this week in music

DOC NYC: DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

Full December 2009 performance of classic 1978 album is centerpiece of doc fest

Ziegfeld Theatre
141 West 54th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Thursday, November 4, $25, 7:00
Festival runs November 3-9 at the IFC Center and NYU
www.docnyc.net

In December 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN in full in an empty Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, filmed by Thom Zimny, who also directed the current festival hit THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN. Both films will be included in the DARKNESS box set due November 16, but you can catch the world premiere of the concert November 4 at the Ziegfeld as part of DOC NYC, a seven-day event billed as “New York’s Documentary Festival.” The digital projection of DARKNESS will be followed by a conversation between Zimny and E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. The festival is being held at the IFC Center and NYU and gets under way Wednesday with a 3-D presentation of Werner Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS at NYU’s Skirball Center; Herzog is one of the focuses of the festival, which will also include screenings of his LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS (1971), WINGS OF HOPE (1999), and MY BEST FIEND (1999), and the iconoclastic director will participate in a conversation at the IFC Center on Thursday. The career of Errol Morris is also being celebrated, with screenings of FIRST PERSON (2001), A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME (1992), THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988), and TABLOID (2010), with Morris on hand for a conversation on November 7 at NYU’s Kimmel Center. The third central figure of the fest is Kevin Brownlow, whose examinations of Hollywood will be on view, including LON CHANEY: A THOUSAND FACES (2000), GARBO (2005), IT HAPPENED HERE (1966), WINSTANLEY (1975), CECIL B. DeMILLE: AMERICAN EPIC (2004), and a double feature of I’M KING KONG! THE EXPLOITS OF MERIAN C. COOPER (2002) and THE TRAMP AND THE DICTATOR (2005). The festival will also be screening such works as Janus Metz’s ARMADILLO, Henry Corra’s THE DISAPPEARANCE OF McKINLEY NOLAN, Josef Birdman Astor’s LOST BOHEMIA, and David Soll’s PUPPET, about downtown artist Dan Hurlin. Many of the screenings will be followed by discussions with the subjects and/or creators.

DUSTIN WONG

Dustin Wong’s solo show at Monster Island Basement should be just a bit calmer than his loud, raucous performances with Ponytail (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Monster Island Basement
128 River St. at Metropolitan Ave.
Tuesday, November 2, $8, 8:00
www.myspace.com/dustinclarence
www.toddpnyc.com

Born in Hawaii and raised in Japan, guitarist Dustin Wong found escape through punk rock and watching Jack Nicholson talk about aliens in EASY RIDER. “Since I can’t explore outer space, I will explore inner space,” Wong decided. A founding member of the experimental music project Ecstatic Sunshine and guitarist for the on-hiatus noise rockers Ponytail, Wong has also been releasing multilayered solo works over the last two years, starting with the four-song suite SEASONS in 2009 and the ten-track LET IT GO earlier this year. He’s now touring behind his splendid new album, INFINITE LOVE (Thrill Jockey), two discs of gorgeous guitar meanderings layered with tape loops and sound explorations that fill out into forty-minute forays called “Brother” and “Sister,” which begin and end the same way but go off on different paths in the middle, a metaphor for life itself. “The listener gets two choices,” Dustin explains. “I think of them as twins, a brother and a sister, living their lives, then reuniting.” Wong will be playing Monster Island Basement on November 2 with Avocado Happy Hour and Baltimore’s Holy Ghost Party.

VILLAGE HALLOWEEN PARADE: MEMENTO MORI

Parade theme of Memento Mori will include focus on Mexican calaveras and the Day of the Dead

Sunday, October 31, 7:00
Sixth Ave. South & Spring St. to 15th St.
Admission/participation: free, but donations accepted
www.halloween-nyc.com

The Village Halloween Parade is now in its thirty-eighth year of scaring more than two million New Yorkers and visitors from around the world watching some fifty thousand marchers as they make their way through the downtown evening streets in decidedly decadent and wildly creative costumes. This year’s theme is Memento Mori, which translates as “Remember you will die,” and will feature Haitian carnival figures designed by Didier Civil, who will also participate with the music group DjaRaRa in a dance tribute to Gede spirits. Civil will also be teaming up with master puppeteer Basil Twist and Superior Concept Monsters to provide a special focus on Day of the Dead skeletons, including a new Illuminated Ghost Train. Attending or marching in the parade is a rite of passage you must do at least once in your life, so why not tonight?

DAY OF THE DEAD

Attendees can learn to make sugar skulls and more at Mexican Day of the Dead celebration at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery

St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery
131 East Tenth St. at Second Ave.
October 30-31, free, 12 noon – 8:00
212-587-3070
www.manoamano.us

Mano a Mano: Mexican Cultures Without Borders will be celebrating the Day of the Dead with a weekend of free activities at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, with Saturday’s events kicking off at 12 noon with a traditional dance procession beginning in Union Square, making its way to the church for the Ceremony at the Altar. Each day will feature a Mexican marketplace. Saturday’s workshops are “Building Individual Altars / Making Paper Flowers” and “Making Pan de Muerto Bread,” with “Calaveras de Azúcar/Sugar Skulls” and “Calaveras: Day of the Dead Poetry” scheduled for Sunday. Saturday will also include a musical performance by Radio Jarocho, with Mariachi Tapatío de Álvaro Paulino playing on Sunday.

BOO AT THE ZOO

The animals will be celebrating Halloween too at area zoos and aquarium (photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Bronx Zoo, $12-$16
New York Aquarium, $6-$17
Prospect Park Zoo, $5-$8
Queens Zoo, $5-$8
www.wcs.org

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s annual Boo at the Zoo promotion continues through this weekend with a full slate of family-friendly activities. At the Prospect Park Zoo, children can engage in bat arts and crafts, keeper chats focusing on nocturnal animals and pumpkin treats for baboons, haunted attractions, a costume parade, face painting, the spook-tacular Discovery Center, and Wildlife Witch Shows. At the Queens Zoo, children can go trick-or-treating, get their face painted, visit the Haunted Habitat, decorate their own pumpkin (first two hundred zoogoers only), and watch pumas and Andean bears get pumpkin treats. Up at the Bronx Zoo, the Halloween celebration features a haunted safari, live music by Gigi and the Lend Me a Hand Band, a hay maze and hay ride, treat stations, craft workshops, pumpkin-carving demonstrations, animal-themed magic shows, puppet shows, animal enrichment activities, a costume parade, and an extinct animal graveyard. And the New York Aquarium in Coney Island will be hosting Halloween at the A-Scarium, with a haunted sea-fari, magic shows, spooky storytelling by LuAnn Adams, live music from Annie and the Natural Wonder Band, pumpkin-carving demonstrations with Janelle Iglesias, arts and crafts with Robin Waschberger, treat stations, alien stingers, and THE CURSE OF SKULL ROCK 4-D movie screening.

AN EVENING OF VINTAGE NYC PUNK ROCK

Punk trio Futurex will be part of old-fashioned punk rock Halloween party at the Local 269 on Saturday night

The Local 269
269 East Houston St. at Suffolk St.
Saturday, October 30, $7, 9:00
www.myspace.com/futurexnyc
www.thelocal269.com

Over the summer, longtime CBGB regulars Futurex emerged from the Kennel (recording studio) with their latest album, a twenty-six-minute epic featuring such songs as “Basement,” “Monotone,” and “Road Closed.” With ex-wives Sue on guitar and Mary on bass, along with Paul on drums, the trio will be part of a special Halloween show on Saturday night at the Local 269 on East Houston St., along with Crybaby, Bunch of Girls, and Shirk Circus, who used to play CBGB with Futurex some twenty years ago. We have it on good authority that part of the festivities will include a Halloween-themed Jewish wedding performed onstage; watch out for breaking glass, from both the very loud punk rock and the marriage ritual.

VILLAGE HALLOWEEN COSTUME BALL

Theater for the New City hosts its annual celebration of thrills, chills, and much weirdness

Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. at Tenth St.
Sunday, October 31, $20, 3:30 – ?
www.theaterforthenewcity.net/halloween

Crystal Field’s annual Halloween Costume Ball at the Theater for the New City is another massive extravaganza of music, theater, dance, performance art, astrology, numerology, magic, and general mayhem, taking place on the bandstage outside and in the lobby as well as in the Ballroom, the Cauldron, the Cabaret, the Womb Room, and in the House of Horrors deep in the basement. Among the myriad performers are Jennifer Blowdryer, Penny Arcade, Alien Surfer Babes, Clowns with Gowns, Evan Laurence, Annie Wilson’s Haunted Pianoforte, the Hell Souls, the Hot Lavender Swing Band, the Love Show, Bambi Killers, Flahooley, Suspended Cirque, and Emperor Satan’s Rococoach, in addition to such productions as “The Land of Investment Banking,” “Clutter: I’m Saving My Life & It’s Killing Me,” and “The Red and Black Masque.” At midnight, the costume parade and contest gets under way, with such celebrity judges as Judith Malina, Matt Morillo, and Sabura Rashid. And believe it or not, admission to everything is a mere twenty bucks.