Lucid Culture

Bourgeois is on to something, not particularly subtle, but sometimes you have to hit people between the eyes to make a point. This collection of graphite drawings demonstrates superb technique and an impressive political awareness. For anyone who believes that being politically aware is a sine qua non among artists, we have two words for you: Jeff Koons.

In the same vein as Tom Tomorrow or Winston Smith’s collages, Bourgeois takes 1950s graphic iconography and twists it into some disturbingly familiar images. The best is a parable of pill-popping, a couple of laboratory beakers filled with trompe l’oeil pills layered one on top of the other, “up” arrows at the mouth of the glass. These serve as the bodies for the heads above themn, a vast array of pipes and tubing in the background a la the movie Brazil.

There’s another one which essentially parodies the pre-Renaissance painted religious icon. This woman is wearing an actual face mask (true to life, it’s dirty and dusty) and a battery motor where her heart should be, an inset picturing a pair of hands balled into fists, bound and stymied. And as you walk in the door, there’s another showing a woman actually popping a pill, chemistry equations and a lab diagram off to the side. Suffice it to say that it doesn’t appear that any of this was created while under the influence of Prozac. We need to see more of this artist. At Ch’i Contemporary Fine Art, 293 Grand St., Williamsburg, Weds-Sun 11 AM-7 PM, through March 10.

Something we assuredly do NOT need to see more of is on display at the Like the Spice Gallery. Rachel Beach and Nora Herting have a series of photos called “Flip:” the flyer for the show says it “features the work of two artists working with contradiction and ambiguity.” There’s absolutely nothing ambiguous here: it’s color shots of cheerleaders, all of whom seem to have their skirts around their waists and their legs spread. There’s nothing erotic about it – these are children, all of them prepubescent and all seemingly unaware that they were being photographed. And this isn’t silly stuff in the spirit of a giggling eight-year-old exclaiming, “Look, Mommy, you can see my hoo-hoo!” Could this be a graphic depiction of how women are objectified and exploited, starting in early childhood? Doubtful. If two men put on this very same show, they’d be pilloried. This is as “artistic” as Jock Sturges. Shame on them.

Marisa at Like the Spice Gallery responds:

“ I came across your review today. I will in no way attempt to
change your view of the show but there are several factual errors in
your review I would like you to be aware of.“Flip” is the exhibition’s title and not the name of the photographic
series of cheerleaders which is entitled “Spirit”.

Curator Cecilia Mulhstein has pulled together some terrific shots from the well-liked art photo journal, making it well worth a trip to the Safe-T Gallery, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, i.e. in DUMBO this weekend before the exhibit closes on February 3. Galina Kurlat steals the show: as usual, her photos literally reach out and grab you. Her current focus is the traces of experience (translation: trauma) left on skin. There are sepia-toned close-ups of a woman reaching around and violently grabbing herself from behind; a hard-to-identify, grotesque shot of folds of flesh, and what appears to be a scar on the bottom of someone’s foot. Intense, to say the least. 

Leo Theinert really has a handle on the irony of American iconography. On display here are his black-and-white images of a downtrodden old guy wearing an American flag shirt, forlornly pedaling an adult-size tricycle, as well as a rundown Old West-style single-story house, a horse (or is it a cow? the angle makes it hard to tell) chasing a cow around to the front.

Joanna Tam also has two captivating black-and-whites on display, the first a view seemingly taken while running through a graveyard, shot at a low angle as if seen through a child’s completely spooked eyes, as well as an interior shot of empty chairs inside a wood shack that gives the viewer a queasy sense of being in motion.

Kelly Anderson-Staley makes authentic ambrotypes using an 19th century wet-plate process. Her completely candid, rustic-looking contemporary portraits here are styled darkly in sepia; the best shows a woman with a completely perplexed, somewhat vexed expression.

Angel Amy Moreno’s lone contribution here is a subtly mysterious view of a woman taken from behind as she makes her way out from under a walkway into the light, toward a bus stop. It wasn’t taken in America – Mexico City? Italy? – and resonates with the energy of Moreno’s subject’s resolute path out of the darkness.

There are also photos which appear in Peter Lucas’ forthcoming book The Last Hour of Summer: Found Photographs from Rio de Janeiro, 1962/3, taken by an amateur photographer, Orizon Carneiro Muniz in the last days before the military coup. They’re casual and somewhat lo-fi, as one would expect, yet a vivid look at the last sunny days there before the regime of terror took over. Carneiro Muniz died shortly after taking the photos; the book will cover the provenance of the photos and Lucas’ detective work to discover who took them.

The gallery also has a collection of politically conscious, deviously witty, square and rectangular shellacked pendants by Maureen Kelleher for sale. The best has rubberstamps from the Louisiana State Penitentiary superimposed on New Jersey lottery tickets.

The Safe-T-Gallery is at 111 Front St., Gallery 214, F train to York St., walk down Jay to Front and hang a left, the gallery will eventually be to your right. It’s about a two-minute walk from the subway.

You have all of two short weeks - through February 16 - to rush over to Chelsea to the Brenda Taylor Gallery, 511 W 25th St. between 10th and 11th Sts., gallery #401 on the fourth floor, to catch some of the most astonishing art on display in New York right now. In the side room there are several boldly playful, colorful, somewhat tongue-in-cheek paintings by Kathleen Kucka, acrylic appliqué on acrylic. Although many of the accent colors here are pastels, Kucka’s clever cut-and-paste gives them an amusing, guilt-free edge.

But the stars of the show are in the main room where you’ll find A.D. Peters’ new work Iron Ridge: Sunsplash, which is oil and ferric oxide (translation: rust) on a sheet of iron. It’s absolutely brilliant, a reverse image of sorts, of light seen through a thicket of trees. Only the light is painted: the woods reside in the untouched iron. The painting’s focal point, where the light is greatest, is obscured by a tree trunk. It’s a stunningly imaginative, somewhat dark work and is surprisingly inexpensive for something of such imagination and quality. Kudos to the gallery for spotting it.

The piece de resistance here is Leonardo Drew’s Number 74, dating from 1999. Drew’s specialty is gargantuan, wall- and floorsize installations assembled from found objects, something akin to the toy town Bob Geldof constructed out of bits and pieces of sledgehammered appliances in the film The Wall, taken to its logical extreme. Drew’s work is deliberately unsettling, often grotesque. This piece is particularly visceral, practically nauseating: it packs a knockout punch. It is impossible to turn away from. Within its huge, approximately eight by ten foot frame, there are several hundred square wood boxes, each seemingly in various states of decay (Drew’s use of sawdust here, mixed with other debris, is spectacularly effective). Across the top are plastered what appear to be used mop heads (or something equally Blair Witch), along with a couple dozen stuffed toys in various states of decomposition. All of the toys’ faces are either turned away from the viewer, or have been deliberately effaced. Childhood has hardly ever been this brutally or dismissively portrayed: to call this piece iconoclastic is a gross understatement. A work this powerful is too important to reside in the hands of a private collector (although one has to wonder who would actually have the fortitude to come home at night and be greeted by this on the adjacent wall). Whatever price the gallery is charging is not too much for a world-class museum to afford. MOMA, are you listening?

University of Oregon professor Salter’s sendup of consumer culture, currently on display at the Jeff Bailey Gallery through February 9, is spot-on, even if it has all the subtlety of a billboard on fire (an animated video of which is part of the exhibit). But Salter’s scathing critique is leavened with considerable humor. In the center of the room stands a colossus, a fourteen-foot robot assembled completely from white styrofoam used in packing boxes. Along the gallery’s right wall are an assembly of smooth, faceless, white porcelain figures, each about 18 inches tall, and they’d be taller if each wasn’t slumped over, beaten, completely defeated. A couple of them sport logos, as if wearing a t-shirt. One has an array of green leaves – flaunting his/her environmental correctness? – except that one of the leaves has fallen off.

On the back wall are paintings based on simple geometric shapes. There’s the view of a house, the sidewalk in the foreground scarred with cracks, and another showing an empty plastic lawn chair, microphone and amplifier posed in front of another house. There’s also the painting on which the burning billboard video is based. All of it is very effective and equally amusing. We need more art like this. The Jeff Bailey Gallery is at 511 West 25th St., #207 on the second floor, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

And while you’re over in Chelsea, stop by McKenzie Fine Art for their Geometric Abstraction exhibit, also running through February 9. Chris Gallagher’s two viscerally affecting pieces are the star of this show. The first, Ad Infinitum sets freehand parallel lines at an angle, their blue, green and orange blending with the offwhites and yellows of the background, inducing vertigo in the process. There’s also a smaller, similar painting, Tilt, less arresting but still full of striking contrasts, its lines practically dancing off its plain background. McKenzie Fine Art is also at 511 W 25th St.

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

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.

Noir cabaret singer Little Annie Bandez has seen her a considerable and well-deserved resurgence in her music career lately, with a cd featuring Antony and an upcoming European tour. She’s also a painter, and a terrific one. 9/11 was her defining moment, an ever-present, haunting theme. Bandez’ paintings, like her music, carry the weight of a legendary survivor, the persona she was probably born for and has grown into over the last few years. Her earliest artwork is a charming amalgam of Frida Kahlo and graphic 60s psychedelica. Her latest paintings, on display at the Rapture through January 20 are part of her ongoing Urban Saints series. The unifying theme is spiritual but nondenominational and is a marvelous demonstration of how her unique vision has grown over the last two years. Drawing on pre-Renaissance Italian religious portraiture (Giotto especially comes to mind), Bandez situates her saints in a surreal and quite threatening current-day New York. The menace is tempered by her use of color - vivid magenta, aquamarine, purple and orange – as well as media which create a three-dimensional effect.  

Perhaps the most striking of the new paintings, Mary Full of Grace shows a striking blue-robed madonna with three faces surrounded by brightly gritty city scenes, embellished with beads and painted feathers. Bandez’ signature boxy tenement buildings loom in the background. Another very compelling new work, And He Shall Live Again centers around a heart rising from the ashes of 9/11, a pieta to the right. The skeletal remains of Tower One, and the bones of the victims hover above. Angels, a virgin and a silver Star of Bethlehem complete the picture. Several other very compelling works are also featured. This time around, Bandez has victoriously reclaimed the iconography of another repressive era and breathed new life into it for all the survivors. Gripping, emotional and impactful, to say the least. Rapture Cafe and Books is at 200 Ave. A in the East Village between 12th and 13th Sts.

This week there’s a cool art show and a lot of live bands. Never been to the place where your favorite band happens to be playing this week? Click on Venues, to your right under Categories for the club’s website, subway directions and general info.

Here’s an art show that ends Sat Nov 10 so this is your last chance to see it: If you need an emotional lift and/or happen to be in Chelsea’s art district this weekend, check out Guenter Werner’s “Ballet” at the Mike Weiss Gallery, 520 West 24th (between 10th and 11th Aves).  Werner will activate your humor while broadening your concept considerally about the definition of “painting.”  Lively color and inventive media are this experience’s active ingredients.  Not for (or perhaps a salve for) the nihilist: Nietszche does not seem to have been an influence.

Thurs Nov 8 Dina Dean plays solo at Rockwood,  7 PM, early. One of the great rock storytellers of our time, a fan of the underdog and the down-and-out, a hardcore Elvis Presley fan and an interesting lefty guitarist with an understatedly good voice. Somebody you should see sometime.

Then right afterward Thurs Nov 8 amazing noir instrumentalists Big Lazy make a triumphant homecoming from their Midwestern tour at the Mercury, 8:30 PM, adv tix recommended because the Legendary Shack Shakers are opening.

Thurs Nov 8 Al Stewart – who 40 years ago was one of Britain’s best acoustic rock guitarists, believe it or not – plays an acoustic duo show at the Cutting Room, 7:30 PM. No idea what he’s been up to since the 80s, but he’s got a great back catalog of songs. Save my soul, river of darkness over me.

Fri Nov 9 Delta Dreambox plays Barbes, 8 PM opening for Balkan brass band Zagnut Orkestar

Also Fri and Sat Nov 9 and 10 The Flail – a bunch of A-list European jazz guys notable for their originals – record a live album at Small’s, 10 PM

Also Fri Nov 9 boisterous, improvisational Brooklyn bluegrass cats Citigrass play Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM

Also Fri Nov 9 legendary NYC faux-French garage rockers Les Sans Culottes return to where it all started, Freddy’s at midnight. Moist Gina from Moisturizer adds gorgeously melodic basslines to the mix.

Sat Nov 10: Helen Adam was this witchy Scottish poet with lots of supernatural lyrics. Supposedly she did these long songs while dancing around a la Isadora Duncan when she was performing. Tonight 6-8 PM it’s Helen Adam Praise Day at the Bowery Poetry Club to celebrate the publication of A Helen Adam Reader edited with notes and an introduction by Kristin Prevallet, featuring musical and spoken word interpretations by Bowery main man Bob Holman, Vito Ricci, A Brief View of the Hudson, Lee Ann Brown, Nada Gordon, ex-Vole frontwoman Lisa Jarnot, Kristin Prevallet, Gary Glazner and last but hardly least Maynard and the Musties bandleader Joe Maynard 

Sat Nov 10 another soon-to-be-legendary NYC faux-French band, the lush, romantic, actually very funny Les Chauds Lapins play Barbes, 8 PM.

Sat Nov 10, 8 PM the Dastan Ensemble plays Persian classical music at Symphony Space, tix available at the World Music Institute (click on Venues to your right and scroll down for detailed info). This pan-Asian, string-driven classical group rode to fame on their Silk Road albums and put on a lush, truly transcendent show.

Also Sat Nov 10 Laura Cantrell, who might still be New York’s best country singer a few years after she became the excellent Americana rock singer that she probably always was but never told anybody, plays the Mercury early, 8 PM. She’s been busy with the kid, hasn’t played a show in a long time, this will sell out, get your advance tix fast. She’s undiminished and can still give you chills.

Also Sat Nov 10 dark, slinky groove/shoegaze trio El Jezel with their sometimes quirky, sometimes spooky guy/girl vocals plays 208 Studios in Dumbo, 135 Plymouth Street, Suite 208, F to York St., 11 PM, free as part of a Kurt Vonnegut tribute night. Don’t worry, they’ll get a full set onstage.

Also Sat Nov 10 if you still can’t get enough of Delta Dreambox, they’re opening for the authentically retro but lately painfully precious Cangelosi Cards at Banjo Jim’s, 10 PM

Nov 11 is Sunday which means it’s residency day: everybody who has a weekly show in New York these days does it on a Sunday, for the most part, partly because residencies stretch a band’s audience, and that’s the only contingent a bar can expect for somebody who plays every week (new arrivals in New York either can’t afford to go out, or have plenty of money but no interest in anything other than television, fashion and celebrities). Kudos to Sean Kershaw and the New Jack Ramblers for keeping up their weekly 9 PMish Sunday country music show at Hank’s, and to guitarist Matt Munisteri and Jon Kellso for their weekly jazz jam starting around 7 at the Ear Inn.

Sun Nov 11 speaking of authentically retro, the Moonlighters play Rose Bar in Williamsburg at 8 PM

Also Sun Nov 11 charming harmony-driven Pan-American stylists Las Rubias del Norte play backed by the Parker String Quartet at Barbes, 9 PM. How they’re going to fit all those musicians in the back room is something of a mystery: get there very early because they’re take up half the room.

Mon Nov 12 British semi-sensations the Pipettes play the Gramercy Theatre, 10ish, adv tix available at the Irving Plaza box office. Their shtick is that they’re foul-mouthed cockney gangster girls doing early 60 style American girl-group music. No idea how well the music is live, but they probably put on a good show.

Also Mon Nov 12 Chicha Libre – who sound almost identical to Finnish surf rockers Laika & the Cosmonauts, even though they play Peruvian dance instrumentals from the early 1970s - are back at Barbes,  9:30 PM. As is Rev. Vince Anderson at Black Betty an hour later. You can catch both acts if you bolt for Williamsburg (and the G train is running) at the end of Chicha Libre’s set.

Tues Nov 13 the versatile, excellent violinist-composer Jenny Scheinman plays one of her increasingly more frequent shows at Barbes, 7 PM

Also Tues Nov 13 the 2 Man Gentleman Band – just ukelele and washboard - play  Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. Not sure how well you’ll be able to hear them in this room, but they totally nail the retro hokum stuff they do and they’re funny.

Thurs Nov 15 the Ventures play B.B. King’s, 8 PM adv tix avail $35 and worth it.  Bob Bogle and Don Wilson are still at it after all these years. The Ventures rank with the Beatles, the Stones and the Clash as one of the most important rock bands ever. They didn’t invent surf music but they had more surf hits than anybody else and this configuration of the band still plays with virtuosity and twangy intensity.

Also Thurs Nov 15 charmingly smart, nonchalant, imagistic songwriter Kirsten Williams plays with the killer Andy Mattina on bass at Bar on A in the East Village,  9 PM

Fri Nov 16 at 9 PM Bliss Blood’s excellent acoustic delta blues band Delta Dreambox is at Banjo Jim’s

Also Fri Nov 16 the Sloe Guns play an acoustic set at the Baggot Inn, 9:30 PM. Acoustic sets are usually a snoozathon, but these highway rockers’ songs are strong enough to stand on their own without juice: tonight the electricity will be the quiet kind. Their newer material in particular has a resonance and a sometimes dark intensity, and it’ll be interesting to see how lead guitarist Mick Izzo - one of the best axemen in rock - adjusts to the acoustic setup.

Also Fri Nov 16, Yo La Tengo plays the sonically much improved former Northsix space now known as the Music Hall of Williamsburg, 11ish, advance tix required and available M-F 5-7 PM at the Mercury Lounge box office. I don’t care how weird or soundtracky or pop Yo La have become since the turn of the century – they still have the potential to pull out the most amazing noise jam you’ve ever heard.

Sat Nov 17, legendary Howlin Wolf lead guitarist Hubert Sumlin plays 2 sets, 7 and 9 PM at Terra Blues on Bleecker. Sumlin was just as important to the Wolf’s sound as the Wolf himself. And he was Jimi Hendrix’ favorite guitarist. Caveat: he’s been sick, and he’s also been known to get hammered before shows to the point where he’s completely unable to play.

Sat Nov 17 Love Camp 7 play their dazzling, hypnotic, completely unpredictable but authentically 60s psychedelia at the Parkside, early, 8 PM, still time to get to Randi Russo’s show afterward if you’re going.

Also Sat Nov 17 Randi Russo and her band storm into Sidewalk, 10 PM. The band has never been darker or more haunting, Russo has never sung better or written better than she has lately. Her best songs remain the frequently macabre outsider anthems that are her stock in trade, but she’s incredibly diverse, ranging from garage to punk to minimalist, creepy Smog/Eels songwriting. When these guys and girl are at the top of their game, there’s no better live band in NYC, a reason to seek them out even at this dump.

Also Sat Nov 17 it’s Ellen & Jamie’s going-away party at Hank’s, all night, probably starts around 8. Jamie will probably play with at least one of his bands (I’m guessing punk rockers Brunch of the Living Dead) in what will essentially be a farewell show. Which is really too bad. Jamie was CBGB’s longtime soundman, a true professional and one of the real good guys in the NYC scene. As a booking agent, his wife Ellen with her good taste, imagination and warmhearted spirit always created a vital scene wherever she went, this place included. New York’s loss is someone else’s gain, bigtime.

Also Sat Nov 17 the Moonlighters bring their retro-ness to Barbes, 10 PM, you know the drill by now, early early early.

Also Sat Nov 17 Jeru the Damaja plays the Knit, 10ish. One of the few remaining A-list hip-hop lyricists from the early 90s who still performs regularly. He managed to straddle both the gangsta and conscious worlds without losing cred with either. Caveat: this being the Knit, and a hip-hop show, security may not have their happy faces on.

Sun Nov 18 the Greenwich Village Orchestra plays Rimsky-Korsakov’s Easter Overture, pieces by Bruch and a world premiere by Lam and Richard Strauss’ greatest work, the beautifully ambient Death and Transfiguration at 3 PM for only $15 at Washington Irving HS, Irving Place/16th St. This is arguably the best classical concert deal in New York, and the sound in the venue is actually fine. Impossible to imagine a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon recovering from whatever happened the night before.

Also Sun Nov 18 gorgeous-voiced countrypolitan chanteuse Carolyn AlRoy plays the Baggot Inn at 8:30 PM followed by former top baseball prospect, now quirky bass maestro Neill C. Furio at 9:30.

Also Sun Nov 18, 9 PM LES expat Jenifer Jackson plays a rare NYC show with Roland Satterwhite on violin and Elysian Fields axeman Oren Bloedow on guitar at the Rockwood. Her most recent album The Outskirts of a Giant Town is arguably the best album of 2007, a lush, brilliantly psychedelic, jazz-inflected, melancholy masterpiece.

Mon Nov 19 Shonen Knife play the Gramercy Theatre, time TBA, adv tix available at the Irving Plaza box office. Can you imagine, the Japanese B-52’s have actually been together over 20 years now and are probably still singing about boys and candy bars in their fractured English. Maybe they’ve even learned to play their instruments in the process: could have happened. And you know what, so many of those songs are such fun.

Also Mon Nov 19 Chicha Libre play their weirdly, intoxicatingly danceable Peruvian surf stuff at Barbes, 9:30 PM, and an hour later Rev. Vince Anderson does his even more intense groove-driven gospel show at Black Betty.

Fri Nov 23 Mr. Action & the Boss Guitars play authentically spirited surf classics and obscurities along with instrumental versions of 60s hits at Lakeside, 11 PM

Sat Nov 24 sprawling harmonica-driven, bacchanalian, intense pan-global improvisers Hazmat Modine open for the ultimate Far Asian psychedelic musical experience, throat singers Huun-huur-tu at Symphony Space, 8 PM, adv tix available at the World Music Institute (click on Venues to your right, under Categories, then scroll down to Symphony Space to find box office hours and directions.

Sun Nov 25 gypsy guitar genius Stephane Wrembel is back at his usual spot, Barbes at 9 PM

Also Sun Nov 25 NY expat Leslie Nuss plays a rare NYC date at Banjo Jim’s, time TBA. Superb, diverse songwriter and lefty guitarist equally adept at Beatlesque songcraft, lush sensuous ballads, and fiery garage rock. And a hell of a singer too.

Tues Nov 27 Jenny Scheinman and her violin return to Barbes for an early show, 7 PM, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get there early. 

Weds Nov 28 arguably one of the year’s best triple bills with literate, casually alluring janglerocker Paula Carino – a terrific and very funny live performer – at 8, then the equally clever, funny, somewhat theatrical and absolutely must-see Tom Warnick, then Erica Smith & the 99 Cent Dreams (NYC’s bombshell jazzkitten answer to Neko Case, and just as good). 

Thurs Nov 29 Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. plays  Otto’s, 8 PM, 2 sets. This retro pre-rockabilly trio look exactly as if they stepped off the stage at the Ryman, 1953 and play like it, although their lyrics have a contemporary edge and sense of humor.

Also Thurs Nov 29 the Bedsit Poets bring their sweeping, pastoral Britfolk anthems, their catchy 3-minute 60s Britpop hits and gorgeous guy/girl vocals to the Bowery Poetry Club, 8:45 PM sharp.

Fri Nov 30 Jack Grace brings his boisterous, authentic 1960s style country band into  Barbes, 8 PM, get there early.

Also Fri Nov 30 brilliant, utterly original art-rock keyboardist Greta Gertler plays the cd release show for her new, delightfully retro cd Edible Restaurant at Joe’s Pub at 7ish with “culinary audience participation” – assuming that means they have a menu there? The cd is amazing.

Later Fri Nov 30,  11 PM Purple K’Nif play Lakeside. They’re sort of a shambling, jangling, psychedelic 2-guitar Ohio surf band plays a mix of classic covers and originals. Their big hit seems to be called The Beer Theme and it’s good.

Fri Nov 30 and Sat Dec 1 Ween play Terminal 5 way over on W 56th St., adv tix available at the Mercury 5-7 PM Mon-Sat.

Sat Dec 1 it’s another Unsteady Freddy surf show at Otto’s with the sometimes painfully cutesy Tarantinos NYC opening, along with Blue Wave Theory, The Outpatients and Strange But Surf - among them there will no doubt be something worth dancing to here.

Sun Dec 2 Matt Keating plays downstairs at the Brooklyn Lyceum, time TBA. He looks like a skinnier Jon Papelbon and throws just as hard, lyrically speaking, even if he doesn’t dance. Ask yourself, would you want to face Matt Keating in a key situation in the 9th inning? No way in hell.

Mon Dec 3 System Noise frontwoman Sarah Mucho stars in her noir sci-fi cabaret show Subterranean Circus at the Duplex, 7 PM, this will sell out fast, adv tix available at the box office. The show – a futuristic cautionary tale – has a throwback early 80s East Village punk rock vibe. Imagination rules and rules are meant to be broken. And Mucho’s phenomenal voice might shatter your glass. 

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.

Kocsis’ bright, twisted, witty pen-and-watercolor work closely resembles Gerald Scarfe at his best circa The Wall, 1980. This is her first solo show and very much worth your while. The opening reception is at Pie by the Pound, 124 4th Ave (btwn. 12 and 13th St.)  Tues May 22, 7-9 PM. For some background on the headbanging artist click http://www.natty.org