this week in music

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL

We Are Country Mice are among the growing lineup of excellent bands hitting Williamsburg this week for the Northside Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations throughout Williamsburg & Greenpoint
June 24-27
Admission: free – $19, badges $50
www.thelmagazine.com/blogs/NorthsideFestivalNews

The second annual Northside Festival is like a mini-CMJ, featuring a great lineup of mostly local bands — including the Fiery Furnaces, Takka Takka, Au Revoir Simone, Savoir Adore, Pillow Theory, Grooms, We Are Country Mice, Wavves, White Hills, High Places, Titus Andronicus, Ribbons, the Black Hollies, Les Savy Fav, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Harper Blynn, and Islands, among dozens of others — packing them in at Coco 66, Europa, Glasslands Gallery, the Knitting Factory, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Pete’s Candy Store, Public Assembly, Red Star Barn, Shea Stadium, Spike Hill, the Trash Bar, Union Pool, and Warsaw. In addition, Northside Film at IndieScreen will show such works as Zeina Durra’s THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE, Ry Russo-Young’s YOU WON’T MISS ME, Todd Solondz’s LIFE DURING WARTIME, James Franco’s THE FEAST OF STEPHEN, and Neil Marshall’s CENTURION as well as host an animation block party, shorts programs, and more. And Arts at Northside includes exhibitions and special events, including Conrad Ventur’s “Screen Tests Revisited” at Momenta Art, Rob List’s collaborative dance at Parker’s Box, and live music by Party of Virgins and Live Footage at the opening of Liubo Borissov’s “Crowdsource” at Eye Level BQE. Expect massive crowds, an unusually high hipster quotient even for Williamsburg, and lots of awesome music. Keep watching twi-ny for specific recommendations and must-sees over the next few days.

MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK



Everyone is invited to participate in annual free Make Music New York festival

Multiple venues
Monday, June 21
Admission: free
www.makemusicny.org

It’s no coincidence that Aaron Friedman, president and founder of Make Music New York, holds his annual event on June 21, the longest day of the year; he is determined to squeeze in as much free music as possible all over the city, taking advantage of every second. This year’s whirlwind festival features more than one thousand bands playing indoors and outdoors, at major venues and in parks, at small art spaces and marching through the streets. It’s an awesome opportunity to sample a new group or location, catching up on the ever-widening music scene across the five boroughs. Among the special programs is a celebration of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis in Central Park; Mass Appeal, in which anyone can join in on the fun, bringing their accordion to Washington Park, bagpipes to Herald Square, cello to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, flute to the Bethesda Fountain Tunnel, gong to Merchants’ Gate in Columbus Circle, and other instruments to specific locations; and Second Line New Orleans-style parades in Hudson Square, Lincoln Square, and Harlem. In addition, British artist Luke Jerram has placed sixty pianos across the city for his installation “Play Me, I’m Yours,” which continues through July 5.

AMERICAN IDIOT

Green Day’s seminal album is now a Broadway hit

St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tickets: $49-$252
www.americanidiotonbroadway.com

In 2004, Billie Joe Armstrong, Tré Cool, and Mike Dirnt, better known as Green Day, released AMERICAN IDIOT, considered by many to be one of the best records of the first decade of the twenty-first century. An unblinking examination of life during the post-9/11 Bush era, AMERICAN IDIOT unleashed a breathtaking suite of songs that held nothing back. Green Day has now collaborated with Tony Award–winning director Michael Mayer (SPRING AWAKENING), Tony Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer and orchestrator Tom Kitt (NEXT TO NORMAL) and Olivier Award–winning choreographer Steven Hoggett (BLACK WATCH) — to bring AMERICAN IDIOT to the stage. Whereas the album borrowed generously from Mott the Hoople, the Alarm, the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones, and even Bryan Adams, the Broadway musical borrows just as generously from HAIR, ROCK OF AGES, WEST SIDE STORY, and TOMMY. The show follows Johnny (John Gallagher Jr.), Will (Michael Esper), and Tunny (Stark Sands) as they try to break out of their hellish suburban existence only to discover that the world is an unkind, uncaring place. While Johnny falls in with drug-dealing demon St. Jimmy (Tony Vincent) in the big city and Will gets sent to Iraq, Tunny remains home in the mind-numbing suburbs with his pregnant girlfriend, Heather (Mary Faber), with happiness to be found nowhere. Green Day successfully worked with the actors and musicians to make sure the songs did not become overly Broadway-fied, which is a prime reason why this rock opera is so enjoyable. Hoggett’s choreography is energetic and, at times, inventive and thrilling, and Christine Jones’s Tony-winning multimedia set design is appropriately grungy, but the production feels long even at a mere ninety minutes, and it doesn’t really add much to what Green Day has already said on record. The book, written by Armstrong and Mayer, is riddled with clichés, and several new songs fall flat. Still, the staging is wonderful, featuring inventive uses of a bed, hospital gurneys, and a fire escape, and songs such as the title track, the “Jesus of Suburbia” suite, “21 Guns,” and “Whatsername” sound great, even in a Broadway theater.

VISION FESTIVAL XV

Abrons Arts Center and other venues on the Lower East Side
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Sunday, June 20, through Wednesday, June 30
Admission: free – $25 (festival pass $150)
www.visionfestival.org

The 2010 Vision festival gets under way June 20, kicking off eleven days of avantjazz at venues on the Lower East Side, with the Abrons Arts Center serving as home base. Run by the nonprofit group Arts for Art, this year’s event will honor Muhal Richard Abrams, naming him Master of the Rightful Arts of Music with a special series of programs June 24 at Abrons. Each day generally takes place at a single location, beginning with poetry and music at Gathering of the Tribes on June 20, a free outdoor concert with Little Huey’s Sextet & Children and the Roy Campbell Trio on June 21 at Campos Plaza Playground, followed by the Darius Jones Trio, the Lowest Common Denominator, Crackleknob, and the Bradley Farberman Ensemble at the Local 269. Among the other shows (at Abrons unless otherwise noted) are Frank London’s Kali Krew at Drom on June 22, Rob Brown’s New Quartet on June 23, contemporary dance choreographed by Jason Jordan on June 25, 28, and 29, Amiri and Amina Baraka with Thulani Davis and others on June 26, Billy Bang’s Spirit of Sir One on June 27, a drum tribute to the late Rashied Ali on June 29, and William Parker’s Southern Satellites at (le) poisson rouge on June 30. Many evenings will also include postmidnight jam sessions at Clemente Soto Velez. In addition, Abrons will host a related multimedia art installation June 23-29.

CREST FEST ’10

Crest Hardware
558 Metropolitan Ave. between Lorimer & Union
Saturday, June 19, free, 12 noon – 11:00 pm
Exhibit runs through July 30
www.cresthardwareartshow.com
slideshow

The third annual Crest Fest, a celebration of art, music, and hardware, takes place today on Metropolitan Ave., benefiting the City Reliquary Museum. More than one hundred artists have taken over fifteen thousand square feet of space with exciting multidisciplinary works. The opening will feature food, drink, a design market, and live performances by such bands as Deluka, the Sundelles, Motel Motel, Oberhofer, Zongo Junction, Darlings, and Wizardry, along with DJ sets by DJ Teenwolf, Faux Mex, Lucas Walters, and others. Curated by Joe Franquinha, the manager of Crest Hardware (a store that was founded by his father, Manny, in 1962), the show has very quickly become a Brooklyn tradition and is an absolute blast, as the artists generally use materials found in hardware stores to create pieces that comment on hardware, incorporating screws, saws, blades, plungers, air fresheners, plaster, paint, metal, sockets, switches, buckets, wire, cords, mops, planters, and even toilet seats into their work. The nearly two hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, and other creations are then placed throughout the store and outside garden, many hidden within the long, narrow aisles as if they were just another product. So be careful; that shovel might be a lot more than forty bucks if it’s one of the ones Dave Tree painted on. Most of the pieces are for sale, ranging in price from twenty bucks to thirty thousand, although most fall in the $100-$1,000 range. Some of our favorite works and titles include Fanny Allie’s “Crossed Fingers,” white plaster fingers cleverly stored in the electric saw case; Xian Lee’s romantic painting “Love Screw”; Larry Heintjes’s “Silicone Stalagmite”; Kim Beury’s “The Nail That Stands Up Gets Pounded Down”; Leslye Learess’s “For a Feminine Touch” air fresheners; Wendy Klimperer’s “African Crested Porcupine”; Ted Stanke’s “Claw Hammer” and “Wrench,” both made out of pocket change; Alexandre Sazonov’s “Hammer and Jesus” painting; and Mike Houston’s playful signs. It’s a riot that while you’re searching for all the art, that person next to you is actually looking for a power drill, a paintbrush, or a pale to finish up some work on his apartment. You’ll also develop a whole new love of the tool, as not everything you might think is art is art; a hammer, after all, is sometimes just a hammer.

NEW YORK BREWFEST 2010

Governors Island, Water Taxi Beach
Saturday, June 19, $55, 3:30 – 8:00
www.nybrewfest.com

More than 120 international breweries, with a heavy emphasis on New York and the United States, will be pouring cold brews on June 19 on Water Taxi Beach on Governors Island at the fourth annual New York Brewfest. We highly recommend trying the fineries of Brewery Ommegang, Middle Ages, Goose Island, Magic Hat, Otter Creek, Smuttynose, Duvel, and Samuel Smith, among plenty of others. The event will feature live music by Alexis P. Suter, Mikey Powell, Dark Hollow, the Horseshoe Lounge Playboys, and Bagpipe Dudes; the seminars “Beer & Chocolate,” “Women in Beer,” and “The State of New York State Hops”; and food from Van Leeuwen, the Sullivan St. Bakery, Sigmund Pretzelshop, and Brewfest sponsor Heartland Brewery. And you don’t have to worry about finding a designated driver, as transportation to and from Governors Island will be handled by free water taxis all day.

THE GOODNIGHT LOVING

The Goodnight Loving will be all over the tristate area this weekend

Thursday, June 17, the Silent Barn, 915 Wyckoff Ave., Ridgewood, 8:00
Friday, June 18, Bruar Falls, 245 Grand St., Williamsburg, $8, 8:00
Saturday, June 19, Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St., Manhattan, $10, 8:00
Sunday, June 20, Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, $12-$14, 9:00
www.myspace.com/thegoodnightloving

Goodnight Loving, where have you been all our lives? We can’t believe we’re only just discovering this amazing Milwaukee band, which has been around since the early 2000s. All that time lost! Well, we’ve been catching up with such fine tunage as the frantic “Mad Is the Man,” the rollicking “Colin Attends a Party,” the acoustic shanty “Purple Death,” and the country-tinged “Dead Fish on the Banks” from such earlier records as THE GOODNIGHT LOVING (2008), CROOKED LAKE (2006), and CEMETERY TRAILS (2005) as well as the groovy “The Pan” from their latest, SUPPER CLUB (Dirtknap, July 2010). Fans of the Black Lips, Drink Up Buttercup, and the classic Nuggets collections will fall in love with the GL’s garage band psychedelia, girl-group harmonies, Brit-pop melodies, and 1960s ephemera. James, Ross, Paul, and Jerome are in the midst of a nonstop U.S. tour right now that brings them to the Silent Barn on June 17 with Big Troubles, Bright Lights, and Fire Season, Bruar Falls on June 18 with Bass Drum of Death, Ex Humans, DJ Daed Pizza, and free ice cream, Cake Shop on June 19 with Prince Rupert’s Drops, and Maxwell’s on June 20 with Reigning Sound, giving everyone a chance to party to their infectious party rock.