Bryan Derballa/via Vice

[Hipster Puppies joke.]

​Vice's Fashion Week Party
Westway
Wednesday, February 8

Better than: Not getting into the secret Skrillex show.

Last night, the line to get into West Village's middle-of-nowhere dance club Westway wrapped around one block in one direction of the door and down two blocks in the other. The strip club-turned-scenester hangout was hosting Vice's Fashion Week party and "doggie fashion show," you see. And despite the maddening flurries of snow and confusion surrounding the mobbed door, hundreds of hip hopefuls braved the cold and, more importantly, the shame of being seen waiting in line at a party where "knowing someone" is the only way you're getting in. The media entrance was no less of a clusterfuck either; the line hosted at least seventy fashion writers, party-o-graphing tumblrers, and nightlife bloggers. (Shout out to GuestOfAGuestOfAGuest.com.)

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​Jack's Mannequin w/Allen Stone, Jukebox The Ghost
Irving Plaza
Wednesday, February 8

Better than: The $7 Bud Lights on sale, marketed generically and dimensionally as "12oz beer." Cool story, Irving Plaza!

People were packed into the helpless rectangle of Irving Plaza, walled off from the stage by a barricade and a thin photo pit yet still within intimate distance. Jack's Mannequin frontman and pianist Andrew McMahon said a few times during the night that he chose to play at Irving Plaza because of the closeness of the stage to the crowd. I was in the photo pit for the first song; within seconds McMahon had leaped over me to the barricade, where he could selectively merge with the crowd.

That was a connective element to the show: McMahon's ecstatic leaping. From his chair, onto his piano, into the angled arms of fans, with a weird exactness. Otherwise he was gliding insanely along his piano as if the two movements were interrelated. McMahon's music has a grounding warmth, even while it is manic. There's a feeling of home, of being understood by a familiar place; all the while McMahon darts through hooks. When spotlights retreated from the stage, the musicians were mostly amplified by modest lamplight, one over McMahon's piano, another behind bassist Mikey "The Kid" Wagner, implying the warmth of home.

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​Howlin Rain
Brooklyn Bowl
Wednesday, February 8

Better than: Any California jamband since Garcia died.

A great rock guitarist needs a signature affectation. Ethan Miller's happens to be an abrupt upstrum that, combined with a backward stagger, probably makes him something of an onstage hazard to his bandmates. When he really gets into it, as he does with elemental regularity, the Howlin Rain leader resembles a spasmodic marionette under the influence of a power greater than himself—call it the power of rawk. With his long thinning hair, big black beard, and "special shirt"—as he referred to the spiffy brown vintage-'70s number he was sporting—Miller also sometimes resembles a defrocked rabbi on the run. And when he opens his mouth, the history of classic arena-rock vocals passes before your ears in a full-throated wail embracing the combined spirits of Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Leslie West, Greg Rolie, and the ghost of Freddy Mercury.

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​Bill Callahan
American Songbook @ Lincoln Center
Wednesday, February 8

Better than: Trying to catch a cab outside of Lincoln Center.

First, a confession: I had never been to Lincoln Center in my four and a half years living in New York City. I was not prepared for seeing this show with a backdrop of Central Park, Columbus Circle, and a good chunk of the New York skyline. I was more wide-eyed than ever before, proving my still-developing New Yorker-ness. In a way, I was like Bill Callahan himself, wondering (him aloud, me inwardly) what we were doing here on a Wednesday night, playing/listening to country songs while staring out into the metropolis's night sky.

Callahan started out on a very strong note, coming out to the best song from last year's majestic Apocalypse: "Riding for the Feeling" is a slow roast, a warm cup of your favorite coffee, enjoyed next to the fire as snow batters your window. His voice was somehow more present and alive than on record, its imperfections strengthening the song's impact. The acoustics in the Allen Room really amplified every note from the dual guitars and the soft drumbeats. It sure helped that every person seemed to be holding their breath; at one point, I swear I heard a piece of paper rustle across the 400-something-capacity room.

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Steve Gullick

​Mark Lanegan Band
Bowery Ballroom
Tuesday, February 7

Better than: Drowning.

Mark Lanegan has a voice. You know? It's like those super-high-definition photographs of people that don't get airbrushed, that show the lives the subjects have lived in every wrinkle and mole and imperfection. Lanegan's instrument is like that, all weathered and scarred and those flaws somehow making its already existent beauty more arresting, more devastating.

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​Amadou & Mariam
The Box
Monday, February 6

Better than: Waiting for the official tour.

When it comes to music rooms with a stunning view, it was tough to beat the penthouse at the Cooper Square Hotel (now André Balazs's unfortunately named The Standard East Village) last summer, when Annie Ohayon's L'Afrik C'Est Chic series featured guitarist Amadou Bagayoko and his singing wife Mariam Doumbia during a handful of stunning evenings. As the setting sun created spectacular effects on the surrounding architecture, the couple from Mali, who also happen to be blind, performed stripped-down versions of their repertoire inches away from a stylish international crowd shoehorned into the bar. It was sort of perfect.

Amadou and Mariam's equally minimal invitation-only appearance at The Box was less so, although still something of a treat. It came at the end of a day dedicated to shooting a video for "Wily Kataso" (Go Home) from the fiftysomething pair's April release, Folila (We Came to Play the Music). Guest vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio were also on hand. As members of the production team gesticulated wildly from the sides of the stage, the four singers lip-synced as videocameras filmed the dancing crowd. It didn't take much to manufacture enthusiasm. The audience had already been primed with attire suggestions such as "artist hipster," "Warhol-esque dance party," "Manhattan business professional," "sexy night out," and—best of all—"TV on the Radio urban." As Duffman might say: "Oh yeah!"

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Benjamin Lozovsky

ALSO: See more photos from Jay-Z's show at Carnegie Hall

​Jay-Z
Carnegie Hall
Monday, February 6

Better than: Slacking off.

The age-old question about how one might get to Carnegie Hall rattled in my brain as I headed uptown last night, en route to Jay-Z's first of two performances at the hallowed Midtown space. "Practice" is the cheeky answer that people give, but as Jay showed last night with his benefit for the United Way of New York City and the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation—Carnegie Hall's first concert where a hip-hop artist topped the bill—ambition is just as key.

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​Nicolas Jaar: From Scratch
P.S. 1
Sunday, February 5

Better than: A just-press-play-and-hide-behind-the-laptop DJ.

The 21-year old American-Chilean electronic producer Nicolas Jaar has ambition. In the past two years, he's released seven EPs and the full-length Space Is Only Noise; he runs his own label and tours with a rotating cast of collaborators, who bring elements of live performance to his robust yet minimal compositions. This weekend, Jaar wrapped up a weekend of shows, among them a sold-out night at Music Hall of Williamsburg, with a five-hour set at P.S. 1 titled From Scratch. Jaar's music is an intersection between left-field electronic and contemporary classical music, and he leaves plenty of space between the beats for his music to breathe. The quality of the sounds used by Jaar are equally important to the sounds he constructs as harmony and rhythm, with melody taking a back seat as a compositional element.

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​As you may have by now heard, last night, as part of his weeklong New York takeover, dubstep phenom Skrillex played a show so secret that even he didn't know its whereabouts. Nevertheless, Voice nightlife correspondent Puja Patel managed to score an invite, one that required us to meet at another secret location and be taken by bus, blindfolded, to the other. Because Puja had another event to cover, she was ultimately told where to go (Work in Progress, the newish club under Greenhouse, as it turned out) and we attempted to work our way in at the door. In retrospect, this was a terrible idea. Still, though we never heard Skrillex drop the beat, we overheard enough ridiculous, cringeworthy, made-us-burst-out-laughing-right-there-on-the-sidewalk quotes to fill five of these blog posts. Here are some of the best that we remember.

Before getting into the list, we should note that we both intended to come away from the show with something more than another "lol people at Skrillex" post, but stranded by our press contact and unwilling to part with next month's rent, this was all we were left with. For an actual report from one of these shows, keep your browsers here (and refresh constantly, we could use the hits), as Maura is heading to Roseland Ballroom to see what happens at tonight's gig. She even has a ticket. If you can't wait til then, go back and check out the essay on Skrillex and American rave that Tom Ewing contributed to December's Voice Critic's Roundtable.

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Diana Levine/Bushmills

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Elijah Wood
The Wooly
Thursday, February 2

Better Than: Reading about Bon Iver on the internet today.

After attending a party called Macaulay Culkin's iPod two months ago, during which I watched the love of my kindergarten days supervise a six-hour playlist and the twenty-somethings that were confused by it, I joked that Elijah Wood, a fellow childhood love and Culkin's on-screen rival in The Good Son, might have better taste in music. Apparently the Internet has ears: Last night we were invited to a Bon Iver hosted party featuring a live DJ set by none other than Frodo himself. And what sane person passes up free drinks and the opportunity to tell Elijah Wood that we loved his work in North? Not us.

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