Monthly Archives: October 2010

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? recommends…

Posted on October 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Shows we think you should check out during the week of Oct. 3-9

Composer Julia Wolfe (Photo by Peter Serling)

The Music of Julia Wolfe at (Le) POISSON ROUGE

Julia Wolfe is a composer of rare talent. The Bang on a Can cofounder is able to write in a classical idiom for string quartet as easily as in a rock mode for percussion ensemble.

On Oct. 3, she’ll be presenting a sampling of her work, including Stronghold for eight double basses, the string quartet Dig Deep, and LAD for bagpipes.  at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Julia will be in the house to discuss her work.

Performers include JACK Quartet, Robert Black and the Hartt Bass Band, and piper Matthew Welch.

6:30 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 3. (Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, Manhattan. (212) 505-FISH (3474) $15. Tickets available here.

Kronos Quartet (Photo by Jay Blakesberg)

Kronos Quartet at (Le) Poisson Rouge

Kronos Quartet, the pioneering modern string quartet, make two rare club appearances in New York City this week.

On Friday and Saturday, Oct. 8 and 9, Kronos is appearing at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

The program for Oct. 8 includes the New York premiere of Maria Schneider‘s String Quartet No. 1, a world premiere by Aleksandra Vrebalov, the premiere of Bang on a Can cofounder Michael Gordon‘s Exalted with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and works by Bryce Dessner and Missy Mazzoli. On Oct. 9 Kronos is joined by special guest vocalist Judith Berkson for several pieces. Also featured are Clouded Yellow by Gordon as well as works by Clint Mansell, J.G. Thirlwell, and Dan Visconti.

7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8. (Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, Manhattan. $25. Tickets available here.

Also 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9. Tickets available here.

Ólöf Arnalds at The Bell House in Brooklyn on March 24, 2010. (Photo by Steven P. Marsh)

Ólöf Arnalds at Joe’s pub

Ólöf Arnalds seemed to be an uncertain, nervous performer when we saw her at The Bell House in March. But the Icelandic singer-songwriter writes lovely songs and makes delicately beautiful records.

We’re hoping she’ll be more confident when she stops in at Joe’s Pub,

9:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 9. Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, Manhattan. $15. Click here or call (212) 967-7555 for tickets and more information.

Leave a comment

Posted in Concerts, Music, Pop and Rock

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Buke and Gass: rock and roll inventions

Posted on October 2, 2010 | 1 comment

DIY noise-rock duo, plus Xylos and ArpLine open for Efterklang

Buke and Gass (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Buke and Gass.

The name is slightly mystifying. The Buke part not so much, just say it like the second syllable of rebuke. Easy enough.

But Gass? That’s a little difficult, But if you close attention to the cover of the duo’s self-produced, self-released and self-printed EP, +/-, you might notice the horizontal line over the a in Gass. That’s your first clue. It’s not gas, like the voiceover feature of my iPod would have it. It’s a long a.

The band name comes from the duo’s principal instruments — both of them jury-rigged, homemade, crazily honest.

Arone Dyer on buke.

Aron Sanchez on gass.

Arone Dyer plays the buke, a seriously modified baritone ukelele — b for baritone, uke for ukelele.

Then there’s Aron Sanchez on the gass. That’s g for guitar and ass for bass, as in bass guitar. Get it?

They also throw in some foot-driven percusson, with Aron on a juiced-up kick drum and Arone on bells and foot cymbals. Arone also does the majority of the singing, with a super flexible voice that can go from a purr to a shriek in a split second. Although there’s punk attitude and a touch of Riot Grrrl aesthetic in there, this is thoroughly modern music. Everything’s pretty wildly processed and synthesized, in the tradition of other DIY experimental duos like WOOM.

They sound like so much of what you’ve heard before, and yet like nothing at all you’ve heard.

They’re quite a pair. Arone (a bicycle mechanic) and Aron (who builds instruments for Blue Man Group) came onto the radar at Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? at this spring’s Bang on a Can Marathon. We missed their performance at the marathon, but heard such good buzz that we picked up a copy of the EP. And we have been playing it constantly since.

Buke and Gass keep their feet busy.

Their music is celebratory, strangely melodic, enormously cathartic and just plain fun. And now, thanks to Brassland, there’s a full-length album that just dropped, Riposte.

Buke and Gass opened for Danish indie-rockers Efterklang at Santos Party House in Manhattan’s Chinatown on Friday, Oct. 1.

(Click here for a fun, insightful Stereogum interview with Buke and Gass.)

With four bands on the bill, we figured this show could make for a very long night. Luckily, all the bands were quite good — although Buke and Gass was the band we came to hear. And they didn’t disappoint.

More about the other bands, plus more photos, after the jump. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Concerts, Music, Pop and Rock, Punk

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Best Coast: California noise rock rules

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Best Coast at The Bowery Ballroom. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

We here at Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? had been looking forward to Best Coast‘s return to New York for months.

We missed the California stoner/noise-rock band’s free show at South Street Seaport because of scheduling conflicts — imagine that! — and so we jumped on tickets for the Wednesday, Sept. 29, show at the Bowery Ballroom as soon as they became available.

Bethany Cosentino: No longer California-girl blond

Bethany Cosentino, Bobb Bruno and Ali Koehler did not disappoint. (Okay, truth be told, Ali, the Vivian Girls drummer who became an official member of Best Coast didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but that’s a relatively minor quibble.)

Bethany, who said she’d been sick, still managed to sing her simple but charming lyrics well, and Bobb set the room on fire with his amazing playing. We have hopes that Ali will wake up and start really playing her kit, but in the meantime she did a decent job of keeping time. Or maybe she could just try to look like she’s not totally bored by the proceedings.

Is Ali Koehler bored or just projecting a chill image?

Comedian Eugene Mirman hanging out in the Bowery Ballroom bar.

Oh, and indie-rock comic Eugene Mirman was there for the show. He spent a lot of time in the downstairs bar, and pacing from there to the smoking area outside — we didn’t see whether he was smoking  — while checking his smartphone.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Concerts, Music, Pop and Rock

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Belle and Sebastian’s triumphant return to New York

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Belle and Sebastian at The Williamsburg Waterfront: Undaunted by the threatening storm. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

UPDATE: The dancing fool in our video (scroll down)has identified himself via YouTube as “deandempseync” on YouTube. He tells Will You Miss Me: “Who’s the handsome devil on the left of the screen? ME! I’m the ‘tall one with the curly hair [who] got a bit carried away by the whole thing.’ Somehow rather proud… And [that] was a bottle of gin.”

The impending fury of Tropical Storm Nicole wasn’t enough to keep the fans away from showing up in droves at The Williamsburg Waterfront on Thursday, Sept. 30, to for Belle and Sebastian‘s first New York show in four years.

In fact, the threat of a storm brought B&S onstage a bit earlier than scheduled in hopes of beating the rain. That turned out to be a boon for the audience, as B&S played a longer set, going right up to the venue’s 10 p.m. curfew

Teenage Fanclub played a tight and tuneful opening set.

Amazingly, with the help of a tight and lively set by fellow Scots Teenage Fanclub, B&S managed to keep the bad weather at bay (Nicole behaved herself until early the next morning) and put on a show that was nothing short of spectacular.

Aside from some terrible sartorial choices — with Sarah Martin, Stuart, and Stevie Jackson all unwittingly donning very similar black-and-white horizontal stripe shirt, causing Stevie to keep his coat on all night, Stuart’s unfortunate man-scarf — it was quite a spectacle in every respect.

B&S played plenty from the forthcoming album, Belle and Sebastian Write About Love, but didn’t beat it to death. The band focused on keeping the fans happy with a wide range of songs from its huge catalogue. And that effort paid off well.

It was satisfying to see that B&S didn’t call on any celebrity friends to make guest appearances at the show. Given that New York’s Norah Jones duets with B&S on the new album’s “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John,” it was plausible to think she might show up. But B&S kept things strictly in the family for this show.

Stuart even invited seven fans onstage to clap and dance along with a classic number, “The Boy with the Arab Strap.” Here’s a video of that amusing interlude. Pay particular attention to the tall guy with the curly hair:

Check out a great new interview with the band by Laura Barton for The Guardian. And click through to the jump for more Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? photos from the show.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Concerts, Music, Pop and Rock

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,