this week in music

LITTLE KIDS ROCK BENEFIT

Hammerstein Ballroom
311 West 34th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Thursday, October 23, $250, 7:30
www.littlekidsrock.org/2014benefit
www.mcstudios.com/the-hammerstein

The sixth annual Little Kids Rock Benefit is set for October 23 at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and a limited number of second balcony tickets are being made available to the general public through Ticketmaster at a mere $250. (Other packages range from $750 to $100,000.) Produced by Steven and Maureen Van Zandt, the fundraiser supports music education in public schools; this year’s all-star lineup includes performances by Alice Cooper, Billie Joe Armstrong, Cheap Trick, Tommy James, Kathleen Hanna with Ad-Rock, Darlene Love, Jesse Malin, Glen Hansard, Mike Ness, and Brody Dalle. The 2014 Rocker of the Year is the one and only Joan Jett, while the Big Man of the Year is Jake Clemons, following in the footsteps of his uncle Clarence, who was honored at the inaugural benefit in 2009. Mike Pratt, the CEO of Guitar Center, is the corporate honoree. The stated mission of Little Kids Rock is simple: “We won’t rest until every student has the opportunity to unlock his or her inner music-maker. . . . Over the past 12 years, we have given more than 300,000 under-served schoolchildren across the U.S. access to fun, engaging, Modern Band music classes and brand new instruments at no cost to the students, teachers, or school districts.”

HONK NYC! FESTIVAL

THE 2014 HONK NYC! FESTIVAL
Multiple locations
October 13-18, free – $12
www.honknyc.com

We hate honking. No, we don’t just hate it, we loathe it, watching idiot drivers pounding away on their horns in the midst of heavy traffic that won’t be going anywhere for a while. But we love the HONK NYC! Festival, six days of global brass and street bands playing in Manhattan and Brooklyn, indoors and outdoors. The Eighth Annual Convergence of Brass & Percussion Ensemble Musicians from the U.S. and Europe begins on October 13 at 5:30 pm with the Hungry March Band having a blast for free in One Penn Plaza; on Tuesday, Radio Kaizman will do the same, followed by the Chaotic Noise Marching Corps on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the Frank London Klezmer Brass All-Stars, PitchBlak Brass Band, Raya Brass Band, Les Muses Tanguent, and Pakava It’ will be at Littlefield ($10-$12, 8:00) for the festival’s opening night dance party. On Thursday, WFMU’s Monty Hall in Jersey City will host Radio Kaizman, Chaotic Noise, Environmental Encroachment, Pakava It’, and Himalayas featuring Kenny Wollesen in an evening of music, activism, and spectacle ($10, 8:00). The Friday-night gala brings together Spanglish Fly, the Hungry March Band, the Underground Horns, Batala NYC, Chaotic Noise, Kenny Wollesen’s Wollesonic Lab’s Sonic Massage, and Radio Kaizman at the Gowanus Ballroom ($10-$15, 9:00), combining with Gowanus Open Studios with art installations as well. On Saturday, the East Village Cavalcade of Pomp takes over Tompkins Square Park with the Human Jukebox Brass Band, Chaotic Noise, Les Muses Tanguent, Environmental Encroachment, and Pakava It’ (free, 3:00), followed by Les Muses Tanguent at Barbes (free, 8:00) and the grand finale, “A Brasstastic Blowout!,” at a secret location Saturday night at 9:00, with many of the aforementioned groups as well as the Lucky Chops Brass Band and Bombrasstico. The organizers are currently just short of their Kickstarter goal, so check out the above video and help out with a few bucks if you can.

ONTHEFLOOR: REMIX

Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel
20 West 29th St. at Broadway
Monthly Saturday nights at 8:00, October 11, November 8, December 13, $15-$20
www.thedancecartel.com

For the last few years, the Dance Cartel has been presenting the immersive OntheFloor in the downstairs Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel, where courageous, uninhibited performers move in and around the crowd as they groove to funky beats with an enticing but controlled abandon. Conceived and choreographed by Ani Taj and codirected with Sam Pinkleton, OntheFloor will be back at the Ace Hotel with Remix, a brand-new edition taking place October 11, November 8, and December 13 back in Liberty Hall. Performers Alexandra Albrecht, Aziza Barnes, Emily Bass, nicHi douglas, Thomas Gibbons, Audrey Hailes, Sunny Hitt, Danika Manso-Brown, Justin Perez, and Taj will be joined by such special guests as Zuzuka Poderosa, Grace McLean, Batala NYC, and DJs Average Jo, Matt Kilmer, and Stefande. Be prepared for things to get wild before, during, and after the ninety-minute show.

ESCAPE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Girl Talk will headline two-day Escape Music Festival this weekend on Governors Island (photo by PaulSobota.com)

Governors Beach Club, Governors Island
October 11-12, one-day pass $65 (VIP $155), two-day pass $109 (VIP $259), 12 noon – 12 midnight
www.escapemusicfest.com

Originally scheduled for Pier 9 in Brooklyn, the inaugural Escape Music Festival, two days of electronic and indie music and interactive art projects, has been moved to Governors Beach Club on Governors Island. The festival, taking place October 11-12, will feature two stages, with performances by Girl Talk, Placebo, Yeasayer, Mayer Hawthorne, the Joy Formidable, the Crystal Method, Ra Ra Riot, Tesla Boy, and others, along with DJ sets by Moby, STRFKR, Neon Indian, and Plastic Plates & Sam Sparro, curated by Brooklyn’s the Most Definitely and San Francisco’s Beautiful Buzzz. On Sunday, Elrow Ibiza will present Alan Fitzpatrick, Boris, Miss Kittin, Sebastien Leger, Technasia, Sleepy & Boo, Alex English, and more. In addition, such food trucks as La Sonrisa Empanada, Mightyballs, the Poffertjes Man, Chutney, Dos Toros, Manila Girl, Sunday Gravy, Two Table Spoon, Redhook Lobster Pound, and Beekman Burgers will be selling eats. The festival is open to eighteen and over only; 1.5% of ticket sales will go to local nonprofit organizations. Be sure to read the long list of what not to bring, which includes picnic baskets, chain wallets, large backpacks, umbrellas, hard-sided coolers, and tripods.

CBGB MUSIC AND FILM FESTIVAL 2014

Billy Idol will give the keynote interview and play a short acoustic set at CBGB Festival

Multiple venues in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan
October 8-12
www.cbgbfest.com

Last year, the second CBGB Music & Film Festival spread throughout the city, glomming its brand name onto already scheduled shows in addition to hosting a series of cool free concerts in Times Square. This year is another haphazard affair that probably wouldn’t please Hilly Kristal and longtime CB devotees, as there’s still no information on when and where headliners Jane’s Addiction (performing Nothing’s Shocking) and Devo will be taking the stage. The keynote interview will feature Billy Idol talking with Timothy Sommer, followed by a brief acoustic set October 9 at Center 548 by the author of the new autobiography Dancing with Myself. There will also be discussions with Daniel Lanois, Duff McKagan, Dirty South, and others. Among the thirty film screenings are Chris Cheatham’s A Decade with an Unsigned Rock Band about August Christopher, Nick Hall’s I Need a Dodge! Joe Strummer on the Run, John Jeffcoat’s Big in Japan about Tennis Pro, Robert Zemeckis’s I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke, presented by Beastie Boy Adam Horvitz. Bands participating in the festival include the Muffs, Murphy’s Law, Rocket & the Ghost, the Howl, Crazy Pills, Session 73, We Are Temporary, Echo Station, Boy Toy, and Emily Danger. Center 548 will also be home to the exhibition “From Bathroom Stalls to Gallery Walls: A Visual Tribute to CBGB & OMFUG.” But that doesn’t mean that this festival really has all that much to do with CBGB itself. [Ed. note: It has since been announced that Devo and Jane’s Addiction will be performing as part of Sunday’s free concert in Times Square, with two stages of live music that features Midnight Mob and Ex-Cops at 11:00, Face the King at 11:30, Cheeky Parade at 12 noon, We Are Scientists at 12:30, Surfer Blood at 1:15, Devo at 4:30, School of Rock and Robert Delong at 5:25, and Jane’s Addiction at 6:25.]

20,000 DAYS ON EARTH

Nick Cave takes a look back at his life and career as only Nick Cave can in imaginative, deeply introspective documentary

20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, 2014)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
September 17 – October 16
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.20000daysonearth.com

The film 20,000 Days on Earth might sound like a 1950s low-budget sci-fi cult classic you’ve never seen, but actually it’s an unusual and vastly inventive document of the life and times of Australian rocker, poet, novelist, film composer, screenwriter, and all-around bon vivant Nick Cave. In their debut feature, installation artists and curators Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard collaborated closely with Cave on the film, mixing reality and fantasy as they follow Cave during a rather busy day. “Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it,” Cave, who just turned fifty-seven, says in the deeply poetic voiceover narration he wrote specifically for the film. “It’s all just clamor and confusion. It only becomes a story when we tell it, and retell it, our small, precious recollections that we speak again and again to ourselves or to others, first creating the narrative of our lives, and then keeping the story from dissolving into darkness.” Forsyth and Pollard journey with Cave as he delves into religion and his relationship with his father with psychoanalyst Darian Leader, visits with longtime collaborator Warren Ellis (who shares an amazing story about Nina Simone and a piece of gum), drives around as people from his past suddenly appear in his car (friend Ray Winstone, duet partner Kylie Minogue, former bandmate Blixa Bargeld), lays down tracks in the studio (“Give Us a Kiss,” “Higgs Boson Blues,” “Push the Sky Away” with a children’s orchestra), watches television with his twin sons, and goes through his archives of photographs and other ephemera from childhood to the present day.

The film reveals Cave, the leader of cutting-edge groups the Birthday Party, Grinderman, and the Bad Seeds and author of the novels And the Ass Saw the Angel and The Death of Bunny Munro, to be an intelligent, introspective, engaging fellow with a wry, often self-deprecating sense of humor and a hunger to create. “Mostly I write. Tapping and scratching away day and night sometimes,” he says while typing away with two fingers on an old typewriter in his home office. “But if I ever stopped for long enough to question what I’m actually doing? The why of it? Well, I couldn’t really tell you. I don’t know.” The film begins with a barrage of images of Cave and his influences throughout the years, whipping by machine-gun style on multiple monitors, and ends with Cave onstage with the Bad Seeds, becoming the fearless musician that has defined his career. In between, he’s a contemplative husband, father, son, and friend, an artist with a rather unique view of the world and his place in it. At a special event at Town Hall on September 20, Cave participated in a postscreening Q&A with Forsyth and Pollard, performed solo songs at the piano (playing what one fan described as a “dream setlist”), and spoke often about “transformation.” In its own way, 20,000 Days on Earth, which has been held over at Film Forum, is a transformative documentary, a groundbreaking, unconventional, and thoroughly imaginative portrait of a groundbreaking, unconventional, and thoroughly imaginative artist. (For more on Cave’s history, be sure to check out the online Museum of Important Shit, which highlights additional strange paraphernalia from Cave’s life and career.) Following its month-long run at Film Forum, 20,000 Days on Earth makes its way to Williamsburg, where it is scheduled to play at Nitehawk Cinema through October 25.

FIRST SATURDAYS: ¡VIVA BROOKLYN!

Caecilia Tripp’s “Music for (prepared) Bicycles” rides into Brooklyn Museum in multiple forms for First Saturdays program

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, October 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

After taking September off for the annual Labor Day weekend West Indian American Day Carnival celebration, the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday program in October will have a decidedly Latin feel. ¡Viva Brooklyn! will feature live music by Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and youth orchestra Fat Afro Latin Jazz Cats, La Mecánica Popular, and Los Rakas; the dance performance Bailes de Ida y Vuelta by Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana; rumba and salsa lessons with Global Rhythms; an art workshop inspired by Mayan textile design; pop-up gallery talks in English and Spanish highlighting works by Latino artists; a screening of William Caballero’s How You Doin’ Boy? Voicemails from Gran’pa, followed by a talk about Puerto Rican American cultural influences; a screening of Caecilia Tripp’s Music for (prepared) Bicycles (after John Cage & Marcel Duchamp) Score Two, along with the participatory project Music for (prepared) Bicycles, in which Tripp and visitors will create a drawing of a musical score from a sonic bicycle; an interactive mural by Don Rmix in collaboration with Brooklyn Street Art; and “Pimp My Piragua,” in which Crossing Brooklyn artist Miguel Luciano will serve shaved ice from his custom-made tricycle. In addition, you can check out such exhibitions as “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement,” “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe,” and “Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Works, 1963–74.”