Results tagged “interview”

Over the past three years, we have slowly and steadily interviewed each of the four members of the trailblazing DC band Fugazi... except one: inimitable singer and guitarist Guy Picciotto. Today we complete the set, and we're going to have to find a new goal in life. (Counting Crows, maybe?) The chance to finally to speak with Picciotto arose because he's performing twice this week in NYC with Vic Chestnutt, whose haunting and heartfelt new album At the Cut features Picciotto.

Small Black seemed to just pop up out of nowhere and slap the music corner of the internet in the face this year, after silently toiling away in attics and basements recording their EP. Josh Kolenik and Ryan Heyner make up the duo, creating what they describe as "minimal Casio noise pop," and are joined by Juan Pieczanski and Jeff Curtin for live shows. By the end of this week they'll have had seven more of those live shows under their collective belt, all for CMJ. Tonight they're playing ours (at 10 p.m.) — more details here.

In December, Governor Paterson floated the idea of an 18% tax non-diet soft drinks, as part of a plan to close the $3 billion budget gap and perhaps influence New Yorkers to choose healthier beverages. Then the beverage industry opened up a can of whoop-ass, and Paterson backed off, explaining that "often publicity is as important as legislation." Now, perhaps inspired by a 3 cent tax on soda being considered in Washington, Paterson has revived his own soda tax dreams.

Is the media frenzy over the balloon boy stunt making you sick? You're not the only one! Parents Richard and Mayumi Heene are very busy pimping themselves out to the networks, and they're not about to let their li'l star's stomach virus stand in the way of their precious 15 minutes. This morning Falcon—the six-year-old boy who was hiding in the attic while America was voyeuristically titillated worried sick that he was in a runaway helium balloon—vomited twice on two different talk shows this morning, just like a pussified wus. Here's the Today Show spew, at 5:50 in:

Tonight and Saturday night, the inimitable punk/avant-garde cabaret band Tiger Lillies return to St. Ann's Warehouse for two "Dark and Deviant" concerts, celebrating 20 years together as a band. The shows will highlight songs from the Lillies' award-winning show, Shockheaded Peter, along with numbers from their Grammy-nominated album The Gorey End , plus other deranged favorites spanning their extensive catalogue. Frontman Martyn Jacques, who plays accordion, trained himself as an opera singer with a castrati style while living above a strip club in London for seven years. Which explains a lot about this band! On his way to the airport in England, Jacques responded to some of our questions via e-mail.

Park Slope stroller-pusher Peter Sarsgaard's first major film role was in Dead Man Walking, but he really caught everyone's eye in 1999 with Boys Don't Cry—ever since he's been reason enough to see pretty much anything from Garden State to Jarhead. Last season he made his Broadway debut in the critically-acclaimed production of The Seagull, which transferred from London. In it, he played the self-absorbed novelist Trigorin, who effortlessly seduces the wide-eyed Nina, portrayed by the arresting Carrie Mulligan.

A friend of ours recently revealed that he decided to become a social studies teacher because of Sarah Vowell. And anyone who has read Assassination Vacation or The Wordy Shipmates will have no trouble understanding that sentiment. Vowell has a talent for reintroducing you to the kid you were when you did four separate book reports on Johnny Tremain, while also reminding you of what's so amusing about the current world we inhabit. Bring up Sarah Vowell to someone not as familiar with her and the conversation will always come back to that voice of hers, heard in years past on This American Life or in The Incredibles.

Upon the release of Amy Sohn's new book, Prospect Park West, some Park Slope locals lashed out on the author (who also resides there with her family); but then again it isn't all that difficult to get the Brownstone dwellers riled up. Sohn's fictional tale, at points, holds a mirror up to the neighborhood, drawing upon the real life happenings there; from celebrity couples to sexless marriages to swingers to stroller-pushers. Last week she told us a little bit about it all, and confirmed that blow job prowess is indeed a fairly accurate measure of one's self worth.

After earning the adoration of the hipster masses with his killer Neapolitan-style pizza, Belgian-born chef Mathieu Palombino has recently opened his second Motorino location across the river in Manhattan. The East Village spot (49 East 12th Street) is cozy compared to the spacious original, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in charm and legend: It's the former home of beloved Una Pizza Napoletana, and with the lease Palombino got his hands on the restaurant's prized Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples.

Nick Hornby is the sort of author you find yourself trying to remember, "Is he just super popular or is he actually a really good writer?" You know that the movies High Fidelity and About a Boy were solid, and maybe you could even be charmed into liking the dumb Red Sox movie with Jimmy Fallon if you started dating someone who found it to be an innocuous rental. So it ended up being a pleasant surprise when we picked up his just-published sixth novel, "Juliet, Naked," and found the pages just started breezing by. Hornby is once again dealing with music obsession and the distance that exists in the personal relationships of the obsessive types most of us know, or possibly are.

Today WNYC Radio celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Brian Lehrer Show. Lehrer will be hosting a special anniversary broadcast taking a look back to when it all began in 1989.

Chef Wolfgang Puck opened Spago in LA back in 1982, and, to this day, it remains the prototypical Hollywood hotspot. The chef, originally from Austria, later went on to open the steakhouse Cut (replete with celebrity headshot menus for the celebrity diners), Chinois, an Asian fusion restaurant in Santa Monica, and myriad other fine dining and casual restaurants nationwide. Yet he's still largely an unknown entity to New Yorkers, unless they make a jaunt down to his American Grille in the stellar Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

Howard Dean was six-term governor of Vermont, ran for President in 2004, and served as the head of the Democratic National Committee from February 2005 to January 2009. During this period he became known for the "50-State Strategy," that the party should spend money in all states rather than merely battleground states (the latter position favored by now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel). He will be speaking at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday, September 24th, discussing his new book Howard Dean's Prescription For Real Health Care Reform. The book is as he advertises it, a thin (133 pages), lucid explanation of the health care issues most relevant to the legislation currently before Congress. Dean himself is a medical doctor, and is now one of the most vocal and insistent advocates for health care legislation, news and information about which can be found at his website www.standwithdrdean.com.

Are you ready to geek out? On October 9th and 10th, more than 300 musicians will gather onstage at Radio City Musical to perform composer Howard Shore’s award-winning score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring live to Peter Jackson’s film. The ensemble is as epic as the movie, and includes Switzerland’s 21st Century Symphony Orchestra, the internationally-acclaimed The Collegiate Chorale, the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and renowned soprano Kaitlyn Lusk, all under the direction of celebrated Maestro Ludwig Wicki.

For over twenty years, Frank Portman, better known as Dr. Frank, fronted the punk band The Mr. T Experience, one of the cornerstone acts on Lookout! Records, the indie label made famous when Green Day blew up. Then at around age 40, he took the punchlines of his pop-punk songs and found a new medium to reach teenagers where the fountain of youth was not a prerequisite—young adult fiction. Strike up a conversation with any small bookstore owner or youth librarian and watch them light up telling you how you have to read Portman's first novel, "King Dork." Its spin on how poorly "Catcher in the Rye" would be received by a modern day Holden Caulfield-type with no tolerance for Holden's good looks is so original and funny that its rights were quickly scooped up by Will Ferrell's production company to be made into a film.

      

Eric Felisbret may be better known to some people as DEAL CIA, his tag from his graffiti writing days. For the past ten years, he's been running the old school graffiti site at 149St and now, after thirty years of documenting New York City's graffiti scene, he's put together Graffiti New York, which features over 1,000 images. We spoke to Felisbret about his start in graffiti writing, the recent street art movement, and whether graffiti is art.

       

In early 2008, New York-based photographer Haik Kocharian spent six weeks traveling alone through India; the impressive fruit of his journey has been gathered into a new exhibit at the 92Y Tribeca, called "Walking the Way." Featuring photographs taken in and around the Indian sub-continent, including the ancient city of Varanasi, the coasts of Varkala, and the Tar Desert, Kocharian's intimate images seem to exhale the serene elegance and colorful grit of everyday life. In addition to his work with still photography, Kocharian is also a fiercely independent filmmaker and musician (MySpace); following the opening reception Friday night, he screened his striking black and white short film "Control Z" and performed a set of passionate rock ballads with his three-piece band. "Walking the Way" runs through September 30th at 92Y Tribeca, located at 200 Hudson Street.

       

Nearly six years ago, in November 2003, a design called Reflecting Absence, by NYC Housing Authority architect Michael Arad, was selected as one of the finalists for the World Trade Center Memorial. His design featured two pools in the footprints of the WTC's towers, with waterfalls cascading down their sides, and in January 2004, the design, revised with landscape designer Peter Walker, was chosen as the winning design. Today, the Port Authority says the Memorial is slated to open on September 11, 2011, in time for the tenth anniversary. We spoke to Arad, now a partner at Handel Architects, for a few minutes yesterday and asked about the long road the project has taken.

It's been nine long years since Wallace Shawn's strange and haunting masterpiece, The Designated Mourner, was staged in a crumbling old gentleman's club on Wall Street—the perfect location for a play that so vividly illustrates how pampered complacency enables brutal tyranny. Now Shawn is finally back with another play—well, sort of. His Grasses of a Thousand Colours premiered at the Royal Court in London earlier this year, but a production in New York, his home town, is far from assured.

Many know New York native Gaius Charles as star running back Brian "Smash" Williams in the hit high school football series Friday Night Lights. But Public Theater audiences are about to know him as the Duke of Venice, star potentate of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, in William Shakespeare's Othello. This hotly anticipated production, directed by minimalist avant-garde opera and theater director Peter Sellars, electrified Vienna earlier this summer and makes its American debut on Saturday, for 23 performances only. The cast also includes the reliable and potentially riveting match-up of John Ortiz as Othello and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago—and that probably has something to do with why the run is almost sold out. During rehearsals last week Gaius spoke with us about Sellars's production, what the play means for contemporary audiences, and the odds of returning to Friday Night Lights for a cameo.

All Tomorrow's Parties (better known as ATP) got a New York home last year in the Catskills, and the old upstate resort Kutshers provided such a perfect space that it'll all be happening again this year. The fest is hands down the most enjoyable event we've ever personally attended, and the soundtrack provided isn't too shabby either. This year Animal Collective, Sufjan Stevens, Flaming Lips, Deerhoof and many many many more will be performing throughout the three days; there's also poker with Steve Albini (don't miss his band Shellac, either), and plenty of other distractions to keep you entertained (check out photos from last year here). If you're free this weekend, we highly recommend buying yourself a ticket—but first, get to know the organizer a little better.

Eco-thriller documentary The Cove follows Louie Psihoyos, leader of the Ocean Preservation Society, and Richard O'Barry, a dolphin trainer and activist best known for his work on the 1960's TV show Flipper, as they infiltrate a small seaside Japanese village where tens of thousands of dolphins are secretly slaughtered every year. The critical reaction has been stellar, and we can assure you that the film is not some tedious Earth First diatribe—it's a suspenseful tour-de-force about the Japanese government's effort to cover up something quite revolting, and one small group's mission to expose it, using everything from high-tech hidden cameras to breath-holding free divers. And yet, The Cove has struggled to connect with mainstream American audiences, much to Psihoyos's dismay. Check out the trailer below, and go see it while it's still screening at Angelika... or Psihoyos will personally hunt you down like a dolphin.

Hey look, the Counting Crows are still around. Recently frontman Adam Duritz answered a few of our questions prior to playing at Summerstage (which goes down this evening at 6). We'll always love "August and Everything After," but it speaks volumes that the New Yorker he admires most is Robert Moses.

In celebration of their new release, Live From Home, Shudder To Think is playing a one-night-only show at Bowery Ballroom this evening. This comes after the band reunited last year, ten years after their breakup, and played a limited amount of dates nationwide—this album contains tracks handpicked from that tour. Prior to all this, the band (on Dischord Records) pushed the boundaries of the hardcore punk scene, and their legendary Pony Express Record (appropriately released on Epic) is regarded amongst many as one of the most influential albums in recent years.

Patton Oswalt has built himself up as one of the most well-respected stand-ups in his twenty-plus year career. He is a definitive "comic's comic," always refining and plugging away at his stand-up act—his most recent special being played on Comedy Central. Today marks the opening of his first star turn as the lead role in the darkly comic Big Fan, written and directed by the same screenwriter who wrote The Wrestler. Oswalt carries the film through it's brooding, modernist character study of a Staten Island Giant fanatic who lives with his mother and spends his work days perfecting his night speeches made as a caller to a local sports talk radio show. The film will be a strange experience for Giant fans as the tale it tells inadvertently ended up mirroring the team's Plaxico Burress situation last season in a bizarre number of ways.

Whit Stillman's 1998 film, The Last Days of Disco, has been restored and re-released on Criterion this week. Its ensemble cast includes Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman and Mackenzie Astin. Tomorrow night, Stillman will appear at the Walter Reade Theater for a screening of the film, and a real life disco party will follow in tribute.

This Friday both Mamie Gummer and Henry Wolfe Gummer will steal a bit of the spotlight from their mother Meryl Streep; the former hitting the big screen in Taking Woodstock, and the latter taking the stage at Joe's Pub (tickets). You may have already heard one of his songs, "Stop the Train," in the film Julie & Julia.

Though it’s not the most glamorous of the environmental issues, colony collapse is a problem. Bee colonies, responsible for pollinating a significant portion of the world's food supply, are slowly dying out. Hell, even Haagen-Dazs is getting behind the issue. So what are three culinarily-inclined New Yorkers to do? Start their own bee colony in Brooklyn! Jon Feldman (general manager at Frankies Spuntino), Brandon Hoy and Eddie Diaz (co-owner and manager of Roberta’s, respectively) have been keeping bees on their roofs in Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens in an attempt to boost their population and beautify the city’s flowerboxes. There’s just one problem: it’s illegal.

This summer two college kids, Nick and Katharine, were challenged to go see 50 free concerts in 50 days throughout the city. This of course was made more difficult by the never-ending rainy season, but they managed to reach their goal. You can read about the entire experience on their blog. Sounds fun right? Even if it is a rip-off of 100 Bands in 100 Days.

In 1967, the Public Theater's production of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical hit the theater world like a martini spiked with mescaline. The show's sensational embrace of the sixties counterculture struck a nerve with hippies and squares alike, and the production ran for four years on Broadway, garnering two Tony award nominations (but losing to 1776, of all things, in both categories). Some four decades, three Woodstocks, and one 40 Year Old Virgin later, the quintessential rock musical is back on Broadway, following a critically-acclaimed run at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park last summer. Judging by the packed houses at the Al Hirschfeld theater, the Age of Aquarius still has considerable cross-generational appeal, and this month the production accomplished the seemingly impossible: recouping its entire $5,760,000 investment, becoming one of the fastest recouping musicals in Broadway history.