Tag Archives: city winery

JOHN LENNON 70th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

New York City will be celebrating what would have been John Lennon’s seventieth birthday with a plethora of events this week (photo © Bob Gruen)

Multiple venues
October 6-9 (and beyond)
www.johnlennon.com

It’s hard to believe that in December it’ll be thirty years since John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of the Dakota on Central Park West. On October 9, the cool Beatle, who had fallen in love with his adopted home of New York, would have turned seventy years old. The city will be celebrating that never-reached milestone with a series of events all over town this week. Starting today and running through December 31, the Paley Center will be presenting “This Boy . . . John Lennon in Liverpool,” comprising rare photographs from John’s early years. On Thursday night at 7:00, the Paley Center will screen the American Masters film LennonNYC (Michael Epstein, 2010) as part of DocFest 2010, followed by a panel discussion with Epstein, Susan Lacy, Dick Cavett, and Dennis Elsas. In addition, the Paley Center has scheduled showings of IMAGINE: JOHN LENNON, WHAT’S HAPPENING! THE BEATLES IN THE U.S.A., THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON, and GIMME SOME TRUTH: THE MAKING OF JOHN LENNON’S IMAGINE ALBUM through the end of the year. On October 9, City Winery will be celebrating with “A John Lennon 70th Birthday Party,” featuring a VIP dinner and “Imagine Wine Flight” and performances by Kimya Dawson, Anais Mitchell, Freedy Johnston, Jesse Malin, the Chapin Sisters, Lisa Bouchelle, the Kennedys, and Tony Scherr; proceeds benefit the Food Bank of New York City. Also on October 9, LennonNYC will be screened for free at Central Park SummerStage at 7:00 (but you better get there a lot earlier). And finally, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery on Bowery, Julian Lennon’s photographs are being displayed for the first time, through October 10. Happy birthday, John!

CHANNELING CHILTON

The late Alex Chilton will be honored with benefit tribute show at City Winery on July 28

A NIGHT OF ALEX CHILTON’S MUSIC
City Winery
155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts.
Wednesday, July 28, $28, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com

In 1987, Replacements lead singer Paul Westerberg sang, “Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round / They sing ‘I’m in love. What’s that song? / I’m in love / with that song.’” People by the hundreds will be singing for Chilton this Wednesday night at City Winery in a special benefit tribute as a diverse group of musicians who were influenced by and/or played with Chilton will come together and play his songs, with the money raised going to the Gulf Restoration Network. Chilton, a founding member of the Box Tops and Big Star and one of the most respected songwriters of the last forty years, died suddenly in New Orleans in March at the age of fifty-nine, right as Big Star was set to play a showcase at SXSW, a festival usually reserved for up-and-coming bands. Among those who will be on hand to honor Chilton are Yo La Tengo, Marshall Crenshaw, Doug Garrison, René Coman, Alan Vega, Jon Spencer, Fran Kowalski, Lesa Aldridge, Jay Proctor, Bill Cunningham, Terry Manning, Evan Dando, Jesse Malin, Danny Kroha, Ronnie Spector, original Cossack Chris Stamey, former Box Top Gary Talley, and Big Star’s own Jody Stephens and Jon Auer. Expect to hear such classics as “Thirteen,” “September Gurls,” “The Letter,” “I’m in Love with a Girl,” “In the Street,” and “Cry Like a Baby” and other songs you didn’t realize were affiliated with Chilton in one way or another.

RECLAIM THE COAST

GULF COAST OIL SPILL BENEFIT
City Winery
155 Varick St.
July 23, 25, 30, $15-$22
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com

Pete Seeger might be ninety-one years old, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to slow down anytime soon. The activist folksinger has just penned a new song that includes the timely phrase “When drill, baby, drill turns into spill, baby, spill,” and he’ll be performing it Friday night at the first of three benefit concerts at City Winery. Raising funds for the Gulf Restoration Network and Global Green, the shows will feature Seeger with Richard Barone, Julie Gold, Freedy Johnston, the Roches, Mike Doughty, Elysian Fields, and others on July 23; Ian Axel, Ed Romanoff, the Madison Square Gardeners, the Wellspring, Rich Pagano, and more on July 25; and Vienna Teng, Jay Nash, Martin Rivas, Christina Courtin, and Among the Oak and Ash on July 30, with more performers to be added for each night.

STEVE EARLE/ALLISON MOORER & FRIENDS

Married Greenwich Village duo Allison Moorer and Steve Earle will be joined by special guests during four-week summer residency at City Winery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Winery
155 Varick St.
July 8, 15, 29 & August 5, $45-$65, 9:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com

Husband-and-wife singer-songwriters Steve Earle and Allison Moorer begin a four-week summer residency at City Winery on July 8 with a sold-out show featuring Rosanne Cash, who just played a terrific set with her band on Governors Island on July 4. Earle, a fierce political activist and engaging live performer, mixes country, folk, blues, and rock on such records as GUITAR TOWN (1986), COPPERHEAD ROAD (1988), I FEEL ALRIGHT (1996), and THE REVOLUTION STARTS NOW (2004); his wife, meanwhile, is a more traditional country artist who has released such discs as CROWS (2010), MOCKINGBIRD (2008), and THE DUEL (2004). On July 15 the Greenwich Village couple will be joined by Earle’s son, Justin Townes Earle, a fine singer-songwriter in his own right, as evidenced by his excellent first two albums, THE GOOD LIFE (2008) and MIDNIGHT AT THE MOVIES (2009); his third, HARLEM RIVER BLUES, is due September 4. On July 29, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band comes up from New Orleans to take the stage with Earle and Moorer; the guest for August 5 has yet to be announced. If you’ve never seen Steve Earle live, this is a great opportunity at an intimate venue to catch one of the most underrated, controversial, and talented performers of the last twenty-five years.

TWI-NY TALK: GRAHAM PARKER

Graham Parker creates his own kind of very different television on his website and new album

GRAHAM PARKER AND THE FIGGS
City Winery
155 Varick St.
Friday, April 30
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.grahamparker.net

It’s hard to believe that it’s been thirty-four years since British rocker Graham Parker first made a name for himself with the 1976 double shot of HOWLIN’ WIND and HEAT TREATMENT, two seminal albums that laid the groundwork for a complex, vaunted career that has also included such highly praised records as SQUEEZING OUT SPARKS (1979), THE MONA LISA’S SISTER (1988), and DON’T TELL COLUMBUS (2007). Over the years, Parker has written such pop gems as “Hey Lord, Don’t Ask Me Questions,” “Protection,” “Local Girls,” “Discovering Japan,” “Passion Is No Ordinary Word,” and “You Can’t Be Too Strong” as he toured the world solo as well as with a series of backup bands ranging from the legendary Rumour and the Small Clubs to the Shot and his current group, the Figgs.

Parker is out on the road these days supporting his latest release, IMAGINARY TELEVISION (Bloodshot, March 2010), a genius concept album containing eleven tunes that slide comfortably into the impressive Parker songbook, featuring inciteful and insightful, biting, ironic, and genuinely funny lyrics. Last year Parker was asked to write two theme songs on spec for a pair of television pilots; after both songs were rejected, Parker decided to create his own television network, consisting of eleven invented programs and movies for which he would write the theme songs. The result is the fabulously creative and entertaining IMAGINARY TELEVISION, which comes with a synopsis of each show instead of a lyric sheet: “Weather Report” is about an agoraphobic man obsessed with the Weather Channel, “Bring Me a Heart Again” follows the “potential cataclysmic depression” of private eye Nate Rimshot, and “Not Where You Think You Are” details the dramatic story of David “Dibby” Hrdlicka, who is participating in a government experiment testing “a substance that apparently occurs naturally inside the inner linings of lost golf balls left outside in the rough for over ten years.” The shows might sound ridiculous, but the songs are anything but, told in the classic Parker style.

Parker and the Figgs will be at City Winery on April 30; we recently caught up with him for a brief e-mail chat about his new album, his talented generation (Parker will turn sixty later this year), and life in general.

A Graham Parker show always promises a good time for all (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: Prior to being asked to write the two TV theme songs that eventually got rejected, what was your relationship, if any, with television? Were you a lover or a hater?

Graham Parker: I was about eleven years old when we finally got TV, just in time for THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and 77 SUNSET STRIP and all those Westerns like GUNSMOKE. This is what we grew up with in England. They were probably the first shows I watched. TV is the greatest medium there is in my view.

twi-ny: City Winery seems to attract a certain brand of British-born wise-guy guitarist/songwriter with wry, cynical senses of humor; recent shows have featured Richard Thompson and Robyn Hitchcock, and Ian Hunter will be there shortly after you are. What keeps that generation of musicians still so vibrant, making exciting new records and playing terrific shows long after musicians half their age have petered out and faded away?

GP: It’s funny, my agent recently said to me that ’80s and ’90s acts can’t get arrested but ’70s acts are flying out the door. Hopefully, it’s the strength of the songwriting and the rich understanding of multiple musical styles. We were able to mine the ’60s musical explosion more adeptly because we were so much nearer to that period than people born in the ’70s.

twi-ny: Among the songs on the new album is “Always Greener.” A visit to your website, which includes a video of you and your son playing in the snow, makes it look like you’re pretty darn happy, not worrying about the color of anyone else’s grass. How’s life these days?

GP: I’m affected by the world around me, of course, and it brings me down like everyone else, but as I get older I find myself living in an imaginary landscape like the one you see in “Sunglass(es) The Graham Parker Show.” I think I’m losing my mind, but it’s not as bad as it’s cracked up to be.

MONEYBROTHER / RHETT MILLER

Moneybrother will open up terrific double bill with Rhett Miller at City Winery

City Winery
155 Varick St.
Saturday, March 20, $22-$28, 7:00 & 10:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.myspace.com/moneybrother

Although the late show is sold out, there are still seats available for the early show of this great double bill at City Winery. Opening up is Moneybrother, the creation of former Monster Anders Wendin. A soulful mix of pop, punk, reggae, classic rock, and disco, Moneybrother’s latest album, REAL CONTROL (April 2010), is a musical tour de force, from the funky opener, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” to the rollicking gem “Get Some Tonight,” from the infectious choruses of “We Die Only Once” and “Just Another Part of Me That Breaks Down” to the power ballad “6 AM” and the lovely closer, “Showdown,” a song that would make Ian Hunter proud. At times, Wendin’s voice is a little Mick Jones and a lot Joe Strummer, turning REAL CONTROL into a Clash-like foray into love and heartbreak, with horns and strings and other accoutrements. Headliner Rhett Miller is best known as singer and guitarist of the Old 97’s, but he’s also released several solo albums, from 1989’s MYTHOLOGIES and 2002’s THE INSTIGATOR to 2006’s THE BELIEVER and last summer’s RHETT MILLER, which includes such songs as “Nobody Says I Love You Anymore” and “If It’s Not Love.” On “like Love,” Miller sings, “She was gone before I woke up / Now I’m downtown, putting on a show.” As we said above, you can still catch the early performance downtown at City Winery, but be sure not to miss Moneybrother opening up.

DIVINALE

WOMEN OF WINE WEEK
City Winery
155 Varick St.
March 8-13, $40-$75
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.divinale.com

We regularly feature great music events at City Winery, but we shouldn’t forget about how the venue got its name. From March 8 through 13, City Winery will be celebrating the women of wine with a festival of tastings, talks, dinners, and other special events. Today, International Women’s Day, features Cristina Mariani-May leading a tasting of Castello Banfi, Italy’s four-time International Winery of the Year that was started by Mariani-May’s grandfather in 1919. On March 9, winemaker Melissa Stackhouse helms a tasting of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from La Crema in Sonoma; on March 10, sommelier and wine director Mollie Battenhouse hosts a Women of Wine World Wine Tour with wine coaches and Cathy Corison, Laura Brunelli, Isabel Ferrando, and Brigitte Roch; March 11 is Working Women’s Evening, featuring food by Anne Burrell and Lee Anne Wong and wine poured by Master of Wine Lisa Granik; Alessia Antinori takes oenophiles on an afternoon Tuscan Wine Tour for lunch, followed at night by a BYOB Dinner Celebrating the Wines of Helen Turley, hosted by Granik, during which you can bring your own wine with no corkage fee; and the party concludes on March 13 with a Charity Grand Tasting of more than seventy wines produced by women, along with seminars, benefiting the Global Fund for Women.