BAM Next Wave Festival 2010 (the annual music/dance/theater/opera series to run September 21--Decemeber 19) will include work & performances by Laurie Anderson (doing the NY premiere of her work Delusion), a song cycle from Stew and Heidi Rodewald (of Passing Strange fame), music by NOLA's Trombone Shorty, Mikel Rouse's multimedia-song project Gravity Radio, and A House in Bali, an opera by Bang on a Can All-Star's Evan Ziporyn featuring Balinese Gamelan Salukat and BoaC All-Stars.

Next Wave Festival subscription tickets for Friends of BAM (as well as subscribers to both the 2010 Spring Season and 2009 Next Wave Festival) are on sale Jun 7; subscription tickets for the general public are on sale Jun 14. Single tickets for Delusion and Vollmond are on sale Aug 30 (Aug 23 for Friends of BAM).

The 2009 Next Wave included musical works from DJ Spooky, So Percussion and The Dessner Brother and Deal sisters.

More info on the above-mentioned shows is below...

Continue reading "BAM announces 2010 Next Wave Festival (Stew, Trombone Shorty, Bang on a Can All-Stars and more)"

It is official: Spike Lee's party in honor of Michael Jackson's birthday will be held in Brooklyn, but in Prospect Park, not in Fort Greene Park.

The party will take place at the Nethermead, a meadow in the center of Prospect Park, according to an e-mail message from a city official on Friday.

The date, Aug. 29, which would have been the singer's 51st birthday, and the time, from noon to 5 p.m., remain unchanged.
[NY Times]

The much larger park was selected in anticipation of the 10,000 people expected for the event. "The Nethermead is most accessible from the 16th Street and Prospect Park Southwest entrance, the Bartel-Pritchard entrance, the 9th Street entrance..." More directions below.

It's a big week for Spike Lee. In addition to being involved with this party, his "Passing Strange" movie just came out, sort of, maybe (you can catch it at the IFC Theater).

Another Michael Jackson birthday tribute show is happening in NYC on August 29th at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square. At that event, Q-Tip (who is DJing) and guests Mark Ronson and DJ Spinna will bring, among other things, "never-before-heard remixes of Michael Jackson hits." Tickets are still on sale.

The biggest show of all scheduled for that date, Michael Jackson's funeral in LA, has been postposted until September 3rd.

And in other Prospect Park West news...

If Carrie Bradshaw and her "Sex and the City" cohorts ever felt lonely in their single-gal lives, at least it was because they actually lived alone. But in Amy Sohn's new chick-lit tome "Prospect Park West," which hits stores Sept. 1, once-glamorous city lasses still feel abandoned. Only now they're isolated in loveless marriages, raising kids they resent.

The book has already been optioned by HBO and Sarah Jessica Parker's production company. The story, which focuses on four stroller moms, from Brooklyn's Park Slope, is touted as fodder for "SATC: The Next Generation." [NY Post]

I hope that TV show never happens. Directions to Saturday's free park party are below...

Continue reading "Spike Lee's Michael Jackson birthday party happening near Prospect Park West (the possible future HBO show topic)"

Lincoln Center Damrosch Park bandshell - August 2008 (miro.m)

This year's Lincoln Center Out of Doors (LCOOD), three weeks of FREE music and dance on the plazas of Lincoln Center, will run from August 5 through August 23. The 39th annual edition of the festival will present a wide range of music and dance events by dozens of international, U.S. and local artists, highlighted by New York, U.S. and world premieres and debuts and special commissions. Out of Doors opens Wednesday, August 5 with the worldwide debut of the Asphalt Orchestra, a new marching band developed by Bang on a Can, premiering works commissioned for Lincoln Center's 50th Anniversary from Goran Bregovic, Tyondai Braxton (of Battles), and Stew and Heidi Rodewald. The band will also perform original arrangements of iconoclastic rock, jazz, and classical material--all to movement created by MacArthur Fellowship winning choreographer Susan Marshall. Asphalt Orchestra will kick-off the first five consecutive nights of Out of Doors at 7 p.m., performing in different locations across Lincoln Center's campus, with a varying playlist each night. The opening night concert at the Damrosch Park Bandshell at 7:30 is a double-bill with Out of Doors alum The Dave Brubeck Quartet (marking the 50th Anniversary of the landmark album Time Out) with guest soloist, oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen, and Iraqi-American jazz trumpeter Amir ElSaffar leading the New York debut of his Two Rivers Large Ensemble.]

The Asphalt Ochestra shows also include "world-premiere arrangements of works by: Björk, Meshuggah, Charles Mingus, Colon Nancarrow, Frank Zappa."

And Lincoln Center and Wordless Music are again planning a performance of Rhys Chatham's Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars. It'll be happening Saturday, August 8th at Damrosch Park. Let's hope they've secured a rain location, or this could be an annual thing. Section leaders include David Daniell, John King, Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family) and Ned Sublette. The fest is taking applications to volunteer as a guitarist or bassist for the event. Also on the bill for that is "seminal funk-punk band Liquid Liquid."

Other highlights on the schedule are "a pairing of Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré with Raul Midón", The Derek Trucks Band, and Slavic Soul Party.

Closing out the festival will be the 26th Annual Roots of American Music Festival at the Damrosch Park Bandshell, an event that'll touch on the blues (Four Women: A Tribute to Odetta, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln and Eartha Kitt), Creole music (The Louisiana Renegades), country (Texas Tornados: Tribute to Doug Sahm), and "Mazel Tov, Mis Amigos: The Lost World of Latin-Jewish Sound" with Afro-Jazz bandleader Arturo O'Farrill.

Full schedule below...

Continue reading "Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2009 lineup - another attempt at Rhys Chatham's 200 Electric Guitars included "

Passing Strange

Spike Lee got this Broadway hit on film. Now you can see this coming-of-age Bohemian rhapsody on the big screen.

A reminder (and this is from the tickets page): Never Say "Sold Out" - Even if advance tickets are no longer available, don't give up--just think RUSH TICKETS. We admit those standing in the RUSH TICKETS line approximately 15 minutes prior to a film or panel's scheduled start time, until a theater is at capacity. Lines begin forming approximately 60 minutes before each screening, so be sure to arrive early.

This reminder applies to quick-selling flicks like Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful, Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB, and Soundtrack for a Revolution. Don't forget: there is also the chance of additional screenings being added.
[A Song For You: The '09 Festival's Musical Films]

"Modern day renaissance woman Melissa Auf der Maur will be screening Out Of Our Minds, her short film in collaboration with filmmaker Tony Stone, at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Auf der Maur, whose impressive résumé includes stints as the bass player for Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, is a celebrated solo musician and an accomplished photographer whose work has appeared in exhibitions and publications worldwide.

Out Of Our Minds is a multimedia concept album three years in the making which incorporates an album, film, comic and website - all to be unveiled in full later this year. The film portion of this impressive body of work was accepted to the Sundance Film Festival as part of the New Frontier Program.

Three time periods, one connection: Blood. The central characters are a woman (Melissa Auf der Maur) and her car. The 28-minute film follows her in a strange ritual that climaxes in a collision between past and future, crashing through the gateway to parallel worlds in the same forest. A fantasy world where a Viking heart, a car crash and a bleeding forest connect. Using music rather than dialogue, the film tells a universal tale in striking optics. Borrowed from mythology, the Hunt for the Heart is the eternal quest envisioned in Out Of Our Minds. Conceived by musician Melissa Auf der Maur and birthed by Filmmaker Tony Stone (Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America) this mini epic is proudly self-produced and shot in HD fuelled by solar power.

You can watch the trailer HERE.

The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 15 - 25, 2009 in Park City, Utah.

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In a partnership with Apple's iTunes Music Store, Sundance and Shorts International have announced today that they will make available 10 short films selected to screen during the film festival as free (yup, free) downloads via their online media store (available in the US, UK and Canada only). The offer will only be available starting today through January 25, so film geeks should act now. [MTV]

The Salt Lake City Tribune has a list of music events going on during the festival including the daily ASCAP Music Cafe featuring performances by people like Damien Rice and Birdmonster, an Adele concert, and more.

Salt Lake Weekly says, "Two of the potentially biggest films in this year's festival are about music: the first-ever documentary about The Doors, When You're Strange, and Spike Lee's film version of Stew's Tony Award-winning musical Passing Strange. The role of music in film gets examined, as music publishing organization BMI is sponsoring a roundtable discussion Jan. 21 on "Music and Film: the Creative Process" with names like George Clinton and Duncan Sheik scheduled to partake.", and "Some of the biggest acts outside the auspices of the Sundance fest, at least in the hip-hop universe, are at Harry O's, considered by many to be the hip place to hang on Main Street, with top acts like Nelly and T.I. appearing."

Register @ Joe's Pub's website for your chance to attend one of ten free shows. Stew of Passing Strange, Reggie Watts, Debbie Harry, The Budos Band, Hair, and more.