MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA
This is the first installment of Joonbug's weekly live music preview. Check back here every Monday to see who's coming to town and why you should overcome your crippling agoraphobia.
Tuesday May 10th
Donald Glover - Bowery Ballroom
Donald Glover is making us all look bad. He was hired as writer for 30 Rock straight out of NYU. He’s a staple of the comedy series Community where he gets to riff with Chevy Chase. His videos with Derrick Comedy and Funny or Die have been the bane of any computer bound procrastinator. And to top it off he lashes his razor wit through a mic when he moonlights as the rapper Childish Gambino. Yes, he makes us look lazy, but he also makes us laugh.
In the quiet, empty, basement-bar at the Williamsburg Hall of Music before his headlining performance with the Goddamn Band at the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon, Kevin Devine ran his fingers through his medium-length, straight red hair, and twitched his pursed lips in thought, flickering the whiskers of his mustache. "I do feel like I am haunted on some level by the awareness of what the world is capable of being for some people--really fucking hard," he started. "And I don't think there is some architectural grand design, just that there are some political and economic realities that are why life is one way for me here in New York City and one way for someone in Sub Saharan Africa. It's a lot less about God or something than the way things actually are." And his life in New York City has been a very accomplished one. In the past ten years, Devine has released six studio albums, six live albums and six EPs, has toured internationally, and has become renowned for his extremely naked, introspective, and politically-influenced lyrics and a hard-pressed longing to understand the world and himself.
Well Joonbuggers, it's that time again, Festie time! This time we are preparing for Austin City Limits. This is one of my favorite festivals of the year, not only because Austin is home, but also because it might be one of the most musically diverse. We are seeing some of our electronic, oldies, Texas country and pop favies this year. Here is what we were looking most forward to.
If you missed our ultimate preparation guide for a festival, please click here to get the scoop on how to get you and your group ready for a weekend of music.
It was perhaps inevitable that a band in love with the Joy Division and The Smiths would play in Boston on a night that the heavens opened. For the crowd that packed into the Paradise on a very damp Tuesday, the chance to get out of the rain was greatly enhanced by the musical talent on display, especially Manchester Orchestra.
Christmas lights kept Chelsea sparkling and cheery on the afternoon of December 29th, 2009 despite brutally brisk winter air and a dull sky. I tripped out of the taxi cab I had taken from midtown and stumbled into Café Grumpy located at 224 West 20th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Matt, Adrian, and Darren were wrapped around a brown table when I made my fashionably (although not-so-professionally) late arrival, but the New Jersey natives were quite understanding. They know as well as anybody else from the neighboring area that commuting is, in fact, a bitch.
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