ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Vijay Iyer Quartet
Fri. & Sat., March 5 & 6

You know how sometimes you hear a new name or read some book and then suddenly everywhere you turn there are references to it? I’m sure the Germans have a good word for it. Anyway, it feels like I can’t open a magazine these days without seeing composer/pianist Vijay Iyer’s name in it.

It probably helps that he’s just put out two new discs: Blood Sutra, which grabbed the No. 8 spot on the JazzTimes 2003 critics’ poll and In What Language?, a collaboration with spoken-word artist/poet Mike Ladd that neatly draws on elements of jazz, funk, hiphop etc., to tackle the experience of navigating airport security these days as person of color. Much like Phil Kline’s recent Zippo Songs, In What Language? is strikingly good music that also comments more boldly and directly on our current political/social reality than most newspaper editorials.

When I saw he had a couple shows this weekend, I couldn’t resist ringing him up. Despite his growing pool of admiring fans and music critics, Iyer cops absolutely no attitude. "In a lot of ways I’m still struggling," Iyer says, though admitting that it has been a really productive couple of years. "It’s more that the work that I’ve been doing is finally getting recognized."

If you’re halfway through an MBA program and still regretting giving up the cello, Iyer may be an inspirational case to look at. The self-taught pianist grew up the son of Indian immigrants in suburban New York State. Groomed for the sciences, he went to college for math and physics and pursued them nearly to a master’s degree before making the leap to music, "where my heart was–one of the best choices I’ve made in my whole life."

He moved to New York five years ago from the West Coast, intent on throwing himself full on into a music career.

"The Bay Area was a really nurturing environment, where I gained my creative footing and figured out what I wanted to do as an artist," Iyers explains. "It was nice to have the time and space to stretch out among creative people without really having the pressure of New York, where you can’t really screw around."

The preparation was time well spent. By the time he arrived in New York, the now-32-year-old pianist had a firm handle on where he was headed musically, and he didn’t waste much time.

Iyer grew up listening to rock, hiphop and Top 40, and, negotiating a rather whitebread suburban lifestyle, found himself identifying with other people of color "trying to find a way to make sense of it all."

Eventually it was jazz, that hard-to-pin-down beast of a genre, that called him most. He was improvising on the piano before he even knew what jazz was, so by the time he hooked up with the music formally, "It gave me a more sophisticated way to articulate the sort of stuff I had been dealing with anyway. Just the idea of improvisation as a way of expressing yourself in real time is symbolically really powerful as an act. There’s something defiant about it that really resonated with me."

His music carries a lot of different influences, usually including an energy and a beat that make it hard to sit still, but you can hear pretty quickly that jazz is definitely the language Iyer is speaking. This is not a "take a solo while the rest of the band gets a beer" combo, by the way, so it’s likely to be an intense set.

The shows at Sweet Rhythm will showcase tracks from Blood Sutra, some instrumental versions of In What Language? and a couple new piano trio pieces. The lineup is Iyer on piano, long-time collaborator Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto sax, Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums.

Sweet Rhythm, 88 7th Ave. (Bleecker St.), 212-255-3626, sets at 8, 10 & 12 a.m., $20.

–Molly Sheridan

The Millers
Dysfunctional families make for good comedy. Just ask any tv sitcom producer. The Millers, a new fully improvised play showing at the Upright Citizens Brigade, is no different; it’s formulaic but funny.

This week’s comedy takes place on Christmas Day in the home of the Millers, a family of six oddballs. A grandfather sits around and sniffs panties and serves up tequila. A creepy uncle tells stories about his younger years as an acid-dropping swinger. A mother peppers her speech with choice swears. A loose-cannon father screams a lot and breaks down doors. And two stepchildren resemble culturally numb kids–the boy a snowboarder, the girl a fan of teenage pop stars. To keep it weird, she has a crush on him.

The plot is not hard to follow: Mother Miller wants the family home to celebrate the holiday. Trouble is, there’re no gifts, one of the children has split and the daughter is heartbroken. That’s about it.

The Millers is more enjoyable to watch than The Osbournes but not up to UCB standards, particularly given the talented cast; the humor is out of sync and the scenes are a bit clumsy. There are several zippy lines and well-honed improvisations by the ensemble cast, not to mention this recurring gem of a jingle, "Everything in life is temporary until you get to college." Call it the Versailles effect: Stick a group of smart and talented people in a room, and the outcome is not always a success. Witness the last 10 seasons of SNL.

Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, 307 W. 26th (8th Ave.), 212-366-9176, 9:30, $5.

–Lionel Beehner

Weds. 3/3

Ned Sublette
If it’s announced that Ned Sublette is coming to your venue, the first question you must ask is, "Which one?" Sublette, a Texan native with a downtown twang, is many Neds to many people: a curator of all things Cuban, an African pop producer for public radio, a tall man who wears a taller cowboy hat, an Alan-Lomax-like field recorder throughout New Mexico, a dedicated dealer in Latin music (as owner of the Qbadisc label), a composer who ranks among Glenn Branca and Peter Gordon.

Though known for his always-bracing blend of country musics–soft-pedal steel entreaties, roughhewn cowpunk–with Cuban sons and such, there’s a delicious soulfulness to everything Sublette does. Take 1993’s Ships at Sea, Sailors and Shoes. Classified by Tower as avant-garde, Sublette’s own decidedly detectable Texan moan and twang is tangled up with that of the Persuasions for a doo-wop/r&b workout that’d send Al Green to the river. Though 1999’s Cowboy Rumba is laced with sprightly Sublette originals that officially make Ned the Roy Rogers of the space-salsa, his take on Buddy Holly’s primal "Not Fade Away" has a most-surprising African diaspora’s rump-shaking grooviness.

Rendered onto all of the above is Sublette’s own quirky guitar style. Made up, separately and equally, of all those tongue-twisting tunings and fits of foreign intrigue of his eclectic vision, Sublette’s six-string soliloquies have a delicate American feel all their own that is as deeply felt as Pat Metheny’s As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls is cerebral.

 

Celeste Bartos Forum, New York Public Library, 5th Ave. & 42nd St., 212-930-0571, 6:30, $7-$10.

–A.D. Amorosi

Little Gray Book Lecture
The monthly Little Gray Book lecture series has plodded from the well-scrubbed and socially maladroit media circles of Brooklyn’s McSweeney’s intelligentsia into the limelight. Organized by writer and former literary agent John Hodgman, the lectures are based on "blue books" published by E. Halderman-Julius throughout the 20th century. Past readings have brought "reading" into new territory with songs, spelling bees and trivia quizzes. It’s pretentious bunkum, for sure, but come on–it’s time to stop D&D-player-hating and embrace your nerd self. This month’s installment is about animals. Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St. (betw. Wythe & Kent Aves.), Williamsburg, 718-782-5188, 8, $5.

Max Nasty, Private
The band once known as Max Nasty, Private Dick–which we much prefer–headlines tonight at the rejuvenated Tribeca Rock Club, known for oh-so-long as Tribeca Blues. The band’s crew have retained their Palestinian, South American/West African and Canadian roots by infusing fast-paced, accurate and determined riffs with rock arrangements inspired by their respective international influences and heroes. Their retreat to Buenos Aires late last year was well-served, as they’ve brought back pattering strokes, a substitute bassist and a flavor for experimentation when playing live. Figure out which influence they sound most like tonight, as Yazan’s raspy voice tests its range and your limits. 16 Warren St. (betw. B’way & Church St.), 212-766-1070, 7, $8.

Thurs. 3/4

Ludacris
Whether pitching deep throaty raps, dodging the disses of Bill O’Reilly or making the most out of his moments in movies like 2 Fast 2 Furious, Ludacris has become more than just a most formidable MC. The Def-Jam-South Mouf has made himself into an industry presence: a new CD, Chicken N Beer, albums coming from his Disturbing tha Peace crew, roles in movies of his own devising–

Okay. That industriousness has become second nature within hiphop’s ranks. Goes like this: Get big, make a label, do film, do tv, become a clothing entrepreneur, spread out until your entirety becomes an entity overwhelming even in the world of Snoop–he, the Doggfather of lending one’s laconic imprimatur to softporn, Cadillac and Ben Stiller. But the 26-year-old Luda’s enterprise is genuinely based on a homemade DIY esthetic that, like his sound, is as much underground as it is overground. Long before he started guesting on Missy Elliot records ("One Minute Man") and working with Timbaland (Luda is truly that sonic secret weapon’s most magnanimous interpreter), Ludacris was, before 2000, an Atlanta radio DJ who sold his first CD, Incognegro, out of his trunk on his own label. Long before he forged the smokehouse sound of the Dirty South, before it had a name, he brought the sound of Atlanta’s Freaknik (their version of spring break) with him on tunes like the Neptunes-produced "Southern Hospitality."

The DIY and the southern-fried still figures into Chicken, with its rare-in-rap mix of no-name producers (despite the now-requisite Kayne West appearance) and his dedication to the homespun with Disturbing tha Peace’s I-20 and Tity Boy on the inside. So let Luda do movies and ads (well, not Pepsi, thanks to O’Reilly). If Chicken-N-Beer is any indication, the best is yet to come.

 

Hammerstein Ballroom Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-485-1534, 8, $37.

–A.D. Amorosi

Edward Ruscha
Pop-not-pop artist Edward Ruscha, like Andy Warhol before him, gave up the good life of commercial art (one whose drawings of which will be on full display in his first museum show of such in June at the Whitney) to become a painter of American icons: gas stations, cartoon cats, movie studios, the Hollywood sign. Unlike the church-going Warhol–whose particularly East Coastal devotion to all things totemic (Liz, Marilyn, most-wanted gangsters) seemed religiously rooted in a palpably star-struck zealot’s aura, despite his works’ distant demeanor–Ruscha’s Catholicism was struck by his own righteous roots of an upbringing in Omaha.

This high-holy-plains drifter’s rifts on phraseology, on large scales, on the big country growing underneath his post-Beat feet gave Ruscha’s then-soon (the latter 50s) move to Los Angeles an immediate feel of prescience, what with the Californian cool of Getz/Mulligan matching his Op-to-Bop Pop. His now oddly on-time Flash of 1963, his Standard Station of 1966, even his liquidly loopy Lisp of 1968, breathe a more rarified, machismo-ed air than Warhol’s work. Yet, each had, famously, their own deadpan sense of male humor; one more daring and droll than the next. Think of Warhol and Ruscha as the Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton of Pop–one show-fully (wig-gedly) hanging by clocks high atop the city bustling; the other, stone-faced and even elusive amidst the speed and rabble.

The cool, granite facade and sly humored inside–describing both Ruscha’s paintings, photos and the man himself–is the subject of the first of five works, Edward Ruscha–Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings (Volume One: 1958-1970). Co-published by the Gagosian Gallery and Steidl Verlag, the volume features more than 120 paintings in full color from Ruscha’s ripest moments–his strutting student period, the first of his Pop and Conceptual word paintings of the 60s. Like a cheerless Cheever’s The Swimmer, underneath the watery veneer of an airbrushed life lined with Route 66s and Sunset Strips, there is a dry-iced documentary feel he’d eventually come to find, not only in photos–but photography books, wherein the loneliness of Thirtyfour Parking Lots and Some Los Angeles Apartments would come into conceptual imperative and perspective.

Yet it’s through the Minimalism of his 60s paintings, those that peer into the opposites of Pop’s explosively mopey representation vs. abstraction, that Raisonne takes shape. Unlike ever before in the sturdy Ruscha’s published or bibliographical history, he’s given the macho, stately weight of acid-free, heavy-gram-med Job Parilux paper, stitched binding and cloth covers.

Is Ruscha dead already? No. If you dropped this book from a high building onto him would he be? Yes.

(Only copies of Catalogue Raisonne will be signed on this occasion.)

 

Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Ave. (betw. 76th & 77th Sts.), 212-744-2313, 6, free.

–A.D. Amorosi

Thrash for change
A great idea with half-assed execution. The marriage of blistering hardcore to Green Party politics should work–both are fringe movements with passionate supporters. Problem is, it seems that most of the bands at this show fall short of hardcore. 1/2 Astronaut and the Hypertonics are pleasant- enough Pavement indie-pop. AM rocks, but play them for a gutterpunk with a GBH patch and you’ll get a broken bottle in your eye. Actually, you’d get that whatever you played them. That’s what gutterpunks do. This show should be fun; it’s for a respectable cause and really should be called "stand with your arms crossed for change." Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St. (betw. Wythe & Kent Sts.), Williamsburg, 718-384-4586, 6, $8 don.

 

Smucker’s Stars On Ice
You can ponder the connection between figure skating and jelly all you want, but 1984 Olympic champion Scott Hamilton’s gonna be there. Assuming this is still America, that means something. Also, a bunch of ice skaters doing lame, poofy shit in costumes that would make Liberace blush. Sadly, South Park homie Brian Boitano will not be performing. Madison Square Garden, 2 Penn Plaza (32nd St.), 212-465-MSG1, 7:30, $30-$100.

The Oranges Band & The Hold Steady
Sandwiched between a clever allusion to Vietnam, the country, and Vietnam, the band, are the Oranges Band and the Hold Steady. The Oranges Band have it down right with jangly neo-garage. It’s what Creedence might’ve sounded like if they weren’t pretending to be Southern. Enter the Brooklyn-based Hold Steady–who are everything you want out of a bar band, plus real talent, which was hard to come by in recent years of 80s redux. The raucous, gritty rock at this show will collapse onto an anxious crowd of revelers. An antidote to the Berlin via Brooklyn excesses of the last few years, the Hold Steady is one hometown band that you don’t have to go back home to see. Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700, 7:30, $8.

Fri. 3/5

Grant-Lee Phillips
Anyone thinking that Ryan Adams created glitter-roots-rock can kiss the glam-grits of Grant-Lee Phillips. Ignored by crowds and critics when he was the singing/guitar-slinging Buffalo soldier behind the Slash label’s top trio (uh, Grant-Lee Buffalo), Phillips’ sluttish, chamber-rocking take on weird Americana fell beneath the big-rig’s grinding wheels that was the grunge 90s. The GLB’s facile, fey Stipe-meets-Pixies-meets-Westerberg wonk never stood a chance next to the gi-hugic-ness of a James Gang on steroids (that was Pearl Jam) or the dead-man-walking wheelies made by Nirvana.

If you need to brush up on your Buffalo, I suggest taking in their newly released all-CD-and-B-side package from Rhino, Storm Hymnal: Gems from the Vault of Grant-Lee Buffalo. That will give you a feel, first, for the lush contours and character-driven scripts that made initial solo CDs, like Mobilize, layered and lovely. Punctuated by Phillips’ hushed dramatic vocals, those solo efforts, much like the Buffalo’s last LP, Jubilee, feel like a Carson McCullers work made majestic and musical–a concept that wouldn’t seem silly in the Buffalo way of thinking (and one that, if it finds itself on Broadway, I want my money).

Listen though to the Buffalo’s earlier work of the 90s, and you’ll find keys to the new pared-down rapture that is Phillips’ newest CD–the stark Virginia Creeper. Though Phillips uses the Moulin Rouge of multi-instrumentalists, Jon Brion, as part of Creeper’s ensemble, he goes for an inescapably beautiful blandness in which grand moments like "Josephine of the Swamps" seem intimate. In its sparseness, Phillips (or at least Virginia Creeper) finds a delicately elegant simplicity that brings him back to his roots in roots-rock while keeping those follicles once found in his glam-hammiest works nicely conditioned.

 

Sin-é, 150 Attorney St. (betw. Clinton & Ridge Sts.), 212-388-0077, 8, $15.

–A.D. Amorosi

Step On! with DJ Tony Fletcher
Back in high school, when my face was exploding with puss, with ears that stuck out like satellite receivers and a nose that took up my entire face, I listened to a lot of early art rock, pop, blues and Motown. I would hide in my room, forget the day and dream of a girl I used to know. I’d close my eyes, and she’d slip away. An air-guitar solo would ensue. (You love the Darkness. It’s impossible to deny their pleasure.)

On Friday, though, Tony Fletcher, fellow music hack and DJ, will play an early set of high school alienation classics from the glory days of shoe gaze. Expect, for instance, My Bloody Valentine, whose Loveless has been chased by so many bands, its magic sought without success. Radiohead? Don’t be silly.

After that, around 11, the party will get started with the baggie Madchester jams you’ve come to expect from the man who wrote an entire biography on Echo and the Bunnymen. Expect the post-punk rawkus Brit-funk of A Certain Ratio, Gang of Four, Joy Division, the Human League and the Happy Mondays. All of this, mixed with a late-night helping of acid house, Northern Soul and other classics from the Hacienda.

Then, if you still can’t get enough of Fletcher, hear him read from his new book, Hedonism, at the 6th Ave. Barnes and Noble in the West Village on the following Tuesday. It’s a semi-fictional account of his time spent in Gotham’s club land during the early 90s, before our previous uptight mayor tried to save us from ourselves.

 

The Royale, 506 5th Ave. (betw. 12th & 13th Sts.), Park Slope, 718-840-0089, 9:30, free.

–Dan Martino (soulstatik@hotmail.com)

The Mobius Band
"Art" may just be the last three letters of "fart," but there remains a distinct difference between art-fag bands and art-rock bands, with Massachusetts’ Mobius Band mercifully falling into the latter category. More akin to Tortoise than the Locust, the Mobius Band fuse glitchy and ethereal synths with shimmering guitars and tweaked James Brown beats. Which means that at the show, you’re more likely to sip a beer and nod your head than do a bunch of blow and mosh in a pig mask. Not that we haven’t done that also. With Lake Trout, Runner and the Thermodynamics, and Alaska! Mercury Lounge. 217 E. Houston St., (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700, $10, 8.

Sat. 3/6

Cannibal Corpse
It’s 1988 in Buffalo, New York. Five teenage dorks decide to form a band combining their love of heavy metal (Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden) and zombie/slasher flicks. Only their sound will be more extreme than anything that’s come before, their lyrics more violent and gory. The drums’ll be faster than a machine gun, the sound louder than a bomb exploding inside your skull. They release their first demo, featuring their infamous aural assault "Skull Full of Maggots," and play some gigs opening for bigger metal bands that pass through town.

What’s funny about listening to Cannibal Corpse’s earliest material, collected in a new box set, 15 Year Killing Spree, for the first time, is hearing how bad they used to suck. As musicians, they were always tight and have gotten even better over the years, don’t get me wrong; very few people are capable of playing this kind of music, which is why death metal always attracts the strongest musicians. The main problem with the early Corpse is ex-frontman Chris Barnes: He has no rhythm and no vocal range whatsoever. Hearing it all together, I can now understand why Anal Cunt frontman Seth Putnam has devoted so much of his energy to making fun of Barnes–the guy just sucks, that’s all there is to it. He was overrated to begin with as both a lyricist and singer, and Cannibal Corpse was wise to kick him out of the band, effectively kickstarting phase two, with former Monstrosity frontman George Fisher taking over on microphone-destruction duty.

Fisher is the anti-Chris Barnes. He has an incredible vocal range, a rarity in death metal. He can grunt really low, then emit a high-pitched yelp in the same phrase. He can also sustain his screams for an incredible length of time. And he has a live presence that Barnes will never attain. Admire this piece of banter from 2000’s Live Cannibalism: "This next song goes out to all the fuckin’ women out there… It’s called [in death metal growl:] Fucked. With. A. Knife." To top it all off, Fisher probably has the thickest neck in death metal, a distinction he’s earned from years of excessive headbanging. If you were to attempt to wrap an issue of this newspaper around his neck, the paper would probably split in two.

The fact is, letting Chris Barnes go six feet under was the best thing to happen to Cannibal Corpse. Any idiot comparing the two eras contained on the "best of" CDs could see this. Barnes’ departure has allowed bassist Alex Webster to take over the majority of songwriting duties. His lyrics rival the sickness and depravity of Barnes’, and he’s largely responsible for coming up with my personal Corpse favorites: "Headless," "Savage Butchery," "Pit of Zombies" and "I Will Kill You," all of which are collected in the box set.

Fifteen years after its inception, the music of Cannibal Corpse is more relevant now than ever before. America has been reduced to a veritable pit of zombies, a society that’s been brain-raped into complacency by a deceitful media, totally unaware of the fact that the United States has been taken over by a regime intent on waging an ongoing campaign driven by hatred and greed, a campaign that may very well culminate in global destruction. The end will be loud, painful and disturbing for everyone, and it will require a soundtrack to match its intensity.

Cricket Club, 415 16th Ave. (Grove St.), Irvington, NJ, 973-374-1062, 8, $16.50.

–Travis Jeppesen

Rock Albers
What do James Bond, the Golden Girls and the Supreme Court Justices have in common? They’re all Rock Albers rant topics of choice. He loves wearing bunny ears–they provide a nice contrast to his Brooks Bros. suit while he’s playing the piano and singing about Dr. Phil and Britney and Wal-mart. Yeah, we know–Wal-mart? Call Lenny Bruce’s attorneys. So Albers may not be the youngest or hippest comedian around, but his comedic chops can keep an audience of any age entertained aplenty. Duplex, 61 Christopher St. (7th Ave.), 212-255-5438, 5, $15.

PGP for Beginners
Your email isn’t safe. From the tiniest missive about how you scored last night to your request for those TPS reports by Thursday–everything is available to overlord eyeballs. Be it tech-geek voyeurs or jack-booted Fed thugs, you’ve gotta wrap that shit up, baby. The NYC Independent Media Center is offering a class on PGP (pretty good privacy) encryption techniques to help secure your email. Several computers will be available, but feel free to bring your own laptop. 34 E. 29th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves), 212-684-8112, 2, free.

OG death-metal bludgeoners Cannibal Corpse battle the forces of good tonight in New Jersey. They are touring behind their box-set, Killing Spree, and won’t stop until they choke from the blood. See p. 50 for more punishment.

Asobi Seksu
With music that ranges from power ballads to a feedback-drenched cross-pollination of later Cocteau Twins and Sonic Youth–and is clearly influenced by My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless–Asobi Seksu plays a brand of dream pop that hasn’t been done well in a long time. Tonight, celebrate the release of their self-titled album on Friendly Fire Recordings. Sin-é, 150 Attorney St. (betw. Clinton & Ridge Sts.), 212-388-0077, 8, $8.

Purim
Oh G-d, you Devil! Stamp your feet, rattle your groggers. The wicked Haman is at large and on the loose. Can Mordechai stop his evil scheme? Maybe not. Kids can gorge on candy and adults have an excuse to get their drink on. It’s in the Talmud and shit. Your local synagogue, sundown, free.

Sun. 3/7

Amy X Neuburg
Amy X Neuburg controls an astonishing array of musical talents on stage at Joe’s Pub, where she’ll celebrate the release of Residue, her second solo CD (Other Minds). She’s a singer as poised as she is powerful, a composer whose songs veer from canonical precision to offhanded clout. Neuburg’s also a skilled drummer and master with the looping/processing electronics with which she elaborates her songs.

Neuburg wields a phenomenal voice in which one gleans hints of the dominant art singers of our day: Monk, Bjork, Kate Bush’s passion, Laurie Anderson’s intimate brilliance. When Neuburg goes full throttle, though, the company gets even more rarified. She could ace Yma Sumac’s soaring melismas with a vocal potency that recalls Diamanda Galas, should outrage’s grand dame ever muse on life’s wry side.

As with Galas, Neuburg is classically trained with hefty operatic experience. She brought her four-octave range on Robert Ashley’s tours while the dean of contemporary opera created his Now Eleanor’s Idea cycle, recording a lead role on his Improvement CD. "What Amy did with me she did perfectly," recalls Ashley, "and it’s totally different from her own style. She’s very original and uses very original technology. And is a lot of fun."

Trained at Oberlin with a master’s in electronic music from Mill’s College, Neuburg brings this informed sense of fun to Residue’s dozen songs. Backdrops of cascading gibberish or frantic chatters are startled by jet engines, ringing phones and abrupt slabs of noise, while Neuburg ranges wide with vocal stylings.

"She controls quite a bit of technology," says Tom Hamilton, director of the Warmer by the Stove studio series, which featured Neuburg in January, "and approaches it as a real performer. She plays a sampler and controllers with a pair of pink drumsticks–it’s really quite charming." Her music melds this charm with smarts and power, and she carries it off with a stage presence that Hamilton calls "oddly winsome."

With Todd Reynolds opening the bill (he plays first violin in the string quartet Ethel), there’s clearly a spotlight trained on Neuburg’s version of "underground."

Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-539-8777, 7, $15.

–Alan Lockwood

Eugene Mirman
We heard a rumor that fraggle-rockers in Williamsburg have been sporting homemade t-shirts reading "meet me anywhere but Pianos." That’s pretty funny, and so is Eugene Mirman, who is appearing tonight…at Pianos. Life can be pretty funny sometimes. 158 Ludlow St. (betw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.), 212-505-3733, 8, $7.

Mon. 3/8

Ghostwriting for Journalists
We’ve met a lot of people lately who are ghostwriting or who want to get into it. And with everybody eligible to become a celebrity after just one or two lil’ murders, someone needs to write the books. Why not you? Find out how to get into ghostwriting at "Ghostwriting for Journalists," sponsored by the well-meaning doofs at mediabistro. The guy who "co-wrote" Marilu Henner and Kathie Lee’s memoirs, Jim Jerome, will be your host at this $65, three-hour seminar. Google "OJ Simpson trial books" and you’ll see it’s a good investment. 494 B’way (betw. Spring & Broome Sts.), 212-966-4466, 7, $65.

Ms. President?
Geraldine Ferraro came close, but no woman has approached the vice presidency, or presidency, since. Tonight Judith Shapiro, Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, Eleanor Clift and Marie Wilson discuss the prospects and possibilities in celebration of Women’s History Month. Barnard College, B’way (117th St.), res. req. 212-854-2037, 5:30, free.

Eating It
If you need a Ritalin to make it through this sentence, have we got the show for you! This week’s installment of one of the city’s best comedy shows will feature rapid-fire funnymen, as 50 comics hit the stage in 50 minutes. To keep up with them, you might be better off taking the mortar and pestle to your pill. Luna Lounge, 171 Ludlow St. (betw. Houston & Stanton Sts.), 212-260-2323, 8:30, $8 incl. free drink.

Tues. 3/9

The Organ Summit
Want to talk about the real Sound of Philadelphia–its soul-funk groove before and beyond Gamble, Huff and Bell? Then talk about Shirley Scott, Jimmy Smith, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Charles Earland. Talk about Jimmy McGriff. Talk about how these giants–usually with just two other players–took ballsy blues and gospel grace and holy-rolled this funky nu-form of rhythm-and-jazz along the keys of the Hammond B-3.

This was the Philadelphia organ trio sound, one that moved through the lounges and backrooms of Market and Chestnut, one that played itself out in neighborhood dive bars and tiny radio stations. Joel Dorn, a man who produced both Coltrane and Mingus, once told me that this, the gut-bucket-grinding, funky-smelling r&b laid down by guys like McGriff was Philly’s truest gift to the jazz planet.

McGriff is particularly nimble–a tiny giant whose newest works, such as 2002’s McGriff Avenue on Milestone, are nearly in league with his psychedelic-era classics; those dirtball dynamic dance records on homespun labels like Sue and Solid State, which put out albums like I’ve Got a New Woman and singles like "The Worm." Philly’s Joey DeFrancesco heard that sound, despite being a tot when McGriff’s Groove Merchant label LP’s like Supa Cookin’, Stump Juice and Mean Machine hit the racks. Blame his dad, Papa John DeFrancesco. Blame the fact that he was playing with Jack McDuff and touring with Miles Davis before he left high school. DeFrancesco, a savvy marketer of the organ trio’s hard-bop blues groove without a hint of retro-kitsch, has been this sound’s saving grace: a respectful but future-forward funk that’s found its way onto labels big and small solo albums and gigs with the equally-bop-and-blues conscious.

Oh yeah–Houston Person and Lonnie Smith aren’t bad either.

Iridium Room, 1650 B’way (51st St.), 212-582-2121, 8, 10, $27.50-$32.50.

–A.D. Amorosi

Calla
With little melodic movement and Morriconesque ambience, you could say Brooklyn’s Calla (by way of Texas, in keyboardist Sean Donovan’s travels) is the Serge Leone of noise-skronk–a drony, dusty plane onto which scuffed guitars and brambling emotional vocals are sketched as if by cold, distant memory. Yet their most recent foray into recording, Televise, seems to find pop’s passion in short, sharp stabs, as on the dear "As Quick as It Comes/Carrera." Go figure. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111, 9, $13.

House on Haunted Hill
Why, oh why was this movie ever remade? The original was a near-perfect spookfest, featuring heartbreakingly lo-fi special effects and Vincent Price at his Vincent Priciest. Slow, b&w and agreeably clunky, House on Haunted Hill is campy old- school scary movie fun–even without the glow-in- the-dark skeleton that director William Castle swung through the theater in the film’s original late-50s release. VideoTheatre, NYC, 85 E. 4th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-868-4444, 7:30, $5, $3 st.

Contributors: A.D. Amorosi, Lionel Beehner, Adam Bulger, James Fleming, Jim Knipfel, Aaron Lovell, Ilya Malinsky, Kristina Ramos, Will Sherlin, Ned Vizzini and Alexander Zaitchik.