The Best Shows This Weekend! - Oh My Rockness

Rockness Recommends

The Best Shows This Weekend!

September 23, 2013

Written by Patrick McNamara

You opened it! Good luck! If you don’t read all these “dynamic” words and stream all these “totally killer” streams you will….casually go about your day as usual and get on with living your regular life! MOO-HAHAHAHA!!! (that’s supposed to be a villain laughing diabolically - not a cow being milked for the first time)

These are The Best Shows This Weekend. Fact. Everything is subjective. False. You never invite me to come along to any of these shows. Fact. But I don’t even care. False.

Thursday - September 26th, 2013 A.D.

Okkervil River play Terminal 5 tonight (with Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears + Pickwick). And look out now, here’s Will Sheff singing about PAIN again (“can you hear his VCR weeping” = a great lyric). Okkervil River: tugging at the fragile fabric of melancholy for 15 years and counting.



LA’s Allah-Lahs play two shows at Mercury Lounge tonight. They rock the ‘60s inspired psych-surf-sunny-garage thing (a very rare sound combination for a band based on the West Coast to explore, I know). Anyway, go to this show if you’re interested in a chill time. Also, here’s a fun fact: the members of this band all met while working at the great Amoeba Records.

(damn, I worked at a record store for years and the only person I met was my future wife - I did get quite a few free lousy band promo shirts, though).



DIY filmmaker Jem Cohen (director of the exceptional documentary - Benjamin Smoke - among others) will be showing his latest work, "We Have an Anchor," at BAM tonight. It’s a cinematic love letter to Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton, and is part documentary, part musical performance, part staged reading.

But yeah, about that live music thing…. members of Fugazi, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Dirty Three, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, and White Magic among others will be collaborating under the backdrop of visuals… and words… and stuff. It’ll be cool. I can’t explain it well. But it’ll be cool. Sponsored by Wordless Music. And they’re definitely cool. (By the way, this whole thing happens again on Friday and Saturday too)



And finally for tonight. Here’s one that will appeal to aging emo alts of certain age (this age being, let’s say, 32). Saves The Day play MHOW. And they’ve been through being cool for over 14 years now. So that's pretty cool.

(please note: if you go around telling everyone that you don't care about being cool anymore, you most certainly do)



SEE ALL OF OUR THURSDAY SHOW PICKS.

Friday - September 27th, 2013 A.D.

Atoms for Peace play Barclays Center. They’re one of those up-and-coming bands that no one really knows much about. The members are super enigmatic. But if I had to compare their sound to other bands, I’d say they’re kinda like if, I don't know, let's Radiohead went, I don't know, electro or something.

(as impossible as that might sound… could you imagine the grunge-y quiet-loud-quiet slayers of “Creep” ever going electro? NOT! anyway, i'm off to go see Jurassic Park! the Moviefone guy said tickets are still available for the midnight showing! soooo excited!)



Superchunk play the first of two nights at Bowery Ballroom and are probably the second greatest thing to ever come out of Chapel Hill (this guy is the first…. obviously). It’s too bad that Superchunk hate music now. But that’s OK. Because they’re still really good at making it - no matter how they feel inside. Here’s a delightfully catchy power pop song.



Longtime math-rock band, toe., have come over from Japan to play just for you at Glasslands tonight. Now, I don’t listen to pretty noodle-y twinkle-y instrumental post-something music as much as I used to (and that’s on me - i have no one to blame but myself for that), but whenever I do… it’s like coming home, man. It’s just like coming home.



There’s a party at Santos tonight (his parents are totally out of town for the weekend and they, like, totally trusted him! they even left the keys to the brand new Porsche! will they mind? no. of course not.) and LE1F has not only been invited, he’s performing. Listen to his flow on the song below. And then you’ll be like, “Dammmmmm, son!”



Other good shows = Black Dice + Teengirl Fantasy at 285 Kent + Portugal. The Man at Terminal 5 + Forest Fire at Union Pool + Richard Thompson at Town Hall + Aeroplane at Highline Ballroom for the always excellent FIXED party.

SEE ALL OF OUR FRIDAY SHOW PICKS.

Saturday - September 28th, 2013 A.D.

I always look forward to seeing super solid angry Canadian core. Fucked Up play (le) poisson rouge tonight (with Dope Body). And all Fucked Up want to do in this measly two-bit town run by some stick-up-his-ass local minster is DANCE, goddamn it! They should call up Mikhail Baryshnikov. Get some tips.



Low Fat Getting High are a new, nice and noisy band that are good. I love those kinds of bands. They play The Grand Victory tonight and things just might get grimy. Also, this song kinda sounds like early Soundgarden, no? But, you know, before all that "Black Hole Sun" nonsense (another song that gives me the howling fantods).



Stevie Wonder plays The Great Lawn (for a great price - $175) in Central Park. I know you’re probably not going to go to this (see: Mayer, John) but any chance I can get on this thing to tie-in a Cosby Show reference is a chance I’ll take 90% of the time. (“B-b-b-b-baby. Baby. B-b-b-b-baby. Baby. I don’t know what to say! I don’t know what to say!”)



Other notable shows tonight = Superchunk at Bowery Ballroom (already mentioned) + fun. at Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard (that one definitely rolls off the tongue) + good comedy with Kristen and Kurt at The Bell House + Jimmy Cliff (you’ve seen “The Harder They Come” at this point in your life, right? if not, no one is stopping you from seeing that cinematic treasure but yourself) at Webster Hall.

SEE ALL OF OUR SATURDAY SHOW PICKS.

Sunday - September 29th, 2013 A.D.

Follow that bird and go see The Dodos and Dustin Wong at MHOW tonight. Here’s video of The Dodos on some televised musical variety programme of some sort. I believe the guy who wrote “It's Raining Men” is also involved in this televised musical variety programme somehow.



That crazy Massive Attack thing at the Park Avenue Armory starts tonight and concludes the end of next week. Please note: anything I don’t totally understand is “crazy.”

Here’s the official copy on this crazy thing: “An extraordinary collaboration connecting the dark, intense music and visual work of Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack with the thought-provoking vision of documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis.”

OK. I get it now. I think. At least that explains the $60 ticket price. I think.



Like the previously mentioned, toe., Guitar Wolf are another good band that has come over from Japan just to play for you this week. That’s where the similarities between those two end. Guitar Wolf rock the garage power rock. And they rock it very LOUDLY. “Don’t lick it dad! I’ll be a dog in a barrel!” Whatever that means. See them at Santos Party House tonight.



Other notable shows tonight = Trash Talk at 285 Kent + a couple of John Zorn shows at (le) poisson rouge + Electric Six (them again?) at Bowery Ballroom + Dope Body at Glasslands.

SEE ALL OF OUR SUNDAY SHOW PICKS.

Those were The Best Shows This Week. And as always, they are so ahead of their time they haven’t even happened yet. Talk about the emerging before the emerging before the emerging.

Have fun out there. Stay solid. Stay chill. Be excellent to each other. Uplift. Uplift. Uplift. The end.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER!

Get new New York City announcements, free show info, ticket giveaways and more...