this week in music

BEACH SHOW: RESTORE ROCKAWAY BENEFIT

Rippers
Rockaway Beach
Beach 86th St @ the Boardwalk
Saturday, August 17, free with donation, 6:00
www.facebook.com/events
www.restorerockaway.org

In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, Rockaway Beach has become the place to be to catch unique events that show that things are slowly but surely coming together. Last week, Creative Time hosted the second annual Artist Sandcastle Competition, and earlier this summer MoMA PS1 installed VW Dome 2 at Beach 94th St. and Shore Front Parkway as part of its “Expo 1: New York” exhibition. But there is still a lot of work to be done, of course, and much of that is being organized by the nonprofit Restore Rockaway, which is dedicated to helping small businesses get back on their feet and “making sure Rockaway doesn’t lose the positive momentum and economic improvements it has seen over the last few years, [which] will be crucial to its long-term prosperity.” On Saturday, August 17, five local bands will be playing — perhaps in their bathing suits — a benefit at Rippers, on the boardwalk at Beach 86th St., promising “gnarly tubeage” with punk trio Sleepies, wild art rockers Eula, nerdcore postpunk foursome Big Ups, garage rock quartet Shark? and grunge shredders Low Fat Getting High. Things get under way at 6:00, and it’s pay-what-you-wish, with all proceeds going to Restore Rockaway, so reach deep and get ready for one crazy party.

YOUNG JEAN LEE’S WE’RE GONNA DIE

Young Jean Lee faces her fear of performing and people’s fear of death in WE’RE GONNA DIE (photo by Blaine Davis)

Claire Tow Theater
LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St.
Through August 17, $20
www.lct.org
www.youngjeanlee.org

Seeking to comfort instead of confront the audience — a departure from her usual practice — experimental writer and director Young Jean Lee investigates such themes as loneliness, romance, family, aging, and death in her eloquent, sparkling musical show We’re Gonna Die. When challenged by avant-garde theater collective 13P to do the craziest thing she could think of, the Brooklyn-based Lee decided to star in a new play, facing her own deep-set fear of performing. The woman behind such innovative productions as Lear, The Shipment, and Untitled Feminist Show came up with We’re Gonna Die, a song cycle in which she presents a series of monologues followed by related musical numbers played with her band, Future Wife. Delivered plainly by Lee at the front and center of the stage, the stories are organized like a chronological narrative of her life, told in the first person, beginning with her childhood and moving through to the current day. Although the confessional tales, which cleverly explore terrible, painful, heartbreaking events and memories, are all true, the only one that actually happened to Lee directly is the long, powerful story about her father’s battle with cancer; the others were shared with her by friends.

Young Jean Lee and Future Wife go nuts at the end of dazzling WE’RE GONNA DIE (photo by Blaine Davis)

Such songs as “Lullaby for the Miserable,” “Comfort for the Lonely,” and “When You Get Old” incorporate various indie-pop melodies, featuring Mike Hanf and Benedict Kupstas on guitars and keyboards, Andrew Hoepfner on bass, and Booker Stardrum on drums. One of Lee’s central themes is that bad things can happen to good people and that we are all basically the same. “Who do you think you are / to be immune from tragedy? / What makes you special / that you should go unscathed?” she sings in “Horrible Things.” The show, which debuted at Joe’s Pub in April 2011, opened the new Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center last year, and now is kicking off LCT3’s second season, comes to a rousing conclusion with “I’m Gonna Die,” as the band rocks out before performing a riotous dance number with Lee, choreographed by Faye Driscoll, and getting the audience to sing along, everyone staring death in the face together. “I’m gonna die / I’m gonna die someday / Then I’ll be gone / and it’ll be okay,” Lee repeats over and over. Directed by Big Dance Theater’s Paul Lazar, We’re Gonna Die is an absolutely thrilling and involving sixty minutes from an immensely creative and talented artist who is special indeed, no matter what she claims onstage. (Lee and Future Wife have also just released a CD of We’re Gonna Die that includes the songs from the show but with the monologues spoken by an all-star lineup of guests that includes David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Colin Stetson, Kathleen Hanna, Drew Daniel, Sarah Neufeld, and Martin Schmidt.)

PUNK: CHAOS TO COUTURE

The Met’s “Punk” show is in its last days; may it rest in peace (photo © the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Costume Institute
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Through August 14, $25 adults, children under twelve free
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

In 2011, the Met made big news with its overwhelmingly popular and widely praised cutting-edge spring Costume Institute exhibition, “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” which, particularly in its last days, had tremendously long lines as people flocked to see the vast oeuvre of the late British designer, who committed suicide in February 2010 at the age of forty. One of the themes of the show came from a McQueen quote: “You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.” The Met was probably hoping for a similar response to this spring’s Costume Institute exhibit, “Punk: Chaos to Couture,” breaking all kinds of rules, but instead this display arrived DOA (no offense to the legendary Canadian band that just broke up). Divided into such themes as “New York and London,” “Graffiti and Agitprop,” “Clothes for Heroes,” and “Destroy” and featuring questionably punk music and videos, the show actually focuses on how the punk aesthetic was coopted by Madison Ave. and the fashion industry; most of the clothing on view is from high-end designers that costs a pretty penny, made in the twenty-first century, long after the punk invasion of the 1970s. Joan Jett might be a punk goddess, but seeing an image of her wearing Karl Lagerfeld for Vogue in March 2011 makes us want to reevaluate her bad reputation. And the re-creation of the CBGB bathroom — well, let’s just say we can’t imagine that the Ramones and Hilly Kristal would be too happy about that. Anyway, “Punk: Chaos to Couture” runs through Wednesday, August 14, but there is absolutely no reason for you to run over to the Met to catch it before it goes away, hopefully never to be seen or heard from again.

HONG KONG DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL 2013

Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival is set for this weekend in Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Saturday, August 10, and Sunday, August 11, free, 8:30 am – 6:00 pm
718-767-1776
www.hkdbf-ny.org

More than twenty-three hundred years ago, ailing and exiled Chinese minister and master poet Qu Yuan walked into the Miluo River, intent on ending his life via ritual suicide. His followers’ race to save him, and to honor his spirit by throwing dumplings into the water, is the folklore behind the annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival, taking place this weekend in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. More than 150 teams will be participating in seventy-three races over the two days, in special dragon boats that can hold as many as twenty crewmembers; among the many competitors are the Schuykill Dragons, the NYHQ Baby Catchers, the Misfits, the Puff Puff Dragons, NY Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital Poseidon, Dragonflies, NYSE Roar, JPMC White Tiger, DEP Dragon Pipers, TASCA Vikings, NYCB Queens Dragons, JPMC Vermillion Bird, MSKCC White Dragons, and Philadelphia Flying Phoenix Premier Flame. The twenty-third annual festivities also include live music and dance, martial arts demonstrations, food booths, and a family-friendly arts and crafts tent featuring the Balloon Man, calligraphy, rice doll making, face painting, kite building, origami, bead stringing, and more. The performances begin on Saturday morning at 10:30 with the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and continue with Lion and Dragon Dancers with percussionists at the 11:30 opening ceremonies, indie rockers BAAM at 1:00, I Giullari di Piazza music and dance at 2:00, and Shaolin Masters at 3:00. Sunday’s lineup gets under way at 10:00 with Damien Bassman and his Broadway friends, followed by American tap dancing at 11:00, the Bailen Brothers at noon, Mariachi Aguila y Plata at 1:00, the Mawuena Kodjovi Trio at 2:00, and Shaolin Masters at 3:00.

CONEY ISLAND HISTORY DAY 2013

Deno’s Wonder Wheel is central attraction on Coney Island History Day (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Coney Island History Project & Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park
West 12th St. Dreamland Pedestrian Plaza
Saturday, August 10, free, 1:00 – 6:00
www.coneyislandhistory.org

As the future of Coney Island remains in doubt, with the government and developers battling over how to rezone the famed district and take away the charm of the People’s Playground, the location’s storied past will be celebrated on August 10 at the third annual Coney Island History Day. This year’s old-timey festivities feature live entertainment from the Banjo Rascals, organ grinders from the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors Association and the Carousel Organ Association of America, Professor Phineas Feelgood’s World of Magic, HumanToon/Street Sorcerer Kevin C Carr, and the Lady Circus. Visitors are encouraged to dress up in 1920s costumes, take a trivia test, and offer their own stories to the Oral History Archive. In addition, the Coney Island History Project will open its latest exhibition, “The History of Deno’s Wonder Wheel: Three Generations,” exploring one of the world’s greatest amusement-park attractions.

ARTIST SANDCASTLE COMPETITION

Inaugural winners Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw set the bar high at last year’s Creative Time Artist Sandcastle Competition in Rockaway Beach (photo by Derek Schultz)

Beach 86th St. boardwalk, Rockaway Beach
Friday, August 9, free, 12 noon
www.creativetime.org

Innovative arts organization Creative Time, which specializes in unique public art projects, is hosting its second annual Artist Sandcastle Competition, featuring ten artists molding magnificent works out of sand on Rockaway Beach. The festivities begin at 12 noon, with the participants beginning to craft their masterpieces at 2:00; this year’s competitors are David Brooks, Sebastian Errazuriz, Ghost of a Dream (Lauren Was & Adam Eckstrom), Jamie Isenstein, Natalie Jeremijenko, Esperanza Mayobre, Rachel Owens, Duke Riley, Christopher Robbins, and Marc Andre Robinson. After three hours, prizes will be handed out by an esteemed panel of judges, including collector Shelley Fox Aarons, designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia, MoMA PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach, curator and collector Dana Farouki, and 2012 inaugural champs Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw. Creative Time chief curator Nato Thompson will handle master of ceremonies duties. At 6:00, the after-party moves to the boardwalk, with such food vendors as Caracas, Citysticks, DiCosmo’s Italian Ice, the Big Banana, and Rockaway Taco and dancing in Rippers to music spun by DJ Lucas Walters.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “MUEVETE” BY RUBEN BLADES

You might have noticed a series of posters going up around the city of a bearded dude in a black hat, with the caption “Do you know this man? If you do, you’ll be here . . . If you don’t, you should.” The figure in question is the one and only Panama-born renaissance man Rubén Blades, a Grammy-winning salsa singer who has headlined Carnegie Hall, a Harvard-educated lawyer, a human rights activist, an award-winning film and television actor (Crossover Dreams, Crazy from the Heart, The Milagro Beanfield War), the star of Paul Simon’s Broadway musical The Capeman, and a politician who lost a bid to become president of Panama but served five years as his nation’s minister of tourism. Blades, who has released such seminal albums as Escenas, Buscando América, and Tiempos and such memorable songs as “Pedro Navaja,” “El Cantate,” “Ojos del Perro Azul,” “Todos Vuelven,” and the always stirring “Muevete,” will be playing a free show on August 7 at the Damrosch Park Bandshell as part of the annual Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival. If you don’t know Rubén Blades, it’s about time you did, and this free concert should be just the right introduction.