Lizz Wright and Brandon Young at Highline Ballroom

Don’t you love it when you go to a show and the opening act is actually a pleasurable experience? Tuesday night I went to a show at Highline Ballroom, a classy but cozy venue that knows how to milk you for all you’re worth, while simultaneously making you feel too at home and well serviced to care. It’s a room full of tables, each with a $10 minimum per person/per set, but on this night the music was so good and our waitress so attentive and the drinks so satisfying and the food so delectable that we couldn’t have cared less that we spent about 70 bucks each to see this woman perform, with the ticket price included of course. Fortunately, Lizz Wright and everything else that factored into the evening, was worth every penny.



She has a background in Gospel and jazz. Now, with the help of local songstress Toshi Reagon, she has created a sound all her own. It’s music that enters your soul with a soothing melodic groove and makes you feel in love with the world all over again. The minute she walked onstage I was drawn in and remained that way until the end of the night. People have told me that I have a “pull,” like a magnet almost. But if I’m a magnet, I’m about as big as a refrigerator magnet and she’s one of those cartoon ACME magnets that draws the universe in.

On this night she pulled together “her favorite people” to perform alongside her and you could truly feel how much she adored each and every one of them and vice versa. At one point she apologized for not talking very much between songs saying, “For some reason, I just want to sing to you tonight. I’m just so happy. It feels like family in here.” The audience chuckled responding, “That’s all right,” because that’s what we’d come to hear her do anyways. And after the first note out of her mouth, we really couldn’t ask for anything more.


On the other hand, we had the opening act, Brandon Young. This was his first show in NY and as my friend said, “I felt like I was on a date with him. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to put out or not!” Well, metaphorically speaking, I would have certainly put out. You can’t be mad at a guy for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Even if it reached a level of sappiness at times, the act came across genuinely. Whether it was genuine or not, we’ll never know, but I enjoyed the getting to know you banter mixed with his perfectly constructed pop songs of love, love and more love. With Jeff Buckley-inspired vocals, he’s got the formula so down pat that every song felt familiar, in a good way. I often found myself humming along halfway through as if I’d known the song all my life- and writing something catchy is half the battle.

So, best of luck to both of these new talents. It was a great night and it really did feel like family. How often does that happen in NY?

***MY ONLY NOTE: “The Broken Caesar Salad” on the menu is literally two chunks of lettuce with some toppings thrown in. Our friends at the table next to us would have appreciated the clarification. So there ya go, you've been warned. :-)



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How Long Does She Have to Wait For You?

Sharon Jones. If you haven’t heard of her you’ve probably heard of her backing band, the Dap-Kings. And if you don’t recognize their name, I can pretty much guarantee you’d recognize their sound because they’re now Amy Winehouse’s backing band, as well. Based out of Bushwick/Brooklyn, New York, area code 11206, where I used to live btw, they even have their very own label: Daptone Records.

I saw the lovely convergence of this band and this firecracker of a woman a few weeks ago at the Beacon Theater. I know it’s a little late to write a review but her damn songs are still stuck in my head! They’re just too good! So I’m considering it a sign from the music gods that I need to spread the word about this glorious performer.

Sharon Jones has got the bodily spirit of James Brown mixed with the vocal dynamics of Aretha Franklin. I always wished I’d seen these two live until I saw Sharon Jones. It was as if they were sharing the stage that night, in one soulful soul.

She’s 52. But you would never EVER know it. She called up men on stage. “They gotta be tall and sexy and under thirty,” she said with a naughty little laugh, never missing a beat of her constant motion around the stage. Throughout the show she danced with men and women alike and had fun doing it (almost as much fun as we had watching it!).

And to top it off, I’ve never seen a concert audience so diverse in my life and I’ve been to a lot of shows and festivals in my day. But this one took the cake when it comes to mixing it up! We had the old couple griping about the two NYU alums in front of them refusing to sit their behinds in their seats. Meanwhile, you had the underage drinkers vomiting on the stairs just 2 seats away. 3 rows down were the stoned hippie chicks moving too slowly to keep in rhythm with the upbeat songs. Then there were couples necking and groups of friends cheering in all directions. And we were only in the balcony. The real music heads were below us, from the former head of Joe’s Pub to every booking agent you can imagine. I only know this because I saw the few that I knew while in line at the downstairs bar.

So while it’s great that the Dap-Kings are helping Amy Winehouse blow up and some of her fans are clearly transferring over to the diva from another era, Sharon Jones. I am here to spread word directly: if you haven’t heard her yet, give Sharon Jones a chance- she’s been waiting long enough!


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Beat the Devil

The scene: Club Europa, Williamsburg. My mental state: poor. Running on a mere three hours of sleep, and still not entirely over a hellish afternoon lost in the labyrinth of sadness that is New Jersey, I sat in the club with just two people: my current lady interest, and my friend who, apparently forgetting my fixation on this women, had decided to sleep with her the previous evening. Ouch. As a deluge of phone calls came in from friends apologizing for not being able to join our happy trio, and it became ever the more clear that the awkwardness induced by my company would not be assuaged, I slammed three drinks as fast as I could. Pleasantly tipsy, and spitefully determined to have a good time, I sat in anticipation for the main act of the evening: Beat the Devil.

Painfully awkward situations aside, I was reasonably sure that I was not to be disappointed. After all, Shilpa Ray, Beat the Devil's lead singer, had recently been described in Time Out New York as “New York City's best frontperson,” and Spin.com had raved that “listening to Beat the Devil is like taking your first punch in the face.” Not bad reviews, but would the show be enough to salvage the evening?

The two opening acts, whose names elude me at the moment (for good reason) were lukewarm at best, but I feigned interest in an attempt to avoid conversation with the happy couple. I sat, despondent, praying to Zues, Ra, Thor, anyone who would listen, really, that the main act would be good enough to rescue me from the Hell in which I found myself.

The transition in sets between the opening acts and Beat the Devil was the most excruciating part of the evening. In mere moments, I would discover whether I would salvage victory from the jaws of defeat, or if I would go home crushed and despondent. It was at this point that I noticed one of the band members setting up a theremin (for those of you not in the know, the theremin is a rather obscure electronic instrument designed in Russia in 1919, whose pitch is determined based on how far away the maestro's hand is from a metal pole). There was a light at the end of the tunnel! I don't know about you, but I have never seen an act sporting that marvel of Soviet avant-garde ingenuity that has failed to impress. I was soon to discover that Beat the Devil would be no exception.

At long last, the set began. Nearly every song, began with Ms. Ray pumping a harmonium (yeah, I had to wikipedia that one when I got home to figure out what the hell it was), building up sound and fury until critical mass, and then, BAM! The audience was awash in a sound that can, perhaps, best be described as a cross between Amy Winehouse and Sonic Youth. The trio chucked out blues riffs like candy on Halloween, and Ray clearly possesses Winehouse's ability to sing in a delightfully low and soulful tone, but their sound also had a distinctive grunge feel.

The instrumentation was the pinnacle of absurdity. I mean, really. Drums, a bass, a theremin, and a harmonium that, to be perfectly honest, looked like a baby coffin. But the main attraction was the voice of the lead singer. Ray's voice shifted without warning between the seductive allure of a siren and the demon-wail of a banshee. Such expressions of rage haven't been communicated through primal screams since Kurt Cobain got it into his head that blowing out his brains would be a good idea (Just kidding, we all know it was murder!).

“How is that sound coming out of her?!” the backstabbing asshole exclaimed. And indeed, it didn't seem to make sense. Here was this small, attractive, sweet looking woman channeling the screams of the damned, singing lyrics that can only be penned by the most disaffected of souls. She broke the tension between songs, casually cracking jokes with the band. But with the rhythmic pumping of the coffin-harmonium, she once again transformed, a process repeated time and time again until the climactic last song. It was as if Faye, from the massively underrated anime Cowboy Beebop, had her in mind when she uttered the phrase,“Like a demon from heaven, or an angel from hell.”

I left the two lovebirds to whisper sweet nothings into each others' ears at our table, and proceeded to the dance floor, where I rocked out like there was no tomorrow. From my new vantage point, I discovered that Ray wasn't the only impressive member of the group. The bass player rocked the theremin like I've never seen: on several occasions he swooped his hand towards the instrument with such intensity that I was sure he was going to smack the thing off its perch. Such catastrophe was averted by mere centimeters. The drummer seemed possessed, barely saying a word the whole set, instead gazing transfixedly at his drums/the floor.

Sadly, the set ended too quickly for my liking, and the EP that the band was selling after the show, which, as far as I could gather is their only release to date, fails to capture the intensity that the band had displayed in their live show. This is not to say that the EP is worthless: the first track, “Plea Bargain,” is catchy, and representative sampling of the band's work.

The show ended, and I proceeded to execute a skillful cockblock, ensuring that my two friends would be going home separately (without going too much into details, let's just say that a little scare-mongering concerning construction on selected subway lines can go a long way). But all you hopeless romantics out there needn't worry! They hooked up again a few nights later. On a happy note for me, though, to compensate for the seizure of this woman from me, my friend offered to supply me with several packs of cigarettes. In the end, everyone won!

So, in conclusion, if you want to see a live act good enough to make you forget that your friend is a lecherous douche bag, see Beat the Devil. They, according to their super cool website, are heading out to Vegas for a time, but don't worry. They'll be back.

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