New Year's Eve 2011 - Bars & Music in NYC and Hoboken - Last-Minute Planning

Avoid the crowd and mess of Times Square on New Year's Eve - go see some live music!

I've written before about live music events happening on New Year's Eve in the New York area in previous posts, but now I'm going to provide a couple of links to websites where you can find all manner of parties, etc. for tonight. Some will have live music, some will have DJs or recorded music, and, well, some will have no music at all. But I'd throw them all out there for those who are still looking at the last minute for something to do to ring in 2011.

The MurphGuide 2011 New Year's Eve guide lists what it says are 181 parties, etc. for tonight. MurphGuide has been covering the New York bar scene for years, and their handy guide lets you browse or search nightspots by neighborhood and type, as well as giving an alphabetical listing.

I previously mentioned the great shows going on at Maxwell's tonight, but for folks looking for other New Year's Eve 2011 events in Hoboken, head to the Hoboken-Bars.net guide.

Live Music in NYC & Environs for New Year's Eve - Who's Playing?

Patti Smith & band continue their annual run of New Year's Eve shows  in NYC this year. Shown here is their New Year's Eve 2007 show at Bowery Ballroom. Photo: Kimberly Smith

For me, seeing live music is the best way to ring in the new year. And all things considered, you can get more entertainment bang for your buck with a concert than with a pricey cocktail party or other New Year's Eve option.

Here's a look at some of the live music shows, large and small, taking place in New York City and the nearby area on Friday, December 31st. (Note: Tickets may not be available for all events at the time you're reading this; make sure to check the venue's website for details.)

• Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings & Allen Toussaint, Best Buy Theater (formerly Nokia Times Square), 8 p.m., $55
  
• Patti Smith and Band, Bowery Ballroom 8 p.m., $55
  
• Los Lobos, City Winery, two shows: 7:30 p.m., $60 to $175 (11 p.m. show sold out)
  
• Mike Doughty, Maxwell's (Hoboken, NJ), 7:30 p.m., $25
  
• The Detroit Cobras & The Fleshtones, Maxwell's, 10:30, $20 advance/$25 d.o.s.
  
• Chuck Berry, B.B. King's, 8 p.m. ($98 advance/$100 d.o.s.) & 11 p.m. ($120)
  
• The Butthole Surfers & Lumerians, Music Hall of Williamsburg, 9 p.m., $55
  
• Titus Andronicus, Real Estate, Andrew Cedermark, & Julian Lynch, Ridgewood Masonic Temple (Brooklyn), 8 p.m., $15
  
• Drive-By Truckers, Terminal 5, 9 p.m., $35
  
• Passion Pit & Slick Rick, Wellmont Theatre (Montclair, NJ), 8 p.m., $70
  
• Ms. Lauryn Hill, Bowery Ballroom, 8 p.m., $75
  
• Gov't Mule, Beacon Theatre, 9 p.m., $59.50 to $84 plus fees
  
• Phish, Madison Square Garden, 8 p.m., $70 plus fees
  

Big Week at Maxwell's: Mike Doughty, Detroit Cobras & Fleshtones, & The English Beat Roll into Hoboken

The Detroit Cobras (shown here in Santa Fe in 2008) play a New Year's Eve show at Maxwell's. Photo: Steve Terrell.

The old year is ending with a bang, and the one's beginning the same way, at Maxwell's in Hoboken. The club has two shows on New Year's Eve, with Mike Doughty (formerly of Soul Coughing) performing at 7:30 ($25) and then a year-spanning garage-rock show with Detroit Cobras and The Fleshtones starting at 10:30 p.m. ($20 advance; $25 day of show). According to the Maxwell's website, tickets are still available for both shows.

Maxwell's starts off 2011 with The English Beat on New Year's Day (tickets are $20, and still available).  And the great shows keep coming in January: Dean Wareham (of Galaxie 500 and Luna) plays Galaxie 500 on Jan. 13th; Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield play on Jan. 20th; Mission of Burma performs on the 28th; and one of my favorites, The Muffs, plays on Jan. 29th.

I haven't even mentioned that fact that the Guided by Voices reunion tour is coming to Maxwell's on Dec. 30th (because tickets seem to be sold out, at least on Ticketfly). But the show isn't listed as sold out, so tickets may be available at Other Music or Tunes (in Hoboken). Or, if you go to the club on the day of the show there might be folks looking to unload extra tickets that they can't use.

GbV sold out a couple of shows in NYC in short order, so a chance to see them at the intimate confines of Maxwell's would be a treat indeed.

New Music Podcasts: Favorite Cover Tunes, Elvis Costello Live, Gospel Christmas Tunes, & More

Check out the free music podcasts below for holiday and non-holiday music for your Christmas travels. Photo: SteveStrummer 

Since lots of folks are traveling around Christmastime, how about some downloading some music podcasts to listen to to occupy the time? Here are a bunch of them, enough (we hope) to drown about the all loud cellphone conversations of the people around you at the airport or on the train. And the more raucus holiday arguments at the dinner table.

* Over at Coverville, you'll find a stocking full of recent podcasts. First off, there are the first two parts of the podcast's annual countdown show of listeners' 40 favorite cover tunes. Included is recent NBC "Sing-Off" contestant On the Rocks performing their a cappella rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance."

Also on Coverville is the two-part tribute to the Talking Heads, performed by the podcast's listeners. As you'd expect, the quality and styles vary widely, but Coverville clearly has some very talented listeners.

And finally, Coverville offers its Christmas Cover Show 2010, with new versions of not-your-average holiday tunes, including remakes of "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses and "Last Christmas" by Wham.

* The CBC Radio 3 podcast presents Home for the Holidays, a show in which listeners from all over the world make long-distance requests of their favorite songs by Canadian artists to send out to their loved ones.

* If your taste in Christmas music runs to the sacred side, download the podcast of the annual Christmas Eve Gospel Music program on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show. It includes tunes like Mahalia Jackson singing "Silent Night" and the Swan Silvertones doing "Great Day in December."

Also, the Lopate show today rebroadcast (and reposted the podcast of) a live set by Elvis Costello and band at WNYC from back in November. He plays tunes from his latest album, produced by T-Bone Burnett, which shows the country/bluegrass side of the British rocker.

* KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has a new in-studio live set with Jamie Lidell, the British producer who, the station says, can be found "sliding into neo-soul songs as easily as he slices through spacey folk-blues." For some reason recent MBE podcasts don't show up on their webpage, bou can download the podcast through iTunes (and probably other podcast download programs as well).

Merry Christmas!

2010 "Sing-Off" Winner Crowned in Finale

Alabama's Committed is the 2010 "Sing-Off" winner.

I'm a few days late in posting this, but the 2010 "Sing-Off" winner was finally crowned Monday night. Amid nearly two hours of highlights, montages, and guest performances by stars like Neil Diamond and Sheryl Crow, the show did get down to business.

The four finalists were reduced to two, and then the winner (chosen by viewer votes) was announced: the six-man Alabama group Committed, who beat out southern rockers Street Corner Symphony to take the "Sing-Off" title. (The Backbeats and Jerry Lawson & Talk of the Town were the first two groups to be eliminated in the live finale, broadcast on NBC from 8 to 10 p.m.)

(Read Entertainment Weekly's take on the "Sing-Off" finale and its grades for the performances.)

The young men of Committed got together singing in church, and according to an article in Zap2It.com, they had never performed secular music before "The Sing-Off." I couldn't even find a website for them. (Read Zap2It's interview with Committed.) Well, Committed will be performing a lot of non-church music now: by winning the competition they've earned $100,000 and a Sony recording contract.

Congrats to Committed, and to all the competitors in this year's edition of "The Sing-Off." It'll be fun to see where Committed goes from here and what kind of songs they choose to record.

Prince Takes Manhattan (and New Jersey) to Kick Off East Coast Tour

Prince emerges from his glyph-shaped stage at the Izod Center Friday.

For a 52-year-old performer who hasn't been touring much lately and has had hip problems, Prince sure hasn't missed a beat so far on his" Welcome 2 America" tour. I got to see him twice last week, on Friday at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, NJ and the next night at Madison Square Garden. Both were very entertaining, high-energy shows with plenty of great tunes and a lot of funk.

The multitalented Prince displayed a wide assortment of musical styles, dance moves, and costumes while performing on a stage shaped like the glyph/symbol that he used to call himself. The Purple One ripped through songs from throughout his career, with a heavy emphasis on the hits.

On Friday, Prince started off his own set with an extended version of "Let's Go Crazy," then followed that up with three of his other best-known tunes: "Delirious," "1999," and "Little Red Corvette." Though the setlists for Friday and Saturday were similar, there were some differences: no "Little Red Corvette" on Saturday, though the MSG show did include couple of my Prince favs: "U Got the Look" and "Raspberry Beret," as well as "Nothing Compares 2 U."

I had hoped to here "When Doves Cry" at at least one of the shows, but it was not to be.

Prince making his guitar wail at the Izod Center.

"So many hits," Prince said during both shows, as if to recognize that there wasn't enough time in any one show to play them all. So in some cases he played medleys that combined two or more songs, similar to his Super Bowl halftime performance a few years back. It was good to hear so many tunes, but having some of them shortened and squeezed into medleys wasn't always satisfying.

Prince's protege Sheila E. was a guest at the Friday and Saturday shows. She came on stage and performed an energetic version of her hit "The Glamorous Life," to the delight of the fans, most of whom knew the words. She looked great and still had her chops on the drums, and she played along on a couple more songs with Prince and the band.

Prince as seen on an Izod Center video screen.

During both shows Prince had audience members come on stage to dance, but at the Madison Square Garden show the guests weren't just any fans. Prince called out a number of A-listers to join him on stage: Jamie Foxx, Spike Lee, Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Sheppard, and even professor/philosopher/author Cornell West.

Prince was in fine form, as was his band (New Power Generation, from what I've read) and his three female backup singers, Elisa Dease, Liv Warfield and Shelby J. All told, Prince played for nearly two hours, which included several encores. (This included a few brief sessions of downtime for Prince to change costumes.) And yes, he did briefly play that gold-plated Stratocaster than he will later auction off for charity.

Prince's own sets were preceded by those of several veteran performers as opening acts (and sometimes performing with Prince). Cassandra Wilson opened the show on Friday night, followed by a set by legendary soul and funk saxophonist Maceo Parker. I missed Saturday's opening act by Sinbad, but caught the tail end of the set by the other opener, Larry Graham of Graham Central Station.

Prince plays Madison Square Garden again on December 29th and on January 18th. You can check for tickets at the Garden's official Prince ticket page here, or try StubHub if the shows are sold out. (There were several hundred tickets for both the Dec. 17th and 18th shows on StubHub, some listed for below face value.)

Prince hasn't toured the East Coast for six years, so if you've ever liked him music, my advice would be to get to one of his shows. They are fun and funky, and you'll definitely get your money's worth.