photos by Richard Termine

DOWNLOAD: Antony - Thank You For Your Love (MP3)

"This is how it must feel to be an ovum," the singer Antony Hegarty said with a tone of gentle amusement as latecomers flooded down the aisles of Alice Tully Hall during the concert he presented there on Saturday night. It was the second time this singer, who goes by his first name, stopped to let stragglers find their seats. Earlier he had abruptly cut off a song just started -- "Ghost," from his rapturously lovely new album, "Swanlights" -- then tried to smooth over an awkward silence by whistling Satie's "Gymnopédie" No. 1...

...Here, performing as part of Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, Antony stood shrouded in shadow and sheathed in a flowing black gown. In place of his Johnsons, the Orchestra of St. Luke's accompanied him in songs largely drawn from "Swanlights" and its predecessor, "The Crying Light." Rob Moose, elsewhere a musically polyamorous violinist, conducted; at the piano was Thomas Bartlett, a sensitive chamber-pop singer otherwise known as Doveman. [NY Times]

Reading that first paragraph of the Times review makes me feel a little better, since I was also late to the show, but I was so late I actually missed all of that starting and stopping happening.

I think there were at least two big issues that caused people to be late. One of them was the show's kind-of-unfortunate 7:30pm start time (7:30 sharp on a Saturday night with no opener). The other was that the 1/2/3 trains were all screwed up, and I personally spent the first 30 minutes of the show sitting underground in a train that wasn't going anywhere. At least there were people dressed up for Halloween adorning all the stations and cars. That made the situation feel slightly less tense. That said, by the time I got there, every seat in the house was full, so late or not, everyone eventually got there, and what I saw was unsuprisingly beautiful and worth finally making it there for.

Nico Muhly was responsible for many of the arrangements of the night, and behind Antony and the orchestra was the film "Mr. O's Book of the Dead", a 1973 film by Chiaki Nagano featuring the Butoh master Kazuo Ohno and his troupe. Kazuo is the one on the cover of Antony and the Johnsons' 2009 CD The Crying Light. And as the NY Times sums up nicely, it was "Projected overhead throughout the performance -- even during the awkward breaks -- it was both a potent visualization of gender ambiguity, vulnerability and pain, and a garish distraction from music's transfixing intensity and beauty."

It was Antony's only North American show this year. Hopefully he'll tour some more in support of his new album "Swanlights" which was released on October 12th via Secretly Canadian. Download "Thank You For Your Love" from that LP above, and watch Antony's performance of the same song from the October 8th episode of Letterman in the video, under the rest of the pictures from Lincoln Center, below...

Continue reading "Antony played w/ an orchestra & Doveman & a movie @ Lincoln Center (pics) "

photos by Jacob Blickenstaff

"Arrangers don't get noticed much. Like cinematographers, they usually fill in the structures and concepts of others: songwriters and producers, who call on arrangers to deploy horns, strings or other sounds that might unobtrusively improve a song. But people who read album credits recognize that Wardell Quezergue, a working musician since 1953, is the rare exception: an arranger whose long career reveals him as a consistent catalyst of New Orleans R&B, and not just because he shares the songwriting credit on a ubiquitous New Orleans song, "It Ain't My Fault."

At Alice Tully Hall on Sunday night [7/19], the Lincoln Center Festival allied itself with the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation -- the New Orleans record collectors-turned-promoters who find the musicians behind the obscure singles -- to present a tribute to Mr. Quezergue. His wryly understated arrangements for horn sections in particular, drawing on local parade traditions and big-band jazz, often prod, tease or talk back to a singer and a song, with a chortling layer of syncopation that has helped define New Orleans rock... [NY Times]

To quote the official linuep, the show featured "R&B icons The Dixie Cups and Robert Parker; soul greats Jean Knight, Dorothy Moore, Tammy Lynn, and Tony Owens; legendary New Orleans drummer Zigaboo Modeliste; New Orleans musician, producer, and session man Mac Rebennack (Dr. John); garage-music pioneer Michael Hurtt; plus Wardell Quezergue's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, an all-star ten-piece band led by Quezergue himself in a rare New York appearance." More pictures from the event, below...

Continue reading "Ponderosa Stomp's tribute to Wardell Quezergue @ Alice Tully Hall, NYC - pics (Dr. John, the Dixie Cups & more) "

DOWNLOAD: Alaska in Winter - Berlin (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Winter Gloves - Let Me Drive (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Winterpills - Beesting (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wintersleep - Weighty Ghost (MP3)

today in NYC
* DANCE
* Tom Jones @ Terminal 5
* Mystery Jets & The Dig @ Bowery Ballroom
* Winter Gloves, Josh Reichmann & Slim Twig @ Pianos
* A Fat Tuesday party with The Sugartone Brass Band at the Bell House

New Yorker Films, RIP

"The Academy Awards were taking place on Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday night, but the real action was on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. That's where Jim Moore, part of the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary, "Man on Wire," watched the Big Show from Los Angeles."

23 New York Teenagers You Ought To Know About (maybe).

"Alice Tully Hall, closed for nearly two years, opened its grand, airy and people-friendly new lobby to the public and presented a large roster of fine musicians, ranging from living masters to eager students, who played a program aptly titled "First Look.""

New Orleans Ready for Final Mardi Gras Fling

"Listening to music with degrading sexual lyrics could prompt teenagers to start having sex at an earlier age, a US study suggests."

Tickets are still on sale for the April Neko Case shows at Nokia Theatre. Neko's new album is streaming in full at NPR.

Torche is touring in April.

If and when Faith No More reunites, it better not just be for Europe.

Pavement Nearly Reunites At Nashville Wedding Party

Radiohead let one of their songs be used by Shelter, a for homeless and housing charity.

Late of the Pier are returning in March and April. Check out their video for "Heartbeat" below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Tuesday? (Fat Tuesday)"