Were we all aware that this existed, the Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra? That it "plays big Latin arrangements of some of the best indie music"? And what better way to announce yourself than by tackling the best indie-music song of all time? Ridiculous a concept as this may be, once it gets going (four minutes in or so) it sounds... markedly less ridiculous. No shows scheduled yet, but they've got a few other tunes up, including a version of TVOTR's "Wolf Like Me" that's even more bonkers:
News we learned too late: NYC has its own all-girl Misfits cover band, Ghoul's Night Out. Make that "had." Comprised of front-woman Glen-nora Danzig, guitarist Aileen, bassist Tibbie X, and drummer Miss Carrie, the foursome, who predominantly came out on Halloween, played their "farewell show" at Otto's Shrunken Head last night. Our beloved restaurant champion, Robert Sietsema, described waiting for them to come on as "the best definition if insanity I can think of" and snapped these pics. Challenge: can you guess which one of these four women is a lawyer by day?
If Strangers With Candy's Jerri Blank was an art-school rapper played by Camryn Manheim's little sister, she might be something like Leslie Hall. As the "phat girl" frontwoman of schlock-pop faux-rap group Leslie and the LY's, Hall has made a cult career out of squeezing into too-tight gold-lamé jumpsuits, rhyming about rhinestones over Mac-made electro beats, and jiggling like she's Har Mar Superstar's female foil. But even though Hall's been keeping something of a lower profile in the four or so years since she became a kitschy internet celebrity for converting an eBayed RV into the World's Only Mobile Museum of Gem Sweaters and unleashing memes like "Gold Pants" into the world via Atom Films, Leslie and the Lys is still in action, and they're currently on a national tour. This past Friday, they came to the Mercury Lounge for a sold-out show, which our guerrilla photographer Rebecca Smeyne documented just for you.
Mere days away from Art Basel Miami, and our cold-weather-escaping reverie has already shifted to March 17-21, 2010 in Austin, Texas, where "the creative capital of the entire world" will relocate temporarily to seek out polarizing acts who will be debated, celebrated, overrated, and swiftly e-descrated. SXSW's first lengthy announcement was put out last week, but mostly lost among the cranberry sauce, and so far the highlights are solid, but deliberately unsurprising (Frightened Rabbit, Japandroids, Nicole Atkins and the Sea, Robyn Hitchcock, Waco Brothers, Deer Tick). Those representing our fair metropolis are the usual suspects (Aa, Arms a/k/a Todd Goldstein from the Harlem Shakes, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, We Are Scientists), and a few wholly subjective standouts on the master list include Beijing experimental rock exports PK-14 and Carsick Cars; Fanfarlo, one of the few memorable things from this year's CMJ; longtime personal faves the Coathangers. The full list of 230 or so names who're slated to play next year's faux-industry jubilee are below, with arbitrarily bolded, NY-centric highlights (un)helpfully added.
This is your new Virgin Megastore in-store, I suppose. The brand new Union Square 24-hour retail outlet will host Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine , will.i.am, Major Lazer, and David Guetta for some sort of series of live appearances, starting at 4pm today. Asking "why?" is futile and probably pointless--the answer involves something called Club Beats, which from the video I just watched most of looks to involve a lot of will.i.am beatboxing and the delusional belief that DJing is about to be "what hip-hop was in 1990" (thanks Jimmy Iovine!), i.e. primed for a major commercial and artistic explosion. On equipment purchased from somebody in a blue shirt at an electronics store. The revolution is now. (Dre though, seriously...) [Brooklyn Vegan]
Javelin, Orba Squara, Headlights, and the Shaky Hands will be in the building. Totally free. With Mr. @1000TimesYes/YIMBY/Christopher R. Weingarten on the ones and twos. Make your requests now. No Gucci, no credit, Chris!
(Clockwise): Drummer Ali Koehler, singer-guitarist Cassie Ramone, bassist Kickball Katy
This Tuesday, dirty-guitar-punk trio Vivian Girls released their sophomore albumEverything Goes Wrong. Last spring, a day before they were to go on tour, as well as move out of their shared apartment, singer-guitarist Cassie Ramone, bassist Kickball Katy, and drummer Ali Koehler sat down with me (on the floor) for a track-by-track listening session via a laptop. They drank Diet Coke and offered me leftover pieces of Domino's pizza. (I didn't wan to ruin my dinner, so I declined.) Plus, I was more focused on their new jams. "More of the same perhaps," but the Vivian Girls have done some maturing since last summer's self-titled debut, with songs stretching beyond two minutes and a whole new interest in guitar arrangements.
I met one of my best friends seeing the Cramps live. This is probably one of the highest compliments you can pay a musician of any age, genre, or scale, aside from having actually conceived a child to a band's record--and frankly that involves premeditation, and if doesn't, it likely involves misjudgment or Massive Attack, and in any case, if you're making babies to the Cramps, you are a couple of sick fucks. But meeting a best friend at a band's show and ending the night with a rare understanding between complete strangers--We Need to Be Friends Immediately--seems to reflect on the performer, in retrospect, because it involves serendipity and miracles, artists as sublime conduits and unsuspecting heroes. In this instance, the spindly, psycho-sexy, leather-pants-wearing Lux Interior as Wesley Autry. Without Lux on October 16, 2004, I wouldn't know K, or eventually met J and S, or ended up here, and I most certainly would've gotten run over by that train.
Actually, that night in Boston, the Cramps played the old classic "Drug Train," a two-minute-plus "Johnny B. Goode"-styled hootenanny in which Lux plays conductor, woo-woos like a steam trumpet, and tries to wrangle innocent bystanders on board by bragging about the VIP section: "I've seen Elvis with your Mother/On the drug train." This is exactly what I came to love about the Cramps: ludicrous, debased, Presley-obsessed, and totally inappropriate. Right now, the track "Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?" is the most popular Cramps ringtone on iTunes. And their other song titles also shriek volumes: "Eyeball in My Martini," "Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk," and "Dr. Fucker M.D. (Musical Deviant)." So brilliant, so stupid. And let us consider "Bend Over, I'll Drive" from 1991's Look Mom, No Head, in which our hero Lux repeatedly demands his beloved lean over so he can take the controls. It's very romantic, especially since Lux's pillow talk stinks of necro fetishism: "Bend over, I'll drive/Is this the way Grace Kelly died?" This is wax-museum foreplay, werewolf flirtation, the sound of filthy hitchhiker seduction.
"Your heart kinda goes out. Even though you know it's not a person, but still: It's a living creature. Everything should have its own right and feel to be who it is to the universe, 'cause that's its sole purpose in being here." [peta2 via Prefix]
Ron English with Shepard Fairey in Denver this summer
Once known as the hairy grandaddy of whatever it is people consider the “lowbrow art” movement, Ron English was most identifiable this year as the agit-pop provocateur behind that vaguely controversial "Abraham Obama" portrait. But in addition to “liberating” billboards and endlessly aping our last President, one of English’s many sidelines—along with art toys, cow breasts, and a SuperSize Me cameo—has been music. Over the years, he's designed album covers for the Dandy Warhols, spent time as one-third of the lo-fi trio Hyperjinx Triangle with Daniel Johnston and Jack Medicine (the nom de rock of Soft Skull Press editor Don Goede), and had Wesley Willis record a song about him for a Saddam Hussein-related project better explained here.
Back in 2005, I spent a long time on the phone with Ron English for a short piece. This was before amusing outtakes ended up on blogs. Now they do. This one's all yours.
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