Sunday, May 31, 2009

Venue Spotlight: Issue Project Room


Photo of the IPR's brokedown palace at 110 Livingston Street.

Back in its halcyon days on Broome Street in the 1970s, The Kitchen was home to New York's SoHo-based minimalist community. With program director Arthur Russell invariably standing in the rafters, a week's entertainment could include the likes of well-established composers John Cage, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich (recently awarded an overdue Pulitzer Prize); multimedia performance artist Laurie Anderson; ornery Fluxus-era "anti-art" provocateur Henry Flynt; a stable of emerging composers including the aforementioned Russell (heavily influenced by disco and R&B), Rhys Chatham (heavily influenced by punk rock), polymathic Dartmouth College professor Christian Wolff, Julius Eastman (whose music owed a strong debt to decidedly un-minimalist antecedents, namely Aaron Copeland), Peter Gordon, Peter Zummo, David Van Tieglen, Phill Niblock, Elodie Lauten, and Jill Kroesen; and the smallest smattering of "intelligent" protopunk/punk/postpunk bands (Talking Heads, Modern Lovers). By bringing pop influences back into the concert hall in a manner that was anathema to earlier and contemporaneous musicians -- Charles Wuornien and the like -- who believed that 12-tone serialism was the only "artful" way to evoke the perils and dischord of late-period capitalism, The Kitchen composers arguably brought an entire lineage of music full circle. As a consequence of all of this, with even Dan Deacon citing Glass as a major influence in a recent interview with Pitchfork, it seems that any meaningful barriers between the pop and classical spheres have severely eroded.

Or at least if you look carefully enough. Although The Kitchen lives on in a diminished capacity on a nondescript street in Chelsea, Park Slope's ISSUE Project Room (hereafter the Issue Project Room, for the sake of my left index finger; at 232 3rd Street) is its latest spiritual iteration, bridging the gaps between the stuffy compositional world, indie solipsism, and electronic dance music. Over the course of the next month, you can catch Danish avant-jazz pianist Søren Kjærgaard's trio, including Cecil Taylor veteran Andrew Cyrille on drums (June 9th, $15); an intimate solo performance by Elodie Lauten (best known to readers as the female vocalist on Arthur Russell's "In the Light of the Miracle"; June 13th); and, last but certainly not least, the Mivos String Quartet performing selected contemporary works on June 25th. The venue is also soliciting donations for refurbishment of their soon-to-be-flagship space at 110 Livingston Street in the heart of downtown Brooklyn.

Check out more at issueprojectroom.com

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Crate Dig: Donny Hathaway Live


Every week, Brooklyn Music will post a review of an old album retrieved from the depths of Brooklyn's abundant – if increasingly obsolete – record stores. This is the inaugural post.

Best remembered for his series of hit duets with Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway was a man of multifarious talent. Before embarking on a singing career in his own right, he was a prolific arranger and producer, primarily working out of Chicago for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records. Some freelance work for Aretha Franklin had introduced him to Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records (who would later write about the musician’s numerous eccentricities, including his penchant for French serialist composers, in his memoir Rhythm and the Blues); shortly thereafter, he signed Hathaway in yet another attempt to fill the massive void left by Otis Redding’s death in 1967. (Redding’s initial heir apparent, James Carr, was notorious for his alcoholism and schizophrenic behavior.) Although he never enjoyed Redding’s mainstream crossover success, Hathaway was a formidable presence on the R&B charts in the early seventies – as a solo performer with “The Ghetto” and in collaboration with Flack – while his stage show rivaled the departed master’s revue in sheer tenacity. Hathaway’s inimitable stylings on the Fender Rhodes electric piano would have a pervasive impact on funk, fusion, and disco productions of the decade, establishing a sonic counterpart to the wah pedal.

Recorded at the Bitter End in the Village sometime in 1971, Donny Hathaway Live finds the singer using the stage as an alembic, transforming what could have been a perfunctory greatest hits show into a jazz-influenced workout. A cover of “Jealous Guy” matches Bryan Ferry’s, and a 13 minute excursion into “The Ghetto” is a touchstone for the increasingly rhythmic sounds that were to follow in the decade. Indeed, artists as diverse as India.Arie and Stevie Wonder have cited the album as an influence.

Hathaway committed suicide at Midtown’s posh Essex House hotel while on the comeback trail in 1979. But his legacy lives on in samples, reissues, and the occasional slab of old vinyl.

Bklyn Yard's Sunday Best is back!


Located on the banks of the bucolic Gowanus Canal (just kidding), Bklyn Yard (formerly known as the Yard) is one of the borough's more versatile summer venues, playing host to everything from free movies to a Todd P.-promoted Dan Deacon show. With the season now in full swing, be sure to check out their signature Sunday Best series, where world-class DJs play for a nominal fee ($8... not bad when Studio B is charging $20 for the privilege of seeing erstwhile Brooklyn rave impresario Frankie Bones every Friday) from 3 to 9 PM. Last year's roster included seminal disco prodigy/Coney Island native Nicky Siano (The Gallery, Studio 54), house-era legend Kevin Saunderson, and hip-hop founding father Afrika Bambaattaa. This year's acts are no less impressive, with contemporary master Theo Parrish, Detroit techno wunderkind Kyle Hall (who, at all of 17, will be making his New York debut), and DJ Harvey all hitting the wheels of steel over the next three months. All events are rain or shine, with Bell House as a contingency in case of incliment weather. The Yard is located at 400 Carroll Street, in walking distance of the Carroll Street F/G station and Bell House.

Full Schedule (courtesy of Bklyn Yard):

May 24 /////////// QUENTIN HARRIS, the master of soulful house
May 31 /////////// MR. SCRUFF, a UK-based illustrator, tea vendor and eclectic DJ
June 7 //////////// LUKE SOLOMON, Rekids and Cajual producer
June 14 ////////// JUS-ED, Bridgeport, Connecticut's finest
June 21 ////////// RUB N TUG, crazy but true
June 28 ////////// JUSTIN MARTIN, the dirtiest Dirtybird of them all
July 5 ///////////// LOSOUL, maker of European dance music with big nods to soul and jazz
July 12 /////////// KYLE HALL, the 17-year-old, Detroit-based producer who's never played New York
July 19 /////////// I:CUBE, a forefather of French house and one half of Chateau Flight
July 26 /////////// OMAR S blows our minds every time
August 2 //////// MAURICE FULTON, the funkiest DJ we've ever heard
August 9 //////// MOTOR CITY DRUM ENSEMBLE, a young German paying homage to Detroit
August 16 ////// TIM SWEENEY, the ever-eclectic Beats In Space man
August 23 ////// THEO PARRISH, a true master playing a long set
August 30 ////// JUSTUS KOHNCKE, a Kompakt artist playing a live set
September 6 // DJ HARVEY, closing it out crazily and properly

* resident DJs JUSTIN CARTER, EAMON HARKIN and DOUG SINGER play every week

More info (including mixes and videos) at sundaybestnyc.com and bklynyard.com

Friday, May 29, 2009

Vivian Girls announce 4th of July extravanganza; new album


Since appearing on the scene early last year, Brooklyn-based trio Vivian Girls has enjoyed mammoth success hitherto unseen by most local groups. After appearing for all of three minutes in January 2008, their eponymously titled debut (one of the year’s shortest at about 22 minutes) was the subject of rampant price gouging on eBay; this situation was ameilorated somewhat when major-league indie In The Red Records re-released the album to a second wave of rave reviews (including a coveted 8.5 on tres-chic tastemaker pitchfork.com) in October. Music Junkie covered a contemporaneous show in support of the album at the Silent Barn in Ridgewood, and the ebullience projected by these three women was palpable throughout the entire room – a rarity these days. Rather than shunning the threat of “selling out”, they embraced it… and were arguably all the better for it.

So it should come as no surprise that the Vivs have no intention of being a one-hit fluke. On September 8th, In The Red will release the band’s (35 minute!) sophomore album, the evocatively-titled Everything Goes Wrong. Recording took place on the Left Coast over six days earlier this year, doubling the recording time allocated for the debut. According to Cassie Ramone, the band’s guitarist, “Last time, the album was really rushed. We were just go, go, go, go. And now we’re taking our time with every step of the process, making sure we’re really happy with everything before we move on.” With a Martian desert landscape supplanting the Brooklyn skyline as the album’s cover, expect a different vibe – more melodic, a la standout tracks “Where Do You Run To” and “Tell The World” – than the shrill cacaphony of their beginnings.

After touring for a while and generally neglecting the Brooklyn concert venues that they once played on a weekly basis, the band will make their triumphant return as part of Todd P.’s Captured Tracks Festival at the 970 Broadway Backyard in Bushwick on July 4th. Catch the Vivian Girls alongside likeminded bands The Oh Sees, Woods, and Dum Dum Girls, and dig their frayed melodicism.

Weekly Album Review: Why Are We at Veckatimest?

In 1966, Norman Mailer used the threadbare plot of a coming-of-age Alaskan bear hunt as an allegorical subtext for the Vietnam War. The results – nay, the whole concept – was incredibly disingenuous, but it was probably his last great work of fiction, if only for the oblique but engaging title (Why Are We In Vietnam?). With that in mind, seeing as every halfwit of a certain socio-cultural stratum (myself included) has attempted to dissect, deconstruct, criticize, and New Historicize Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest with faux-plenary authority in the intervening months since Ed Droste’s frantic Tweet about the album leak, I felt that a Maileresque pastiche may be in order when the day of reckoning (viz. writing my review of the much-ballyhooed “album of the year”) came to pass. But then again, there are plenty of other venues for such a yarn – you, dear reader, are probably looking for some honest divagations about this Brooklyn band’s breakthrough album, and why they may or may not deserve premium space in your Nano, and why the gnomically hermetic, NYU sheepskin-holding duo of Messrs. Droste and Taylor deserve to be tithed your hard-earned CUNY Work Study dollars when forms of entertainment that are more valuable (I’m thinking $9.95 copies of The 400 Blows at the Virgin Megastore blowout sale) and less specious are ripe for the taking.

Grizzly Bear are quite anomalous in the underground Brooklyn indie rock scene that has coalesced into a national phenomenon over the past seven years or so. Like most of their peers, they are carpetbaggers from various hinterlands in the American expanse and thus of an entirely different mentality than the average native New Yorker (Ed really, really likes his nabe of contemporary Williamsburg); unlike most of their confederates, they are more beholden to the lambent sounds of the psychedelic Beach Boys than Glenn Branca’s sonic astringencies. If Oneida and Parts & Labor are the Godards and Truffauts of this musical equivalent of a cul de sac transposed upon urban decay – black and white, stylistically reductive, Gitantes and Anna Karina circa Alphaville – Grizzly Bear immediately evoke Bresson’s equivocal Catholic asceticism in their unceasing search for love.

A gay sensibility informs much of their oeuvre (leader Droste is openly gay), and one can’t help but to think of Langston Hughes’s more ambiguous verse when hearing the mantra-like songs of their previous album, Yellow House, which may as well have been subtitled “’I, Too’ for the Digital Generation”. Destroyed but not defeated, Droste inadvertently painted a spellbindingly mimetic portrait of urban gay life on that album that also managed to be touching in its universality. There was a reason why Veckatimest so anticipated – give these guys some time to actually congeal, the rationale was, and these ruffians could be indie’s tardy answer to the Beatles.

Without descending into the ad hominem and vaguely homophobic catcalls of indierocksucks.com (think “eunuch choirboys”), nor the hyperbole of the indie press, it can be safely asserted that Veckatimest is a passable pop album that I will probably play a couple of times every month in the foreseeable future – not the Sgt. Pepper’s of the vanquished Obama revolution, thank you very much. In an interview some months back, Droste assured me that Veckatimest would be even more experimental than its declamatory predecessor, with big, clangorous drums and more poetic lyrics. The drums are hardly stadium-sized, thank heavens, but their increased presence makes for a facile and superfluous change that only detracts from the band’s fragile melodies. A foray into John Martyn/David Crosby-style folk-jazz, the opening “Southern Point”, is the album’s most successful track, in part because it finds them amenable to experimenting in hitherto foreign styles. The rest – from the soon-to-be-hit “Two Weeks” to the Spectorian “Cheerleader”, resplendent with backing vocals from the Brooklyn Youth Choir – is pure regurgitation, Yellow House with a more diverse palette of instruments, the true poesis of a quavering voice submerged in the flotsam of retro-Seventies production.

As avowed fans of Radiohead, Droste and company should have known that they were in a rarefied position after the critical and limited commercial success of Yellow House, much as the former band was after The Bends. Instead of taking their sound into an even more recondite direction and laughing their way to the Greenpoint Savings Bank, Veckatimest is a gluttonous road to avarice, bombast, and Jermaine Clement’s Omnichord collection. While it’s difficult not to find it enrapturing while sipping your morning tea and reading the Times, one wonders if the critics will retract their “all time classic” pronouncements over the ensuing years.

Show Calendar: May 29th-June 6th

Note: Listed time is when the doors open. In some instances, concerts may start as late as two hours after the scheduled opening.

Note #2: All Union Hall and Union Pool concerts are 21+ unless otherwise specified. All Studio B events are 19+ unless otherwise specified.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, La Strada, Chris Mills, The Black Hollies
Friday, May 29th – 7:30 PM
Bell House
149 7th Street
$10

Frankie Bones, Heather Hart, Derek Plaslakio, Reade Truth, Connie, Juan Gaviria
Friday, May 29th – 10:00 PM
Studio B
259 Banker Street
$10 RSVP/$20 door

Wild Yaks, Hexa, Lady Magma, Beluga
Friday, May 29th – 8:30 PM
Monster Island Basement
128 River Street
$8

Trapeze Loft Cabaret
Friday, May 29th – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
TBA

Nate Wilson Group, Chip Thomas Project
Friday, May 29th – 8:00 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$8 adv/$10 door

Shapes, Hiroshima Lovers, Calamus
Friday, May 29th – 6:00 PM
Public Assembly
70 N. 6th Street
$10

Sex Mob w/ DJ Olive, Burnt Sugar Secretary, DJ Scribe, DJ ShErock, eMMa Sound Sista
Friday, May 29th – 10:00 PM
Public Assembly
70 N. 6th Street
$15

Black Dragon, Heylady, Mamarazzi, DJ Winslow
Friday, May 29th – 8:00 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$10

Au Revoir Simone, The Antlers, Sophia
Friday, May 29th – 8:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$15

Moderat
Evening of Friday, May 29th -- 12:30 AM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$23 advance/$28 at door

Pelle Carlberg, The Drums, Las Palabras
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$10

Superbowl of Hardcore: Earth Crisis, Crown of Thornz, Indecision, Killing Time, Bold
Saturday, May 30th – 2:00 PM
Studio B
259 Banker Street
$25 advance only

Dinowalrus, Fiasco, Le Rug, Graffiti Monsters
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Shea Stadium
85A Debevoise Avenue
$5-$20 sliding scale donation

Little Wings, Bow Ribbons, Little Gold, Stallion Juice
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Monster Island Basement
128 River Street
Donation requested

Class Actress, The Roulettes, Lady Bright
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
$8

Thing-One, The Dustbin Brothers
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
BAM Café
30 Lafayette Street
Free!

DJ QMAXX420, DJ Ill
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$10

Secret Chiefs 3, Kayo Dot
Saturday, May 30th – 7:30 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$15

Tortoise, Bird Show
Saturday, May 30th – 8:00 PM
Bell House
149 7th Street
Sold out – limited tickets available at door
$10

Denied, Billyclub Sandwhich, Bad Seed, Red Eyed Devil, The Revilers, Pitfight, Skam Dust
Sunday, May 31st – 4:30 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$10

Eric Duncan, Galleon Trade
Sunday, May 31st – 3:00 PM
Studio B
259 Banker Street
$5 (BBQ plates $5)

I Was a King, The Wowz
Sunday, May 31st – 9:00 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$10

Grizzly Bear, Here We Go Magic
Sunday, May 31st – 7:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6 Street
Sold out

Leaders, True Widow, Black Dream
Sunday, May 31st – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
$8

Monday Night Burlesque
Monday, June 1st – 8:00 PM
Public Assembly
70 N. 6th Street
$10

Rock Plaza Central, Suckers, Josh Reichmann
Tuesday, June 2nd – 7:30 PM
The Bell House
149 7th Street
$10

Luff, Black Swan Green
Tuesday, June 2nd – 8:00 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$10

Quiet Loudly, Fun Machine, False Alarm, Kilometers
Wednesday, June 3rd – 7:30 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$8

Avi Fox Rosen, Inner Princess, Xylopholks
Wednesday, June 3rd – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
TBA

The Rainy Bandits, The Tall Pines
Wednesday, June 3rd – 7:30 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$8

Viva Voce, Cut Off Your Hands, James Yuill
Thursday, June 4th – 8:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$15

Sparkles, Mirandom, Chela, Brina Payne, FlyLadyDi, Michelle “Byrd” McPherson
Thursday, June 4th – 9:00 PM
Southpaw
125 5th Avenue
$15

2020 Soundsystem, Ralph Lawson, Dubble D, Silver City
Thursday, June 4th – 10:00 PM
Studio B
259 Banker Street
$10 advance/$15 door

Black Sea Hotel, Ververitse Brass Band, Stumblebum Brass Band, Sxip Shirley
Thursday, June 4th – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
TBA

2AM Club
Thursday, June 4th – 7:30 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$8 adv/$10 door

Love Is All, Right On Dynamite, Sean Bones
Friday, June 5th – 8:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$15

Lee Fields & The Expressions, Aloe Blacc, The Ghetto Brothers, Akalepse, Jeff Dynamite, Eothen Alapatt
Friday, June 5th – 9:00 PM
Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue
$15

The Detachment Kit, Goes Cube, The Thin Man
Friday, June 6th – 8:00 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$10

Titus Andronicus, The So-So Glos, Blue Album Group, Attack Release
Saturday, June 6th – 8:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street
$15

Cosmo Baker, Ayres, Eleven, Big Jacks
Saturday, June 6th – 10:00 PM
Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue
$10

Mount St. Helens Vietnam Band Disappears
Saturday, June 6th – 8:00 PM
Union Hall
702 Union Street
$10

Hot Seconds, TBA
Saturday, June 6th – 8:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
$7

BrooklynBio: Doc Pomus

“Viva Las Vegas”. “Save The Last Dance For Me”. “This Magic Moment”. “Young Blood”. “A Teenager In Love”. Doc Pomus was never a household name, but it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the Brooklyn native was the most important pop lyricist of his epoch, blending the ribald urbaneness of Cole Porter with a friable blues sensibility that provided the template for the innovations of Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Born into an era where “whiteness” was still very much synonymous with being of Anglo-Saxon extraction and adherence to Protestantism, it was only natural that young Jerry Felder – like future Atlantic Records chieftain Jerry Wexler across the East River – would feel more an affinity with the African-Americans migrating to Harlem or Brooklyn than the prevailing popular culture. Developing a penchant for the music, specifically blues, Felder adopted the moniker that would become his name for the rest of his life and sweated it out in Brooklyn’s scabrous – and mostly forgotten – blues clubs. His idol was the vivacious Big Joe Turner, a 40s-era stalwart who blended myriad styles (the small-combo jump blues that evolved from swing, fledgling electric blues, and just about everything else) under his devilish imprimatur.

Unfortunately, Pomus’s career was impeded by his race (while Greek-born Johnny Otis had broken the inverted blues color barrier in San Francisco, the notion of a white blues singer was risible to many blacks and whites in the early 50s), worsening post-polio symptoms (Pomus would eventually be confined to crutches, then a wheelchair), and a growing family to support. Falling in with a Francophile pianist eleven years his junior – Mort Shuman, later known for translating Jacques Brel’s oeuvre into English and collaborating with the ubiquitous Johnny Hallyday – they set up shop at the Brill Building as one of the foremost composing teams of 50s rock and roll, second only to Leiber and Stoller (who mentored the duo) in name recognition and overall import. In particular, the team developed a synergistic relationship with Elvis Presley, writing no less than 20 songs recorded by the King during his formative period; they considered their hit songs for Fabian among their greatest accomplishments, mainly because the scourge of the teen idol era was incapable of holding a tune. Pomus gradually emerged as a personality in his own right, frequently collaborating with Phil Spector on the latter’s earliest songwriting efforts.

As the virile days of early rock and roll segued into the automatonic splendor of the girl group era, Pomus and Shuman continued to draft the hits for an increasingly selective group of artists. But stagnation had set in: although he wrote vividly about “sleaze” and “juvenile delinquency”, Pomus’s annual income was upwards of $50,000 (nearly $500,000 in today’s dollars), while his wife – Broadway actress Willi Burke – enjoyed such suburban accoutrements as an oversized swimming pool. Long contemptuous of his bluesy ways – “If I had written a fifth-rate Broadway song,” he once observed, “my God, [her friends] would have been proud…” – Burke left Pomus in 1965; out of sheer coincidence, Shuman dissolved their partnership the same week, relocating to France.

The next ten years would find the good Doc – according to close friend Josh Friedman – gambling, “part of a sad Broadway underworld where high-stakes card games sometimes ended in robberies or kidnappings. He had no respect for his past work; his songs meant nothing to him. There were no rock critics back then, no awards or artistic recognition beyond his immediate comrades.” And so it went through the long hot summers of the 1970s, until Pomus and his son were nearly gunned down by the Mafia during a high roller game at the songwriter’s 72nd Street apartment in 1977. Scared into submission and spurred on by a series of retrospectives in the now-defunct SoHo Weekly News, Pomus returned to music, producing the debut album of blues revivalists the Fabulous Thunderbirds and supplying a gaggle of words to Dr. John. (Friedman insinuates that Pomus helped the New Orleans legend overcome a debilitating narcotics addiction.) While his new compositions would never top the charts – nostalgia hits by Dolly Parton and others ensured a steady income – he became an institution of New York nightlife, often spotted at the Lone Star Café.

Pomus died on March 14, 1991 at the age of 65. (“At least they can’t say I died young!” he frequently exclaimed in the years following his sixtieth birthday.) A year later, fellow Brooklynite Lou Reed would eulogize Pomus on his Magic and Loss album. His songs have reached number one on every Billboard domestic and foreign chart, and the top 40 in every decade since the 1950s.

BrooklynBio: Erykah Badu

“The Queen of Neo-Soul”, Fort Greene resident Erykah Badu has played an integral role in extricating the roots of hip-hop from the moribund and vacuous stylizations that permeated the genre throughout the mid-to-late 90s (think the P. Diddy era). Closely associated with the Soulquarian collective – Philadelphia-based “live hip-hop” ensemble the Roots (currently Jimmy Fallon’s backing band on Late Night); eccentric producer J Dilla (whose instrumental collection Donuts, recorded as he succumbed to a terminal battle with lupus, is analogous to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon in its sepulchral forbearance); and rappers Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Q-Tip, and Common (the latter of whom she dated for many years) – Badu has balanced enviable commercial success with a strident dedication to preserving artistry in one of pop’s more rapacious spheres.

A native of Dallas, Badu’s (born Erica Johnson) name reflects her Afrocentric orientation – her surname is common among the Ashanti people of Ghana, while “kah” (or “ka”) denotes the inner spiritual self in numerous African cultures. After dropping out of Grambling State University to pursue music full-time, Badu’s Country Cousins demo tape garnered attention from several labels. Throughout the late nineties, Badu enjoyed a string of hits that set the foundation for the nascent genre of neo-soul; “Tyrone”, “You Got Me” (a collaboration with fellow soulstress Jill Scott), and “On and On” were noted for their dense lyrical inscrutability and eschewal of hip-hop’s materialistic stereotypes. Nor did she shy from outright social commentary, as “A.D. 2000” – an invective against the NYPD’s handling of the Amadou Diallo incident – attested to. These factors have contributed to Badu being frequently cited as a positive role model for young African-American women.

After spending most of the 2000s in seclusion and raising a family with longtime boyfriend, rapper Jay Electronica (best known for his sampling of outré film soundtracks and infrequent release schedule), Badu has returned to the forefront of R&B with the New Amerykah series, which finds her refracting the groove-oriented spirituality of the transitional Worldwide Underground (2003) into the mordant, gritty sound that was her initial trademark. Whether taking on the establishment in an agitprop manner rarely seen these days or adding a touch of sass to the braggadocio of her male counterparts, Badu will be a formidable force – and, we hope, a proud Brooklynite – for years to come.

BrooklynBio: Iggy Pop

Since releasing his first album as a member of the Stooges forty years ago, Iggy Pop – the titular Godfather of Punk -- has acquired as much a reputation for his hard living as he has for being one of rock’s less boorish exponents (indeed, his article “Caesar Lives” appeared in the academic journal Classics Ireland some years ago). Since the Igster is such a man of open-mindedness and multitudinous talent, it should come as no surprise that his early 80s lean years included a sojourn in an exotic locale for the Ann Arbor native (nee James Osterberg)… Bensonhurst!

After trading in the doldrums of a heroin addiction in ennui-laden L.A. for clean living with David Bowie in Berlin in 1976, Pop seemed poised to break through to the mainstream with the classically off-kilter The Idiot (1977) and the shamanistic tour de force of Lust for Life (September 1977). Unfortunately, the wave of outpouring that surrounded the unexpected death of Elvis Presley forced RCA – Pop’s label at the time – to drop all extant publicity campaigns in favor of pressing more copies of Moody Blue (the King’s lamentably turgid swan song). Without any publicity or support, Lust for Life stalled on the charts, leaving Pop as dejected as he had been when Columbia failed to promote the sinuous Raw Power in 1973. Having blown yet another opportunity in his eyes, Pop spent the next few years on a shambolic never-ending tour characterized by diminishing returns, pausing only to release the intermittent album of punk-influenced dross on Arista Records.

Having reached a new critical and commercial nadir by 1982, he returned to New York City – the site of his greatest triumphs – and signed with indie label Animal Records in a prevaricative move. “After the Party tour, I was broke and I didn’t know how to get a room to live in. A roadie from that time, an Italian American, helped me to find a room… I felt very lonesome.” The apartment was in Bensonhurst, then an off-the-beaten-path Italian/Jewish enclave some 40 minutes away by subway from Pop’s stomping grounds in downtown Manhattan. (Continued displacement from gentrification, coupled with an influx of immigrants that began around this time, have seen Bensonhurst emerge as one of the most diverse and lively neighborhoods in the borough.) The solitude proved beneficial – fueled by kosher hot dogs, “good Chinese dishes”, and behemoth pasta dishes from the area’s ristorantes, the provocateur rallied to produce one of his more underrated efforts, Zombie Birdhouse. Recorded at Blank Tape Studios (an intimate space frequented by the likes of Arthur Russell and the Talking Heads) and produced in conjunction with Chris Stein of Blondie, the record successfully blends crisp new wave melodies with spoken word interludes redolent of Patti Smith and The Doors. Although seldom cited as one of his better efforts by the critical cognoscenti, the album was a definite return to form and remains a cult classic among Iggy connoisseurs.

Alas, a life of anonymity under the clangor of the West End line (then home to the B train) proved not to be an ideal fit for one of rock’s more astringent talents. The release of Zombie Birdhouse was overshadowed by David Bowie’s hit cover of the dissolute Berlin-era anthem “China Girl”, finally relieving the singer of the precarious financial straits he had known for his entire adult life. After paying off a not inconsiderable tax bill and breaking up with longtime companion Esther Friedmann, Pop established his long-term residence at the then-haute Chistodora House – reviled by many of his fans as one of the East Village’s first tangible examples of gentrification – on Avenue B and 10th Street. Although he still maintains an apartment there to this day, you’re more likely to find the rocker at his regular residence in the even more improbable environs of Miami. Pop’s latest album, the jazz and electronica-influenced Preliminaires, was released to some of the best reviews of his career earlier this week.

Welcome!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the Brooklyn Eagle’s new music blog! As you probably know, Brooklyn has eclipsed Manhattan as the nation’s undisputed center of musical activity over the past decade. From electro to hip-hop to indie rock, from bar bands that play Springsteen songs better than the Boss to our very own symphony orchestra – the historic Brooklyn Philharmonic – to some of the best mariachi ensembles this side of the Rio Grande, your taste, no matter how obscure, will be sated in Brooklyn.

Why a music blog when there is a dime for every dozen these days? Well, the answer is pretty simple. The Eagle has been covering Brooklyn in various permutations since 1841. You can say what you will about the old media/new media divide, but there’s a lot of history there. Moreover, while a number of fashionable indie news outlets are either based in Brooklyn or have bureaus here, none deign to cover the borough’s scenes in the holistic manner that is arguably warranted. From the beginnings of my semi-defunct column Music Junkie in the print edition, I have always strove to cover a wide array of artists, irrespective of genre or perceived demographic. If Jerry Garcia could go on record with his appreciation the Ramones and Jane’s Addiction, if Eminem crony Proof could admit his love for the Dead… well, almost anything is possible. There will be many collisions and collusions like that here, so if you can’t fathom to read about Grizzly Bear and Frankie Marra on the same blog, this might not be the right place for you. But if your taste for Brooklyn music is omnivorous, think of this as your second home!

Some recurring features that may be of interest…

  • A weekly show calendar – Tired of thumbing through L, scanning through all the Le Passion Rouge/Mercury Lounge listings on Brooklyn Vegan, and sifting through the rubble on Todd P’s website (no offense!) just to figure out what’s going on in Brooklyn on any given night? Want to check out a new scene beyond your neighborhood? The weekly show calendar, which is already pretty comprehensive in its embryonic form, will eventually feature every club night, classical performance, salsa shindig, and rock show that you would ever want to attend. Look no further.
  • BrooklynBios – Did you know that Iggy Pop briefly lived in Brooklyn? Or that Harry Nilsson of “Everybody’s Talkin’” fame was born in Bushwick? Take a stroll down memory lane with the obvious & not-so-obvious and perhaps discover a new talent or two in BrooklynBios.
  • Pugnacious album reviews a la Music Junkie! – It seems that every other album released these days is hyped as the new “[insert classic 60s album title here]”. As in any era, some indeed are. Most are pretty good efforts that will hold their own in twenty to forty years. And a few are just simply wretched. If you enjoyed my contrarian record reviews in Music Junkie, look forward to a new slate of thoughtful musings on the masterpieces – and trashterpieces – of 2009 in the coming months.
  • Photos! – Need a new desktop wallpaper? Once again, look no further.

Once again, thank you for checking out this new cranny of cyberspace! Come back over the next few days for more news and features as we take this blog on its shakedown cruise.

Best,
Sean Murphy