Location: Union Square, NYC
Band: Femi Kuti Get Tickets Here
Show time: 8:30 PM
Venue: The Fillmore at Irving Plaza
Food: Momofuku
Drink: The Village Pourhouse
Miscellaneous: Sundaes and Cones

Keeping Afrobeat alive and well in it’s purest form, Femi whose father is legendary Afrobeat pioneer Fela, continues to explore and push the boundaries of the genre with his own modern touches. Joining him are the awesome African rock band BLK JKS and DJ Rich Medina. 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 quiet 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.

Lee Fields & The Expressions
My World
(Truth and Soul)







Only two tunes in and Lee Fields and The Expressions’ My World already had my ultra-white suburban booty grooving: “Do You Love Me (Like You Say You Do)” and “Love Comes And Goes” move with cutting beats, upfront horns, Lee Fields’ wail and backing vocals from The Del-Larks. Digging the soft electric guitar of “Honey Dove” and “These Moments”-though neither really goes anyplace for me-The Expressions make good on “Money I$ King,” this one’s got it all, the guitar, the voice, backing vocals, organ, strings, a horn arrangement that’s more than just bleating solo lines and the bossa-nova like, great-backing vocal lament of “My World Is Empty Without You.”

The title track sees the first use of drums and bass in a real funky way; the band’s certainly saying something on this slightly dangerous tune. “Ladies” has some great organ, wha-wha guitar and a groove that few bands can achieve in this day and age. Fields is pretty much masterful here, spitting out chock-full lines along with long liquid passages about those ‘lovely ladies’.

Lush strings compliment his vocal showcase on the slow “The Only One Loving You” and “Last Ride,” the last tune of the eleven here’s is a solid guitar led instrumental.

My World is a classic Truth and Soul Production from the formidable production/label owners Jeff Silverman and Leon Michels. This is great soul with Field and his Expressions in the mold of The Stylistics and The Delfonics, but carving out territory all their own.

Ralph Greco, Jr.


Miniature Tigers
Tell It To the Volcano
(Modern Art)






For an album that sounds like it might be a little rough around the edges, Tell it to the Volcano is quite delicate, with clear lyrics, and nothing gimmicky or over the top. It’s a very refreshing album, just good, clean music. Much of it contains simple guitar riffs, catchy and easy on the ears. The irony in the music is the juxtaposition between the bright melodies and the actual words. The titles of the songs are rough and tragic sounding, quite opposite of the songs themselves. “Hot Venom,” for example, has the duo singing in various tenor tones with light and bubbly electronics bopping in the background. Coupled with “Hot venom is mixing with my blood/I can feel it on my fingers and taste it on her tongue,”...well you can imagine what they are getting at. “Tell it to the Volcano,” the title track, is upbeat and feels like a rock and roll luau. I actually just plain adored listening to this album. It’s sing-a-long worthy and head-boppable. Almost every song has some sort of kooky hook that snares you, and catching a different cracked-out lyric with each listen gives you a new perspective every time. They’ll be coming to the Music Hall of Williamsburg with Kevin Devine on June 7th, and I think seeing them would be more than proper. It’s been a while since an album proves that the less-is-more theory actually works, and Miniature Tigers do it with shocking composure and quiet brilliance. You’ll want this album.

Marissa!


Staff Benda Bilili
Tres Tres Fort
(Crammed Discs)






My favorite record label in the world, Crammed Discs, has introduced another world class talent to the international music scene from the Congo. Staff Benda Bilili are a truly unique ensemble. Composed of a group of paraplegic street musicians who live around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo, they achieve tight harmonies and rhythmic melodies that convey a melancholy nonchalance. Their voices convey a storied, unique identity. At times they're similar to Cuban son, other times they're more like Jorge Ben. They display a lot of versatility on their latest release, Tres Tres Fort. Their title doesn't false advertise. They are extremely powerful. Four senior singer/guitarists sitting on tricycles, occasionally dancing on the floor of the stage, arms raised in joyful supplication, are the core of the band, backed by a younger, all-acoustic rhythm section pounding out tight beats. Over the top of this are weird, infectious guitar-like solos performed by a 17 year-old prodigy on a one-string electric lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can. They are definitely unique.

Marc Amigone


A Shoreline Dream
Recollections of Memory
(Latenight Weeknight Records)







When it comes to all things melancholy, no front man or band comes to mind other than UK's guru of gloom Robert Smith and his goth pop band The Cure. With songs like “Killing An Arab,” and “Boys Don't Cry,” anything these tortured artists release is guaranteed to make one somber. Therefore, when a Denver-based alternative rock band is compared to The Cure, you're expecting to shed some tears. Too bad they were tears of boredom. A Shoreline Dream's second full-length album, Recollections of Memory, is a never ending cyclone of dragging, exhausting, mind-numbing ballads that are heavily instrumental, lacking in powerful vocals, and empty from poetic lyrics that could attempt to convince any listener to continue. “Manhattan Beach” has some promise with an ethereal, haunting voice mastered by Ryan Policky. Sadly, the track has little substance and loses its charm thanks to a repeating spiraling melody, a tortuous theme found throughout the entire album. “Seattle” goes darker with persistent drumming by Sean Merrell, but the song's angry psychedelic beat did nothing to make one pay attention. “NeverChanger” featuring German producer/artist Ulrich Schnauss was the only track worth listening to, with Eric Jeffries and Policky slowly pulling the strings from their guitars, along with dreamy, hypnotic vocals that take one out of a crowded arena and into a relaxing state of mind. Sadly, one song isn't enough to make anyone stick around for more. A Shoreline Dream's expertise in dense, shoe gazing rock is a hard pill to swallow and not nearly a dream worth remembering.

Stephanie Nolasco


Five Corners Quintet
Hot Corner
(Ricky-Tick Records)







Smooth, savvy, seductive and charming is the new album by Five Corners Quintet. Moving with all the stylish fury of a modish attitude, flutes often chirp their way into fashionable yet subdued coolness. The jazz swing of drums is sweltering and uninhibited. Having formed in 2005 and hailing from Helsinki, Finland, this jazz band is hardcore, funky, and crazy righteous. Offering up a bit of a golden era jazz sound, they create a dizzying allure. The wild-eyed dance rhythms make the album thrilling and terribly fun. Raw and stripped pianos bounce around a wicked samba palpitation of flittering flutes that make yesteryear jazz freshly innovative. The pure musicianship and originality is astounding. The music moves with such rhythmic style and conviction that it elevates moods. “Habib’s Habit” willfully falls into a pure jazz tightness, then bellowing trumpets surge above. The piano moves with an abated slyness. After the groove loosens up, the song unfolds into elegant mellow harmonies. It is no wonder that The Five Corners Quintet were awarded two Emma Awards which are equivalent to the Grammy’s in 2009. “Hot Rod” moves with all the dramatics of watching a tight rope walker. Grace, balance and drama all intertwine in this upbeat pop jazz explosion that moves with a delightful jaunt of hip-cat swing. The Five Corners Quintet gets the honor of uplifting the genre which is not easy to do.

Chanda Jones

Chuck Close: Self-Portrait, 2008
four black and white Polaroid photographs hinged to board, overall, approximately 57 1/2 x 61 inches board, 63 1/4 x 71 1/2 inches, unique
© Chuck Close





Location: Midtown East, NYC
Art: Chuck Close, Maquettes and Multi-Part Work (1966–2009)
Show time: Tues-Fri 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM & Sat 10 AM to 6 PM; Thru June 6
Venue: Pace/McGill Gallery
Food: Peking Duck House
Drink: Blackstones Pub & Restaurant
Miscellaneous: New York Milkshake Company

Featuring daguerreotypes, digital prints, maquettes, and Polaroid’s from Chuck Close, these photographs consist of his work on the nude body and portraits from throughout his career. At one of my favorite places to get duck, The Peking Duck House, the meat is succulent and the skin crunches like a potato chip. Sometimes you just want to grab a pint without paying a cover charge or playing host to a group of people after work, which is why I like Blackstones Pub & Restaurant. It looks like an old-time saloon and has two pool tables in the back and plenty of other games, while also being big enough to grab traditional American food from the menu. If you’re still hungry, check out the New York Milkshake Company for one of the best $6 shakes of your life.

Christy Hemme has been many things: a model, a Juggy Dancer on The Man Show, a Playboy Playmate, a wrestling Diva in the WWE and a Knockout in TNA and she even makes time to visit the troops in Afghanistan. Now you can add musician into the mix as her band Hemme recently dropped their first EP Where Are You and has a full length album coming out next year. I had the chance to sit down and talk to Christy about her recent wrestling neck injury, music, and more.

First off, how is your neck doing and how did the injury happen exactly?

Neck is feeling great. I haven’t wrestled since November and I just got back in the ring a few weeks ago and I don’t feel it at all. No numbness in the arms, nothing. It was just an accumulation over time. I was just running myself too hard. I honestly felt it and I was getting numbness in my arms four months before I actually got my MRI. They told me, no, you cannot wrestle right now, so I already knew what was going on.

Are you planning on returning to the ring after it heals?

Well I go get my second MRI this week and I go into TNA at the end of this month to start talking about things.

Of all the Diva’s and Knockouts in the WWE and TNA, who have you enjoyed working with the most and why?

Definitely Gail Kim and Tracie Brooks. The three of us toured a lot together and they really took me under their wings and they’re so knowledgeable of the business and just wrestling in general. They really helped me a lot and we formed a really great bond. There’s nothing like being in the ring with someone you have chemistry with.

Were you sad to see Gail Kim go back to the WWE?

Yes I was really sad but am really happy for her. I’m sad because selfishly I want her to be near me but she deserves everything. I would have to say that she is my number one female wrestler of all time.

What’s the biggest difference you’ve found between working in the WWE and TNA?

The biggest difference is the people you’re working around and the synergy between them. In WWE everyone is pretty much an independent contractor. Everybody is really working for that spot and the company really pushes people to be afraid of losing their spot and to push for that spot which means you have to stab people in the back along the way. In TNA there’s really no difference between office and crew and wrestlers. Everybody is synergistically working together for a common goal and that’s to make the company bigger and better. There’s not a huge turnover in TNA. A lot of people have been there since the beginning. It’s just a good company to work for.

If you could work with anyone in the wrestling industry next, who would it be and why?

I would like to face Awesome Kong again. My last match with her was my favorite match of my career and getting back in the ring and working with her again would be cool, even though it really hurts. I just liked it. There was that big man little man thing going on and it’s just cool. Like you can tell that the audience was so into it.

Let’s talk about music. When did you decide that you wanted to make an album and how did it turn into a reality?

Well, it wasn’t even something that I just decided one day. Almost five years ago I started waking up in the middle of the night having dreams about songs. Lyrics, melodies and everything and I just started writing it down every time I’d wake up or hum it into my answering machine and I was like what the hell is going on? I love to write and I love to write poetry, so it was coming out very poetically. When I was younger, being in front of people was a huge fear of mine. When I was in school, my doctor wrote me a note so I could be in the back of the class because I would get heavy panic attacks. I couldn’t handle people looking at me. It would freak me out and I don’t know what was so fearful but I couldn’t stand it, so instantly, the first thing I started attacking as I got into a career was being looked at because I had to get over this fear. I got into modeling and it was hard at first. Then I got into dancing and performing for people and at the end of our thing we’d have to say our name onstage and I finally got ok with being seen and doing things in front of people but actually speaking in front of people was the next horrible thing I had to overcome. So then when I got into wrestling I started doing more and more promo type stuff and more and more hosting type stuff and finally getting comfortable speaking in front of people. But singing in front of people, that was totally the scariest thing I could possibly think of doing.

Do you play any instruments?

I write on the guitar and the keyboard. I don’t play very well but I’m going to keep practicing. I write a lot. If I want to conquer something or do something I do it. I finish everything I decide I’m gonna do. I knew this was my biggest fear, doing music, and once the dream stuff started happening I was like, damn, it’s staring me right in the face, so I gave into it and I just took more lessons, like I spent all the money I made from wrestling on music. My band and I moved from California to Florida into a house together. We were all living together so we could focus our energy on the chemistry of our band: jamming every day, writing every day, learning every day. And they’re so amazing and to me it’s like I’m a baby in what we’re doing, like 4-5 years in music is not long enough to be good. People start when they’re kids, but I surrounded myself with people who are just phenomenal and every day I grow with them.

Are there any songs that have a personal meaning for you on your new EP “Where Are You”?

Well, they’re all super personal. The cool thing about Where Are You is that it’s a very selfish EP for me. It’s something that I get to listen to right now that inspires me to keep going because I have spent all my time and all my money on it. I wanted to make something that was in its rawest form, because I started everything acoustically with my co writer and I’m a rock chick and a go getter and I wanted something that just sounded like it came out really naturally and the EP is really a stripped down version of where Hemme is going and it’s definitely going to get more aggressive and heavier and more fun but the ideas in Where Are You are a big reminder in what I believe in, where the music came from for me, how inspired I am to keep going, and just how much of a passion it is and how real it is. It’s so natural and the most organic thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve never been so passionate about something.

When is the album going to come out?

Well, we’ve been writing and demoing out these songs like every day and we have a pretty big collection right now and our plan is, my co writer Eric Friedman, he is going out on the road with Creed, he is going to be their second guitarist on their reunion tour, so right when he gets back from that, we’re going to get right back into the studio and my guess is that the album will be out next February or March.

Do you have a title for the album?

We have a couple of working titles but the album itself is based on dreams because all the songs in it have come from my dreams. It has a little bit of concept in it because all of the dreams connect and I don’t know if you know anything about what people do when they dream, but in one night’s sleep, you dream four and seven times and they’re kind of connections of each other. In my dreams I will have really epic dreams and I’ll want to remember it while I’m sleeping and I will actually pass one on to my next dream and write it down and pass it to the next. It’s really weird. The whole idea of the album is that it’s one night’s sleep. It’s a collection of dreams.

The music on the EP was not what I expected to hear when I think of Christy Hemme the wrestler, Playmate, and Juggy. “Enough” and “I Am” were really quiet pretty songs that showed off your voice while “Footprints” and “Don’t Give Up” rocked. What has the response from your fans been so far?

So far, I just did Comicon in Detroit and a lot of them were just really happy about it and the songs were really well received and people really like it so it’s definitely a gratifying feeling.

Are there any similarities in putting together a song and wrestling a match?

I never really thought of it but absolutely. A wrestling match is the same thing. You’re telling a story. It’s a little mini-story every wrestling match you watch. With music it’s the same exact thing. That’s really cool. I never thought about that. It’s like your trying to keep the listener or the viewer on the edge of their seat and wanting more, hopefully!

You just returned from the Middle East visiting the troops. What was that experience like and how is the morale over there?

It was such an amazing experience for me. Before I went over, I didn’t know what I wanted to get out of that trip. I don’t have a very big political view and I didn’t know if I really supported or didn’t support being over there but by the time I got over there and saw everything and was part of it and said hello and realized how many nations were actually over there helping, I realized that whether we support it or not, we’re there, so how can you not support something that is. I felt really good about being there and the morale, every time they would see us they were just so happy to see somebody come say hello and be part of it and have a little bit of an escape, like we do with wrestling or music or anything of that nature, so it actually inspired me so much that that is going to be the first tour we do as a band. We’re going to go over to Afghanistan and do a tour over there. You’re taking something on by going over there. We had to wear bullet proof vests and we were traveling around in black hawks and a lot of the places we visited had just been shot at or attacked a couple of days before we got there so you have to be ok with being in danger, and of course I’m Ok with that. I went to my band mates about going over there and they were like black hawks? Hell yeah!

What can people expect from Christy Hemme in the not too distant future?

Well, getting back to TNA and this album. That’s where my focus is right now. The album should be out next year and I’m going in to talk to TNA this month so that’s definitely where my focus is right now.

DaVe Lipp

Location: Union Square, NYC
Author: David Sedaris
Show time: 6 PM
Venue: The Strand
Food: Chat ‘N’ Chew
Drink: Pete’s Tavern
Miscellaneous: Whole Foods

Best-selling author and one of the funniest writers out there today, David Sedaris reads from his newest book of short stories When You Are Engulfed in Flames. For food with southern flair in Union Square, Chat ‘N’ Chew makes some kickass fried chicken, pork-chops, and meatloaf. In the running for oldest bar in NYC, Pete’s Tavern has been around since 1864 and was made famous by author O. Henry who wrote “Gift of the Magi,” in one of its booths. One good thing about the Union Square location of Whole Foods is that it’s not only a reprieve from this tourist heavy area, but with it’s huge windows, you can sit, get healthy organic food and drink, and watch the insanity like it’s a movie.

Finding that product to ensure the perfect “glow” that doesn’t result in our looking perpetually embarrassed is no easy feat, especially as the seasons change and the sun takes its toll on our skin tone.

Physicians Formula now introduces an innovative blush product called Shimmer Strips, packaged as a series of progressively deepening blush tones all in one compact. Unlike regular blush that comes as a single monochromatic shade, this Physicians Formula product offers five coordinating “waves of luminous color” that can be used singly or mixed together to create a custom glow. Furthermore, Shimmer Strips are available in a variety of palates to match all kinds of skin tones.

Application is simple or complicated. The simple version has users use a brush (not included) over a chosen variety of “strips” for a subtle blush. More adventurous users are encouraged to use a slightly dampened sponge to blend for a more dramatic result. To use as a highlighter, the user need only run a brush across the lightest shades to then dust over those parts of the face that the sun naturally hits.

Although the brighter tones in the package may seem intense, the overall result is quite subtle and, depending on the user’s skin and choice-of-palette, also very natural.

As summer approaches and greasy suntan lotion looms, consider taking the healthy route of applying that SPF and using Physicians Formula for the natural glow you’re going for.

Jessica Stein

Location: East Village, NYC
Event: NYC Pinball League
Show time: 7:30 PM
Venue: Amsterdam Billiard Club
Food: Minca
Drink: Common Ground
Miscellaneous: Beard Papa Sweets Cafe

Pinball lovers unite and start exercising those trigger fingers as the NYC Pinball League prepares for another season. Play some of the best (pin) ballers in the world as well as others on every skill level. If you’ve never been to Minca for dinner, go right now! This small noodle bar makes some amazing ramen noodles from scratch. Try the Minca Ramen, a mild broth with pork, chicken & dried seafood ($8.50). One of the newer bars in the East Village, Common Ground has a dark wood interior, a relaxed atmosphere, and excellent cocktails like the Blueberry Pie. If you like pastries filled with cream, check out Beard Papa Sweets Café. They offer cream fillings like earl grey, green tea, coffee, and the standard vanilla, chocolate, strawberry among others.