Out musician Toshi Reagon created the annual Word*Rock*Sword festival to celebrate the brilliance and creativity of women. Celebrate proudly at the Gershwin Theater on Sep 15 with community favorite Patti Lupone and megastar Sting in the Uprising for Love: A Benefit Concert for Equality, a highlight of the festival. Proceeds go directly to Fueling the Frontlines, a three-year, $20 million campaign for global LGBTI rights led by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.
Head to the glamorous Le Poisson Rouge on Sep 20 for the grand finale of the Word*Rock*Sword: A Musical Celebration of Women’s Lives. Creator Toshi Reagon performs along with a celebrated cast of talented musicians to put an end to violence and inequality for women.
This fall, legendary punk rocker, poet and actor Richard Hell will be inaugurating a new five-part music series for Symphony Space called Night Out With Richard Hell, in which he introduces the audience to musicians he admires. On Oct 17, he interviews feminist singer-songwriter Lydia Loveless, who also performs. Loveless, a rising star on the alt-country scene, has just released a well-received new pop record called Something Else. Her intelligent lyrics blend seamlessly with an authentic country-rock style that’s quickly gaining her fans. “Hers is a voice that can soar, that can break, that can swagger and scream,” said author and filmmaker Gorman Bechard of the artist, “that can whisper and seduce, that can smirk and laugh out loud. She is the china cup from which Billie Holiday would want to drink.” Wow! High praise indeed.
From Oct 21-25 some of the best venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn host the CMJ Music Marathon Festival 2014. An indie music lover’s dream come true, this concert series hosts old favorites, like Cold War Kids and up and coming bands and artists including 2:54, Tom Vek, Hunters, The Kills and more. You’re sure to catch someone on the verge of stardom at any one of these hundreds of shows over five nights.
Led Zeppelin is gone, but their spirit lives on with Lez Zeppelin, a critically-acclaimed, adorably-named, all-girl, gender-bending tribute band. Throughout their decade-long run, the band has consistently proven their mettle (or would that be heavy metal?) most notably by becoming the first tribute band invited to appear at major rock festivals. Don’t miss the group SPIN magazine calls “the most powerful all-female band in rock history” when they appear Oct 27 at the Highline Ballroom to recreate the Zep’s classic 1973 series of shows at Madison Square Garden.
We’re crazy about the exquisitely beautiful, multitalented Rachael Sage, so imagine our excitement over her new album, Blue Roses, to be released Nov 4. The NYC-based singer-songwriter—and one of GO’s 100 Women We Love—is critically acclaimed for her confident, sophisticated songwriting. The new album features members of Daft Punk, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen’s bands, and includes a duet with folk icon Judy Collins. Download “English Tea” and other tracks from Blue Roses on iTunes!
Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films is a multimedia extravaganza curated by the Andy Warhol Museum. Eleanor Friedberger, Tom Verlaine, Martin Rev, Bradford Cox and others perform original compositions as 15 never-before-seen, digitally-restored Warhol selections are screened, including works featuring appearances by Marcel Duchamp, Edie Sedgwick, Donovan and even Warhol himself. An intriguing combination of film, art and music, Exposed will be in the Peter Jay Sharp Building at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House as part of BAM’s popular Next Wave Festival. It runs Nov 6-8.
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