this week in music

CHRISTMAS DAY GOSPEL MUSIC CONCERT

The Memorial Baptist Gospel Choir will present Christmas carols and spirituals on Christmas Day in Harlem

Memorial Baptist Church
141 West 115th St.
Saturday, December 25, adults $20, children under twelve $10, 10:30 am
RSVP for groups only: 646-302-3487
www.mbcvisionharlem.org

Currently celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary, the Memorial Baptist Church on 115th St., led by Rev. Dr. Renee F. Washington Gardner, is referring to itself as “the only church open in Harlem on Christmas” as it holds a special holiday concert on Saturday morning at 10:30. The Memorial Baptist Gospel Choir, under the supervision of James Ford, will be performing a mix of inspirational Christmas carols and spirituals, including “Oh Happy Day,” “Silent Night,” “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and “Joy to the World.” Admission is $20 for adults and $10 for kids under twelve; RSVPs are needed for larger groups only.

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT SING-ALONG

Satan and Saddam Hussein are all part of the fun in SOUTH PARK sing-along

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT (Trey Parker, 1999)
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Saturday, December 18, $13 (includes one beer), 10:30 pm
212-415-5500
www.92YTribeca.org/film

Now this is our kind of sing-along. While others gather to celebrate THE SOUND OF MUSIC, MAMMA MIA, and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, singing classic, familiar, popular hits, we’d much rather be blasting out such memorable songs as the Oscar-nominated “Blame Canada,” “Uncle Fucka,” “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch,” and “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” Since 1997, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been using colorful low-tech cutouts to show that there are no sacred cows, lambasting celebrities, politicians, religion, sexuality, the military, education, television, movies, corporations, pop culture, and just about everything else they can think of in the animated series South Park, which follows the travails of a group of eight-year-old boys in a small town in Colorado. In 1999, Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick got to star in their own feature-length animated film, SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT, in which they lead the resistance to save Terrance & Phillip while Kyle’s mom starts a war with Canada. They’re joined by such SP regulars as Chef, Mr. Mackey, Mr. Garrison, and Wendy Testeberger and such special guests as Satan, Saddam Hussein, and the mysterious Gregory, along with guest voicers George Clooney, Eric Idle, Minnie Driver, Dave Foley, and Brent Spiner. The musical numbers, written by Parker with Henry Mancini Award winner Marc Shaiman (HAIRSPRAY), are a riot, including “I’m Super” from the irrepressible Big Gay Al, which boasts the fabulous lyrics “Bombs are flying / People are dying / Children are crying / Politicians are lying too // Cancer is killing / Texaco’s spilling / The whole world’s gone to hell // But how are you? / I’m super / Thanks for asking!” Tickets are $13 and come with one beer, props, a trivia contest, and other goodies.

YOSHITOMO NARA: NOBODY’S FOOL

“Nobody’s Fool” offers a look into childhood memories and loneliness (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 2
Admission: $5-$10 (free Friday nights from 6:00 to 9:00)
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org

The many obsessions of fifty-one-year-old Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara are on view at the Asia Society in “Nobody’s Fool,” a wide-ranging exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and site-specific installations. Divided into three primary themes — Isolation, Rebellion, and Music — the works create a fascinating portrait of Nara and his unique take on popular culture. Nara’s most familiar subjects — houses, animals, rock and roll, and little girls who are not quite as cute as they initially appear — relate to his own loneliness growing up and his desire to break free. Evil and danger lurk just below the surface of his pieces, if not in plain sight. In the painting “Make the Road, Follow the Road,” a pig-tailed girl hands a knife to a smiling doglike creature, while on the plate “Too Young to Die” a young girl smoking a cigarette directs a sly, knowing look at the viewer. And in the drawing “Stuffed Dog,” a canine wearing a crown has been thumbtacked to the wall, echoing the crucifixion by way of a direct reference to Nara’s own art, as if his freedom has been taken away from him, accompanied by the words “No Pain No Again.” Nara often uses written language in his works, with his characters making such declarations as “Oh! My God! I Miss You!” and “Pave Your Dreams.” Heavily influenced by American rock and punk, especially the Ramones, he incorporates such phrases as “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” and “Stand by me” in his pieces; In “Guitar Wolf,” the title animal is blasting away on a six-string, shouting out, “Fuckin’ neurotic world!” while in an untitled piece, a young girl with a guitar is standing atop a mountain with a face while singing, “Kill kill kill the P.” Nara has also set up a wall display of dozens of his favorite album covers, appreciated for their jacket art and/or music, including some very interesting and surprising choices.

Yoshitomo Nara opens up the doors to his psyche in site-specific installations at Asia Society (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Nobody’s Fool” also features three site-specific installations organized around the theme of home and developed by Nara in tandem with designer Hideki Toyoshima. “Drawing Room Between the Concord and Merrimack” creates a carnivalesque atmosphere with color-wheel stages you can stand on and a small house that represents Nara’s studio. “Doors,” named after the rock band and part of a bigger project from 2006 held in Nara’s hometown, consists of five rooms, each with a very different scene inside and including such works as “It’s Something Unpredictable But in the End Is Right” and “Promise Me No Dead End Streets,” inspired by Green Day. And in “Untitled (formerly ‘Home’),” Nara invites visitors to walk through a one-story house he and Toyoshima constructed earlier this year in the Park Ave. Armory and filled with a video montage of photographs, a peace sign stuffed with handmade dolls, and a maquette of “White Ghost,” a miniature of the large sculptures that stood on Park Ave. announcing and protecting the exhibit. The installations offer trips deeper into Nara’s fascinating psyche and working method, built on childhood memories and rock and roll dreams. On Sunday, December 19, Asia Society will be hosting “My House Is My Home,” a workshop for families at 3:00 in which they’ll take a closer look at Nara’s special installations. And as a special bonus, if you check in with Asia Society on Foursquare, you’ll get two-for-one admission. (Admission is free on Friday nights from 6:00 to 9:00.)

UNSILENT NIGHT NEW YORK

Phil Kline and friends will fill the streets of New York City with unique Christmas sounds on Saturday night (photo by Tom Jarmusch)

Washington Square Park to Tompkins Square Park
Saturday, December 18, free, 7:00
www.unsilentnight.com

Since 1992, composer Phil Kline has been leading Unsilent Night, a parade of holiday celebrants carrying boomboxes playing specially designed music for the occasion. The nineteenth edition will take place this Saturday, as participants are encouraged to bring their own devices to play one of four randomly chosen mp3s that can be downloaded from the above website. Kline will be on hand to give out a handful of boomboxes, since he prefers people use cassettes or CDs because of the different kind of sound they emit, but iPods and the like are welcome to contribute to the cacophony. The event now occurs around the country as well as in Australia, Canada, and England. Born in Akron, Kline has played in experimental bands, composed music for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ethel, choreographer Wally Cardona, and photographer Nan Goldin, among many others, and is currently co-curating a free special program for the New York Festival of Song scheduled for May 3 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

STEVEN BLUSH: AMERICAN HARDCORE

The Strand
828 Broadway at 12th St.
Wednesday, December 15, free, 7:00
212-473-1452
www.americanhardcorebook.com

Steven Blush has been part of the American hardcore scene since the early 1980s, promoting shows, starting music magazines, writing the definitive book on the subject, 2001’s AMERICAN HARDCORE: A TRIBAL HISTORY, and writing and producing the 2006 documentary of the same name. He is on tour now with the second edition of the book, having expanded every chapter and added a new one, stretching it from 328 to 408 pages with new art, new interviews, and new subjects. Blush will be at the Strand tonight with Dave Smalley (Dag Nasty, Descendents) and author Laura Albert, better known as controversial writer JT Leroy, discussing the past, present, and future of American hardcore, which Blush famously declared was dead in 1986. In celebration of the second edition of the book, Blush has given us one of the great holiday presents ever, a website that offers twenty-four hours of hardcore, consisting of 911 free, downloadable songs from familiar, forgettable, and hard-to-find groups, an unbelievable collection that you can find here.

FLUX FACTORY AUCTION AND GALA

Center 548
548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday, December 15, $15-$1,000, 7:00
718-707-3362
www.fluxfactory.org

Long Island City’s Flux Factory, “a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things,” will be holding its annual auction Wednesday night in Chelsea, with live performances, light food and drink, and an impressive list of artists selling works to benefit the art collective. Among the participating artists are Andrea Dezsö, Dan Colen, Kathryne Hall, Marie Losier, Molly Surno, Peter Doig, Ryan McNamara, Stefany Anne Golberg, Swoon, and Ward Shelley, with Angela Washko, Daupo, Douglas Paulson, Elizabeth Larison, Gabriela Vainsencher, Sarah Glidden, and Will Harris serving as “knock-off” live artists, creating customized copies on demand. Guests of honor Elizabeth Dee and city councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer will also be feted by a performance by Alison Ward, video art by Jaime Iglehart, Matthew-Robin Nye’s creative seating, silkscreening by Bread and Butter Collective, and DJ Sondies leading a dance party. You don’t have to attend the festivities in order to bid on the works, which are all detailed online.

PAUL WINTER PRESENTS: WINTER SOLSTICE

The Paul Winter Consort and friends will once again celebrate the solstice at St. John the Divine

Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St.
December 16-18, $35-$80
www.stjohndivine.org
www.solsticeconcert.com

Billed as “New York’s Holiday Celebration of Music, Dance, and the Return of the Sun,” the Paul Winter Consort will once again pay tribute to the shortest day of the year at the thirty-first annual Winter Solstice concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for four shows December 16-18. A few days before the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere, the six-time Grammy-winning soprano saxophonist and his group — Paul McCandless on double reed, Paul Sullivan on keyboards, Eugene Friesen on cello, Jamey Haddad and Bill Cahn on percussion, and Tim Brumfield on St. John’s pipe organ — will be joined by special guests Armenian vocalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan, gospel singer Theresa Thomason, and the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. “For me,” Winter explains on his website, “this solstice celebration is an ever-renewing thrill — whether watching the sun gong ascend twelve stories with its player to the vault of the cathedral or hearing the ‘tree of sounds’ as it slowly turns, reflecting a myriad of lights from its hundreds of bells, gongs, and chimes.” Longtime Winter fans are in for an additional treat, as the consort will be holding the New York premiere of songs from its brand-new album, MIHO: JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN (Living Music, September 2010), which features such tracks as “Words of Wish Fulfillment,” “Dawn Raga,” “Elephant Dance,” “Koto Spring,” “Singing to the Mountain,” and “Morning Sun.”