this week in music

TURNING

Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas celebrate sexual identity and personal freedom in beautifully poignant TURNING

TURNING (Charles Atlas, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, November 16
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
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 made its U.S. premiere November 11 as part of the DOC NYC festival and now opens theatrically on November 16 at the IFC Center. 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 Marks, 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, Gabriel, Ruiz, Honey Dijon, Shiroma, Douglas, Marks, and Connie Fleming will be on hand for the 7:45 screening on November 16, Atlas and Constantine will attend the 7:45 screening on November 17, Atlas and MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach will be at the 7:45 screening on November 18, and Antony and performance artist Marina Abramović will be at the IFC Center for the 7:45 screening on November 20.

TWI-NY TALK: ALICIA JO RABINS

Alicia Jo Rabins explores her personal fascination with the Bernie Madoff scandal in enticing one-woman show at Joe’s Pub (photo by Aaron Hartman)

A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Thursday, November 15, $15-$20, 7:00 pm
212-539-8778
www.aliciajo.com
www.joespub.com

On November 8 at Joe’s Pub, multidisciplinary artist and Torah scholar Alicia Jo Rabins presented the world premiere of her one-woman show, the vastly entertaining A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff. After reading about Madoff when his Ponzi scheme fell apart and made all the papers in December 2008, Rabins became obsessed with the man and his story, spending the next several years poring over seventeen books about the case and meeting with people directly and indirectly impacted by the scandal. In the show, Rabins, backed by cellist and musical director Colette Alexander, percussionist David Freeman, and guitarist Lily Maase, sings, plays the violin, and shares personal anecdotes in a warm, involving, and funny way. She incorporates Buddhist sutra, an actual apology letter written by Madoff, and a Jewish prayer into the proceedings as she examines the situation from the points of view of an FBI agent, a credit-risk officer, a whistleblower, a happy investor, a therapist, a lawyer, and a monk. As she prepared for the second performance, taking place November 15, Rabins corresponded with twi-ny about mysticism, money, Madoff, her marriage to musical partner Aaron Hartman, and more.

twi-ny: The role of belief in things unseen (and often dimly understood) plays a large part in both finance and religion. Did you find anything in your background in Jewish studies useful as you explored the financial world and this story? What do you think it ultimately was that led to your fascination with Bernie Madoff?

Alicia Jo Rabins: I was fascinated to find that, as you said, there is this overlap between the bewilderment and allure of esoteric mysticism and esoteric finance. They both traffic in ultimate intangibles — the idea of energy and the idea of money. But more simply, I was fascinated by the simplicity of Madoff’s scheme, the fact that it wasn’t a complicated series of equations no one could have seen through but a simple lie that the SEC could have easily stopped at any point if they had checked to see if his hedge fund had ever actually executed any of the trades their records described. So it seemed to me that the whole story was more about the financial world’s desire to believe in Madoff than Madoff’s desire to deceive.

Alicia Jo Rabins will be back at Joe’s Pub on November 15 for an encore performance of A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF (photo by Jason Falchook)

twi-ny: Regarding that desire to deceive, in the show you explore whether Madoff is a villain or just someone who got caught up in a situation that spiraled out of control. What do you think is the truth?

Alicia Jo Rabins: I think the gray area between those two is the interesting part of the story. That, plus the shared responsibility of those who should have known better but didn’t (I’m not talking about ordinary investors but about fund managers, financial advisers, the SEC, and huge banks), and why exactly no one stopped him for decades, is the area this piece explores. I suppose the piece itself, with all its contradictory viewpoints, is my answer to that question!

twi-ny: The opening performance produced a rousing ovation, and you will be performing it again at Joe’s Pub on November 15. How do you think the first show went?

Alicia Jo Rabins: I loved performing that first show — it felt incredible, and somewhat surreal, to be in a room with an audience after two years of working on this piece!

twi-ny: What are the future plans for it? It deserves to be seen by a lot more people!

Alicia Jo Rabins: Well — thanks! I’m already talking to a few producers about bringing the show out west and to Europe, in both museums and theaters — so I feel like the production will have a touring life, which would be wonderful.

twi-ny: Over the last four years, in addition to your Madoff obsession, you’ve gotten married, had a child, and released a pair of Girls in Trouble records. Has it been hard balancing all of these elements?

Alicia Jo Rabins: Oh yes, the balance is a constant struggle, and if it weren’t for my friends, my families, and Aaron’s unflagging support, there’s no way I’d be able to do all this. (And many days I can’t.)

twi-ny: What does Aaron think of your Madoff fixation?

Alicia Jo Rabins: I’ll have to ask him and get back to you. I can say that he did find it quite amusing that at one point our bookshelf had a full shelf of pregnancy and childbirth books, above a full shelf of my Torah teaching books, above a full shelf of books about Bernie Madoff.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “VIOLENT SEA” BY SONDRA SUN-ODEON

Brooklyn-based musician and composer Sondra Sun-Odeon seems to float across multiple dimensions in her ethereal debut solo album, Ætherea. Sun-Odeon, who is also part of the psych duo Silver Summit, took a year to record Ætherea, playing all the guitars and piano and getting help from Helena Espvall on cello, Leyna Marika Papach on violin and viola, and Ben McConnell on percussion. Songs such as “Violent Sea,” “Samarkand,” “Golden Bird,” and the otherworldly double-shot finale of “Witches” and “Hair” are filled with a dark mystery that slowly wind through fascinating musical interludes and haunting vocals, while “The Apple” is a mesmerizing nine-plus-minute instrumental that seems to still be going long after it’s over. Sun-Odeon will be celebrating Ætherea with a record release party November 14 in the back room at Public Assembly, playing with a full band, including strings. CC Carana and Bee and Flower are also on the bill.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “WORKING GIRL’S GUITAR” BY ROSIE FLORES

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.

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.