Highlights
JESSE HARRIS
TUES., JULY 20
AFTER LEARNING THAT Jesse Harris wrote most of the mopey songs on Norah Jones' Grammy-fuck, Come Away with Me, one thing became clear: Hell on earth had a face and a name. That said, you'd think his solo albums would be diminished fifths-as in I had to diminish a fifth of Crown Royal to listen to them. Happily, that's not the case, at least not for his new While the Music Lasts, for which he'll play a release party at Joe's Pub. As for my drinking-that's fine too.
Because Harris and his long-suffering band, the Ferdinandos, don't just play it smoky and corny; they don't just tug on your heartstrings with cat-gutted soft chords. Harris crafts engaging picturesque moments: little pustules of music and memory, nasal vocal renderings like narrations on an already achingly descriptive passage. Like Updike stuck in a room with rangy jazz six-stringer Bill Frisell (who, like Van Dyke Parks and Jones herself, appears on the new CD), Harris paces sly impartiality and demonstrative characterization on his subjects and his sound.
With lap steel player Rob Burger (of Tin Hat Trio fame) on his side, each of Harris' hardy sunbursts of day-tripping song-the stringy swirl of "Gone Gone Gone," the cornet-guided "More"-feels like an astral week. Throw away your copy of Away and come fly with this minor masterpiece.
Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-539-8778, 7, $10.
A.D. AMOROSI
JAMES LAVELLE
SUN., JULY 18
RATHER THAN BORE YOU with the story of a guy (James Lavelle) who ran a label (Mo' Wax), let me instead wow you with the tale of the man from UNKLE. Taking his cue from an old-soul/acid jazz scene, Lavelle furthered the funk behind British hoptronics to groove on down to what would eventually become trip-hop, sampletronica and downbeat minimalism with big chunks of electro for his Mo' Wax label and its finest, still-innovative charge, DJ Shadow. Yet, it's as UNKLE that Lavelle is best known. Toying with economy and splashy ridiculousness, Lavelle's music-trashy, break-beat-driven trip hop-found itself jumping chess-spaces from the sweepingly epic first CD, Psyence Fiction, to the messy, mordant even metallic Never, Never, Land of 2003.
How then does this carry into what is essentially a solo DJ set? Because, if the recent UNKLE (so bizarre, it never merited an American release!) is a start, then Global Underground: Romania (Global) is his finish. Never, Never, Land, fell through 2004's cracks, which allows you (and he) to pick up on the freakadelic odd-rock-and-metal of his newest mix CD with a sense of foreign intrigue. Rather than just place rock song next to groove song, Lavelle wriggles his tunes in remixed, nu-breaks fashion-he peels through the layers of crunch that define the languid Flaming Lips, the shoe-gazey South, the crotchety Plastikman, the block-rocking Chemical Brothers, several queer Queens of the Stone Age tracks and a bunch of those unheard UNKLE tunes into two CDs of oncoming-traffic techno. That's worth a night out.
Cielo, 18 Little W. 12th St. (betw. Washington St. & 9th Ave.), 212-645-5700, 9, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
ANDY BEY
TUES., JULY 20
THERE'S AMONG AMERICA'S musical heritage, lost, strange souls whose works fall through the cracks due to unscrupulous business deals, mangy management, drugs or worse-the apathy of a listening public. Andy Bey, who still lives in the shadows, is one of soul-jazz's finest unsung heroes of vocal vexation, an arresting interpreter of lyrics whose range is as rich as it is raw without ever losing its innate taints toward intimacy. As a child prodigy from Newark, Bey gigged at the Apollo, worked with jump-jive god Louis Jordan and has been accompanied by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. He recorded his first buoyantly bluesy album by 13, and at 17, formed Andy & the Bey Sisters with his siblings Salome and Geraldine-they recorded three Lambert-Hendricks-Ross-like albums for RCA and Prestige between 1961 and 1965-and sang sessions with giants Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Max Roach, Gary Bartz and Horace Silver.
In 1970, Bey recorded his own album, Experience and Judgment, a magnetic, often ridiculous, space-soul-funk-jazz-jam that's judiciously ripe with early-synth squeals and Fender Rhodes badonga-donk that would make Dexter Wansel anxious. Twenty-four years later his breezy vocalese reached the Evidence label, where he recorded 1996's Ballads, Blues & Bey and then a funkier, fanciful Shades of Bey in 1998.
Bey is divinely at rest within his voice's expressive colors and tones, developed through years behind the keys at smoky piano lounges with grouchy owners. American Song expresses his passion for personal freedom as well as the opening of his tonal soft palate. Settling into a classic catalog of song that includes the dumbstruck direness of "Lush Life," the lonely élan of "Angel Eyes," the religious reverie of "Speak Low" and an overall sense of solitude, his choices talk of living in a society without barriers. That's just like Andy Bey's voice: quiet, without barriers.
Sweet Rhythm, 88 7th Ave. S. (Bleecker St.), 212-255-3626, 8, $20.
A.D. AMOROSI
GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL ART AND ARTIFICE
WITH MATTHEW DEAR, DABRYE & DYKEHOUSE
FRI., JULY 16
THE PRIMARY SIGNEES at Sam Valenti's Ghostly International label, Matthew Dear and Dabrye, are innovative experimental electronic musicians with a contagious avantness. In the short history of microhouse laptop-pop, rarely has something sounded as intimate and ornery as Dear's sappy-cinematics; along with the cranky thud of lo-fi IBM that infects his messy, catchy melodies and wiggling synthesizers, there's a sense of structure and an ominous quality that goes beyond mere moody ambience. Entering his stream-of-consciousness lyrics and baritone vocals is like contracting a low-grade fever that infects everything within. Whether it's the character study of Leave Luck to Heaven's "It's Over Now," and its ugly undertones, or the robotic romanticynicism of "Grut Wall" from Backstroke, Dear has found himself a serious Op-Pop composer in post-rave clothing.
And while I'm excited at the prospect of Dabrye's second CD of loop-hop, Two/Three, I'm doubly enthused by Mike Dykehouse. First, I applaud his mom and dad for having that surname. Secondly, anyone who can make the unmerry melodies of shoegazing's wall of crashing guitars and slow, dope-sick mentality almost cheery gets big applause. The word "loner" has been applied more than once to what Dykehouse does: a one-man band with a mic, an iMac and a Fender Jazzmaster. Despite the grouchiness of "Chain Smoking" and the haughty naughtiness of "When You Come," his Midrange also offers dry-ice love songs that are more congenial than lonely, as if the entire staff of Wire really wanted to play ball and drink beers rather than go to art school.
Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B'way & Church St.), 212-219-3006, 11, $12.
A.D. AMOROSI
EEK-A-MOUSE
SAT., JULY 17
SECOND ONLY TO Lee "Scratch" Perry in twistedness is Eek-A-Mouse. His stylized stylee as a ragga Slim Gailliard in a spacey spo-dee-yo-dee heidi-ho mood was once a novelty in his native Jamaica. Now, though, with his voice a mix of high-pitched vocalese, rugged rapping, soul-swallowing chants and pirate-radio sloganeering, Mouse is now one of reggae's most raw in a genre becoming too slick. Though his choppy, sticky delivery may seem hilarious, Mouse is a social commentator of the first degree-and one more fun than Marley, Isaacs and the rest of them.
Fans of the punk-dub crown worn by the Clash throughout the latter 70s/early 80s will remember Eek as a constant collaborator and touring partner to Strummer, Simeon and Jones. Perhaps that punk period made him poke his nose into the implications of ragga-rock as he mashed the forms with his crunching cover of Zeppelin's "D'Yer Maker."
Currently, Eek is a bit more obsessed with hiphop, its bling and remixer Tricky, if his luxurious take on U.S.-minted cash-and carry on "American Dream" is any indication. Yet before you think his song "Divas" is the only politics Mouse will touch, a trio of real-time-terror-conscious tunes-"Ghetto," "Police Chase" and "Lick Shot"-shows up as scarier than anything this schizophrenic toaster has ever summoned.
Southpaw, 125 5th Ave. (betw. St. John's & Sterling Pls.), Park Slope, 718-230-0236, 8, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
BURT BARR
THROUGH FRI., JULY 30
BURT BARR'S VIDEO INSTALLATIONS are as nuanced and persistent in the ear as they are inscrutable, even blatant on the eye. Mile-runner Ester Partegas is passed by infrequent vehicles that tool up a beach road then roar punctuation into her beat of training steps and measured breathing. Rivulets trickle in Roz, spilling from Rosalynde LeBlanc's jaw and elbows as she showers and lip-synchs Otis Clay's lolling, vengeful "The Banks of the Ohio". And Fan whirs a lulling soundtrack for a darkened back gallery that's faceted into a visual gem.
With Barr, it's a good bet that aural components anchor viewing experience, for his videos give no ground to viewer expectation: Nothing happens, at which point it continues to do so. The Mile/ Running Time 7:25 (alternating in large projection with Roz) starts with its title and ticking clock in one corner of the screen; you see from the get-go how long it's going to take. Then whether or not something ominous (might have) passed at the end, when The Mile reels up again, it is reassuringly, exasperatingly on just that same clock time.
"I was thinking of a silent piece," Barr said of The Mile. "But what came to fascinate me was Ester's breathing and footsteps, so we went to a Foley sound-effects studio to tape her feet and breathing." Barr views his sustained takes as "the antithesis of current filmmaking, which is all cuts. I use a very controlled vocabulary, like having 50 words to write a story. Yet I feel it's the opposite of minimalism, for the obsessive focus on a person or a sound."
Barr's been working this wry mode since he started in video in the mid-80s. His 10-minute, all-but-motionless turtle hit the Whitney Biennal in '97. A solo show followed in 2000, taped in sumptuous b&w: an ice cube melted, a walker (painter Elizabeth Murray) approached focus. Dolly Shot Twice did just what it said, with a repeated pan among scrub pines that crossed a leery, dead-still dose of theatrical content.
Some of Dolly's nonchalant technique and loaded content pervades The Mile: the misty Hampton Bays morning, the mystery when a vehicle approaches earshot, the pacing, the panting. As with life off the screen, when moments desist, everything's on the line-predictability suddenly has an edge. Then Fan nudges at the summer season, with a projection of the oscillating fan cast over the fan itself, and a spindled gleam that arcs like a mechanical sprite across the walls, repetitive and enigmatic in the stirring air.
Brent Sikkema, 530 W. 22nd St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-929-2262, Mon.-Fri., 10-6, free.
ALAN LOCKWOOD
THE HOLD STEADY
WEDS., JULY 14
FRESH-FACED FRUSTRATION and the not-so-deep desire to rock fuel the Hold Steady, who will play the Seaport Music Festival this week. Wholly appropriate for THS, an unpretentious uptake on a bar band, the salty show is a perfect venue for them to display the "big-loud-smart" sound that they push for. Said frontman Craig Finn in an earlier interview, "There's just a lack of smart-you know rock doesn't have to be big and loud and it doesn't have to be dumb. People say rock and they say 'big, loud, dumb.' Instead of big, loud and smart."
The Hold Steady set out to be a simple rock band, to return to a sound they hadn't heard for a while. Originally from the Midwest, Finn and THS guitarist Tad Kubler were members of the indie outfit Lifter Puller. After settling in New York, Finn and Kubler got a gig as a gimmick for a friend's comedy act; that gimmick evolved into the hard-rocking sound that's been absent from contemporary music. THS wanted to get away from the hi-hats and ultra-stylized neo-garage of the early 00s to bring on a bar band-the kind you'd expect to see anywhere from Princeton to Peoria.
Along with their evolution came the enthusiasm of a loyal fan base, holdovers from the Lifter Puller days. They admit to once being overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of fans, but are now taking it in stride. They're hyperaware of their advancement out of the Lifter Puller shadow and, humble to a fault, seem truly excited to play for large crowds.
"It's a huge privilege that people come out and see your shows," says Kubler. Adds Finn, "I feel like we're starting to advance, in the true sense of the word. Which is kind of overwhelming. It's people who legitimately have no connections. It's very cool."
South Street Seaport, Pier 17 at the East River, 212-732-7678, 6, free.
KRISTINA RAMOS
MERLE HAGGARD
MON., JULY 19
"IT'S NOT A BAD TIME to be Merle Haggard," declares none other than Merle Haggard himself.
Indeed, after a tumultuous life, Haggard at 67 seems to be settling into a personal groove. In love and beaming proudly over his two youngest children, ages 14 and 11, he brags that he can still run a 50-yard dash like a young man.
"I'm a very young 67," he insists.
As well, Haggard is happy with his successful dental surgery and new implants: "I can probably sing better than I ever sang in my life." (For a while there, the state of his teeth threatened his ability to sing.) Interestingly, Haggard's address in the liner notes of his latest album, Haggard Like Never Before, paints a slightly different picture: "Life ain't gettin' any easier... I have no regrets. But, if given the chance to do it all over again, I'd have to think about it!"
It is precisely this direct, heart-on-sleeve wit that has helped sustain Haggard, who has long transcended country music cliches with his penchant for poeticizing the plaintive. His music resounds with the universal human desire to stay one step ahead of isolation, as well as the sense of collapse when the fight gets too tiring. Along the way, Haggard has gone against the grain of the more whitewashed, family-friendly Nashville sound and stayed true to the rough-and-tumble, blue-collar ethic and rawer sound of his hometown, Bakersfield, CA.
It took a providential meeting for him to channel his restless, destructive energies into music. Well on his way as a young man to a life of petty crime and repeat incarceration, Haggard got drunk off beer he had brewed himself-as a prisoner at San Quentin Penitentiary. He fell drunk into a latrine and landed in a solitary-confinement cell adjacent to death-row inmate Caryl Chessman. Conversations with Chessman through the pipes in the wall ultimately pushed Haggard to set himself straight. Since then, it's been heartache spiked with innumerable triumphs all the way: a staggering run of number-one hits while being generally regarded as authentic even as he broke country tradition. He's a giant of country aging gracefully but not going soft.
B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 8, $45.
SABY REYES-KULKARNI
SUZY BOGGUSS
THURS., JULY 15
"WE'RE RUNNING OUT the door to see Fahrenheit 9/11," says Suzy Bogguss. "It's probably only going to be in Nashville maybe two days, so we have to see it while we can." Maybe she's just trying to score points with the elite East Coast media while on the phone. Or maybe the country singer-who once sang with Lee Greenwood-is increasingly comfortable in her post-90s turn as a dropout from stardom. Her initial string of surprisingly strong chart hits ended around 1993, but it was hastened by Bogguss herself taking a break to start a family. She could be toiling for a comeback, but Bogguss has instead concentrated on personal projects such as last year's Swing.
You're out promoting Swing, but the album's been out for a while now. Yeah, we were in New York just last year, playing the Bottom Line back when it was on its last legs. That was sad. I just figured I should be out there getting to some of my core fans. It's hard. There's no country radio in New York, and this Swing album just falls between the cracks.
Swing isn't another lame big-band project, but it's also not Western swing-despite the album being produced by Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel. I knew Ray from back when I was touring in a camper truck and opening for those guys in Manhattan. I dreamed we were making a record together, so I called him up. It took a while to get going, due to our tour schedules and different things. I don't think we had this vision of a Nat "King" Cole kind of thing, but when I started sending Ray material-especially these April Barrows songs-he said, "This isn't what I was expecting." He was expecting some cut-and-dried western swing.
Why is it that whining rock stars never drop out like country musicians do? You mean, like, pursuing our little side dreams? Yeah, I don't know what the scoop is with that. With me, I just needed some kind of change. I couldn't fathom going back to the same structure where I'd been making my records in the past. I'd made a Christmas record that we'd done spontaneously live in two days. That's the nature of a Christmas record-and the glory of them-and it was just so much fun. I wanted to explore more of that with a swing vibe to it. It's so easy for me to sing those songs. I don't mean that in a cocky way. My voice holds up better. There are some of my songs in the past where I'm literally at the cracking point all the time.
How does it feel to look back at the major-label days? I played it safe for a little while, but I was so lucky even when I was making those records. [Former Capitol Records prez] Jimmy Bowen gave me the reins and said, "Go make the records you want to make." My first big hit was "Someday Soon," which was a traditional country song with mandolin, but my next single was a Nanci Griffith tune filled with lyrics that weren't typical to country radio. There was a door that was open there, and I was fortunate to sneak through. It didn't stay open for very long.
B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 8, $20.
J.R. TAYLOR