Monthly Archives: August 2008

Now this is a really excellent triple bill that we’re excited about. We received an invitation from Bar/None founder-president Glenn Morrow to attend this gig at Mercury Lounge on Tuesday August 19.

Hotel Lights is Darren Jessie’s band, who was the drummer of the Ben Folds Five. Darren’s underrated vocal chops and songwriting talents are in the forefront in Hotel Lights, and Tuesday’s show marks the release of his second album Firecracker People.

As I was setting up my equipment at Wednesday’s Wilco show, by complete coincidence Darren came up and stood with the group of people in front of me. I immediately recognized him and struck up a conversation about this show and my invitation from Bar/None to capture it. Darren was really upbeat about the new CD and his plans to play more shows after the Mercury show and his in-store show at Vintage Vinyl on August 20. There was a point from 1997 to 1999, when Wilco and Ben Folds Five were my favorite bands and it was a nice kind of surreal to be standing with one of “The Five” while watching Wilco perform a decade later.

Sample Hotel Lights:
Firecracker People – MP3 [download]

Shannon McArdle spent nearly a decade with the Mendoza Line, and when her marriage to fellow Mendoza Line member Timothy Bracy broke up, so did the band. After a year of writing and recording Shannon will release Summer of the Whore next week. The Village Voice did a nice write-up of Shannon and the new CD [here].

The opening band on this bill is Starling Electric, a psychedelic pop band from Michigan whose self-released CD caught the attention of Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices) and for whom they opened a series of shows. Bar/None signed them this year, and will release Clouded Staircase next week.

The Mercury Lounge showcase is an early show that begins at 6:30pm.

[photo credit]

A long time friend of mine has been friends with a member of Phish for years. This past weekend, at a wedding party for another friend of the band, it was revealed that Phish will reunite for a tour next Summer. Readers can give this information whatever credibility they feel it deserves. However, this source has never provided me with incorrect information about any Phish-related non-public news or any music news for that matter.

Wilco opening Lollapalooza with “Misunderstood” 1997-style

As longtime readers of nyctaper are aware, I have seen Wilco on almost every trip they have made to NYC since our first Wilco concert at Mercury Lounge in 1996. Our recording of their Hammerstein show last June has been one of the more popular downloads in the history of this site, as well as has been the vintage 1997 recording we offered from the archives.

So when the McCarren Pool show sold out in minutes and craigslist posters were asking $100 per ticket, we decided that we would miss this trip to NYC. It was only after I watched Wilco’s excellent Lollapalooza performance via webcast (see youtube clip above) that I decided that Wilco was playing too well to miss them this year. The old closer-to-the-show-the-easier-to-buy trick worked, as we just got a ticket for face via craigslist. See you there!

Dylan at House of Blues in February 2008
[photo credit]

I have a lot to say about this concert, and have written an extensive analysis and review in my head. Expect more about this show on nyctaper tomorrow.

On Stage: 8:22 p.m.
Setlist:
01 Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
02 Lay Lady Lay
03 Lonesome Day Blues
04 Girl From The North Country
05 The Levee’s Gonna Break
06 Spirit On The Water
07 Honest With Me
08 John Brown
09 Highway 61 Revisited
10 Beyond The Horizon
11 It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
12 Nettie Moore
13 Summer Days
14 Masters of War
Left Stage: 9:54 p.m.
15 [encore break]
16 Like a Rolling Stone
17 Thunder on the Mountain
18 [band introductions]
19 Blowin’ in the Wind
Show Over: 10:17 p.m.

[photo credit]

While Camper Van Beethoven has not performed in NYC in almost two years, David Lowery‘s other great band Cracker returns to New York to perform at Webster Hall next week. As the rest of the Camper family prepares for the 25th Anniversary celebration at Campout 2008 in September, the Cracker crew will do a few dates, including an August 20 date at Webster Hall. This night also features Soul Asylum, Everclear and Kevin Kinney — Cracker will be on second.

Cracker also announced today that they have signed with the Savoy Label Group/ 429 Records and will release a new album in the Spring of 2009.

[photo credit]

When we last saw Death Cab For Cutie on June 10, the hurricane winds were blowing and band and fans were fleeing McCarren Pool for shelter. In a storm-shortened set, Death Cab still managed to showcase some of the strong new material from their 2008 release Narrow Stairs, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Charts in May.

This Fall, on Monday October 6, 2008, Death Cab For Cutie will return to the safer environs of Radio City Music Hall. Tickets for this concert go on sale through their fan club pre-sale this Wednesday August 13, and through a general on-sale on Friday August 15.

We have seen Bob Dylan many times over the years, going all the way back to a concert at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in October of 1981. On Tuesday, Dylan performs at Prospect Park, and we secured 3rd row tickets through the pre-sale many months ago. The last time we saw Dylan this close was when we stood at the rail in the rain in Washington DC in 1995 and sang along with “Joey” — “born in Red Hook Brooklyn in the year of who knows when.” Next week Dylan is back in Brooklyn since who knows when, but based on the setlists from the tour of Europe in the early Summer, we don’t expect Dylan to perform “Joey”. We’ll settle for “Hattie Carroll” or “It’s Alright Ma” or any number of folk-era numbers that defined the genre for generations of artists and fans.

This week also marks the annual Anti-Folk Festival at its home base, the Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A. It begins tonight August 8th at 7 p.m., continues throughout the week and ends on Sunday night August 17. The complete Anti-Folk Festival schedule is listed on the Sidewalk Cafe page [here].

One of the anti-folk scene’s early success stories, Regina Spector, performs at the McCarren Pool on Friday August 15. We will be there, as we were back in October at Hammerstein Ballroom when Regina proved up to the challenge of a big room. The Pool is perhaps her largest venue yet, and it will be interesting to see if she can wow the outdoor Brooklyn crowd as she did last Fall.

To finish this appropriately thematic week, on Saturday we will travel to Pennsylvania for the 47th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival. We applied for and received a media pass for the Saturday afternoon session, so that this event will be covered less as an audio archivist and more like a journalist. Its not the Spectrum, and Dylan won’t be there, but this Festival has existed longer than we have, and we expect to witness some major talent young and old.