Results tagged “joydivision”

Over the weekend, we posted a link to a photograph Gammablog took of an open letter from the Cornelia Connelly Center school to whomever scrawled "Don't Walk Away In Silence" with spray paint on an outside wall.

Everybody wants to be a rock star, perhaps none more ardently than theater folk, some of whom have been prodding the form toward rock since the sixties. Sam Shepard famously insisted that he wanted to be a rock and roll star, not a playwright; recently the likes of theater company Les Freres Corbusier and playwright Adam Rapp (who moonlights in a band) have expressed a sensible desire to tap into the Bowery Ballroom demographic.

We here at the Gothamist Arts & Entertainment World Headquarters may disagree on what to think about Patrick Wolf, but there is a solidifying consensus that his performance at Hiro last night (his first NYC appearance in 4 years) was not too great. Our growing frustration with Hiro Ballroom is only magnified by how impressive their booking has been of late. For the first three quarters of the short set, the sound was grating. Nothing mixed together, vocals either came in too strong or not at all, and the intricate instrumentation on stage was impossible to decipher. It wasn't until the final song of the set, The Magic Position, where everything came together correctly, but by then the damage has been done. One of the saddest side effects of the closings of the many different downtown rock clubs is that the acts that should normally be playing in them are now getting gobbled up by larger, non-music venues where the concert attendee is considered an afterthought. Every time we have to suffer through a set at a place like Hiro, Annex or R&R, our anticipated longing for places like Sin-e and Tonic grows more and more.

READING: John Sellers will be reading from his book, Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life, tonight. Idolizing bands like Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Pavement and Guided by Voices, the book outlines how he developed his taste in music. It reads more like a blog, than a book, which makes sense since Sellers has one.

On the cusp of November, Music is a Better Noise opened up at P.S.1. The exhibit brings together musicians who make art and (you guessed it) artists who make music - or at the very least, use music as a creative motivator in their art.

THEATER: The Mint Theater, which has earned a formidable reputation by yanking old, forgotten plays out of oblivion, has struck gold again with their latest production of John Ferguson, an intense melodrama about a poor Irishman who will lose his farm unless his daughter marries some creepy tool. A 1919 edition of The Times called it a “smashing play”; 87 years later the Gray Lady stays regular with “thoroughly engrossing”.

Valentine's day. We're on the fence. Getting flowers is nice, but we also like getting flowers on the 13th and 15th. Overall there is too much pressure put on the day, on singles and couples alike, and we hate when companies use it to wrangle up the former and pour lemon juice cocktails into their wounded, bleeding, unloved hearts (ahem, Fresh Direct).

Other Passengers are Billy (vox/keys/guitar), James (drums), Kevin (guitar), Tobin (bass) and Travis (guitar).

Raspberries, the Posies, Todd Rundgren, Jellyfish (without the bellbottoms and bright colors) and the Pernice Brothers. Fireworks Go Up! has a new record, , out on Baryon Records.

Neo-eighties melancholic synth-pop outfit My Favorite filtered through the suburbs of Long Island, converging on their inevitable epicenter with distilled inclinations toward the stylish new wave music of their youth. My Favorite are a quintet comprised of Michael Grace, Jr. (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizers), Andrea Vaughn (vocals, melodica, synthesizers), Darren Amadio (guitar), Gil Abad (bass) and the so-called Todbot (drums). Making the move to more-than-just-friends in 1999, they settled on a sneaky name for the band that effectively declares the band Winner every time they are announced on stage or on air. Characterizations of the band elicit references to the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division and Saint Etienne, an infinite stream of comparisons to the Smiths and even more to New Order. My Favorite figurehead, songwriter and historian (See? We fell for it, too.) Michael Grace, Jr. crafts responses to our inquiry.

100 Best Songs?
Gothamist takes aim at VH1's stupid new list (yes, an easy target, but still fun) with some of their and their readers' favorites.

Gothamist went to see Nada Surf at Southpaw last night. They mainly played songs from their wonderful (rocking, but with a pop sensibility) Let Go for a good ninety minutes until 1:20AM. For Gothamist, one highlight was when they broke into Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart - lead singer-guitarist Matthew Caws does a spookily effective Ian Curtis, which then brought to mind that Caws' dancing style was Ian-Curtis-meets-Beck. Sorta (see 24 Hour Party People to get a sense of Curtis' dancing style). As Southpaw patrons know, the venue allows for intimate enjoyment of the music as well as excellent photo coverage(at least five people in Gothamist's immediate vicinity had digital cameras).

Tinkle Toes
Last night, I went to Tinkle with Tania, Sam T, and others for loads of comedy fun from David Cross, Jon Benjamin, and Todd Barry.

Pictures of the band even more fashioned up in the Men's Fashion of the Times