this week in music

THE WHATEVER BLOG SEPTEMBER PARTY: AMY’S B-DAY BASH

The Rock Shop
249 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn
Friday, September 9, $10, 7:00
www.therockshopny.com
http://wwwwhatever-amy.blogspot.com

One of our favorite music bloggers, Amy Grimm, who runs the Whatever…. site, hosts monthly concerts at Brooklyn venues featuring up-and-coming local bands as well as hot indie groups from around the country. Her September show at the Rock Shop should be extra special, since it’s also her official birthday bash. To help her celebrate, she’s got five Brooklyn bands, followed by a very hot Chicago duo. First up is Backwords (7:30), who just a few weeks ago wrote and recorded a special Hurricane Irene EP as the storm made its way to New York. After that comes the progressive Afro-Cuban stylings of Afuche (8:15), touring behind their most recent release, Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match. There’s no telling what might happen when Rachel Mason leads her intergalactic experimental Little Band of Sailors to the stage (9:00). The difficult job of following them goes to Sleepwalk (9:45) and twi-ny fave Shark? (10:15), who can wish Amy a musical happy birthday by stringing together such songs as “Hey Girl” “Hip Hip Hooray” “Let’s Roll” from their True Waste album, which they made with legendary bassist Tony Maimone. Closing out the night is redheaded Chicago brother-sister garage rockers White Mystery (11:00), consisting of Miss Alex White and Francis Scott Key White and some very fine coiffure. Happy birthday, Amy!

FASHION’S NIGHT OUT: A GLOBAL CELEBRATION OF FASHION

Joss Stone will be performing live as part of the Fashion’s Night Out celebration at Macy’s

Macy’s Herald Square
151 West 34th St. at Broadway
Thursday, September 8, free, 5:00 – 9:00
www.macys.com/fno

During Fashion Week, Macy’s might not be quite the posh place you had in mind, but the Herald Square flagship store is celebrating Fashion’s Night Out in a big way. Among the fashionistas who will be making appearances (and signing and selling their various wares) are Tommy Hilfiger, Rachel Roy, Derek Warburton, and Bobbi Brown, joined by such celebrities as singer Kelly Rowland, Pretty Little Liars’ Shay Mitchell, America’s Next Top Model’s Miss J Alexander, New York Knick Amar’e Stoudemire, and supermodels Karolina Kurkova and Coco Rocha. The evening will also feature live performances by the cast of Chicago, DJ Samantha Ronson, and Joss Stone. Forty percent of all proceeds from the sale of items from the FNO Collection will benefit the New York City AIDS Fund. There will also be FNO events at the Queens Center Macy’s and on Staten Island as well as in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and other cities.

WYE OAK: HOLY HOLY

Take a ride with Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack through Coney Island in Wye Oak’s latest video, “Holy Holy,” from their excellent album Civilian (Merge, March 2011). Directed by Jeremy Johnstone and shot by Andrés Cardona, the video makes stops on the Cyclone and the Brooklyn Flyer, among other rides, before going for a dip in the Atlantic. The Baltimore-based band is in Philly and Boston this week and will make their way to Rochester on September 24 with Okkervil River and Albany on October 5. Wye Oak has no current NYC gigs scheduled, so the closest you can come is watching the duo having fun on the Coney Island boardwalk until they return.

GREASE SING-A-LONG

Clearview Cinemas Chelsea
260 West 23rd St. at Eighth Ave.
Thursday, September 8, $7.50, 7:00 & 9:30
212-691-5519
www.clearviewcinemas.com
www.greasemovie.com

Each of us at one time or another has suddenly found ourselves belting out a song from Grease for no apparent reason. Well, you can do that and more at Thursday night’s Grease Sing-a-long at Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, where fans will be showing up in costume to join in on such unforgettable classics as “Summer Nights,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Greased Lightning,” and “You’re the One That I Want.” Based on the 1971 Broadway musical, Grease stars John Travolta as tough-guy Danny Zuko, who falls for the prim and proper Sandy Olsson, played by Australian superstar Olivia Newton-John. The cast also includes the late Jeff Conaway as Kenickie, Stockard Channing as Rizzo, Didi Conn as Frenchy, Dinah Manoff as Marty Maraschino, Kelly Ward as Putzie, Michael Tucci as Sonny, and Barry Pearl as, yes, Doody. Director Randal Kleiser also throws in some great cameos by such legendary 1950s icons as Eve Arden, Frankie Avalon, Sid Caesar, Dody Goodman, Joan Blondell, and Edd “Cookie” Byrnes, with Sha-Na-Na as prom band Johnny Casino and the Gamblers. Believe it or not, the film is not quite as white bread as you might think, with plenty of clever and dirty double entendres. It’s been said that you can learn a lot about yourself based on which character you choose to dress up as for the costume contest; we wouldn’t dream of telling you who we’re going as.

LIVE AT BARNES & NOBLE: MOBY

Harlem native Moby will be at the Union Square B&N for a talk, signing, and acoustic performance on September 7

Union Square B&N
33 East 17th St.
Wednesday, September 7, free, 7:00
212-253-0810
www.moby.com
www.barnesandnoble.com

Born on September 11, 1965, in Harlem, Richard Hall, better known as Moby, has been making cutting-edge electronic music since the early 1980s. He is currently on the road supporting his latest project, Destroyed, a CD (Mute, May 2011) and photography book (Damiani, May 2011) that takes a long, hard look at the loneliness of life on the road. Moby, who played this weekend at the Electric Zoo Festival on Randall’s Island, will be at the Union Square B&N on September 7 at 7:00 for a talk with Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning director Lucy Walker, a signing, and a live acoustic performance; please note that he will only sign copies of Destroyed, nothing else, and people who purchase the book and/or CD will be given priority seating.

WEST INDIAN AMERICAN DAY CARNIVAL

Colorful costumes, booty-shaking music, and stomach-tempting food make the West Indian American Day Carnival one of the best parades of the year (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eastern Pkwy. from Rochester Ave. to Grand Army Plaza
Monday, September 5, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-467-1797
www.wiadca.com
2010 parade

Every Labor Day, millions of people line Eastern Parkway, celebrating the city’s best annual parade, the West Indian American Day Carnival, waving flags from such nations as Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Aruba, Curaçao, and many more. The festivities begin at 2:00 am with the traditional J’Ouvert Morning, a precarnival procession featuring steel drums and percussion and fabulous, inexpensive masquerade costumes, marching from Grand Army Plaza to Flatbush Ave. and on to Empire Blvd., then to Nostrand Ave. and Linden Blvd. The Parade of Bands begins around 11:00 am, as truckloads of blasting Caribbean music and groups of ornately dressed dancers, costume bands, masqueraders, moko jumbies, and thousands of others bump and grind their way down Eastern Parkway to Grand Army Plaza. Don’t eat before you go; the great homemade food includes ackee and codfish, oxtail stew, breadfruit, macaroni pie, curried goat, jerk chicken, fishcakes, rice and peas, and red velvet cake. The farther east you venture, the more closed in it gets; by the time you get near Crown Heights, it could take you half an hour just to cross the street, so take it easy and settle in for a fun, colorful day where you need not hurry.

BRAZILIAN DAY IN NEW YORK

It should get mighty crowded for this weekend’s Brazilian Day festival in Midtown

46th St. between Sixth & Madison Aves.
Saturday, September 3, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
917-528-8151
www.brazilianday.com

The twenty-seventh annual Brazilian Day festivities takes place this weekend along 46th St. between Madison & Sixth Aves, one of the city’s best summer parties. The celebration of Brazilian independence begins on Saturday morning at 11:00 with Lavagem da rua 46, or the Cleansing of 46th St., with a parade and festival in Little Brazil with Netinho, Del Feliz, Showdi, and Orquestra Popular Da Bomba do Hemetério. But that’s just the appetizer for Sunday, when two stages, one at 43rd & Sixth, the other on 46th between Fifth & Madison, will be home to performances by Luan Santana, Exaltasamba, Batala Band, D-Snow, Hierofante Cia de Teatro, Formando Abara e o Grupo Capoeira Brasil NY, Gilbert Jr., Sonia Azul, Banda Tom de Deus, DJs, and many others, hosted by Serginho Groisman. Great traditional Brazilian cuisine, vendors, and arts and crafts booths will line the streets, which will fill up quickly — more than a million and a half attendees are expected, so you better not be allergic to rather large crowds.