Lucid Culture

Smith got her start as a bartender at the old Fast Folk Café singing sea chanteys and similar ancient folk material after hours, and her first album reflected that, just stark acoustic guitar and a voice that could draw blood from a stone. Friend or Foe, her next one, was a lushly orchestrated affair, but the material was still mostly covers. This time around, Smith sings mostly her own material, a vastly diverse mix of retro styles. This is her quantum leap, an album which firmly places her in the top echelon of current Americana sirens along with Neko Case, Eleni Mandell, Jenifer Jackson et al. It may be early in the year, but if this doesn’t turn out to be the best album of 2008, something very special will have to come along to unseat it.

Although most of the album is recent material, everything here sounds like it was written no later than 1980. Both of the jangly Merseybeat numbers, Easy Now and Amanda Carolyn have an authentically mid-60s feel, as does the slinky samba-pop number Tonight. The tantalizingly brief Firefly bounces along on an impossibly catchy Carnaby Street melody. Feel You Go is a vehicle for Smith’s dazzlingly powerful soul vocals, snaking along on a Booker T riff. The best song on the album, the gorgeously swaying, country-inflected The World Is Full of Pretty Girls could be the great lost track on American Beauty, guest steel player Jon Graboff playing soaring, haunting washes against lead guitarist Dann Baker’s steady jangle.  And In Late July, with its pastoral, hypnotic layers of vocals and organ would fit well on an early 70s, pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd album.

The title track is an authentically retro, completely psychedelic cover of the obscure Judy Henske/Jerry Yester blues/metal song, originally recorded in 1969. This version gives Smith a chance to do some goosebump-inducing belting, and lets drummer Dave Campbell – who may just be the finest drummer in all of rock – show off his devious, remarkably musical sensibility with a solo simmering with all kinds of unexpected textures.  Guest organist Matt Keating spices the obscure Blow This Nightclub classic Where or When with weird, early 80s synth organ, as the bass player slams out a riff nicked directly from the Cure, circa 1980. And Smith’s lone venture into Nashville gothic here, appropriately titled Nashville, Tennessee evokes Calexico or the Friends of Dean Martinez with its eerie, tremolo guitar and haunting minor-key melody. The final cut on the album, a Beach Boys cover, may not be to everyone’s taste, but that’s beside the point. Recorded in analog on two-inch tape, Smith’s production gives this album the feel of a vinyl record, drums comfortably in the back, vocals and guitars front and center. In a particularly impressive display of generosity, the band will be giving away copies of the album to everyone in attendance at the cd release show this Friday, Jan 25 at 8 PM at the Parkside.

A pleasant reminder that group shows – this one fills two spacious floors at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center – are the ideal lazy person’s way to discover exciting new work. There’s a tantalizing abundance of that here on display through February 24.

Three striking, large oils by the most likely pseudonymous Bienvenido Bones Banez blend 1960s-style psychedelic imagery with South Indian iconography, in a blazingly colorful style that recalls the best concert posters from the Fillmore West. Heads morph into two and three, viens bulge and bones are visible as in an x-ray. The two on display here, Asian and Harlot Playing Beast are an excellent representation. His related solo show runs through Feb 10 at Amarin Café, 617 Manhattan Ave. between Driggs and Naassau in Greenpoint.

One mystery star of the show - there was no indication on the wall who this might be - contributes a dollhouse in the style of an Old West brothel, an action figure sheriff leveling his gun at the back of the oversize doll atop the structure, a sign advertising “Vote for Honest G. W. Bush for Dog-Catcher” affixed to a side wall. There’s also a similar plastic sculpture featuring small plastic doll figures posed somewhat eerily in the windows and on the landing.

The most impressive work on display here is by Argentinian-American Andrea P. Cukier, who’s someone to keep your eye on. The two oils in this show are a good representation of her otherwise powerfully captivating paintings, many of which peer out from the shadows at an illumination whose source is never visible. The two on display here layer white over an obviously meticulously prepared, dark underlayer, perhaps barbwire as seen through a mist.

Lower East Side artist Carla Cubit has two very gripping mixed media sculptures assembled from found objects. The first is West African style, mostly in wood, depicting a widow with her babies, threatened by a spider and lizard. She holds a scroll unwound to a small portion of text: “I am no queen, I sit a widow I kan not walk my journey may end here…”

Brazilian surrealist painter Karla Caprali has three large oils on display. The best shows a woman diving headfirst from what appears to be the roof of the Sistine Chapel into the wild blue yonder of outer space. In another, a Latin woman (possibly the artist herself?) gazes with some trepidation out from behind flowers as jellyfish hover behind her, with an American flag, and then distant industrial towers looming further back.

Jeffrey Berman contributes two brightly sinister, somewhat photorealistic, psychedelic oils. The first depicts a skeleton onstage – at Altamont, maybe? – holding a melting Stratocaster guitar; the second seems to be a scene at a street race, the runners’ faces menacing and distorted, perhaps zombified.

Carol Quint, one of the organizers, is a proponent of recycling and reconstruction. Her sculpture here is macabre, death-obsessed and impossible to turn away from. There’s a skeleton in a lotus position, sitting in a rocking chair, and a skull with markedly messed-up, broken teeth sitting in a chair, with what appear to be fish vertebrae combed over its head like Rudy Giuliani’s hair. The third is a skeleton in a white puffy dress.

Japanese-American surrealist Junichiro Ishida’s complex, somewhat sci-fi oriented oils seem to be loaded with symbols from Asian mythology. On one of his pieces here, a flock of orange fireballs descends against a weird, nocturnal background, with an inscription below: “The world is always burning, burning with the fires of greed, anger and ignorance. One should flee from such dangers.” Another haunting painting is an undersea scene, a couple of fish lazing alongside a submerged skull/sea urchin hybrid.

Sam Jungkurth’s two big oils here are sinister floral tableaux, ominous blue/purple interiors whose only illumination is the flowers themselves, overshadowed by the darkness.

From all indications, Jennifer Herrera is an artist whose style is still developing, but one of her abstract paintings – which looks to be oil over gesso, creating a wrinkled effect – is a striking, somewhat ominous blend of lime green and orange against off-white.

There’s also a  particularly creepy color shot by photographer Scott Weingarten - whose solo show here runs March 12-April 30 – superimposing a tree branch over a shot of a misty night in the woods, creating the effect of a ghostly child-face leering out of the background.

The show is on the second and third floor at 135 Broadway (corner of Bedford) in South Williamsburg, J/M/Z to Marcy Ave. or take the B61 bus which runs on south on Driggs toward Brooklyn Heights and on Bedford north through Williamsburg to Long Island City. Gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 PM and by appointment, 718-486-7372

Professor, the thesis of this paper is to prove what a fantastic variety of music there is to see for free in New York on the worst possible night, arguably the coldest night of the year, and a Sunday, the last day most people think of going out.  The night began at St. Thomas Church where their main organist John Scott was playing a recital. Regular readers of this page might think we have some kind of crush on this casually witty British gentleman, but it’s his playing that speaks for itself. Tonight he started with a piece from French romantic composer Henri Mulet’s magnum opus Esquisses Byzantines. Scottt kept its ostentation at a minimum, as if it was a piece for strings, and this worked wonders. Next on the program were a couple of Messiaen works from the Livre du Saint-Sacrement. The first was Messiaen at his occasionally but spectacularly dark, ambient best: Scott had played Messiaen’s The Birth of Our Lord here last month, and the work he played tonight was a welcome encore to the exhaustively haunting suite he played in December. The next piece, however, was not. Messiaen was famously enamored with the sounds of nature, in particular birdsong, and this piece, A Child Is Born to Us celebrates the birth of Christ. Messiaen’s liturgical works are not known for corresponding with textual passages, but this one actually did, effectively evoking the wonder of onlookers in the manger until the birds started chirping. At that point, one can only wonder why the church fathers wherever Messiaen was working at the time didn’t seal off his window or cut off his access to breadcrumbs.

Scott then pulled out the stops with Max Reger’s famous Morningstar Chorale. Reger’s name ought to have been Rigor. At this best, he wrote roaring organ chorales echoing Bach but more freely. Otherwise, the German romanticist is best known for his knotty, impeccably crafted pieces which can only be described as Teutonic: as scorching as Reger could be, craft often supersedes emotion in many of his compositions. Happily, that was not the case with this piece, an unusually warm, happy excursion bookended by Reger’s usual sturm und drang, and Scott brought out all the warmth he could on what would in this age of global warming be considered an unusually cold night.

Which leaves the obvious question: how to interest the kids in what performers like Scott are doing? So much of classical music is vastly more powerful, more passionate and more fun than most rock music. So how to spread the word? Repost this somewhere, where the trendoids will be mystified?

Next stop was Banjo Jim’s where Amy Allison – who wrote our pick for best song of 2007 – was playing a duo show with Rich from the Madison Square Gardeners on acoustic lead guitar. To say that he’s a quick study is an understatement: casually and deliberately, the guy wailed. Regular readers here will recall how much Allison likes playing without a net, throwing caution to the wind, bringing up new backing talent every time she plays, as if to see what happens. Tonight she played to a rapt crowd, dazzling with new songs including the wry Mardi Gras Moon and the absolutely riveting Dreamworld, wishing the best to everyone freezing on the street. Allison is such a hilarious live performer that half the time she’s cracking herself up, sometimes barely able to contain a laugh in the middle of a song, bringing the crowd along with her. With her mint citrus voice – cool and calming but with a serious bite – she treated the audience to the warm, hopeful new song Calla Lily as well as classics from her country period like Garden State Mall, as well as newer material like the potent girl-power anthem Have You No Pride, from her latest album Everything and Nothing Too. Allison is totally punk rock too: she played the whole set bleeding on her guitar, blood streaming from her index finger (she’d cut herself peeling potatoes, and the bandaid she was using wasn’t enough).

Next stop was Otto’s, where Willie Nile sideman Steve Conte and his band were wrapping up a set of predictable Detroit-style riff-rock, vintage 1978. The place was completely packed: it was impossible to get into the little back room until after he’d finished playing. It would be interesting to see him do this stuff in more spacious confines – or somewhere on Woodward, where they could find some action and where the old-school crowd would have their bullshit detectors set to stun. Richard Lloyd, the legendary Television (and most recently, Rocket from the Tombs) lead guitarist followed, leading a trio featuring his longtime drummer Billy Ficca, who proved the most interesting member of this particular unit. In the past several months, Lloyd has proven himself absolutely undiminished – as a sideman - and tonight’s show reaffirmed that.

Shaner has been playing weekends at Lakeside a lot lately, which is a great place for him. He writes subtle, catchy, generally upbeat and very smart Americana-inflected janglerock, sounding something like the Jayhawks without the melancholy or Steve Wynn in a breezy moment. With his old band Industrial Tepee he ventured into a lot of Southerwestern gothic, and there’s still plenty of that in his writing. His more upbeat songs generally have more focus than his slower, meandering stuff. He sings in a casual, conversational voice and gets great press: he needs this review like a hole in the head. But you should get to know him. Shaner was one of the many great mysteries in this city this evening, when hordes of people were willing to drop thirty bucks to see the latest poser du jour at the Gramercy or Webster Hall, while Shaner played to a midsize crowd, for free, in the back room at Lakeside. Some things just don’t make sense.

He and his backing trio opened with the bouncy Sister Satellite, dating from his Industrial Tepee days, lead guitarist Tom Clark taking a gorgeously clanging, tremolo-filled solo that was an omen of even better things to come. Shaner then did a couple of newer numbers set to a reggae beat. The drummer seemed unrehearsed, and obviously the one-drop is not his thing, but he was game, building to a tasty Jim White-style eighth-note crescendo, running all the way around the kit on the first of the two songs.

Gathered away from the stage were a gaggle of ex-sorority types, their lacrosse muscles gone to fat, eyeing Shaner like cats in a butcher shop. “You can’t be louder than the band, that’s rule number one,” Shaner gently admonished the crowd, but the posse of trendoids around the Ms. Pacman machine were oblivious as the band launched into the quietly swaying, countryish Industrial Tepee lament Rosalie. A lot of New York artists lately have been writing some pretty excoriating anti-trendoid songs, and the new one Shaner and band played tonight – perhaps titled She’s an Everyday Hipster – was subtler than most, quietly railing against the “parade of drama queens” surrounding some nameless indie rock diva.

On the fast, driving Waiting for You, Clark took the first of two blistering, spectacularly fast solos, the most potently adrenalizing display of musicianship we’ve seen all year. The band closed with Industrial Tepee’s big crowd-pleaser, Groove Queen, a ridiculously catchy, bluesy number that wouldn’t have been out of place on the Wallflowers’ first album (i.e. their really good one). That this guy isn’t a household name testifies to the sad state of the music business, not to mention what’s happened to the music scene here in recent years. At least the guys at Lakeside get it.

Glackin, who died unexpectedly earlier this month was honored tonight by a small handful of the literally hundreds who had the good fortune to share a stage or record with him. Like anyone else, musicians have different ways of coping with loss: usually, this boils down to disguising the pain with humor, drinking heavily or turning up really loud. Tonight there was plenty of all of the above. “This band will never be the same,” Jack Grace told the packed house, and he was right. Glackin was his lead player, on steel, and pretty much defined the sound of the band with his soaring, ringing washes of country soul and his fiery, terse, incisively bluesy solos. Glackin may not have been a nasty person, but his solos were. In country music, it’s so easy to fall into clichés, playing the same licks that have been Nashville staples for decades, but Glackin always avoided that trap. Taking his spot tonight on steel was Mike Neer, who to his credit didn’t try to hit the same highs Glackin would typically reach on a given night. The ex-Moonlighter is a purist and knew to hang back when necessary. Bill Malchow played honkytonk piano, and Grace’s wife Daria was at the top of her game, groovewise: it’s hard to think of a more fluid, spot-on country bass player. And she’s basically a rocker.

For some reason (a Glackin idea come to life?) the band also featured two drummers, Bruce Martin and Russ Meissner sharing what looked like a kit and a half. Grace is a great showman, and to his credit he played to the crowd as if this was a typical weekend at the Rodeo. The high points of his all-too-brief set came at the end where he went from absolutely white-knuckle intense, singing “angels, take him away” on an old country gospel number, then bringing back the levity with his big audience hit Worm Farm.  Grace explained that he’d written it during a period when pretty much all he could write was sad songs, and considering what the evening was all about, it hit the spot. In the middle of the song, Grace segued into a Joni Mitchell song for a couple of bars, complete with falsetto, just to prove that he hadn’t lost his sensitivity, and this was predictably amusing.

From the first scream from Walter Salas-Humara’s Telecaster, the Silos came out wailing, hard. Glackin’s replacement was Rod Hohl, best known for his sizzling guitar work, but as he proved tonight he’s also an excellent bassist. The band played a tantalizingly brief set of bristling indie rock, with Eric Ambel from Steve Earle’s band sitting in on second guitar. The high point was a thirteen-minute cover of a Glackin favorite, the Jonathan Richman chestnut I’m Straight, wherein the two guitarists faced off, trading licks throughout a blisteringly noisy duel every bit as good as anything Steve Wynn ever did. Nice to see Roscoe playing noise-rock again, something he’s very good at but hardly ever does anymore. His wife Mary Lee Kortes provided searing high harmonies on one tune with a recurrent chorus motif of (if memory serves right) “keep your dreams away from your life.” The band didn’t dedicate it to Glackin, but they might as well have: the guy never sold out. Which probably did him in. Very sad to say that if he’d been Canadian (or British, or Dutch, or French, or Cuban, for that matter), he would have had health insurance and the doctors would have detected the thyroid condition that went undiagnosed for too long.

Daria Grace’s band was scheduled to play next, but it was time to head east before the downtown 6 train stopped running (as it turned out, it already had), so that meant a 14-block walk south in the rain and a crosstown bus over to Banjo Jim’s for a nightcap. Which turned out to be a particularly good choice, because the Deciders were still onstage. They’re Elena Skye and Boo Reiners from Demolition String Band plus Lenny Kaye from Patti Smith’s band on pedal steel, plus a rhythm section. Tonight their bassist couldn’t make it, but that didn’t matter. Hearing Skye’s intense, emotionally charged voice in such small confines was a special treat, and watching Reiners and Kaye trade off on a bunch of DSB originals was fascinating to watch. Kaye’s guitar playing is edgy, incisive and potently melodic, but tonight he left that role to Reiners, instead playing fluid washes of sound in a call-and-response with the guitar. The high point of the night was a potently riff-driven new Skye song, Your Wish, from her band’s new album Different Kinds of Love, benefiting vastly from the energy of having two killer electric lead players sharing a stage. They finally shut it down after midnight. Just when it’s tempting to say that it’s time to stick a fork in New York and head out for parts unknown, the devil you know rears its head and reminds you why you haven’t left yet. Nights like this make it all worthwhile.

Scott is a real find, with a very high ceiling. He’s been playing Wednesdays at around 8:30 at this remarkably comfortable little corner bar for awhile now. His stock in trade is Mississippi hill country blues, which doesn’t sound much like blues from the Delta: it’s deceptively simple and usually very hypnotic, often set to a fast 2/4 dance beat. Because there aren’t many (if any) chord changes, players color the music with subtle changes in the rhythm, accents and passing tones on the guitar. Scott has masterful command of the style. For an artist playing idiomatic music, to say that it’s hard to tell the difference between his originals and his covers is high praise, and sometimes it was hard to tell. Other times it wasn’t, because Scott uses the style as a springboard for his writing and adds a lot more chords (and a lot more tunefulness). Running his acoustic through a little Ampeg amp and backed by an excellent drummer with an equally good feel for this kind of music, if you closed your eyes, it was as if T-Model Ford and his sidekick Spam were holding down the beat in some rundown Mississippi shotgun shack. Except that it was really cold outside.

Scott opened with what sounded like a tribute to Junior Kimbrough, thoughtful and meandering but with considerable minor-key bite, in the late, lamented bluesman’s trademark style. Most of the songs he played afterward – again, it was difficult to tell what were his and what weren’t – were short and fast. Scott’s fingerpicking was fiery, fast and effortless, and so were his vocals. He sings with a drawl, but like his playing, it sounds effortless and authentic, not like the legions of trust-fund children from New Jersey playing Pete’s Candy Store, pretending they’re from the deep South. Maybe it works for Scott because his voice is strong: he’s not exactly afraid of the mic. “In case you were wondering, this show was brought to you by whiskey,” he joked. He was already working on his second glass of Jameson’s by the third song of his set. “It’s a multinational corporation.”

It’s not often that we run across someone who under today’s circumstances might actually be able to reach a national audience. At this point, even most indie labels are keeping nonconformist musicians at arm’s length. But there always seems to be an audience for the blues, even if it barely qualifies as blues and it’s played by beerbellied fifty-year-olds from Westchester who think Eric Clapton is a bluesman. Being white, Scott could probably make a living introducing sedate suburban audiences to the music he loves so much, for $25 a ticket, at places too fearful to book someone like, say, R.L. Burnside. He’d be perfect on that bill coming up at the Town Hall next month: he’s a whole lot more interesting than Cephas and Wiggins. When he moves on to that sort of thing, let’s hope he doesn’t forget he got his start in New York playing a midweek residency at a tiny, laid-back little place in Dumbo.  That’s where he is for the moment. You should see him sometime.

On the left wall as you enter the former Mickey’s Blue Room space ( on Ave, C between 10th and 11th, and it hasn’t changed one iota since it reopened with the new name), there are several of Heaven’s playful, simple early punk era-style oil pastels: a big green dollar sign and similar. Over the door to the inner room hangs a striking, troubling, bespectacled portrait of Jesse Helms, a big red smear running across his head: wishful thinking? To the far right is a gray-toned portrait which may be a self-portrait; front and center over the bar is the best piece in the show, another in shades of grey which positions what looks like the inner part of the ear next to what could be a covered bridge. It’s captivating, to say the least.

Marcelo Goycoechea, whose work is displayed in the inner room, has a terrific sense of humor. There’s a parody of Guernica substituting cartoon faces for the anguish of the dead, and this guy’s Mona Lisa has the face of a pig. The rest of the show both mocks and pays homage to Salvador Dali, with the exception of the big oil painting to the right of the small stage which looks like a reverse image of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.  The show runs through the middle of February, so there’s still plenty of time for you to check this out the next time you’re in alphabetland.Since tonight was the opening party, there was also a small gathering in the back, with a handful of musicians from the scene doing short sets. The former violin player from the New Professionals breezed through a medley of motifs from several classical pieces, solo, before singing a goth-inflected song. After an interminable set by a couple of women playing acoustic guitar, and then some technical difficulties, Sousalves took the stage, just frontman/guitarist Paul Alves and his drummer playing a small kit. It was good to have the drums, because it freed Alves to throw in the frequently eerie, disturbing little chordlets that he uses to spice up the melody. He mixed what sounded like newer material along with songs from Sousalves’ latest album Spirit of NYC Woman, including the hallucinatory Tail Another Chase. Although Alves was playing acoustic, he would alternate between playing straight into the system and hitting his wah-wah pedal, which he’d left wide open for a flange effect. It would have been nice to see him play longer, but this show was really all about the art. Nothing wrong with that.

It’s always nice to have a scoop, but every once in awhile something comes over the transom that’s so good that it merits a writeup even if it’s not exactly news. This cd was recorded a few years ago and slipped under our radar, but it’s good to report that the band is still together and playing regularly. These passionately intelligent jazz purists did a show last year at Small’s, which is how the album came to our attention. A quintet with piano, trumpet, tenor or soprano sax and rhythm section, they play vivid songs without words with an uncommon chemistry. A lot of jazz albums take their cue from putting players together to see what they can brew up on the spot, and more often than not the result is a showcase for the individuals rather than an ensemble effort. This, auspiciously, is the latter: every band member gets to solo, but it’s not the usual ostentatious parade of solos around the horn, ad infinitum. Everybody’s working within the songs.

Because this is an album of songs. Like Pamela Fleming or Kenny Garrett, the Flail like using big, memorable hooks as a jumpoff point. The opening track on the album, As You Like, has pianist Brian Marsella’s big, broad chords building a sturdy ladder for saxist Stephan Moutot to take off and climb. The following track, composed by trumpeter/bandleader Dan Blankinship has the piano and drums pairing off against each other as the sax and then trumpet go into exploratory mode, alternately boisterous and buoyant.

The next cut, Life Before the Rerun gets off to a flying start with a drum solo and then trumpet over a fast, loping bassline, venturing closer to bop than  the rest of the album. Track four, Once, another Blankinship composition has the trumpeter building tensely and insistently to a crescendo and then passing the baton to Moutot, who ably steers the tune through high seas and brings it to comfortably to land. The gorgeously catchy Just About to Be layers coloristic piano and horns over a staccato bass pulse, building to an attractively precise Marsella solo. And then Moutot goes out exploring on soprano: it’s not the discovery that matters here, just the thrill of the chase. Bassist Reid Taylor’s Butterscotch is an idiomatic, torchy wee-hours ballad that would make a great addition to a slow-grooves mix.

Fraggle’s Car Got Toad begins with a relaxed Marsella piano solo and then picks up the pace in a split-second when Taylor comes in, building to a swinging, perhaps predictably jarring crescendo as the title would imply. After drummer Matt Zebroski’s soulful, gorgeously Middle Eastern-inflected 6/8 piano ballad We Travel, the cd closes with Blankinship’s title track, a magnificent, extended tour de force building from a haunting bass solo to where all guns are blazing, again with Middle Eastern tinges. It’s not every day that something this consistently gripping and exciting arrives in the mail. Fans of great melodic jazz: Brad Melhdau’s Art of the Trio Series, the aforementioned Pam Fleming and Ellington at his catchiest should definitely seek this out. The Flail plays the Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St. at 8:30 PM on Feb 27.

If you don’t recognize a club listed here, click on Venues, to your right, under Categories, and scroll down. Check back for frequent updates, as we update this pretty much every day: since a lot of venues and bands don’t announce concerts until only a few days beforehand, we’re always playing catchup. Apologies if fonts and/or spacing are a little bizarre: it’s the gremlins, not us.First, the good things that happen every week

Every Sunday the Ear-Regulars, led by trumpeter Jon Kellso and guitarist Matt Munisteri play NYC’s only weekly hot jazz session starting around 8 PM at the Ear Inn on Spring St.  Hard to believe, in the city that springboarded the careers of thousands of jazz legends, but true. This is by far the best value in town for marquee-caliber jazz: for the price of a drink and a tip for the band, you can see world-famous players (and brilliant obscure ones) you’d usually have to drop $100 for at some big-ticket room. The material is mostly old-time stuff from the 30s and 40s, but the players (especially Kellso and Munisteri, who have a chemistry that goes back several years) push it into some deliciously unexpected places. Munisteri is also playing an 8 PM residency every Monday through the end of January at Banjo Jim’s, where you can get to hear his brilliantly literate, lyrical original songs.

Also Sundays in January, Matty Charles plays his soulful, understated country originals at Pete’s, 8:30 PM

Also every Sunday excellent country twangsters Sean Kershaw & the New Jack Ramblers play Hank’s in Brooklyn around 9:30ish, frequently with special guests or a guest band after the previous event, the weekly rock jam, is over. No cover, with free barbecue and sausage. Definitely your best bet if your stomach is empty and you like this sort of thing

Also on Sundays, there are free, 5:15 PM organ recitals at St. Thomas Church. This is a prestige venue for touring organists from around the world, the sonics are spectacularly good and so is the old Skinner organ

Mondays in January (and pretty much every month, when he’s not on tour), Rev. Vince Anderson and his band play Black Betty in Williamsburg, two sets starting around 10:30 PM. The Rev. is one of the great keyboardists around, equally thrilling on organ or electric piano, an expert at Billy Preston style funk, honkytonk, gospel and blues. He writes very funny, very politically astute, frequently salacious original gospel songs and is one of the great live performers of our time. Moist Paula from Moisturizer is the lead soloist on baritone sax

Also Mondays the Barbes house band, Chicha Libre plays there starting around 10. They’ve singlehandedly resurrected an amazing subgenre, chicha, which was popular in the Peruvian Amazon in the late 60s and early 70s. With electric accordion, cuatro, surf guitar and a boisterous rhythm section, their mix of obscure classics and originals is one of the funnest, most danceable things you’ll witness this year. Perhaps not so strangely, they sound a lot like Finnish surf rockers Laika and the Cosmonauts in their most imaginative moments.  

Tues Jan 15 The Old Rugged Sauce plays Lakeside, 10 PM. This terrific bunch of old-school Williamsburg types (i.e. pre-luxury condo people) play rousing, very smart, imaginatively arranged covers of classic vocal jazz songs. This is the kind of show where you could drag someone you know who hates jazz and at the end of the night, that person would be singing along. They’re also playing here on Feb 12 at 10.                                                    

Jan 16 and every Weds through the end of the month, guitarist Will Scott and drummer Wylie Wirth play authentic acoustic Mississippi hill country blues at 68 Jay St. Bar, walk all the way down Jay until you come to the end of the building: it’s on the north side, facing what would be the water if there wasn’t a building in front of it. Imagine T-Model Ford with a better, i.e. less sludgy guitar sound and you’re on the right track.

Thurs Jan 17, 9 PM the best triple bill of this new year featuring sultry Roulette Sisters frontwoman/National steel guitarist Mamie Minch, superb oldtimey country singer Jan Bell & the Cheap Dates and Will Scott. It’s a cancer benefit  at Bait & Tackle, 320 Van Brunt (at Pioneer St) Red Hook, B61 bus to the end of the line.

Also Thurs Jan 17 subtle, smartly literate acoustic songwriter Vered Ronen plays Symphony Space, 9 PM, free. Understatedly good voice, good sense of metaphor and an uncommon terseness: she makes all her words and her hooks count for something.

Also Thurs Jan 17 hilarious country parody band the Inbreeds play Hank’s, 9 PM. As funny - and as politically aware - as Tammy Faye Starlite, which is high praise. They’re also playing Midway at 8 PM on Jan 24. 

Also Thurs Jan 17, there’s a tribute show in memory of fiery, well-loved string-slinger Drew Glackin at Rodeo Bar, 10 PM with innumerable ex-bandmates from the Jack Grace Band, the Silos, Tandy, Eric Ambel and others.

Also Thurs Jan 17 the Deciders – which is Boo Reiners and Elena Skye from twangmeisters Demolition String Band, plus Lenny Kaye from Patti Smith’s band play Banjo Jim’s, 11ish. Talk about a supergroup. Only in New York, kids.

Also Thurs Jan 17 if you can’t make it to Matt Munisteri’s umpteen other shows this month, he’s also at Barbes at 10 PM.

Fri Jan 18 and Sat Jan 19 the Burnt Sugar Arkestra plays the Kitchen, 8 PM, pricy, but where else can you see about 50 of the best musicians in town onstage playing sprawling, psychedelic, one-chord jams as Greg Tate conducts from behind his bass?  Well, you can see them at Zebulon on Feb 13 at 10 if you want.

Also Fri Jan 18, 8:30 PM at Desmond’s, charmingly jangly female-fronted quartet Swagg open the night, followed by the Sisters (whoever they are – they don’t exactly pop up if you google them) and then ferocious Ramones/Billy Childish influenced garage rockers 18 at around 10:30. Cocaine and Abel do their nails-down-the-blackboard noise-rock instrumentals afterward, belligerently and proficiently, if you really like that sort of thing.

Also Fri Jan 18 genius guitarist Oren Bloedow and sultry goth siren Jennifer Charles’ predictably dark, psychedelic band Elysian Fields does a stripped down duo or trio show – hard to tell from the website – at the Stone on Ave. C, 10 PM.

Also Fri Jan 18 the Mooney Suzuki headlines Luna, 11 PM. Are they third or fourth-generation garage rockers? Either way, they sound pretty much like the first wave, i.e. the MC5, don’t do anything that would differentiate them from anyone else, but they completely kick ass at what they do.

Also Fri Jan 18 fiery highway rockers the Sloe Guns play the Underscore (the former Hogs & Heifers on upper First Ave.), 10 PM. Their new material rocks harder than ever, frontman Eric Alter is playing a lot of lead guitar and they finally have the right drummer. One of the best live bands in town right now.

Also Fri Jan 18 another of the best live bands in town, brilliant politically-charged orchestrated rockers Melomane play Union Hall, 10ish. Lush textures with horns, strings, guitars and keyboards, and frontman Pierre de Gaillande’s ongoing “disaster song cycle” continues to scare and amaze.

Also Fri Jan 18 former Industrial Tepee frontman Tom Shaner plays Lakeside, 11 PM. Always worth seeing what this excellent, Americana-steeped songwriter (and southwestern gothic specialist) is up to.

Sat Jan 19 starting early (4 PM) it’s opening reception for the annual Williamsburg Salon Art Club Show, 135 Broadway (at Bedford) in South Williamsburg. As usual it’s a group show with a ton of people showing, but there’s always something worth checking out here.

Also Sat Jan 19 Jack Grace’s excellent bass-playing wife Daria picks up her ukelele and plays with her oldtimey band the Prewar Ponies at Barbes, 8 PM. Sultry jazz/pop chanteuse Sasha Dobson follows on the bill; Melomane spinoff The Snow (who sound pretty much the same as Melomane except with more harmonies and maybe a little more of a jazz feel) headline.

Also Sat Jan 19 the amusingly titled Pennsylvania band Drink Up Buttercup play around 10 PM at Cake Shop. Their myspace indicates that they mix a sort of faux cockney punk with ska, which is somewhat silly but they probably give 100% live.

Also Sat Jan 19 Ninth House plays Hank’s, 11 PM. The Nashville gothic quintet has never sounded better, with the keys and the violin taking center stage more and more, jamming out intros and outros, and ominous baritone frontman Mark Sinnis has never seemed as at ease or having so much fun as he clearly is with this latest incarnation of the band.  

Also Sun Jan 20 Gil Scott-Heron plays what used to be an annual thing for him, his MLK day celebration at SOB’s, two shows starting at 7 and 10 PM, $23 advance tix available at the box office. No idea of how much he has left since he got out of jail, or whether or not he’s on the pipe, but back in the day there was no more politically potent or charismatic performer than this guy, his Fender Rhodes piano and killer funk/jazz band.

Also Sun Jan 20, the website at Otto’s lists a “Richard Lloyd and the Sufi Monkey Trio.” We have no idea if this is the legendary Television guitarist, but if you’re in the neighborhood, it’s free.

Tues Jan 22 Great White plays Don Hill’s. We hope the fire exits are working and that the club has insurance. And that the NYFD knows about this.

Also Tues Jan 22 brilliant violinist Jenny Scheinman plays another early show at Barbes, 7 PM. Pegged as jazz but adept at classical, gypsy music and even country, she’s somebody you ought to see at some point. She’s also playing Jan 29 here at 7, followed by the boisterous, danceable Slavic Soul Party.

Also Tues Jan 22 a bill at Luna bookended by two interesting acts. Lauren Zettler, who opens the show around 7:30 is a singer-songwriter playing melodic jazz-inflected pop. Her lyrics aren’t much but her tunes are good. After a horrid female-fronted disco act and one of the sidemen from the headliner adding weight to the argument that some sidemen should stay sidemen, Olivia & the Housemates top the bill around 11. They play catchy, very smartly constructed janglepop and have horns on the recorded stuff. They sound like they would have great energy live.

Also Tues Jan 22 the Dirty Novels, New Mexico’s authentically jangly, powerful version of the 13th Floor Elevators play Lit, 10 PM.

Also Tues Jan 22 through Jan 27 the Brad Mehldau Trio plays the Vanguard. Yeah, the piano player is a compulsive weirdo and probably thinks way too much for his own good, but his Art of the Trio albums are the real deal. And this is where he made them. And he always has a great rhythm section behind him.

Weds Jan 23, 8 PM sharp LJ Murphy plays Trash Bar, solo acoustic. One of the great charismatic showmen of our time, a dazzling, powerful, funny, social aware lyricist and master of oldschool R&B-inflected hit songwriting, somebody who rocks just as hard and writes just as well as Elvis Costello did in his prime. And he’s something of a fashion icon in his immaculate black suit, porkpie hat and shades.

Also Weds Jan 23 soaring retro British pop revivalists the Bedsit Poets, featuring Amanda Thorpe and her Linda Thompson-esque vocals, play Banjo Jim’s at 8:30 PM followed by the equally authentique Marni Rice and Le Garage Cabaret, most likely doing her very compelling Edith Piaf thing.

Also Weds Jan 23, 10 PM, fiery, female-fronted art-rockers System Noise play R Bar, 10 PM. Scorching chromatic guitar, brutal crescendos, devilish time signatures and one of the most powerful frontwomen in rock. And a smart political sensibility and some surprisingly funky danceable stuff too. See them if you like noise and you’re not afraid to dance.

Thurs Jan 24 and Fri Jan 25 it’s the Other Half festival at Barbes starting around at 8 each night, featuring original compositions played by female composers in many genres. A laudable concept, along the lines of what Jessica Valiente’s been doing at the Nuyorican. Be adventurous, check it out.

Also Thurs Jan 24 what promises to be a killer triple bill at Banjo Jim’s with the brilliant, haunting, soaring Britfolk chanteuse Amanda Thorpe at 7, then the debut of new trio the Smalls featuring equally brilliant keyboardist/singer Greta Gertler along with Rob Jost and Jonathan Maron, then the debut performance of the prosaically named NA Folk Band, a Eastern European expat string quartet playing gypsy music. Let’s hope the PA is working ok.

Also Thurs Jan 24 Darrin James plays Luna around 9 with his band. Tom Waits is the glaringly obvious influence, but this guy is more than an imitator. He’s a good lyricist, likes his minor-key blues and has a terrific supporting cast behind him.

Also Thurs Jan 24 Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. play the Lucky Cat in Williamsburg at 9. Genuine 1954-style retro immediately pre-rockabilly honkytonk trio with what can be very amusing contemporary lyrics, and great western swing inflected guitar.  They’re also playing their monthly gig at Otto’s on Jan 31 at 8:30 and then on Sat Feb 2 at Freddy’s.

Fri Jan 25 there’s what promises to be a beguiling photo opening, a group show with selections from Moment: Une Review de Photo starting at 6 PM at Safe-T Gallery, 111 Front St., gallery 214 in Dumbo. The reliably dark Galina Kurlat will no doubt have something pensive and somewhat inscrutable to contribute.

Fri Jan 25 it’s Erica Smith & the 99 Cent Dreams’ cd release show for their new one, Snowblind at the Parkside, 8 PM. Smith is New York’s answer to Neko Case or Eleni Mandell, a spellbinding singer and master of any Americana genre she touches. Lately she’s been going further in a jazz direction; the cd is a remarkably diverse, emotionally gripping mix of janglerock, pastoral psychedelia, samba, country and even a heavy metal song. The hilarious, completely inspiring Tom Warnick & World’s Fair headline with their somewhat twisted, literate keyboard-driven rock at 9. He’s one of the most charismatic showmen around, stick around if you’re going to this one.

Also Fri Jan 25 Soul Cycle plays Bam Café, 9 PM. All instrumental downtempo soul grooves with sax, flute, keys and rhythm section. Some would call this elevator jazz, others would say it’s funky. If you like the Crusaders or late 70s Steely Dan, check them out. They’re also playing at Frank’s Cocktail Lounge, 660 Fulton St (corner of Lafayette) on Feb 21.

Also Fri Jan 25 twangy, propulsive Bodeans soundalikes the Eric Stuart Band play the Ace of Clubs, 9 PM.

Also Fri Jan 25, Blue Oyster Cult plays Irving Plaza, 9 PM, advance tix available at the box office. They’ve all got to be close to 60 now but a recent DVD reveals that lead player Donald Roeser AKA Buck Dharma still has his spectacular guitar chops intact, the rest of the original members (the keyboardist/rhythm player and frontman) are still lucid and the young-gun rhythm section is as good as the originals.

Also Fri Jan 25 it’s Neil Young night w/ Walter Salas-Humara from the Silos, Steve Wynn & Eric “Roscoe” Ambel from Steve Earle’s band at Lakeside, show starts around 10:30 PM. Hopefully Roscoe’s wrist has recovered from the bike accident; the other guys on the bill share his fondness for electric Neil and ability to get similarly evil and dirty.

Also Fri Jan 25, 11 PM Pink Noise plays Zebulon. If you can get close enough to the stage, you’ll hear two eerie, reverb-laden chromatic guitars, one of them Steve Ulrich from Big Lazy, plus percussion. They sound pretty much like Big Lazy, in other words, incredible.

Also Fri Jan 25 the reliably amusing faux-French garage rockers Les Sans Culottes – now with the brilliant Gina Rodriguez from Moisturizer holding down the bass – play Otto’s, midnight.

Sat Jan 26 a terrific gypsy rock night at Luna starting around 8 with keyboard/bass stoner instrumental duo Tzar, followed by the mesmerizing J-San & the Analogue Sons, who play hypnotic live dub reggae instrumentals, then Guignol feat. members of World Inferno doing noir accordion klezmer instrumentals and then potently danceable female-fronted gypsy rockers Nanuchka to wind up the night. Guignol claim to be advocates of “red wine theft,” which definitely gets our seal of approval.

Also Sat Jan 26 for anyone with fond memories of Brownies, ten years ago, The Scene Is Now is still together and from all accounts as good as ever. They’re playing Cake Shop at 9.

Also Sat Jan 26 Erin Regan plays at 10 PM at Sidewalk. Her stage persona is icy and dismissive; her lyrics could cut through bulletproof glass. An understated master of the outsider anthem with a good sense of melody.

Also Sat Jan 26 clever, politically charged Americana duo Kill Henry Sugar play Barbes, 10 PM. Just guitar or lapsteel and drums, smart lyrics, witty stage banter and some understatedly good tunes. 

Also Sat Jan 26 legendary rockabilly/surf monsters Simon & the Bar Sinisters play Lakeside, 11 PM. Strange to see Simon taking a gig that doesn’t pay - maybe this a rehearsal for something more lucrative. Whatever the case, he’s been around forever, an 80s LES punk who discovered the Ventures and surfing and writes hilariously authentic retro 50s songs.  They’re also playing here on Feb 9 at 11.

Also Sat Jan 26 amazing, volcanically powerful garage/surf rockers the Brimstones play Otto’s, 11 PM. If volume and energy are your thing, don’t miss this show.

The afternoon Randi Russo show that we mentioned for Jan 27 in the most recent version of this calendar is not happening. Just wanted you to know. She’s playing Cake Shop with her band on March 7 at 9. Brilliant lyrical chanteuse Linda Draper opens the night around 7:30

Sun Jan 27 the incomparable Amy Allison plays Banjo Jim’s, probably playing two sets (or at least one long one) starting early at 7 PM. She was country and still plays the hits, but her new stuff is more rock-oriented, haunting and absolutely gorgeous. Just like her voice. And she’s just as hilarious a performer as always. Get there early so you can get a seat: this is a cozy place. She’s also playing here at 7 on Feb 10.    

Mon Jan 28 the Red Hook Ramblers, a loosely knit conglomeration of A-list oldtimey pickers plays Otto’s at 9 PM.

Starting Tues Jan 29 and continuing, smartly lyrical jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein leads a trio with killer organist Larry Goldings and percussionist Bill Stewart at the Vanguard. These guys have a history and a chemistry, and they’re all about the song and the melody. Highly recommended.

Also Tues Jan 29 legendary beat poet multi-instrumentalist/composer David Amram plays Goodbye Blue Mondays in Bushwick, 9ish, with his daughter Alana also on the bill. Amram is one of the hardest working musicians ever, to rival B.B. King, a goodwill ambassador from a better time and place. And for a better time and place. That he’d play this dump is proof of how cool he still is, past the age of 70.

Also Tues Jan 29 Johnny Allen plays Terra Blues on Bleecker, 10 PM. A genuine, bonafide soul/blues crooner with powerful, incisive guitar chops: when he hits the volume pedal and starts to solo, duck. He could hurt you. He does a killer cover of the Albert Collins classic I’m Not Drunk (I’m Just Drinking).    

Thurs Jan 31 former Gang Starr frontman Guru’s Jazzmatazz plays the Highline Ballroom, 9 PM, advance tix highly recommended. Dave Sanborn and Bob James are on the latest album, Vol. 4 which could be good or bad. Appropriate that they’d do this show at this upscale stoner venue.

Fri Feb 1 World Inferno plays their sprawling, very entertaining, gypsy-inflected ska-punk with probably all dozen of their singers, horn section, keys, etc. at Bowery Ballroom, 9 PM, adv tix available at the Mercury and absolutely necessary for this one.  

Also Fri Feb 1 long-running punk rockers the US Bombs headline Luna at 11 PM. Smart, tuneful, fond of minor keys, politically aware, i.e. everything that the Warped Tour bands were not.

Sat Feb 2 killer DC guitarist Bobby Radcliff plays an early show at Terra Blues, 7 PM. Not sure if this is acoustic or electric; either way, he plays a whole lot of notes but makes all of them count, similar to late-period Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Also Sat Feb 2, a killer surf show starting at 10 at Otto’s with the somewhat legendary New York purists the Supertones, followed by El Muchacho, the furious and macabre Coffin Daggers and the Sea Devils bringing things full circle with their collection of retro classics and brillliant obscurities.

Mon Feb 4 Sean Kershaw & the New Jack Ramblers venture out of their weekly Hank’s hideaway and play their bracingly tuneful, musically superb country and honkytonk at Otto’s, 10 PM.  

Fri Feb 8 and Sat Feb 9 the Cannabis Cup Band plays their annual Bob Marley birthday shows at B.B. Kings, not cheap ($20 advance tix), but authentic roots reggae is in short supply now and these guys really have a handle on it.

Sun Feb 10 at 3 PM, the Greenwich Village Orchestra plays the famous, dramatic Brahms violin concerto and then Shostakovich’s landmark Tenth Symphony – released right after Stalin’s death, and containing a somewhat gruesome musical epitaph for the tyrant -  along with other pieces at Washington Irving HS auditorium, 16th St. and Irving Place, your best deal in town for classical music, just a $15 contribution.

Tues Feb 12 wild, fiery cajun/honkytonkers the Doc Marshalls play Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. They alternate between scorching accordion-driven zydeco stomps and twanging, swinging old-time, i.e. early 1960s country songs. If their myspace is any indication, they put on a hell of a show.

Fri Feb 15 Sharon Jones plays the Beacon, a great place to see this era’s greatest soul singer and her killer band, showtime is 8 PM, advance tix absolutely necessary ($25 but worth it) and available at the box office.

Also Fri Feb 15 long-running, completely authentic horn/organ/guitar-driven ska rockers the Slackers – whose International War Criminal ep was a mighty slap upside the head of the Bush regime – play Luna, 11 PM.

Sat Feb 16, 11 PM second-generation Boston garage revivalists the Lyres headline at Midway. No idea how lucid organist/frontman Jeff Connolly is at this point, but back in the day they were reliably one of the best live acts around.

Thurs Feb 21 pounding noise-rock instrumentalists the Big Sleep, the missing link between My Bloody Valentine and, say, Slowdive, headline the Mercury, 11 PM. They bring at least ten grand worth of equipment to every show and get every last spark out of it.

Fri Feb 22 Laura Cantrell plays Union Hall, 9 PM, get there early because the little downstairs room will sell out. She hasn’t played out a lot lately since she’s been busy with the kid. Most likely she’ll do a mix of her incredibly authentic oldschool country as well as her very compelling, more recent Americana rock stuff.

Sat Feb 23 sprawling, bacchanalian, brilliantly pan-global twin harmonica-driven rockers Hazmat Modine play an early show, one set at Terra Blues, 7 PM. One of the best live bands on the planet.

Sun Feb 24 Catspaw play Otto’s, 8 PM. Their most recent show at Hank’s found them with a new bass player, revitalized, twangier and catchier than ever doing their mix of rockabilly, surf and janglerock.

Tues Feb 26 incisive, authentic, old-school blues guitarist/singer Johnny Allen plays Terra Blues. A great soloist – when he hits his volume pedal and starts to wail, look out – as well as a terrifically soulful vocalist.

Weds Feb 27, uncommonly melodic, song-oriented jazz quintet the Flail plays the Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St., 2 sets starting at 8:30 PM.

Fri Feb 29 the English Beat apparently has regrouped and plays Irving Plaza, time TBA, adv tix available and probably necessary. One of the best of the second-wave UK ska bands from the late 70s/early 80s, their songs are more rock-oriented and original than any of their colleagues. You’ll no doubt have to elbow your way through a bunch of aging fratboys for whom Mirror in the Bathroom was a delirious after-midnight dancefloor hit.

Citing unidentified law enforcement personnel, the Albany Times Union reported yesterday that corporate black pop singer Mary J. Blige, hip-hop artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and comedian/actor Tyler Perry may have purchased steroids and/or human growth hormone. Paradoxically, law enforcement sources also stated that it does not appear that any of these performers have violated any law in connection with their alleged purchases.  Given what we know about steroid usage in major league baseball, the NFL and the NBA, we can extrapolate who else might be juicing,

Take L’il Kim, for example: she’s tiny. Less than five feet tall and topheavy, she could use a little something extra for those strenuous live shows she used to do before she went to jail. Foxy Brown, punching out that girl at the nail parlor? ‘Roid rage, plain as day. Naomi Campbell brutalizing one nanny after another? Gotta be the juice talking.

Bob Marley died of cancer, young. Very common in steroid abusers. And steroids are legal in Jamaica. Eazy-E? That wasn’t AIDS, that was his body breaking down from all the crap he was shooting up. Wilson Pickett and Nina Simone? Juicers often turn to drugs and alcohol. Ike Turner? As classic a juicer as there ever was.

And while we’re at it, what about Richard Wright? How did he get the energy to write Black Boy when he was sweating behind that dishwasher for 80 hours a week? He died young, too. Donald Goines? If you read between the lines, you’ll see that heroin is really just code for steroids. Zora Neale Hurston? She kept her looks for a real long time. They had HGH back during the Harlem Rennaissance too.

And in case you were wondering when we were going to get to all the white steroid abusers…well, white people don’t do steroids. Just ask Roger Clemens.