NYC RESTAURANT WEEK EXTENDED
Extended through February 28
Lunch: $24.07; dinner: $35
www.nycgo.com/restaurantweek
Begun in 1992, Restaurant Week has become a New York City institution, as eateries across the five boroughs offer special prix-fixe menus, including some of the hottest, most expensive places, giving everyone the opportunity to sample their wares. Winter Restaurant Week has been extended through February and features nearly two hundred city dining establishments offering three-course lunches for $24.07 and dinners for $35 (Saturdays excluded, Sundays optional). Among the many participating restaurants are the ‘21’ Club, Aquavit, Asia de Cuba, B. Smith, Butter, Estiatorio Milos, Gotham Bar & Grill, I Trulli, Le Cirque, Megu, Nice Matin, Nobu, Patroon, Petrossian, the River Café, Rosa Mexicano, Shun Lee Palace, Tamarind, Tocqueville, and the Water Club. The above Web site includes many of the special menus so you’ll know exactly what you’re in for before making that coveted reservation.
1/2 LIFE
The BodyCartography Project will go nuclear at P.S. 122
THE BODYCARTOGRAPHY PROJECT
Performance Space 122
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
February 10-14, $20
www.ps122.org
Codirectors Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa examine the effects of nuclear power on the state of the human body in the New York premiere of 1/2 LIFE. Their BodyCartography Project, which “questions the space between the real materials of the body, the architecture, and the hyper real designed materials of video, light, sound and new technologies,” is joined by electronic music artist Zeena Parkins, artist and scientist Bryce Beverlin II, dancer Takemi Kitamura, and installation artist / performer / writer / set designer / costumer Emmett Ramstad in a multimedia look at survival through scientific research, data, and physics via dance, video, and live music. The February 11 performance will include a Thursday Night Social, while the February 12 show will be followed by a Talkback with Clarinda Mac Low.
SILENCE AND NOISE PART 1
Radian will team up with labelmates Mountains for Unsound Festival show
UNSOUND FESTIVAL
le poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Wednesday, February 10, $15, 7:00
212-228-4854
www.unsound.pl
www.myspace.com/lepoissonrougenyc
Poland’s Unsound Festival is currently under way in New York City for the first time, featuring 11 days of modern music from all over the world through February 14, at such venues as Lincoln Center, Public Assembly, the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building, Harvestworks, and Issue Project Room. The series includes electronic music workshops for children, an art show, a tribute to Andy Warhol, panel discussions, and plenty of cool concerts, with performances by Finland’s Vladislav Delay, England’s Untold, Germany’s Jan Jelinek, Switzerland’s Kadebostan, Ukraine’s Zavoloka, Poland’s Zenial, Holland’s Legowelt, New York’s Alexander Kaline, and dozens more. One of the best lineups of the fest occurs on February 10 at le poisson rouge, when “Silence and Noise Part 1” features Kids Electronic Music Band, America’s Mountains, Sweden’s Tape, Austria’s Radian, and Canada’s Tim Hecker. Friends since middle school, Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp founded the music label Apestaartje in 1999 and shortly after that formed the group Mountains. Working and living in Brooklyn, the duo released two albums last year on Thrill Jockey, CHORAL and ETCHING, featuring monumentally minimalist electronic soundscapes mixing guitar, binaural field recordings, live sampling, and other subtle instrumentation primarily recorded live in their Brooklyn studio. The duo’s beautiful, hypnotic compositions take listeners on intriguing musical journeys that range from about two minutes to more than twelve, welcoming all comers into a mesmerizing, meditative, masterfully melodic experience. Labelmates Radian recently released their first album in five years, CHIMERIC, with Martin Brandlmayr, Stefan Nemeth, and John Norman displaying a somewhat calmer side to their electronic music on such songs as “Git Cut Noise” and “Feedback Mikro / City Lights,” with more bass, guitar, and drums added to the computerized samples and sequencing.
TRAMPS LIKE US: MARATHON SHOW
Springsteen tribute band will re-create legendary 1978 show on February 11 in Times Square
A TRIBUTE TO THE BOSS
B.B. King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Thursday, February 11, $26-$37.50, 7:30
212-997-4144
www.bbkingblues.com
www.trampslikeus.com
On September 19, 1978, we very clearly remember sitting up in our room, taping a live concert being broadcast over WNEW, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing the Capitol Theater in Passaic in what would become one of their most legendary shows. We also recall heading into the Village shortly thereafter and buying the bootleg boxed set, called PIECE DE RESISTANCE. Last year, for the first time ever, Springsteen began playing some of his albums in their entirety, and now tribute band Tramps Like Us will be playing the famed 1978 concert in its entirety at B.B. King’s on February 11. Generally, we are not big fans of tribute/cover bands — like the one that played our high school prom — but Bruce’s 9/19/78 performance was extraordinary, featuring memorable versions of such unreleased songs as “Independence Day,” “Fire,” “Because the Night,” and “Point Blank,” a spate of tunes from his latest album, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, including a “Prove It All Night” that nearly blew the roof off with its blistering guitar solo, and a killer finale of “The Detroit Medley” and “Raise Your Hand.” But the highlight of the show was the triple shot of “Not Fade Away” into “She’s the One” followed by an unforgettable “Backstreets” with a majestic, emotionally powerful “Sad Eyes” near the end (later to be adapted into “Drive All Night” on THE RIVER). We’ve been waiting, hoping, and praying for Bruce to go into “Sad Eyes” every time we’ve heard “Backstreets” since then, to no avail, so this is the closest any of us are likely to get.
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: BEAUTIFUL
Korean psychological thriller looks at beauty and dangerous obsession
BEAUTIFUL (A-LEUM-DAB-DA) (Juhn Jai-hong, 2008)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, February 9, 7:00
Admission: free; reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.tribecacinemas.com
www.koreanculture.org
Juhn Jai-hong’s 2008 debut feature, BEAUTIFUL, based on an unfinished script by Kim Ki-duk, is a harrowing psychological tale of dangerous obsession. Cha Soo-yeon stars as Kim Eun-young, a beautiful woman who wants to live a normal life but is constantly harassed by teenage girls who want her autograph, refusing to believe she is not a celebrity, and men who are uncontrollably drawn to her because of her perfect face and body. When one of her many secret admirers attacks her in her apartment, she soon decides to try extreme methods to change her appearance as she begins a slow descent into madness. At first, a local detective (Choi Myeong-soo) seeks to protect her, but he becomes obsessed with her as well, leading to a violent, dramatic conclusion. BEAUTIFUL goes from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again as Kim proclaims her desire to live despite the horrible things that are happening to her, with Junh alternating between the lurid and the exploitative to the poignant and heartbreaking, in some ways a mix of executive producer Kim Ki-Duk’s TIME and BAD GUY. The film is being screened as part of Korean Movie Night presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service; the series continues on February 23 with BREATHLESS, a film written, directed by, and starring Yang Ik-june, followed by three films in March and April (every other Tuesday) that are all being remade in America.
YANK! TICKET GIVEAWAY
Stu and Mitch sing but don’t ask and don’t tell in new military musical
YANK! A WWWII LOVE STORY
The Theatre at Saint Peter’s
619 Lexington Ave. at 54th St.
February 16 – March 21, $67.50
212-935-5820
www.yankthemusical.com
Named Best Musical by audiences at the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival, YANK! had a sold-out extended run in San Diego and now comes to the York Theatre in Midtown for five weeks. A throwback to old-fashioned Broadway musicals, YANK! tells the fictional love story between draftee Stu and Private Mitch, inspired by actual events experienced by gay and straight military men and women. Directed by Igor Goldin, written by lyricist David Zellnik and composer Joe Zellnik, and choreographed by Jeffry Denman (who also appears as Artie), YANK! stars Nancy Anderson, Ivan Hernandez, and Bobby Steggert.
GIVEAWAY: Tickets are $67.50, but twi-ny has five pairs to give away for select nights. To be eligible to win a pair, all you have to do is name which New York Yankees superstar gave up three baseball seasons while in his prime to fight for his country during WWII. Send your name, daytime phone number, and the correct answer to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, February 10, at 3:00 pm. Five winners will be chosen at random. All entrants must be at least twenty-one years of age.
FEBRUARY RESIDENCY: BLUEBRAIN
Bluebrain will play Monday-night residency at Pianos this month
Pianos
158 Ludlow St.
Monday nights at 10:00 through February 22
Admission: free
212-505-3733
www.pianosnyc.com
www.myspace.com/bluebrainbluebrain
Last June, Bluebrain — brainchild of brothers Hays and Ryan Holladay, formerly of the Brooklyn-based band the Epochs — played their first show ever, in their hometown of Washington, DC. In 2009 they also released a five-track EP, CULT FOLLOWING, which will be followed on February 9 by their debut full-length, SOFT POWER (both on Lujo Records). In celebration of the new disc, the brothers will be playing three free shows this month, in residency Monday nights at Pianos on the Lower East Side. Onstage, the Holladays each stand behind their own podium, as if they are holding a press conference or a debate, pumping out their dynamic, mellifluous electronic dance music while strange images are broadcast behind them, sort of the Yes Men meet the Butthole Surfers meet 1980s dreamy synth pop, or something like that. In “Ten by Ten,” which features a sweeping, swirling riff that will take over your whole body, the brothers repeat, “I can never make it alone”; in that vein, Bluebrain will be joined on February 8 by Riffle Recoil and on February 22 by Spiderfang and George Positive.
