Friendly Fires make electro rock that will blow your mind and make your booty shake! Photo by Catherine Losing





Friday March 27

Location: Lower East Side, NYC
Bands: Friendly Fires + White Lies Get Tickets Here
Show time: 8 PM
Venue: Bowery Ballroom
Food: Social
Drink: 151
Miscellaneous: Bereket

Two smoking hot bands: The Friendly Fires who sound like DEVO on crack and White Lies, a synth heavy rock act join forces to rock the Bowery Ballroom. If you haven’t caught the buzz on either one, they both put out really great music! Joining them is The Soft Pack. To start a night that will no doubt rock, you may want to go straight to the bar, and that bar would be 151, where happy hour is 7 days a week from 6pm till 10pm and includes 2 for 1 drinks. For those that don’t want a liquid dinner first, check Social for comfort food including the Mac & Cheese (Macaroni covered in Three Cheese Truffled Mornay Sauce & topped w/Seasoned Bread Crumbs). For a late night eat, a favorite spot of mine is Bereket for falafels and to watch drunks succeed at spilling their food all over themselves and failing at picking up chicks. Not for the faint of heart!

Friday March 27

Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Bands: New York Tropical
Show time: 10 PM
Venue: Glasslands Gallery
Food: Relish
Drink: Radegast Hall & Biergarten
Miscellaneous: Zebulon

Hosted by Durty Artz, this Tropicalia party sees plenty of tropical, dancehall, house, and cumbia being spun by Matt Shadetek, Kingdom, Uproot Andy, and Geko Jones, with a special appearance by Argentineans La Yegros! Though Relish looks like a 50s diner or an even larger version of an L train car, this restaurant offers up some gourmet treats for dinner. With influences from all over the globe, Relish features diner classics like burgers and onion rings, and step it up with the likes of Blackened Yellow Fin Tuna ($21). Williamsburg’s first beer garden, Radegast, has a beautiful all-wood interior, an enclosed outdoor backyard, and 12 German/Austrian beers on tap and more than 30 bottles. Another great bar in the area, Zebulon offers free live jazz and afrobeat. The drinks here are inexpensive, and I’ve never seen a bad show here before.

Saturday March 28

Location: Midtown West, NYC
Band: Juan De Marcos & the Afro-Cuban All Stars Get Tickets Here
Show time: 8 PM
Venue: Town Hall
Food: Empanada Mama
Drink: Circus
Miscellaneous: Vintage

Join Juan De Marcos, who was one of the architects of the Buena Vista Social Club, and some of the top Cuban musicians who combine the sound of old Cuban rhythms with the new sound coming from the countries top performers. Though small, Empanada Mama packs a hefty punch with more than 40 kinds of empanadas. Choose from a wheat or corn flour shell to start as ingredients include basic rice and beans to what they have dubbed “Viagra,” a wheat flour empanada stuffed with shrimp, scallop, and crab ($3). Appropriately, at Circus, you’ll get free hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn without the animals, screaming babies, and clowns at this Rudy’s Bar spin-off that has beer just as cheap and a neighborhood feel. If cheap beer ain’t your thing, Vintage has a wine list with over 200 wines by the glass or bottle from most of the boutique wineries in Long Island and Upstate New York.

Saturday March 28

Location: Lower East Side, NYC
Band: Oscartienealas
Show time: 11 PM
Venue: Fontana’s
Food: Katz’s Deli
Drink: Nurse Bettie
Miscellaneous: Ludlow Guitars

Making their first appearance in NYC, Spanish indie rockers Oscartienealas bring the party mixing Latin and rock to make some great music that’s more than easy to get your dance on to. They will be performing at Fontana’s alt-Latin dance party Nacotheque and best of all there will be open bar from 11 to 12 courtesy of Svedka and gift bags for the first 130 people. If you’re starving, I mean really starving, head over to Katz’s Deli. This old school deli packs on the pastrami a mile high. The portions are huge and the place is classic NY. For drinks, Nurse Bettie is a chic looking bar with exposed brick walls, paintings of 50s pinups, and offers an excellent cocktail menu. Stop by Ludlow Guitars if there’s time and peruse through some magnificent rare and new music equipment from inexpensive to guitars that you will have to save dearly to afford.

Sunday March 29

Location: Long Island City, NYC
Film: Kenneth Anger
Show time: 9 PM; Through September 14, 2009
Venue: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Food: Sripraphai
Drink: Saints and Sinners
Miscellaneous: Baruirs

P.S. 1 presents the first major survey of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s work in more than a decade, focusing on his early films which critique Hollywood, reference pop icons in occult settings, and depict the violent and erotic counterculture. Anger’s work has inspired fellow filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Gus Van Sant, and Guy Maddin. Being that you’re in Queens anyways, you HAVE to take the 7 train to Sripraphai, one of New York’s top Thai restaurants. What makes it better than most is the fact that the ingredients are fresh, and instead of choosing your entree with a choice of meat, they offer a novel sized menu with pics of every dish, most under $10. Once a heavily Irish neighborhood, Saints and Sinners is one of the best looking Irish bars left. Grab a Guinness at the bar or traditional Irish food. If you can, head over to Baruir’s in Sunnyside for one of the best cups of coffee in Queens.

Morrissey
Years of Refusal
(Lost Highway)







Only Morrissey can sing the words, “I'll slit their throats for you” and turn them into the most beautifully romantic lyrics I have heard in ages. Forever forlorn, this once underground icon of moody ballads and somber sentiments has continued to grow as an artist and refused to fade away quietly. It is a special thing to stay so relevant, so emotive and so spiritually dark when most of the original fans who grew up listening to his records in their angst-ridden college years have probably grown-up and become responsible and well-medicated adults. And yet Morrissey himself proves with his latest record that he has managed to stay artistically hungry and keep himself sealed in a wonderfully weary womb of loathing and despair.

In a day and age when young Emo bands and their shallow whining are all the rage, this new record is Morrissey's way of showing them who the master of true mourning is. If you are too young to remember The Smiths and how great it was to sit around your college dorm getting high and listening to Morrissey's soul bleed out in sad, symphonic ballads, then I suggest you begin a musical journey into the past recordings of this classic artist. And you can start with this record, because he has not lost his edge and has in fact turned the scars of his years into a more refined and evocative sound.

When Morrissey sings about his mother's suicide in the romantic and angry ballad, “Mama Lay Softly On The Riverbed,” he shows why he is the master of turning misery and sadness into something indescribably beautiful. He is also digging deeper into his own life and the memories of the past, which gives any fan a very intimate look into the birth of a great artist. Even though he may have began as “a small fat child in a welfare house,” he has certainly become a rock star for the ages. And who else can inspire you with the lines, “Life isn't much to lose.”

Adam J. Rodriguez

Through four movies, a host of real dangers as tricky and perilous as the supernatural ones, learning history while Harrison Ford smiles that slightly skewed grin, being introduced to a whole bunch of unforgettable ancillary characters, The Indiana Jones movies have thrilled, chilled and entertained and through the hair raising visuals and 40's Saturday morning serial like traps, John Williams has provided the music.

Raiders of the Lost Ark Soundtrack
(Concord Records)




On the Raiders of the Lost Ark CD (the first movie in the Indiana Jones series) Williams introduces us early on to his pallet of possibilities in the opening sequence: there’s some spooky, 'rattling bones'-like percussion in the opening track "In The Jungle," rat-scurrying type sounds on "The Idol Temple" and the big horn-filled "Escape From The Temple." One of the most recognizable themes in the Indiana canon (maybe in all of modern movie-dom), gets its first airing on "Washington Men/Indy's Home," the lush "Flight To Cairo" introduces some middle-eastern flavor and in "Basket Case" those recognizable recurring themes come through again. “The Fist Flight/The Flying Wing" has great daring-do-do big sweeps and "Marion's Theme/The Crate" a superb lead flute.

At the time of “Raiders” release big adventurous movie music had been out of flavor and I believe with this first Indiana Jones soundtrack Williams really created the genre anew.

Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom
(Concord Records)





The music for Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom is quite unlike that of its predecessor. The music on this CD is very interesting indeed, there's a great use of bells, slicing strings (I thought of Bernard Herrmann a lot) chanting on the track “The Temple of Doom” and even an actual Asian-flavored vocal on the opener, an inventive cover of “Anything Goes.” Along the way, we get Williams’ usual sweeping strings, that familiar Indy theme, some break-neck moving in "Slalom On Mt. Humol" and the romantic light "Nocturnal Activities." "The Scroll/To Pankot Palace" is really a high point here, a true piece of modern classical music. I have heard it argued that modern movie music is our modern-day classical music, and with this track, I think the argument could really be made for that claim.

It’s interesting to note here that although all three of these latest releases (keep your pants on, I’m getting to the last one!) have unreleased songs on them, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom has the most.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
(Concord Records)




Williams had a lot of ground to cover on Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. As you might recall, we meet Indy’s dad in this third installment of the series, played by Sean Connery and a young Indy, played by the dearly departed River Phoenix in the opening scene. This start of the film, “Indy’s Very First Adventure” has some typical ominous Williams’ stuff and “X Marks the Spot” is another fine classical piece. I like best when I can hang my hat on those familiar Indy themes, which come in during “Scherzo For Motorcycle and Orchestra.” “Ah Rats!” employs the ol’ Williams’ trademark trick of plucking ‘scurrying’ strings (by this point in the three CD’s we’ve heard this representational sound effect used quite often) and for the first time in any of these movie soundtracks, things get downright “Disney”-fied on “Brother of the Cruciform Sword” and “Belly of the Steel Beast.” But just when I was losing hope in this soundtrack, Williams bounces back with great ending pieces like “The Canyon Of The Crescent Moon,” “The Penitent Man Will pass” and “The Keeper Of The Grail.”

With movie soundtracks, I think it’s damn hard, near impossible, to separate the tracks from the visual, even if you don’t remember the movie perfectly. I tried to listen to these CD’s for what they were, only consulting the track titles when I had to note their names, so as not to be influenced by a rush of remembered visuals. Given this, I’d dare say John Williams’ music for the Indy films, as with everything he does, is first-rate and indeed is modern-day classical. I’d rate these fantastic CD’s (each one has a great booklet as well) Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom the best of these three with Raiders of the Lost Arc next and lastly Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, back to where we last left our hero…

Ralph Greco, Jr.

Photographer: Dugdale



Location: Midtown West, NYC
Band: The Prodigy
Show time: 9 PM
Venue: Roseland Ballroom
Food: Sullivan Street Bakery
Drink: Rudy’s Bar & Grill
Miscellaneous: The Shops at Columbus Circle

Looks like 90’s British Electronic band The Prodigy (Remember “Firestarter” and “Smack My Bitch Up” off The Fat of the Land?) are back with a new album Invaders Must Die. Their fifth studio album unites them with some new and some of the old sound that saw them voted by a British mag, one of the bands to see before you die. Arguably one of the top bread makers on the east coast, and good to get gourmet pizza’s and sandwiches, Sullivan Street Bakery makes exquisite food using ingredients you’d see on the Food Network! More bar than grill, Rudy’s is like going back to college, minus the books. The beer is cheap and by “grill,” they mean free popcorn and hot dogs. If you have trouble finding the bar, just look for the 6 foot tall fiberglass pig standing outside! To get out of the cold and see what an upper-class mall is like, stop by The Shops at Columbus Circle. Expensive restaurants like MASA and shops like Williams Sonoma are fun to browse through to see how the other half lives.

Check The Prodigy’s “Take Me to the Hospital” live from Big Day Out Australia 09:

Lot 49, an early 90s Alt-rock band from Santa Barbara, Southern California, who were together from 1993 to 1997 before breaking up, will release a lost album called Lonely Planet. Made up of Scott Killion-Malo (vocals/guitar), Kevin Serra (guitars), Josh Richards (bass) and Mike Pearl(drums), the band sound like a cross between The Smiths, The Chameleons and early David Bowie while maintaining a sound all their own. The seven songs that make up the album Lonely Planet were recently found after more than a decade in a storage locker in NYC and the first single off the album “Exponents” has just been released on Amazon and on iTunes, with the CD being released in May 2009.

LISTEN + DOWNLOAD
Lot 49 - Exponents
Lot 49 - Shake Out

DaVe Lipp

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz
(Interscope)







After our favorite Williamsburg rockers showed us their bones in 2006, they strike again, not by prowling on beer-drench stages as their doe-eye front woman makes love to her mic, but by heading to the clubs. Forget punk anthems, hormone-fueled sex rants, and orgasmic-induced screeching. The trio from Yeah Yeah Yeahs (YYY) takes it down a notch on their new album It's Blitz, expected to debut on March 31st, but already available in digital form thanks to their legions of impatient fans. Trust us, the wait is worth it because it's too grand and spectacular of an album that will be heard for decades to come. Whether you're getting high in Washington Square Park during a sudden warm winter or marching down the Brooklyn Bridge on a star-lit evening, It's Blitz is the ultimate New York soundtrack of the year and undoubtedly one of the best albums in 2009. Taking inspiration from the many nightclubs in the city, YYY goes heavy on synthesizers and less on guitars, while rebellious leading lady Karen O's vocals are more smooth than throaty. It's Blitz is a triumphant return that both fans and new listeners will savor all day and night.

When Karen was first questioned about what audiences should expect from YYY's third album It's Blitz, she boasted, “It's something new that we've never heard before from ourselves. Less angst and more positivity, man!” That's exactly what the band features in their new collection of songs, especially in the album opener “Zero,” a cocaine-fueled disco where she commands “Shake it/Like a ladder to the sun.” It's a groin-thruster with throbbing guitars, insisting that you “get your leather on.” Getting the party started, “Zero” is an attention grabber that will make you listen until the final track. “Soft Shock” is tender with Brian Chase's steady drums, along with constant bleeps and blips emphasizing Karen's melodic, dreamy, vocals that have the magic of a summer romance.

Aside from heal-stomping beats, there are also some dark, haunting singles to keep listeners guessing. “Skeletons” is a slow, lingering melody that one needs an acquired taste for. The anticipation of the song suddenly going into a hit number disappoints, like a weak-performing lover that never reaches the dramatic climax that we yearn for. There's a hint of an oriental, mourning echo that's faint, but persistent, which perhaps touches on Karen's Korean heritage. In a delicate, breathy voice, she croons the tragic haiku, “Love left dry, frost or flame, skeleton me.” Fortunately, “Dull Life” rekindles our love for YYY with her aggressive warnings of nightmares from lies, Nick Zinner's guitar swivels that do the same for our hips, and the upbeat, gypsy garage beat that somehow makes us forget that the song is about a misleading beau.

YYY's It's Blitz may leave fans scratching their heads in confusion, not knowing what to make of their new sound that could easily tell the story of Donna Summer raving in Webster Hall on a Saturday night. It's a mixed bag that will leave people hating or loving it, but like a feel-good drug, you can't help but be hooked. Bring on the spandex and let YYY leave us wondering what the night will bring us next.

Stephanie Nolasco


U2
No Line On the Horizon
(Interscope)







“Not There Yet” might be a more apt title for U2’s new album “o Line On the Horizon because while it’s admirable that the band has chosen to venture again into a new musical direction, the songs don’t quite gel and the album feels incomplete in a larger sense. That being said, there certainly are some terrific songs on the album and it’s a good listen but it really feels more like an experiment than a final work.

The most interesting tracks on the album might be the Will.i.am produced track “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” which has a peppy tempo with a cool vocal melody that gives the song a great energy and “Unknown Caller” which sounds quite a bit like old school U2, so it’s not terribly innovative, but when it works, it works. Some songs such as “Moment of Surrender” offers interesting advances from the group that are very encouraging like digital looped electronic guitar sounds over moody tones and emotional vocals but contrast with songs like “Magnificent” which has a trancey, Talking Heads sounding intro but then reverts to sounding like U2 covering U2 which becomes formulaic and dull quick.

Overall, the album doesn’t work well as a musical artistic piece and feels more like a collection of unreleased b-sides but it’s always interesting to hear new material from U2 regardless. There are a couple of songs that will really grow on you and U2 does seem to be moving in an interesting direction, they just haven’t arrived at their destination yet. For a U2 fan, it’s a must buy and for a casual fan check out a few songs on iTunes.

Tim Needles

Serge Gainsbourg
Histoire de Melody Nelson
(Light in the Attic)






Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson is considered the first French rock concept album. Recorded in the late 60's, by a pop star who was as revered as he was reviled, this might be some of the most unique music you'll hear. Recorded with cracker-jack musicians of the day: Roger Coulam keys, Brian Odgers bass, Jean-Luc Ponty on electric violin, Dougie Wright drums and 'Big' Jim Sullivan and Vic Flick on guitar, "Melody" is basically a love story set to music. "Melody" the first tune, features Gainsbourg's odd talk/singing vocal, distorted guitar, loose bass and drums. "Ballade de Melody Nelson" picks up a bit with some backing female vocal and solid orchestra counterpoint and "Valse de Melody" has Gainsbourg singing fronting only the orchestra.

He gets his 'rock thang' going though with "Ah Melody," the truly smoking, "L'Hôtel Particulier" and the nearly instrumental "En Melody" (it has some naughty woman's laughter amongst all the electric lead playing and bass/drum groove).

Celebrated by modern day artists like Beck (he 'appropriated' Melody's orchestral arrangements and looping bass lines for his Sea Change album), there is no denying Gainsbourg's unique approach, his huge talent and his wry pop sensibility. This is a guy who was only ever described as 'ugly' yet bedded Brigitte Bardot and wrote a song about their affair that was as much a hit as it was banned. Gainsbourg died in 1991 and this is the first domestic release of his masterful concept album; Histoire de Melody Nelson is a gem.

Ralph Greco, Jr.


The Harlem Shakes
Technicolor Health
(Gigantic Records)






At times it’s hard to figure out why The Harlem Shakes is so bouncy and so joyful but with lines like, “we’ve got time to waste some time,” on “TFO” one just wants to join in. There is buoyancy to Technicolor Health, which is very much a light rock-sunshine pop album with a touch of an earthy, slightly blues feel. Each song has an effervescent ability to spin the listener into good times. Almost slightly reminiscent of REM’s 1998 Document album or a softer version of Soul Asylum, with the feistiness of The Bravery, Harlem Shakes has strong likeability. The band filters around the slightly off-kilter voice of singer Lexy Benaim. “Strictly Game” begins almost like an uplifting afrobeat tune, then folds into a catchy island jam of guitar and driving drum and totally worthy of major toe-tapping. Lexy’s voice sounds like a surf that runs through the length of this shoulder shrugging song beckoning for everyone to agree with the chorus “this will be a better year.” Indeed, it will be if The Harlem Shakes takes sole responsibility for adjusting everyone’s attitude.

Chanda Jones


Obits
I Blame You
(Sub Pop)






Rick Froberg, formerly of Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu, and Hot Snakes, is the sandpaper-throated frontman of Obits, a band churning out such refreshingly meat-and-potatoes rock and roll it’s hard to imagine an emerging band of twentysomethings matching its commanding energy, let alone a group of Froberg’s fortysomething peers. But then again, in its perfect balance of trimmings-free, immediately catchy guitar riffage and commanding vocal delivery, punctuated by a persistent and supportive rhythm section, Obits may be peerless. Eschewing pretentious posturing and the increasingly common urge to fuse disparate influences into an unnecessary genre-hopping combination, Obits instead puts every bead of sweat and drop of blood into perfecting, and owning as their own, the craft of rock and roll. “Widow of My Dreams,” “Two-Headed Coin,” and “Talking to the Dog” are dead-certain crowd-pleasers, while tunes like “Lilies in the Street” and the album-closing “Back and Forth” evoke The Replacements’ jangly slice of the 1980’s. Showing allegiance to the roots of rock and roll, Obits even throws in a blistering cover of “Milk Cow Blues,” a legendarily oft-covered song originally recorded in the 1930’s by Kokomo Arnold. This album will not disappoint.

Toney Palumbo


Jeremy Jay
Slow Dance
(K Records)






Slow Dance, the new album by Jeremy Jay has definite traces of what made The Cure famous which makes the album really stick, though Jay refuses to ascend into total murkiness. With touches of eerie and winding synthesizers, weepy loner-boy poetry of a life in snapshots and soulful delivery through slowly sung vocals, Jay does a great deal of injecting a pleasurable amount of wistful optimism into his music. However, the music feels better appreciated and better heard in a dark room illuminated by candle light, Persian rugs over wood flooring and an opened window of nighttime. Each song pays homage to what feels like diary snooping, long-winding pop songs and Jay’s desire for a dance partner, more so, a lover. Even more, the singer’s yearnings are made exquisitely cool and hard to disengage from because of the music. Single vocals altered for a chorus effect, Jeremy Jay’s style is mostly lo-fi and sentimental. The endearing aspect is the heavy mid-tempo rock carpeting that kicks certain tracks into another space. “Gallop” has drum beats that mirror horses hoofs running alongside finger-snaps and a 70s pop guitar and a tapered low-end bass. Jay’s airy vocals are soft but atmospheric resembling Jim Morrison’s singing on The Doors tune “Crystal Ship.” The title track “Slow Dance” is a synthesized hazy soul tune that shimmers around like an 80s sweaty night club dance trance. Jeremy Jay’s saturation of mysterious and dark leanings infused with upbeat dejection makes the album enjoyable.

Chanda Jones