December 31, 2004

Rock/Pop Listings

selective listing by critics of The Times: New or noteworthy rock and pop music concerts in the New York metropolitan region this weekend, including special New Year's Eve celebrations tonight. * denotes a highly recommended concert. Full reviews of recent rock and pop music concerts: nytimes.com/music.

ASOBI SEKSU, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. What was once called shoegazer rock — shimmering, multilayered guitars enfolding confessions of longing and ambiguity — is back in Asobi Seksu, a New York band that wraps its guitars and keyboard around well-made pop melodies and the girlish ache of Yuki Chikudate's voice. Tonight at 8, topping a bill with Other Passengers, the Winter Pageant, Levy, Sylophone and Autodrone. Admission is $20, with a Champagne toast at midnight.   JON PARELES

BLACK 47, Connolly's Pub, 121 West 45th Street, Manhattan, (212) 597-5126. Black 47 represents Irish rock, New York style, where memories of jigs and reels and Irish history run into immigrant tales, politics and hip-hop. Tonight at 10:30; admission is $20.   PARELES

* BRAZILIAN GIRLS, the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Electronica, a live rhythm section and a wildly cosmopolitan spirit meet a charismatic and unpredictable singer, Sabina Sciubba, in the Brazilian Girls. The music dips into reggae, samba, funk and house, never staying in one place long. Tonight at 10:30, with the disc jockeys James and Justin spinning dance music until dawn. Admission is $20.   PARELES

DISCO BISCUITS, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, Manhattan, (212) 279-7740. The Disco Biscuits have worked their way up the jam-band circuit with blithe rock that veers toward funk and jazz, hovers in circling, hypnotic riffs and sometimes turns into a live version of electronic dance music, replacing computer drumbeats with muscle. Tonight at 9; tickets are $45.   PARELES

DJ SPOOKY, Rothko, 116 Suffolk Street, at Rivington Street, Lower East Side, www.rothkonyc.com. Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky, spins theories along with discs, and his collection runs to Stockhausen and Coltrane as well as breakbeats; whether he'll be ambient, uptempo or both is anyone's guess. He'll be joined by guests including the rapper Dalek. Tonight at 9; admission is $30.   PARELES

* DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Drive-By Truckers treat Southern rock as both music and mythos, reaching back to the Americana of the Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young. Their latest album, "The Dirty South" (New West), finds populist connections among Wal-Mart workers, musicians, moonshiners and drug dealers, all struggling to get by. Tonight at 1 a.m.; tickets are $35. Also appearing tomorrow at 9 p.m., with the garage-psychedelic trio Runner and the Thermodynamics opening; tickets are $20 in advance, $25 tomorrow.   PARELES

STEVE FORBERT, Joe's Pub, 425 Layfayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778. Steve Forbert, from Meridian, Miss., has outgrown the new-Dylan comparisons he drew in the late 1970's. Persevering through the years, he has turned into a winsome, determinedly optimistic folk-rock songwriter with more mileage on his voice and in his lyrics. Tomorrow and Sunday nights at 7; admission is $22 with a $12 food or drink minimum at a table.   PARELES

FORT BRAGG, Rodeo Bar, 375 Third Avenue, at 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 683-6500. A country band of Texans transplanted to New York City, Fort Bragg looks toward Austin, Nashville and Bakersfield, Calif., to sing about whiskey, the road and woman trouble. Tonight, the first set begins at 10; admission is free.   PARELES

GOGOL BORDELLO, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. Gogol Bordello, led by a gruff and extravagantly mustached Ukrainian singer, Eugene Hutz, calls itself a Gypsy punk band. Translating Eastern European cabaret to Brooklyn, Its songs work up to a frenetic oom-pah that's the makings of a rowdy party. Tonight at 9; tickets are $35.   PARELES

TIM GOLDSWORTHY, APT, 419 West 13th Street, (212) 414-4245. Tim Goldsworthy is a partner in the production team and label DFA and also the man behind the electronica group Unkle, reaching back to the funk-punk-electro hybrids of the early 1980's. He's doing a rare disc-jockey set for New Year's Eve, along with Tim Sweeney, Duane Harriott, Dante Cafargna and others. Tonight from 10; admission is $100, including an open bar from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., hors d'ouevres and a Champagne toast.   PARELES

* GOV'T MULE, Beacon Theater, 2124 Broadway, at 74th Street, Manhattan, (212) 496-7070. Warren Haynes, the guitarist and leader of Gov't Mule, is now a member of both the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead. With Gov't Mule, he brings the gravity of the blues and the rolling grooves of Southern rock together with the bleary determination of grunge. His songs are haunted by death and memory, and he leads them into jams that can be both soaring and unsparing. Tonight at 9; tickets are $53.50 to $73.50.   PARELES

GARLAND JEFFREYS AND THE CONEY ISLAND PLAYBOYS WITH MICK JONES, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. The songwriter Garland Jeffreys is a longtime voice of multiethnic New York, mixing rock, reggae and touches of everything from doo-wop to samba. Along with love songs and reminiscences of running "Wild in the Streets," he doesn't flinch from tough topics like racism. Tonight at 8; tickets are $65, with a two-drink minimum.   PARELES

HANK-O-RAMA, Arlene's Grocery, 95 Stanton Street at Ludlow Street (212) 358-1633. Hank Williams's songs are still a foundation of country music, even though they're considerably more stark than their latter-day successors. Local country bands including the Lonesome Prairie Dogs, the American String Conspiracy, Sean Kershaw and the New Jack Ramblers, the Blue State Band and Alex Battle's Whiskey Rebellion delve into the repertory. Tomorrow night at 8; admission is $7.   PARELES

EARTHA KITT, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, near Times Square, (212) 997-4144. She purrs, she growls, she teases and she rasps as she insinuates exactly what she wants from her man. Although it's a week late, she might still sing "Santa Baby." Tonight at 8; tickets are $125, including dinner and a glass of Champagne, and $50 for general-admission seats plus a $10 food or drink minimum with a complimentary glass of Champagne. At the 10:30 p.m. set, tickets are $150, including dinner and a glass of Champagne. General admission is $75 with a $10 food or drink minimum, which includes a free glass of Champagne.   PARELES

AMEL LARRIEUX, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Amel Larrieux, who used to sing with Groove Theory, is a high-minded pop-soul songwriter, singing about ambition and integrity. On albums, she floats her supple, girlish voice among twinkling starscapes of electric piano and phantom choruses of herself overdubbed; live, she's likely to be less ethereal. Tonight at 8:30, with Eric Roberson opening; admission is $95 with dinner, $45 for standing room.   PARELES

FRANK LONDON'S KLEZMER BRASS ALL-STARS/SCOTT KETTNER'S MARACATU NEW YORK, the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Party music from two continents: the oom-pah of klezmer in a band led by the trumpeter Frank London, and the Brazilian carnival beat of maracatu from Maracatu New York. Tonight at 8; admission is $15.   PARELES

JESSE MALIN, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, at 11th Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. Jesse Malin led D Generation, the glam-rock kings of St. Mark's Place, and has gone on to a solo career that's considerably more earnest. Tonight at 10; tickets are $35, including a buffet and a Champagne toast.   PARELES

PARTICLE/BUCKETHEAD, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Union Square, (212) 777-6800. Particle is a jam band rooted in funk whose marathon sets might include a jam on "Planet Rock," a long meditation on a single sustained chord, or a gospelly, organ-driven buildup fit for the Allman Brothers. Sharing the bill is the guitarist Buckethead, who hides his face behind a fried-chicken bucket and plays zooming, cutting hard-rock guitar leads that earned him a spot in Guns N' Roses. Tonight at 9; tickets are $45.  PARELES

* MIKE PATTON AND JOHN ZORN, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. The singer Mike Patton has countless voices, from yowl to cackle to heroic and mock-heroic rock belting; the saxophonist and composer John Zorn loves both melodies and goofy noises. They have worked together in the band Mr. Bungle, and they're capable of both tightly plotted works and wildly spontaneous improvisations. Tonight at 8; admission is $30. Tonight at 11, the band Trans Am — which has traversed 1970's rock from prog-rock excursions to terse electro songs — is added to the New Year's Eve bill; tickets are $35.   PARELES

PEACHES, TriBeCa Grand, 2 Avenue of the Americas, at Church Street, (212) 519-6677. With deadpan calm and rhyming skills so modest that Lil' Kim won't be losing any sleep, Peaches raps about sex, sex and more sex over bare-bones drum-machine beats and sampled power chords. It's a dopey high-concept shtick that can turn into stupid fun. Tonight, doors open at 10 p.m., and the disc jockeys including Spencer Product, DJ Language, Edward Newton and others until 8 a.m. Tickets are $99.   PARELES

* MARC RIBOT Y LOS CUBANOS POSTIZOS, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. The guitarist Marc Ribot, who has been in Tom Waits's band, can thread melodies through chord changes or make his guitar clank and boing. With his band Los Cubanos Postizos, he lovingly reaches back to the elegant Cuban melodies of Arsenio Rodriguez, giving them just a little modern edge. Tonight, the group is joined by Joe Bataan, who grew up in Spanish Harlem and, in the 1960's, began merging Engligh lyrics, Latin rhythms and funk into boogaloo and what he called Latin soul. Shows at 9:30 and 11:30; admission is $30 for the early show, $40 for the late show, or $60 for both, including a Champagne toast at midnight.   PARELES

* PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Love, death, transfiguration and pushy guitars have been Patti Smith's staples in the quarter-century since she turned her poetry into punk-rock. Always unpredictable and passionate, she still seeks shamanic revelation with every gig. Her New Year's Eve shows are reflections on the year past and rallying cries for the year to come. Tonight at 9; admission is $55, including a Champagne toast at midnight.   PARELES

SOUKOUS STARS, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Soukous is the Congolese music that sends guitars twining over a lilting rumba beat, and the Soukous Stars include two seasoned Congolese musicians, the guitarist Lokassa Ya Mbongo and the bassist Nguoma Lokito, not to mention four female dancers. Tonight, doors open at 8 p.m., the Soukous Stars begin at 10, and three disc jockeys will continue with African and world music until 4 a.m. Admission is $35 with a one-drink minimum.   PARELES

THE STAR SPANGLES, CBGB, 315 Bowery, at Bleecker Street, East Village, (212) 982-4052. Punk lives on in the hoarse vocals, speed-strummed guitars and revved-up pop melodies of the Star Spangles, whose songs have titles like "I Live for Speed" and "Stay Away From Me." Tonight at 8, with River City Rebels, Lady Unluck, Electric Shadows and Thee Minks opening; tickets are $17.50.   PARELES

STRING CHEESE INCIDENT, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, Manhattan, (212) 307-7171. This rather, uh, dopey jam band interrupts the Rockettes for a New Year's Eve show at Radio City Music Hall: the group is known for long, leisurely songs that sometimes draw from bluegrass; whereas Phish often used solos to send songs spiraling off in unexpected directions, String Cheese Incident favors more linear digressions, usually returning to the theme sooner rather than later. Tonight at 9; tickets are $70.   KELEFA SANNEH

THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. The Trachtenburg Family — Jason Trachtenburg on keyboard and his young daughter Rachel on drums — picks up collections of slides from garage sales and thrift stores and invents stories and songs around them that can be mocking or oddly moving. Tina Pia Trachtenburg, Jason's wife, runs the slide projector. Tonight at 7:30; tickets are $20.   PARELES

* PAUL VAN DYK, Ikon, 610 West 56th Street, Clinton, (212) 582-8282. The disk jockey and producer Paul van Dyk came out of East Berlin to become one of the leading figures in trance, the steady-pulsing, eternally upbeat dance music that fills club floors around the world. Various Playstation 2 games, including some still unreleased, will be available for play. Other disk jockeys in the lineup include Jon Obir, Jonathan Ojeda and Powerstar IM; there will also be stilt walkers, trapeze acts and other performers. Tonight at 12:30; tickets from $75 to four-person VIP packages, including hors d'oeuvres and a Champagne toast,for $1,100.  PARELES

* WILCO/THE FLAMING LIPS/SLEATER-KINNEY, Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue, (212)465-6741. After years on the indie-rock and alt-rock circuit, these bands probably can't believe they're playing Madison Square Garden, but their music is big enough for the room. Wilco was once an alt-country band, but those days are long gone. Now its songs mutate on the spot, from straightforward strumming to washes of texture, from minimalist patterns to electronic rumbles, from ballads to brute force. It's moody, unpredictable music that can be testy or simply gorgeous. The Flaming Lips are fond of goofy theatrics and stately, concept-heavy songs carried by Wayne Coyne's plaintive voice, while Sleater-Kinney pours passion into songs that hurtle along but never stop thinking, with jagged guitar lines, wailing vocals and heartfelt lyrics. Tonight 8; tickets are $37.50 to $57.50.   PARELES

ZEN TRICKSTERS, TriBeCa Rock Club, 16 Warren Street, (212) 766-1070. The Zen Tricksters got started two decades ago playing Grateful Dead songs. While they now have their own songs to jam on, they haven't forgotten their early repertory; no less a figure than Phil Lesh of the Dead has called on the expertise of Rob Barraco, a former Trickster keyboardist who will be rejoining his old band for this show. Tonight at 9; tickets are $25.  PARELES

ZLATNE USTE, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Balkan brass bands run like old motorcycles: fast, loud and unstoppable. The 12-piece Zlatne Uste, which means "golden lips," is a New York group with a repertory from the former Yugoslavia and beyond, and it turns tricky meters and zigzag melodies into high-octane party music. Sunday night at 7:30; admission is $10 with a one-drink minimum.   PARELES