Back on October 30, Brooklyn’s Celestial Shore held a release party for their new Hometapes full-length, Enter Ghost, at Baby’s All Right. But the follow-up to last year’s 10X actually comes out November 11, so the three-piece is having another musical celebration for the record November 12 at Shea Stadium with Leapling, Cave Cricket, and Flashlight O. Guitarist and lead singer Sam Owens, bassist Greg Albert, and drummer Max Almario dip into the British psychedelic ’60s (think the White Album covered by the Count Five, Thunderclap Newman, and the Zombies) on Enter Ghost, which features such tracks as “Gloria,” “Same Old Cult Story,” the propulsive “Pass Go,” the blistering, chaotic “Shell Shocked,” and the groovy “Creation Myth.” Heavenly, indeed.
this week in music
MoMA NIGHTS
There will be legs everywhere on Saturday night as MoMA stays open until ten to celebrate the coming holiday season (photo of Robert Gober’s “Untitled Leg” courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, © 2014 Robert Gober)
MoMA, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, November 8, $25, 5:30 – 10:00 pm
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
It seems that everyone is getting into the act of celebrating the holiday season earlier and earlier, and the Museum of Modern Art joins the party on November 8 with a special late-night slate of activities. The museum will stay open until 10:00 with pop-up gallery talks, a cash bar, DJ Diggy Lloyd spinning tunes, a screening of Louis de Witt’s Joe Bullet, and more. The current exhibitions include “Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor,” “The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters,” “Analog Network: Mail Art, 1960-1999,” “A Collection of Ideas,” “Cut to Swipe,” “Jean Dubuffet: Soul of the Underground,” “Bill Morrison: Re-Compositions,” and “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs,” which requires advance timed tickets.
TICKET ALERT: AN EVENING WITH DARREN ARONOFSKY, PATTI SMITH, AND NOAH
SCREENING + LIVE EVENT: NOAH (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Monday, November 17, $25, 7:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
Oscar-nominated, Brooklyn-born director Darren Aronofsky, whose impressive oeuvre includes Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, and The Wrestler, scored his biggest box office hit yet with the biblical epic Noah, his first film to open at number one. A unique, somewhat controversial take on the story of Noah and his ark, the film stars Russell Crowe as the title character, Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Anthony Hopkins as his grandfather, Emma Watson as his daughter-in-law, Ray Winstone as Tubal-cain, Frank Langella as Og, and Nick Nolte as Samyaza. On November 17, Aronofsky will be at the Museum of the Moving Image for a special screening of the film, joined by Patti Smith, who wrote and performed (with the Kronos Quartet) the lullaby “Mercy Is” for the soundtrack, her first original composition for a film. The discussion will focus on the collaboration between Aronofsky and Smith on the song, which is also sung in the film by several characters; Smith will also perform the song at the event. “It might seem like a modest little song, but it was a complicated task,” she told Rolling Stone last month. “I went back and looked at the scriptures. I really studied Darren’s script. . . . The song is supposed to remember Eden and hope that the Father will come and deliver us back to Eden, the hope of a new world. . . . Just writing, going, trying to say something with simplicity is a laborious process. But I worked very hard. I had Darren’s feedback. I made one historical error, so he corrected me.”
MURAKAMI MUSIC: STORIES OF LOSS AND NOSTALGIA
Baruch Performing Arts Center
Engelman Recital Hall
55 Lexington Ave. between Lexington & Third Aves.
Saturday, November 1, $25, 8:00
www.baruch.cuny.edu
www.eunbikimmusic.com
One of the greatest living novelists in the world, Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s intoxicating prose flows like music. A jazz aficionado, he even named one of his earliest books Norwegian Wood, after the Beatles song, while the massive IQ84 is like an opera itself. The title of his latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Knopf, August 2014, $26.95), is in part inspired by Franz Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage suite. As Haida and Tsukuru listen to Liszt’s “Le mal du pays,” Tsukuru asks, “Who’s the pianist here?” to which Haida responds, “ A Russian, Lazar Berman. When he plays Liszt it’s like he’s painting a delicately imagined landscape. Most people see Liszt’s piano music as more superficial, and technical. Of course, he has some tricky pieces, but if you listen very carefully to his music you discover a depth to it that you don’t notice at first.” The same can be said for Murakami’s books; many of his protagonists give mini-dissertations on music, and while The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore are more difficult narratives, the deceptive simplicity of Norwegian Wood and After Dark contains layers of complexities. On November 1 at 8:00, New York City-based pianist Eunbi Kim will bring “Murakami Music: Stories of Loss and Nostalgia” to the Baruch Performing Arts Center, a multidisciplinary evening of music based on Murakami’s writings, along with excerpts from his work performed by actress Laura Yumi Snell. Part of Kim’s Murakami Music Project, the sixty-minute show, presented by the Long Island City art gallery Resobox, is directed by Kira Simring and includes performances of Schumann’s Forest Scenes, Op. 82; “Norwegian Wood”; Chopin’s Etude, Op. 25, No. 1; Mozart’s Sonata in B flat Major, K. 333; Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in d minor, Op. 14; Nat King Cole’s “South of the Border” and “Pretend”; Grieg’s Norwegian Dance, Op. 35; and Kim’s own “Kafka on the Shore.” Kim will be joined by David Kjar on saxophone and Jeff Koch on upright bass. Meanwhile, Murakami fans are in for an extra treat this year, as his next album — er, book — the illustrated short story The Strange Library, is due from Knopf on December 2, featuring another marvelous album cover — er, book design — by Chip Kidd.
FIRST SATURDAYS: CROSSING BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, November 1, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
For its November edition of its free First Saturdays program, the Brooklyn Museum is looking at its home borough. Crossing Brooklyn will feature live performances by the PitchBlak Brass Band, Meridian Lights, John Robinson & PVD, and Norte Maar; a screening of the UnionDocs collaborative web documentary the Living Los Sures about the south side of Williamsburg; a book reading and talk by Bridgett M. Davis, author of Into the Go-Slow; a collage workshop; and a talk by assistant curator of contemporary art Rujeko Hockley on the exhibition “Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond.” In addition, you can check out such other exhibitions as “Judith Scott — Bound and Unbound,” “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement,” “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe,” and “Judy Chicago’s Feminist Pedagogy and Alternative Spaces.”
REVENGE OF THE MEKONS
Sally Timms and Jon Langford fight the curse of the Mekons in stirring documentary
REVENGE OF THE MEKONS (Joe Angio, 2013)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
October 29 – November 4
212-727-8110
www.mekonsmovie.com
www.docnyc.net
Called “the most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” by Lester Bangs, the Mekons have been making some of the best music on the planet for more than thirty-five years. But despite a rabid fan base and constant critical adoration, the band, which formed at the University of Leeds back in 1977, has never quite made the big time. Joe Angio captures the wild, DIY spirit of this unique music and art collective in the stirring documentary Revenge of the Mekons. Angio (How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company [and Enjoy It]) follows the self-deprecating band — the members of which are quick to joke about their lack of financial and popular success, especially when they’re onstage and learn from fans that an upcoming gig has been canceled — as they celebrate their thirtieth anniversary and record their most recent excellent album, Ancient and Modern. Angio talks with the current Mekons lineup, which includes cofounders Tom Greenhalgh and Jon Langford along with Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Lu Edmonds, Sarah Corina, Steve Goulding, and Sally Timms, as well as such former members as Kevin Lycett, Mark “Chalkie” White, Andy Corrigan, and Dick Taylor, as they recount the band’s rollicking history, beginning with its Leeds days as a socialist punk band battling over shows with Gang of Four through its mid-1980s transformation into alt-country folk rockers.
Mekons doc is one helluva wild and crazy ride, just like their long career
Angio mixes in amazing raw footage from the 1970s with more contemporary scenes as the Mekons, with their usual reckless abandon and utter joyfulness, play such songs as “Where Were You,” “The Hope and the Anchor,” “Ghosts of American Astronauts,” “Millionaire,” “Hello Cruel World,” “Hard to Be Human,” “Memphis, Egypt,” and “The Curse.” Sharing their love of all things Mekons are such wide-ranging pundits as Jonathan Franzen, Greil Marcus, Gang of Four’s Hugo Burnham and Andy Gill, Will Oldham, Greg Kot, Craig Finn, Luc Sante, Mary Harron, and performance artist Vito Acconci. Back in October 2011, we wrote that “a world that includes the Mekons is just a better place for everyone,” and that still holds true. So start by watching this wonderfully crazy documentary, about a group of crazy characters who have formed a crazy kind of family, then go out and pick up such seminal records as Fear and Whiskey, The Mekons Honky Tonkin’, So Good It Hurts, The Mekons Rock‘n’Roll, Natural, Ancient Modern, etc., and be sure to catch them live when they come anywhere near your town. Revenge of the Mekons had its world premiere last November as part of the “Sonic Cinema” section of the annual DOC NYC festival and opens October 29 at Film Forum. Angio, Langford, and Goulding will be on hand for the 7:15 screening on opening night, with Angio and Langford back the next night at 9:30. Craig Finn of the Hold Steady will introduce the 7:15 show on November 1, while Sante will do the same on November 3 at 7:15 and Marcus on November 4 at 7:15. In conjunction with the U.S. theatrical release of the film, there will be an opening-night after-party concert with Langford at the Bell House in Brooklyn ($10, 9:00), followed the next night at 7:30 by a free Mekons Symposium at Columbia University’s Buell Hall, Maison Française on October 30 with Langford, Acconci, Harron, Franzen, Marcus, and Sante.
MET MUSEUM PRESENTS MALI NOW: BASSEKOU KOUYATÉ
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Thursday, October 30, $35-$45, 7:00
212-570-3949
www.metmuseum.org
www.bassekoukouyate.com
Malian ngoni master Bassekou Kouyaté and his band, Ngoni ba, will conclude the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Mali Now” series with an acoustic concert October 30 in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. The group has released three albums, 2007’s Segu Blue, 2009’s Grammy-nominated I Speak Fula, and the latest, last year’s Jama Ko, which was recorded during the 2012 coup d’état and includes such dramatic songs as “Ne Me Fatigue Pas,” “Wagadou,” and “Segu Jajiri.” The Garana-born Kouyaté, who has been playing the ngoni, also known as a spike lute, since he was twelve, has performed with Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabate, Paul McCartney, Damon Albarn, and others. “Mali Now” previously featured a concert by Salif Keita and a three-part talk by Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the cultural, historical, and political legacy and future of the African nation. If you haven’t been following the influx of terrific Malian music over the last few years, highlighted by Tinariwen, the Touré family, Oumou Sangaré, Salif Keita, and Amadou and Mariam, this show at the Met is a great place to start.