Recent Articles in Live Reviews
Katzenjammer at Mercury Lounge, NYC, 6.16.09
Call them what you will: vaudevillian charmers, musical circus cabaret, torch singing, gypsy folk, punk pop, Balkan/Norwegian, but when Katzenjammer performs, whether it be at a sold out 1500-capacity venue in Oslo, a mega outdoor festival such as Bonnaroo, or tonight, at the intimate Mercury Lounge, they bring an instant party. Their hit “Bar in [...]
Nouvelle Vague at The Fillmore at Irving Plaza, NYC, 6.17.09
One wouldn’t think that a band who politely merci beaucoup their way through a set could ignite a crowd fight and attempt acrobatics in a staid venue such as Irving Plaza. But, then again, this isn’t just any normal band in just any city.
Touted as a “French cover band”, Nouvelle Vague has managed to make [...]
Via Tania, Luke Rathborne and Vanessa Bley at Joe’s Pub, NYC, 6.17.09
The young and spunky Vanessa Bley, daughter of jazz pianist Paul Bley, kicked off this intimate evening amongst a bevy of friends and fans, with her raucous, emotionally-stirring set. She mixed it up with heady piano ballads and crafty, guitar-based pop tunes and made great use of the room’s cozy acoustics, especially during her “hit” [...]
The Big Pink at Mercury Lounge, NYC, 6.15.09
The Big Pink looked spiffy as they gathered up on stage. The London fivesome sported a melange of fashion that would look best underlit with bright strobes surrounded by a soft aura, a counterpart to what the bevy of photographers had already set up by the foot of the stage. We see a black, curvy [...]
Doves at Terminal 5, NYC, 6.04.09
After seeing Doves many a time, last night made it evident that the trio, (and unofficial fourth member, keyboardist Martin Rebelski), despite going on a few years’ hiatus, continue to maintain a stronghold on NYC. Their latest, Kingdom of Rust, was obviously on display and received with vigor from a packed crowd, (a mix of [...]
Jack Peñate at Bruar Falls, Brooklyn, NY, 6.03.09
Jack Peñate’s latest, world-spanning songs came alive at the intimate Bruar Falls, against a parachute backdrop bathed in fiery sunset tones. It was a perfect, short set, made up of seven of the nine songs from the Londoner’s new, appropriately-titled album, Everything is New. “It feels lovely to be back in America,” Peñate says at [...]
Chase Pagan at Mercury Lounge, NYC, 5.21.09
Seeing Arkansas-based Chase Pagan perform for the first time “is akin to reading Nabokov novels in their original post-it note format, you get the gist but it leaves one wanting more.” That’s what a writer said who came to his first Pagan show tonight, and it stuck, since it was pretty amusing and seemed to [...]
Leonard Cohen at Radio City Music Hall, Saturday May 16, 2009
As a writer and most importantly, a fan of Leonard Cohen, it’s virtually impossible to eschew hyperbole and review a performance the man gives. He with the jaunty suit, and fedora. He with the many bows of gratitude and cups of mercy and unified hearts.
Ramblas In Hell’s Kitchen: SonarSound NY, 5.12.09, Baryshnikov Arts Center
We’ve made it out to Siberia, the stretch of lower Hell’s Kitchen that seems to greet more visitors than locals, to the Baryshnikov Arts Center, a relatively new performance venue. The desolate streets bunched together by the cloverleaf of the Lincoln tunnel are lined with low tenements made into mushrooms by the roof parapets, [...]
Black Acid at Monkey Town, Brooklyn, NY, 5.08.09
If listening to records of Cabaret Voltaire for the first time, while sitting at the dome of an empty theater that was usurped by you for that purpose was ever a religious experience, then hearing Black Acid at this “close family” event at Monkey Town some years, (ahem, a decade or two), later was certainly [...]
