GAYLETTER

The last time I saw the adorable James Blake perform at Terminal 5 ended with me in tears as he delicately sung “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell alone on stage with this keyboard. No shame, though, I loved every second of it.

Blake is back again at the uptown venue this Wednesday, Nov. 6 and Thursday, Nov. 7, free of the typical agenda of having to promote some new body of work. These aren’t songs for dancing, but a lot of them do mimic the movements of great dance singles —  the building of layered beats, free-range sampling, organic synth-pop twangs and the omnipresence of deep bass. Some of the most endearing parts of a James Blake show comes when he humbly speaks to the audience about his songs, briefly exposing a inconsoable man alone with just his voice and his noise machines.

Variety within the songs, an amazing light technician and the ever-lively Terminal 5 audience will make this week’s performances just as infectious. My suggestion: perch on one of the venue’s upper levels, grab a cold-weather appropriate drink and let Blake’s amorphous, harrowing and visceral sound wash over you.

$32/$35, doors – 7:00PM, show – 8:00PM, Tickets available here. …

You’re lucky to have a chance to see M.I.A. this Friday at Terminal 5 — her last album was supposed to be her last, and she had decided to “quit music.” But our favorite feminist provocateur and her distinctly global punk goulash is back with a new album, ‘Matangi,’ a version of M.I.A.’s first name (Mathangi) and the name of a Hindu goddess she stumbled across on Google that governs speech, music, knowledge, and art.

This friday, Nov. 1st,  you’ll likely get a taste not only of M.I.A.’s wild stage presence (she’s being sued by the NFL for her Superbowl performance with Madonna) but some of the tracks from the new album that comes out next Tuesday. If the singles like Bad Girls, Bring the Noize, and Y.A.L.A. (a rejoinder to YOLO emphasizing the album’s spiritually inspired title that means You Always Live Again) are any indication, the rest of the album should be divine. Political as ever, one song was written after collaborating with Julian Assange.

Check her out this Friday, she’ll be sure to have you dancing away that Halloween hangover while her rapidfire rap deconstructs NSA surveillance and women’s rights. Don’t miss it.

Click here for tickets. …

Nick Roseboro, Carter Yasutake, Morgan Wiley, Jason Disu, W. Andrew Raposo and Tiffany Roth — the geniuses behind the infectious band, Midnight Magic — have been lighting fires on NYC dancefloors for a while now. With a list of credentials that include time spent as session players for LCD Soundsystem and Hercules and the Love and the electrifying beauty of lead singer, Ms. Roth, it’s no surprise why they were chosen to help shut down Terminal 5 on one of the most rambunctious nights of the year.

I’ve been lucky enough to see these guys perform over half a dozen times, and through it all have witnessed them bring onstage a hoola-hooping audience member, get a champagne facial in the middle of a set, and sweat through an entire wardrobe of big band-style suits and sparkly dresses. On Halloween night they’re set to play an epic show at Terminal 5 alongside some of our favorites folks, Holy Ghost!, Joakim and Eli Escobar.

We briefly chatted with the group about psychedelic fantasies, all-time favorite rumbas and explosive power bottoms.

If your music were a person, what would it wear on Halloween? Divine.

What would it dream about? It would dream about The Boxer’s Omen.

With which Simpsons character would it identify? Bleeding Gums Murphy.

What are you listening to right now? Moondog, Gary Numan, Youth Faire, Celia Cruz.

What are your thoughts on making it in New York?  …

The two shape shifting brothers from Los Angeles who go by the name of Sparks (Russell and Ron Mael) are touring yet again. These guys are changelings; they’ve released 22 albums, each possessing something unique to their peers and to themselves. The only comparison I can come up with is the iconic protopunk duo Suicide — Sparks however will not whip you with chains while screaming “Frankie” over and over again in your ear — Sparks will merely lure you in with their poetry and at times surrealist sounds.

Sparks have done glam rock, psychedelic rock, chamber pop, opera and busted out ballads over their 42 year career. 42 years is a long fucking time; they clearly love what they do and I’m sure you will too.

Expect something weird…wonderfully weird. Expect something memorable. Expect something lucid. Expect something funny and profound. Expect a hipster crowd. Expect me to be there.

“For those who saw the tour in its first incarnation, we promise to keep the intensity up, the two-hands, one-mouthiness up, the no-computeriness up, and also perform a bunch of tunes not played on the original tour,” says Russell Mael.

$30, Monday, October 28^th, 8:30PM, Webster Hall, 125 East. 12th St. NY, NY. Click here  for tickets and more information. 

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Walk into an Bushwick warehouse party or flip through the pages of your favorite glossy magazine and it’s undoubtedly clear that what’s old is new again. Some things should never see the light of day again (“hip-huggers” immediately come to mind), and some things deserve a permanent residency in our frontal lobes for all eternity.

Enter Donna Summer.

Out now, ‘Love To Love You Donna’, gives us disco heads the rare chance dip back into a genre’s heyday while guided by the hand of today’s most sought-after DJs and producers. Legends such as Giorgio Moroder, Frankie Knuckles, Hot Chip, Duke Dumont and Gigamesh are among the few master remixers to some of Donna’s most iconic tracks. Album highlights (there are just too many to list!) include an absolutely blissful retake on “Sunset People” from the boys behind Hot Chip, and an infectious Holy Ghost! reworking of “Working The Midnight Shift.”

Nothing here will ever beat the original tracks, but it’s great to see a group of artists work together to help resurrect a woman who dedicated her career to making gays move.

‘Love To Love You Donna’ out now on Verve (available on iTunes and Spotify) …

With his large, curious eyes and tuft of blond, loose curls, Baby Alpaca frontman, Chris Kittrell, does a pretty convincing job of personifying the animal his band shares a name with. I’m not sure if Alpacas fall in love (like dolphins), but if they do, the band’s debut EP would be the soundtrack to their presumingly heart-wrenching breakups.

One part James Blake, one part The Smiths, Baby Alpaca’s self-titled EP is just as hopeful as it is tragic. On the album’s first single, Sea of Dreams, Chris floats off into the growing horizon with a lover, only to reassure us he’s doing fine all by himself with the ballad, Wild Child.

Along with his guitarist and pianist, Zach McCillan, the duo will play an intimate session at Pianos tonight as part of CMJ‘s ongoing pre-festival teasers. Come early, get wine drunk, and bring ya hankies, ladies.

Tickets for sale here  …

Alexander Skarsgård‘s glamouring powers are back as the Swedish Adonis plays the shirtless leader of a cult for Cut Copy‘s latest single, ‘Free Your Mind.’ Bongo-enhanced house beats run wild while our hero bops from minion to minion, proceeding about his masterly duties to the sound of Dan Whitford‘s voice pleading for us all to break free.

Just so we’re on the same page, Alex, I don’t care if that acrylic wig fails to blow in the wind, I’d gladly wash your dirty feet, allow you to play imaginary drums on my head, and delight in the chance to examine your urine. Please pass the Kool-Aid!

The band’s upcoming fourth album of the same title drops November 5 via Loma Vista/Modular.

Enjoy the video:

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The latest video of our favorite pop-star and role model Rihanna for the song “Pour it up” is out. Rihanna sits on her throne, she twerks lying down in a pool of water (Miley please pay attention, you might learn a lot from this), swings around stripper poles, touches herself, spreads her legs in some fun bling-y outfits, and offers up a cunty selection of wigs…

Ass and money. Riri’s going dumb with all her friends and we approve!

Below is the making-of for the music video (which Rihanna co-directed). Favorite moment — when Riri is talking about one particular stripper with a massive ass she says, “We got her a dressing room, then we got another one for her butt.” Adorbs.

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For all those who saw MS MR play last night at Webster hall, we thought we’d revisit our interview with one half of the band: Max Hershenow. For those who don’t know, MS MR is a New York-based band featuring Max and vocalist Lizzy Plapinger. Their debut album Secondhand Rapture was released at the start earlier this year. We suggest you GO GET IT right now. They’ve been compared to Florence and the Machine, even Lana Del Rey. I don’t know about that, Lizzy certainly has a big voice (so I can see why people think of Florence) but they’re definitely doing their own thing.

The duo met at Vassar College, a few years back and have been kicking arse ever since. They’re still growing their presence in the US, but in the UK they’re getting a lot of buzz (I should know, cos I pretty much have BBC’s Radio 1 streaming constantly through my computer all day long — and they’ve been getting a lot of airplay.)

Max is adorable. He reached out to us cos he’s a fan of GAYLETTER and by the end of our conversation the feeling was most certainly mutual. We met on his record label’s rooftop, it was a little windy, and I sounded hungover (I need to work on my energy in videos, Jesus) but he made up for it with all the interesting things he had to say. We talked about the album, making girls vomit for his video Fantasy and his plans to turn Lizzy into a gay icon. …

2Pretty is an emerging band based in New York City. They’re a real tough pill to swallow for some and a real treasure for others. The band consists two humanoid performers, Lain Kay (pictured left) and Colin Self (right), and an iPod plugged into speakers with a playlist full of personally made electronic nightmare beats.

I first encountered 2Pretty at Death By Audio on August 24^th 2013. I was getting drunk in the back room and heard some wild electronic noises seeping through from the front; I turned to my friend and said “What the fuck? I have never heard electro music here before” — I was kind of pissed off, I came to see Hunx and his Punx and now I was being subjected to dance music… So I swiftly staggered from the back to the front expecting to see a really terrible gig. I was immediately proven wrong — these boys are animals on stage. I expect that what I felt was similar to what those audience members felt at an early Suicide gig. They’re tough. They’re screamers. This isn’t club music, this is something else.

Where are you both from? 

Colin: I’m from Aloha, Oregon. It’s on the edge of rural/suburban area about a half hour from Portland. I moved to Olympia, Washington to go to Evergreen when I was 17, then hopped all over the states, lived in Chicago, now New York.

Lain: I grew up in Minnesota, lived around old people, livestock and white trash. …

The shambolic night begun at The Levee in Williamsburg, not far from the concert venue, we had whiskey and a chance to shoot virtual deer in Hi-Def. I was drinking with the up-and-coming queer DJ duo BE2GAY talking about working illegally and stolen Metro cards. It was raining and my partner for the evening, Dan, was wearing a white linen t-shirt with socks and sandals. The weather wasn’t working in his favor as we left for 285 Kent. We had to run if he wanted to maintain his presentable get-up. As expected Hunx and his Punx could not care less about our presentability, it was the least of their worries. They would’ve done the interview if we were wearing stained hoodies and torn underwear. These guys are down to earth — more so than me and I’m not the one with a sold out show at one of New York’s top live music venues. I’m also not the one with a legion of gay youth trying to get into bed with me. (Why is my ego so blown out of proportion?) Hunx did point out that I am an Aries, which means I’m young and confident, maybe I’m just immature and arrogant?

Let me take a moment to provide Kaitlin Browne of 285 Kent with a well-deserved shout out for getting us into the sold out show — she’s a friend to all flustered homosexual journalists. I thank you kindly… you saved our story.

Once we made it into the jam-packed venue we made our first face-to-face contact with Seth Bogart, the one and only — Hunx. …