this week in music

SOUND + VISION / ROOFTOP FILMS — PULP: A FILM ABOUT LIFE, DEATH & SUPERMARKETS

Jarvis Cocker takes a ride through his hometown of Sheffield as he prepares for Pulp farewell concert

PULP: A FILM ABOUT LIFE, DEATH & SUPERMARKETS (Florian Habicht, 2013)
SOUND + VISION
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, August 6, 8:30
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

ROOFTOP FILMS
Industry City roof and courtyard
220 36th St., Sunset Park
Thursday, August 7, live music 8:30, film screening 9:00
www.rooftopfilms.com
www.pulpthefilm.com

Florian Habicht’s Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets is a brilliant inside look at the long-lasting relationship between a band and its hometown. In December 2012, British alternative band Pulp returned to the place of its birth, the rugged, working-class city of Sheffield in the north of England, for what was being billed as its last-ever concert on dry land. Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker hooked up with Habicht (Love Story, Woodenhead), conceiving a project in which the time and place, along with the fans, would be just as important as the band and its music, if not more so. In the nonchronological film, Habicht cuts between archival footage of Pulp, clips from the final concert, interviews on the street with old and young fans, and brief chats with Pulp tour manager Liam Rippon and the other band members: guitarist Mark Webber, keyboardist Candida Doyle, bassist Steve Mackey, and drummer Nick Banks, who are pretty much taking it all in stride. But at the center of it all is the soft-spoken, enigmatic Cocker, who founded Pulp back in 1978 when he was fifteen years old.

Habicht shows Cocker biking and driving through Sheffield, discussing his first job working for a fishmonger in a mall, and, most thrillingly, fixing a flat tire on his less-than-fancy car. The theme song of the documentary is Pulp’s “Common People,” in which a woman tells Cocker, “I want to live like common people / I want to do whatever common people do / I want to sleep with common people / I want to sleep with common people like you.” Is it possible for a rock star to be “common people”? It doesn’t really matter as Cocker reestablishes his connection to Sheffield. “We stopped playing in 2001 or 2002 or whatever it was, and I did feel that the way it finished was kind of a bit, I don’t know, not right,” he says in the film. “It didn’t feel like a good ending. . . . So I know that tidying up isn’t the greatest rock-and-roll motivation, but I did want to kind of tidy things up and give the story a happy ending.” It is all very happy indeed, as Habicht also delves into such Pulp favorites as “This Is Hardcore” and “Help the Aged” as well as “Disco 2000,” “Underwear,” and “Sheffield: Sex City.” The band, which released seven studio albums during its career, from 1983’s It through 2001’s We Love Life, has no arguments or complaints, just positive attitudes that make Pulp a thoroughly exhilarating experience. The film opens in November but is having two special screenings this week, first as the closing-night selection of the “Sound + Vision” festival at Lincoln Center on August 6, followed by a Q&A with Habicht, then the next night at Industry City in Sunset Park as part of the annual summer Rooftop Films series, preceded by a live set by Mondo and followed by a Q&A with Cocker and Habicht and a Pulp karaoke contest that the two men will judge at the after-party.

SUMMER STREETS 2014

Park Ave. & 72nd St. to Foley Square
Saturday, August 2, 9, 16, free, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm
www.nyc.gov

Now in its fifth year, Summer Streets takes place the next three Saturday mornings, as Park Ave. will be closed to vehicular traffic from 72nd St. to Foley Square and the Brooklyn Bridge from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm, encouraging people to walk, run, jog, blade, skate, and bike down the famous thoroughfare, getting exercise and enjoying the great outdoors without car exhaust, speeding taxis, and slow-moving buses. There are five rest stops along the route (Uptown at 52nd St., Midtown at 25th, Astor Pl. at Lafayette St., SoHo at Spring & Lafayette, and Foley Square at Duane & Centre), where people can stop for some food and drink, live performances, fitness classes, site-specific art installations, dog walks, bicycle and parkour workshops, ziplining, wall climbing, and other activities, all of which are free. Below are only some of the many highlights.

August 2, 9, 16
Cigna Recovery Zone classes: Bendable Body (7:00), Sunrise Salutations (7:30), Body Art (8:00), Balanced Body Yoga (8:30), Yoga Unplugged (9:00), Brazilian Burn n’ Firm Pilates (9:30), Pon De Flo (10:00), Ab Attack (10:30), Retro-Robics (11:00), Hard Knocks (11:30), Masala Bhangra (12 noon), Astor Place Rest Stop

“The Course of Emotions: A mini-golf experience by Risa Puno,” nine-hole miniature golf course in which each hole represents a different emotion, Uptown Rest Stop, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm

“Dive by Jana Winderen,” site-specific sound installation turning Park Ave. Tunnel into an underwater environment, line begins at Park Ave. & 32nd St., 7:00 am – 12:30 pm

August 2
Live music by the Poor Cousins (9:30), Yaz Band (10:00), Mecca Bodega (10:30), Robert Anderson Band (11:00), Uptown Rest Stop

Live performances by Annabella Gonzalez Dance Theatre (10:00), Salsa NY (11:00), Underground Horns (11:30), NY Laughs (12 noon), Feraba (12:30), Foley Square Rest Stop

“Matt Postal, Midtown Modern Tour,” two-hour MAS tour, Uptown Rest Stop, northwest corner of 52nd St. & Park Ave., 10:30

Food demos and talks by Veggiecation (10:30), Seeds in the Middle (10:50), Omowale Adewale (11:10), Jenne Claiborne the Nourishing Vegan (11:25), Creative Kitchen (11:45), Asphalt Green (12:07), Midtown Rest Stop

“Trumpet City: Park Avenue by Craig Shepard,” ninety-one trumpeters join musician Craig Shepard, lining up between 45th & 72nd Sts. on Park Ave., playing a one-hour piece that interacts with such natural sounds as traffic, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

August 9
Live performances by Salieu Suso and Malang Jobateh (9:00), Caty Grier: NYC Subway Girl (9:30), Leah Coloff (10:00), TAANY Santaizi Troupe (10:30), Charly and Margaux (11:00), Afrikumba (11:30), Karikatura (12 noon), Uptown Rest Stop

Live performances by Salsa NY (10:00), Harmony Program (10:30), Cherub Improv (11:00), Improv 4 Kids (12 noon), Foley Square Rest Stop

Abolitionist Walking Tour, African Burial Ground, National Park Service tour, Foley Square Rest Stop, southwest corner of Duane & Lafayette Sts., 10:00 (also August 16 at 10:00 and 12 noon)

“Peter Laskowich, New York City: A Gateway,” two-hour MAS tour, Foley Square Rest Stop, southwest corner of Duane & Lafayette Sts., 10:00

“Tilt Brass by Chris McIntyre,” interactive sound installation using infrared technology and live trombones, trumpets, and drums, Foley Square Rest Stop, 10:30 – 1:00

Food demos and talks by Sally Graves the Supermarket Fairy (10:30), Omowale Adewale (11:10), Seeds in the Middle (11:25), Taza Chocolate (11:45), Midtown Rest Stop

August 16
“My (Our) Way by Nick Tobler,” interactive musical event in which Tobler will hand out between fifty and a hundred music boxes for a mass performance of “My Way,” Astor Place Rest Stop, 8:00 and 10:30

Live performances by Seya (10:00), Exit 12 (10:30), Salsa NY (11:00), Darrah Carr (12 noon), Foley Square Rest Stop

Food demos and talks by Yoli Ouiya (10:12), Creative Kitchen (10:30), Omowale Adewale (10:50), Chris Santos of Morningstar Farms (11:10), Min Liao from Culinary (11:45), and Seeds in the Middle (12:07), Midtown Rest Stop

Live performances by Matt Pana (10:30), Yung-Li Dance Company (11:00), the Vocalists (11:30), Cupcake Ladies Productions comedy wrestling (12 noon), Uptown Rest Stop

“Judy Richeimer, Public Art in New York’s Civic Center,” two-hour MAS tour, Foley Square Rest Stop, southwest corner of Duane & Lafayette Sts., 11:00

FIRST SATURDAYS: CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, August 2, free, 5:00 – 11:00 ($10 discounted admission to “Ai Weiwei: According to What?”)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum starts getting ready for the annual West Indian American Day Carnival on Labor Day with a Caribbean-themed First Saturdays program on August 2. There will be live music from the Crossfire Street Orchestra, Heritage O.P., Melanie Charles, and Request Band (RQB), a movement workshop with Candace Thompson, screenings of Hannah Roodman’s Crown Heights-set documentary 2×1 and Dalton Narine’s Mas Man, a woven-fish arts workshop, a Caribbean-inspired fashion show, and Uraga storytelling with James Lovell. In addition, you can check out a quartet of exhibitions about art and activism: “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (which closes August 10), “Swoon: Submerged Motherlands” (which closes August 24), “Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Works, 1963–74,” and “Revolution! Works from the Black Arts Movement.”

SOUND + VISION 2014

David Byrne will be at Lincoln Center for thirtieth anniversary screening of STOP MAKING SENSE as part of Sound + Vision festival

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
July 31 – August 9, film screenings $13, live performances $8-$15
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s second Sound + Vision festival is a lively combination of music documentaries and performances covering a wide range of genres from around the world. Eric Green’s Beautiful Noise, which revisits such seminal 1980s bands as the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, opens the festival on July 31, with a Q&A and reception with Green and producer Sarah Ogletree. The closing night selection, Florian Habicht’s Pulp, follows Jarvis Cocker’s reunited band as they play what could be their final concert in Sheffield, their hometown; Habicht will be on hand for a Q&A after the August 6 screening. There will be a free showing of The 78 Project Movie, in which Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright travel the country recording on 78s contemporary musicians playing early American songs; after the film, Steyermark and Wright will host a live recording session. Among the other dozen and a half or so films are Alejandro Franco’s For Those About to Rock: The Story of Rodrigo y Gabriela; Kiley Kraskouskas’s The Last Song Before the War, about the 2011 Festival in the Desert in Timbuktu; Dominique Mollee and Vinny Sisson’s My Way, which tracks Rebekah Starr as she reaches for fame; Beth Harrington’s The Winding Stream, a free screening of a film that traces the development of the Carter Family; and thirtieth anniversary celebrations of Jonathan Demme’s game-changing Stop Making Sense (followed by a Q&A with David Byrne) and Daniel Schmid’s Tosca’s Kiss. There will be separate live performances by Amkoullel, Dragons of Zynth, and Glass Ghost (incorporating LYFE technology), while Bubblyfish and Binärpilot will play after Javier Polo’s Europe in 8 Bits, didgeridoo master GOMA will take the stage after Tetsuaki Matsue’s Flashback Memories in 3D, and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band will get the joint jumping in conjunction with Meerkat Media Collective’s Brasslands.

MoMA NIGHTS 2014

La Luz kicks off woman-centric MoMA Nights summer outdoor concert series on July 31 in the sculpture garden (photo by Zoe Rain)

Museum of Modern Art
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday nights, July 31 – August 28, free with museum admission, 5:30 – 8:00
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Every summer, the Museum of Modern Art’s lovely Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden becomes one of the city’s most beautiful spots to enjoy outdoor music. Free with regular admission, MoMA Nights, which this year focuses on woman-led bands, begins on July 31 at 6:30 (doors open at 5:30, with limited seating) with a performance by all-female Seattle quartet La Luz, who pays tribute to girl-group sounds. The series continues August 7 with LA dream popsters Tashaki Miyaki, named for guitarist Rocky Tashaki and drummer and vocalist Lucy Miyaki (bassist and vocalist Dora Hiller fills out the trio). Frankie Cosmos, a local four piece led by singer-songwriter Greta Kline, will highlight tunes from its March 2014 studio debut, Zentropy, on August 14. The jazzy, funkadelic THEESatisfaction, the Seattle duo consisting of Stasia “Stas” Irons and Catherine “Cat” Harris-White, takes over the garden on August 21. MoMA Nights comes to a close August 28 with Brooklyn twosome Widowspeak (Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas), whose “True Believer” was twi-ny’s song of the day back on November 13.

PIECE OF MY HEART: THE BERT BERNS STORY

The forgotten legacy of Bert Berns is brought to colorful life in new musical (photo by Jenny Anderson)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 31, $31.50 – $99.50
212-244-7529
www.pieceofmyheartmusical.com
www.signaturetheatre.org

Art imitates life in the engaging, bittersweet off-Broadway musical Piece of My Heart: The Bert Berns Story. In a prolific period between 1961 and 1967, Bert Berns wrote and/or produced more than two dozen big-time pop hits, recorded by such singers and bands as the Beatles, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, the Drifters, Janis Joplin, the Animals, Solomon Burke, the Isley Brothers, and Van Morrison, while also founding the seminal Atlantic offshoot BANG Records. Born and raised in the Bronx, Berns died in 1967 at the age of thirty-eight, and today his legacy is all but nonexistent, although his surviving family is in the midst of rebuilding his reputation with this show; the first major authorized biography, Joel Selvin’s Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues; and the upcoming documentary BANG — The Bert Berns Story. In Piece of My Heart, Leslie Kritzer stars as Jessie, Berns’s fictional daughter who receives an unexpected call that her mother, Ilene (Linda Hart), is going to close up Bert’s Broadway office and sell the rights to all of his songs. Disturbed by her mother’s intentions, Jessie, who didn’t know anything about the office, heads to New York City, where she finds her father’s former manager and right-hand man, Wazzel (Joseph Siravo), waiting for her. Wazzel tells Jessie how Bert (Zak Resnick), vocalist Hoagy Lands (Derrick Baskin), and the young Wazzel (Bryan Fenkart) got started, with the events unfolding right in front of them. Jessie sees her father going to Cuba and working with a revolutionary named Carlos (Sydney James Harcourt), meeting high-powered producer Jerry Wexler (Mark Zeisler), challenging the legendary Phil Spector, and falling in love with Ilene (Teal Wicks), a blonde dancer who would become Bert’s wife and Jessie’s mother. But when the current-day Ilene shows up at her husband’s office, she kicks out Wazzel and has a somewhat different tale to tell Jessie while trying to convince her that signing over the songs is the right thing to do, leaving Jessie trapped in the middle as she learns more and more about her father.

Jessie (Leslie Kritzer) wonders what her father (Zak Resnick) was really like in PIECE OF MY HEART (photo by Jenny Anderson)

For much of its two hours and twenty minutes (with intermission), Piece of My Heart walks that fine line between bio show and vanity project. As pointed out numerous times in Daniel Goldfarb’s fairly standard book, Berns was determined to become famous; also, knowing that he was living on borrowed time because of a heart problem, he often said, “My children will know me by my music.” The show is produced by Berns’s son, Brett, and daughter, Cassandra, with the express purpose of finally bringing fame to their father, and the narrative sometimes gets bogged down with whitewashed scenes that turn Berns into a kind of heroic, misunderstood figure. It’s not helped by the casting of Resnick (Mamma Mia!, Disaster!) in the title role; while his singing packs a powerful punch, his acting is akin to a David Wright press conference, all white-bread clichés with no nuance. However, the rest of the cast of seasoned pros is outstanding, including Hart (Hairspray, Anything Goes) and Wicks (Wicked, Jekyll & Hyde) as the feisty Ilene, Siravo (Conversations with My Father, The Light in the Piazza) and Fenkart (Memphis) as the tough-talking Wazzel, De’Adre Aziza (Passing Strange) as Candace, Berns’s sexy first love, and Kritzer (A Catered Affair, Legally Blonde) as a kind of onstage stand-in for the audience. Oh, and let’s not forget about the music, which is performed admirably by a live band led by Lon Hoyt; the songs range from the somewhat obscure to the familiar to the super famous, but it’s best if you go without knowing what they are so you can be surprised by each new well-choreographed musical number (by director Denis Jones) on Alexander Dodge’s simple but effective sets, energized by Ben Stanton’s colorful lighting. The songs are listed in the Playbill and detailed on a large board outside the Signature’s Irene Diamond theater, but it’s better to read about them after the show, which got an instant and rousing standing ovation the night we went.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “THE LOST WEEKEND” BY SEAN FLINN AND THE ROYAL WE

Portland, Oregon’s Sean Flinn and the Royal We began recording their sophomore album, The Lost Weekend, way back in the summer of 2012, but it was finally released earlier this month, and it’s a sheer delight, eleven tracks of pure pop pleasure. The follow-up to fall 2010’s Write Me a Novel, the new disc features the R.E.M.-like “Maps,” the rollicking “Heavy Hearts,” the CSN-ish “Riverbed,” the country ballad “Broken Arrows,” and the sweet and tangy finale, “The Ravine.” Singer-guitarist Flinn, guitarist and keyboardist Arthur C. Lee, bassist Richard Bennett, and drummer Adam Mack will be at Rockwood Music Hall on July 29 at 9:00, on a bill with Jordana de Lovely, Sarah Factor’s Birthday Show, Michael Daves, Nick Africano, and others.