New eateries Marlow and Daughters, La Cave des Fondus and Hanco's sure to please
Eight million mouths need somewhere to eat, and NYC's overwhelming number of bistros, cafes, restaurants, delis and other establishments make it no simple task in deciding where to feast. Paste:Local looks at some recently- and soon-to-be-opened spots making the choice even tougher. ... read more
Live Review: Vampire Weekend @ Terminal 5, 12/4/08
If you’ve ever been to an English department mixer/off-campus kegger that happened to take place in an airplane hangar, you would have felt right at home at the Vampire Weekend show last Thursday at Terminal 5.... read more
Live Review & Photos: Yeasayer @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, 12/6/08
When Yeasayer left Brooklyn, it was as scrappy newcomers with an impressive debut album and growing internet buzz. After 14 months on the road, the band had more than earned the hearty Brooklyn homecoming they received last Saturday. Playing to a sold out crowd at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Yeasayer seemed less like a group of up-and-comers and more like a group of road-hardened veterans, performing their unique mix of Western pop and globe-trotting rhythms without breaking a sweat.... read more
Live Review: Castanets @ The Bell House 11/26/08
Ray Raposa, the only consistent member of Castanets, is too electric to be folk, too eccentric to be alt country, and too mopey to rock. Watching Raposa perform an abbreviated set at The Bell House on Thanksgiving Eve, it’s clear that his Castanets fall somewhere in the musical limbo that confounds critics but sounds fantastic. ... read more
Village Theatre oozes comedy onto Decatur Street: A conversation with co-owner Blair Holden
The storefront of the two-month-old Village Theatre looks out across Decatur Street toward the railroad tracks and the train yard that have for so long set the backdrop for the Lenny’s Bar shows upstairs. Since Lenny’s moved into the dilapidated shopping center at the Boulevard intersection, it’s been up to the arts alone to bring any color into the immediate surroundings, and in October, a new venue arrived to help light up the evenings. Friends Blair Holden and Mike King co-founded the new improv theatre along with a large group of other actors, the majority of which performed with them... read more
Live Review & Photos: Deer Tick @ Southpaw 11/8/08
On the last warm Saturday night of 2008, the kids came out in Obama T-shirts and knotted neckerchiefs to Southpaw to catch one of Deer Tick’s two NYC shows in five months. After an energetic performance by Those Darlins—a neo-Southern rock outfit fronted by three girls whose combined ages might crack the age of their apparent idol, Lucinda Williams—the crowd erupted into shouts when Deer Tick, in all their lumberjack-plaid glory, joined the Darlins on stage for a rollicking old time jam about a chicken bone.... read more
Neil Gaiman charms fans, explains Death of his film career at 92Y
Last Sunday, post-modern comic book author and novelist Neil Gaiman met with designer Chip Kidd to discuss Gaiman's pioneering comic series, The Sandman, in front of a packed auditorium at 92Y. Gaiman proved an affable and charming speaker, regaling his audience with disarming anecdotes and witty impressions that, unlike the protagonist of his 20-year-old cult classic, didn't put anyone to sleep.... read more
NYC Band of the Week: Me You Us Them
Borough: Bushwick, BrooklynFun Fact: Lead singer Ryan Reesey recently starred in a commercial for Guitar Hero.Why They're Worth Watching: Me You Us Them meld an intense blend of distorted, off-kilter guitar riffs with searing vocal melodies, rendering them one of the most memorable shoe-gaze groups in recent memory.For Fans Of: Sonic Youth, Jimmy Eat World, The Jesus & Mary ChainTucked away in a booth at a Williamsburg watering hole, a few feet away from one of Brooklyn's more rowdy election night Obama victory parties, the members of Me You Us Them consider how the current state of politics have influenced their musical... read more
Designer Chip Kidd hosts Neil Gaiman Sandman lecture this Sunday
This Sunday, Nov. 9th, at 92Y, seminal designer Chip Kidd will chat up best-selling author and comic book icon Neil Gaiman on The Sandman, the author's benchmark comic book series, which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. ... read more
Lou Reed: Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse
A live opus, twenty-five years in the makingThe 1970s saw the heyday of the rock opera, with musical opuses by Genesis, Queen and Meat Loaf all vying to out-bombast The Who’s seminal Tommy and Quadrophenia and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Lou Reed's contribution to the genre came in 1973 with Berlin, his psychodrama about a drug-addicted couple that mixed the titular German capital’s art-born-of-political-strife with an LES aesthetic—and nearly relegated Reed's post-Velvet Underground solo career to one-hit-wonder status.... read more
How awesome was Revenge of the Book Eaters? A ticket price breakdown
As far as bargains go, Oct. 7th's Revenge of the Book Eaters was like paying for a burger and being served filet mignon. Talented, witty and charming filet mignon.... read more
Department of Eagles: In Ear Park
A beautiful swell of experimental folk The songs of In Ear Park, the sophomore effort from Grizzly Bear's Dan Rossen and his college classmate Fred Nicolaus, are not so much heard as absorbed. After repeated listens, the densely layered and often distorted instrumentals begin to parse themselves out, the hooks of “Floating on The Lehigh” proving particularly arresting. Dedicated to Rossen's recently-deceased father, the title a nod to the Los Angeles park they used to visit together, the album is more nostalgic than mournful; on occasion, like the lighthearted and impossibly catchy "No One Does It Like You," it's downright... read more
The Menahan Street Band: Make The Road By Walking
Golden tones shine on Brooklyn preservationists' debutThe Menahan Street Band, named for the Bushwick address where producer Thomas Brenneck lives and recorded this album, provides a priceless entry into Daptone Records' gospel of modern jams with a collection by members of the Budos Band, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, El Michels Affair and Antibalas. This debut LP of steam-of-conscious instrumentals presents an inviting take on the genres of funk and soul with the most unobtrusive delivery imaginable: The gentlemen sand their sound into smooth, minimal waves of swelling horns, tumbling bass lines and ricocheting wah-pedal beats that fade in so... read more
Top 10 most memorable moments from the Gimme Shelter Rock & Rescue Benefit
[Above: Debbie Harry]We love animals. A lot. But Rational Animal's Gimme Shelter Rock & Rescue NYC benefit show, which helped to raise money to save stray animals from euthanasia, at Highline Ballroom last week was a little, well, weird. It must have been a full moon.... read more
Catching Up With... MGMT
On the strength of their full-length debut, Oracular Spectacular, the fellows of MGMT made a name for themselves as one of the buzziest acts to emerge from Brooklyn's indie rock hive this year. But that reputation may only be partly deserved: While co-founder and keys player Ben Goldwasser... read more
I Kiffe NY, CMJ showcase French hip hop at Hiro Ballroom
[Above: La Caution]Though Parisian MCs and DJs have most often garnered attention for their exercises in civil disobedience, the I Kiffe NY festival, which started on October 6 and lasts till the 28th, has taken a lighter approach to its display of France's urban arts and culture. On Oct. 24, the festival's procession of film, dance, music and lecture events will culminate at CMJ's French New Talents showcase at the Hiro Ballroom, featuring musicians La Caution, Mangu and Wax Tailor.... read more
Live Review: Pinback @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg 9/27/08
It's hard to nail down exactly what type of music Pinback plays (too complex for indie rock, too self-aware for prog) but to the sold-out crown at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Sept. 27, it was clear that Pinback is a straight-up rock band, first and foremost. The night's closing tune even featured a moment of which the dudes of Spinal Tap would be proud: Bringing out opener Kylesa, the two bands performed an epic rendition of “June” with no less than four guitarists, four bassists and two drummers.... read more
Rachael Yamagata's favorite spots for dating, breaking up and navigating other matters of the heart in Chicago
It seems apropos that, on the way to meet Rachael Yamagata, I saw a man run through oncoming traffic to help an old woman in danger of getting hit while crossing the street. That type of singular, romantic gesture is the kind of moment captured in vivid relief in Yamagata's music, which aptly traverses the minutiae of modern love, from first blush to the messy complications, and many points between. Her style appears in fine form on Rachael Yamagata (A Record in 2 Parts): Elephants and Teeth Sinking Into Heart, released today.... read more
Informer:Atlanta 10/7/08
Welcome to Informer:Atlanta! Each Tuesday, we bring you the very best in the coming week's music, film and culture events in and around Atlanta. Think we missed something? Wanna tip us off to something cool over the horizon? Let us know! All events are recommended, but italics indicate an editor's pick. (L) indicates local artists.... read more
Catching Up With... Shugo Tokumaru
[Above: Tokumaru performs at the Mercury Lounge.]On September 23rd, Toyko-based singer/songwriter Shugo Tokumaru made his New York City debut at the Mercury Lounge with an unconventional backing band: Jon Natchez and Perrin Cloutier of Beirut, Bryan Devendorf of The National and Lawson White of So Percussion joined the eclectic pop singer for a vibrant performance at a capacity house. It was an odd but welcome sight to see an artist from the other side of the world, who's seen little exposure in Western entertainment media (even these blog things we're hearing so much about), embraced with such fanfare. But one listen to Tokumaru’s latest record, Exit... read more
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