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Hell Yes, Bob Kidney Has the Blues - 4 Decades On!
5 April 2013 1:38 PM, PDT
Kidney Brothers: Coal Tattoo (Hearpen)
Having grown up and loved from afar, forced to do so after I moved to NYC, there are few bands still playing live -- four decades later -- worthy of my unbridled accolades and devotion but so it is with the heady agro-blues of 15-60-75 Aka The Numbers Band. If you dig music and happen to hail from Northeast Ohio, you know what I'm talking about. Having followed their entire career, I can proudly boast that I'm one of their biggest fans. Yet, it's no leap of faith or youthful nostalgia.
If you've seen them live, regardless of the decade, then you know the passion and verve that the brothers Kidney -- singer/guitarist Bob and harpist/sax/keyboardist/vocalist Jack -- share with their audience, regardless of the size, every single time they take the stage.
Along with horn player Terry Hynde (Pretender »
- Dusty Wright
Space Jazz Mystery
5 April 2013 11:12 AM, PDT
He's a New York City legend, at least among some of us: A small African-American man on the subway who announces that he's an alien who needs money to repair his broken-down spaceship so he can return to his home planet, who then plays screaming avant-garde jazz alto saxophone until people donate. Sometimes he's dressed in a flamboyant outfit, complete with cape, that makes him look fresh out of the Sun Ra Arkestra; sometimes he makes do with a pair of antennae wobbling on his head.
Not everybody likes screaming avant-garde jazz alto saxophone, sadly, but the thing is, the guy's actually good at it, and he's been doing it for decades. One time, post-midnight on the 1 train, I saw him get a standing ovation. On the other hand, for a while in the late '90s he was playing a smashed/crushed alto and said he'd been beat up; then, »
- SteveHoltje
These Boots Are Made for Broadway!
4 April 2013 11:46 AM, PDT
Broadway has a new crowd- pleasing musical: Kinky Boots, a generously entertaining collaboration between Broadway veteran Harvey Fierstein, who wrote the book, and Cyndi Lauper -- yes, that Cyndi Lauper -- who wrote the score, her first for Broadway. The musical has a good, high energy first act, then gets even better in Act Two.
Kinky Boots is adapted from a 2005 British movie which itself is based on a true story of a young man, Charlie, who inherits his father's struggling English shoe factory. Charlie ultimately partners with Lola, a drag queen, to produce footwear for drag artists in the hopes of saving the factory and the jobs of all his workers.
Yes, there are reminders of other musicals -- La Cage Aux Folles and Priscilla Queen of the Desert both come to mind -- and much that transpires is predictable. Act One is a little uneven in spots; the »
- James Miller
Flying High in Friendly Skies
2 April 2013 10:55 AM, PDT
Changing Modes: In Flight (Plague of Twins)
There is an apocryphal story that Wendy Griffiths -- the primary singer/songwriter for Changing Modes -- initially "had no intention" of making her songs public. Five albums, two EPs, dozens of shows throughout the Northeast, and one M.E.A.N.Y. award (Musicians and Emerging Artists of New York) later, I can only say that I am happy she did not relegate her "bedroom tapes" to a shoebox in a closet.
Ms. Griffiths identifies her influences (at least on this album) well, particularly Pj Harvey and Blondie. However, the music on In Flight is quite a bit more "progressive" than that: there are whiffs of such prog-rock artists as Renaissance, The Decemberists, and even Frank Zappa here. Indeed, the most appropriate word I can find to describe Ms. Griffiths's music is: quirky. And I mean that as a very sincere compliment. »
- Dusty Wright
Quote of the Week: Marina Abramović
31 March 2013 11:02 PM, PDT
"The hardest thing to do is something which is close to nothing because it is demanding all of you."
Marina Abramović (born 30 November 1946), New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. She has recently begun to describe herself as the "grandmother of performance art." Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.
The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing because it is demanding all of you.” Marina Abramović (born 30 November 1946), New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the "grandmother of performance art." Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C »
- shifra007
5 articles
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