this week in music

ARMORY ARTS WEEK: SITE FEST ’10

sitefest2

Multiple locations in Bushwick
March 6-7, 1:00 – 9:00 (music continues past midnight)
Suggested donation for certain events $5, day pass $10, weekend pass $20
www.artsinbushwick.wordpress.com

For something a little different during Armory Arts Week, head out to Brooklyn for two days of open studios, gallery openings, live performances, and more at the second annual SITE Fest. Organized by Arts in Bushwick, the festival has three primary theater, dance, and performance art hubs — 3rd Ward on Morgan Ave., Chez Bushwick on Boerum St., and the Grace Exhibition Space on Broadway — while Goodbye Blue Monday will be home base for much of the live music, curated by ionSOUND. Among the performers scheduled to appear are Kung Fu Crimewave, Larkin Grimm, Meng-Hsuan Wu, Homunculus Mask Theater, Yoo & Dancers, Jenny Vogel, Synthesis Dance Project, HoverBound, the Movement Farm, Ling-Fen Chien, and the Omen Project. There will also be site-specific installations, interactive performances, artist talks, film screenings, sketch comedy, and panel discussions at such satellite sites as the Bushwick Starr, English Kills Gallery, the Petri Space, Bushwick Music Studios, House of Yes, Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery, and many others.

ARMORY ARTS WEEK: THE INDEPENDENT

Be sure to take a page from Michael Dean as part of “The Floor Is the Object” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

548 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
March 4-7, free
www.independentnewyork.com

Elizabeth Dee and Darren Flook have joined forces to bring the free Independent art fair to Chelsea during Armory Arts Week, examining the way art shows are curated and viewed. The fair will take over the West 22nd St. space previously occupied by Dia and then the X Initiative, featuring work from more than forty galleries along with special installations, including Claire Fontaine’s neon “Please God Make Tomorrow Better,” which will be project on the outside doors. There will also be book signings, panel discussions, film screenings, and a live performance Saturday night by Dirty Mirrors.

UPDATE: The Independent is an extremely well organized fair, with plenty to see and do. Feel free to play Ping-Pong on Rirkrit Tiravanija’s “The Future Will Be Chrome” installation, accept a torn page from Michael Dean’s “The Floor Is the Object,” take a seat in the cage in Ryan Trecartin’s “P.opular S.ky (section ish),” create your own dialogue while investigating the artistic dialogues created by moss and Westreich-Wagner, and enjoy the milk-filled soda bottles marching their way through Jordan Wolfson’s twenty-minute CON LECHE film, but don’t enter Eve Sussman’s meticulous re-creation of Yuri Gagarin’s office.

ARMORY ARTS WEEK: SCOPE ART SHOW

Ukrainian artist Victor Sydorenko goes red at Mironova Gallery at Scope (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Lincoln Center Damrosch Park
62nd St. at Amsterdam Ave.
March 4-7, $20
www.scope-art.com

Some fifty international galleries will be exhibiting at this year’s edition of SCOPE, being held once again under a big tent in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. In addition, the fashionable Markt will be back, with displays by such designers as Chicks on Speed, Graham Tabor & Miguel Villalobos, and Shari Pierce. Special cinematic events include Martha Colburn’s “Political Revolution in My Basement” on March 4, “A Shaded View on Fashion Film” on March 5, Zach Layton’s “d.i.y. sci-fi” on March 6 (with a live performance by the Fair Use Trio at 4:00), and Columbia University’s “The Interruption” multimedia installation on March 7. And if you need a shuttle to the Armory Show or Pulse, you can hop aboard Pratima Naithani’s “The Sweet Shop” mobile project.

UPDATE: SCOPE is more manageable than it’s been in past years, with a better selection of artwork as well. We particularly recommend EVOL’s cardboard pieces at Anonymous, Noelle K. Tan’s dark photographs at Civilian Art Projects, the one-dollar art gumball machine at jackie paper, Noh Ju Hwam’s typeset sculpture at Kwanhoon, Daniel Glaser and Magdalena Kunz’s talking cinematographic sculptures at Gagliardi Art System, Victor Sydorenko’s red Levitation series at Mironova, Asako Shimizu’s beautiful “On Her Skin” series at Wada Garou, and just about everything at Galeria Christopher Paschall.

WALES WEEK USA

Dylan Thomas celebration is at center of 2010 Wales Week in New York

EXPERIENCE DYLAN THOMAS IN NEW YORK
Multiple locations
March 2-7, free – $150
www.wales.com
www.dylanthomas.com

Wales Week USA celebrates Welsh culture and history with special presentations across the country March 2-7. Here in New York, Wales Week focuses on poet Dylan Thomas, who spent a lot of time in the city, including dying at St. Vincent’s in 1953 at the age of thirty-nine. The Morgan Library will be displaying rare manuscripts and other artifacts in addition to serving a special Welsh afternoon tea March 3-7. On March 6, Dr. Rhian Davies and pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips honor composer Alec Templeton at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at 3:00, followed by the Music Masters of Wales concert at Carnegie Hall, guest-conducted by 2010 William R. Hopkins Bronze Medal recipient Dr. Karl Jenkins. On March 7 at 9:30 am, you can learn all about Thomas’s relationship with New York City on the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, put together by scholar Peter Thabit Jones and Aeronwy Thomas, the poet’s daughter ($25, advance RSVP required at catrin.brace@wales-uk). Wales Week concludes that afternoon at 4:00 with David Enlow playing “The Organ Works of Cesar Franck” at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on West 73rd St.

THE MUSIC OF THE WHO

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Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 Seventh Ave. at 57th St.
Tuesday, March 2, $45-$130, 8:00
www.carnegiewho.com

Over the last several years, music impresario Michael Dorf has gathered together a remarkable cast of characters to pay tribute to master musicians, all in the name of charity. Past honorees have included Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, and R.E.M. This year, twenty artists will be singing the music of the Who on March 2 at Carnegie Hall, with 100% of the proceeds going to such organizations as Fixing Instruments for Kids in Schools, Music Unites, Young Audiences New York, the Church Street School for Music & Art, the Pinwheel Project, and the American Symphony Orchestra. Performers who will be reaching deep into the Roger Daltrey / Pete Townshend songbook include Bob Mould, Nicole Atkins, Bettye LaVette, Mose Allison, Living Colour, Robyn Hitchcock, the Smithereens, Willie Nile, Sondre Lerche, the Gaslight Anthem, Jason Isbell, Raul Midon, and Bobby McFerrin. We’ve been to several of these events, which are always fun, especially if the performer being honored just happens to show up, as Bruce Springsteen did at his and Michael Stipe and Peter Buck did at theirs. The night before, March 1, City Winery will be hosting a live rehearsal show with house band Rich Pagano & the sugarCane Cups along with Nile, Mould, Atkins, Isbell, and others who will be appearing at the Carnegie Hall benefit on Tuesday.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK

Legendary flaneur Robyn Hitchcock will play a special gig at City Winery, joined by friends Sean Nelson and Lenny Kaye

City Winery
155 Varick St. at Vandam St.
Sunday, February 28, $35-$55, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.robynhitchcock.com
flickr slideshow

The inimitable Robyn Hitchcock is part of the same British singer-songwriter school that has brought the world such endlessly entertaining musicians as Richard Thompson and Graham Parker, playing ironic, cynical, highly intellectual, and downright hysterical songs while filling their live shows with ironic, cynical, highly intellectual, and downright hysterical off-the-cuff chatter. From his days with the Soft Boys through his backup bands the Egyptians and the Venus 3, Hitchcock has put together a remarkable collection of pure pop pleasure, Beatles-esque with touches of Bob Dylan and even flashes of early Pink Floyd, commenting on the state of contemporary culture and romance like no one else can. Last year Hitchcock released two discs, I OFTEN DREAM OF TRAINS IN NEW YORK (Yep Roc, November 2009), which documented his live show re-creating his 1984 album I OFTEN DREAM OF TRAINS, and GOODNIGHT OSLO (Yep Roc, February 2009), another delightful grab bag of dazzling tunes, including the catchy “Saturday Groovers” and the beautiful “Hurry for the Sky” that fit in well with such classic Hitchcock as “Balloon Man,” “Madonna of the Wasps,” “So You Think You’re in Love,” “My Wife and My Dead Wife,” “Man with the Lightbulb Head,” “Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl,” and “Give Me a Spanner, Ralph.” In addition, Hitchcock — whose cutting-edge Web site, the Museum of Hitchcock, was one of the first to integrate music and merchandise in clever ways while creating an intimate fan community — has developed a long-term relationship with director Jonathan Demme, beginning with the music documentary STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK (1998), in which Robyn played in a empty window space in New York City, and continuing with soundtrack work and cameo appearances in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004) and RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008). Hitchcock, who will turn a youthful fifty-seven next week, will be joined by Sean Nelson (Harvey Danger) and the great Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group) for this very special gig at City Winery, where Thompson played last year and Parker will be performing in April. Hitchcock will also be participating in the March 2 Carnegie Hall benefit concert “The Music of the Who,” with such artists as Mose Allison, Bob Mould, Willie Nile, Bettye LaVette, the Smithereens, the Gaslight Anthem, and many others covering the career of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon.

PURIM 2010

Masks and Mayhem is only one of many Purim parties taking place all over the city on February 27

The Jewish holiday of Purim is a time of rejoicing, celebrating the defeat of the Persian leader Haman, who, serving under Persian king Ahasuerus in the fifth century BCE, sought to kill all the Jews. There will be Purim parties all over town on Saturday night, when people will gather with noisemakers and good grog, partaking in the triangular delicacy known as hamentashen, and reading from the Megillah. Chris Noth will host the Aish Center’s “Masks and Mayhem” in the Sony Atrium, with food from Eli Kirshstein, a free drink, music by DJ Roy Baron, and a costume contest that can earn you a pair of first-class tickets to Israel or a Private Chef’s Table for Ten at Solo. The Shushan Channel will be going crazy at 92yTribeca with their eighth annual Purim spiel, “Lady Graga,” led by Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead and taking on pop culture as only they can. JDub records will be getting down at the CSV Cultural Center with a Hamanbashin costume contest and party featuring live performances by the Shondes, Can!!Can, and Gangsta Rabbi, DJ sets by Ultragrrrl and Matt Elkin, and Patrick Aleph delivering the whole Megillah channeled through Sid Vicious. Israeli hip-hoppers Hadag Nahash will be partying late into the night at (le) poisson rouge. At City Winery, Storahtelling presents Bloody Esther, starring Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, better known as the First Lady of Judeo Kitsch. And in Brooklyn, Heeb magazine has teamed up with 3rd Ward for the Pour ’em Party, featuring Team Facelift, the Shining Twins, Dirty Fences, and DJs Johnny Tropical, Drew Heffron, and Kool Jew, while the Sway Machinery will headline the third annual Purim Bash at Littlefield, along with Djarara.