Day two of CMJ turned out to be a free form day. A few weeks ago my friend Kathryn got us tickets to the new Karen O psycho rock opera at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Stop the Virgens, with me totally not realizing it was smack dab in the middle of CMJ. Whoopsies!

After the show, I decided to push it and headed over to Williamsburg to try to catch King Krule at Glasslands, but by the time I got there they were no longer letting badges in. As I was standing there, I heard someone call my name, and low-and-behold it was Scott Stereogum, who then invited to come into the ‘Gum showcase next door at 285 Kent.

Before heading in, Scott warned me that it was extremely hot indoors and sure enough, it was in fact a “hipster sauna” inside. So who were the kids all waiting to see? Strong Island (seriously???) buzz band, Twin Sister. Dreamy disco music, with a lead singer who looks like an Olsen, it’s not hard to understand why the room was 75% Sausage Fest.

But more on Stop the Virgens… A lot of folks have been asking me how the show was, and the one-line way I’ve come up with describing the experience is the following: “I’m not sure what I saw, but I’m pretty sure it was awesome.”

The performance is an “opera” in the sense that there is no talking — only singing throughout the entire show. The music is fantastic — and need I mention it’s backed by an incredible all-star band (Brian Chase and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Patrick Keeler and Jack “Little Jack” Lawrence of the Raconteurs/ Greenhornes, and Money Mark)? Amazing out of this world costumes by Christian Joy.

* SPOILER ALERT (Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know anything about the show) *
From what I can surmise, Karen O is this kind of lost woman, who comes upon this world of nymphish “virgens.” The virgens are playful but mischievous, and sometimes cruel, and they taunt and tease Karen O’s character. Then eventually everyone dies, but then they are brought back to life by a ghostly/heavenly looking Karen O.

The show is so weird and crazy, but definitely a fantastic experience. Tonight is the last performance at St. Ann’s, so check it out if you can!

LOL! Not sure why it wasn’t until now that I saw this Azzaro “Decible” perfume commercial starring Mr. Julian Casablancas. Thanks Product Shop NYC!

Also watch the making of the song, “I Like The Night”:

Gosh, the summer is just flying by! Here are a couple of things that have put a smile on my face so far:

The Radio Dept. and Asobi Seksu @ River to River, South Street Seaport – July 15, 2011

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of re-living the mid-2000s with a performance by Swedish shoegazers The Radio Dept. and NYC’s own Asobi Seksu.

A beautiful night with beautiful music.

Recording the show via iPad

Since the weather was so lovely, after the show J. took me to a place I’d never been before — Stone Street in the Financial District. Said to have been the first paved street in New York City, the narrow cobblestone street is fully flanked with restaurants and bars with chairs and tables set up. It has an old-world charm — magical and cute!

West Side Story sing-a-long at Prospect Park – July 21, 2011

Even 95+ degree whether cannot keep me away from anything musical theater-related. I had an awesome night a couple weeks ago at a Celebrate Brooklyn event at the Prospect Park bandshell to participate in an outdoor sing-a-long of West Side Story. With delicious food from The Farm On Adderley, classic songs, and a lovely setting.

Not satisfied with just one sing-a-long, I headed to another one on Friday night at Bell House, this one to the bestest Disney live action movie musical ever, Newsies. OH YES!

I remember falling in love with this musical when I saw it in the theater while in elementary school. I had the HUGEST crush on the boy who played Spot Conlon, the bada** leader of the Brooklyn newsies.

YOU GO SPOT CONLON!

Before the actual showing of the film, there was a screening of some horrible horror movie the kids of the movie made with the adults. Truly horrible! There was also a high-kick off, a singing challenge, and trivia questions. By the time the actual film started I’d already lost my voice from all the cheering and shouting I was doing! Folks were dressed up in their best newsboy gear, and there were interactive elements to the sing-a-long, complete with props like STRIKE signs, newspapers to rip up, celebratory streamers for the arrival of Teddy Roosevelt, and coins to throw to the newsies.

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!

So much cheering, laughing, singing along, making “woooooo” sounds when Jack looks at Sarah, and general awesomeness.

SO MUCH FUN! Secret Formula is the group that throws all these awesome throwback and sing-a-long events. The rumored next sing-a-long is Beauty and the Beast (aka one of my favorite Disney animated musicals) so I’m kinda thinking I might just have to go?

Just the thing to brighten up this dreary Friday in NYC — a brand new Strokes video! The music vid is for my favorite song off of Angles, “Taken for a Fool.”

The only way I can think of to describe the video is to call it a Strokes merry-go-round. I never want this ride to end!

Some amazing moments from the video screen capped:

So many Julian Casablancases, so little time.


OMG, Jules killed Fab!


Jules and Niko’s bromance.

I believe it’s a vintage 1990′s era Houston Oilers snap back hat. The team was briefly known in the mid-90s as the Tennessee Oilers, but are now known as the Tennessee Titans.

Julian Casablancas just wore the hat again on Conan tonight:

Where can you get mad swag like JC? Well the bad news is I’m pretty sure that baby blue is vintage, so you’re gonna have to go digging … or you could be the lucky one to nab what looks to be the identical style hat up for bid on eBay right now. Current price is $29.99.

I have no affiliation with the person selling the hat so I can’t confirm it’s the exact same one, but it sure looks like it.

Although… this one is all sorts of awesome too…

Video of The Strokes performing “Juicebox” live at Coachella 2011

I kind of want to live by these words.

I wonder what that would look like…

Thnx Julian Casablancas and your wonderful stage banter! What a perfect Casablancasism.

BTW, “Under Control” is pretty much one of my favorite Strokes songs ever:

This week has been completely insane — I witnessed over 9 hours of LCD Soundsystem (yup, I was at the LCD MSG show as well), and one glorious night of The Strokes all in one week. I think I sweated off my body weight about three times over, dancing myself clean, moshing in multiple pits, and just freaking out in anticipation.

I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to try to figure out what to say that hasn’t already been said. Probably by now you hard core fans have already read all the reviews, you know the set list, you’ve heard what happened at the show.

I love how happy Julian looks in this photo. He’s stoked he’s singing with Elvis Costello!

Yes, Elvis Costello opened up for The Strokes with a surprise 15-minute set playing “Pump It Up,” “Radio Radio,” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love And Understanding.” And yes, before playing “Taken for a Fool,” Julian mentioned the song’s chorus had an Elvis Costello-quality to it, and that he should probably just come out and sing it — then immediately defusing any expectation of him making a second April Fools’ appearance by laughing and saying “April Fools’! I’m kidding, he’s not doing it, but he should have. Next time.”

Then of course the joke was on all of us when Elvis DID actually come out and perform the song with the band! So crazy!

Rolling Stone video

Seriously, how FUN was that?

Another absolutely incredible moment was when Julian decided that hey, “Juicebox” really should be sung from the middle of the general admission pit. He was up on top of the side stage speakers when all of a sudden he was gone and WHAT? he was running through the middle of the crowd!!

Oh HAI Julian Casablancas running literally all over the pit! Love that he not only brought it to the front, but also ran to the back as well — disturbing those poor people who were just hanging back minding their own business. Hahah!

These videos capture a lot of what it was like to be in the middle of the chaos as Julian made his rounds — people politely singing around him, crazily no one really shoving or pushing anyone in an aggressive way. Just fans having funz singing along, laughing, back slapping Julian, and jumping up and down. Amazing stuff, guys!

This video is hysterical. Julian is literally in this girl’s face and she can’t help but giggle and squeal, “OMG HE’S IN FRONT OF ME!!!”

Oh and remember my description of the “Take It Or Leave It” crazytown? Check THIS out:

If you missed it before, my on personal crazytown:

S’more shots of the guys:

Nikolai Fraiture. Bassist extraordinaire.

Albert

I love that half the people in this photo are not looking at Julian. What is going on over there on the left?

PREVIOUSLY: The Strokes Return to NYC @ Madison Square Garden (MSG) – 4/1/11

Oh, it’s just Nick Valensi being a ROCK GOD. No biggie.

Classic Casablancas

There hasn’t been a greater week in New York City in a LONG TIME. As I mentioned in my previous post about the Strokes MSG show, between LCD and the Strokes, I have seen SO many old friends out and about — folks I haven’t seen in years because we are all old and never go out. Just standing in the hallway and aisle at MSG last night, I ran into three different sets of people who I stopped to embrace.

It really really made me nostalgic and happy. There was a time when I was going to shows all the time and I would know just about every one in the front rows of ever concert I went to. I wouldn’t have to worry about going to a show alone because I knew I would always know someone there. Now when I go to shows, that’s less and less true. There are kids there who are probably wondering why the old lady next to them looks so sad all by herself. Kids so young that if I started talking to them I would probably come off as some creepy weird old cat lady.

But this week was a total return to 2001-2003, down to going to dancing the night away at parties and then heading to Veselka at 4am to eat pierogies. (You OGs know what I’m talking about.) I know this post is supposed to be about the Strokes show at MSG (I’ll get to that soon), but all this reminiscing is a part of WHY this week’s shows were so special to me. These two bands represent a special time in my life, when I was just really getting heavy into music, going to shows, and meeting so many of the wonderful people who I can now say I’ve known for nearly a decade.

I think people who move to New York all have similar experiences in that when you move to this city, you can feel totally overwhelmed by what’s going on — it’s not an easy town to live in — so your friends become SO important to you. They are basically your life lines and support systems. For those of you who don’t live here, you don’t understand, THIS TOWN HAS NO MERCY. Just by the mere fact that these shows were happening I have re-connected with SO many people who I know, but have fallen a bit out of touch with over the years. THAT is why these shows mean so much — yes, we all love the music and the fun at concerts – but really what I love the most is how these events have brought me together with folks that I love.

I wouldn’t nearly have had as much fun at any of these shows if it hadn’t been for the presence of some truly amazing, kind, and big-hearted people with whom I’ve been lucky enough to come in contact. I’ve even made some new friends, met incredibly sweet strangers, and basically had my faith in the human race restored.

THANK YOU Strokes fans for being so genuine, pure, and incredibly enthusiastic. Many times during the MSG show I found myself looking at these groups of young kids just singing their little hearts out. There was this one young kid who got up on his friend’s shoulders on the show and he looked like he was having the BEST TIME EVER. I saw him later on the way out and I just said, “Good job!” and gave him a high-freakin-five. YESSSSS!

THANK YOU LCD Soundsystem fans for wanting to dance the night away. Thank you for sharing all of your back sweat, your fist pumps, your elbow throwing with me. Thank you for letting me shove some of you dudes out of my way and into the pit — and even the couple times I was picked up and tossed were kinda scary, it was all part of the experienced of just freaking the eff out. Thanks for letting loose.

I know I’m kinda sounding like a fan girl right now, but I think it’s important for me to say all of this. When I go to shows like the ones I attended in this past week, I’m going as a FAN. I’ll say it, I’m super annoyed by folks who just show up to these things because it’s the “cool” thing to do, but are so scared of looking like an idiot that they don’t want to dance, they don’t want to shout out song lyrics, and they don’t want to have fun. I’m also super annoyed by folks who are so focused on musical perfection (oh, Julian messed up during such and such song? So what?) that they’re completely oblivious to that unquantifiable element that makes going to see live music special.

MORE: New York Times, BV

So there’s the band called The Strokes. They are originally from right here in New York City, and you may have figured it out by now, but I really like them.

They played their first public hometown gig in over five years and this was definitely a heroes welcome. The guys were in fine form and everyone (the crowd and the band) was pretty freaking pumped up after the show. Smiles all around.

I had an amazing time/night, and it truly felt like old times. Never have I thought I could recreate those feelings and memories of 2001-2003, but tonight certainly came close. I saw so many old friends, sang along to so many classic tunes, fantastic all the way around.

I want to thank YOU GUYS for making it such a fun show – so many of the faces I saw were of young folks — kids who weren’t old enough to even ride a two-wheeler when Is This It came out, but there you all were up in the front, smiling, so happy, and enthusiastic about seeing The Strokes. You kids are so awesome. You totally rock!

The birds are tweeting outside and the sun is coming up, so I’ll try to jot down some stuff before my eyes fall out of my head:

I’ll start with the end — The very last song, in typical Strokes fashion, was “Take It Or Leave It” — but this time singer Julian Casablancas took it upon himself to bring the music to the people – well, specifically to the people in the seated section stage left. Climbing up on the stage left speakers, and then grabbing onto the side railing, Julian positioned himself in the midst of the raised seated floor section, where upon everyone started grabbing on to him from behind.

At one point, Julian jumped down to the floor, and the barricade felt as if it were going to tip over — terrifying me because that’s where the handicapped folks were sitting. Luckily, Julian moved back up and further over into the crowd, bringing the rest of the song to the front section of the room, and a bit to stage right at the end, finally finishing on the stage.

You can check out the entire song below — excuse the sort of crazy Cloverfield-style look of the middle — I could never be a war correspondent with that kind of sloppy camera work, but the beginning is pretty awesome if I do say so myself:

VIDEO: “Take It Or Leave It” – The Strokes @ MSG – 4/1/11

The tone of the night was set when “mystery” guest Elvis Costello performed a 15-minute set as an April Fools’ joke on all of us. Julian had been tweeting about “accidentally” running into Elvis three times that week, so it was a semi-surprise to see the man himself get on stage and actually start singing. What a great way to start the show!

The songs played were:

Is This It
Reptilia
Under Cover of Darkness
Hard to Explain
Last Nite
Juicebox (Julian jumps into the GA pit audience)
Someday
You’re So Right
Under Control
You Only Live Once
New York City Cops
Games
Whatever Happened
Taken For A Fool (with Elvis Costello)
-
Ask Me Anything
The Modern Age
Gratisfaction
I Can’t Win
Take It or Leave It (Julian sings in the audience)

Well folks, today is the last official day of Strokes March Madness. *Sniff sniff* It’s been a wild and crazy journey through the last 10 years of Strokes memories. I want to thank everyone for being so kind and encouraging me through this insane exploration into fandom. You’ve all been oh so nice and supportive.

Above is a photo of the first ever Strokes t-shirt that I bought, at my first ever Strokes show. It’s still my favorite Strokes shirt, and luckily I can still get into it. It’s a comfy piece of clothing that’s quite timeless — just like The Strokes.

Tomorrow I’ll be at the first public Strokes show in New York since 2006. I’m going to predict that it’s going to be pretty effing awesome.

Here are some of my favorite posts over the last month:

• The Shitty Beatles perform at Mercury Lounge
• Signed set list from my first Strokes show
• Photos I took after sneaking backstage in 2001
• Julian Casablancas has crazy laser eyes
• First Alone, Together (Strokes official fan club) newsletter

Wow. My second LCD Soundsystem farewell show @ Terminal 5. Definitely way crazier than the first night’s gig.

I nearly DIED when they broke into my absolute favorite Harry Nilsson song, “Jump Into the Fire,” during their encore. Check out Bromander-in-Chief James Murphy totally killing it in this video I took of the song:

VIDEO: “Jump Into the Fire” by LCD Soundsystem (Nilsson cover)

“I love you New York, but you’re bringing me down.”

Some random observations:

I kinda love LCD shows because it totally brings out the most ridiculously outfitted men:

• So MANY freaking dudes in white shirts and black ties. I call it the “broniform.”
• One dude wore a leather jacket the entire time while in the pit. Necessary.
• Two guys behind me had homemade “DANCE YRSELF CLEAN” t-shirts (Hanes tees with Sharpie writing on them). I’m going to assume they came together…and that they went to braid each other’s hair and talk about James Murphy after the show.

During Shit Robot’s set, people started “woo”-ing when a pre-recorded video James Murphy’s face came up on the screen during his guest vocals on “Losing My Patience.” Really guys?

Incredible number glow sticks flying in the air with a competition between upper and lower levels breaking out in a beautiful neon war! (I swear, I didn’t bring them.)

Hey heavyset drunk girl one song into the concert, maybe you should take a seat somewhere — preferable not in the middle of the dance floor.

During the show I was really tired, but now I’m horribly sad that I’m not going to get to go tomorrow. Something about being there — truly one of the most fun concerts to be at, such a great vibe, and crazy dancing. It feels amazing to just launch into a group of people and dance like a maniac to some of the smartest, coolest, dance music ever — being played LIVE.

Shit Robot was the opener. So glad I didn’t end up wearing my neon green glowing robot head too. That would have been soooo embarrassing!

Nancy Whang came out to sing vocals on her totally awesome song w/ Shit Robot, “Take ‘Em Up”. It got real meta real fast. Nancy Whangs, don’t you walk away from Nancy Whang!

James Murphy was on his way to a board meeting, but stopped by to sing some songs.

Oh look, it’s someone crowd surfing. This guy actually had a pretty good run before he was dropped.

Another special moment captured in the best way we know how to record contemporary events — with a cell phone.

Oh let me guess, this crowd photo is going up on the internet.

MORE: Village Voice, Prefix Mag, BV