this week in music

BROOKLYN FOOD TRUCK RALLY

Souvlaki GR will be one of the food trucks meeting up Sunday afternoon in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Grand Army Plaza
Union Street & Eastern Parkway
Sunday, July 17, free, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Third monthly Sundays through October
www.nycfoodtrucks.org
www.prospectpark.org

Thirteen of New York City’s ever-growing fleet of food trucks will meet up on July 17 for the monthly Food Truck Rally in Grand Army Plaza in front of Prospect Park; the roster includes Cupcake Stop, Joyride, Mud Truck, the Red Hook Lobster Pound, Rickshaw Dumpling, Souvlaki GR, Schnitzel&Things, Taim Mobile, Eddie’s Pizza, the Treats Truck, Vanleeuwen Ice Cream, Wafels&Dinges, and Wall St. Burgers, so you can craft your own multicourse feast. In addition, the Wahoos will be on hand to provide live music between 12 noon and 3:00. The Food Truck Rally will be back for more on August 21, September 18, and October 16.

ARMITAGE GONE! DANCE AND SPECIAL MUSICAL GUEST VIJAY IYER

Jazz pianist, composer, and producer Vijay Iyer will be at SummerStage this weekend, teaming up for a specially commissioned work with Armitage Gone! Dance (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Central Park SummerStage
Rumsey Playfield
Saturday, July 16, and Sunday, July 17, free, 8:00
212-360-2777
www.summerstage.org

New York-based choreographer Karole Armitage and her aggressive, physical company, Armitage Gone! Dance, are teaming up with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer to present the world premiere of the SummerStage commission UnEasy on July 16-17. The work will involve the dancers moving around Iyer and his band, which will also include a bassist, drummer, violinist, and cellist. Over the past few years, Armitage has staged such exciting pieces as GAGA-Gaku, Ligeti Essays, and an updated version of her 1981 breakthrough, Drastic-Classicisim, mixing in elements of punk and street dance; the SummerStage program will begin with the Quantum Theory section of her recent Three Theories, which also tackles the Big Bang, the Theory of Relativity, and String Theory. The Rochester-born Iyer is a jazz prodigy who has been playing the piano and violin since he was a young child. The Grammy nominee, who has released such well-titled albums as Memorophilia, Architextures, Panoptic Modes, Historicity, and Tirtha over the course of his fifteen-year career, played Castle Clinton earlier this summer and next month will take part in the Pi Recordings series at the Stone, joined by saxophonist Steve Lehman and drummer Tyshawn Sorey on August 17 and 18 and guitarist Libery Ellman, violinist Matt Maneri, bassist Stephan Crump, and drummer Damion Reid on August 20. The SummerStage evenings will begin with the world premiere of The Melting Pot from Harlem-born Juilliard graduate Darrell Grand Moultrie’s new company, Dance Grand Moultrie, along with the New York City premiere of Regality, performed with the August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble.

THE VILLAGE VOICE 4KNOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Fiery Furnaces’ Eleanor Friedberger, who has temporarily gone solo with her excellent LAST SUMMER disc, will be playing 4Knots on Saturday (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

South Street Seaport, Pier 17
Saturday, July 16, free, 1:00 – 8:00
www.villagevoice.com/4knots

For ten years, the Village Voice sponsored the Siren Festival, a free, all-day celebration in Coney Island that featured a virtual who’s who of the indie music scene, including such emerging and established groups as Superchunk, Guided by Voices, Sleater-Kinney, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, TV on the Radio, M.I.A., and Matt and Kim. As much fun as Siren was, it was held on two stages several blocks apart, so if you wanted to see bands in both places, you had to run back and forth down the boardwalk and lose your coveted space at one stage and hope you’d be able to get a decent spot at the other. There will be no such decision making at the inaugural 4Knots Music Festival, which has replaced Siren as the Voice’s annual summer party, and the venue has moved to the much more manageable South Street Seaport. The lineup consists of three Brooklyn bands, Mr. Dream, Eleanor Friedberger, and Oberhofer, along with San Juan’s Davila 666, New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus, and the headliner, the Austin-based Black Angels. If it gets too hot, you can take a break in the 4Knots Indoor Lounge at 210 Front St., with DJ sets from 2:00 to 12 midnight from Brahms, Punches, Finger on the Pulse, iPhone FJ Bugs Duck (Dan Deacon), and Yeasayer. As with the now-silenced Siren, 4Knots offers a great opportunity to check out a wide range of cool indie bands, and it’s all free.

EPIX MOVIE FREE FOR ALL: THE WARRIORS

The Warriors are ready to come out and play in Tompkins Square Park on July 14

Tompkins Square Park
Tenth St. between Aves. A & B
Thursday, July 14, free, 8:00
www.filmsintompkins.com
www.epixhd.com

At a huge gang meeting in the Bronx (actually shot in Riverside Park), the Warriors are wrongly accused of having killed Cyrus (Roger Hill), an outspoken leader trying to band all the warring factions together to form one huge force that can take over the New York City borough by borough. The Warriors then must make it back to their home turf, Coney Island, with every gang in New York lying in wait for them to pass through their territory. This iconic New York City gang movie is based on Sol Yurick’s novel, which in turn is loosely based on Xenophon’s Anabasis, which told of the ancient Greeks’ retreat from Persia. Michael Beck stars as Swan, who becomes the de-facto leader of the Warriors after Cleon (Dorsey Wright) gets taken down early. Battling Swan for control is Ajax (Sex and the City’s James Remar) and tough-talking Mercy (Too Close for Comfort’s Deborah Van Valkenburgh). Serving as a Greek chorus is Lynne (Law & Order) Thigpen as a radio DJ, and, yes, that young woman out too late in Central Park is eventual Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl. Among the cartoony gangs of New York who try to stop the Warriors are the roller-skating Punks, the pathetic Orphans, the militaristic Gramercy Riffs, the all-girl Lizzies, the ragtag Rogues, and the inimitable Baseball Furies. Another main character is the New York City subway system. The Warriors is screening July 14 in Tompkins Square Park as part of the EPIX Movie Free for All series and will be preceded by live performance from unsigned local band Dog Soldier. In addition, EPIX will be giving away an iPad and four $100 Visa gift certificates at the event.

MUSIC AT CASTLE CLINTON: PATTI SMITH

Patti Smith will be joined by her band for free July 14 show at Castle Clinton (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL
Castle Clinton, Battery Park
Thursday, July 14, free, 7:00
212-835-2789
www.rivertorivernyc.com
www.pattismith.net

It’s been quite a year for Patti Smith. The New York City-based writer, poet, musician, and always captivating ethereal presence won the National Book Award for her moving, revealing memoir, Just Kids, which focused on her relationship with visual artist Robert Mapplethorpe, and in May she won Sweden’s prestigious Polar Music Prize. “By devoting her life to art in all its forms, Patti Smith has demonstrated how much rock ‘n’ roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock ‘n’ roll,” the award committee said in a statement. Over the last year, she’s given a series of intimate performances, including celebrating the fortieth anniversary of her seminal 1971 show at the Poetry Project by returning to the venue with Lenny Kaye and presenting a special program at the Morgan Library in conjunction with the exhibition “William Blake’s World: A New Heaven Is Begun.” She even recently guest-starred on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. But she’ll be returning to her rock-and-roll roots on July 14 as she plays a free show with her band at Castle Clinton in Battery Park; tickets will be given out starting at 5:00 for the 7:00 concert, but you’re going to have to get there early if you want to grab one of the limited, coveted seats. Smith will also be participating in the Escape to New York three-day festival in Southampton on August 5 ($100, with Best Coast, Chairlift, Lissy Trulie, the Postelles, and the Static Jacks), and there are still some tickets left ($40) for “Patti Smith: Artist and Muse,” her December 2 tribute to Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she’ll be performing with her daughter, pianist Jesse Smith. But there’s nothing quite like seeing her with her full band, rocking out to such classic songs as “Gloria,” “Because the Night,” “Frederick,” “Dancing Barefoot,” “Wicked Messenger,” “Waiting Underground,” “Peaceable Kingdom,” and “People Have the Power.”

WHITE HILLS RECORD RELEASE PARTY

Dave W. and White Hills will celebrate release of their latest album at Union Pool on July 14 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Union Pool
484 Union Ave. at Meeker
Thursday, July 14, $8, 9:00
www.myspace.com/whitehills
www.unionpool.blogspot.com

White Hills are hopping mad. Frustrated by corporate control over government, the New York City-based space-rock trio blast away against the status quo on their latest record, the explosive H-p1 (Thrill Jockey, June 2011). Guitarist Dave W., bassist Ego Sensation, and drummer Lee Hinshaw let loose all over the disc, recorded in a two-day flurry in Williamsburg, joined by such special guests as Shazzula Nebula on synthesizers (seven tracks), Antronhy on drums and electronics (two), and Kid Millions on drums (two). Powering through a sea of psychedelic madness using a distortion box instead of a compressor and influenced by the Abstract Expressionists, While Hills surges through the subtly screeching twelve-minute “Paradise,” the hard-driving neo-classic rock of “Upon Arrival,” the ten-minute space-age “No Other Way.” Hard-to-decipher lyrics show up in three of the songs, floating in the background like another instrument. The album is bookended by the propulsive “The Condition of Nothing” and the massive title track, a seventeen-minute opus of rage and fury. “We can barely pay our rent each month but we are willing to pull out our credit cards and go into debt each time a new iPhone promises a better connection. The joke is on us,” explains Ego. “H-p1 is symbolic of the simplification of complex ideas to keep the masses from questioning the system.” A dark, exciting live band that often features Ego and Dave W. in wild costumes and face makeup, White Hills will be celebrating the release of H-p1 on July 14 at Union Pool with Man Forever (with Kid Millions) and Weird Owl. Prepare to be taken away into another galaxy.

SEASIDE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES: JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts will strut her impressive stuff at free Seaside Summer Concert Series in Coney Island on Thursday night

West 21st St. & Surf Ave.
Thursday, July 14, free, 7:30
Series continues Thursday nights through August 18
718-222-0600
www.brooklynconcerts.com
www.joanjett.com

Since she was a teenager in Maryland, Joan Jett has been showing how much she loves rock and roll, turning her Suzi Quatro obsession into a nearly forty-year career that has featured some of pop and punk’s most endearing classics. First with the Runaways and then with the Blackhearts, Jett has powered her way through a memorable collection of originals and covers, from “Cherry Bomb” and “Bad Reputation” to “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” and “Crimson and Clover,” from “Fake Friends” and “Everyday People” to “Little Liar” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” from “Light of Day” and “Love Is Pain” to “Bits and Pieces” and “Change the World.” Live she’s a bundle of furious energy, sweating it up in a bikini top that reveals her taut figure. Although she’s released only one studio album since 1995, the 2006 record Sinner, which included such tracks as “Naked” and “Androgynous” (and several collaborations with riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna), she never feels like a mere retro act, giving it all she’s got night after night. One of the legendary women of rock, Jett will be kicking off Marty Markowitz’s free Seaside Summer Concert Series this Thursday night with Girl in a Coma at 7:30 at West 21st St. & Surf Ave., next to the Brooklyn Cyclones’ MCU Park in Coney Island. The series, which has moved from its previous location in Brighton Beach’s Asser Levy Park because of problems with the local community, continues through August 18 with such groups as the Monkees, the Spinners, and Cheap Trick.