SHOWLIST
June 26 - July 2, 2006
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July 3, 2006
Reverend Vince Anderson and His Love Choir – Black Betty FREE I wasn’t on it. I was a little late getting word that Reverend Vince Anderson was celebrating two years of his Monday revival at Black Betty last Monday. But this week I’m redeeming myself by spreading the gospel to New York Night Train readers. The Rev’s weekly residency are a decade-long tradition going way back to Avenue B Social Club (now Manitoba’s), a brief stint at The Continental, a five-year lease at Pete’s Candy Store, now two at Black Betty. I imagine I’m also forgetting or merely ignorant of a few places where the Rev has goneweekly. If you’ve
never witnessed the power of the Reverend Vince's love, or you haven’t
been for a few years, there’s no time like the present. The
Rev is a first-rate entertainer, storyteller, songwriter, vocalist,
organist, bandleader, and all-around musician. His band, The Love
Choir, is currently at their best, sweatiest, and funky-est - featuring
the incredibly soulful one-woman New York baritone sax institution
otherwise known as Paula
Henderson (James Chance, Moisturizer, Burnt Sugar,
etc.), and the entire Pleasure Unit (RIP) – which means one
of the best rhythm sections going - as well and, when he’s
in town, choice R&B/blues/funk guitar licks supplied by none
other than TV on the Radio’s Jaleel Bunton. And, as always
with Vince, it will cost you neither a dime nor your soul… MEDIA: "Satan
Hates ME" MP3 ALSO: Andrew
Raffo Dewar and guests – The Stone 10PM $10
June 30, 2006
Celebrate Brooklyn - TV on the Radio, Matt Pond PA, Voxtrot - Prospect Park Bandshell FREE I don’t think I have to tell any of my readers who TV on the Radio is, and, whether you love them or think they’re a bit overblown, aren’t ya at least curious to see what our local heroes are up to? Tonight’s as good a night as any to find out – particularly since they’re playing for free under the stars at one of the world’s finest public parks, Prospect, at one of New York’s most consistently amazing free annual events, The Celebrate Brooklyn Festival. The busy Brooklyn collective rarely appears live in their hometown and their new stuff is their best so far. They are however billed with two bland indie rock acts as openers, Matt Pond PA and Voxtrot. But considering the price and the ambience, what’ve ya got to lose?
MEDIA: ALSO TONIGHT: CEX, Meneguar,
the Love of Everything, Eystek – Asterisk Art (toddpnyc.com)
Project $7
June 29, 2006
Jose Gonzalez, Juana Molina, Psapp - Bowery Ballroom $20 Tonight isn’t gonna be easy. The intense vocal performances of Diamanda Galás have always been unparalleled. Marc Ribot is one of my favorite musicians to ever pick up a guitar. Tim Berne and Okkyung Lee, though from relatively different sides of the spectrum, are two of the more fascinating and prolific improvising composers going. And Fiery Furnaces, who I write disproportionately about, are one of the more unusual and ambitious pop bands to come around in recent years. But tonight the most interesting bill is the rather adulty international one at the Bowery Ballroom – featuring three acts that are all relatively new to me. The headliner, Jose Gonzalez, is Swedish Argentine troubadour who emerged in the last year or so, is currently riding an unprecedented wave of UK success to America. The better stuff is the eerie skeletal songs built by immaculate picking and sparse vocals. Of course someone with my taste feels uncomfortable treading in certain places in almost every acoustic singer/songwriter’s repertoire. But this guy’s about as good as it gets. Juana Molina is another Argentine acoustic guitar-strumming vocalist – who actually resides in Argentina. A successful comedian with her own TV show in the Spanish-speaking world, Molina writes, produces, and records elegant electro-acoustic records where subtle loops, synths, and exotic instruments conjure shades of ambience under her rhythmic guitar work and gorgeous voice that’s a more distinctive contemporary take on everything you’ve always sought out in a soft bossa nova vocal delivery. If this sounds like your cup of tea, I highly recommend her new record Son. I’m still on the fence about the opener, Psapp, a quirky London duo that play giddy yet elaborate compositions. What I’ve heard so far is a bit cornball and twee for my personal taste, but that seems to be what they're going for in the first place. Plus, their music is neither boring or unrespectable. Either way, this is an ideal way to catch up on three unique voices from around the globe with very little effort on your part.
MEDIA VIDEOS SOUNDS
LIVE Aloke,
Americans, Right on Dynamite, No One & The Somebodies - Northsix
$10
June 28, 2006
What follows is a recipe for your own personal Cibo Matto reunion tonight. While you probably won’t see the duo perform together, if your vigilant, you can witness live sets by both Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda back to back within a few blocks of one another. Minor tabloid celebrity Yuka Honda, Cibo Matto’s keyboardist and background vocalist has found herself in a new partnership currently named “If by Yes” with one of Charlie Haden’s talented daughters, the virtuosic violin-sawing golden-throated Petra (who also currently plays with everyone from Bill Frissell to The Foo Fighters). Their remainder of their band tonight is also nothing to sneeze at – a perverse mixture that includes Sean Lennon, Matto bassist Timo Ellis, downtown drum legend Kenny Wollesen, and pop singing sisters The Pierces. Since they play at both 8 and 10, you can catch the early show and make it just in time to catch Cibo Matto’s vocalist Miho Hatori’s 10 o’clock set at The Stone (Norfolk to lower Avenue C shouldn’t take more than fifteen minute at a relaxed pace). Miho’s band is also an impressive bunch, consisting of world-class improvisers like the brilliant otherworldly cellist/composer Okkyung Lee, keyboardist/singer/songwriter Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), prolific collaborating downtown bassist Shanir Blumenkranz, and avant harpist Shelley Burgon. After taking in both shows, go home, close your eyes and combine both ingredients. Pleasant dreams...
MEDIA:
ALSO
TONIGHT:
June 27, 2006
Measles Mumps Rubella, Paper Fleet, Bride of Narwhal, Jason Choi - Lit $6 Measles Mumps Rubella is a powerful dance-punk troupe that relocated to Brooklyn from DC some time ago. MMR's angular groove noise is unique and relatively unrelated to the overcooked post-punk phenomenon of a few years ago. While you may locate them somewhere between Pop Group and A Certain Ratio, they're also increasingly on the Krauty, trance-inducing edge of the genre and currently include a long-haired trumpet-wielding lead singer among their ranks. Maybe someone slipped something in their dirnkk at one of their gigs with Psychic Ills? A definite welcomed addition to the NYC art rock underground. MEDIA LINKS ALSO TONIGHT June 24, 2006
Liars, The Apes - Warsaw $15 Since folks've been giving Liars eulogies since 2004’s brilliant and divisive They Were Wrong So We Drowned, which gave me even more respect for the band, I’ve been quite thrilled with the Cinderella story of Drums Not Dead – their finest album to date and one of the year’s best. Their success is even sweeter because they continue to ride in their own maverick direction, letting everyone else eat their dust. Drums Not Dead is a powerful trance-inducing collection that prominently features gigantic tribal percussion, the swarming hum of the didgeridoo, Gregorian chanting, and ectoplasmic drones - without ever coming off as gimmicky or overdone. While I’m have no idea whether or they’ll lug along the exotic instruments and project the videos that are included with the new album, and I haven’t seen Liars since the old lineup that featured a different rhythm section that’s gone on to become two-thirds of n0-things, I can’t see the band putting on a show that will be anything less than sweaty and goosebump-inducing. With DC's Apes, and, if you go on Monday, you'll find the same bill with the addition of the legendary Alan Vega.
MEDIA VIDEO "A Visit
from Drum (By Your Side)" ALSO TONIGHT: Alex Lukashevsky,
Final Fantasy – Tonic 8PM $10 '
June 23, 2006
We’re Doing It For Love: with Robert Plant, David Johansen, Ian Hunter Band, Johnny Echols, Nils Lofgren, Garland Jeffreys, Yo La Tengo, Flashy Python and the Body Snatchers – Beacon Theater $53.50 - $128 This is a benefit for Love’s hard luck leader, a man whose given us all a truckload of amazing music, the legendary Arthur Lee. This time his battle isn’t legal but with leukemia – and without the aid of health insurance. Friends coming to his rescue tonight include Robert Plant, David Johansen, Ian Hunter Band, Love’s guitarist Johnny Echols, Nils Lofgren, Garland Jeffereys, Yo LaTengo, and “an indie rock supergroup” led by Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah vocalist Alec Ounsworth. A good bill at fine venue for a god cause… You can go to the Love Society for more information or to make a donation.
ALSO TONIGHT: Billy
Martin and friends -The Stone 10 PM $10 June 22, 2006
Erase Errata, special guest, Six Figures, Die! Die! Die! - Club Exit (toddpnyc.com) Every time Todd P throws down at Club Exit, I immediately conjure up a comic image of the band onstage at the gaudy Polish disco – which never is really as funny as it seems once you get there – it’s simply a great place to see a show. Maybe if Mr. P would invest in the club’s infamous dancefloor foam? That’s cultureclash at its giddiest best… The cream of the crop of turn of the Y2K underground rock stars, Erase Errata, unless I missed it, hasn't shown its face around these parts for some time. Though one of the handful of bands responsible for the annoying post-punk revival, it was just another case of a visionary band becoming extremely influential. The spazzy trio’s art punk was timely, intelligent, and distinctive - a sort of West Coast God Is My Co-Pilot for the 21st Century. And,while they never really achieved the fame of all of the unimaginative louses that are still reeling in the post-punk cash in 2006, I'm sure they still kick all of those other bands asses in terms of integrity, creativity, and brains. Which makes me wonder exactly what direction they're taking at this point? Though clearly the best and most fun way to find the answer will be to hit Club Exit tonight, you can also check it out tomorrow at the Knitting Factory or pick up their new Kill Rock Stars album which should hit stores in the next few days.
MEDIA: Erase
Errate, "High Society" MP3
ALSO TONIGHT: !No
Pasaran, Houston McCoy, Art Of Shooting, Limbs – Maxwell’s
$6
June 21, 2006
Brightblack Morning Light, Espers - Southpaw $10 (and Mercury Lounge on Friday) Didja see the big Sunday New York Times spread, "Summer of Love Redux"? Everybody’s getting in the act… And not only the Times. Tonight we have classic indie labels Drag City and Matador’s representatives of the contemporary post-hippie scene that’s often referred to as weird America or freak folk or weird beard or whatever… Brightblack, after being prodded along a bit by Will Oldham, have a new self-titled record of their own as Brightblack Morning Light - as Matador's token band of this scene. It’s a bit more straightforward and Southern than the work of their contemporaries (they’re from Alabama) and, organ and electric guitar based, seems to be some of the only music from this particular scene that has a slight connection with the sort of older Dead-informed Phishier food from a generation before. They have all kinds of press material emphasizing that they live in tents and cabins in northern California, sing about (surprise) Native American themes (apparently they also have some o’ that lost somewhere in their blood), and songs with titles like “We Share Our Blanket With the Owl.” Despite how trendy and obvious a lot of this is, and its unadventurous, rather pedestrian quality (which makes me imagine Brightblack will become the most popular of the bunch), they’re not by any means bad. But the image, the words, and the entire vibe is just a bit hard to stomach – particularly now. As opposed to the once-great Matador, with their current singular representation of every trend in sight, Drag City has made some more substantial choices – including some of the better bands from the fringes of the scene – the mind-blowing masterful maverick Ben Chasny' Six Organs of Admittance, whose new The Sun Awakens may be the best of their impressive catalog, and, of course, Espers. These Philadelphians have slowly become one of my favorites as they’ve developed a deeper darker more dynamic sound. Their latest, Espers II, one of the most compelling releases by anyone this year, takes the Incredible String Band/Fairport-informed contemporary fare (or fair, as in Renaissance) to the next level. Lonely echoes of the ghosts of ancient Celtic folk songs haunting the gray haze of Harry B. Smith's rocky American hills – spacious and cinematic, with plenty of distortion, drone, and dissonant instrumental arrangements to locate it in the 21st Century, and, of course their trademark eerie vocal harmonies. Perfect music to be quietly and brutally murdered in the middle of nowhere to – the sound of the new Deliverance. If you don't catch it tonight, go see it at The Mercury Loung Friday night.
MEDIA: Espers,
"Dead King" MP3
ALSO TONIGHT: Aretha
Franklin – The Apollo $77
June 20, 2006
Blue Cheer, The Black Hollies – CBGB $20 Without a doubt the thing to do tonight’s gotta be the mighty Blue Cheer, creators of one of the 1960s fuzziest and most brutal records, the mighty and timeless Vincebus Eruptum (you should hear the original mono vinyl with the textured cover if you haven't), and its follow-up, the under-appreciated Outside Inside. I have no idea why one of the best-loved bands in heavy rock history, and one of the few that still gets consistent rotation on subcultural turntables, hasn’t connected with this audience before. Perhaps they weren’t aware of their impact on underground rock? Apparently Blue Cheer, featuring the lone constant member bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson, after originally calling it quits in 1971, have been performing regularly since reforming in 1979 - going at it in backwater towns, Japan, and various reunion circuits for some time now. They even quietly recorded a number of albums in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the most recent of which was a live Japanese record from a few years ago. Guitarist Andrew 'Duck' Mac Donald’s been in the fold for the last couple of years and, in the last few months, original drummer Paul Whaley got back into the groove – thereby making this a legitimate reunion of sorts. It appears that they’re doing all kinds of Pitchforky things, playing the underground rock circuit, and publicly getting the recognition that they’ve had all along in college radio shows, rock DJ nights, and living rooms - somehow it just never came together until now. And reports’ve thusfar been excellent… The Black Hollies, the soulful sixties-informed band that features members of the Rye Coalition, kick it all off. Another
rare reason to go to give a final visit CB’s before it closes. LINKS: Blue
Cheer Myspce page ALSO TONIGHT: Adventures
in Nightlife, USAISAMONSTER, Animental, Cloud Speaker, DJ Jazzy
Jess – Place (toddpnyc.com) $6
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