. Jonathan Toubin will spin birthday party hits by the Birthday Party for the children’s dancing pleasure while twisting balloon animals for the adults.
A mere $5 donation will let you eat cake, bring presents, and listen to the endearing gurgle of the pudgy birthday baby flashing its mono-toothed smile. You will find the aforementioned feast at a secret location - Live With Animals gallery in Monster Island, 210 Kent Avenue. Whoops! Appropriate birthday party attire is encouraged but not required.
And, also on Saturday, in the city…
Saturday, Jan 26: New York Night Train’s Loose Caboose, Club Midway (25 Avenue B, East Village, Manhattan), 10pm, FREE: While the Conductor and sometimes Soul Proprietor will be marooned fighting for his life on Monster Island, his friend, lover, and confidante, Mssr. Derek Stanton, singer/guitarist for Motor City/NYC’s very awesome trio Awesome Color and a guitarist for triple-guitar threat power rockerz Used To Be Women, will be ridin’ the caboose in the DJ booth upstairs at Midway ’til 4AM. Any of you who’ve witnessed Mssr. Stanton’s raw DJ power knows that he not only rocks the finest Detroit R&B and R&R (including loads of Hank Ballard, MC5 and Stooges rare cuts and alternate takes, Gories, loads of obscurities, and my personal favorite jam of his, Mitch “I’d Rather Go To Jail” Ryder’s stellar cover of the VU’s “Rock and Roll”), but also has a mighty hard rare groove funk arsenal at his disposal and is not bashful about using it! Give the Motor City Mad Man a low-five for me!
Next Wednesday, Jan. 30 New York Night Train’s Soul Proprietor and Conductor Mr. Jonathan Toubin celebrates his final NYC DJ set before going down south Louisiana down in New Orleans to lose either the eighth or ninth of his nine lives. Then Austin for a gig at the Long Branch on Weds, Jan 6th, and traveling to Tucson, Mexicali, and San Diego with Static Static, he will then arrive at Part Time Punks in L.A. on Jan 10th for a week of stuff and back home for his Soul Clap and Dance-Off at Glasslands on the 16th.
