I only found out about this show yesterday, after someone sent the flyer over to our (all important) tips@brightestyoungthings.com email.
(you should use it)
They were emailing us to let us know about the other act in the show Chris Carlson (who I am sure is wonderful too) but the real nugget of joy in here is Alina Simone.
Alina, who now resides in NY, was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, and moved to The US when she was just a little girl.
Now a decade or two later, and after a pretty good, if sometimes achingly spare first album “Placelessness” she went (some may say “back to her genetic roots”) and recorded what is probably one of the more haunting albums (out this week) you’ll hear all year: her Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware, is a collection of cover songs (plus four originals) from underground Russian punk-folk singer Yanka Dyagileva, whose life and career is stuff of legend out east (much like Nick Drake, she died young and mysteriously, at 24, in the cold depths of Siberia) who is virtually unknown to the western world.
Taking something like this (and someone’s demons) on is a scary task, but Alina succeeds sadly and beautifully. As I said-I wish we could have done a listening party for this, because it is definitely something I would want to read. Everyone is talking about it, and so should you (and if you’re Michael, you may actuallly fall in love).
Some press:
Alina live:
And go to The Red and The Black Tonight.
.
Whats that word that means awesome great fun time? Because this sounds like the exact opposite of that word….
morose break away russian folk sounds as fun as well, morose break away russian folk…
August 6, 2008 at 1:51 pmThere is a time and a place for everything.
Sometimes, sad Russian folk punk is what the heart wants and needs.
Sometimes, sad Russian folk punk is what will send the heart over the edge.
If you are in the former category-go.
If you are in the latter-stay home and hug someone.
You’re not ready for this.
And if you’re a smart hottie who wants to go to a drive-in movie in an old pick-up truck and you like chocolate and money then definitely go and wink at the tall hot guy (me).
Svet - are you actually going? Because I’ve gone to things lately thinking I would see you but I do not see you because you are not at the things.
August 6, 2008 at 2:03 pmI have not been places due to being sick and exceptionally tired. It is a challenge to make it to my own bed at night let alone anywhere else.
I am but a ghost of my previous omnipresence.
Svetlana: “blah blah blah blah blah”
Answer the question, woman.
August 6, 2008 at 2:43 pmhow convenient that chris carlson is my friend from college and that i was planning on seeing this show anyways, before i knew about the former soviet block heritage of alina simone. what a perfect way to celebrate my recent arrival from mother russia!
August 6, 2008 at 3:14 pmmaybe if you all weren’t such jerks about a lot of things then people would submit more tips.
also maybe if you all were really on top of your shit then you would have known about this show before yesterday already.
August 6, 2008 at 3:16 pmPsssssssh, please go ahead and try to do better on a volunteer, part-time, in between actual jobs and life basis. Instead of being such a jerk about so many things.
(feeling sort of fragile today)
August 6, 2008 at 3:39 pmpsssh: examples? And I mean of real jerkery, as in someone submitting a tip and getting a reply back from BYT such as:
” Do try . . . try and keep your trap shut, I beg of you, because I am weary of being insulted for so long by the rabble. It is true that I act like a bulldog, and when I see all that pack of curs and bitches yelping around me, I just lift a leg and I piss on their noses. . . . You recall my song, “Fortunately I don’t give a s[hit].” Well, I sing it here six times a day, and I whistle it four.
Why you old monkey-fucker! Weed-face bedaubed with berry juice. You old prop-pole from Noah’s vineyard, fish bone from the back of Jonah’s whale. You filthy old flint matchstick, old rancid candle at 24 the pound, stinking harness off my wife’s mule. . . . Ah! you old pumpkin, pickled in bug-juice, third horn on the Devil’s brow, face of a codfish with oysters for ears, you old worn-out shoe off a bawd, you reeking piece of Milli Printemps’ bloody linen. If I get my hands on you, how I would rub your face in it, your filthy ugly puss of a baked apple as brown as burnt chestnuts. . . .”
Because then I could totally understand your indignation.
Far as I know I’m the only jerk here. The rest of them are very accomodating.
P.S. That’s a letter from the Marquis de Sade, written from prison.
August 6, 2008 at 3:42 pmAlina is awesome. I was a little worried that she was committing career-icide when I heard her next release was going to be all covers in Russian of a singer no one here had ever heard of. But it’s getting some great attention.
August 6, 2008 at 4:55 pmMichael, well done on the Marquis
have you seen Marat Sade which is in town
read that back in college, good 20th century German drama
michael - write a review for this show, you jerk.
she was quite mesmerizing at times and dude had a sweet guitar style.
August 7, 2008 at 11:06 amreview and photos coming a little later today courtesy of rachel.
so glad people went!
alina simone …
nina simone.
huh.
somebody needs a more original name…
As Rachel already has the review covered perhaps I will ramble on in the comment section.
Perhaps. I may not be able to as I already embarassed myself in a text late night.
August 7, 2008 at 11:44 amNina Simone - real name: Eunice Kathleen Waymon
Alina Simone - real name: Alina Simone
Someone needs more original criticsm.
August 7, 2008 at 12:22 pmi’m still wondering whether or not alexandra would have wanted me to give her a ride home instead of michael if i had shown up on a horse. giddyup!
August 7, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Thanks, Svetlana. I may just go and fall in love. I’ve been looking for someone to take to a drive-in movie in my old truck anyway.
August 6, 2008 at 1:21 pm