Lucid Culture

“Is there anyone else who needs to leave?” grinned classical guitarist Bret Williams, “Like the guy in the back there?” He was referring to the screaming rugrat who’d erupted in rage at the end of the La Vita/Williams Guitar Duo’s first song, an anonymously springtimey piece by Brazilian composer Sergio Assad. As welcome as it is to see classical music on a program outside of the usual midtown concert halls, the infant slowly wheeled outside by a lackadaisical mother never would have made it past security at Carnegie Hall. Apparently, the church fathers at St. Paul’s Chapel today were too nice to turn her away. And this was somebody who obviously wasn’t homeless. Memo to parents: you had a choice, you had the kid, now you pay the price. No concerts for at least four years (for the kid, anyway).

What started inauspiciously got good in a hurry. Duetting with Williams was Italian guitarist Giacomo La Vita, whose fluid, brilliantly precise playing made a perfect match for Williams’ lickety-split yet subtle fingerpicking. The two ran through two pieces by Manuel de Falla, the romantic, flamenco-inflected Serenata Andaluza and the swaying, 6/8 Danza Espanola, then did two Scarlatti pieces that La Vita had arranged himself. In music this old, the emotion is in the melody, not the rhythm, and both of them dug deep into the stateliness of the tunes to find it.

The high point of the show, and probably the drawing card that got the audience in here on a cold, rainy Monday was Astor Piazzolla’s 1984 Tango Suite, another original arrangement for guitar. It’s unclear if the pantheonic Argentinian tango composer actually knew Charles Mingus personally, but the third piece in the suite definitely had the same kind of defiant scurrying around that the great American jazz composer was known for, beginning with a chase scene, running through all kinds of permutations to arrive at a fiery chordal ending. The two parts which preceded it began darkly reserved, then became expansively jazzy.

“We usually have an intermission, but we have to get up to the Upper West Side to teach,” explained Williams. “To a bunch of kids who probably haven’t even practiced. We’ve got to be there at 2:30!” And with that they burned through yet another of their own arrangements, this for De Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, an orchestral piece every bit as volcanic as the title would imply. An impressively good crowd, especially for the time of day and the drizzle outside, responded with a standing ovation. Obviously, fans of acoustic guitar music will like these guys best, but they cover vastly more terrain than most of their colleagues, a savvy move because it will earn them more of an audience. One hopes enough to eliminate the need to rush off to a midafternoon private-school teaching gig after they’ve finished playing a great set.

Sometimes a plan B isn’t enough: you also need a plan C. Rachelle Garniez at Joe’s Pub was the unanimous choice tonight. But the show was sold out.  By that time, plan B, Hazmat Modine, were probably already halfway through their set at Drom. After some discussion, a decision was made to head out to Hank’s in Brooklyn, where a couple of favorites, Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. and Ninth House were on the bill. The former are a trio that might be mistaken for rockabilly by a lot of people, but what they play sounds actually straight out of 1953, not 1958 (decades in dog years and maybe the equivalent of a century in terms of what happened musically over that time). Frontman/lead guitarist Michael McMahon didn’t joke with the crowd as much as he usually does, maybe because he didn’t have any new stage patter ready. In addition to the trio’s matching brown pinstriped suits, matching bolo ties, and delightfully authentic stage props, posters, flyers and beer coasters, McMahon makes very clever, period-perfect repartee with the audience. For example, tonight he introduced an instrumental about hot dogs as something you might hear at Forbes Field, where his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates played in the 50s.

Otherwise, they were as boisterous and reliably funny as always. It’s amazing how tight these guys are, especially since they don’t have a drummer.  Among their best songs: the snide Mr. Romance and the understatedly hilarious country gospel parody Read It in a Book, whose punchline depends equally on lyrics and music (the joke’s so good it wouldn’t be fair to give away). They also did their biggest crowd-pleaser, a genuine classic, the uncharacteristically snarling I Hate You. The lyrics may all be wickedly literate double entendres, but there’s no hiding from the message. Great stuff, especially with Ninth House next on the bill.  

Who didn’t have their keyboardist with them, so violinist Susan Mitchell, their not-so-secret weapon, stepped in and in addition to her usual slashing gypsy melodies, she also played evil sheets of ambience to compensate for the lack of the organ and string synth. From the first screaming chords of their usual opener, Long Stray Whim, a song about ditching everything and getting the hell out of town, they were on a roll. The band that used to be sort of the American Joy Division continue to jam out their catchy Nashville gothic stuff, great songs like Your Past May Come Back to Haunt Me and Mistaken for Love, versions of which appear on both the most recent Ninth House album as well as frontman Mark Sinnis’ debut cd, Into an Unhidden Future. As with the opener, they went with their usual closer, a blistering cover of Ghost Riders which in the hands of a less angry, bitter band could easily have turned into camp, but with Mitchell screeching up a tornado and guitarist the Anti-Dave blasting the crowd with his big Fender Twin amp, it was pure punk rock, straight out of the early Social Distortion catalog. People were dancing. The price of draft Schaefer may have gone up a dollar here (four bucks for a Schaefer, can you believe), but it didn’t matter, plan C turned out just fine. Ninth House play Lucky Cheng’s on May 9 at 10 PM. That’s not a joke.

Yet another attempt on the part of Lucid Culture to encourage adventurous listeners to investigate the fascinating, emotionally rewarding subculture of pipe organ music and the world-class performers who come through New York to play it. Not for the faint of heart. Then again, nothing you’ll find here ever is.

Galveston, Texas organist Elliott is a highly respected talent in the fanatical organ music demimonde, once a student of Marie-Claire Alain, also adept at the concert harp. Tonight was a riveting, spectacular performance, even more than one would expect from a musician with the subtle sense of touch that comes from playing the harp. She opened with the famous Bach Toccata and Fugue in F Major (BWV 540), which begins all happy and upbeat before the demons start to filter in during its second part, the fugue. Literally pulling out all the stops, she managed to get the newer organ here, the smaller of the two, to sing. There was a triumphant sway in her playing, imbuing the piece with special optimism while remaining true to Bach’s clockwork rhythm.

Switching to the big, beautiful main organ here, she pulled out all the stops again for Marcel Dupre’s Prelude and Fugue in B Major, Op. 7. Dupre is one of the great exponents of French romanticism: his Stations of the Cross is one of the standard works in the organ repertoire and quite the showstopper, as was the piece Elliott had selected for tonight. Ablaze with purpose, melodies spinning from the pedals, it’s a hard piece to play and Elliott’s interpretation was both passionate and seemingly effortless.

Next on the bill was a duo of Louis Vierne compositions, Clair de Lune and the Toccata from his 24 Fantasy Pieces. The first is all quiet, eerie ambience, atmospheric sheets of ominous sound: Vierne’s moon here is completely phantasmagorical. The Toccata, by contrast, is all fire and brimstone, yet imbued with the same macabre feel, and Elliott sprinted through it as if someone was chasing her. And the unusual pace actually enhanced Vierne’s dark ambience, making it an apt counterpart to what had just preceded it. She closed with long-tenured Notre Dame organist Maurice Durufle’s famous Chorale on the theme of the hymn Veni Creator (Op. 4), another big warhorse, a suite whose brief, opening parts foreshadow absolutely nothing of the fireworks to come. Elliott set them off with unabashed joy, all the way through to the wall-rattling crescendo at the end.

While Lucid Culture takes pride in spreading the word about the best under-the-radar happenings around town, it’s always fun to revisit the A-list, to catch a show by one of New York’s most exciting, popular acts. Tonight’s show strikingly reaffirmed what a great band Melomane is, not just one of the best in New York, but in the entire world. And also a reminder of how much fun and visually entertaining their live show is, with everyone trading off licks, throwing in silly quotes from pop songs, orchestrating a little mayhem into their impeccably crafted tunes. And tonight they did it mostly with songs about the end of the world. The only bad thing about this show was that it ended: they called it a night after fifty minutes onstage, perhaps because their sizzling new three-piece horn section doesn’t know any more songs.

Forget the Melomane you might have known when they first started out, the artsy, Mediterranean-inflected, somewhat Roxy Music-ish pop band they were around the turn of the century. This band is a whole lot darker, a LOT louder, more powerful than ever. They hit the ground running with the title track from their second album Solresol, a scorching, fast minor-key anthem that takes flight on one of frontman Pierre de Gaillande’s signature eerie guitar hooks, anchored by multi-instrumentalist Quentin Jennings’ ominous organ. Then they took a lengthy excursion through Gaillande’s ongoing “disaster song cycle,” including new songs about apocalypse by never-ending solar eclipse, flood, volcanic eruption, collision with an asteroid and more. The volcano song, Vesuvius was a gleefully morbid, cabaret-inflected number. Their sky-is-falling song caught the audience completely off-guard with two dramatic, false endings to its incongruously Stonesy boogie blues outro, capped by a dark minor chord that rang out majestically at the end. Two more of the end-of-the-world songs were blackly humorous, slow 6/8 numbers. In the country band that shares with her husband Jack, bassist Daria Grace is all about the swing and the sway: in this unit, she gets to play a lot of melody, including one gripping, soaring solo, a lot of slides and chords for extra impact. The horn section, whose name is still up in the air - the Brassholes? The Brass-ieres? The band can’t decide – gave the crescendos extra fire and bite. They also played what was ironically the first song Paris-born Gaillande ever wrote in French – an amusing tune about the relationship between a cigarette and a match – bouncing along on Grace’s Motown bassline. They closed with the weird, multi-part, Skyhooks soundalike This Is Skyhorse from their most recent and best album, Glaciers, one of our picks for ten best albums of 2007. Melomane plays June 13 at BAM Café: if you like sweepingly orchestrated art-rock, or just plain good fun, you would be crazy to miss this show. 

There’s a lot to like in Anthony Pontius’ oils on display here through May 24. This series centers frequently goofy, cartoonish, anthropomorphosed animals onto dark, nebulous, out-of-focus forest backgrounds for a feel that is Simpsons and Twin Peaks simultaneously. A two-headed dog chases its own face, a guillotine looms beneath the dripping trees, a killer’s goofy, fuzzy-bearded face leans in from a stick-figure body. These paintings are surreal, psychedelic as hell and the more compelling the more you stare at them, the backgrounds especially. Playful yet eerie, the visual equivalent of a mix of the Ventures’ minor-key hits. In the back room Pontius also has several wry, Edward Gorey-esque pencil sketches on display. Yet another rousing success for 31grand, a welcome addition (some might say antidote) to the neighborhood.

31grand Gallery is at 143 Ludlow St., across from Cake Shop, gallery hours are Tues-Sat, noon-7 PM.

It’s no secret that New York has one of the most vital, thriving country music scenes anywhere. Forget any snide commentary you may have overheard about urban musicians playing country: if anything, the music coming out of the New York country scene is far more traditionally-oriented than most anything Nashville is producing these days.  Tonight’s bill paired two of the more popular country acts in town. Monica Passin, frontwoman of long-running Rodeo Bar honkytonkers L’il Mo and the Monicats played mostly solo acoustic, with occasional help from a couple of women who sang harmonies, and the New Jack Ramblers’ amazing lead guitarist. She’s pretty much everything you could want in a country singer: pretty voice, good songs, good taste in covers and backing musicians. Her best song was a minor-key rockabilly number – the first one in that style she’d ever written, she said – possibly titled This Cat. The lead player used Passin’s ominous chord changes as a springboard for a riveting, intense, jazz-inflected solo that drew roars of appreciation from the crowd. On the last song, Passin invited Lisa, the bar owner up to sing harmonies, and as it turned out she’s actually good! Not since the days when Juliana Nash ran the show at Pete’s Candy Store has there been a bar owner who’s been able to show off such a soaring, fearless voice. Bands in need of a frontwoman ought to stop by the bar: she won’t embarrass you, and if all else fails you’ll always have a place to play.

Sean Kershaw and the New Jack Ramblers aren’t exactly under the radar, maintaining a hectic gig schedule in addition to the regular Sunday night residency they’ve been playing at Hank’s for what seems forever. They’re a rotating crew of some of the best players in town: the weekly Sunday show originated out of necessity, as this was the only night everybody in the band didn’t have a gig. Tonight, backed by just lead guitar and upright bass (their awe-inspiring pedal steel player Bob Hoffnar wasn’t available, and you really don’t need drums in a small room like Banjo Jim’s), Kershaw ran through a mix of what sounded like covers but probably weren’t. The guy’s a hell of a songwriter, a prolific, versatile writer as comfortable with western swing as honkytonk, rockabilly or stark, Johnny Cash-inspired narratives. Tonight’s show was the western swing show, driven by the lead guitarist whose ability to burn through a whole slew of styles was nothing short of spectacular, everything from jazz to rockabilly to blues. He made it seem effortless. They gamely ran through the old standard Smoke That Cigarette in addition to a bunch of originals, some recorded, some not, closing the first of their two sets with what has become Kershaw’s signature song, Moonlight Eyes. Originally recorded with his first band, the fiery, rockabilly unit the Blind Pharaohs, it’s a genuine classic, something that sounds like a Carl Perkins hit from 1956. Kershaw has played it a million times, but still manages to make it sound fresh, the ominous undercurrent beneath its blithe romantic sway more apparent than ever tonight, stripped down to just the basics.

And what was even more apparent was that both of the acts on this bill would probably be big stars in a smaller metropolis: here, they’re only part of a widespread, talented scene. 

From the first two folksongs on the bill, it seemed that this show was going to turn out like something you’d see on a Sunday afternoon at some suburban “arts center” in central New Jersey, most of the $60 seats taken up by squirming gradeschool kids dragged out for a shot of “culture” by their yuppie parents. The Russian Carnival Ensemble once appeared on Good Morning America (or its equivalent – they’re all the same, anyway), and the schmaltz they played early in the program could well have been on the audition dvd that got them the gig. But the show got better from there. Despite the fact that this seemingly sexagenarian Russian-American folk ensemble is probably best seen on their own turf, playing to an expatriate crowd who would object if the program was dumbed down, the remainder of the show gave them myriad opportunities to show off their sensational chops and interesting arrangements. Led by Tamara Volskaya, a spectacularly fast, virtuosic player whose axe is the domra (a small Russian stringed instrument that looks like a cross between a mandolin and a balalaika), the group ripped through a mix of their own arrangements of both classical and traditional pieces. The bassist played a large, hollowbodied, triangular instrument whose sides looked to be at least six feet long, definitely the largest bass on this side of the Hudson and maybe on the other as well. In addition to an excellent accordionist who sat impassively while casually spinning off lightning-fast trills, the group – wearing matching traditional costumes - had two other string players alternating between guitar, domra, balalaika and occasional percussion.

Other than a blistering, barely minute-long version of the Flight of the Bumblebee, the classical pieces weren’t all that interesting (in case you’re guessing, yes, they did the Lone Ranger theme). Traditional Russian dances, however, are their strong suit, and listening to them blaze through a handful of freilachs reminded of how much of a Russian influence there is in klezmer and gypsy music, and vice versa. In case you haven’t noticed, Lucid Culture has been off on a serious gypsy music tangent lately, and the pieces the group played this afternoon hit the spot perfectly, especially the encore on which what Volskaya wailed furiously, its melody a lickety-split series of sixteenth notes. The group also played a piece introduced by Volskaya as a world premiere, its quiet, eerie ambience quite a contrast with the ebullience of the rest of the program, hinting that this ensemble is capable of vastly more than they showed playing to an audience obviously unfamiliar with the material.  

Frequently referred to as the French Gogol Bordello, a better comparison would be Balkan Beat Box. Both bands are horn-driven, love their gypsy melodies and bring the party. Last night at Drom, Babylon Circus had the packed house pogoing throughout their roughly hourlong set. With a three-piece horn section, keyboards, sometimes two guitars and rhythm section, they played as tightly and boisterously as one would expect from a band that spends as much time on the road as they do. Their sound is unique, equal parts ska and gypsy rock, with sardonic, witty lyrics in both French and English. Theatricality and audience participation are trademarks of their live show, and they played it up for all it was worth, inviting people from the crowd up onstage to dance and cajoling those seated at the adjacent booths to get up on their feet and join the fun.  

Babylon Circus’ vibe is both hippie and punk. While they preach peace, their sly lyrical narratives softpedal the politics. This is obviously an intelligent band: they realize that the best way to get a point across is put the crowd in a party frame of mind first. Though frontman David Baruchel is still recovering from the effects of a near-fatal fall at the end of a concert in Russia a couple of years ago (a blow to the head left him suffering from the occasional grand mal seizure), it was impossible to tell. Clearly accustomed to playing larger stages, he staked out what little room he had, leaping and bounding with the rest of the band. Their best song, an anti-violence number, saw the band members dropping one by one as the sax player shouldered his instrument, taking aim while the drummer supplied the ammunition.  Thought most of the set was upbeat material, much of it from their energetically tuneful most recent album Dances of Resistance, they brought it down for a couple of slower, darker reggae numbers delivered by their other singer Manuel, who proved adept at fast and furious dancehall toasting.

Although Baruchel’s English is good, his repartee with the audience didn’t match the subtlety of his lyrics: “How ya doing New York, make some noise!” might work in Lafayette, Louisiana (the next stop on the tour), but it didn’t cut it in what’s left of the East Village. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the band hasn’t played that many shows in their home country lately. If you think New York audiences are jaded, see a couple of shows in Paris.

There’s no celebrity dj at Brooklyn’s best dance party. For that matter, there’s no dj. No celebrities, either. No ipod that hasn’t been stowed in a pocket or a purse. And no ecstasy, at least the kind that comes in a pill. Chicha Libre’s weekly Monday night residency at Barbes, where the back room becomes a roiling mass of bodies, gets plenty of press here, as Lucid Culture regulars will recall from our NYC live music calendar. The band actually likes it when people dance! The more people jump around, the better the band sounds. A stop by the club to see how the residency is going found them fantastically tight and more fun than ever: this weekly gig has done wonders for them.

In case Chicha Libre are new to you, at this point in time they are one of the world’s few practitioners of chicha, a mostly instrumental style of dance music that originated in the slums of the Peruvian Amazon in the late 1960s when indigenous groups discovered American surf music and psychedelic rock and started playing electric instruments. Many of the bands who played it then called it “green music,” not for the dollars they managed to scrimp together for all that equipment, but for what they were smoking when they played it: this is the most hypnotic style of dance music you’ll ever hear.

Tonight the band ran through a mix of originals and covers, both from their sensational new cd Sonido Amazonico as well as Barbes Records’ anthology The Roots of Chicha, released last year. The way the band plays these songs, they’re full of trick endings: unless you have the cd – which is possible, since it’s all the rage – or you know the songs inside out, it’s hard to be sure if you should keep dancing or not. Tonight just about everybody in the mixed Anglo and Latino crowd was moving around on the floor: even the gaggle of drunks at the back table had their heads bobbing. The other great thing about Chicha Libre is that they improvise a lot, especially keyboardist Josh Camp, who ran his vintage Hohner Electrovox (an electric organ designed to look like an accordion, devised as a marketing ploy to open up the Latin market to the company’s instruments) through a labyrinthine circuit of weird, spacy wah-wah and reverb effects. Their version of the famous Ravel Pavane was as amusing as always, frontman Olivier Conan intoning “Pavane, pavane, pavane,” while trying to keep a straight face (that didn’t last long). Then it was the audience’s turn, grins breaking out throughout the room as everyone realized that the band was taking a stab at the Love classic Alone Again Or. While they gave the intro a bouncy chicha groove, the rest of the song was remarkably true to the original. It’s the closest to Arthur Lee (or Bryan MacLean, for that matter) you’ll ever get at this point in time.

Otherwise, they ran through a powerfully propulsive, surprisingly dark version of Los Mirlos’ Muchachita del Mi Amor, as well as amped-up, surfy takes on Conan’s Primavera en la Selva, Camp’s La Cumbia del Zapatero and the cover Un Shipibo en Espana, the latter three of which are all on Sonido Amazonico. If dancing is your thing, if you don’t go out on Saturdays because all the amateurs are out in full effect, Monday nights with Chicha Libre at Barbes are everything we’ve been saying about them for the better part of a year. This band is at the point where they’re about to outgrow the space here: see them while you can.

This exhibit, the first major Kahlo retrospective in an American museum in practically fifteen years, commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the great Mexican painter’s birth. Conventional wisdom is that either you’re in the Kahlo cult or you’re not. Not to be disrespectful to Salma Hayek, but more than any major motion picture ever could, this exhibit will shatter any preconceptions about Kahlo that you might hold, especially if you’ve been subjected to disdainful commentary about the artist’s presumable self-absorption. On the contrary, the works on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 18 underscore the universality of Kahlo’s dark, tormented vision. For the uninitiated, it could be a life-changing event.

In addition to more than forty original works on loan from around the world, the exhibit includes a fascinatingly assembled collection of photographs from throughout Kahlo’s life, along with two separate exhibits placing Kahlo’s work in the context of Mexican art from her era. The first including works from the museum’s formidable collection, including the famous, anonymous Execution of Maximilian and David Siquieros’ astonishing Giants; the second focuses on the work of her contemporary Juan Serrano, who died only last year. While this stroke of uncommonly smart, relevant curating is a bonus, it’s Kahlo’s work that everyone is coming out for(early arrival is very strongly advised, the earlier the better).

Kahlo is best known for her self-portraits, blending elements of European surrealism into her overtly traditional Mexican style. Despite being crippled in a bus accident while still in her teens, she was a strikingly beautiful woman, someone who bears only a passing resemblance to the monobrowed, lightly moustached, stoic figure in her paintings (on the other hand, her husband Diego Rivera, an aging, dumpy man whose own work has long since been overshadowed by hers, is always rendered as a pillar of strength). In more than one sense, Kahlo never completely recovered from her injuries, was frequently hospitalized throughout her life and spent her last few years in a wheelchair. The anguish in these works -  the iconic Broken Column, depicting her spine as an ancient stone obelisk shattered in many places, and The Two Fridas, one of whom has just ripped her own heart out – is visceral. While most of her work is dead serious, she wasn’t without a sense of humor, as demonstrated by her surreal, green-themed portrait of botanist Luther Burbank as a plant. And she’s nothing if not self-aware: the most riveting, and revolting of all of these portraits depicts the artist as an infant in the arms of a wetnurse, whose breast is rotten and sagging, the tendrils extending from Kahlo’s mouth sucking all life out of it.

There are so many other iconic works here. Without Hope shows the artist on her frequent hospital bed, trying to suck some sustenance out of a funnel overflowing with entrails and fish heads. In a nod to the Mexican votive artists of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century, the famous The Dream positions a skeleton on the top bunk overlooking the artist below. The exhibit also includes the hauntingly ethereal Suicide of Dorothy Hale, the New York socialite/actress appearing several times as she floats down through the clouds, then bleeding but intact at the foot of the skyscraper from which she hurled herself.

The show ends on a typically dramatic note with the potently feminist The Circle, a nude torso in a circular frame, a splash of flame – or is it blood? Or both? – emanating from behind a shoulder. The self-portraits are all reliably disquieting, including a handful of miniatures rarely seen in the context of a major exhibit.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the critical backlash against Kahlo is her legend itself. Like Sartre, Camus, Joy Division and Nick Drake, she’s someone that American audiences tend to discover while in their teens, a point where those who have suffered young (who hasn’t?) find special affinity for her work. Whether Kahlo is in your own pantheon or not, this is an extraordinary exhibit, one of the best in recent memory, making the cost of a trip to Philadelphia well worth your while. Through May 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Tues-Sun 10 AM – 5 PM, Fridays til 8:45 PM.