Lucid Culture

AlRoy gets a lot of space here because she’s the rare musician who will put together a whole night of good performers. Tonight might have been her best bill yet. Al Duvall opened, playing a solo set to a small but enthusiastic crowd, and stole the show. He plays the banjo chordally, like a guitar, and writes authentic-sounding ragtime songs with thinly and not-so-thinly disguised dirty lyrics. Like the Roulette Sisters (with whom he sometimes performs), he’s an absolute master of innuendo. His biggest crowd-pleaser tonight was called Reconstruction, about a Civil War-era sex change operation. It’s funnier, and more grisly, than you could possibly imagine. Like the early 20th century songwriters he so clearly admires, he has a New York fixation, and a lot of the most evocative material he played tonight was set during that period here, including Steeplechase Bound, about a kid from Greenpoint going out to Coney Island for some R&R at the racetrack, and the predictably amusing Welfare Island (which is what Roosevelt Island used to be called).

AlRoy was in full siren mode tonight. With Matt Keating playing lead guitar, and piano on a couple of tunes, she delivered a sultry set of mostly new, unreleased material. Her best songs were the hooky, chorus-driven Goner with its aching sensuality, the amusingly innuendo-laden payback song Comic Book World and an atmospheric new anthem that sounded a lot like the Church. The upstairs room was packed, and AlRoy made it seem worlds away from the bridge-and-tunnel nightmare downstairs. And wonder of wonders, the sound was actually ok: it seems all this place needs is someone with the brains to work the soundboard, and tonight they had their man.

Matt Keating followed with an acoustic set, playing guitar and occasional piano, accompanied by upright bassist Jason Mercer (from Ron Sexsmith’s band). Keating’s most recent material has been on the Americana tip, and judging from the mostly unreleased stuff he played tonight, he isn’t finished with that genre yet. This may have been an acoustic set, but Keating made sure his guitar was good and loud in the mix, and wailed, leaving no one guessing how much of a rocker he really is. Of the new material, the most memorable tracks were Saint Cloud, his latest Bukowskiesque set piece, all loaded imagery; Before My Wife Gets Home, possibly the most ribald thing he’s done to date, an oldschool honkytonk cheating song that he played on piano; and the closing song of the set, the vivid Louisiana, inspired by a stop in New Orleans after the hurricane and Brownie’s masterful management of the disaster. He also played the intense, climactic Lonely Blue, which builds from a slow, deliberate series of screechy chords on the verse to one of his typically anthemic, major-key choruses and this went over especially well with the crowd. If the show was any indication, his next album will be as good as his last one, which was as good as the one before that, ad infinitum: living here in New York, we so often take for granted performers that people around the country wait for impatiently for months to see.

 The reliably delightful Moonlighters headlined, but we had places to go and things to do; however, you can read a review of an excellent show they did at Barbes last month here.

The most unlikely comeback of the decade is an improbable success. OK, maybe not the most unlikely comeback: who knew that Vashti Bunyan would hit the road again? But this wasn’t exactly expected. As Foley told it tonight, she was sitting on former Five Chinese Brothers bassist Paul Foglino’s couch, and he suggested that they write some songs together and do some shows. Fast forward to tonight: he wrote some songs, the band worked up some her of her older material and, blam, comeback in full effect.

In addition to her career as an actress, Foley had a successful run in Europe in the 80s as a top 40 singer. Here, she remains a generational footnote, musically at least, best known for her vocals on Meatloaf’s epic monstrosity Paradise By the Dashboard Light. You know, “Stop right theeeeeeeere, I gotta know right now!” But her great shining moment was as the singer on the great lost Clash album, her 1981 Sire release Spirit of St. Louis. If you have a turntable and see this kicking around the dollar bins, by all means, pick it up: it proves that Strummer and Jones (who was her boyfriend at the time) could write gorgeously orchestrated, politically charged ballads. Foley also sang lead on Hitsville UK, the Clash’s lone (and quite successful) venture into Motown.

Tonight, she was at the top of her game, sounding better than ever – she’s got a big, somewhat showy voice with impressive range -  and looking great. Backed by an inspired 4-piece unit including Foglino and Steve Antonakos (what band is he NOT in) on guitars, Steve Houghton on bass and Kevin Hangdog on drums, she delivered a mix of some of her European hits along with Foglino’s wry, bluesy, Americana-pop songs.

On the outro to What’s the Matter Baby, she improvised an explanation: “I was replaced on Night Court by Markie Post!” The audience loved her take of We Belong to the Night (which was a #1 hit for her in Holland before Pat Benetar’s iconically schlocky version). “This song is for…Ann Coulter,” she told the crowd as they launched into a fiery version of the Stones’ Stupid Girl. Foglino may have a thing for goofy songwriting (he’s the guy who wrote the college radio classic You’re Never too Drunk to Get Drunk), but he clearly gives a damn about this unit, tailoring his material to the nuances of Foley’s voice. On one slowly swaying new tune, she mined the verse with her beautifully quiet upper register for everything she could get out of it: “These dreams shine like diamonds/But I’m digging for…coal.”

Her first encore was written about her, she told the crowd, and then did a shambling, fun version of Should I Stay or Should I Go, Antonakos having fun making up some Spanglish in place of Mick Jones’ fractured espanol. They closed the show with a fragment of the big Meatloaf hit (probably to pre-empt the wiseass element in the audience), and it was impossible to leave without a smile on your face. Where Foley wants to go with this is anybody’s guess, but even if all she wants to do is play Lakeside on the random night, she’s more fun than 99% of the other singers out there. If you have fond memories of Europe in the 80s, a thing for brilliant obscurities from the bargain bins, or just enjoy hearing a great voice, see her. Peep the website for details.

By the way, if you’re new to this site and wonder why on earth we bother reviewing obscure New York bands instead of what you see in the corporate media, there’s a very simple explanation.

We have a policy of not doing bad reviews.

Consider: do you really need to know how much Fall Out Boy sucked the other night? Do you have the time to read all about what a snooze the new Killers cd is? Are you insatiable for the scoop on whether or not Paris Hilton blew Tommy Lee onstage at the Guns & Roses reunion? Doubtful. Since the corporate entertainment-industrial complex has become completely and inevitably irrelevant, with the indie labels aping the corporate model and following close behind, this is the new paradigm: people you probably never heard of at places you’ve probably never been. Come out to one of these dives sometime, we’re having a lot of fun.  

It’s a given that any contest for anything arts-related is either a scam or a marketing ploy: i.e. Emergenza, the Jagermeister music competition in New York a year or so ago (which in retrospect probably happened without the Jagermeister folks knowing anything about it) or those awful poetry collections named after Moody Blues albums, where your poem could be published for free if you were willing to shell out $80 (plus shipping and handling) for a copy of the book. And let’s not forget the John Lennon songwriting contest, whose hubris rivals the Mormon predilection for converting people like Einstein and Gandhi to Mormonism, posthumously.

It’s hard to figure out what the Media Predict contest is all about: the website seems to have been designed by a non-English speaking dropout from the Parker Bros. trainee program, who probably didn’t make it through the first day there. If you’re ambitious and feel like doing some serious goofing off on company time, you might discover that the site has a contest for authors: the one who gets the most votes gets a publishing deal with Simon & Schuster. The way you vote for your favorite would-be author is to buy “stock” in his or her book. This might seem like a colossal waste of time. But there’s a diamond in the rough here.

Brett Selmont’s novel Lower deserves your support. It’s far from perfect: the supporting characters need to be fleshed out and the ending is a little too pat. But the writing…wow.

What an ear for dialogue this guy has. The book is an absolutely spot-on satire of Lower East Side poseurs and their ever-gentrifying milieu. One by one, Selmont skewers phony musicians, wannabe models, and the myriad subgenre types who surround them. If you’ve ever spent time in New York or Brooklyn, you will recognize in the pages of this book at least one person you wish you never met. It’s a fun read and a valuable piece of history, a chronicle of an era that never should have existed. It deserves a chance to reach the public – and an editor who will take the time to flay it into shape (if its author is anything like its protagonist, he’s a stubborn SOB).

Then after Selmont wins the contest, he can write another novel about the publishing world, its revolving door of sleep-deprived, somnambulistic editors, incompetent publicists and corporate bigwigs whose only interest is squeezing the last nickel out of the bottom line and the last five minutes of unpaid overtime out of their ridiculously overworked employees. All of whom, for reasons of money or lack thereof, couldn’t give the slightest damn about any of their authors.

Here’s how to get Selmont on track to that big advance:

Go to http://www.mediapredict.com

1) Register by clicking the button on the upper right corner. They’ll send you an email with a username and password, which you should get within about a half-hour after you register. You can set up as many user names as you have email addresses.

2) Click on NEW MARKETS on the Media Predict Home Page (toward the bottom right of the main page)

3) Scroll down to middle of page and click on Selmont’s novel Lower

4) Scroll down past the synopsis to the Trade Assistant

5) Click on Chances are Higher Than [whatever] %

6) Buy as much fake Stock as you can in Lower

7) Then Click on Execute

 It’s worth five minutes of your time.

This cd came out last year and it’s stood the test of time: in fact, it’s one of the best albums of the decade, a gorgeous blend of catchy, jangly guitar, bass and drums. There’s literally not a bad song on this record. It’s ostensibly indie rock, but guitarist/frontman Brian Silverman’s playing is light-years ahead of most of his contemporaries. Armed with an ironclad sense of melody and a total inability to waste a single note, the songs here are finely crafted gems that will rattle around your mind when you least expect them. Imagine Guided by Voices at their most melodic, or the Lemonheads if they’d paid attention in college and actually learned something instead of posing for paparazzi. 

The album opens auspiciously with Old Vampires, its supremely memorable break bursting out of the verse. The next track Waterskis is killer, with its inscrutable lyric about somebody who “can’t get out of the water.” This is the only song here where Silverman shows off his phenomenally fast guitar chops, and the result is a hilarious parody of a Steve Vai-style shredding solo.

Done So Secretly follows, with its percussive, fast 8th note new wave-ish bassline: Silverman adds a layer of distorted guitar after the second chorus. The title track continues in the same vein, building to another great chorus. The best cut on the cd is Burned to the Ground. Silverman’s deviously opaque lyrics are effective both in setting a mood and leaving you guessing and this is a prime example, told from the point of view of somebody watching the remains of a party from across the street:

Pissing in the bushes, passed out on the lawn,

Cops showed up and busted anyone they could see

Burned to the ground, drunk and hanging round

Turned into stone, end of the day

There are layers and layers of textured overdubs on the break rather than an actual guitar solo: it’s one of the most memorable, hooky melodies of recent years.

Of the other tracks, Prize is more indie rock than anything else on the album, with lots of open chords which are usually the curse of the genre. But the vocal melody carries it here - and is that the solo from Two Tickets to Paradise?!? Photos of You picks up the pace with its sweet bent note intro. Once Only is fast and growly with insistent drums like early Versus. High Comedy is the loudest tune here, layers of distorted Fender guitars, wickedly catchy verse crescendoing into a chorus that’s just as good. Walter doesn’t get going til the chorus but then it’s brilliant, like the great lost pop song by the Church. Our Parents Had Money is a gently scathing tale of trendoids and the soft fate that awaits them:

Shopped in used clothes stores, favorite one’s the Salvation Army

We were the best dressed kids on our block down on Bedford St.[sic]

Everyone got this cause our parents had money

After they get sick of Williamsburg, they take their lame act out to the suburbs. This is one of the funniest and most apt New York songs in recent memory.

The rhythm section of Connie on bass and backing vocals and Nigel Rawles (of Scout and Rawles Balls fame) on drums is supertight and rolls this thing along like a motorcycle weaving effortlessly between rows of cars stalled on the interstate at rush hour. Silverman is a pro who teaches guitar and gets paid for playing, i.e. musicals and such, so this project has been pretty much on hiatus for awhile: we’ll keep you posted on any live shows, which are predictably terrific. CDs are available at the random show and online, http://www.myspace.com/champagnefrancis for info 

Truth in advertising: the cd cover depicts the co-founder/accordionist of Brooklyn “historical orchestrette” Pinataland seated at a backhoe in a graveyard.  This is a good headphone album, all longing and restlessness and inventively melodic songwriting, perfect for a rainy night if you’ve chosen to spend it at home in lieu of stomping through the puddles in search of revelry. A lot of this album sounds like Hem, but with a male singer and plenty of gravitas. Fans of Matt Keating’s recent, Americana-inflected material will love this. The album begins dark and wistful with Travelin, a minimal yet catchy, midtempo fingerpicked bluegrass tune, guitar by Wechsler (who plays most of the instruments here, impressively). The next track, Churchill starts with a storm of shortwave radio squeals and whines into dark washes of strings and piano, its blithely swinging beat in sharp contrast with the narrator’s angst:

I’ve been having dreams of half- heard broadcasts

And fragments of your voice come to my ears

Call me when you finally get to Dunkirk

Tell me not to worry…

I’ll call you when I hit the beach at Normandy

And tell you not to worry

Roman Road follows, a doo-wop melody on piano with pretty strings and a full band behind Wechsler. There’s a big crescendo on the chorus and nice harmonies from Royal Pine frontwoman Robin Aigner, who lights up every song she touches: “I’ll meet you someday on the Roman Road.” The next track Just Because blends quietly reverberating electric guitar with organ and a deliciously fluid organ solo: it’s a gorgeously evocative nocturne. After that, What You Want to Hear, flavored with Bob Hoffnar’s sweetly soaring pedal steel, is sardonic with a quiet anger like something like Melomane would do:

So let’s invade a country, I hear that Portugal is nice this time of year…

And if we take the city we’ll have a cappucino there

Other standout tracks on the album include West Texas Cold Front, with more Hoffnar pedal steel, a gorgeous 6/8 country ballad that winds up on a predictably eerie note: “That West Texas cold front just blew me away.” Golden Age is a boisterous gypsy rock number that wouldn’t be out of place on a Firewater album, opening with Penny Penniston’s foghorn trumpet:

This is the golden age of obscurity where no one remembers your name…

This is the golden age of infirmity where everyone around you is lame

Hallelujah is a fast old timey country song solo on guitar til finally Wechsler picks up the accordion toward to the end, Aigner doing a ghostly angelic choir for a bit. The album ends on a surprisingly optimistic, ebullient note with We’ve Finally Come Home. The porch swing may be broken and the plaster cracked, but “the front porch is clean, the backyard is mowed” and there seems to be something hopeful glimmering at the end of this long tunnel. Excellent album, the best thing Wechsler’s done to date. Four bagels with whatever you manage to sneak through customs. Linguica, a drizzle of Provencal oil, kippers maybe? CDs are available online and at shows, for info http://www.pinataland.com/vacations/index.html

People were dancing. Hardly worth mentioning, except for the fact that the venue is in the heart of Trendoid Central, where it is strictly verboten to crack a smile or, heaven help us, move your ass.  A few weeks ago it was a mostly Israeli crowd here, testament to the Rev.’s ecumenical appeal (he’s a real ordained minister, with credentials from the Universal Life Church if memory serves right).

The Rev., as he’s best known, is something of a New York institution, a charismatic, frequently mesmerizing performer and keyboardist who surrounds himself with like-minded players. Tonight, in addition to the rhythm section from groovemeisters Chin Chin (including the redoubtable Torbitt Schwartz on drums), he had his usual main weapon Moist Paula Henderson (frontwoman of the excellent instrumental trio Moisturizer) on baritone sax, as well as trombonist Dave Smith and TV on the Radio  guitarist Jaleel Bunton. With his gravelly voice, jumping around and wailing on his Nord Electro keyboard, the Rev. was in a particularly boisterous mood tonight. His newly svelte physique may come as something of a shock to those who haven’t seen him lately, but he hasn’t lost any of his usual energy.

One A-list New York rocker recently remarked that the Rev. and his band are something akin to Phish playing gospel, and that’s could be true in the sense that they jam the hell out of pretty much everything they play (although there’s absolutely nothing cutesy about them). They opened with a cover of Ben Harper’s Power of the Gospel, rearranged with percussive verses building to a slinky, jazzy chorus. They followed with a rousing, authentically vintage, 60s-sounding Come to the River, from his latest album 100% Jesus. The Rev. had just returned from his native California, where he’d baptized his new nephew and was clearly amped from the experience.  

Since the Rev.’s shows are about more than just the music – he’s a preacher with an uncommonly strong social conscience – he took time to address the crowd as the band launched into the chords to a long, hypnotically psychedelic version of his song Deep in the Water. “We can talk about baptism and the healing power of water…and you know how hot it is in Fresno, when you get off the plane? It was 122 degrees when I got off the plane. I’m not exaggerating…not the misery index, it was fucking 122 degrees! Fresno used to be the agricultural capital of the world. This is where you got your fruits: you get that nectarine from the deli, and it says from California? It comes from Fresno. Raisins, Sunmaid raisins? Fresno. Asparagus, Fresno. Anything you want green or fruity comes from Fresno.”

Sensing the Rev. winding up a tribute to his hometown, the band picked it up for a second, but he brought them back down. He wasn’t finished. “Every time that I come back to Fresno, I see all this beautiful land of my childhood, these beautiful fig groves and orange groves, and I see an apricot field and a vineyard, and lately they’ve all been torn down to put up these cheap, cheap tract houses, and they name the tract of the house after the crop that used to be there. So there’s a tract of homes called Fig Garden, and a tract of homes called Orange Grove, and another tract of homes called Raisinville. And this year, I don’t like to be apocalyptic -  I’m not an apocalyptic preacher - but I have to figure that pretty soon people are not gonna want to give water to Fresno anymore. And all these Raisinvilles are just gonna be ghost towns and then they’ll miss their water.”

From there, the song built to a hypnotic, warm vibe, something akin to the Stones’ Moonlight Mile with lots of Rhodes-y electric piano from the Rev. Using his tone controls, he gradually worked his way up to an eerie, distorted setting as the band went quiet and ended on a somber note. The next tune was a country gospel number with a swing beat, featuring solos around the horn: first trombone, then baritone sax, then piano, and predictably, the Rev. stole the show with some delicious honkytonk playing. Then they brought it down to just the bass.

 Their deliberate, crescendoing take of the blues classic John the Revelator began with same minor key groove that the Rev. uses for his big audience hit Get Out of My Way, and became an audience singalong directed from the Rev.’s pulpit behind the keys. “When you say ‘John the Revelator,’ you can’t do it like this,” the Rev. instructed his parishioners, struggling to fasten the top button of his shirt and making a poindexter face. In a second, he’d undone the button and a couple below and roared the line at the audience. This time they got it and roared back. The first set of the evening came to an end with a jam into a fast, shambling version of Ease on Down the Road, from the Wiz soundtrack, the Rev. pounding out some nice Billy Preston-style funk fills. This guy raises the bar for live performers: when he’s on, it’s hard to imagine anything much more exhilarating. Tonight was a prime example.  

posted by Sarah Mucho

Rose’s Turn is the best bar ever. Any night of the week you’ll find the greatest, funniest, most talented people gathered there making music, drinking, laughing, enjoying life. This has been so for over 50 years but this Sunday, the 22 of July, 2007 it will all come to an end. Our venue for joy and mayhem is closing it’s doors for good and a much needed real estate agency will take its place. What a shame. I have had the best times of my life in that little shithole but aside from that, it’s an historic spot on an historic street and legendary performers have appeared there including Barbara Streisand, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers. We are all losing something very dear and I encourage everyone to go this week before it’s gone just to have the experience, one that is unique to NYC or, at least, what NYC used to be. You will have the best time and you will hear some of the best talent in the city and you will be part of something special.

Rose’s Turn is located at 55 Grove St. at the corner of 7th Avenue.

The blonde bombshell – sort of New York’s answer to Neko Case, a master of every retro style she’s ever touched – has really come into her own as a frontwoman and bandleader.

Tonight she owned this place, every square inch (it’s cozy), blazing through a largely upbeat set of mostly unreleased material. They opened with the beautifully evocative, windswept cityscape 31st Avenue (the opening track on her last album Friend or Foe), lead guitarist Dann Baker taking a gorgeous bent-note solo like the one in Blindspot by That Petrol Emotion (does anyone remember That Petrol Emotion? Dollars to donuts Baker does). They followed that with the unreleased Easy Now, a tasty upbeat Merseybeat melody set to a swinging country groove. The next song, a funk number propelled by a fast, growling bass hook stolen straight out of the Duck Dunn catalog, showed Smith at the peak of her powers as white soul sister, circa 1966 maybe. At the end, the band went into a wild noise jam as drummer Dave Campbell went looking for the second stone from the sun, but it was clearly Smith’s soaring soprano that left the crowd silent for several seconds after the song was over.

The next tune was also a new one, an impossibly catchy, bouncy 60s-style Britpop hit possibly titled Firefly, guitars and bass weaving and bobbing, alternating between punchy staccato and smooth legato lines. Smith and band like obscure covers, and tonight they mined the 80s LA new wave scene for Where and When by Blow This Nightclub (who were fronted by filmmaker Dan Sallitt), opening the song with pounding chords and a bassline nicked from the Cure’s Killing an Arab. Then they brought it down with a sultry bossa nova song, picked up the pace again with the scorching, unreleased Neil Young-inflected rocker Jesus’ Clown, kept it up with a practically heavy metal cover of Judy Henske’s Snowblind (with a strikingly quiet, artful solo from Campbell), took it back down with the obscure Livia Hoffman gem Valentine (completely redone as a smoldering torch song, something Smith does extraodinarily well) and closed with the old Sinatra standard One For My Baby. Not as good as the Iggy Pop version, but not bad either.

 Cangelosi Cards (the Cangelosi Cards? a reference to the diminutive former Mets outfielder, maybe?) followed, an aptly chosen oldtimey quartet: vocals, guitar, harmonica and upright bass, playing blues and pop hits from the 20s and 30s. The musicians have the songs down cold and the petite, retro-garbed singer showed off a spectacular, girlish upper register that seems to owe a lot to Blossom Dearie. “It’s easy to like this band,” remarked one of the musicians who had just played, and he was right.

Fascinatingly, this exhibit concentrates on Hopper’s landscapes and city scenes from the 1920s, rather than the voyeuristic interiors for which he’s best known. Hopper was absolutely obsessed with shadow: in many of these works, the light is amplified just so that he can get a nice solid patch of black under the eaves or behind a fencepost. Subtleties of shading are not so much an issue here. But his eye for extremes of illumination was equally good: in one oil of a lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the near side of the obelisk is rendered without detail, blinding in its reflection of the afternoon sun. 

There are some especially notable, lesser-known New York scenes as well, a view of the upper stories and rooves of the brick apartments on Broadway in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just before the Marcy Avenue J train stop, as well as two fascinating views of Chinatown from the walkway of the Manhattan Bridge (East Broadway does not seem to have changed in eighty years).

Otherwise, it’s the Hopper we know and love: a scene’s focal point is never front and center, serving strictly as a backdrop for a desolate road, hillside or sand dune. Nobody communicates with anyone; everyone is absolutely and completely alone. And perhaps the most chilling painting of all is one of his final works, a death-obsessed depiction of an empty room, washes of yellow-ochre shadows set off by the sharpest of angles where the walls meet the floor and ceiling.

Finally, in the last section before the exit, there are all the greatest hits, including Hopper’s big enchilada, Nighthawks, the famous all-night diner scene (with the marquee advertising Phillies cigars fifty years before their signature Blunt would become synonymous with all-night revelry). There’s also the secretary in the tight dress, after hours with her inscrutable boss seated at his office desk; the usherette under the balcony in the theatre, oblivious to the movie she’s seen dozens of times; and Automat, with its young woman sitting dressed to the nines, all by herself, lost in thoughts that one would probably not want to imagine. 

 Open through August 19, 10 AM (early arrival recommended) to 3:30 PM, expensive ($23 general admission for adults plus $6 for the exhibit) but worth it if you can afford it.

Mon July 16 Rev. Vince Anderson plays Black Betty, across the street from the new Luna in Williamsburg, 10:30 PM. The Rev.’s weekly Monday bacchanal is the most consistently good non-narcotic thrill in NYC. Amazing piano player, wildass frontman, high priest of the church of sex with a great band behind him – Moist Paula from Moisturizer on baritone sax is the star attraction. 

Thurs July 19 brilliant, utterly unique guitarist Matt Munisteri plays Barbes, 10 PM. Raised on bluegrass, steeped in jazz, lightning-fast and armed with considerable wit.

Also Thurs July 19 Ellen Foley plays Lakeside, 10 PM. The noted actress and onetime Clash collaborator has recast herself as sort of the dotty grande dame of rock n roll. She’s never sounded better and she looks great, if you have an 80s fixation don’t miss this show.

Also Thurs July 19 Susquehanna Industrial Tool &Die plays Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. Swinging, oldtimey acoustic country band featuring at least one of Amy Rigby’s brothers.

Fri July 20, not to be a rumormonger, but word on the street is that Bobby Bland will not be playing Prospect Park. Catherine Russell, with the big voice and gospel vibe will still be playing at 7:30 PM with Matt Munistri on guitar. Supposedly there is a “surprise” opening act, I can’t wait to find out who.

Also Fri July 20, 10 PM Secretary - which is Moisturizer frontwoman Paula Henderson’s fascinating, soundtrack-ish beautifully lyrical instrumental side project plays at the Silo at the Yard, 400 Carroll Street, Brooklyn (between Bond & Nevins on the Gowanus Canal), F train to 4th Ave.

Also Fri July 20 Rev. Vince Anderson - see our reviews page for his latest amazing show - plays two sets starting at 10 PM at 55 Bar on Christopher St., a nice detour from Trendoidville if you’re up for a jaunt to the West Village.

Just so you know, Gogol Bordello, 7/20-21 at Irving Plaza is sold out.

Sat July 21 there’s an interesting outdoor acoustic show in the community garden on Ave. B and East 6th St. Maya Caballero - author of the absolutely bone-chilling, strangely titled Bisbee - plays around 8 PM. Also on the bill, among others: noir accordionist Marni Rice, who has a Piaf fixation and is always worth seeing.

Also Sat July 21 the best show of the night is at the Living Room, of all places, in the practically secret room upstairs behind the curtain away from all the yuppie puppies. Check out this lineup: at 7 PM Al Duvall, master of oldtimey dirty songwriting. At 8, Carolyn AlRoy with her gorgeously resigned vocals and tersely lyrical acoustic pop hits. At 9 Matt Keating, powerhouse lyricist who’s also a hell of a guitarist (and does double duty with AlRoy tonight). At 10, Nightcall, which is Moonlighters frontwoman Bliss Blood’s new “snuff torch songs” unit, the best new band we’ve seen this year. 

Also Sat July 21 the Las Rubias Roundup with Bob Hoffnar on pedal steel plays Barbes at 10, early arrival a must. This is Las Rubias playing country chanteuse standards – in the original English, their native language. Sweet harmonies and a real feel for the music are guaranteed.

Also Sat July 21 Zane Campbell plays Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. Ola Belle Reed’s nephew, if memory serves right: a wild, hair-raising performer who basically invented alt-country in NYC by himself in the late 80s and hasn’t lost an iota of energy.

Sun July 22, 7 PM sharp Matt Munisteri’s killer accordion/guitar jazz group Brock Mumford will be playing a sunset concert on the Hudson River at pier one at 70th St., if we’re lucky they’ll do two sets. Both the bandleader and accordionist Will Holshouser are amazing soloists and Munisteri’s clever, cerebral songwriting is the perfect vehicle for them.

Mon July 23 the quietly hooky, effectively captivating female-fronted indie rock trio Girl Friday

play the Magnetic Field in Brooklyn Heights, 8 PM, free. Check our reviews page for a look at the excellent show they played to close their residency at Lakeside last month.

Also Mon July 23 once and future Beat Rodeo frontman George Usher plays Lakeside, 10 PM. His most recent solo effort is reputedly one of the great powerpop efforts of recent years; his old band did some mighty fine stuff in that vein back in the 80s.