Archive for the ‘music’ Category

Punch Bluegrass

Sunday, July 27th, 2008

This week I saw The Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile at one of the numerous free outdoors events happening in New York City in the summer. First introduced to them by a friend, it was a great concert of what I would call classical bluegrass or American folk. Super talented musicians, banjo, mandolin, classic guitar, violin and bass, that totally won their audience, even though they never followed their clapping…

From the teaser of the show at the River To River NYC Festival

After Nickel Creek disbanded, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile assembled the all-star quintet Punch Brothers. The new group issued a debut album, “Punch”, in 2008, which was anchored by Thile’s ambitious 40-minute, four-part suite “The Blind Leaving the Blind.” In February, 2008, The Punch Brothers performed a sold-out concert for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series.

A snippet of the show, good for the music, not so much for the visuals (I was far from the stage and taping with my mobile phone, a Nokia N80, all zoomed in).

PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">

And on our way back home, fireworks on the Hudson River sponsored by some company throwing a party in an office building right by the water, and a quick trip to Olafur Eliasson’s summer “Waterfalls” on the other side of the lower end of Manhattan, at the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

Yellow Drum Machine

Friday, April 4th, 2008

One of the cutest things I have seen recently: a little robot that goes around and plays drums on things it comes across.

http://letsmakerobots.com/node/112

The Magnetic Fields at the Town Hall

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

A few days ago I went to see The Magnetic Fields at the Town Hall, a concert hall close to Times Square, in the heart of the theater district.

A troupe opened performing Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart‘ in an old radio serial fashion, and this choice I thought was pretty revealing of the character of the band.

It was a nice acoustic concert, very casual. Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson consistently picked on each other between songs, and so cheering up the sourness and broken hearts in their lyrics, while staying in the sarcastic, playful and humorous line that is also a constant in Merritt’s work.

The concert introduced their last album, ‘Distorsion’. The song ‘I Hate California Girls’ particularly made me chuckle…