Many Bastille Day celebrations are planned around bk this weekend. Our favorite here at ev2bk is the Bastille Day Street Fair going on this Sunday from noon to 10pm hosted by Bar Tabac. The celebration will shut down Smith Street to set up a sandy pétanque (a French game similar to bocce) court, Bar Tabac will blast louder-than-usual live music and serve brunch and French cocktails. This year’s featured band will be The Baby Blue Orchids. Another latin flamenco band will also perform.
If the crowds on Smith Street scare you away but you just need to get your pétanque game on, you can go to Cornichon on Grand St. in Williamsburg this Saturday and play in their tournament from 6PM to midnight. You have to RSVP for this one if you plan on participating with your team.
To get you in the mood, here’s a link to the national anthem of France, which will surely be played at some point or another this weekend/early next week:
After the sun had set tonight, a spontaneous song broke out in celebration of both the incredible sky and the grilled swordfish. So instead of a Jam of the Day, we offer you an ev2bk first: an original Jam of the Night, recorded live this evening here on Block Island with a group of family and friends (tentative group name: Bear Collective) and posted for your entertainment. We hope it’s as enjoyable to you listening as it was for us making it!
In major tech-news today, the results are in for Microsoft’s new search engine Bing (at least from the New York Times) and, shocker!, they say that in many ways it is better than Google! Some of the major advantages that they point to are pop-up balloons, showing you the first few paragraphs on any site, that show up when you point to a search result before clicking on it, and a new panel to the left of the search results of common sense links. From the Times “When you search for a medical condition, that table offers Causes, Remedies, Treatment, Prognosis and News. Aren’t those almost always the answers you’re really looking for?” You can visit the newly launched comparison site, bing-vs-google.com and decide for yourself.
All this news about information organization and lists today made me think of the infectious song “Lisztomania” released this year by the French alt-rock band, Phoenix. Phoenix, with Thomas Mars on vocals, Deck D’Arcy on bass, Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai on guitar, released their debut album, Untitled, in 2000. Many of their former band mates and French rock contemporaries include members of Air and Daft Punk. Their second album, Alpahabetical, released in 2004, increased their profile with songs like “Run, Run, Run” and “Everything is Everything” reaching the charts. They even gained some notice in the high-fashion scene when Hedi Slimane commissioned a custom mix of their song “Victim of the Crime” as the soundtrack to one of his Dior Homme runway shows. They have permeated the DJ scene here and all over Europe and their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, including the aforementioned track “Lisztomania,” just released in late May of this year, is their best yet.
Listen below to here the awesome remix of “Lisztomania” produced by Brooklyn-based duo Holy Ghost!
If you like what you hear you can download more from the boys of Holy Ghost!, Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel, at Green Label Sound here.
I hope everyone enjoyed the gorgeous holiday weekend. Now that you’re back in the city, easing into the week (hopefully with a little tan), we here at ev2bk wanted to welcome you back with a free show and a stellar new video. Tonight in the ev, Pianos is hosting the weekly Cross-Pollination show where two local singer-songwriters will each play a 45-minute solo set, followed by a three-song collaborative set where both artists share the stage. The two-hour concert is free and doors open at 7:30, so if you’re in need of your new music fix for the week, go check it out.
Liberated Matter created the Cross-Pollination concert series with the goal of strengthening the local music community and forging bonds between musicians and creating new collaborations. They pair musicians based on the diversity of their music styles as well as the compatibility of their sounds. Cross-Pollination at Pianos has been going on for two years now (since June 2007). They partnered with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, ASCAP, to produce the event.
Tonight’s featured local performers are Alex Drewchin and Louis Schefano (aka Louis) formerly of the mostly one-man-band, Regia. Listen below to get a sample of what you might here tonight from Louis Schefano, from his EP “Louis’s Freak Show Revenge.”
My Brightest Diamond, led by the operatically-trained, Brooklyn-based, singer-songwriter Shara Worden, performed at a past Cross-Pollination concert. The band released their first album, Bring Me the Workhorse, in 2006. Today’s jam comes to you from their 2008 release, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth. The haunting vocals on this track, at times reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, and the Anime-meets-Pixar escape video are definitely worth checking out.
At The Bell House last night, Nonesuch Records hosted a CD release party for the new album by the lovable jam rock band Wilco, aptly titled Wilco (The Album). This is the seventh studio album by the Chicago-based sextet, with eleven new songs, including a duet with Leslie Feist. To celebrate the album’s release yesterday, Paste magazine devoted their web site to the new record, calling it Wilco (The Takeover). Rolling Stone gave it four stars (out of five) and called the new album “a triumph of determined simplicity by a band that has been running from the obvious for most of this decade.” The album is getting great reviews so far. Their blend of catchy hooks and thoughtfully crafted lyrics will undoubtedly make it one of the best albums of the summer.
Standout tracks on the album include, “Wilco (The Song),” which they dedicated to their fans, the rollicking jam “I’ll Fight,” and the aforementioned duet with Leslie Feist, “You and I,” a light and dreamy track that I’m sure we can expect to hear in some upcoming movies. I just hope it’s not playing over a horribly cheesy montage (try not to imagine it…)
East Village to Brooklyn 