Xiu Xiu, Dreamcrusher, Gold Dime Thursday April 6, 8 pm at Brooklyn Bazaar: $13
If you’re wondering what Xiu Xiu is all about, take Morrissey’s whinny, combine with scratchy dance music and pop presence, and dump the resulting liquid on the ground, because Xiu Xiu is anything but rut-stuck. If there’s one habit that the depresso-electro outfit can’t quit, it’s danceability. Leading vocal dude Jamie Stewart might sound like he’s violently ripping his hair out at the moment, and so sad that he might tip over a newspaper stand if he comes across one, but he’ll never get in the way of you and your shimmy.
Mary Lattimore, Rosali, Energy Star, DJ Nina Tuesday February 14, 8 pm at Trans-Pecos: $10 in advance/ $12 at the door
If you’re anything like me, you will be spending Valentine’s Day alone. But cheer up, flying solo is not such a terrible fate– just think about all the stupid flowers you won’t have to carry around in some silly bouquet or whatever, and all that dumb perfume you don’t have to spray all over your body just to smell like the mall. Unlike everyone else, you’re gonna spend your V Day being aggressively single, which means leaving your apartment, head held high, and rocking your natural scent with pride, because you’re going to need all the pheromones you can muster.
Party to Protect Your Parts: A Planned Parenthood Benefit Wednesday February 8, 6:30 to 11 pm at Saint Vitus: $15
Given the heavy flow of benefit shows going on around town these days, it seems inevitable that a band called Netherlandswould pick Planned Parenthood as their cause of choice. Proceeds aren’t going directly to Planned Parenthood, but instead will be funneled into a PAC known as PPNYC Votes, which supports candidates running for political office at the state level. But wait a sec, aren’t we doing pretty well when it comes to reproductive rights in New York state? Actually, not so much. As one of the show’s organizers explained on Facebook, there is still a majority in the State Senate “opposed to reproductive rights.” You, like me, probably assumed that these Biblical, stick-up-the-you-know-what holdups of complex, usually self-hating origin (I mean, Brad Patton, the shimmery blond and toothy-smiled gay porn star, made a really convincing Mike Pence) were reserved for rural representatives, the same guys (they are all guys, let’s be real) who wilt at the sight of a stray tampon string. Wrong-o again. Four of those PP-blockin’ pols are from our very own city.
Dream Crusher, NAH, Girlpusher, Tony Seltzer, Hounds Wednesday September 21, 8 pm at Aviv: $10
It’sjust about time to start gathering your crew for the last stretch at Aviv as we know it. The venue is closing at the end of October and fingers crossed they find a new space, but until then me and you and everyone else who does the Brooklyn DIY thing should get it in while we still can.
Sleater-Kinney’s sound check before their December 16 show, and the pole heard round the world (Photo by Konstantin Sergeyev for New York magazine)
Market Hotel did a remarkable job of capturing our attention with that Sleater-Kinney show. It’s almost as if the place is run by someone who knows a thing or two about putting on a great show. Huh. But since the Liquor Man and his cohort of party poopers (er, the State Liquor Authority) had only granted a temporary license for the soft opening, we were starting to get a real bad case of nervous dry mouth at the thought that perhaps we’d be waiting a long time for the Bushwick DIY venue to officially throw open its doors at Broadway-Myrtle. After all, we’d waited about half a decade already…
Luwayne Glass, better known by the stage name Dreamcrusher, and I decided it would be best to meet somewhere “grungy.” Even though such places are becoming increasingly hard to find near the Jefferson stop these days. After less than a year as a Bushwick resident, Glass already has a tape out with Firetalk (Hackers All Of Them Hackers), is playing close to “three shows a week” (“because I’m a fuckin’ idiot”) and is garnering some much-deserved attention in the process. In light of so much underground success, it’s hard to believe that Dreamcrusher is a noise act from (actual) Kansas that wound up here essentially by accident. “I’d never even been on the subway before,” Luwayne laughed.
T-Rextasy, Band Practice, Doubles Friday January 8, 8 pm at Aviv: $7
Picture a femme Parquet Courts fronted by Ellen Page all hopped up on candy and you’re sort of getting at what T-Rextasy are all about. Their sound defies what might first be taken for twee, instead invoking an array of complexity of sweet, sassy, sour, sad, and snappy feelings delivered in a way that’s interchangeably manic, then replete with earnest babbling from the front, supported by plucky punk guitars and primitive, clap-clap drums from the rear.
We’re stuck between seasons here but in the best way possible, experiencing the best of fall and summer all between sun up and sun down. That’s why this week we’re bringing you everything from a sizzling time at the very last Riis Park Beach Bazaar show by the water to a dark rager deep inside the belly of our favorite metal bar. Jump for deets. More →
Gigawatts Fest is happening this weekend, which is great and all — I need my pop fix as much as the next guy. But sometimes I want to be surrounded by sounds that whinge, “I’mmmmmmm differentttttt.” If that’s you, too, get thee to these smaller shows where you’ll find acts that don’t exactly qualify as festival material, if you catch my drift.