In December 1970, Yoko Ono released Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, which teamed the Japanese-born avant-garde performer with such friends as John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann, and Ornette Coleman, among others. In the fall of 2009, Ono celebrated the record’s upcoming fortieth anniversary with a new Plastic Ono Band album, Between My Head and the Sky, which included such songs as “I’m Alive,” “I’m Going Away Smiling,” “Moving Mountains,” “Healing,” and “Memory of Footsteps.” Those titles now seem prophetic as she and the band, consisting of Sean Ono Lennon, Antony, Yuka Honda, Michael Leonhart, Shimmy Hirotaka Shimizu, and Yuko Araki, will play a Japan benefit Tuesday night at (le) poisson rouge. (Ono has also donated her husband’s “Imagine” to the iTunes album Songs for Japan, benefiting the Japan Red Cross.) The bill also features Patti Smith playing with bassist Tony Shanahan and a set by Cibo Matto. Tickets are $100 for a rare chance to see these three great bands together while helping raise much-needed funds,
Best buds Jordan Arts and Sam McCarthy have been making music together since they were twelve years old, banging pots and pans and listening to Hendrix. The Auckland duo known as Kids of 88 — vocalist McCarthy and programmer and keyboardist Arts were both born in 1988 — burst onto the scene a few years back with the sexy, steamy electro-pop hits “My House” and “Just a Little Bit” and have gone on to make remixes for Cobra Starship and Ke$ha, even going out on the road with the latter on a recent brief European tour. On such big-sounding dance-club songs as “Downtown,” “Sugarpills,” and “Just a Little Bit,” they sing about slutty sex, getting unprofessional, and, well, just having a damn good time. Upon returning from their highly praised shows at SXSW, Arts and McCarthy, who will be playing Piano’s at 9:00 on March 28 on a bill with Cassette Kids, K. Flay, Bo Bruce, and the Lopez, answered questions about Austin, their friendship, and ’80s theme songs.
twi-ny: You’ve just finished several gigs at SXSW, where the raves keep pouring in. What was the overall experience like? Did you get to see other bands play as well, or were you too busy with your own shows and press?
Sam McCarthy: The overall SXSW experience was festively turbulent. We had been tipped off about how crazy things can potentially become, so we were well prepared when it came to maneuvering our way about the town, meaning we could focus on what we were there to do and have an amazing time doing it! Unfortunately we only managed to capture a few other bands. Surfer Blood on the Tuesday night was great, If only we could have caught the amazing Gayngs, then we would have been set for life.
Jordan Arts: South by South Swag was what Theophilus London called it when he took the stage for the MTV Garage showcase, which we were also playing at. To be on the bill with the likes of him and Friendly Fires and Matt & Kim was awesome, so that was a highlight for me. It was a bit of a whirlwind experience but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
twi-ny: The two of you have been making music together now for more than half your lives. Do you ever get sick of seeing each other, or are you more like kindred spirits, meant to be together?
JA: I think kindred spirits is a nice way to look at it. We are more often than not on the same wavelength, which doesn’t always happen with everybody. To be experiencing parts of the world we’d never had imagined we would be in together can only mean that we’ll be reminiscing about the past when we’re sixty years old!
SM: We have moments where we can clash, but they are always positive disagreements, whether that results in an idea that neither of us would have conjured up or it keeps the other on their toes; however, most of the time it’s a happy band-ship. We’re both Aquarian, so even if we wanted to tiff it’d be forced.
twi-ny: On your website, you describe your music as “a cross between a late ’80s police drama intro theme and a sophisticated super hussy.” What is your favorite late ’80s police drama intro theme, and who is your favorite sophisticated super hussy?
SM: Beverly Hills Cop is up there. I also think a disco rework of the America’s Most Wanted song could be pretty epic. Top bird? Daryl Hannah in a pant suit is a sight for sore eyes; I could have easily bitten off a bit of Sharon Stone in her heyday also.
JA: Although bending the rules a bit, my favorite theme would probably be the Beverly Hills Cop intro or maybe the amazing Knight Rider theme. As hussies go, I think Lisa [Kelly LeBrock] from Weird Science takes the cake. She’s oh so sexy, but the fact that she can do out-of-this-world things makes her very sophisticated!
Experimental composer and musician John Zorn is curating two exciting benefits for the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund at the Abrons Art Center
Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Friday, April 8, $35-$50, 6:30 & 9:30
212-352-3101 www.henrystreet.org
Jon Zorn, whose Masada Marathon takes place March 30 at New York City Opera, is one of the leading figures participating in benefits for the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. On April 9, he’ll be playing in the 1:00 gala block ($100) with Philip Glass, Hal Willner, Lou Reed, and Laurie Anderson at Japan Society’s twelve-hour Concert for Japan. And the night before, he’s curating two programs at the Abrons Art Center ($35-$50). At 6:30, Zorn will be playing in a duo with Ikue Mori along with Thurston Moore, Elliott Sharp, the Alhambra Trio with Rob Burger, Erik Friedlander, Lizz Wright & Aya Nishina, Milford Graves, Jamie Saft and New Zion Trio, Gyan Riley, Matthew Shipp, the Masada String Trio, Ned Rothenberg, Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier, Miya Masaoka, and Jack Quartet. That incredible lineup will be followed at 9:30 by a show featuring Norah Jones, Jessie Harris, Vinicius Cantuaria, Buke and Gass, JG Thirlwell’s Manorexia, Elysian Fields, and Sex Mob. “The tragedy and devastation is really overwhelming,” Zorn said in a statement. “I’ve always felt a strong personal connection to Japan, and I’m just glad to be able to do my part to help. It should be an amazing night.”
Centennial tribute honors victims through music and poetry
Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, March 27, $15-$20, 3:00
212-219-0302 www.eldridgestreet.org
On March 25, 1911, a devastating fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory at 29 Washington Pl. took the lives of 146 garment workers. The fire in the Asch Building led to significant changes in labor laws and to the creation of the American Society of Safety Engineers. There are special memorial events being held all over the city in conjunction with the centennial, including a commemoration on March 26 at the Museum at Eldridge St. that will include live music by Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer, poetry inspired by the tragedy, and actors portraying the 146 victims, who were primarily Jewish and Italian immigrants. The event will be moderated by Caraid O’Brien and is cosponsored by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and the National Yiddish Book Center.
Big Star is one of those highly influential bands that the musical cognoscenti worships but most people don’t know too much about, except that the group’s “In the Streets” was the theme song for the popular sitcom That ’70s Show. Formed in 1971 in Memphis by guitarists Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens, Big Star released #1 Record in 1972 and Radio City in 1974 and went through several lineup changes before breaking up. Their third record, Third/Sister Lovers, was released four years later. Made primarily by Chilton and Stephens with numerous guest musicians, including singer Lesa Aldridge and producer Jim Dickinson, Third/Sister Lovers featured such songs as “You Can’t Have Me,” “Holocaust,” and “Kanga Roo.” There’s been renewed interest in Big Star since Chilton died last March of a heart attack at age fifty-nine, shortly before the band, which had re-formed in 1993 with Jon Auer on guitar and Ken Stringfellow on bass, was going to play SXSW in Austin. There’ve been a series of tribute shows since Chilton’s death, including “Channeling Chilton,” held in July at City Winery with such participants as Yo La Tengo, Marshall Crenshaw, Alan Vega, Jon Spencer, Chris Stamey, Evan Dando, Jesse Malin, and Ronnie Spector as well as Stephens, Auer, and members of Chilton’s earlier band, the Box Tops. On March 26 at Baruch College’s Mason Hall, another group of musicians will gather together to honor Big Star by playing Third/Sister Lovers in its entirety, in addition to other songs by Big Star, Chilton, and Bell, who died in a car accident in 1978. The impressive lineup includes Stephens, Stamey, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, Will Rigby, Charles Cleaver, Mitch Easter, Ira Kaplan, Tift Merritt, Matthew Sweet, M. Ward, Norman Blake, the Rosebuds, Fan Modine, and the twenty-piece Lost in the Trees Orchestra, with proceeds benefiting the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic and El Sistema NYC. The show was previously performed in December 2010 and February 2011 in North Carolina and is being filmed as part of the documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Big Star Story.
Ten years ago, South Carolina–born jazz and blues legend James Blood Ulmer released Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions, a collection of fourteen classics recorded in Sun Studio in Memphis with Ulmer on guitar and vocals, Vernon Reid on guitar, Charles Burnham on violin, David Barnes on harmonica, Rick Steff on keyboards, Mark Peterson on bass, and Aubrey Dale on drums. Ulmer, who recently turned sixty-nine, will be celebrating the Grammy-nominated album’s tenth anniversary by reuniting the band — except for Steff, who is being replaced by Leon Gruenbaum — for a series of shows at the Jazz Standard. It should be quite a time, as the album features such tunes as Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” “Little Red Rooster,” and “Back Door Man,” Muddy Waters’s “Evil,” Son House’s “Death Letter,” John Lee Hooker’s “Dimples” and “Money,” Otis Rush’s “Double Trouble,” and Chester Burnett’s “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline).”
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main St., DUMBO
Wednesday, March 23, $10-$40, 7:30 & 9:00
718-222-8500 www.galapagosartspace.com
An all-star lineup has teamed up for a one-night-only presentation of a new English-language production of Igor Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) on March 23 at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO. The 1918 work, based on a parable about a Russian soldier who makes a deal with the devil, will be conducted by flutist Ransom Wilson for his Le Train Bleu ensemble, which will be making its highly anticipated debut. The choreography is by Lars Lubovitch and lighting by Jennifer Tipton, with New York City Opera stage director A. Scott Parry serving as dramaturge. Le Train Bleu consists of Brian Ellingsen on double bass, Alexey Gorokholinsky on clarinet, Shelley Monroe on bassoon, Hugo Moreno on trumpet, Jennifer Griggs on trombone, Ian Rosenbaum on percussion, and Tim Fain on violin. The world-premiere production features Lars Lubovitch Dance Company members Reid Bartelme as the soldier, Nicole Corea as the princess, and Attila Csiki as the devil, with Reed Armstrong acting the part of the devil and John Arnold the soldier; William Ferguson will serve as narrator. Histoire du Soldat will be performed at 7:30 and 9:30, with tickets ranging from $10 for students to $40 for reserved Island Seating that comes with an open bar. In addition, Friend tickets ($140/$100 tax deductible) include a preshow reception, while Patron tickets ($500/$460 tax deductible) include a postperformance reception with the artists as well, benefiting the Lars Lubovitch Dance Company.
