Calexico's New Album Carried To Dust is out today, and has the band sounding better than ever. Photo Credit: Gerald von Foris

Joey Burns, half of the masterful duo behind Calexico, graciously agreed to answer some questions for Short and Sweet NYC. Burns is the vocalist and guitarist for Calexico, a band whose Southwestern sounds have been featured on NPR and the soundtrack for I’m Not There. Calexico’s latest album, Carried to Dust is released today, September 9th on Touch and Go records.

What do you feel is the most exciting part of creating music in today's musical atmosphere- with the revolutions in musical distribution, etc?

JB: To not take the business so serious. I think there is more creativity because artists are starting to get involved with making decisions and releasing collaborative projects. It feels like people are having fun again with music...as it should be.

What single songwriter has influenced you the most?

JB: Vic Chesnutt, Bill Callahan (Smog), Thelonius Monk, D. Boon (The Minutemen), Erik Satie, Taraf de Haidouks, Amalia Rodriguez, Serge Gainsbourg, and Duke Ellington. They all carved out a serious expanse of character without definitions and limitations.

How much would you say your songs have been affected by the turbulence of our contemporary cultural milieu- economic and political exigencies?

JB: It varies from day to day depending on how much media (news?) is digested. Everything creeps its way into the music, and at the same time there is an instinct to push further away from watered down information. Stories and characters pack a more powerful punch and stick with you at day's end. There is a sea of information swimming in an ocean of misinformation.

What's been your shadiest/most hair-raising tour experience?

JB: Losing someone at a foreign truck stop or talking to music business people who lack heart and are trying to sell you on something they don't buy.

Do you feel that the CD is dead as a musical art form?

JB: CD = Diet Coke. mp3 = Coke light. Live music will never die.

Where do you draw inspiration for your lyrics?

JB: Ingredients on cereal boxes, Audubon prints, new names for old drugs, Chinese medicine, wrestlers with world wide appeal, architecture by Rick Joy, prepared guitar by Rick Cox, nicknames, anything with bake-o-lite, Bisazza tile from Italy, Marimekko prints from Finland, old stuff at swap meets that tell a story, documentaries, Spanish wine and dark chocolate.

What was the experience like working with Jim James and appearing in I'm Not There?

JB: A wonderful surprise and true inspiration. I told him now that we have recorded and performed the cover of Goin' To Acapulco we have to come up with a new song to do together. Can your readers email us at our website which song(s) they would like us to cover together? We are taking suggestions.

A lot of your music has a very cinematic feel to it. Have you ever thought about
scoring a film?

JB: (sound off camera...footsteps leading to an alley that echo in the night. The pace quickens, stumbles and stops) "You following me?" says the out of breath bicycle messenger dressed in vintage denim and freshly off work. "Know where I can get a soundtrack around here?" the voice asks the old rabbit eared and obsolete television set parked and poised at the end of the alley way.(silence...uncomfortable time elapses as if a current were connected and the screen ready for connection but nothing happens). "Static noise and chatter, that's where it's at."

A red robin flies down to the rabbit ears and perches itself as if to sing, "soundtrack away, when ready sir."

You guys have been involved in some rather exciting collaborations in the past. Is there any one in particular you are looking to work with next?

JB: Katerine or Dominique A from France. Both just played here in Tucson and were wicked and wonderful.

Nate Campbell

Folio from an Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) manuscript. Opaque watercolor on palm-leaf; 2 3/4 x 16 1/2 in. (7 x 41.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2001 (2001.445 l).

Location: Upper East Side, NYC
Art: Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-Leaf Tradition
Show time: Tuesday–Thursday: 9:30 AM–5:30 PM, Friday and Saturday: 9:30 AM–9:00 PM, Sunday: 9:30 AM–5:30 PM, Monday: Closed; Through March 22, 2009
Venue: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Food: Barking Dog Luncheonette
Drink: The Auction House
Miscellaneous: Uptown Lounge

Featuring thirty rare Indian palm-leaf folio’s that show some of the earliest surviving Indian illuminated manuscripts dating from the tenth to the thirteenth century, these illustration center around the Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita Sutra ("Perfection of Wisdom"). If you love dogs, not hot dogs but real doggies, then you’ll really love the Barking Dog Luncheonette, as the décor features everything with a dog on it. The food, is your regular diner fare with plenty of burger, sandwich, and hot plate options. Grab a drink and feel like you were transported to the late 1800’s at The Auction House. With ornamental red velvet couches, exposed brick walls, and vintage chandeliers, this hidden gem of a bar is cozy. Beautifully designed, Uptown Lounge is a bar and restaurant serving American fare like Apple Peppercorn Pork Chops ($18), while being big enough to stick around afterwards for drinks.

When a sleek skincare giant like Prescriptives launches a new product, it's safe to say “they have my attention.”

When they call their latest product to hit the shelves “Good In Bed,” I have to wonder if this is a marketing coup d'etat? It certainly is a rather novel name for a nightcream!

Eight weeks on, my little silver jar is finally empty and it's time to summarize. Yes, my skin is a glow and I know for a fact that it’s not due to my sun-drenched vacation in Scotland [not!], so the subtle tanners in the product really do work. While “getting your glow on” is important for healthy looking skin, the real magic lies in the other ingredients: shea butter, vitamin E, and grapefruit extract, which work hard all night long to condition, brighten, and smooth the skin.

For “Good in Bed” read “Effortless Early Morning Beauty!”

Michelle McDermott

A former makeup artist for Christian Dior, Michelle McDermott writes about luxe resorts, spas, and hotels for print and web publications. Check out her website at OhSoBoutique

Get Down Latin Psychedelic Style with Chicha Libre at Barbes.

Location: Park Slope, Brooklyn
Band: Chicha Libre
Venue: Barbes
Food: El Viejo Yayo
Drink: Buttermilk Bar
Miscellaneous: The Chocolate Room

For fans of psychedelia and South American sounds, Chicha Libre, the band named after a music craze from the Peruvian Amazon and Incan corn liquor, are sure to make you dance with the sexy sounds of surf guitar, moog, and farfisa organ. Keeping the night going with Latin flavor, try El Viejo Yayo for dinner. This gorgeous and warm restaurant has an elegant dining room and an affordable menu offering Dominican/Latin cuisine. The outside of Buttermilk Bar may look non-descript, but looks are deceiving . . . just not in this case, as this low-key watering hole is where you can grab a cheap drink in a friendly atmosphere, while playing a board game or two. With a near insane menu of chocolates from coffee and tea to delectable dessert, and even beer, The Chocolate Room is a great way to end the night on a high note.

Jaguar Love flail, wail, and put on a killer live show at Southpaw. Photo Credit: Dorit Finkel



Jaguar Love
Southpaw
August 19, 2008



"Do you have loooove for Jaguar Loooove??" Johnny Whitney demands late on a Tuesday night at Southpaw in Brooklyn, in a broken voice filled with the sincerity and emotion of Miss America and the ferocity of a warrior.

Oh yes, we do.

Whitney, who recently formed Jaguar Love with his Blood Brothers mate Cody Votolato and ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves drummer Jay Clark, struts, screams, sighs, and sweats his way through a rendition of the band's debut album like a preacher on speed.

Before one sees Jaguar Love pounce and growl in a live setting, it is easy to feel that their sound falls short of what it could be. The music is tighter, brighter, and more melodious than most of The Blood Brothers' material; the bass and keyboard interplay sounds like the foundation of the Next Hot Indie Rock Band. But Whitney's vocals, which actually do sound remarkably like a baby jaguar's, put an awkward frosting on the cake. Often doubled, often off-key, and often lacking the subtlety needed to complete the band's careful sound, the whole package can make one's ears downright uncomfortable.

Hence, the importance of hearing this band perform. As they rocket from the muscular thumping of "Bats Over The Pacific Ocean" to the seizurely lament of "Highways Of Gold" to the epic, someone-went-back-in-time-and-gave-the-80s-some-balls "Jaguar Pirates" ("Oh children, take back the rad world!), one fact becomes clear: what seemed like an unfortunate contradiction on record is what has this audience thrashing in joyous abandon. In each song, dancing is not just doable, it is necessary. But more importantly, dance-rock has fused with out-of-control metal and headbanging punk, and Whitney's T. Rex-on-steroids yelping and glam-grunge attitude are responsible.

As any dissonance between band and fans disappears with "Humans Evolve Into Skyscrapers" (a grotesquely poetic description of a psychedelic apocalypse), everyone falls absolutely in love with each other. All the explosiveness and good vibes that so many hipster bands lack seems to be vacuum-packed into the tiny club. As the energy shakingly escalates with a cover of The Black Keys' "Have Love, Will Travel" and the band's own emotive "My Organ Sounds Like...," Whitney and Votolato break the last barrier, flinging out into the small crowd, hugging, kissing, flailing, screaming, and receiving a Jaguar Love-fest in return.

This is not awkward. This is perfection.

Dorit Finkel

If This is the Crowd Your Band Plays to, then Sign Me Up! Photo by Nick Zinner, from his exhibition It's OK, Don't Look at the Road

Friday September 5

Location: Midtown West, NYC
Bands: Fashion Rocks with Beyoncé + Black Eyed Peas + Chris Brown + Mariah Carey
Show time: 7:30 PM
Venue: Radio City Music Hall
Food: Zip Burger
Drink: Subway Inn
Miscellaneous: Kinokuniya Bookstore

Since it’s Fashion Week in Manhattan, what better way to bridge the gap between that and music than for Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Black Eyed Peas, Chris Brown, and more to blow the roof off of Radio City. At Zip Burger they prove their point, offering farm-raised, organic, grass-fed meat and poultry, letting you build your own burger with plenty of gourmet toppings. The first time I went to Subway Inn I thought it was completely strange that there was a dive bar off Lexington Ave., in this neck of the woods, but somehow it works. Born in the 30s, this bar has somehow remained, and thank god, as it’s easily the cheapest place in the area for a drink. For fans of Japanese pop-culture, Kinokuniya Bookstore has a large selection of Japanese themed books, videos, CDs, magazines, comics, and stationary.

Friday September 5

Location: Lower East Side, NYC
Band: Sex Mob
Show time: 8 PM
Venue: The Stone
Food: Chickie Pig’s
Drink: Mason Dixon
Miscellaneous: 151

Bringing you jazz with a whole lot of funk and a punk attitude, Sex Mob, led by trumpeter Steven Bernstein are always a party onstage. What sounds like a vegetarian’s nightmare is actually a gourmet pizza restaurant. Chickie Pig’s offers some interesting brick oven thin-crust pies like The Pig’s Fig Pie with fig jam reduction, Gorgonzola, proscuitto, and chives ($15). If you have the desire to ride a bull when you order a pint, then you’re in luck! Mason Dixon offers both. Seriously, you can drink and ride a friggin’ mechanical bull here! For a good time or if your goal is to get trashed, hit up 151. There’s no sign outside, but inside, happy hour is 2 for 1 everyday from 6-10pm.

Saturday September 6

Location: Financial District, NYC
Bands: East Village Radio 5th Anniversary
Show time: 1 PM FREE
Venue: South Street Seaport, Pier 17
Food: Burritoville
Drink: Jeremy’s Ale House
Miscellaneous: Century 21

East Village Radio celebrates its fifth anniversary by hosting one of the best lineups of underground bands playing in one place this summer! Performances include Japanese metal band Boris, hip hopper Devin the Dude, and bands Awesome Color, Vivian Girls, High Places, Flying Lotus, Ólöf Arnalds, and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, and it’s all FREE. While most people buy hot dogs and grab a beer at expensive restaurants in the Seaport mall, you’ll be smart and head over to Burritoville for inexpensive and delicious California inspired burritos, all under $10. For drinks, Jeremy’s Ale House has a lively crowd and a beer list that will get you a pint for $5 and under. If you get down to the financial district early, check out Century 21. They won’t try to sell you some property, but they have some great designer clothing on the cheap, plus the place is huge to roam.

Saturday September 6

Location: Midtown West, NYC
Bands: Equus
Show time: Saturday at 2 and 8 PM
Venue: Broadhurst Theatre
Food: Pig N’ Whistle
Drink: The Irish Rogue
Miscellaneous: Island Burgers & Shakes

You’ve heard all the fuss surrounding Daniel Radcliffe’s play in London called Equus, where he gets nude and rides a white horse (the animal, not the drug reference!), now the Harry Potter star brings this play to the Broadway stage. Already a Tony Award winner, this may be your chance to see Harry Potter up close and personal. For great Irish food, one of my faves is Pig N’ Whistle in midtown. Serving traditional Irish fare like Steak and Kidney Pie and American. A great Irish pub in Hells Kitchen, The Irish Rogue has live music and sports playing on TVs, so you know this bar will be a party all day. If Irish food ain’t you thing, then head over to Island Burgers & Shakes as the menu is stacked two pages deep of some of the most intense burgers and chicken breast sandwiches on the island of Manhattan.

Sunday September 7

Location: East Village, NYC
Art: Nick Zinner
Show time: Wednesday to Saturday 3 to 8 pm; Through September 13
Venue: Fuse Gallery
Food: Momofuku
Drink: The Village Pourhouse
Miscellaneous: Sundaes and Cones

Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nick Zinner, who moonlights as a photographer has a pretty good ear for music and an eye as well. In his exhibit It's OK, Don't Look at the Road, he documents his experience as a musician on the road. If you like ramen noodles and pork, then Momofuku is your spot for food. The Berkshire pork is the best I’ve had and it’s the only place I’ll eat pork period, which should tell you just how good Momofuku really is! What looks like a neighborhood bar to watch sports actually has three more rooms, where you can order food or find a place to smooch! For dessert a little left of the dial, Sundaes & Cones offers eclectic flavors like wasabi and corn and many more flavors that are familiar.

A New Earth
By Eckhart Tolle
Penguin







Enlightening? Perhaps. Ego-filled? Certainly. Too many ill-informed quotations of Sartre and Kant? Far too many for any serious philosophical student to take seriously. A New Earth, by spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, while a bestseller and Oprah Book Club favorite, it lacks the serious philosophical and metaphysical content for the book to be considered truly thought provoking and inspirational.

In his novel, Tolle discusses a solution to the ego-filled consciousness that plagues humanity today. He encourages people to go outside of the ego and to live in the present moment. To him, breaking free of the ego is a process of experiencing life only in its present moment. Overall, the book merely took ideas from great philosophers and put them in any easy to understand self-help book.

Corey Crossfield