this week in music

GLOBAL CITIZEN FESTIVAL 2013

Great Lawn, Central Park
Saturday, September 28, free lottery with eight action points
www.globalcitizen.org

There’s still a week left to accumulate enough action points to be eligible for unclaimed free tickets to the 2013 Global Citizen Festival, taking place September 28 on the Great Lawn in Central Park. This year’s all-star lineup features Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon, Alicia Keys, and John Mayer, after the 2012 inaugural event included the Black Keys, Neil Young, K’Naan, Foo Fighters, Band of Horses, and John Legend. Global Citizen is an online project that encourages people to take action to help bring an end to extreme poverty around the world. Through education and support and advocacy campaigning, people can accumulate points by watching and sharing videos, signing petitions, purchasing fair-trade products, and calling and e-mailing political representatives. The Global Citizen website examines such critical issues as child mortality, gender equality, food and hunger, polio and other diseases, primary education, and environment sustainability, providing links to find out current information and to donate to various causes. Even if you don’t get tickets, you can still make a difference, as every little step helps, so sign up and do your part in changing the world for the better.

LOWER EAST SIDE OPENING NIGHT: ART AND FASHION

Strange Loop group show focuses on fashion design and photography (photo by Ryan Burke)

Orchard St. at Grand St. and other locations
Sunday, September 8, free, 4:00 – 8:00 pm
www.lowereastsideny.com

The Lower East Side says goodbye to the summer season and welcomes the new fall shows at the second annual Lower East Side Opening Night: Art + Fashion, taking place on Sunday, September 8, from 4:00 to 8:00. More than fifty galleries will be participating in the free block party, with opening receptions for such shows as Jella Gueramian’s “Let’s Go Further” at Allegra LaViola, “Vaginascope: Sijae Byun’s Solo Exhibition” at Tally Beck Contemporary, Katherine Bradford’s “Small Ships” at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, Brian Leo’s “Party’s Over, If You Want It” at S&J Project(s), and the group exhibit “dots, stripes, liquid cyber, and other platitudes: Fashion Design — Fashion Photography” at Strange Loop, which provides an excellent segue into the evening’s other highlight, the “Looks of the LES” fashion show. Curated by Amy Odell of cosmopolitan.com, the fashion show features hairstyling by Adel Atelier and makeup by Dustin Knoblauch, with presentations from such local stores as Any Old Iron, the Cast, the Dressing Room, Old Hollywood, the Great Frog, Earnest Sewn, Urban Cricket, By Robert James, and others. In addition, there will be live music by DJ Onda Skillet, Nancy, Countdown Love, DJ Anton Bass, Heaven, and Threats.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “THE PUSHER” BY AK

Classically trained pianist and opera singer Alexandra Kalinowski will lead her five-piece chamber-indie-folk-pop band, AK, in a free Thursday-night residency this month in the Upstairs Lounge at Pianos. The Brooklyn-based group will go on at 9:00, preceded by a specially selected group of friends, including Chris Rubeo and Kaybee on September 5, Holly Cordero and Khaled Dajani on September 12, Stewart Brodian and Amanda Davids on September 19, and Pictures of the Sun and Gracie and Rachel on September 26. AK, which consists of AK on lead vocals and piano, Ross Marshall on drums, Lindsey Cosgrove on clarinet and vocals, Hajnal Pivnick on violin, and Carl Limbacher on upright bass, will be highlighting songs from its 2012 debut two-track, Stars | Right which you can listen to here (“Stars” is particularly lovely), as well as promised surprises.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “LITE DREAM” BY DIARRHEA PLANET

The idea of the earth overrun by dysentery isn’t the most appetizing of thoughts. But as it turns out, Diarrhea Planet might not be such a bad thing after all. The Nashville six-piece has just released its sophomore full-length, I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (Infinity Cat, August 20), the follow-up to 2011’s Loose Jewels. The new album (which can be streamed here) is a furious forty-minute unrelenting blast of psychedelic garage punk and indie pop, with nods to the ’50s, ’60, ’70s, and ’80s, powered by four shredding guitarists, Jordan Smith, Evan Bird, Brent Toler, and Emmett Miller, along with bassist Mike Boyle and drummer Casey Weissbuch. Citing such wide-ranging influences as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Japanese literature, Steely Dan, the animated movie Heavy Metal, Bad Religion, and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, DP investigates loneliness, unrequited love, boredom, evil, and dead bodies on I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, although it’s far from depressing. “I feel so lost, man / I try to bring myself down / so I can relate to / the things you think about,” Smith sings on “Kids,” continuing, “Like burning bridges / and happy children / the salty taste of / my sweat in the ocean.” Other explosive tracks include “Separations,” “Hammer of the Gods,” “Ugliest Son,” and “Babyhead.” Diarrhea Planet will be letting loose at Mercury Lounge on August 30 with Brooklyn punks the So So Glos, who are touring behind their latest, Blowout.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “LIGHT ON” BY BAD COP

Nashville anarchic punks Bad Cop are out on the road in support of their latest release, The Light On EP (Jeffery Drag, July 2013), and detailing their madventures through a series of webisodes dubbed The Light On Chronicles. The five-song EP, which can be streamed for free here, includes “Can’t Get Enough,” which cofounder Adam Hoult wrote while in the hoosegow, and “Light On,” which is about other cofounder Alex Hartness’s nearly fatal overdose — he was actually pronounced dead at one point. Fleshed out with bassist Mike Frazier and drummer Kevin Kilpatrick, the band goes all-tilt shriek-out on “Post McDonalds Punks,” while EP opener and closer, “The Wind” and “My Dying Days,” respectively, are downright melodic in comparison. Bad Cop will be at Cameo Gallery on August 27 with Automotive High School, Plastic Visions, and Such Hounds and at Pianos on August 28 with Monogold, Slonk Donkerson, Plastic Visions, and Of the Opera.

THE ART OF THE SCORE: FILM WEEK AT THE PHILHARMONIC

There shouldn’t be much sleeping when the scores of films by Alfred Hitchcock (above, with composer Bernard Herrmann) and Stanley Kubrick take center stage at the Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall
10 Lincoln Square, Broadway at 64th St.
September 17-21, $45-$125
www.nyphil.org

Perhaps no two directors used music as effectively as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, the former employing original compositions to build unwavering suspense, the latter including famous classical pieces to immerse viewers in magical atmospheres. The New York Philharmonic will pay tribute to both men during “The Art of the Score: Film Week at the Philharmonic,” as the orchestra performs the scores while film clips are shown on the big screen at Avery Fisher Hall. Curated by artistic director Alec Baldwin, “The Art of the Score” begins September 17-18 with “Hitchcock!,” comprising music by Lyn Murray (To Catch a Thief), Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, North by Northwest), Dimitri Tiomkin (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder), and Charles Gounod (“Funeral March of a Marionette,” the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents), conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos; the first night will be hosted by Baldwin, the second by Sam Waterston. The Philharmonic then focuses on Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey on September 20-21, consisting of works by György Ligeti (“Atmosphères,” “Lux aeterna,” “Aventures,” “Kyrie” from Requiem), Richard Strauss (“Also sprach Zarathustra”), and Johann Strauss II (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”), conducted by Alan Gilbert and featuring the Musica Sacra Chorus, directed by Kent Tritle. The final event, “Mind, Music, and the Moving Image,” being held on September 21 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, in which Baldwin speaks with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, their regular composer, Carter Burwell, and neuroscientest Aniruddh D. Patel, has already sold out.

IGNORANCE

Susan Sarandon will discuss “The Path Itself” with the Gyalwang Drukpa as part of Rubin Museum series on “Ignorance”

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 25 – December 27, $15 – $45 (Acoustic Cash $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Last fall, the Rubin Museum examined the concept of happiness through specially introduced film screenings, live performances, and a series of talks pairing artists with scientific and philosophical experts. This fall the museum and its mad-genius programmer, Tim McHenry, tackle a different kind of bliss: ignorance. In 1742, British poet Thomas Gray concluded his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” thusly: “Since sorrow never comes too late, / And happiness too swiftly flies. / Thought would destroy their paradise. / No more; where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.” More than two centuries earlier, Gautama Buddha explained in the Sutta Nipata that “it is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.” The Rubin’s “Ignorance” series, which explores the idea that “what you don’t know could hurt you,” begins September 25 with artist Ernesto Pujol and cultural critic Carol Becker discussing “Ignorance and Ritual,” followed September 26 with lama the Gyalwang Drukpa and actress Susan Sarandon delving into “The Path Itself” and September 27 with psychologist Daniel Gilbert and cartoonist Tim Kreider investigating “Delusion.” Among the other highlights are writer Neil Gaiman and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson sitting down for “Fantasy and Fact,” director Mira Nair and anthropologist Christopher Pinney getting into “Allegory and Illusion,” and playwright Neil LaBute and actor Alec Baldwin rapping about “Ignorance in the Information Age.” Live music includes Holly Near on September 27, Rosanne Cash and Cory Chisel on October 18, and Toshi Reagon on November 8. The Friday-night film programs kicks off September 6 with drama critic John Heilpern introducing Kind Hearts and Coronets and continues with such other beauties as actor and photographer Joel Grey introducing Cabaret, comedian Rachel Dratch introducing Lord of the Flies, and multidisciplinary performance artist John Kelly introducing Shadow of a Doubt. Nineteenth-century British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of our own ignorance”; this Rubin series should throw that door wide open.