Sunday, July 24, 2016

Femi Kuti; Bombino @ Prospect Park

Femi Kuti; Bombino
@ Prospect Park
Brooklyn, NY - July 23, 2016

Afrobeat returned to NYC with a rapturous performance by Femi Kuti whose work (and whose father's work and whose brother's work) became known to me one night in a 2007 performance by his brother Seun at S.O.B.'s. And look who showed up. Seun.

Bombino's sound, well serviced by a Dan Auerbach produced record a few years ago, was a ripe opener.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

The Yawpers @ American Beauty NYC

The Yawpers; Falling Bird; U.S. Americans
@ American Beauty NYC
New York, NY - July 15, 2016

Despite a horribly chatty crowd and lots of old people using their cell phones, the Yawpers came to New York and nearly melted this writer's face off with their relentless stomping rough acoustic metal country punk rock n roll. The first people I've ever known to actually come from Denver, the Yawpers sounded to me like they would have a dobro and an electric guitar in their arsenal but they are but two acoustic guitars, one with a vicious slide, and a set of drums and this was all they needed to drive home their points.
So perhaps the misplaced crowd in this misfit bar (an Americana bar with sports in the front, free pizza, White Stripes all over the "juke", perhaps the owners remembering like I had forgotten that this was the site of a club once called Rebel which ten years ago hosted a killer CMJ set of the Mooney Suzuki, Willowz,  and two short lived successes called the Changes and the Dansettes) were fitting for this misfit band who did exactly what all the experts say one should do - play Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" with acoustic guitar. Rock n roll may never be further in its spectrum then from Blues to Metal. But somehow through country music, there's been a way to chain it all together and the Yawpers are doing it grandly.

Falling Birds are guitar-drum duo (sounds right) out of Brooklyn. Occasionally dabbled in pop-punk, which I didn't see coming.

Caught the last five seconds of U.S. Americans, seemed they could have been good but the bass player dressed as a Pokemon made me OK with missing the set.