this week in music

HYPERNOVA

Iranian band Hypernova celebrates release of debut album and film with three shows in their new hometown, New York City

Saturday, April 10, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St. between Ludlow & Essex Sts., $10, 7:30
Friday, April 16, 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson St. at Canal St., $10, 9:30
Saturday, May 1, Studio at Webster Hall,125 East Eleventh St. between Second & Third Aves., ,8:00
www.myspace.com/hypernovamusic
www.mercuryloungenyc.com
www.92y.org
www.websterhall.com

Iranian indie band Hypernova might have first made news because it took a letter from Sen. Charles Schumer to get the group visas for their 2008-2009 tour of the United States, but what’s more important is that their music is just so damn good. Fans of Interpol, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and Arctic Monkeys (and just about anyone else) should have a field day listening to their just-released debut album, THROUGH THE CHAOS (Narnack, April 2010), which is filled with killer hooks that will rattle your brains and shake your bones. “This world is not for the faint of heart,” deep-voiced Raam sings on the bonus track “Somewhere Far Away,” and neither is THROUGH THE CHAOS (which is currently streaming for free here). Pop music is banned in Iran, so lead vocalist/guitarist Raam, bassist Jam, guitarist Kodi, and drummer Kami, who are now based in New York City, risked their freedom to spread their music, so when they declare on “Viva La Resistance,” “So dance like you’ve never danced / and scream like you’ve never screamed / ’cause this one might be your last,” they really mean it. (On the same song, they also display their fierce determination by proclaiming, “Your theocratic neo-Fascist ideology / is only getting in the way of my biology / Your book says no! / But my body wants more!”) From the propulsive “Universal” and “Monster in Me” to the slower “Empty Times” and “Here and Now” (the latter featuring a sweet guitar outro), Hypernova lives and breathes their music, sharing their fairytale story, although their prospects are brighter than depicted in “Fairytales That Don’t Have Happy Endings.”

hypernova2

Hypernova will be at Mercury Lounge on April 10 and at the Studio at Webster Hall on May 1, but we’re most excited about their appearance at 92YTribeca on April 16, participating in the official after-party celebrating the release of Bahman Ghobadi’s NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS, a compelling fictional account of the underground indie music scene in Tehran. (Look for our review next week.) Also on the bill are the Yellow Dogs, who appear in the film, along with DJ Loveletters.

j-CATION: TASTE JAPAN

Japan Society will host full day of amazing Japanese food and more

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 10, suggested donation $5, 1:00 pm – 1:00 am
Some events require free tickets available beginning at 12:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Even though flights from New York to Tokyo have recently come down, it will still be a lot cheaper to get a taste of the Land of the Rising Sun on Saturday at the Japan Society, which is hosting the extremely exciting j-CATION from 1:00 pm to 1:00 am. The twelve-hour extravaganza, organized into Starters, Main Dishes, Sides, and Dessert, includes calligraphy and language classes, furoshiki and tea workshops, demonstrations from manga artist in residence Hiroki Otsuka, a foodie game show, a lecture by hot-dog-eating champion Takeru Kobayashi, a screening of Mitsuhiro Mihara’s food-related 2008 film FLAVOR OF HAPPINESS, live music by Me & Mars and Asobi Seksu, a cash bar, a virtual bento box battle, food vendors, and a late-night after-party with DJ Aki. If that isn’t enough, the outstanding exhibition “Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters,” a collection of gorgeous prints by nineteenth-century artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, will be open until 9:00. For a suggested donation of a mere five bucks, you can feel like you’re in Japan, at least for one day.

TWI-NY TALK: JAKE SZUFNAROWSKI

Three-hour cruise includes great live bands and DJs and awesome views

ROCKS OFF CONCERT CRUISES
The Jewel, the Paddlewheel Queen, the Half Moon, Skyport Marina, East 23rd St. & the FDR Dr.
The Temptress, World Yacht Marina, Pier 81, West 41st St. & the West Side Highway
April 8 – September 24, $10-$35
www.rocksoff.com

Jake Szufnarowski is a soft-spoken, mild-mannered Bee Gees fan who has been organizing pleasant concert cruises in New York City for ten years now. Well, um, strike that. Szuf Daddy is actually a hard-rockin’ crazy-ass tattooed mutha who’s been throwin’ wild parties for a decade on the Hudson and East Rivers while blasting away in a heavy metal tribute to the brothers Gibb.

Szufnarowski is celebrating the tenth anniversary of Rocks Off Concert Cruises, three-hour musical journeys on the rivers surrounding Manhattan during which fans are encouraged to party hard, fast, and long. This year’s stellar lineup kicks off on April 8 with Nashville Pussy and includes what should be amazing shows with Dam-Funk (April 24), Playboys of the Western World (June 5), jam band Railroad Earth (June 17), Ninja Tune DJ extraordinaire Mr. Scruff (July 2), cruise veterans the Electric Six (July 15), and one of the best live bands on the planet, the Black Lips (August 2), among many others. Earlier this week, Szufnarowski took a break from his studies to address a few questions about tribute bands, tattoos, and rolling on the river.

twi-ny: Many people are tentative to catch a show on a boat because they’re trapped — once they’re on, there’s no way off until the boat docks at the end of the night. What do you tell those people?

Jake Szufnarowski: Thankfully we thought of that!! We have dingys that depart the main boat every half an hour and take you on a scenic tour of the Gowanus Canal before dropping you off in “Do or Die” Bed-Stuy. Then you find your own way home from there. Or you can just stay on the boat. All of our boats are multilevel — so if you want to get away from the band, you can. And all the boats have outdoor decks to soak in the sun and get unobstructed views of the most beautiful city and skyline in the world. If you’re afraid that you can’t enjoy yourself on a boat full of bands, booze, and babes for three hours, then you should probably stay home and post snide comments on Brooklyn Vegan making fun of people who actually know how to enjoy themselves. Then you can dine on a fat, meaty GoFuckYourself sandwich!

Szuf Daddy shows off massive tattoo that took a year to complete

twi-ny: You’re in a tribute band, and the new Rocks Off season includes a bunch of tribute bands as well as the next edition of Tribute Wars. What separates a good tribute band from a bad tribute band?

JS: I’m in a tribute band? Fuck me. Is that why I’m not making any money on publishing? I guess that’s why I have to put on all these boat shows. For the money. And the [women]! Sweet sweet [women]! Tribute bands are like regular bands — 95% of ’em suck. Mine happens to be the best. If we tried to be the Bee Gees, we’d suck. But we’re TRAGEDY: THE NUMBER ONE HEAVY METAL TRIBUTE TO THE BEE GEES IN THE TRISTATE AREA!!!!!! We Rocks Sweet Balls and Can Do No Wrong.

twi-ny: Among your many tattoos is the logo for another band you’re in, Children of the Unicorn, in which a unicorn is doing it to a dolphin, and a recently completed tatt based on a Glenn Hidalgo painting. Assuming you have any room left on your body, what’s next?

JS: Yeah — that’s an awesome original band I’m in. But they aren’t doing it, you pervert. The title of that piece is “The Embrace.” It was a tattoo before we were a band, though. The Glenn Hidalgo painting was something I commissioned for my thirtieth birthday. It’s me as half-man / half-motorcycle — a motaur — in front of a postapocalyptic scene of NYC. That tattoo took seven sessions of six hours each over the course of an entire year to complete. So not sure I’m going to get anything too big too soon. Recent awesome tats have been a Yankees logo after the World Series win, an autograph of pro wrestling legend Terry Funk, a hot pink GFY (which stands for GoFuckYourself — due to the sudden popularity of the Facebook page I started). Next up, though, I’m getting my whole chest done. It’s going to be the reverse view of the motaur — if 3D is the new direction of the film industry, then I’m going to pioneer it in the tattoo world!!!

HIGH PLACES

Robert Barber and Mary Pearson battle mankind at Shea Stadium on April 8

Shea Stadium
20 Meadow St. between Bogart & Waterbury
Thursday, April 8, 8:00
www.myspace.com/hellohighplaces
www.myspace.com/sheastadiumbk

High Places set some lofty goals for themselves on their new album, HIGH PLACES VS. MANKIND (Thrill Jockey, April 2010), but the cops almost thwarted their vaunted return to Brooklyn when they closed down Market Hotel a few days ago. Fortunately, the duo of Mary Pearson and Robert Barber, now based in Los Angeles, have found another venue for their New York album release show, heading to Bushwick’s rather makeshift Shea Stadium on April 8, on a bill with Soft Circle and Bow Ribbons. High Places’ sophomore full-length, the follow-up to its eponymously titled September 2008 debut, features ten songs built around creative percussion, mystical electronic loops, and simple but infectious keyboards, with Barber adding guitars and Pearson contributing dreamy vocals. After the Brooklyn show, High Places has two gigs in Massachusetts before heading to Europe and Scandinavia, where they’ll be playing such locales as Madrid, Milan, Zagreb, Antwerp, and Lisbon through May. In the meantime, we’re gonna head back into the new album and put “On a Hill in a Bed on a Road in a House” on repeat play.

TWI-NY TALK: DEAN HASPIEL

Dean Haspiel is a fixture on the comic book scene and at MoCCA, seen here pointing at Neil Swaab at 2009 art festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dean Haspiel is a fixture on the comic book scene and at MoCCA, seen here telling Mr. Wiggles creator Neil Swaab who’s the man at the 2009 festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MoCCA ART FESTIVAL 2010
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Ave. between 25th & 26th Sts.
April 10-11, $10/day, $15-$20/both days
212-254-3511
www.moccany.com
www.deanhaspiel.com

For more than two decades, Dean Haspiel has been a comic book force all his own. A wildly talented and gregarious writer, illustrator, promoter, creator, and organizer, Dino works nonstop to build up his own expansive resume as well as the industry itself. In February 2006, he started ACT-I-VATE, a web-based comics collective that features such series as Josh Neufeld’s “Lionel,” Kevin Colden’s “Fishtown,” Nick Bertozzi’s “Iraq War Stories,” and his own “Billy Dogma” and “Street Code,” the latter a terrific semiautobiographical tale set in New York City, where Dino was born and raised. Along the way, he has collaborated on prestigious projects with Harvey Pekar (AMERICAN SPLENDOR, THE QUITTER), Jonathan Lethem (the upcoming BACK ON NERVOUS ST.), Michael Chabon (THE ESCAPIST), and Jonathan Ames (THE ALCOHOLIC), and he contributes drawings and illustrations to Ames’s HBO cable series BORED TO DEATH, which features Zach Galifianakis playing a character inspired by Haspiel’s real life.

We caught up with Dino in one of his very few spare moments as he was preparing to spread the word about the ninth annual MoCCA Art Festival, a celebration of comics and graphic novels that will be held April 10-11 at the 69th Regiment Armory. In addition to being all over the fair, including participating in the panel discussion “The Art of the Superhero: When Singular Vision Meets Popular Mythology” on April 10 at 2:00, Haspiel will turn into alter ego DJ Man-Size at the official festival after-party later that night at the Village Pourhouse. “I’ll mostly be spinning old school hip-hop and electronica from the 1980s with a slant on future funk,” he explained. “Think black Kraftwerk . . . think Boba Fett with tassels instead of scalps.”

twi-ny: You’ve collaborated with such talented writers as Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, and Jonathan Ames; who is your next dream collaborator?

Dean Haspiel: I’ve been itching to collaborate with author Tim Hall on an original graphic novel and we have something planned. I’d also like to collaborate with mystery writer Joe R. Lansdale on adapting his brilliant Hap and Leonard characters into comics form. Plus, I don’t think my career would feel satisfactory if I hadn’t collaborated with some of my favorite comic book writers, the likes of Mark Waid, J. M. DeMatteis, and a handful of others.

twi-ny: Who is your favorite character to draw, whether created by you or another artist?

DH: My favorite characters to draw are my creator-owned Billy Dogma & Jane Legit. But I love drawing Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s the Thing from the Fantastic Four, and I was recently afforded the opportunity to write and draw a short Thing story in an upcoming issue of Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales sequel.

Jane Legit shows her love for Billy Dogma in Dean Haspiel’s “Bring Me the Heart of Billy Dogma,” from THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER

twi-ny: On BORED TO DEATH, Zach Galifianakis’s Ray Hueston character is based on you. Is it easy to watch him, or does it hit a little too close to home?

DH: The Ray Hueston character on BORED TO DEATH is loosely based on some events that happened to me, but I don’t think Zach Galifianakis was subjected to a parallax view of my life and my behavioral traits by any stretch of the imagination. So, I can safely declare that Zach and Jonathan Ames have wholly created Ray from spirited, albeit inspired, cloth. However, I was recently privy to the filmmaking of a certain scene in the upcoming season and I remarked how bizarre it was to watch my proposed doppelganger play out an important event, something I never got the opportunity to do in my own life, and how frustrating yet weirdly cathartic that was for me.

twi-ny How do you find the time to do all the things you do, including serving as a relentless promoter of the comics industry?

DH: Don’t even get me started. If everyone on their chosen social networking sites would just share what they liked with the simple click of a button rather than whine about this and that and publish what they had for lunch, I might be able to shrug off my self-imposed burden to cheer what is good and, instead, produce more stories and eat dinner before 10 pm with the people I love to spend time with. Alas, the internet accesses a dark gene in humanity that encourages some folks to constantly complain and act like jerks and do things they wouldn’t dare do in front of real people. I don’t do anything that we all couldn’t do together if we just took a minute to think straight and understand our information and entertainment values.

This year’s MoCCA Art Festival runs April 10-11 at the 69th Regiment Armory, featuring such participants as Kim Deitch, Emily Flake, Jaime Hernandez. Neil Kleid, Peter Kuper, Hope Larson, Frank Miller, Paul Pope, Dash Shaw, Gahan Wilson, and Klein Award recipient David Mazzucchelli. Single tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show, with weekend tickets available for $15 in advance and $20 at the door. The official after-party will take place April 10 at the Village Pourhouse, with drink specials and free snacks beginning at 8:00; admission is $5.

CRUEL BLACK DOVE

Brooklyn quartet begins April residency on Lower East Side on April 6

Fontana’s
105 Eldridge St. between Broome & Grand Sts.
Tuesday nights in April, $6, 7:00
212-334-6740
www.myspace.com/cruelblackdove
www.fontanasnyc.com

In the first single off their new release, THE MYTH AND THE SUM, Brooklyn’s Cruel Black Dove announces, “Isolation feels right,” and so does just about everything else on this five-track EP. More atmospheric and moodier than their 2008 debut, FULL POWERS, the new album features sexy dance grooves oozing through haunting vocals kept slightly back in the mix on such songs as “Forgotten Place” and “Isolation.” Layered vocals lift the beautiful “Raking Water,” leading to the dark, languid closer, “Tied to the Pavement.” Lead singer Anastasia Dimou, guitarist Alan Veucasovic, bassist Shirley Ho, and drummer Jonathan Nanberg begin a Tuesday residency tonight at Fontana’s, with such guests as Saadi on April 6, the Danvilles on April 20, and Open Ocean on April 27. At Santos Party House celebrating the album’s release in January, CBD covered the Stooges’ “Gimme Danger”; who knows what they have up their sleeves during this four-show residency on the Lower East Side.

DAPHANE PARK: SUPERCONDUCTOR

Dapahane Park prepares her “Superconductor” healing installation by circling it with a feather and burning incense (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Daphane Park prepares her “Superconductor” healing installation by circling it with a feather and smudging with burning incense (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Honeyspace
148 Eleventh Ave. between 21st & 22nd Sts.
Through Saturday, April 10, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm (9:00 on April 10)
www.honey-space.com
twi-ny slide show

New York-based artist Daphane Park has reimagined Wilhelm Reich’s controversial orgone accumulator in Chelsea’s Honeyspace gallery, creating an organic “Superconductor” where visitors can gather with friends or meditate on their own while experiencing its many mysteries. Primarily composed of raw silk and cotton held together by steel wire, the welcoming tentlike space, a striking combination of deep red, pink, gold, and silver, feels as if it has an energy, a life-force, all its own, enhanced by a subtle but powerful electronic noise soundtrack by David Marshall, Rachael Bell, and Derrick Barnicoat. Incorporating holistic healing methods with shamanistic ritual, Park gives a performance every day from 3:00 to 6:00, using the architectural structure in addition to a pair of symbolic hammocks, a piano with lighted candles and a black skull on it, and a platform of old, broken musical instruments. The exhibit, curated by Karen Dorothee Peters, ends on April 10 at 7:00 with Lance White Magpie, a direct descendant of Crazy Horse, performing a special Lakota shamanic ritual set to live music. To fully experience “Superconductor,” which Park also envisions as a type of renewal, be sure to take off your shoes and go inside the installation, where you will feel like you’re experiencing another level of emotional and psychological consciousness.