The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir look to make a triumphant post-accident return at Bloodshot party Sunday night (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The Bell House
149 Seventh St. between Second & Third Aves.
Sunday, November 7, $10, 6:30
718-643-6510
www.bloodshotrecords.com
www.thebellhouseny.com
Last year, Chicago-based Bloodshot Records celebrated its fifteenth anniversary with a great bbq show at the Bell House in Gowanus, with live performances by Bobby Bare Jr., Exene Cervenka, the Dex Romweber Duo, Cordero, the Silos, Ben Weaver, and Rosie Flores. Sadly, one of their best emerging bands, the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, got into a terrible accident the day before and were forced to cancel. Guitarist Mary Adelsman and bassist Mark Yoshizumi suffered the most extensive damage, going through multiple surgeries and lengthy rehab, but everyone was shaken up badly, and much of the group’s equipment was destroyed. We’re happy to report that SYGC is back on the road and will be at the Bell House for this year’s Bloodshot brew bash, being held Sunday, November 7, with another all-star lineup: young country singer Lydia Loveless, the charming Cordero, the Bottle Rockets, and the all-powerful Graham Parker, one of the most engaging and entertaining performers you’ll ever see. Listening again to SYGC’s most recent album, 2009’s outstanding AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON . . . , it’s hard not to reinterpret many of the lyrics, which now seem to tell the story of a very different kind of heartbreak and heartache, filled with darkness and yesterdays. On the propulsive title track Elia Einhorn sings, “These days I find disturbing pictures in my mind of you as a mangled traffic accident . . . and in the daydream, I always smile.” The synth-driven “Liberty or Somewhere” includes the poignant line “Because I’ve lost so many people,” while they declare “Oh my god, my life’s so fucked up” on “Something’s Happening” and “Christ, I’m a fucking mess” on the horn-laden “I Pretend She’s You.” And on “Stop!” which opens the record, they proclaim right from the start, “I hope that you catch syphilis and die alone” before later adding “Christ, I should throw you in front of some runaway train.” AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON . . . , a rollicking, energetic record built on catchy hooks, biting lyrics, and eclectic instrumentation, also features the song “Hope Is Still on Your Side,” which more accurately defines the band’s outlook, having survived tragedy and gotten back into the rock & roll ruckus.
Twenty-three-year-old writer-director Damien Chazelle expanded his senior thesis at Harvard into an unusual black-and-white musical that mixes John Cassavetes’s SHADOWS and FACES with Jacques Demy’s THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (and a little French Nouvelle Vague) as seen through the modern lens of mumblecore. An accomplished jazz drummer, Chazelle (who makes a cameo in the film behind the kits) casts real-life jazz trumpeter and first-time actor Jason Palmer as Guy, a jazz trumpeter in a relationship with Madeline (Desiree Garcia), whom he met on a Boston park bench. But when Guy strays following a chance encounter on a train with a stranger named Elena (Sandha Khin) — an electrifying scene filled with heat and passion — Madeline leaves him, instead dreaming of making a new life for herself in New York. But as the two of them go their separate ways, they still imagine what could have been. The film features such actual musicians and dancers as Andre Hayward of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, tap-dancer Kelly Kaleta, and teenage saxophone prodigy Grace Kelly. (Look for Chazelle’s father, Benard, as Paul.) Justin Hurwitz wrote the music for five of the original songs, with Chazelle supplying the lyrics. A slow-paced, heartfelt drama, GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH has the improvisational feel of a quiet jazz solo, a soft, tender film about love and loss and how fragile meaningful relationships can be.
When we caught U2’s Vertigo Tour at the Garden in June 2006, we were up in the rafters, looking down at tiny dots that just happened to be drummer Larry Mullen Jr., bass player Adam Clayton, guitarist the Edge, and singer Bono. But the World’s Most Important Band is front and center for everyone to see in U2 3D, the first-ever full-length film shot in Digital 3-D, directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington. Using as many as eighteen specially equipped digital cameras and recording decks, Owens, who has been U2’s visual content director since ZooTV, captures the Irish band during stadium shows in South America and Mexico, focusing on the March 1-2 concerts at Estadio la Plata in Buenos Aires. The new technology, previously used for sporting events, has a fascinating layered effect that sucks in viewers — yes, who are wearing special glasses (not unlike the specs Bono used to wear as the Fly) — placing them right in the middle of the action as the band powers through an exultant setlist that, if not quite ideal, includes “Vertigo,” “New Year’s Day,” and “Pride (In the Name of Love).” You can’t help but reach out for Bono as he seemingly jumps out of the screen while singing “Touch me” during “Beautiful Day,” and then you’ll swear he’s reaching out only to you when he stares into the camera during “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and promises to “wipe your tears away.” And when tens of thousands of fans all bop up and down in unison to “Where the Streets Have No Name,” forming a propulsive wave, you’ll feel a rush beneath your seat that moves up into your gut. Owens and Pellington (ARLINGTON ROAD) incorporate the band’s hypertextual stage show into the new format, as digitized figures, words, symbols, and letters from the large screens behind the band seem to float right in front of your face. The concert footage is supplemented with extreme close-ups shot onstage without an audience, and the energy level severely drops at these times, although Mullen’s drum kit looks amazing in 3-D. As straight-ahead concert movies go, U2 3D is among the best ever made, a unique theatrical experience that will blow you away. The film is part of the Midnight Rock Docs section of the DOC NYC festival, which also includes D. A. Pennebaker’s ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS: THE MOTION PICTURE, screening at 11:59 on Saturday night.