DAILYSESSION

By Ben Brantley – NY Times

It was almost exactly 16 years ago that I made my first visit to La MaMa in a professional capacity, as a new theater critic for The New York Times. I’d been there before as a civilian, usually under the influence. (I believe it was where I first saw a foghorn-throated drag queen named Harvey Fierstein.) But even then La MaMa had for me the whiff of another time, the patchouli scent of the 1960s, when downtown theater was longhaired, renegade and rude.

I wasn’t around for that heady heyday of La MaMa, the willful, playful brainchild of Ellen Stewart, who died on Thursday. Yet what I saw in the East Village theater that January night in 1994 turned out to be not only absolutely of the moment but also of the future. It was a rough-hewn, rowdy, dirty little play called“Stitches,” put on by a brother-and-sister team that presumptuously called itself the Talent Family. Their real names? David and Amy Sedaris. [Read More]

By Andy Beta – The Village Voice

William T. Burnett, a bespectacled thirtysomething with parted blond hair and a shoulder slouch befitting a drummer, pushes a handcart stacked four boxes high with vinyl records toward the back of the Thing, the monstrous Manhattan Avenue thrift store where he works part-time, dumping them in a corner already overloaded with such stacks and heading out to grab another load. Burnett is a busy man: He releases idiosyncratic analog dance music under names like Grackle, Speculator, and Galaxy Toobin’; DJs on Internet station Newtown Radio; and runs the Pentatonic Guitars shop in Greenpoint. He also operates his own record label, appropriately titled WT. Not all of these activities are making him money right now.

“Right now, I think I am a couple thousand in debt,” Burnett estimates of his label endeavor, in a drawl reflecting his South Texas upbringing. “But one day I will get back to even.” Lucrative business plan or not, like many local DJs and dance-music producers in New York City, he opted to release the music of friends and acquaintances, and in turn get them to release his own productions, rather than waiting for someone else to do it all for them. [Read More]

By Roberta Smith – NY Times

WHEN I walk through the Museum of Modern Art these days, it sometimes feels as if the place has come back from the dead — even if I’m not always so crazy about the life it happens to be leading. There’s often a confusing, disjunctive quality to it, especially where contemporary art is concerned, as the museum’s programming lurches from crowd-drawing, performance-art spectacles in the atrium to relatively dry and didactic exhibitions in its galleries. But at least there’s a pulse.

The museum feels much, much more animated than it did back in 2005 and ’06, when it — and we — were first adjusting to its slick new home on West 53rd Street. That structure, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi and built at a cost of $425 million, opened in November 2004, and over the next two years it appeared to many depressed MoMA watchers that we were witnessing nothing less than a major museum’s suicide by architecture. [Read More]

By Larry Pohter – NY Times

The Library of Congress has begun taking possession of a huge donation of recordings, some 200,000 metal, glass and lacquer master discs from the period 1926 to 1948 that have been languishing in the subterranean vaults of Universal Music Group, the largest music conglomerate in the United States.

The bequest, which is to be formally announced on Monday, contains music representing every major genre of American popular song of that era — jazz, blues, country and the smooth pop of the pre-rock-’n’-roll period — as well as some light classical and spoken-word selections. One historic highlight is the master recording of Bing Crosby’s 1947 version of “White Christmas,” which according to Guinness World Records is the best-selling single of all time. [Read More]

1. Jim Sullivan – U.F.O. – Light In The Attic

Long-anticipated reissue of this very rare and obscure rural rock LP. Words fail to describe it accurately – it’s a little bit psychedelic, there’s a folk influence, country vibes, and Sullivan’s yearning voice and mystical songwriting is backed by Earl Palmer and crew, the same band that played sessions for David Axelrod and others at Capitol Records. The result is a sound that’s as professional as it is unorthodox. Sullivan sings of mysterious cities and UFO kidnappings. Fittingly, he drove off to seek his fortunes and disappeared into the ether, leaving his car in the desert and his guitar in a hotel room.

2. Rahni Harris & The Family Love – A Different Drummer – Emprise

Independent label gospel-soul LP out of New Jersey. Shimmering, mellow keyboard-, vibes- and marimba-led ballads and midtempo grooves that recall groups like the Stylistics, or the Sylvers. The messages are spiritual but not so explicit as to turn anyone off. Just a beautiful record, and tough to find.

3. Raw Dope Posse – Listen To My Turbo – Show Jazz

Doc Delay said, “this is everything you like about rap, in one record”. He’s right – a perfect example of hardcore hip-hop. The beat is manic: Mantronix-inspired rapidfire snare programming, some bells, a spliced telephone busy signal, a scratched horn break, and the vocal science is delivered with utmost swagger and precision. If this came out yesterday, it would still sound ahead of its time. Known and sought-after for years, but still a tough pull.

4. George Braith – Musart – Prestige

One of my favorite jazz LPs. Braith started out on the Blue Note label, leading several modal sessions that are all great and worth seeking out. He developed an expertise in playing two horns at the same time, much like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, although he tended to use the technique more melodically than Kirk did. He cut one mediocre record on Prestige, “Laughing Soul”, a somewhat cheesy soul jazz outing, before recording this. But something must have clicked, because this 1966 release takes the beautiful modal horn work of his Blue Note recordings and marries it to a lush, tropical, latin-flavored sound that – though it’s mellow – never crosses into chintzy lounge territory. It sounds like a dream, somewhere between Harlem’s 125th Street and Disney’s The Jungle Book.

5. William Onyeabor – Tomorrow – Wilfilms

A perfect piece of wigged out afro funk. Onyeabor was a successful businessman in Nigeria and built himself his own recording studio, seemingly outfitted with every synth, drum machine, and cutting edge recording device available. He pressed his own records, and allegedly made his own movies. On vinyl, he was extremely prolific – and this LP finds him in my favorite style of his, a spaced out disco vibe that doesn’t quit. Quite desirable and never turns up except in Nigeria – a unique Good Records NYC exclusive.

By Jon Pareles – NY Times

LATELY I’ve been having a recurring sinking sensation. A hit on the radio gets my attention and doesn’t repay it; it adds up to little more than a dull thumping Eurodisco beat and a robo-tuned voice repeating an inane hook, something like the “Ay-oh, gotta let go,” in Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite,” or Justin Bieber piping, “Baby, baby, baby, oh” or the Black Eyed Peas chanting “Imma Be” more than 100 times (though at least that song goes through some rhythm changes).[Read More]