John Dwyer got a little hungry at the 2009 Siren Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
River to River Festival
South Street Seaport, Pier 17
Friday, July 16, free, 6:00
www.seaportmusicfestival.com
www.myspace.com/ohsees
Veterans of the 2009 Siren Festival, John Dwyer, Brigid Dawson, Petey Dammit, and Mike Shoun are back in New York City, bringing with them lots of WARM SLIME (In the Red, May 2010), the San Fran band’s frantic, frenetic, kickass new disc. “All you need is the summertime,” they declare on the epic title-track freakout, which goes on for more than thirteen minutes, a great introduction to a free summer show July 16 at the South Street Seaport. The seven guitar-heavy songs on WARM SLIME sound like an amphetamine-addled Duane Eddy crashing down the Autobahn, from the dirty, foot-stomping “Everything Went Black” to the mega-awesome “Mega-feast” to the explosive “I Was Denied.” Onstage, Dwyer virtually makes love to his guitar, caressing it, hugging it to his body, and holding it in unusual ways while also wrapping his lips and mouth around the microphone. “Yeah, I think we are good,” they proclaim on the garage rave-up “Castiatic Tackle.” (We don’t know what it means either.) Well, they’re good, all right. Thee Oh Sees will be at the Seaport Music Festival on July 16 with Brooklyn psychedelic popsters Golden Triangle and quirky Irish rockers So Cow.
We called Tetsuya Nakashima’s 2005 hit, KAMIKAZE GIRLS, the “otaku version of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s AMELIE,” referring to it as “fresh,” “frenetic,” “fast-paced,” and “very funny.” His following film, the stunningly gorgeous MEMORIES OF MATSUKO, also recalls AMELIE and all those other adjectives, albeit with much more sadness. Miki Nakatani stars as Matsuko, a sweet woman who spent her life just looking to be loved but instead found nothing but heartbreak, deception, and physical and emotional abuse. But MEMORIES OF MATSUKO is not a depressing melodrama, even if Nakashima incorporates touches of Douglas Sirk every now and again. The film is drenched in glorious Technicolor, often breaking out into bright and cheerful musical numbers straight out of a 1950s fantasy world. As the movie begins, Matsuko has been found murdered, and her long-estranged brother (Akira Emoto) has sent his son, Sho (Eita), who never knew she existed, to clean out her apartment. As Sho goes through the mess she left behind, the film flashes back to critical moments in Matsuko’s life — and he also meets some crazy characters in the present. It’s difficult rooting for the endearing Matsuko knowing what becomes of her, but Nakashima’s remarkable visual style will grab you and never let go. And like Audrey Tatou in AMELIE, Nakatani — who won a host of Japanese acting awards for her outstanding performance — is just a marvel to watch. The film was shown at the 2007 Japan Cuts festival and is being brought back this year by popular demand.