The Sad Little Stars Are Back As We Intersect

And how! Paul Wallfisch and his Small Beast made it possible: After what seems like more than a year of absence from the stage, Rachel and Max of this bloggers favorite New York band The Sad Little Stars performed a splendid set of songs on Monday night as We Intersect. Don Paul - brimming with energy and playful as ever -opened the evening. Later he joined the great Alice Texas and her band through dark, but warm numbers, before Rachel and Max took the stage, him on piano, her on just the right amount of synth. They played not only old faves from the Sad Little Stars Record - yes, Don't Fuck With Love - but also an interesting choice of covers: Ramones, Big Star and the Smiths, among them. Most captivating though were the new songs. At times, I thought I hear a new song by John Lennon that Lennon didn't write, then I heard a new hit by Depeche Mode that they had nothing to do with. But not only the songs are great pieces, the duo's vocal delivery is impeccable, pitch perfect, the harmonies soothing the soul, the mind wandering. This is music at its purest.

Spike Lee's "Passing Strange" with C.Gibbs

This is the trailer for Spike Lee's new movie "Passing Strange". It's a kind of a wild concert film about the musical that was shown last year on Broadway and featured Christian Gibbs. If you couldn't make it to the real thing, now you get a taste of what you missed. The film's opening tomorrow, Friday, Aug 20th at IFC cinema in the West Village. Meet Christian at the 6:15 showing. And yes, they were kind enough to keep the musicians in the movie.

The One Year Band and the The Clean Room

Room and The One Year Band live at Fontana's. Pic by Rozenn Nicolle

Fontana's the Third: Quite an overbooked evening, six or seven bands in one night, not quite the room we hoped for. You do with what you can, so we cut the sets down, which is especially sad in the case of the One Year Band with the fantastic Karen Geyer in the somber spotlight teasing the microphone but not using it. The sound reminding here of Velvet Underground, sonic landscapes, flurries of Pink Floyd and probably a vast universe of jazz and classical stuff, but what do I know about that.
Room came in black for a change, a little introspective yet overloaded, cruising on autu-control through a set of too many slow songs. Living in the fast lane on the wrong track? Nah, just break before the curves. Room will be back with Anton and the We Ours at National Underground on September 9th, and who knows what to expect then.

Room and the One Year Band at Fontana's

Your lovely Euro Wave outfit ROOM is back after a little summer break with new songs, new form, a new guitar for Burnt and a new bass for Jean-Cosme. While Martial is vacationing in France, the great Tim Kuhl is going to be drumming with us his grooves bind the band into a pretty tight, powerful unit. Come on down and hear the story of the Parachute Tester, the Development Aid Worker and the Fish Cutter, among others.

Opening at 10PM is the ONE YEAR BAND, a fantastic project by Swiss-german artist Karen Geyer who arrived in New York about a year ago with the plan to form a band, rehearse for a year, give a hand full of shows and then disband... This is their FIRST GIG EVER and from what we hear from the rehearsal space, it will be grand.

It's 5 bucks at the door, but if you can't afford this, drop me a line and I'll put you on the guest list - we wanna have your ear, not your money. Bring your friends and spread the word! We hope to see you!

Room live at Fontana's on May 7th with veteran Roomie Jan Haux

The Beast and the Flash in the Frying Pan

Quentin, Roman and Daria playing at Eveline and Roger's wedding. Picture by Rita Emch, thanx.

The first of August, Swiss National Day, as you all know by now, brought another nice party on the roof of 230 5th Avenue and then Roger and Eveline's very musical wedding on the Frying Pan at Pier 66. And mark this date: They had a combo of great musicians there and honestly, it was the first time ever that jazz really got me: Warm, compelling, tight and light. We danced. Daria and quentin joined me for a song for the wedding couple. We took in the evening breeze at the reeling of the old lighthouse boat and looked at the lights of the city.

The week had started with the Small Beast at Delancey, where we were on the same bill as Paul Wallfisch from Botanica, the unique Martin Bisi, who once again proved that nobody really knows what's going on inside the heads of genius producers. Excentric barely describes Martin's Music! Then the sweet Cherie Lily was on and played cute bubblegum pop songs with backing tracks, a 20 minute dose of happiness. We took the stage after eleven, Dave Spinely joined on most of the set adding great but subtle power to some hooks. Burnt lit up his new nashville guitar. I felt i had a nice reverb on my voice, and the acoustic was not too much out of tune. Looks like people could follow the lyrics and seemed to like the song about fish cutter and the one abut the parachute tester most. Karen geyer, who showed up to play double bass on two songs by the late troubadour Mani Matter and had never rehearsed with us, ended up playing almost the whole set after a quick look at the song sheets. Amazing - wait till you hear her with her own material, for example on August 13th at Fontana's. More about that show with Room soon. For the finale at the beat, swiss artist Regula Kueffer joined on flute and the extraordinary chef rocker Tobi Joi played his selfmade alphorn called 'alprose', at which point even the bartender noticed there was a live band.

Ne personne ici joue comme Martin Bisi