this week in music

BELLE & SEBASTIAN

Belle & Sebastian will headline an outdoor show along the Williamsburg Waterfront on September 30

Williamsburg Waterfront
North Eighth St. & Kent Ave. at the East River
Thursday, September 30, $37.50, 5:30
www.myspace.com/thebandbelleandsebastian
www.openspacealliancenb.org

Belle and Sebastian, those kings of twee pop led by Stuart Murdoch and Stevie Jackson, are attempting to return to relevancy with a new album, BELLE & SEBASTIAN WRITE ABOUT LOVE (Matador, October 12), and a slew of tour dates, including a show September 30 at the Williamsburg Waterfront. The band’s recent setlists have leaned heavily on tracks from their 1996 breakout masterpiece, IF YOU’RE FEELING SINISTER, which features such songs as “Like Dylan in the Movies,” “The Stars of Track and Field,” and “Me and the Major,” along with their 2003 self-proclaimed comeback album, DEAR CATASTROPHE WAITRESS, which was produced by former Buggles and Yes singer Trevor Horn. On the new disc, their first album since 2006’s THE LIFE PURSUIT, they make such pronouncements as “I Want the World to Stop,” “I Didn’t See It Coming,” “I Can See Your Future,” and “I’m Not Living in the Real World,” with special appearances by Norah Jones and Carey Mulligan. (Is that a return to relevancy? We’ll have to be convinced.) For the Brooklyn show, they’ll be joined by fellow Glaswegians Teenage Fanclub, who are touring behind their first record in five years.

TWI-NY TICKET GIVEAWAY: VAMPS

Hot Japanese band Vamps are coming to New York City, and twi-ny has a pair of free tickets to give away

Roseland Ballroom
239 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Saturday, October 9, $35 ($47.20 including all fees), 8:00
212-777-6800
www.roselandballroom.com
www.myspace.com/vampsofficial

Singer and guitarist Hyde of l’Arc~en~Ciel and guitarist K.A.Z. of Oblivion Dust had been collaborating for several years, but when they finally decided to get together and form their own band, the goth-metal outfit Vamps, it sent shockwaves through the Japanese music industry. Huge pop stars in their home country, Vamps will be making a brief U.S. tour in October, playing shows in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, highlighting their latest record, BEAST (Avex Trax, July 2010), which features such heavy tunage as “Devil Side,” “Angel Trip,” “Euphoria,” ”Revolution,” and “Rumble.” Strongly influenced by such 1980s American groups as Mötley Crüe and Cheap Trick, they’ll also dip into their 2009 eponymously tilted debut record, which includes such metal madness as “Love Addict” (“Hey! Keep on rolling baby I want to explode / Oh yes, need you darling with the growling exhaust note”), “Vampire Depression,” “Redrum,” and the instant classic “Sex Blood Rock n’ Roll.”

Vamps will be at Roseland on October 9, with tickets going for $47.20 apiece (including all fees), but twi-ny has one pair to give away for free, courtesy of our good friends at New York-Tokyo. To enter, send your name and daytime phone number to contest@twi-ny.com no later than Sunday, October 3, at 12 noon. All entrants must be at least twenty-one years of age, and employees of Roseland, New York-Tokyo, and This Week in New York are not eligible. One winner will be selected at random. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see one of Japan’s hottest exports!

muMs & AURORA

New York City natives muMs & Aurora will be teaming up for a special show at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on September 30

Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 East Third St. between Aves. B & C
Thursday, September 30, $10, 7:00
www.nuyorican.org
www.mumsandaurora.tumblr.com

We were thrilled to bump into muMs da Schemer the other day, the poet, playwright, director, and actor perhaps most well known as Poet on the HBO prison drama OZ. Born Craig Grant in the Bronx, he has also appeared in such television series as COLD CASE, DEF POETRY JAM, THE GOOD HEART, LAW & ORDER, BOSTON LEGAL, and CHAPPELLE’S SHOW, where he famously portrayed Lysol in the “Mad Real World” sketch. He immediately pulled out a flyer trumpeting his latest gig, teaming up with New York City singer-songwriter, actress, and violinist Aurora Barnes for a series of shows at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. “I’m going back to where I started,” he said. “It’s a real pleasure.” Backed by a band, muMs & Aurora are “folk music’s answer to hip-hop,” performing such songs as “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” “Fifty Times / Ploylessness,” “Survivor,” and “Bring on the Fire,” alternating between Aurora’s sweet melodies and muMs’s spoken word poetry. They also do a mash-up of muMs’s “Truth” with Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Move On” from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, so you never really know where they’re going to take you next. The duo, who previously collaborated on muMs’s play PARADOX OF THE URBAN CLICHÉ for the LAByrinth Theater Company, will be at the Nuyorican on September 30 at 7:00.

WHATEVER BLOG PARTY

Shark? will be part of a great lineup of local bands playing the latest Whatever Blog Party at Glasslands (photo by Amy Grimm)

Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave.
Wednesday, September 29, $8, 8:00
www.whatever-amy.blogspot.com
www.glasslands.blogspot.com

Amy Grimm, who runs the Whatever Blog, is holding her latest monthly party on September 29 at Glasslands, featuring an ultrahip lineup of indie bands, all for only eight bucks. Grimm writes that the Señors of Marseille “have a really full, rich sound with beautiful harmonies that hark back to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, with a twist of ’90s Brit pop (think Supergrass and Cornershop) and a hint of old school R.E.M thrown in for good measure.” Shark? had to cancel their scheduled appearance at the July Whatever Blog Party, but they’re now back, “a mega rad Brooklyn band [that] has a really cool, very ’60s garage pop sound mixed in with some early R.E.M. with a sense of humor,” in Grimm’s words. Another New York City band, Bottle Up and Go, “has a really cool, distinctive sound that is kinda like if you put the White Stripes, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Zeppelin, and Little Richard in a blender,” Grimm explains on her site. “Bottle Up and Go is really primal and raw live.” After catching the Sundelles at Public Assembly during the Northside Festival, Grimm wrote, “I was very impressed. Their sound was very old school three chord punk done right.” In addition, there will be DJ sets by Nick Kinsey and Wyndham Boylan-Garnett from Diamond Doves and Elvis Perkins in Dearland. (For more on Amy, you can check out our twi-ny talk with her here).

STANLEY CLARKE BAND FEATURING HIROMI

Hiromi and Stanley Clarke will team up again for a week at the Blue Note (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Blue Note
131 West Third St.
September 28 – October 3, $25-$45, 8:00 & 10:30
212-475-8592
www.bluenote.net
www.stanleyclarke.com
summerstage slideshow

Back in late June, the Stanley Clarke Band, joined by Japanese pianist wunderkind Hiromi, played an inspiring free show at SummerStage as part of the Carefusion Jazz Festival, with legendary promoter George Wein in attendance. Clarke was in great spirits, wandering across the stage from keyboardist Ruslan Sirota to drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. to Hiromi, part fan, part orchestra leader. Clarke moved from electric to stand-up bass effortlessly, playing the fusion that has made him one of the jazz world’s best for four decades. As on that beautiful night in Central Park (which was opened by the amazing McCoy Tyner), the quartet will be featuring songs from their latest album, simply titled THE STANLEY CLARKE BAND (Heads Up, June 2010), which includes such tracks as “Soldier,” “Fulani,” “Labyrinth,” and “How Is the Weather Up There?” The record also contains the superbly titled “Larry Has Traveled 11 Miles and Waited a Lifetime for the Return of Vishnu’s Report” and a horn-laden tribute to Sonny Rollins on the occasion of the saxophone colossus’s eightieth birthday. Clarke and his band will be at the Blue Note for twelve shows over six nights from September 28 through October 3, offering plenty of opportunities to catch this terrific group, sounding as good as ever.

TEENAGE FANCLUB

Teenage Fanclub gets a little too lost in the shadows on first record in five years

Monday, September 27, and Tuesday, September 28, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., $25, 9:00
Thursday, September 30, Williamsburg Waterfront, $37.50, 5:30
www.myspace.com/theteenagefanclub

It’s been twenty years since Teenage Fanclub came on the scene with A CATHOLIC EDUCATION, then breaking through in the U.S. with 1992’s grungy BANDWAGONESQUE, which featured such hits as “Star Sign,” “The Concept,” and “What You Do to Me.” The Glasgow band is now back with its first studio album in five years, SHADOWS (Merge, June 2010), and over the course of twelve songs and forty-eight minutes, they show that they are not nearly as edgy as they once were. Guitarists Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley, bassist Gerard Love — who alternate songwriting duties and lead vocals — and drummer Francis MacDonald still wear their influences on their sleeves, evoking the Byrds, Neil Young, Big Star, and Jerry Garcia, but they need a wake-up call from these sleepy, treacly tunes. (Listeners will need a few wake-up calls as well.) In fact, they sing about waking up several times on the album, on the TV-theme-song-like “Baby Lee,” the tepid “Shock and Awe,” and the mundane “The Past.” “Give yourself a wake-up call,” McGinley sings on the latter, “let the past come back to rescue you.” Teenage Fanclub will have to let the past rescue them when they come to New York this week for two headlining shows at the Bowery Ballroom, September 27 with the Radar Brothers and September 28 with the Radar Brothers and the Clean, before opening for Belle & Sebastian on September 30 at the Williamsburg Waterfront.

ATLANTIC ANTIC

Annual Atlantic Antic street festival winds through the brownstones of Brooklyn

Atlantic Ave. from Hicks St. to Fourth Ave.
Sunday, September 26, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Admission: free
www.atlanticave.org

The thirty-sixth annual Atlantic Antic will fill Atlantic Ave. with frantic festivalgoers eager for the latest in art, music, food, and other forms of culture. Some one million people will be wandering among the six hundred vendors, buying tchotchkes, getting a bite to eat (look out for lobster rolls from the Red Hook Lobster Pound and desserts from Whimsy and Spice), taking their kids on pony rides, and checking out dozens of bands across ten stages; we heartily recommend the Demolition String Band at Hank’s, Shark? at Roebling Inn / Future Sounds at 2:55, Les Sans Culottes at Last Exit at 4:00, and Dinosaur Feathers at Roebling Inn / Future Sounds at 5:00. There will also be storytelling, face painting, belly-dancing lessons, drum circles, balloon sculptures, and much more. In conjunction with the Atlantic Antic, the MTA will be hosting the seventeenth annual Transit Museum Bus Festival, held on Boerum Pl. between State St. and Atlantic Ave., with newly restored vehicles, the Patcher, the AutoCar, the MetroCard Bus, the Tunnel Wrecker, children’s workshops, and free admission to the New York Transit Museum.