nyctaper posts

Bjorkestra at Montreal Jazz Fest June 2008
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Bjorkestra, Travis Sullivan‘s unique big band jazz interpretation of the music of Bjork returns to NYC for two gigs. The first gig is this Thursday July 24 at Le Poisson Rouge, doors at 7 pm and Bjorkestra on at 9 pm.

There will be some changes in the lineup for the LPR gig. Travis has pared down horn section from 18 to 12 pieces, and vocalist Natalie John will stand-in for Becca Stevens who is on tour with her own album.

The second new Bjorkestra gig is an opening slot for Benevento Russo Duo at SpiegelWorld on September 23.

Purchase the Bjorkestra CD Enjoy through links at their website. Sample previous live recordings of Bjorkestra at nyctaper [here].

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This is not much of a warning, since I’m posting this at 2:30pm, but I just found out about this. Big Dipper, who we recorded in April at Southpaw, are in the WMFU studio today (its prerecorded) for a live chat and live performance. This is part of the Cherry Blossom Clinic show at 3 p.m. and can be streamed on the web [HERE]

Well, after a few exchanged and forwarded emails with some of the powers that be, and an extremely helpful Voice writer, it looks like nyctaper will be out at the Village Voice’s Siren Festival on Saturday in Coney Island to record the Stephen Malkmus set from the audience. We received confirmation from Matador that Malkmus will permit taping. Now we just need to find a spot in the crowd to get it done!

Click on the Siren Festival logo above for all the details about the Festival that you probably already know.

It was announced at PhilLesh.net a short while ago that Phil & Friends will return to NYC to perform an unprecedented 14 shows at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square, beginning on Halloween and ending on November 18.

Last year, Phil performed a “mere” 10 nights at Nokia, and we were there to record the show on November 8. Pre-Sale tickets for this year’s run begin tomorrow, and the general on-sale begins on July 26.

The Fiery Furnaces are performing a free show in a NYC park tonight — at the East River Park at 7 p.m. A detailed MAP of East River Park is [HERE].

Last August, their performance at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens was one of the highlights of the concert year for nyctaper. This year, we will attempt to record Fiery Furnaces for the 7th 8th time, and the first time since the April show at Southpaw. The band has undergone some more changes, as temporary keyboard player Kyle Hollingsworth has returned to his solo work and guitarist/bassist Jason Loewenstein is back on board.

The Furnaces also added Annabelle of the unique “glockenbelle”, a percussionist who “plays piano, ukelele, recorder, glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone, casio VL-5, il mignolo, zither, the underwood, and an array of small percussions” with thimbles. She will perform with the Furnaces tonight.

The opening band tonight is Drug Rug, a punk-pop band from Cambridge MA. We understand that the curfew is 10 p.m., so expect that Drug Rug will play from approximately 7:30 to 8:15 and the Furnaces with perform from 8:45 p.m. to 10.

Electronic music wizards Matmos will appear this weekend at Le Poisson Rouge for shows on Friday and Saturday night (July 18 and 19). nyctaper will be there to record Friday’s performance.

The combination of the superb sound system at LPR and the unique electronic gadgetry of Matmos promises to be a supremely interesting experience. When we last saw Matmos at Lincoln Center almost exactly one year ago, the concert setting and venue were integral to the live experience.

Matmos will be on tour for the remainder of July in support of their new CD Supreme Balloon. The dates listed below follow the two NYC shows:
Jul 20 2008 11:30 CKLN-FM 88.1 Toronto Toronto, Ontario
Jul 21 2008 8:00 The Music Gallery Toronto, Ontario
Jul 23 2008 8:00 The Wexner Center Columbus, Ohio
Jul 24 2008 8:00 The Detroit Institute of the Arts Detroit, Michigan
Jul 25 2008 8:00 Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Jul 27 2008 8:00 The Lakeshore Theater Chicago, Illinois

We returned from vacation to find this in our email box. An article in Toronto’s arts magazine Now, sent to us by one of our faithful readers. Thanks!

Web version [here].

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At Love is All’s recent excellent NYC performances, the opening number was an unreleased new song called “Wishing Well”. That song, along with five cover songs, is now available at emusic (here).  However, the cover songs do not include Prince’s “Darling Nikki” which has been on the CD available at the tour merch tables because Prince, in another of his series of anti-social gestures, has denied the professional courtesy of a cover song approval.

Love Is All is back on tour again, this time in Europe. They will return to the US in October.

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Awesome Color released their new CD Electric Aborigines in May and celebrated with a release party at Glasslands that we reviewed and recorded. The next week they were off to Europe for two months of steady touring with the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and Black Mountain.

Awesome Color are back in town and are showing their appreciation for their patient fans by performing a free all ages concert at Knitting Factory on Saturday July 26th.

Well I forgot to mention in the previous post about upcoming Bloodsugars gigs. They are currently on tour in the Midwest (thanks Jason for mailing us a setlist while on tour!), and have one upcoming NYC gig to report.

On Friday July 18, the Bloodsugars will headline at Pianos on Ludlow Street, one of our favorite Manhattan venues.