Sure, you could spend your New Year’s Eve in a confessional, but that would be a sin. Instead, why not head over to The Stone and kiss this miserable year goodbye with some real legends of downtown avant-garde.
john zorn
Four Shows: Neon Spandex and Hair Metal Redux, Thurston Moore & John Zorn’s Dream Team
(Flyer via Union Pool/ Facebook)
Ereptile Destruction, Growler, Shitkill
Tuesday November 22, 9 pm at Union Pool: $8
Once in a while, it helps to forget everything that’s happened to metal since nu metal hit, and take a trip back to our roots. Growler, a Brooklyn-based act that describes itself simply as “hard and loud” helps get us there, mainly by defying the trend toward increasingly humorless, doomed and/or blackened what-have-you. Lately, it feels like we’re so chin-deep in sludgy muck that it’s easy to forget where we started. Growler’s throwback sound plops us back in the early ’80s, with their high-pitched, falsetto, bordering on operatic vocals that recall Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
See Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and/or Kim Gordon in Williamsburg This Month
November is a good time to be a Sonic Youth fan, since onetime Lower East Side fixtures Kim Gordon (now based in Los Angeles) and Thurston Moore (now based in London) are coming ’round Williamsburg to make some noise.
If you’ve been meaning to check out National Sawdust, Williamsburg’s ambitious new avant-garde venue, this is a fine time to do it: Hot on the heels of her first solo song, Gordon, the artist/writer/musician/icon, is playing there with Body/Head, her moody collaboration with fellow guitarist Bill Nace. Tickets ($20) for the Nov. 12 show are available here.
On Nov. 23, Thurston is also appearing as part of a duo, teaming up with fellow downtown legend John Zorn to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Rough Trade.
Week in Shows: a No Wave Takeover at Trans-Pecos, Plus a Night of Brutal Industrial Noise to Test Your Limits
(Flyer via Trans-Pecos / Other People)
Other People Residency
Tuesday Dec. 8th through Friday Dec. 11th at Trans-Pecos
Our favorite no wave loudmouth Lydia Lunch will play at Trans-Pecos on Friday with her band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, part of a full week of music curated by Other People. The “serial label,” founded by Nicholas Jarr drops a new rotation of new and nostalgic music each week, and they’ve just put out a stellar collection of the band’s live recordings, Live 1977 – 1979 (which you can stream for free right now over yonder). It’s pretty much the best thing happening this week, and it’s happening all week. Truly, it’s one of those events that helps us justify paying astronomical rents to live in this city.
Tags: A Pleasure, arto lindsay, Bladerunner, dna, Drome, Home Sweet Home, Inferior Passions, john zorn, Ligature, Lower East Side, lydia lunch, MPHO, Nichola Jaar, No Ice, no wave, nothing changes, Other People, Other People residency, Pleasure Island, Retail, ridgewood, Sexy Neighbors, teenage jesus and the jerks, The Gateway, trans-pecos
John Zorn Improv Night at The Stone
This benefit gives you a chance to see one of free jazz’s living legends, John Zorn, wail and chirp on the sax, and the the admission (hefty by Stone standards but reasonable by any other) goes toward a worthy cause — his intimate, meticulously curated non-profit venue. Tonight, Louie Belogenis accompanies him on the sax.
Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon Are Playing The Stone (Not Together, Sorry)
John Zorn and Thurston Moore at a Faculty Against the Sexton Plan fundraiser at LPR in 2012.
The saga of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon has been back in the news lately (and by “the news,” we mean Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan). Thurston says he’s now in a “really romantic place” but next month, he’ll step into a not-all-that-romantic place: John Zorn’s East Village hole-in-the-wall, The Stone. As it turns out, Kim’ll be there too — about a month later.
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It’s John Zorn Month, So Just Go Ahead and Clear Your Calendar
Cancel all plans for the rest of the month if you’re a fan/worshipper of avant-garde composer and saxophonist John Zorn: you may have missed his 60th birthday jam at his East Village venue, The Stone (see above video for 30 seconds of him performing with Fred Frith), but worry not: a cavalcade of events will celebrate the pillar of the downtown music scene, starting with a week and a half of movies he curated for Anthology Film Archives.
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