Thighs Wide Shut

Deltron 3030 
Highline Ballroom
October 14, 2013
Buy The Album | Band Website

Dude, you know all about Deltron 3030, right????  They’re like the older brother of the Gorillaz that has always been overshadowed by their younger, more popular broseph.  In 2000, Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien and Kid Koala (the first two being Gorillaz album #1 collaborators) formed like voltron and came up with a masterful eponymous concept album about a dystopian future.  It’s basically hip-hop’s Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  9reals, it’s that good (for hip-hop).  And then what?  Nothing, literally NOTHING.  13 years passed and they finally decided to follow-up album #1 with #2 – The Event II, which not only continues on the same bad future theme, but also on the same rAWEsomeness in all around musical craftsmanship + a who’s who of coolness for guest starringness - Damon Albarn, Mike Patton, Zack De La Rocha, Emily Wells, Jamie Cullum, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (and her HEAVENLY voice) + (pointless) interstitial skits from David Cross, Amber Tamblyn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Chang and the Lonely Island boys (theirs is worth skipping every time it plays cause they are unfunny like Nazis)

Don’t remember if the original album was ever toured, but I remember not having the chance to ever see the 3030ers live, and would jump at the first opportunity to do so.  That day finally came, and boy was it well worth the wait.  Supported by a 16-piece orchestra, Dan, Del & Kid took their concepts and put them into overly-good practice.  Kid’s beats were sick, and Del’s voice, clear to hear (a rarity in a hip-hop show), was even sicker, while Dan automated the rawking orchestra by conducting all the madness.  This was a big big big show that deserved an even bigger venue.  The Highline Ballroom juss can’t handle something of this magnitude.  Deltron 3030 should be playing the likes of MSG or Radio City, and if they did, they should do it with a symphony CAUSE THIS SH!T IS SYMPHONIC, YO!!! 

Setlist - State of the Nation / 3030 / Things You Can Do / Positive Contact / Stardate / The Return / City Rising From The Ashes / Nobody Can / Mastermind / Melding of the Minds / The Agony (Kid Koala Solo) / Virus / My Only Love / Memory Loss

Encore – Do You Remember / Clint Eastwood (YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!  but why couldn’t they get Damon to show up???)

Buy the albums, and see them when they come to your town

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Fetch Clay, Make Man 
New York Theater Workshop

I know you know who Muhammad Ali is, but how about Stepin Fetchit?????  As a movie buff, it almost pains me to say that I knew NOTHING about the first black man to ever receive a screen credit!  Fetchit (real name Lincoln Perry) was a trailblazer, but also a controversial figure.  The roles he typically played were of a lazy black man.  Those were the only roles Hollywood allowed him to play, and so he went with it, and made a career out of it, until he didn’t have much of a career.  By the time the civil rights movement was in full force, he was basically nothing, and his own people looked down at him for what he had done to further stereotype the existing stereotypes

Anywho, as a big man of his time, Fetchit knew boxer Jack Johnson – aka the first African-American heavyweight champion – and newly-minted heavy weight champ, and Nation of Islam convert Muhammad Ali wanted to know Johnson’s boxing secrets – specifically his ‘anchor punch’ – and so he brought Fetchit into his inner circle as a secret strategist, before his rematch with Sonny Liston in 1965  

This is the subject of the mos eggsalad play Fetch Clay, Make Man, a knockout look at the crossroads when a new black identity in America was being forged, with Ali at the forefront, and moving away from the one Fetchit represented in the times leading up to it.  Ray Fisher went all in as Ali, and K Todd Freeman frees Fetchit from his own ghosts, giving the man some depth and understanding.  Supporting, most strongly is Nation of Islamer John Earl Jelks + Richard Masur (the guy who played a dad in every 80s movie) as Hollywood mogul William Fox

The play ended its run, but it should be turned into a movie cause I said so

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Blue Caprice 
Insight In Sight
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 93 min

You remember the DC Beltway sniper attacks of 2002, right????  Honestly, it’s best to forget about the horrible horribleness that happened, but now I can’t stop thinking about it, after catching the Alexandre Moors directed / RFI Porto written powerful account of how John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo got from point A to the point of no return – senseless murders of innocent people, and terrorizing a region, and in turn, a nation  

What were Muhammad and Malvo’s motivations?  That’s not clearly stated in Blue Caprice (named after the make of car that ultimately became their killing machine), but their motivations were never clearly made in real life either.  And does their motivation even really matter?  What’s done is done, and it’s hard to make sense of any of it  

Muhammad was endlessly bitter about the custodial loss of his children to his ex-wife.  He met a basically abandoned Malvo in Antigua, took him under his wing, and back to America.  He was good for Malvo, until the surrogate father figure turned him into a sniper, bent on creating death and chaos.  Watching the transformation of these drifters into killers, embodied by incredible performances by both Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond, is a sight to be seen, and to be feared.  Adding solid support is Tim Blake Nelson, and when does he not add solid support in anything he’s in??

Verdictgo: mos def mos def mos def Jeepers Worth A Peepers

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Gorillaz
Madison Square Garden
Rocktober 8th

Damon Albarn was once simply known as the frontman for the Brit-pop band called Blur, who were popular worldwide, but moderately successful in our neck of the shore (unless you count the amount of times ‘Song 2’ has been used in adverts and other stuffs).  Then something happened, something moist incredible: Albarn and his flatmate, renowned animator Jamie Hewlett,  cooked up an idea to make a virtual cartoon band, a Banana Splits meets a hodge-pudge of every musical style conceivable, that could possibly conquer this brave new world

Three albums later, the latest landing at #2 on the US Charts (with the other two within the top 20!), and the furthest thought is that the new world conquerers Gorillaz are a joke.  The combination of Albarn’s voice and vision, Hewlett’s visuals, ingenious producers (first Dan the Automator, then with Danger Mouse, and then Albarn alone!),  a large array of rappers (Del The Funky Homosapien, De La Soul, that dude from the Pharcyde), worldclass world musicians (Buena Vista Social Clubber Ibrahim Ferrer), and long loved, but lately ignored legends (Ike Turner, Bobby Womack) has equaled and continued to equal nothing short of brilliance.  People from the future (we pity you) will look back at marvel at these talents collaborating on what each album has become: a once in a lifetime opportunity, which will stand the test of time

Damon Albarn had finally cracked America, and we were better for it.  The Gorillaz’ first tour in 2002 was a rawkin, yet curious hocus pocus act, featuring incredible theatrics and toons, but left many a concertgoer befuddled and remote from the musicians, since they played the entire show behind a sheet in silhoutte.  Then came the landmark residency shows in Manchester and at the famed Apollo Theater, but 10 masterful shows in total isn’t really reaching your entire audience.  That was a mistake Albarn & Co wouldn’t let happen again, as their latest jaunt to support Plastic Beach is a global one, including multiple stops all over our country

And so, how is the show?  Uh, we saw Roger Waters’ can’t miss Wall show earlier in the week, and our early collected thoughts have the Plastic Beach extravaganza topping it!  Yes!!!!!!!  Sure, the other stops won’t include Lou Reed, Mos Def or Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori reprising her Noodle ways, but that won’t make the show any less memorable or can’t can’t can’t can’t miss.  This show cannot be missed cause this show will never exist as it is again.  Ferrer, Turner and Dennis Hopper are all dead, and can no longer monkey around with Albarn on stage.  We hope and pray for the long life of Bobby Womack, but lettuce juss say you won’t be able to here him belt out ‘Stylo’ in 30 years time.  Also, how often will Clashers Mick Jones and Paul Simonon play together again, and with Albarn, and with the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble!!!!  O M GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blur was never big enough to play Madison Square Garden, and probably never will (booooooooo!!  although we’re glad we saw em at Hyde Park last summer), but the Gorillaz are, and they did, and even if the show wasn’t sold out, they owned the place and everyone’s attention in it.  Sure, not everyone was digging Def’s ‘Sweepstakes’ entry, but as we left da Garden, heading to the usual White Castle afterparty, people couldn’t help but shout ‘SWEEEEEEPSTAKES!!!!!!!!!’  We’re still screaming it

Gawd bless you Damon Albarn.  Now figure out a way to get Graham, Alex and Dave to the Garden Party

setlist

Orchestral Intro
Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach
19/2000 (with Miho Hatori)
Last Living Souls
Stylo (with Bobby Womack)
On Melancholy Hill
Rhinestone Eyes
Superfast Jellyfish (with De La Soul)
Tomorrow Comes Today
Some Kind of Nature (with Lou Reed)
Empire Ants (with Yukimi Nagano)
Dirty Harry (with Bootie Brown)
El Mañana
White Flag (with Bashy)
To Binge (with Yukimi Nagano)
DARE (with Rosie Wilson)
Glitter Freeze
Sweepstakes (with Mos Def)
Plastic Beach

Encore
Cloud of Unknowing (with Bobby Womack)
Feel Good Inc. (with De La Soul)
Clint Eastwood (with Bashy)
Don’t Get Lost In Heaven
Demon Days

more pictures

+ watch the Gorillaz’ 44 minute triumph on Live On Letterman