Minneapolis native Kevin Bowe decided to become a musician after seeing one of the Replacements’ earliest gigs, blown away by the beautiful reckless abandon of the legendary Minnesota band. Years later Bowe, who wrote songs, produced, and/or played with Leiber and Stoller, Etta James, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Alison Scott, Leo Kottke, Peter Case, John Mayall, the Proclaimers, Robben Ford, the Meat Puppets, and Freedy Johnston, got to become a Replacement, joining Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson on a four-track covers EP recorded this past September to help raise funds for former ’Mats guitarist Slim Dunlop, who suffered a stroke in February 2012. Now Bowe is back with his longtime band, the Okemah Prophets, on tour with their new disc, Natchez Trace, the follow-up to 2003’s Angels on the Freeway (Crosses on the Road) and 1999’s Restoration. The sixteen-song disc, made with Prophets Pete Anderson on drums and Steve Price on bass, along with contributions from Westerberg, Johnston, Chuck Prophet, Scarlet Rivera, Tim O’Regan, and Nels Cline, is a collection of countrified indie rock, pop, and blues, with such highlights as the rollicking “In Too Deep” and “Devil’s Garden,” the driving “Haven’t You Heard,” the horn-heavy “Everybody Lies,” the foot-stompin’ “Waitin’ for the Wheel” and “Just Restless,” and the Westerbergian “Never Don’t Stay” and “Gutters of Paradise.” (You can check out all the songs and more here.) Kevin Bowe + the Okemah Prophets will be at Rockwood Music Hall on March 26 at 7:00 (free), preceded by Jonathan Powell and followed by Caitlin Canty, and at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn on March 27 ($10) with Dear Comrade and A Is for Atom.
this week in music
NICK CAVE: HEARD•NY
Artist Nick Cave watches a rehearsal of “Heard•NY” (sans horse costumes) in Vanderbilt Hall (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
89 East 42nd St.between Lexington and Vanderbilt
March 25-31, free
Daily crossings at 11:00 and 2:00, daily tours at 3:30
www.creativetime.org
heard•ny rehearsal slideshow
Grand Central Terminal is famous for its cattle-like crowds — hence the overused cliché “It’s like Grand Central Station in here!” — but it’s about to take in a whole new kind of herd this week. Starting on Monday, March 25, and continuing through Sunday March 31, Nick Cave’s “Heard•NY” will add to all the hustle and bustle. The Missouri-born multidisciplinary artist, whose dual exhibits “Ever-After” at Jack Shainman and “For Now” at Mary Boone ran in Chelsea in the fall of 2011, is installing thirty of his life-size horse Soundsuits in Vanderbilt Hall, where they will be on view all week. But every day at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm, student dancers from the Ailey School will get inside the colorful suits and perform what are being called “Crossings,” making their through the world’s most famous train terminal in intricate movements developed by Cave and Chicago-based choreographer William Gill, with live music by harpists Shelley Burgon and Mary Lattimore and percussionists Robert Levin and Junior Wedderburn. (There will also be daily guided tours of the installation at 3:30.) The performances harken back to the days when horse-drawn carts were prevalent in the city, prior to the coming of the railways and automobiles. A collaboration between Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit as part of Grand Central Terminal’s ongoing centennial celebration, “Heard•NY” continues Cave’s exploration of human and animal ritual behavior and social and cultural identity, using found and recycled materials to create sculpture, video, and combinations of the two. The artist will discuss his latest work in relation to masquerade, performance, and dreaming in public at a special presentation, “A Conversation with Nick Cave,” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall on March 29 at 6:00 (free with museum admission), with Cave, Creative Time curator Nato Thompson, and Met curator Alisa LaGamma. “A herd of horses has been unleashed in Grand Central Terminal,” Thompson poetically explains in a statement. “Grazing in Vanderbilt Hall, they move at a pace perhaps too slow for the needs of a commuter, seeming to ask us to slow down. To take a second. To look. . . . In the frantic pace of our contemporary age, in the monumental machine that is Grand Central Terminal, we are temporarily placed outside ourselves by crossing paths with Cave’s creations. We can observe these horses in the same way that we look upon our fellow travelers in the Main Concourse, sensing the texture of time and the dizzying visual seduction that is the pleasure and bewilderment of our contemporary moment.” People are always rushing through train stations, which primarily serve as weigh stations at the beginning, middle, or end of a journey, but “Heard•NY” should make everyone stop for a few minutes, take a deep breath, and enjoy the surrounding fun, taking advantage of where they are rather than hurrying to get where they are going. (Coincidentally, madman Australian musician Nick Cave is also in New York City this week, playing the Beacon Theatre March 28-30 with his longtime band, the Bad Seeds.)
CLASSICAL AT THE CORNELIA: BEETHOVEN BACH SHINNERS
Evan Shinners promises to mix in a little bit of Passover along with Bach and Beethoven at Cornelia Street Café on March 25
Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia St.
Monday, March 25, $20 (includes one drink), 8:30
212-989-9319
corneliastreetcafe.com
www.facebook.com/evanshinners
It is traditional for the Passover seder to end with a series of songs sung by the whole mishpacha. Pianist extraordinaire Evan Shinners, who is bringing his unique take on classical and pop music to the Cornelia Street Café on March 25, the first night of Pesach, is promising that it will be “a perfect occasion to come down to the West Village to enjoy a seder led by Bach and me. There will be fugues on ‘Dayenu,’ the four duets will answer the Four Questions, and if these jokes have no effect on you, then you certainly have no excuse to miss it.” Born in Denver and based in New York City, Shinners has been playing piano since he was nine. He has performed for Pope John Paul II in Rome and President Barack Obama at the White House, and he has just returned from a sold-out tour of Europe, where he played original music as well as works by Bach and Beethoven. “Monday night is me in my element,” he explained in an e-mail, “an intimate space and an hour with you. . . . Sonatas by Ludwig, suites by Johann, song and dance by Evan.” We have no information on whether the self-described “poet and tummler” plans on hiding the afikoman as well.
VITAL VOX: A VOCAL FESTIVAL
The fourth annual Vital Vox Festival, which explores the far-reaching capabilities of the human voice, is back after Hurricane Sandy canceled fall performances
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.
March 25-26, $15, 8:00
917-267-0363
www.vitalfoxfest.com
www.roulette.org
The fourth annual Vital Vox Festival, dedicated to exploring the seemingly limitless range and power of the human voice, was scheduled to present a half dozen cutting-edge performers over the course of two nights at Roulette in Brooklyn on October 29-30, but Hurricane Sandy silenced the festivities. Not to let Mother Nature get it down, the festival will now take place March 25-26 at Roulette. Monday, March 25, will consist of a cappella jazz and blues singer and composer Philip Hamilton’s “Vocalscapes: Solitude” for voice, percussion, and electronics; excerpts from New York-based, Uruguayan-born audiovisual artist Sabrina Lastman’s “An Encounter with ‘El Duende,’” which pays tribute to Federico García Lorca using voice, movement, sound, bowed psaltery, megaphone, and visuals; Loom Trio’s “Music from Erosion: A Fable,” with Raphael Sacks, Kate Hamilton, and Sasha Bogdanowitsch playing excerpts from the 2012 multidisciplinary theatrical production; and San Francisco-born, Brooklyn-based violinist, composer, vocalist, and poet Sarah Bernstein’s Unearthish, a duo with percussionist Satoshi Takeishi. Tuesday’s program features Lisa Karrer’s “Collision Theory: Works and Premieres for Voice & Multi-Media,” a collaboration with partner David Simons that will include her “Meeting Max: Vocal Experiments with Interactive Video Mixer” and his “The Opera Within the Opera,” with electronics, triggered Theremin, and keyboard; multidisciplinary artist, composer, and teacher Bodganowitsch’s “Timbre Tree,” an excerpt from a song cycle involving live looping and processing, dance and movement, text, and such instruments as the syrinx, fujara, koncovka, halo drum, and karimba, featuring the Loom Ensemble (Andrew Broaddus, Helen Joyce, Sacks, Hamilton and Michael Bauer); and San Francisco-based Pamela Z’s “Works for Voice, Live Processing, and Video,” with excerpts from “Memory Trace” along with other short pieces.
VIDEO OF THE DAY: “WAKE THE DOGS” BY DONOTS
“Yeah, I’ll pick the lock / I’ll crash the gates / and then I’ll knock at your door,” the Donots declare on the title track of their latest record, 2012’s Wake the Dogs. The five-piece Ibbenbüren, Germany, band is preparing for its twentieth anniversary with its first major U.S. headlining tour, ready to pick locks, crash gates, and bang on doors as they storm the country. On Wake the Dogs, lead singer Ingo, guitarists Guido and Alex, bassist J.D., and drummer Eike, who all share the same last name, Donot, blast through sixteen tracks that go in and out of punk, hardcore, metal, rap, power pop, and even a little Celtic folk, tearing it up on such songs as “Into the Grey” “Born a Wolf,” “Control,” and “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up,” evoking a mix of Green Day, Rancid, and Anti-Flag. The album also includes two songs with British acoustic folk-punk Frank Turner. “Say my name,” Ingo proclaims on “Manifesto,” continuing, “One mind is loud, two make a crowd, three make a scene.” There should be quite a scene when Donots play Saint Vitus on March 24 ($10, 8:00) with I Hate Our Freedom and (Damn) This Desert Air and Webster Hall on March 25 ($10, 7:00) with the Company We Keep and Mister Pagoda.
OKTOPHONIE
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN & RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA
Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
March 20-27, $40
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
Since opening its doors as an arts venue in September 2007, the Park Avenue Armory has staged some of the city’s best, and most unusual, productions, including memorable performances and installations by Ernesto Neto, the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Ann Hamilton, Ryoji Ikeda, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Tom Sachs, STREB, Peter Greenaway, and Christian Boltanski, often involving immersive, interactive environments. Its latest presentation is yet another unique, involving piece, Oktophonie, a reimagined audiovisual version of the eponymous composition by German electronic maestro Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), a sixty-nine-minute layer from Act II of Dienstag aus Licht, the Tuesday portion of Stockhausen’s twenty-nine-hour opera cycle Licht: The Seven Days of the Week. The section follows the conflict between the archangel Michael and Lucifer, with yelling and bravery, tasting and devotion; the central color is red and the planetary object is Mars. The music will be led by Dutch musician Kathinka Pasveer, who contributed voice and flute to a 1992 recording of the work and has collaborated directly with the composer. The outer-space set is designed by internationally renowned artist and Hugo Boss Prize winner Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose work often involves interaction between creator and audience, perhaps most famously with him serving food to visitors. At the armory, ticket holders are encouraged to wear white and will be sitting on cushions against a lunar surface, surrounded by a cube of speakers. “The simultaneous movements — in eight layers — of the electronic music of ‘Invasion — Explosion’ with ‘Farewell’ demonstrate how — through ‘Oktophonie’ — a new dimension of musical space composition has opened,” Stockhausen once explained. Yes, there should be quite an intersection of music and space at the armory, where Oktophonie runs March 20–27, with tickets going fast. There will be an Artist Talk on March 23 at 6:00 in the Veterans Room ($15), with Pasveer and musician Suzanne Stephens, moderated by new armory artistic director Alex Poots.
TWI-NY TALK: THE THE THE THUNDER
The The The Thunder take a break in the studio while preparing for East Coast tour, which comes to Glasslands March 18
Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave. between South First & South Second Sts.
Monday, March 18, $10, 8:00
www.theglasslands.com
www.thethethethunder.bandcamp.com
There is precious little information available about new bicoastal band The The The Thunder. Formed last year by six high school friends from Long Island, TTTT has no videos posted online, few pictures, and, for the most part, no last names. (We had to do some dirty digging to find them out but were later asked by the band to not include them below in order to maintain the mystery, so they have since been deleted.) But what can be obtained is their excellent debut album, All at Once, eight indie gems that form a cohesive whole. TTTT itself has rarely been a cohesive whole; while lead vocalist and guitarist Dan, bassist Artie, keyboardist Julia, and drummer Glenn are based in Brooklyn, guitarist Nick and violinist and singer Jill live out in Seattle. On March 18, TTTT will be at Glasslands with Queen Orlenes, My Roaring Twenties, and Great Caesar. We recently corresponded with the band about their music, their friendship, their name, and their romantic entanglements, making a boo-boo that the band had some fun with.
twi-ny: You did not record your debut album, All at Once, all at once but instead on two coasts, with Jill and Nick out in Seattle and Glenn, Artie, Julia, and Dan in Brooklyn. What was the experience like the first time you all played together as a unit, both in rehearsal and then live onstage, in front of an audience?
Dan: We grew up together, and we’ve been playing music together in some form or another forever, so we were comfortable with doing a week of condensed practicing to pull everything together. But there were definitely some moments of calling each other in the middle of the night and making sure we were all practicing separately.
Julia: Yeah, it was an odd order to things. We had to set up shows before we’d ever played together, and that was nerve-wracking. But then putting out an album was nerve-wracking and that worked out OK, so we just had to psych ourselves into believing the live thing would work, too, if we put our backs into it.
Arthur: One benefit we frequently overlook is that the whole process forced us to make decisions regarding the source material during tracking as well as during the mixing and mastering process. Making a record can become an ever-widening pit of “what ifs,” and sometimes being forced to choose is really a pleasant alternative to infinite levels of undo.
twi-ny: There are two marriages among the six of you, Jill and Nick as well as Julia and Glenn. Does that change the dynamic of the band, either in the songwriting process, in the studio, or on the road? Is there something we should know about Artie and Dan?
Dan: I’m pretty devastated to find out my wife has been married to Glenn this whole time. Although I also have a thing for Artie.
Julia: I never meant for you to find out this way.
Glenn: Wait, what?
Arthur: Having the ladies around keeps us all nice and even. Sometimes there are too many guys out there on tour.
Jill: Nick and I were high school sweethearts but we never gelled as a creative duo — my fault, not his; in general I don’t “play well with others.” Somehow adding four other people, who happen to be our close friends, into the mix makes it easier. Still, when we work on demos in Seattle, we never write or record our parts in the same room. But we do exchange sultry glances onstage.
Dan: It’s really worked for us. Bands say this a lot, so I’m afraid to use the cliché, but the dual marriages paired with the lifelong friendships makes the band a lot like a family. A lot of love flying around. And a lot of history. I mean, Glenn and Artie were my best men. Nick and Jill introduced me to Julia. No Fleetwood Mac–style love triangles yet.
Nick: Not yet. But once superstardom hits, then I think we’re primed for some dramatic divorces, icy silences, bitter betrayals, and cryptic messages in songs aimed at one another. It’s going to be great!
twi-ny: You were all high school friends in North Massapequa and Plainedge. How much did you dream of getting out of Long Island when you were kids? Back then, did you ever envision working together as a group as you are now?
Jill: I think most Long Island teenagers spend long nights at diners drinking coffee and eating cheese fries and talking about how boring their hometowns are — but I don’t think the idea of “escaping” crossed my mind. The city wasn’t a hope or a dream, it was an inevitability, for me and for a lot of my friends. With regard to playing with friends, it’s the only way it ever made sense to do it — I didn’t want to make music with strangers.
Dan: We’ve been playing together in different projects since we were kids. I played with Jill separately. I played with Artie separately. I played with Glenn, Artie, and Julia in another band. And Glenn and Jill played together in something. But this is the first time we’re all together. It was a no-brainer once we started, but for some reason putting everyone in the same band never occurred to us. It also grew out of the songs I was writing. They called for more instruments and parts.
Glenn: The “something” Jill and I played in together was barely a something. It was two weeks in 1998 and I was fired. By Jill.
twi-ny: You recently tweeted, “Happy Birthday, @LouReed. TTTT would not exist without you. Thanks.” You’ve been compared to a wide range of artists, from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, including Reed and the Velvets, the Cure, the Cars, Talking Heads, Gang of Four, Bloc Party, and even Devo. Do you consider any of these groups important influences on you? What is your favorite decade of music to listen to?
Nick: With six people it’s hard to pin down a decade for the band as a whole, but I’d like to think it’s mid-to-late ’70s New York punk/New Wave. Music that says something but still rocks, is interesting and thoughtful while still raw and vibrant.
Julia: Lou Reed and a lot of the New York ’70s scene always seemed weirdly approachable to me, talented as they are. Plus, Candy Darling is from Massapequa!
Glenn: The comparisons to those bands are always nice but I do think we have a modern take, which is probably due to being so varied in our individual tastes.
Jill: If the rest of the band saw my list of Pandora stations, I’d be politely asked to leave.
twi-ny: Many of the songs on All at Once reference death and dying both specifically and metaphorically, with such lyrics as “I’m working on a heart attack,” “We don’t have forever,” and “Did it really have to end / All those good times.” And this past December 21, you released the postapocalyptic “It’s Not the End of the World (it just feels that way).” Are some of you more death obsessed than others? Aren’t you all too young to be thinking these thoughts?
Dan: That’s probably coming from me. I wouldn’t say I’m death obsessed, but I find it hard not to see the sadness in happiness and good times. The inevitable end of things. Even something as small as a great night with your friends. But it’s not negative. I think that’s where real beauty is. In moments as they happen. Trying to hold on to them. And making them happen as much as possible.
twi-ny: There are three articles in your name; why not two? Or four? Why three? Maybe it involves a subtle tribute to Matt Johnson hidden in there somewhere?
Dan: The The The The Thunder just seemed ridiculous.
Nick: I agree with Dan. I can’t believe you even asked that.