Yazbek In-Store confirmed for 2/28 at Barnes And Noble, Lincoln Center
What: David Yazbek In-Store Performance, Cd Signing, Q&A - To Coincide With Release Of Acclaimed Cd 'Evil Monkey Man'.
Where: Barnes And Noble, 66th & Broadway, Third Floor Performance Space.
When: Thursday, February 28th
Time: 7:00pm
More information about David Yazbek & 'Evil Monkey Man':
David Yazbek's complex pop-rock CD 'Evil Monkey Man' will be released 2/26 on Ghostlight Records. Early reviews have praised the CD as:
“Full of Pop-Rock Hooks and Quirky, Occasionally Harrowing Lyrics" - “Sulfurous and Often Despairing" - “Edgy and Inventive Pop" - “...an Unusual Album That is Unusually Good"
Critics have come to appreciate the darkness beneath the album's deceptively catchy melodies. The New York Times, in an interview preview, described the music as “Sulfurous and often despairing...," adding: “What's no shock is that emotion doesn't capsize his craft. The words may be about the inevitability of decay, but the grooves include mellow bossa novas and uptempo blues. And he still has the wit to rhyme “soldiers" with “Folgers."
The New Yorker praised Yazbek's “Edgy and inventive pop," and AllMusic noted: “The titles, including “Monkey Baby Hanging on Chicken Wire" and “Bazooka Joe," hint at Yazbek's absurd outlook. He mixes up the arrangements, too, combining elements of jazz, rock, and pop, and keeping the overall soundscape intriguing."
The NY Post, in an interview feature, raved that the CD is “full of pop-rock hooks and quirky, occasionally harrowing lyrics. Look no further than “Monkey Baby Hanging on Chicken Wire," inspired by the ghastly experiments on Capuchin monkeys in the '50s..." Time Out NY buzzed: “Sporting influences ranging from XTC's Andy Partridge to old- school Broadway tunester Frank Loesser, Yazbek's music is full of bouncy riffs and hooks, as well as his trademark nasty-naughty sense of humor..."
In a review of Yazbek's recent 'Evil Monkey Man' concert at Lincoln Center, THE NY TIMES praised: “The songwriter David Yazbek is a daredevil juggler catching spiked pins in the traveling carnival of his imagination. The nihilism in his deceptively rollicking songs is sometimes so pungent that you wonder how much of his own bile he can stomach before he shrugs and allows those pins to bop him on the head."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Stephen Holden - MUSIC REVIEW - February 12, 2008
A Woozy Thrill Ride on a Volcano's Edge
The songwriter David Yazbek is a daredevil juggler catching spiked pins in the traveling carnival of his imagination. The nihilism in his deceptively rollicking songs is sometimes so pungent that you wonder how much of his own bile he can stomach before he shrugs and allows those pins to bop him on the head. That day probably won't come soon, because right now Mr. Yazbek is having so much fun twitting the indifferent universe. As he performed songs from his forthcoming album, “Evil Monkey Man" (Ghostlight Records), at the Allen Room on Saturday night as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, he and his band lurched gleefully on the edge of a volcano.
That canny outfit included the guitarist Erik Della Penna, who can make a lap steel sound like a theremin; the saxophonists Tony Orbach and Paul Vercesi; Mike Boschen on trombone; Marcel Pierre DuClos on bass; and Dean Sharenow on drums. On some songs they treated their instruments as Dadaist noisemakers. On others they blended into a consonant pop ensemble.
Leading the brigade, Mr. Yazbek pounded the piano with merciless intensity. If he is not much of a singer, his voice is well suited to blunt, rub-it-in-your-face announcements that life is pointless. Or as he puts it in “Never Get Out of This," one of the best songs on the album:
That road that you've been walking The dollar in your fist The diamonds you've been hawking You never get out of this.
On the surface David Yazbek the indie-rock prankster has little in common with David Yazbek the writer of brash, witty show tunes for “The Full Monty" and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." But below the bright exterior of a song like “Great Big Stuff" (from “Scoundrels") lurks an attitude of brutal sarcasm.
The one moment of unabashed sweetness at Saturday's concert was the guest singer Nellie McKay's gorgeous rendition of “Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True" (also from “Scoundrels"). His other guest, the soprano Lauren Flanigan, lent operatic embellishment to two numbers.
For all his flirtations with the void, the raucous energy and humor of Mr. Yazbek's concert lent it the woozy excitement of a thrill ride. “Wasted," my favorite song on the album and in the concert, slinks along on a curvaceous bossa nova groove. Its poisonous lyrics begin, “Once it occurs to you you've wasted most of your life" and go on to describe a state of terminal ennui.
But the antidote is at hand. At the end of the song he notices the shimmering September air and the mist on the Hudson River and declares, “The shivering water in the windowsill is treasure, and you've found it."
What: David Yazbek In-Store Performance, Cd Signing, Q&A - To Coincide With Release Of Acclaimed Cd 'Evil Monkey Man'.
Where: Barnes And Noble, 66th & Broadway, Third Floor Performance Space.
When: Thursday, February 28th
Time: 7:00pm
More information about David Yazbek & 'Evil Monkey Man':
David Yazbek's complex pop-rock CD 'Evil Monkey Man' will be released 2/26 on Ghostlight Records. Early reviews have praised the CD as:
“Full of Pop-Rock Hooks and Quirky, Occasionally Harrowing Lyrics" - “Sulfurous and Often Despairing" - “Edgy and Inventive Pop" - “...an Unusual Album That is Unusually Good"
Critics have come to appreciate the darkness beneath the album's deceptively catchy melodies. The New York Times, in an interview preview, described the music as “Sulfurous and often despairing...," adding: “What's no shock is that emotion doesn't capsize his craft. The words may be about the inevitability of decay, but the grooves include mellow bossa novas and uptempo blues. And he still has the wit to rhyme “soldiers" with “Folgers."
The New Yorker praised Yazbek's “Edgy and inventive pop," and AllMusic noted: “The titles, including “Monkey Baby Hanging on Chicken Wire" and “Bazooka Joe," hint at Yazbek's absurd outlook. He mixes up the arrangements, too, combining elements of jazz, rock, and pop, and keeping the overall soundscape intriguing."
The NY Post, in an interview feature, raved that the CD is “full of pop-rock hooks and quirky, occasionally harrowing lyrics. Look no further than “Monkey Baby Hanging on Chicken Wire," inspired by the ghastly experiments on Capuchin monkeys in the '50s..." Time Out NY buzzed: “Sporting influences ranging from XTC's Andy Partridge to old- school Broadway tunester Frank Loesser, Yazbek's music is full of bouncy riffs and hooks, as well as his trademark nasty-naughty sense of humor..."
In a review of Yazbek's recent 'Evil Monkey Man' concert at Lincoln Center, THE NY TIMES praised: “The songwriter David Yazbek is a daredevil juggler catching spiked pins in the traveling carnival of his imagination. The nihilism in his deceptively rollicking songs is sometimes so pungent that you wonder how much of his own bile he can stomach before he shrugs and allows those pins to bop him on the head."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Stephen Holden - MUSIC REVIEW - February 12, 2008
A Woozy Thrill Ride on a Volcano's Edge
The songwriter David Yazbek is a daredevil juggler catching spiked pins in the traveling carnival of his imagination. The nihilism in his deceptively rollicking songs is sometimes so pungent that you wonder how much of his own bile he can stomach before he shrugs and allows those pins to bop him on the head. That day probably won't come soon, because right now Mr. Yazbek is having so much fun twitting the indifferent universe. As he performed songs from his forthcoming album, “Evil Monkey Man" (Ghostlight Records), at the Allen Room on Saturday night as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, he and his band lurched gleefully on the edge of a volcano.
That canny outfit included the guitarist Erik Della Penna, who can make a lap steel sound like a theremin; the saxophonists Tony Orbach and Paul Vercesi; Mike Boschen on trombone; Marcel Pierre DuClos on bass; and Dean Sharenow on drums. On some songs they treated their instruments as Dadaist noisemakers. On others they blended into a consonant pop ensemble.
Leading the brigade, Mr. Yazbek pounded the piano with merciless intensity. If he is not much of a singer, his voice is well suited to blunt, rub-it-in-your-face announcements that life is pointless. Or as he puts it in “Never Get Out of This," one of the best songs on the album:
That road that you've been walking The dollar in your fist The diamonds you've been hawking You never get out of this.
On the surface David Yazbek the indie-rock prankster has little in common with David Yazbek the writer of brash, witty show tunes for “The Full Monty" and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." But below the bright exterior of a song like “Great Big Stuff" (from “Scoundrels") lurks an attitude of brutal sarcasm.
The one moment of unabashed sweetness at Saturday's concert was the guest singer Nellie McKay's gorgeous rendition of “Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True" (also from “Scoundrels"). His other guest, the soprano Lauren Flanigan, lent operatic embellishment to two numbers.
For all his flirtations with the void, the raucous energy and humor of Mr. Yazbek's concert lent it the woozy excitement of a thrill ride. “Wasted," my favorite song on the album and in the concert, slinks along on a curvaceous bossa nova groove. Its poisonous lyrics begin, “Once it occurs to you you've wasted most of your life" and go on to describe a state of terminal ennui.
But the antidote is at hand. At the end of the song he notices the shimmering September air and the mist on the Hudson River and declares, “The shivering water in the windowsill is treasure, and you've found it."
For more information contact Seth Cohen PR.
