this week in music

JOSHUA LIGHT SHOW: FULLDOME

Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 81st St.
June 3-5, $40, 8:00
212-769-5200
www.amnh.org
www.joshualightshow.com

“It’s random and improvised but not out of control,” Joshua White said following the June 2 rehearsal of his latest Joshua Light Show project, “Fulldome,” being presented this weekend at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. “We know what’s going to happen.” White, a native New Yorker, founded the Joshua Light Show in 1967, integrating light and music at Fillmore East concerts featuring such groups as the Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead. JLS music curator and producer Nick Hallett composed the score for the 360-degree “Fulldome,” with narration and vocals by Scissor Sister Ana Matronic (including a version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”), percussion by Laraaji and Z’EV, and drone, electronic noise, chamber opera, psychedelia, and other musical forays courtesy of Hallett, sound designer Jeff Cook, and Oneida. Ana Matronic also works the liquid light loops, mixing colored liquid onto slides under a microscope that is projected off a mirror and onto the circular ceiling, adding a sort of living element to the visual collage being unfolded. White, Ana Matronic, and fellow artists Alyson Denny, Seth Kirby, Brock Monroe, Doug Pope, Bec Stupak, and Gary Panter use old-fashioned analog techniques in addition to more modern computer technology (“Why? Because we can,” White said) to achieve the mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic, even forensic effects, building like a jazz band at first feeling one another out, then coming together in exciting solos, duets, and other combinations that feed your head and swallow you whole if you let them, which you most definitely should. “Fulldome,” a kind of fantasy that is part Fantastic Voyage, part “Journey to the Center of Your Mind,” taking you through space and deep underwater — as well as anywhere else you are ready to psychically travel — will be presented Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights at 9:00, preceded at 8:00 by an after-hours visit to the excellent interactive exhibition “Brain: The Inside Story.” Also, on June 4 at 6:00, the Joshua Light Show will be part of the World Science Festival program “Illuminating Light: The Journey of a Photon Through Time and Mind,” which will consist of a JLS performance, followed by a discussion with AMNH director of astrovisualization Carter Emmart, neuroscientist Joy Hirsch, and “Brain” curator Rob DeSalle ($15).

CELEBRATE OUR NEW FILM CENTER WITH US!

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
June 10-12, free (some events require advance tickets)
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.com

The Film Society of Lincoln Center is celebrating the opening of its deluxe new multiscreen theater space, the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center across the street from the Walter Reade Theater on West 65th St., with a series of free events next weekend. Among the many special programs are a screening of Oliver Stone’s revised final cut of Alexander Revisited, followed by a Q&A with the controversial director; rare screenings of Jacques Feyder’s 1926 silent film Gribiche and Victor Von Plessen, Friedrich Dalsheim, and Walter Spies’s 1933 Island of Demons; a live performance by Fall on Your Sword; Duke professor Fredric Jameson discussing “The Future of Film”; USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio delivering the lecture “I Am a Studio: Notes on Brain, Self, and Cinema”; and the panel discussion “New Faces of NY Independent Film,” with Antonio Campos, Mike Cahill, Ben and Josh Safdie, and others, moderated by Ted Hope. Paul Schrader will give a Film Class on Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Jason Reitman and Mike Nichols will examine the latter’s Carnal Knowledge, Jez Butterworth will talk about his 1997 film, Mojo, Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser will show works in 3D, Maurice Marable will host Ghetto Film School screenings of The Story and Live, Joseph!, film scholar Sam Ho will introduce Fei Mu’s restored 1940 biopic Confucius, and Kevin Smith will begin his SMoviola series with Martha Coolidge’s charming 1983 comedy Valley Girl, in addition to screenings of George Cukor’s My Fair Lady, Michael Curtiz’s British Agent, Adam Curtis’s It Felt Like a Kiss, and a sneak preview of an upcoming film that was a hit at Sundance. Finally, “NYFF Opening Night Classics Movie Marathon” features such New York Film Festival opening-night selections as Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law, François Truffaut’s Day for Night, the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing, and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran. Although everything is free, some of the events require advance online ticketing beginning today, June 3, so keep your eye on the above website if you want to be able to catch some of these very special programs.

HOWL! FESTIVAL 2011

This weekend’s Howl! Festival pays tribute to what would have been Allen Ginsberg’s eighty-fifth birthday

Tompkins Square Park
Ave. A to Ave. B between Seventh & Tenth Sts.
June 3-5, free
www.howlfestival.com

The somewhat annual Howl! Festival has moved from the end of the summer to the beginning of the season, kicking off June 3 with the group reading of Allen Ginsberg’s epic 1955 poem “Howl,” with its unforgettable opening: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. . . .” Getting under way at 5:00 in Tompkins Square Park, the free gathering, which also will be celebrating what would have been Ginsberg’s eighty-fifth birthday, will include such local literary luminaries as Darian Dauchan, Nicole Wallace, Curtis Jensen, Fay Chiang, Eliot Katz, Bob Rosenthal, John Giorno, Hettie Jones, and others, led by Bob Holman. The party continues on Saturday with the Great Howl! Out Loud Carnival for children (12 noon – 7:00 pm, Sunday also), with arts & crafts, games, miniature golf, face painting, balloon art, and more; the Hot Howl! Disco (1:00 to 4:00), with DJ Johnny Dynell; and live performances (2:00 to 7:00) by International Street Cannibals, Ekayani and the Tom Glide Space, Timbila, Emily XYZ, the Living Theater, LJ Murphy, John S. Hall & Musicians, Church of Betty, Bina Shariff, Vangeline Theater, Ed Sanders & Steven Taylor, Tyler Burba, and Arthur’s Landing, in addition to yoga classes, chanting monks, painting and sculpture, poetry circles, and other activities. On Sunday, Hip Hop Howl! (2:00 – 2:30) will feature a live mixtape showcase, House of Howl! (3:00 – 5:00) will consist of live music and dance under the theme “The High Life,” and Low Life 5: Flaming Queens (5:00 – 7:00) will conclude things with the much-loved two-hour production that this year pays tribute to the East Village’s LGBT artistic community and history, with such performers as Sade Pendavis, Vangeline Theater, the Pixie Harlots, Rachel Klein Theater, Go-Go Harder, and many more, dressed in elaborate costumes.

TWI-NY TALK: MOLLY SURNO — CINEMA 16 AT THE MET

Molly Surno is keeping the spirit of experimental and avant-garde film alive by bringing back Cinema 16

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Friday, June 3, 7:00
Free with recommended admission of $20
212-570-3828
www.mollysurno.wordpress.com
www.metmuseum.org/collegegroup

In 1947, Amos Vogel founded Cinema 16 as an art community where film devotees could see and discuss experimental celluloid works. Vogel, who turned ninety this past April, later cofounded the New York Film Festival with Richard Roud, serving as its first director in 1963; the NYFF still features the “Views from the Avant-Garde” showcase every year. Since April 2008, photographer and curator Molly Surno has taken up the reins of Vogel’s initial call to arms, answering his question “Shall this audience continue unaware of these hundreds of thought-provoking, artistically satisfying, and socially purposeful films?” by bringing back Cinema 16. The L.A.-born, Brooklyn-based Surno puts together monthly programs that combine classic and contemporary avant-garde films with cutting-edge bands providing live scores. On June 3 at 7:00, she is presenting her latest gathering, being held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition “Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York.” Introduced by Met associate curator Jayson Kerr Dobney, the evening, part of the Met’s College Group initiative, will feature films by Andy Warhol, Rudy Burckhardt, Edgar Varèse and Le Corbusier, Gina Carducci, Herbert Kosower, and Francis Thompson and live music by Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Shahin Motia of Oneida, and MV Carbon. As she prepared for the event, Surno was able to sneak in a few minutes to discuss experimental cinema and more with twi-ny.

twi-ny: You’ve held previous editions of Cinema 16 at such venues as the Kitchen, Smack Mellon, Galapagos, the Bell House, and MoMA/PS1, but your next edition is taking place June 3 at the Met, in conjunction with the “Guitar Heroes” exhibition. How did that come about? Did the location impact how you curated the program?

Molly Surno: To my amazement the Metropolitan Museum contacted me to do a performance as part of the programming for the “Guitar Heroes” exhibit. Humbled and inspired, I tailored this program entirely to the current show. The band is composed of some of Brooklyn’s most incredible string players, echoing the three centuries of string instruments on display. The films I selected are all based on the idea of a cityscape being a muse for artistic expression. “Guitar Heroes” shows the journey of string instruments from Southern Italy to New York and the way the luthiers drew from their environments. I took that same premise and selected films that used one’s surroundings as the platform for creative influence. Francis Thompson’s film N.Y., N.Y. quite literally examines the day in a life of a New Yorker but through a kaleidoscope-type lens; Andy Warhol’s Screen Test of Salvador Dalí expresses the culture of an artistic community congregating in New York; Gina Carducci’s Stone Welcome Mat journeys from the Sicily of her grandfather’s home super-8 films to her own return to Southern Italy decades later from the eye of a New York–based artist, among other tales of our surroundings informing and motivating creative works.

Francis Thompson’s “N.Y., N.Y.” is among the avant-garde films Molly Surno will be presenting at the Met on June 3

twi-ny: What do you choose first when putting together a program, the films or the musicians?

MS: The selection process entirely depends on the commission. For the Met the “Guitar Heroes” exhibition completely dictated both the musical and film curation.

twi-ny: Where did your love of experimental films come from? Was there a “Eureka!” moment? For us, the Eureka! moment, for example, was taking a class with Amos Vogel back in college. Is he familiar with what you’re doing?

MS: I am actively trying to find my way uptown so that I can meet Amos and potentially do a program together. It’s on the wish list.

twi-ny: Are there certain films out there that you’ve been searching for but have been unable to find or gain access to? Who are the new artists making experimental films today who have a similar spirit to those made by such innovators as Maya Deren, Bruce Conner, Shirley Clarke, and Stan Brakhage?

MS: Certainly films are hard to access because they weren’t preserved properly. For example, I wanted to show some Italian experimental film for this program, but there is so little that was properly archived (or archived at all). There is a community that is vibrant and active around the preservation of experimental films, and through them I have met some incredible contemporary avant-garde artists, including Joel Schlemowitz, Gina Carducci, MM Serra, and Mark Street, to name a few. A few years back I showed a piece by an artist named Ezra Johnson, who also works with animation. His work blows my mind.

twi-ny: You’re constantly surrounded by avant-garde film and music. Do you ever just push it all to the back of your mind and spend a Saturday night checking out The Hangover Part II, Thor, or the latest Twilight or Pirates of the Caribbean flick?

MS: This might be my favorite question any journalist has ever asked me. Oddly enough, the more experimental films I watch, the harder it is for me to sit through big-budget films. I mean, let’s put it this way: For me, a Saturday night spent among purely escapist entertainment would include The Godfather or The French Connection. . . . That is about as mainstream as I like to get.

AKIKO YANO SOLO: REVEALING HER MAGIC

TRANSFORMING KOTOBA (“J-WORDS”) INTO MUSIC
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, June 3, $28, 8:15
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.akikoyano.com

A child piano prodigy in her native Japan, New York City-based jazz musician and singer Akiko Yano has released more than two dozen records since her debut, 1976’s Japanese Girl, collaborating with such producers and performers as Pat Metheny, Marc Ribot, T-Bone Burnett, Thomas Dolby, Lowell George and Little Feat, Hayao Miyazaki, John Zorn, Hiromi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, whom she married and has a daughter with. (They divorced in 2006.) Her most recent release is 2010’s Ongakudo, a solo project that features twelve cover songs and three new originals. The fifty-six-year-old Yano, a regular at Joe’s Pub, bends, twists, expands, and contracts Japanese words in her songs, incorporating poems and folktales into her storytelling. She’ll be at Japan Society on June 3, performing solo and discussing her working process in a special one-time-only presentation. (Half of all ticket sales will go to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund, which to date has raised more than eight million dollars.)

NICK ZINNER

Anastasia Photo
166 Orchard St. between Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Through June 4, free, 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
212-677-9725
www.anastasia-photo.com

Musician, producer, photographer, and Creators Project renaissance man Nick Zinner has been performing as a member of the popular indie band Yeah Yeah Yeahs since the group’s founding in September 2000, releasing the Grammy-nominated records Fever to Tell (2003), Show Your Bones (2006), and It’s Blitz! (2009). Although Zinner, who was born in Massachusetts and has been based in New York City for more than a decade, is used to the camera being turned on him, he has been taking pictures for many years, having studied photography at Bard and released several books, both solo and in collaboration with others, including No Seats in the Party Car (2001) and Please Take Me Off the Guest List (2010). His latest exhibit, on view at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through June 4, consists of half a dozen shots he took of crowds at Yeah Yeah Yeahs shows between 2003 and 2009, taken from the stage. The audience is either grooving to the band or waiting for them to go on; sometimes the crowd recognizes that Zinner is taking a photo and poses for it, and other times they are just caught up in the frenzy of the performance. In one picture, fans reach out to him with sheer joy; in a second, a group of young women dressed in black, wearing black eye masks, are too cool to show any emotion at all; and in a third, one woman makes a crazy face while others smile away. Of course, pictures of crowds at concerts are not unusual, but it is rare for the shots to have been taken by one of the band members, offering a different perspective from photos snapped by hired music photographers. The photos were taken at concerts in Paris, Beijing, Brooklyn, Tuscon, Warsaw, and Tokyo; see if you can guess which is which before looking at the titles. (Zinner will also be playing alongside experimental films with fellow YYY Brian Chase, Oneida’s Shahin Motia, and MV Carbon at Molly Surno’s latest Cinema 16 presentation, June 3 at 7:00 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

POUNDCAKE

Poundcake will be at the Bowery Electric on June 1, featuring singer-guitarist Teddy Thompson, drummer Ethan Eubanks, and stand-up bassist Jeff Hill (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Bowery Electric
327 Bowery between Bond & Great Jones Sts.
Wednesday, June 1, $8, 10:00
212-228-0228
www.theboweryelectric.com
www.teddythompson.com
poundcake live at city winery
On May 21 at City Winery, as Teddy Thompson fans were escorted to their reserved seats and ordered their food and drinks (including special bottles of Teddy Thompson wine), a surprisingly familiar face took the stage as part of the opening act. Announced as “Poundcake,” the three-piece band — consisting of guitar, stand-up bass, and drums — rambled through a good-time set of classic and obscure country and early rock covers, with the lead singer and the backup band making continuous tongue-in-cheek remarks about Teddy Thompson and how much the lead singer resembled the British-born, New York City-based son of Richard and Linda Thompson, who is currently touring behind his latest record, Bella, a deeply personal, poignant examination of a shattered relationship. Last year, Teddy Thompson, along with his drummer, Ethan Eubanks, and bassist, Jeff Hill, started doing gigs as Poundcake, without officially admitting who their ersatz leader was. Poundcake plays engaging sets that feature such tunes as Patsy Cline’s “Why Can’t He Be You,” the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie,” Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right, Mama,” Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” and Buddy Holly’s “It’s So Easy” and “Every Day,” the latter, on May 21, sung by Eubanks after several starts in which the drummer mangled the words and Thompson harassed him for it. The trio engages in funny, self-deprecating between-song banter, making for an extremely entertaining show. Poundcake will be headlining the Bowery Electric on June 1 at 10:00, preceded by Erik Deutch Band (9:00), Amy Miles (8:00), and Jem Warren (7:00).