Rosie Flores, the Rockabilly Filly, has been making sweet music for nearly five decades, since she was a teenage punk, but she still felt she had something to prove on her latest record, Working Girl’s Guitar (Bloodshot, October 2012). “This world’s a noisy place / Politicians in your face / So I don’t have a choice / I gotta raise my voice / I won’t apologize / for rockin’ through the night / Shoot my rhythm to the crowd / I’m little but I’m loud,” the sixty-two-year-old lifelong Texan declares on the album, on which she plays all the guitar parts in a determined effort to show off her impressive skills, which date back to her time as leader of Rosie and the Screamers and the Screamin’ Sirens. Incorporating infectious surf, rockabilly, pop, rock, country, folk, and blues, Flores mixes original numbers with such covers as the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Elvis Presley’s “Too Much,” and Janis Martin’s “Drugstore Rock and Roll” and is joined by 1960s pop star Bobby Vee on “Love Must Have Passed Me By.” (Bobby’s son Tommy plays drums in Flores’s band.) On November 14, Flores will be at Mercury Lounge celebrating the release of Working Girl’s Guitar as well as paying tribute to one of her heroes, Martin, the “Female Elvis” who died five years ago at the age of sixty-seven. Flores, who coproduced Martin’s swan song, The Blanco Sessions (Cow Island, September 2012), will team up with opening act Marti Brom to perform several Martin tunes in addition to their own tunes.
this week in music
THE VINYL BUS
The Beatles Mobile Pop-up Shop will make its way through Manhattan on Tuesday
THE BEATLES MOBILE POP-UP SHOP
Multiple locations
Tuesday, November 13
www.thebeatles.com
We grew up listening to John, Paul, George, and Ringo on something called LPs, vinyl records that were placed on a turntable and spun around a spindle at 33⅓ revolutions per minute. We could even play these black mono discs backward, which on such records as The Beatles (aka The White Album) provided clues to a mystery about one of these Liverpudlian moptops’ possible early death. Big deals were made when their music first came out on CD and, more recently, became available on iTunes, but now we’re going back to the basics, as fourteen of the once-in-a-lifetime group’s albums — including such classics as With the Beatles, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, a Hard Day’s Night, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, Let It Be, The Beatles, and Help! — are being released on 180g heavyweight vinyl in the remastered stereo versions as well as a deluxe limited edition box set. To celebrate the event, a double-decker bus will be traveling through New York City on November 13 selling copies of the records and more, making stops at Seventh Ave. and Fiftieth St. at 9:30, 550 Broadway between Prince and Spring Sts. at 12 noon, and 160 Broadway in the Financial District at 2:30. In addition, In Living Stereo on Great Jones St. will be hosting a listening party for the new records on December 5 at 7:00. Be sure to step right up to this magical mystery tour, which is dying to take you away to experience what will always be the greatest band in rock-and-roll history. (For those of you kids out there, we mean John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.)
DOC NYC: TURNING
Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas celebrate sexual identity and personal freedom in beautifully poignant TURNING
NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: TURNING (Charles Atlas, 2012)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, $20, 9:30
www.docnyc.net
www.turningfilm.com
In 2004, musician and composer Antony Hegarty and film and video pioneer Charles Atlas premiered their multimedia collaboration, Turning, at the Whitney Biennial. The performance featured Antony and the Johnsons playing songs in front of a large screen on which Atlas projected live multiple images of a parade of “beauties” who one at a time slowly turned on a circular platform, standing tall and proud. The production went on an international tour, which Atlas and Antony document in a beautiful, intimate film version that is making its U.S. premiere November 11 as part of the DOC NYC festival before opening theatrically on November 16. Atlas, a former filmmaker-in-residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and director of the widely hailed The Legend of Leigh Bowery, takes viewers behind the scenes as the cast rehearses, puts on their costumes and makeup, gets pep talks from Antony, and opens up about their lives. Throughout the film, the women — Julia Yasuda, Catrina Delapena, Honey Dijon, Joie Iacono, Joey Gabriel, Kembra Pfahler, Nomi Ruiz, Stacey Mark, Johanna Constantine, Eliza Douglas, and Morisane Sunny Shiroma, who come from very different backgrounds and professional disciplines — share their poignant, emotional stories, addressing deeply personal issues of androgyny, transsexuality, and other aspects of sexual and gender identity. The soundtrack features Antony and the Johnsons — violinist Maxim Moston, cellist Julia Kent, bassist Jeff Langston, guitarist and violinist Rob Moose, drummer Parker Kindred, pianist Thomas Bartlett, horn player Christian Biegai, and accordionist Will Holshouser — performing such hauntingly evocative songs as “Everything Is New,” “For Today I Am a Buoy,” “Kiss My Name,” “Twilight,” and “Spiralling” as the women celebrate the freedom to be themselves in a defiant, public way. “Are you a boy / Are you a girl,” Antony, himself a former member of the underground avant-garde LGBT performance troupe Blacklips, repeats in “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy.” In the subtly powerful Turning, such labels don’t matter as a group of women face their future with confidence and hope. Antony and Atlas will be in attendance at the November 11 screening at the SVA Theatre to talk about the film, which will be followed by a free after-party, open to the general public, at the Bowery Electric, highlighted by a live performance by Nomi.
TINDERBOX MUSIC FESTIVAL
Freak folksters CocoRosie are one of the headliners of the 2012 Tinderbox Music Festival at Webster Hall
Webster Hall
125 East 11th St. between Second & Third Aves.
Saturday, November 11, $25-$30, 1:00 – 12 midnight
www.websterhall.com
www.tinderboxmusicfestival.com
Perhaps more than any other recent election, this year’s presidential battle featured intense debate over who would do more for women. One event that has been doing a lot for women recently is the Tinderbox Music Festival, now in its third year of highlighting female artists and building a community where underserved high school girls can foster their musical and literary abilities. Founded by singer-songwriter Alyson Greenfield, Tinderbox is associated with the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a nonprofit grass-roots organization whose mission is to “empower girls and women through music education, volunteerism, and activities that foster self-respect, leadership skills, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration,” as well as Girls Write Now, which concentrates on “mentoring the next generation of women writers.” This year’s festival, in which a portion of the proceeds will also go to New York Cares’ Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, takes place November 11 at Webster Hall, with more than three dozen female-fronted bands and solo performers from multiple genres playing on three stages for eleven hours. Among the highlights are indie favorite CocoRosie, the unpredictable Jean Grae, the hard-rocking Hard Nips, electro-popsters I Am Lightyear, experimental singer-songwriters Greenfield and Lili Haydn, pop-rockers jENNiNGS, and such other acts as Charlene Kaye & the Brilliant Eyes, Computer Magic, Ducky, Michelle Citrin, Shuteye, Likwuid, Vagina Panther, and Pink Veins, representing Willie Mae. Don’t be surprised if the phrase “binders full of women” shows up more than a few times.
DOC NYC: DAVID BROMBERG UNSUNG TREASURE
David Bromberg talks about his life and sings the blues in illuminating new documentary
NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: DAVID BROMBERG UNSUNG TREASURE (Beth Toni Kruvant, 2012)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, $16.50, 4:45
www.docnyc.net
www.goodfootageproductions.com
The delightful new documentary David Bromberg Unsung Treasure sings the well-deserved praises of a rather unusual character — a white, Jewish bluesman from ritzy Tarrytown, New York. For more than forty years, masterful guitarist and songwriter David Bromberg has been singing his entertaining brand of the blues and bluegrass, either solo, with his Big Band, or with the Angel Band. A consummate musician, engaging raconteur, and outstanding live performer, he trained with the Rev. Gary Davis before going on to play with such superstars as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, George Harrison, Jerry Jeff Walker, and a litany of others. A big man with an ever-present beard, mustache, and glasses, Bromberg is an utterly charming figure, speaking honestly and openly about his life and career, often mentioning how deeply he was affected by the way he was raised and how that helped instill the blues in him. Beth Toni Kruvant (The Right to Be Wrong, Heart of Stone) traces his early years through wonderful archival footage and old photographs, then delves into his departure from playing music in the late 1980s and 1990s, when he and his wife, singer Nancy Josephson, moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he established a well-respected violin-making business and worked tirelessly to help resuscitate the city. But in 2007, Bromberg began a comeback with the solo record Try Me One More Time, followed last year by Use Me, featuring collaborations with a diverse group of musicians, including Vince Gill, Dr. John, and Keb’ Mo’, who appear in the film and talk about the affable, engaging Bromberg with great affection. Unsung Treasure is indeed about an American unsung treasure, a gregarious, giving, and humble man who plays the blues like nobody’s business.
David Bromberg Unsung Treasure is screening November 11 at 4:45 at the SVA Theatre, with Kruvant and Bromberg in attendance, as part of DOC NYC, a weeklong celebration of nonfiction film at SVA and the IFC Center comprising more than seventy documentaries, along with panel discussions and master classes. Among the other music films are Artifact, about Jared Leto’s band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and their battle with their record label; Drew DeNicola & Olivia Mori’s Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, with Big Star member Jody Stephens on hand to talk about the highly influential band with the film’s directors and producer as well as record producer John Fry; Greg Whiteley’s New York Doll, about punk bassist turned Mormon librarian Arthur “Killer” Kane; and Andy Grieve and Lauren Lazin’s Can’t Stand Losing You, a look at the life and career of Police drummer Andy Summers, with Summers, Grieve, and producer Norman Golightly participating in a discussion.
DOC NYC: NEW YORK DOLL
NEW YORK DOLL follows a potential reunion of seminal New York City glam band
NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: NEW YORK DOLL (Greg Whiteley, 2005)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Saturday, November 10, $16.50, 11:59 pm
212-924-7771
www.onepotatoproductions.com
www.docnyc.net
New York Doll is an unforgettable documentary about Arthur “Killer” Kane, a man who went to the heights of ecstasy as a member of the New York Dolls in the early 1970s, hit the depths of depression in the late 1980s, and rediscovered himself in the 1990s as a Mormon librarian. As bassist for the New York Dolls, Kane, dressed wildly in heavy makeup and women’s clothes, anchored the glam rock idols, which also included David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, Johnny Thunders, and Jerry Nolan. The band dissolved after only two studio albums, and while the rest of the band remained in the music business (Thunders and Nolan died in the early ’90s), Kane’s drug- and alcohol-addled life spiraled downward. As Johansen started showing up in mediocre Hollywood movies (Married to the Mob, Scrooged, Car 54, Where Are You?) and his alter ego, Buster Poindexter, could be heard singing “Hot, Hot, Hot” at every bar mitzvah and wedding in town, Kane languished in obscurity until, in 1989, after a ridiculous suicide attempt, he became a Mormon. Fellow Mormon Greg Whiteley follows Kane around with a handheld camera as the former underground rock star goes about his daily life, working in a Mormon Family History Center library in California, taking the bus to work, hanging out with old ladies, paying “rent” on his pawned basses, and living a simple existence — until he gets a call from British pop star Morrissey, who wants the Dolls to reunite for the 2004 Meltdown festival in London. Kane is a soft-spoken, earnest, gentle man who seems a little bit off yet genuine, but this is what he’s been waiting for — although he is also afraid of failure yet again. Whiteley intersperses classic Dolls songs (“Looking for a Kiss,” “Lonely Planet Boy,” “Private World,” “Puss ‘n’ Boots,” “Trash,” and Johnny Thunders’s “You Can’t Put Your Arms Round a Memory”) with talking heads who share their love of the band (including Sir Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jones from the Clash, Blondie’s Clem Burke, and especially Morrissey, who is always seen in extreme close-up and is oh-so-serious), although we wish the film included more music, of a higher quality. Yet the remarkable story and ridiculously bizarre ending, which has a This Is Spinal Tap quality to it throughout — except it’s very real — rises above it all to create one of the best rockumentaries we’ve ever seen.
Arthur “Killer” Kane recalls his days as a New York Doll in outstanding documentary
New York Doll is screening November 10 at midnight at the IFC Center as part of DOC NYC, a weeklong celebration of nonfiction film at IFC and the SVA Theatre comprising more than seventy documentaries, along with panel discussions and master classes. Among the other music films are Artifact, about Jared Leto’s band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and their battle with their record label; Drew DeNicola & Olivia Mori’s Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, with Big Star member Jody Stephens on hand to talk about the highly influential band with the film’s directors and producer as well as record producer John Fry; Beth Toni Kruvant’s David Bromberg Unsung Treasure, with the director and legendary musician on hand; and Andy Grieve and Lauren Lazin’s Can’t Stand Losing You, a look at the life and career of Police drummer Andy Summers, with Summers, Grieve, and producer Norman Golightly participating in a discussion.
ALICIA JO RABINS: A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF
Alicia Jo Rabins investigates a yearlong obsession with Bernie Madoff in one-woman show at Joe’s Pub (photo by Jason Falchook)
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Thursday, November 8 & 15, $15-$20, 7:00 pm
212-539-8778
www.aliciajo.com
www.joespub.com
Brooklyn-based musician, composer, poet, and fiddler extraordinaire Alicia Jo Rabins is also a Torah and Kabbalah scholar whose duo, Girls in Trouble, writes and performs songs about overlooked women in the Old Testament. A former member of local Klezmer favorites Golem, with whom she still occasionally plays, Rabins is now turning her attention to a different kind of Jewish character: seventy-four-year-old imprisoned business fraud Bernard Lawrence Madoff, whose Ponzi-scheme scandal rocked the world and who became the new symbol of selfishness and greed as the economic crisis reached epic proportions. Rabins has turned the story into the one-woman show A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, taking place at Joe’s Pub on November 8 and 15 at 7:00. Violinist and vocalist Rabins, who is also a poet and has served as a cultural ambassador for the State Department, will be backed by cellist and musical director Colette Alexander, percussionist David Freeman, and guitarist Lily Maase. The show, which promises an evening of mysticism and finance, is directed by Jessi D. Hill, with lighting by Jon Harper. “Everyone likes to think of Madoff as a monster, an aberration — but are we really so different?” Rabins wonders. “Markets go up, markets go down. But Madoff’s returns went up, more or less. In a straight line. For forty years. Who wouldn’t want that kind of security — no downturns, just growth? No failure, no loss, no death. It’s beautiful. But it’s impossible.”