Beirut at BAM

A couple weekends ago, I was up in NYC to see the band Beirut play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, opening a series of concerts celebrating musicians from that borough.
He was accompanied by the Vassar Orkestar, which added significantly to the drama of their music. He played a few new songs from his new double ep set as well.

SVA MFA Thesis Exhibition

Big props to my friend Brooklen, who just completed his MFA at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I stopped by his MFA exhibit reception to check out his project, Merge/Feast, which focuses on food (of course) with families from different backgrounds and cultures.
Congrats.

Piggy Stardust? Chunky Dorey? Chubby Funster!

Went with some friend to see Ricky Gervais at Madison Square Garden Saturday night. He was really funny.
A highlight was David Bowie introducing Gervais by singing the "Little Fat Man" song from Extras.

Shameless Plugs

So did anyone catch this week on the penultimate episode of Heroes the reference to my favorite on hiatus NYC restaurant, Shopsin's? How cool was that?
It was mentioned by the character Matt Parkman played by Greg Grunberg who currently graces to cover of Geek Monthly published and edited by some friends of mine.

Ennio Morricone at Radio City Music Hall

Last night, I was lucky enough to go to the North American debut of famous soundtrack composer and pending honorary Acadamy Award recipient Ennio Morricone. Performing with him was the Roma Simfonietta and a chorus of about 100 singers. They played a lot of his "greatest hits" including music from The Mission, The Untouchables, and The Sicilian Clan. However, by far, the highlight of the evening was his medley of music from the westerns of Sergio Leone.

Welcome to Dreamland at Carnegie Hall

Friday night, I went to my first concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall to see a show curated by David Byrne called Welcome to Dreamland. The concert was his introduction to the Weird America - Freak Folk scene that has been around in the last few years.
I sat in front of Jonathan Demme, too.





First up was CocoRosie. I didn't get any pics of them, but I have blogged about them before. Sierra Cassady sounded amazing with the Carnegie Hall acoustics. They brought along Spleen to back them up, and the crowd really responded to their set. They played a few new songs that sounded good.

Cibelle, the Brazillian singer, then sang one song on her own before the next act, Adem played his set.

Adem was really good. He definitely fell more into the tradition of British Folk. I liked that he did his song "Spirals"- it's one of my favorites. He had Vashti Bunyan sing his song "Pillow", and it was really beautiful.

Up next was psychedelic country rock band Vetiver. They played a nice downtempo set, and I can't state enough how the acoustics of Carnegie Hall really made these artists sound amazing.


Vashti Bunyan followed, and she was really good. Highlights were when she played "Diamond Day" and "Lately".


Last up was Devendra Banhart. This was my first time seeing him and he was pretty amazing. He played songs ranging in style from folk to a Portugese song to an all out psychedelic rock jam. His guitarist was pretty amazing as well.

The show ended with David Byrne and all of the artists in the show coming out and singing a Moondog song, "Be a Hobo". All in all, it was a really amazing event to have seen.

Andrew Lampert at the Whitney Biennial

Yesterday, spent the day in NYC to see my good friend Andrew Lampert, present his installation piece "Varieties of Slow" as well as performing with cellist Okkyung Lee in "Okkyung Duet"
Overall, the Whitney Biennial was hit and miss. I liked the Daniel Johnston and Taylor Mead drawings as well as the Jim O'Rourke installation and a fake trailer for a Caligula remake.
Andy's performance was great- he used several super 8 projectors cranked at different speeds and projected films side by side and overlapping, creating a unique image while Okkyung Lee improvised on the cello.
It was also nice to see his father and sister there. I haven't seen them in years. I can't believe one of my friends in an emminent artist now. That's so weird. I'm glad for him.

The Santa Claus Pubcrawl

Drunken Santas stumbling around and smoking - I love the holidays! Saw about 100 inebriated Santa Clauses outside the Continental on St. Marks Place. I wish I had a costume, too.

Xmas in Midtown Manhattan

I became one of the throngs of bridge and tunnel (Lincoln) people to brave the drive into midtown with my cousin and her beau to see the wonderful Rockefeller center tree. It really gives you the feeling of the holidays on the east coast - I even got shoved by large presents whilst circling the tree. New for me was this gloriously bright star around 54th ave. I was hypnotized by its brilliance. There was unfortunately no way to get into FAO Schwartz or Toys R Us.