The Green Apple Music Festival started out a disaster for me personally.
First I slept through Thursday night’s kickoff show, an acoustic affair with the Benevento-Russo Duo, when a planned short nap before a midnight ramble became an unplanned 10-hour slumber through the night. Then Friday evening arrived, and the usually reliable and talented Grace Potter put on a less-than-stellar show with the Nocturnals at Southpaw, complete with three extremely creepy, balding middle-aged dudes taking as many pictures of her as possible — not a fun vibe trying to peek through compulsive masturbators to watch a show.
So I turned to the free shit to break me out of the funk. As we mentioned yesterday, the Green Apple organizers planned several sets gratis outside Grand Central Station for the second straight year, an oasis of quality tunes in a big, bad city. So I headed up to the makeshift hippie enclave for an Earth Day street fair to meet up with some good friends and try to salvage a piss-poor beginning.
Read on for more photos and videos from the sunny day in NYC…
We’re pretty geeked up about this weekend’s Green Apple Music Festival, even though overall enthusiasm for the event can only be considered “tempered” at best compared to last year. Organizers expanded the music and arts festival to three cities this year, adding Chicago and San Francisco to the mix, but there’s no question it’s flying well below the radar of many in its desired audience.
Regardless, we’re fired up. I had a stellar weekend last year and even started a one-weekend blog to document the cause of my permagrin. Part of that Cheshire Cat smile stemmed from the free music outside Grand Central Station, which may or may not have caused me to play hookey from work. Well, this year they’ve planned two days of free shit, and the festivies are currently underway.
The Paul Green School of Rock featuring Yes’ Jon Anderson, and later Gandalf Murphy, opened the outdoor shows earlier today, but there’s plenty more music following behind them in the pipeline. Here’s a look at the remaining acts on display outside Grand Central on Vanderbilt Avenue today and tomorrow:
Friday, April 20:
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals 4:30 PM
Ozomatli 5:45 PM
Saturday, April 21:
Zero 12:00 PM
State Radio 1:40 PM
Assembly of Dust 3:20 PM
I’ll see youse there tomorrow, unless I sleep through it, which is possible. And if anyone’s hitting up Grace Potter at Southpaw tonight, I’ll be the kid with the Jew-nose wearing the Cardiff City FC shirt that desperately needs a haircut.
Spanning the four months between the Coventry Disaster and New Year’s 2004, I somehow found myself on an unplanned, unconscious live music hiatus. The only performances I caught in person took place under the pavement while riding New York’s underground public transportation system.
But I did watch those amateur shows intently. Sometimes I found myself hanging out for 20 minutes, sometimes an hour, literally, getting my fill of free music in exchange for a well-deserved buck or two. The caliber of musician down there occasionally floored me — why is this person underground and not up on some stage? Point is, there’s talent everywhere, like in this sweet clip:
Aside from spelling “cello” horribly wrong in the intro, that’s one of the better videos I’ve seen from down in the subway. Kudos bar to beatboxing flute player Greg Pattillo and cello player Eric Stephenson for brightening my Friday…
This morning we linked to the New York Times article about the Last Stand of Tonic, the minimalist Lower East Side performance space with the some of the best acoustics in New York. We opined the eventual loss of Tonic not too long ago, and at this point, we’re all out of whine and tears.
But that’s to say there isn’t news. The Times detailed the arrest of acclaimed guitarist Marc Ribot, who’s moonlighting as mouthpiece and co-director of the Take It to the Bridge campaign that seeks to protect indie, jazz and experimental music in NYC. Ribot refused to leave the Tonic stage, and as such, he became a trespasser.
Both the mainstream press and the blog scene documented the last chance to dance avant-trance very well, and Bob Arihood published an excellent recap and a slew of up-close photos on his Neither More Nor Less blog. I recommend heading over there and checking out the rest of his arresting shots before clicking over to Brooklyn Vegan for more on the strange last days of a legendary venue.
Idolator posted the shot of the Irving Plaza sign coming down, and now they’ve captured the new sign going up. And if you’re like us, the only redeeming part of this photo is that the always-satisfying Galaxy eatery next door managed to sneak into the picture. Otherwise, good lord, that sign’s uglier than a hair-lip.
Rumors have been flying fast and furious about which musicians will round out Phil Lesh’s lineup of Friends at the two stealth SOBs shows in New York next week.
Trey Anstasio back-up singer Christina Durfee posted on her MySpace page that she’ll be in the house that night, though she’s since yanked down the entry. That increased speculation that Big Red himself will be on stage with Phil, but now all signs are pointing to blues musician Larry McCray on at least one guitar spot.
According to the latest comments on McCray’s MySpace page:
Tomorrow Larry McCray celebrates with the start of six tour dates as a member of Phil Lesh and Friends. April 9th and 10th dates at S.O.B.’s in NYC are sold out. Larry will also be playing shows in San Francisco.
We’ll await official confirmation, and there’s a bit of confusion here — six tour dates? — but that comment sure makes it seem like he’s in the band. I’m smelling some late ’60s shit here, and I’m tasting an epic Viola Lee Blues.
It’s almost official: Concert-promoting heady overlord Live Nation is one step closer to pulling off the…completely unnecessary. The good people at Idolator ran a clever post today with the following picture taken from one of those cellular telephones with the cameras. They’re taking down the sign, and just six days from now, the un-brand new Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza will still(!) be open to the public.
There are purists and there are branders. And the branders love the “at” and “of” prepositions; for, those little descriptors allow them be douchebags. Or douchebottles, or whatever the devil you fallopian tubers use these days.
The pride of Denver took the naming-rights ducats and became Invesco Field at Mile High. Arte Moreno, so soon after his $184 million purchase, smelled bigger-city pesos and birthed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Even one of our alma maters fell prey to a benefactor of renovation and transformed itself from a lesbianic-sounding stronghold to Ryan Field at Dyche Stadium (with the last three words generally truncated). Face it: Ideas hatch, and unscrupulous whores with silly motives and sillier perspective usually incubate them quickly.
But here’s the angle that’s not being discussed: Live Nation has to be frustrated by the success of Wolfgang’s Vault. The wunder-site began after Bill Sagan bought the contents of Bill Graham’s old shit for $5 million dollars from Live Nation’s former parent company. Hell, the Bill Graham Presents website is Live Nation owned and operated. Live Nation is the kid that traded away his dad’s Mickey Something rookie card for a week of borrowing Contra for Nintendo. Sagan found the contents in complete disarray, so Live Nation obviously had no idea of the vast amount of priceless rock memorabilia that was thrown in a warehouse. Now someone is pissed and wants to leverage the Bill Graham Presents trademarks for all they’re worth.
Cheeky bastards. We can’t wait to go and see what’s not at all new there…
It’s a strange time for New York music fans. While new rooms like the Gramercy Theater, Highline Ballroom and Fontana’s are sprouting up, legendary havens like Tonic, Sin-E and possibly the Knitting Factory are shutting down as rising real estate prices and property taxes combine to squeeze out “the little guy.”
I’m all for new venues, but this “out with the old” shit is garbage. It’s Roberto Garbaggio. Tonic is one of the best dressed-down rooms in the country with some of the best acoustics taboot. Everyone that’s been there has a great story they can one day tell their illegitimate kids. But such is life, such is gentrification.
Tonic’s April 13th closure comes six days before the Benevento/Russo Duo was slated to kick off the Green Apple Music & Arts Festival with two acoustic performances. Rest assured, the shows will still go off as planned, only they’ve moved to the Knitting Factory, which remains open for at least the foreseeable future (or until the building is actually sold and it predictably gets kicked to the curb, despite the current lease). Apparently neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor club closures will stop the best duo in music history from melting faces.
Read on for the full press release about The Duo’s new GAMF spot…
Written by
HT Staff on
04.04.2007 |
Bloggers,
Bruce Springsteen,
CSNY,
Grateful Dead,
Guns N Roses,
Heaven and Hell,
Intermezzo,
Michael McDonald,
NYC,
Rolling Stones,
White Stripes
I learned it from snorting you! Turns out, Keith Richards’ longtime manager claims the skeletal rocker was totally kidding when he said “I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.” Joke or not, the whole incident begs the question: Which dead person would you most like to cremate and snort? We’ll take Margaux Hemingway. Not sure why.
Anyone catch this weekend’s bitchin’ Austin City Limits with Michael McDonald and Joss Stone (I’m told it’s pronounced ‘yoss’, like ‘yogging’)? There’s one more replay later this week, so set your TiVos. Serious Sweet Freedom action.
It was Friday afternoon, and all of the sudden the impact of a long work week had me doubting my decision to spend my weekend seeing multiple concerts. The moment I entered the Gramercy Theater that night, though, I realized why I made those plans to see music in the first place.
After two great shows from Gene Ween and Tea Leaf Green, I’m feeling refreshed and ready for another week. Sometimes seeing music is just what you need, even when you least expect it. With that said, check out some great links from around the Interwebs and let the music start off your week:
Did you see any interesting shows this weekend? Let us know below…
