Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Read about music and stuff


--Profoundly weird article about the relationship between legendary founder of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, Genesis P-orridge and his wife, Lady Jaye--specifically their mission to become identical through plastic surgery. That's some freaky shit, man.
[Download: Just Drifting (For Caresse) from Psychic TV's first album, Force The Hand of Chance from 1982. Lovely melody, soaring strings, Korean karaoke bar drum machine beats. Its off-kilter authorship only tipped off by the ambling vocal delivery that tries to jam slightly too many syllables into each measure.]

--An interview with Kurt Wagner. New Lambchop album in October, yah!

--Setting the Woods On Fire, posted the original versions of all the covers from Yo La Tengo's Fakebook album in one handy place. (Thx, Ted!)

--The New York Times says the youngsters are into vinyl and music execs are looking to nurture the vinyl record market into a "profitable niche." They manage to make the trend seem annoying by advancing the oversimplification that in today's world where the internet makes it easy to assemble an esoteric, vast-reaching music library, the extra effort required to acquire, store, and play a record makes it stylish

--Jon Pareles feature on the new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Eno admits, "“We didn’t really talk to each other” during the making of the album, mostly trading musical ideas via email.

--Pareles on last Wednesday night's Nine Inch Nails show in Jersey:
At the Izod Center, where the floor level was standing room, Nine Inch Nails incited shout-alongs and mosh pits. There were also oohs and ahs. Walls of lights and video screens were the backdrops and sometimes a cage for the band members, with effects enveloping the musicians. Nine Inch Nails didn’t use video to blow up images of the musicians’ faces, but to surround the band in an abstract digital firestorm. It sometimes looked as if Mr. Reznor’s brain waves were radiating sparks.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Jelly's Last Jam

Yo La Tengo
August 24, 2008
Final Jelly NYC Free Show at McCarren Pool
Brooklyn, NY

Jesse also posted a setlist.

Vanity Fair has no idea of what they speak. Nice snaps though.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Friday, August 22, 2008

Dump

August 21, 2008
Mercury Lounge
NYC

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Addis Chop Up

August 20, 2008
Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center
NYC
The Ex, from Amsterdam, with Ethiopian saxophonist, Getachew Mekurya
Ethiopian singer, Mahmoud Ahmed with Either/Orchestra
Ethiopian singer, Alemayehu Eshete with Either/Orchestra

Musicians spotted at the show: Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth collaborated with The Ex for the 2002 EP, In The Fishtank.)

More snaps from the show.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Battles

August 16, 2008
Central Park SummerStage
NYC

800 years of minimalism

August 15, 2008
Damrosch Park

Manuel Gottsching performs his classic electronic composition, E2-E4, with illumination from the Joshua Light Show. A performance of Rhys Chatham's composition for 200 guitars was supposed to be part of the bill but was cancelled due to rain. 

More on BrooklynVegan.

Photos from the rehearsal of the Chatham piece.

The Melvins

August 8, 2008
Music Hall of Williamsburg


















Jared Warren doffs his captain's hat for a singing of the national anthem.


The Melvins played Bowery Ballroom the next night.

Tribute To Joel Dorn

Damrosch Park
August 13, 2008

Dr. John & Cornell Dupree



The Persuasions



Black Heat, who hadn't played together for roughly 30 years.


Mose Allison


Roberta Flack

Musicians spotted in attendance: Paul Shaffer

Sunday, August 17, 2008

James McNew on Becoming a Man

Yo La Tengo bass player James McNew pays tribute to the recently-departed Bernie Mac in the latest edition of his online column, "On the couch with James." Opening up about the impact made on him by Mac's film, The Original Kings of Comedy, James says:
To me, the movie was about growing up and accepting responsibility, and how it really ain't all bad — you can do it, we all can do it.
I'm not entirely sure I can do it, but I will take these comforting words of wisdom to heart. Thanks, James!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

HOW DOES IT FEEEEEEL???

Bob Dylan
August 12, 2008
Prospect Park
Brooklyn

The cheapest tickets for the show were something like $75--well over the amount at which I cap myself for purchasing concert tickets. And besides my personal exercises in fiscal discipline, I have a certain populist leaning that says that rock shows should be for the kids and that it's somehow wrong to charge an amount that only the wealthy can afford. Fine, the guy's a legend, one of the true godheads of American music, but this is rock n' roll and that should mean something, dammit.

All of this is by way of saying that although I did not purchase a ticket in advance to this sold out show I showed up anyway. I am a proponent of the "where there's a will there's a way" philosophy when it comes to these things, which usually turns out to be true. Well, not in this case. I think the dearth of tickets being sold outside the show, a fairly ubiquitous happening at just about any other show, stems from the older, economically comfortable demographic of the crowd. If people ended up with an extra ticket they probably were more likely to absorb the cost than to degrade themselves by scalping it outside.

The shame of spending the concert outside the 10-foot tall gates that had been diabolically erected around the outdoor bandshell to prevent the ticketless scum like me from sneaking a peak at ole' Bobby D was sublimated by the general righteousness of the situation. Here I was, among the orphans and vagabonds hovered outside the barricades trying to intercept whatever spare notes could waft through the sound-deflecting barriers while the fat cats sat comfortably inside with their plastic cups full of wine and their khaki pants and grey old-people hair. I mean, WE WERE BOB'S PEOPLE! You know, the ones from the songs and stuff. Well, that line of thinking made staring at the gates more palatable anyway stealing a few notes of "Rainy Day Woman" or "Lay Lady Lay." I could hear the people inside singing along to "Blowin' In the Wind" and they sounded dumb. Us real folk, and there were a ton of people outside who remained through the whole concert, danced and climbed trees to get a better overlook. Next time Dylan comes around and I decide to buy tickets, I guess I better take my diamond ring and pawn it, baby.

Photos where in you can enjoy Bob Dylan's awesome choice of performing attire, which causes him to look like an Amish pimp--a brilliant look if one ever existed.

New York Times review of the show

Jesse Jarnow's awesome review for the Voice

Artists in attendance: Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, whose band, Yo La Tengo recently contributed to the I'm Not There soundtrack with "Fourth Time Around" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover."

Related: I was listening to the Yo La Tengo version of "Fourth Time Around" with a friend who pointed out that it sounded like YLT were ripping off the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood." I immediately swooped in to correct him that in fact it was a cover of a Bob Dylan song and that more likely the Beatles had ripped off Dylan. Once the embers of my ego calmed down (inflamed in part because, hey, how come I had never noticed the melodic similarity between the 2 classics?) I ventured to actually double-check my ill-informed assertion. To my dismay, "Norwegian Wood" had been released in on the Beatles' 1965 album, Rubber Soul, while "Fourth Time Around" came out the very next year on 1966's Blonde On Blonde. But the similarity was uncanny so I googled them both at once and in one of the most satisfying Internet searches I've ever conducted, a full explanation unfolded courtesy of wikipedia:
"Norwegian Wood" was considered an artistic leap for Lennon, as it was his earliest story-song and showed an obvious Dylan-influence. "4th Time Around" has been seen as either a playful homage, or a satirical warning to Lennon about co-opting Dylan's well-known songwriting devices. Lennon himself felt it to be a somewhat pointed parody of "Norwegian Wood". Lennon later told his biographer that he considered Dylan's effort to be more a playful homage. Still, the last line of "4th Time Around" can be interpreted as more bitter than playful: "I never asked for your crutch./ Now don't ask for mine." In the context of the Dylan-Lennon rivalry, this line can be interpreted as Dylan warning Lennon not to use Dylan's songs as a "crutch" for Lennon's songwriting.
This is probably old news for the well-informed Chocco Salo readership, but figured I'd share, just in case.

Download: a live version of Yo La Tengo covering "I Wanna Be Your Lover" with Chris Stamey sitting in from December 6, 2007, Night 3 of their recent Channukah run at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

All Points West

August 8-10, 2008
Liberty State Park
Jersey City, NJ

Radiohead, Night 1



Panda Bear of Animal Collective, Night 2

New York Times review
Photos
More photos

Music in Film

On the heels of the extremely rewarding Jazz Score series (on-going through September 15th) that has been showcasing original jazz composition in film for the last few months at the MoMA, comes a new music-based retrospective called Looking at Music running for the rest of the year at the museum's 2 movie theaters. The heady program features experimental works that explore the interesection of sound and image and includes compositions by the likes of John Cage, Terry Riley, Sonic Youth, and others.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Good God!


Chocco Salo correspondent, Chris Pascarella, on seeing King Khan & The Shrines at yesterday's McCarren Pool show:

"He's legitimately nuts -- like an Indian James Brown on LSD."

More photographic evidence available on Brooklyn Vegan.

African Guitar Fest

August 3, 2008
Prospect Park
Brooklyn


Oliver Mtukudzi

Friday, August 1, 2008

YLT News

Yo La Tengo are my favorite band to see play live. So I'm pretty thrilled about the following:
  • Yo La Tengo will be playing the last free show ever at McCarren Pool on August 24th, with Titus Adronicus and Ebony Bones (link)...commenters on Brooklyn Vegan are already starting to queue up to make sure they get in!
  • Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan will play along with Glenn Mercer of The Feelies, Kate Jacobs, Tammy Faye Starlite, Dave Schramm, Ron Metz and Al Greller at Maxwell's on September 5th as part of a benefit for Terry Karydes
  • A new album, cleverly named, They Shoot, We Score, featuring a compilation of all the music composed for the film scores of Old Joy, Shortbus, Game 6, and Junebug
  • Ira Kaplan will be DJing on WFMU (91.1 FM) twice this weekend: on Friday (tonight) from 11pm to 2am and Saturday (8/2) from 1 to 3pm
Update: Ira played Dark Star on his radio show!

Evolution of the Music Biz

Fare Thee Well:

Casette tapes

Album liner notes


Concerts in the Pool

Hello:

High-concept music venues