Results tagged “velvetunderground”

FOOD: Those with a taste for expensive ham and the means to pay for it will be tantalized by tonight’s one-night-only 5 course tasting menu at Suba, a Spanish restaurant on the Lower East Side. Chef Seamus Mullen has obtained the prized “Rolls Royce of Ham” – Jamón Ibérico – and will be offering it tonight with Ossabaw Island hogs and Iberian wine. There are just a few seatings still available for tonight's event, which will also feature a winter salad with raw artichokes and pine mushrooms and a gnocchi dish with littleneck clams, among other delicacies. If the $110 price tag seems steep for the tasting menu and wine pairings, just think: The first shipments of ibérico ham that arrived last month after USDA restrictions were lifted cost $90-$99 a pound at Despaña. – John Del Signore

Brian Cox is widely admired for commanding performances in films like The Bourne Identity, Rushmore and the original Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. But like most actors from across the pond, the Scottish Cox originally built his reputation on decades of tireless stage work in theaters around the word. Until the stagehands’ strike shut down Broadway, he could be seen in the role of Max, a diehard British Marxist and Cambridge professor in Tom...

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago?

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing?

Rolling Stone has officially turned 40! We can't honestly say it's aged very well, but it sure is partying like it's 1967. Last year, at 39 and issue number 1000, Jann Wenner wrote, "The fact that we had John Lennon on the very first cover [pictured] was serendipity. We had a publicity photo from his role in the anti-war film How I Won the War. That photo, we now realize, speaks so clearly to the paths of culture and politics that came to define Rolling Stone."

ART: As a "happy anniversary" to The Velvet Underground and Nico (40 years!), John McWhinnie honors the rock legends (and the release of that album) with a collection of rare memorabilia and art(rock)ifacts. Come by to check out film stills by Warhol, "never before published or publicly shown photographs of the band by Adam Ritchie, Paul Morrisey and Doug Yule," and original lyrics by Lou Reed. More info here.

The skull of a carnivorous Tyrannosaurus dinosaur and the tusk of a mammoth from the Ice Age were sold at auction yesterday. The IM Chait auction was the first the company has had in New York, held in a Manhattan loft on 5th and 29th. While the pieces of history sold for high prices, the final bids were nowhere near as high as the one for the Breakfast at Tiffany's dress, and only a few went for more than the old Velvet Underground album. Seems we all may be a bit more interested in what we find in attics, basements and stoop sales in Chelsea than what is found under layers of history. Then again, if you know someone who owns a Egyptian mummy's hand...

NYC Sunset by Sidewalk Story.

We cued it up and were stunned -- the first song was not "Sunday Morning" as on the "Velvet Underground & Nico" Verve LP, but rather it was "European Son"- the song that is last on that LP, and it was a version neither of us had ever heard before!

Voyage, Tom Stoppard’s first installment in the three play Coast of Utopia series, crowned a month of breathless Times hype with a gushing Brantley rave. But good old Tommy “Can’t Stop; Won’t” Stoppard – famous for his perfectionism – still ain't satisfied. According to Michael Riedel, Stoppard has been staking out Lincoln Center during intermission and confronting any audience member with the temerity to jump ship during the (nearly) three hour tour. According to Riedel, the exchange usually goes something like this:

Watch their video for Three Full Virginias, here. And check them out at one of their upcoming shows in December: Southpaw on 12/3, the Friction party at Sin-e on 12/13, Mercury Lounge on 12/22.

Have you heard of Plastic People of the Universe? The band, from Prague, was a major part of the underground culture there. This underground culture is often linked back to starting just after Allen Ginsberg visited Prague, and was then expelled from Czechoslovakia, in 1965. It's also linked to a rare copy of the Velvet Underground's first record showing up there and inspiring those in the music circle. The PPU (who got their name from the Frank Zappa song "Plastic People"), and others, sprouted up and went against the Communist regime, and were often arrested by the Czech communists in the 1970's because of this. In 1989 the (bloodless) overthrow of Communist rule occured, and was called "the Velvet Revolution."

There are some things that just don't belong on Broadway. We can all agree that Bob Dylan's music is one of those things (even if the man himself enjoyed the show). Finally the powers that be have also realized this and have pulled the plug on The Times They Are A-Changin', after only a month on stage. Wonder what's next for Twyla Tharp? Let's just hope she doesn't think of a good dance number for The Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat".

The New York Times reports on The Misshapes once again (according to Gawker, the 10th time in under a year).

The Factory, located at 19 E 32nd and 22 E 33rd, between Park and Madison, still has at least one remnant of Warhol, on a wall it says, ''I never wanted to be a painter, I wanted to be a tap-dancer.'' There's a current shot of the outside here, though the last we heard The Factory was going to be turned into, what else, condos.

A documentary on the music scene in Brooklyn was bound to happen sooner or later. Luckily, Rockin' Brooklyn (despite the name) sounds like it will be a good one. It will delve in to the whole migration from downtown New York to Brooklyn, as high rent in Manhattan has forced artists out. Yes, Williamsburg is expensive these days too - however there is much more space provided for the money. Plus, artists don't really live in "Williamsburg proper", they all live a bit further to the east. Unless they have a trust fund.

ART: The Year of the Dog is being celebrated in many ways, even through cute paintings of puppies, er, art. Elizabeth Berdann's witty, ultra-realistic oil-on-copper paintings of dogs are now on view. We think they're cuteoverload.com!

When we are trying to recapture the thrill of living in New York (or at least avoid sounding like Tricia Romano when we talk about our home) we drink Manhattans in Brooklyn. They may not be everyone's favorite or the flavor of the month but Manhattans are like the whole experience of living here- pretty hardcore, an acquired taste and only right when you make it yours. We've tried Maker's Manhattans, as cold as possible, at many, many fine establishments in the Borough Of Kings but our favorite is that of Commonwealth($7). Why? There is just a bit of bitters into each one. Just like every one of our days. Owner Ray Gish learned this from a mutual friend when he was still bartending at the Slope's Great Lakes. When he set up his own shop, he brought the mixing skills and the music ones, too, the jukebox is great, full of Magnetics Fields, Velvet Underground and great covers. Honorable mentions go to Pete's Candy Store (especially during the packed Trivia nights on Wednesdays) and Spikehill, both in Williamsburg.

Welcome to 2006! What's coming up in events around the city...sex, drugs, and rock & roll. And also some art and design (all downtown, of course). Some things never change, even with the passing of a year.

Lou Reed has some pretty New York City photographs up on the Steven Kasher gallery's website, although some are a little blurry. Probably just some residual shakes from 1970s excesses. Artnet has a description of the exhibit:

Famed Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed exhibits his photographs for the first time in two simultaneous exhibitions at the Gallery at Hermès above the flagship store on Madison Avenue and the Steven Kasher Gallery at 521 West 23rd Street in Chelsea. "Lou Reed’s New York," Jan. 20-Feb. 25, 2006, features over 50 trippy color photographs of city sunsets and the urban night sky, as well as a selection of "idiosyncratic" self portraits. Reed, a New York resident (and companion of musical artist Laurie Anderson), has previously put out a book of his photos; this exhibition coincides with his second, which is published by Edition 7L and distributed by D.A.P. The price is $48.

This week requires you to make some very important decisions. It all starts on Wednesday with the question, "will it be SPIN or Summerstage?" SPIN is celebrating their 20th anniversary at Webster Hall with an incredible lineup that includes Public Enemy, Death Cab for Cutie, LCD Soundsystem, Drive-By Truckers, Lady Sovereign, Diplo, and Afrika Bambaataa. All that can be yours for only $10 more than it'll cost you to see just Death Cab in a venue twice the size a few weeks later. BUT WAIT, Summerstage had to go ahead and mess everything up by planning a Katrina-related benefit show on the very same day. Strangely, this benefit featuring Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. is free, though we doubt you'll be able to live with yourself if you enter the premises without paying at least the $25 "suggested donation." Can't decide which show? You can try to hit both. That's what the Drive By Truckers are doing. They're listed on both bills (and they're at Warsaw in Brooklyn the next day).

The band held up their glasses to cheers the venue, and as a bittersweet ending to the night Zia stood alone on stage singing a Velvet Underground song, something (she said) she "had to do" while she was standing inside this landmark that would soon be gone.

Fashion week is in full swing in New York, celebrating the irritatingly recurring time of year that all of the self-congratulatory super-socialites take the opportunity to stop patting themselves on the back and pat each other for awhile.  Last night, Betsy Johnson took the opportunity to share the limelight with the Great-Uncle of Glam, John Cale, the founding member of the Velvet Underground, to celebrate the release of his new record, "HoboSapiens."

Novel and crazy, Charles McKinley shipped himself in a wooden air cargo crate from New York to Dallas. When the crate was at his parents' suburban Dallas home, he pried himself out shocking the deliveryman. McKinley, en-crate, had been shipped via a pressurized 727 and was arrested on outstanding Texas warrants after the deliveryman called the police. Authorities are trying to understand how this happened. An FBI agent from the Dallas field office says, "It's amazing that the gentleman survived. It's absolutely a bizarre case. Our concern at this point is to determine how this was done."

All the hipsters will be going to Irving Plaza to hear Williamsburg band Interpol perform tonight and tomorrow. The Daily News chats with the band in a feature that has obligatory references to the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Velvet Underground. Here's Interpol's official site.