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12:22:2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit, Clockcleaner - Cake Shop $7 As a kid, I never did like broccoli… until it was presented to me drowning in cheese sauce – a victory of sorts for my parents. Now, like the bitter green veggie before I learned to appreciate it heavily adorned in yellow, I never could get down with most power pop. However, I didn’t mind some of the early 1990s lo-fi bands because, like the cheese sauce, the production values disguised the flavor of the original article and made it more palatable for a stubborn aesthete like me who likes his rock rough. The only problem was that, beneath it all, most of the stuff was far too precise and melodic, particularly live when there was nobody to mess the sound up correctly. So, in the converse of the age-old pop production tradition of smoothing out rough bands for mass consumption, lo-fi bands, beneath the rough production, were often fairly smooth average pop rock – hence both my venom and its popularity in frat houses. Out of the entire informal lo-fi revival gradually unfolding the last couple of years, Times New Viking, is, for my money, its finest practitioner. They’re so dang good I think I’d like ‘em even if they didn’t have the scratchy production style that I still wholeheartedly believe makes music rock harder. TMV plays their catchy well-built melodic pop rock with utter abandon, minimal heavy power trio instrumentation (with a keyboard instead of bass), soulful in-and-out of tune singing/screaming, and no shortage of looseness, distortion, or dissonance. I also am in love with their old zine-style graphics and cryptic promotion style. A shot in the arm, a wakeup call, and a catalyst for yet another alteration in my increasingly predictable taste. Does this make me a power pop fan? I have, after all, in my old age, acquired approbation for broccoli sans sauce. Openers include TMV’s Ohio friends, Psychedelic Horseshit, who share a similar aesthetic and hint that they may possess the cynical recklessness to deliver exactly what you’ve been looking for in a messy art-damaged rock band live. Though their name implies it, what I've heard so far doesn't sound terribly psychedelic. But as their name also indicates, they do sound like... Oh never mind. But I mean that in a good way. And, the rumble of the lead-off hitter, Clockcleaner, the harshest of Baltimore paint-peelers, will vibrate the feet of the both the coffee sippers and record buyers above. Finally, for those who show up before 8 with a Christmas ornament in hand, Dionysian proprietor Andy Bodor will trade ya a free drink for it.
Xmass Gala, Curated by Derek Stanton: Used To be Women, Color TV, Scotty Karate, Home – Glasslands $4 Another sure thing tonight is the Glasslands Christmas Party hosted by Awesome Color’s Derek Stanton. The lineup includes the legendary and better-than-ever Home, ramblin' one man band Scotty Karate, and Stanton’s other awesome bands Color TV and Used to Be Women. And, of course hostess with the mostess Brooke Baxter will let you participate in “Freestyle Arts” if you promise not to behave yourself. With $1 Scotty Karate Scotch Ale – Cheap, democratic and fun.
THE LIST: Dearest – Goodbye
Blue Monday
12:20:2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
House of Hearts Benefit: Corridors, D Charles Speer, Mouthus, Charter One, Uncle Woody, Mattallama, Zachary Cale, Electroputas, Castanets - Europa $10 Even if you were planning on going to see Vietnam's Ivan Sunshine and me spinning at Motor City, you’d still have time before to pop by Greenpoint to catch this dynamic bill for an excellent cause. The procedes of this show goes to benefit the Father's Heart Ministry - a local organization that does excellent work fighting poverty and domestic violence. Performances include No Neck Blues Band side projects Corridors, D Charles Speer, the heavy and hypnotic earbleed of Mouthus, the mindbend of Mattallama (Mountains of Mattallama?), the prodigious songs and acoustic guitar heroism of Zachery Cale, the adventurous cosmopolitan Kraut rock of Electroputas, the gothic Americana of Castanets AKA Raymond Raposa, and a few more. A little something for each and every restless musical mind... and good heart.
THE LIST: Action
Action, Jonzetta, We Are The Fury - Knitting Factory $10/$12
12:19:2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
Chris Leo/Vague Angels, Grimis, Tigers and Monkies, Suzan Hartuk – Cake Shop $6 You know Chris Leo as the sprechstimme-ing angular guitar-slinging leader of the Van Pelt or The Lapse. Or as the author of White Pigeons or, more recently, 57 Octaves Below the Middle C Buzzed by the Bee (or Really) How I Lost This Place (along w/Marcellus Hall)? Or as a bar DJ? Or as your local tour guide? Or as a raw food chef? Or maybe as the brother of Pharmacist Ted? Even if you don’t recognize the laziest man in showbiz from any of these guises, all you need to know tonight is that Chris Leo, who’s had a project called Vague Angels for the last couple of years, will be performing an intimate set of the band’s material all by his lonesome in the comfortable subterranean confines of Cake Shop, which by the way, finally got its liquor license. Chris will be in Europe for the next few months so, if you’ve been intending to check out this man-about-town's songs, this is one of your last chances to lose yourself in his winding narratives before he becomes a man-out-of-town. And get their early to check out Shonali Bhowmik of Ultrababyfat fame's band Tigers and Monkeys.
THE LIST: Bonnie Kane, Mambo Mantis,
Ras Moshe Project, The Adam Lane Group – Goodbye Blue Monday
12:18:2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
Martin Bisi, Gena Mason, Kosmic Daydream – Club Midway $5 Martin Bisi, one of New York rock’n’roll’s relatively unsung heroes, is musician, producer, and engineer who not only for recorded classic downtown avant albums by Material, John Zorn, Elliot Sharp, and their circle in the 1980s, but also indie classics like Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising and EVOL, Lydia Lunch/Clint Ruin’s Stinkfist, The Boredoms Wow 2, and dozens more. Bisi even worked on seminal hip hop classics by Afrika Bambaataa, Fab 5 Freddy, and even Herbie Hancock’s breakdance opus Future Shock (“Rockit”!). He currently runs B.C. Studios and records folks like Serena Maneesh and Angels of Light. Martin Bisi’s been so prolific behind the boards that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s a bandleader/multi-instrumentalist who’s made a quite a few internationally renowned solo albums over the years. Bisi's records on New Alliance in the late 1980s and early 1990s fused his New York avant background and Argentinean heritage. His latest solo project, The End Credits, who perform tonight, explore his art rock side. Aren’t ya curious to see what this local legend is up to?
THE LIST: Emergency Party, Longshanks,
Shellshag – Goodbye Blue Monday
12:14:2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
Lou Reed performs
Berlin - St. Ann's Warehouse $65 Out of all of the cannon of sonic miserablism, Lou Reed’s Berlin wins hands down as not only the most poignant, but also the absolute most hopeless of any collection of tunes I’ve ever heard. Far from accidental, Berlin was Reed’s stab at the most dismal album ever and met overwhelming success in that regard. And it works every time... My stomach tightens whenever I think about it. Despite a variety of threads, the conclusion, “Sad Song” reinforces the main theme. The material isn’t only sad, but about sadness itself - the entire ribbon tying the entire beast together is sadness. The protagonists of Reed’s tragic opera, Jim and Caroline, are a couple who descend further and further into the depths with drugs, domestic violence, infidelity, suicide, and even state intervention (“They’re Taking Her Children Away”). The changes in what Reed’s was going for here as opposed to his past characters is best illustrated by the changes he made to the contemplative and ambiguously sad lyrics of the then unreleased Velvet Underground song “Stephanie Says” which turned into “Caroline Says” on Berlin. Whereas Stephanie, adorned in cold imagery, wonders "why she’s given half her life to people she hates now," Caroline says, “You can beat me all you want to but I don’t love you any more.” This is the difference between the bleak existential situations of high Italian neo-realist cinema and the early Passolini films that critics began calling miserablism – the ones that were just plain depressing as a means unto itself. Miserable for miserable’s sake. While Berlin introduces itself with the exterior by the wall ("Berlin"), and works its way towards the patron saint of sad songs, Billy Holliday, ("Lady Day") and a sort of Marxist view of inherited economic and social standing ("Men of Good Fortune"), it next leads you by then hand into the couple's apartment and refuses to let you leave no matter how hard you bang on the door. You are captive voyeur and it’s all interiors from there on out. Lou Reed had become rich and famous with Transformer and exchanged this currency for big names, big production, and commercial mass murder – sort of a negative of Metal Machine Music. As opposed to most of the cannon of sonic miserablism, Berlin isn’t a sparse dry affair but suffocatingly baroque in its arrangements, words, and concept. The perversity of the situation is augmented by epic production by the man best known at the time as Alice Cooper’s main man, Bob Ezrin, and cheesy performances by famous rock stars - proggy studio cheese bass by Tony Levin and Jack Bruce, pompous drum fills by Aynsley Dunbar, and even, the name says it all, Steve Winwood. Everybody knows that, whereas high melodrama looks corny from a distance, when it is successful, it has far greater power to move you than any brand of subtlety. Berlin is pure unapologetic operatic pathos. If you can get a hold of some tickets, Reed’s doing Berlin tonight through Sunday. Apparently it will be a theatrical take on the album featuring Antony of Johnsons fame. I have no idea what to expect but would love to go – though I can’t imagine Berlin on stage having the same power it had in my little room at my parents house in high school, or my dorm room in college, or the dozen or so little rooms I’ve rented out since… escaping at first from cheap combo stereos and later from a series of cheap used record players, increasingly crackly with each play. Unlike most music that meant something to me when I was young, Berlin still spins. When every little bit of hope is gone, sad songs say so much.
12/13/2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
The Ex, Aloha, DJ Rupture - Knitting Factory Main Space $12 OK, I know this one's kind of obvious, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many other bands from the punk spectrum that are still making challenging culturally relevant music over a quarter-century into the game. This Dutch politically conscious art collective/band have never stopped expanding their experimenting way beyond the usual realms - incorporating an infinity of regional musics and genres into their highly distinct and energetic sound. A strong argument against cynicism towards aging rockers, role-models for anyone thinking of the possibilities of a different way of approaching countercultural music and lifestyles in the long-term, and an exception to most every rule. I wanna be just like The Ex when I grow up. The recently reformed Ohio post-rock band Aloha, while a couple of decades younger than The Ex, is also aging well. Their latest, Some Echoes, though abandoning the trademark vibraphone, is their trippiest and, hence, the first one I've been enthusiastic about. Finally, if you're into turntablism, Barcelona's DJ Rupture is worth the trip to Tribecca all by himself. Like The Ex, his reach exceeds all boundaries and his experimentation is rarely at the expense of the groove. I also highly recommend the sparse and sexy funky instrumentals of Moisturizer at Black Betty, the wild and rickety train ride named Langhorne Slim at Northsix, and Todd P's The 8 Guys, 8 ' Bands', 15 Minute Sets, 2 Hours Tops , $5 Show at Rocky's. Finally, don't forget that, after your show, New York Night Train's free weekly hoodang at Motor City continues with The Butthole Surfers' DJ Gibby Haynes and myself spinning strictly psych... We rock 'til four...
12/12/2006: DOWN AT THE ROCKandROLL CLUB....
Bellmer Dolls, Fresh Kills, Falcon and the Snowman, Dmonstrations – Fat Baby $5 While there's plenty to do tonight, I'm gonna suggest a show at a joint I don't often recommend or turn up at, Fat Baby, because tonight they have a fine dark, loud, and somewhat indy-ish bill and it ain't a bad little room for an intimate listening experience. Bellmer Dolls are fresh off of a European tour so their artful brood should be tighter than panty hoes two sizes two small. Fresh Kills have a new bass player and are back from the west coast supporting their Arclight Records Creeps and Lovers LP - so their intense churning tonight, as ususal, will be nothing to sneeze at. And, speaking of sneezing, yes ladies, tall sexy poet Zack Lipez has learned a few new tricks.The newish band here, Falcon and the Snowman, have just returned from the heavy duty rock'n'noise dimension and brought back some moon rocks and other novel souvenirs to share. But seriously, go early to check out the first band, who are not returning from anywhere as they're the only out-of-towner of the bunch, San Diego spazz trio DMonstrations - whose work on Gold Standard Laboratories is dizzyingly powerful. You can also find Dmonstrations later on a bill headlined by the warped metal nitrous of White Mice at a Todd P show at the makeshift venue with the coldest PBR in town, Uncle Paulie's - smack dab in the stankiest part of Greenpoint's industrial area. The reasoning I'm mentioning Swedish popster Nicolai Dunger is that he's playing Southpaw backed by one of the finest drummers to ever beat on stuff, Mssr. Jim White, plus an allstar cast that includes Collen Burke, Dylan Willemsa, and Matt Sweenie. And, if I didn't have such a strong desire to rock, I'd definitely be checking out art and music legend Selwyn Lissack - who will be joined by a collection of legendary talents that easily beat the pants off of Dunger's impressive assembly - Brice Winston, Roy Campbell, and William Parker. Not bad for his first New York show in four decades... And, other stuff I've recommended in the past, Slavic Soul Party, Taj Mahal Trio, Mingus Big Band, etc... Don'tcha wish you could be everywhere at once?.... go here for the complete list
THE LIST: Bill Baird,
Lights, Dave Bryant & Clint Newsom, Gabe Duncan - Cake Shop
$6
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