this week in music

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS: THE NIGHT

New York duo's concept album will be released in February, but you can download first track now

New York indie duo School of Seven Bells made quite a splash with last year’s Disconnect from Desire, the follow-up to their 2006 debut, Alpinisms, and they’re looking to ring even louder with their next disc, Ghostory (Vagrant Records/Ghostly Inernational, February 28, 2012). A concept album about a young girl and her ghosts, the record includes such tracks as “Love Play,” “Reappear,” “Scavenger,” and “White Wind.” Guitarist-producer Benjamin Curtis and vocalist Alejandra Deheza have just released the album opener, “The Night,” a portent of good things to come. You can download the song for free here; keep watching twi-ny for more information about Ghostory and a School of Seven Bells tour as it becomes available.

GAGA’S HOLIDAY WORKSHOP

Lady Gaga has taken over Barneys New York this holiday season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Barneys New York
660 Madison Ave. at 61st St.
Through January 1, free
212-826-8900
www.barneys.com
www.gagasworkshop.com

Lady Gaga is determined to be part of your holiday season one way or another, whether you want her to be or not, and we can’t say that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Grand Central has just published the deluxe fifty-dollar hardcover Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson, a behind-the-scenes photography book in which the famed lensman follows around the former Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta from August 2010 to February 2011, while Interscope has just released Born This Way — the Remix, with Zedd, Goldfrapp, Foster the People, Metronomy, and others putting their own spin on the songs from the original disc, which has topped the five-million mark in sales. And now the native New Yorker has taken over Barneys with a collection of Gaga Goodies that can be found on the fifth floor of the shopping mecca, in a space designed by her Royal Gaga-ness with Nicola Formichetti and the art collective assume vivid astro focus, featuring special-edition designer cosmetics, toys, jewelry, candy, apparel, and other accessories, with twenty-five percent of all sales going to the Born This Way Foundation, which believes in “empowering youth” and “inspiring bravery.” She has also designed several of Barneys windows, filling them with the futuristic, streamlined Gagamachine, the inviting ice-blue Crystal Cave, and the Victorian-era Gaga’s Boudoir, along with the short musical film “Constellation.” On “You and I” from Born This Way, LG sings, “This time I’m not leaving without you”; this month it will be hard for holiday shoppers to leave without at least a little bit of Gaga.

BLACKMAIL: A LIVE MUSIC & MOVING PICTURES EVENT

BLACKMAIL (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave.
Wednesday, December 7, and Thursday, December 8, $11, 10:15
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Based on the play by Charles Bennett, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 thriller, Blackmail, is both his last silent picture as well as his first sound film. The transition is evident from the very beginning, eight glorious minutes of a police arrest with incidental music only, highlighted by an unforgettable mirror shot (courtesy of cinematographer Jack E. Cox) as the cops close in on their suspect. After those opening moments, the film switches to a talkie, as New Scotland Yard detective Frank Webber (John Longden) gets into a fight with his girlfriend, Alice White (Anny Ondra, later to become the longtime Mrs. Max Scmeling)), who goes off on a secret rendezvous with a slick artist named Crewe (Cyril Ritchard). When things go horribly wrong at Crewe’s studio, Frank assures Alice that he will help her, but slimy ex-con Tracy (Donald Calthrop) has other ideas, thinking he can use some inside information to make a small killing. After shooting the picture with sound — including having Ondra’s dialogue spoken off-screen by Joan Barry because Ondra’s Eastern European accent was too thick — Sir Alfred filmed some scenes over again in silence, resulting in two versions of this splendid psychological thriller, both laced with elements of German Expressionism and early film noir as well as flashes of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Look for Alfred as the man on the subway being menaced by a young boy. The rarely shown silent version of Blackmail is being screened December 7 and 8 at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, with Hayes Greenfield and the Eclectic Electric providing live musical accompaniment.

RODELINDA

You can see today’s performance of RODELINDA either live at the Met or live in HD at a number of local theaters

Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
150 West 66th St.
Saturday, December 3, 12:30
Wednesday, December 7, 7:30
Saturday, December 10, 8:00
Tickets: $30 – $330
www.metoperafamily.org

First presented by the Metropolitan Opera in 2004 and specifically staged for Renée Fleming, Rodelinda, Handel’s Baroque delight about a deposed king, his nefarious usurper, a sister torn between love and betrayal, an innocent young son, and his loyal long-suffering queen, includes the requisite mistaken identity, hair-raising escapes, and stunning arias by characters who really could be doing something else besides stopping to sing for fifteen minutes in the middle of the action. Stephen Wadsworth’s stunning production makes full use of the Met’s stupendous ability to move backdrops and entire stages as characters slowly pace and Thomas Lynch’s scenery moves around them, through an eighteenth-century Italian countryside castle, a rustic courtyard, and a destroyed monument. An especially excellent introduction to the Baroque repertoire, this outstanding version of Rodelinda will be performed at the Met on December 3, 7 and 10 with a cast that also features Stephanie Blythe, Andreas Scholl, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, and Shenyang, conducted by Harry Bicket. If you can’t make it to the Met today, you can catch this afternoon’s 12:30 show live in HD at BAM Rose Cinemas, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the Ziegfeld, and other locations, with encore screenings January 4 at 6:30. Upcoming “The Met: Live in HD” presentations include Gounod’s Faust on December 10, Jeremy Sams’s new The Enchanted Island on January 21, Wagner’s Götterdämmerungon on February 21, and Verdi’s Ernani on February 25.

FIRST SATURDAY: YOUTH AND BEAUTY

Luigi Lucioni, “Paul Cadmus,” oil on canvas, 1928, part of “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties” (Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, December 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Don’t be fooled by the theme of this month’s First Saturday party at the Brooklyn Museum. It might be called “Youth and Beauty,” but you can expect an old-fashioned good time, as it refers to the Eastern Parkway institution’s new exhibit subtitled “Art of the American Twenties,” featuring works by such artists as Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Gaston Lachaise, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz. On tap for the free evening is jazz and blues from Hazmat Modine (5:00 to 7:00), a 1920s costume contest (5:30), a collaboration between spoken-word artists and musicians and tap dancer Lisa La Touche that references the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance (5:30), curator Catherine Morris discussing “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960” (6:00), ballroom dance lessons from Nathan Bugh, including the Charleston and the Lindy Hop (6:00), a painting workshop (6:30 – 8:30), a tour of “Youth and Beauty” with museum guide Emily Sachar (7:00), a dance party hosted by the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra (8:00 – 10:00), Farah Griffin discussing Wallace Thurman’s 1929 book, The Blacker the Berry (9:00), and a bodybuilding showcase hosted by Phil Sottile (9:00). The young and the beautiful can always be found at the Brooklyn Museum on First Saturdays, but this month more than ever.

THE BIG SLEEP

The Big Sleep have emerged from their four-year recording hibernation with new album and local shows (photo by Andy Ryan)

Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston St.
Friday, December 2, $12, 11:00
www.mercuryloungenyc.com
www.thebigsleep.net

Little did we know that when we raved about the Big Sleep’s just-released Sleep Forever CD back in February 2008 that they would take their name and album title so seriously, going into a four-year recording hibernation. At last, Brooklyn-based bassist Sonya Balchandani and guitarist Danny Barria have reemerged, going back to their roots of playing acoustic guitar and keyboards in their living room as they prepare to tour behind their first album in four years, Nature Experiments (Frenchkiss, January 31, 2012). On their website, Balchandani explains, “We took a little break, worked on stuff separately and just lived our lives,” while Barria adds, “It obviously took longer than we thought it would, but I wasn’t feeling rushed or pressured. I just wanted to write good songs.” With GarageBand replacing live drums, Nature Experiments features ten tracks, including “Valentine,” “Ghosts in Bodies,” “Wood on the Water,” and “Meet Your Maker”; you can download the song “Ace” by liking their Facebook page. The Big Sleep played Brooklyn Bowl last week and head into Manhattan on December 2 for an 11:00 gig at Mercury Lounge, preceded by DIVE at 10:00 and followed by Gauntlet Hair at 12 midnight. After we saw them at Celebrate Brooklyn back in the summer of 2007, we wrote, “The trio puts out a loud, thrilling sound, with guitar screeching over deep, darkly disguised melodies. Though primarily playing instrumentals, occasionally Sonya or Danny will sing, but their strength lies in their propulsive power; it’s a shock that it’s only three people making this beautiful noise. Live, Danny turns into a whirling dervish, twisting around and covering his face with his long hair as he tears apart his six-string.” We can’t wait to see what they’ve got going on at Mercury, where they’ll be previewing songs from the new record.

TWI-NY TALK: GRINGO STAR

Gringo Star rocks out at Fontana’s at the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Thursday, December 1, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St., $10-$12, 7:30
Saturday, December 3, Cameo Gallery, 93 North Sixth St., $8, 8:00
www.gringostar.net

On the second song on their sophomore album, Count Yer Lucky Stars (Gigantic Music, October 2011), Atlanta band Gringo Star proclaims, “You want it,” followed on the next tune by “You got it.” Originally known as A Fir-Ju-Well, Pete DeLorenzo and brothers Pete and Nicholas Furgiuele have been delivering great music since 2001. They added Matt McCalvin and became Gringo Star in 2007, and the next year their self-released debut, All Y’all (My Anxious Mouth, November 2008), was making a major impact on the indie music scene. Their 2009 tour of Europe was captured in Justin Malone’s 2011 documentary Hurry Up and Wait, and the band, with Chris Kaufmann replacing McCalvin, are back on the road again, supporting Count Yer Lucky Stars, an infectious collection of such 1950s- and ’60s-infused nuggets as “Shadow,” “Beatnik Angel Georgie,” “Jessica,” and “Light in the Sky,” featuring lilting harmonies, jangling guitars, and classic pop melodies. Gringo Star will be playing Mercury Lounge on December 1 with J. Roddy Walston & the Business and Gunfight and Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg on December 3 with Hammer No More the Fingers and Bird Hand. With their latest tour winding down, Nick took some time to answer some questions about the past, present, and future of the band.

twi-ny: It’s been three years between the initial release of All Y’all and Count Yer Lucky Stars. Why so much time between records?

Gringo Star: The reason we took three years to follow up All Y’all was mostly because we were so busy touring and taking opportunities that our “self-release” of that album created that we didn’t have a chance to get back in the studio. We just kept getting offered tours. We got to go to the UK and Europe eight times during those years, supporting Best Coast, …and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Wavves, Black Lips, as well as doing our own headlining dates. Then this German label, Cargo Records, signed us to put out All Y’all in Europe, so the album’s life got extended another year, and we went back to tour on it again. It was an amazing time, but we were so busy that we didn’t have a chance to stop and record. When we finally got back from that last Best Coast tour, we pretty much immediately went into preproduction with producer Ben Allen again and rehearsing/refining the new stuff.

twi-ny: ForLucky Stars, did you set out to make something consciously different from All Y’all ?

Gringo Star: When we started recording CYLS it wasn’t so much making something consciously different from All Y’all as it was to just create the greatest album ever made.

You can count yer lucky stars if you get to see Gringo Star this week at Mercury Lounge and Cameo Gallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: Well, you’ve certainly made a damn fine record. Early in Hurry Up and Wait, Matt McCalvin says that he hopes that the documentary will open a lot of doors for the band. What kind of impact has the film had on your career?

Gringo Star: We never really had expectations for how the documentary would affect our “career.” The Malone Pictures guys who made it we had never met until a couple weeks before we did the tour, and they saw us play in Dallas and were looking for the next documentary they were gonna do and just decided we were it. They really dug what we were doing and just called us up a few weeks before the tour and asked if we would mind them coming and filming.

twi-ny: What was it like being followed around by a camera night and day, capturing every warts-and-all moment, including a lot of outdoor tooth-brushing?

Gringo Star: It was a really fun time. You know, it’s always kinda weird to see yourself, on camera, talking about a bunch of dumb shit, walking around, like, “Oh . . . I look like THAT, or “I sound like THAT,” but it’s kind of cool to have a sliver of that time recorded. Those were some amazing shows, and we had a blast . . . outdoor teeth-brushing, bench-sleeping, armed robberies, and all. People that have seen the movie usually seem to react to us and our music in an even more positive way, I think, because they had some insight into the band and us as people. We played the premiere at the USA Film Festival [this past April], after they showed the movie to a sold-out theater, and it was crazy how much people were into us. They were so excited by the band and the songs. It was total uproar. Then after it was a little strange when random folks we’ve never met were calling us by first name.

twi-ny: Speaking again of playing, you, Pete, Pete, and Chris are known for your relentless touring and energetic live shows. Does it ever get overwhelming?

Gringo Star: Life can get overwhelming playing two hundred shows a year, not playing any shows a year, driving in traffic, wrecking your car, stuck at some dead-end job, loading and unloading the van, doing homework, studying for tests, or whatever if you let it. We love playing shows and staying busy playing and recording music that we love and try to roll with the punches. . . . Sometimes it does get a little overwhelming, especially in California, when it’s like, “Do I go with the Sour Diesel? Or Grand Daddy Purp? Or the Earwax? OK, I’ll take them all.”

twi-ny: Earlier this year, we asked your fellow Atlanta band Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun what was in the water down there that has led to so many great new bands over the last few years, including Deerhunter, Black Lips, and you, and they thought that it was because the water was laced with PBR. What do you think it might be?

Gringo Star: PBR is the worst. Clearly it’s the grits and cotton fields . . . and the gospel according to Lightnin’ Ray Jackson that all fine southern boys are brought up on.