TICKETMASTER RANT

Most venues in NY only offer online booking through one of a handful of ticket agencies, and so a few weeks ago the TH purchased tickets online for us to see Avishai Cohen and the Bad Plus at Irving Plaza. I'm astounded by the additional charges involved in online ticket purchases here - for starters there is always something called a 'convenience charge' slapped on top of the ticket price, which recently at BB Kings (also Ticketmaster), cost me something like 7 dollars per ticket! This is apparently for the 'convenience' of being able to book tickets in your own home...? Uh? Doesn't online booking actually SAVE ticket agencies money as they don't have to sell from outlets (which means rent) or through staff (who need salaries)? But in addition to that, there is also something called the 'order processing charge', which for these particular concerts came to an additional $9.20.

To cut a long story short, we found out a couple of days before the gig, quite by accident ie. through a friend, that the Avishai Cohen gig was cancelled. We subsequently found out on the actual day of the Bad Plus gig that that too was cancelled. And how did we find out? By accident, as I had logged onto the Bad Plus blog!

On receiving our refunds, (which incidentally involved US having to call Ticketmaster), we noticed that there was still a charge of $9.20. Now I wouldn't even mind this if they had bothered to send us notification by email of the cancellations, but we received NOT A WORD. How difficult is it to email a cancellation notification to ticket holders? It is not difficult. I know this because I've worked in box offices and ticket agencies. With the technology they possess, it takes one person approximately 5 minutes to press about 3 buttons.

We never got a reason for the cancellations, we are $9.20 down, and the promoter and band are also down because had we known in advance about the Bad Plus cancellation we would have gone out of our way to see them at Carnegie Hall a couple of days before. Oh, and we are also dissatisfied pissed off customers.

And whilst we're on the subject, it seems that everyone in the world is entitled to use your email address if you've purchased tickets with this rip-off company, EXCEPT it seems, if it is going to be useful to the ticket-holder.

And they call this the customer service capital of the World.........

NEW YORK WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP

Summer in New York. And it feels more like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every day. There is a pile of washing up in the sink. I have no idea who's in the spare room, although the shoes in the hall may or may not be a clue. I haven't slept more than 2 hours in days and appear to be wearing clothes which don't belong to me. Wine is flowing but food is scarce. We are reeling from free gig to free gig with the odd paid gig inbetween and are coincidentally meeting 'friends of friends' on an hourly karmic basis. It's even raining like we're in Scotland. I should currently be at something called the 'Mermaid Parade' but stuff happens. There's still the hip-hop festival and tap dance extravaganza later.....
Meantime, our apartment is apparently the venue for a poker game, friends are disappearing to saner places and an alarming number of folks are walking past dressed in cotton balls.
Somehow, amidst this chaos, the TH is still managing to HOLD DOWN A JOB.

SINGING WITH THE LARK

Tucked behind the New York Public Library, a mere biscuits toss from 5th Avenue and the sensory hell of Times Square, is an oasis (by NY standards) of relative calm.
I first discovered Bryant Park a couple of years ago, when the JVC Jazz Festival held three days of free events there, and it has since become one of my favourite NY haunts. Despite the office blocks rising above the trees on all sides, with its tree-lined pathway circumference and grassed centre, this small haven nevertheless feels totally cut off from the surrounding madness, and you can almost hear yourself think.

Quite apart from all that, the layout and use of this park for public events is truly inspired, which is why, when talks were underway at the SBC in London 18 months ago, regarding the re-design of Jubilee Gardens, I suggested that they might consider using Bryant Park as a model.

So today, because there are no longer enough hours in the night in which to see bands, I went along to Bryant Park's latest offering - a free performance by Mary J. Blige at, errrrr, 7am. This was one of a series of free concerts at 7am every Friday, which in forthcoming weeks will also feature Lionel Ritchie and the Beach Boys. The performances go out live on 'Good Morning America' on ABC, who presumably pay for them, and the time of day guarantees crowd-number control and also ensures that the noise doesn't disturb nearby offices. A genius programming idea.



In addition to these performances, there are free movies at dusk every Monday evening shown on a huge screen, a reading area with books and literature events, a gorgeous carousel, a chess/games area, free WiFi, coffee booths, and 2,000 chairs and tables you're allowed to move around the park. And of course, in Winter, one of the largest ice rinks in the City.

In short, it's one of those very rare urban spaces, where both architects and programmers have got it exactly right. If you're ever in the neighbourhood, go check it out...

9am. Post-gig rush hour. 

MESSAGE FROM ABOVE

Arial Unicode MS? Or maybe Wingdings?

BRANDON ROSS & 'BLAZING BEAUTY'

Outside the unrelenting evening humidity attaches itself to every movement and muffles every sound. An all-engulfing blanket. Children play half-heartedly with a balloon on the steps of a turn of the century tenement block, but the balloon is going nowhere, everything is strangely still. A man approaches me from across the street. A lone Hopper-painting figure against the intense shadows of fire escapes.. sweat pouring from his forehead. Do I know where Rucker Street is? He has been searching for hours. I don't, but hand him my map. He studies it, but in truth neither of us can read the tiny street names without our absent reading glasses. He sighs resignedly, in the way only New Yorkers can and do, and sets off to wander the virtually empty streets some more.

Lower East Side. Deep inside. Scaffolding and handmade signs in windows.
Tonic. And it is. The contrast and respite of instant coolness in a space which nevertheless exudes warmth. Exposed brick walls, a cathedral-like smell of incense and wax, candles flickering in the otherwise darkened vault. A place to worship music.

Although Brandon Ross is the leader, this is a true 'band project' with JT Lewis, Stomu Takeishi and Ron Miles all an equal part of the concept. (About as far away from Marcus Miller and his 'sideshow' of two days ago as it is possible to get...)

These are musicians so technically advanced, so experienced, that there is no barrier. And what follows is a free-flow creative highway from their hearts through the instruments, an emotionally intense filmic journey, a surround soundscape of original stories, sometimes playful and quirky, often dark and tormented.

Extraordinary moments. When Brandon plucks the banjo strings tentatively, they cry out as desolately as heartstrings. In 'Peace Flows' his voice has a Jeff Buckley quality - an effortless purity which somehow pleads. JT pounds a backbeat which slams forcefully across the live walls, then stops and we too can hear the rhythm he feels and implies in bars of silence. And throughout, Stomu and Ron, always there, never there, like a perfectly woven carpet, there is no join, no individual thread. They are a part of the whole and yet the whole of the part.

Just occasionally I am in awe of the miracle of music. How did it happen - this extraordinary sequence of events which results in sounds so powerful they are felt rather than heard? How did these like-minded souls find each other, how did they not only KNOW that this is what they were born to do, but then actually, somehow, do it?

This was not a gig, it was an experience.

And last night I found a New York I had imagined.

ALL EYES ON THE BALL

Bleary-eyed from another 0-dark-thirty night. If it weren't for high-definition TV I wouldn't even be able to find the football channel.

Summer in the city. This is what it sounds like. 92 degrees and the AC is high.

Tonight will be the 34th band I've seen so far this month.
Slowly getting to grips with the music in this City, but there aren't enough hours in the night. Totally dependent on cabs from venue to venue (not an extravagance - they're so cheap here). But now the added complication of finding cab drivers who have no interest in football. Last night my life in the hands of a guy from Ghana, who spent the entire journey shrieking down the phone to relatives in his homeland about aggregates. His eyes were about as far from the road as his dream from reality. On the way home a Czech driver, who was, to say the least, suicidal...

The doorman sound asleep as we crept in. He's from Croatia, so very soon it might be too dangerous to even leave the apartment.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The only good thing about losing just about all the work projects you have lined up for the next couple of months in the space of 24 hours, is knowing that somewhere along the line you're owed 24 hours of good fortune.

In the meantime, Portugal, who I am supporting in the World Cup (and actually have money on) have just gone through to the next round. So, whilst I am hoping for some slightly more personal career progress, my back-up plan of becoming a professional gambler is looking like the best option right now.

' The suburbs: Signs of life, but no proofs.'

The strangest events I ever end up at are always something to do with the Eggplants, but Saturday's event hit a whole new jackpot in the Twin Peaks world which is Eggplantis.

Take a respectable Brooklyn suburb, take a band called 'Brain Surgeons' (led by Blue Oyster Cult drummer Albert Bouchard, who unless I'm mistaken, once won some kind of award for being the loudest drummer EVER), take Eggplant bass player Gil's (small) garden in said Brooklyn suburbia and a 10 hour long fund-raising event for breast cancer research called 'Brooklyn Woodstock'. Mix up all these ingredients, and you get something like this:



The sound is only terrible because it was SO LOUD my camera microphone was smoking like a shisha pipe (tenuous link, I know, but don't you just LOVE that computerised voice). The sound was nevertheless perfect about 20 blocks away. I'm sure you get the idea..... In London the police would have been there in minutes, but amazingly not a curtain twitched and nobody stirred in this 'Amityville' street, so clearly this sort of thing happens all the time, or everyone moved out ages ago, or everyone is really charitable, or something.....

Anyway it was a fun afternoon with many good bands and way too much of everything else. We have had B and M to stay for a week (much fun) and we pride ourselves in showing the tourists the real thing....

(View Brooklyn Woodstock photos here.)

Things not to say during a 'Bang on a Can' Marathon: 'Do you think the ceiling needs painting?' 

MEN ARE FROM MARS BUT WE'RE ALL IN SPACE NOW

I came out last week. On MySpace I mean. Having cowered behind a shark for several months, I took the plunge at midnight one evening and revealed my face on cyberspace. I woke the next morning to a record 5 comments in my inbox ranging from 'beautiful' to....well never mind the range, that's the comment I kept re-reading, and a record 10 'friend requests' in the overNightSpace of a mere 7 hours, from male musicians in NY. Ah ha - so that's how one kickstarts a music career in this City!

What I failed to mention is that said photo is approximately 10 years old, and when I read the comments more closely I realised that my London friends were a little sceptical of my sudden youthful appearance ('have you had a facial?' and 'since when were you a Bond girl?'). So I then went into the sort of panic where you stand in front of the bathroom mirror for an hour contemplating doing things that you've never considered doing before, like plucking your eyebrows, putting green mud on your face and giving up alcohol. (I said contemplating....) Spookily, in the midst of this crisis, I received a phone message from Monique, who messed with my face uninvited in February, offering her services, like she was directly tapped into, or logged on to my facial misrepresentation dilemma....

So armed (or rather faced) with my new public profile, I embarked on a whirlwind social calendar few days. The wonderful Anita was in town, so a couple of extremely fun girlie evenings were had with her fantastic mate Diana and my NY soulmate Daniela (the 'Space Girls'). Aware of the fact, as we sat around various dinner and bar tables, that the four of us were subconsciously falling into 'Sex and the City' roles. I won't embarrass you with the topics of conversation (like we did all nearby tables), but OurSpace was growing around us and I spent a fair amount of time with mouth open in amazement in 'Charlotte' mode. Although unfortunately even a 10 yr old pic doesn't quite cast me as Charlotte visually......

Imagine my relief then when even after the sort of hot weather on Saturday which immediately turns my hopelessly intolerant British complexion into a blotch fest, and several (ahem) g&t's, not one, but TWO complete strangers at the gig I was at, RECOGNISED me from the MySpace photo. Result!

It was the Heernt debut album launch gig and it was so good to see them playing again - it's been way too long. Also finally got to meet the awesomely talented singer/songwriter Jeff Taylor, who I've been corresponding with on and off over the last few months. He played a beautiful support set. An excellent evening - Heernt are, as I've said before, my absolute favourite NY band of the moment, well since I've been living here in truth, so I came away with an armful of everything Heernt - CD's, DVD's, stickers, beer holders (?). I've said it before and I'll say it again - Heernt - you heard it here first.

Still riding on the Heerntergy of the previous night, and in an effort to keep the TH from working over the weekend, I persuaded him that Sunday's Bang On a Can Marathon at the WFC was an event we couldn't possibly miss. 24 events back to back (roughly 21 different groups) over 12 hours! Haha. I wondered if he'd last, (I wondered if I'd last to be honest), but you can always depend on blokes to fall into competitive mode on such occasions, and I sensed it was becoming a team sport to him - he wasn't about to leave the pitch half way through the game, however much he was hating it. And believe me, by the time William Parker came on, he was pretty much definitely hating it. By about 8pm there were still 7 bands to go and I had definitely developed arthritis, but was otherwise okay. I'd also had a sneaky couple of painkillers at 6pm, but wasn't about to admit this to the TH.

Then I went outside for some air, and got CHATTED UP! I mean properly. I can't remember the last time that happened.....but it wasn't in the US. Admittedly everyone was behaving a little oddly after 9 hours of 'new' music, but even so, I prefer to think that I'm actually metamorphosing into my MySpace photo......

At 10pm the TH said 'now I know what it must be like giving birth!'. Errrrr? I think what was actually happening was that he now knew what it was like to be without an alcoholic drink for 14 waking hours. Personally I've never given birth, but despite his sportsmanship, I still felt justified in pointing out that 11 hours would be considered a miraculously short birth, and in pregnancy the 20 painful alcohol-free hours he had just experienced would have been preceded by 9 alcohol-free months.

We made it to the end. But more miraculously the technicians and crew at the WFC made it to the end. Never before in my life in the arts have I witnessed such incredibly fast and slick changeovers coupled with such excellent sound over so many consecutive and technically complicated performances.

Only in NY can you go to a gig like that and be home in a cab in 7 minutes. The TH paid....