The Bowery Presents

The Bowery Ballroom upcoming shows

The Fiery Furnaces

Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers / The Human Hearts

Venue:
The Bowery Ballroom
Date:
Sat 12/12
Notes:
18+
Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
$15 Advance / $17 Day Of Show
Tickets
The Fiery Furnaces
official website
myspace
Eleanor was constantly ridiculed in the crudest and least interesting manner by her brother Matthew. He, for his part, had to suffer such things as her coming in the room, and various other affronts, for instance talking, or watching the TV show she wanted, or putting on a record she might like to hear.

So Eleanor had to hide her likes and dislikes until he left. It was a beautiful day. She stood at a second-floor window, watching as Dad drove Matt off, and roughly, excitedly, triumphantly put Houses of the Holy into the CD player, turning up the volume on what used to be her brother’s stereo.

You see Matthew had only liked the Who. He had Who records and videotapes, and as a youth, down in the basement, he tried to make Who noises. But he failed, miserably, and with black jealousy guarded the scene of his humiliation and insufficiency, that basement, where he kept the tape recorder. In fact, Eleanor was hit over the head, stabbed in the knee and smashed on the foot for coming down in the basement. But that didn’t make his songs any better.

Years later, when Matthew---his pride gone, his spirit, such as it was, crushed---encouraged Eleanor to come down in the basement to make their first Fiery Furnaces music together, maybe he should have hit and stabbed and smashed at her. But he just swore. Things had changed.

For in the meantime, while plagiarizing her way to a University of Texas B.A., Eleanor worked as a telemarketer for the Texas Republican Party. Her subsequent adventurous life---think of the courage these expeditions required---included a year spent in London and trips with her mother to Italy, Greece, and the south of France. Her enthusiasm for restaurants, shopping and like-minded people led her to come help, in her small way, gentrify the north end of Brooklyn. And there she lives, with a surprisingly well-developed and wholly undeserved sense of self-righteousness, no observable interests except her own enjoyment of such sophisticated things as cookery and movies, an impressive ability to aggrandize herself at the expense of her already unappealing older brother, taking very long walks, her mind completely blank. Her musical expertise extends so far as to include buying and listening to records and having boyfriends who were, once were, or wanted to be in musical groups. And her greatest achievement remains hitting a 3-run triple, which earned her a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times, “Friedberger’s Big Day Powers Oak Park.” But in the story beneath she was misquoted.

Her older brother went to Germany at 17 and managed to learn not a word of German or even have a good time – apparently pining for mommy and daddy, and doggy, and the comforts of home, which he was incapable of enjoying in the first place. After failing repeatedly at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he cleverly stayed in that fascinating metropolis until he was 26. He then moved back in with his mother, sealing his fate and cementing his status as parasite and waster of indulgence and advantage. Looking for further opportunities to squander goodwill and embarrass himself, he later imposed upon a high school friend to help him move to New York (because his sister made it clear he couldn’t stay with her). He was, you see, the proud author of such works as Spider Spite, Toad King Land and Banobazus Persian Prince. But certainly those things are terrible, and only give evidence of no-talent and periods of excess sponging. No one doing a good job and paying the rent could ever have time for something as stupid and illiterate as Toad King Land. By the way, he has musical ability only as compared to his sister. His only achievement, in fact, is a series of short videos, made with a student he worked with in Urbana, Illinois. But Matthew never bothered to do the obviously needed narration he promised to the student’s mother. And the poor student is now dead. God rest his soul.
Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers
myspace
Sometimes you see an artist that just hits you smack dab in the middle of your heart. Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers are an incredible blend of grinding blues, sleazy jazz, and disturbing rock tied together with pop and punk sensibilities; the result sounding something like a vulgar Ella Fitzgerald, channeling Nick Cave and PJ Harvey crooning in front of a wall of distortion and thunderous, pounding rhythms. The band reads like a who's who of recent NYC rock luminaries including members of Creaky Boards, Soft Black, Kapow!, and cult rock producers The Negatones. Their live shows are already a notorious commodity which regularly feature audiences that scream as loud as the band does through their instruments and voices.

Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers created a huge buzz at SXSW stealing the show at 7 high profile shows including Brooklyn Vegan & Hot Freaks. They then did a tour of the Midwest which included a stop by the Daytrotter Studios and its resulting session.

Their debut album, 'A Fish Hook An Open Eye' captures the band's raw and unique sound in 8 solid tracks, demonstrating depth, ability, and emotional scope, eclipsing anything from Shilpa's already lauded past. Fish Hook was released September 22 and Kepler Records via Itunes to great acclaim.
Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers spent the rest of 2009 rigorously playing shows in NYC with the likes of the Duke Spirit, Efterklang, A Place to Bury Strangers, Drink Up Buttercup, and many more kindred artists. Shilpa was a featured singer in conductor Steve Bernstein’s tribute to Sly Stone which also included Martha Wainright and Bernie Worrell. She also did a brief West Coast Tour with Jeffrey Lewis in October and then opened for Joseph Arthur at City Winery. Nick Cave named Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers band of the day in a recent interview. The band has recently entered the studio to begin work on their follow up record which will feature 16 new songs.
The Human Hearts
myspace
The Human Hearts is a flexible branding medium for the realization and dissemination of songs (and other musical work, but let's face it, it's gonna mostly be songs) by Franklin Bruno, also known as 1/3 of the Southern California power trio Nothing Painted Blue, 1/2 of The Extra Glenns, and as a solo artist in his own right. The most recent incarnation of The Human Hearts existed for a fleeting few days in Chicago, in Spring 2006: the resulting recordings form the core of Civics (Tight Ship Records), the debut release under the HH name.
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