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Lincoln Center Out of Doors
Two-and-a-half weeks of free fun
Damrosch Park Bandshell (Photo: Ian Muttoo, via Flickr)
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Lincoln Center Out of Doors is one of my summer happenings. It has a great variety of entertainment, including one Detroit-based event I’m particularly looking forward to, all for the low, low cost of free. The festival has been around for 40 years now, with good reason, and this might be their best lineup yet. Here are five shows you definitely need to circle in your datebook, iPad, whatever newfangled technology you’re using:
ETHEL Fair: The Songwriters
ETHEL with special guests Adam Scheslinger with Mike Viola, Dayna Kurtz, Juana Molina and Tom Verlaine with Patrick Derivaz
Wednesday, July 28, 7:30 p.m.
Damrosch Park Bandshell
By persistently exploding the parameters of what a string quartet can be, ETHEL challenges listeners as it bewitches them. This world premiere features the feisty four-piece in collaboration with tunesmiths who’ve proven just as captivating, whether trafficking in folkish blues (Dayna Kurtz), clever power pop (Fountains of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger with Candy Butchers’ Mike Viola), off-kilter post-punk guitar explorations (Tom Verlaine with Patrick Derivaz) or swirling sonic carpentry (Juana Molina). In these new collaborations, ETHEL invigorates each song with arrangements both plush and plucky.
(Here’s a link to Encore‘s article about Ethel from last month)
27th Annual Roots of American Music
Ponderosa Stomp: The Detroit Breakdown
Motor City Soul Revue featuring Dennis Coffey, Melvin Davis, Spyder Turner, the Velvelettes, with the Party Stompers and Eddie Kirkland
Saturday, July 31, 2 p.m.
Hearst Plaza/Barclays Capital Grove
The Detroit Breakdown showcases the spiritual continuum and musical progression that has long served as the hallmark of a true artistic metropolis. When Motown put Detroit on the map, it was with an internationally influential sound best exemplified by pioneering girl group The Velvelettes, who join stirring soul men Melvin Davis and Spyder Turner and wah-wah guitar–slinging funk brother Dennis Coffey in a revue of classic Northern soul, backed by R&B all-stars The Party Stompers. A showman of the first degree, bluesman Eddie Kirkland’s emotion-laden singing and gritty guitar-playing kicks off the day in high style.
27th Annual Roots of American Music
Ponderosa Stomp: The Detroit Breakdown
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, ? and the Mysterians, the Gories and Death
Saturday, July 31, 5 p.m.
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Detroit rock icons of the first tier, garage rockers Mitch Ryder and Question Mark presided over America’s rock ‘n’ roll conversion in the 1960s, when radio gems like Ryder’s high-octane Devil with a Blue Dress On and the colorful Mysterians’ 96 Tears made both artists into two of the most popular recording artists in America. Equally inspired by the blues, R&B, and garage punk pioneers who had come before them, the Gories may have been too incendiary for their time, but their influence continues to reverberate. Many pop scholars and fans have only recently discovered Death, a reignited 1970s trio of African American proto-punk rockers that were true anomalies in the Detroit ferment.
27th Annual Roots of American Music
Dig: Their Royal Hipness
Sandra Bernhard, David Johansen, Melvin van Peebles: Hamlet: The Street Chant by Shel Silverstein, Steve Cuiffo as Lenny Bruce and Rod Harrison as Lord Buckley
Sunday, August 1, 6 p.m.
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Sandra Bernhard’s knife-edged humor skewers the state of modern culture, fueled by rebellious rock & roll attitude. David Johansen, the flamboyant performer of New York Dolls and Buster Poindexter fame, weaves punk rock swagger, beatnik folk, and gutbucket blues. In Shel Silverstein’s hipster Hamlet: The Street Chant, Original Baadasssss Melvin Van Peebles adds rhyme and modern meaning to a street-savvy update of the Bard’s classic tale. Steve Cuiffo channels the groundbreaking work of the controversial comic and social satirist Lenny Bruce. Cats and kittens, dig Rod Harrison’s “hipsemantic” inhabitation of the coolest, grooviest, swingin’est Lord Buckley.
International Body Music Festival
Barbatuques, SLAMMIN All-Body Band, Celina Kalluk and Lucie Idlout, and Derique McGee
Thursday, August 12, 7:30 p.m.
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Music you can see, dance you can hear. Likely the first music—people the world over stomp, clap, sing, snap, and chant. Evocative and visceral, the International Body Music Festival concert explores the sonic possibilities of the human instrument with an amazing roster of traditional and contemporary artists from the Americas: Brazil’s 12-member “circle orchestra” Barbatuques in its New York debut; the Bay Area’s ferocious SLAMMIN All-Body Band, known for infectious harmonies and lightning-fast improvisations; Inuit throat singers Celina Kalluk and Lucie Idlout from Nunavut, Canada; and African American hambone artist Derique McGee.
For more information, including a full list of performances, please click here.