Blogs

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Time: Tue, 03/22/2011
Location: The Cake Shop
http://cake-shop.com/

9:00 Kung Fu Crimewave
“Kung Fu” Luke Kelly assembled Kung Fu Crime Wave in 2006 after dismantling the Mondays, the band he formed when he was fourteen. KFCWnow contains three fourths of the Brooklyn Kelly family.Preston Spurlock and Deenah Vollmer were added to fill out the band. Matthew Roth of Schwervon! described the band as,“Playful apocalyptic rock that’s kind of psychedelic with a healthy dose of moody.” Using wit, aptitude, virility, and crescendo, Kung Fu Crime Wave plays anthem ballads that tell a story, be it about how a merry-go-round was built on a burial ground, robot warfare, monster combat, or the anxieties of growing up.
http://kungfucrimewave.com/

10:00 Schwervon! Read more »

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So Dina and I went out to Brooklyn Saturday night to see the release party show for Justin's Meatloaf-Paradise by the Dashboard Light 7 inch EP. The EP is amazing. There are four bands ( Schwervon!, The Leader, Elastic No-No Band , and Huggabroomstik). Playing the classic "mini-opera" written by Meatloaf. Did you know that if you go to the Billboard website you can click to a page that shows the top 25 selling artists of all time? Of course, or surprisingly, The Beatles are number one. Of course because everyone from Barack Obama to Charles Manson loves and buys Beatles records. Surprisingly because their ten records are great but now seem pedestrian and often poorly written compared to a lot of current 60's revivalists who now make more deep challenging music using themes, sounds, and lyrics first developed by The Beatles. Like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo were the first and developed the modern movie but not many movie goers even know who they are, but everyone still knows the Beatles. So Meatloaf is in the top twenty five in Billboard sales. He's barely 17, slightly ahead of the 18th top seller. Read more »

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Boom Chick, the duo of Frank Hoier & Moselle Spiller, are touring the south for the month of March on their way down to the Florida Keys for some R&R. Luckily for me, and for Charleston, they booked a gig at Tin Roof, a roadhouse in the West Ashley section of Charleston (think Brooklyn to Manhattan). Read more »

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Watch and learn!

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Since I don't go out as much as I used to, sometimes on a night in I will entertain myself by going on the internet and mail ordering some records. I do mailorder from Olivejuice, I like ordering from Olivejuice because even though I own tons of antifolk records Matt and Nan always have cool new things in the distro and stuff I forgot to buy because I was so spaced out I forgot to stop at the merch table. Like right now in my cart is the new Dufus LP, Seth gave Dina a CD but it will be so great to listen to Dufus on LP, I can't wait to hear it. I've listened to the CD and it is seriously great, s I know how great the songs are, but it will be fun to spin it on my record player. Also in my cart is the new Paradise by the Dashboard Light 7". Justin put it out and I haven't heard it yet but with the line up of Elastic No No Band, Huggabroomstik, Schwervon!, and The Leader covering Meatloaf songs you know it's gonna be a yummy platter. I like to buy t-shirts online mailorder but a lot of labels don't cary XXL T-shirts, I mean I understand, fat people are cool but they're not exactly who you want wearing your shirts around representing/promoting your bands. Read more »

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1. How did we originally meet?
I'd been seeing shows and going to open mics, but I remember the first time I spoke at length to Major Matt (who is you, so maybe I should refer to you in the second person) was going up to an Albany Border Books for what may have been the entirety of the Shanachie Presents: Lach's AntiHoot Tour. I'm guessing it was '96, right when I started writing a lot for AntiMatters, the AntiFolk fanzine, and the Shanachie compilation album came out. Lach had asked me to drive you, Paula Carino and himself to join Michael Eck at a show in Border's books to promote the album. You guys did round robin performances, and we all had chances to talk that hadn't really existed before (until then, I didn't really talk to the talent). I'd built up a pretty strong friendship with Paula for a while after that.
Soon after, you disappeared from the scene for a bit (I think you had a relationship that was heating up), but I'm pretty sure that I told Paula when you were looking for a housemate, thus connecting you two again. Later, I also procured your current girlfriend.

2. 3 things that make you happy? Read more »

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Betsy is a healer, a psychic and has a great television show. It was Saturday night and Dina and I were going out to Williamsburg to Betsy's Birthday party. I wasn't feeling very well but we decided to go because Saturday night is a classic night to go out, and Betsy, who performs under the moniker The Best, is truly the best, so we knew her birthday party would be as well. We walked to the train and it was freezing out. It was literally zero degrees, We saw a homeless person and we started to talk about the pro's and con's of being homeless. Considering how freezing it was out it was difficult to think of any pro's. When you think about it though you can get so much free for doing absolutely nothing except for asking people for money and just showing up at various shelters, soup kitchens, and emergency rooms. It would be a good idea to become homeless for a year or so as an experiment and you could write a book about it. The homeless writer would be writing in a filthy gutter on a laptop. A person would walk by and be like "where'd that homeless person get that laptop?" Another person would say "Yeah, and it's a Mac, I only have a P.C. at home and it's really slow". Read more »

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The air was thick with the smell of humans at work. A strong sense of the feminine filled The Cakeshop on Saturday night, but not in a stereotypical way. Like a seasoned burlesque worker bashing in the heads of her clientele with every squeaky "Okay" and giggle, once again, Nan brought it with her rare combination of guts and flare. From fists to jazz hands, indie rock to "Showgirls" rap, Nan layed it on thick with jazz improv accompanied costume changes and a full on well oiled dance troop. Word has it a video is in the mix. Look out Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, you're are about to get "Stood up!"

Read more »

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A little bit ago my friend Steve posted this link to my Facebook wall:

Worst-to-best Best Picture Winners.

An interesting little intellectual exercise that would be fun for most film buffs. Of course, things being subjective like they are, it seems like he underrates some good movies and overrates some bad ones. (And, as much as I didn't like it, I expect some of those early winners are probably worse than his bottom pick, Crash.)

So as an intellectual exercise, I decided to look at the list of Best Picture winners and rank them in my order of preference. Of course, I haven't seen them all. And some I haven't seen in years. In fact, after I got done with 10, I sort of felt like further ranking was pretty arbitrary nonetheless, here goes:

1. The Sting (1973)
2. Marty (1955)
3. The Apartment (1960)
4. The Godfather (1972)
5. Amadeus (1984)
6. Casablanca (1943)*
7. No Country For Old Men (2007)
8. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
9. On The Waterfront (1954)
10. The Godfather Part II (1974) Read more »

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My good friend Bryan has just released a CD of original compositions by himself, recorded with the help of his very talented and hardworking peers and friends, The Aardvarks.
Jazz?
Maybe, but I like to think of it as music. Real music. Beautiful music.
Unrushed, unpretentious, from-the-heart music.
Congratulations Bryan, Fabian, Joe, and Chris.

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So Dina and I are starting to get busy on the Prewar front. Things have been quiet for us for awhile. That extra time was actually good. We're coming off two disaster shows for us, Huggabroomstock and Virgo show, I felt really bad because people have the thought to ask us to perform, at least we could put together something reasonably interesting and entertaining. On New Years Day Bernard was over and he asked us to play at a rock show he's putting on at Sidewalk. It sounds like a great night and it will be a real rock show, Prewar, Randi, Huggabroomstick and The Cruel Shoes. I haven't seen them play yet but Bernard played me a bunch of their you-tube videos. I thought they were great, they have a New York rock Television sound and the lead guitarist is great. It should be great, Matt is going to play lead guitar for Prewar that night, we jammed recently and it sounded really good so it's really cool that he's gonna play. Brian asked us to play at BTP so that's amazing, BTP is one of the best spaces in N.Y.C. He asked us who we wanted to play with so we said Mars Chronicles and Huggabroomstik of course. Read more »

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The talent show starts at 7 pm. Come early to get a seat and enter one of the nights several raffles. Juice Box #2 will take place on February 22nd, 2011 as part of the "Winter Antifolk Festival" at Sidewalk Cafe (6th St. and Ave. A) All Ages/No Cover/Tip Jar/2 Beverage Minimum/Happy Hour All Night Long! All night long Raffles! Sam Lazzara (The Leader) will be performing a duet acting expert from the Henry Miller play "The Creation of the World and Other Unfinished Business" as part of the OJ mini talent show kick off. Major Matt will be reading an original poem and rumor has it that Nan Turner will be performing an improvised dance piece.

07:00 - OJ Mini Talent Show! Kickoff Event
07:40 - Leslie Graves
08:20 - Dan Fishback
09:00 - The Happy Rappies
09:40 - The Fools
10:20 - The Leader
11:00 - Schwervon!

Midnight-Chill Out Dance Party with DJ MMM

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It was a chilly night but Lewis and the boys were heating things up in Brooklyn last night. Shea Stadium is a DIY vinue next door to Emandee Studios on the edge of Bushwick just off the Grand Stop on the L train. The sound was surpisingly good for a space like this and the 2 weeks of touring really seemed to have helped the fellas gel. The sold out tour kickoff show at The Cake Shop, back in January, was plagued with sound issues, but last nights show was a delightful mixture of old and new, kooky Stampfel songs and collaborations with the odd Lewis tune and historic video. It was a bit of a super group, including Spencer Chakedis (Deep Sound Diver) on mandolin, John Kessel on bass, Anders Griffen and Lewis' current drummer, Dave Beauchamp, switching back and forth between drum kit and conga/percussion duties. Stampfel switched between banjo and fiddle while Leiws continued to pluck away on his taped together, road weary, acoustic 6 string. The whole evening had a nice loose "Rolling Thunder Review" kind of a vibe. Read more »

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I've said it before and I'll say it again. Valentine's Day is not specifically about who you're sleeping with or who you're married to or who you're taking out to dinner tonight. Certainly, that can be a part of it but that's not what it's all about. It's about love. You can love you cat. You can love your grandma. You can love you vibrator. This is the day to get out there and celebrate it. Don't let commercialism force you into a corner on this day and make you feel bad just because you're not sleeping next to another warm blooded thing tonight. That's not all there is to love. And frankly, speaking form a guy that's been in 13 year monogamous relationship, that's not even most of it. Half of what makes any kind of love successful is showing it. And there's million ways to do that that don't involve buying stuff. Love is freedom to feel the way you want to about anything. Love is expression and finding a way to use it to bring peole together and feel good. Even if you love to bitch about how lame Valentine's Day is. Go for it. It's all about love today! And if that works for you. Why not give it a try for the rest of the 364 days of the year?

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Marina Abromovich shows I've seen over the years: (I feel I've seen a lot of them which makes me think she is a really well known and popular artist) I saw her do a performance in Soho once and it was very strange. It was sponsored by Illy and it featured Marina in a beautiful gown drinking fancy coffee and having fondue from an upside down corkscrew type fondue machine fountain. It was some kind of Illy corporate event with products and logos displayed prominently. Illy probably underwrote an exhibition or gave her a grant so she did a performance for them. A really drunk guy at the performance kept going up to her to reintroduce himself ( an old friend?) but Marina didn't even acknowledge him. She had amazing concentration on the performance because he kept reintroducing himself over and over. It was really compelling. I saw a show in the fifties somewhere of a video she did which documented a Balkan fertility dance. It was also very compelling. During a fierce rainstorm the women would run around in random wild circles lifting up their skirts and flashing their genitals. Read more »

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Juice Box #2 (A party brought to you by Olive Juice Music) is slated for February 22nd at the Sidewalk Cafe as part of the Winter Antifolk Festival: Click Here for details!

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1. How did we originally meet?
We met formally, I believe, on you and Nan's roof sometime in August or September of 2006. Dibs brought me to a post-show roof gathering. It was also the first time I played one of my songs publicly. I had seen schwervon play before at sidewalk, Griffin had told me that you guys were a really amazing band and semi-famous, and ran Olive Juice. Also, Dibs had played me a 7" of The Lobster Song once, which is about 50% of the reason we ended up dating. So, I was in love with one of your songs, and in awe of your indie diy empire, before I ended up on your roof. But it was the roof when I think you first took notice of me.

2. 3 things that make you happy?
My cats, Roze and Nori. (Nori was originally Jenn Kelly's cat.) They bring me endless joy, even though they are slowly destroying my record collection.

Traveling by train is another thing. You can eat, drink, take naps, pretend you're in the past, walk around, look out the window, and at the end of it you're smack dab in the middle of your destination city. Now that I'm not always on the subway I like trains a lot more. I sort of miss the subway, even. Read more »

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PART I - A HOUSE WITH AN OCEAN VIEW -To write a review of When Marina Abramovic Dies A Biography by James Wescott, I sat at a kitchen table for an entire morning focusing solely on reading the book. I was in a kitchen on Long Island in a house with an ocean view. Really! For breakfast I had a bagel and two coffees. I sat at the table and concentrated solely on the book. I fought to push thoughts of my obesity and my aversion to sunlight out of my mind. I ignored the other people in the kitchen as they came through for a snack or a cold drink. I read about half of Part One, Yugoslavia 1946-1975. I told a break at lunch and had a turkey sandwich and a diet cole. For my afternoon reading I settled into the couch in the living room. My head and feet were propped slightly on throw pillows. I tried to ignore the passing from afternoon into evening evident through the skylight and picture window and give my undivided attention to the book. Night fell and I stopped reading upon finishing Part One, Yugoslavia 1946-1975. Read more »

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It was late, but it's never too late to rock and roll so I was going to a Huggabroomstik show at Goodbye Blue Monday. I left really late and I thought I would miss most of the show but the gigs were lasting till late so I thought I could make it in time to see Sam James and Purple Organ. So I'm listening to Desire on my COBY and I have to get the M at Broadway-Nassau. Broadway-Nassau is also Fulton. I have a friend who used to have one name, so everyone would call her by that name. Then she picked a new name and everyone would call her by that name. After awhile everyone started calling her both both names combined into one name. Like the Broadway-Nassau/Fulton stop. Desire is a great tape and I lose consciousness during Isis and Joey so I really concentrated on checking each station so I wouldn't miss my stop. Of course I was looking for Broadway/Nassau but on the Broadway/Nassau-Fulton stop only Fulton is written on the placards in the station. I missed the stop. Read more »

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I was reading Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Special Issue. It's funny how when you think about music magazines it always comes back to Rolling Stone. I was going to Thomas Patrick Maguire's CD release party at Brooklyn Tea Party. I love the Tea Party, it's DIY and has a roof with a great view of Manhattan. I took the A down to 14th to get the L. I was on the L and the train was going really slow. A baby started crying and people started getting annoyed. Of course the train came to a complete stop between First and Bedford. The baby of course started crying louder and I hate to say it but of course some people started yelling at the parents to get the kid to stop crying. One woman even accused the parents of mistreating their kid. I think the mom said the kids ears popped or had an ear infection or something, but the kid was hardly being mistreated. I couldn't believe so many people were angry, I mean were weren't at concert or movie or anything. So the train started and the family with the crying baby got off at Lorimer or Graham. It was funny because after the family with the crying baby got off the train the whole car was still talking about it. Read more »

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1. How did we originally meet?
I only remember this sort of vaguely. Dashan definitely introduced us outside of Sidewalk. If I recall correctly, you wore a beard. It was before I had ever seen you play, but Dashan had given me a mix-CD with a Schwervon song ("Breaking In") and a MMM song ("Girlfriend"), so I already knew some of your work. I think this may have been early 2003.

2. 3 things that make you happy?
Exercising my creativity is something I always enjoy. Whether through music, visual art or whatever, working on projects makes me feel good, and productive and important. I enjoy the company of intelligent, open-minded people who can participate in a healthy debate. Jokes are enjoyable as well.

3. 3 things that make you sad? Read more »

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Monday night I decided to go to Bowery Poetry Club. I brought my COBY so I could listen to tapes and the radio on the trip downtown. I'm not sure about COBYS, the radio is good and stays functional for a long time but the cassette player gives out after a couple of months. I was listening to a tape and it would play at normal speed, then it would really slow down. I would press stop, fast forward for a few seconds, then press play and the COBY would play at normal speed, then it would slow dow, repeat the process...etc...etc...etc. I'll buy some new batteries and see if that helps but I seriously doubt it. It's strange that the COBY is the only portable cassette player I can ever find retail in New York because the Sony Walkman is an amazing, durable, long lasting cassette player that can last for years, and doesn't eat tapes as often as COBY. The only reason I have the COBY is I got it as a gift. I was going to return it and order a Walkman online but I thought maybe the COBY had improved ( I had one once a long time ago and it was the same poor quality) but it hadn't at all, but since it was a gift it was cool just to check and see if the COBY had made any improvements. Read more »

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A lot of times I am compelled at the end of the year to cook up some sort of Top 10 list of favorite movies. This year is a toughie, though. I haven't seen a lot of new movies, and the ones I've seen have largely been wiped clean from my brain-slate.

So, I won't do a top 10. Here are the 3 films I remember liking best from 2010, in alphabetical order.

And Everything Is Going Fine (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, with Spalding Gray) - Spalding Gray was a unique talent who managed to create a niche for himself, doing pieces that incorporated performance art, stand-up comedy (more like "sit-down" in his case), and something like confession or open therapy. There are already 3 feature films documenting Gray's best-known monologues -- all performed with Gray seated at a desk, while the film directors try to figure out how to keep things visually interesting. Steven Soderbergh (the Ocean's movies; sex, lies, and videotape), who directed the last of those movies (called Gray's Anatomy), here constructs a narrative of Gray's life through a succession of clips from Gray's other monologues, some television interviews, and a few home movies, with no authorial interjection from any other voice besides Gray's. The effect is that of a posthumous autobiography, or as the blurb in the trailer below suggests, a final monologue. Read more »

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1. How did we originally meet?
I think we were at Sidewalk Cafe. I had heard your music because I was working there and I found a copy of "Me Me Me" in the back and borrowed it for a few days. I really liked it and then I think I did sound for an OJ night. I certainly feel like I knew of you for a while before we actually met.

2. 3 things that make you happy?
The realization of an ambitious project involving my friends. I'm thinking most recently of Brian Speaker's The Mars Chronicles or Art Sorority For Girls' new album. Both completely mind-blowing albums.

A perspective different than mine, well-articulated.

Deciding what combination of vegetables to put in a pan of risotto. This week it was shitake mushrooms and slivered carrots.

3. 3 things that make you sad?
Adults screaming at or angrily reprimanding children, especially telling them "shut up" or "you ruined it". C'mon, it's a sweater that got chocolate on it. Lighten up
(and stop buying designer sweaters for your toddler.) Read more »

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I was in the Bronx on White Plains Road. I wanted to visit some of the record stores on White Plains Road. A few weeks ago I had bought Social Class Volume 2, Dread Meets Punk Rockers Uptown at Moodies and I was in search of Social Class Volume 3. I had thought I'd seen it in a store up the road, but I knew that it could now be a health food store. The last time I had been there it had been half record store half renovation. Now it was half heath food store half renovation. I walked up the road some more to Moodies to double check if it was there, it was not. I walked up the road some more and went to Millennium. I like Millennium, it has many varieties of used records so it's always interesting to browse. I ended up choosing Joy and The Isaac Hayes Movement. I bought Hot Buttered Soul on the street in Soho a few years back after reading a Chuck Eddy book. He considered it an important record and included it in the discography. The book is great, it connects music from all different pop styles through lyric similarity. Different and fun. Millennium had run out of shopping bags so my records were rubber banded together. I hope it doesn't rain. Read more »

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The Saturday before Christmas is the busiest shopping day of the year. So Saturday night Dina and I decided to do some Christmas shopping. We walked up to 125th Street to shop for CDRs. We were shopping to buy some Jazz mix CDRs from the street merchants set up all along 125th street. It was getting late so with most of the merchants packed up we had to go on shopping elsewhere. We took the A train downtown. We went to the Columbus Circle Holiday market. The market was also closing(I guess people like to shop mostly in the daytime) but we quickly shopped the booths. There was jewelry, leather goods, scarves, candles, t-shirts, and even beauty products made out of salt from the Dead Sea. What a cool idea. I have been watching a show called The Rift on Natural Geographic Wild which is awesome so when I saw the Dead Sea products it made me think of the show. Flamingos have adapted to live and thrive in inhospitable and toxic habitats along the Rift connecting/disconnecting Africa and Asia. I thought it was cool that people had the ingenuity to create something beneficial from another inhospitable habitat like the Dead Sea. Read more »

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1. How did we originally meet?
You know I'm not exactally sure how we met. I remember meeting people back in 1999 when I first started going to the Sidewalk. But I guess I started to really get to know most people (and you) when I sort of re-entered the scene when I started hanging out with Jeff Lewis around 2005... So I guess it was then :)

2. 3 things that make you happy?
Love. Love makes me really happy. Being around people that I love, channeling love, sending love to people, showing my love, and of course recieving love!

My work makes me feel really good. Emptying my mind and being a channel for information that serves people's highest good is an honor. Also knowing that people and the Universe trust me to assist individuals in strengthening their connection to Source Energy and their own soul is deeply humbling.
Reciently, when I hear a live choir it makes me so happy and filled with love I cry.
Also animals!!!!!

3. 3 things that make you sad? Read more »

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It was cold as I left for Bruar Falls Sunday night, but this is the Northeast in December, so why not? I got on the D train and was reading a copy of Art in America that Jon Glovin gave me. I love to read art magazines, between all the pictures and all the words I don't know the meaning of, they're really a quick read. At 14th Street I transferred to the L train, I had to stop reading Art in America because I didn't want to be ridiculed for reading Art in America instead of the art section of the Brooklyn Rail. I got off the train at Bedford but I had forgotten to get a hop-stop so I asked for directions. While I was getting directions I must have been blocking the sidewalk because someone shoved me out of the way. I made it over to Bruar Falls and it was cozy. I saw Toby end his set with a ballad. Preston showed a video he made for Toby. It is really a great video. An animated, personified, Hindenburg flies through all this great old footage of N.Y.C. Anyway, the video was fantastic and really enjoyable. Sam and Simon played next as The Wowz, it was understated and precise. I felt like i was listening to the third VU record. I listened to Read more »

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Last night I attended a War Protest in Times Square that was followed by a small civil disobedience act in support of a similar rally that in Washington DC where 135 people were arrested for chaining themselves to the White House fence. http://www.opednews.com/articles/135-Arrested-For-Civil-Dis-by-Rob-Kall-....

I'm sorry to report that I was among some of the younger people there. But I found the event very inspiring and I'd be interested in learning about or even helping organize a group of younger people or musicians that could help draw a bit more attention to this very important issue. At the end of the protest a small group of people blocked the the traffic in Times Square in an act of civil disobedience against US involvement in various wars around the world. After about 5 minutes they were arrested and placed in a police van. Here are some pictures of people I consider real American Heros!
Read more »

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Why here and not in the message section?
I thought about that, and have decided to leave it here.
Morris has not been able to find a publisher for this book.

The fact that Bush's book is a bestseller and Berman has to use a print service (Amazon) to make his available shows how weird the world is.

A NYT reviewer smeared his last book (which I have not read)--maybe because the reviewer couldn't take Morris's honesty.

“A Question of Values” is an alternately sobering and inspiring collection of essays by noted historian and cultural critic Morris Berman. Berman pulls no punches in laying bare the truths about who we are, not just as a nation, but also as individuals wrapped up in the destructive pursuit of material excess. In the unswerving style of his other writings, he rips apart the national illusion of greatness.---Nomi Prins

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/america_the_material_20101126/