Writing Culture: Food, Film & Beyond

Left to Right: Megan Thomas, Shannon Conley, Steph Paynes

It was 15 minutes to 3 and I found myself running late for the event. Splish Splash, Splish, Splash, my pants was drenched wet, my socks soaked in rain, and my umbrella destroyed halfway battling against a 14 mph wind. I should have stayed in bed but instead I was rushing to see Lez Zeppelin.

Lez Zeppelin, the all female tribute band, not to be confused with Led Zeppelin, the all American male rock band from the 60s, performed at J&R music store on April 16. The band staged at the $5.99-$19.99 CD sections and was supposedly set to perform at 3pm.

A small crowd of 35 started to form, pre-dominantly middle aged males and a few families. I was lucky enough to get a close spot near the stage. However, it was unfortunate that the band didn’t show up on time and I was stuck in between aisles breathing in dust from the plastic wrap of the CD’s and the smell of unflattering cologne from the guy next to me.

The band setting up

The band arrived 45 minutes late and the crowd was less than welcoming after having their patience tested. The 4 band members, minus one group member, immediately set up and apologized for the delay. They started the event off with a song from their recent released album, Lez Zeppelin 1, track 2, “Baby, I’m going to leave you.”

“Baby, I’m going to leave you,” can be described as a drug, a repeating trance with a smooth calmness to the ear. When the chorus hit, it gets your head rocking wildly back and forth with the beat of the guitar.  Compared to the original version, Robert Plant, lead vocalist, sang it with soul while Shannon Conley sang it with a country, hippie accent that puts you into a dazed and relaxed the mind. I personally like both and applauded Steph Paynes, founder and guitarist of the group, for her amazing rock and roll solo. She rocked it out like Vinnie Moore. The riffs of her electric guitar quickly stirred up the ground, the vibrations crawled up my spine and spiked into my chest.

In unexpected times, Paynes slowed down the pace of her strumming and Conley comes back in with her trance-like vocal and ended it with a stretched. “It’s calling me, it’s calling me back…home…..” Megan Thomas sat there giving her support.

The band started out in New York in 2004. They devoted their performance to the original works of Led Zeppelin and within a year, they started to get more media attention. They appeared on Spin magazine, Chicago times, and CBS Good Morning America. They have toured in Europe, Japan, and the US. Right now, they are planning to do an extensive tour on the east coast.

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Video Daughters takes you on a trip to the world of noise

If you don’t like noise, stay away from Video Daughters. Because if there is something this experimental band is good at, it is creating noise.

It is drums and hums turning into industrial noises, taking you into dark street corners. It is cars speeding on a highway. Its equally poppy and hard. And it is definitely not always rhythmical, but then again, clearly never boring.

Video Daughters, a Brooklyn based group of four is not a band that could step up on stage at Madison Square Garden. But in a place like Public Assembly in Williamsburg, an old factory building transformed into a popular performance space, Video Daughters fits perfectly. Dressed in plaid-shirts, with their long and unbrushed hair, the four members succeeds with the rough-enough-but-still-cute look, that easily attracts young hipsters from the neighborhood. This Sunday the 17th of April a crowd of about fifty, both female and male youngsters, gathered to nod their heads and swing their bodies to Video Daughters electric rhythms.

While setting up their gear on stage Mike Green, lead singer, guitarist and on-and-of drummer announced that there was a new addition to the band: Randy Riback, taking care of the drums. Prior to this new member,  all the other three musicians used to rotate back and forth between the drums and their main instruments. Now John Creedy stays steadily behind the guitar, Scott Townsend jams the base and Mike Green plays around with the keyboard and computer. But despite their more steady roles, the members are not afraid to use their energy, encouraging the crowd to follow their jumps and shaky dance.

Video Daughters starts of strongly, with their newest song “Get Me A Body.” This poppy song definitely brought out some smiles, and in my head it painted up a scenic view of a bike ride in the summer-time. The downside of this tune was its strong remembrance of  the experimental rock band Animal Collective’s music. Off course a band can have influences from other musicians, but “Get Me A Body” lacked something different and personal, and could easily have been mistaken for a Animal Collective song.

The show continued with older beats, and Video Daughters balanced the songs well. The longer and more repetitive songs could easily have put anyone to sleep after ten minutes, but just at that moment Mike Green gave out a loud shout – and everyone was awake.

One of the bands most popular songs, “Wild People,” explains itself in the title, and both the band and the audience definitely went wild to this simultaneously steady and off killer beat. It was adrenaline, sweat and beer all over.

The energetic performance of the band was admirable, but it had its downsides. While the lead singer Mike Green shone as a performer, dancing along while banging on the keyboard, the vocals suffered. Throughout the performance it was hard to hear the lyrics, and sometimes the loud instruments made the vocals entirely disappear. But then again, once caught in the electrical waves of Video Daughters, you don’t really need those words. It is all about noises and movement.

Melvin Van Peebles is cooler than your grandfather.

Case in point, the controversial 78 year old singer/director/actor/writer still regularly performs with his band, cheekily named Laxative (because, according to their Facebook page, “they’re a crew of musicians who make sh** happen and get sh** done”).

The show opened with a masterful  jazz-funk cover of the song “Won’t Bleed Me” from Van Peebles’ notable 1971 Blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.  Armed with a large book, literally of Biblical proportions, Van Peebles took the stage.

Laxative provided smooth (pun slightly intended) background music complimentary to Van Peebles’ contrasting raspy vocals. Using a sprechgesang style of performing, each song was like an intimate storytelling session with a respected elder.

Encouraging audience participation and often referring to his band members as “brothers and sisters,” Van Peebles created a sense of community while sharing songs about relatable struggles such as heartbreak and financial hardships. The venue, Zebulon, instantly transformed from a standard Williamsburg bar into what felt like an intimate gathering in someone’s living room.

Though Earth, Wind, and Fire famously performed the soundtrack for Sweetback, Laxative does not possess their same finesse. While including a similar fusion of funk, soul, and blues, the band is more subtle and consists of a calculated roughness.

Performing regularly at local venues such as Zebulon, Laxative also plays internationally, having recently done a show in Paris in February. The audience consisted  mostly of 30-somethings and hipsters who just happened to stroll into the bar.

During intermission, Van Peebles mingled with members of the audience and his girlfriend, who, he joked on stage, was not his niece, but his “squeeze”.

A true character, Melvin Van Peebles himself is almost more entertaining than the band’s music.

During one of the songs, the band crooned, “We’re all just actors in life’s play” and going to see Laxative is like being a part of an underrated off-Broadway play- unexpectedly fun and entertaining.

When under-the-radar, folk and pop artist Brooke Campbell took her corner of the modern art deco 92YTribeca Café to perform a free show,  I didn’t know what to expect. Listening to a few of her tracks online didn’t prepare enough for the mesmerizing performance I later heard in person.

Artist Brooke Campbell belts out a soulful lyric.

Settled with a coffee at my own high chair corner beside glass windows overlooking Hudson street, I was mere feet from the performer and instantly taken by both what I saw and heard. Performing with only a dark mahogany varnished guitar accompanying her soothing vocals, Campbell’s voice was nearly bare but beautiful. The singer opened her set to an audience of barely ten with a few soft words and soulful music and lyrics that had me moments from slipping into a dream and focused on the reality outside my window.

Hailing from the small coastal town of Whiteville, North Carolina, Campbell’s soft, southern drawl and clear folk music influences peeked out from below her voice. Her folksy yet jazzy and soulful pieces were laced with melancholy lyrics and breathless vocals reciting the trials of life and love. More than once, her crooning made me turn to look at the nighttime view outside and reflect on my own trials as the day looped to her soundtrack.

Share the love for a Better, Sugar Spoon

Those as captivated as I was by this promising artist could purchase either of her albums for $10 at the cafe. Diners I bumped into by the milk and sugar generously shared their positive critiques and I was positive Campbell had made such an impression that these might sell quick. It was a short and sweet performance for nothing but a coffee.

A sentimental and cautious musician with a well of emotion seeping through her words and vocal chords just like the lyrics to “Sugar Spoon” suggests; “Never felt more happy, or in control/ bouncing off the wall and into a dark hole,” Brooke Cambell is definitely an artist with great potential. With a little word of mouth, I think it’s only a matter of time until this artist gets a taste of her sugar spoon.