Sheep Meadow, Central Park, NYC, 8:15 Sunday Morning

Yeah, I love New York.

If you are going to see New York Doll in NYC or LA this weekend...

I just got the following e-mail from Greg Whiteley, the director of New York Doll:

"FYI, I will be doing a Q/A on Friday, the 28th in New York City at the
5:30 PM and 8 PM screenings at the Angelika. I will be in L.A. to do a
Q/A at the 7:45 screening on the 29th at Laemmle's Sunset 5. Would
love, I mean L-U-V to see all of you there. Please spread the word."

Dolls fans will get the L-U-V reference...

Greg's got a knack for storytelling, and has tons of anecdotes about his time spent with Killer Kane and the making of this great movie, so hit one of those screenings if you can, and tell him extrawack! sent you.

Scientists, Seksu, Starland, and Soccer

Pete Doherty's a QPR supporter. That explains everything. (thanks Michael K.)

Our friends at Friendly Fire sent us this update on Asobi Seksu:
ASOBI SEKSU has just finished recording for their second album "Citrus", and are now in the studio working on mixes. This time around they brought in the very talented Chris Zane (Les Savy Fav, Calla, the Cloud Room) to help produce the album, and we can promise you that it's going to be quite awesome. More news and live dates to come!

That Bauhaus show in Central Jersey I wrote about a couple weeks ago has been moved to the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville. After two weeks of sales of the original show, you could still get seventh row center seats, so I'm guessing they sold only about 100 advance tickets for that show! I guess the Goth contingent at Rutgers and Princeton are not what promoters thought. The new club show is $17 cheaper though, and the club setting might be a bit more fun to watch from. Speaking of Starland, they've got a Hot Hot Heat/Redwells/We Are Scientists show on 17 November for $12 that looks tasty. I've been wanting to see WAS for sometime, and I think I'd rather do it in a place where the horn-rim & folded-arms quotient is lower than Manhattan or Brooklyn.

The music world seems pretty quiet about the new Rev Run album...I like it a lot. It sounds old-school, without sounded dated, if you know what I mean. The single, Mind On The Road, samples Joan Jett's "I Love Rock & Roll" (complete with Joanie's "Owww" growl) and rocks hard. MP3 download over at Sucka Pants.

Robbie Fulks "Fountains Of Wayne Hotline" Download

Various and Sundry has a download of Robbie Fulks hilarious "Fountains Of Wayne Hotline" here. I'm a huge FOW fan, but this is dead on. Nice.

Who's Smoother Than Fred Marshall? Nobody.

Way smooth.


LL Cool J and Olivia Newton-John? That's versatility!

In Defense Of Robbie Williams, And More Gil Mantera's Party Dream

Popbytes has an MP3 download of a new Robbie Williams song, "Your Gay Friend", from his forthcoming Intensive Care album. I likee. Too bad there's not a radio format in NYC that would play this one. For the life of me, I don't understand the American record buying market's aversion to Robbie. I don't even think this album's even got a USA release scheduled, which is a shame because that means no tour to promote it...and if you've ever seen an RW live show, you know that he's half David Lee Roth, half Pelle Almqvist, and that's all good.

And while you are in download mode, grab this MP3 of "Elmo's Wish" from Gil Mantera's Party Dream. This is a track from their forthcoming album, Bloodsongs. The track is tagged as a demo, so I'm guessing it is. I remain hypnotized by these guys.

Come to think of it, a Robbie Williams/Gil Mantera's Party Dream tour will kill.

New York Doll review

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune of seeing New York Doll, a documentary about the life of Arthur "Killer" Kane, bass player of legendary punk pioneers, the New York Dolls. The movie follows Kane, a quiet and dutiful Mormon working at a Los Angeles church genealogy library, as he gets a call from Morrissey inviting him to reunite with the other remaining members of The Dolls to perform at Royal Albert Hall in London as part of a festival that Mozza was curating.

The story of how the movie came to be is almost as compelling as Kane's own story. Young filmmaker Greg Whiteley first met Kane through the Mormon tradition of schooling other church members. At a Q&A at the screening I attended, Whiteley explained that he arrived at Kane's house for a scheduled teaching session, and noticed a framed photo of a bunch of guys in makeup, wild hair, and crazy outfits on the wall. Whiteley noticed that one of the guys in the band photo looked similar to the demure older man he'd come to teach. Kane explained that, yes, he was once a member of one of rock & roll's most storied bands, The New York Dolls. Whiteley asked Kane if he'd mind spending time on camera as they spoke together about Kane's "previous life" as a rocker. Whiteley was fortunate enough to be documenting all this as the call came to reform the Dolls, a wish that Kane had been praying for for many years, not so much to relive the band's glory days, but to somehow make peace with the other members (particularly David Johansen) with whom his open friendship wounds had never really healed.

Kane is amazingly candid with the filmmaker about the demons that haunted him during and after his tenure with The Dolls, and interviews with friends and fans of his (including Chrissie Hynde, Bob Geldof, Mick Jones, and a rare appearance by Morrissey himself) illustrate both how important this gentle man was to the evolution of Rock, and how sad it was to find him nearly penniless (church members had to chip in to get his guitars out of a local pawnshop so he could play the reunion gig) and lonely while other less talented and less sincere Dolls rip-offs were selling records and making money hand-over-fist.

The movie culminates with the reunion show in London, and scenes in which Kane marvels at the beautiful furniture in his hotel room ("This stuff is so much nicer than what I have at home...") and his worrying about his stagewear to the point that he considers wearing the hotel doorman's outfit for the show, since it's cooler than what he's brought along, are particularly fascinating and enjoyable.

Whiteley's succeeded in painting a picture of a lovely man who turned a life of confusion around to live simply, and was able to achieve his wish of mending fractured friendships. Although hardcore rock junkies probably know how this documentary finishes up, all other viewers of this film will be moved by its incredibly thought-provoking conclusion.

I'm a rock-documentary junkie, and I think I've seen them all. New York Doll is now my favorite.

The movie opens 28 October in NYC at The Angelika, and in LA at The Sunset 5 & Monica 4.

...and stay through the credits for the real treat of David Johansen's genuinely moving rendition of a Mormon hymn, perhaps his finest recorded moment in years.

More Whatnot.

I called up the iTunes Music Store this morning to look for a track I need for something, and noticed a new feature on the front page called "Just For You", at which iTunes recommends albums that you might be interested in buying based on previous purchases. Here's the first one offered:

You bought "You Are The Quarry" by Morrissey...We recommend "Power Windows" by Rush (1997). Even Geddy Lee would laugh at that one.

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If you need something do do Halloween weekend, grab a bed sheet, make a ghost costume, and head over to The Goldhawk on 10th & Park in Hoboken for Hoboken Rock City's Mike C.'s Halloween Party from 10pm-3am. Just look at the stuff this guy plays...his gigs are like Jack Radio programmed by somebody really cool and with arms that come out of the receiver to serve you drinks.

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My friend Dan who runs Metrofanatic.com, easily the best fan-run soccer site in the USA, interviewed new MetroStars interim coach Mo Johnston today and has posted the transcript here. I wish other NYC soccer writers would take a cue from Dan and ask questions that really matter.

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Memories Can't Wait is a blog chockful of really great downloads of older songs that were great at the time of release, but somehow kinda fell from view. They specialize in great new-wavy stuff, but theres tots of other goodies too. Check out this list of songs they put up in one post about songs from 1980:

Elvis Costello - "Black and White World"

Code Blue - "Modern Times"

XTC - "Rocket From A Bottle"

The Jam - "Start!"

Pete Townshend - "Keep On Working"

The BusBoys - "KKK"

Utopia - "That's Not Right"

The Clash - "Charlie Don't Surf"

Roger Daltrey - "Free Me"

Good stuff, right?

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Another recent fave is bigstereo, an MP3 blog with great taste in both new and old tracks. I love the fact that there is a place where I can get a couple tracks from the Test Icicles album, AND "Point Of No Return" by Exposé.

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Finally, the WFMU Blog has a great clip of Prince on American Bandstand in 1980 acting all Prince on Dick Clark. It's remarkable to think that a performance like that would probably not be allowed on today's ABC.

Friday, Rainy Friday

Went back to The Garden with Kimberly to volunteer with the One Campaign again last night. Met lots more great people, including a couple from Ecuador who flew up for the show and could not believe that I knew who Eduardo "El Tanque" Hurtado was. Special shout out to Brande and Carlos, who have been travelling with the tour for One/DATA and finally get to escape rainy NYC for the sunshine and balminess of a couple days in Philly.

As it was Monday, the show was pretty amazing, as was our vantage point inside the heart shaped ring in front of the stage.

Here's the setlist, courtesy of u2setlists.com:
City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo / Rockaway Beach (snippet), Elevation, The Electric Co. / Bullet With Butterfly Wings (snippet), Gloria, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / In A Little While (snippet), Beautiful Day, Miracle Drug, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own / Torna A Surriento (snippet), Love And Peace Or Else, Sunday Bloody Sunday / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (snippet) / Across The Universe (snippet), Bullet The Blue Sky / The Hands That Built America (snippet) / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet), Miss Sarajevo, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Where The Streets Have No Name, One / She's A Mystery To Me (snippet)
encores: The First Time, Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Fast Cars, With Or Without You, All Because Of You, Party Girl, Yahweh, Vertigo






Hey drunk girl! Crack kills!


OK, that's it, no more U2 photos for a while, lest my hipster card get revoked and I'm no longer allowed into Misshapes.

Boston, So Nice They Shoulda Named It Twice.

Yesterday, I drove up to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro to see the US Mens National Soccer Team beat up on Panama 2-0 in the final World Cup qualifier. Although the crowd was announced at 9000+, it looked like less than 6000 people were there in the chilly, drizzly weather. That joint was so empty that we could hear Tim Howard yelling field instructions from our ritzy club seats.

I stayed overnight and knocked around Boston for most of the day. Boston's one of those places that for some reason I've never had reason to really visit. I've been there a few times to see the MetroStars play the Revolution, or for USMNT matches, but then the trips into Boston afterward were always quick blitzes on the bar areas with no sightseeing attached. Although the weather sucked, I finally got to see why my friends all give me the "But you'd LOOOOVE Boston if you went for a weekend" line. It really is a beautiful city.

As usual, I'm bowled over when a city surprises me with general niceness of it's dwellers. The lady at the hotel wished me "a really wonderful day", the lady at the coffee shop I stopped at on Newbury gave me an extra shot of espresso gratis with a wink, and even the record store guys up the street were pleasant, which I'm totally not used to where I shop in NYC. I bought a copy of the new Gang of Four disc with the bonus remix disc at Newbury Comics...here's what the guy said:

"Hi, can I help you? You got the double disc...cool. Hey, if you are around later, Dungen is here at 6 to play an acoustic set. And if you give us your email address for our mailing list, I'll give you a Newbury pint glass free."

What? A nice record store clerk...complimenting a customer's purchase?...letting me know about a very cool free event...AND giving me something to drink beer in for free? Awesome.

If I'd have made that purchase at Other Music, the clerk would have given me the "that disc is SO twenty seconds ago, and all the cool kids are buying Dutch throat yodeling remixes on vinyl today" glare.

Anyway, here's a nice photo of a nice church at the Copley stop on the T, just because I'm still reeling from the niceness:

Bono, Brazilians & Blinding Lights

Last night I worked with the One Campaign/DATA people at the U2 show at Madison Square Garden. As usual, it was a fun night meeting all kinds of people from around the world. I'm amazed at how many people fly into NYC specifically to see concerts.

As you'd expect, there were a ton of Irishmen (and Irishladies), but I met at least a dozen people each from Brazil, France and Portugal, and nearly all were in town just to see U2 shows.

It was probably the friendliest and least meatheaded arena show I've ever been to. Nearly everyone I spoke with was familiar with One and the Make Poverty History campaign on some level, and I don't think I saw a single drunk and weaving white-capper the whole night.

As is usually the case with shows like this, the band provided us with several tiers of passes which allowed us to see the show from a decent vantage point. I was thrilled to find that we were directed to watch the show from "inside the heart", the ringed area directly in front of the stage. I ended up seeing the show from about fifteen feet in front of the stage.

Usually, the only time I go to an arena show is if I'm working at one. The sound is usually terrible, the seats are seldom pointed toward the stage, and my neighbors tend to talk through the show, puke nearby, make twenty trips in and out of the row, etc. However, the people in the heart area last night were totally decent, and all seemed to have spent most of the show with looks on their faces that said "I can't believe how amazing this concert is". And it was pretty amazing.

For a bunch of older guys, U2 can really rock hard when they want, and they have so many good songs in their catalog that any setlist of theirs comes off like a greatest hits show.

Here's what they played last night, courtesy of u2fanlife:
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
The Electric Co.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Beautiful Day
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where the Streets Have No Name
One
Zoo Station
The Fly
With or Without You
All Because of You
Yahweh
Bad
40

The one-two punch of "Follow" and "The Electric Co." was time-warpy, and reminded me of when I saw them on their first tour through NYC at The Palladium a zillion years ago. The crowd around me, yuppies, soccer moms and all, pogoed like they didn't have to work the next day, and I'm sure there are more than a few people who woke up this morning with sore backs and calves pondering if they really needed to buy that $50 t-shirt after the show, but probably deciding they were glad they did.

My favorite song of the night was "Miss Sarajevo", which U2 originally recorded with Luciano Pavoratti. Before the song, Bono had the crowd sing "Happy Birthday" to the Giant Tenor who is turning 70 today. Then the band played a stirring rendition (I know that's a cliche, but it's totally accurate) of the song, with Bono singing the Pavoratti parts beautifully. Having only heard his "rock" voice for all these years, I had no idea he had that operatic stuff in him.

When I heard how much people were paying for tickets to these shows, I couldn't believe it. But having seen some comparatively priced and painful to sit through Broadway musicals as favors to family members, a U2 show is a bargain. Go if you can...and don't forget to stop at the One table when you are there.

Dig my view:











update:
Productshop NYC was there, and agrees with my speculation that Bono was a little drunk. He's got more photos, too.

I've Seen Her Naked, TWICE!

Art Brut on a Wednesday night in Hoboken...the perfect way to break up the week on the way to a Good Weekend. If you are there, the first
Rolling Rock is on me.

Here's the whole set of US dates:

09/11/05 @ Maxwells, Hoboken, USA

10/11/05 @ Mercury Lounge, NYC, NY, USA

11/11/05 @ North 6, Brooklyn, USA

12/11/05 @ Tribeca Grand, NYC, USA

14/11/05 @ Lee's Palace, Toronto, CA

15/11/05 @ Schubas, Chicago, USA

17/11/05 @ Spaceland, Los Angeles, USA (tell the girls at the bakery/cafe across the street that extrawack! sent you)

18/11/05 @ The Echo, Los Angeles, USA


"Die your hair black, never look back, my past is my business"...They formed a band.

I Saw Tom Verlaine, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, and Iggy Pop All In The Same Room Yesterday

I battled the rain yesterday afternoon to go downtown to see Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World, the art exhibition by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Skate Historian Jocko Weyland at KS Art on Franklin Street, across from The Knitting Factory.

The KS Art website describes the show as follows:
"Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World introduces “the glam to hardcore diaries of Thurston Moore and Jocko Weyland.” These are not diaries in the traditional sense, but rather, visual artworks, based on the personal recollections of the alternative music scenes of each artist’s formative years. Moore and Weyland, both primarily known for work in other mediums, have created photomontages and photographs respectively, which explore the original incendiary allure of youthful rock n’ roll fandom from both the 1970s and 1980s."

Moore's works are montages of photos and clippings mostly from fanzines and music publications documenting late 70's/very early 80's music scenes, mostly in NYC. The pieces are mostly image driven, but all have some verbage to solidify exactly what each collage is about. One collage in particular contained a clipping of a wordy NYC scene report written by Moore to an unidentified 'zine, revealing himself at that time as half-fanboy, half-archivist. Fans of that exciting era of new music will probably love playing "Where's Eno" and "Is That Wayne County or Arthur Kane?".

Here's #7, from Moore's Street Mouth collection:



Weyland's work is more or less comprised of blowing up details of existing iconic artwork from 80's punk. Like Moore's collages, it's kind of fun to try to identify each of Weyland's photo's original sources, and having said that, I guess one could use his wall at the gallery as some sort of test of a punk fan's expertise.

Here's Weyland's detail from The Gun Club's "Miami":



I totally dug it all.

The exhibition runs through 29 October. Photos courtesy KSArtOnline.com.

Bikini Briefs, Billy, Bauhaus, and Bowery a la Mode

Pollstar says that the original line-up of X will be playing Roseland on 9 December. If you've never seen Billy Zoom smile live and in person in the middle of ripping through a solo, now's your chance.





I just found out that Bauhaus is playing the theatre I used to go see movies in when I was a little kid in New Brunswick on 21 November. The State has great sound, and is the home of the always awesome Glen Burtnik Xmas Xtravaganza. Although I've seen Love & Rockets & Peter Murphy solo a few times each, I've never seen Bauhaus live. I'm goin' to this show even if I have to sit by myself, Azriel Abyss-style.

This guy sends letters to f-list actors and chronicles what they send back to him. At first I thought he was goofing, but upon further review, it looks like he's not. Nutty Canadians.

Productshop NYC says Depeche Mode is playing The Bowery on 28 October. Now that would be cool. No way am I going to the Garden to hear their bleeps and bloops, but I'd pay good dough to watch Gahan do his dervish spins downtown in a heart beat. Info via Brooklyn Vegan, who also has info on a Lady Sovereign date at the Knitting Factory here. She tore it up when I saw her during CMJ, and I heard my favorite line from any crowd that week at that show: "That fidget sure can spit it, yo!".

And finally, extrawack!'s favorite Ohio Disco Metal Boogie band, Gil Mantera's Party Dream, is opening for The Rapture at Crash Mansion this Thursday night for a mere $10. Tickets here while they last. Ask Donny to show you his bikini briefs. I'm sure he will.

Central Park, 8:30, Sunday Morning

I ran the New York Road Runners Norway Run this morning in Central Park, in perfect running weather. The race is sponsored by the Norwegian Consulate, and this year honored Norway's Centennial. The highlight of this race, for me anyway, is the post race food. I grabbed up a fresh waffle with berry jam, and a bagel with Norwegian Salmon and cream cheese, and sat by the fountain overlooking the pond toward the boathouse. Too perfect.