Night After Night

Voices of Latin America at Carnegie Hall

Gilberto Gil, by Marco Hermes; Osvaldo Golijov, by Tanit Sakakini; Gustavo Dudamel, by Chris Christodoulou

"Calling Out the Neighboring Virtuosos: Voices of Latin America at Carnegie Hall"
The New York Times, Nov. 5, 2012

Pretty happy with the way this one turned out…I feel like I'm getting better at creating an equilibrium in covering events that present a ton of ground to cover, if that makes any sense. Where once I would have struggled to make sure every single name, concert and tie-in was cited, in the process destroying any semblance of engaging prose, I think I'm finally getting a feel for providing just enough and not too much. (Comments to the contrary are welcome.)

One more thing I have to mention: Every journalist I know has at least one equipment-failure story. I've got two good ones and one great one from the analog-tape era, but this article represents my first-ever digital-era malfunction—Gilberto Gil granted an interview for this article, not a moment of which ended up on my high-end Edirol. (Since there were no problems with the other interviews, I'm inclined to think the failure was actually in the ubiquitous cheap, plastic Radio Shack phone adapter.)

Even if I don't think the article suffered much from the loss, ultimately, I was thrilled and honored to speak with Mr. Gil, and thus crestfallen to discover the snafu. Unquestionably there's something to be said about old-school pen-and-pad, if you're up to it.

Gabriel Kahane at Zankel Hall, October 25, 2012

Gabriel Kahane at Zankel Hall, October 25, 2012
The New York Times, Oct. 29, 2012

The Cee Lo Green song is the one you think it was. It was not listed in the Carnegie Hall program, nor were the lyrics were provided. It says something about Gabriel Kahane that the song felt more lived-in than did its predecessor, a Schumann lied, but I'm not sure precisely what.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at Carnegie Hall, October 17, 2012

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, by Hiroyuki Ito/The New York Times

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at Carnegie Hall, October 17, 2012
The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2012

My only Times review so far to include Eddie Vedder and Zooey Deschanel in the lede graf. (Felt good to sneak in a Buke and Gase mention, too.) I went into this one slightly skeptical, despite a vivid review by Allan Kozinn of the ensemble's 2010 Zankel Hall concert, but came out a convert: The show is a pop-savant's delight, with nostalgic kicks for multiple generations. The medley in the video I've embedded below is a great demonstration of what the ensemble is about.

Efterklang with the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 22, 2012

Casper Clausen with the Wordless Music Orchestra, by Joshua Bright/The New York Times

Efterklang with the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 22, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 24, 2012

Belatedly getting around to posting my bit on the collaboration between Danish art-pop trio Efterklang and the Wordless Music Orchestra, which featured handsome new orchestrations by Danish composer Karsten Fundal and New York postclassical mainstay Missy Mazzoli.

Two items of related interest from The New York Times: Allan Kozinn's article about Limor Tomer and the changes afoot in the Met Museum's Concerts & Lectures department this season, and a post-concert blog post by Wm. Ferguson of The New York Times Magazine. The concert was streamed live on Q2, but evidently is not archived.

Parenthetically speaking, you can always kind of tell what kind of week is underway by how long it takes me to post a link to a published Times review, a process that seldom takes more than 20 minutes when I add comments and links, and far less time when I don't. This has been a rough one so far, but in the spirit of keeping things in perspective, let's say it's been a 7.5 on a 10 scale—which isn't so bad, all things considered.

Time Out preview: 2NE1

Live preview: 2NE1
Prudential Center; Aug 17
Time Out New York, Aug 16–22

How and when South Korea’s pop-music industry began to insinuate itself in the U.S. isn’t altogether clear, but mounting evidence indicates that K-pop, a polyglot sound purveyed by a swelling stream of slick, energetic boy bands and girl groups developed by entertainment megacorps like S.M. and YG, has established a beachhead here. 

Small wonder: These fresh-faced performers and their sticky-sweet sounds are as addictive as Pop Rocks, and the choreography, costuming, video and stagecraft involved in their packaging beat most anything going. SMTown Live, a showcase of top acts like Super Junior, Girls’ Generation and SHINee, not only sold out Madison Square Garden last October, but matched and even surpassed Justin Bieber’s most recent Garden extravaganza for sheer dazzle and preteen decibels. Now, American kingpins like Kanye West and Teddy Riley are working with K-pop acts, and Girls’ Generation strutted on Letterman in April. 

All of which sets the stage for the arrival of 2NE1, alternately pronounced “to anyone” and “twenty-one” (the latter prompting fans to dub themselves “Blackjacks”). A YG-groomed girl group crowned 2011’s “Best New Band in the World” by viewers of global-pop showcase MTV Iggy, 2NE1 stirs hip-hop and dancehall sounds into its spotless dance pop; singers CL, Bom, Dara and Mimzy drop English choruses and asides among Korean verses, but their attitude needs no translation. Blackjack, 2NE1’s Will.i.am-helmed English-language debut, has yet to arrive, but last year’s 2nd Mini Album includes six of the group’s strongest cuts. Listen to inspirational thumper “I Am the Best,” and you too might be chanting “naega jeil jal naga” with the diehard Blackjacks in Newark.—Steve Smith

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The preceding ran in the issue of Time Out New York currently on newsstands, previewing a concert held last Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark. Jon Caramanica's review of that show is in The New York Times today, online here. Phil Freeman also reviewed the show, producing an epic post for MSN Entertainment.

The public image belongs to me.

Having a hard time figuring out what I think about this: Keith Levene and Jah Wobble, formerly of seminal English postpunk group Public Image Ltd., out on the road with a singer who plays Johnny Rotten in a Sex Pistols tribute band. Funny that I would take less issue with a Yes on its second Jon Anderson imitator than with a PiL sans John Lydon… but then, maybe my issue is that Lydon has an active version of PiL that's making some worthwhile music.

All of which aside, it's amazing to hear Levine and Wobble—now working under the name Metal Box in Dub—playing their signature parts in "Public Image" and "Low Life" in 2012.

My back pages: Diamonds in the Dark.

Album review: Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles: Diamonds in the Dark
Sugar Hill Records, 2007
Time Out New York, June 7–13, 2007
Five stars (out of five)

Had Boston-based singer Sarah Borges come along in the mid-1960s, she surely would have been roped into the Capitol stable alongside like-minded mavericks such as Wanda Jackson, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. Ten years later, she might have been part of the Stiff cartel; in the ’80s, Slash and Twin/Tone would have fought over her. That Borges’s second album, Diamonds in the Dark, has just been issued by Sugar Hill only furthers the argument that roots music is the new punk.

Blessed with brassy pipes and charisma aplenty, Borges is irresistible in “The Day We Met,” a jangly ode to new love that could easily be one of the summer’s top singles. But she’s just as capable of selling a line like “I’m always the girl that they dance with / But I’m never the one that they want to take home,” the tear-soaked refrain in “Belle of the Bar.” Borges surrounds her catchy original tunes with shrewdly chosen covers associated with Dolly Parton (“False Eyelashes”), X (“Come Back to Me”) and George Cartwright (“Stop and Think It Over”).

Guitarist Mike Castellana provides spit-shined twang and broken-hearted steel, while bassist Binky and drummer Rob Dulaney lay down whip-crack beats and lazy shuffles. Producer Paul Q. Kolderie, a veteran of sessions with the Pixies, Radiohead and Uncle Tupelo, adds atmospheric touches here and there but mostly adheres to a useful old maxim: Less is more.

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When I first announced some months ago—optimistically, go figure—that I intended to start archiving some of my older pieces here with the collective tag My Back Pages, what I had in mind was a specific Anthony Braxton concert review from last year that appeared in The Wire. Obviously that effort got derailed, though the notion is still very much alive. But when I came upon this choice old CD review this evening on the Time Out New York website, where older pieces disappear without a trace all too often, thanks to multiple migrations, I decided to grab it right away and stick it here for safe keeping.

So now, when I least expected it, My Back Pages has become a real thing, which is nice. Also, I reviewed a show by Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles at Joe's Pub shortly after this CD review ran; it appeared both on this blog and on Time Out's defunct music blog, The Volume, where you can still find it here. Borges is currently raising funds to do a solo album, which I did not know until just this very minute, and just a little over a year ago released a live set, Live Singles, on the piquantly named label Suck a Bag of Discs. I just bought it on iTunes, and you can, too. Or, at the very least, you can give it a listen on Spotify.

Your property.

Photograph: Lino Brunetti

For at least the past several years, Michael Gira, the singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader behind the exquisite agonies of Swans, has been issuing a steady trickle of exclusive, limited-edition projects through the website of his label, Young God Records. Packaged with paper covers in plastic sleeves, these hand-numbered, signed and otherwise customized albums have featured original graphic art by Gira.

Several of these projects have provided illuminating snapshots of work in progress, audio verité recordings featuring Gira alone with an acoustic guitar and a microphone. That was mostly the case with I Am Not Insane, a CD/DVD package produced last year in a limited edition of 1000 copies to raise funds for the recording of the latest Swans album, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.

But in a departure, Young God's latest exclusive is a two-disc live set recorded during the current Swans tour. (Or maybe it's a web-exclusive edition of a live set planned for general release; it's a little hard to tell so far.) Titled We Rose from Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head, the set is another fundraiser: this one to pay for the next Swans studio release, said to be in advanced stages of preparation already.

I can't speak to the packaging, but the recording is gorgeous, capturing the current band—which just played at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last week and at ATP's I'll Be Your Mirror fest in Asbury Park over the weekend (reviewed by Ben Ratliff in The New York Times)—in all its desolate rage and glory.

Details of the album's release date, price, provenence and edition size have not yet been announced; to find out, sign up for the Young God mailing list via the label site. Here's a tracklist:

CD 1

No Words/No Thoughts
Jim
Beautiful Child
The Apostate
Your Property
Sex God Sex

CD 2

I Crawled
Eden Prison
93 Ave B Blues/Little Mouth

Four of those songs ("No Words/No Thoughts," "Jim," "Eden Prison" and "Little Mouth") are from My Father. Two more ("Beautiful Child" and "Sex God Sex") are from the band's 1987 epic, Children of God. "Your Property" dates back to 1984's lacerating Cop. Among the two new titles, "93 Ave B Blues" is a lurching, squalling instrumental maelstrom prefacing "Little Mouth."

Then there's "The Apostate," a grim, sordid epic slated for the next album; here, it clocks in just shy of 17 minutes. The entire set is crucial listening for any Swans admirer, but this track alone makes purchase mandatory. Here's a May performance of "The Apostate" filmed in Malmö, Sweden, in two parts:

No dejes que...

Photograph: Roberto Sanchez

Interview: Caifanes
Time Out New York, Oct 6–12, 2011

In this article about the seminal Mexican alt-rock band Caifanes, recently reunited and now en route to New York's Hammerstein Ballroom for an October 12 show, I start by evoking the reunions of Led Zeppelin, Cream and the Pixies. For admirers of rock en Español, that's not a stretch. I discovered the band in 1992, when I noticed Adrian Belew's production credit on the back cover of their third CD, El Silencio, and saw them for the first and last time amid a teeming crowd at the Houston International Festival in 1993. For the article, I spoke with the band's previously warring factions, singer Saúl Hernández and guitarist Alejandro Marcovich—seen above playing to 70,000+ fans at this year's Vive Latino festival in Mexico City—about what caused them to mend bridges after 16 bitter years.

So far I've had no luck digging up my 2005 Time Out article about Jaguares, the spin-off band formed by Hernández and drummer Alfonso André, now on hiatus. But if you're curious about the long-term impact that aformentioned Caifanes show had on the local music community, I've located two smart Houston Press articles (not mine) from 1995 and 2002. And Remando, Hernández's recently released (and Latin Grammy-nominated) solo debut, is streaming on the singer's website and well worth checking out.

Here's a good clip of Caifanes playing "No dejes que…" ("Let It Be…") at Vive Latino.

Human behavior.

The Humans (Toyah Willcox, Chris Wong, Bill Rieflin, Igor Zarbzan), Highline Ballroom, Sept. 27, 2011

After 32 years as a singer, Toyah Willcox plays her first-ever show in New York City. Ms. Wilcox's personal set list for the evening (provided by An Official), transcribed:

Sugar Rush
Titanium Girl
Labyrinth *
Love in a Different Way
Small Town Psychopath
Playing in the Dark
This Reasoning
Fragment Pool
Pebble
Sea of Size
Quicksilver *
Telekinesis *
Twisted Soul *
Put a Woman on the Moon
Demigod *

Encore: These Boots Are Made for Walkin‘ *

All songs from the newly released Sugar Rush, except as indicated * from We Are the Humans.