this week in music

GOD BLESS YOU, MR. VONNEGUT

The life and career of Kurt Vonnegut will be celebrated at Housing Works on April 11

A CELEBRATION OF KURT VONNEGUT’S LIFE AND WORK
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby St.
Wednesday, April 11, 7:00
212-334-3324
www.housingworks.org

On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of eighty-four. The life and career of the WWII veteran — who surprisingly never won the Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer for such literary masterpieces as Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five,, and The Sirens of Titan — will be celebrated at a Housing Works gathering on April 11, the fifth anniversary of his passing. The evening will be hosted by Brendan Jay Sullivan, who is at work on a manuscript about a kid who’s studying Vonnegut’s “Eight Rules of Creative Writing” from Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. The evening will feature readings by Joe Garden, David Goodwillie, Dave Hill, Cat Marnell, and others, along with Bushwick Book Club songs based on Vonnegut books. In addition, there will be a silent auction including a watercolor donated by Kurt’s son Mark.

FIRST SATURDAYS: PARTY OF LIFE

Keith Haring, “Untitled,” Sumi ink on Bristol board, 1980 (© Keith Haring Foundation)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Pennsylvania-born Keith Haring was one of the most influential street artists and activists of his generation. Known for his drawings and sculpture of cartoony characters, Haring redefined public art in New York City, where he moved when he was nineteen in 1978. In conjunction with the recent opening of its exhibit “Keith Haring: 1978-1982,” the Brooklyn Museum is dedicating its free April First Saturday programming to the life and career of Haring, who died in 1990 of AIDS-related complications. There will be guided tours of the exhibition, a break-dance performance by Floor Royalty Crew, workshops where visitors can make Haring-inspired buttons and Pop art prints, an artist talk by photographer Christopher Makos, who documented the street art scene in the 1970s and ’80s, a talk by Will Hermes about his new book, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever, and a dance party hosted by legendary DJ Junior Vasquez. In addition, there will be concerts by the Library Is on Fire and Comandante Zero (with live video) and a screening of Jacob Krupnick’s Girl Walk // All Day (followed by a Q&A with the director and some of the dancers in the film). As always, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out the Keith Haring exhibit as well as “Playing House,” “Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin,” “Raw/Cooked: Shura Chernozatonskaya,” “Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919,” “Question Bridge: Black Males,” and “19th-Century Modern.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY — LOST LANDER: “COLD FEET”

Professional forester Matt Sheehy, who was born and raised in Alaska and is now based in Portland, Oregon, infuses the debut album of his new group, Lost Lander, with elements of nature, animals, and the environment as the band takes off on shimmering layers of ethereal pop. DRRT (Glad I Did, January 2012) features such well-constructed songs as “Gossamer,” “Belly of the Bird / Valentina,” “The Sailor,” and “Your Name Is a Fire,” but it’s “Afraid of Summer” that’s most likely to keep swirling around in your head. The record was produced by former Menomena member Brent Knopf, who played with Sheehy in Ramona Falls. Named by Sheehy’s mother after a lake she used to vacation at in Wisconsin when she was young, Lost Lander — consisting of guitarist Sheehy, keyboardist Sarah Fennell, bassist Dave Lowensohn, and drummer Patrick Hughes — will be at Mercury Lounge on April 6 with Walk off the Earth and at Cameo Gallery on April 7 with Tan Vampire and Paper Twin.

VIDEO OF THE DAY — KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS: “I’M SO SORRY”

No mere backward trip in time, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis play good old-time music firmly rooted in the present. Hailing from Kentish Town in northwest London, the siblings started out entertaining friends and families when they were kids before playing in public and releasing their eponymous debut album in 2008, featuring their unique take on rockabilly, jazz, western swing, jump ‘n’ jive, boogie woogie, pop, and other musical traditions. The trio’s follow-up disc, Smoking in Heaven (Verve Forecast, October 2011), is another old-fashioned delight, filled with such crowd pleasers as “Don’t Make a Fool Out of Me,” “Paan Man Boogie,” “I’m So Sorry,” and “Will I Ever.” Kitty, Daisy and Lewis Durham, who continually exchange instruments, ranging from guitar, bass, and drums to keyboards, banjo, accordion, harmonica, ukulele, xylophone, and horns, will be joined by Ingrid Weiss on upright bass, Daddy Grazz on acoustic guitar, and Eddie “Tan Tan” Thornton on trumpet for their April 3 show at Mercury Lounge, with World Blanket opening up.

NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS

NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS documents the craziness that is the Vans Warped Tour

NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS (Parris Patton, 2012)
Available April 2 on iTunes, May 15 on VOD and DVD
Vans Warped Tour: Nassau Coliseum, July 21, $37.50
noroomforrockstars.com
vanswarpedtour.com

Started by Kevin Lyman in 1994, the Warped Tour is an annual showcase of up-and-coming bands, longtime punks, extreme sports, and lots of sponsorship. Over the years, the summer festival has featured such bands as Sublime, Bad Religion, Less than Jake, Pennywise, Rancid, NOFX, No Doubt, Blink-182, Flogging Molly, Sum 41, Gogol Bordello, and many others. For the 2010 edition, which numbered 600,000 fans, 200 bands, 52 days, and 43 cities, filmmaker Parris Patton brought along a skeleton crew to document the event, ultimately focusing on four men — one-man band Mike Posner, Christofer Drew of Never Shout Never, Mitch Lucker of Suicide Silence, who were all officially part of the 2010 Vans Warped Tour, and Joe Candelaria of Forever Came Calling, a threesome that followed the tour in their van, selling CDs on the line to pay their way while hoping to score a spot at one of the shows. Patton (Creature, Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who) weaves his way in and out of the maelstrom, taking his cameras into the mosh pit, going backstage, and hanging out with the bands on their tour buses. He gets up close and personal with band members’ families, from kid sisters and wives to parents and babies, revealing multiple sides of life on the road. While Posner, Lucker, and Candelaria attempt to make the most of the tour, Drew starts questioning whether signing on was such a good idea. Produced by Stacy Peralta and Agi Orsi, who previously teamed up on the cult hits Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants, No Room for Rockstars is a thoroughly entertaining inside look at rock-and-roll hopes and dreams that puts the audience front and center — and perhaps best of all, it doesn’t matter whether you love or hate the music it portrays in order to fall for the film’s many charms. The ninety-seven-minute film will be available on iTunes on April 2 and on VOD and DVD on May 15; in addition, you can see the real thing itself this summer, as tickets are now on sale for the 2012 edition of the Vans Warped Tour, which pulls into Nassau Coliseum on July 21 with such bands as Bayside, Every Time I Die, New Found Glory, Polar Bear Club, Rise Against, the Darlings, the Used, and Yellowcard.

GERTRUDE’S PARIS FESTIVAL

Symphony Space will celebrate American ex-pat Gertrude Stein and Paris with springtime festival

Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
April 1 – May 5, free – $95
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown,” Gertrude Stein famously said about the City of Lights. Symphony Space is celebrating the Lost Generation writer’s longtime love affair with the romantic French city with five weeks of special programming, including film screenings, jazz concerts, literary discussions, wine tastings, and dancing. Held in conjunction with the Met’s current exhibit “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde” (running through June 3), “Gertrude’s Paris” begins on April 1 with Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris, a free reception for the “My Paris!” and “La Revue Nègre” photo exhibitions, a free jazz cabaret with the Nick Finzer Trio, and Perry Miller Adato’s documentary Paris: The Luminous Years. The festival continues with such events as “Wearing the Lost Generation: A Musical/Sartorial Salon” on April 5, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso on April 8, “Great Taste! Red Wines of France” on April 10, “Tin Hat Takes on E. E. Cummings” on April 13, Arne Glimcher’s Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies on April 22, “Josephine Baker/Archival Footage” on April 29, and the free, all-day “Wall to Wall: Gertrude’s Paris” party on May 5. The series also offers a great chance to catch up on the work of Jean Renoir, with Sunday screenings of Beauty and the Beast (April 8), Boudu Saved from Drowning (April 15), and The Rules of the Game (April 22).

SONG OF THE DAY — DEBBIE MILLER: “INCH BY INCH”

Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2
196 Allen St. between Houston & Stanton Sts.
Saturday, March 31, free, 7:00
212-477-4155
thedebbiemiller.com
www.rockwoodmusichall.com

“Please inhale these minutes / And hold it in, swish it around / To savor the love / That we found,” Debbie Miller sings on the touching “Inch by Inch,” the single from her brand-new EP, Measures + Waits. “Once upon a time I / Breathed warm rivulets down your spine / All I have left are / Patterns on cheekbones once buried in your chest,” she continues. The utterly delightful singer-songwriter, a native New Yorker who now lives in Seattle, mixes elements of classical, folk, jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and pop with an endearing honesty and a delightful sense of humor into her personal, intimate songs. The follow-up to her 2010 debut album, Fake Love, the EP contains five studio tracks and a live version of “Snippets from a Bathroom Stall,” which is composed of actual graffiti taken from bathroom stalls: “Love one another / Drink lots of holy water / Isaac Newton practiced alchemy . . . on your mother,” Miller sings. On the playful “What She’s Got,” Miller compares herself to a romantic rival, asking, “What’s she got that I don’t got / Except bigger boobs / A few inches to my height / And nothing to lose lose lose loo-loo-lose.” Miller, who plays piano and guitar and recently charmed audiences with the new song “Queen of Hearts” written for a Bushwick Book Club event in Seattle dedicated to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, will be at Rockwood Music Hall on March 31 celebrating the release of Measures + Waits.