this week in music

CBGB FESTIVAL: THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON

The unusual life and career of Daniel Johnston is examined in 2005 documentary

MUSIC DRIVEN: THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (Jeff Feuerzeig, 2005)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Saturday, October 12, 12:30, and Sunday, October 13, 1:00
Festival continues through October 13
347-227-8030
www.cbgb.com
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Jeff Feuerzeig’s The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a sad portrait of fame and folly. The mesmerizing documentary examines the life and career of Daniel Johnston, an outsider artist and musician who has a ravenous underground following. From the time he was a kid, Johnston was obsessed with recording his existence, making deeply personal audiocassettes and inventive Super-8 films, many of which Feuerzeig includes here, revealing Johnston’s curious, unique past. In the mid-1980s, Johnston recorded a pair of homemade tapes, Songs of Pain and More Songs of Pain, that detailed his unrequited love for an acquaintance of his named Laurie. His music quickly developed a cult audience, landing him on MTV and at the prestigious SXSW festival while gaining such fans as Kurt Cobain, Matt Groening, Sonic Youth, and the Butthole Surfers. All the while, he created comic-book-style paintings and drawings that began to be shown in galleries. But as Feuerzeig’s amazing mix of archival footage, home movies, and new interviews reveals, Johnston is also a manic depressive with severe mental problems who cannot survive on his own. At the time of the film’s release, Johnston was in his mid-forties, still living with his Christian fundamentalist parents, seemingly as childlike as ever, unable to understand the realities of his situation. While many people consider him a genius — at the beginning of the film, he is introduced at a live gig as the greatest songwriter in the world, and his art was part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial — it’s also easy to think that he’s being celebrated for all the wrong reasons and that this worship is doing him — and us — more harm than good. Favorite scene: Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes talking about Johnston while sitting in a dentist’s chair getting his teeth drilled. The Devil and Daniel Johnston is screening October 12-13 at Nitehawk Cinema as part of the CBGB Festival (as well as the continuing Nitehawk series “Music Driven” and “Brunch Screenings”), which also includes such other music-related films as Searching for Sugarman, The Blank Generation, The Stone Roses: Made of Stone, and Twenty Feet from Stardom.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: DISASTER!

DISASTER! A 70s DISASTER MOVIE . . . MUSICAL!
St. Luke’s Theater
308 West 46th St.
October 14 – December 31 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday), $39.50 – $79.50
www.disastermusical.com
www.stlukestheatre.com

Ah, those beautiful disaster flicks of the 1970s. With the country emerging from Vietnam and getting ready for Reaganism, Hollywood turned to star-studded epics loaded with death and destruction, on ground, sea, and air, with such classic fare as The Poseidon Adventure (Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine), Airport 1975 (Charlton Heston, Linda Blair, George Kennedy, Karen Black, Helen Reddy), The Towering Inferno (Steve McQeen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, O. J. Simpson), and Earthquake (Heston, Kennedy, Victoria Principal, Lorne Greene, Ava Gardner, Richard Roundtree, in Sensurround!), among a slew of other minor league efforts. With the country going down the tubes, the time is right to revisit those halcyon days, and Disaster! A 70s Disaster Movie…Musical! does just that, riffing on those popular movies along with period songs, including such unforgettable 1970s hits as Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff,” Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally),” Amii Stewart’s “Knock on Wood,” and ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down.” Written by Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick, directed by Plotnick, and choreographed by Denis Jones, Disaster! originally ran at the Triad in early 2012 and is now back for an encore engagement at St. Luke’s Theatre, with a cool cast that features the ubiquitous Mary Testa, Tom Riis Farrell, Michele Ragusa, Jennifer Simard, and Rudetsky.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Disaster! begins previews October 14 prior to a November 4 opening, and twi-ny has four pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite disaster movie to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, October 11, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; four winners will be selected at random.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “RATTLESNAKE HIGHWAY” BY PALMA VIOLETS

No, Palma Violets’ new single, “Rattlesnake Highway,” is not a cover of John Fogerty’s 1997 tune. Instead, it’s another dose of raucous garage punk from the South London band, consisting of singer-guitarist Sam Fryer, bassist Chilli Jesson, keyboardist Peter Mayhew, and drummer Will Doyle. “Rattlesnake Highway,” which features a hot black-and-white video directed by former Jesus and Mary Chain bassist and cofounder Douglas Hart, is one of eleven songs from Palma Violets’ debut album, 180 (Rough Trade, March 2013), which also includes “Step Up for the Cool Cats,” “All the Garden Birds,” “Chicken Dippers,” and “Johnny Bagga’ Donuts.” The disc closes with “14,” followed by a hidden bonus track on which Fryer declares, “I’d love to show the world my new song / It keeps me up all night long.” Palma Violets will be showing New York City their new songs and keeping fans up not quite all night when they play Webster Hall on October 9 with local trio Skaters.

CBGB FESTIVAL — THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (Thom Zimny, 2010)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Thursday, October 10, 5:30
Festival runs October 9-12
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
www.cbgb.com

After the breakout success of Born to Run in 1975, Bruce Springsteen became embroiled in a lawsuit over control of his music that prevented him from going into the studio to make the highly anticipated follow-up. Springsteen found himself at a crossroads; “You didn’t know if this would be the last record you’d ever make,” he says in the revealing behind-the-scenes documentary The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Combining archival footage of the Darkness sessions shot by Barry Rebo with new interviews with all the members of the E Street Band in addition to producers Jimmy Iovine, Jon Landau, and others, editor and director Thom Zimny melds Bruce’s past with the present, delving deep into Springsteen’s complex, infuriating, and fiercely dedicated creative process. “I had to disregard my own mutation,” Springsteen says at one point, regarding his battle to avoid getting caught up in the hype that came with Born to Run, so he decided that his next album would be “a meditation on where are you going to stand.” Rebo captures Springsteen and the E Street Band — from a bare-chested Bruce to a bandanna-less Steve Van Zandt — rehearsing and recording alternate takes of familiar songs as well as tunes that would later wind up on such albums as The River and Tracks, opening up Bruce’s famous notebooks and examining his intense creative process, which included throwing away dozens and dozens of songs that he believed just didn’t fit within his vision of what Darkness should be. Two of the most fascinating parts of the The Promise involve Patti Smith discussing “Because the Night,” explaining that the lyrics she added are about her waiting for her boyfriend at the time (and later husband), Fred “Sonic” Smith, to call her, and Toby Scott talking about mixing the Darkness record to get the sound pictures in Bruce’s head onto vinyl. The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town is screening October 10 at the Landmark Sunshine as part of the CBGB Festival, which also includes such other music-related films as Bad Brains: A Band in DC, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, Iggy and the Stooges Raw Power Live — In the Hands of the Fans, Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams, and Nick Mead’s Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am.

FIRST SATURDAYS: ¡VIVA BROOKLYN!

José Campeche, “Doña María de los Dolores Gutiérrez del Mazo y Pérez,” oil on canvas, circa 1796

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

After taking September off for the annual West Indian festivities over Labor Day Weekend, the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturdays program returns October 5 with ¡Viva Brooklyn!, celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The evening will feature live performances by trombonist Chris Washburne and SYOTOS, Sofía Rei, and Cumbiagra; Richard Aste will give a curator talk on “Behind Closed Doors: Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492–1898”; there will be a screening of Icíar Bollaín’s 2010 film, También La Lluvia, which deals with Christopher Columbus and the local water supply; an art workshop will teach attendees how to make a home medallion using metal tooling; Marymount Manhattan College’s Blanca E. Vega will lead a talk and audience Q&A with writers about contemporary Latino literature; scenes from the moving play La Ruta, which deals with illegal immigration, will be read, followed by a discussion; the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company will host a participatory workshop; pop-up gallery talks will explore “American Identities: A New Look”; El Puente will present a social justice forum with community activists; and Las Comadres Para Las Americas founder and CEO Nora de Hoyos Comstock and a panel of writers will discuss Count on Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “Valerie Hegarty: Alternative Histories,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” and other exhibits.

RIOULT DANCE NY

CELESTIAL TIDES will be part of RIOULT Dance NY programs at the Queens Theatre and the Manhattan School of Music (photo by Sofia Negron)

Saturday, October 5, 2:00 & 8:00, Sunday, October 6, 3:00, Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave. South in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, 718-760-0064, $25-$46
Wednesday, October 9, Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Ave., 917-493-4428, $12, 7:30
www.rioult.org

“I have always loved Bach’s music, instinctively and without understanding where the magic came from,” New York-based French choreographer explained to us in a June 2011 twi-ny talk about the Joyce debut of his Bach Dances program. “I also want with my dances to show that Bach’s music, contrary to common belief, is unbelievably rich emotionally.” As part of its twentieth anniversary season, RIOULT Dance NY will be at the Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on October 5-6, performing 2010’s City, set to Bach’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano #6 in G major,” 2011’s Celestial Tides (Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major”), 1995’s Wien (Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”), and 2011’s On Distant Shores (with music by Aaron Jay Kernis). Artistic director and choreographer Rioult, along with his wife, associate artistic director Joyce Herring, will then take the company over to the Manhattan School of Music’s John C. Borden Auditorium on October 9 for the New York City premiere of the Bach Dances program with live music, as the twelve-person troupe will be accompanied by an MSM student orchestra; the evening includes Views of a Fleeting World, set to Bach’s “The Art of Fugue,” along with City and Celestial Tides. Tickets for the Queens Theatre shows range from $25 to $46, while it costs a mere $12 to see the one-night-only MSM performance.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “MOUNTAIN TOWN” BY RADICAL DADS

Brooklyn-based alterna-trio Radical Dads are promising quite a show for their next gig, October 2 at 285 Kent. As it’s a Wednesday night, guitarists Lindsay Baker and Chrissy Diken and drummer Robbie Guertin are calling it the Radical Dads Complete Hump Seminar and will be joined by Haybaby, Dead Stars, Boytoy, and Honduras. Although the indefatigable band is already working on a new seven-inch for November and are planning on their third full-length for the spring, they’re still out on the road in support of their latest album, the delightful Rapid Reality (Uninhabitable Mansions, May 2013), which includes such primo indie rock tracks as “Mountain Town,” “Pink Flag,” “Dust USA,” and “Stampede.” Part of the Uninhabitable Mansions arts collective, Radical Dads got Dana Schutz to create the album art for the new disc; Michael Deforge did the same for their 2011 debut, Mega Rama. You can check out all of Radical Dads’ music here before catching the show on Wednesday, because as they say on their website, “Do not be the last on your block or in your community garden association to hump or get humped.”