Lief Vollebekk, left, and Gregory Alan Isakov perform a joint encore
Gregory Alan Isakov hails from Colorado; his opener Lief Vollebekk is French-Canadian. Throw them in a Brooklyn venue and you’ve got enough flannel and beards to open up an urban farm.
All in jest, this is not to downplay the authenticity of Isakov’s musicianship — his agrarian melodies feel borrowed from the earth as his poetic lyrics are caught from the wind. His folksy, bluer songs felt particularly powerful last night; it’s hard to not hear the lyric “The Universe, she’s wounded / but she’s still got infinity ahead of her” and not consider the onslaught of bad news that’s swept our country in the past few weeks. Still, many of his songs warmed instead of numbed, a necessary touch at Warsaw (261 Driggs Avenue) where audiences huddled and remained buttoned up from the unseasonably wintry evening.
It’s hard to pick a favorite Gregory Alan Isakov lyric — as poet of the earth and singer of the wind, Isakov’s gorgeous, sweeping lyrics haunt and sooth, seduce and remedy. The horticulturalist turned folks singer has reminded us that “After all I’ve been told, California’s cold” in the poignant “San Francisco,” and voiced lost love’s plight in the iconic “Stable Song,” crooning, “Now I’ve been crazy couldn’t you tell / I threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell.” Now, with his new album Evening Machines, Isakov brings a whole new treasure trove of spellbinding lyrics and melodies on the road for his national tour.
Virginia-based rock band Mae comes to The Knitting Factory (361 Metropolitan Avenue) this Sunday for a concert during their nationwide tour. Doors open at 7 for the concert, and tickets are just $25 when purchased in advance. Mae, an acronym for Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience, recently released a new EP entitled 3.0 that will be highlighted on their current tour. 3.0 is a preview to the band’s self-titled full-length album, due out October 28.
The vision for this album cycle was born when Mae played at the Forbes 30 Under 30 EMEA Summit in the Tower of David in Jerusalem in 2016. They concluded the evening with the first-ever large-scale live musical performance, synced to virtual reality. As Forbes described it, “Revelers dropped their mobile phones into specially-designed headsets that allowed them to view a brand-new animation meant to represent the creation of the universe while the band played in time.” Mae has also done this “LIGHT” performance, as they call it, at the 72nd UN General Assembly and the Future of StoryTelling Festival.
MAE‘s previous album Singularity came in at #40 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart, #12 on the Billboard US Rock Chart, #13 on the Billboard US Alternative Chart, and #40 on the Billboard US Digital Chart. For more info, visit the band’s Instagram.
Crowned “a genuine rock goddess” by the Associated Press, MegMyers is a singer songwriter with cathartic and healing music. The Tennessee native takes her most recent release, Take Me To The Disco — a dark-pop effort at reclaiming her painful past through menacing tunes — on the road for her national tour. Hit songs include “Lemon Eyes,” “Desire,” and the newly released “Numb.”
“I came from this grunge, punk-rock background, but I always wanted to write catchy pop songs,” Myers says. “I just didn’t have the technical knowledge to make them work. But I grew up listening to well-crafted songs. I loved Sting, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac. That’s what I was drawn to. I love the simplicity of a great song, I just didn’t realize how hard that was to capture in a recording. That’s why working with Rosen is so great. It was like, ‘Okay, I found this guy I can write songs with and who is really good at turning everything into pop, while still letting me be myself.'”
You can catch Myers at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (66 North 6th Street) on October 1. Doors open at 7:30; concert starts at 8:30 with Adam Jones opening. Tickets are just $20!
The San Damiano Mission (85 N 15th Street) has the past few years not only been a church with some cool-as-heck Friars, but also they’ve been the home for a popup BBQ joint, been a community gathering spot, and they’ve hosting concerts of all genres of music in collaboration with The Lot Radio across the street. And if you don’t know The Lot by now, they’re an everyone-feels-welcome outdoor cafe/bar/DJ booth and hang spot.
On Thursday, August 30th, the Lot and The Mission are collaborating to bring talented pianist Hans H. Suh to the Mission for a classical concert. He’ll be playing Schumann – Arabesque; Liszt – Sonata in B minor; and Ravel – La Valse. Tix are $15 and you can get them here.
Pastor Amy in front of the Park Church Co-Op on Russell Street. Photo: Ian Hartsoe
As many of you know, the Park Church Co-op (129 Russell Street) is not only one ofGreenpoint’s coolest churches, featuring unorthodox events like rock concerts, dance parties and sound baths, but it’s almost exclusively run by volunteers and dedicated community members. They have many exciting events and projects in store, and they would love to see more folks in the neighborhood getting involved. If you’d like to volunteer for any of the upcoming opportunities below, you can email [email protected].
Pregnancy Loss Support Group Vigil October 16th7-9PM Community members are coming together for a candlelight vigil to reflect on the difficulties pregnancy loss. We need volunteers to come and bring snacks/beverages and offer general support.
Kids Spooky Halloween Party October 29th 2PM-5PM Parents in the neighborhood are organizing a fun Halloween event with games, face painting and trick or treating. We need volunteers to help with decorating and staffing the event.
Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities:
Concert Series Our Concert Series has hosted some amazing acts ranging from Lydia Lunch to Wise Blood. We are always in need of people to run the bar, door, help out with Church PR and just be an extra set of hands! Continue reading →
On Thursday, September 28th, the Park Church Co-Op (129 Russell St) will play host to an evening of experimental jazz headlined by post-punk, avant-garde powerhouse Lydia Lunch. Performances will begin at 8pm with pianist Jesse Lynch, followed by Matt Nelson on tenor saxophone, and a trio set by Moppa Elliott’s Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Lydia Lunch and Michael Foster will headline at 10pm. The evening will close with an experimental group ensemble conducted by Lunch. And, if that wasn’t enough to entice you to check this one out, proceeds will go towards McGolrick Park’s public art project, Ziemia (Polish for “Earth”).
To create Ziemia, artist Martynka Wawrzyniak is creating a native plant meadow and a sculpture made with help from Greenpoint residents. The sculpture will take the form of a ceramic orb, fired out of clay excavated in Greenpoint and glazed with a mix of soil contributed by residents from personally meaningful locations from around the world, which symbolize their identities. Ziemia aims to bridge the divides between the neighborhood’s disparate subcultures, serving as a collective portrait of the community through embodying residents’ personal homelands and migration stories.
Franz Ferdinand played to a sold-out house last night at Warsaw (261 Driggs Ave) on their first tour since 2014 supporting Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action. The band’s new lineup is comprised of Alex Kapranos (lead vocals and guitar), Bob Hardy (bass guitar), Paul Thomson (drums, percussion and backing vocals) and Dino Bardot (guitar) and Julian Corrie (synth, guitar) replaced founding member Nick McCarthy, who left the band last summer.
After playing Governor’s Ball over the weekend, the band extended their stay in New York City playing the show as part of Governor’s Ball After Dark.The crowd was as electrified as the band, especially when they played dance-beat heavy songs such as “No You Girls”, “The Dark of the Matinee” and “Take Me Out”, dancing, jumping and waving their arms to the music. Franz Ferdinand returned to the stage for an encore performance and ended their show with energy surging, “This Fire” and hand-in-hand the band took a bow.Continue reading →
Dance music DJ, Roosevelt beings his four-piece band to Brooklyn Bazaar for a totally new live experience. (Photo credit: Brian Vu)
Catch the German-based dance music producer, multi-instrumentalist, and dreamy vocalist, Roosevelt, for a late night party at the Brooklyn Bazaar (150 Greenpoint Ave) this Friday, June 2nd following his performance at Governors Ball on Randall’s Island.
For those of you familiar with Roosevelt, it might come to you as a surprise to see the DJ with a four-piece band this time around. He’s amping up his live shows, and just added a new keyboardist to complete their summer tour (Brooklyn is just one of the three stops in the US—Governors Ball NYC, Philly and DC—are also on the list, before trekking back to Europe).
“This is the first time for people to see it as a four piece. A lot of things came from the laptop before, but now everything is live… So that’s exciting for me right now because so many things can go wrong because there’s actually a band. That’s quite a special thing because it’s the first time we’re playing together.”
We sat down with Roosevelt before he dipped into a 5-hour-long rehearsal session in Brooklyn to discuss his new Remixed EP, touring with a girl, and what he means by “the European way.” Continue reading →
The Hum, in its 5th year, is a magical project put together by Rachael Pazdan. Pazdan, music director at the Le Possion Rouge, unites female artists who have never worked together to create new music for an all-female performance series for five nights. In past years it was held at Manhattan Inn (RIP), but this year Good Room (98 Meserole Ave) is hosting all the events except one which will be held at Le Poisson Rouge. This past Monday’s session was serene, synth-ful and sinful, and full of dance-like beauty. Each group was seamless and fluid in their collaboration, making it appear that they must have worked together before. These groups that played involved several powerhouses, including Kissey as well as Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz). Continue reading →
