If there is a worse night of the week to see a gig than Wednesday I don’t know what it is. Wednesday is hump day; three days of work have already tired you out, but you still have two more staring you down, so it’s not always best to go all night. That said, the right show can change all that. A great concert with the band and the crowd feeding off each other’s energy can make you forget about all your midweek woes.
I was really hoping Wednesday night’s Apollo Sunshine show at Mercury lounge was going to be one of those gigs. I hadn’t actually checked out much of Apollo Sunshine’s music prior to the show, but I had heard enough people sing their praise that I was really looking forward to checking out a new band. When I heard that in the spirit of the season they would actually be appearing as The Apollo Sunshine Experience, donning costumes straight out of Hair and playing Hendrix covers I was totally sold.
Unfortunately it was the spirit of Wednesday that owned the night. I’m not entirely sure if it was a lack of energy from the crowd that through the band off, or if their was something slightly off with Apollo Sunshine that led to a weak crowd. Whatever it was, something wasn’t quite clicking at Mercury Lounge. READ MORE
Poster by Guy Burwell
Dear Josh Homme,
Thanks for last night.
Sincerely,
Sam
You’re probably asking yourself why I’m thanking Josh Homme, lead queen of the stone age, in a post about My Morning Jacket’s Radio City Music Hall show. That’s a perfectly reasonable question, but I think I’ve got a perfectly reasonable answer. The show on Friday night felt like a culmination of sorts, both for the band’s rise in popularity, but also for my own personal fandom. So I feel that I should start at the beginning to give a full perspective on Friday’s show, and the beginning starts with Josh Homme and the Queens of the Stone Age.
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I had the chance to catch The Raconteurs this weekend with my buddy Dave from Earvolution. I was definitely psyched to see Jack White and co. again, but I must admit, when Dave said he had an extra ticket I was almost equally excited to see what Rob Jones had in store for the gig poster.
I know I’ve posted about it before, but Rob Jones and Jack White just have that special connection. For a few years Rob has been the exclusive artist behind the image of The White Stripes, and fortunately for art lovers that connection transfered to The Raconteurs.
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Photo by flysi
Summer in the city of New York can be a fickle, fickle mistress.
Day after day of sweltering heat, tempered only sometimes by a blast of cold air in a crowded subway car. When that subway’s A/C unit is busted you begin to understand what Dante was talking about.
There is another side to summers in New York though, a better one, a special one. Summers in New York mean a full slate of great, usually free, outdoor concerts. The big promoters on the scene, Summerstage and Celebrate Brooklyn, have been booking great shows for a long time now. But in recent years every live music loving New Yorker’s schedule has been jam packed with the River to River festival and JellyNYC’s Pool Parties at McCarren Pool.
This year is definitely no different, so I’ll be looking at a few of the gigs I’m more than willing to brave the heat for.
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I was trolling through the recently uploaded posters on gigposters, waiting for something to jump out at me for this week’s Print Tease, and surprisingly nothing did. Sure, there were some fine posters buried in there, but nothing grabbed me. So I decided to take this week to highlight an unbelievably cool ongoing series of movie posters put out by the Alamo Drafthouse.
Normally we are looking at gig posters, but these prints are gig posters. Beginning in 2005, the Alamo took their reels on the road with the first Rolling Roadshow, a summer tour of outdoor screenings. Not only are they showing films outside, they’re showing “famous films in famous places.” This means they showed The Warriors in Coney Island, and Escape From Alcatraz actually on Alcatraz Island. Thankfully for us poster and movie fans, they’ve been hooking up with some great talent for each stop along the way.
In 2008 the Austin outfit is moving their show overseas, showing three Sergio Leone films in Spain, and they’ve expanded poster production to events outside of the official Rolling Roadshow including screenings of Big Trouble in Little China and Iron Man. Keep reading for some of my personal highlights and some of the most recent addition to the series.
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I have a nasty habit of taking photographs without people in them. In fact, I prefer landscapes, plants, and especially buildings. Truth is, people can ruin pictures sometimes. Maybe one person isn’t looking, or another closed their eyes. Some might see these imperfections as human, something to be lauded in photos as opposed to eradicated. I usually do not.
This is probably why Dan MacAdam’s work appeals to me so much.
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In Drymount! and Print Tease I’ve looked at artists and bands who have had long productive relationships. Pearl Jam and Ames Bros. have been working together for over 10 years; Rob Jones shapes the White Stripe’s image almost as much as Jack White does. Another really fruitful combination has been indie-favorite The Arcade Fire and Minneapolis printing outfit Burlesque of North America.
There were a lot of Print Tease worthy prints released this week, including some choice prints from Emek, Jermaine, Jay Ryan and others. But I went with this latest Arcade Fire print to show once again how an artist can shape a bands larger identity.
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I was mulling a few options for Print Tease this week. Then gigposters had an update and I had a clear cut winner, Guy Burwell’s poster for The Cure. I couldn’t care less about the band, but I couldn’t be more excited for this poster, I think this is the best print I’ve seen in a while.
Every year the Sasquatch festival in George, Washington organizes a really cool series of posters for every band playing the festival. There are usually one or two gems that come out of the group, and I think the competition in 2008 is over. Guy is the winner.
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