Tag Archives: live music

Friday Happy: I am the miracle!

Posted on August 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Rev. Vince Anderson and his Love Choir is the best damn show in all of Brooklyn, and I’ll stand outside the Williamsburg Waterfront in a free Girl Talk T-shirt and scream it to the masses through a rolled up copy of Vice Magazine.

I have seen the light, and I believe in the The Truth.

I’m posting this video here, but you can’t possibly understand the dirty gospel until you see it with your own face:

P8160718

The Light! from last Monday

The Rev preaches a roots dirty gospel with the voice of Tom Waits and playfully meandering songs that have a touch of Les Claypool. The music percolates through the room, lifting up the sinners to the communal renewal of musical praise.  His show is free every Monday starting at 10:30 at Union Pool, whose outdoor taco truck and ample, cozy space provide the perfect setting for Rev’s California roadhouse style and inventive stagecraft. And Jaleel Bunton, the guitarist, is in TV on the Radio.

I stood in the back of Union Pool on Monday, jaw in various states of slacking, eyes bulging ever wider, hand balling up into a fist and reeling back to punch a friend as I screamed: “Are you effing KIDDING ME? This has been here the whole time and we’re just finding out about it NOW?!?!”

The show owes its spirit to the tradition of old-fashioned revivals, but its only marked with subtle, inspecific religious themes too slyly incorporated to be a coincidence.

More info here, from Brooklyn Vegan. Go see the show, and you too will believe that you Are the Miracle.

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Disco Vietnam to invade Brooklyn

Posted on July 28, 2009 | 2 comments

join the Disco Vietcong

A divergence today from this blog’s usual focus (ha!) to bring you an important announcement: Disco Vietnam is coming to Brooklyn!

When: 10 p.m. Thursday 7/30

Where: Hank’s Saloon, corner of 3rd Ave and Atlantic. It’s the divest bar that ever dived, and we (well, some of us) love it. It has flames painted on the side and it can get rowdy. Hank’s has cheap PBRs and a Walgreens nearby if you need Febreeze yourself once you leave.

Who: The Brothers Schwartz (pictured below) make up the nucleus of the band. Barry you may recognize as a frequent contributor/critic on this site,  and he’s also an excellent songwriter. Kenny is a New School grad and is (rightly) feared by drum sets the world over.

The recent addition of Nicki Nevermann is their secret weapon, because, as

Disco Vietnams keyboardist threatens you into attending their show

DV's keyboardist threatens you with musical violence

you probably well know by now, the magic ingredient to success in any indie band is the Chick Keyboardist. She is a damn fine keyboard player, and a member of the Long Island Philharmonic. And she owns a pink gun, apparently.

They play unapologetically catchy indie pop, with powerful melodies that shake like Ted Leo and pre-apocalyptic riffs that soar like Muse.

This is their first-ever Brooklyn show after trolling far too long in the lonely salt mines of the Long Island music scene. Let’s show them a good time, so you can say you knew them when.

the bruthers Schwartz
the bruthers Schwartz

Click the link at the bottom for their hit (at least it sounds like a hit) song, “The NP,” which is named after Natalie Portman, but not about her at all. The last time I saw the band play in Huntington, Natalie Portman’s parents walked by the bar with their dog. This is a good omen for things to come.

They are currently finishing recording their first full-length album, Totally Awesome Decisions, with a street date sometime in the next few months.

Their first EP, Get At Me Corruption, was inspired by one of my away messages (hey, remember away messages?), and the new album name is my initials (TAD). I am still debating the Freudian ramifications of this.

But for realz, I don’t blow this blog space hyping up just any of my friends’ bands, so I wouldn’t waste your time here if I didn’t actually think they were a talented bunch with something worth checking out. Plus, Natalie loves them:

Listen: Disco Vietnam – The NP

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Posted in brooklyn, mp3, music, soapbox friends

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Interview: Welcome to moe.’s

Posted on July 16, 2009 | Leave a comment
(The Guide, 7/17) The band  moe. will forever hold a special place in the hearts of Hilton Head Island music lovers: It was their

mispunctuated presence as one of the first bands to visit the still-nascent Shoreline Ballroom in April of last year that helped give the venue a big-name boost. Since then, the Shoreline has brought a consistent flow of big names the island, from B.B. King to Snoop Dogg to Loretta Lynn to Conor Oberst.

The five members of one of the music scene’s longest-running jam bands — one that will hit its two-decade mark next year — will make their return appearance Tuesday. Lead singer Chuck Garvey talked about how their success came from doing musical “missionary work” and why file sharing may be the only thing that can save the music industry.

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Interview: Relax, they’re gonna play Stairway

Posted on June 19, 2009 | 1 comment

Get The Led Out: Zeppelin’s song remains the same

(The Guide, 6/19)

The path to musical success isn’t always the obvious one. Take Paul Sinclair, a Philadelphia native with Jimmy Page hair and a record collection full of the founding fathers of hard rock, who set his sights on one day following in the footsteps of his idols by belting out lyrics to a packed arena crowd.

But he quickly discovered success would require following his idols a lot more closely.

Sinclair put in a few years’ worth of effort in his band, Sinclair, slogging through the club scene and occasionally sharing a bill with notable acts such as Foghat. But a breakthrough remained elusive.

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Interview: Elan Atias of The Wailers

Posted on May 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Wailers stage an ‘Exodus’ on the island

(The Guide, 5/15) There are still a few recession-proof jobs out there these days: grocery store worker, tax lawyer and, apparently, membership in legendary reggae band the Wailers.

“I really did not think that all our shows would be sold out,” lead singer Elan Atias said about the band’s current tour by phone from Los Angeles this week. “I can count on one hand (the ones) that didn’t.”

The most recent tour by the Wailers — which still contains some of the original members who served as backing band to Bob Marley and other reggae kings — has traveled, as is customary, throughout American and Europe. Atias thinks that’s because even in a recession, people turn to reggae music to escape their worries.

The Wailers, performing the album “Exodus,” Passafire

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Shoreline Ballroom, Ocean Center, 40 Folly Field Road, Hilton Head Island

Tickets: $20 in advance, $23 day of show

Information: 843-842-0358, www.shorelineballroom.com

“The message in the music is to stand up for you rights, to be the voice for the oppressed,” Atias said. “All the wars, all the environmental problems, all the economic problems, it’s so much. It’s so much more than in the ’70s.”

What his band provides, he said, is escape. “We are the out. People still need their entertainment. People still need to have that getaway from the worries and problems and dealings of every day.”

The Wailers, frequent visitors to the area, will make another stop on Hilton Head Island on Tuesday for a show at the Shoreline Ballroom. Marley’s music is played year-round on the island, of course, but this concert will feature some of the actual hands that helped craft it, namely Aston “Family Man” Barrett, one of the original Wailers. Other members signed on the band as the group went on to other projects before and after Marley’s 1981 death, including playing with Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Burning Spear.

Atias was recruited to join the band 10 years ago while still a young Wailers fan. Since joining, he said, he’s brought his own style to the words of Marley. But his strained, raspy voice is so close to Marley’s that fans tell him they can close their eyes and still see Marley on stage.

“I’m not trying to be him,” Atias said. “I’m trying to do the music justice, to have people hear it the way I would have wanted to hear it. I’m a fan, first and foremost. I’m not trying to fill his shoes, I am myself. I think that’s what people respect.”

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Tonight! Trader Joe’s Brooklyn music showcase

Posted on May 18, 2009 | 3 comments

It’s an (almost) all Trader Joe’s Brooklyn musical showcase!


Goodbye Blue Monday is a sweet little book-store/venue in Bushwick.
FREE!
HOLY F–K!
FOUR BANDS!
HOLY F–K!

blue monThat’s right – you pester them with questions all week long about where the start of the “12 Items or Fewer” line is (even when they’re holding a sign that says “12 items or fewer”), so come out to support their non-grocery related ventures.

Featuring:

Galapagos Now!, which includes Dan Scan, your neighborhood friendly dairy order writer, and Jeff, who keeps the store full of hummus and deli meats
Cathexes, made up of dried fruits and nuts order writer Scott, and James, who occasionally serves you free samples in tiny cups and was (until-recently) in charge of keeping the store’s mutton chops display looking nice
The Outabodies featuring Shaun, the store’s No. 1 source for dreadlocks, baggy jeans and hot beats
Plus this guy, Adam Beam, who was booked by the venue and does not work with us, therefore is not entitled to any witty  personal characterization by me.

9 pm!!! TONIGHT!!

One of my favorite things about working at the store is that everyone has some secret identity, some passion they do when they’re not stocking cans that garners little financial return. It runs the gamut, from painters, poets and potters to musicians of all stripes, dancers, video producers, a guy who left another job to help start a new church, DJs, plus one sad and lonely struggling journalist.

It’s discussed a little bit in this infamous NY Magazine article about the Manhattan store from 2007. The Brooklyn store is less intense than that one, but the themes are similar.

If all the different bands and artists at the store ever collaborated on one big show, it would be an epic show that would span many hours and a dozen musical genres. But then there would be no one left to tell you which line to get into, so it probably won’t ever happen.

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Snoop Dogg on Hilton Head this weekend

Posted on May 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

Snoop is playing Hilton Head on Sunday in a bizarre mash up where the Universe of Highly Implausible Things crosses over with the Universe of Things I WISHED FREAKING HAPPENED DURING ANY OF THE PAST FOUR YEARS I LIVED DOWN THERE AND WAS BORED OUT OF MY MIND.

Last year, we ran four weeks of Ted Leo in advance of his show on Hilton Head in an effort to drum up support and broader interest outside the small hermetic world of a few local newspaper writers. We put together something similar for Snoop, since an interview with him wasn’t going to happen.

To understand this fully, come at it from the perspective of a 75-year-old woman who just picked up her newspaper from her Sun City driveway and wants to read about the upcoming Flag Day festival before her morning golf game. The Guide: The best publication that has absolutely no audience:

The Guide”s Snoopipedia, Week 1: The history of izzle-speak

Izzle-speak is a linguistic trend synonymous with the hip-hop artist and actor Snoop Dogg. While not the creator of izzle-speak, Snoop is given primary credit for injectizzling it into our collective lexicizzle. (His previous contributions to modern language include the phrases “Drop it like it’s hot,” “gang of Tanqueray” and “You don’t love me, you just love my doggy style.”)

A well-researched 2004 “On Language” column from the New York Times attributes the phrase’s origins to Bay Area rappers in the late 1980s. But, the article continues, there’s no doubt Snoop turned izzle-speak into the vernacular commodity that wannabe rappers rely on as much as wannabe intellectuals depend on the prefix “uber.”

And yet, in an interview with MTV earlier in the decade, Snoop also first declared that, forizzle, it was ovizzle, adding “izzle” to anythizzle that comes alizong. When the New York Tizimes is using it in headlizzles and Fran Drescher in Old Nizavy ads, you know it’s jumped the shizzle. See?

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