Highlights
DIESELBOY
THURS., JUNE 17
WHERE DO YOU go when the music stops playing? I ask not because, in those cornball Legrand/Mancini terms of that song's title, the music has actually stopped playing. It's just that, for the most part, the necessity of drum 'n' bass and jungle has dwindled to a thrum; especially in this, the good old U.S. of A., where it hardly ever broke beyond the dedicated masters (Grooverider, Roni Size, Goldie) and its dear, devoted followers. Surely, the best city-and-state for the most original of the jungle crew is Philly. Wink, Nigel Richards, the GFS crew: These are the heroes of the jitteriest of hardhouse sounds, the most dramatic of DnBers.
And then there's Damian Higgins. The junglist best known as Dieselboy has leapt from imprints, big and small (Technical Itch, Moonshine, Palm, Sub Base) and his own label, Human/System, to haunt the locals with the roar of the jungle in its most urgent unctuous sound. From "Atlantic State" and "Descent" to his first (one of the first) artist/mix double CDs, 2000's, The 6ixth Session and projectHUMAN, DieselHiggins has managed the cool detachment attested to by the best Britjungle with a brusque warmth that only the finest funk could hold truck with. Not funk like thumb-plucking fun, but rather the humid moodiness and humor of, say, techno soulsters like Juan Atkins and Derrick May.
For his new CD, The Dungeonmaster's Guide, Dieselboy does something most only infer: He plays a game as old-school and fickle-fan-based as his votive electro-motivated sound, Dungeons & Dragons. Dieselboy's twisted mixing and sharply axed break-beats take on not only the hilarious mash-up of neighbors like Wink ("Evil Acid") and pals like Karl K/Kaos/Jae Kennedy ("Soul on Fire"). It chops/slices/dices his own decadent dreary tracks ("Prologue") and those of Raiden and Dumonde-separately, the Sacco and Vanzetti of DnB.
Avalon, 662 6th Ave. (20th St.), 212-807-7780, call for time & price.
A.D. AMOROSI
AMP FIDDLER
SAT., JUNE 19
EVERYTHING IS RIGHT in the universe of Amp Fiddler. Known as Joe to the artists who've borrowed his Detroit born-and-bred electro keyboard style, Fiddler spent the earliest chunk of his career making his solar-space the place for acid jazzers (Brand New Heavies), rock weirdos (Was (Not Was)), funk kings (George Clinton) and princes (uh, Prince). For me, Joe was most famous for pairing with his brother as the bass-and-keys house-hop duo Mr. Fiddler. Their singular effort, With Respect, is one of those great lost hiphop CDs you'll spend forever hunting down on eBay while it surely sits in bargain bins across the plains.
Still, it wasn't until Amp added his cooing, yowling silken vocals to the mix-on several Moodymann singles, throughout tech-lord Carl Craig's compu-jazzy Detroit Experiment-that everyone took notice. Y'all took notice because, like the music of Lloyd Banks, Andre 3000 and Sleepy Brown, this was the murky future-funk of the new millennium here and now-a sound that had been rolling around the South and Midwest for more than a decade.
Amp Fiddler is on Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, a CD filled with Mr. Fiddler-style hump-house rap shat, cool-like-dat flowtronics and furiously aggressive funk ("Superficial," "Love and War") with spacely-sprocket synth squiggles and Moogs that remind audiences that they've been here before.
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park (enter 69th St. & 5th Ave.), 212-360-2777, 3, free.
A.D. AMOROSI
FRI., JUNE 18
WHETHER YOU KNOW Chicago's Felix Stallings Jr. as one of his mix aliases (Aphrohead) or as Da Housecat, this house head is a new wave freak of the first order. Not the usual cock-waving synth structures, Felix's got a penchant for turning the singed electronics and freaky funk of the 80s into something smooth and sensual (the sleekly chic synthetic sheen of "Ready 2 Wear") or decadent and richly bejeweled (the Missing Persons synth-slash of "Everyone Is Someone in L.A.") without riding the retro-rockets that dumber contemporaries in electroclash have.
Following in the footprints of his now-classic Kittenz and Thee Glitz, Felix lines the weirdly familiar songs of his brand new Devin Dazzle & the Neon Fever with 80s totems-blipping Lin-drums, icy synth lines, jaded vocals-irresistible and kitschy, but willingly toppled. The robotic vocal reverie of "Watching Cars Go By" is as chilling in its accuracy as the Maniac-meets-Numbers sequencing of "Neon Human." Yet it's Felix's litany of buzzing scuzzy guitars and full-blooded bass pulses that give the lean, repetitive melodies of "Rocket Ride" and the Bootsy-funk of "What She Wants" future-forward rip-snorting motion. Each track's nuance-from the bored expression of his singers to the hot whistling windiness of his mix-pushes even the most mindless bit into the red-hot-red. Can Fever be, like Kittenz, the best CD of its given year?
Lotus, 409 W. 14th St. (betw. Washington St. & 9th Ave.), 212-243-4420, 10, $20.
A.D. AMOROSI
MON., JUNE 21
THE SKINNY ON Devendra Banhart was this: Back in 2002, creepy, crawly, 20-year-old singer/songwriter Devendra hums, strums and bums his minute-long minuets onto warped cassettes from cheaper recorders. This isn't the newest notion, mind you. Guys like Wild Man Fischer and Daniel Johnston have done the same in their time. Like them, Banhart seems a mad hatter. Unlike them, there's a brutal beauty, even an elegant elegiac quality to his quaking, cracked actorish voice and crude, eccentric lyricism to match a meeting of, say, Nick Drake to pre-Ziggy Bowie.
Swans boss and Young God Records founder Michael Gira allows the first CD, Oh Me Oh My... the Way the Day Goes by the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit to come out as-is. The unmastered masterpiece is a sassy, happy mass of messy paranoia, horrific high-pitched vocals and creaking ambience, sounding as if it could have been recorded in a pine box in the middle of a daguerreotype.
Fast-forward to the present: Banhart and new producer Gira record new songs on old gear in a living room in Georgia, mixed and mastered with the gentle like of hippie/folk freak Vashti Bunyan on board-all with a similar esthetic to Oh My, but with a greater sense of purpose and melody-and what you've got is Banhart's second and third warbling, garbled, plucked and clucking epics-Rejoicing in the Hands and Nino Rojo, the latter to be released in September. It's really quite dashing.
Opening for Banhart is Vetiver.
Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111, 9, $13.
A.D. AMOROSI
THURS., JUNE 17
AMP FIDDLER
SAT., JUNE 19
EVERYTHING IS RIGHT in the universe of Amp Fiddler. Known as Joe to the artists who've borrowed his Detroit born-and-bred electro keyboard style, Fiddler spent the earliest chunk of his career making his solar-space the place for acid jazzers (Brand New Heavies), rock weirdos (Was (Not Was)), funk kings (George Clinton) and princes (uh, Prince). For me, Joe was most famous for pairing with his brother as the bass-and-keys house-hop duo Mr. Fiddler. Their singular effort, With Respect, is one of those great lost hiphop CDs you'll spend forever hunting down on eBay while it surely sits in bargain bins across the plains.
Still, it wasn't until Amp added his cooing, yowling silken vocals to the mix-on several Moodymann singles, throughout tech-lord Carl Craig's compu-jazzy Detroit Experiment-that everyone took notice. Y'all took notice because, like the music of Lloyd Banks, Andre 3000 and Sleepy Brown, this was the murky future-funk of the new millennium here and now-a sound that had been rolling around the South and Midwest for more than a decade.
Amp Fiddler is on Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, a CD filled with Mr. Fiddler-style hump-house rap shat, cool-like-dat flowtronics and furiously aggressive funk ("Superficial," "Love and War") with spacely-sprocket synth squiggles and Moogs that remind audiences that they've been here before.
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park (enter 69th St. & 5th Ave.), 212-360-2777, 3, free.
A.D. AMOROSI
MON., JUNE 21
THE JVC JAZZ Festival is an unusually funky one this year. Hallelujah to that; what with João Gilberto, Brazilian touch-sensitive guitarist and singer logging time (Friday) and the god of the harmolodic-avant, saxophonist Ornette Coleman joining smoked-vocal goddess Abbey Lincoln (Sunday). I bet even k.d. lang singing with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and conductor Charles Floyd (Saturday) gives it up in some way.
But, it's "Sing the Truth?A Tribute to Nina Simone" I'll be standing at the door of Carnegie Hall for. The show features two of Nina Simone's bands, led by her long-time musical director Al Schackman, and a weird mix of old and new neo-soulsters who've hopped on the Simone wagon for some much-needed dedication to the queen of the goddamned. While this all-star line-up includes prose masters like Toni Morrison, and Oscar Brown Jr., Tracy Chapman, Philly hiphoppers Floetry and skronk-blues six-stringers James "Blood" Ulmer with Vernon Reid, Lizz Wright and Odetta, I'm here for the mean sweet sway of Simone. Nina's best moments, however bitter, bitchy, subtle or sexy; gospel, socio-political soul or broke-dick blues, came from the voice, a whisper, a scream that interpreted everything from Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" to the traditional "Balm in Gilead" as if these were her last moments.
Carnegie Hall, 157 W. 57th St. (7th Ave.), 212-247-7800 8, $30-$75.
A.D. AMOROSI
TUES.-THURS., JUNE 22-24
TESTICLE-SHAVING, midget-socking, the absurdity of irony, the necessity of Phil Collins as a parental tool, gay retards, the Bush apocalypse, 80s metal videos: These are a few of comedian Patton Oswalt's favorite things. Tackled at a slow-burning Virginian churn, the subjects are secondary; it's the meter and manner in which Oswalt splays forth his Dadaist comic discourse-the literate referencing, the wordy torpor.
Oswalt-known by most as Kevin James' buddy in King of Queens, a lucrative gig to be certain-takes on the sly, silliness of pop culture, much like his acknowledged influence Jonathan Winters does. It may take you an extra beat to run down the abstract twists in the punch line. But Oswalt is funnier and less reliant on what's imagined as clever voices or character portrayals.
Apparently, to many Christians, he's a cursed cause célèbre-analyzed on the homepages of the Childcare Action Project (which gives a Christian Analysis of American Culture) with its results finding Oswalt to be a vulgarian. From his role as occasional stand-up MC to the Aimee Mann/Michael Penn pairing's cabaret, to his HBO specials, to the intertwining, neatly improvisational bit heard on his due-soon CD Feelin' Kinda Patton, Patton is more a rude, lucid English Lit professor than a crass menace to society.
Aimee Mann will hopefully play songs from Magnolia, in which Oswalt starred, just to set the mood.
St. Ann's Warehouse, 38 Water St. (betw. Dock & Main Sts.), Dumbo, 718-254-8779, call for times, $40, $35 adv.
WITH DJ RAY VELASQUEZ, DJ AYO OSINIBI, TONY MOLLA & SAMBA + SAMBA
TUES., JUNE 22
OVER THE COURSE of two decades, Bebel Gilberto has honed her craft as a singer/songwriter, working and collaborating with some of the more creative producers and musicians around the world. That's why her discs are dropped into the "World Music" section of most retail shops. Americans may not be as familiar with her output, perhaps recognizing her voice on a few Thievery Corporation and Vikter Duplaix tracks. While her subdued vocals certainly sound pretty on top of deep house bass lines and warm keys at the club, Gilberto always returns to her Brazilian roots and folk and samba past.
Her new self-titled solo effort is a mellow affair, with floating acoustic guitar chords melting with laid-back electronic beats. (Here's where I'll admit my fondness for Sade, Sophie Barker and other downtempo crooners with aching jazz influences). Gilberto leans heavy on her Latin heritage, but also that of a life reared by famous Brazilian musicians. Her dad, Joao Gilberto, is known for reinvigorating bossa nova in Brazil with his unique guitar strumming and monotone singing style. His records with Stan Getz from the 60s are timeless pieces of inspired song craft and musicianship. Her mother, Miucha, also a famous Brazilian singer, taught young Bebel to sing. By the 80s, Bebel was already appearing in front of crowds at Carnegie Hall and established cultural hot spots around the globe. Keeping an ear to the ground, she has worked in every kind of genre, from Latin Jazz to candy-coated pop to-yikes!-recording with Kenny G. Like I said, she's versatile. And human.
DJs Ray Valesquez and Ayo Osinibi will play new cuts from the album and Latin-flavored dance music. Also, on live percussion, Samba + Samba will be jamming to the jocks' beats. Here's what you really need to know, though: a great artist, Brazilian women, a cheap cover and Latin grooves.
Cielo, 18 Little W. 12th St. (betw. Washington St. & 9th Ave.), 212-645-5700, 10, $5.
DAN MARTINO
SAT., JUNE 19
THEY'VE BEEN caught up in more scandals and infighting than Courtney Love, and yet the Wildhearts can't get arrested in the United States. Nobody even seems to care that they've spent more than a decade producing sleazy gutter-glam albums that shame our local imitators. There's a fine recent compilation called Riff After Riff, but the real story is the new The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed. It's their most savage and poppiest album yet. They've even got a chance to sell the album on tour this June with the Darkness, in a particularly fine pairing of shameless rock antics.
The Wildhearts also make a rare club appearance this Saturday (note: not with the Darkness). They're almost guaranteed to put on a fine show-even if lead singer Ginger is still in the same lousy mood as when he calls in from a tour stop in Nashville:
Your fans have waited a long time for a U.S. tour. Yeah, but you've got to have a lot of the business on your side to come to America. We never had those resources, but we do with the Sanctuary label. They've been bringing us over a lot of times. It's a lovely position. We have nothing to complain about.
The most amazing thing about The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed is the band's sheer consistency. Well, we're consistent. There don't seem to be any medals in rock 'n' roll for consistency. It mainly has to do with cheekbones and being prepubescent. I'm sure there are a lot of closet homosexuals in the music business, and they like young naked teenage boys. Older guys don't get much of a chance. I think it's impressive that we're still doing great work, but I still can't get a publishing deal. Who the fuck knows what that means? I'll never understand this business until the day I die.
But your band has a following all over the world. It doesn't make sense to me, why we're all broke. We seem to have a lot of people that like us. The Darkness' crowd, they're all cheering by the end of our shows. But no one gets us on the radio. There's no tv. There's no press. How do you expect us to carry on if we're all skint? We've all got families. When we first came over here, we thought all would be fine, but now no publishers want to deal with us.
The Darkness deserve a lot of credit for having you open their shows, since they could try pretending that bands like the Wildhearts didn't keep rock alive in the 90s. Yeah, that's nice of you to say, but it doesn't translate into money. I've got two kids. Their booties have to come from somewhere. I don't know what our manager expects us to live on. It's a fucked-up time for the band. Just as we're getting the most exposure, it's not working. If someone could just tell us why this band doesn't work-I'd like to hear it before I retire.
On the other hand, you wouldn't be writing such brilliantly bitter songs if you were a millionaire rock star. Yeah, I worry about being a millionaire rock star. I don't feel like a rock star. I feel like a bum. That's where the anger comes from. A lot of great songs come from tragedy, and it's a fucking tragedy that no one will invest in this fucking group.
Tribeca Rock Club, 16 Warren St. (betw. B'way & Church St.), 212-766-1070, 10:30, $10, $8 adv.
J.R. TAYLOR
THURS. & FRI., JUNE 17 & 18
AS THE ORIGINAL king of lo-fi, Gary "U.S." Bonds enjoyed a healthy chart run in the early 60s with crappy-sounding songs such as "Quarter to Three" and "School Is Out." The multi-tracked vocals gave a psychotic tinge to Bonds' soulful twist on the rock-combo sound. Patronage from Bruce Springsteen even got him back to the majors in the early 80s. Now Back in 20 brings Bonds back to his roots after recent years of appearing on Hollywood Squares and doing charity projects with Muhammad Ali. The album-recorded at his Long Island home-is typically strong, as Bonds demonstrates while opening for Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes this week.
Why did it take 20 years between albums when you have a home studio? Well, I just got the studio a couple of years ago. Then I had to learn how to use it once I put it in. I didn't realize I was going to have to sit down and read. Then I had even more questions, but I got it together. It's a lot easier having a home studio. I don't have to go anywhere, and I'm a lazy kind of guy, anyway.
Does a home studio make it easier to record when you're drunk? See, back when I was much younger, I could afford to do that. Once you reach a certain age, it's hard to get drunk and stay upright. But it's a lot of fun to do a record, especially now that I've got my family working with me.
Back in 20 still sounds kind of primitive. We're doing it the old-fashioned way. I still believe you can make a mistake and it doesn't have to be corrected-unless it's really blatant. There are things on Back in 20 that people wanted me to change. Maybe a guy played a little something that wasn't right. I think that's cool. It makes the music sound believable. I don't want to hear a guy playing everything note by note, sounding like he spent a year working on it.
The album also has a great turn from Phoebe Snow. My daughter was originally going to do "Bitch/Dumb Ass" with me. We'd already recorded it, but then she said, "This is a great song for Phoebe." That's the second take that you hear on the album. I kept Phoebe's laughing in there, because you could hear her being so knocked out to get the chance to do that number.
You had an early hit with "I Dig This Station," which is one of the greatest songs ever about the radio. How's your relation with the industry nowadays? The other day, they told me that they had somebody working my record on AAA. I thought, "Why do they have an automobile guy in the radio business?" I know what that means now, but-well, I'm still not sure if I know what that means. I used to love back when radio stations played every damn thing. That's not going to happen anymore, except for some of the college stations. I've got a good college radio station here, but their broadcast range barely covers my block.
You're just about the last of the original party singers, along with Doug Clark & the Hot Nuts. Oh, I know Doug Clark. I'm from north of Virginia, so I know what's going on down there. I know how you get your nuts. You get them from the peanut man. I've always been wanting to have fun whether I'm onstage or offstage. If you're going to be in this business and you're not having fun, then get off the stage.
B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 7:30, $35.
J.R. TAYLOR
LORI CARSON
TUES., JUNE 22