Singer-songwriter Nika Roza Danilova, better known as the one-woman recording phenomenon Zola Jesus, continues her reign as the alterna–Stevie Nicks on her third album, Conatus (Sacred Bones, October 2011), the follow-up to her 2010 sophomore full-length, Stridulum II. The twenty-three-year-old, who was born and raised on a large farm in Wisconsin, favors long, flowing blonde hair that meshes with her long, flowing white outfits, both supplying a stark contrast to her haunting electro-Goth music. On Conatus, she takes listeners on a dark, introspective journey into the fear that pervades her soul, filled with repeated images of fire. “Oh, it hurts to let you in,” she sings on “Collapse.” On “Seekir” she asks, “Is there nothing left / of this mess we made? / Is there nothing left / of the love I gave?” On tour she is joined by a backing band that ably captures her unique sound, whether at CMJ or in the Guggenheim rotunda, where she performed this past May. Zola Jesus will be at the Catalpa Festival on Saturday, sharing an impressive bill with Hercules and Love Affair, Umphrey’s McGee, TV on the Radio, headliners the Black Keys, and others. The two-day festival continues on Sunday with Snoop Dogg, Girl Talk, Matt and Kim, Matisyahu, and more. For an interview with the festival’s founder, Dave Foran, go here.
this week in music
CATALPA VIDEO OF THE DAY: “SPREAD TOO THIN” BY THE DIRTY HEADS
“Well, come with me to a place by the sea / If your ship breaks down you can always find me and Dirty J chillin’ underneath a shady tree / Our fans are always welcome with our friends and family,” the Dirty Heads sing on the title track to their sophomore album, Cabin by the Sea (Five Seven Music, June 2012), continuing, “And if you wish you could stay, as long as you please / Just lend a helping hand to build our cabin by the sea / Where every day is beautiful, the sun, the sand, the breeze / And everybody lives together here in harmony.” The song might be the centerpiece of their long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s alternative hit Any Port in a Storm, but it also can sum up their upcoming appearance at the Catalpa Festival on Randall’s Island on July 29. (They will also be playing the Paramount in Huntington on July 23.) Currently on tour with Matisyahu, who will also be at Catalpa on July 29 (along with Cold War Kids, Matt and Kim, Girl Talk, headliner Snoop Dogg, and others), SoCal’s Dirty Heads once again feature their unique brand of reggae-influenced hip-hop, rap, and indie pop on Cabin by the Sea, which opens with the tender “Arrival” before turning into a Jamaican party with such special guests as Ky-Mani Marley, Rome (of Sublime with Rome), Del the Funky Homosapien, and Matisyahu joining front man Jared “Dirty J” Watson, vocalist-guitarist Dustin “Duddy B” Bushnell, percussionist Jon Olazabal, drummer Matt Ochoa, and bassist David Foral. Blasts of horns combine with lyrics filled with confidence, braggadocio, positive energy, and shout-outs to themselves and hero Bob Marley on the new record, highlighted by such tunes as “Disguise,” “Spread Too Thin,” “Mongo Push,” “We Will Rise,” and “Hipster,” on which they sing, “So endlessly, we will carry on through your energy /Every song we sing creates a memory I wouldn’t change for anything / Music is eternity and lives in me eternally / Endlessly, we will come together like a symphony / And everything you do feels like it’s meant to be.” The two-day art and music Catalpa Festival begins on July 28 with the Black Keys, TV on the Radio, Umphrey’s McGee, Hercules and Love Affair, Zola Jesus, and others; for an interview with the festival’s founder, Dave Foran, go here.
HARLEM BOOK FAIR: FROM HARLEM, WITH LOVE
West 135th St. between Malcolm X Blvd. & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Saturday, July 21, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.qbr.com
Kicking off with the inaugural Literacy Across Harlem march, in which participants carry their favorite book, the Harlem Book Fair features a full day of activities celebrating the written word. Taking place at such venues as the Countee Cullen Library, the Langston Hughes Auditorium and the American Negro Theater in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the main stage outdoors on West 135th St., the fair will include live performances and readings by Lynn Pinder, Mitzi Carrasquillo, Elijah Brown, Sadequ Johnson, Danny Simmons, Renarda Huggins, Atiba Wilson & the Befo’ Quotet, Eleanor Wells, and others. Among the panel discussions and lectures are “Decision 2012: Race, Democracy, and the New Jim Crow” with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Cornel West, Fredrick C. Harris, and Sonia Sanchez, moderated by Peniel Joseph; “Black to the Future: Why We No Longer Die First in Science Fiction Movies,” with Shykia Bell, Joelle Sterling, R. Kayeen Thomas, and Gregory “Brother G” Walker, moderated by Harlem Book Fair founder Max Rodriguez; and “The End of Anger: Teen Book Talk with Author Ellis Cose.” There will also be a special tribute to Sekou Molefi Baako, with musical guests Mzuri Moyo and Jazz Trio, the Atiba Kwabena Trio, and the NuyoRican School Poetry Jazz Ensemble featuring Americo Casiano Jr. with Edy Martinez, Ray Martinez, & Yunior Terry in addition to poets E. J. Antonio, Cypress Jackson Preston, Tony Mitchelson, and Ed Toney.
NEW MUSEUM BLOCK PARTY
Experimental composer Sxip Shirey will be performing at 2:45 at the New Museum Block Party in Sara D. Roosevelt Park on July 21
New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery at Prince St.
Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Chrystie St. between Delancey & Broome Sts.
Saturday, July 21, 12 noon – 5:00
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org
The sixth annual New Museum Block Party takes place on the Lower East Side on Saturday in nearby Sara D. Roosevelt Park as well as the museum itself. There will be live outdoor performances by experimental artists Chris Giarmo/Boys Don’t Fight, Yvonne Meier, Sxip Shirey, and High Priest of Antipop Consortium, a Bowery Artist Tribute in which visitors can remix and recontextualize poems that have ties to the neighborhood, a digital archive of New Museum catalogs (in which you can create your own mix-and-match mini-catalog), an Op art workshop, a Lower East Side photo show, an interactive paper workshop led by Nicolás Paris, an alternate-color demonstration, and free admission to the museum (with tours every hour at a quarter past), where you can check out the exhibitions “Ghosts in the Machine,” “Pictures from the Moon: Artists’ Holograms 1969 – 2008,” “The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg,” and “Carlos Motta: We Who Feel Differently.”
SUPER SÁBADO! EL MUSEO’S BLOCK PARTY
The Welfare Poets will perform at annual El Museo Block Party on Saturday
FREE THIRD SATURDAYS
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, July 21, free, 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org
El Museo del Barrio’s monthly free celebration of art, music, dance, and food heads outdoors on July 21 for a family-friendly summer block party on 104th St. Most of the special events take place in the late afternoon, with the Welfare Poets, domino tables, a pop-up photo booth, art workshops, A Lo Afro-Colombiano and KR3Ts dance classes, DJ EX spinning soulful tunes, and El Barrio’s Freshest 2012 breakdancing competition. The museum’s galleries are open as well, so you can beat the heat by going inside and checking out the exhibitions “Caribbean: Crossroads of the World” and “Voces y Visiones: Gran Caribe.”
VIDEO OF THE DAY — BEAR HANDS: SONGS FROM UTOPIA VOLUME I
On their 2010 full-length debut, Burning Bush Supper Club, Brooklyn-based indie four-piece Bear Hands explored guns, violence, and lost love in a relatively personal way. But on their new three-track EP, Songs from Utopia Volume I — which was released for free on Independence Day — singer-guitarist Dylan Rau, guitarist Ted Feldman, bassist Val Loper, and drummer TJ Orscher take on bigger issues, examining some of the most embarrassing moments in recent American history. “It takes a warrior to kill fifteen men / It takes a gentleman to apologize,” Rau sings on “What I’ve Learned,” which looks at U.S. military involvement in Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Iraq. Now sporting a much tighter do that his previous, wilder hairstyles, he continues, “I’d like to see the red sun rising in Japan / Recall the glory days of dying like a man / With every death is born a brand-new life / Master of double speak make everything all right.” On “Bullshit Saviour Complex,” the band explores American policy in Africa, while “Disaster Shy” excoriates the government for its failure to react to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Bear Hands will be kicking off their latest tour at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on July 20 ($15, 9:00) with Fort Lean and the Judas Knife. The EP, which features a mix of genres from rap and reggae to funk and techno, can be downloaded for free here. As this is called “Volume I,” we’re hoping there’s more to come, and soon.
TWI-NY TALK: CATALPA FOUNDER DAVE FORAN
Dave Foran partied with Snoop Dogg at Vivo Rio last September and will do so again later this month on Randall’s Island
Catalpa Festival
Randall’s Island
Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29
Weekend passes $179.99, day passes $99.99
www.catalpanyc.com
Dave Foran is hoping to achieve what no previous event promoter has done before in New York. Over the years, such outdoor music gatherings as the Fleadh, Lollapalooza, Across the Narrows, and All Points West have each failed to maintain a lasting presence, something the Dublin-born Foran is planning on doing with the Catalpa Festival. Taking place July 28-29 on Randall’s Island, the two-day inaugural festival boasts a diverse lineup of live acts, including the Black Keys, TV on the Radio, Umphrey’s McGee, Hercules and Love Affair, and Zola Jesus on Saturday and Snoop Dogg, Girl Talk, Matt and Kim, Cold War Kids, and Matisyahu on Sunday, among many other groups. In addition, Catalpa will host such special installations as Arcadia’s fire-shooting “Afterburner” and the Silent Disco Tent, where people can dance to wireless music beamed into their headphones. A former professional rugby player whose father was a promoter as well, the twentysomething Foran started his promotional company, Frisky, in 2010, with the goal of putting together “mind-blowing events.” The University of Sydney graduate recently discussed the genesis of Catalpa with us as the festival grew near.
twi-ny: What was the selection process like to come up with the roster of musical and visual artists participating in the festival?
Dave Foran: I didn’t want to pigeon-hole Catalpa in its first year and really wanted to create a diverse and slightly eclectic assortment of artists that I really feel had quite a bit of substance, their own style, and collectively a personality for the festival that I hope will be attractive. I did not set out to create a pop festival at all, but you do need some big names to get everyone interested. The Black Keys were my first-choice band for Catalpa. I really think they are amazing, and their recent explosion has been built on a solid foundation of developing a following year on year from creating incredible blues-rock; to me that is the epitome of what I would like Catalpa to represent.
Dave Foran started Frisky in 2010 with the goal of throwing “mind-blowing events”
twi-ny: How did the decision to hold it on Randall’s Island come about?
Dave Foran: There really are not that many large green-field sites in NYC that can hold a suitable capacity and which are tried and trusted. In my view it really is the best of the bunch. Governors Island is landlocked and a logistical nightmare. Liberty State Park is in Jersey and that has its own problems with getting people over there from Manhattan and Brooklyn; people don’t like going across that water too much!!! Liberty State Park is also an old landfill with terrible drainage, and I think that is where a lot of problems with All Points West came from, as they were very unlucky with the weather.
twi-ny: What is the most difficult part of putting together a festival like Catalpa in New York City?
Dave Foran: The hardest things I have found so far is trying to make noise about a new event like this in a place so busy and difficult to get heard like NYC. You either need to be very clever about it or be willing to shovel over huge amounts of cash to get your brand out there. Also, booking a first-year festival as a relatively minor event producer from Ireland is not easy at all. I am not Live Nation or AEG, and a lot of talking was necessary to get some of the big artists I wanted.
twi-ny: Over the years, New York City has seen a slew of outdoor festivals come and go. What do you think the key is to make Catalpa work where others have failed?
Dave Foran: I am aiming for Catalpa to have a much more eclectic, left-field, and experience-based slant to it than other regular bar and stage events. I really believe that what keeps people remembering a good festival is not just the live acts they saw but also the subsidiary experiences they had. I am trying to bring this heightened dimension to Catalpa through elements such as Frisky’s Church of Sham Marriages, where a pimp pastor will marry couples, groups, threesomes, whatever, in an outrageous ceremony. There are also things like the Silent Disco and the High Times Reggae Stage, surrounded by hammocks where famous HT writers will be giving speeches on related topics. There are a lot of art installations, various site artistry, the world’s smallest nightclub (you need to see this!) etc. In my view it is these elements which also give a festival a life of its own and ultimately lead to its longevity.