John Darnielle's band The Mountain Goats is one of the great acts in this year's Ecstatic Music Festival lineup. (Photo © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Friends have been asking for recommendations on what shows to check out in the second annual Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall.

Sxip Shirey (© 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

The two-month festival, put together by Judd Greenstein and New Amsterdam Presents, an arm of the innovative New Amsterdam Records label, is an absolute must. It’s so chock full of great artist pairings that it’s tough to pick just one or two. Last year’s festival was strong, and the lineup this year looks even stronger. And ticket sales seem to reflect that, given that some of the shows have been sold out for awhile.

But some shows are still available, and tickets are around even for the sold-out gigs.

There’s one I’m really looking forward to is the Saturday, March 24 bill featuring The Mountain Goats, the homemade indie-rock project of John Darnielle, paired with the early music vocal quartet Anonymous Four. We’re not sure how this one will play out, but both groups are so good at what they do, and so genre-busting, that it should be remarkable.

Todd Reynolds (Photo © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

Another highlight early in the festival is the amazingly indescribable music-maker Sxip Shirey and Angélica Negrón, with special guests electro-violinist Todd Reynolds, Noveller, Jonny Rodgers& Face the Music on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

And we don’t mean to give tonight’s opening show short shrift, but we have to think tickets for this one evaporated in seconds: Jherek Bischoff and the Wordless Music Orchestra, with special guests David Byrne, Craig Wedren, Greg Saunier, Mirah, Zac Pennington, and more. But if you’re willing to try to score a ticket, we’re sure it’ll be worthwhile!

For the full schedule, click through to the jump for the festival press release, courtesy of our pal, New Amsterdam publicist Jill Strominger.

2nd annual Ecstatic Music Festival starts this week in NYC!

Starting this Saturday, Feb. 4, the Kaufman Center, in association with New Amsterdam Presents, will present the second annual Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall. From February 4 to March 28, the festival will host 11 concerts featuring collaborations between some of the most exciting musicians, from a variety of musical backgrounds, who are re-defining music today. Each concert will premiere new works written especially for these collaborations, building bridges between musicians from different backgrounds and providing artists the opportunity to grow in new directions. Audiences will have the opportunity to witness that growth as it occurs in front of them, live and on stage in one of New York’s great concert halls.

Last year’s festival was declared by the critics to be “too engaging, too thought-provoking, and too musically compelling to pass up” (Daniel Kushner, Huffington Post), featuring “the most bracing combinations of adventurous, fulfilling music in recent memory” (Joel Harrison, NPR). Full festival details below.

Q2 Music, the official digital venue of the Ecstatic Music Festival, will carry all of the New Sounds Live concerts on www.wqxr.org/q2music as live audio webcasts with host John Schaefer, and will also record all Ecstatic Music Festival concerts for on-demand streaming.

Ecstatic Music Festival 2012 Series Schedule

All concerts are at 7:30 pm at the Kaufman Center’s Merkin Concert Hall, located at 129 W. 67th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam.

Sat, 2/4/12

Jherek Bischoff and the Wordless Music Orchestra, with special guests David Byrne, Craig Wedren, Greg Saunier, Mirah, Zac Pennington, and more
A co-presentation with Wordless Music
Musical polymath Jherek Bischoff is joined by an all-star cast of guest vocalists from his new album Composed (spring 2012, Brassland), including David Byrne, Craig Wedren (Shudder To Think), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), Mirah, Zac Pennington (Parenthetical Girls), and just added guests Carla Bozulich, Charlie Looker, Sam Mickens and more. This concert features the Wordless Music Orchestra, supplemented by a number of Bischoff’s long-time collaborators.

Tue, 2/7/12
Sxip Shirey and Angélica Negrón, with special guests Todd Reynolds, Noveller, Jonny Rodgers & Face the Music
The “mesmerizing” (New Yorker) multi-instrumentalist and composer Sxip Shirey teams up with Angélica Negrón, composer of “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR) music for an evening of fabulously eclectic and sonically wide-ranging collaboration. In addition to working together, they will be joined by a slate of special guests, including the violinist/composer/Ableton master Todd Reynolds, guitar sound-architect Noveller (“simultaneously soothing and mind-wrecking,” NY Press) and the wine-glass/guitar marvel Jonny Rodgers (“beautiful, fragile and consistently challenging,” New Haven Register). The teen alt-classical sensations Face the Music (“stunning,” “polished, exuberant,” New York Times) will give the world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s El Gran Caleidoscopio.

Wed, 2/8/12
Richard Reed Parry, Son Lux & yMusic
New Sounds® Live hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer
Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre) and Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott) are joined by yMusic, a “stunning sextet” (WQXR) of players who return to the Ecstatic Music Festival following last year’s collaboration with Shara Worden and Sarah Kirkland Snider. Parry, well-known for his work as part of the Grammy Award-winning Arcade Fire and the chamber collective Bell Orchestre, here takes on the role of composer, presenting a series of works for yMusic and its members utilizing the organic processes of the human body — heartbeats and breathing — to articulate the works’ progress. Son Lux will likewise have his yMusic compositions (the title track from their debut album, Beautiful Mechanical) performed, and will also present new arrangements from his recent album We Are Rising (“shamefully good,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer), which used yMusic as source material for its electronic compositions. Parry and Lott will also each write new works that incorporate each other into the process as vocalists, instrumentalists, or even as providers of source material for the new compositions.

Thu, 2/9/12
This Will Destroy You, Christopher Tignor/Slow Six & A Far Cry
The unique, “brilliant” (Boston Globe), self-conducted string orchestra A Far Cry joins forces with post-rock powerhouse This Will Destroy You and renowned composer Christopher Tignor with his band, Slow Six, for an evening of music that is large-scale in every sense. Tignor will offer his stunning work for string orchestra and electronics, Thunder Lay Down In the Heart, as well as new arrangements for Slow Six, “a compelling voice that supersedes the need for any words” (The Deli) with A Far Cry. This Will Destroy You, whose “immersive live performances and remarkable composition skills place them at the forefront of pioneering contemporary music” (The Austinist), will present new arrangements (by Tignor) of their atmospheric instrumental pieces, prominently featuring the strings of A Far Cry mixed with their usual layers of effects-laden guitar, keyboards, bass and drums.

Thu, 2/23/12
Nick Zammuto & Jason Treuting with janus, Daisy Press & Grey McMurray
New Sounds® Live hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer
Nick Zammuto of The Books and Jason Treuting of So Percussion break away from their bands for an evening of spelling bees, homemade videos and fantastically-textured music, joined by janus trio, guitarist Grey McMurray and vocalist Daisy Press.

Sat, 2/25/12
Glasser & Roomful of Teeth
The polyglot vocal octet Roomful of Teeth returns to the Ecstatic Music Festival, presenting a new collaboration with Glasser (Cameron Mesirow), praised for her “beautiful songs, both sweet and abstract, deeply felt and anodyne” (NY Times). Roomful of Teeth will also present new work by Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs) along with selections from their ever-growing catalogue of dynamic repertoire.

Thu, 3/1/12
Mariam Wallentin & Mikael Karlsson with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble
Mariam Wallentin, hailed for her “beyond gorgeous” voice (Prefix) in the band Wildbirds & Peacedrums (praised by Pitchfork as “highly complex and agile pop music”), teams up with acclaimed composer Mikael Karlsson to create a new song cycle, The Spirit & the Cloud, performed with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (“some of New York’s brightest, busiest players,” Time Out New York). The evening will also include a selection of Karlsson’s instrumental compositions and arrangements of Wildbirds & Peacedrums songs for Wallentin and ACME.

Sat, 3/17/12
Oneida & Rhys Chatham
Legendary composer Rhys Chatham, “who toys with the expectations of amplified guitars so mirthfully in his punk-influenced orchestrations” (New York Times), is joined by the “Brooklyn psych alchemists” (Pitchfork) Oneida, whose performance at the recent All Tomorrow’s Parties festival was called “some of the best music I heard all weekend” by Ben Ratliff in the New York Times.

Tue, 3/20/12
Dan Deacon, NOW Ensemble & the Calder Quartet
New Sounds® Live hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer
Dan Deacon returns to the Ecstatic Music Festival after last year’s sold-out show, this time writing a series of new works for acclaimed chamber groups NOW Ensemble (“a deft young group gaining attention,” New Yorker) and the Calder Quartet (“outstanding,” New York Times), both for the individual ensembles and for the two together in a mini-chamber orchestra.

Sat, 3/24/12
The Mountain Goats & Anonymous 4
Co-commissioned by the Barbican
The Mountain Goats are joined by the vocal quartet Anonymous 4 in a collaborative presentation of songs from Transcendental Youth, a new work by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats (“one of America’s most startling lyricists,” Boston Globe). Anonymous 4, celebrating their 25th anniversary, are famous for their purity of tone and astounding blend, gaining wide recognition for their intense scholarship and attention to historical context, both in medieval and early American repertoire. Transcendental Youth features new songs from Darnielle, heard here in special arrangements for voices, piano, and guitar by the acclaimed musical polymath Owen Pallett. The songs visit a small community on Puget Sound in Washington, north of Seattle at the foot of Glacier Peak, and are inhabited by the mournful voices of the isolated and the lost in motels and apartment complexes around Snohomish County. A short solo Mountain Goats set begins the evening, followed by Anonymous 4 performing selections from their rich catalog in a program curated by both Darnielle and A4, and concluding with the collaborative performance.

Wed, 3/28/12
Derek Bermel, Samson Young, Gaybird Leung, Du Yun, Music from China & Music from Copland House
Two venerable contemporary music ensembles, Music from Copland House and Music from China, offer world premieres by celebrated young composers Du Yun, Samson Young, Derek Bermel and Gaybird Leung. These four idiosyncratic composers — originally from Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York — will take radically different approaches to the challenge of composing for a blend of Chinese and Western instruments, along with electronics or their own voices, in some cases. Placed together collectively, along with other works that explore this mixed space, the concert will be a fascinating examination of the music that lives at multiple intersections, between China and the United States, and between classical and vernacular traditions.

Ticket Information:
11-concert festival pass: $175
Single tickets: $25
Subscriptions: $80 for 4 concerts
(Subscribers may purchase discounted $20 tickets to additional concerts)
Student tickets (in person sales only; ID required): $15

Antony Hegarty with his 60-piece orchestra on the Radio City Music Hall stage. (Photos © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

What can we say about the wonderfully strange singer Antony Hegarty, who on Jan. 26 managed to transform Radio City Music Hall into his own special dreamscape?

Antony, who often performs with a band as Antony and the Johnsons, had some members of his band as part of a 60-piece orchestra for this light-and-music show dubbed Swanlights.  He attracted a sold-out crowd that included celebrities such as Tilda Swinton, Jenny Shimizu, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Bunny, Michael Stipe and many more.

Lady Bunny in the lobby of Radio City Music Hall.

(Check out The New York Times review of the show here.)

The show, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and originally designed for presentation in the museum’s atrium, reached so far that it was doomed to fall a bit short. But even so, the evening was stunning and engaging, as the transgender Antony, dressed in a simple, flowing gown, came out an sang a selection of his marvelous songs with lush accompaniment, a visually stunning set, and, for the most part, well-done lighting.

The Englert Theatre, one of the University of Iowa's performing arts venues in Iowa City. (Photo courtesy Jacob Yarrow, Unversity of Iowa)

Weather scuttles Stew & The Negro Problem’s Iowa Omnibus show — for now

What does Mother Nature have against Iowa City, Ia.?

Stew at Joe's Pub on Jan. 23, 2012. (Photo © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

In 2008, the Iowa River overran its banks and devastated the city, destroying much property in the city, including the notable Max Abramovitz-designed Hancher Auditorium on the University of Iowa campus.

The flood-ravaged Hancher Auditorium, designed by Max Abramovitz, the architect of Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.

The latest natural disaster didn’t cause physical damage that we know of, but the psychic damage is certainly huge. A “freak fog” closed the local airport and kept Stew and Heidi Rodewald and their band, The Negro Problem, from making it to Iowa City in time for their Feb. 2 gig.

As we reported the other day, Stew & The Negro Problem were to present Iowa Omnibus as the centerpiece of a Feb. 2 show at the Englert Theatre, a civic auditorium that is housing some of UI’s performing arts productions. It was commissioned by UI’s Hancher Auditorium, the campus performing arts presenter, inspired by Stew and Heidi’s 2010 Brooklyn Omnibus shows, as well as their hit musical, Passing Strange.

Stew & The Negro Problem. (Photo © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

Jacob Yarrow, programming the director of the Hancher,  bummed about the problem. He led the way in commissioning Iowa Omnibus, and wants to have it heard.

Here’s an account of what happened, as reported in Eastern Iowa Life:

Stew was unable to travel to Iowa City in time for the show due to travel problems in Minneapolis.

“He made it in to Minneapolis, but all they canceled all the flights to Cedar Rapids because of fog,” said Rob Cline, Hancher’s director of marketing and communications. “Stew doesn’t drive, so by the time anybody could do anything about it, it was too late to go get him. After this settles down, we will explore the options to reschedule.”

Yarrow’s not sure when the show when Stew and Heidi and the band will finally be making it to Iowa City. They’re working on a play, The Total Bent, that has its first performances at the Public Theater in New York City on Valentine’s Day. So it may take a little doing to reschedule. But Yarrow seems like a very determined guy, and a big fan of Stew and Heidi’s work. So we’re sure it’ll all get sorted out soon.

Here’s hoping this is all sorted out quickly. Anybody up for a trip to Iowa City?

Stew & Heidi Rodewald at Joe's Pub in New York City. (Photos © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

Remember Stew & Heidi Rodewald of The Negro Problem‘s theatrical show, Brooklyn Omnibus at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010? It made a lot of sense. Both of these creative people had spent time living in the County of Kings and knew it pretty well. And the songs reflected their experiences there.

Jacob Yarrow (Photo by Tom Jorgensen)

It was a bit of a surprise when Stew, in the middle of a Jan. 23 CD-release show at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan, asked the audience: “Remember Brooklyn Omnibus? We’re doing an Iowa City Omnibus.”

The Englert Theater, one of the University of Iowa's performing arts venues in Iowa City. (Photo courtesy Jacob Yarrow, Unversity of Iowa)

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, we quickly found out who was behind this Iowa City venture, and took some time to get the lowdown for you.

It turns out that Jacob Yarrow, programming director of the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City, saw the Spike Lee film version of Stew and Heidi’s Broadway show, Passing Strange. That was enough to give him a real hankering to bring some of Stew and Heidi’s music in the Midwest, tailored to the flood-ravaged city. So he got in touch and commissioned the duo to do an Omnibus for them.

It takes the stage on Thursday, Feb. 2. As of last week, Yarrow hadn’t heard a note of Stew and Heidi’s work, but was looking forward to hearing it. As he explains after the jump, the Iowa City commission pretty much gave the duo free rein.

My guess is that Iowa City and the University of Iowa will never be quite the same again after Stew and Heidi’s visit.

Yarrow agreed to take questions by email and give Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? readers some insights into how this came about.  He used our questions as a jumping off point, so we’re presenting his response here, edited only slightly for length.

I first became aware of Stew and Heidi through Passing Strange. I never saw the play, but heard and read about it. I first saw Spike Lee’s movie when PBS ran it as part of Great Performances about 3 years ago. I’ve watched it many times and it’s still on my DVR. I also noticed Stew & the Negro Problem was starting to tour to some of our peer organizations like UMS in Ann Arbor, MI and the Mondavi Center in Davis, CA, as well as the Brooklyn Omnibus at BAM. The idea of presenting Stew in Iowa City started to take hold.

I asked Bill Bragin [formerly executive director of  Joe's Pub and longtime friend and fan of Stew and Heidi] about working with Stew and Heidi when we happened to sit across from each other at a big group dinner at a conference. He was full of information and encouraged us to do a project with them. He’s been a great resource throughout. A few weeks later I drove to Chicago with our marketing director to see the band perform at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and then took our executive director to see a show at Joe’s Pub.

All of these experiences and conversations with colleagues led to developing a good understanding of Stew and Heidi’s work and a decent scheme for how we could engage our community around their artistry.

The idea for commissioning a set of songs about Iowa City came about because that’s what Stew said he was interested in doing. We often ask artists what sort of project interests them in an effort to support their work and find points of intersection with our community. He said it from the stage in Chicago and his agent expressed the same thing.

I think that Stew and Heidi strike a chord here in the Midwest. Iowa City is one of 5 UNESCO World Cities of Literature and has a remarkable literary tradition. Stew’s lyrics and poetry are an important point of connection for us. They fit with our vibrant literary scene.

It is modeled on the Brooklyn Omnibus, but on a smaller scale.

Hancher is the performing arts presenter at the University of Iowa. Our mission is to support the UI’s mission of teaching, research, and service by presenting the world’s finest performing artists; initiating and supporting the creation of new works; and providing artistic, educational, technical, human, and physical resources to the University and the people of Iowa.

Founded in 1972, we have a rich history of commissioning works with a total of about 100 commissions including commissions for Bill T. Jones, The Joffrey Ballet, Kronos Quartet, and many others. We have 3 other commissions in this season.

Hancher Auditorium was designed by architect Max Abramovitz, who also designed Avery Fisher Hall. It was destroyed in the flood of June 2008, which devastated our region. We are working with Caesar Pelli and his firm to build a new performing arts center, scheduled to open in 2015. In the meantime, we are presenting in about 15 different venues and finding new ways to energize the cultural life of our community and to connect artists and audiences. The Englert Theatre is in an historic building in downtown Iowa City. It’s a great place to hear live music and seats 750 people or so.

We asked Stew and Heidi to write a set of songs about Iowa City that will be 20-30 minutes of music. They visited Iowa City for 3 busy days in October. They soaked up local flavor at landmarks, parks, restaurants, pubs, book stores, presidential campaign stops, and more. They did a talk back after a screening of Passing Strange at the student-run cinema; and met with a group of faculty members from across campus who are working to integrate the performing arts into their classes. They also met with Iowa City-based Working Group Theatre to see a work-in-progress showing of the play Mayberry (a Hancher commission, premiering in April), and had an exchange about the themes of the piece, which focuses on demographic changes in Iowa City and what builds community.

We’re very happy with the academic connections that we’ve been able to make as we continue to be a part of the Creative Campus movement. A number of university classes are going to attend the show together and use it as fodder for class discussions. We know theatre students will be there, but there are also classes about International Perspectives (prepares students for a service project in Mexico), Global Nutrition Policy (its about setting public health policies – the professor hopes to offer students insight into formulating arguments and telling stories), and College Transitions (helps students transition into college life).

We haven’t heard any of the new music yet, nor do I have any hints of what it might contain.

Maya Beiser performs at (Le) Poisson Rouge in 2009. (Photo © 2009, Steven P. Marsh)

Cellist and pianist-composer pay tribute to tango great Ástor Piazzolla

Maya Beiser, one of the best cellists at work today returns to her roots on Tuesday, Feb. 1, joining tango master Pablo Ziegler, a composer and pianist, for a program of tangos in tribute to the late Ástor Piazzolla.

Pablo Ziegler (Photo by Oscar Balsucci)

Their program, Canyengue, the Soul of Tango, offers Ziegler’s arrangements of some of Piazzolla’s best-known numbers along with some that are rarely heard. Percussionist Satoshi Kateish will sit in on some of the tunes. Performances of some of Ziegler’s compositions and Beiser’s solo rendition of Osvaldo Golijov‘s Mariel, will round out the program.

The Latin Grammy-winning Ziegler was a member of Piazzolla’s band for 10 years, and went on to form his own tango ensemble, so he lives and breathes the fiery musical form.

Beiser, who has developed a solo career as a performer of New Music after a long-running gig with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, is no stranger to tango, either. She grew up in Israel on an Argentinean kibbutz.

“My father, a music lover and avid record collector, had a vast library of tango music, from street tangos to the more sophisticated Nuevo Tangos of Carlos Gardel and Ástor Piazzolla,” she explains. “This music was my connection to my father’s family and history in Argentina. Though we were in Israel, we would spend long weekends drinking Maté, grilling Asado [Argentinian barbecue], listening to Tango, and listening to my father’s stories about Gauchos and riding horses in the Pampas. I love the immediacy, rawness, and earthiness of this music as well as its sensuality and melancholy.”

We’ve heard recordings of some of this duo’s programs, and we think you’ll enjoy them. They’re lively and played with real spirit that will come through even more sharply when performed live. Hear them for yourself by clicking here.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for a 7:30 show. (Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and Sullivan), Manhattan. Tickets are $20 and are available online or by calling (212) 505-FISH (3474). Tickets may also be available at the door.

Stew, Heidi Rodewald and The Negro Problem at Joe’s Pub on Jan. 23, 2012. (Photo © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

If you didn’t get to Joe’s Pub last night to see Stew &  The Negro Problem and grab a copy of the new album, Making It, all is not lost. 

Stew in his breakup show, "Making It," at St. Ann's Warehouse in February 2010. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Three shows at Joe’s Pub mark Tuesday’s release of Stew & The Negro Problem’s new album, Making It

The cover of Making It features a photo by Stew's daughter, Bibi.

First of all, let’s say “welcome black” to Stew & The Negro Problem.

It’s been 10 long years since Stew (born Mark Stewart in 1961) and his band The Negro Problem made a proper, official album: 2002′s Welcome Black. But on Tuesday, Jan. 24, the wait is officially over when Making It gets its official release.

Thank goodness. It’s long overdue. But you’ll surely find it worth the wait.

It’s a crazy, creative look at the breakup of Stew’s relationship with his longtime girlfriend and musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald. The breakup came in the run-up to the pair’s amazing theater project,  Passing Strange, which briefly thumbed its nose at the Broadway establishment from the Belasco Theatre over six months in 2008. (It also lives on in a Spike Lee film of the show’s final performances.)

Heidi Rodewald and Stew. (Copyright 2009, Steven P. Marsh)

Stew and Heidi managed to survive the breakup and continue their artistic relationship, albeit not without some problems. This album documents the breakup, and in some ways, the promise of their continued collaboration.

This is Stew’s fourth album under the rather provocative name of The Negro Problem, though on  this release on TNP records, the band is billed as “Stew & The Negro Problem.” And even though Stew seemed to abandon the band name in favor of his own moniker, Stew and Heidi haven’t released a rock album since 2003′s Something Deeper Than These Changes, billed simply to Stew. (Yes, there was a Passing Strange soundtrack in 2008, but that wasn’t a Stew record, let alone a Negro Problem record!)

Let’s just say it’s about time! It’s always seemed to me that Stew needs The Negro Problem to fuel his angry-not-as-young-as-he-used-to-be-man persona. (Truth be told, he’s used The Negro Problem name occasionally in recent years, but this seems to be a definitive return home.)Hard-core fans won’t find many surprises in this album. True believers have been wearing out copies of a slightly different version of Making It for a year, when it was released as a tour CD of sorts at Stew and Heidi’s show Brooklyn OMNIBUS at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But that’s OK. It’s fantastic to see the music make its way into the wider world, so everyone can discover what we already know.

The Making It album grew out of a St. Ann’s Warehouse commission of the same name. It was performed as a concert with a bit of a set and a loose story arc in February 2010 at the Brooklyn venue.

The new album follows that arc, hurtling the listener quickly into the couple’s breakup and the subsequent realization of how they changed each other’s lives and were destined to stay together in some way.

The songs bounce back and forth between new, breakup-specific songs and longtime Stew and Heidi favorites looking for a home on a record. In the former category, standouts include “Pretend,” “Curse” (sample lyrics: “Seven different versions of who got fucked and who hurts the most … and then you watch your love turn into a ghost”) and “Love Is A Cult” (where Heidi sings, “Life is the tour and love is the wrong turn). And the favorites that don’t have any direct lyrical connection — though clearly have a psychological link — include “Black Men Ski,” which was fairly popular on the Internet after Stew performed it at the TED conference way back in 2006.

There is one difference between last year’s release and the new, wide-release version. And that alone makes it work buying. In the new version, “Therapy Only Works If You Tell The Truth” shoulders the classic “Pastry Shop” out of the album. And it makes sense, hammering home the breakup theme more clearly and perfectly setting up the let’s-be-friends finale, “Treat Right Song.” (Oh, and Stew’s lovely daughter, Bibi, took the cover photo, reproduced in this post.)

Stew’s lyrics are always biting and ironic, and he’s as good as ever on this album. Even better is that Making It gives Heidi, who’s an amazing musician in her own right, a chance to shine more than usual.

Stew, Heidi and the band have quite a bit of work in the pipeline this year. It kicks off tomorrow, with the first two of three shows at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan to celebrate the release of the long-awaited album. (Tickets, $30, are available here.)

Then in a matter of days, they’ll be performing their newest show, The Total Bent, at New York’s Public Theater (we’ll be telling you more about this soon), with a Monday-night artist’s talk during the show’s run.

The pair are also scheduled to do a reading of a new show, Stagger Lee, based on a graphic novel about the legendary subject, at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’s Ignite! series.

George Steel, the general manager and artistic director made the announcement in an email blast late Friday afternoon:

I am also delighted to report that as a gift to the City of New York, The Reed Foundation and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation have bought the remaining seats for all performances at BAM, allowing us to offer these seats at a special price of $25 to celebrate our new beginning. I invite you to purchase tickets today to take advantage of this incredibly generous and thoughtful gift.

That means you can see Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna and Giuseppe Verdi’s  La Traviata for a song. Go here to get your tickets now.

While the three-year deal struck by the struggling opera company with its singers and instrumentalists keeps things going, it’s not a happy ending it means less money for an already hard-hit group of musicians. But without the deal, it appeared NYCO would have vanished forever.

While no date for the concert has been announced, you can get first dibs on information and tickets if you’re willing to front some cash to become a MASS MoCA member. (Or you can just keep your eyes on Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?)

Up to you. But click here for MASS MoCA membership information.

Wilco's first takeover at MASS MoCa. (© 2010 Steven P. Marsh)

Band plans benefit concert for MASS MoCA instead

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? is never happy to be the bearer of bad news. But you need to know that Wilco announced today that the band is taking a year off from presenting the Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA, the awesome art musuem in North Adams, Mass.

Jeff Tweedy and his Wilco bandmates have with great success presented the three-day Solid Sound Festival for the past two years, bringing music, art and friends together on the low-key industrial campus in Western Massachusetts.

We’ve been watching since before Christmas for an announcment of the dates of the next three-day music fest. Finally, around 1 p.m. today, came a tweet from @WilcooftheDay listing the long-awaited info:

#SolidSound Update: The next Solid Sound Festival will be held June 21-23, 2013 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Ma.

2013? Huh? What happened to 2012? Before we could ask the question, almost as if somebody could read our minds, came this tweet:

The 3 day event will take a 1 year hiatus, but Wilco will perform at the North Adams museum this summer in a benefit concert for MASS MoCA.

And when will that concert happen? Came the reply to our unasked question:

not announced yet

Sigh.

Stay tuned for details on why Wilco’s taking a year off and details about the benefit concert at soon as they become available.