New York Music Blog

Photo of Carsick Cars at Glasslands by Rebecca Smeyne

​ PK-14, Xiao He, Carsick Cars
Glasslands
Friday, November 6

Nearly two years ago, while following Brooklyn's spasmodic noisemakers Ex-Models on a tour through the imperial city of Beijing and Shanghai for a magazine article, I got a taste of what the People's Republic of China had to offer musically (besides horrible lung infections, delicious soup dumplings, and pirated DVDs). While the country has opened up culturally for everyone from jazz pianist Matthew Shipp to E2-E4 guitar composer Manuel Gottsching to still more Brooklyn bands (such as These Are Powers), little of China's music has crept into the US. At least until this past week, as a handful of Chinese experimental rock bands hit stateside as part of the Beijing-based independent music label Maybe Mars' mini-tour showcase.

Girls/Real Estate
Bowery Ballroom
Friday, November 6

Cobain sweater. Check. Blonde, shoulder-length tangle. Check. "Let's all just have a good time," Girls' front man Christopher Owens said as he settled at the center of the stage at Bowery Ballroom. He said it flatly, no rocker pose or impishness. Like, you know, let's all just have a good time. It's the sort of phrase that might pop up in one of his songs--straightforward, hopeful, deceptively innocent. On Friday, Owens and bandmate J.R. White, along with touring drummer Garret Godard and guitarist Ryan Lynch, played nearly all of those songs. They did so before a crowded house, with the sort of calmness and restraint that belied the hysteria surrounding the band's first New York show since garnering a frenzy of acclaim for their debut, Album. Just another day in the sunshine for the San Francisco band.

Buraka Som Sistema, from their last time at LPR

​Buraka Som Sistema
Le Poisson Rouge
Wednesday, November 5

Last night, Buraka Som Sistema proved that no one gives a shit about what you're saying if you do it with a smile on your face and a sassy female MC on stage with you. The Portuguese production crew of Lil John, Riot, Conductor, and MC Kalaf took over Le Poisson Rouge late Wednesday night, assisted by a resounding guest performance by MC Blaya (more on her to come). Also on the bill was saucy BK rapper Maluca--who opened (kind of; she did one song) and closed the night--and Que Bajo resident-DJ, Geko Jones.

Last night.

Say Anything
Highline Ballroom
Wednesday, November 4

A partial list of emphatic statements sung in joyous unison by the predominantly teenaged, surprisingly female-centric crowd at tonight's narcissistic mall-punk extravaganza:

Fuck Buttons get their Fischer Price on. All photos by Kate Glicksberg

​Fuck Buttons
Bowery Ballroom
Monday, November 2

When Animal Collective played a crammed, 16-years-old-and-up show for fans and industry-fucks at the Bowery Ballroom in January, I chanced to meet a chubby 17-year-old from Westchester named "Sean," who asked me to buy beer for him. "Sean" wore a Fuck Buttons t-shirt, and some sky-blue Indian feathers around his neck. He struck me as the kind of kid who would probably have asked me for doses if he a) knew the form that LSD comes in, and b) courageously intuited more about the guy already enabling his underage consumption. His FB t-shirt was an invaluable part of the teen rebellion garb, more badge than endorsement, like the way St. Mark's skinheads rock Subhumans gear. But a pose can also be a valuable gateway drug.

all photos by Rebecca Smeyne

David Yow, Halloween saviour

Jesus Lizard
Bad Brains
Empty warehouse, North 10th Street
Saturday, October 31

So you go to the much-ballyhooed Vice Halloween Party, the 15th anniversary bash in Williamsburg that the lifestyle brand reportedly dropped $250,000 to throw. You dress up, by the press release's official request, as a cultural cliche from 1994 (the year the magazine began, hence the anniversary, duh), and stand in a frustratingly long line that you would in no other circumstance bother with, because if you wanted to pretend you needed toilet paper in Communist Russia, you'd go to Disneyland, for fuck's sake, this is bullshit.

Ooooh plus "Iron Man"

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Celebration
Madison Square Garden
Friday, October 30

"When we were down, rock 'n' roll lifted us up," says Tom Hanks in his introductory remarks for the final night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's benefit-concert extravaganza at Madison Square Garden. "Rock 'n' roll music was American," he later adds. "And it changed the world." Despite his use of the past tense, tonight is anything but a eulogy: Friday's slate features a wider palate of curators than the previous night, this time including Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck, Metallica, and U2. The headliners' guests, a pop-music dream-team ranging from Ray Davies to Ozzy Osbourne to the Black Eyed Peas, also do a better job than last night's cavalcade of explaining how far rock has come.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Celebration
Madison Square Garden
Thursday, October 29

The first half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's two-night benefit concert and 25th-anniversary celebration lasted six hours, ended at 1:30 a.m. and featuring star-studded sets by curators Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, with guests ranging from Billy Joel to Tom Morello to doo-wop legends Little Anthony and the Imperials. All these artists showed a real humility and gratitude for the 60-odd-year-old genre: "Everybody's got their own Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their hearts," as Springsteen put it. And no matter what you think of the museum itself or the state of rock at the moment (the closest thing to a hard-line rock album in this week's Billboard Top 10 is the New Moon soundtrack), the evening proved what a great emancipator the music still is.

Florence and the Machine
Bowery Ballroom
Tuesday, October 27

Toward the end of her first official New York City show, London's Florence Welch worked a little bit of Fever Ray's "If I Had a Heart" into the beginning of her tune "Blinding". While I have no doubt Welch's love of the enigmatic Swede Karin Dreijer Andersson is pure and true, the two singers approach spectacle from opposite angles. Andersson cloaks herself in effects and big cloaks; Welch needs to be seen and heard as clearly as possible at all times. Last night she wore what could pass for a tony ghost costume-- all waves of flowing white-- while her band were backgrounded in nothing but black. Her voice, as bellowing and soul-filled and elastic as it may be, was sometimes uncomfortably high in the mix. Welch feeds on the spotlight without apology, and this old-school approach is working for her thus far--her debut album Lungs, released in the UK last July, would have hit number one on the British charts if it weren't for sudden interest in another center-of-attention-type, Michael Jackson. And now, like any loyal subject with a speck of ambition, she's setting her gaze on America.

Screaming Females, from Myopenbar's party at Above the Auto Parts Store. Photos by Rebecca Smeyne.

​At long last, Rebecca Smeyne's final tour through the wilds of CMJ, featuring the Screaming Females, Glasser, Harlem, Boogie Boarder, Jeff the Brotherhood, Dinowalrus, Sisters, something ominously known as "the Colt 45 limo shuttle," Crystal Antlers, K-Holes, and a spooky after-hours Shank reunion at the Autumn Bowl. See you next year, Surfer Blood.