Starting August 17, The Highline Ballroom will play host to its first Highline Piano Series, a weeklong slate of shows that, not so uncoincidentally, will feature some amazing pianists and keyboard players. On Monday night, the series will open will an acoustic performance from The Benevento Russo Duo. While Marco Benevento and Joe Russo haven't been hard to find with their various other projects, Duo shows, once prevalent, have been. The last time I can recall the Duo playing sans electricity was at the now-defunct Knitting Factory during the 2007 Green Apple Festival. Figuring that an acoustic show should be played before a seated crowd, the Duo generated an unheard amount of excitement, a feat they will no doubt duplicate at the Highline Ballroom.

At Hidden Track, they are running a free ticket giveaway for the event with five pairs available for the return of The Duo. Simply write a 50 word or less comment describing your favorite Duo song in order to be eligible.

The Highline Piano Series will run from August 17 through August 26 and feature jazz great McCoy Tyner (August 23) and Radiohead interpreter and Sunday New York Times Art & Leisure subject Christopher O'Riley (August 24). The other dates are as follows:

August 19 - Peter Cincotti
August 20 - Vienna Teng Trio
August 21 - The Bad Plus
August 22 - Iris Dement
August 25 - Cecil Taylor
August 26 - Phil Vassar

Labels: Benevento/Russo Duo, High Line Ballroom

New York City is always full of great concert options. This week is no different and the week gets off to a fast start with the Arctic Monkeys at the Highline Ballroom. Bela Fleck is playing Central Park Summerstage with Toumani Diabate, while Madison Square Garden hosts Depeche Mode with Peter, Bjorn & John.

The Arctic Monkeys stay on the island Tuesday night to play Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which of course, also has house band the Roots. Incubus supplants the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall while Los Campesinos takeover Webster Hall. Tuesday night also has a replay of Depeche Mode with Peter, Bjorn & John at MSG.

Wednesday night sees Chris Isaak at the Beacon Theatre and Incubus does its second show at Radio City. John Scofield is at Madison Square Park while Joe's Pub hosts Julian Velard. Licorice and Rebecca Hart will play the Rocks Off Concert Cruise Series.

Thursday you can take to the water with Donna The Buffalo for a Rockin' the River Cruise. Alternatively, the Eagles of Death Metal will rock the younger set at Webster Hall while the old school crowd can catch legendary crooner Johnny Mathis at the Beacon.

Friday things start off early with Jason Mraz playing the Today Show Concert Series while Friday night, the Big Takeover Band will be snuggling into the much more intimate Rockwood Music Hall. Lila Downs and Me'Shell N'DegeOcello are at Lincoln Center while Sugar Ray visits Irving Plaza (Fillmore). Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Deer Tick will play "Celebrate Brooklyn," a free show in Prospect Park.

With everyone likely heading to the Hamptons, Saturday night is fairly quiet in the Big Apple. Pilobolus is at the Joyce Theater, Sam Bradley is at Joe's Pub and Love will play B.B. King's. U-Melt livens things up with a gig at Sullivan Hall.

The weekend comes to a close with a Webster Hall triple header featuring Serpent Cult, The Gates of Slumber and Zoroaster.

Labels: Arctic Monkeys, Bela Fleck, Fillmore New York, High Line Ballroom, New York City, Peter Bjorn and John, The Roots, Tour Dates

By: David Schultz

A few months ago, The Secret Machines quietly announced that guitarist Ben Curtis would be leaving the band he founded with his brother Brandon and drummer Josh Garza. For a trio that works so well together, Curtis' departure might have sounded a death knell for The Machines, right on the verge of their emergence as one of the freshest and most exciting new groups of the new century. Rather then spiral aimlessly in the face of loss, Brandon Curtis and Garza quickly regrouped and began working on new material focusing on the matter at hand and not what might have been. Having already attracted the ardor of David Bowie upon the release of last year's Ten Silver Drops, the Thin White Duke tabbed The Machines to reveal their new lineup and sound as the closing act of his High Line Festival at the newly opened Highline Ballroom. Technically, the Highline show was The Machines' second in as many nights: Curtis and Garza weren't leaving everything to chance, they played a late-night warm up show with substantially the same setlist the night before at The Annex on the Lower East Side.

In Ben's absence, Garza and Curtis brought on two different guitarists, who also contributed some additional keyboards while Brandon played bass. Neither contributed significantly to the much heavier sound they've adopted. Without Ben's incising guitar work, the Machines now focus on Brandon's sonorous keyboards and Garza's bombastic drums. Instead of building on the crisp modern rock found on No Here Is Nowhere and Ten Silver Drops, Garza and Curtis are moving into the sludgy heaviness akin to "Daddy's In The Doldrums." Unlike past Machines shows, the crowd seemed less enthralled by the new material, which lacked the tight hooks and grooves that fueled their success. The differences between the new material was most pronounced during "Lightning Blue Eyes" and the encore of "Sad And Lonely" and "Nowhere Again," which seemed to possess a more energized spirit. The Highline show may indicate a drastic change in musical direction for The Secret Machines; then again, it may be too early to make such a pronouncement.

Labels: High Line Ballroom, High Line Festival, Live Reviews, The Secret Machines

By: David Schultz

In a perfect world, moe. would be one of the biggest bands in the world. While many of their brethren within the jamband world burned brightly and faded away, the five-piece band from upstate New York, have endured to become one of the most venerated acts on the concert scene. While mainstream renown and acclaim have not found their way onto moe.'s doorstep, they have fashioned a verdant niche within the jamband nation. Since self-releasing Fatboy in 1992, they have seven more studio albums to their credit, including one holiday album; six live albums, four as part of their popular Warts And All series and founded three annual concert festivals. Lou Reed may have been tabbed for the opening night of New York City's newest venue, The Highline Ballroom, but with a five night run spanning Wednesday to Sunday night, moe. got the privilege of truly breaking it in.



In an era where any multiple show run gets deemed a residency, moe. has avoided the term for their Highline stint, even though the appellation would be apt for their moe.rathon. But for relinquishing the stage to Fishbone for their Thursday night encore, moe. kept the focus of their shows on themselves and their music. The band can go in many different directions but at the core, the formula remains the same: Al Schnier and Chuck Garvey make a potent guitar duo, often finishing each other's riffs; Vinnie Amico and Jim Loughlin offer dual percussion with Loughlin offering up Zappa-worthy vibe passages and Rob Derhak anchors everything at center stage with his bass.

Over the course of Wednesday night's two lengthy sets, moe. explored certain musical themes, segued on to different ones only to come back and explore the original theme some more. With Loughlin's percussion highlighting the opener, "McBain," moe, returned to the song during both sets, also moving in and out of "Y.O.Y" and "Brent Black" They also showed a versatile range without becoming wildly schizophrenic. moe.'s first set featured the reggae-tinged "Seat Of My Pants" and "Akimbo" which contrasted with the heavy psychedlia of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive." They also experimented with new styles: on "Down Boy" they worked in some subtle hip-hop beats and Garvey credibly and unironically delivered the rap-style verses without registering on the unintentional comedy charts. Amidst a considerably funky bass solo from Derhak and an upbeat percussion-fest by Amico and Loughlin, moe. worked in newer songs from their latest album, The Conch, with old favorites like "Sensory Deprivation Bank."

An inherent difficulty in reviewing any show from a band that changes up their set list each night is that the show you write about will unlikely ever occur again. moe.'s Wednesday night set list wasn't one of my favorites. However, it illustrated one of the finest qualities of the band. Regardless of the set list, moe. puts on a first-rate show. Even if the songs aren't to your individual liking, it's simply a trifle. The ingenuity with which moe. creates their songs and the skill with which they play them are the true centerpiece of any of their shows. Favorite or even familiar songs will be a bonus, but the true attraction of moe. is five fine musicians at work.

Labels: High Line Ballroom, moe.

By: David Schultz

The High Line, an elevated section of abandoned railroad tracks located on the west side of New York City, has become a lightning rod for the revitalization of an entire neighborhood. At the same time that the tracks are being refurbished into an elevated park and many new buildings are being constructed, the neighborhood is also undergoing a cultural Renaissance of sorts. One of the focal points of the area's artistic reawakening, the Highline Ballroom, opened this past Monday and will host multiple performances during this month's First Annual High Line Festival. David Bowie, the Festival's inaugural curator, followed through on his promise to bring a diverse group of musicians to New York City for the occasion, securing performances personal favorites like The Secret Machines, Laurie Anderson, Air, The Polyphonic Spree and the Arcade Fire.

The Thin White Duke may not have had a hand in selecting Lou Reed to open the new venue this past Monday night, but if he did, a finer selection could not have been made. Dating back to his days with the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Reed and his literary body of work are as intrinsically tied to New York City as James Joyce's to Dublin. With other notable Manhattanites like Richard Belzer, Paul Shaffer and Laurie Anderson in attendance, the prototypical New Yorker consecrated The Big Apple's newest stage as only he could - with attitude, lots and lots of attitude.

In contrast to the earthy, lived-in concert halls that are rapidly disappearing from the New York concert scene, the Highline Ballroom is a sleek, upscale nightspot. With top shelf bars and relatively frou-frou menus of mixed drinks and haute cuisine, the Highline apparently expects to be catering to an elite group of concert-goers. The surroundings made an odd but not unfamiliar setting for Reed: the iconoclast has a penchant for playing atypical venues like the staid Town Hall or former hip-hop mecca Crobar. The honor of opening the Highline comes on the heels of recent accolades bestowed upon him by Syracuse University, his alma mater, who not only awarded the singer the George Arents Pioneer Medal For Excellence In The Arts but also founded a creative writing scholarship in his and mentor Delmore Schwartz' name.

The notoriously cantankerous singer wasted no time making his first impressions known, interrupting his second song, "What’s Good" to scathingly bark disapproval over his sound monitors and the smoke machine. Reed reserved his praise and admiration for his band, which consisted of several familiar faces: Mike Rathke on guitar, Rob Wasserman on stand-up bass and Jane Scarpantoni on cello. In lieu of Fernando Saunders, Reed's longtime cohort, or a drummer, Steve Hunter, who rejoined Reed for last December's Berlin concerts, played the role of Reed's onstage foil.

Reed's performance highlighted his penchant for poignant urbane poetry. Bracketing his set around songs from Magic And Loss, his 1992 contemplation of mortality, Reed seemed uninterested in tackling material from his influential Velvet Underground period or Seventies solo catalog. With the exception of "The Last Great American Whale," Reed built his set list from the post New York period of his career. It made great fodder for true-Lou fans but probably proved bewildering to the non-obsessive; Reed hardly played anything that could be traditionally considered "a hit." As to be expected from any Lou Reed show, the headstrong singer followed his own muse with mixed results. Updated renditions of "Trade In" and "Sword Of Damocles" worked splendidly, an overwrought "Ecstasy" meandered and an electronic-based reworking of Songs For Drella's "Faces And Names" went bewilderingly awry.

For the most part, Reed played a restrained set interrupted by short staccato blasts of guitar, usually from Hunter. The sparse arrangements brought Reed's lyrics and everyone's musicianship to the forefront, but oftentimes lacked a cohesive consistency. John Zorn, another icon of New York music scene, joined Reed near the close of his two hour set and provided the proper spark. The two New York titans first played together at the 20th Anniversary celebration of the Knitting Factory and, at the Highline, recaptured the same chemistry that worked so well last March. Blending perfectly with Scarpantoni's cello, Zorn's saxophone played perfect counterpoint to Reed's guitar on "Magic And Loss" and lovingly filled the gaps on "Rock Minuet."

Time Out magazine recently ranked The Velvet Underground atop their list of the Top 50 New York musicians of all-time, describing them as "the ultimate New York band." If the Velvets were the ultimate New York band, Reed is the ultimate New York musician. Even though Okkervil River played the Highline's first notes, tabbing Lou Reed to break the champagne bottle on the Highline's newly christened hull nicely bridged the gap between different generations, uniting them all in the name of New York rock and roll.

Labels: David Bowie, High Line Ballroom, John Zorn, Lou Reed

By bringing Arcade Fire, The Secret Machines, Air, Polyphonic Spree and Ricky Gervais to New York City as part of mid May's High Line Festival, curator David Bowie has done his job of creating a distinctive slate of artists to promote and celebrate the impending opening of the High Line, an elevated park located on Manhattan's West side. In addition to the park, the festival will also see the opening of a new concert space: The High Line Ballroom.

Consecrating the new venue will be New York's own resident poet and urban legend Lou Reed, who will play the High Line's first show on April 30 with guitarist Mike Rathke and cellist Jane Scarpantoni, the same pair who assisted Reed at last month's celebration of the "Old Knit." Following Reed into the new concert space will be jamband emeritus moe. for four sold-out shows and the tempestuous Amy Winehouse for a pair of sellouts of her own.

In a tried and true case of the new boss being the same as the old boss, Irving Plaza will be renamed The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. More an extension of Live Nation's corporate brand (extending also to Philadelphia where the longstanding TLA will be dubbed "The Fillmore Philadelphia") than a broadening of Bill Graham's legacy, Irving Plaza's new identity will come complete with gradual renovations to the balconies, bathrooms, sound and lighting systems. The first show at "Fillmore East" will take place on April 11 as yet another British brat, Lily Allen, will christen the renamed venue.

Labels: David Bowie, Fillmore New York, High Line Ballroom, Lily Allen, Lou Reed