Lou Reed joined Antony & The Johnsons during the encore last night at Carnegie Hall (Oct 13, 2005). Lou played guitar while Antony sang Candy Says, a song written by Reed (and often performed by Antony).

Continue reading "Lou Reed joins Antony @ Carnegie Hall, NYC | pics"

You can download a new Antony & The Johnsons song at Sixeyes (courtesy of Salon) . It's called Paddy's Gone, and it appears on the single for "You are My Sister" (out Oct. 25)

The band will be appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman on October 18.

Previously
Antony's Sister likes the Misfits
CocoRosie open for Antony in Montreal

McCollough Sons of Thunder are opening for Antony at Carnegie Hall. You might remember them from the David Byrne show in Central Park.

Pop Montreal is to Montreal what CMJ is to NYC...I think. I'll sort of find out tomorrow because Montreal is where I'll be. Thursday night I'll catch Antony & The Johnsons with CocoRosie at Cabaret La Tulipe (sounds fancy, I know). After that I'm not sure what I'll do...it's SUPPOSED to be a vacation. I won't see Interpol while I'm there (they play at the same time as Antony somewhere else in Montreal), but fortunately/unfortunately I'll be home in time to see them at Webster Hall Sunday night (yes, I'll miss Across the Narrows).

"You would have to work pretty hard to avoid Pop Montreal this week. In its fourth year, the indie music festival is bigger than ever." [The Gazette]

"A few of the artists that will be blessing the jewel of Quebec include Enon, Black Mountain, Interpol, Stars, Ted Leo/Pharmacists, Busdriver, Beck, Coco Rosie, Antony and the Johnsons, Chromeo, The Dirtbombs, Weird War, Foxy Brown, Strung Out, Architecture in Helsinki, Kings of Leon, and Alex Chilton's new best buddies, The Posies. Now please keep in mind that this list is in no way exhaustive. There are quite a few more bands playing over the festival's five nights, lots of which, I'm sure, are very, very popular in Canada but that these American eyes of mine just don't recognize." [Tiny Mix Tapes]

* Chart Attack: Montreal Buzz: Unpop Hops On Pop
* The Montreal Gazette talks about Antony pre-show

"Tokion Magazine announces the Third Annual Creativity Now Conference, to be held at Cooper Union's historic Great Hall on October 15th and 16th, 2005. This unique symposium will bring together top figures in art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing. In the same room for the first time, the people shaping today's popular culture will spend two days exchanging their ideas, methods and inspirations before an audience of 2,000."

A peek at the speaker list reveals...
1) Carlo McCormick - as seen in Dig! @ at Pianos
2) Antony - Franz Ferdinand approved
3) Mac McCaughan - co-owner/president of Merge Records
4) Comedian David Cross - Oh my god in heaven!
5) Stella's David Wain

and many more

Antony & Boy George teamed up for a song on Antony's Mercury Award winning album. The song is called You are My Sister, and they both appear in the video.

9/20/05 UPDATE: The Video was removed. I'll put up a new link when it comes back.

IN RELATED NEWS: Antony & M.I.A. discussed doing a duet at the Mercury Prize ceremony!

Previously
Antony playing Carnegie Hall - Oct 13 | Tickets
Fashion Week | Heatherette, Boy George, etc...

"The lead singer of Mercury Music Prize winners Antony and the Johnsons has dismissed claims he is an American artist taking a British award.
"Everyone's certainly entitled to that opinion, but I actually am British," Antony Hegarty told BBC News.

The 34-year-old singer was born in Chichester, West Sussex, but has lived in the US for more than 20 years. When the shortlist came out, favourites the Kaiser Chiefs said he was American and "got in on a technicality"."

Watch Antony's acceptance speech and performance at the Merucry Prize Awards. Use the same link to find performances by Bloc Party, The Go Team, Kaiser Chiefs, Maxmimo Park and more.

Tickets are now on sale for a show by Antony and the Johnsons at Carnegie Hall on October 13, 2005. (THX qbertplaya)

Previously
Photos of Antony winning the Mercury Music Prize
NY Times announces Carnegie Hall show first
Antony @ Carnegie Hall | pics

Antony & The Johnsons won the UK's 2005 Mercury Music Prize

"Antony & the Johnsons have won the 2005 Nationwide Mercury Prize, the "album of the year" award for British and Irish acts. Antony's Secretly Canadian set "I Am a Bird Now" was named the winner at a ceremony held tonight (Sept. 6) at London's Grosvenor House Hotel.

The event was hosted by musician and TV presenter Jools Holland and featured live performances from shortlisted acts Kaiser Chiefs, KT Tunstall, the Go! Team, the Magic Numbers and Bloc Party.
Bookmakers William Hill had made the Leeds-based alternative rock quintet Kaiser Chiefs the favorite to win the award. The band was quoted at 4/1 when the 12-name shortlist was announced July 19, but the odds shortened and closed at 6/4 yesterday. Second favorite was M.I.A. at 4/1, followed by Bloc Party and Antony & the Johnsons at 5/1." [Billboard]

Take that Kaiser Chiefs.

More...
Guardian: Antony and the Johnsons scoop Mercury prize
BBC: Antony and Johnsons wins Mercury
Yeti Don't Dance: Mercury Prize: And the winner is...

Previously
Antony Finds His Voice | The NY Times
Antony & The Johnsons | I am a Bird Now

Today's NY Times has an excellent article about Antony....

"Antony's voice is difficult to describe. It is a largely untrained but instinctive and wholly singular sound that keens in the upper registers, somewhere between male and female, between childish innocence and weary adulthood, at once ethereal and earthy.

It emanates from a diverse tradition of divas and divos, including Nina Simone, but also Boy George and Otis Redding, Marc Almond of Soft Cell and Donny Hathaway. Antony is also arguably part of a more recent pop-musical urge that rejects seamless production and lyrical ironies in favor of heart-on-sleeve sincerity. It is an aesthetic embraced by neo-folkists like Sufjan Stevens and Devendra Banhart and nightclub crooners like the Francophonic chanteuse Keren Ann." [The NY Times]

The article also mentions an as of yet unannounced show at Carnegie Hall "next month."

Previously
Antony & The Johnsons @ Town Hall, NYC | Pics
Antony & The Johnsons, Boy George video, Mark Almond, more Town Hall

After already posting about the July 28, 2005 Antony & The Johnsons show at Town Hall so many times, I finally got around to preparing the few not-so-good pictures I took. Here they are.

A RARE GLIMPSE OF ANTONY BEHIND THE PIANO

Continue reading "Antony & The Johnsons @ Town Hall, NYC | Pics"

"We have just posted dates for the upcoming North American and European fall tours.....Stay tuned particularly for additional dates in the US..." "Antony and Boy George finished filming the music video for the upcoming single "You Are My Sister", which is set to be released as a 4 song EP this fall. The other tracks will be "Forest of Love," "Poorest Ear" and "Paddy's Gone." The video is being directed by Charles Atlas..." "Antony and the Johnsons will be performing as one of the nominees on the UK's Mercury Award program..."

"see a comprehensive series of interviews with Antony on Italian MTV....view a 4 song acoustic set of Antony on piano in a different Italian tv studio....Antony's London X-FM session with Bernard Butler can be listened to here. The Dutch VPRO documentary can be viewed here." [Antony]

"Antony duets with Cocorosie on their beautiful new record "Noah's Ark," appearing on the track "Beautiful Boys." Antony will also be doing some recording with Marc Almond this month."

BirdAntony is a new fansite.

"Antony gets compared to a ghost or an angel a lot; dressing up like a transgender Robert Smith and singing decaying-cabaret ditties about death in a fluttery warble will do that to a guy. But the avant-art-folk diva's performance with his chamber group the Johnsons at Town Hall July 28 revealed him to be just as much an earthbound goof as a celestial being." ...Pitchfork news editor Amy Phillips reviews the Antony show for the Village Voice. (where I also swiped the picture)

Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) reviewed the show for Salon.

The Modern Age asks what's in Antony's bag. Sixeyes posts Antony in his Torontoist mixtape. You Ain't No Picasso is not a fan really, but posted some MP3s anyway.

caryn: Why, Amy Phillips, are people questioning the fate of this spazzy site? Tell the people.
amy: because us girls have gone and got ourselves jobby-jobs
caryn: True that. Amy, you are moving on Monday to Chicago to become the news editor at Pitchfork. Is that accurate?
amy: indeed it is. and you can fact-check that!
amy: and caryn, you are staying right here in nyc, and you have already become arts and entertainment editor at the associated motherfuckin press???
caryn: Yes, it also proven that I have been hired by that venerable newsgathering organization to be the arts and entertainment editor of a new line of content aimed at the kids.

Antony and the Johnsons/ Town Hall/July 28, 2005

Previously
Antony Blasphemy from the Blogosphere
Thank you Amy for Cloud Cult
Amy on the Columbia Blog Panel

The Antony show at Town Hall last night was not lacking in bloggers.

* Manic Mess was the person (people) I saw leave early. I seriously couldn't believe it. The people who moved into her seats before the encore were happy.
* Central Village says NOT "best show ever."
* Modern Age accuses me of "stealing" and "climbing."

On the other hand....

"The concert was truly spectacular, just magically good--it was at the Town Hall, every seat was full and everyone in the audience was completely mesmerized," says Jenny D

"Antony and the Johnsons was the most beautiful concert I've ever seen, with the most silent, enthusiastic, attentive, obedient audience I've ever seen, which is really something because it was 4,000 hipsters," says Pigeon in the Sun

"Antony’s set was a retrospective ranging from songs off his first EP The Lake (“Fistful of Love” and the title track) to cuts off of I Am A Bird Now - but the highlight was definitely the grip of covers Antony and Co. kept springing on us. We’re talking Leonard Cohen’s “The Guests”, some Nico and some Moondog, and the encore tear-fest that was Lou Reed’s “Candy Says.” Catharsis!" says Fader

" I was a lil wary that his holyfuckingshit!, amazingly adaptive timbre would translate to the stage. I quickly realized I was a fucking retard." says Michael

BEST SHOW EVER (for now)

Antony & The Johnsons played with CocoRosie last night (July 28th, 2005) at Town Hall in NYC.

Do you have good pictures? Let me know, and I'll post them (if you let me). Like Jeff, my seat was not in view of Antony's face. I had a great view of the Johnsons and the back of his piano though. I have the set list and a few pictures, but not with me (for a future update).

* Best...show...ever
* Antony played (encored with) "Candy Says" by Lou Reed. (the song is based on Andy Warhol star Candy Darling. Candy Darling is on the cover of Antony's new CD which Lou Reed makes a guest appearance on)
* He played a song by Nico. (Nico played with Lou Reed in the Velvet Underground)
* He played "the guest" by Leonard Cohen. Rob Moose (Antony's "right hand man") sang backing vocals. It was one of my favorite moments of the show.
* He also played a song by Moondog. He likes covers.
* Joan Wasser aka Joan as Policewoman wasn't playing with the Johnsons.
* No offense to Nomi (she's good), but the most disappointing moment was Nomi (instead of Antony) singing Antony's part in Beautiful Boyz during CocoRosie's opening set.
* Two dudes from Tarantula were on cello and drums for CocoRosie. (Tarantula play on Devendra Banhart's new album. Devendra sings on Antony's last album. Last time I saw Devendra @ Tonic, CocoRosie & Tarantula joined him on stage to cover Antony's "Fistful of Love." A studio recorded cover of the same song by Devendra appears on the "The Believer's Covers Compilation")
* No special guests on stage with Antony this time.
* During one magic moment, Antony had the whole crowd humming along to a new(?) acapella song.
* Antony said he was a cavewoman in a previous life.
* He extended "Bird Girl" into three parts. First he played just the music on piano as he cleverly introduced each of his band members. He said that Jeff Langston was his caveman in a previous life. Part two was an improvised 'I am/was your cavewoman' song (humorously aimed at Jeff). Part three was the real song.
* As noted on jason's livejournal, Antony was as funny as usual.
* Above photo courtesy of Central Village.

Continue reading "Antony & The Johnsons @ Town Hall, NYC | Pic/Review/Highlights"

Today's amNewYork newspaper published a short interview with Antony.

Q: If you could listen to one CD for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A: Cat Power. The Covers Record.

The rest of the interview is on page 20 of the paper (PDF). Antony is at Town Hall in NYC Thursday night.

Also
Bruce Springsteen Hearts Four Tet
Kaiser Chiefs say Antony doesn't belong

I have to admit, I thought it was weird that Antony was nominated...

"Controversy has erupted over the inclusion of Antony and the Johnsons' album I Am a Bird Now on the Mercury music prize shortlist. Despite being born in Chichester, singer Antony Hegarty has spent most of his life in the US, which has raised eyebrows over the release's inclusion in the shortlist.

"He's an American, really," says Nick Hodgson, drummer with Leeds-based nominees Kaiser Chiefs. "It's a good album, but it's daft he's got in on a technicality.""

Kaisers up in arms over Mercury list

And...
Central Village was at the Webster Hall Kaiser show
I Rock I Roll was there too
Mercury Prize Nominess @ Mercury Lounge | Pics
CocoRosie & Antony | Tour Dates & Stuff

As you already know, Antony appears on the next CocoRosie album and its not uncommon for Antony & CocoRosie to share a stage.

So, it's likely we'll find Antony in attendance at the CocoRosie show at Joe's Pub in NYC on July 27th. And its almost a guarantee they'll join forces the next day (July 28th) at Antony's Town Hall show because CocoRosie is the opener. The NYC shows are not part of a tour, but a tour with the same line-up starts in the Fall. Dates below...

Continue reading "CocoRosie & Antony | Tour Dates & Stuff"

"Back when Brooks — Andrew James Brooks — bedded down with Antony and cut his cut "A Little Bit of Time," the enthusiasm for such was probably limited to homo-masochists, bondage enthusiasts, and Nurse With Wound devotees, an array of fans who're likely one and the same. Yet, with the star of Saint Antony rising, having him on wax is like catching him on the wax, rising into the night sky. And, so, it'd be no surprise if even the venerable Magic & Accident empire — presided over by our hero Herbert — took Brooks back to the production line and restickered this here compact disc with a "featuring Antony of Antony & The Johnsons" proclamation stuck on front." -neumu

MP3 DOWNLOAD: A Little Bit of Time

Previously
Antony on the New CocoRosie Album | MP3

ANTONY ON STAGE WITH COCOROSIE @ BOWERY BALLROOM

CocoRosie's new album comes out on September 13th, 2005. It's called Noah's Ark, and Antony sings on the song "Beautiful Boyz." (The track was also on a promo CD that came out in 2004). If you were at an Antony / CocoRosie show earlier this year, you saw it performed live.

Download the beauuuutiful song at Black Balloon

And don't forget to get your tickets to see Antony @ Town Hall in July.

Antony and the Johnsons are playing Town Hall in NYC on July 28th, 2005. Tickets on sale Wednesday at noon. Only U.S. date.

Antony also just released a new single for 'Hope There's Someone' with 2 unreleased tracks and a video.

Patti Smith chooses Antony, Joanna Newsom and others for the UK Meldown Festival.

Antony & The Johnsons Live MP3s & New Video
Watch and Listen | Antony, M.I.A., etc..
Antony, Andrew Bird, Daniel Johnston | Video documentary
More Pics from the Antony Show @ Bowery
Antony & The Johnsons | I am a Bird Now
Antony & The Johnsons @ Joe's Pub, NYC | Pics

The other day I linked to the streaming performance Antony and the Johnsons gave to XFM radio. Today you can download MP3s of the same show at Nervous Acid.

NME has the video for Hope There's Someone.

Antony & The Johnsons are also up for a MOJO award.

Previously

Antony, Andrew Bird, Daniel Johnston | Video documentary
More Pics from the Antony Show @ Bowery
Antony | The Reviews are In
Antony & The Johnsons @ Joe's Pub, NYC | Pics

Listen to a performance by Antony & The Johnsons @ XFM

Watch or Listen to M.I.A. on Morning Becomes Eclectic

Watch or Listen to Aimee Mann on Morning Becomes Eclectic

Watch or Listen to M83 on Morning Becomes Eclectic

There's a Dutch show called R.A.M. that posts all their episodes online as streaming video.

A recent one hour episode featured interviews and performances by Daniel Johnston, Antony & The Johnsons, Andrew Bird, and jazz musician, Albert Ayler. It's really, really good, mostly in English, and you can watch it here. (note: "Video" link in the far right column)

Related

Download an MP3 of TV on the Radio covering Daniel Johnston

A new documentary about Daniel Johnston premiered at SXSW

Antony and the Johnsons are touring Europe soon

Andrew Bird is touring the USA soon

Andrew is also playing Southpaw

Previously

More Pics from the Antony Show @ Bowery

Antony & The Johnsons | I am a Bird Now