by Rachel Kowal

DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - "Cabin in the Corner" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - Walking on Sunshine (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - Relief (R. Kelly cover) (MP3)

Sam Amidon in a museum in the past

I made it to the Mercury Lounge just in time to catch the tail end of Partyface, the mysterious opener and Sam Amidon's self-proclaimed "favorite band." The only Partyface easily search-able on Myspace appears to be a death metal band from Massachusetts, but don't let that, or the wild energy invoked by the artist's chosen name, fool you. With just a guy on drums (Shazad Ismaily) and a girl on guitar, the Partyface present at last Wednesday night's show definitely falls more under the classification of singer-songwriter.

It's also tempting to call Sam Amidon a singer-songwriter, but that label proves to be somewhat problematic for a few reasons. Most obviously, Amidon doesn't really write his own songs - at least not in the conventional sense. Amidon's catalog consists almost entirely of traditional folk songs and an odd assortment of cover songs. Despite the lack of 'original' material, however, Amdion re-imagines and rearranges the songs he chooses so that by the time he's done with them, each one is born anew.

Vivid, often tragic stories animate Amidon's songs. The Mercury Lounge show featured a trip through the mountains, a blood-stained shirt, a fair damsel waiting for her lover to return from battle, and a girl with rosy-red lips. But Sam Amidon's songs are not the only things with a strong narrative appeal. His banter consists almost entirely of strange, outlandish stories that for the most part seem wholly unconnected to his music. (For example, he talks about an article in the Economist that he was reading on the train from London to Paris, which allegedly concerned a 'vegetarian homicidal robot' that forages for fruit and veggies and then burns them when it finds them.) Then, without missing a beat, he launches into his next song, making me wonder how he could possibly have trouble writing songs from scratch. Like a curious little kid, he seems to find stories in everything. Even his instruments have a story or two to tell. During one song, he preceded every banjo solo with the lightening fast quip, "What do you say, banjo?"

It isn't often that a band's percussion contributes much to a song in a thematic sense, but Shahzad Ismaily, Amidon's partner on stage, is capable of working magic. If he falls into the background at all, it is only because his percussive style compliments Amidon's music so well. Near the end of "I See the Sign," for instance, Amidon sang about dark clouds and Ismaily created a low rumble on the drums that sounded just like thunder rolling in from the distance.

Folk ballads and cover songs aside, Amidon also sets himself apart from the flock of other acoustic singer-songwriters due to his erratic and unpredictable delivery. One moment, he's singing about a wayward son straight out of the Old Testament, and another he's doing a mad interpretive dance (or a 'liturgical dance' in his words). First, he's like a medieval troubadour, delivering romantic lyrics with his warm, well-weathered voice. Then, he announces mid-song that we're going to take a 'journey' together, and he launches into a madcap freestyle that bore an uncanny resemblance to a train in desperate need of repair.

Amidon concluded his short but compelling set, sans encore, with a mini-medley of "Climbing High Mountains" and a cover of the charmingly naive and unrealistically optimistic R. Kelly song "Relief," which posits (among other things) that the war is over. Not many people could pull off covers by artists as far-ranging as R. Kelly, Katrina and the Waves, and Tears for Fears, but Sam Amidon seems to transform the songs and make them fully his own.

Sam will next tell stories on July 7th at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in NYC. More details on that free show along with the Mercury Lounge setlist and two of his story videos, below....

Continue reading "Sam Amidon played Mercury Lounge, playing a free show "

Black Cobra @ The Charleston on November 18th (more by Chloe Rice)

tonight in NYC
* Hannibul Buress @ Pianos
* Whiplash @ UCB Theatre
* Darmstadt: In C @ Galapagos
* Sloan, Magenta Lane @ Maxwell's
* Rev. Vince Anderson @ Union Pool
* Diane Birch, Jaymay @ City Winery
* Nar, War Cubs, Hank & Cupcakes @ Zebulon
* Les Paul Guitar Tribute w/ Mike Stern @ Iridium
* Antibalas @ Winter's Eve Festival at Lincoln Square
* Father Figures, Jason Anderson, Partyface @ Cake Shop
* Pelican, Black Cobra, Disappearer @ Highline Ballroom
* Brian Setzer Orchestra, Imeida May @ Hammerstein Ballroom
* John Hollenbeck plays Hollenbeck + Meredith Monk @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Kidrockers w/ Right on Dynamite @ Winter's Eve Festival at Lincoln Square
* The Gay Blades, Fake Problems, The Weight, Gabriel The Marine @ Mercury Lounge
* Small Beast w/ Bee & Flower, And the Wireman, Paul Wallfisch, Pharmacy and Gardens @ The Delancey

Hopefully you had a good Thanksgiving weekend. This week is kind of slow (or maybe not), but there's still plenty to see.

The Pelican show happening at Highline Ballroom tonight was originally scheduled to take place on December 2nd.

Russian Circles and Young Widows is still happening at Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday (tickets).

Magneta Lane make a rare trip out of Canada to tour with Sloan. They visit Maxwell's tonight, and will be in Brooklyn in a few days.

Jaymay pops out of hiding to open a show for Diane Birch at City Winery tonight.

Antibalas play free shows tonight at the Winter's Eve Fest at Lincoln Center at 6:30pm and 7:45pm. There's also a free Kidrockers show tied into this event.

Antibalas also have other shows coming up and can be caught multiple nights a week in Fela! on Broadway

Opening at Cake Shop tonight will be Partyface, a guitar duo made up of Indigo Street and musical Shahzad Ismaily, the latter of which has collaborated recently with musicians from Doveman to Yoko Ono to Marc Ribot.

Percussionist John Hollenbeck will play with three diverse groups (a big band and two small ensembles) at (Le) Poisson Rouge to showcase his own compositions and those of Meredith Monk. Video is below.

Janeane Garofalo, Reggie Watts, Chris Gethard & Bob Powers are part of the free lineup of comedy at UCB tonight. It's the weekly 11pm Whiplash show. For free comedy much earlier in the evening, check out Pianos.

Reggie Watts returns to UCB on December 17th as part of Stripped Stories.

The NY Times recently saw Seth Meyers at UCB.

Singer Susan Boyle's new album makes UK chart history.

A video of Kria Brekkan working the accordion at Glasslands on Saturday (11/28) is below.

Some mean people superglued iPhones to sidewalks and videotaped people trying to pick them up. Video below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

Iron and Wine @ Terminal 5 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

On May 19, 2009 Iron and Wine will issue Around the Well (Sub Pop), a 2-CD/3-LP collection of rare tracks ranging from out-of-print to never-before-released. In support of Around the Well, Iron and Wine will be performing ten intimate shows in five cities. Each individual show will be wholly unique, as Iron and Wine will turn the set list over to the fans to create.

Beginning March 6th and running thru March 30th at www.ironandwine.com, fans can vote by city and night for the songs they'd like to see performed each evening. For those who can't attend, the shows will be made available after the tour is completed, in some cases days after, on Iron and Wine's official live recording site Played Last Night. Tickets for all these shows go on sale February 20, 2009.

The tracks collected on Around the Well span from Iron and Wine's earliest sessions which yielded the band's debut (2002's The Creek Drank the Cradle) through material recorded for 2007's The Shepherd's Dog. The double-disc collection is broken up into two sections. The first half is an assortment of hushed home recordings, unedited and raw, and the second highlights moments captured in the confines of proper studios with the help of other musicians, friends and engineers.

The album's title comes from a line in the song "The Trapeze Swinger," a fan favorite which was written for and included in the movie In Good Company. Three more songs written and recorded for the film finally make their appearance here as well: "Belated Promise Ring," "God Made the Automobile" and "Homeward, These Shoes." Around the Well also brings together hard to find covers such as The Flaming Lips' "Waitin' for a Superman" and New Order's "Love Vigilantes," along with one of Iron and Wine's earliest originals, "Sacred Vision," which appeared on a compilation for Sound Collector magazine..

In addition, Iron and Wine have begun work on the follow-up to The Shepherd's Dog and plan to release a new album in spring, 2010.

Tickets for all the shows are will-call only, and some of them are starting to show up on Ticketmaster. I'm not sure though, if that's where tickets will be for the NYC shows at Abrons Arts Center on May 17th & 18th. All dates, and the new album tracklist, below...

Continue reading "Iron & Wine playing fan-driven intimate shows (dates), releasing 2-CD rarities comp on Sub Pop"