The 59th Minute The 59th Minute Through April ...
Right above the glittering lights of Midtown, right below the gigantic, steaming Cup O' Noodles soup ad, surrounded on all sides by bright commerce, there is something that doesn't quite belong. Since Jan. 21, Creative Time has been presenting The 59th Minute on NBC's Panasonic jumbotron in the heart of Times Square, featuring the work of four emerging video artists for one minute out of every hour.
Previous artists showcased in The 59th Minute include William Wegman, Thomas Struth, Tibor Kalman, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss. This year's selected artists include Janaina Tschäpe, Hiraki Sawa and the Neistat brothers.
Sixty seconds doesn't allow for much by way of character development, but expect small, fragmented narratives that are absurdist, dreamlike and sometimes funny. Playing with ordinary objects and displacing them into the unlikely setting of Midtown, an unmade bed seems to give birth to a water-filled bubble in Tschäpe's Dream Sequence I, while thumb sized-jumbo jets take off from pillows and carpets, creating a thick mesh of air traffic in the tiny world of the artist's apartment in Sawa's Dwelling.
The Neistat brothers, who have recently become rather notorious due to their widely distributed video, Ipod's Dirty Little Secret, present Mousetrap, a taut, surprisingly intense short wherein a mouse paces back and forth in a white minimalist room centered around a mousetrap rigged with cheese. "The film is sort of about temptation and consumption," the Neistat brothers explain, "and it is playing in the nucleus of consumption and temptation itself."
The jumbotron, which is home to the New Year's Eve ball drop, hangs on the side of One Times Square, rising over three stories. An estimated 870,000 people pass by it every day. Take your lunch break at 12:55, grab a hot dog, push through the crowds and remember to look up for a bit of art.
Dream Sequence I, Dwelling and Mousetrap will air daily in rotation on the last minute of every hour from 6-1 a.m., except between 7-9 a.m. and 6-7 p.m., Times Square, NBC Jumbotron.
?Elana Berkowitz
Music on the Web
People always ask me, "Dan, how did you get such impeccable taste in music?" A good DJ never gives his secrets away. In fact, during the early days of hiphop, jocks used to scratch the labels off their dub plates or swap stickers from other records to confuse competitors. As a writer, I see myself as nothing more than a conduit of information. And my highest priority is to get quality music out to the media-obsessed masses.
Once, we could find quality eclecticism on the radio. As you ventured through different parts of the country, regional flavors spilled out of the airwaves. The DJ was once responsible for providing his own playlists, show and colorful comments alongside his selections. That's gone. The FCC has allowed Big Brother media conglomerates?Clear Channel, Infinity Broadcasting?to gobble up local stations like Pac-Man. Instead of the warm sounds of a DJ, playlists are now programmed according to marketing surveys and new forms of payola. Now, as you cross the country, the station may change, but the programming remains the same.
I yearn for the late-night DJs presenting me with music?my friend in the empty airwaves, chainsmoking and dishing out musical knowledge from a studio in the sky. Not yet willing to pay for a digital subscription to Sirius or XM, I sifted through the web and landed at the BBC website, where Sean Rowley, on his show The Joy of Music, offers everything from new releases to re-edits to lost gems. To say the man has a music obsession would be an understatement. He's from the old school, playing vinyl and informing his listeners of how he discovered his plates. The show is not a destination of instant gratification, but a journey, and I bet you've never heard Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" performed by an obscure bluegrass band called the Gourds.
For a more contemporary edge in groove-based music, try Gilles Peterson's Worldwide show, also on the BBC. He's often credited with breaking acid jazz in the late 80s and early 90s, and has become the Funk Master Flex of the U.K. If a tune appears on his show, it will most likely become a hit in the underground. His urban flare takes in many genres, including Roy Ayres jazzy remixes, hiphop, downtempo, drum 'n' bass, and groovy house cuts. His guests are often DJs from New York who can no longer find airtime in their native city.
New York City, though, is not dead in the water just yet. Two shows on the listener-driven WBAI still provide an outlet for creative and more adventurous musicians' records to be played. The first, Liquid Sound Lounge, hosted by Jeannie Hopper, explores dance music in all its forms (wbai.org or liquidsoundlounge.com). The second, The Underground Railroad, hosted by Jay Smooth, focuses on the underground hiphop ignored by Hot 97 and Power 105.1. Many notable DJs have gotten their start there, including, in my stupid opinion, one of the most talented: DJ Spinna.
The web is also a great place to find mix-tape sessions, both new and old. The deep house page (deephousepage.com) has more than a thousand free mixes available from some of the best DJs in the world?from legends like Frankie Knuckles, Tony Humphries, Ron Hardy and Timmy Regisford to more contemporary artists like Louie Vega, Kenny Dope Gonzalez and, of course, Spinna. The shows are free, commercial-free and can be streamed any time of the day. Sitting in your office, knocking out another expense report, these shows and mixes will bring a familiar smile to your face.
?Dan Martino
Saturday Night Rewritten
Saturday Night Live is now on Sunday nights. A small band of comedy performers from Above Kleptomania is reenacting their own grassroots version of the previous night's SNL performance, only with more edge and less Jimmy Fallon. The show, Saturday Night Rewritten, is not a carbon copy, but rather a loose rendition of the week's program. Its motivation is simple: SNL sucks, and we can do it better.
And they do, though given the current SNL cast, that's not saying a whole lot. The brainchild of Eric Marcisak, Saturday Night Rewritten is a bold and experimental form of revisionist theater with potential to become a cult favorite. That they're able to pull off a show with less than 12 hours to prepare?they begin rehearsing at noon on Sunday?is no small feat.
Like SNL, the skits blend politics and pop culture. Unlike the NBC version, SNR starts slow but then builds, saving its top-shelf sketches for the end. A recent show spoofed Punk'd with Saddam Hussein getting caught in his rathole by Osama bin Laden, who was wearing a trucker hat above his turban. The show offers plenty of impersonations that, though not up to Ferrell or Hammond muster, are solid: One cast member (T.J. Lawson) brilliantly imitated the Crocodile Hunter flinging his baby around.
Unfortunately, like SNL, Saturday Night Rewritten can get silly and sloppy, the cast members looking like they're enjoying themselves too much for the audience's comfort. The show also suffers a bit from b.c.t.c.?or "bigger cast than crowd." More than a dozen performers make for too crowded a stage. But most of the show's flaws are not the fault of the performers, but of the show's shoestring budget: The lighting is poor, the sound putrid (the musical guest MC Gaston improvises hysterical raps through a microphone with drive-thru clarity) and the audience brings the pulse of a bingo crowd. Not to mention the Sage Theater resembles a Christian Science reading room, though it's far classier than the show's previous digs above a neon-friendly porn store.
Still, Saturday Night Rewritten is a testament to one of the main maxims of good sketch comedy: The less time you have to think and plan, the funnier the show. Take note, Lorne Michaels.
711 7th Ave. (betw. 47th & 48th Sts.), 917-214-8252, 8, $8, $6 st.
?Lionel Beehner
I get frustrated trying to label music and it gets worse when my iPod tries to do it for me. But what do you do with music that references among its influences Cage, Cash and Coltrane? File under indeterminate country jazz? The end of definitions might be well and good for the art, but when you're trying to write about something as abstract as music in the first place, a few universally understood categories help speed things along in the communication department.
I've slogged through two different music industry conferences this month where the topic came up. During one unusually animated panel discussion, a much-respected presenter cautioned that whatever you call it, don't call it experimental because that "scares the shit out of people."
To me this sounded weird because I use the word experimental as a kind of code roughly translatable to "this is really interesting so you might want to rush to your nearest record store and/or clear your social calendar and get tickets to this show even if you were thinking of reuniting with that old boyfriend this weekend." I can see that if you were trying to sell out Carnegie Hall, having the words "Daringly Experimental" emblazoned across the publicity posters outside might be a bad marketing strategy. But this is New York and experimental isn't a synonym for bad art.
If you count yourself among those unafraid of a little noise and dissonance, I turn your attention to Italian guitarist Marco Cappelli's amazing and yes, say it loud, experimental Extreme Guitar Project, which is getting a two-night presentation at the Issue Project Room this Friday and Saturday.
To spell it out as best I can, by experimental I mean a well-trained artist tackling work by 10 different composers who were asked specifically to push the boundaries of what the guitar could do. The result, Cappelli says in his richly accented English, is that "the pieces are really different from one another. Each piece has its own personality." The show includes work by such diverse composers as Anthony Coleman, Nick Didkovsky, Erik Friedlander, Annie Gosfield, Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, David Shea, Mark Stewart and Otomo Yoshihide.
The music premiered in Napoli as part of the Alessandro Scarlatti Society's concert series last November. I cheated and got hold of a live recording from that event to see just what the audience was in for at the New York show.
For the gearheads in the crowd, Cappelli plays an instrument that was custom built to his design specs?an amplified classical guitar modified with the addition of eight sympathetic strings and rigged to control MIDI devices as well. Maybe it's just the character of this specially designed instrument, but more than half of these new pieces had a decidedly East Asian feel to them. Beyond that, they covered a spectrum of extended techniques and styles.
To my ear Yoshihide pushes the hardest on the noise side of the equation, and Friedlander walks closest to a tonal, updated classical style that highlights Cappelli's years of formal training on the instrument. Mori's swirling ambient work draws on a whole vocabulary of non-guitar sounds as well. Many of the composers exploit the percussive possibilities of the instrument with an evident degree of sensitivity to just how far to take it. Didkovsky toys with multiple layers and tempos in A Bright Moon Makes a Little Day Time, which at eight minutes is the longest and, to me, most fascinating of the works. Honestly, out of 10 there were only a couple pieces that didn't interest me, but when I hear them all again live this week it won't surprise me if I totally change my mind. Such is the character of experimental art.
ISSUE Project Room, 619 E. 6th St. (betw. Aves. B & C), 212-598-4130, 8, $15, Fri. Jan. 30 and Sat. Jan. 31
WED. 1/28
The Pittsburgh left-wing activist pop-punk quartet headline B.B.'s on Wednesday for the New York stop of their Death of a Nation tour. (In reverse order) Rise Against, Against Me!, None More Black and New Mexican Disaster Squad also appear.
Besides the decor, #2 is happy to play the room on principle.
"It's a thousand-capacity room in New York City that isn't Clear Channel," he explains, and would rather not "play in the Clear Channel venue and have them screw the kids on a bunch of added fees and then screw the bands by paying them shit for expensive tickets?which is what happens a lot in other said venues in New York. It's phenomenal because all the promoters that we've worked with in the past have now jumped onto Clear Channel. With booking agents, you have a history, so unfortunately we do have to play some Clear Channel events, but we try to avoid it at all costs."
#2's explanation pretty much sums up Anti-Flag's overall approach. A protest act through and through, several characteristics set them apart in the realm of likewise politically-minded music. Like #2 does in conversation, the band balances incisive passion with affable delivery. People take shots at how poppy punk has become, but there is something refreshingly vital about searing, angry protest sentiment set to bouncy, upbeat music. #2 emphasizes that Anti-Flag wants you to have fun; to feel a common bond with them and the rest of the audience but almost save the thinking for after the show (even though all the songs address specific issues).
It's a little easier to have that fun when, as #2 demonstrates, Anti-Flag show some flexibility in their principles. You don't go to their show and feel inadequate because you're not doing enough. #2 offers denim as an example. He says he is opposed to sweatshop labor and avoids wearing denim, but admits you might at the odd time catch him with a pair of jeans on. He dismisses the idea of judging other people's levels of activism as "bullshit." Additionally, the members of Anti-Flag are smart enough to cite references and cross-reference their ideas. They read, which you can tell from just a cursory glance at the information-crammed booklet of their latest album, The Terror State.
And they're organized too.
"When we started the band, we were 'fuck police brutality.'" So they participated in setting up a Pittsburgh chapter of Copwatch and a citizen's board to monitor police. Since then, their worldview has expanded beyond their hometown. Their top priority now is promoting voter awareness to get Bush out of office. They are actively involved with punkvoter.com and seek not only to register voters but incite interest in the actual voting process.
The band also co-owns the news website undergroundactionalliance.org.
"I encourage people to watch CNN or go to AOL," says #2, still excited about his recent trip to Iowa before the Democratic caucus, "but I also encourage people to check out both sides."
B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 5:30, $15, all ages.
?Saby Reyes-Kulkarni
THURS. 1/29
Fri. 1/30
Sat. 1/31
Musically, LSF's approach is one of deconstruction. In an interview, Butler told me they're constantly breaking their songs down, "each through his own interest or instrument." Butler, for example, is influenced by dance music and hip-hop. "If I could get away with writing a bass line that can move through a whole song with very little if any change..." He cites Andre 3000's "Hey Ya" as "the perfect example of a pop dance song with artistic credibility."
Does this mean Les Savy Fav will ever write the great American pop dance song? "No, probably not. We've got too many different approaches." Where they always agree, though, is that everyone is a participant in their music; in the kinetic energy that moves through the group, the audience and the show. The band's name is a fake; despite its resemblance to French, it doesn't mean anything in any language. But "it does represent an abstract thought," says Butler. "I don't know if it's a band anymore." They have become the aesthetic they embrace, a dedication to the deconstruction of the literal. "There is nothing literal about Les Savy Fav. It becomes a conversation piece. All of a sudden you're engaged in a social conversation."
Like Dadaism, which is largely interpreted as having no one set of characteristics, Les Savy Fav is interpreted and enhanced by each participant. LSF arouses reaction in the audience dependent on the context of that individual in that audience. That is not to say LSF is inherently Dadaistic, but it is definitely more than a band, and often an experiment with constants, catalysts and goals. One of the group's long-standing goals?to complete a nine-piece puzzle of seven-inch records released on several different labels?will be complete this April with the release of "Inches," their 18-song singles collection. In that sense, the band is almost done. Does this mean the band is finished? No worries. "We still haven't done a bunch of things we have in mind."
Sat. Jan. 31 at Northsix, 66 N. 6th St. (betw. Wythe & Kent Aves.), Williamsburg, 718-599-5103, 8. $15, $13 adv.
Sun. Feb. 1 at Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700, 10:30, $15, $13 adv.
?Rizz Ramos
Sun. 2/1
Mon. 2/2
Contributors: Adam Bulger, Mara Hvistendahl, Jim Knipfel, Ilya Malinsky, Dustin Roasa, Dennis Tyhacz, Lucia Udvardyova, Andy Wang, Alan Young and Alexander Zaitchik.