William Shanks 18 posts 0 comments

It’s 8:30pm in the East Village, and a woman is shrieking. A baseball cap, stylized New York written across its face, hangs off the neck of her guitar. The woman, Taja Cheek, is playing the second of two New York nights to tour her new…

The Reptilian Conspiracy Theory posits that there is an intergalactic group of lizards who, by assuming human form and amassing financial, political and cultural power, secretly control Earth. Most serious interpretations of the theory…

There was a buzz on the streets around Warsaw in Greenpoint on Friday night. The sun was setting on a day of blue skies and balmy weather. Blossoms had appeared in the nearby McCarren Park, lending it a warm pinkish aspect. The air was…

Do you ever feel like you don’t know what day it is? Or maybe, when you bump into an old friend or go someplace you've not been in a while, you forget what year it is altogether, like you got in some reversing DeLorean and went back to the…

An album launch party can be an abstract concept, no different from another gig on a long tour. But this particular album launch party, celebrating the release of Alison Shearer’s In The Garden, with hazelnut cake gratis and guest…

Social media heavyweights are agitating against the “epidemic” of Australians in New York City. Their claims to a unique culture, we are told, are disingenuous and plain. And while I agree that Brooklyn probably doesn’t need another brunch…

There are shows that are about the music. There are shows that are about the personalities, the showmanship. Then there are shows that are about something bigger, something outside the concert space. The performance of Godspeed You! Black…

Trouser Press books, a New York-based publishing house specializing in music journalism and fiction, is publishing London Calling New York New York by English journalist Peter Silverton on March 12. The book tells the winding tale - or…

Esperanza Spalding, the Portland-born bassist and singer, performed a night of shapeshifting avant-garde jazz at the Blue Note on Wednesday, February 19. The hour-and-a-half set was part of a 12-night, two-show-a-night run at the West…

The Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Philip Nuzzo, performed a night of 20th Century British classical music at the enchanting St Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights, February 7. Lasting nearly two hours, the…