​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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Not as many hoodies in this crowd as you might expect. Pic by Jenn.

​Tyondai Braxton with the Wordless Music Orchestra
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
Monday, March 7

Better Than: Watching Fantasia alone in the dark on a Monday night

Tyondai Braxton's 2009 solo record Central Market rightfully calls for an "orchestral" tag, but compared to last night's highly cinematic 31-piece execution with the Wordless Music Orchestra, the disc version sounds flatter, like computers or toy instruments. If that sounds like a convoluted compliment, hear me out: The work of the ex-Battles frontman could have been fully realized nowhere but a place like the Upper West Side's Alice Tully Hallk, where, last night, the 32-year-old made his Lincoln Center debut at the Tully Scope Festival, fleshing out the record's eccentricities with nuanced flute, horn and trumpet bits, soaring strings, piano, synthesizers and more, adding an unimaginable dimension to an album that already sounds massive and weird through headphones.

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A just slightly confused Ariel Pink. Pics by Rebecca Smeyne, more below.

​Rock and Roll Circus, Night II
Starring Ariel Pink, Amazing Baby, Saint Motel, Aska, and Nick Zinner
Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center
Tuesday, January 4

Better Than: Last night?

. . . And we're back for night two of The Weirdest Show on Earth. Tonight's crowd looks slightly beaten down after last night's Japanther-led, mosh-pit-plagued debacle, like the younger sibling of a screw-up child clearly being punished for someone else's sins. No matter. Once OK GO (thankfully) canceled and were replaced by actual chillwave god Ariel Pink, the Lincoln Center-hosted, Rolling Stones-honoring affair got itself an actually psychedelic ringmaster, and we were well on our way to this being a legit Rock and Roll Circus. The crowd is a strange hodgepodge of trannies, rockers, bankers, and weekend carnies who have too good a job to commit to this life full-time. What can you really expect from an event co-sponsored by 15 different companies in the heart of midtown?

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Clownsurfing is a real thing. Pics by Rebecca, more below.

​The Rock and Roll Circus, a two-night spectacle at Lincoln Center that started Monday, was billed as a homage to the Rolling Stones' 1968 event by the same name, a multi-ring extravaganza scattering big-top attractions among sets in the ring by the Who, Marianne Faithfull, Jethro Tull, and a supergroup with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards. The first night of the 2011 version climaxed with a set by Japanther, whose overzealous fans compelled security to stop the show before it all got too reminiscent of Altamont.

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​So as threatened, Soulja Boy was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal live onstage at Lincoln Center on Friday morning about his absolute mastery of social media, and while it didn't go down quite as we'd imagined it, the result was still wildly entertaining: He recounts his rise to fame ("Around 2006, I discovered the Internet"), brags about his bizarre-sounding new venture that somehow combines Twitter with voicemail, and responds to a mildly sassy question about critics who claim he's not a good rapper with a perfectly logical rebuttal: "Then what am I sitting in front of you for?" Then he does a live performance of "Speakers Going Hammer," and that's just hilarious.

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​So the Wall Street Journal has this free interview/performance series at Lincoln Center Friday mornings, chatting with such cultural titans as Wyclef Jean, Stan Lee, Russell Simmons, and Jonathan Ames. (Note: If were putting those guys in order of who'd be most qualified to become president of Haiti, Wyclef would finish third, because Jonathan Ames, seriously.) Added to that illustrious list as of tomorrow morning: Soulja Boy, a/k/a "the multiplatinum rapper who got his break by using social media to his advantage in today's digital age." He goes on at 10 a.m. This is 100 percent guaranteed to not be boring. Expect the conversation to go something like this:

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Ronnie Spector says hello to ? and the Mysterians. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.

​And so it came to pass on Saturday that the exalted Lincoln Center became a venue for a bunch of aging, outré Detroit musicians. Blame Ponderosa Stomp, the 501(c) 3-certified cultural organization dedicated to the preservation of American roots music, in all its high and low forms. Hence "The Detroit Breakdown," a daylong festival dedicated to some of Motor City's most bizarre exports: the proto-punk pioneers Death; latter day garage rockers the Gories, fresh off a reunion spin through NYC that also included shows at the Bowery Ballroom and Maxwell's; '60s futurists turned early '00s cult rock 'n' rollers ? and the Mysterians; and the eternal endurance machine that is Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. The venue wasn't entirely full, and many of those who did come were old, but one of them was Ronnie Spector, so show some respect. Intrepid photographer Rebecca Smeyne was there: her photos and captions are below.

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Twitpic via joe_saturday

​The Dirty Projectors
Allen Room, Lincoln Center
Friday, February 19

The Allen Room's dazzling floor-to-ceiling glass vista is guaranteed to metaphorically enhance whatever you happen to hear there. Case in point: On Friday night those double layered panels refracted 59th Street into a boggling twilight boogie-woogie of car headlights ascending the face of nearby skyscrapers. It was an image perfectly suited to the cubist strategies employed in Dirty Projectors' The Getty Address, which the sextet performed in collaboration with the fourteen-piece Alarm Will Sound Ensemble as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series (sponsored by Pfizer). Movin' on up, indeed.

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