The only thing that sounds good at the Cake Shop is the drums, yet the place has a charm favorable to performances. The Dodos frontman Meric Long was merrier and more gutsy than usual–perhaps it was the presence of friends, or perhaps it was the modest stage with its glittering streams of red for a backdrop and yellow balls of light for a ceiling. The two bands that went before The Dodos played like restraint was blasphemy–one was ferocious with its setup of two drums and a howling singer fond of crashing into people and punching their can of beer flat, against the person’s belly nonetheless–which made the role of restraint in the music of The Dodos much more apparent. A little bit of reign can make a world of a difference.
The Dodos are playing The Siren Music Festival this Saturday, and last night’s performance at the Cake Shop was sort of a “secret show”. More videos later, and some pictures after the jump.
The entire stream, use the grey arrows to switch between songs:
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Download “No Love in Your Punches” | Attention “hipsters”: responding to my endeavor to find you folks–how you have plagued us with your youth and your red-framed sunglasses–Adam Roddick of The Royal Chains comes to my aid like a knight on a horse. Says he: “I think another important characteristic of a hipster is that they embrace irony maybe a little too much”. That insight will be central to everything I understand about you from here on.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw may have been without The Hun Hangár Ensemble last night, but the outfit of four induced a lot of dancing, feet stomping and clapping at (Le) Poisson Rouge, a venue which, now that I’ve been there twice in different settings, is really going to be a gem for affordable live music of superior quality. Jeremy Barnes looked all the more New-Mexico-meets-Hungary with his roguish mustache (Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood), and he freely took a full swing at label mates Beirut, members of which were present amongst the audience, apart from violinist Kristin and drummer Nicholas, for abandoning the Mexico and “selling out” by moving to New York. When two enthusiastic (and adorable) Mexican brothers in the front revealed their identity, Barnes called theirs the “Old Mexico” and then the “Original Mexico” of which the new was once a part, which prompted Beirut’s accordionist Perrin Cloutier to yell that they were still run the same way anyway. Barnes asked him if he was the governor.
While the New York Society for Ethical Culture was a cozy home to the Wordless Music Series in its beginnings, two of my favorite bands to watch live—Beirut and The Books—seemed to lack a tiny grain of their usual luster in that otherwise endearing church; especially in comparison to Bowery Ballroom, where I’d seen Beirut last and saw The Books next. So the move to St. Paul the Apostle Church later that year was a definitely delightful treat of acoustic magnificence, but this year the series has adopted a new home anyway: the new and stylish (Le) Poisson Rouge, which hosts three of the five performances from the summer season. After all, owners of the venue described in one event listing as “Greenwich Village’s latest house of ill repute” are both classical musicians, so not only has the space been renovated with a meticulous eye on sound design, but the goal of broadening the demographic, or “psychographic”, of the classical genre puts the performance space and Wordless Music Series on the same mission.
I got my first taste of the space at a Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society performance on a rainy Wednesday last week. Watch the video, and continue with my findings:
As tiring as it is to hear how much someone likes Feist, the woman’s got the rock and roll. I wasn’t at the show at Prospect Park, but I’ve been told it was an absolute fulfillment. The loyal Baird brothers are still hanging tight, and the dangling beads of light we saw last has been ditched in favor of beautiful paper cutout shadow animations. According to one security guard, the turnout ran in the 6000’s, the truth of which depends on his counting abilities, but that is what he claimed. And for whatever reason, despite the weather forecast that rightly predicted it would pour, umbrellas were not allowed inside! A man who skateboarded to the show wasn’t allowed to enter with his skateboard either. A woman tried to hide her green umbrella amongst the leaves of a tree, giving up on the strategy eventually. Ticketed shows at the Bandshell can come with bitchy rules, as I’ve learnt in the past. Videos coming next posted below, take the jump for all photos, taken by Kashish.
Update: several rebellious encounters occurred with the security guards over the issue of said umbrellas. Some of my friends pointed out to them that many people had sneaked in umbrellas, so they haughtily picked theirs up from what the security had amassed and walked back in.
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Download “White Winter Hymnal” | What are “hipsters”? People with boldly interesting haircuts? People who don’t like wearing boring clothes? People who live in certain areas? People who like Dan Deacon? People who revel in silly things? Every time I think I have a clear understanding of the term (loosely: people who are obsessed with seeking the good in what is new while looking pretty), someone uses the term in such a free, lazy, manner that the whoring of the word gets confusing again. There is a lot of uncalled for hipster-hating (especially since the meaning is still unclear to me, will someone bother explaining?), and one example would be: those freaking hipsters who bought tickets to the sold out Bowery Ballroom (tonight) and Union Hall (tomorrow) shows Fleet Foxes are playing, damn them! Let them burn in hell, those freaking hipsters! I wouldn’t mind being at the receiving end of that curse, but alas, I don’t have them tickets.
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Download “Una Dia Otra Noche”| Playing a first show in New York from a little-known record must be nerve-wracking, but when it’s an early show at Joe’s Pub on a Tuesday night, I suppose it’s going to be extra rough; especially when the tickets are priced at $15 a piece, without any supporting acts or acts to support. But that’s how it goes at Joe’s Pub, and though the room was mostly bare except for supportive friends and possibly a few fans, Allá’s performance was pretty solid. However, despite seven years of labor over El Tiempo and the technical proficiency they showed last night, the band hasn’t quite probed into its heart to pull out a bloody bunny yet. Continue after the jump.
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Download “Man of Obstacles“ | Here’s a small selection of press photos I took for Brooklyn’s “two-frontmen”, “Tom-Petty-meets-Tom-Waits” band NickCasey. When not appearing in Law & Order and pursuing other acting interests, the two transplants from California and Florida—Nicholas Webber and Casey Spindler respectively—play several small shows around here. They are recently proud of having sold a song for the very first time, and it was CinemaLab’s upcoming movie Shine On that acquired it. View the full post to see all photos, and if you’ve got a band that needs press photos, email me your link to: hi [at] brooklynheathen [dot] com.
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Download “Una Dia Otra Noche” | Allá is playing Joe’s Pub tomorrow, the 8th of June, and I’m looking forward to a six-piece treatment of the band’s polished on-record sound. From that performance I hope to conclude whether or not the Os Mutantes comparisons are fit, since from solely listening to the record, the similarity isn’t apparent to me at all; if anything, in Lupe Martinez’s voice I hear textual rhythms similar to that in older Juana Molina songs. An article in the Chicago Reader asserts:
Any Os Mutantes comparisons are well deserved—both groups get real far-out but still come off tropical-drink breezy—but Allá’s palette might be even broader, including bits of everything from Krautrock to hip-hop.
An earlier paragraph does a better job, read it after the jump:
hooves on the turf is a mostly-music blog based out of brooklyn. i can be reached at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com - please send me your lovely music as an attached mp3 or an mp3 link. if i like what you send, i'll be sure to ask for more.
Aqua: Love TEEN. Man they can sing. Cool. Different.
Suraj Joshee: Sarahana, Loved the video. You captured the simple raw essence of the music and band really really...
