The BUZZCOCKS, May 8, 2010, Fillmore Irving Plaza Dense, spirited crowding of bodies—just enough to make one heartsick for bygone days of all-ages shows in smoky clubs, of foolish jubilant jumping, of secretly being in awe of while gingerly dodging the scariest slam-dancers’ windmilling arms. Nostalgia simply to stand at the frontmost pit’s innermost edge, […]
Basement Bhangra 13th anniversary Friday at the Fillmore Irving Plaza: a re-inspection after many years away. The combination of busy yet puzzling performer line-up with low bhangra-to-hip-hop ratio, and probably roomier venue, and probably too-predictable playlists, resulted in a night of fits and starts and mostly waiting. Nina Sky: cute; random. Raghav (who he?): low-blow […]
“It was a great party — if you’ve never been to a party before.” Several though not all of the following recent excursions brought to mind those words by Truman Capote. Lakeside barbecue in Groton, Mass., at a plush and cozily posh house at the edge of the woods, rented for the year by a […]
A couple of months ago, This American Life on NPR featured the extraordinary profile of Chaim, a young Hasidic Jew who redubbed himself “Curly Oxide” and became something of a Williamsburg punk-rock star before marrying and returning to the life of Hasidim. Along similar lines, sans reversion, an emerging Hasidic reggae star of dubious talent […]
Today’s not particularly critical Critic’s Notebook (“India Resounding in New York”) in The New York Times surveys the overseas South Asian music scene — as every major NYC-centric generalist periodical seems to every seven months or so, whenever some nominally new item prompts re-inventory. The special occasion in this case may be Bombay Dreams on […]