this week in music

THE TWEES RESIDENCY AT ARLENE’S GROCERY

Arlene’s Grocery
95 Stanton St. between Orchard & Ludlow Sts.
Thursday, August 4, 11, 25, $8, 9:00
212-358-1663
www.arlenesgrocery.net
www.myspace.com/thetwees

We’re sick of twee bands. We’re liable to go all John Belushi over the next whiny-ass group that offers their love another cherry. So it’s a good thing for us — and them —that the Twees are anything but. Instead, the New York City four-piece plays guitar-and-drum-drenched decidedly nonwimpy garage rock that evokes early Strokes and Velvet Underground-era Lou Reed. On their latest EP, the five-track These Girls, guitarist Jon Zuckerman, drummer Daniel Edwards, singer-bassist David Kaplan, and vocalist-guitarist Jason Abrishami focus on relationships gone wrong, but they’re not crying in their beer. “You got it all twisted up / I try to let it go, but you, you don’t give up / Can you take one more hint / That I’m through with you / And you, you’re stuck with him,” Abrishami sings on “Give It Up.” On “On the Spot” he adds, “Oh you know that I don’t care / This city is a playing field / I don’t think I can / Descend to this anymore.” And on the pure pop gem “Wishful Thinking Youth,” he really lets loose: “She said I don’t see what you see in me / Sure, we’re young, but we don’t have dignity / You got what I want, but not what I need . . . anymore!” The Twees, who were voted by the fans to play last month’s Vans Warped Tour at the doomed Nassau Coliseum, will bring their high-energy postpunk attitude and sound to Arlene’s Grocery for a three-show Thursday-night 9:00 residency that begins August 4 with Gaz Ellis (7:00), Breaking Laces (8:00), Atomic Square (10:00), Crush of Empires (11:00), and the Barettas (12 midnight) and continues August 11 with Lindsay Bloom (7:00), the Dalliance (8:00), Dirty Pollyanna (10:00), Crush of Empires (11:00), and Hearts and Parts (12 midnight) and August 25 with Sheng Sway (10:00) and, once again, Crush of Empires (11:00).

SHERLOCK’S DAUGHTER RESIDENCY AT PIANO’S

Piano’s
158 Ludlow St.
Wednesday, August 3, 10, 17, 24, $8, 10:00 or 11:00
212-505-3733
wwwww.myspace.com/sherlocksdaughter
www.pianosnyc.com

We’ve been waiting nearly two years for Sherlock’s Daughter’s full-length debut, and it appears that we’re finally in luck. The Brooklyn-based band, originally from Australia, has put the finishing touches on the still-untitled LP, and they’ll be highlighting the new songs at their Wednesday-night August residency at Piano’s, which gets under way August 3. Featuring New Zealand vocalist Tanya Horo on guitar and keyboards, Will Russell on drums, Graeme Pillemer on bass, and Timothy Maybury on drums, Sherlock’s Daughter specializes in ethereal, haunting songs that wind their way through your body and mind as they twist and turn around the central melody, then veer off into the stratosphere. Their self-titled debut EP blew us away with such fine musical forays as “Sons and Daughters,” “Kids,” and “In the End,” which concludes with an intoxicating rainstorm. The new album was produced by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, the Kills) in Hoboken and Williamsburg, and if three of the early tracks, the epic “Reprise,” the slowly building “Out in the Cold” (which ends in a barrage of noise), and the sweet “Giordano Bruno,” with Horo on xylophone, are any indication of the rest of the album, we should be in for quite a treat. Sherlock’s Daughter will be playing Piano’s on August 3 at 10:00 with Lavalier (8:00) and Exitmusic (9:00), August 10 at 11:00 with Marra Barr (8:00), Rarechild (9:00), and Chllngr (10:00), August 17 at 10:00 with White Life (8:00), Ravens and Chimes (9:00), and Fan-Tan (11:00), and August 24 at 10:00 with Our Mountain (8:00), My Best Fiend (9:00), and Zaza (11:00).

ANNI ROSSI

Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2
196 Allen St. between Houston & Stanton Sts.
Wednesday, August 3, 9:00
212-477-4155
www.myspace.com/annirossi
www.rockwoodmusichall.com

Classically trained violist Anni Rossi, who has moved from Minnesota to Chicago to East Wiliamsburg on her musical and geographical journey, goes less experimental on her new album, Heavy Meadow (3 Syllables, August 9, 2011). The follow-up to 2009’s Steve Albini-produced Rockwell, the disc consists of eleven playful, subtle synth-based electropop tunes with creative lyrics that range from the personal to the abstract, recorded with composer-drummer Devin Maxwell. “You’re my greatest fantasy / Won’t you take me for ice cream / Instead you ate alone / You got a smudge on your mouth,” Rossi sings on the opening track, continuing, “Play it cool / Play it cool / Down in Candyland / No one is a fool / Love’s the only rule.” Guitars begin and end “Texan Plains,” with multiple melody shifts in the middle; “Why are you leaving home? / I hope it’s not for me,” she argues. The new album also features such potentially damaging, violent songs as “Crushing Limbs,” “Hatchet,” “Sandstorm,” “Switchblade,” and “The Fight” before ending with the only somewhat more comforting “The Safety of Objects.” Over the course of her career, which has also included the EPs Scandia, My Grandmother Was a Church Organist, and Afton, Rossi has covered such songs as Radiohead’s “Creep,” Otis Redding’s “These Arms of Mine,” the Cure’s “In Between Days,” and Aaliyah’s “Are U That Somebody?” while recently citing Beyonce, Jay Z, Elastica, and Depeche Mode as influences, so you never know quite what to expect from the new Brooklynite, who recently peed in a plastic bag filled with birdseed. (Check her blog if you need to know the full story.) Rossi will be playing Stage Two at Rockwood Music Hall on Wednesday night at 9:00, preceded by Todd Alsup (7:00) and Peter Bradley Adams (8:00) and followed by Ravens and Chimes (10:00) and Xylopholks (11:00).

RIVERFLICKS FOR GROWN-UPS: THE FIGHTER

Brothers Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) go through good times and bad in THE FIGHTER

THE FIGHTER (David O. Russell, 2010)
Pier 63 Lawn, Hudson River Park
Cross at West 22nd or 24th St.
Wednesday, August 3, free, 8:30
www.hudsonriverpark.org
www.thefightermovie.com

A lot of professional fighters face adversity in and out of the ring, but “Irish” Micky Ward took it to a whole new level on his quest to be welterweight champion of the world, as documented in the winning motion picture The Fighter. Ward (Mark Wahlberg) surrounded himself with his family, with his mother, Allice Eklund (Melissa Leo), as his manager, his half-brother, the Pride of Lowell (for once knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard), Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), as his trainer, and his many big-haired sisters, including Tar (Erica McDermott), Little Alice (Melissa McMeekin), Pork (Bianca Hunter), Red Dog (Dendrie Taylor), and Beaver (Kate O’Brien), part of the team as well. Despite getting pummeled over and over again and continually finding his brother at a condemned crack house, Micky stands by the family until Dicky is back in prison and Micky finally decides to go with a new promoter. As his stock begins to rise again, he is deeply affected by his separation from his family, who are blaming the parting on his new girlfriend, local bartender Charlene (Amy Adams). Based on the true story of the Ward/Eklund clan of Lowell, Massachusetts, The Fighter is a poignant tale of fighting and family, of love and responsibility. Bale, who won an Oscar for his performance, is a whirlwind as the effusive, drug-addicted Dicky, who dreams of helping his brother get a title shot even as he misses training sessions because of his dependence on crack. Leo, who nearly steals the show (and also took home an Academy Award), is virtually unrecognizable as Alice, who can’t understand why Micky would go with a new crew and has quite a few battles of her own with Charlene. And Walhlberg, who trained for several years to get himself in shape for the film, is strong and solid as the conflicted yet determined potential boxing champion. Director David O. Russell (Three Kings) gives The Fighter a realistic feel, at times echoing the documentary that HBO is making about Dicky in the movie, and even hiring Ward’s trainer, Mickey O’Keefe, to play himself. In fact, much of the cast got to meet their real-life counterparts, all of whom loved how they were portrayed onscreen, which is actually quite funny once you see how some of them come off. You don’t have to love boxing to love The Fighter, although fans of the sweet science will be impressed by the carefully choreographed fight scenes, complete with the original HBO commentary (and shot by some of the same cameramen). The Fighter is screening August 3 in Hudson River Park as part of the free Wednesday night RiverFlicks for Grown-ups series, with free popcorn; the schedule, which features 2010’s blockbuster hits, concludes with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on August 10 and The Town on August 17. For a complete list of free outdoor summer films throughout the city, click here.

TENEMENTS RESIDENCY AT FONTANA’S

Tenements will move into Fontana's for a three-week Wednesday-night August residency

Fontana’s
105 Eldridge St. between Grand & Broome Sts.
Wednesday, August 3, 10, 17, $5, 9:00
212-334-6740
www.fontanasnyc.com
www.tenementsmusic.com

In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, immigrants flooded into New York City, many of them moving into the newly built tenements of the Lower East Side. So it is only appropriate that the Brooklyn-based musical quartet known as Tenements, consisting of no native New Yorkers, will be playing a residency this month at Fontana’s on Eldridge St., celebrating the release of its debut album, Greenling. Led by Ohio native and onetime Texan Jeremy Gordon on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Peru-born Alejandro Haaker on bass, Michigan native Steven Welbourne on lead guitar and keys, and German-born Isaac Schmidt on drums, Tenements plays harmonic-based indie pop that features lilting rhythms and robust choruses, rooted in Americana but angling into alternative psychedelic prog rock on such tracks as “Hard Heartbeat,” “Rats of the Ninth Ward,” and “Saints.” The album closes with the monster title track, which we wished went on for at least another ten minutes. Gordon’s abstruse lyrics deal with war and the future, family and a search for home, calling for action. “Give all / Give all for your cause / Give all,” he sings in “Ones and Zeros,” “it all costs something now.” In “Saints” he concludes, “Oh, sleep now, safely / Oh, sleep now, soundly / And rise, rise now.” In the anthemic “The World Is Alright” he proclaims, “We will wait for you here in the wide-eyed city’s summers”; indeed, Tenements will be waiting for you in the wide-eyed city’s summers, playing a three-week Wednesday-night August residency at Fontana’s beginning August 3 with Ella Joyce Buckley and Asphalt Green, followed by a Gypsy-acoustic set August 10 with Woodpecker, and finishing up August 17 with Two States and Kalli.

TICKET GIVEAWAY — ROOFTOP FILMS: DANGEROUS DOCS AND WHISKER WARS

SATAN SINCE 2003 is on the bill at Rooftop Films' night of dangerous documentaries

Crown Vic backyard
60 South Second St. at Wythe Ave.
Thursday, August 4, $10, 8:00
www.rooftopfilms.com

All summer long, Rooftop Films presents unusual, genre-bending independent shorts and features in wickedly cool outdoor locations, turning each event into a party. On Thursday, August 4, in the Crown Vic backyard in Williamsburg, they are hosting one of their craziest, “Dangerous Docs and Whisker Wars,” consisting of a half dozen documentaries that examine some pretty strange, offbeat characters, including former women’s professional wrestling champion Irma Gonzalez (Charles Fairbanks’s Irma), a group of dudes competing in the National Beard and Mustache Championship (Thom Beers’s Whisker Wars), the Hell’s Satans of Richmond, Virginia (Carlos Puga’s Satan Since 2003), the Guess Who’s Burton Cummings (Matthew Rankin’s Negativipeg), Polish mountain climber Piotr “Mad” Korczak (Marcin Koszałka’s Declaration of Immortality), and, well, the title says it all: the Zellner Bros.’ Sasquatch Birth Journal 2. The evening begins with live music from bicoastal acoustic folk rocker Elle King at 8:30 and is followed by an after-party at the Crown Vic.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: This Week in New York has three pairs of tickets to to give away for free for what should be a wild and crazy night. To be eligible to win, just send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, August 3, at 12 noon. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

SUMMERSTAGE BENEFIT: LYKKE LI

Lykke Li will light up the night at Central Park SummerStage benefit on August 1 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Rumsey Playfield, Central Park
Monday, August 1, $30-$35, 6:30
212-360-2777
www.summerstage.org
www.myspace.com/lykkeli

We caught Swedish sensation Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson lighting up Webster Hall back in May, returning to New York City to celebrate the release of her long-awaited second album, Wounded Rhymes. An intoxicating blend of Stevie Nicks and Sinead O’Connor, the twenty-five-year-old Li and her band were all dressed in black, Li in a shawl covering a bodysuit, her hair tightly pulled back like one of Robert Palmer’s backup singers. On a stage with long black strips of filmy cloth hanging from the ceiling, smoke machines pouring out cloudy mists, and lights continually flashing, Li put on a dazzling seventy-five-minute set that included songs from Rhymes, 2008’s Youth Novels, and such singles as “Possibility,” from the New Moon soundtrack, music steeped in synthesizers and percussion. She played autoharp on the lovely “I Know Places” and added her own percussion to “Rich Kid Blues.” Although far from a melancholic evening, many of her songs deal with loneliness and heartbreak; “Sadness is a blessing / Sadness is a pearl / Sadness is my boyfriend / Oh, sadness, I’m your girl,” she opines on “Sadness Is a Blessing,” and in “Unrequited Love” she wails, “Oh my love, I’ve been denied it / Oh my love is unrequited.” But long before she tore into the set-closing “Get Some,” from the new record, she had the crowd wrapped around her finger like a lonely lover’s charm. Li is back in town on Monday night, August 1, playing a sold-out benefit show at SummerStage, with Montreal trio Timbre Timbre, touring behind its latest release, Creep on Creepin’ On.