ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Oliver Lake Steel Quartet
Fri. & Sat., Feb. 27 & 28
Alto-saxophonist Oliver Lake has gone where few tooters have before. As an abstract expressionist of Ellingtonian melody, Lake has made his mark as a saint of the holy Black Saint label. He has propelled his aerodynamic alto into sessions for the diverse likes of modern blues man James Blood Ulmer, noise-maestros Eugene Chadbourne and Anthony Braxton, Icelandic howler Björk, moody jazz mistress Abbey Lincoln, funkateers from Material to A Tribe Called Quest and the always-dour Lou Reed. He has maintained a lengthy solo career and side gig as a reggae man (for Jump Up) while, since 1976, also serving as an integral part of the finicky World Saxophone Quartet (with Julius Hemphill, John Purcell, Hamiet Bluiett and David Murray). In addition to music, he’s known to be a poet and, more recently, has even been exhibiting a delirious collection of paintings and photos.

In terms of his free-and-funky avant-jazz soul skronk, the swift-fingered Lake has since 1970 fused the speedy, soulful precision of Eric Dolphy with the bluesy, JB bounce of latter-day Maceo Parker as no other has ever attempted, thus creating a fly-wheel elegance as prominent as his freak-a-deakiness. For his latest works–albums like the crispy, crunchy hard bop of Talkin’ Stick and the Creole love songs of Cloth, done in tandem with his big band of the same name–Lake seems to leap back and forth into the flames of the funk while sledding the slopes of Ellingtonia. For this week’s quartet gig, Lake’s alto and soprano sax screechings are joined by Lyndon Achee (steel pan), Bill McClellan (drums) and Reggie Washington (bass) for something more reggae-ish than he’s accomplished in some time. Leave your expectations in a hat by the door

Sweet Rhythm, 88 7th Ave. S. (Bleecker St.), 212-255-3626, shows at 8, 10 & 12, $20, $10 min.

–A.D. Amorosi

Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan in 18 Films
The positive effects of a good film series are many, but one of its most alluring powers is its ability to take long-familiar films and cast them in a new light. Well-thumbed movies, whose every nuance may seem old hat, are revealed as containing fresh, untapped resources. So it is with MOMA’s new series "Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan in 18 Films," an ambitious grouping of movies whose unifying element is their interest in New York’s docks, piers and rivers. "Waterfront" includes avant-garde experiments like Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand’s 1921 short Manhattan and Mark Street’s Fulton Fish Market (2003) alongside Hollywood fare that made use of the picturesque squalor of waterside tenements and watering holes.

Unifying these highly diverse works is a belief in New York’s waterfront as the epicenter of real-world urban life, glorious in its rigor and painful in its brutality. Every street in New York may end in a river, as the famous opening line of William Wyler’s Dead End (1938) has it, but there’s not much time to appreciate the views when there’s work to be done.

Josef von Sternberg’s late silent Docks of New York (1928) showcases the docks as a proto-noir port of shadows. Von Sternberg’s melodrama of a fallen woman (Betty Compson) who dreams of being saved by marriage is redeemed from silliness by the film’s sharply conveyed sense of this working-class paradise’s combination of grit and humor, tragedy and comedy. Dead End’s world is one of close quarters and surprising juxtapositions–a swell’s doorman-guarded palace next to the hangout of the bitter, petulant Dead End Kids. Wyler’s film, a cousin to Mervyn LeRoy’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang for its social convictions, features Gregg Toland’s astounding cinematography and sterling performances by Joel McCrea (as an unemployed architect) and Humphrey Bogart (as a baddie). In its close-up portrait of urban poverty and violence, and its critique of wealthy indifference, Dead End is the quintessential FDR film.

Sam Fuller’s lurid Pickup on South Street (1953) features Richard Widmark as a small-time crook who stumbles into major league Commie nefariousness when he swipes a handbag containing top-secret microfilm. Widmark’s bachelor pad, overlooking the East River, avoids the need for one of those pesky refrigerators by keeping his brewskis cool in the water. Fuller, always fascinated by the seamier aspects of New York, and the world in general, revels in the pre-Giuliani tawdriness of the seaport area. What once housed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (their apartment was just down the block from Widmark’s screen residence) is now home to Abercrombie & Fitch. As critic Clive James once put it, "There is never any harm in being reminded that the way we live now is not normal."

MOMA Gramercy Theatre, 127 E. 23rd St. (Lexington Ave.), 212-777-4900,call for times, $6.

–Saul Austerlitz

Valhalla
Through April 4
Tasteless, nearly sick humor, parading as gay camp, is the all-pervasive element in Paul Rudnick’s new play at the New York Theatre Workshop. Set simultaneously in Bavaria in the mid-1800s and Dainsville, TX, 1930 to the present, Valhalla mirrors the lives of two boys from the age of 10 through their adult years. As depicted by Peter Frechette, King Ludwig II ("The Mad King of Bavaria") is a dandy king, from his wrist-flapping gestures to his narcissistic obsessions. Flaming, Ludwig is consumed only by beauty.

James Avery, on the other hand, the bad-boy-cum-gay-kid from Dainsville who plays his mirror, is a "self-styled aristocrat," a youth who takes risks to be himself and dreams of places far away from his hometown. As James, Sean Dugan does a phenomenal job, actually looking like the mischievous 10-year-old in his oversized shorts. Once an incredible rascal, he becomes a man fighting for his integrity, and finally the Swan.

The other actors, too, take on several roles. Candy Buckley portrays the mother of both boys, Queen Marie and Margaret Avery, a young princess, as well as a Jewish tour guide with a Long Island accent. (Some of these stereotypes may make you shriek.) And with the two stories played simultaneously and congruently, the action on the stage looks more like the Carol Burnett Show than a production of Wagner’s Lohengrin, the theatrical thread that ties the two stories together, and which is reflected in the symbolic Swan that James steals in the play’s first scene.

Everything about Valhalla falls prey to grandiosity. The strongest and most consistent element in the production is the costumes by William Ivey Long, who’s created the regal gowns of royalty as well as the everyday dress of Texans in the 30s with an eloquent sense of the traditional, innocent bride-to-be, Sally Mortimer (Samantha Soule).

Beauty and our obsession with it, both good and ill, are very much to the point of Rudnick’s comedy. "I would like our nation to become a beacon of beauty," King Ludwig tells us at his coronation. "And so for my very first official act, I am going to the opera to see Lohengrin." So overcome by watching the opera night after night, Ludwig fails at affairs of state, even causing Bavaria’s financial ruin by building opulent castles, including the titular Valhalla in which he is finally incarcerated.

That the curve of James’ character inversely parallels Ludwig’s is pretty clear. Still, most of the stuff that goes on here is confusing, a party of aimless and utterly silly behaviors.

New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-239-6200, call for times, $60.

–Isa Goldberg

Wed. 2/25

Ash Wednesday
Playing Spot-the-Catholic is never easier than on Ash Wednesday. Most of the time you have to look for spasms of guilt and hatred of gays, while today they sport black splotches on their foreheads, making them super-easy to spot. Remember, some of them are really nice–don’t be shy about asking them to help you with your Latin homework.

The Passion of the Christ
What’s the difference between Jesus and a painting?

What did Jesus say when he walked into the motel carrying three nails and a hammer?

What did Jesus say as he was being crucified?

Oh, we got a million of ’em, and we plan to use every one when we give it up to the Original Messiah, the holy man with the holy plan, the earthbound third of the blessed trinity who gave us one federal holiday and a cool hairstyle ruined by those dirty hippies. Tonight, the man who was once a lethal weapon of some sort but then turned into a kee-razy Kristian rocks a big-budget, bloodfest homage to his savior. That’s right, genteel motherfuckers, it’s here. Mel Gibson’s The Passion, the movie that promises to be the Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer of Jesus flicks. Expect wall-to-wall gore, Aramaic gibberish and some of the nastiest-looking Jews caught on film since Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. Check film listings for times. And most definitely call ahead for tickets, my child.

Charlie Musselwhite
Charlie Musselwhite, the world’s greatest living harmonica player, is going to blow the roof off of Joe’s Pub tonight. And yes, there are only 10 little holes in that thing. 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-239-6200, 7:30, $20.

Memoir Writing Workshop
Used to be a junkie? Did you once spot a celebrity in a restaurant? Did your goldfish die when you were 10? Author and editor Sarah Saffian promises to show you how to write a "compelling memoir"–even if you don’t deserve to. Barnes & Noble, 396 6th Ave. (betw. Waverly Pl. & W. 8th St.), 212-674-8780, 7:30, free.

Thurs. 2/26

Two Halves as Whole
An unlikely collaboration of sight and sound.
By Molly Sheridan

Zollé: Du Yun/Frank Dituri

In New York it seems that everyone you meet is an artist of some kind in the off-hours–afterwork painter, weekend photographer, 6 a.m. composer. When faced with that predictable lull in conversation after introductions, I hesitate to ask new acquaintances what they do for a living when what I’m really curious about are the telltale paint smudges across the toes of their Converse.

Not that you asked, but I moonlight as a musician and photographer, which perhaps explains why the latest two-for-one Sound/Image Event at Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art caught my attention. On Thursday, the International Contemporary Ensemble with tenor Peter Tantsits will perform the premiere of composer Du Yun’s Zollè against a backdrop of the Frank Dituri photographs currently on display.

The event is the fourth in the six-concert series that debuted this season, pairing the music in the room with the art on the walls. Sound/Image curator David Schotzko (who multitasks as ICE percussionist and Fine Art employee) has already featured works by Reich, Berio and a mix of young women composers in the space.

The premiere of Zollè will take the concept further. "At one point during this series, rather than just find music to go with the work I wanted to have music written to go specifically with the art," explains Schotzko. As one of ICE’s founding composers, Du Yun was an obvious choice for the commission and was excited about tackling the project.

At first, Du Yun and Frank Dituri seem unlikely collaborators. She is a young Chinese-American composer finishing her Ph.D. at Harvard. He is first-generation Italian-American well into an established career. Still, says Schotzko, the two struck up a correspondence "and had a very interesting interaction that I think kind of intrigued both of them."

The starting place was Dituri’s ethereal b&w photography, which often explores ideas about landscape and shadow. His unique style achieves a haunting, though not automatically menacing, effect.

"There’s not necessarily an articulated theme, but there’s always a connection in Frank’s work," explains Schotzko. "It’s got a strong spirituality to it and a certain connection and interest in the land." The Italian word zollè, adopted by the composer to title her piece, is a very specific term that refers to the clods of earth that are kicked up when the soil is turned in the fields of Tuscany.

The two artists seem to have bonded over a shared sense of a split national identity, the reality of being half American and half other, and a fascination with the symbolism of earth and homeland. The resulting composition is a half-hour song cycle with narrator for tenor and mixed ensemble. The tenor’s lines are drawn from the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini, an Italian artist perhaps better known in the U.S. as a filmmaker. Pasolini’s work has had a significant impact on Dituri–a traveling exhibition in 2001 pairing the poems and photographs of the two men was a major point in Dituri’s career. The selected Pasolini lines are juxtaposed against the narration that Du Yun has written specifically for this piece in response to the photographer’s work. This text is also rooted in questions of memory and origin, a mix of stories taken from her own childhood and recast as a kind of wistful narrative.

Zollè will be performed in the second half of the program. The first part of the concert will be devoted to a smaller recent composition by Du Yun scored for harp, Chinese zither and off-stage cello drone.

Both Dituri and Du Yun will be in attendance at the performance if you’d care to lavish praise or accost either with questions after the show.

Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, 115 Wooster St. (betw. Prince and Spring Sts.) 212-696-6561, 7:30, $15, $10 s.t.

Giacinto Scelsi
Tonight, Giacinto Scelsi’s intense, uncompromising music gets a concentrated performance by the ensemble Sequitur as part of Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series. Sequitur’s selected pieces from the composer’s rich 1960s phase, pieces that dare balance beauty with threnody and hit with a koan’s spiritual impact.

Scelsi’s star has soared since his death in 1988. During a life as prolific as it was reclusive, he imbued his music with a staying power that comes when ageless traditions are galvanized with radical intent. Microtonal to its shimmering core, a Scelsi score may employ the variables of a single pitch or the massed colors of an orchestra, all the while remaining unmistakably Scelsi.

An aristocrat in an apartment overlooking the Roman Forum, an autodidact bridging the Second Viennese School to tone maestro La Monte Young, Scelsi was also a man who never heard again from the wife who left him early. Therapy for the ensuing breakdown included playing one piano note in extended succession, which may’ve helped launch his own music from post-Scriabin piano pieces of the 40s and 50s, to the powerful 60s works for winds, strings and voice. He traveled extensively in India and Nepal and ultimately considered himself to be a medium for the musical message. He didn’t even want his photo attached to his music–instead providing a circle drawn over a line segment as a self-portrait.

Scelsi spent his last decade working rigorously with instrumentalists of the caliber of the Arditti Quartet to achieve definitive recordings. Soprano Michiko Hirayama’s "Canti del Capricorn" (Wergo) are eerie, harsh. Frances-Marie Uitti, to whom Scelsi dedicated his works for solo cello, recalled first hearing his music and finding that "it had no melody, no harmony, no rhythm" and "was among the most powerful music I’d ever heard." Her "Trilogia" (Etcetera), regarded as the composer’s own transit of life, is a summit of contemporary cello art.

Sequitur’s Miller Theatre program focuses on work Scelsi wrote from the late 50s into the 60s, a period during which he also wrote brilliant string quartets, a trio of daunting orchestral pieces and the orchestral/choral masterwork Uaxuctum. Sequitur will perform music for ensemble with violin ("Anahit"), with clarinet ("Kya") and with soprano ("Khoom"), plus music for harp trio and solo guitar.

"Scelsi is one of those cult figures," says Miller’s director George Steel, "whose music amazes and delights with equal measures of audacity and beauty." Blair McMillen played Scelsi piano pieces at Miller last week, with those of Luciano Berio. The innovative venue also had a recent recital by avant garde bassoonist Pascal Gallois, and their Composer Portraits continue in early March with Iannis Xenakis’s percussion music. Director Steel conducted the Vox Vocal Ensemble in early music of Tallis and Byrd this month, as well as playing John Cage’s "Music for Carillon" from the bell tower at Fifth Ave. and 53rd St. back in October.

Miller Theatre at Columbia University, 2960 B’way (116th St.), 212-854-7799, 8, $20, $12 st.

–Alan Lockwood

Elvis Costello
Henry Rollins recently described the conflicting sensation of liking an artist but being uncomfortable with things they’ve said as "like having a conversation with someone with a nine-foot spear stuck in their head. You keep wanting to say ‘how’s your spear–I mean, how are you doing today?’"

Though Rollins specifically meant Ted Nugent and James Brown, the same could be said of Elvis Costello. Listening to his grand, impeccably arranged latest album, North, it’s difficult to imagine this is the same confrontational, straight-up, give-Billy-Joel-a-run-for-his-money prick who earned picketers and death threats to his 1979 U.S. tour after referring to Ray Charles as a "blind, ignorant nigger" during a drunken brawl with Stephen Stills’ entourage. On the other hand, even though Costello has ventured into classical jazz several times before, it’s still hard to reconcile this music with the wiry, bug-eyed dynamo who early in his career gave quotes like "the only two things that matter to me… are revenge and guilt"–no matter how overdramatic he was being at the time.

In this regard, it’s still reassuring to see that the man can switch gears between the rock of 2002’s When I Was Cruel–largely hailed as a less vitriolic, though no less bruising, return to form–and this stuff. On North, Costello’s smooth voice and cracked, idiosyncratic, wounded delivery both fit and complement perfectly the material’s restrained elegance, where subtle orchestration plays silence and space to its maximum potential.

"My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant," Costello once said. Well, in the case of North, then, he’s failed beautifully. As the album is intended for complete run-through listening, beginning somberly and lifting in spirit as it progresses, the prospects for live re-interpretation are quite promising. Steve Nieve, keyboardist in the Attractions, Costello’s vaunted backing band of old, does an unbelievably fine job on piano. Though mostly a piano-vocals vehicle, North also features, in places, a 48-piece ensemble arranged and conducted by Costello himself.

The line-up for the Beacon show consists exclusively of Nieve, whom Costello has played with frequently since the 1994 Brutal Youth Attractions reunion, Costello and, for some numbers, the Brodsky Quartet, with whom Costello has also collaborated repeatedly.

Beacon Theatre, 2124 B’way (74th St.), 212-307-7171, 8, $30, $45, $55.

–Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

Miracle: Fact or Fiction
Do Disney and the 1980 hockey team have you believing in miracles again, 24 years after the fact? Leave it to the New York Atheists to rain on your parade. Today they’ll trot out Richard Carrier, editor of the Secular Web, to give a presentation titled "Miracles and the Historical Method." Carrier’s historical method doesn’t allow for miracles. While he may not address the 1980 Olympic semifinal game in his speech, if you’re certain the late Herb Brooks was a modern-day miracle worker, come argue your case. When Carter says miracles are larger than an Olympic hockey game, storm out after screaming, "Tell that to those Commie bastards!" Source of Life Conference Center, 352 7th Ave., 16th fl. (betw. 29th & 30th Sts.), 212-535-7425, 6:30, $10 sugg. don.

The Dog Show
The closest thing to a Lower East Side supergroup. Backed by a semi-rotating cast of characters from Twin Turbine, the Disclaimers and LJ Murphy’s band, singer/bassist O’Brien’s gritty urban vignettes deliver slingshot wordplay over frenetic Brit Invasion beats. Imagine Elvis Costello’s "My Aim Is True" played by the Who circa 1967. Or don’t. With the Nils and Joe Wilkinson. Blu Lounge, 197 N. 8th St. (Driggs Ave.), Williamsburg, 718-782-8005, 9, free.

The Desire to Live: Jewish Ethics under Pressure
Judith Butler’s famous 1990 book, Gender Trouble, exploded the binary gender definition that there are only men and women. She convincingly argued that there are multiple genders, none of which are necessarily defined by biological features. The effect of her work has resulted in, among other things, the gay community opening its organizational arms to transgendered folk and transsexuals, which, some would argue, has helped push forward issues like the legalization of gay marriage. Now just imagine what Butler will do with contemporary ethics in something like Judaism, which defines all non-Jews as "goyim." Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 5th Ave. (34th St.), 212-817-8215, 6, free.

Fri. 2/27

Paco de Lucîa
Crowning the 2004 New York Flamenco Festival’s seven nights of performances is the main man himself, Paco de Lucía, the guitarist most responsible for flamenco’s current state of health.

In the name of tradition and purity, flamenco had become a refined caricature of itself by the early 60s. Paco de Lucía was, at this point, little more than a nimbler carbon copy of his boyhood idol, famed guitarist Niño Ricardo. Once Paco and his longtime friend and collaborator, Camarón de la Isla, had fully absorbed flamenco’s vast cultural patrimony, they began developing a new flamenco style while remaining faithful to its deepest roots.

Had he never played another note after 1976, Paco de Lucía would still have gone down in history as the man who revolutionized flamenco guitar. Fortunately, the release of Almoraima was only the beginning of a musical journey that transformed the genre from its limited appointment as vocal and dance accompaniment to an instrument that could stand alone and flourish under the flamenco name, paving the way for current virtuosos like Tomatito, Vicente Amigo and Gerardo Nuñez.

Paco de Lucía continued to break flamenco music from the rigid confines of its past, and in doing so he became the first to incorporate the cajón drum, an instrument that has since gone on to become an integral part of the flamenco idiom. His collaborations with Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea and Larry Coryell expanded flamenco’s borders with jazz textures, not only opening flamenco to the rest of the world, but encouraging other artists to begin exploring new fusions that have only recently begun bearing their sweetest fruit (Pepe Habichuela & the Bollywood Strings, Bebo Valdés & Diego ‘El Cigala’ come to mind).

Now 56 and disillusioned by the prospects of continuing on the basis of past merits, de Lucia parted ways with the sextet that brought him international success, releasing Cositas Buenas, an unsuspected departure from his characteristically dazzling, technique-laden guitar work. The focus now is on emotion, rhythm and counterpoint. His choice of guests on the record, and his revamped touring sextet, prove he’s in tune with the most exciting recent developments in flamenco as he’s joined by the hottest percussionist around, el Piraña, Cuban bassist Alain Pérez and the singer/one-man band, el Negri.

Where will Paco go from here? Well, he claims that the future of flamenco singing is in vocal syncopation. He’s also saying that this will be his last world tour as he is going to be devoting his time and energy to composing. This promises to be a spectacular finale to the New York Flamenco Festival and Paco de Lucía’s touring career.

Beacon Theatre, 2124 B’way (74th St.), 212-307-7171, 8, $30-$55.

–Antonio Moreno

The Taylor Mead Show
With the possible exception of Michael Caine, Taylor Mead may be the coolest septuagenarian around. Downtown layabout–in a good way–and venerable teller of tales both tall and otherwise, Mead holds court every Friday at the Bowery Poetry Club. The Taylor Mead Show is "part oral historian and part burlesque… [with] beat reading, original poetry, reminiscences…anal sex jokes and musical selections blared from a hand-held tape recorder." Don’t just go because it’s an early curtain and you need time to take a nap aftertwards before heading out for the night; you’ll get no sympathy from this 79-year-old who still crawls the L.E.S. bars with the best of them. 308 Bowery (betw. Bleecker & Houston Sts.), 212-614-0505, $5, 6:30.

This ain’t no trip on the Circle Line. The MoMA film series "Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan in 18 Films" begins today. See p. 56 for more.

Velcro Lewis and His 100-Proof Band
It’s Southern rock from insane Yankees. It’s heavy whiteboy blues with a punk rock attitude. It’s deer-huntin’ music. It’s the kind of shit your dad won’t admit he used to rock out to when he was your age. It’s Schlitz-rock. In short, it’s just good old-fashioned nasty, drunken, loud rock ’n’ roll that doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. With the Act and Flaming Fire. Sin-é, 150 Attorney St. (betw. Stanton & Ridge Sts.), 212-388-0077, 9, $8.

Jess’ Charity Cotillion Runway Show
The word "cotillion" is sadly underused, and frankly, Rosie O’Donnell-financed plays aside, so is Boy George. The androgynous one will culture club you like a baby seal, spinning records for a runway fashion show. The proceeds benefit Dress for Success, an organization that gives low-income women semi-snazzy clothes to wear to job interviews. Plus an open bar. What, though, this has to do with deep-South debutantes is beyond our understanding. Avalon, 470 W. 20th St. (6th Ave.), 212-807-7780, rsvp@blackbookmag.com, 7:30, $20.

Sat. 2/28

Moustache McFadden
You and your three best friends have one hour to live before the sun explodes and the Earth is destroyed. Regardless, you carry onward and finish your live performance, while occasionally breaking into dance to Bon Jovi’s "It’s My Life" and soliciting advice from your favorite role model, Sammy Davis Jr. That, in a nutshell, is the premise behind the latest Moustache McFadden installment, Moustache McFadden Saves the World.

Their act bears a slight resemblance to Mr. Show–a series of skits, segues and musical interludes whereby the performers behind the characters let the audience in on their personal relationships and pending doom, which at times strains their friendships and ends with the audience voting whether or not to kill off a member.

If all of the above sounds too bizarre, don’t worry; Moustache McFadden bring enough energy to the stage to pull it off, quirky storyline notwithstanding. With more than two years together as a group, the four are serious actors but closet goofballs. Holt Bailey wears a "I’d rather be masturbating" t-shirt, Will Nunziata has an eye patch; Eric Zuckerman could win a Jack Black look-a-like contest; Brian Steele’s voicemail features a real-life Mr. T barking at callers to leave a message. (The two Chicago-natives met at a party.)

Sketches cover lots of ground, veering between pop culture and political satire: God and Ashton Kutcher hold a press conference and guess who gets all the questions; Fidel Castro and a little American girl become pen pals, writing about, of all things, Saved by the Bell; a man wishes his wife were Asian or at least more Asian; and Zuckerman utters what may be the show’s best line before being killed onstage: "It’s time for this virgin to go to that awkward school dance in the sky."

People’s Improv Theater, 154 W. 29th St. (betw. 7th & 6th Aves.), 212-563-7488, 7, $8.

–Lionel Beehner

The Coffin Daggers
Relentlessly powerful, gleefully macabre quasi-surf rockers who started doing punked-out covers of Ventures songs. Lead guitarist Viktor Dominicus furious reverb guitar blasts out from behind Dan Tercheck’s monster-movie organ while nimble drummer Greg Clarke plays with a remarkably light touch, considering the band’s brutal sonic assault. They play mostly originals now, but their cover of "Caravan" is very amusing. With the Legendary Shack Shakers. Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St. (11th St.), Hoboken, 201-653-1703, 9:30, $8.

Sun. 2/29

Hebrew Crash Course
There’s a bunch of horrible jokes we could make about the $100 price tag, but if you really can learn the entire Hebrew alphabet in one day–six hours, to be precise–well, that’s a bargain. The Torah’s a seminal document of Western culture in general and Judeo-Christian-Arabic culture more specifically. With lunch! JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave. (76th St.), 646-505-5708, 10 a.m., $100.

Little Brother
Your little brother would always tag along with you and your friends, see you smoking pot, then tattle on you to Mom so you’d get grounded or beaten. Well, that was then, and this is now. Little Brother has gotten all grown up and dropped last year’s hottest rap debut (yes, hotter than 50’s Get Rich). Catch them tonight as the North Carolina trio rocks B.B. King’s Blues Bar & Grill 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.) 212-997-4144, 8, $14.

Mon. 3/1

Faun Fables, Dresden Dolls, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
From the Nils Frykdahl family of seeping, creeping music come several subtle brands of ooky-spookiness, the likes of which would make the Addams family blanch. For his first trick, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum–the toast of the Seeland label–Frykdahl and his fellow San Franciscan pal Carla Kihlstedt (of Tin Hat Trio) make sounds, ridiculous and sublime, out of cans, bells, bongs, gongs, pump organs, autoharps, electric violin and any number of homemade and amplified doodads. Carrying on like menacing prog-rockers without the pomp, circumstance or fishy bass solos, SGM manage to be goofy, graceful and pulpy in ways similar to those earliest Hammer Horror films–the ones where the colors bleed from film to fangs.

Closer still to the macabre of Hammer’s studios is the black-and-white world created by Frykdahl’s teaming with singer Dawn McCarthy for the chamber-chills of their Faun Fables and its Drag City debut, Family Album. Here, the sounds of flutes, lutes and shrill, breathy vocals intersect with a precious, haunted melodicism at one with the theatrically moribund, medieval-Brit-folk of the 60s. Think of Bowie’s faux-folk "Memory of a Free Festival" tackled by a high-pitched Maddy Prior, and you get the picture of a devil’s daughter/siren in love with her "keeper of the past"/"dig the magic from your grave" badge of honor, from the sound of "Poem 2."

All the eerie clanging Frykdahl places onto SGM is winnowed into bittersweet, atmospheric song for Faun Fables–letting his reed-thin melodies be guided by the muse in McCarthy; a dramatic, yelping diva whose take on showy, gauzy folk ("Eyes of a Bird," "A Mother and a Piano") and slushy, religious-tinged opera ("Higher") is akin to an aural version of Rosemary’s Baby. This is no dreaaaaam. Somewhere in between Frykdahl’s Christopher Lee and Roman Polanski nonsense is the Boston-based duo, the Dresden Dolls. White-faced, lingerie-drenched singer-pianist Amanda Palmer and derby-wearing percussionist Brian Viglione turn punkish cabaret-noir on its ear with live performances more ferocious and tender than that of the tortured soul, caustic lyricism and happily hammy jazz piano licks that lie within their eponymous debut CD. Be afraid.

Tonic, 107 Norfolk St. (betw. Delancey & Rivington St.), 212-358-7501, 8, $12, $10 adv.

–A.D. Amorosi

Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy
The boys are back in town and, not coincidentally, there’s fire on the water. It’s amazing that these old British rockers are still alive. We wonder what their groupies must look like–we’re thinking Harold and Maude, minus Harold. Beacon Theater, 2124 B’way (74th St.) 212-496-7070, 8, $38.50-$53.50.

Moisturizer
All instrumental and all about entertainment. They sound like the incidental music in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and will either clear out the NPR drones that frequent Joe’s Pub or make them realize why they were born with hips and a booty. With Empire. 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-533-8770, 11, $10.

Ed Sullivan on Acid
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom’s jukebox and performance space probably won’t survive the transformation into Joumanna Kidd’s luxury box once the Ratner-ization project begins. And that’s why Pat O’ Shea, host of the "Ed Sullivan on Acid" show, would be among the first to throw himself, Tiananmen Square-style, in front of the bulldozers. Monday’s show features stand-up by Brian Kiley, who was nominated for an Emmy writing for Conan O’Brien. 485 Dean St. (6th Ave.), Prospect Heights, 718-622-7035, 9:30, free.

Tues. 3/2

Versus
The Japanese are crazy…crazy like an anime mutant cyborg fox. Exhibit A: the characters in 2000’s Versus include samarai, yazuka, zombies and vampires. The movie is like a long action scene that doesn’t stop for anything, not even a word or two that would make sense out of this whole compelling, frenetic mess. See it and see why we think that an Exhibit B isn’t even half-necessary. VideoTheatre, NYC, 85 E. 4th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-868-4444, 7:30, $5, $3 st.

Wes Montgomery Tribute
The fact that the strange phenomenon of tribute acts has infiltrated the world of jazz is a bellweather of something. What, we can’t be sure. Will the performers look like the famed guitar man? Probably not. Instead, expect guitarist Melvin Sparks to jam supersmooth octave runs on top of some of the most laidback jazz grooves possible. Iridium Room,1650 B’way (51st st.) 212-582-2121, 8, 10, $27.50.

Don Caballero
The greatest instrumental-progressive-metal-aggro-indie band ever is back. Sort of–on both counts, that is. "Greatest" because it’s a small playing field. And "back" because drummer Damon Che (who plays like a meth’ed up John Bonham) has reformed Don Cab, only with no other original members. That could go good or bad. Their last two pre-breakup albums were heavy on guitar-tapping and other musician’s technical oddities, but light on rocking. No word on whether they’re serving up a spicy metal meatball or lobbing slow-pitch college rock King Crimson bullshit. Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St. (11th St.) Hoboken, 201-653-1703, 9, $10.

Contributors: Adam Bulger, James Fleming, Sean Griffin, James Griffith, Jim Knipfel, Jeff Koyen, Will Sherlin, Alan Young and Alexander Zaitchik.