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
NYC Band of the Week: Spanish Prisoners
Borough: BrooklynFun Fact: Frontman Leo Maymind's family emigrated from Latvia when he was just three years old. Pursuing a music career means he's the only one in his family who isn't on the cusp of a Ph.D. Why They're Worth Watching: The deliberateness and diversity of the Prisoners' music means each song they record is its own little world, with a unique sound and feel. For Fans Of: MK Ultra, Daniel Johnston, Moldy Peaches. "I often find that people pay a lot less attention to music's lyrics. That's not a trend I follow," says soft-spoken Spanish Prisoners frontman and songwriter, Leo Maymind. "My lyrics... read more
Tony Bennett featuring the Count Basie Big Band: A Swingin' Christmas
Deft jazz, pure nostalgia fuel legend's latest holiday outingIt’s no coincidence that the modern-day American interpretation of Christmas derives much of its imagery and aesthetic from the 1950s. From Haddon Sundblom's iconic Coca-Cola portraits of Santa Claus to the mass production of the candy cane, our current associations with the holiday season date back to a culture defined by the explosion of suburbia and the post-WWII nuclear family. And there's no greater evidence of this connection than Tony Bennett's latest holiday album, A Swingin’ Christmas.... 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
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell
Release Date: Nov. 18Director: Matt WolfCinematographer: Jody Lee LipesStudio/Run Time: Plexifilm, 71 mins.Uneven documentary maps journey of abstract music savant You know you're bound for notoriety and distinction when minimalist composer Philip Glass describes you as “eccentric,” no matter what trade you specialize in. This proved especially true for Arthur Russell, a musical savant and ambient maestro who indefinitely stretched the definition of pop music during his forty short years as a cellist, vocalist and disco producer.... read more
Live Review: Team B @ Union Pool 11/10/08
At Team B's debut performance at Union Pool in Williamsburg, the band played at least a dozen different instruments, including flute, bassoon, ukulele and euphonium. For a group comprised of members of LCD Soundsystem, Beirut, Arcade Fire and a slew of other indie bands, this level of musical diversity is merely par for the course. But while the players' comfort level was high, the night saw an unusual amount of downtime between songs, lots of tuning and a general lack of finesse. ... 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
Chris Byars Quartet closes Bronx Jazz Series at Riverdale Y tonight
Tonight, New York City native Chris Byars will host the first part of the Bronx Jazz Series' two-night finale at the YM-YWHA in Riverdale with an interactive workshop featuring his own Chris Byars Quartet. The group, with its delightful habit of pretending it's 1950 and that hard bop never went out of style, returns Thursday evening to wrap up the festival with a performance of their Jazz Pictures at an Exhibition of Himalayan Art.... 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
Catching Up With... French Kicks
As one of the first bands to join the garage rock revival of the late nineties, French Kicks have made a name for themselves through their low-fi alternative pop and lush harmonizing vocals. With 2008's Swimming, the group softened their dynamic approach with subdued melodies and acoustic ballads before releasing a collection of homages on their digitally-released Covers EP. Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Nick Stumpf recently chatted with Paste:Local NYC about the band's musical evolution, the current musician immigration into Brooklyn and growing past genre labels.... 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
Live Photos & Review: Les Savy Fav @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg 10/12/08
Some things, once seen, can never be unseen. Watching Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington writhe like an epileptic beetle on his back at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, wearing only highlighter-red skivvies and knee-highs, was one of those moments. Throughout the night, Harrington pranced around the stage at the venue, gradually stripping away all nonessential articles of clothing. Rubbing his half-naked body after a stage dive, he quipped, "It's not too late to declare your second viriginity." You don't say!... 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
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