Music
Manny Oquendo & Andy Gonzalez
Weds., Jan. 19
Copilots through 30 years at the helm of one of NYC's most gorgeous bands, the great timbalero Manny Oquendo and his bass man Andy Gonzalez celebrate their birthdays-and the velvet strength of the fabled New York Sound. Tito Puente had the show sense; Oquendo sports the chops. In the 60s, his ferocious "tipico" playing backed Eddie Palmieri's wildly exuberant first band, La Perfecta, and birthed salsa. For those in the know, Oquendo, Gonzalez and their trombone-packed conjunto Libre have been making it happen ever since.
La Maganette, 825 3rd Ave. (50th St.),212-759-5677; 8, $10.
-Alan Lockwood
Schubert's Die Winterreise
Thurs. & Fri., Jan. 19 & 20
Baritone Florian Boesch and pianist Russell Ryan perform Franz Schubert's magnificent song cycle (Op. 89, D. 911) based on the poems of Wilhelm Müller with visuals by Andreas Ratz. One of the last works for both the composer and the poet, "Die Winterreise" was panned upon its release in 1827, yet it remained one of Schubert's personal favorites. The cycle narrates the end of a relationship and conveys the disappointment of a lover through the use of images of winter, finally culminating with "Der Leiermann" (The Organ-Grinder) one of the most powerful and haunting lieder ever written by the composer.
Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 E. 52nd St. (betw. 5th & Madison Aves.), RSVP 212-319-5300 x. 222; 8, free.
-Hector Meza
Detroit Cobras and the Sights | Thurs., Jan. 20
With all the hype surrounding Detroit bands, it's a shame the Detroit Cobras stand in the shadows of some of their more notable friends like the White Stripes and the Von Bondies. In 10 years, nothing has come easy for Maribel Restrepo, guitar, and the chain-smoking, raspy, whiskey seductress Rachel Nagy on vocals. In that time, they have had some of Detroit's best local talent bounce in and out of their line-up, seen record deals come and go, and let inner-band tensions get the better of them. One might say the lack of original music in the band has held them back. On their new release Baby (available only by import on the Rough Trade label), you'll actually hear a rare original song called "Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)," which Restrepo has called "a silly-ass song." Either way, the Detroit Cobras have always stayed true to what they do best, which is to dig deep into that vast musical vault of old blues and Staxx-style soul and come up with a raw, fresh approach that a lot of their fellow Motor City rockers fail to achieve with their original music.
Hot and cold luck continues to haunt the Cobras. They sold a respectable 20,000 copies of Baby so far in the UK, where they are the latest buzz band, and even had the song "Cha Cha Twist" off Baby land in a Diet Coke ad. But as good as things are going abroad, they could be better in the States, where they are lost in the shuffle of a Detroit musical scene that they themselves helped create long before the world was introduced to Jack and Meg White, and still remain without a U.S. record deal. Your best shot right now of getting what might be the Detroit Cobras' best record yet is heading out to a show and buying one there.
The second half of tonight's Detroit double-header is the Sights. You can't help but love the Sights' bombastic late-60s garage-pop sensibilities laced with the Farfisa organ, and fuzzed-tone guitar psychedelia. Rumor has it that the band will soon be releasing a long-awaited follow-up. The Sights was started by guitarist/vocalist Eddie Baranek back in his not-so-long-ago high school years, and after aligning themselves with the Dirtbombs, the Cobras, and the Paybacks, have earned a reputation as a great band who'll often steal the show from everyone else on the bill.
Maxwell's, 1039 Washington St. (11th St.), Hoboken, 201-653-1703; 8:30, $12.
-Jimmy Ansourian
Warmer By The Stove: Eric Wright | Fri., Jan. 21
The Warmer By the Stove series for improvising and experimental musicians opens its 12th season with a celebration of composer Eric Richards' 70th birthday. A sample of Wright's works includes "The Mouth of Night" for one to 12 breathers, "Between a Rock?" for rock band and solo lute, and "The Consent of Sound and Meaning," scored for 10 double basses and seven trumpets, so peal the holiday jingles and get your headset. He's titled this program "Final Bells," and is joined by percussionist Alan Zimmerman and David Keck on vocals, with one of new music's ace pianist, Joe Kubera, at the bench (Kubera's highly regarded for interpretations of John Cage's piano music, including his Lovely Music recording of Music of Changes).
Warmer by the Stove producers Thomas Buckner and Tom Hamilton span the gamut of new music. Buckner's baritone singing and tireless advocacy having been fundamental on the scene for 30 years; recent apexes include a duo with Cecil Taylor, and world premieres of a Roscoe Mitchell concert piece and Robert Ashley's new opera, Dust. Hamilton, in addition to his own electronic music (check out the roiling tweaks of last year's London Fix on Muse-EEK) has been performing and recording Ashley's music for 15 years, and co-organized the big Sounds Like Now festival at La Mama last autumn.
The series continues with drummer/word fount William Hooker on Jan. 22, with Sabir Mateen's sax and violinist David Soldier of the Soldier String Quartet. Next weekend, Belgian guitarist Guy de Bievre plays "Bending the Tonic" on Friday with a band featuring Peter Zummo's trombone, then saxophonists Jack Wright and Michel Doneda tie things up with "From Between" on Saturday the 29th.
Lotus Music and Dance, 109 W. 27th St., 8th floor (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-627-1076; $10.
-Alan Lockwood
Kermit Ruffins | Mon., Jan. 24
I adore New Orleans at its quietest. That's when the ghosts come out and its boggiest swamplands are at their most hauntingly elegant. That's why I loathe the bacchanalian vomitorium known as Mardi Gras. America is too agog for its own good. I've learned, too, to despise so much of the music of that moment: the rabble, the rouse.
How then do I have such fond regard for Orleans parish native Kermit Ruffins, the soon-40-year-old trumpeter as renowned for his audience-appreciation skills as he is his brassy, ballsy good-time music? As well as having played the way-too-much huckleberry sound of zydeco and the parade circuit of New Orleans, Ruffins is a student of all his city's sounds as well as the free spirit of improvisational jazz-the slow, holy sound of heroes like Louie Armstrong as well as the rabidly fast stuff; the area's hallowed church hymns; regional Indian music; brass band blues.
A cheery man? Certainly. But this former founder of the Rebirth Brass Band's best solo work-compiled on a new eponymous Putumayo World Music label collection from his Justice and Basin Street label recordings-is as often rife with teary sadness, unhinged anger and prayerful sorrow as it is giddy.
Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. (betw. Park & Lexington Aves.), 212-576-2232; 7:30 & 9:30, $15.
-A.D. Amorosi
Bonfire Madigan Shive | Tues., Jan. 25, Tues., Feb. 8, 15, 22
Critics tend to recycle the phrase "avant-pop chamber rock" when writing about Bonfire Madigan, the San Francisco outfit of cellist/composer Madigan Shive. It's pithy terminology for music with deep, cello-driven rhythms that can be as irresistible as a riptide. Veins pulsing with adrenaline and espresso, BMad knocks the floor out of a musical landscape overrun with wan, Will Oldham-inspired alt-country.
In the early 90s, Shive's seminal duo Tattle Tale left no punk girl unstirred. The band roared through Riot Grrrl and the independent music scene with cello- and guitar-based harmonies that could arc from pillowy hush to ear-splitting shriek in the span of a bar. My friend Seanna pinched her boyfriend's copy of the demo cassette for me in 1994; Shive's music has been sewn into my life ever since. Shive's first release as Bonfire Madigan was on Kill Rock Stars; From the Burnpile, now out of print, is an underground classic. But when Shive and KRS parted ways after Saddle the Bridge, her career was stymied.
There are cases in which DIY and independent channels ultimately do a disservice to both the artist and the fans, and this is one of them. During the search for a new label to fund and manage distribution, promotion and tours, Shive's influence has been limited in scope, if not intensity-fans routinely drive hundreds of miles to see her play. In recent years, she's released a handful of recordings on her own label, MoonPuss Music. Plays for Change is the rare live album actually worth listening to, and I Bleed samples a decade of Shive's work, compiling songs that are out of print with newer work. But the production quality of both leaves something to be desired, which detracts from the music itself. Whether she's decrying poverty, whispering a transcontinental lullaby or grieving her late mother, Shive's songs are electrifying, and the new ones reflect a growing sophistication that belongs on a well-produced, properly distributed release. (Which is imminent. The esteemed Hal Willner, who's cultivated icons such as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg and Marianne Faithfull, is producing the next Bonfire Madigan release; complete with former Tarantel drummer Jonathan Hughes and acclaimed guitarist Shelley Doty, it's due out this fall.)
The Knitting Factory and Pianos both extended winter residencies to Shive: The Knit got her for January, and Pianos has her for February. She'll be joined by Elliott Sharp and DC's Garland of Hours (1/25), Diane Cluck (2/8), Rebecca Gates (2/15) and Thalia Zedek (2/22), among others.
Jan. 25 at Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B'way & Church St.), 212-219-3132; 7, $8.
Feb. 8, 15 & 22 at Pianos, 158 Ludlow St. (betw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.), 212-505-3733; 9:30, call for price.
Yanni
thurs.-Sat., Jan. 20-22
Yanni's official biography confesses that he "could not read a note" of music at the beginning of a career that "defies categorizing." In a top-secret document obtained by New York Press, Yanni's publicist confides that it is only because of "overwhelming demand" that the great New Age one will stop into town for a mere three nights. How gracious of PBS to spare Yanni's fund-raising abilities and share his indescribable magic with New Yorkers. Now we'll all know what reveille sounds like at a forced-labor camp.
Radio City Music Hall, 1260 6th Ave. (50th St.), 212-307-7171; 8, $44-$104.50.
-Aileen Gallagher
The Upwelling | Sat., Jan. 22
Normally I'd dismiss a couple of mischievous indie rockers whose band name is a pun of a bad burger joint and whose professional credentials include more than one backslash (illustrator/musician/artist). But White Hassle (from White Castle), an offshoot of Railroad Jerk's Dave Varenka and Marcellus Hall, has produced not one but two unforgettable back-to-back albums. And it only took the group seven years to do it.
Hall's the anti-Ryan Adams, a Minnesota native who's hardly prolific, but when he releases an album, he strikes gold. White Hassle's sound draws from several genres, an inventive mix of makeshift instruments and complex melodies.
When Hall's not with his band mates banging tin pots together to the sound of a banjo and his scratchy voice, he can be found all over downtown, drawing people for fun, or illustrating for The New Yorker and other publications (including this one). Not a bad gig, but he's not giving up his day job, because, as Hall put it in a Slate article last year, "The music part is [only] a job-but with negligible income."
White Hassle's latest album, The Death of Song, is less noisy and offbeat than their first effort but no less a masterpiece, with top-shelf tunes and smart lyrics, making it among the best (and most underrated) indie albums of 2004. Anthems such as "I Was Sleeping," "2 by Sea" and "My Favorite Lie" are hard not to hum, and their cover of the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" is a keeper. I'm looking forward to White Hassle's next batch of tunes. Too bad I'll probably be in my 40s by the time that happens.
With the Hold Steady, P.O.S. and the Heartless Bastards.
Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700; 9:30, $10.
-Lionel Beehner
33Hz, Trick and The Heartstrings & Diplo | Wed. Jan. 19
Though this Joe's show is meant to party down the start of downtown entrepreneurix Oxycottontail's dot com, in reality it's a celebration of all that shall be wack in wonky-funk and funky wonk for 2005. With a silver shoe-gazer's rockist edge to their cool purplish disco sound, 33Hz are electro-frying. Syrupy vocal harmonies rippling with blue-eyed soul, a bouncing, overly synth-ed out dance-ambience that'd make Air and Phoenix seem more daft than punk-all this makes for one of this city's finest quartets. Hurry up and catch them before they get too old to matter-they've been doing this for over five years. Trick and the Heartstrings-well, they're just the cutest boys. Finally, there's Diplo. This Florida swamp-to-Philly-ghetto producer has created one of the East Coast's hottest crunk-funk bashes in Hollertronix. With his DJ buuuuudy, Low Budget, the two spinners make audiences sweat as if they're unleashing water from a fire hydrant.
On his own, Diplo has turned out three of latter '04's finest works. His solo artist CD, Florida, is the sound of leg-humping, shadow-layered jazz-foink with deep dirt beats with quacking keyboards. Then there's his damn near privately released, Piracy Funds Terrorism. Mixed and recorded by himself with M.I.A. (Maya Arulpragasam, the Sri Lanka-via-London electro-tribal goddess), Piracy is awash in avant dancehall-tronics. By fusing bits of her own debut CD's best songs-the chanted robotica of "Galang," the cannibalistic jungle of "Amazon," the timpani-tech of "Bucky Done Gun"-with Salt 'N' Pepa and Eurythmics, the duo places her upon an immediate pedestal. Still, for all-around heat and laughter, seek out Diplo's dirty Braza-Miami-bass mix, Favela on Blast: Rio Baile Funk 04. His raw silken, nasty-ass epic is filled with barking beats, rangy guitars and hook-heavy melodies. You'll want more of this the second you hear it.
Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. Astor Pl. & W. 4th St.), 212-539-8500; 11, $12, $10 with flyer.
-A.D. Amorosi
La Belle Captive | Thurs.-Sat., Jan. 20-22
\Based on the texts of French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet and poems written by women imprisoned during the Argentinean military dictatorship of the 1970s, John King's newest work is billed as "an experimental, electronic opera." But La Belle Captive is operatic less in the style of the music than in the scale of the spectacle. It's no surprise that King directs the work, as the visual and performance components are as carefully scored as his music. The video work by Benton-C Bainbridge is mesmerizing, especially when coupled with Minou Maguna's set and lighting. Like Robbe-Grillet's oeuvre, this opera lacks a unified plot and psychologically-based character development; it instead relies on symbols. The opera follows the tenuous relationship between an imprisoned actress (Analía Couceyro) and her captor, represented by the imposingly haunting figure of a soprano centerstage (Carla Filipcoc Holm).
Images of open spaces, like city- and ocean-scapes, are contrasted against more claustrophobic-and sometimes surprisingly intimate-locales such as a prison cell. In its preoccupation with aural and visual perception, there is an affinity between this piece and Kandinsky's stage work, like Der Gelbe Klang (The Yellow Sound). The music and text play tricks on the listener, while eyes and mirrors are recurrent images. The action onscreen and onstage mimic each other, often blurring the line between the source and its echo. This production, which received its world premiere at the Teatro Col-n in Buenos Aires, will certainly please those with a penchant for visceral, if unclassifiable, experiences.
The Kitchen Center, 512 W. 19th St. (betw. 11th and 12th Aves.), 212-255-5793; 8, $15, $12 st./s.c.
-Hector Meza