Goes Cube and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin at Union Hall
Goes Cube Photo #1
Goes Cube Photo #2
Goes Cube is loud, intense and dark. They have hooks amidst the sonic assault, so the takeaway is more than just distortion and double-bass pedal polyrhythms. Even though the songs are all titled “Goes Cube Song #X,” each has its own character.
Goes Cube is playing at Guero? on Thursday afternoon and at The Delancey Thursday night (11 pm).
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Another person was taking a photo of a band with blog buzz? That’s a real shock. But at the exact same instant? Well, that is different. And yes, this probably would have been a good venue to experiment with flash photography for a change. Even at ISO 800, the F30 can’t get good photos with this little light sans flash.
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is the best band name EVAR! No, seriously, it’s brilliant. It got me to get to this show early despite never having heard anything from this band. The closest point of reference is probably The Shins, with perhaps a bit more edge.
They’re in town for the week, playing tonight at Pianos, tomorrow afternoon at the CMJ daystage at Avery Fisher Hall, tomorrow night at Europa (in Greenpoint) and Saturday afternoon out at Asbury Lanes.
The Good, The Bad and The Queen
The Good, The Bad and The Queen is Damon Albarn’s (Blur, Gorillaz) latest project. The BBC has a live set: Electric Proms: The Good, The Bad and the Queen:
There’s plenty of talent in the line up. Britpop renaissance man Damon Albarn, has brought together two musical legends in Paul Simonon of The Clash and Tony Allen of Fela Kuti, one of the most exciting drummers in the world. The band is completed by ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong. The band take to the stage looking like a gang of vagabonds dressed in shabby suits – Damon’s top hat completes the look.
The sound is a vaudeville music box of delights – enchanting lullabies that have a dark, mysterious edge but they still receive a warm reception from the crowd. “Three Changes” ups the tempo as the audience dance and cheer, much to the relief of Damon Albarn. The band finish on a high with “TGTBQ” and the audience leave in the knowledge that they’ve witnessed something quite magical.
Zoot Dispute
Zoot gets in a saxophone dispute on the Muppet show:
Vertically Integrated Venues
The NY Times looks at the state of the rock music club ecosystem in the city: Where the Beat Goes On: “For every Bottom Line or Fez or Continental that has shut down or quit live music in the last couple of years, a Rockwood Music Hall, Union Hall or Studio B has opened up — and maybe a Fontana’s or Club Midway as well. And in the next few months, at least five major spaces are set to open, giving the city’s rock infrastructure its most substantial expansion in years.”
The most interesting part of the article is the development of the “vertically integrated” booking chain and the competition between Live Nation (ClearChannel) and The Bowery Presents. The Bowery group did secure the lease on Northsix and will renovate it, add upstairs balconies, and convert it into the “Music Hall of Williamsburg.”
Further east, the Times reveals that Live Nation will have a hand in booking the new ~300 person capacity Luna Lounge. Live Nation is also adding Rebel (formerly Downtime on W.30th St, cap. 325) and the Gramercy Theater on 23rd St. (cap. 600) to its venue roster.
Are there enough acts able fill these medium/large rooms?
Previously: Williamsburg Mega-Venue Coming?
CMJ Considerations
So, CMJ is next week. We’re not playing this year, and without some other source of a badge (“hi, I blog at a site that has a readership of, um, me”), I won’t hit all that many shows. But going through the schedule, here are a few that look promising, in no particular order:
Tuesday
(There are only a few names I recognize on the Tuesday schedule and even fewer that I’ve heard. This may be the night to just pick a venue at random):
- Medeski Martin and Wood (Hammerstein, 9:00)
- Golem (Mo Pitkins, 10:00)
- The Eames Era (Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 9:30)
Wednesday
- The Mugs (Magnetic Field, 9:00)
- Tigers and Monkeys (Fontanas, midnight)
- Man In Gray, The Unsacred Hearts, The Octagon, Kickstart, Dracula Zombie USA (Knitting Factory Old Office)
A rare entire lineup that is NYC-centric (since it is the showcase for local label Serious Business) - Laura Cantrell, Steve Earle and Allison Moorer (Southpaw)
For the alt-country set - Other Passengers, The Gritty Midi Gang (Union Pool)
Other Passengers are loud. Very loud. In a good way. - Dr. Dog, Cold War Kids, Tapes n’ Tapes (The Bowery Ballroom)
It’s the blog-buzz show of the night. None of these bands are super-amazing, but they are what’s hot with the kids these days. It’s sold out, so does that mean that CMJ resurrected the bands the blogs killed?
Thursday
- John Medeski meets Kid Koala (Merkin Hall)
This could be all kinds of awesome, or all kinds of awful– no middle ground - The Wrens, The Walkmen (NYU)
- Charles Bissell (The Slipper Room)
This is scheduled for the same time as The Wrens show at NYU? How is that possible? - Goes Cube (The Delancey, 11:00)
None of their songs have titles. All are simply “Goes Cube Song #X.” Playing songs by the number would confuse the crap out of me. Fortunately, they’ve saved the creativity for the music. - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (Europa)
I have no idea if they are any good, but they have the best band name ever - Bling Kong (Fontanas, 11:30)
- Nicole Atkins and the Sea (Mercury Lounge, 8:00)
- Jonny Lives! (Crash Mansion, 10:00)
- Proton Proton (Trash, 8:00)
Friday
- The Decemberists (Hammerstein Ballroom)
- Longwave, Albert Hammond, Jr., Tokyo Police Club (Mercury Lounge)
- Thunderbirds Are Now! (Pianos, midnight)
- The Teeth (The Delancey, 11:30)
- George Clinton & the 420 Funk Mob (Crash Mansion, 11:30)
Yes, THE George Clinton - Goat Explosion (Fontanas, 9:00)
Formerly Elkland. No idea if they’re any good, but it’s the best band name that doesn’t reference Boris Yeltsin
Saturday
- The Mooney Suzuki, The Dansettes (Rebel)
- Earl Greyhound (The Delancey, midnight)
- Logjam (Pussycat Lounge, 10:00)
- The Head Set (Trash, 8:00)
This doesn’t include any concurrent non-CMJ shows. Is there anything I’ve missed?
Stereogum gets funded
Paid Content reports: Pittman’s Pilot Group, Hirschhorn Invest In Music Blog Stereogum.com: “Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and former MTVN digital head Jason Hirschhorn have invested in Stereogum.com, the popular music-scene blog founded by Scott Lapatine.”
Bubble 2.0!
Update (10/29), the Post confirms: MTV Guru Hirschhorn Takes Stake in Stereogum: “Armed with new money from both Pittman and Hirschhorn, Stereogum, already singled out by everyone from Entertainment Weekly to The Wall Street Journal as one of the best music resources on the Web, plans to add more writers and go ‘deeper and narrower’ with its indy-rock music coverage.”
Theme songs and credit sequences
AP: Television theme songs are fading fast: “Today, show themes are doing a fast fade as the networks crunch their programming budgets.”
The theme song can put the viewer in the mood and mindset to watch the show. The Sopranos does this particularly well. The opening theme song is the voyage through the Lincoln Tunnel to Tony Soprano’s New Jersey. Danny Elfman’s theme for The Simpsons is a throwback to the classic television show themes. Even when The Simpsons debuted back in 1989, that long orchestral theme was an anachronism.
And, over the last 17 years, television shows have become shorter, in order to fit more commercial time into that same hour or half-hour. On mid-era and later Simpsons episodes, the full theme is rarely shown, to have enough time for story in the episode.
The theme song is all about setting the mood and tone. One of my favorites is Lost’s non-song theme. The simple black and white title card and disturbing shifting chord is disconcertingly eerie. Since Lost usually does a good job of setting up some odd event or feature in the cold open or previouslies, the disconcerting evil chord works.
Of the other BRR-favorite shows, Doctor Who’s theme is a classic. TAR works well at setting mood, but isn’t particularly memorable.
Battlestar Galactica’s theme music not only conveys a sense of the isolation and loneliness of the surviving colonists, but also manages to be almost the exact opposite of the vaguely-John Williams theme from the 1970’s BSG series. All distance from the Lorne Greene series is good. Unlike the traditional series that run the same credit sequence week after week, Galactica flashes forward to scenes from later in the episode. Not only that, but the credits did (until this third season) update the count from the whiteboard of extinction.
Finally, I’m simply ambivalent about the The Office theme music.
Williamsburg Mega-venue coming?
Rumor has it that LiveNation and The Bowery Presents are battling for control of two neighboring venues in Williamsburg. Both parties would consolidate the two into one large (~2,000 capacity) venue. Curbed speculates that the two venues are Galapagos and Northsix: Crazy Rumor of the Week: Williamsburg ‘Supervenue’?
Aside from the fact that Galapagos and Northsix may be the only two neighboring music venues in Williamsburg, Galapagos is looking to move into a new space as part of an ambitious expansion plan. The new location would include a 300 seat performance space with “a separate theatre enviornment and a cinema.” In addition to expanding to a larger space in Brooklyn, Galapagos hopes to partner with other venues in Berlin, Mumbai and Beijing to offer emerging artists the opportunity to perform to a global audience.
In other Williamsburg venue news, New York Magazine’s Fall Nightlife Preview pegged the new, larger-capacity Luna Lounge for a “fall” opening. The new space on Williamsburg’s Metropolitan Ave. is expected to fit in between the Mercury Lounge and Bowery Ballroom in the NYC venue hierarchy.
The real world relevance of BSG
In Slate, Spencer Ackerman looks at the real-world context of Battlestar Galactica: Battlestar: Iraqtica: “Like many science-fiction shows before it, BSG concerns itself with the porous membrane between humanity and barbarism. Unlike most of its predecessors, however, it has the benefit of an open-ended, real-life war as its backdrop, making its lessons about barbarism unavoidably resonant.”
Studio 60
Studio 60 is perhaps the most talked about new show on television this year. And for good reason– it may be the best of the new crop, but also the one that fails to live up to its potential.
The problem with Studio 60 is that the sketch show (the show within the show) is not funny. It’s about as funny as recent Saturday Night Live. That’s not good. And that would be fine if the show didn’t believe that the sketches were funny. But the Sorkin-penned Studio 60 thinks that his alter-ego’s show is the most brilliant comedy writing since the Colbert Report. It’s not.
If the show realized that, it would be more believable. The actual show– the light-hearted drama show– would live in the reality-based community. And it would be funnier, too.