this week in music

HEAVY CREAM

Heavy Cream will be spilling all over the city for the next week (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Wednesday, September 1, Union Pool, 484 Union Ave., 10:30
Thursday, September 2, Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St., $8, 8:00
Monday, September 6, Rock Shop, 249 Fourth Ave., $10, 4:30
Tuesday, September 7, Death by Audio, 49 South Second St., 8:00
www.myspace.com/heavycreamband
heavy cream rocks off slideshow

It could be a bummer of a summer if you don’t catch Heavy Cream before fall takes over. The Nashville garage punks tear through Ramones-like originals that clock in around two minutes or less, ripping it up with such fast-paced tunage as “Run Free,” “Hawkwound,” “Watusi,” “Heart of Darkness,” “Tina,” and “Lava Lamp,” which actually borrows liberally from “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.” Oh, and there’s also “Summer Bummer.” The band is on the road with their debut record, DANNY (August 2010, Infinity Cat), which was produced by Jake Orrall of the awesome Jeff the Brotherhood. Heavy Cream recently opened for the Detroit Cobras aboard the Half Moon Rocks Off Concert Cruise, and perhaps what was most impressive was how lead singer Jessica, bassist Daniel, and guitarist Mimi kept their balance while the boat rocked from side to side; at least drummer Melissa could sit behind her drum kit. Jessica wandered through the crowd and, at times, got down on the floor as she sang it loud. Heavy Cream will be at Union Pool with Boogie Boarder and Sweet Bulbs on September 1, at Cake Shop with Unnatural Helpers on September 2, at the Rock Shop’s all-day Labor Day BBQ with Pterodactyl, Dinowalrus, and Shingles on September 6, and at Death by Audio with Hunters on September 7.

JIMMY SCOTT: 85th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Jimmy Scott wowed the crowd at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on Sunday in Tompkins Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Blue Note
131 West Third St.
August 31 & September 1, bar $20, table $35, 8:00 & 10:30
212-475-8592
www.bluenote.net
www.jimmyscottofficialwebsite.org

Born in Cleveland in 1925, Jimmy Scott started singing as a young child. At thirteen, he developed Kallman’s syndrome, which stunted his growth and left him with a high-pitched, feminine voice. He eventually grew eight more inches, but his voice never fully matured — and has been dazzling jazz fans for decades. On Sunday at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Tompkins Square Park, Scott, who turned eighty-five in July, treated a packed crowd to splendid versions of such standards as “It Had to Be You,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Embraceable You,” which he had performed with Bird himself back in 1950. Although he is now confined to a wheelchair and can’t hit or hold the notes like he used to, Scott still displays his uncanny knack for vocal phrasing and emotional power, and his sense of humor was evident in his delightful between-song patter. However, in one poignant moment during “Motherless Child,” Scott looked up to the sky after singing, “I’m ready to go home.” Scott, backed by the excellent Jazz Expressions — T. K. Blue on alto sax, Alex Minasian on piano, Hillard Greene on stand-up bass, and Dwayne Broadnax on drums — will be celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday in style at the Blue Note with four shows over two nights, featuring special guest Gregoire Maret.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Don’t get washed out of getting tickets to see Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND at BAM (photo by Laurent Philippe)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St.
September 23 – December 19, $20-$85
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Now in its twenty-eighth year, BAM’s Next Wave Festival is, as always, a terrific collection of productions scouted from around the world. Single tickets go on sale Monday, August 30, for Laurie Anderson’s phantasmagoric DELUSION and Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND, an extremely strong one-two punch to get the season going, featuring a pair of longtime BAM favorites; we recently caught Anderson at (le) poisson rouge, and she’s still at the top of her game, while VOLLMOND is the final piece from the inventive, innovative, and endlessly entertaining Bausch, who passed away in June 2009, leaving behind a BAM legacy that included the thrilling BAMBOO BLUES, NEFÉS, and FUR DIE KINDER VON GESTERN, HEUTE, UND MORGEN, among other splendid shows. The rest of the series goes on sale September 7, with such highlights as Ralph Lemon’s HOW CAN YOU STAY IN THE HOUSE ALL DAY AND NOT GO ANYWHERE?, Stew’s BROOKLYN OMNIBUS, Julia Stiles in the Ridge Theater’s PERSEPHONE, Sasha Waltz’s GEZEITEN, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s version of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD, Thomas Ostermeier’s take on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN, Gísli Örn Gardarsson and Nick Cave’s experimental exploration of Franz Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS, and Mikel Rouse’s multimedia extravaganza GRAVITY RADIO. Subscription tickets are available right now; if you buy seats to four or more shows, you can save up to forty percent and receive such benefits as priority access to future seasons, flexible scheduling, and discounts for additional tickets.

GREATER NEW YORK/WARM UP

William Cordova’s “Laberintos (after octavio paz)” is set up like dominoes ready to come tumbling down at any moment (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MoMAPS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Warm Up: Saturdays from 2:00 to 9:00 through September 4, $15 (free for Long Island City residents)
Greater New York: Thursday through Monday from 12 noon – 6:00 pm through October 18
Suggested donation: $10 (free with MoMA ticket within thirty days of MoMA visit)
718-784-2084
www.ps1.org
“pole dance” slideshow

MoMA PS1’s third quinquennial, their five-year survey of contemporary art in the metropolitan area, is an engaging and involving collection of multimedia work from approximately seventy artists. Taking on everything from environmentalism and racism to marketing and celebrity, the show moves along at a breezy pace. Various artists get their own relatively large galleries, including David Benjamin Sherry (yes, you can walk through the doors), Leidy Churchman, Vlatka Horvat, and Zipora Fried, while others get their own small rooms, like Conrad Ventur, who presents the history of Shirley Bassey singing “This Is My Life” as seen through rotating crystal prisms. David Brooks’s “Preserved Forest” installation comments on the deforestation along a new superhighway in Brazil, while Gilad Ratman’s two-channel video, “The 588 Project,” features a bubbling, muddy ooze seemingly coming alive. Visitors are encouraged to add colorful strips of tape to Franklin Evans’s “timecompressionmachine” and to play the strings of Naama Tsabar’s pair of speaker walls. One of the most powerful pieces is Hank Willis Thomas’s “Unbranded,” consisting of advertising photographs tailored to the African American community, organized chronologically from the 1960s to the present, in which all text and brand names have been removed, leaving just the central image to be judged on its own. In the same room, William Cordova’s “Laberintos (after octavio paz)” collects record sleeves from an Ivy League institution that borrowed 200 Inca artifacts from Peru in 1914 and refuses to return them; the albums are arranged in a perilous maze that appears likely to collapse at any moment. As usual, there’s art just about everywhere you look or listen at PS1; Nico Muhly’s specially commissioned sound piece loops in the elevator, and Aki Sasamoto collaborated with Saul Melman on “Skewed Lies / Central Governor” in the boiler room, where live performances are scheduled September 17-19 and October 15-17. Also downstairs, in the cinema, Ronald Bronstein’s FROWNLAND (2007) continues through August 30, with Bronstein discussing the film with Amy Taubin on August 28; future screenings include works by Dani Leventhal and Fern Silva as well as Tomonari Nishikawa and Redmond Entwistle, with upcoming performances by Andrew Lampert and Trisha Baga. In addition, Dutch artist Guido van der Werve will be presenting an orchestra performance October 2 & 9.

Solid Objectives — Idenburg Liu have installed the playful, interactive “Pole Dance” in the PS1 courtyard (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The summer-long hot and sweaty Warm Up series has two Saturdays remaining, with Big Freedia, DJ Rusty Lazer, DJ Rashad, GHE20 GOTHIK DJs Venus X and Brenmar, and Traxx getting booties shaking on August 28, and House of House, DJ Mehdi, and a live set by Holy Ghost! ready to close out the season on September 4. The winner of this year’s Young Architects Program, Solid Objectives — Idenburg Liu (SO – IL), has filled the courtyard with large beach balls, overhead netting, hammocks, wading pools, and sand, where people can relax or toss around the balls while also getting sprayed with mist. Some of the poles in the section immediately to the right are linked to sound, so you can orchestrate your own concert or watch a show choreographed by Kyra Johannesen on August 28 at 2:30. You can also grab burgers, beer, and dogs at the regular Warm Up barbecue, but be prepared for some massive crowds. Summer Saturdays at PS1 have become a right of passage for New Yorkers, who are able to experience art, music, film, dance, food, sport, literature, and more, all in one fabulous setting.

YOSHITOMO NARA + YNG: OPEN STUDIO

Friday is last chance to see Yoshitomo Nara’s work-in-progress in the Park Ave. Armory (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Through Friday, August 27, free, 4:00 – 7:00
www.armoryonpark.org
www.asiasociety.org
“Home” slideshow

In preparation for “Nobody’s Fool,” his major exhibition opening at the Asia Society on September 9, Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara and his design team, YNG, are constructing a special installation this week in the cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall in the Park Ave. Armory. When it’s finished, “Home,” a one-story living environment, will be transferred a few blocks uptown; in the meantime, visitors are invited to get a free sneak peek at the work-in-progress every afternoon from 4:00 to 7:00 through this Friday. The fifty-one-year-old Tokyo-based Neo Pop artist is most well known for his paintings, sculptures, and drawings of wide-eyed childlike characters who are not quite as cute as they first appear, evil and danger lying not too far below the surface. Nara’s punk-rock influences are evident at the armory, where a glassed-in room holds dozens of his drawings, many of which include musical elements, from a young girl playing air guitar to a Ramones postcard. Meanwhile, music blasts as workers continue building “Home” right out in the open. Don’t look too hard for Nara himself; the shy artist has done a good job of avoiding being in the spotlight so far this week. In order to enter the hall, visitors must wear closed-toe shoes, shoulders must be covered, and yellow hard hats will be given out. Be sure to pick up a card that offers two-for-one admission to the upcoming show; in addition, Nara and curator Miwako Tezuka will be at the Asia Society on Friday night for a Q&A and discussion following a screening of Koji Sakabe’s 2007 documentary, TRAVELING WITH YOSHITOMO NARA. Tickets are also now available for such related events as an artist talk with Nara and Hideki Toyoshima on September 10, a live performance by Shonen Knife on September 25, and a screening of Lewis Rapkin’s documentary about the contemporary Japanese indie music scene, LIVE FROM TOKYO, on October 29.

PLAYBOY ROCK THE RABBIT

Elizabeth Harper and Class Actress are part of sexy triple bill at Highline Ballroom (photo by Bek Andersen )

Highline Ballroom
431 West 16th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Wednesday, August 25, $12-$15, 8:00
212-414-5994
www.highlineballroom.com
www.playboy.com

Playboy’s annual Rock the Rabbit puts together hot bands with cool designers (or is that cool bands with hot designers?) who join forces to create special-edition T-shirts for Playboy. All summer long, Rock the Rabbit bands and Playboy playmates have been showing off the new tees at the Ibiza Rocks Hotel, with concerts featuring such bands as LCD Soundsystem, Maximo Park, Florence and the Machine, Calvin Harris, Soulwax, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Dizzee Rascal. But you don’t have to head to the party island of Ibiza to join in the fun. On August 25, playmates Lauren Anderson (Miss July 2002) and Shannon James (Miss May 2007) will host a Rock the Rabbit evening at the Highline Ballroom, with a stellar musical lineup that includes Ha Ha Tonka, Class Actress, and Bear Hands. The four-piece Ozark band Ha Ha Tonka investigates the South’s “horrific past” while celebrating its reputation for “enormous hospitality” on gospel-tinged pop songs such as “Hold My Feet to the Fire” and “The Outpouring.” Brooklyn singer Elizabeth Harper unleashes sexy hooks in such synth-pop numbers as “Journal of Ardency,” “Adolescent Heart,” and “Let Me Take You Out.” And Brooklyn quartet Bear Hands are rising stars in the indie scene, scoring success with their recent three-song EP WHAT A DRAG and having recently played at the Whitney.

THE ENGLISH BEAT

Dave Wakeling will prove he’s still got the beat August 21 at Webster Hall

Webster Hall
125 East Eleventh St. between Second & Third Aves.
Saturday, August 21, $30, 8:00
212-353-1600
www.myspace.com/officialbeatspace
www.websterhall.com

The English Beat formed more than thirty years, then ruled the early ’80s with such ska smashes as “Mirror in the Bathroom” and “Save It for Later” and a killer cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown.” In 1983, leaders Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger put together General Public, which had a huge hit with “Tenderness” before they broke up. There have been various incarnations of the English Beat, known as the Beat in England, over the last decade, but none that have included both Roger and Wakeling together (except for a one-off gig at Royal Festival Hall in February 2003). Wakeling is bringing the current incarnation of the band, with Rhythmm Epkins on drums, Wayne Lothian on bass, Raynier Jacildo on keyboards, Matt Morrish on saxophone, and Antonee First Class on toaster, to Webster Hall tonight, with Bad Manners and Chris Murray opening the show. Prepare to dance your ass off.