There’s certain things one just isn’t bold enough to ever expect—having seen Jello Biafra play live was certainly one of those—as was Billy Brag, both gigs I got to attend already in 2010. Another such moment was this Saturday seeing ska legends/pioneers at New York City ’s legendary and quite intimate Webster Hall.
Less known but equally influential “Bad Manners” opened the night, with a slightly more swing influenced ska set, that got the crowd dancing, energized and set for The English Beat who promptly took the stage at 9 pm, and wouldn’t leave until it was nearing the 11pm curfew.
While not quite the “English Beat” or “The Beat” who I discovered when I first got in to Ska, (there’s a whole strangeness of 2 “Beat” bands touring in different parts of the world which can be learnt all about from the Google), they put on an absolutely amazing show. They played two hours spanning their three albums, as well as b-sides and rarities.
Their set kept the crowd dancing through out. Dave Wakeling seems to have slightly re-interpreted some of the band’s material giving it a fuller, more danceable/accessible element and this works great especially for a show like this, where it’s a room perfect or dancing/skanking.
I’d spent countless evenings at Ska shows while growing up, and don’t get to as often as I’d like to today, but this was the perfect first/biggest ska show of 2010.
-T.J. Olsen
Death by Audio, in Williamsburg, is Oliver Ackermann’s baby: his living space (so I hear); his effects pedal company by the same name, and the site where those babies are designed and constructed by hand; a recording studio; and also a performing arts space, with a makeshift bar. So, on any given day, Ackermann and a collective of artists and musicians are toiling away at custom pedals in their upstairs “factory,” then recording bands that practice in their warehouse (for Death By Audio Records), and finally hanging out downstairs, where all of the public shows take place. Not a bad venue to wander into fashionably late!
Squeezing into the jam-packed room, once again admiring the paintings of tigers and a retro Mickey Mouse on the walls, and astonished that the suspended ceiling tiles weren’t falling onto anyone’s head (some are looking pretty hazardous!), I entered during Weekend’s set, having completely missed No Joy. Not to be confused with a band from Baltimore called Weekends (also worth checking out), San Francisco based Weekend was perfectly complimentary to A Place to Bury Strangers’ sound and their fans’ musical tastes. Like APTBS, The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine inspire Weekend, and their music maintains just the right balance between melodic/riff-y and wall-of-noise, with gorgeously languid vocals smothered in distortion on “Youth Haunts,” and some really sexy, walloping build-ups of amplified sound that finally give way to drum beats you can hang onto.
While chatting with Benjamin Curtis of School of Seven Bells, whom I interviewed earlier this summer, and who’s been friends with APTBS for years, I got wedged between bodies in the 200-ish-person room just as the band went onstage. Unfortunately for me, at 5’1’” and never one to wear heels, I couldn’t exactly see them. But, I recalled watching them play in their former practice safe when I interviewed them for BRM back in 2007, and also being up front and center when they performed at SxSW in 2008, so I didn’t quite mind the non-view. As palpable as ever, their blend of 1980s post-punk, dark psychedelic, experimental, avant-garde, noise rock, and shoegaze blasted from the speakers, and I mean blasted! With the use of those handmade pedals, they’ve always been recognized for their volume, and it only seemed appropriate when their publicisit handed me earplugs.
A few songs in, a technical difficulty with the amps, or speakers, or wires arose, which left Jay Space playing the drums alone. But after things got sorted out, the band dove back into their set with even more fervor and passion, as if that were possible. Completely unpretentious, they grace the stage not to banter back and forth, cover songs of their idols. or try to swindle the crowd; they’re simply there to play potent music, gliding in and out of songs with added loops and digressions, in the performing style of Sonic Youth.
For me, there was something magical about my immersion in that crowd. As usual, APTBS projected abstract images and swirling designs as they played, and I watched floating dots on the ceiling and large shadows on the tiger-wall. The room filled first with cigarette smoke and then with smoke from a fog machine. Songs like “I Know I’ll See You” and “Ego Death” saturated everyone’s bones to the point of frenzy; shoes flew, and guys and girls crowd-surfed for as long as their bodies could be held. Soon, things got even more intense. The smoke machine obscured the band to the point of complete invisibility. It was as if the stage had opened up and swallowed them whole, their music lingering on the event horizon. Heavy distortion fell over the crowd like a cloud of dust, and everyone was covered; the music as impermanent and elusive as the smoke. With the band “gone,” a strobe light pulsed, arms lifted, a girl was carried towards me, her body arched at the ceiling...and all while the song “Ocean” swelled, revolved, and gushed.
Former bassist Jono Mofo once explained how this last part of their shows tends to verge on performance art. “There’s no real music left,” he told me during our interview, “it’s just noises and lights, I’m not even on stage, I’m like standing next to it while it’s happening…my bass is feeding back, Oliver is ripping his strings out.” And true to form, the band emerged from the smoke and abandoned the stage, walking right through the crowd, accepting pats of approval, and heading to the back, while the music looped and echoed, more deafening by the second. Even though the guys were no longer on stage, the crowd stood transfixed, not sure whether to move or to stay, absorbing the last remaining waves of “Ocean” until they regained their senses. Many headed to the adjoining“bar” room, maybe to talk to the band, maybe to exit the backdoor and hang out on Kent, where I too ended up. As I exited via the short hallway to the front door, the music finally stopped. It was all over, but somehow, it was still ringing out.
-words by Amy Dupcak [second photo by A. Dupcak, taken at SxSW 2008]
Fun fact: A Place to Bury Strangers is also the title of an Alistair Crowley poem, as well as a Biblical reference to the thirty pieces of silver Judas received for selling out Jesus, which was then used to buy a field for burying strangers.
On a sweaty night in Brooklyn, many art-and-music lovers gathered in the community arts space known as Glasslands. Within this makeshift venue, the hand-constructed, surreal “clouds” above and behind the stage perfectly suited a long night of music, film, and improv—curated, conceived, and planned primarily by Drew Henkels.
He is the Drew of Drew and the Medicinal Pen, a band featured previously in the pages of BRM. Folksy and melodic, the foursome released their first LP, dream, dream, fail, repeat, on their own label stationed in Drew’s art-covered bedroom, which is also, not surprisingly, in Brooklyn. It was where Drew first started making notes for the main attraction of the night: his vast, multi-media performance called “FM in the AM,” which would come alive with the help of Drew’s talented bandmates and friends.
But first, things started off slow. Handfuls of people milled about, sipping water or beer in plastic cups, wiping sweat from their brows. Christopher Paul Stelling, the opener of three openers, opted to stand on the floor rather than the stage, which better suited his organic, southern Gothic-meets-classic folk vibe. As soon as he set to elaborately finger-picking his acoustic guitar and stamping his booted foot, I was drawn in. When he opened his mouth and set loose the poetry of his lyrics and his astonishingly passionate voice, everything fell into place. Reminiscent of Tallest Man on Earth, Dylan and Blind Melon, and inspired by Nick Drake, Kenneth Pathchen and ostensibly the Bible, Stelling seemed both out of place and at home in front of a microphone in Williamsburg.
Everything about his performing style and songs was inspiring, refreshing, and also blissfully familiar, evoking images of freight trains, swamps, and crabgrass; things I have not quite experienced myself. At times, his gravely, earthy voice rose to express deep-rooted hurt and rage, on songs like “Pig Roast,” and at other times flowed along the ripples of his guitar, like on “The Ocean Took My Love Away,” with the beautiful line, “I could stay here every night just staring out to sea/ waiting for my love to be resurrected.” Let’s just say I was disappointed when his set came to its rightful end.
After ducking outside for some much-needed air, the six-piece Bad Credit No Credit spread across the stage. Self-defined as “punk, jazz, experimental,” they asserted a sense of theatrics that elevated their songs. Vocalist/saxophonist Carrie-Anne Murphy was full of surprises, both good and…well...awkward. She rocked the saxophone, while other members played kazoo, flute, clarinet, trombone, and the usual rock-gear. She threw off her oversized glasses and eventually shed an outer layer. Her wild voice evoked the dramatic, cabaret bravado of Amanda Palmer, Regina Spektor, and Yael Naim. But then she started spouting spoken word-esque poetry or, rather, shouting it, and I just wanted her to get off the soapbox. Feminism is a wonderful thing, yes, but I prefer something a little less brash, or, if it’s going to be brash, a little more fulfilling. That said, I dug her way of banging a tambourine against her bare leg, and her pride. While the band held my attention, and got the crowd into some bizarre dancing, they need more work to obtain my approval. 
Buffie Roseanne took the stage next: another solo performer with guitar in hands (hers, unlike Stelling’s, was plugged in). She boasted a deep and heavy voice, put to good use on songs like “Amazon.” Confident and bold, a line about being a “big fat mama” made me chuckle, but as her voice carried across the room, rising to the ceiling and reaching the sidwalk outside, it was clear that hers was a talent to be heard.
Finally, it was time for the long-awaited “FM in the AM.” Inconspicuously, the stage was already set. Clothes were scattered everywhere; the previously covered, radio centerpiece was unveiled; the projector’s light met the screen; and folding chairs for the “orchestra pit” were arranged in a semi-circle. The crowd gathered to prepare for the performance. We all watched the set take shape, already suspecting what might occur.
Perched on a benchy-thing right behind the “pit,” sweating again from heat trapped inside the room, I had myself a little moment. I was thinking of childhood summer, and how we didn’t have an air-conditioner; we would flip on the switch of an attic fan, embedded in the ceiling of the hall that connected everyone’s room. I remembered sleeping on the floor in my undershirt to stay cool, listening to the humming of that fan outside my door. On an August night twenty years ago, I had been lying there, with crickets in my head and a summer storm entering my dreams. On this August night, in a Brooklyn venue—a twenty-six-year-old writer-girl with camera in hand—Drew’s show tapped into my childhood, and the innocence of my imagination. All of us twenty-something’s became children again, as soon as the show was underway.
As an artist/writer/musician, Drew is always inspired by his dreams, most notably displayed in his sometimes-public dream logs, which he illustrates. “FM in the AM” was no exception. The lights dimmed, the room hushed. “Julie” (played by Sarah King) came on stage wearing a flowing blue dress. She folded some clothes, sipped some tea, and sat quietly by the large, florescent, handmade “radio.” As she turned the oversized dial, mix-matched sounds of radio stations and intermittent static fluttered in and out of the speakers. On screen, a shot of her bedroom window darkened, as evening turned to night. A “newscaster” announced an oncoming storm. Then, Julie “changed” into a camisole and slip skirt, brushing her teeth as the radio played a gentle song.
The music was actually coming from the dimly lit orchestra, stationed just below the stage. Drew was singing and playing guitar, Medicinal member Missy Liu (also responsible for set design) was on violin and xylophone, and Medicinal’s drummer Zach Arlan (also the music coordinator) was banging on the drums. With Jeffrey Young on another violin, John Swartz on cello, Elizabeth Arce on trombone, and Matt Giella on trumpet, the orchestra was set, and other instruments were incorporated, here and there. Although the music was perfectly executed, John told me that the group had practiced together only once. It seemed that Drew wanted them to rely on improvisational instincts, allowing each moment to unfold with minimal preconceptions of what exactly they would conjure. At every twist and turn, the music aptly matched the visuals on screen and stage. Missy and John even went strum-for-strum on their respective string instruments. And yet, John Swartz assured me that it was, indeed, improv.
Julie climbed on top of the radio, first plucking a ukulele. She lay back on a pillow, under a comforter, cradling her instrument. Soon, she drifted off. The screen took over for the audience, acting as a peephole into her thoughts and, soon, her subconscious and dreams. Every now and then, the screen showed a downward shot of Julie’s face on the pillow, as she stirred in a somewhat restless sleep.
Drew used some of the stop-motion and slyly animated films he had already created in brand new ways, stringing them together to form a playful montage of moving images. Gumballs danced in fast-paced, colorful patterns; hypnotic washing machines revolved; abstract colors and textures melded; bubbles popped; and plastic, disembodied hands kept traveling. These hands cropped up throughout the dream sequences, adding an element of continuity.
Then, the aforementioned storm started up. First, real-life bubbles began floating down from the “sky” (really, the upper level). They pelted the floor, reacting to the ceiling fan before it was turned off. Supermarket fish paraded haughtily across the screen, wrapped in plastic. The music picked up, turning tense and ominous, as the fish became bloody and battered. Julie was having a nightmare! Those fish sparked a full-on underwater scene: streams of crepe paper, resembling aquatic leaves, began blowing upward on stage, thanks to fans. Then, the storm really picked up! Red lights blinked through the “clouds” and stagehands began throwing scraps of newspaper down at the crowd. On screen was an image of a porcelain doll with a birthday cake in her lap; superimposed fire and smoke were shooting out of her head.
Finally, things clamed down; Julie’s nightmares and the storm itself dissolved. The tumultuous music eased, becoming sparse and naked. Eventually, Julie woke up, rising from the radio-bed. As the performance came to its end, the crowd shook with rapturous applause, which lasted and lasted. In a way, it felt like everyone had had a hand in the performance, that everyone was involved in the process and included in the dreams. Though we were simply spectators along for the ride, we had all been touched…by the bubbles, by the newspaper, by the music and the lights and the films, and most of all by choosing to spend the summer night together, in a sweaty room, in Brooklyn.
-words by Amy Dupcak
-first photo by A. Dupcak; photo of Christopher Paul Stelling by Jenn Sweeney; all other concert photos by Marcos Regalo
I’ll be honest, Terminal 5 is not my favorite venue. And although it was far from the ideal venue for Black Keys’ organic, bluesy groove, they packed the place tight (for a sold-out show) and emitted energy in every direction, thus transforming the space. It was nice to see kids sitting on the upstairs deck, their often-bare feet dangling between the bars. The Keys actually played two shows that day: the first in Central Park, where they went on at about 6:30, and the second at Terminal 5, where they finally graced the stage at midnight. Pretty whirlwind and impressive, no?
The concert was part of Spin’s series to celebrate the iconic magazine’s 25th birthday (and yes, a birthday toast did occur). Spin was definitely representing; not only were they recording the show with two camera-guys standing on a raised platform facing the stage, and a crane swinging around for the entirety of the night (all of that for online streaming), but a movable screen showed montages of select Spin features, covers, and exclusive photos, including those of Kurt Cobain, Beck, Trent Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins, and way too many pictures of Paramore. The screen was all well and good for the before-the-band/between-the-band waiting, but watching a commercial for both Spin and American Express right before the bands went on? Not very rock n’ roll.
But back to the music, the first opening band, The Whigs, who will perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this month, offered their post-grunge, garage rock, perhaps Foo Fighters inspired tunes. Young and enthusiastic, they were passionate about playing their melodic songs (like “Right Hand on My Heart”) for the then more-sparse crowd. Next up was Lee Fields, a snazzy-dressed, older generation soul singer with a great set of pipes, & The Expressions, his mutil-piece backing band. Rocking suits, brass, and a whole lot of stage presence, the band supported Lee as he sang for the ladies, and I guess the guys too.
Like Cinderella leaving the ball, well the opposite really, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys took their positions at midnight, against a large backdrop of holding hands. They sunk their teeth right into some older songs and saved the powerhouse “Strange Times” for their eighth slot, a little less than halfway through the 90-minute set. Soon after, they segued into songs off newly released Brothers and also asked two members of The Expressions to join. The crowd went nuts when they played “Howlin’ For You,” and “Tighten Up” back-to-back.
The Keys ended (before their three-song encore) with “I Got Mine,” from Attack and Release, on which Auerbach did some serious shredding. What I also admire about Auerbach's live-performance-style, aside from his glorious no-holds-bar rocking out, is that he tends to sing the vocals differently than they appear on record, which made it that much harder for the drunk Jersey bros near me to sing along. I think the world has been waiting for a band like The Black Keys for some time, much like the way we really needed The White Stripes. There’s just something so pure, distinct, and genuinely rock n roll about Auerbach’s grainy voice and guitar coupled with Carney’s drumming, and the two of them definitely proved themselves by playing two jam-packed shows in one day, and giving Terminal 5 everything they had.
-words by Amy Dupcak / photo of crowd by Diana Wong
The following photos were taken by Robert Adam Mayer (aka - Photo Rob) at the Rock Steady Crew's 33rd Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, August 1, 2010:
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