Laugh with the stars at Comedy Central's Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Concert for Autism Education on Saturday, October 2 at the Beacon Theatre.

Hosted by Jon Stewart, the evening will feature Lewis Black, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, Joel McHale, John Oliver, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and too many more scheduled to appear!

Proceeds benefit autism education and family service programs across the country in support of the overabundance of autistic individuals that so desperately need quality services.

American Express® cardmembers can purchase advance tickets, Thursday, July 29 from 10AM - Sunday, August 1 at 10PM before they go on sale to the general public on Monday, August 2 at 9AM.

A great lineup for a great cause.

Much sooner: Tearing The Veil of Maya, the sometimes-weekly show that mostly happens at Union Hall is turning four and celebrating at Union Hall's sister venue The Bell House. The Four Year Anniversary Show will feature Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal, Leo Allen, AD Miles, Wyatt Cenac "and friends!" Maybe Michael Showalter will be there too? That's at the Bell House on August 1st and tickets are on sale (note: "This show will be mixed seated/standing - please come early for the best seats.")

And speaking of weekly comedy shows happening in bigger, near-by venues, The Cameo's "Big Terrific" is happening at Music Hall of Williamsburg on August 27th. Hosts Gabe Liedman, Jenny Slate (SNL) and Max Silvestri promise "Many Special Guests". Tickets are on sale.

Continue reading "comedians fighting autism @ Beacon Theatre, Tearing the Veil of Maya turning four, Big Terrific getting bigger"

Conan O'Brien in Eugene, OR 4/12 (by ob)

The approach, judging from Monday night's performance, was to sweep in with a torrent of energy (or as O'Brien put it in a Twitter post, a "towering tsunami of dry, self-deprecating humor"), high spirits, music, video bits, flashing lights and a crew of old favorite faces and routines. Andy Richter was back, along with LaBamba and the band (though not Max Weinberg), a bear with a certain self-gratifying habit, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was there on tape, along with other schtick the sellout crowd ate up with gusto. For surprise, there was a brief appearance by Jack McBrayer, aka Kenneth the page on "30 Rock," and the band Spoon [whose own current tour happened to be in Oregon on the same night].

It was plain that this was the first stop on the tour, and cast and crew were getting a feel for what worked and what didn't. At times, the show seemed to cheerfully roll around like an out-of-control soccer ball. But O'Brien and crew always managed to bring it back from the "where-is-this-going?" episodic brink. The proceedings could stand some tightening and trimming -- Conan, we know you love that guitar, but a few of those songs should probably go -- but everybody was giving it their all.

At times, it almost felt like we were watching O"Brien's TV show, with the big-screen display on the stage behind him beaming out his face, and some delightfully loose back-and-forth banter between Conan and Andy. All in all, it's hard to get too crabby about a show that tries to squeeze in so much comedy...The Oregonian]

Conan's "The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour," which kicked off last night (Monday, 4/12) in Eugene, Oregon, comes to Radio City Music Hall for two nights on June 1st and 2nd. Those are sold out, but some tickets are still available for his May 30th show at the Borgata in Atlantic City.

The first night of the tour coincided with the news that Conan would be hosting a new show on TBS this November.

Videos of songs, sketches and dancing from night one (though none of Spoon unfortunately) are below...

Continue reading "Conan O'Brien kicked off his tour in Oregon with help from Spoon (videos), AC tix still on sale, new show on TBS"

...with Liam McEneaney, John Oliver, Caroline Rhea, Kristen Schaal & more TBA @ Comix in NYC on December 8th.

photos by Graeme Flegenheimer

The eighth annual Bonnaroo drew about 75,000 people to 700 acres of farmland here in Manchester, 60 miles from Nashville, for a lineup headlined by a jam band (the reunited Phish, playing three-hour shows on Friday and Sunday), rockers whose careers are measured in decades (Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails and David Byrne) and rappers who now qualify as old school (the Beastie Boys). [NY Times]

Far from a complete representation of what went down in Tennessee from June 11-14, but nonetheless, one set of pictures from the fest (catching up this weekend), below...

Continue reading "a set of pictures from Bonnaroo 2009 "

The Drums @ Cake Shop in May (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Bilal @ Blue Note
* Old 97's @ Maxwell's
* Mika @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* John Hammond @ City Winery
* Diana Krall @ Carnegie Hall
* John Hammond @ Hudson Square
* Build, Greta Gertler @ Joe's Pub
* Eivind Opsvik's Overseas @ Zebulon
* Little Joy, The Dead Trees @ Bowery Ballroom
* Bedouin Sound Clash, DeLeon @ Mercury Lounge
* Exact Change 20th Anniversary @ Issue Project Room
* Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, Anni Rossi, Pearl & The Beard @ Pianos
* The Legends, The Drums, Soft City, Care Bears On Fire @ The Bell House
* Patrick Wolf, Living Things, Jaguar Love, Plastiscines @ Highline Ballroom
* Patterson Hood & The Screwtopians, Will Johnson, Kevn Kinney @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
* Gary Wilson, Birds of Avalon, Animal Cruel-T, Silk Flowers, Ted Leo (DJ), Spencer Sweeney (DJ) @ Santos Party House

John Hammond plays a free set at the first Hudson Square free Tuesday show. He'll also play a ticketed late set at the neighboring City Winery.

Little Joy, who opened for Regina Spektor last week, headlines a sold-out show at the Bowery Ballroom tonight.

Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood plays the first of two NYC solo shows, tonight at MHOW.

New music ensemble Build collaborates with Greta Gertler at Joe's Pub. On the program, "In addition to performing separately, Greta and Build will join forces in premiering new string arrangements by Build's Matt McBane for songs from Greta's forthcoming album The Universal Thump."

Publisher Exact Change celebrates its 20th anniversary at Issue Project Room tonight with music and performances by "Joan La Barbara, Loren Connors, Alan Licht, Till by Turning, Alex Waterman, Barbara Epler, James Hoff, Kenneth Goldsmith, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang responding to and reading the work of Joseph Cornell, Franz Kafka, Morton Feldman, Stefan Thermerson, Leonora Carrington, Unica Zurn and John Cage."

Santos hosts Stones Throw funk singer and recluse Gary Wilson tonight. Tuesdays are also the venue's weekly Sessions at Santa's parties. This week's lineup includes Birds of Avalon and DJ Ted Leo. Leo just wrapped up his tour with the Pharmacists and Titus Andronicus last night at Maxwell's.

Santos part-owner Andrew W.K. (who tends to hang around the club a lot) won't be there. He's in Vancouver, BC, appearing at the release show for his split 7-inch with Nardwuar & The Evaportors. That record, A Wild Pear, comes out today.

Yesterday, we posted a video of Triumph at Bonnaroo. Another video of the Insult Comic Dog, with clips of Dirty Projectors and A.A. Bondy at the fest, below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Tuesday?"

NY Dolls @ the Varvatos Store in May (more by Tim Griffin)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Beyonce @ MSG
* Anna Ternheim @ Joe's Pub
* Signal @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* The Roots @ Highline Ballroom
* Gabriel Kahane @ Rockwood Music Hall
* Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Titus Andronicus @ Maxwell's
* Miike Snow, The Maccabees, Hatcham Social @ Mercury Lounge
* Jason Anderson, The Wailing Wall, Bleeker, Mountain Man @ Silent Barn
* Goon Squad, The NRG People, Bunnybrains, Moira Scar @ Santos Party House
* New York Dolls, Black Joe Lewis, The Madison Square Gardeners @ MHOW

Eugene Mirman "and more" perform at Leo Allen's Whiplash show at UCB tonight.

As mentioned a few times, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog was at Bonnaroo. You may have caught the segments he filmed for Conan O'Brien. If not, you can watch the hilarious clips below...

"Anna Ternheim's sophomore US release, Leaving on a mayday, will be released this summer! Produced by Bjorn Yttling (of Peter, Bjorn, and John), Leaving on a mayday will be in US stores August 11, 2009." She played the Bell House on June 18th. Tonight she is at Joe's Pub.

Gabriel Kahane continues his June residency at Rockwood.

The Roots keep at their regular Highline Ballroom gigs. This week's show is on Monday, not Tuesday. The group goes back to the regular night next week -- through November.

Miike Snow, The Maccabees and Hatcham Social perform in a repeat lineup of Saturday's show - tonight at the Mercury Lounge.

Tonight is the last night of the Ted Leo & the Pharmacists/Titus Andronicus tour that played the Kearny Irish Ameican Association on Sunday. They play tonight at Maxwell's. Both will be back in NYC soon -- Ted Leo plays Hudson River Rocks on July 23rd and Titus plays the Whitney on July 10th.

Iggy Pop performs with Fatboy Slim (Brighton Port Authority) on Letterman tonight. Sonic Youth is on Fallon tonight. Fatboy and Iggy perform on Fallon tomorrow.

Signal performs early and late sets of Steve Reich's Double Sextet, the piece that won 2009's Pulitzer Prize for Music, and its 1984 counterpart, Sextet, at LPR tonight. A video of Reich's Piano Phase performed at the venue in April, below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

Comedian and musician Dave Hill was summoned to Bonnaroo this past weekend to be part of both the comedy and music going-ons at the four-day Tennessee festival. I asked if he'd mind sharing his experiences (and pictures) with BrooklynVegan.com. He agreed. I regretted it. He sent it anyway, so here it is (starting with some MP3's by his rock band Valley Lodge), but warning: this post is not for the squeamish (NSFTS)...

DOWNLOAD: Valley Lodge - All of My Lovin (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Valley Lodge - Hangin On (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Valley Lodge - The Door (MP3)

Dave Hill tests face-melting licks out on some chairs

I've just returned from four magical days and nights at Bonnaroo, where my rock band Valley Lodge was the house band for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's "Bonnapoo 2009" shows, which featured all sorts of awesomeness from Robert Smigel aka Triumph as well as sets from the great Todd Barry, Amy Schumer, and Kumail Nanjiani.

"Smigel performed four sets as Triumph at Bonnaroo, which annually hosts a comedy tent along with its smorgasbord of music acts, spread out over five main stages on a farm in rural Tennessee.

"My live act is a huge undertaking because Triumph kind of thrives on the immediate, discussing what everybody's thinking about," said Smigel while whisking past festival-goers in a golf cart, puppet on hand." [AP]

The excitement started on Wednesday night when I got on a plane to Nashville with my close personal friend Janeane Garofalo, Pete Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, and the rest of my rock band Valley Lodge. If you've ever wanted to be on a completely hilarious plane, you could do a lot worse than to have been on this plane. As you can probably imagine, all of us were running back and forth between our seats spraying each other with seltzer bottles and throwing pies in each others' faces. At one point, Pete Holmes came over to my seat to shake my hand and it turned out he had one of those joy buzzers on his finger. Man, was my face red. I got him back though by spraying him in the face with a prank flower I was wearing at the time. We both just laughed and laughed after this happened. He couldn't stay mad at me.

Once we got to Nashville, some unmarked vehicles took us all to Murfreesboro, the popular Tennessee town where we all stayed at the Doubletree Hotel, which is really classy. Because I snore and also like to get up to all sorts of hardcore banging in hotels, I had my own room. When I dropped off my bags, I looked around the room and got all excited about all the snoring and hardcore banging I would be doing in my room over the next few days and nights.

continued below...

Continue reading "What It's like to be a VIP at Bonnaroo 2009 by Dave Hill"

Walter Schreifels with Rival Schools at Irving Plaza (more by Tim Griffin)

Walter Schreifels in concert doesn't just mean it will be the hardcore veteran playing his Martin acoustic. For a few dates (so far), Walter Schriefels (the band) will play shows in the northeast, including one on June 17th in NYC at The Studio @ Webster Hall. Ticket info is forthcoming. Expect a mix of "everything" (Quicksand, Gorilla Biscuits, covers...), except Rival Schools since they are currently active. The band is:

vocals & guitar: Walter Schreifels
bass: Arthur Smilios (GB, CIV)
drums: Andy Action (2 Skinnee J's)
guitar: Dave Hill (Valley Lodge, Children of the Unicorn, Cobra Verde)

If you've ever seen comedian Dave Hill play guitar, you know he can shred (usually) in addition to telling jokes. He knows his shredders too. Catch his band Valley Lodge as "the house band for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Presents Bonnapoo 2009" in the Bonnaroo comedy tent. Catch Dave's hilarious live comedy show, The Dave Hill Explosion, next at UCB in NYC on May 21st with special guests Takka Takka and Ira Glass.

Walter Schreifels' other venture, Rival Schools, are scheduled to play a few dates with Eagles of Death Metal, including NYC on August 6th at Webster Hall. Tickets are still on sale. Rival Schools is working on their new album, the follow-up to United By Fate and first album since reuniting.

All dates below...

Continue reading "Walter Schreifels playing (solo) shows with a new band (including Dave Hill) & some w/ Rival Schools - 2009 dates "

Amadou & Mariam @ All Points West 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

The contest to guess the lineup of this year's All Point West festival continues. I honestly don't even know the lineup yet - I'll be receiving it right before I post it at 7am Monday morning.

Will Coldplay be on the lineup? A lot of people seem convinced based on the band's current tour schedule (which you can see in its entirety below). If they are playing the fest, well, that will be weird.

UPDATE: yes, Coldplay are in fact playing the festival

Amadou and Mariam played All Points West last year, are touring the US with Coldplay in July, and have some headlining dates scheduled in June (including a show at Webster Hall on June 8th). The Mali duo was also just added to this year's Bonnaroo lineup.

Also recently added to Bonnaroo (music and comedy): Public Enemy, Ani Difranco, the Itals and Wailing Souls, Murs, Shadows Fall, High on Fire, Janelle Monáe, Pretty Lights, Tony Rice, Passion Pit, Hockey, White Rabbits, Jimmy Fallon, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, John Oliver, Rob Riggle, Rory Albanese, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Aziz Ansari, Kristen Schaal, Arj Barker, Todd Barry, Nick Thune, Wayne Federman, Nick Kroll, Kurt Braunholer, Amy Schumer, Kumail Nanjiani and Pete Holmes. Full Bonnaroo (June 11 - 14 in Manchester, Tennessee) lineup below...

Continue reading "Coldplay, All Points West, Amadou & Mariam & Bonnaroo"

today in NYC
* Les Paul @ Iridium
* Family Guy @ Carnegie Hall
* Coliseum & Tombs @ The Charleston
* Lordi, Lizzy Borden, Goes Cube & Fixer @ Irving Plaza
* Shotgun Shogun & Jason Anderson @ Pete's Candy Store
* Camp Lo, Oveous Maximus & One Love Crew play a benefit @ Highline Ballroom

Woody Allen & The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band (yes, that Woody Allen) regularly perform at The Carlyle.

I still like to look at pictures of Lordi, but I would never go see them live again. Watch them, Blackwolf the wizard, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, and Conan O'Brien, all in the videos below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday? "