Jun 28, 2009
POSTED BY Emilie Friedlander
Judging from its mile-long roster of musicians, filmmakers, and participating record labels, the second installment of the Todd Pendu-curated NY Eye and Ear Fest promises to be an even greater fulfillment of December’s inaugural ambition: to create a giant, swarming, lovingly handpicked showcase of grassroots cultural production in New York, along with the like-minded organizations and businesses that help disseminate it to the public. Pendu’s vision of an all-ages biannual concert and record fair devoted exclusively to the joy of discovery — that of new and unusual musics, emerging visual artists, and even “new friends” [the Pendu Org website]–seems to have struck a resonant chord with the local DIY contingent, and beyond; since premiering last year at Vanishing Point, the festival has already doubled in size, duration, and physical wingspan.
On July 9th and 10th, Eye & Ear II will take over all three floors of the Knitting Factory for two days of non-stop musical action, including a video art installation and “7-hour continuous drone room” in the basement. Next up, the festivities will travel to the 92Y Tribeca Cultural and Community Center for a “free” record fair (admission, not records, though these will be cheaply priced), additional live performances, and the debut of Women of NYCinema, a new Pendu-coordinated film series. Day four brings the party back to Brooklyn, which obviously had to feature somewhere in this celebration of predominately Brooklyn-based artists, for a finale concert at Death By Audio in Williamsburg.
Thursday, July 9th, 6pm- Knitting Factory – $10 Adv/$12 Door
74 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013
Nymph, Begushkin, Religious to Damn, Love Like Deloreans, Grooms, Hunters, Blondes, Neg-Fi, Liturgy, Mike Wexler, Love or Perish, George Steeltoe Ensemble, Best Hits, Dinowalrus, Rebecca Gaffney, Harrison Owen, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Dubsdread, Jesse Gelaznik, Bob Bellerue, Anthony Saunders, Rust Worship, Christian Science Minotaur
Friday, July 10th, 6pm – Knitting Factory - $10 Adv/$12 Door
74 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013
Magik Markers, Mouthus, Led Er Est, Telecult Powers, Further Reductions, Key to Shame, Skin Drink, SSPS, Child Abuse, Mazing Vids, Mirror Mirror, Hallux, Towering Heroic Dudes, chaos.CM.majik, Ala Muerte, Fluorescent Vibes, Mi Or and the Pedestals, Don Sigal, Steve Lowenthal (DJ), Jane Tesco (DJ), Veronica Vasicka (DJ)
Saturday, July 11th – 92Y Tribeca Cultural and Community Center
200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
Free Record Fair featuring 30+ DIY record labels and zine/comic/sticker/art vendors, 4pm to Midnight
Abandon Ship Records, AnarchyMoon Recordings, Baked Tapes, Cryptic Carousel, Death by Audio, Digital Cassette Records, Does Are, ESP Disk, Esto Perpetua Records, Fingered Media, Heat Retention Records, The Journal of Popular Noise, Little Fury Things, Missing Fingers, NO-CORE, Noiseville, Obsolete Units, Opposite Records, Pendu Sound Recordings, Speed Tapes, Tesco USA, Wierd Records
Women of NYCinema, 4pm, $10 Adv/$12 Door
Sarah Lipstate, Liz Wendelbo, Rachel Blackwell
Musical Performances, 9pm, $10 Adv/$12 Door
Blacklist, Martial Canterel, John Wiese, Freshkills, Infinity Window, Living Days, Axoloti, Island’s Eyelids, Grasshopper, Pieter Wierd (DJ)
Sunday, July 12th, 6pm – Death By Audio, $10 Adv/$12 Door
49 South 2nd Street between Wythe & Kent Brooklyn, NY
Murdertronics, Team Robespierre, Talibam!, Total Abuse, Drunk Driver, Pygmy Shrews, Opponents
Previously on Arthurmag.com:
[...] This month’s installment of NY Eye and Ear presented over seventy bands and filmmakers across four days and a heterogeneous scattering of venues: the Knitting Factory, a commercial but historically open-minded Manhattan music club; the 92nd Street Y, a non-profit cultural and community center in Tribeca; and Death by Audio, a leaky DIY performance space and guitar pedal manufacturer overlooking the East River in Williamsburg. For the two shows at the Knitting Factory, Pendu configured the performance schedule to allow for a maximum of musical discovery without provoking sensory overload. Spectators circulated round-robin style through three floors, catching a clipped, 20-minute set by one band as the following band set up downstairs–or zoning out for a time in the seven-hour continuous drone room in the basement, where a handful of artists–Pendu’s own solo project, chaos.CM.majik, included–facilitated an alternative experience of duration. Rather than group artists by genre, Pendu focused on making each evening as representative as possible of the sheer diversity of DIY musical production in New York. Night one, for example, followed up a free jazz detonation by George Steeltoe Ensemble with some danceable numbers by synth nerd trio Love Like Deloreans, then rolled out the carpet for Mike Wexler’s darkly glistening guitar folk. “I look at it like making a mix-tape,” Todd explains. “A mix-tape has all different kinds of music on it, but they all work, because if you’ve made a good mix-tape, you’ve made it flow in such a way that you can have all different genres. [...]. And then the whole thing just became something that you can’t get enough of.” [...]