Highlights
NUBLU HOLIDAY PARTY
WEDS., DEC. 22
FOR THIS HOLIDAY season, get all warm and cozy with dashing tango-tronics, dimpled downbeat jazz and slippery Braziliana. It's easy with these guys. Start with the mood-manipulative microhouse of Wax Poetic and their most recent CD, Nublu Sessions. Don't be afraid that dreary Norah Jones is on the record; she used to be in Wax Poetic, but probably won't show up to this gig. And even if she did, napping Norah wouldn't sound as listless as she manages on her own CDs. How come? Because this revolving-door chill-tronic jazz-dub unit has way too much going on-even for downtempo-within its hypnotically fragrant but not floral arrangements for her to nest in. From the poignancy of tracks like "Angels," to their often world-hop rhythmic twitter, these Poets have delirious majesty behind them.
Brazilian Girls? They sing a little bit lithely and blithely in German, French, Spanish and English. They're a little bit melancholy and little bit sleepy. Yet, for all their chilly-chill-chill factor, I'm more excited about their Verve Forecast eponymous debut CD (out Feb. 1st!) than I've been in some time. There's certainly the aching liquidy ambience of Buenos Aires keyboardist/programmer Didi Gutman & Co.'s melodies and the way they play off the droll, lolling rhythms. Then there's Sabina Sciubba, vocalist extraordinaire, a divine character actress who makes elegant, sometimes enervated minor distractions-the Les Baxter-like life-aquatic "Lazy Lover," the tuned-high Latin shuffling "Pussy"-enraged, caged and passionate with her ever-so-active vocal twitches.
Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-539-8778; 11, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT JEW
THURS.-SAT., DEC. 23-25
SUCH A PAIR, these two: more topical than Jack Carter and Freddie Roman, thinner and better looking than Buddy Hackett, God rest his soul, and perhaps naughtier and bawdier than all three. That'd be Borscht Belting comic/singer sorts Sean Altman (Loser's Lounge contributor, Rockapella founder) and Rob Tannenbaum (John Leguizamo cohort, Blender mag editor). For their absurd annual anti-ho-ho-ho holiday rant, What I Like About Jew, the schlinging, singing duo get all super-Jewy during this, the blessedest of Catholic seasons, to go with their nu-school comic schtick.
"Like Jesus, What I Like About Jew was born on Christmas Eve," says Tannenbaum. "This is our fifth anniversary, and it's our most star-studded show ever, especially if you count Al Goldstein as a "star."
Altman and Tannenbaum started their Jew-travaganza at the Knitting Factory, selling out three shows at a pop, as well as letting the duo Plus hang mistletoe by the women's bathroom.
"The Knitting Factory has been very good to us. And they don't try to Jew us down on our share of the door." Barump bum.
While they care for fare that's found them in the good company of Mel Brooks and Allan Sherman for the due-soon CD, Now That Sounds Kosher, joining the duo for the wool ride are Manhattan's finest comic co-Jews Eric Schwartz, Cindy Kaplan and Todd Barry.
"Todd is the funniest New York City comic we could afford," says Tannenbaum. "We thought we had Dave Chappelle booked, but it turns out he's not really Jewish."
Call for the evening's line-up.
A.D. AMOROSI
MATISYAHU
So why should I-or you-love Matisyahu Miller as he vocally squints and shuffles sweetly through sonorous reggae songs or bitingly through charged militaristic ragga raps? Because he can change the hue and tenor of his songs in a blink with elegant ease. Even if you took away his traditional Hasidic garb and his aggressive rhetoric of political or religious torpor-the spiritual reawakening of "Chop 'em Down," the impoverished deportment of "Got No Water"-his voice would still be a gorgeous tool, a thousand voices with one throatier and more honey-dripped than the last. As wide and expansive as the music that surrounds him, Matisyahu's vocals chew through the elegiac avarice and prayerful pride of "King Without a Crown" and "Refuge;" chomping on bitchy, bitter ideals as if chewing tobacco; rolling his "r"s through cheerier thoughts and jazzier melodies as if blowing a kiss to a memory. In the grand tradition of beautiful reggae crooners, boasters and toasters, this Matisyahu is one.
B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144; 6, $15.
A.D. AMOROSI
WBAI'S CHRISTMAS DAY
The consumers were out shopping with great care, killing one another for that talking Spongebob the Square.
I in my Kangol sipping Jack at the bar, procrastinating on shopping, yelling, "This holiday's gone too far."
It's cigars for dad, some furnishings for mom, a Chapel DVD for brother, when I look up at the barkeep and say, "Yeah, betta' make it another."
But out of the corner of my eye, who do I see but jolly Saint Nicks, with a mini skirt and a great pair of tits.
It's my ex, wouldn't you know, dressed as a slutty Santa to make that extra holiday dough.
I ask her if she'll come with me shopping, but she can tell all I want is some JC birthday bopping.
So I trudge off to Broadway drunk and alone, looking forward to being done and going home.
It's not the family that brings out my Grinch, but the city at this time of year that makes me blow a switch.
This Christmas I remind you all to turn off the carols and tune in to a special show on WBAI, 99.5 FM. From midnight to six in the morning, DJs Spinna, Emskee, 3D, Monk One, Tomkat and Randy Anderson will be playing a commercial-free set of the best dance music from the 70s to the present. The hardest-working man on the mic, G-Man, hosts. If you're out of town, you can tune in on the web at wbai.org. If you're here alone, there's no better comfort than the warmth of the radio.
Speaking of which, Small Change, the bartender at APT with all the crazy beer-can hats, has an excellent radio show on WFMU out of the Dirty Irzy called Nickel and Dime Radio. His sets are eclectic, with a focus on the right grooves and tunes from all different genres and decades. The show usually runs from three to six on Fridays, but, once again, the internet, folks, is here to save our souls. And digital files. Go to wfmu.org/playlists/nd to check out the archives. The recent Dec. 3 show was with Barry Myers (DJ Scratchy), who was the tour jock with the Clash in their prime.
And be careful not to let grandpa burn the Christmas trees down.
DAN MARTINO
DANNY AIELLO
In the last two months alone, I've watched Juliette Lewis turn into Courtney Love and Minnie Driver walk lamely into Shawn Colvinville. And just the other night I witnessed a most macabre sight: Kevin Spacey not only covering the entirety of the Bobby Darin catalog, but taking on impersonations of Jack Lemmon and Burt Lancaster while singing "One for My Baby." Is nothing beneath an actor? Apparently not, from the looks of Oceans Twelve or the sounds of recently ridiculous fare from Lindsay Lohan and Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr.? Did you even know he was alive, let alone making stupid records?
So Danny Aiello? He always seems like the guy they get when they can't get De Niro, Pacino, Loggia or Garcia. So, I was pleasantly surprised that Aiello's debut CD, I Just Wanted to Hear the Words, is such a wildly great record, with a softly swinging band and uncomplicated, elegant arrangements. And in Aiello, there's an equal sense of relaxed dare and dash, a shady, sandy voice whose casual causality makes Tin Pan Alley totems "You Would Be So Nice to Come Home To," "I'm Confessing That I Love You" and even giddily kitsch tangos "Besame Mucho" nice 'n' easy in the wee small hours of the morning.
Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St. (betw. MacDougal St. & 6th Ave.), 212-475-8592; 8, $15-$25.
A.D. AMOROSI
FAT PIG
But for one moment, "good guy" Tom gets past the image and gets to know the person inside our Fat Pig-Helen, actually-and grows to love her fully. Pardon the pun. But he can't talk about her at work, certainly not when his office buddy, Carter, is an aging frat-boy (Andrew McCarthy) who defines women by the imperfections of their parts. And certainly not when he's blown off Jeannie, the office hottie/harridan (Keri Russell), who really needs to eat something. So we roll through the inevitable deception, discovery and mockery, cringing at what we presume is in store: the utter and likely public evisceration of Helen.
Interestingly, Fat Pig's cruelty isn't as flashy as standard LaBute, but it is all the more disturbing for its honesty. You want to save Helen, played exultantly by Ashlie Atkinson, and Tom manages to be sympathetic, thanks to Jeremy Piven, as affable off-screen as he is on. The other characters are little more than plot devices, which the dialogue acknowledges (count, if you will, how often Carter calls himself a dick). That's much of the problem with Fat Pig-the intricacies of LaBute's dialogue, which once rendered every sentence heavy with pathos, seem to have given way to facile propulsions of plot, expositions of character and random high-flown references (ahhhh, Gunga Din!).
As with last year's The Mercy Seat, one is left with the impression of a prolific and talented writer who's not keen on revisions. There's a very interesting premise here, and specifically during one of Carter's speeches you catch a glimpse of what Fat Pig could have been. Sadly, you're left wishing the rest of the show were equally as, uh, weighty.
JAIME ANDREWS
EAST VILLAGE USA
EAST
VILLAGE ASU
B-Side, with its forbidding black-paint exterior and rough walls covered in art, has the raw spontaneity of a period show. Curated by artists Rick Prol and Jan Lynn Sokota, the small cube-shaped gallery is alive with graffiti, cartooning, celebrity photos and angst-ridden neo-expressionism. Though packed to the rafters with 80s art stars, the B-side show is not comprehensive. Rather than give an historic tour or make stylistic comparisons, the work was chosen to promote the esthetic views of its curators.
Beginning in the summer of 1981, ambitious, irreverent young artists like Prol took advantage of the area's cheap, plentiful storefronts, opening galleries, clubs and performance spaces to promote new work. At its height, just under 100 galleries resided in the East Village. An arts community in name only, theoretical factions existed from the beginning, as individuals and ideas battled for recognition and influence. But as the established art world took notice-choosing then rejecting styles and turning rags to riches for a select few-the competition got ugly.
The New Museum's senior curator, Dan Cameron, also witnessed the scene firsthand, but his exhibition creates a timeline from 1981 through 1987 that highlights major artists as well as the era's stylistic contributions. Before our eyes, Cameron's layout reignites the many rivalries by allowing us to consider which ideas stood the test of time and which became artistic dead ends.
To give the art some context, a wallpaper collage made of period exhibition posters is interspersed throughout the museum's exhibit. And though videos of performance artists loop noisily in a row on a lower level-and photos of the artists, collectors and dealers dominate the second floor-we gain little insight into their dynamic personalities and the charged atmosphere that nurtured them.
Instead, both shows focus on the business of style, presenting ideas they believe in and are willing to fight for. The creative spirit that was the 80s East Village is dead, yet the struggle for the historical validation of its art rages on.
B-Side Gallery, 543 E. 6th St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 212-228-6367; 3-6, free.
JULIA MORTON
SARAH HOBBS
The images are set in fabricated domestic spaces, each of which manifests a different pathological thought process on the part of the occupant-whom we never actually see. In one, dim light illuminates the 70s floral-print covers of a half-made bed. An assortment of Post-It notes hangs at eye-level, the conceptual mobile of an insomniac's scattered thoughts.
"Three hours until I have to get up," one reads. "Why do I even bother to set my alarm?"
As is often the case, food figures heavily as an object of compulsion. In one living-room scene, a mountain of crumpled Hershey-bar wrappers is piled high in a corner. The walls drip with a thick brown liquid. In another, hundreds of fortune cookies are methodically unwrapped and discarded, their contents meticulously arranged on a table.
If you've ever had writer's block, take a look in the study. I won't tell you what's there, but I'll bet you'll relate.
Yossi Milo Gallery, 552 W. 24th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-414-0370; 10-6, free.
LAUREL ANGRIST
JOEL DUGAN: A STILL LIFE
THROUGH THURS.,
Using the Brooklyn gallery walls of McCaig-Welles as an open book of sorts, Dugan's "story" is drawn from the collective memories of seaside communities. Paintings of weather-worn men, birds, fishing boats, lighthouses, salt marshes and a skinny boy reappear as our eyes read across the canvases symbols of the sea as monstrous, playful and sustaining.
Born in Iowa, the 27-year-old artist moved to Southern California 20 years ago, attended art school in San Francisco, then relocated to Brooklyn. The beaches used as models for this series are in Montauk where, unlike sunny California, the light is filtered and the landscapes flat and somber. An odd subject for a young artist who grew up surrounded by Hollywood's hype and hiphop car culture, Dugan has nevertheless produced work that blends both classic and contemporary ideas.
Alone, a large painting of an old sailor staring out to sea, with surreal heads floating upside down behind him and a lighthouse blinking in the distance, greets us as we enter the gallery. Placing the first piece to our direct left, Dugan throws off our normal "look to the right" instincts, instead, sending us counter clockwise around the room.
On the center wall, a collage of canvases is hung together so that reoccurring details, like the boats, the land and parts of the boy are repeated one picture to another. While the boy's face is always blurred, the old men are softly defined. Taken from antique photos, they are straight out of central casting. Wide-brimmed hats, full beards and sad, stern expressions gaze out at us or look away lost in thought. The boy is a different story-a coming-of-age tale. In one picture his arm muscles strain to lift a long wooden ore, while in another work, he tentatively moves toward the cold water. The distant lighthouses, seen throughout, tie the generations together.
Varying in size, the pictures range from a four-by-six-inch gouache on paper to a 70-by-60-inch oil on linen. At the far end of the room, two up-close portraits of shore birds drawn in pencil show off Dugan's skill as a draftsman. No Audubon's beauties, his birds look like the cranky carnivores they really are.
Though Dugan has broken no new ground in painting, his character-driven images and ability to render personality without sentimentality are compelling fiction.
McCaig-Welles Gallery, 129 Roebling St., Suite B (betw. N. 4th & N. 5th Sts.), Williamsburg, 718-384-8729; 11-7, free.
JULIA MORTON