GZA @ ATP Minehead 2007 (more by Zach Dilgard)

tonight in NYC
* GZA @ Gramercy Theatre
* Willy Gantrim, Brownbird Rudy Relic @ Sycamore
* Asylum Street Spankers, The Woes @ The Bell House
* Passion Pit, The Joy Formidable, Arms @ Terminal 5
* NYC Winter Jazz Festival @ LPR, Sullivan Hall, more
* Jared Friedman, Boy Genius, Raccoon Fighter @ Fort Useless
* The Sons & Heirs (a Smiths & Morrissey tribute) @ the Bell House
* Peelander Z, Math the Band, Secret Guest @ Santos Party House
* The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Loom @ Mercury Lounge (late)
* Truman Peyote, ManyMansions, Blissed Out, Nonhorse @ Silent Barn
* The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Roadside Graves @ Mercury Lounge (early)
* Blues Control, Rot Shit, Tusk Lord, Home Blitz, Drunkdriver @ Death By Audio
* Vicky Emerson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Aunt Martha,Verdes,Beowulf @ Living Room
* I'm Turning Into, Brendan Leonard, Austin Thomas @ Pete's Candy Store (day show)
* Care Bears On Fire, Blame The Patient, Ethan Levenson, Supercute @ Cake Shop (day show)
* Mondo Mundo Fest w/ Ocote Soul Sounds, Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely, Burkina Electric, Abaji @ Hiro Ballroom
* The New Familiars, The Hot Seats, Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade, Christabel and the Jons, Sxip Shirey, The Two Man Gentlemen Band @ 92YTribeca

All was scheduled to play MHOW tonight, but the tour was cancelled.

Bobby Previte's New Bump Quartet and Whoopie Pie played sets as part of the ongoing Winter Jazz Festival at Kenny's Castaways last night. Videos below....

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Saturday?"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: The Dead Science - Throne Of Blood (The Jump Off) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Dead Science - Make Mine Marvel (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Dead Science - Days Of Future Past [mixtape track] (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Dead Science - Garden Wall [mixtape track] (MP3)

The Dead Science

Seattle's The Dead Science (not to be confused with The Dead Weather) are planning a North American tour this June. That includes two NYC shows: Monday, June 15th the band plays the Studio at Webster Hall with Bobby Conn & Monica Bou Bou and Zs (Tickets). The next night, Tuesday, June 16th, the band performs at Death By Audio with Skeletons, From Bacteria to Boys and Charlie Looker.

The Dead Science's last record, Villainaire, came out on Constellation Records in 2008. The supporting tour for that release brought the Dead Science to NYC's Knitting Factory on a bill with Brooklyn band Extra Life. This time around, the band will play with Extra Life's songwriter/frontman, Charlie Looker, on its second NYC show, and Zs, a band that included Looker for six years, on its first.

Extra Life are currently on a month-long tour of Europe. The DBA show is scheduled to be Looker/Extra Life's first show back in the US.

Also opening at DBA is From Bacteria to Boys, jazz project of drummer Mike Pride. On April 8th, the group played a live set, now streaming, at WFMU's studios.

Pride plays in a number of local groups (that counts collaborating with Charlie Looker on a project called Period). Recently, Pride gigged as part of Whoopie Pie at Pie member Jamie Saft's Wednesday residency at Zebulon. On Wednesday, May 6th, Whoopie Pie's special guest was Marc Ribot (who's in the midst of a weeklong b-day retrospective). Tonight, Wednesday, May 13th, at Zebulon, the group will be joined by Dead Science frontman Sam Mickens as "special guest vocalist."

Mickens returns to Zebulon just two days later, on Friday, May 15th, to record and film a live album with the "Sam Mickens Ecstatic Showband and Revue." That band includes Mike Pride on drums and in the past has featured Charlie Looker and other members of Extra Life.

The final band on that June 16th DBA bill, Skeletons, has other upcoming NYC dates too. Those include May 19th at the Cake Shop with Nick Krgovich, To Bad Catholics and Katie Eastburn and June 24th with Zs at the Studio at Webster Hall.

All Dead Science and Skeletons tour dates below...

Continue reading "Sam Mickens playing Zebulon (twice), the Dead Science touring (Studio & DBA) - 2009 dates & MP3's"

by Andrew Frisicano

Marc Ribot @ Maxwell's Dec. 2008 (more by Tim Griffin)

"I figured I'd do it before I croaked," the birthday boy [Marc Ribot] explains of this mini-retrospective. "I don't trust the bastards to do it afterwards." [Village Voice]

Last night was the first night of that "mini-retrospective" 55th-birthday celebration for Ribot. The guitarist performed songs from his 2003 album Scelsi Morning with Ensemble Dissonanzen and special guests...

Inspired by the late Italian visionary composer, the album [is] one of the guitarist's most challenging efforts, further fleshed out in collaboration with new-music guitarist Marco Cappelli and his Italian-based Ensemble Dissonanzen, with whom Ribot has performed in Europe. Marc says, "What they've put together is quite beautiful. If you want to hear Giacinto Scelsi solo pieces, you'll get to hear the flute piece, the piano piece, the organ piece, the guitar piece and even the trumpet piece. It's more of Scelsi's solo work than you'll ever hear in one place in a good long time, and then you get my record thrown in, too."

As a prelude to his birthday week, Ribot sat in with power improv trio Whoopie Pie at Zebulon on Wednesday, May 6th. The guitarist worked his magic over the massive drumming of Mike Pride and sturdy bass and synth pedals of Jamie Saft. A musician's ability to choose skilled and suitable collaborators is a huge part of making improvised music work, and those two musicians, with saxist Bill McHenry, built off Ribot's mood transitions perfectly (and vice versa). This week provides no shortage of opportunities to witness Ribot's skill as a juggler as he balances between ten-or-so different musical combos at a variety of venues.

Video of Ribot with Whoopie Pie on the 6th, below...

Continue reading "Marc Ribot's 55th birthday week is underway"