Results tagged “hiroballroom”

There was a time when one might have been surprised to find an article about, say, Girl Talk nestled within the fussy pages of The New Yorker. But for years now Sasha Frere-Jones, the magazine's pop music critic, has been broadening the magazine's appeal with his perceptive and funny observations on everything from Radiohead to Coldplay. (Ha.) (See also: Miscegenation.) Jones is also that rare breed of critic who actually creates in his field of interest; his band Ui has been a presence in the downtown avant-rock scene since 1990. more ›

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READING: Olympia Dukakis, who you know from such films as Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias, will be at Barnes & Noble tonight. She'll be reading from a brand spakin' new edition of Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children. She recently put down the Oscar and picked up a pen to write the forward to the antiwar classic. more ›

SPA: FreeNYC tells us that "in honor of their 20th Anniversary, Nina's European Day Spa is offering up some free and discounted treatments!" Get there before 7pm and you'll get a free eyebrow threading or waxing, free mini microdermabrasion, and free hand treatments. Free: it's a beautiful price. more ›

SHOPPING: Everyone needs a little Betsey Johnson flair in their closet, and this week you can get some designer dresses without dropping too much dough. There's a two day Betsey Johnson warehouse sale starting now, 80% off! more ›

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. more ›

Earlier this month ASCAP was making headlines with their lawsuit against some of New York's (and the nation's) venues. To clear things up on how the company works, and why they do what they do, we asked the senior vice president of licensing and the director of general licensing some questions. more ›

Like Jay-Z's 40/40 Club before them, the NY Post reports that two more Manhattan clubs are now being drawn into a lawsuit for playing music they didn’t have a license to play. With the music industry in an increasingly sad state, you would think getting the tunes out to the public (not for downloading or stealing but for the pure enjoyment of listening) would be a good thing. However bars are finding they have to pay the piper to play the songs, lest they want to end up in court. more ›

After GBH announced that Courtney Love was to play a free show at Hiro Ballroom, the biggest question besides what she'd sound like or how badly would Hiro screw up the crowd control, was what type of raucous scandal would Love cause during the set. Would she be trashed? Would she get into a fight? Would she show at all? Well, to the pleasant surprise of any real fan, the show went on without a hitch, and Love played a solid set of some old favorites as well as a bunch of new songs, many of which were co-written by professional hitmaker Linda Perry. Check out Freshbread for some pics (like the one above), and Ephemerist and Productshop for some more reviews. more ›

MUSIC: Courtney Love makes her return to the New York stage tonight for a little birthday celebration show at Hiro Ballroom. The rocker turned 43 on Monday of this week, and there's only one way to see if she's acting her age! Last time she got a little crazy at a suprise show at Plaid, and when she turned 40 she took a trip to Bellevue. more ›

THEATER: System of Units, a performance group from Siberia, begin their site-specific collaboration with the local “interventionist performance group” TRYST outside today starting at 12:00pm, when the temperature will transcend 90°. So if you think it’s stinking hot, just wait ‘til you see how the Siberians hold up in this six-hour performance. Called Security Zone, the two groups will create "a mock construction site that plays with perceptions of labor and public space, expectations of daily interactions, and attitudes toward leisure and work.” (Part of the excellent Sitelines series.) - John Del Signore more ›

We never realized exactly what a force Manu Chao was live until experiencing him ourselves at Sasquatch several weeks ago. The man has the power to move people. To incite hysteria and completely dominate his entire audience. It is something any music fan should experience at least once in their life, because there is really nobody else like him performing today. Earlier this week, He did two nights at the Prospect Park Bandshell to a crowd that more resembled a soccer stadium than a rock concert. There was chanting and singing and air horns and flags, but none of that could beat back the rain, which poured down in buckets towards the end of the second night, drenching the fans and creating a lovely mess. Few would argue that after a hot night of dancing, there could have been no perfect release. Check out some more incredible pics (like the one to the left) over at Brooklyn Vegan. more ›

EXHIBIT: Apparently there's an exhibit of Anna Nicole Smith photographs starting tonight. We can't find much info on it, but What's Up NYC says there's a "reception and exhibit of portraits and candid photographs of, wait for it, Anna Nicole Smith." more ›

We here at the Gothamist Arts & Entertainment World Headquarters may disagree on what to think about Patrick Wolf, but there is a solidifying consensus that his performance at Hiro last night (his first NYC appearance in 4 years) was not too great. Our growing frustration with Hiro Ballroom is only magnified by how impressive their booking has been of late. For the first three quarters of the short set, the sound was grating. Nothing mixed together, vocals either came in too strong or not at all, and the intricate instrumentation on stage was impossible to decipher. It wasn't until the final song of the set, The Magic Position, where everything came together correctly, but by then the damage has been done. One of the saddest side effects of the closings of the many different downtown rock clubs is that the acts that should normally be playing in them are now getting gobbled up by larger, non-music venues where the concert attendee is considered an afterthought. Every time we have to suffer through a set at a place like Hiro, Annex or R&R;, our anticipated longing for places like Sin-e and Tonic grows more and more. more ›

READING: The BRIC Rotunda Gallery and New York Magazine are having another of their Stoop Series tonight. New York Magazine's contributing editor, Logan Hill, will talk with New York's newest young filmmakers: Ramin Bahrani, Julia Loktev and Chris Zalla. What else? Free drinks! Beer and Johnny Walker Blue Label, to be exact. more ›

One of the nice things about being a music fan in New York City is that you rarely have to wait very long to see a band you're recently missed. The Black Lips famously played about 6,000 shows at SXSW this year, yet despite our interest in checking them out, we managed to catch them exactly zero times (with our final chance being cut short by that whole collapsing balcony thing.) So we were stoked to discover they were going to play last Monday back home at Bowery Ballroom. The show lived up to our ever inflated expectations and managed to bring the house down with their drunken-fried punk. While their "wild boyz" antics may seem a bit forced at this stage in their careers, the music more than holds up on its own. It's not easy to play such sloppy rock and roll so precisely. (Pic via Sandwich!) more ›

The Brazilian street artists have landed, and we're tracking their every move as they get ready to launch Ruas de Sao Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery this Saturday. Here’s an account of the movements of Boleta, Fefê, Highraff, Kboco, Onesto, Speto, Titi Freak, and Zezão. more ›

DISCUSSION: Noam Chomsky will be taking questions on US foreign policy tonight, following a screening of Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Get your questions ready, smartypants. You can watch the video of Pinter's speech here, too. more ›

EVENT: Tonight is the "Taxi 07: Transforming and Icon" event, marking the 100th anniversary of the New York taxi. The Design Trust for Public Space have gathered together members of the city’s design community and tonight they discuss ideas for the redesign the yellow cab. The idea of a redesign was announced back in 2005. more ›

With special appearances by DEBBIE HARRY and MISS GUY more ›

THEATER: P.S. 122’s Fall Season opens tonight with the U.S. premiere of “Tower of Babel” by Dutch artists Lidy Six and Robert Steijn. Running four nights only - for only 25 audience members at a time – the event is described as “a one-of-a kind, full immersion theatre experience”. Each audience member will be personally welcomed with tea and tucked into one of twenty-five individual beds (complete with nightstands). A live VJ and DJ will invoke a dreamlike atmosphere as twenty-five storytellers from around the world share their stories – from personal histories and secrets to myths and folktales – in their native tongues. The stated intent of “Tower of Babel” is to transcend language and “overcome barriers of ‘us and them’ while inventing a new vocabulary for understanding in real time.” The NYC cast includes graduate students, translators, tutors, writers, dancers, a spiritual healer, physical therapist, and a grandmother aged 78. Perhaps the best part is that for once you don’t have to feel guilty for dozing off at the theater. more ›

THEATER: Untitled Intentional Exercise #1, a "wild trip through desire and isolation" that combines the talents of Stuck Pigs Squealing, http://www.stuckpigs.com.au/ an Australian theater collective, with those of Mac Wellman, Oliver Butler, and Banana Bag and Bodice, http://www.bananabagandbodice.org/ has a fascinating show-specific website http://stuckpigs.multiply.com/ where the creators have been posting rehearsal videos and notes; check it out for a taste of the improvisational whirlwind you'll enter if you go, though even thus prepared it will surely be crazier, in a good way, than you expected . - Mallory Jensen more ›

THEATER: The River to River Festival isn't just about outdoor concerts, and Canadians not only have great indie bands, they also have theatre troupes breaking into the experimental downtown scene. Bluemouth Inc.'s What the River Said, which is in both R2R and the Sitelines series, is a case in point; the play, which evokes "the struggle for acceptance in the calm before the family storm" is the third part of a trilogy originally performed along a creek near Toronto; you aren't likely to feel lost if you haven't seen the other parts, but you almost certainly will be eager for the full production to make it here. - Mallory Jensen more ›

Tonight San Francisco rockers with the middle class rasp, Two Gallants, come to Bowery Ballroom. We interviewed them last week, and you should really check them out while they're in town. For serious. Opening up for them are Sam Champion (the actual NY weatherman still comes up first in a Google search) and Cold War Kids. Elsewhere in the city, Pela is playing with Project Jenny/Project Jan (at the Delancey). more ›

Tonight is Le One Night Stand's One-Year Anniversary Party! What does this mean? First off it means that Melody Nelson will be singing Serge Gainsbourg covers with Die Romantik, now that's something you don't see everyday. Melody Nelson, of course, is a monicker taken from Gainsbourg's concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson. more ›

Last week I didn't tell you about the show Beck played at Hiro Ballroom Friday night (one night before his appearance on Saturday Night Live). That's because the "secret" show wasn't even announced until Thursday. Beck is known for playing last-minute small-venue shows, and I was lucky enough to score a ticket to this one. Here are the pictures. more ›