this week in music

HOUND DOG

Anneh (Ellena Eshraghi) and Ayse (Olivia AbiAssi) share a rare calm moment in Hound Dog (photo by Ben Arons)

HOUND DOG
Ars Nova @ Greenwich House
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through November 5, $5-$100
arsnovanyc.com
playco.org/events/hound-dog

A young woman reexamines critical decisions she made about her future and grief over her mother’s death in Melis Aker’s Hound Dog, an entertaining if scattershot mishmash that opened tonight at Ars Nova @ Greenwich House for a limited run through November 5.

Anneh, aka Hound Dog (Ellena Eshraghi), is a Harvard grad and guitarist-singer who returns to her home in Turkey while considering whether she should attend the Royal Academy, which has accepted her after her successful audition. Her father, the rock-and-roll-loving Baba (Laith Nakli), has been suffering since the loss of his wife, lost in a fog of alcohol and television as he dreams of going to Graceland.

Anneh’s best friend, Ayse (Olivia AbiAssi), is thrilled that she’s back, but Anneh seems distracted. She is more interested in talking with Yusuf (Jonathan Raviv), the neighborhood garbage man and flute player, than she is in creating music with Ayse. Anneh also is attracted to Charlie Callahan (Matt Magnusson), an American who was her former piano teacher.

Frank J. Oliva’s set offers a surreal fantasy in Ars Nova / PlayCo world premiere (photo by Ben Arons)

Anneh travels between reality and what appears to be some kind of fantasy world that exists inside her house, the interior of which turns into an aluminum-foil-covered concert and dance hall as music and life merge in a surreal way that seems normal to everyone but her. Amid the phantasmagorical scenes, her confusion mounts when Professor Feliz, her musicology professor at Harvard, tells her that Elvis Presley was “born in the majestically boring city of Ankara, Turkey, in the year 1961” and “was often seen strutting around Seymenler Park, accompanied by his friend, the local garbage collector and traditional Turkish instrument maestro, Yusuf.”

Through it all, a singer-songwriter and her band keep entering scenes, playing such songs as “There She Goes,” “Where It’s All Gone,” “The Groove Is on the Loose,” and “An Emptying Thing,” serving as outside observer and muse. (The songs were written by Aker and brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour.) Channeling Joni Mitchell, Liz Phair, and others, the singer shares such thoughts as “Time is lost / In my room / While you break free / From the gloom / Waking hours / You stay up late / What is life / But the breaking of the days” and “So if we choose to let you go / How will you know / That I remember / How to feel alive / Only in time / Only in time.”

As decision time approaches, Anneh’s mind is flooded with confusion, trying to figure out what to do next and where she belongs in a world where she thinks she doesn’t fit.

Directed by Machel Ross, the ninety-five-minute Hound Dog, a coproduction of Ars Nova and PlayCo, wanders all over the place, the nonlinear narrative often hard to follow. It takes a while to warm up to the characters, although eventually they become familiar and their struggles legitimate. Frank J. Oliva’s set is the star, a facade of a home with three sets of double doors on the ground floor and three sets of windows above, lit in different colors by Tuçe Yasak. Sound designer Avi Amon also serves as music director, with costumes by Qween Jean.

The crack band features Maya Sharpe on guitar, Mel Hsu on bass, Ashley Baier on drums, and Sahar Milani on lead vocals. The cast, several of whom are making their off-Broadway debuts (Eshraghi and Magnusson) and another an Emmy winner (Raviv), is fresh and engaging as they navigate a few too many awkward plot devices.

The story is a deeply personal one to Aker; in the script, she refers to Hound Dog as “me,” the setting as “a version of my hometown . . . through time and space,” and several characters as “alternate versions” of her father, childhood best friend, and teachers. Aker might be a little too close to the material; although she tackles universal issues, they don’t always gel cohesively.

In celebration of its twentieth anniversary season, Ars Nova is introducing “What’s Ars Is Yours: Name Your Price,” with tickets for Hound Dog running $5 to $100, depending on what you can afford.

FOR THE BIRDS

Chen Chen & Kai Williams’s Blue Heron Triangle floats on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Japanese pond (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FOR THE BIRDS
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Ave. at Eastern Parkway
Through October 23, $25-$30 (children under twelve free), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-623-7200
www.bbg.org/forthebirds
online slideshow

One of the most delightful outdoor exhibits of the year is “For the Birds,” concluding this weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The show consists of more than three dozen birdhouses created by artists, architects, and others, placed throughout the garden’s fifty-two-acre expanse. Even with a map, finding each creation can be a bit like a treasure hunt as you make your way through the Native Flora Garden, Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, Magnolia Plaza, Ginkgo Allée, Shakespeare Garden, Bluebell Wood, Herb Garden, Belle’s Brook, Rose Garden, Bamboo Grove, Cherry Esplanade, and other lovely locations.

Each birdhouse is accompanied by a sign identifying the title, artist, and materials and including a brief background on the work. A Palace for the Eastern Bluebird by SO – IL, Dalma Földesi, Jung In Seo, and Eventscape was “inspired by the intricate and haphazard way that birds weave their nests. We chose to make a birdhouse made of 3D-printed clay because it can produce textures evocative of woven structures. We are interested in seeing how birds, particularly the eastern bluebird, will interact with this kind of material. We hope that the earth tones of the clay will be highly attractive to them.”

Kevin Quiles Bonilla’s Pal’ campo honors his Puerto Rican heritage (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Nina Cooke John’s Oh Robin! “is an abstracted interpretation of the robin’s act of nest weaving. Robins have become invisible to us, like the grocery store cashier, Amazon delivery worker, bus driver, and other workers who are critical to the running of our city but have faded into the background of our lives. The robin shows us its scrappiness by making its nest almost anywhere.” Tom Sachs says about his contribution, Swiss, a red plywood version with a white Swiss cross, “To find home or shelter in Switzerland is the dream. If those damn birds are so above it all, why not let them share our burden? Let’s ground the birds in that reality.”

Andy Holden’s The Auguries, a kind of miniature avian sculpture park, was made by cast resin from 3D prints of waveforms created by recordings of rare bird songs. Shun Kinoshita + Charlap Hyman & Herrero’s simply named Birdhouse “is for all birds, including the spirits of birds long gone.” Kevin Quiles Bonilla’s dazzling Pal’ campo honors his family home in Puerto Rico and explores “the idea of both birds and humans as migrating beings, the memories we keep during our travels, and the notion of what home is to those who move from one place to another.”

Julie Peppito’s United Birds of America (E Pluribus Unum) is a condo of curiosities (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Others pay tribute to the downy woodpecker, the Carolina wren, little bluestem grass, Olivier Messiaen’s use of birdsong in his compositions, scarecrows, the blue heron, the barn owl, and others while taking on climate change and extinction, envisioning birdhouses as safe havens and sanctuaries.

Many of the birdhouses are beautiful works of art all by themselves. Chen Chen & Kai Williams’s Blue Heron Triangle floats on a raft constructed of bamboo reeds tied to empty plastic containers. Sourabh Gupta’s woven offers multiple birds a place to gather. Jessica Maffia’s A Home for Flickers features a trompe l’oeil blue sky with clouds and surreal hands emerging as if holding out protection. Also look out for Pat McCarthy’s Batloft, Joey’s Coop, Babylon Coop, Niknak’s City Cart, funkmaster George Clinton’s Come Fly, Flock Together, Barry McGee’s Untitled, Luam Melake’s Descendants, Suchi Reddy’s The Nest Egg, Amy Ritter’s Safe Space, and Julie Peppito’s wildly engaging United Birds of America (E Pluribus Unum), “one big bird condo [that is] a metaphor for the United States, because we must learn to live together or divided we fall,” a robotlike form filled with tiny delights.

Sourabh Gupta’s woven hides out in BBG’s Overlook (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In addition, most of the birdhouses are accompanied by a tune as part of the Birdsong Project, curated by Randall Poster, with specially selected songs by Michael Penn, Balmorhea, Kurt Vile, Dan Deacon, Uwade, Terry Riley, Suzzy Roche, Loudon Wainwright III, Laurie Anderson, Beck, and others. “So while in quarantine, I became much more aware of the birds and the birdsong around me,” Poster explains on the website. “I spent a lot of time listening to the birds singing. I was not alone. It was something that we began to talk about. The beauty of birds, the joy and mysteries of birdsong. Given that the situation in the fall of 2020 was sad, strange, and frightening, as plagues tend to be, this fascination with the birds was a magical distraction. Thank God for the birds. . . . And so we are building a community, joined to celebrate and protect the birds. We are birds.”

Finally, as They Might Be Giants advised once upon a time, “Make a little birdhouse in your soul.”

DOWNSTAIRS AT BOND 45: THE ELI “DR. E” YAMIN QUARTET

Who: The Eli “Dr. E” Yamin Quartet
What: Live Music Downstairs
Where: Bond 45, 221 West Forty-Sixth St. between Seventh Ave. & Broadway, 212-689-4545
When: Sunday, October 23, no cover ($25 minimum), 7:30
Why: Broadway might be mostly dark on Sunday nights, but that doesn’t mean the Theater District isn’t hopping with some of the hottest shows at that time. In recent months, such bands as Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, the Stan Harrison Quartet, and the Mark Kostabi Trio have performed Sunday nights Downstairs at Bond 45, the popular Italian restaurant that is now located on West Forty-Sixth St. On October 23 at 7:30, the Eli “Dr. E” Yamin Quartet will take the stage for its second weekend, consisting of Eli Yamin (aka “Dr. E”) on piano and vocals, Zaid Nasser on alto sax, Elias Bailey on bass, and David F. Gibson on drums. A native of East Patchogue, Long Island, Yamin recently earned his doctorate in musical arts, specializing in jazz piano, from Stony Brook; he also cofounded and serves as managing and artistic director of Jazz Power Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to ignite the power of jazz music education and transform lives by fostering creative self-expression, community, teamwork, and diversity,” and was the founding director of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Middle School Jazz Academy.

Yamin, who has a wide range of influences, from Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie to Bach and Mozart, from Sinatra and B. B. King to Jimi Hendrix and Taj Majal, has released such albums as Louie’s Dream, I Feel So Glad, You Can’t Buy Swing, and Pushin’ 30. The good doctor will kick off his Sunday at 2:00 cohosting the free Intergenerational Jazz Power Jam: Brass Extravaganza at the National Jazz Museum of Harlem before heading down to Bond 45. He’s also a bit of a philosopher, offering these words of wisdom on his website: “You can do it if you set your mind to it. Whatever your long term goal is, whether academic, artistic, spiritual. The main thing is just like Duke Ellington said and I’ll say it again. NEVER GIVE UP.”

LMCC TAKE CARE SERIES: SUN SEEKERS INDUCTION CEREMONY

“Sun Seekers Induction Ceremony” will take place in the Oculus on October 15 (photo courtesy LMCC)

Who: Amy Khoshbin, Jennifer Khoshbin, Merced Searer, Ching-I Chang, Malcom McMichael, Alex Koi, Jon Panikkar
What: LMCC Take Care Series
Where: The Oculus, Westfield World Trade Center, 185 Greenwich St.
When: Saturday, October 15, free with RSVP, 3:00
Why: Continuing through October 30 on Governors Island, Iranian-American sisters Amy and Jennifer Khoshbin’s “Sun Seekers” is an interactive sci-fi installation in which visitors are encouraged to remove their shoes and put away their cellphones, leaving behind the Wreck-tangle, and immerse themselves in the healing aspects of the natural world. The exhibition consists of four portals that incorporate sound, movement, touch, and smell. “Enter the sun portal, the source of all life,” one portal offers. “Close your eyes, breathe, and listen. Be reborn as a Sun Seeker.” As you walk among the works, encountering spinning seats, a musical chair, futuristic clothing, and a central portal you can enter, you discover “The Great Forgetting” and “The Great Remembering. ”

On October 15 at 3:00, Amy Khoshbin will host an hourlong “Sun Seekers Induction Ceremony” at the Oculus at the Westfield World Trade Center; part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Take Care Series, the event, cowritten with Yuliya Tsukerman, features performers Merced Searer, Ching-I Chang, and Malcom McMichael and musicians Alex Koi and Jon Panikkar and gives the audience the opportunity to connect with the sun, the environment, and their bodies in a group healing ritual. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT (AFTERLIFE)

Who: Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Sellars, Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, Julie Mehretu, Kim Kashkashian, Sarah Rothenberg, Steven Schick, Davóne Tines, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street
What: Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)
Where: Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall, 643 Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
When: September 27 – October 8, $40-$95
Why: During the pandemic lockdown, the Rothko Chapel in Houston celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a livestreamed meditation and discussion from the ecumenical space in May 2021. “The Rothko Chapel is oriented towards the sacred, and yet it imposes no traditional environment. It offers a place where a common orientation could be found – an orientation towards God, named or unnamed, an orientation towards the highest aspirations of Man and the most intimate calls of the conscience,” said Dominique de Menil, who commissioned the chapel with her husband, John, in 1964. Rothko had previously written to his benefactors, “The magnitude, on every level of experience and meaning, of the task in which you have involved me, exceeds all of my preconceptions. And it is teaching me to extend myself beyond what I thought was possible for me.”

Continuing the golden celebration, Newark-born American composer Tyshawn Sorey will be presenting a new multidisciplinary piece, Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), at the Park Avenue Armory September 27 through October 8. The work is inspired by the Rothko Chapel and Morton Feldman’s 1971 masterpiece, “Rothko Chapel,” created for the opening dedication. Sorey’s score for percussion, viola, celesta, piano, bass-baritone, and choir premiered at the chapel in February and has now been reimagined for the armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, featuring new and existing immersive art by Ethiopian-born painter Julie Mehretu, choreography by Brooklyn-born Flex dance pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, and direction by Pittsburgh-born theater legend Peter Sellars. Mehretu and Gray were both involved in Carrie Mae Weems’s “The Shape of Things: Land of Broken Dreams” at the armory last December, multi-instrumentalist Sorey performed with pianist and composer Conrad Tao in the armory’s Veterans Room in May 2016, and Sellars staged St. Matthew Passion in the Drill Hall in October 2014 and collaborated with Gray on FLEXN and FLEXN Evolution at the armory in 2015 and 2017, respectively. The music will be performed by Kim Kashkashian on viola, Sarah Rothenberg on piano and celesta, and Steven Schick on percussion, with vocalist Davóne Tines and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street.

Art, music, and dance come together in Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

“When asked to write this piece, I made the conscious decision to not compose a single note of music until I experienced the visual and spiritual transformation of [Rothko’s fourteen] paintings for myself inside the Chapel, where I’ve spent several hours during different times of each day I went,” Sorey said in a statement. “This piece reflects these experiences as well as the influence of both Rothko’s artistic output and that of Morton Feldman, one of my biggest musical inspirations. As with all my works, my hope for this composition is for audiences to have an active, dynamic experience with it, not simply just to listen, which the nontraditional space of the armory’s Drill Hall helps to realize.”

Sellars added, “Tyshawn Sorey has created a spare, intimate, enveloping world of sound calling forth the piercing memories, unfinished and unburied histories, yearning, and resolve that live inside every step forward and each moment of stillness; Julie Mehretu’s paintings frame, focus, color, and intensify a thirst for justice and spiritual renewal that moves across layers of generations and geographies; Regg Roc Gray and the courageous movers of FLEXN wear the grief, the loss, the endurance, the grace, and the unbroken life-force itself in every bone and sinew as they break, glide, pause, and get low. It is a privilege for me to enter and share the charged, contemplative, cleansing space opened, activated, and sustained by these artists. For these evenings, the Park Avenue Armory will become a communal site of remembrance and deep introspection.”

On September 29 at 6:00 ($15), Sorey, Mehretu, Gray, Tines, and Sellars will come together for a preshow panel discussion about Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), which was originally co-commissioned by Park Avenue Armory, DaCamera, and Rothko Chapel. In the above promotional video of the four creators at the armory, Sellars, explaining how the work is really a ceremony, a way for people to gather peacefully, says, “For me, one of the deepest things about this not being a show is I also think that we’re at a period in history where we don’t need more shows.” Sorey adds, “Yeah, there’s not a show at all.”

Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) offers a multimedia meditation at armory (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

Update: At the end of the performance, I approached Sellars to tell him how moved I was by the stunning show. His eyes tearing up, he gave me a warm embrace and said, “We’re all so moved. It really was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

I had never met Sellars before and he didn’t know who I was, but Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) provides that kind of atmosphere, bringing everyone together across ninety minutes of art, music, and dance.

The piece is presented in the round, with violist Kim Kashkashian, pianist Sarah Rothenberg, percussionist Steven Schick, and composer-conductor Sorey in the center, surrounded on all sides by the audience. Eight abstract works by Mehretu circle the space, hanging above a platform on which eight dancers are positioned, each in front of one painting. The Choir of Trinity Wall Street is seated in a back row; vocalist Tines walks throughout the space, entering through the audience and later slowly moving across the platform.

Banks Artiste, Deidra “Dayntee” Braz, Rafael “Droid” Burgos, Quamaine “Virtuoso” Daniels, Calvin “Cal” Hunt, Infinite “Ivvy” Johnson, Derick “Spectacular Slicc” Murreld, and Jeremy “Opt” Perez, most of whom are veterans of FLEXN and/or the D.R.E.A.M. Ring, perform unique dances in front of their assigned painting, their Black and brown bodies, particularly their arms and legs, interacting with the swirls and shapes of Mehretu’s canvases, which have such titles as torch, sphinx, about the space of half an hour, and A Mercy (four of which were created for this collaboration). James F. Ingalls’s superb lighting creates shadows of all sizes as well as haunting silhouettes when the dancers roll under the paintings and dance on the other side; shifts in the color of the lights, from blue, red, and pink to green, yellow, and white, breathe life into the paintings as their palettes change.

The music is slow and deliberate, at times almost too much so, but it is also meditative and, perhaps surprisingly, comforting, as it harkens to memory and grieving in addition to healing and rebirth . Tines mostly sings guttural sounds, but he repeats occasional words, such as “Sometime I feel” and “Child,” evoking the Negro spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” The dramatic sound design is by Marc Urselli.

For ninety minutes, there is always something going on, something to be seen or heard, wrapping the audience, including the creators, in a warm and loving embrace.

NOTHING COMPARES

Sinéad O’Connor explores her past and her legacy in Nothing Compares documentary

NOTHING COMPARES (Kathryn Ferguson, 2022)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, September 23
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
www.sho.com/nothing-compares

On October 16, 1992, I was at Madison Square Garden for the Bobfest, an all-star concert celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Bob Dylan’s first album for Columbia Records. The lineup included Johnny and June Carter Cash, Lou Reed, Willie Nelson, Tracy Chapman, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Chrissie Hynde, Neil Young, George Harrison, and many others. But the thing that most people remember about the one-of-a-kind concert — especially those of us who were there — was the reaction when the one-of-a-kind Sinéad O’Connor took the stage.

Two weeks earlier, the twenty-five-year-old Irish activist singer-songwriter had torn up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live after performing a haunting solo version of Bob Marley’s “War,” a political song whose lyrics come from a 1963 speech by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. At MSG, O’Connor was met with an eerie mix of joyous applause and a building, ominous booing. She stood frozen for a moment, then Kristofferson came out and famously told her, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Instead of playing Dylan’s “I Believe in You,” O’Connor reprised “War,” then exited.

I remember being so upset at how she was treated that I wrote my first and only letter to the editor, which was printed in the Daily News, defending her actions. I quickly received several anti-Semitic phone calls from anonymous “bastards.”

O’Connor’s appearance at the Bobfest serves as the frame for the new Showtime documentary Nothing Compares, opening September 23 at Cinema Village before streaming on the cable channel beginning September 30. The film is appropriately unusual and bends genre traditions, in homage to its iconoclastic subject. Director Kathryn Ferguson focuses on O’Connor’s life and career up to 1993, eschewing all that came after, from more albums and tours to an autobiography and her conversion to Islam. We hear a lot from her first husband, record producer John Reynolds, and about their son, Jake, but no mention is made of her subsequent three marriages and three more children.

O’Connor honestly and unabashedly shares critical insight on pivotal events that influenced who she was and what she became, but her contemporary self is mostly not seen, only heard. It’s not until the very end that we get to see her in the present day, with her band, perform an old song specially chosen for the film. In addition, all the other interviewees, from her music teacher and longtime friend to directors, journalists, and fellow musicians, are also heard but not seen on camera. This is a film about Sinead 1.0.

Sinéad O’Connor belts out an early song in the archival-heavy Nothing Compares

Ferguson (Taking the Waters, Space to Be), who will be at Cinema Village for a Q&A following the 5:00 screening on September 23, keeps the Dublin born and raised O’Connor front and center, in a barrage of archival news clips, family photographs, behind-the-scenes recording footage, staged re-creations, and more (courtesy editor Mick Mahon), as O’Connor delves into the horrible abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother (which was ignored by her father), the poor education she received from nuns, her refusal to get an abortion despite demands from her record company, her condemnation of the church because it was turning its back on pedophilia, her support for mental health programs, her insistence the national anthem not be played before a New Jersey gig, and her boycotting of awards shows because of misogyny and racism in the music industry and society at large.

“There was no therapy when I was growing up. So the reason I got into music was therapy,” she tells Ferguson, who previously directed music videos for O’Connor. “Which is why it was such a shock to become a pop star; it’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to scream.”

The film explores her swift rise from her debut album, 1987’s The Lion and the Cobra, to 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got and 1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?, with detailed looks at such songs as “Troy” (a testament that was her first song truly about herself), “Mandinka,” and “Black Boys on Mopeds.” (The Prince estate did not give Ferguson permission to use “Nothing Compares 2 U” in the film, so we only see the video without hearing the music.) Stardom was not easy for her, but she became an international icon fighting the power, particularly for young girls and women, well ahead of her time. “The powers that be weren’t ready for her,” Chuck D says. Kathleen Hanna was influenced by watching O’Connor’s “feminist performance art” on television — the controversial SNL appearance.

O’Connor resisted being stereotyped or talked down to because she was an attractive woman with a shaved head who liked to dress provocatively, and both her attitude and her looks rattled well-known talk-show hosts thirty years ago.

“I just knew that I didn’t want any man telling me who I could be or what I could be or what to sound like,” she declares. “I came from a patriarchal country where I’m being told everything I can and can’t do because I’m a girl. I figured, well, if I didn’t take it from the system, and I didn’t take it from my daddy, I ain’t taking it from anybody else.”

O’Connor’s voice today is deep and mature, not immediately recognizable. She makes no apologies for the choices she made, and she remains firm in her beliefs in fighting social injustice. Her legacy shines through, even given the difficult times, which continue. She offers a compelling, profoundly personal explanation about why she ripped up the photograph of the pope and shares her thoughts on how she came to be regarded as a powerful, influential public figure.

“I didn’t mean to be strong. I wasn’t thinking to myself, I must be strong. I didn’t know I was strong,” she says. “I did suffer through a lot because everybody felt it was okay to kick the shit out of me. I regret that I was so sad because of it. I regret that, that I spent so many years very isolated and lonely, really.”

The song she was scheduled to sing at the Bobfest, “I Believe in You” from 1978’s Slow Train Coming, contains the following stanza: “They show me to the door / They say don’t come back no more / ’Cause I don’t be like they’d like me to / And I walk out on my own / A thousand miles from home / But I don’t feel alone / ’Cause I believe in you.” After all these years, O’Connor is still doing things her own way, not about to be shown to the door by anyone.

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO LIVE: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF NEW SOUNDS WITH JOHN SCHAEFER

Who: John Schaefer, Red Baraat, Combo Chimbita, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley
What: Celebrating forty years of New Sounds
Where: Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave.
When: Wednesday, September 21, $51.90 – $1046.71, 7:30
Why: Queens-born Fordham grad John Schaefer began his New Sounds program on NPR in September 1982, introducing listeners to a wide range of musicians from around the world. The fortieth anniversary of the show will be celebrated on September 21 at Brooklyn Bowl as New York Public Radio’s annual fundraiser. The evening will include live performances by Red Baraat and Combo Chimbita, two groups that were recently featured on the program, which proclaims, “Hand-picked music, genre free. 24/7 radio from New York City.” There will also be a DJ set by Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley from Yo La Tengo. In a January 2011 twi-ny talk, Schaefer, when discussing how the internet has impacted his relationship with his audience, explained, “Now, if you don’t want to stay up till midnight, you can still hear New Sounds — and hear it anytime you like. And even after all these years, I feel like the digital communication with our listeners is still growing up, unsure of what it’s eventually going to be.” Now you can be part of the fortieth anniversary of New Sounds, in person at Brooklyn Bowl, where various NYPR on-air talent will be hanging out to mingle with.