this week in music

J.VIEWZ

J.Viewz will play its hypnotic jazzy electronica at late-night gig at Joe’s Pub

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Thursday, February 18, $12-$15, 11:30 pm
212-539-8778
www.jviewz.com
www.joespub.com

The J.Viewz project, brainchild of Israeli musician Jonathan Dagan, makes hypnotic sounds that are both lush and luscious. Working with a changing roster of talent, Dagan, who is also part of Violet Vision with Shay Raviv, melds a variety of genres into his experimental collages and remixes, usually featuring the vocal wizardry of Noa Lembersky. On such songs as “Under the Sun” and “Worth Light” from 2005’s MUSE BREAKS and Nina Simone’s “See-Line Woman” and “Move Change” — which is sung in a Stephen Hawking-like computerized voice — from 2008’s THE BESIDES EP, Dagan creates mesmerizing music that floats through the air on a cloud of mystery. The band’s version of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” is the best Jacko cover ever produced, turning it inside out and upside down, reimagining it as a Tin Pan Alley standard. J.Viewz will be playing their eclectic brand of jazzy hip-hop electronica on February 18 at Joe’s Pub, with Dagan on programming, turntables, and guitar, Lembersky on vocals, Eran Asias on drums, Alon Leventon on keyboards, special guest Glen Velez on percussion, and Urijah on trumpet.

1/2 LIFE

The BodyCartography Project will go nuclear at P.S. 122

THE BODYCARTOGRAPHY PROJECT
Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
February 10-14, $20
www.ps122.org

Codirectors Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa examine the effects of nuclear power on the state of the human body in the New York premiere of 1/2 LIFE. Their BodyCartography Project, which “questions the space between the real materials of the body, the architecture, and the hyper real designed materials of video, light, sound and new technologies,” is joined by electronic music artist Zeena Parkins, artist and physicist Bryce Beverlin II, guest dancer Takemi Kitamura, and installation artist / performer / writer / set designer / costumer Emmett Ramstad in a multimedia look at survival through scientific research, data, and physics via dance, video, and music.

With a bumpy sheet of graying plastic “clouds” hanging from the ceiling, three survivors walk Butoh-slow across the stage, representing nuclear superpower America (Otto Ramstad), atomic bomb victim Japan (Kitamura), and nuclear-free New Zealand (Bieringa), showing that nobody is safe from nuclear winter. Twelve door-shaped light pieces of wood in the back soon come to life, erecting barriers for the three performers, welcoming them and shutting them out. After they put the boards away, the dancers behind them, representing critical mass, emerge and one by one circle each of the protagonists, as if infecting them with radiation. Ultimately, the trio find themselves in a Joseph Cornell-like box, erecting different poses as they are spun around and, in the end, one of them might have found a way out. The seventy-minute program ranges from the boring and mundane to the captivating and exciting; the beginning sequence goes on too long, and some of the solos, especially when Ramstad, Kitamura, and Bieringa keep falling to the floor, are repetitive and difficult to decipher. But the final third, involving the moving box and possible survival, is simply thrilling. The February 11 performance will include a Thursday Night Social, while the February 12 show will be followed by a Talkback with Clarinda Mac Low. Because of the snowstorm, tickets for opening night, February 10, were reduced to $10 and came with free beer for those intrepid folks who made their way despite the weather conditions.

IRISH WAKE? VIKING FUNERAL? SWEDISH WHOREHOUSE? BRING YOUR OWN METAPHOR!

Paula Carino will be participating in what might be one of the last hootenannies at Freddy’s Backroom

Freddy’s Bar & Backroom
485 Dean St. at Sixth Ave.
Saturday, February 13, free, 8:00 pm – 1:00 am
718-622-7035
www.freddysbackroom.com

Brooklyn institution Freddy’s, one of the city’s best places to hear free live music, keeps on battling for its survival, caught literally right in the middle of Bruce Ratner’s controversial Atlantic Yards Project, but the bar is continuing to hold events every night of the week and fighting the good fight. On Saturday, February 13, five great local acts will be supporting the club, beginning at 8:00 with Solar Punch, followed by Paula Carino and the Better Business Bureau at 9:00, the John Sharples Band at 10:00, Love Camp 7 at 11:00, and Tom Warnick and the World’s Fair at midnight. Carino will be featuring songs from her brand-new disc, OPEN ON SUNDAY, which she creatively financed through Facebook fan donations. “Could it be you just wanted a greener space to wander unharassed?” she sings on “Foxhound.” “Could it be that we remind you of some terror in your past?” Carino reveals her existential side on “Sir You Have No Bucket,” explaining, “Been banging my head on a locked metal door that isn’t even there anymore.” In addition to the new tunes, we hope the ridiculously catchy “Coming to My Senses” makes the setlist as well. Meanwhile, Love Camp 7, named after Lee Frost’s 1969 Nazi prison camp thriller, will be highlighting songs from their latest, UNION GARAGE, which we called “another infectious collection of hyperintelligent flower-power psychedelia featuring lilting harmonies, wry lyrics, and jangling guitars.” If you’ve never been to Freddy’s, you might not have many more chances, so this should be one helluva cool way to say both hello and goodbye.

SILENCE AND NOISE PART 1

Radian will team up with labelmates Mountains for Unsound Festival show

UNSOUND FESTIVAL
le poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Wednesday, February 10, $15, 7:00
212-228-4854
www.unsound.pl
www.myspace.com/lepoissonrougenyc

Poland’s Unsound Festival is currently under way in New York City for the first time, featuring 11 days of modern music from all over the world through February 14, at such venues as Lincoln Center, Public Assembly, the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building, Harvestworks, and Issue Project Room. The series includes electronic music workshops for children, an art show, a tribute to Andy Warhol, panel discussions, and plenty of cool concerts, with performances by Finland’s Vladislav Delay, England’s Untold, Germany’s Jan Jelinek, Switzerland’s Kadebostan, Ukraine’s Zavoloka, Poland’s Zenial, Holland’s Legowelt, New York’s Alexander Kaline, and dozens more. One of the best lineups of the fest occurs on February 10 at le poisson rouge, when “Silence and Noise Part 1” features Kids Electronic Music Band, America’s Mountains, Sweden’s Tape, Austria’s Radian, and Canada’s Tim Hecker. Friends since middle school, Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp founded the music label Apestaartje in 1999 and shortly after that formed the group Mountains. Working and living in Brooklyn, the duo released two albums last year on Thrill Jockey, CHORAL and ETCHING, featuring monumentally minimalist electronic soundscapes mixing guitar, binaural field recordings, live sampling, and other subtle instrumentation primarily recorded live in their Brooklyn studio. The duo’s beautiful, hypnotic compositions take listeners on intriguing musical journeys that range from about two minutes to more than twelve, welcoming all comers into a mesmerizing, meditative, masterfully melodic experience. Labelmates Radian recently released their first album in five years, CHIMERIC, with Martin Brandlmayr, Stefan Nemeth, and John Norman displaying a somewhat calmer side to their electronic music on such songs as “Git Cut Noise” and “Feedback Mikro / City Lights,” with more bass, guitar, and drums added to the computerized samples and sequencing.

TRAMPS LIKE US: MARATHON SHOW

Springsteen tribute band will re-create legendary 1978 show on February 11 in Times Square

A TRIBUTE TO THE BOSS
B.B. King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Thursday, February 11, $26-$37.50, 7:30
212-997-4144
www.bbkingblues.com
www.trampslikeus.com

On September 19, 1978, we very clearly remember sitting up in our room, taping a live concert being broadcast over WNEW, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing the Capitol Theater in Passaic in what would become one of their most legendary shows. We also recall heading into the Village shortly thereafter and buying the bootleg boxed set, called PIECE DE RESISTANCE. Last year, for the first time ever, Springsteen began playing some of his albums in their entirety, and now tribute band Tramps Like Us will be playing the famed 1978 concert in its entirety at B.B. King’s on February 11. Generally, we are not big fans of tribute/cover bands — like the one that played our high school prom — but Bruce’s 9/19/78 performance was extraordinary, featuring memorable versions of such unreleased songs as “Independence Day,” “Fire,” “Because the Night,” and “Point Blank,” a spate of tunes from his latest album, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, including a “Prove It All Night” that nearly blew the roof off with its blistering guitar solo, and a killer finale of “The Detroit Medley” and “Raise Your Hand.” But the highlight of the show was the triple shot of “Not Fade Away” into “She’s the One” followed by an unforgettable “Backstreets” with a majestic, emotionally powerful “Sad Eyes” near the end (later to be adapted into “Drive All Night” on THE RIVER). We’ve been waiting, hoping, and praying for Bruce to go into “Sad Eyes” every time we’ve heard “Backstreets” since then, to no avail, so this is the closest any of us are likely to get.

NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE

Meredyth Sparks, “Roxy” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Former Tower Records Building
14 East Fourth St. at Broadway
Through February 13, Wednesday – Sunday 12 noon – 7:00 pm
Admission: free
www.nolongerempty.com
www.flickr.com/slideshow

In 1983, Tower Records took over the ground floor of the Silk Building on Broadway, selling music and hosting live performances for more than twenty years. It was one of the East Village’s places to see and be seen, a gathering spot for lovers of all kinds of music, with a heavy emphasis on indies and imports But the digital age ultimately forced the chain into bankruptcy, and the space has remained vacant since 2006. The storefront has now been taken over by No Longer Empty, an arts organization that puts together exhibitions in empty locations around New York City. Paying tribute to the legacy of Tower Records, “Never Can Say Goodbye” features music-related multimedia installations by more than a dozen artists, set up very similarly to the old store, even including bins with fake LPs that visitors can look through. Meredyth Sparks turns up the glam quotient with “Roxy” and “Space Oddity.” Paul Villinksi adds wings to melted and twisted LPs he actually purchased at Tower. Invader re-creates such album covers as the Clash’s LONDON CALLING using Rubik’s Cube pieces. Ryan Brennan blasts hip-hop from a bunch of boom boxes arranged where the store’s in-house magazine, Pulse , used to be distributed. Joe Diebes’s “Scherzo” video will get your motor running. And Ted Riederer invents a new label, “Never Records,” with contributions from a host of musicians and a wicked-cool bong people are encouraged to smoke from. But longtime East Village singer-songwriter Paul Clements, a fixture Wednesday nights at the Bitter End from 1979 through 2004, puts it all into perspective with “The Song That Will Never Be Heard.” Clements explained to twi-ny at the opening that he wrote and recorded a song by himself, then destroyed everything but one CD copy, which he encased in a nearly indestructible Lucite box, asking future owners of the piece to respect the tune’s privacy. Thus, the only person who will ever “hear” the song is Clements himself when he played it that one time; ultimately, it will fade into memory, much like Tower Records itself and many of the artists who were unable to ever get their albums sold there.

Paul Clements, “The Song That Will Never Be Heard” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In addition to the free art exhibit, there will be several concerts (suggested donation $10) held in the space, including Dirty Mirrors on January 21, V Count Macula on January 22, Il Collettivo on January 24 and February 7, Nehedar and Jon Taub on January 31, Disco Monkeys and Oxygen Ensemble on February 4, and Steve Conte & the Crazy Truth on February 12. And on January 26 at 7:00, NLE will hold a panel discussion in the space, “Discs to Downloads: New Directions in the Music Industry,” with attorney Elliot Groffman, manager Kevin Patrick, editor David Weiss, artist Ted Riederer, and executive David Goodman, moderated by Brad LeBeau.

PARSONS DANCE

Parsons Dance will update REMEMBER ME with the East Village Opera Company at the Joyce

REMEMBER ME AND MORE
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
February 2-21, $10-$49
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org

Choreographer David Parsons and the East Village Opera Company bring an updated version of their collaboration, REMEMBER ME, back to New York City with a two-week stay at the Joyce. The multimedia show about a love triangle includes fourteen songs by the rock opera band, which rocks out to opera classics, with Tyler Ross and AnnMarie Milazzo performing live onstage; costumes are by PROJECT RUNWAY’s Austin Scarlett and lighting by Tony winner Howell Binkley. The stroboscopic solo CAUGHT, set to music by Robert Fripp, will be part of all programs. In addition, the season features family –friendly matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 consisting of WOLFGANG, EBBEN, NASCIMENTO NOVO, HAND DANCE, CAUGHT, and SCRUTINY as well as a third program, on February 17-18, comprising WOLFGANG, BROTHERS, SWING SHIFT, KIND OF BLUE, CAUGHT, and IN THE END.