this week in music

DUMBO ARTS FESTIVAL

“Sushi” is performed in the windows of the BoConcept furniture store at 79 Front St. hourly between 2:00 & 5:00 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations
September 24-26
www.dumboartsfestival.com

The 2010 DUMBO Arts Festival will feature hundreds of events Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, three days of open studios, juried exhibitions and installations, concerts, dance, a digital summit, book signings, walking tours, performance art, a visual poetry marathon, children’s activities, and more, much of it free. The New York Photo Festival is premiering “Capture Brooklyn” at the powerHouse Arena, No Longer Empty will take over a suite in 111 Front St. as well as scaffolding outside 25 Washington St., Tom Verlaine will be playing at Galapagos with Billy Ficca and Patrick Derivaz, and Jonathan Lethem will be celebrating the launch of the paperback version of CHRONIC CITY. Among the other myriad participants and special events are the Brooklyn Ballet, Jane’s Carousel, storyteller LuAnn Adams, E. J. Antonio, the Strung Out String Band, Daniel Fishkin, Crystal Gregory, Mighty Tanaka, Bubby’s seventh annual Pie Social, a Steampunk Salon Saloon, and a bug-eating discussion with chef and artists Marc Dennis.

Anyone can be a star in Nelson Hancock’s two-part “That’s (not) Me” at DUMBO Arts Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

We particularly recommend Nelson Hancock’s “That’s (not) Me” outside on Main St. and inside at 55 Washington St., an August Sander-inspired project in which you can take a photograph of a friend or stranger, then switch places, then take a self-portrait, and you get to take home each photo of yourself; “Sushi,” in which Felisia Tandiono, Kashimi Asai, and Nung-Hsin Hu perform as three pieces of sushi in the windows of BoConcept at 79 Front St.; Andrea Cote and Michael Drisgula’s “Clay,” in which Cote will sculpt your head in clay while Drisgula documents it on video, with the same piece of clay used for all sitters; Fountain Art Fair favorite Allison Berkoy’s creepy projection “Asleep #3,” hidden away in a loading dock at 30 Washington St.; eteam’s “Gallery Cruise” at Smack Mellon on 92 Plymouth St., where you can relax at a table in the Tea Room, which offers a view of the Atlantic Ocean through a pair of windows; and Demetria Mazria’s “Take-Less” at 30 Washington St., composed of plastic take-out containers that form the number 2629, representing the number of such containers used (and then thrown out) every second in the United States. (We were looking forward to Janet Biggs’s “Wet Exit,” but it was canceled at the last minute.)

JP, CHRISSIE AND THE FAIRGROUND BOYS

Chrissie and JP share their unusual relationship in song (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Irving Plaza
17 Irving Pl.
Saturday, September 25, $34.50, 8:00
212-777-6800
www.myspace.com/chrissiehyndejpjones

Last month, longtime Pretender Chrissie Hynde gave New Yorkers a sneak peek at her her latest project, previewing songs from FIDELITY! (Rocket Science, August 2010), the debut album of JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys. Hynde, Welsh singer-songwriter JP Jones, and Big Linda guitarist Patrick Murdoch performed an intimate show at Rockwood Music Hall, with Hynde looser than ever, joking about her age and calling herself dirty names, immediately setting up a warm, friendly rapport with the audience, a few of whom spoke a little too much to Hynde, who eventually had to only somewhat playfully call for security. Meanwhile, Jones could barely take his eyes off Hynde, amazed that they were together, in one way or another. The new album is centered around the are-they or aren’t-they relationship between the fifty-nine-year-old Hynde and the thirty-one-year-old Jones. “His time is tomorrow / mine was yesterday,” Hynde sings on “Perfect Lover,” the opening track of the album. “I found my perfect lover / but he’s only half my age / He was learning how to stand / when I was wearing my first wedding band/ I found my perfect lover / but I’ll have to turn the page / I want him in my kitchen / and standing on my stage.” JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys will be standing together onstage with their full band on September 25 at Irving Plaza, playing their songs of unrequited love and love gone wrong, including such beautiful numbers as “If You Let Me,” “Courage,” and “Leave Me If You Must.” They ended the Rockwood Music Hall show with a funny, improvised version of Moby Grape’s “Murder in My Heart for the Judge,” by the 1960s group that Hynde said was the major influence on her new group, so look out for that one as well. Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Amy Correia opens up.

DIFRENT LAUNCH PARTY

Brooklyn’s Blitz the Ambassador will join Pete Seeger and Stephan Said for a night of peace, activism, and music

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Monday, September 20, $20-$25, 7:30
212-505-3474
www.difrent.org
www.stephansaid.com

On the eve of the International Day of Peace, Pete Seeger, Stephan Said, and Blitz the Ambassador are teaming up to celebrate the launch of difrent, “the global broadcasting platform for music for social change, a one-stop where artists, activists, and organizations come together to advance local initiatives around the world on a constant basis through music and video releases.” The performers will be backed by an all-star band featuring Cindy Blackman on drums, Kevin Hunter on mandolin and guitar, Yousif Sheronick on percussion, and Art Baron, Earl Gardner, Lenny Pickett on horns, with surprise guests expected. Born in Cleveland, Said is an avid activist for interfaith dialogue, his own heritage a mix of the Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish faiths. Seeger isn’t about to let his age (ninety-one) stop him from fighting for the truth; he recently decried efforts to get him to pull out of the Friends of the Arava Institute Israel-friendly program “With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East,” telling the organization’s leader, “I could understand why someone might want to boycott something financially, but why would anyone want to boycott talking with each other?” Born in Ghana and based in Brooklyn, hip-hop genre bender and visual artist Blitz the Ambassador seeks to present to the world a different side of Africa.

JCC OPEN HOUSE: THE LOTTERY AND MORE

Screening of THE LOTTERY is part of all-day open house at the JCC



THE LOTTERY (Madeleine Sackler, 2010)

JCC in Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St.
Sunday, September 19, free, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm (film screens at 3:30)
646-505-4444
www.jccmanhattan.org
www.thelotteryfilm.com

After celebrating the Jewish New Year, the JCC in Manhattan is holding its annual open house, a free day to get to know the very busy Upper West Side institution. The myriad activities include a Kidzapalooza concert, a children’s sports expo, a postnatal Pilates boot camp, a video contest, skin cancer screenings, and workouts, demonstrations, and lessons in yoga, meditation, self-defense, Gypsy dance, indoor cycling, life coaching, Hebrew, low-flying trapeze, sand art, time management, cooking, dating, salsa, and much more, with special classes for kids, new mothers, and seniors, along with prizes and membership discounts. The afternoon ends with a screening of the eye-opening film THE LOTTERY.

The debate over charter schools reaches a fever pitch in Madeleine Sackler’s heart-wrenching documentary, THE LOTTERY. Sackler follows the hopes and dreams of four families who have entered their children in the annual lottery for placement in Harlem Success Academy, a free public elementary school founded by former city councilmember Eva Moskowitz. Some three thousand kids are vying for 475 coveted spots at the institution, which has an outstanding track record while doing things its own way, including not playing by the complex rules of the powerful teachers union. Sackler speaks with Moskowitz, Newark mayor Cory Booker, Harlem Children’s Zone president and CEO Geoffrey Canada, New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, and several Harlem Success Academy parents, principals, and teachers, who have only glowing things to say about the charter school, especially as it fights to open another location inside PS 194, leading to an angry battle with the community that is simply mind-blowing. Also mind-blowing are many of the statistics Sackler shares about the sorry state of public education in New York City and across the country, specifically in regard to blacks and Latinos. The final scene, in which the families sit inside the Fort Washington Armory, praying that their child’s name will be called as if their entire future is dependent upon it, is not only heartbreaking but also beyond frustrating, revealing how difficult it can be for parents to find quality schooling in certain parts of the city and offer their children opportunities that they never had.

SUPERCHUNK

Superchunk is back in town for a pair of sold-out shows (photo by Christian Lantry)

Saturday, September 18, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., $22, 9:00
Sunday, September 19, Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth St., $22, 9:00
www.myspace.com/superchunkmusic

We don’t know what we were thinking when we opted not to check out Superchunk’s free concert this past July at the South Street Seaport, but we were majorly bummed when we heard afterward that they put on a great show, bouncing around onstage like a bunch of kids and blowing the crowd away. Well, we’re happy to say that the Chapel Hill band is back for two area gigs this weekend, and although they’re not free, it’s hard to pass up another chance to see one of the most legendary alternative bands still out on the road. (The shows are sold out, but maybe you can search online or beg friends with tickets to let you go with them.) Singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan, bassist Laura Ballance, guitarist Jim Wilbur, and drummer Jon Wurster are touring behind MAJESTY SHREDDING, their first new LP since 2001’s HERE’S TO SHUTTING UP. While the quartet breaks no new ground on the album, which came out Tuesday on Merge Records, the label cofounded by McCaughan and Ballance back in 1989, it’s great to hear McCaughan’s lilting vocals and Wilbur’s alternately searing and crunching guitar sounds pounding out such fresh-sounding new tunes as “Digging for Something,” “My Gap Feels Weird,” and “Crossed Wires.” Superchunk, who has been featuring such older songs as “Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama),” “Driveway to Driveway,” “Slack Motherfucker,” and “Hyper Enough” at recent shows, will be at the Bowery Ballroom on Saturday night with Let’s Wrestle and at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Sunday night with Wild Nothing and Todd Barry.

OF MONTREAL

Of Montreal isn’t afraid to get a little goofy on record or at their live shows

Terminal 5
610 West 56th St.
Friday, September 17, and Saturday, September 18, $27.50-$30, 8:00
www.myspace.com/ofmontreal
www.terminal5nyc.com

Don’t let the funky grooves flying all over Of Montreal’s tenth album, FALSE PRIEST (Polyvinyl, September 14), fool you; band founder and Apollinaire Rave artistic director Kevin Barnes is still delving deep into suicide, shattered hearts, self-brutality, death anxiety, and loneliness — as well as particle wave duality, auto-da-fés, fetishized archetypes, uncalibrated skulls, frontal lobe regression, and Chinese urine. The Athens, Georgia, group, which has been shuffled and reshuffled over its thirteen-year career, with more former members than current members (and some albums recorded primarily by Barnes alone), has a ball on the new disc, mixing in falsetto funk, rollicking R&B, heavenly dance pop, and Euro-disco that has the sonic glee of Gnarls Barkley — perhaps it is no coincidence that OM has covered GB’s “Crazy.” On FALSE PRIEST, Of Montreal channels a little Beatles here (“You Do Mutilate?”), a whole lot of Prince there (“Like a Tourist,” “Sex Karma”), and even a bit of Bowie to boot (“Godly Intersex”). Janelle Monáe of the Wondaland Arts Society adds groovy raps to “Our Riotous Defects” and “Enemy Gene,” while Solange Knowles gets hot and heavy with Barnes on “Sex Karma,” which features the killer rhyme “You took me centuries to master / In the next life I will have to learn you faster.” Barnes and company — Bryan Poole, Davey Pierce, Dottie Alexander, Clayton Rychlik, Thayer Sarrano, Nicolas Dobbratz, and K Ishibashi — will be headlining Terminal 5 this Friday and Saturday with Kansas native Monáe, who recently released her debut album, THE ARCHANDROID (SUITES II AND III) (Bad Boy, May 18, 2010).

PETER YARROW BENEFIT CONCERT

Peter Yarrow will perform a benefit concert for the Museum at Eldridge Street on September 20

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Monday, September 20, $36, 7:00
RSVP: 212-219-0888 ext205, hgriff@eldridgestreet.org
www.eldridgestreet.org
www.peterpaulandmary.com

As one-third of the folksinging trio Peter, Paul & Mary, Peter Yarrow sang such seminal songs as “If I Had a Hammer,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “All My Trials,” “500 Miles,” and, of course, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” a mix of traditional and original tunes that played an important role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Sadly, Mary Travers passed away in September 2009 from complications arising from her chemotherapy treatment for leukemia, but Yarrow is still keeping the flame burning, founding the nonprofit group Operation Respect, which works “to assure each child and youth a respectful, safe and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence”; displaying public outrage when Chip Saltsman sent “Barack the Magic Negro,” an insensitive reworking of Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” to members of the RNC; and participating in the fight against colon cancer through his 2010 tune “The Colonoscopy Song.” He has also written or been part of a number of children’s books, including THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, set for release November 15 and featuring the final performance ever by Travers, singing to a new score of the title track by Yarrow. The Christmas book serves as the perfect lead-in to Yarrow’s latest project, a September 20 benefit concert raising funds for the Museum at Eldridge Street, site of a historic Lower East Side synagogue that is being lovingly restored. Tickets are only $36, with all proceeds going to the museum’s extensive cultural and educational programs.