The Brooklyn What Are the New York Equivalent of the Clash

The corporate media wants you to believe that New York is all master mixologists mixing $26 heirloom lobster cilantro mochatinis, with celebrity djs pumping up the bass while Shtuppi, Blandie, Faylor and the rest of the cast of The Real Housewives of LoHo poledance for the camera. That element does exist, and in greater numbers with every passing tax break for the ultra-rich, but those people don’t represent New York. They’re not even from here. And while we wait, and wait, and wait, for a high-profile murder or two to send them scrambling for the next charter flight back to Malibu or Lake Wayzata, the Brooklyn What write songs for the rest of us. Like the Clash, they use punk as a stepping-off point for a range of styles that span the history of rock, from the 50s to the indie era. This may be old news for those who’ve seen them live, but they’re not just playing crazed punk music anymore: they’re become a truly great rock band. They have five newly recorded singles out: the songs are complex, psychedelic, and socially aware without losing the in-your-face edge that made the band so compelling from the start.

I Want You on a Saturday Night has been a big concert hit for them for awhile. It’s punked out doo-wop, a Weegee snapshot of a random night out. Guy’s at the bar, got only half a buzz, annoyed by the annoying crowd, trying to drown them out with Johnny Cash on the jukebox. He could go to Williamsburg, or to the Village where he’d meet some people and “want to kill them,” or stay home, get stoned and listen to Springsteen. But he wants out. And like the Uncle Sam poster, he wants you.

Punk Rock Loneliness is the shadow side of that picture. The guitars weave a staggered tango beat, distantly echoing the Dead Boys but more funky. Jamie Frey’s lyric sets the stage: “Rain through your canvas sneakers, nervous breakdown in your speakers…” Who hasn’t been there? Down at the corner of Bleecker and Bowery, where CBGB’s used to be, he thinks back on the girl who’s gone now. “All the things you had to give her, first your heart then your liver, drowned in the East River.” And the world couldn’t care less: there’s no more Johnny, or Joey, or Dee Dee with a song that would dull the pain, and the club they made famous is just another stupid shi-shi boutique now. A classic New York moment early in the decade of the teens.

Come to Me is like punked-out Sam Cooke. It’s sly and it’s irresistible – the singer understands that the girl’s been working a twelve-hour shift, she has to smile when her heart’s a frown, but he’ll make her forget about the long day and how light her purse feels at the end of it. The brief doubletracked guitar solo at the end is pure psychedelia: Evan O’Donnell and John-Severin Napolillo make the best one-two guitar punch this town’s seen in decades. A more rocking take on early 70s psychedelic funk/soul a la Curtis Mayfield, Tomorrow Night is more abstract, floating in on a catchy yet apprehensive slide guitar hook, winding out with another nimble, incisive solo. The fifth song, Status Quo, evokes Black Flag with its furious vocal tradeoffs, then goes for an anthemic garage punk Stooges/Radio Birdman knockout punch on the chorus. “I’m so bored with the status quo/Everything here has got to go,” the band roar. “You get all your sense of humor from reality shows,” Frey taunts the latest wave of gentrifiers. At the end, they finally let it fly completely off the hinges. The Brooklyn What also have a monthly residency at Trash Bar, a Saturday night where they play alongside some of the best of their colleagues in the Brooklyn underground scene. This month’s show is this Saturday, December 18 starting at 8 with power trio New Atlantic Youth, the Proud Humans (ex-Warm Hats), the Highway Gimps (the missing link between My Bloody Valentine and Motorhead), the Brooklyn What, postpunk rockers Mussles and finally the new Pistols 40 Paces at midnight. Check with the band for these songs as well as their classic 2009 album The Brooklyn What for Borough President.

Album of the Day 12/16/10

Every day our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Thursday’s album is #775:

Jim Campilongo – Heaven Is Creepy

Let’s stick with the dark instrumental rock for a bit, ok? Campilongo is a virtuoso guitarist, a favorite of the Guitar World crowd, equally at home with jazz, spaghetti western, surf music, western swing, skronky funk and straight-up rock. He gets a lot of work as a lead player with artists as diverse as Norah Jones, Jo Williamson, Marika Hughes and Teddy Thompson. The obvious comparison is to Bill Frisell, but Campilongo’s more terse and song-oriented, and unlike Frisell he doesn’t rely on loops, or for that matter much of any kind of electronic effects: it’s amazing what this guy can can do with just an amp. His signature trick is a subtly eerie tremolo effect that he achieves by bending the neck of his Telecaster ever so slightly. And every album he’s ever done is worth owning. Why this one? It’s probably his darkest, notably for the title track and the self-explanatory, film noir-ish, Big Lazy-esque Menace. The Prettiest Girl In New York reaches for more of a bittersweet vibe; Mr. & Mrs. Mouse is a feast of clever dynamics and tricks like mimicking the sound of backward masking; Monkey in a Movie cinematically blends surf, funk, skronk and trip-hop. His version of Cry Me a River rivals Erica Smith’s for brooding angst. Despite its popularity, this one doesn’t seem to have made it to the usual share sites, although copies are available from Campilongo’s homepage.

Deoro’s Eclectic Cello Rock Strikes Gold at the Rockwood

New York is full of good cello rock bands. Serena Jost is about to put out a new album; Blues in Space are playing the Highline the first week in January; Erin and Her Cello are about to do her “holiday spectacular” at the Rockwood this Friday. Last night, cellist Dave Eggar’s band Deoro played the Rockwood and proved equally good at an absurd number of styles. The first ten minutes of the show capsulized a lot but not all of the surprises that would come afterward. Backed only by nimble five-string electric bass and smartly terse drums, Eggar fired off a snazzy display of overtones, a Middle Eastern flourish and then a verse of Silent Night that he peeled away from, Jimi Hendrix style, into a cello metal boogie. A swaying dance alternated with stark, still, moody passages, the bassist sneaking in and introducing a tango beat. A hypnotically circling avant garde-tinged motif segued into a dramatic art-rock dance, in 6/8, and then their drummer finally sang an apprehensive reggae number about impending ecological disaster. Earlier this year, the band recorded their album New Kingston Morning at the legendary Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica, Eggar taking obvious pride in announcing that it had been nominated for a Grammy.

Singer Dina Fanai joined them, adding her unselfconsciously soulful, nuanced alto to a haunting Middle Eastern song that began with a suspenseful drone, Eggar building slinky snakecharmer atmosphere behind Fanai’s impassioned intensity. It was the high point of the night. And then it morphed into another artsy, Jean-Luc Ponty-esque dance. The rest of the set included a country gospel number that they’d recorded with Dr. Ralph Stanley; a fiery rap-metal number with some tongue-in-cheek guitar voicings on the cello and a savage lyric about the Iraq war; the gently bucolic title track to the new album, and Follow Me to the Sun, another album cut, sung by the drummer, eventually morphing into a bouncy disco vamp. Is there any style of music this band can’t do? Apparently not. The impressively full house, especially for what is now an unseasonably cold night, wanted more.

And the show was even educational. As it turns out, Silent Night has a second verse (they sang it, joined by a powerful bass singer from the Metropolitan Opera). Like Meet the Mets, nobody ever hears it – and also like Meet the Mets, it doesn’t really need it. Simon and Garfunkel’s version put that song out of reach for good a long time ago.