Joshua Light Show's light show

The Joshua Light Show have added a fifth performance to their string of shows happening at NYU's Skirball Center in September. The recently added show happens September 16 and will be a colaboration with Debo Band and Forro in the Dark. Tickets for that show are still available.

The four other nights pair JLS' old-school psychedelic visuals with percussionist Evelyn Glennie with experimental harpist Zeena Parkins (9/13); Terry Riley with guitarist (and son) Gyan Riley (9/14, early show); avant-garde heavyweights John Zorn, Lou Reed, Bill Laswell and Milford Graves (also 9/14, late show); and Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT (9/15, early and late show). Tickets appear to still be available for all shows (how has anything with Lou Reed not sold out?). More info about the individual shows can be found here.

Deer Tick at Brooklyn Bowl on NYE (more by Tracy Allison)

Clearwater Festival is returning to Croton Point Park from June 16-17 in Croton, NY. This year's festival includes Dawes, Deer Tick, Alejandro Escovedo, Punch Brothers, Bela Fleck, Arlo Guthrie, Martin Sexton, Ani Difranco and more. Tickets for the festival are on sale now. Full Clearwater lineup below...

Continue reading "Clearwater Festival returns to Croton Point Park in June"

Brasil Summerfest, a week of NYC concerts, many free, starts today (7/24). Participating venues are Central Park Summerstage, City Winery, Bowery Electric, Nublu, Drom, and SOB's. Browse the festival's website for more info on the shows and artists.

The City Winery show is actually this week's free outdoor edition Hudson Square Music & Wine Festival. Local band Forro in the Dark is on the bill.

The third annual Hudson Square Music & Wine Festival kicked off in the courtyard behind City Winery on 6/21 with a 'Make Music New York' show featuring Mike Doughty and Emily Wells. The series continues every Tuesday through August 16. All shows take place from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, admission is free, and wine, made on the premises, will be served.

Other performers this year include Vernon Reid (of Living Color), WIlliamsburg Salsa Orchestra, Nicole Atkins, and others. City Winery is also hosting the Summer BBQ Blowout Festival with Midnight Magic and others in the same outdoor location on August 6th, but that is not free. Check out the full free lineup below.

Continue reading "Hudson Square Music and Wine Festival -- 2011 lineup of free shows outside City Winery"

photos by David Andrako

Beirut's upcoming shows include Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, and a Northside Festival show in McCarren Park with Sharon Van Etten. Tickets for the Brooklyn show are still on sale. Beirut's recent performances include a big, public, sold out one at the Wellmont Theater in NJ, and a very small, private one in Stratosphere Sound Recording Studio.

Before any of those, back on March 27th, Beirut played three songs at a Brooklyn loft party in celebration of the new Red Hot Tropicália tribute CD, Red Hot + Rio 2, that we discussed HERE and HERE. Like Beirut, Superhuman Happiness, The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Brazilian Girls, and Forro In The Dark, all have songs on the forthcoming Red Hot charity comp, and each of those bands performed the song they have on the CD (and actually, they each performed their song more than once, as the performances were being filmed to help promote the release, and they wanted the videos to be good). The setlist and more pictures from the party, below...

Continue reading "Beirut played a 'Red Hot' loft in March too, w/ Superhuman Happiness, Phenomenal Handclap Band & more (pics) "

Gogol Bordello @ Carnegie Hall's Tibet House benefit (more by Chris La Putt)

The highlights of the [Tibet House benefit on February 26th] on were the musicians who brought the audience to its feet and got them dancing in the aisles. Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello's electrifying performance elicited shrieks from the audience, many of whom began running down the Carnegie Hall aisles to crowd the stage area at lead singer Eugene Hutz's feet. He ended the set by proclaiming, "Beautiful house, beautiful cause." [Wall Street Journal]

They'll be touring the world in support of that this spring. The first of their upcoming shows is in New York City and only a little more than a week away. They play Tuesday, March 9th at Irving Plaza. Tickets are on sale and a portion of the proceeds from the show will go to the American Red Cross for Haiti Relief.

The NYC show is in advance of their North American dates this April with openers DeVotchKa, Jesse Malin and St. Mark's Social, and Tres Leches Afterparty Sound Crew, and their May/June shows in Europe with Forro in the Dark, Mariachi El Bronx (who comes to NYC this April), and Tres Leches Afterparty Sound Crew.

Gogol Bordello played three shows at Webster Hall at the end of 2009.

All tour dates, track list, and a clip of the band and their excited fans are below...

Continue reading "Gogol Bordello - new album info & 2010 Tour Dates"

photos by Vincent Cornelli

Eugene Hutz on stage w/ Forro in the Dark

Rick Rubin, Madonna, world tours - it's a long way from Eugene arriving in New York City as a refugee with no money and very few contacts, apart from his kinfolk who had always made him part of a micro community in every town in the world he visited.

Just being in New York was enough after a tangled upbringing in the Ukraine and several years schlepping around East Europe as a refugee: "It would be pretty funny to imagine that a punk rock kid in the Ukraine would listen to folk music at that time. When you discover punk rock you go to the most far away thing possible. You get a musical wanderlust. I was listening to the Clash, Joy Division, Mano Negra, The Fall. It was right around glasnost. Music was cassette driven, word of mouth, hand to hand driven. It was so under the radar that if you would see somebody on the subway in Kiev who had a remotely funny kind of funky haircut you would walk up and start talking to them - 'Yeah man wanna go to my house and listen to the Sex Pistols?', 'Fuck yeah! Let's go!'. There were a couple of places where sub cultural kids would hang out. It was so tight in a city of 3 million - we would have a couple of hundred of us punks - then there would be a couple of thousand of kids who would specialise in beating us up! We were outnumbered by everybody." [The Quietus interview w/ Eugene Hutz, 11/09]

Continue reading "Gogol Bordello & Forro in the Dark @ Webster Hall in NYC (night 2) - pics "

Forro in the Dark...

Brazilian group Forró In The Dark kicks off MoMA Music: BRAZIL, a month of musical performances in MoMA's Sculpture Garden, on July 2.

MoMA Music: Brazil is part of the MoMA Thursday Nights program, in which the Museum stays open until 8:45 p.m. every Thursday in July and August. Visitors can view MoMA's collection and special exhibitions, and enjoy live music and tapas in the Sculpture Garden. July's musical program features Brazilian rhythms ranging from samba to bossa nova and forró. The series is presented in conjunction with the film exhibition Premiere Brazil 2009 (July 16-August 3), which introduces New York audiences to original and accomplished films by Brazilian filmmakers. Music sets will be performed at 5:30 and 7:00 p.m.

As usual, the band is at East Village spot Nublu every Wednesday (though you might want to call ahead to make sure).

Full lineup for the MoMa Thursday nights and all Forro tour dates, below...

Continue reading "MoMA Thursday Nights & other Forro in the Dark shows"

High Places @ Stuy Town Oval 2008 (thepiratehat)

High Places were one of the bands to play Stuyvesent Town's Music on the Oval series last year. This year's series will run Wednesday nights June 10th - July 15th...

Music on the Oval will feature free family-friendly concerts at 7:00 p.m. New Yorkers and visitors will groove to a different pre-show DJ each night starting at 6:00 p.m...The Stuyvesant Town Oval is located between 16th and 18th Streets and Avenues A & B and the entrance is off First Avenue and 16th Street.

Continue reading "free shows in Stuy Town - Music on the Oval - 2009 schedule "

Forro in the Dark...

Most of the members of Forro in the Dark hail from Brazil, home of the forro music from which the group derives its name. Though they are purveyors of the Northern Brazilian country rhythms, these days the group has a decidedly New York sound.

According to [percussionist Mauro] Refosco, Forro is a happy, danceable music based on four elements: simple melodies, basic harmonies, driving rhythms and funny lyrics. Those elements are traditionally performed by three instruments: a triangle, an accordion, and a zabumba, a drum pitched somewhere between a low snare and a small bass.

Forro in the Dark differs somewhat from that formula. Instead of the accordion, Jorge Continentos plays the wooden flute called the pifanos, among other wind instruments. They also add various guitars, percussion, and vocals; on their [2006 album Bonfires of Sao Joao], the group brought in the talents of Bebel Gilberto, Miho Hatori and David Byrne. [All Things Considered]

Apostle of Hustle have added more dates to that tour since we posted. Among those is a Saturday, June 13th show at Maxwell's, again with Forro in the Dark co-headlining. Tickets go on sale Thursday, April 30th at noon.

Forro's other upcoming shows include a May "Wednesdays" residency at their NYC homebase (and record label), Nublu (62 Ave C b/w 4th & 5th Sts).

Apostle of Hustle will be at Toronto's Olympic Island Festival on Saturday, July 11th with Broken Social Scene, Explosions in the Sky, Beach House and others. Tickets for that are still on sale. AoH's new record, Eats Darkness, comes out May 19th on Arts & Crafts.

All updated tour dates with videos of Forro in the Dark performing with David Byrne and Bebel Gilberto live at Joe's Pub, below...

Continue reading "Forro in the Dark - updated Apostle of Hustle Tour Dates (Maxwell's) & May residency @ Nublu"

Apostle Of Hustle, a.k.a. Andrew Whiteman of Broken Social Scene with bassist Julian Brown (Feist) and drummer Dean Stone (Sarah Harmer, Amy Millan), will play the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Wednesday, June 10th with Forro in the Dark. Tickets go on AmEx presale today at noon, and general sale Friday at noon.

Before then, Apostle of Hustle has a short late-May tour around his homebase of Toronto, Ontario. That's right around the release of AoH's new album, Eats Darkness, out May 19th on Arts & Crafts.

"Recorded in Toronto, and working once again with renowned producer and sound technician, Martin Davis Kinack (Sarah Harmer, Broken Social Scene, Hayden), Eats Darkness is based on the notion that the greatest art is often drawn from the darkest of experiences - consuming darkness to expel light."

The Constantines, whose new album Too Slow For Love was released by Arts & Crafts on March 17th, are opening for Explosions in the Sky at Central Park Summerstage.

All AoH tour dates with Eats Darkness art and track list, and Olympic Island info, below...

Continue reading "Apostle of Hustle releasing new album, playing Bowery Ballroom & Olympic Island Festival with BSS & EITS "

DOWNLOAD: Bebel Gilberto - Um Segundo (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Forro in the Dark - I Wish (bundle Of Contradictions) w/ David Byrne (MP3)

Tickets are still on sale for the Bebel Gilberto show at Webster Hall in NYC on September 18th. Forro in the Dark is opening, and on tour with her. The LA Times has a review of the show she played on Saturday. All tour dates below....

Continue reading "Bebel Gilberto & Forro in the Dark - 2007 Tour Dates"