Lucid Culture

If yesterday’s Ljova and the Kontraband show was the sonic equivalent of open bar without the hangover, last night’s Ansambl Mastika show at Barbes was an eightball of coke without the OD. Led by a scorchingly fast, incisive clarinetist who goes by the name Greg Squared, the band features the drummer from Slavic Soul Party as well as the bassist and accordionist from Zagnut Orchestar as well as trumpet and electric lead guitar. This band is something beyond mesmerizing: ecstatic, powerful and danceable as hell. They seem to pride themselves on their originals, and from what they played tonight, their sprawling, sometimes fifteen-minute excursions through every conceivable gypsyish style could either have been theirs, or they could have been classics from Bulgaria, Turkey, Lebanon or the shtetls of Poland. It was impossible to tell, because they didn’t announce song titles, they just pummeled the audience with one after another. Ansambl Mastika calls their sound “New Balkan Uproar,” which is an understatement. With the electric instruments and the big bass drum in the little back room at Barbes, they were LOUD: of all the gypsy bands in New York, only Gogol Bordello – who have gone more punk rock in the last couple of years – raise the decibel level as high. Although there was obviously a lot of improvisation going on, what Ansambl Mastika was playing was obviously composed through, not just endless jams on the Dorian scale. And the bass player has found a way to play this stuff on a Fender without getting all wanky and fusionish: he plays reggae licks, except without the reggae beat! Along with the occasional big, boomy chord or slide to the top of the fretboard, which only made the songs stronger.

Then the band brought up an all-female vocal quartet who call themselves Black Sea Hotel, and played behind them. With their soaring yet chilling harmonies, swooping and diving all over the place, it was like watching the Voix Bulgares backed by Taraf de Haidoucks except with electric instruments.

To those who might be sick of this page’s constant shilling for a steady stream of New York-area gypsy bands, brace yourself: there’s more to come. Yes, it’s bandwagonesque, but finally there’s a popular scene here with room for pretty much everyone. What punk was to late 70s New York, the gypsy scene is now. Admittedly, just like the golden age of punk rock, most of the crowd seems to be musicians from other bands in the scene. Which actually has an upside: this is all about the music and the fun, not the pose. Nobody onstage tonight was wearing any kind of uniform, i.e. 70s dumpster-diver kitsch or Urban Outfitters. And the crowd was rapt: everybody came to listen, not to bray at each other over the music or huddle over their phones, feverishly texting anyone and everyone whom might conceivably be their next hookup. We’ve needed this for a long, long time.  

Ansambl Mastika don’t have any upcoming gigs listed on their myspace at the moment, but Black Sea Hotel are playing Pete’s at 9:30 on May 12.

A triumphantly invigorating show. It’s always a good sign if a band’s newest songs are their best, which was the case with the Larch tonight, playing the cd release show for their new one Gravity Rocks at Arlene’s. The  most obvious comparison to this long-running Brooklyn band is Squeeze. Even though the two groups don’t have much in common musically – rather than the Beatles, the Larch mine a frequently quirky, early 80s vein, as much Robyn Hitchcock as Elvis Costello - they share a subtle sense of humor. And Larch frontman Ian Roure’s guitar leads are every bit as sizzling as Glenn Tilbrook’s used to be and reputedly still are. Roure made the crowd wait for them – he took all of three all night long, but he made them count. The title track from the new cd, an instrumental, was punctuated by one of them. Their songs are sophisticated yet often ridiculously catchy, such as the brand-new, self-explanatory Cellphone or Schizo and Return of the Chimera, a typically tongue-in-cheek number about genetic engineering, both of which they played tonight.

The evening’s best numbers were a yet unreleased number, Strawberry Coast, with its darkly incisive, minor-key, tango-inflected central hook, and another potently hook-driven number, Accidental Planet, from the new album. Keyboardist Liza Garelik (who also plays with Roure in another rousing, often fiery band, Liza and the WonderWheels) told the crowd how one of the Larch’s songs had become one of the demos that come standard with one manufacturer’s ipod, and how besieged with fan email Roure had become as a result. Ross Bonnadonna’s bass playing was muscular and inventive (a dexterously bluesy lead guitarist and longtime denizen of the Freddy’s Bar scene, he also plays in Paula Carino’s band, whatever their name happens to be this week).

At the end of tonight’s surprisingly short set, the crowd insisted on an encore and the band obliged, Roure finally cutting loose with one of his signature long, screaming, lightning-fast wah-wah solos. Good things are happening with this band, with a couple of recent UK tours and all that fan email. Watch this space.  

The best metaphor for the show Ljova and the Kontraband put on today at Trinity Church would be open bar on top shelf liquor. That obscure vodka you’ve always wanted to try but never did because it was too expensive? Here, have a shot. You want a pint? OK, have a pint. The only difference was that at the end, it was possible to leave unassisted, without the looming inevitability of an allday hangover. This concert was exhilarating, transcendent, a blast. It’s impossible to imagine a better new New York band than these guys.

The idea of blending equal parts classical, jazz and gypsy music might sound impossibly fussy, but this band pulls it off and makes it seem effortless. Led by gregarious, engaging frontman/violist Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, the quartet also featured subtly virtuosic percussionist Mathias Kunzli as well as supersonically fast accordionist Patrick Farrell and jazz bassist Mike Savino. In an exuberant show that went on for well over their allotted hour onstage, the group blended fiery gypsy dances, rustically melancholy songs without words, intricately and imaginatively arranged jazz and potently crescendoing classical melodies, often in the same song. Zhurbin proved equally at home with pretty much anything that can be played on the viola, from sizzling, Vivaldiesque runs to strange, ambient atmospherics. Kunzli alternated mostly between his hand-held dumbek and the drum box on which he perched and played with his hands, effectively mimicking the sound of a full kit. Farrell unleashed an onslaught of cascades that grew from a few tastefully placed rivulets to full-blown tsunamis and all points in between. Savino played virtuosically and cerebrally (which sometimes seemed at odds with the material’s emotional sensibility), using a punchy, staccato tone common in 70s fusion jazz bass.

Because Zhurbin gets a lot of work writing film scores, many of his compositions have a narrative feel, winding up in a place altogether different from where they start. There was great humor in several of them, particularly Love Potion, Expired which featured an extended, “uh-oh” solo on kazoo from Kunzli at the point where the song reached its expiration date. Zhurbin’s titles and themes frequently proved counterintuitive. The pastorale which opened the show was a darkly lingering lament; Szeki, influenced by Transylvania folk music was an ethereal, Jean Luc Ponty-esque soundscape; Ori’s Fearful Symmetry (a movie scene, perhaps?) was anything but symmetrical, a whirlwind tour through a casbah of the mind.

A Savino composition, How Easily I Get Lost began with a circular motif with something of a generic Afropop feel. But as it made its way through the other members of the group, the band took turns playing its chordal underpinning or playing melody against it, which was great fun to watch. Farrell’s Walking on Willoughby had his bandmates hustling and bustling through downtown Brooklyn while the bass beat a steady path through the crowd.

Zhurbin then invited his wife, Romashka frontwoman Inna Barmash up to sing a couple of numbers, the first a nostalgic tune with lyrics taken from a poem from the late 1800s. It started out with a sentimental melody nicked from Those Were the Days, but by the end, the band had brought the volume up to a scream while Barmash went deep into her lower register for every ounce of anguish and longing she could muster. It was perhaps the highlight of the show. She then did a traditional Russian folk song whose lyrics, she explained, went something along the lines of “I want to hurt/I want to love/I want to party.” The chemistry between the couple was obvious: party animals, both of them, or so it seemed.

By the time the band finally wrapped up the show, with yet another jazz-inflected gypsy romp, the crowd roared for more, but time was up. In case you were one of lucky ones there today – or if you wish you were – Ljova and the Kontraband are playing Drom this Saturday at 8. You would be crazy to miss them.

Tashi were one of the first classical groups of the 70s to achieve rockstar status, and in those days they played it for all it was worth, dressing casually onstage, deliberately attracting younger audiences and pioneering all kinds of new music. Sunday at Town Hall, the quartet – pianist Peter Serkin, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Fred Sherry and violinist Ida Kafavian – reminded why they achieved such popularity, and proved none the worse for a 35-year hiatus between gigs together: in fact, their performance was one of the landmark musical events of 2008. Tashi first came together specifically to perform Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, so it was particularly appropriate that they’d reunite this year for the Messiaen centenary.

They opened with two Renaissance works “recomposed” for them by contemporary composer Charles Wuorinen: Ave Maria, Virgo Serena by Josquin des Prez and Christes Crosse by Thomas Morley. The melodies were nothing special, generic pre-baroque call-and-response, but the textures of the instruments, particularly the clarinet and piano, were fascinating: such arrangements did not exist in early music. The next work was a striking departure, Toru Takemitsu’s Quatrain II, another piece written especially for the group, and highly influenced by Messiaen as well as Mingus. A strangely captivating, mysterious work punctuated by jarring percussive strokes and some spectacularly impressive, shakuhachi-esque, deep tones from Stoltzman, it boldly foreshadowed what was to come.

After an intermission, Tashi played the piece which had served as their original impetus, the terrifying, rivetingly intense Quartet for the End of Time. Composed in a Nazi POW camp, Messiaen wrote it for piano, clarinet, cello and violin out of necessity: those were the instruments that he and his three fellow musicians in the camp happened to play. Each of the eight sections of the suite has a liturgical title (Messiaen was a devout Catholic), but it’s essentially a cry out for rescue, as well as a fiercely victorious, vindictive response to imprisonment under the Nazis. This pantheonic but under-performed work (there aren’t many working quartets around to play it) was Tashi’s signature piece, as much a show-stopper tonight as it reputedly was three and a half decades ago. When Stoltzman - the Manny Ramirez of the clarinet – launched into a long, laborous solo passage, the anguish and longing was absolutely visceral. Serkin was nothing short of extraordinary: one of the world’s elite pianists, his touch on the keyboard was astonishing, evincing the subtlest dynamics with minutely differing amounts of sustain creating an effect that was practically vibrato. Kafavian and Sherry kept the embers of hope glowing with their eerie washes of sound.

The group shone most brightly on Messiaen’s two long, stately yet unpredictable crescendos, the first a melody familiar to rock audiences from King Crimson’s Starless and Bible Black (Robert Fripp a Messiaen fan? Who knew?). As the piece wound up, Kafavian’s sudden, violent cadenza tore through whatever was left of the Nazi shackles as Serkin gradually brought his eerily glimmering chords down to pianissimo at the end. After what seemed thirty seconds of absolute silence, the audience exploded in applause, calling the musicians back for three standing ovations and probably hoping for more. But anything else would have been anticlimactic. Let’s hope that this isn’t the last time the group reunites. Athough if this is it for Tashi, they  couldn’t have gone out on a more powerful note.

The Dixie Bee-Liners’ brand-new album on Pinecastle Records is titled Ripe, which is something of an understatement: this band has been overdue to break through for what feels like a long time. Formed in New York about five years ago by a couple of Bible Belt expats, multi-instrumentalist Buddy Woodward and guitarist/frontwoman Brandi Hart, it wasn’t long before they were the most exciting Americana act in town (for the uninitiated, New York has a vital, thriving country/bluegrass scene far more traditionally-oriented than anything coming out of Nashville these days). Yet Woodward and Hart felt they were spinning their wheels, so they left. True story: for the Dixie Bee-Liners’ farewell show, they approached one of the so-called prestige venues in town, where they were told that they’d be welcome - if they moved away and then came back. But as long as they were a New York band, there was no place for them. 

Well, what goes around comes around: their first time back, they took the club up on that offer and promptly sold the place out. In the meantime, they’d signed to Pinecastle and were in the process of putting the finishing touches on this album, their third official release. While the instrumentation on this cd is traditional – guitar, dobro, banjo, fiddle, mandolin and upright bass – the songwriting is astonishingly sophisticated and innovative. Woodward and Hart, clearly proud of their Southern lineage, harken back to the pre-rock era, when perhaps the smartest songwriting in all of American music was emanating not from Tin Pan Alley but from the South. Both share an intensely literate way with lyrics; musically, Woodward’s tunes lean more to the upbeat, amusing side, contrasting with Hart’s haunting, frequently minor-key style. Call it Bible Belt Noir, if you will: the band does. If this is the future of bluegrass, we’ve got a lot to look forward to.

The album kicks off with Down on the Crooked Road, guitar and banjo delivering a stinging slap – wake up! It’s a rousing call to catch the road running through the historic part of southern Virginia which still remains home to the descendants of some of the alltime great bluegrass pioneers. The next track is a dark, stately country gospel track, Lord Lay Down My Ball and Chain, settting the tone for an even more hypnotic, traditionally styled tune, Yellow-Haired Girl. After that, The Bugs in the Basement begins with an eerie wash of strings and banjo in the distance, ominous but ending on a triumphant note. I’ve got a firefly! Hart exclaims. Dixie Grey to Black, one of the album’s most riveting, lyrically potent numbers is told from the point of view of  a Civil War mother grieving for her son, executed for desertion:

Who could blame a child who wants to run

I raised him not to pull that Dixie gun

Old Kentucky, still a Union state

Choking on its bitterness and hate…

And my only boy died

To satisfy that Southern pride

Never gonna get my little boy back

Turn that Dixie grey to black

Like several of the songs on this album, there are multiple shades of meaning here: this song could just as easily apply to a war much closer to our era. The rest of the album alternates between fiery and fun, and dark as a coalmine. Woodward’s song Grumble Jones is something that could become a signature piece, a devilishly funny portrait of a real-life Confederate general with a real potty mouth. Lost in the Silence, a big audience hit written by Hart, is a devastatingly disquieting tale of heartbreak. She’s My Angel is a  wistful showcase for Hart’s brilliant vocals, which manage to be heartwrenching without crossing over the line into schmaltz: “She dreams all day and sleeps all night,” the song’s narrator sings of a little girl who’s grown up in what seems like a flash. Old Charlie Cross is a boisterous, backhanded tribute to a smalltime scam artist:

Wine is quick, the moonshine’s quicker…

He’s got more tricks than a circus pony

A lot of hot air and cold baloney

The cd winds up with the title track, which is something of a departure for the band, a darkly hypnotic, seductive narrative that wouldn’t be out of place on a vintage Richard & Linda Thompson album. Or something by Neko Case or Little Pink, for that matter.

Producer Bill Vorndick’s smart, imaginative engineering has all the instruments here sounding like a vinyl record, warm, tight and together rather than like just a bunch of overdubs. The new Southern additions to the band: fiddler/harmony singer Rachel Renee Johnson, lead guitarist Jonathan Maness, bassist Jeremy Darrow and British expat banjo player Sam Morrow bring the mayhem typical of the band’s live shows to new levels. And Hart’s mandrake-root soprano has never cast a more potent spell. CDs are available at better record stores, at shows and online. The Dixie Bee-Liners are currently on tour, with no New York dates scheduled for the next month: watch this space for updates. 

This myspace bulletin just in from the legendary Kool G Rap (formerly of Kool G Rap and DJ Polo), author of such ghetto classics as Rikers Island, Talk Like Sex and Ill St. Blues:

“IF YOUR LOOKING TO HAVE THE LEGEND KOOL G RAP ON YOUR NEXT SONG AS A FEATURE 16 BAR VERSE OR JUST A HOOK….IF YOUR SERIOUS ABOUT DOING THE BUSINESS…HIT DOMINGO ON HIS MYSPACE PAGE FOR THEM OFFICIAL RATES ON KOOL G RAP!!!”

That’s right: for the right price, your group, your band, your single could have the great Kool G Rap on it for a whole verse.

Probably better than anything you could ever come up with, too.  

Sweat – The Story of The Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, by Joe Bonomo

Continuum, 2007, ISBN-13 978-0-8264-2856-2, trade paper, $17.95

After all these years, the Fleshtones still need a Hexbreaker. Contemporaries of the Ramones and Sex Pistols, the legendary, Queens-born band still plays to a cult audience in small-to-midsize clubs across the country, having brushed tantalizingly with fame on innumerable occasions without really ever having achieved it. That the Fleshtones managed to survive thirty-two years is in itself a miracle, considering how badly they’ve been sabotaged, by record labels, management and most of all, themselves. If this book is to be believed, even the Stones at their most debauched are lightweights, compared with the literally lethal quantities of drugs and alcohol that were part and parcel of the Fleshtones’ existence for the better part of two decades. This is not a fawning, fanclub-style tribute: Northern Illinois University professor Bonomo’s fascinatingly detailed chronology is unsparing in its treatment of the band. All the drinking and drugging notwithstanding, the book concerns itself mostly with the music, which is a very good thing: America’s greatest garage band deserves no less.

At the height of their mid-80s popularity, the Fleshtones – singer Peter Zaremba, guitarist Keith Streng, bassist Marek Pakulski and drummer Bill Milhizer – played off a well-earned reputation as one of the world’s best live bands. Despite having come up in an era that saw garage music as retro and derivative, they left audiences dumbstruck, playing with a passion and intensity seldom matched by any band from any era. But at every turn, the band found themselve sabotaged: by thieving CBGB soundmen, who took a cut of the band’s door proceeds; inept booking agents; producers who didn’t really understand garage rock; label executives who for all their bluster always put the band on the back burner, and, most notably, by themselves, whether due to substance abuse or stubbornness. Ironically, the band’s first album, issued around the world on several labels, has never seen an official US release.

Signed to IRS just at the time the fledgling label broke through with the Go-Go’s, they became a staple of college radio and soon afterward a sensation in France, where an “instant” live album was released during an ecstatic residency at one of Paris’ premier rock clubs.  A couple of years later, Zaremba would eventually score a regular weekly gig as a host on MTV. Yet the Fleshtones never broke through to anything approaching a mass audience, perceived as either derivative or simply a party band whose audience was primarily in the clubs. Bonomo sharply deflates these myths, demonstrating how the Fleshtones (and their original bassist, Pakulski, in particular) broke new ground by bringing elements of funk, soul and other black music into garage rock. Through three decades of escapades, Zaremba comes off as a funny, cerebral, hyperkinetic polymath who’s also utterly impossible to work with; their current bassist Ken Fox presents himself as a serious, dedicated pro who also has no objection to having a good time. We don’t learn much, musically or otherwise, about the other band members, other than Streng’s impressively singlehanded victory over a nasty alcohol problem.

The detail in this book is exceptional. Bonomo carefully places each stage of the Fleshtones’ career in the context of how far afield they always were from the most popular songs of that particular era, and how their defiant un-trendiness always reinforced the view that they were a niche act rather than something that could be marketed to the mainstream. New Yorkers in particular will find innumerable little jewels in the margins here. Did you ever realize that Cosmo’s Diner up on 23rd and Second Avenue was a popular meetup place for rockers back in the 70s? Or that Fox once played as a hired gun in one of the worst New York bands of alltime, Smashed Gladys? Or that Streng was the original guitarist in the legendary Bill Popp’s shortlived punk-pop band the Popsicles? Bonomo’s casual yet vivid description of each milieu in which the band found themselves, whether the world of horrid Queens cover bands in the 70s, the early 80s new wave scene, or LA in the mid-80s before hair metal took over, is indelibly rendered and dead-on accurate.

Like its subject, this book is far from perfect. The most recent twenty years of the band’s career gets only a fraction of the space allotted to their first five, and the book starts out like the Deer Hunter: it takes a long time to get going (do we really need to be told that as teenagers, the individual members of the band preferred three-minute singles to extended art-rock suites?). For all the band’s marathon drinking, their party stories are surprisingly dull: with one exception (a delightfully successful drunken race with a police car), nothing more exciting than what you’d find on the average college freshman’s myspace page.

The book could have used a proofreader, and it reads in places as if it was edited in dribs and drabs, the later chapters being given a look-see without reference to any preceding text. As can be expected, there are plenty of errors, some of them glaring: for example, the assertion that the band didn’t know how to play In the Midnight Hour at a gig with Johnny Thunders is simply absurd. Tom Scholz didn’t record the first Boston album in a LA studio: he did it in his basement on a little homemade gadget whose patent he sold to Sony, who marketed it with great success as the Rockman. And Tainted Love isn’t a Standells song: it was originally recorded by the soul singer Gloria Jones. General readers won’t pick up on most of these glitches. This is why second editions are worth seeking out.

With the exception of two bass players, the thoughtful, articulate Robert Burke Warren, and Fox - whose reputation as a genuinely nice guy reaffirms itself here - the rest of the band remain a cipher. When Zaremba speaks, the quote is virtually always thirdhand, and sometimes decades-old. It would have been nice to hear more from Streng, one of the alltime great rock guitarists and a fine songwriter as well. And when, quite shockingly, more than one band member is cited for being against the Martin Luther King holiday (this from a group who are all passionate fans of black music!), the cognitive dissonance is casually brushed off.

Quibbles aside, this is an excellent book, essential reading for anyone interested in the history of American music. While fans of the Fleshtones and garage rock in general will find plenty to feast on here, to Bonomo’s infinite credit, he makes you want to go back and listen to all those great Fleshtones albums with fresh ears, or discover them for the first time. If this book is anything like its subject, it’ll be around for decades. 

Constant updates, as not every club in New York with live music actually advertises it (sad but true), and the bands who play there often don’t announce what’s happening until the week of the show. So it’s worth your while to check back every now and then if you didn’t see something that caught your eye the last time you visited. As always, weekly events first, followed by the daily calendar:

Sundays from half past noon to 3:30 PM, bluegrass cats Freshly Baked (f.k.a. Graveyard Shift), featuring excellent, incisive fiddle player Diane Stockwell play Nolita House (upstairs over Botanica at 47 E Houston)

Every Sunday the Ear-Regulars, led by trumpeter Jon Kellso and (usually) 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.

Also every Sunday in May the Jack Grace Band plays Rodeo Bar around 9:15 PM. Grace plays what sound like classic country hits from the 50s and 60s, until you realize that they’re all originals. He’s a very funny performer, although some of his songs, the minor-key Tom Waits-ish ones, are white-knuckle intense. His wife Daria, from Melomane plays bass.

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 done.

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 May (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 9:30. 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.

Every Tuesday at 9 PM the boisterous and very popular brass-heavy gypsy jazz band Slavic Soul Party plays Barbes at 9. Get here as soon as you can as the opening act is usually popular as well.

Every Wednesday, Will Scott and drummer Wylie Wirth play mesmerizing, hypnotic, completely authentic Mississippi hill country blues along with Scott’s own melodic, tuneful blues originals at Jay St. Bar in Dumbo, starting around 8:30 PM. Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and Asie Payton are sadly gone but Scott continues their tradition of music that is as danceable as it is trance-inducing, and does his influences justice.

Thurs May 1, 1 PM for a nice financial district lunch break the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia is at Trinity Church, performing works by Haydn, Monteverdi and Stravinsky.

Also Thurs May 1, 5:30 PM if you’re lucky enough to get out of work on time, there’s an organ recital at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on West 46th St. featuring excellent New York organist Christopher Creaghan.

Also Thurs May 1 charmingly dark accordionist/chanteuse Cassis plays the Living Room at 7, opening for haunting Bedsit Poets frontwoman Amanda Thorpe playing the cd release for her new one Union Squre at the Living Room, $10.

Also Thurs May 1, a good oldtimey bill at Spikehill starting at 8 PM with Brotherhood of the Jugband Blues, then yodeling banjoist Curtis Eller’s American Circus and then Bliss Blood’s blissfully good barrelhouse blues band Delta Dreambox.

Also Thurs May 1, 8 PM a nice twinbill at the Music Hall of Williamsburg with the Ivan Milev Band playing their gypsy stuff, opening for the Budos Band who are sort of like Tortoise on speed, adv tix not required.

Also Thurs May 1 multi-instrumentalist/chanteuse Rachelle Garniez plays her regular monthly gig at Barbes, 10 PM. What Lou Reed was for Lester Bangs, what Dylan was for Greil Marcus, what R. Kelly is for that girl at the Times (just kidding about that one, Rachelle), this unassuming woman is the artist we’ve probably given the most press to here. Because, although she has a rabid and adoring cult following, she should be vastly more popular than she is. There is astonishing imagination in her retro jazz/blues/cabaret/gypsy inflected songwriting, brutally subtle power in her lyrics and she’s an absolutely hilarious, spontaneous live performer. Oh yeah, also maybe the best keyboardist in town, whether on piano or accordion. OK. Now you know.

Fri May 2 at 7 PM an all-ukulele bill at Bowery Poetry Club with a rare solo performance by the Moonlighters’ Bliss Blood along with Doug Skinner, Jennifer Kwok, Ben Lerman, Carmen Borrgia, Ballard C Boyd.

Also Fri May 2, 8 PM Catspaw plays Trash, 8 PM. These two women and a guy on bass deliver all the fun of original rockabilly and surf music with none of the affectation or the pose. How refreshing. And their song Southbound Line has to be one of the best of this decade.

Also Fri May 2 frequently mesmerizing concert harpist/chanteuse Katie Brennan plays the cd release for her sensationally good new one Slowly at Jimmy’s No. 43, 43 7th St. (between 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 9 PM.  She sounds nothing like that goofy-voiced girl who was all the rage about a year ago (what was her name? How quickly fads like her come and go); instead, Brennan has staked a claim to sultry Neko Case/Eleni Mandell territory.

Also Fri May 2 absolutely riveting, haunting, oud-and-accordion-driven East African dance band revivalists Sounds of Taraab plays Shrine uptown, 9 PM, 2271 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. betw 133-134 St.

Also Fri May 2, 9 PM a killer triple bill with arguably the best gypsy band in NYC, Luminescent Orchestrii, oldtimey ragtime blues cats the Wiyos and boisterous Cajun acoustic band Feloche at Drom on Ave. A.

Also Fri May 2 veteran expat Jamaican reggae crooner Winston Irie plays Otto’s, 10 PM. His lo-fi keyboard-driven sound, at this dive especially, will make you think you’re at a similar lo-budget joint in the nasty part of Kingston. Irie, mon.

Also Fri May 2, 10 PM the excellent country band Jerry Teel & the Big City Stompers play Union Pool, 10 PM. Teel has had quite a career, with noise-rockers the Honeymoon Killers, the late, great Chrome Cranks and retro garage guys the Knoxville Girls. He ran the legendary Fun House studios here on the Lower East Side til relocating to New Orleans – where he lost pretty much everything when the levees broke. Now back in the area, Teel and his velvet-voiced wife Pauline are backed by a killer band featuring JJ Jenkins on lead guitar and the Dog Show’s Jerome O’Brien on bass.

Also Fri May 2 the Vivian Girls – a pyrotechnic amalgam of Link Wray, early Lush and the Shangri-La’s – play the Silent Barn in Queens, 10 PM. They’re also playing Cake Shop at 9 on May 3.

Sat May 3, 9:30 PM Ninth House’s dark baritone frontman Mark Sinnis – the missing link between Johnny Cash and Ian Curtis – plays his acoustic Nashville gothic stuff upstairs at the Living Room.

Also Sat May 3, 9:30 PM, long-running, sprawling Brooklyn funksters Groove Collective play Drom. Bounce to those amazing basslines,

Also Sat May 3 scorchingly good delta blues guitarist Lenny Molotov – something of an American counterpart to Richard Thompson, with his stinging, smart, socially aware lyricism and spectacular chops -  plays with his band at Sidewalk, 10 PM.

Also Sat May 3 it’s another of legendary surf music promoter Unsteady Freddy’s shows at Otto’s starting at 10 with the Tritons, Reverb Galaxy, the uncommonly oldschool, twangy, subtle Mr. Action & the Boss Guitars and then the sensationally good, somewhat improvisationally-inclined Venice Beach Muscle Club sometime in the wee hours. For those who prefer Mr. Action at Lakeside on a Friday night, they’re at Lakeside on May 16 at 11.

Also Sat May 3 dark, guitar-fueled noir glam punks the Bellmer Dolls wind up their residency at the Charleston, 11 PM.

Sat May 3 a hip-hop bill starting around 9 at Galapagos featuring a rare appearance by the best rap group on the East Coast, the furiously and brilliantly political Dead Prez playing a short set around 11ish.

Also Sat May 3 the hilarious, picture-perfect retro pre-rockabilly country trio (“ballads, boogies and blues,” according to the band) Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. play Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM.

Sun May 4, a major event in the history of classical music, and it’s free! At the Town Hall: a spectacular reunion, the first New York performance in thirty years by TASHI – the quartet of soloists who made their New York debut in 1973 – Pianist Peter Serkin, violinist Ida Kavafian, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and cellist Fred Sherry, playing

Josquin des Prez (c. 1440-1521) Ave Maria…Virgo Serena

Thomas Morley (c. 1557-1603) Christes Crosse

(recomposed for TASHI 2007 by Charles Wuorinen (b.193

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) Quatrain II 

And last but not least, one of the major events in the Messiaen centennial:

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Quartet for the End of Time

Ticket Price: Free

Where to get Tickets: Tickets for Free for All at Town Hall are available ONLY at the The Town Hall Box Office, starting at noon on concert days, Sunday, April 27, and Sunday, May 4, 2008.  Both performances begin at 5 pm. Free tickets may be picked up at the box office any time between noon and show time. Two tickets per person. First come first served.

Also Sun May 4, early, 2 PM, for those not too hungover for some amusingly anti-corporate liberation theology, Rev. Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir play an afternoon show at Highline Ballroom.

Also Sun May 4 Lianne Smith plays the Living Room, 7 PM. A unique song stylist, subtly witty lyricist, and imaginative electric guitarist who likes a lot of reverb. And one of the most riveting voices around, a former rockabilly goddess who discovered indie rock and sounds a little like Wire but a whole lot funnier. And a hilarious performer when she’s in the right mood.

Also Sun May 4, 9 PM Bliss Blood’s ever-more-popular Bessie Smith-inspired barrelhouse blues band Delta Dreambox plays the National Underground. They’re also at Barbes on May 9 at 8 PM.

Also Sun May 4 excellent, loud Brooklyn noise-rock/shoegaze types Apollo Heights play a loft show at Dead Herring, 141 South 5th Street. Willliamburg, time TBA. They’re also at Lit on May 6 at 11:30.

Mon May 5, here’s what could be the best single show of 2008: keyboard monster Greta Gertler continues her Monday residency at Banjo Jim’s at 7 PM with a spectacularly good band comprised of her fellow panstylistic rock goddesses: Rachelle Garniez, Serena Jost, Alice Bierhorst and Carol Lipnik! This is the kind of crew that could swap instruments on every song a la Blue Oyster Cult (hey Greta: double double dare you to play Joan Crawford!!!).

Also Mon May 5, 8:30 PM beatnik jazz legend David Amram leads a quintet at Cornelia St. Cafe. Now in his seventies, he still refuses to slow down. Equally at home playing classical on French horn, jazz on the piano or revisiting the ghost of his pal Jack Kerouac, he’s earned his legendary status.

Also Mon May 5, 9 PM it’s the debut of  Whisperado’s Mud Room Event at Kenny’s Castaways beginning with the Leonard Cohen-inspired, minimalist dark folk of Tam Lin and then the caffeinated, Dylanesque stylings of Whisperado themselves.

Tues May 6, Michal the Girl – a great singer whose catchy powerpop was one of the best things going back at the old Luna Lounge around the turn of the century – plays an acoustic show featuring lots of new material at the Rockwood, 7 PM.

Also Tues May 6 violinist Jenny Scheinman – who’s just wrapped up a long stand at the Vanguard with Bill Fressell – plays her own stuff at Barbes at 7 followed by the very popular Balkan brass band Slavic Soul Party. $10 cover for SSP.

Also Tues May 6, 9:30 PM, $15 adv tix available and enthusiastically recommended, Tammy Faye Starlite plays Joe’s Pub. From the moist lips of the evangelist herself: “Tammy Faye Starlite, the celebrated and somewhat salacious country chanteuse-cum-evangelist, brings her sweet gospel chansons to the stage of Joe’s Pub in order to pray for our country and to implore the cheerless, peccant souls of New York City to elect a leader who will follow the dictates of a Southern Baptist Lord and lead us into the ultimate, eschatalogical battle of Armageddon (we’re already on our way!) which will ultimately bring about the Second Coming of Christ. With songs by Tammy Wynette, Bob Dylan (the Christian incarnation) and Charlie Daniels, plus a brand new Tammy Faye original, she hopes to unite these fragmented 48 contiguous United States (Alaska and Hawaii don’t count - their indigens look different) and help make this a truly Christian nation, the way Jesus (and Ann Coulter) intended, as stated in Matthew 2:13: “And ye shall elect a leader who will protect the sanctity of life, and perpetuate an overtly heterosexual, gun-wielding, bellicose culture of abstinent imperialists, guarded from all evildoers by His holy Blue Cross and His impenetrable Blue Shield .” Songs include “Where Is America Going,”, “Saved,” “Don’t Liberate Me, Love Me” and Tammy’s own ode to White Supremacy, “White As Snow.” Sponsored in part by Pastor Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church, with additional support from Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family.”

Also Tues May 6, sprawling horn-and-keyboard-driven groovemeisters Chin Chin play the cd release for their new one at Union Pool, 11 PM. True story: one of the crew here is a notorious non-dancer. At a Chin Chin show awhile ago, even though he was being totally ghetto and drinking a 40, a couple of beautiful women came up to him and asked him to dance. And they dragged him out on the floor with them. No joke. This could happen to you.

Weds May 7, legendary 60s psychedelic artifacts the Electric Prunes play B.B.King’s, $22.50 adv tix available at the club box office. Don’t laugh: the group responsible for the classic single Too Much to Dream (and Mass in F Minor, which has to be one of the ten best stoner albums ever made), is back, with a couple of original members. Check out their myspace for a scary/cool listen to their new stuff, equal parts eerie garage band and Roky Erickson-style cautionary tale.

Also Weds May 7 Moisturizer plays two deliriously fun sets of their indescribably fun baritone sax/bass/drums instrumentals at Black Betty starting at 10ish.

Thurs May 8, lunchtime, Ljova and Kontraband play their completely wild, intense original gypsy stuff at 1 PM at Trinity Church. They’re also at Drom on May 10 at 8.

Also Thurs May 8, early evening, 7 PM, ever-more-guitarishly intense Brooklyn new wave/early 80s revivalists the Larch play the cd release for their new one Gravity Rocks at Arlene’s. Potently adrenalizing Richard Lloyd-influenced lead guitar, smart and socially aware songwriting and Liza from the WonderWheels smirking behind the keyboard.

Also Thurs May 8, 7 PM at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, an impressive, free evening of French romantic organ music (mostly for two organs) along with liturgical works for choir featuring Marcel Dupre’s Quatre Motets; the Louis Vierne Messe Solennelle, and another mass by Widor.

Also Thurs May 8, brilliantly haunting British expat Americana chanteuse Jan Bell plays with her band the Cheap Dates at Highline Ballroom, 7:30 PM, opening for longtime womens’ music singer Ferron who headlines later on.

Also Thurs May 8, the reliably excellent, smartly aware, lusciously romantic oldtimey Moonlighters play 9 PM at the National Underground. They’re also here on May 22 at 9, and at the Jalopy Café in Red Hook on May 16 at 9

Thurs May 8 and May 15 the highly regarded, pretty self-explanatory NY Gypsy Allstars play Drom, 10 PM

Also Thurs May 8, 10 PM at Barbes, if you need a gypsy fix later in the evening, ANSAMBL MASTKIA. From the Barbes website:  “Greg Squared leads this mostly Balkan-inspired ensemble which plays tunes ranging from the plaintive clarinet ‘miroloi’ of northern Greece to the funkier grooves of the Serbian and Macedonia Roma (gypsies); from the mysterious qualities of Turkish calgija music to the driving power of Bulgarian wedding music. with Matt moran - percussion; Reuben Radding - bass; Joey Weisenberg - guitar; Matthew Fass - accordion; Catherine Foster - trumpet and Greg Squared - Sax and clarinet.

Also Thurs May 8 Eli “Paperboy” Reed plays the cd release for his new one Roll With You at Joe’s Pub, 11 PM. Wow. This guy, his horn section, rhythm section and the rest of the band are amazing. Otis Redding reincarnated, or so you would think until you see his white face. Incontrovertible proof that soul transcends ethnicity.

Three chances to see excellent French ska/funk/Balkan/brass band rockers Samenakoa: Fri May 9 at the Jalopy Café in Red Hook, 10 PM; Sat May 10 at 11 at Barbes and Sun May 11 at 10 at Drom.

Also Fri May 9, half past midnight the wildly popular eerie oldtime goth band O’Death plays the Music Hall of Williamsburg, adv tix $12 absolutely necessary, available at the Mercury box office.

Early Sat May 10, 11 AM “Sudan: A Musical History” airs this Saturday at 11 PM on Radio New York 91.5 FM in the debut of Afropop Worldwide. Featuring the music of Mohammed Wardi, Abdel Gadir Salim, Omer Ihsas (Darfur), Al Balabil (Nubia), Emmanuel Kembe and rapper Emmanuel Jal (Southern Sudan), Rasha (new voice of the diaspora), and many others. There’s also extensive companion information on www.afropop.org including links to feature stories, photo essays, discographies, and a podcast with program highlights in case the radio show is too early for you.

Sat May 10, 6 (six) PM the legendary queen of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson plays the Knitting Factory, $20 adv tix available, still vital and having a party after all these years.

Also Sat May 10, 7:30 PM Spanking Charlene plays Luna. If the X show at Irving Plaza (May 24) is too rich for your blood, Spanking Charlene provide a worthwhile alternate. Frontwoman Charlene MacPherson is the real deal, a fiery, powerful belter and her husband/guitarist has a real feel for dirty, distorted, punky Americana rock. And the songs can be very funny. They’re also at Lakeside on May 17 at 11

Also Sat May 10 former Roulette Sisters frontwoman and National steel guitarist Mamie Minch plays her mix of salaciously entertaining and darkly haunting original blues songs at Barbes, 8 PM. Her forthcoming album Razorburn Blues is something of a change, with an emphasis on stark, sometimes emotionally wrenching songwriting.

Also Sat May 10, 9 PM Orientalist jazz improvisers Ilham, which is Arabic for “inspiration” feat. Gaida Hinnawi (Vocals), Rufus Cappadocio (Cello), Amir ElSaffar (Santoor, Trumpet) and the brilliant Brahim Fribgane (Oud, Percussion) play Alwan for the Arts.

Also Sat May 10, 10 PM scorching garage-punk band the Mess Around play the Charleston. Radio Birdman, MC5, Kinks influences and a completely kick-ass live show. They’re also at Trash at May 30 at 8,

Also Sat May 10 Zane Campbell plays Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. The legendary Ola Belle Reed’s nephew is a certifiable hellraiser who pioneered alt-country in New York two decades ago, before the rest of the world discovered it. See for yourself.

Also Sat May 10, 11:30 PM tuneful, atmospheric, dreampop-influenced rocker Samara Lubelski and her band play the Silent Barn in Queens.

Also Sat May 10, 10:15 PM, early (by Lakeside standards), Simon & the Bar Sinisters blast into Lakeside. Old-school LES squatter punk who cleaned up his act and became one of the great rockabilly/surf guitarists (and bassists!) around. If you’re lucky they’ll do their dirty Batman theme and the ska cover of In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.

Also Sat May 10 Bobby Radcliff, another damn good real blues guitarist (as opposed to fake blues guitarists – you know who they are, yuppies call them god, ad infinitum), plays  Lucille’s, 8 PM. Faster, jazzier, more incisive and intense than he’s ever been.

Also Sat May 10 fiery, rustic country rockers Her & Kings County play downstairs at the National Underground, 10:30 PM. With the three guitars and the steel, they really get the twang cooking.

Sun May 11,  noon Dr. John-influenced singer/guitarist Lipbone Redding and his oldtime ragtime/swing/blues trio play Jules Bistro on St. Mark’s, where they frequently do a brunch show. They’re also back here on Friday May 16 at 8 PM.

Sun May 11, early, 7 PM, lush, atmospheric art-rockers the Quavers play Barbes. Live, they create songs by playing loops, one after the other, adding them to the mix until they have a song: it’s amazing to watch. Another amazing player, gypsy guitarist Stephane Wrembel follows at 9 PM.

Also Sun May 11 Joe Maynard from Maynard & the Musties opens for Jack Grace at the Rodeo Bar, 7:30 PM. Great segue: two of the funniest (and smartest) songwriters in country music.

Mon May 12 deviously multi-stylistic keyboardist/singer Greta Gertler winds up her “casting lines” (that’s Australian for “going fishing”) project at Banjo Jim’s with her regular band plus unnamed special guests. She can literally play anything and make it funny and captivating at the same time. Most recently she’s been messing around with ragtime and early 80s new wave with equally fun results.

Mon May 12 Mavrothi Kontanis and his sensationally intense, haunting, powerful Greek rebetika band play Barbes at 8 followed at 9:30 by one of New York’s most reliably good live acts, Chicha Libre. Mavrothi Kontanis is also here on May 26 at 8.

Also Tues May 13 at Barbes, 7 PM it’s Nanina. From the Barbes site: “Nanina’s repertoire is a panorama of vocal Georgian music. They perform Alilos (orthodox carols) chants from the eastern and western liturgy, and rousing and/or humorous folk songs from several regions accompanied by panduri, chonguri or chunir. With Jodi Hewat, Carl Linich, and Aurelia Shrenker. Then, at 8, AE: Aurelia Shrenker and Eva Primack sing songs that’ll make your eyes water and your toes tingle. Tonight they will share music from Appalachia, Caucasus Georgia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Ukraine, Corsica and beyond, with accompaniment on dulcimer, accordion, and the Georgian panduri.”

Also Tues May 13 through 17 Pharaoh Sanders plays Birdland, $35 general admission, shows 8:30 & 11. A legend who played with everybody, fifty years ago: Miles, Trane, you name it, and somebody whose sax can still conjure up a firestorm of spirits when he puts his mind to it.

Also Tues May 13 deliriously fun accordion-and-violin-driven klezmer/gypsy rockers Golem play Joe’s Pub, 9:30 PM $20 adv tix available.

Also Tues May 13 vocal jazz group the Old Rugged Sauce plays Lakeside at 10 PM. With horns, guitar and keys and a pretty standard repertoire, they’re pretty much what you’d hear somewhere in the Midwest – except that their arrangements are amazing. And even the more impressive considering that none of these guys is in it for anything but the sheer fun of it

Also Tues May 13 and 15 Mike Ness plays Irving Plaza, 11ish, adv tix $35 available at the box office and get ‘em now if you’re going, they’ll sell out fast. The original Americana punk, maybe better than ever after all these years.

Thurs May 15, 1 PM the bracingly powerful, equally intense and amusing Metropolitan Klezmer – whose new live album is sensationally good - play a free lunchtime show at Trinity Church.

Also Thurs May 15, 9 PM legendary blues crooner Bobby Bland plays B.B. King’s, $25 adv tix available at the box office. You never know with this guy: B.B. King’s former valet could phone it in, or he could give you goosebumps. He still has that growl, and the ladies still love him, fifty years after he put down B.B.’s bags and got on the mic.

Also Thurs May 15, 10 PM banjo player/songwriter Al Duvall - absolute king of the innuendo-laden double entendre - plays his hilarious, original, early 1900s style ragtime tunes at Pete’s. If you’re lucky he’ll do the one about the sex change operation (from the days before they had anesthesia).

Also Thurs May 15, Suicide plays Europa, time TBA. That’s right, Alan Suicide, from CBGB, 1976. Their sound hasn’t changed one iota, and it could be described as unlistenable. For serious noise-rock fans and anyone who actually likes Metal Machine Music.

Fri May 16 Graham Parker plays Joe’s Pub, 7:30 PM, $25 adv. tix available and worth it. One of the greatest songwriters of alltime, plain and simple. Started out slowly aping Van Morrison in the mid-70s, then discovered new wave and hit it big for a few years. His two most recent albums are as good as anything he’s ever done, as virtriolic, funny and tuneful as ever.

Also Fri May 16, 9 PM the Jack Grace Band and Wayne Hancock play a double bill at the Jalopy Café. Grace is our hometown country throwback ham and an underrated lead guitarist; Hancock’s fiery mix of honkytonk and western swing is as exhilarating as it is funny.

Sat May 17, starting in the morning at 11 AM it’s Wall to Wall Bach at Symphony Space, free, but get there early for this terrific event.  The American Symphony Orchestra (under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein) and a slew of artists performs preludes, fugues, cantatas, suites, concerti, sonatas and more (gavottes? Airs?), concluding with a resounding performance of the B minor Mass.

Also Sat May 17, 8 PM, the Chelsea Symphony plays at St. Paul’s Church, 315 W 22nd Street (btwn 8th & 9th), on a program including excerpts from Shostakovich’s Tenth and Twelfth Symphonies and the entire, horrifyingly powerful Symphony No. 9. The program repeats on Sun 5/18 at 3 PM with a slightly better program: Lawhead -  Rondo for Strings, Harp and Brass; Saint-Saens - Introduction and Rondo Capricioso and then the Shostakovich fireworks.

Also Sat May 17 Brian Jackson plays BAM Café, 9 PM. Gil Scott-Heron’s 70s electric keyboardist and sparring partner still brings the funk with the same sprightly optimism as he did thirty years ago.

Also Sat May 17, 9:30 PM, deliriously danceable, haunting, incredibly generous ouzo-swilling Greek rebetika revivalists Magges play Mehanata. You have not lived until you have danced to Magges, and you heard that here first.

Also Sat May 17 Witches In Bikinis play Kenny’s Castaways, 10 PM. More of a theatrical event than a concert: The Trip (the Jack Nicholson movie) meets Rocky Horror. Campy, yes, but genuinely funny, both lyrically and musically, to the extent that the show would work equally well if the witches, in their matching colored wigs and bathing suits, weren’t all dancing around with hardly anything on.

Also Sat May 17, 10 PM Burnt Sugar plays Luna. Hmmm…Luna has a big stage, let’s see how many people it holds. Fifty? OK, then we’ll bring the whole band. Greg Tate’s slowly unwinding vamp-jazz megaplex are great to listen to if you’re in a pensive mood.

Also Sat May 17 Jimmy Nations plays Rodeo Bar, 10:30 PM. Carolina expatriate and a sensational rockabilly/blues/honkytonk lead guitarist who actually deserves a comparison to Wayne Hancock, and whose originals sound like the real thing from fifty years ago.

Also Sat May 17, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D makes an appearance on a hip-hop bill at Galapagos. First-ballot hall-of-famer. One of the greatest lyricists of alltime. If you never got to see PE in their prime, might actually be worth braving the moat here to see him.

Sun May 18, early, 7 PM Amy Allison plays Banjo Jim’s. She’s sensationally funny, super smart, has a beautifully unique voice and while her new, more rock oriented songs are sometimes wrenchingly dark, she still plays a lot of her older, more countryish, amusing material for a rapt cult audience who know all the words and request stuff issued on obscure compilation cds back in the 90s that Allison has long since forgotten.

Also Sun May 18, semi-legendary mandolinist Andy Statman – equally dazzling at both bluegrass and klezmer - plays Barbes at 9 PM, early arrival (i.e. an hour early) very strongly advised, as this guy is used to playing vastly larger clubs.

Tues May 20, 5 PM legendary, ethereally gorgeous, all-female Balkan vocal group les Mysteres des Voix Bulgares plays the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 416 West 42nd St.

Also Tues May 20, 9:30 PM noir accordionist Marni Rice - equally influenced by French chanson and American garage rock - plays the Parkside, followed at 10:30 by scorching twangmeister Tom Clark and his killer band.

Also Tues May 20, 10 PM at Drom it’s Eljuri AKA Cecilia Villar Eljuri, a somewhat jangly Ecuadorian singer/guitarist whose electric songs blend influences from her home country with janglerock and reggae. She’s good. Fans of Chicha Libre should check her out.

Weds May 21 excellent southwestern gothic rocker James Apollo plays Union Pool, 8 PM. Dark, dusky, hypnotic, slow-burning intensity.

Also Weds May 21 the English Beat plays Maxwell’s, 9ish, $25 adv tix will probably sell out fast. If you like aging fratboys in their forties, this is probably the place to be. Seriously, though, this jangly multiracial British crew were, along with the Specials, the best of the second-wave ska bands of the late 70s and early 80s.

Thurs May 22 in the afternoon,1 PM at Trinity Church – the New York Scandia Symphony, Dorrit Matson, conductor,  performs works by Sibelius, Foerster and Langgard.

Thurs May 22, 7 PM Toby Williams, the soaring frontwoman of hilarious lounge jazz satirists Cocktail Angst plays the Marriott Residence Inn, southwest corner of 39th and 6th Avenue with her regular non-faux jazz combo. Cost: free, “Low key nice jazz gig,” as her myspace puts it.

Also Thurs May 22 powerpop siren Patti Rothberg plays the cd release for her new album Double Standards – a sizzling, guitar-fueled mix of upbeat, catchy, slightly new wave-ish tunes that could be the great long lost Go-Go’s album - at the Gramercy Theatre, 8 PM

Also Thurs May 22, 9:30 PM at Joe’s Pub Ukrainian actress Mariana Sadovska plays haunting, ghostly Carpathian mountain music backed by jazz group. Centuries-old yet cosmopolitan at the same time, should be a good time for all you gypsy rock types.

Also Thurs May 22, 10:30 PM Demolition String Band blast into Rodeo Bar. Fiery electrified bluegrass guitar, soaring girl/guy vocals, like the country side of X. Their new album Different Kinds of Love is their most rocking yet.

Also Thurs May 22 the Mercenaries play Lakeside, 10 PM. Some of their stuff is pretty standard Stonesy meat-and-potatoes rock, sometimes they venture toward the more melodic side of Guided by Voices. Either way, the guitars are cranked up.