Shannon McNally’s Small Town Talk: The Great Lost Dr. John Album?

Bobby Charles was a Cajun soul songwriter who scored during the early rock era with hits including See You Later Alligator and Walking to New Orleans. He also recorded sporadically: Shannon McNally discovered him via his self-titled 1972 album recorded with The Band. In 2007, three years before Charles’ death, McNally, Dr. John and the Lower 911 went into the studio with Charles and recorded Small Town Talk, an album of Charles covers that is just now seeing the light of day. McNally plays the album release show at 7:30 PM on May 17 at Joe’s Pub; $12 advance tix are still available as of today.

McNally has a history of collaborating with underrated New Orleans figures, most recently her intense 2011 Americana album, Western Ballad, with Mark Bingham. Though credited to her, you might consider this a great lost Night Tripper record. As you would imagine, it’s pretty funky. As you also might imagine, Charles’ songwriting turns out to be considerably more interesting than the top 40 fluff he’s best known for: his aphoristic turns of phrase have a surrealistic humor akin to Dr. John’s. It must be a New Orleans thing.

The opening track, Street People, sets a funky tone with bubbly organ and punchy horns courtesy of legendary New Orleans arranger Wardell Quezergue, an octogenarian at the time who has sadly left us since. McNally’s wry vocals dignify the hobo narrator’s point of view, soberly observing that “Some poeple would rather work: need people like that!”

The cynical country shuffle Can’t Pin a Color pairs the guitars of John Fohl with guest Luther Dickinson. “Tell a friend your deepest darkest secrets, watch how fast it spreads all over town,” McNally drawls. String of Hearts, an absolutely gorgeous, sophisticated duet with Vince Gill, has a lush string chart and some equally gorgeous piano from Mr. Rebennack. I Spent All My Money is a honkytonk song with a laid-back, funky edge courtesy of bassist David Barard and drummer Herman Ernest that contrasts with McNally’s vitriolic vocal.

Cowboys and Indians starts out as a rather somber take on American Indian-flavored rock a la Apache and then goes scampering with some surprisingly focused slide guitar from guest Derek Trucks. Will Sexton teams up with McNally on guitar on the sad, alienated country ballad Homemade Songs; then McNally picks up the pace on Long Face, a jaunty duet with Dr. John.

The slinky title track is a matter-of-fact commentary on petty jealousy. I Don’t Want to Know takes an outlaw country ballad and gives it a little slink as well: the tradeoffs between McNally’s tremoloing guitar and Dr. John’s piano are one of the album’s high points. Arguably Charles’ most-covered song, (I Don’t Know Why I Love You) But I Do gets a purist swing jazz treatment. Love in the Worst Degree, another one of his more popular tunes, gets a ranchy, Stonesy interepretation. Save Me Jesus has the feel of a Vietnam War era song, an unexpectedly cynical, apocalyptic spin on a swaying gospel organ groove. The record winds up with Smile (So Glad), a  soul shout reinvented as a classic Dr. John piano/organ romp, and  the lush, jazzy, 70s style soul ballad I Must Be in a Good Place Now.

Does this album have legs beyond the old hippie/Relix/WFMU crowd? Absolutely. It’s a lot of fun and a good look at a songwriter whose more substantial side was overshadowed by his early success. And it’s noteworthy for being the final release by Dr. John and this version of the Lower 911, considering that Fohl and Barard are no longer in the band.

A Month’s Worth of Nightcrawling, Part Three

Those of us who run music blogs are discouraged from every side from publishing concert coverage.  The publicists all want us to “preview” live shows, which is understandable: let’s get the crowd out to the gig!!! The reality is that we are in a deep, deep economic depression. The corporate media pretend it doesn’t exist because to acknowledge it would anger advertisers. The Bushwick blogs are oblivious to it because indie rock is by and large made by and for trust-funded children whose only connection with the daily reality experienced by most New Yorkers is their late-night slobbberfest at whatever trendy taco truck stays open the latest. But in spite of it all, incredible live music that has no connection whatsoever to the indie trust fund machine persists. So this final segment in three parts is dedicated to the working poor who make up an unpublicized majority of the audience at most New York concerts.

Walter Ego headlined Sunday Salon 25 at Zirzamin. The Sunday Salon began right after the hurricane last fall: it continues, unabated, a gathering of some of New York’s edgiest songwriters and musicians trading licks and songs. In an hour onstage, Walter Ego played every instrument within reach. Backed by brilliant drummer Josh Fleischmann, he began on guitar, switched to piano, eventually took over on bass for a slinky version of the Beatles’ Baby You’re a Rich Man and ended up behind the drum kit. In between, he acknowledged the horror of being behind the wheel of a subway train that runs over a passenger, went deep into Lennonesque piano mysticism, fired off jaunty, wryly amusing songs making fun of new agers and killjoys, evoking the Zombies, Beatles, Elvis Costello and ELO along the way.

Balkan chanteuse Eva Salina played a gorgeously eclectic solo show the following Friday night at the American Folk Art Museum. She’s a musician’s musician, taking the time to explain her background and how she survives in a world of magical musical niches, an American girl determined by the time she was in grade school to master styles she had little background in. Playing and singing solo with just her accordion, she held a standing-room-only crowd rapt with haunting songs from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece and the Jewish diaspora. Rising from a hushed, sultry alto to an anguished, microtonal wail, she held the crowd breathless as she brought to life ancient stories of mismatched marriages gone drastically awry, love lost to wartime casualties fighting the Ottoman empire, and an unexpected detour into American Appalachian folk music, another one of her specialities. A rugged individualist from day one, she now teaches music all over the world and collaborates with a similarly diverse cast of the world’s most sought-after players, from trumpeter Fank London (with whom she has a new album coming out) and modern accordionist Merima Kljuco. Her new solo album is a subtly beautiful hint of the careening chromatic intensity she pursues with London and an all-star cast of Eastern European players.

What is the likelihood that on a Monday night, an 11:30 PM Brooklyn show would be sold out? If it’s Rev. Vince Anderson, that’s always a possibility. He’s reached the point where he’s just about outgrown his weekly Monday residency at Union Pool, which is not a small venue. With a raw roar, he crashed into his signature song, Get Out of My Way and kept a packed house dancing throughout a somewhat abbreviated first set this past Monday night. Is there any jam band in New York who can match Anderson and his Love Choir? Doubtful. Firing off funk riffage on his trusty Nord Electro keyboard and backed by brilliant downtown baritone saxophonist Paula Henderson and Dave Smith on trombone plus guitar, bass and drums, he kept a resonant, murky minor-key mix going, then quoted both Hendrix and Jesus Christ Superstar in a slinky version of his own song Down to the River. A new number, Fallen from the Pray explored an existential crisis for the “dirty gospel” bandleader and minister (click here for his most recent sermon). “People are curious. They see me on the train and they come up to me and ask me, am I the Rev. Vince Anderson, and I say yes. Then they ask me why I’m depressed. and I say, do I look depressed? Am I acting for you? You mean I’m not animated like I am onstage? Then they ask me if I’m a believer. Today? Stone cold atheist, tomorrow who knows?”

The Rev., as he is lovingly known, is not an atheist. He followed that angst-ridden romp with a solo piano version of Precious Lord, Take My Hand. then a deep-fried soul vamp titled I Like My Lettuce Fried (you can actually do it if you use the heart of the vegetable) and then his hot sauce theme, Tangalicious. And that was just the first set. By the time that was over, there was no possible way to get into the room at Union Pool: you have been warned.

Alison Tartalia has an impossible 11 PM Tuesday residency this month at Spike Hill. It’s a great venue to not have to worry about drawing a crowd: it’s right by the train, the bartenders are super friendly and it’s the antithesis of the fussy trendoid bars immediately to the south. And the sound is great. Her first night here saw her working creepy noir cabaret, stagy theatrical piano songs, a ferocious blast of guitar rock and more delicate, pensive sounds. If you’re in the neighborhood, check her out – you’ve got a month to do it.

From an audience perspective, there were also a couple of shows last month that should not have happened  That ferocious Balkan brass band that plays that beer garden in Williamsburg shouldn’t advertise their shows there: dudes; just take the money and run. When the bartenders blast cheesy eastern European jazz while you’re playing, it’s time to quit while you’re ahead – and you are not easy to drown out wth the PA system. And that blues guitarist who’s gotten so much ink here on the live calendar needs to play some solo shows instead of with that hack who’s been kicking around the hippie scene here since the 70s.

Eclectic, Smart, High-Energy Keyboard Rock from Nat Osborn

There’s a subspecies of songwriter that wants to be Levon Helm. Possibly finding the inspiration after uncrating their dads’ Leon Russell and Joe Cocker records, they’ve set their sights on a modest and easily attainable goal: unthreatening, midtempo major-key Americana rock with a simple singalong vibe and not much else. What they hope to achieve from it isn’t clear: the era of big record labels keeping C-list sidemen like Helm and Russell in the fold, hoping to oneday see a second coming of Fleetwood Mac, ended decades ago. In the meantime, many of this new crop take up residency at open mics, hoping to gain some kind of foothold with their fellow dreamers.

While Nat Osborn plays catchy, warmly major-key, funky Americana rock, it would be a pity if he was to get pigeonholed as part of that crew, because while his music is just as retro, it’s vastly more exciting and edgy than theirs. Think Brother Joscephus on a smaller scale, or a younger East Coast version of Dr. John. The New Orleans influence is all over Osborn’s new album The King & the Clown, but it’s not cliches: his songwriting has bite. He’s playing the Mercury on May 7 at around 8; tix are $10 and still available as of today.

The album opens with Fire in the Wind, a blustery, catchy minor-key shuffle featuring Osborn’s horn section of Thomas Barber on trumpet, Adison Evans on baritone sax and Jake Handelman on trombone. “How does she hold so much anger in that little frame?” Osborn ponders.  Dreaming Her Love Away slinks along, drummer Zach Nicita giving it a bit of a disco pulse in tandem with the London Souls’ Stu Mahan’s fat, undulating bassline. Little to the Left is an irresistibly hilarious portrait of a trustafarian girl:

She’s got teardrops tattooed to her eyes
But I’ve known her for awhile now and I’ve never seen her cry
She loves to wear leather but she hates when I eat meat
She’s a hardcore hippie vegan with snakeskin on her feet

And it only gets more savagely sarcastic from there.

No Reason builds a catchy retro 70s disco tune out of a latin groove, with tinges of hip-hop. By contrast, Yours Alone is an explosive, minor-key antiwar reggae tune driven by Adam Agati’s furious, distorted guitar. Siren works a creepy 60s noir cabaret pulse with Osborn’s tiptoeing piano up against Agati’s twangy Henry Mancini surf licks and a lurid horn chart. Subterfuge develops variations on a hypnotic, classically-tinged, impressionistic piano vamp, while So Wrong It’s Right bounces along with a jaunty roaring 20s vibe: it wouldn’t be out of place in the Matt Munisteri catalog.

One Chance plays off a seductive retro soul groove lit up by Osborn’s twinkling, nocturnal Rhodes piano. Ritalin picks up the pace (doesn’t it always – after all, it’s chemically identical to crystal meth) with tumbling salsa piano and the sobering mantra “we leave every child behind.” The title track makes an unexpectedly macabre and extremely successful detour into circus rock. The only dud here, Leave All This to Me shamelessly pilfers a familiar Radiohead riff and works it to death. The album ends with the Sinatra-influenced solo ballad Where Morning Used to Be. Osborn gets his fingers into a whole bunch of different pies here and comes up with good stuff pretty much every time; he sounds like he’s a lot of fun live.

Halle & the Jilt: Oldschool Soul with a Fresh, Dark Undercurrent

A cynic might say that the recent explosion of female-fronted oldschool soul bands are all trying to be the next Adele. But the reality is that most of them have been going for as long or longer than she has: the main reason why Sharon Jones isn’t on commercial radio is because her little label doesn’t have the payola money. Meanwhile, fantastic acts like Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes, the Right Now and Meah Pace are packing small and midsize clubs. Halle & the Jilt work a lot of that same turf: for a taste of some of the lusciously noir cutting edge of retro soul music, they’re playing the album release for their second one, Three Roads Home, at the big room at the Rockwood tonight at 7.

Frontwoman Halle Petro goes for a steamy but biting oldschool soul vibe. Her voice is more crystalline and direct than most of the other retro soul mamas; when she’s not wailing full steam, her vocals often have jazz nuance. Petro’s not-so-secret weapon here is guitarslinger Michael Gomez, best known for his purist but often slashingly pyrotechnic work in careening minor-key gypsy/jamband Hazmat Modine. The album’s production is anything but slick, and all the better for it. At first listen, the funky opening track, Kiss My Ghost sounds like she’s saying “kiss my nose.” Petro sings vengefully over Tim Luntzel’s dancing, boomy bass, Jim Wert’s prominent drums and Gomez’ distorted funk guitar: “Are you happy when you kiss my ghost?” she demands. Did  she kill herself? Was she killed instead? Did anybody really get killed? The answer isn’t clear, and it’s intriguing.

The second track, Confessions is a feast of oldschool, jangly Memphis soul guitar under Petro’s nonchalant alto. Signs – which appears here in both live and studio versions – works a surprisingly interesting, artsy take on standard coffeehous singer-songwriter fare. Graveyard of the Ocean sets shipwreck metaphors over a cleverly creepy blend of noir funk and gothic folk. One suspects it might have a past life as a country song, reinforced by the presence of a broodingly torchy electric version of Wayfaring Stranger (which is actually fantastic – it wouldn’t be out of place on a Jennifer Nicely album).

Take What I Can Get pairs Petro’s elegant kiss-off narrative against echoey blues harp and nonchalantly unhinged, bluesy wailing from Gomez. Trees has a catchy, upbeat sway, Petro’s voice taking on a clipped, sardonic edge in the same vein as Hannah Fairchild of Hannah vs. the Many.

“You’re just a paper doll,” Petro adds casually on the burning, crescendoing, funk rock tune 10 East. Carry Me Home, a catchy 60s-style soul ballad, is a showcase for Gomez’ inspired, oldtime blues work with a slide on resonator guitar. The album winds up with a doo-wop soul number.

Reut Regev and R*Time Jam Out Some Murky Stoner Funk

[It's always useful to have a sister blog that will send some good stuff over at the end of the month when you're busy putting together the next month's NYC concert calendar...]

Reut Regev is one of the ringleaders in minor-key jam band Hazmat Modine’s wild brass section, and a unique, original voice on the trombone. She’s got an eclectically fun new album, Exploring the Vibe, out with her stoner funk band, R*Time, which blends elements of jazz, no wave, Ethiopian and Balkan music, among other styles. Regev got the inspiration for the project at a festival in Germany where she had the chance to play with guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly and realized that the chemistry for a good album was there. The rhythm section here is Regev’s husband Igal Foni on drums and Mark Peterson on bass, with cameos from Kevin Johnson on drums and Jon Sass on tuba. As you would expect, there’s a hypnotic, psychedelic aspect to this; at the same time, Bourelly and Regev utilize a lot of space, judiciously choosing their moments over an undulating groove. Much as a lot of the music has a restlessness and unease, a wry sense of humor pokes out from time to time. It’s a fun ride.

Bourelly plays mostly with a tinge of dirty, natural distortion when he’s not adding subtle ornamentation with his effects. Regev is a very incisive, rhythmic player, although she also likes ambient, shadowy colors. Peterson’s work here is hook-oriented – there are several passages where the drums drop out, or there’s skeletal percussion rattling around and that’s where the bass carries both melody and rhythm. Foni likes the rumbling lows, but like the rest of this crew, he doesn’t waste beats.

The opening track, Drama Maybe Drama, is a tongue-in-cheek diptych, Bourelly going off on a completely unexpected, early Jimmy Page-tinged open-tuned tangent midway through. They follow that with a buzzing, loopy, unresolved interlude and then Montenegro, which hints at reggae, funk and disco before finally hitting some Balkan riffage and then a Middle Eastern-flavored bass solo. Bluegrass and Ethiopian tinges sit side by side in Ilha Bela, a minimalisti but catchy tune with doppler trombone from Regev. Madeleine Forever, a tribute to Foni’s mom, illustrates someone who could be severe but was also very funny, winding up with biting Big Lazy-style skronky funk.

Blue Llamas makes a good segue, again evoking Big Lazy with its allusive chromatics, stomping, spacious blues, hard-hitting guitar and hypnotic rimshot rhythm. OK OJ coalesces toward a camelwalking East African groove with some neat handoffs between the guitar and trombone and a tongue-in-cheek “let’s go” outro. Raw Way, ostensibly a Junior Kimhrough homage, sounds nothing like him: way down beneath all the rumbling and shrieking and free interplay, it’s a terse blues. New Beginning is a weirdly successful, catchy attempt to merge New Orleans funk and Hendrix. There’s also a wryly bluesy guitar miniature and a bizarre stoner soul song sung by Bourelly. Who is the audience for this? Obviously, jazz fans, although people who gravitate toward the more psychedelic side of funk have an awful lot to sink their ears into.

Clairy Browne Seduces the Crowd at the Mercury

The air conditioning went off and stayed off after the first fifteen minutes of Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes‘ show at the Mercury Lounge last night. That was ok with Browne. “We like it hot and sweaty down under,” the Melbourne, Australia noir soul siren grinned. That was as suggestive as she got; otherwise, she let the ache and longing of her songs, most of them from the band’s superb new album Baby Caught the Bus, speak for themselves. Watching this band was like discovering the great, long-lost video collaboration between David Lynch and John Waters. Baritone saxophonist Darcy McNulty set a smoldering, smoky tone right from the get-go that the band would maintain through more than an hour of haunting, torchy ballads and blustery oldschool soul grooves. Gabriel Strangio’s piano and Peter Bee’s guitar lingered with a lurid juiciness against Jules Pascoe’s suspenseful, nuanced bass pulse while Nick “Ricky” Martyn’s drums shifted in a split second from slow and misterioso to nimbly shuffling dancefloor vamps. Meanwhile, the Rackettes – Loretta, Ruby and Camilla – shimmered and shimmied and twirled in their vintage outfits and hairdos, adding perfectly choreographed ah-OOOOH harmonies and a whole other level of enjoyment that guys in the audience were talking about with no small bit of longing after the show had finally ended.

As good as the band was, Browne worked the intimacy of the room with an allure that was just distant enough to make her smoky come-hither contralto all the more enticing. For a singer with a naturally low register, Browne hit bullseyes whenever she reached for the rafters with an impressive range, moving with a cunning calculation from a whisper to a wail. She does not give a damn, either, at one point taking a healthy hit off a drink shared by a generous fan in the front row, then passing it to the Rackettes, who killed it. Noir isn’t about doom, anyway – it’s about celebrating even as the lights are going out, and Browne drew the crowd into her angst-driven odes to joy and desperation one by one.

This was the dark set. After McNulty’s moody opening vamp, they went deep into the creepy bolero tropicalia of Yellow Bird and, a bit later, Vicious Circle, a jauntily fingersnapping but savage requiem for fallen soul icons that points an accusatory middle finger at celebrity-struck fans and the media circus that drives them. Even the big, shuffling dancefloor hit Aeroplane was in a minor key. From coy doo-wop to the fevered jealousy and vengeful narrative of She Plays Up to You, Browne and the band kept one foot in the mid-60s and the other in the here and now: much as what they do is retro, it’s not deferential. This band isn’t afraid to take vintage sounds and put their own dark, sweaty handprints all over them. Booze and cigarettes are all over the lyrics along with Browne’s mighty melismatics. As strong as the songs are, the most exciting musical moment of the night might have been when McNultry led the band through an ominous, surfy instrumental that reminded a lot of the late, great New York band Moisturizer – another first-rate group fronted by an Australian.

They’re currently on US tour: lucky fans in Boston can catch them at TT the Bear’s tonight.

Outernational Has a Killer New Album and a March Residency at Arlene’s

Outernational’s album Todos Somos Ilegales from last year was an uncompromising, intense blast of fearlessly political gypsy/latin ska-punk, a mix of styles that fits right in with the band’s multicultural blend. On one hand, their new ep, Here Is the Rose is a pretty drastic change. On the other hand, as ridiculously catchy as it it, it’s not a pop record: it’s a chance for them to flex their chops and remind the world what a great live band they are. They have a weekly Wednesday residency at Arlene’s this month at 11 PM. Cover is a measly five bucks: this is your chance to catch one of the hottest rock acts in NYC at the top of their game, although these shows are always liable to sell out so getting there a little early is always a good idea.

The ep’s title track is an unexpected but wildly successful detour into organ-fueled latin soul. Like much of this album, it brings to mind an excellent group from the previous generation of New York bands, the Slackers. Where that well-loved act drew from soul and blues – and still plays those styles as well as the ska they’re known best for – this is Outernational paying their respects to the styles that influenced them.

The biting, funky, horn-driven second cut, We Own the Night works just as well as a party anthem as a defiant statement of purpose. She Craves Spring is a metaphorically loaded, slinky ba-BUMP soul song set in a classic NYC milieu, “under the gaze of Lady Liberty with stones in her eyes,” peaking out with a long, snarling guitar solo. The final cut, which appears on the previous album, paints an eerily ambiguous nocturnal desert rock picture that foreshadows as much potential disaster as hope for “messengers of a whole new world” where the children of immigrants might actually be embraced rather than shunned. For a four-song ep, this is as good as it gets in 2013.

Getting Caught Up on Concerts

Much as gentrification has dealt a crippling blow to music and the arts in general in this city, a gritty individualistic spirit persists. “Raided all my hangouts, put away my friends, now I’m sitting on a bonfire in a night that never ends,” LJ Murphy intoned ominously as his band the Accomplices played the careening noir blues of his song This Fearful Town the other night after the Sunday Salon at Zirzamin. The nattily attired rocker  (black suit, porkpie hat, red tie for Valentine’s Day) embodies everything that’s good about un-trendy rock in this town. With Tommy Hochscheid’s Stax/Volt guitar and Patrick McLellan’s piano firing off savage ripples and rumbles over a swinging rhythm section, Murphy romped through a mix of his signature surreal, blues-infused, urbane urban narratives. They opened with the slinky menace of Another Lesson I Never Learned and encored with Barbed Wire Playpen, a rather gleefully scampering tale about a Wall Street one-percenter with a fondness for the dungeon. In between Murphy chronicled eerily delirious rust belt crowds dancing away their doom to a stripper-fronted jazz band, clueless bridge-and-tunnel happy hour crowds yucking it up, along with several postapocalyptic scenes and would-be stalkers contemplating their next moves or lack thereof. As much as Murphy’s white-knuckle intensity and goodnatured energy onstage are contagious, his songs are all ultimately in the here-and-now, and they don’t paint a pretty picture.

At Salon #13 the previous week, chanteuse Drina Seay aired out some new, torchy, sophisticated country tunes and then joined her brilliant lead guitarist, Homeboy Steve Antonakos, for a set of his own purist, sardonic janglerock and Americana songs, including some pensive tracks from his latest ep. Other highlights of the past couple of salons included angst-fueled Americana rock and southwestern gothic by the Downward Dogs’ Joe Yoga, gorgeously lyrical chamber pop and art-rock by Serena Jost, creepily gleeful murder ballads and jaunty original bluegrass/C&W by Kelley Swindall and mysterious blues-infused narratives (and a pretty hilarious Glimmer Twins interlude) by the Salon’s own Lauraly Grossman.

Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. have a monthly residency at Otto’s and a pretty much monthly, sometimes more than monthly gig at Rodeo Bar. Much as their satire of early 50s pre-rock hillbilly sounds is pretty hilarious – they’d kill on Broadway – their most recent gig on 14th Street was a reminder of just what a good straight-up country band these guys are, never mind the shtick. Michael McMahon’s a hell of a lead guitarist, with a snarling but sophisticated edge – and the band brought munchies, a big basket of snacks for every table. Thanks guys!

Among New York acts, nobody’s bigger in Peru than Chicha Libre. Which on face value seems pretty absurd, until you consider that they’re probably the world’s greatest psychedelic cumbia band. A lot of us take their weekly Monday residency/live rehearsal on their home turf at Barbes for granted, and we shouldn’t – they’ve never sounded more tight or energized, and they’ve been tight and energetic for years. A December show got shut down early because of a bass amp malfunction: bassist Nicholas Cudahy’s pulse is so subtle and simple and hypnotic, and so essential to the band. Too bad, because they had really been on a roll up to that point. A show in in the middle of last month was packed with dancers, and the band fed off the energy, romping through a mix of classic Peruvian covers and originals ranging from keyboardist Josh Camp’s creepy vamp Tres Pasajeros, to frontman Olivier Conan’s cynical, Gainsbourg-esque L’Age D’Or.

Out of print for years, the Mumbo Gumbo album is now available digitally (and streaming at co-frontman Joe Flood’s Bandcamp page). Last month, the band reunited for a one-off cd release show at Rodeo Bar. The crowd was a surreal mix of drunken Baruch kids and fans of Flood and accordionist Rachelle Garniez who’d come out to see them in their old Americana project, possibly for the first time. Word on the street is that the sonic issues that plagued the early part of the show were resolved as it went on. In the beginning, much as it was a pain to hear the band having to jostle with the crowd for volume, it was a lot of fun to be able to catch Garniez doing the enigmatic Swimming Pool Blue and the sly, innuendo-fueled New Dog with some old friends, more rustically and rawly than she usually does them. And Flood was on his game with his violin, and his guitar, and his big voice too.

Indie classical string quartet Ethel - which has undergone some personnel changes in recent months – has a weekly Friday night residency at the balcony bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You can hear them as you walk in. On a dim, rainy evening, listening to the sound rise as you go up the stairs evokes a magical old-world Europe of the mind. To fully appreciate what they’re doing, you have to get closer to the action, i.e. along the rail where they’re playing in the bar space itself. A random, recent misty night found them inviting colleagues from other ensembles and exploring the classical and the baroque as well as the adventurous avant garde sounds which have come to define them. If the idea of the Kronos Quartet intrigues you but all the electronic bells and whistles leave you cold, this group will hit the spot.

Melvin Van Peebles has to be close to eighty now, but he still plays regularly with his psychedelic funk band Laxative, which includes members of Burnt Sugar. One of the final shows at Zebulon  before they closed their doors for good saw the mordantly funny indie filmmaker/personality in low-key, smoldering mode, bantering with the crowd and making his way through a sometimes wryly sexy, sometimes corrosive mix of tunes from his cult classic albums from the 70s. As usual, the band behind him – featuring bassist Jared Nickerson and baritone saxophonist Moist Paula Henderson – gave him a dynamically-charged groove to croon over.

Morricone Youth have a singer now. The elegant, darkly torchy presence of Karla Rose Moheno out in front of the cult favorite film soundtrack band has not only transformed their sound but also has opened up a whole different repertoire beyond the already vast Italian film themes that they’ve been mining since they were a mainstay on the Lower East Side about ten years ago. Their most recent show at Otto’s – yeah, this is going back a ways – featured a lot of unfamiliar material, some of it on the jazzy side, some with a lushly psychedelic rock feel. These days, when they’re not in Europe, they’re more likely to be playing a theatre than a rock club, which makes a lot of sense.

And it was good to catch a bit of energetic third-stream jazz group the Trio of Oz at one of those multi-act extravaganzas at the booking agents’ convention last month. Pianist Rachel Z is a force of nature, but she can be plaintive when the song calls for it. Her version of King of Pain far outdid the Police at brooding poignancy.

Much as the recent slate of shows has been a lot of fun, there have been some duds. That enticing, by-invitation-only multi-piano fest in midtown turned out to be a disappointment despite the starpower of the players involved, for lack of solid material: garbage in, garbage out, no matter how many fantastic fingers might be playing it. There was another show on the east side recently that promised to explore the apocalyptic effects of natural disasters: it turned out to be a Euro-jazz band vamping endlessly behind amateurish videos and awkward, stilted poetry. And another semi-recent show featuring a member of a famously creepy indie band turned out to be a lot more indie than creepy, a nonstop barrage of dorkiness from the wannabe bass player/composer whose spastic, sort-of-indie-classical, sort-of-indie-rock stuff was being put on display.

Intense Pandemonium at the Brooklyn What’s Album Release Show

The crowd at the Brooklyn What’s album release show Saturday night was a lot more physical than you typically see at concerts by bands this smart. On one hand, that was to be expected, considering how many bodies were crammed into Public Assembly, a smaller space than these guys are used to playing. On the other hand, people dance to this band: within seconds of frontman Jamie Frey’s rapidfire lyrical assault on the opening song, Catastrophe Kids – which ironically is a diatribe about the too-cool-for-school crowd who’re too scared to move a muscle at shows – a friendly moshpit formed in front of the stage. Meanwhile, bumping and bouncing was happening pretty much everywhere else. By the end of their set, what looked like half the audience had gathered onstage with the band for a delirious singalong on the irrepressible, defiant outsider anthem We Are the Only Ones  In an era when the too-cool-for-school bands get so much undeserved attention, it felt good just to be part of this big messy crowd, feeding off the explosive energy of the tuneful nonconformists onstage.

In the three years since their 2009 debut The Brooklyn What for Borough President, this band has gotten incredibly tight. While it never really makes sense to say that one great band is necessarily any “better” than another, there is definitely no better band in New York right now than the Brooklyn What. Jesse Katz was a decent rock drummer when they first started; he’s a great one now. All the band’s constant gigging has paid off, especially for their two powerful, individualistic lead guitarists, Evan O’Donnell and John-Severin Napolillo, who teamed up for a gale-force assault that was as intricately tuneful as it was loud (and it wasn’t always loud). They hit a high point on a long, pyrotechnic duel midway through Punk Rock Loneliness, a cruelly amusing look at gentrification and its destructive effects on music and New York neighborhoods. They did the same thing on the encore, the Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog, where Frey left no doubt what that song was all about, Napolillo dodging stagedivers as O’Donnell hung on the sideline, nonchalantly firing off searing, Ron Asheton-worthy bluesmetal leads.

In between, the dynamics shifted artfully from pummeling punk rock to slower, more pensive material, Frey’s goodnatured come-on croon leading the band upward on the impressively jazzy Winter Song and then the ridiculously catchy Late Night Travelers, an artsy anthem written by the band’s late guitarist Billy Cohen. Caught at a rare loss for words, obviously still hurting from the loss of his bandmate, Frey managed to explain that this band was originally a six-piece outfit and that Cohen – who if he was still alive would probably be doing film scores, and the indie classical music he had such an affinity for, in addition to this project – would be proud as hell. There’s no doubt that’s true. Then the band launched into Cohen’s wickedly shapeshifting, theatrically surreal Hot Wine, their new album’s title track.

Coy, sarcastic soul and doo-wop-influenced punk matched up against searing postpunk like the ridiculously catchy singalong In the Basement – an anthem for disheartened outsiders everywhere, not to mention this year’s Mets team. The biggest crowd-pleaser could have been a cover of Gimme Shelter that might have been even better than the original, bassist Doug Carey taking Bill Wyman’s growling lines and somehow making them even more menacing, the two guitars tuned down to perfectly recreate Keith Richards’ otherworldly eeriness, Saruh Lacoff (of side project John-Severin & the Quiet 1s) taking Merry Clayton’s backing vocal up several notches.

The Brooklyn What also happen to be a magnet for other good bands. Opening acts are usually hit-and-miss, but this lineup was strong. Butter the Children got the night off to a good start with their swirling vintage MBV/early Lush dreampop jangle and clang, their guitarist and bassist exchanging axes and playing equally tunefully on each instrument as frontwoman Inna Mkrtycheva sang uneasily about Casey Anthony and similar tension-inducing situations. Osekre & the Lucky Bastards followed with a tuneful, catchy set that mixed oldschool soul and Afrobeat. After that, Persian-American rockers the Yellow Dogs, who began with an artsy, biting Rickenbacker guitar anthem, wasted no time hitting a slinky, equally anthemic, swaying funk/disco groove. The Brooklyn What are at the Lab, 224 Wyckoff Ave in  Bushwick on Feb 22, L/M to Myrtle-Wyckoff.

Good Imaginative Bands on a Cold Night in Gowanus

For once, a seasonably cold Friday night didn’t keep the Brooklyn massive indoors. Down the block from the trash truck depot at the edge of where Gowanus meets Sunset Park, a boisterously responsive crowd gathered at the unexpectedly lavish, relatively new venue SRB to see two of New York’s most original bands.

Karikatura were first on the bill, playing a slinky mix of latin rock and gypsy rock with some reggae and ska thrown in as well. Their frontman played beats on a conga head on several songs and sang nonchalantly smart, socially conscious lyrics over a fiery horn section (alto or tenor sax plus trombone), plus a guitarist playing biting, often flamenco-tinged lines on a nylon-stringed acoustic-electric over the rhythm section’s eclectic grooves. The most infectious of all the songs was Bailarina, which nicked the riff from the famous Algerian freedom fighter anthem Ya Rayyeh and turned it into an unexpectedly angst-fueled reflection by a guy who’s probably more infatuated with a dancing girl than he should be. It’s too loud to talk over the music, all my friends are drunk and I don’t like the idea of other guys hitting on you, the poor dude laments.

Celi, from the band’s most recent ep, Departures, was more hipswinging and seductive. Shortly after that they went into the edgy reggae liberation anthem Una Idea, a richly bass-heavy track from that release, then brought that idea back toward the end of the set with a soaring version of Some Kind Of (Free), a standout tune from their Muzon ep from a couple of years ago. They finally cut loose and jammed on their last number, with a hard-hitting bass break and then a blazing conversation between tenor sax and trombone. Karikatura are a popular touring act  in Europe and south of the border: it was good to see them on their home turf.

House of Waters are one of the most original bands on the planet. Their name is apt: frontman Max ZT, a national champion on the hammered dulcimer, played intricate, incisively rippling melodies throughout their set alongside cajon player Luke Notary and eight-string bassist Moto Fukushima. On the first song, Fukushima played through an octave pedal for a wry, techy tone that contrasted with the rustic feel of the dulcimer. Their music was as danceable as it was psychedelic: on the occasions when the dulcimer passsed off a rhythmic riff to the cajon, it was sometimes impossible to tell who was playing what. On a couple of tunes, Fukushima hit his pedal for a resonant, djeridoo-like drone; he also meandered through a Jerry Garcia-like solo on the high frets and then a wry disco bassline on one of the last songs. On another, Notary switched to ngoni lute as the drummer from Seth Kessel & the Two Cent Band joined them and played a slinky cumbia groove on guacharaca.

Max ZT is a force of nature and a lot of fun to watch, his hands a blur as he fired off supersonically shuffling licks that sounded almost like a mandolin in places. Bits and pieces of gypsy, Appalachian and soukous melodies rang out and pinged through the mix. The next-to-last song – a track from the band’s Revolution album – was intoxicatingly good, shifting suddenly out of  a slow, moody gypsy-flavored vamp when the band took it doublespeed.

Kessel and his Two Cent Band were scheduled to play their goodnaturedly high-energy oldtimey swing and gypsy jazz at some later point in the evening, but by then it was midnight in Gowanus and time to find out if the trains were still running (they were). Catch you next time, guys – they’re at Union Hall in Park Slope on Feb 2 and then at Radegast Hall in Williamsburg on Feb 6.