this week in music

DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL

Sean Boggs’s “Blue Monster” is among the many multimedia projects at this year’s DUMBO Arts Festival

Multiple venues in DUMBO
September 23-25, free
www.dumboartsfestival.com

The fifteenth annual DUMBO Arts Festival begins today, kicking off a weekend of live performances, art exhibitions, site-specific projections and installations, and just about anything else you can think of inside and outside of the thriving neighborhood Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Such locations as St. Ann’s Warehouse, Tobacco Warehouse, Smack Mellon, Superfine, and Brooklyn Bridge Park will host Tajna Tanovic, the Great Small Works Procession, the Jack Grace Band, a panel discussion on immersive surfaces, the White Wave Dance Company, the “Runaway Cape-Cart,” Janet Biggs’s “Wet Exit” multimedia presentation on the East River, “Kafkaesque Hammock,” the “Samsara” scroll, arm wrestling, a Mobile Tea Garden, “The Dumpster Project,” a series of virtual pavilions, Sean Boggs’s “Blue Monster,” the Fisher Ensemble’s Kocho, a steel cage Battle Royal, “Foop,” Carl Skelton and Luke DuBois’s interactive “Sweet Stream Love’s River,” readings by Sapphire and Samantha Thornhill, Bubby’s Pie Social, the newly moved and reopened Jane’s Carousel, and art projects just about everywhere you look, in stores, on street corners, in lobbies, and up in the sky.

WILCO / NICK LOWE

Rumsey Playfield, Central Park
Enter at 72nd St. & Fifth Ave.
Thursday, September 22, and Friday, September 23, $45, 6:00
www.bowerypresents.com

Jeff Tweedy and Wilco opened a two-show stand in Central Park last night with a twenty-five-song set that included eight tracks from their latest album, The Whole Love (dBpm/ANTI, September 27, 2011), kicking things off with the record’s double shot of “Art of Almost” and “I Might” and reaching deep into their extensive, impressive catalog all night long. The great Nick Lowe opens the shows, highlighting songs from his brand-new disc, The Old Magic (Yep Roc, September 13, 2011), a poignant, brutally honest collection of songs that celebrate the influential singer-songwriter’s maturity. It’s the kind of record Buddy Holly might have made if he had reached his early sixties. Lowe, now sixty-two, no longer rocks out to such memorable tunage as “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” “Cruel to Be Kind,” “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n’ Roll),” and “Teacher, Teacher” and instead examines his life in such acoustic-based songs as “Stoplight Roses,” “Sensitive Man,” and “Til’ the Real Thing Comes Along.” Hopefully he won’t have to sing “Shame on the Rain” in the midst of a downpour at tonight’s show, which, surprisingly, still has tickets available.

CELEBRATE MEXICO NOW

Botellita de Jerez will rock out at SOB’s as part of annual celebration of Mexican art and culture

Multiple venues
September 21 – October 1
www.mexiconowfestival.org

The eighth annual Celebrate México Now festival celebrating Mexican culture begins tonight with the free panel discussion “México se escribe con J: A Celebration of Gay Culture in Mexico” at NYU’s King Juan Carlos 1 of Spain Center, with Nayar Rivera, Michael Schuessler, Alejandro Varderi, and Earl Dax talking about “The Famous 41” and other issues of sexual orientation in Mexico, and continues through October 1 with dance, music, theater, art, films, food, and parties. Anthology Film Archives will screen “Gen Mex: Recent Films from México,” the Queens Museum of Art will host the Trajinera Xochitl Project and the multimedia theatrical presentation “Hecho en Mexico: Estreno Nacional,” Mexican electronica band Sweet Electra will play the Church of All Nations, chef Daniel Ovadía will prepare special dishes for the panel demonstration “History and Traditions of Mexican Gastronomy” (yes, the audience will get to sample his food), Botellita de Jerez will rock out at SOB’s, the collective Rey Trueno will perform the multimedia Radio Soap Opera at the Bowery Poetry Club, and the folkloric Pasatono Orchestra will play a free show at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center and a ticketed show at Casa Mezcal.

DEERHOOF

Deerhoof is back in New York City to battle evil at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Tuesday night

Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North Sixth St.
Tuesday, September 20, $17, 8:00
www.myspace.com/deerhoof
www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com

Back in February, we wrote how San Francisco-based Deerhoof had come to the rescue of the stagnant music world with their latest album, Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl, January 2011), on which guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez, drummer Greg Saunier, and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki do what they do best, taking listeners on a journey through a multitude of crazy sounds, hard-to-decipher lyrics, and offbeat, ever-shifting melodies that delight while they confound. Well, they’re shaking things up again, collaborating with such guests as Physical Forms, Xiu, Xiu, WOOM, the Raccooonists, and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and his two sons, inviting them to play over instrumental tracks from the new record and releasing them on 7″ vinyl. In addition, they have reissued two earlier albums, 2004’s exciting Milk Man, featuring such killer tracks as “Giga Dance,” “Milking,” “C,” “Desapareceré,” and the title song, and 2007’s Friend Opportunity, with such songs as “The Perfect Me,” all of which have found their way into recent setlists. Deerhoof will be at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on September 20 with Mick Barr and White Suns.

THE KITCHEN BLOCK PARTY

A Free Neighborhood Street Fair
West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Saturday, September 17, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
212-255-5793
www.thekitchen.org

For forty years, the Kitchen has been presenting cutting-edge multidisciplinary art, theater, and dance. The nonprofit organization will kick off its fall season today with a block party on West 19th St. featuring family-friendly artist-led booths and activities, including face painting, mask making, temporary tattoos, cookie decorating, and more. Among the artists participating in the annual event are Michael Paul Britto + Elia Alba, Miles Bumbray, Nathan Carter, Francisca Chaidez-Gutierrez, Michael DeLucia, Torkwase Dyson, Jonathan Ehrenberg + Bryan Zanisnik, Escape Artist + Saintchic, Brent Green + Donna K, Simone Leigh + Chitra Ganesh, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya + Timothy Hull. There will be live music and dance performances by DJ Laylo and Eli Efi, Pegasus Warning, Olabunmi and the Hamana Djembe Orchestra, and others, while food will be provided by Asiadog, Chelsea Thai, Choncho’s Tacos, Coconut Rob, and Je & Jo. You can also venture inside the venerable institution to see the exhibitions “Joe Winter: The Stars Below” and “Jennie C. Jones: Absorb/Diffuse” and pick up tickets to such upcoming events as Wally Cardona, Jennifer Lacey, and Jonathan Bepler’s Tool Is Loot, Faustin Linyekula/Studios Kabako’s more more more… future, and Anna Sperber’s FOREVERANDADAY.

PEPPER

Hawaiian trio Pepper surfs into town September 17-18

Webster Hall
125 East 11th St. between Second & Third Aves.
Saturday, September 17, $25-$30, 6:00
www.websterhall.com
www.myspace.com/pepperlive

“I wouldn’t cry / It might make a flood / And I don’t know / if I can swim that good,” Kaleo Wassman sings on “Lonely,” a daring admission for a member of a reggae surf punk band from Hawaii. Pepper was formed in Kailua-Kona in 1997 by guitarist Wassman, bassist Bret Bollinger, and drummer Yesod Williams, going the DIY route by endlessly touring and self-releasing such albums as Kona Town (2002), In with the Old (2004), No Shame (2006), and Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations (2008). On the trio’s most recent release, the October 2010 EP Stitches, Pepper wakes up to fool around with a drunk girl only to look in the mirror and feel lonely anyway. (The album consists of the songs “Wake Up,” “Drunk Girl,” two versions of “Mirror,” and “Lonely.”) There should be no loneliness — and potentially plenty of drunk girls and guys — at Webster Hall on Saturday night, September 17, when Pepper, which has sold more than half a million records through its own label, plays on a bill with the Expendables and Ballyhoo! and will follow that up with a gig at the Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale the next night.

RIGHT NOW! (A WeDaPeoples Cabaret)

Nona Hendryx, Nelson George, and Citizen Reno team up for a night of music, comedy, poetry, and social commentary at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Ave. at West 136th St,
Saturday, September 17, $45, 7:30
212-281-9240
www.harlemstage.org

Writer, director, and cultural critic Carl Hancock Rux has brought together three uniquely talented individuals for Right Now!, a WeDaPeoples Cabaret taking place September 17 at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Funk/rock/soul/R&B legend Nona Hendryx, comedian Citizen Reno, and award-winning writer and filmmaker Nelson George will come together to examine social and individual identity in our highly politicized and increasingly fragmented world. Trenton’s Hendryx will feature songs from her brand-new, politically charged Mutadis, Mutandis album (her first full-length record in nearly twenty years), Brooklyn’s George will honor the life and career of poet-activist Gil Scott-Heron (including introducing a short film by Rux about the recently deceased Heron), and New York City native Reno will look at the events of 9/11 and their aftermath as only she can.