this week in music

LAST CHANCE — HEY! HO! LET’S GO! RAMONES AND THE BIRTH OF PUNK / QUEENS INTERNATIONAL 2016

Danny Fields, “Ramones in alley behind CBGB,” 1977 (photo courtesy the artist)

Queens Museum
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Sunday, July 31, suggested admission $8, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
718-592-9700
www.queensmuseum.org

“The Ramones all originate from Forest Hills and kids who grew up there either became musicians, degenerates or dentists. The Ramones are a little of each. Their sound is not unlike a fast drill on a rear molar,” Tommy Erdelyi, aka Tommy Ramone, wrote in in the Ramones’ first press release. That artifact serves as the perfect introduction to “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” which closes at the Queens Museum on Sunday, July 31, along with the Queens International 2016. The Ramones celebration is being held in conjunction with the fortieth anniversary of the band’s debut album, Ramones, which featured lead singer Joey (Jeffrey Hyman), guitarist Johnny (John Cummings), bassist Dee Dee (Douglas Colvin), and drummer Tommy pumping out fourteen songs in less than half an hour, a nonstop barrage that included “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” and “53rd & 3rd,” on their way to changing the shape of music and underground culture around the world. The exhibition consists of memorabilia galore, from photographs, videos, and artwork to handwritten lyrics, letters, T-shirts, and concert posters, as well as a few of their classic leather jackets and instruments (and the Schlitzie mask used during “Pinhead”). In a back room, the Ramones’ 1977 New Year’s Eve concert at the Rainbow in London plays continuously on the big screen. It’s the first of a two-part exhibition; the second iteration begins in September at the Grammy Museum in L.A. Gabba gabba hey!

Abby Dobson and Sam Vernon will perform in front of Vernon’s “Louis & Sam” collage at the Queens Museum on July 31 (photo by QM Curatorial Staff)

Sunday is also your last chance to catch “Queens International 2016,” the museum’s biennial exhibition focusing on artists who live and/or work in the borough, this time looking at the concept of thresholds. We’re particularly fond of Kate Gilmore’s “Beat It” video (don’t read about it in advance and simply experience it), the Janks Archive’s “The Internal Insults,” a collection of razzes in multiple languages; Alan Ruiz’s “Western Standards,” a different kind of Mexican wall; Melanie McLain’s “Prepersonal” installation, which you are supposed to touch; Shadi Harouni’s “The Lightest of Stones,” a video in which she pulls down rocks in a pumice quarry in Iranian Kurdistan; and Brian Caverly’s “Studio Abandon,” a miniature re-creation of his Ridgewood studio. The closing festivities on Sunday start at 1:00 with “Las Reinas,” a performance by Jesus Benavente and Felipe Castelblanco involving the creation of a new song by two mariachi bands, one in Queens and one in Colombia. At 2:30, “When You’re Smiling . . . The Many Faces of the Mask” is a site-specific performance by singer Abby Dobson and guitarist Sam Vernon in response to the latter’s wall collage “Louis & Sam.” And at 3:00, there will be a screening of “A Frame Apart: Short Films Showcase,” followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

MISS SHARON JONES!

Sharon Jones is nervous about returning to the stage after tough cancer battle in Barbara Kopple’s intimate, affecting documentary

MISS SHARON JONES! (Barbara Kopple, 2015)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, July 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
sharonjonesandthedapkings.com

“I feel my day is coming, it’s my time,” soul singer extraordinaire Sharon Jones is shown saying at the beginning of Barbara Kopple’s touching and intimate documentary, Miss Sharon Jones! But that was before the former wedding singer and Rikers Island corrections officer, who was born in 1958 in North Augusta, South Carolina, raised in Brooklyn, and later lived in Queens, was diagnosed in June 2013 with stage two pancreatic cancer. Jones, who has been called the female James Brown — she tells a story in the film about the time she met the Godfather of Soul — allows the Oscar-winning Kopple (Shut Up & Sing, Harlan County, USA) remarkable access as she cuts off her trademark locks and chooses a wig, undergoes painful chemotherapy, is cared for by her close friend and holistic nutritionist Megan Holken, and visits her old stomping grounds in Augusta, Georgia. Jones shares her thoughts about her future, feeling responsible for the financial well-being of her longtime band, the Dap-Kings. “First and foremost, we’re a family,” Daptone Records cofounder and saxophonist Neal Sugarman says. In fact, “family” is a word that pops up often in the film when people describe their relationship with Jones, who has never married and has no children. Among those who talk about Jones, her amazing talent, and her fight with cancer are her oncologist, Dr. James Leonardo; her manager, Alex Kadvan, who is with her every step of the way; her assistant manager Austen Holman, who tries not to break down on camera; Daptone Records cofounder and bassist Gabe Roth; guitarist Binky Griptite, who is up front about his financial troubles while the band is on hiatus; drummer Homer Steinweiss; and Dapettes Starr Duncan Lowe and Saundra Williams.

Sharon Jones, the female James Brown, takes the stage in Barbara Kopple’s MISS SHARON JONES!

Jones is a fiery dynamo onstage, pounding the floor in her bare feet, shaking her dreads wildly, a relentless performer in a compact package. (We’ve seen Miss Jones perform numerous times, including with Prince at Madison Square Garden, and Kopple does a masterful job capturing Jones’s infectious passion and energy.) She proves herself to be quite the character offstage as well, an unpredictable force who is at ease lighting up a cigar while fishing in a lake, not embarrassed to admit that her dream is to dance on Ellen with Ellen DeGeneres, and lifted by the power when delivering an awe-inspiring rendition of the Gospel standard “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in a Queens church. Of course, the film is filled with lots of great music, all originals by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, including “I Learned the Hard Way,” “Get Up and Get Out,” “Longer & Stronger,” “I’ll Still Be True,” and “100 Days, 100 Nights.” As the chemotherapy nears its conclusion, Jones, itching to return to the stage, wonders whether she’ll be strong enough to go back out on tour behind their latest record, the aptly titled Give the People What They Want.After seeing the film, Jones posted on social media, “I never thought I had a story, but Barbara Kopple and her team captured a beautiful one during the most difficult months of my life. They were able to make the difficulty in what I went through mean a lot. You see a part of life I never would have looked at and it was moving for me to be able to see all the people it affected.” Miss Sharon Jones! is indeed a moving, deeply affecting film. It opens at IFC Center on July 29, with Kopple and Jones participating in Q&As following the 7:45 screenings on July 29 and 30.

ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS AT CITY WINERY

Eric Burdon and the Animals will play two intimate shows at City Winery August 8-9 (photo © David Weimann)

City Winery
155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts.
Monday, August 8, and Tuesday, August 9, $85-$125, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com/newyork
www.ericburdon.com

In his 2012 SXSW keynote address, Bruce Springsteen talked about the influence Eric Burdon and the Animals had on him. Playing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” on an acoustic guitar, Springsteen said, “That’s every song I’ve ever written. That’s all of them. I’m not kidding.” He also called listening to the Animals for the first time “a revelation.” The next year, Burdon joined Springsteen and the E Street Band, who used to turn the Animals’ “It’s My Life” into a showpiece in their early days, onstage in Cardiff for a stirring version of “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”; clearly, Burdon had forgiven Springsteen for calling the Animals the “ugliest” band in rock and roll. I felt the same way the first time I heard the Animals; they were so different from fellow British Invaders the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks. They were a bunch of working-class guys you would not want to meet in a dark alley, infusing their music with the deep heart of the blues while also offering escape. I remember seeing Burdon perform in the 1980s at Westbury Music Fair in the round, where he covered Springsteen’s “Factory,” which described a life he knew, having been born and raised in the coal-mining town of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Eric Burdon and the Animals back in the British Invasion days

In 1986, about halfway through his storied career, Burdon wrote the memoir I Used to Be an Animal But I’m All Right Now. Since 1962, he has been the lead singer of numerous on-again, off-again incarnations of the band, which has been beset by breakups and lawsuits over the years; the latest edition will be returning to New York for two intimate shows at City Winery August 8-9, following their two sold-out performances there last October. Burdon has one of the most powerful, distinctive voices in rock and roll history, melding blues, funk, jazz, R&B, folk, hard rock, psychedelia, and other styles over a career that has included playing with the ever-changing lineup of Animals as well as with War, the Eric Burdon Band, Eric Burdon’s Fire Dept., the Eric Burdon Brian Auger Band, Eric Burdon and the Greenhornes, and as a solo act. Burdon’s remarkable back catalog is ripe with amazing songs: In addition to the aforementioned “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and “It’s My Life,” there’s “The House of the Rising Sun,” “Sky Pilot,” “San Franciscan Nights,” “Spill the Wine,” “Tobacco Road,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” among so many more, both originals and covers of such legends as Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and other great bluesmen. “My faith was so much stronger then / I believed in fellow men / And I was so much older then / When I was young,” he sang back in 1966; half a century later, Burdon is still going strong, having just celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in May.

A painter and actor (check out the German film Comeback) as well as an author (he also wrote Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood in 2002 and is working on a third memoir), the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is no mere novelty act; he’s back on the road with guitarist Johnzo West, keyboardist Davey Allen, bassist Justin Andres, saxophonist Ruben Salinas, trombonist Evan Mackey, and drummer Dustin Koester, playing the big hits in addition to songs from his latest record, 2013’s personal and political ’Til Your River Runs Dry, which boasts such tunes as Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me”; “Memorial Day,” which honors soldiers and pacifists; and “27 Forever,” which pays tribute to all those musicians who died at the age of twenty-seven. Burdon has seen it all, from drugs and the height of success to going broke and battling over song credits; in fact, after a long legal fight, he recently regained the UK rights to the name the Animals, so he will be playing what is being billed as “The Homecoming” in Newcastle on September 7. But before then, you can catch Mr. Burdon at City Winery, where he will play a wide range of songs from throughout a remarkable, still vibrant career, doing what he was born to do. “Nothing’s changed, I’m still the same,” he sings on ’Til Your River Runs Dry. “Old habits die hard.” (Brooklyn-based Alberta Cross will open both nights.)

THE BELLS: A DAYLONG CELEBRATION OF LOU REED

The life and legacy of Lou Reed will be celebrated on July 30 with free all-day festival at Lincoln Center

LINCOLN CENTER OUT OF DOORS
Damrosch Park Bandshell, Josie Robertson Plaza, Hearst Plaza,
Alice Tully Hall lobby, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater
Saturday, July 30, free, 10:15 am – 12 midnight
www.lcoutofdoors.org
www.loureed.com

I think I took Lou Reed for granted. I’d see him regularly, either performing onstage, wandering through downtown art galleries, seeing shows at BAM, or grabbing a cab with his wife, Laurie Anderson. He was just one of those icons you thought would always be around, but it was not to be. On October 27, 2013, he succumbed to liver disease at the age of seventy-one. Less than three weeks later, on November 14, Lincoln Center hosted a low-key tribute to the Godfather of Punk at the Paul Milstein Pool & Terrace, three hours of his recorded music, with no speeches and no live performances. On July 30, Lincoln Center Out of Doors will be putting on a much bigger and broader festival in honor of Reed’s influential life and career with “The Bells: A Daylong Celebration of Lou Reed,” curated by Anderson and Hal Willner. The party gets under way at 10:15 on Josie Robertson Plaza with a tai chi lesson with Master Ren GuangYi; Reed recorded six original songs with Sarth Calhoun for the master’s Power and Serenity instructional DVD. From 11:00 to 4:00, the immersive sound installation “Lou Reed DRONES,” consisting of six guitars and amps emitting feedback, will continue in the Alice Tully Hall lobby. At 11:30 in the Damrosch Park Bandshell, the house band of Don Fleming, Sal Maida, Kenny Margolis, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, and Matt Sweeney will be joined by vocalists Joan as Police Woman, David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Jesse Malin, Kembra Pfahler, Felice Rosser, Harper Simon, Jon Spencer, Bush Tetras, JG Thirlwell, and the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls for some rock & roll. From 12 noon to 7:00, the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater will present Reed’s 2010 documentary, Red Shirley (12 noon & 3:00), about his one-hundred-year-old cousin; A Night with Lou Reed (1:30 & 5:30), a video document of his 1983 Bottom Line stand; and the American Masters program Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (4:00). At 2:00 in Hearst Plaza, Master Ren GuangYi will give a tai chi chuan and weapons demonstration, along with an eagle claw weapons demonstration by Masters Emmanuel Sam and Paul Lee. At 3:00, “Pass Thru Fire: Lyrics of Lou Reed” features Elizabeth Ashley, Steve Buscemi, Anne Carson, Kim Cattrall, Willem Dafoe, A. M. Homes, Natasha Lyonne, Julian Schnabel, Fisher Stevens, and Anne Waldman reading Reed’s words. At 7:00, Anderson, Anohni, Emily Haines, Garland Jeffreys, David Johansen, Mark Kozelek, Bill Laswell, John Cameron Mitchell, Maxim Moston, Jenni Muldaur, Jane Scarpantoni, Victoria Williams, Jim White, John Zorn, and others will gather at the bandshell for live performances of “Lou Reed’s Love Songs,” showing off his gentler side. The celebration, named after his 1979 album The Bells, concludes with a 10:30 screening (with headphones) of Julian Schnabel’s film Lou Reed’s Berlin, a concert film of Reed’s performance of the 1973 album at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2006. It should be quite a day and night; try not to take it for granted.

LOU REED’S BERLIN (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Saturday, July 30, free, 10:30
www.loureed.com/inmemoriam

In December 2006, Lou Reed resurrected his 1973 masterwork, Berlin, a deeply dark and personal song cycle that was a critical and commercial flop upon its initial release but has grown in stature over the years. (As Reed sings on the album’s closer, “Sad Song”: “Just goes to show how wrong you can be.”) The superbly staged adaptation, directed by Academy Award nominee Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), took place at Brooklyn’s intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse, featuring Rob Wasserman and longtime Reed sideman Fernando Saunders on bass, Tony “Thunder” Smith on drums, Rupert Christie on keyboards, and guitarist extraordinaire Steve Hunter, reunited with Lou for the first time in three decades. The band is joined onstage by backup singers Sharon Jones and Antony, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and a seven-piece orchestra (including cello, viola, flute, trumpet, clarinet, and flugel). Amid dreamlike video montages shot by Schnabel’s daughter, Lola, depicting Emmanuelle Seigner as the main character in Berlin, as well as experimental imagery by Alejandro Garmendia, Reed tells the impossibly bleak story of Caroline, a young mother whose life crashes and burns in a dangerously divided and debauched Germany. “It was very nice / It was paradise,” Reed sings on the opening title track, but it’s all downhill from there. “It was very nice / It was paradise” might also now serve as a kind of epitaph for one of the most important poets of the last fifty years. Berlin is being shown at Damrosch Park Bandshell at 10:30 on July 30, with headphones available.

PANORAMA: MUSIC • ART • TECHNOLOGY

The Lab hosts interactive installations using cutting-edge technology (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Randall’s Island Park
July 22-24, $125 per day
www.panorama.nyc
randallsisland.org

It was a beautiful day on Randall’s Island for the first day of the inaugural Panorama: Music • Art • Technology festival. It did get rather hot — sweat poured off many of the performers as well as the dancing crowd — but the rains never came, and the sunset cast a brilliant glow over the festivities. Goldenvoice, the company that runs Coachella, tried to bring a world-class alternative music festival to New York City with All Points West in 2008 and 2009, and they’re giving it another shot with Panorama, which opened on Friday with a warm vibe. There were bathrooms everywhere — including numerous cans that were a major step up from standard Porta Potties — and the food and drink lines were fairly manageable. The layout is excellent, leaving room to feel the comfort of green grass and shady trees. Live bands play at three locations, the giant outdoor Panorama Stage and the smaller Pavilion and even smaller Parlor, which are under tents, protected from the blazing sun. DJs also perform in the Parlor as well as the Despacio, a dark, pounding dance space where you can really let go.

All Points West veterans Silversun Pickups returned to Randall’s Island for Panorama festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

It was the women who ruled day one, with standout performances from violinist Lindsey Stirling, FKA twigs (unveiling her new show, “Radiant Me²”), Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, Amy Millan of Stars and Ariel Engle duetting for Broken Social Scene, and Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire killing it in a spectacular silver outfit. Amid all the joy and dancing, several bands made mention of the troubles going on in America. Howard introduced “Don’t Wanna Fight” by saying how important that song is to her right now, then sang, “My lines, your lines / Don’t cross them lines / What you like, what I like / Why can’t we both be right? / Attacking, defending / Until there’s nothing left worth winning / Your pride and my pride / Don’t waste my time.” Arcade Fire leader Win Butler, who was born in California (the band is based in Montreal), let forth some curse-strewn protests against Donald Trump. But Kevin Drew, from the Toronto-based Broken Social Scene, tried to ease the pains with some jammy fun-time music, expressing the band’s enduring love for its U.S. fans.

Amy Millan pumps up the volume with Broken Social Scene at Panorama (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Art and technology were on display as well at Panorama. A Google Play cube featured live graffiti-making and, up the stairs, a great view of Randall’s Island; in addition, live HD video from the Panorama Stage was projected onto the facade. Concertgoers swung in silk cocoons in Dave & Gabe’s “Hyper Thread,” enjoyed cotton candy under a dome in Emilie Baltz and Philip Sierzega’s “Cotton Candy Theremin,” bounced around in Future Wife’s “Visceral Recess,” and lit up cool animation while playing Red Paper Heart’s “The Art of Pinball.” Interactive installations such as Gabriel Pulecio’s “Infinite Wall” work much better if you put away the cameras and just experience them.

FKA twigs had the Panorama audience eating out of the palm of her hand (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

One major hiccup was the journey to get to the east box office from the ferry, a winding, unmarked trip through construction sites, streets with fast-moving cars but no sidewalks, cops who knew where to tell you not to go but not actually where to go, and other bizarre, at times scary, elements. Use the west entrance from the ferry, the east from the buses, and don’t try to walk around outside the venue. Otherwise, there was a happy feeling throughout Randall’s Island, with good food, good bathrooms, not too many long lines, and, best of all, great music. Saturday’s show features Kendrick Lamar, the National, Blood Orange, and Foals, among others, while Sunday is highlighted by Holy Ghost!, Grace Potter, Sia, and LCD Soundsystem, who played with Arcade Fire on Randall’s Island back in 2007.

PANORAMA NYC VIDEO OF THE DAY: “DEAD WEIGHT” BY WHITE LUNG

Who: White Lung
What: Panorama festival
Where: Randall’s Island Park, Panorama Stage
When: Sunday, July 24, $125, 1:10
Why: A classic punk foursome, Canadian quartet White Lung features singer-songwriter Mish Barber-Way front and center in their latest video, “Dead Weight,” but she’s obviously anything but dead weight, as evidenced on the group’s outstanding fourth studio album, Paradise (Domino, May 2016). In a recent interview with the the Line of Best Fit, Barber-Way noted: “I write for a living, so I’m always reading and researching. I did studies about bestiality, gender politics of pedophiles, female murderers who help their spouses rape and torture, biology, motherhood. I picked the brains of sex therapists, psychologists, white supremacists, cosmetic surgeons (the most interesting doctors to interview), and gynecologists. I was all over the place. This work all informs my lyrics, obviously. It’s what I am thinking about.” Paradise, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Polaris Prize, contains such tracks as “Hungry,” “Below,” “Demented” (in which Barber-Way declares, “I hate all that I see”), and the furious “Kiss Me When I Bleed” and “Sister.” No stranger to New York, White Lung played a gleefully anarchic set at the 2013 4Knots festival at the South Street Seaport; singer-songwriter Barber-Way, guitarist Kenneth William, bassist Lindsey Troy, and drummer Anne-Marie Vassiliou will be back in the city for the Panorama music, art, food, and technology festival on Sunday, playing the Panorama Stage at 1:10; that day’s bill also includes, among others, the Black Madonna, Grace Potter, Kurt Vile & the Violators, and Holy Ghost! You can find the full schedule and set times for all three days here.

PANORAMA NYC: ART

Who: Antfood, Dave and Gabe, Dirt Empire, Emilie Baltz and Philip Sierzega, Future Wife, Gabriel Pulecio, Invisible Light Network, Red Paper Heart, the Mountain Gods, VolvoxLabs, Zach Lieberman
What: Panorama: Music • Art • Technology
Where: Randall’s Island Park, the Lab
When: July 22-24, $125 per day ($230 VIP), $369 for three-day pass ($699 VIP), ferry $25 per day, shuttle $30 per day
Why: In addition to featuring such performers as Arcade Fire, Kendrick Lamar, LCD Soundsystem, Alabama Shakes, Sia, the National, FKA twigs, and Grace Potter and some big-time food vendors, the Panorama Music • Art • Technology festival, taking place this weekend on Randall’s Island, where the popular Frieze fair is held, will host the Lab, a collection of interactive and immersive art installations by New Yorkers that offers a respite from what should be large crowds fighting potential rain. Invisible Light Network, Dirt Empire, and Antfood have collaborated on a 70-foot dome with a 360-degree virtual reality theater. Dave & Gabe’s “Hyper Thread” is a 3D soundscape where you can create your own sounds using silk cocoons. Emilie Baltz and Philip Sierzega turn the making of cotton candy into an orchestral experience with “Cotton Candy Theremin.” Future Wife’s inflatable playground, “Visceral Recess,” allows festivalgoers to bring out their inner child. Gabriel Pulecio’s “Infinite Wall,” consisting of mirrors, lights, and sounds, reacts to visitors’ individual movements. Red Paper Heart’s “The Art of Pinball” reimagines the analog arcade game as a virtual digital wonderland. “Gigantic Gestures,” by the Mountain Gods (Charlie Whitney and Sierzega), invites people to tap and swipe a large-scale smartphone to investigate body language. Kamil Nawratil’s VolvoxLabs has created “The Façade,” which transforms the outside of the Lab into a projection screen. And hacker Zach Lieberman uses refraction and caustics in an interactive light table in “Reflection Study.”