A private eye. A plainclothes cop. A law-abiding citizen turned to a life of crime. A victim of circumstance. Film noir, an often debated term to describe the stylish Hollywood crime melodramas initially regarded from the early 1940s to late 1950s, is a low key black and white visual style with roots in German Expressionistic cinematography with many of the prototypical stories derived from the hardboiled school of fiction which emerged in the U.S. during the Depression. Film Noir music, on the other hand, is obvious when you hear it. A haunting sax solo. A distant trumpet. A cocktail piano over a Latin beat. Sultry songs in a small, smoky nightclub oozing out into the dark, wet alleyway like neon from a flickering sign.
Tune into your source for all things soundtrack HERE, Morricone Youth, this Sunday, January 29 from 2-4pm ET, for host Devon E. Levins' curated listen to sound of the Film Noir. Expect the original masters Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, Adolph Deutsch and David Raksin as well as plenty of re-interpretations and contemporary takes on the music from this classic genre.
Dances of Vice calls all dangerous women, fugitive lovers, dashing desperadoes, lonely detectives and ne’er-do-wells are to the sequel to last year’s crime noir soiree “The Diamond Ace”, a 1960s themed salute to classic film noir at Public Assembly executed in grand pulp ...style.
Sponsored in part by New York crime fiction publisher Hard Case Crime, “The Diamond Ace II” promises a night of mystery, passion, suspense and seduction with live crime jazz and film noir music by Morricone Youth.
New York femme fatales Bettina May, Ruby Valentine and Tansy Tandora weave tales of violence and temptation before your eyes, and DJs Michael Leviton and Devon E. Levins provide a killer soundtrack for your dancing pleasure until the early hours.
Hard Case Crime prizes will be awarded to the most thematic dressed attendees.
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Dances of Vice & Shien Lee Creative Group Present
The Diamond Ace II
A Salute to Classic Film Noir and Pulp Fiction
Please check the 1/22/12 archive HERE for the 2012 -The End Titles installment of Morricone Youth. All End Titles in honor of this year's impending doom.
Classic Hollywood glamour meets downtown Manhattan chic at "Dances of Vice: The Grand Illusion", the most spectacular New Year's Eve celebration in New York, produced in partnership with Shien Lee Creative Group at the luxurious Tribeca Grand Hotel.
Sultry screen sirens, debonair gents, and young sophisticates converge to celebrate the coming year with requisite abandon from 9pm-4am as Tribeca Grand Hotel comes alive with a cavalcade of dazzling cirque, aerial, burlesque, tango, and showgirl performances, followed by New York's most sensational indoor ball drop in the hotel's eight-story atrium.
Dance among winking beauties and tomorrow's leading men to the live music of Morricone Youth, performing dance music and crime jazz from films of the 1960s and 70s after midnight, with New York's best DJs spinning all night in the Church Lounge.
Enjoy a bevy of tantalizing desserts and gourmet hors d'oeuvres catered by Tribeca Grand's award-winning chefs, and delicious cocktails in a premium open bar from 9pm-1am.
Tickets for an unforgettable evening of passion, glamour and romance on the last night of 2011 are available now at the Tribeca Grand E-Shop. Late-night reduced admission after midnight dependent upon space and availability. Formal evening attire requested. Official Press Release, 12/13/11
On Morricone Youth this weekend, host Devon E. Levins will welcome Brooklyn-based composer/saxophonist Michael Blake and writer/producer/director John Rubino to discuss their new film Vodka Rocks!, a satire about branding, consumerism and the Hollywood dream factory, and to listen to the score featuring some of New York's finest musicians Steven Bernstein, Owen Howard, Napolean Maddox, Marcus Rojas and Jennifer Charles.
Michael Blake honed his skills in John Lurie's iconic The Lounge Lizards. Blake's first solo album was produced by the legendary Teo Macero and he has since produced another ten as a leader along with three with his band Slow Poke featuring David Tronzo, Tony Scherr and Kenny Wolleson. Michael has written for television and film and can be heard on the popular kids show theme The Backyardigans and John Lurie's soundtracks for Get Shorty, Excess Baggage, Fishing with John and African Swim.
John Rubino is a writer, producer and director of independent feature films and documentary projects. John just finished production on Vodka Rocks!, his second feature film. Lotto Land, his first which he also wrote, produced and directed, was distributed theatrically by CFP/Lions Gate Films and won Best Screenplay at the Avignon film festival. John’s interest in music led him to put a major focus on the music element of his films. Lotto Land stars Wendell Holmes, a member of the Holmes Brothers who co-wrote and recorded the music with John.
Bronx-born/Ohio-raised Cliff Martinez moved to California in 1976 during the middle of the L.A. punk movement. After stints as the drummer for L.A.'s Finest - the Weirdos, Lydia Lunch and Foetus frontman Jim Thirlwell, and the final incarnation of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band ("Ice Cream For Crow"), Martinez joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the band’s first two albums (the Andy Gill-produced debut and the George Clinton-produced Freaky Styley) and later the Dickies. It was during his tenure with the Chili Peppers that Cliff began exploring the new technologies of that era, which would eventually guide him towards film music.
A tape Martinez had put together using these new technologies made its rounds, leading him to score an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. The same recording also ended up in Steven Soderbergh’s hands and Martinez was hired to score the famed director’s first theatrical release 1989’s "sex, lies, and videotape." Martinez’s longstanding relationship with Soderbergh has continued through the years and they have worked together on ten theatrical releases including Kafka, The Limey, Traffic, Solaris and 2011’s Contagion. Perhaps it is because of his time in the punk scene that Martinez’s approach to scoring is nontraditional. His scores tend towards being stark and sparse, utilizing a modern tonal palette to paint the backdrop for films that are often dark, psychological stories like Pump Up the Volume (1990), Wonderland (2003), Wicker Park (2004) and Drive (2011).
Cliff Martinez’s recent films (Nicolas Refn’s Drive, Xavier Giannoli’s Talk Show, and Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion) along with the composer's illustrious career, will be the subject of this coming Morricone Youth. Listen live starting at 2pm ET on Sunday!
Listen to a very special Morricone Youth as your host Devon E. Levins welcomes acclaimed artist, actor, and musician John Lurie to the program for the first in a special two-part discussion about Mr.Lurie's soundtrack work. Part two will be streamed live on November 6th at 2pm ET at www.evr.com and on EVR's free mobile app for the iPhone and Android.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1952, John Lurie remains a true American original. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Lurie led the legendary band, The Lounge Lizards, which Lester Bangs of The New York Times proclaimed as "staking out new territory that lies somewhere west of Charles Mingus and east of Bernard Hermann." In addition, he recorded 22 albums and over 20 film scores including The John Lurie National Orchestra's Men With Sticks and movie soundtracks for over 20 films, the most notable being Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Manny and Lo, Clay Pigeons, Animal Factory, and Get Shorty, which earned him a Grammy nomination.
In 1999, Lurie created the fictional character Marvin Pontiac and recorded The Legendary Marvin Pontiac - Greatest Hits CD for his own label, "Strange and Beautiful Music". Marvin Pontiac was said to be an insane African musician, who would only record for a label if its president came out and mowed his lawn. Pontiac was later hit and killed by a bus, outside the Esmeralda State Mental Institution.
As an actor, he had starring roles in the Jim Jarmusch films Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law. This led to appearances in numerous films with some of the world's foremost directors: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas; Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ; David Lynch’s Wild at Heart; as well as a regular role on the HBO series Oz. Following his work in film, Lurie went on to write, direct, and star in the critically acclaimed television series Fishing with John, which aired on IFC and Bravo. Episodes included guests such as Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, Jim Jarmusch and Dennis Hopper. According to the critic Glenn O'Brien, "Lurie elevates this venerable institution to a whole new level, doing for the American fishing format what Cézanne did for the still life."
For over thirty years, Lurie has been drawing and painting, yet only in the last eight years has he chosen to exhibit his work. John Lurie emerged onto the art scene in the spring of 2004, when he had his first painting exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery. Since then Lurie’s work has been exhibited in esteemed galleries throughout the world. His solo museum exhibits include P.S.1. Contemporary Arts Center in New York, Musee Des Beaux-Arts De Montreal, the Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, who gave their entire museum to the presentation of Lurie's work.The Museum of Modern Art in New York have acquired his work for their permanent collections.
Lurie has published two books of his work, Learn To Draw, a compilation of black and white drawings and most recently A Fine Example of Art, a full color book of over 80 reproductions. John Lurie's drawings and paintings express a disarming mixture of corrosive wit, raw emotion and unblemished sensitivity. His works bear the mark of an outsider, a quality present throughout his idiosyncratic career. To quote the artist: "I like to draw and paint. It is a river to me. I am not an Indian."
This Friday, November 4th, is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 57 days remaining until the end of year, which means we, the Morricone Youth, have less than a handful of performances remaining until apocalyptic 2012. Friday is one of those performances... Hope to see you there.
MORRICONE YOUTH– 8:30 pm your favorite progenitors of the obscure, not so obscure, and original cinematic film scores... *This Show is FREE!
Rockwood Music Hall – Stage 1 196 Allen St
New York, NY 10002
Between Houston & Stanton
www.rockwoodmusichall.com
Remember to listen to
Morricone Youth Radio Sundays from 2-4 PM ET Only on... East Village Radio www.eastvillageradio.com/shows/morriconeyouth www.myspace.com/morriconeyouth
www.morriconeyouth.blogspot.com
Music from the first talking picture onwards. If it was written to accompany images on a screen, we'll play it. Popcorn optional
