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MAY 27 - JUNE 2
Smoking is still banned, but apparently it's now ok
to buy liquor on Sundays. This week we go to the far reaches of what we know, searching out dancing mermaids and talking
aliens and swimming through Dada daydreams en route to the
objective truth of the Friedmans and the stark reality
of Clark. Take the multi-colored pill and see how far
it goes. |
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Wanna get naughty? Join the deliciously outrageous Backdoor Bamby on her Heineken Adventure to Stardom Tour! There, you'll party with legendary DJs, dance with funky guests, and get treated to all of Bamby's lusciousness. See what it's all about at the official Heineken® Adventure to Stardom Tour site. |
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This week's flavor:
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| | Who better than the Godfather of Soul to help us put away our sweaters, scarves, and gloves so we can wholly embrace the long-awaited and much-deserved NYC summer? Never one to take a dog day vacation, the rowdy Mr. James Brown ushers in this year's Battery Park concert series with his vivacious stage antics and sex-fueled take on R&B. Opening for Mr. Dynamite is the hometown Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, whose inclusive musical collective features more than 14 members who passionately pound out an American take on Fela Kuti-inspired funk. (JB)
Note: This event launches the Downtown NYC River to River Festival 2003, which includes more than 500 cultural events throughout the summer.
  
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| | Jazz giant and funk pioneering legend Lou Donaldson is serving up grease 'n gravy on his alto sax, while his immortal sidekick Dr. Lonnie Smith twists, contorts, and wails on the Hammond B-3 organ. Well into their 70s, Donaldson and Smith consistently put on shows that feel like unique, once-in-a-lifetime jams. They've been exploring their blues and bebop roots lately, demonstrating that, like the music they helped create, they are timelessly rooted as jazz foundations. These two are more authentic than pulled pork and pecan pie on the 4th of July. (JM)
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DJ
L'eau
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| when: | Tue 5.27 (10pm) |
| where: | The Coral Room (512 W 29th St, 212.244.1965) |
| price: | $5 |
| | What is this — a new spot to dance (legally) in lower Manhattan (sort of) with a quality sound system to insure maximum vibrations? Yes, it's true, and it gets even better. The Coral Room's aquatic theme includes coral-lined walls and massive fish tanks housing real live mermaids (females in bathing suits). Tonight marks the maiden voyage of L'eau (agua), a promising new weekly with guest DJs Metro Area (aren't these guys superstars yet?), alongside residents DJ Saskai (the man of a thousand smiles) and Ron Herrera (of Curious Yellow fame), navigating the musical seas. So what if it's so far west that it's almost in the Hudson — grab your suit, it's free (well, $5) swimming all night. (SL)
 The first two people to tell us the name of the avenue the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island takes place on will win a pair of comp'd guest list spots and a complimentary cocktail.
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MUSIC: Indie Rock
Open Your Earballs
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| when: | Wed 5.28 (8pm) |
| where: | Tonic (107 Norfolk St, 212.358.7501) |
| price: | $20 |
| links: |
Event Info |
| | This evening Open Your Earballs, an interactive charity event organized by Active Listening to benefit New York City public school music programs, envelops Tonic from top to bottom. If it's performance you desire, look no further than quirky folk mistress Kimya Dawson, the female half of the Moldy Peaches, and Langhorne Slim, who mixes a blues sensibility with punk panache. If you are seeking hands-on experience, step down to subTonic Lounge, where percussion, brass, woodwind, and even turntable lessons are given by Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin & Wood, along with DJ Workhorse, DJ Slumber, and other local greats. (JB)
Tell us a good story about active listening — best answer wins a ticket to this show and a DJ Workhorse CD.
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| | The new Tribeca Rock Club may have undergone a slight facelift and a bit of rebranding a while back (it was previously known as the Tribeca Blues Club), but it still delivers some of the funkiest nights around. Tonight Robert Walter (formerly of Greyboy Allstars) and his 20th Congress generate accessible, jazz-based funk revolving around his Hammond organ. The sparkle in this bill, however, is the opening duo of Joe Russo, possibly the fastest drummer in the world, and Marco Benevento, another Hammond sultan who covers both the bass and melody. Fashioning dense, frantic grooves out of thin air, these jamming soulmates throw down jazzy funk for a budding following. They also happen to be musical mindreaders, slamming you with doses of drum 'n bass and breaks when you need it most. Watch out MMW, here they come — and there are only two of them. (DD)
Name the state where Russo and Benevento grew up. First two correct answers win a copy of their CD, There Goes the Neighborhood.
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| | La Leche is the brainchild of those kinky kids from the Sonic360 label in London, who created this platform to expose new music to the dance community — particularly sounds from Latin America. The events received so much support that La Leche soon expanded to NYC and LA, and now they've launched a national tour. Their first stop in town features Tijuana-based Nortec (traditional Mexican Norteno music with techno and breakbeats) pioneer Fussible (members of Nortec Collective) performing their infectious Latin-fused grooves live on laptops with La Leche resident DJ International Playboy Zen rocking out global beats that always get the crowd moving. Vamos a bailar! (SL)
What's your favorite thing to dip in milk? Best four answers will win a pair of tickets to this event.
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PERFORMANCE: Music
David Driver Sings the Scott Walker Songbook
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| when: | Thur 5.29 (7:30 & 9:30pm) |
| where: | Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette St, 212.539.8778) |
| price: | $15 advance / $18 |
| links: |
Event Info | Tickets |
| | Arguably fraught with more beautiful maladies than the Tom Waits songbook,
the richly crooned twilight vignettes of Scott Walker have gradually ripened
to iconic stature within the small republic of listeners who wash down their
vanquished nights with Dada daydreams and vocals as stylized as the old
Times Square. Chiefly indebted to Jacques Brel, Walker's urgent melodramas
are ideal fodder for David Driver and the Losers Lounge. Vocalist Driver is
a natural for the material and really nails it on "Plastic Palace People"
— trust us, it takes more than a cool suit and some well-slung bons
mots to pull that one off. (DI)
What darkly wrought European movie inspired a 1970 Scott Walker composition? First and third correct answers win a pair of tickets to this show.
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| | Celebrate the career of performance artist Robert Whitman at a book launch party, and then head to Dia's rooftop urban park for an experimental film program selected by the artist. Tonight's events accompany Whitman's first retrospective exhibition at the Dia, which highlights his seminal multimedia works from the '60s and '70s. For the screening Whitman offers a trajectory within the history of the moving image, including early experiments by Emile Cohl and Rene Clair, rarely seen films by his contemporaries Robert Breer and Alfred Leslie, and a recent film by Robert Fenz. Have a latte at the rooftop café and relax under the stars. (SM)
Note: The book launch for Robert Whitman: Playback is in the bookshop from 6-8pm. The screening begins at 8pm and the gallery exhibition continues through 6.15 (schedule).
Who designed Dia's rooftop urban park? Third correct answer wins a pair of tickets to this show.
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| | It's been more than 15 years since Terence Trent D'Arby's debut album and chart-topping singles "Wishing Well" and "Sign Your Name" made him a crossover soul music star following in the path of post-Purple Rain Prince. But D'Arby's penchant for braggadocio and a series of highly original but perplexing follow-up records saw him morph from next big thing status to a cult phenomenon. D'Arby is a spectacular live performer whose loose limbs and singular falsetto are able to bring his female fans to tears, although he hasn't played the US since 1995's Vibrator tour. Like Prince, he's since changed his name (to Sananda Matreya) and taken to self-releasing his own albums, including the brand-new Wildcard. Despite the deflated hype of years past, D'Arby is a true original. (DJP)
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| | Winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film
Festival, Capturing the Friedmans is a total mind-bender. If you are a fan of crime
dramas, this reinvestigation of the shocking case against mild-mannered Long
Island schoolteacher Arnold Friedman and his son, Jesse, is sure
to glue you to your seat. Just when you think you know the truth, the
film presents someone else's side of the story, thus sending your head into a
tailspin and causing you to wonder, "Was I just duped?" Including footage shot by
the family during the crisis, this film does its best to stay objective,
leaving the viewers to figure out for themselves what really went down. (MB)
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| | Fifty-three-year-old Loren MazzaCane Connors (aka Guitar Roberts) is one of those secret guitar heroes you'd only discover if you were to hang around places such as Tonic more often than is healthy for you. In the world of free guitar improvisers who also have one foot in rock (players such as Alan Licht, Thurston Moore, and Jim O'Rourke), Connors' fuzzed-up textures and spiraling, never-ending lines have been a source of much inspiration over the past decade. Connors doesn't get on stage nearly often enough anymore, so this appearance in a cemetery chapel with like-minded Louisville/Chicago difficult-music master David Grubbs — best-known as O'Rourke's partner in Gastr Del Sol — has the makings of a left-field classic. (PO)
Tell us about something you do more often than is healthy — best answer wins a pair of tickets to this show, three runners-up win a Loren MazzaCane CD.
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MUSIC
Prefuse 73 w/ Four Tet, Manitoba, and A Grape Dope
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| when: | Fri 5.30 (9pm) |
| where: | Southpaw (125 5th Ave, Park Slope, 718.230.0236) |
| price: | $12 |
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Southpaw | Manitoba | Four Tet |
| | The bands here are all neck and neck, so don't miss a moment tonight. Adjust your seats for A Grape Dope, the jazzy dub project from Tortoise and Isotope 217's drummer John Herndon. Dan Snaith's Manitoba then revs up the engines with harmonious, electronic vibrations from his latest release Up in Flames. You're well on your way once Kieran Hebden hits the stage under his alias Four Tet, blending hiccupping samples with melodic, dreamy pop. Headliner Prefuse 73, aka Scott Herren, programs glitchy hip hop that integrated the flows of MCs such as Mr. Lif, Mos Def, and Aesop Rock on past albums. Cross your fingers for special guests who could bring the night to full throttle. (DD)
Note: Prefuse, Four Tet, Manitoba, and A Grape Dope also play Thur 5.29 at the Bowery Ballroom, after which Prefuse 73 and DJ Hell spin at Gavin Brown's Enterprise (436 W 15th St), beginning at 10pm.
If you had to come up with a sub-genre name to accommodate all four of these bands, what would it be? Silliest answer wins a pair of tickets to this show.
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PERFORMANCE
Peripheral City
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| when: | Sat 5.31 & Sun 6.1
(hourly tours: 12-4pm) |
| where: | 400 Carroll St (Carroll Gardens, 212.615.6797) |
| price: | $20 |
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Red Dive |
| | For years, the toxic, industrial waterway known as the Gowanus Canal has been the butt of Brooklyn in-jokes and ironic t-shirts (e.g. "Gowanus Lifeguard"). Well now the much-maligned creek is the subject of a performance that hopes to open our eyes to the city's "back door." A brilliant blend of guided tour and performance art, Peripheral City is a 50-minute boat ride along the Carroll Gardens waterway with performances interspersed along the route — on chain-link fences, behind factories, and over bridges. This site-specific work was created by Red Dive, a performance group best known for their Bessie Award-winning Inhabited: Afterlives, a haunted house that once possessed the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. (CEH)
Note: The tours are nearly sold out, so reserve your seats soon at 212.615.6797.
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MULTIMEDIA
Emerge in Sea
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| when: | Sat 5.31 (exhibition 6-9pm / performances 9-11pm / party 11pm-4am) |
| where: | 12-turn-13 (172 Classon Ave, Clinton Hill, 718.623.9689) |
| price: |  FREE before 9pm / $10 |
| links: |
Emerge in Sea |
| | Emerging artists with a wide range of interests and talents reflect upon the meanings and connotations of "emerge in sea," and, in the process, transform a large Brooklyn loft into an underwater environment. Paintings, sculptures, video projections, ambient sounds, performances, and interactive installations immerse visitors in an all-encompassing aquatic experience of sight, sound, smell, and touch. The party begins as a gallery exhibition; evolves into a showcase of live musical acts, spoken word, and dance; and then morphs again into a party with house DJs and an outdoor foam party — be sure to bring a bathing suit. (JM)
Note: If traveling from Manhattan, you may want to sort out a car service for the return home.
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| | Versatile soul singer, jazz vocalist, and spoken-word artist Dean Bowman sings it loud at BAMcafé tonight, performing two sets of traditional black spirituals and early gospel music. This rare concert celebrates and expresses a youthful thirst for life and a quest for truth and love in song. He explores an important historical and cultural repertoire that includes works by James Weldon Johnson, John W. Work, James Rosamond Johnson, H.T. Burleigh, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. (JM)
Note: BAMcafé is located directly above the main lobby of BAM.
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| | In case you need to be egged on to find another excuse to meander around downtown on a Sunday afternoon, here's yet another incentive to rock the vibrant blocks of the LES. Centered around the Eldridge Street Synagogue, which was built in 1887, this street fair personifies the wonderful and wacky cultural hodgepodge that makes NYC so unique. The area's Chinese-American and Eastern European Jewish populations come together to tell stories, ply their crafts, and feed you food. The true nature of an egg cream may remain elusive, but the meaning and worth of friendly diversity will be up front and center. (JKG)
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| | Nearing the 20th anniversary of his celebrated Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, choreographer Bill T. Jones presents highlights from past work as well as new collaborations with renowned jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson and other guest artists. Together they blend live music, movement, song, and spoken word. Jones is perhaps best known for 1993's Still Here, a dance addressing the AIDS epidemic that claimed the life of his partner Arnie Zane. These performances are the culmination not only of a lifetime of deeply spiritual work, but also a week of special events at the performance center — including open rehearsals, master classes, and a lecture. (CEH)
Note: This performance also takes place on Fri 5.30 and Sat 5.31 (8pm).
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| | Fifty years golden in 2003, this stalwart New York literary magazine celebrates a half-century of innovative fiction and poetry selections, prescient introductions to new writer, and George Plimpton. To mark the occasion, they're publishing a capacious commemorative issue entitled The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953. Sidle up to the open bar and toast the seventh sin in this breathless list before you sit down for some swimmingly good readings of selections from the anthology by the likes of Timothy Hutton, Nicole Burdette, and Michael Showalter. (JKG)
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MUSIC
Ghost Exits w/ Ssion
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| when: | Mon 6.2 (9pm) |
| where: | Pianos (158 Ludlow St, 212.505.3733) |
| price: | $6 |
| | If it weren't for the Casio, it would be near impossible to have a two-person punk band — to say nothing of the fact that Ghost Exits wouldn't be nearly as much spastic fun if half of the team was trapped behind a drum kit. Their sound has much in common with that of A.R.E. Weapons, but (perhaps regrettably) without the goofy earnestness. Though we haven't seen headliners the Ssion, we've heard a few of the tracks from the upcoming release on the Version City label as well as the sizable buzz about their live shows. Their sound is distinctly within the Vice magazine sensibility, and expect plenty of trashy smart kid theatrics on the stage. (CH)
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MUSIC: Indie Rock
YES New York Record Release Parties
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| when: | Sun 6.1 - Thur 6.5 |
| where: | Bowery Ballroom (6 Delancey St, 212.533.2111), HiFi (169 Ave A, 212.420.8392), and Irving Plaza (17 Irving Pl, 212.777.6800) |
| price: | FREE at HiFi / $12 each Bowery show / $18 at Irving |
| links: |
Bowery Ballroom | Irving Plaza |
| | Rock 'n roll is alive and kicking in all five boroughs, and Vice Records is determined to prove it with the upcoming release of the compilation YES New York. As part of the celebration, various artists contributing to the record perform throughout the city that assisted their indie ascension. Ted Leo/Pharmacists kick off the festivities at the Bowery Ballroom (6.1), followed by a listening party at the eastside hipster haven HiFi (6.3). Then it's back to the Bowery for an evening with three NYC all-stars: Radio 4, Roger Sisters, and Calla (6.4). Dancing shoes are required at the final event, which showcases DFA aces the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem at Irving Plaza (6.5). (JB)
What else is alive and kicking in all five boroughs? Best answer wins tickets to all four of these shows. Runners-up win a CD and tickets to one of the shows.
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| | In anticipation of the release of Ang Lee's latest film, the big screen
adaptation of The Hulk, the American Museum of the Moving Image is devoting
two consecutive weekends to his incredible body of work. Lee's gifts are many — he is able to
work in a wide range of genres, to cross cultural boundaries, and to elicit great
performances from his actors. Born in Taiwan in 1954, he came to America in 1978 to
pursue his passion for film. Highlights from his career (still on the rise,
we hope) include The Wedding Banquet, about a gay couple that gets
tangled up in a heterosexual greencard wedding; Sense and Sensibility, an
adaptation of the Jane Austen novel; The Ice Storm, about an affluent suburban
community in the '70s; and the runaway foreign language hit Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon. (MB)
Note: Lee and longtime collaborator James Schamus are present for a discussion following the screening of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Sat 6.7 (2pm).
Second Note: Also at AMMI on Thur 5.29, DJ Spooky re-imagines and remixes D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.
Tell us a fond memory of watching The Incredible Hulk? Best two answers win a pair of tickets for Saturday (5.31) or Sunday (6.1) shows.
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| | Without leaving his trademark poignant pathos behind, the techno-wizard of art is back again with the funniest show in town — an installation of terrifically witty talking alien sculptures that are more like our own demented, tormented selves than we'd care to admit. Simple white fiberglass forms in the shapes of snowmen, cartoon mice, and doughnuts become screens onto which immense blinking eyes and talking, or smacking, lips are projected. Musing on the public and private psyche by uttering universal expressions and statements such as "I trust you, I don't trust you," these creatures are experiencing uncomfortably familiar relationship dilemmas. Ridiculously funny and terribly sad, they are Oursler's signature territory, mined brilliantly with a surface hilarity that uncovers the darkest core of human interactions. (JBK)
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| | Long before Larry Clark became the celebrity bad boy filmmaker of
Kids, he was known in the art world as a bad boy photographer.
Punk Picasso traces Clark's roots back to his youthful
years — images of him growing up a Yankees fan, hanging out
with his early cohorts, and feeling the influence of his mother's
marginal photo career — and follows his lifetime
involvement with teen subcultures that became the subject of his gritty
photo books Tulsa and Teenage Lust. The talented Mr. Clark
snaps pix of Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, obsesses over
River Phoenix, and puts his young girlfriend Tiffany Limos in the
limelight at 19 (Clark was 56 when they met). Like an archaeological
exhibit centered around a severed head, this diarist display exposes the
seedy life of a fascinating artist. (PL)
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| CD REVIEW: Burnt Friedman & the Nu Dub Players, Can't Cool |
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Nonplace
Released May 2003
$16.13 (Insound)
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Burnt Friedman's Nu Dub Players — shadowy figures such as DJ Booth, Crucial Günther, and Bernie the Bolt — were once mere figments of Friedman's sampler. But Can't Cool, which fractures and complicates the German's post-reggae sound, ropes in 20 musicians from the southern and northern hemispheres alike to lay down lanky dub grooves, loping afrobeat, and scads of stone-cold soul, all cut and reconfigured by Friedman into a densely arranged, shudderingly vibrant collection of instrumental reggae-jazz. The surprise |
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standout is the exquisite cover of His Name Is Alive's "Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth," pairing Lovetta Pippin's aching alto with heat-shimmer guitars and deadweight bass — it's like Ry Cooder and Lee "Scratch" Perry meeting the devil down at the crossroads and walking arm in arm off into the sunset, kicking up clouds of pixel-dust. (PS)
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| ETHER PLAY: Metapet |
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Feeling bored and bossed around at your cubicle? Creative Time just launched a culturally critical distraction that transports you to the future of genetic modification. Metapet is an online interactive game exploring the effects of clone control by making you the manager of your own biotech employee. Name your metapet then control when it works, eats, exercises, and goes to therapy. Gauges measure your pet's discipline, health, and morale. If your clone is wasting company time on illicit websites or behaving aggressively toward colleagues you can tamper with nature's defects by optimizing its genes, improving its appearance with hormone injections, or awarding your pet with a good old-fashioned incentive like a customized company mug. Metapet ingeniously places social responsibility in our hands, reinforcing that forgotten concept of cause and effect. (DD)
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| STREAMS: Groovetech |
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Memorial Day weekend draws scads of technophiles from around the world to the Motor City for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, incarnated this year as Movement 2003. Detroit sheds her dusty cloak of vacant buildings, suburban sprawl, and a failing baseball team to reveal her true self — the matriarch of techno. Despite what seems to be constant squabbling and haranguing between parties eager to keep creative control over the festival (and to decide where to pile the cash raked in), the sense of togetherness and community override technicalities like ownership. So long as the fans can revel in the nation's largest free music festival, they are happy. But if you couldn't be in the D last weekend, dancing with the good natured throngs in Hart Plaza or speeding down the Lodge freeway to the next afterparty, maybe some of these streams from the inaugural DEMF will bring you some consolation cheer. (NP)
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| CREDITS |
| Header Design: |
| Tom Wolfe | Doug Jaeger | | |
| Staff: |
| Hunter S. Thompson | Sascha Lewis | | Plato | Mark Mangan | | Philip K. Dick | Husani Oakley | | Ken Kesey | Jen Bachman | | |
ABOUT US
flavorpill NYC is a free weekly mailer covering music, arts, and cultural events in New York. All listings are pure editorial, never paid advertisements. No money is accepted from venues, artists, or promoters. Spread it...
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The first three people to guess successfully this week's credits theme will win a flavorpill giftpack. |
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| Contributors: |
| Luigi Pirandello | Jocelyn K. Glei | | Italo Calvino | Mindy Bond | | Gilles Deleuze | Christopher Hampton | | Lautreamont | Paul Laster | | Nietzsche | John McCormick | | Margaret Atwood | Claudia Palmira | | Ken Wilbur | Carl E. Hagen | | Alan Watts | Adam Davids | | Paulo Freire | Lisa Rosman | | Jorge Luis Borges | Nick Parish | | Michel Foucault | Juliet Garrett | | Samuel R. Delany | Peter Stepek | | Carlos Castaneda | Daylen Dalrymple | | Aldous Huxley | David Morrow | | Jean Baudrillard | Jay M. Belin | | Sir Thomas More | Elizabeth McDonald | | William Gibson | Anjuli Ayer | | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Piotr Orlov | | Ernest Callenbach | David Insley | | Timothy Leary | David J. Prince | | Samuel Beckett | Sarah Murkett | | Sigmund Freud | Graeme Rutherford | | Descartes | Sander-Martijn Milks | | Terrence McKenna | Joyce B. Korotkin | | Euripides | Julide Oztap | | Tom Robbins | Emily Welsch |
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