Free Shows

NEW YORK, June 16th, after a hard afternoon of drinking at the Astoria Beer Garden, I headed drunkenly with other drunk dudes to the Central Park Summerstage show featuring the legendary Television. Apples in Stereo played before them and during the Apple's set, it rained and thousands of fans got drenched. Just as the set was coming to an end though the rain stopped and by the time Television was ready it was all dry. By the time Tom Verlaine started doing his bad ass guitar solo/melodies it was a sunny and perfect day. Marquee Moon and Venus de Milo were played. People were happy. Not sure what else to say, movin on.

Apples in Stereo:

Television:


NEW YORK, June 17th. On that island between Manhattan and Queens called Roosevelt Island where there is a hospital and an abandoned smallpox hospital i.e. castle-ruin, there was an all after noon DIY BBQ.

Amongst dozens of happy souls lying peacefully in the sun to the tunes of 20 some bands playing acousticly whether they liked it or not was one unmanned barbeque grill. It had buns and meat and condiments all around it and you would just go and make yourself something all DIY like. Some interesting moments were when Dave from Dirty Projectors sang in a hearty freaky falsetto with the two female members of the band in an accompanying chorus about: not enough girls. I only think that's funny because I'm like that too I think. The three voices permeated the grassy landscape and resonated with the East River watersss. It was pretty. Then later on Big A Little A, better known as Aa played with 3 drum setups, a dude with a loud speaker, a dude with an alto sax, a baritone sax, a violin plugged into a mini speakers, lots of maracas, 2 "school is out" bells, a guy with a sampler or a drum machine or something plugged into a mini speaker, a guy with a tape player, and a boombox. It sounds like an army but I think it was 6 people in all. The coolest part I thought was when, in order to be heard, the vocalist / baritone sax player ran around on the outside of the drum circle pointing the "phone" portion of the saxaphone at the audience so that you could hear the bass line only once every revolution. Other really cool bands that played were Woods, Necking, I forget what else but I missed a lot of it because I was busy frolicking.



Moral of the story: do it yourself asshole, make your own fun via ingenuity AND WE AT SELFPORTRAIT ARE HERE TO HELP YOU ORGANIZE!! ...

P.S. I know my posts aren't very comment-worthy but if you were at these and want to reminisce, that would be awesome, maybe comments and suggestions to DIY entrapeneurs or to the bosses in the central park towers for future reference. Accounts of epiphanous moments would be great too. Thanks!