Paul Simon

Amy Poehler's New Comedy Partner Is David Simon

The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Week, 2/25/13

Here are the 10 best concerts in the city this week, in no particular order.

Tom Wopat

The Least Likely Music Headlines of 2013

For the last six months, the Sound of the City Supercomputer (a 1998 Compaq Presario) has been analyzing the structure and content of every pop news headline in the world in order to create a highly detailed predictive model of the music industry. While this project has important practical uses, suc ... More >>

Q&A: fun.'s Nate Ruess On Self-Help Lyrics, Second Chances, And "Pessimistic Optimism"

fun. has blanketed America with the song "We Are Young," a strange, anthemic, Queen-nodding song that, via Glee and a Super Bowl commercial, is a bright symbol of modern rock being a force in pop. On the first fun. record Aim & Ignite and in his previous band, The Format, singer Nate Ruess made musi ... More >>

Mark Stewart

Under African Skies

Live: Paul Simon And Wynton Marsalis Bridge The Gap At The Rose Theater

Paul Simon and Wynton Marsalis Rose Theater Friday, April 20 Better than: Fighting the jazz wars. "My father was the family bassman," sang Paul Simon on a song from Simon and Garfunkel's last album, a line as true as confessional poetry. Like Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello, Simon grew up as th ... More >>

Paul Simon & Wynton Marsalis

SOTC's March Madness: The Quintessential New York Musician Tournament

Sound of the City's monthlong tournament to determine the quintessential New York City musician (since 1955, the year of the Village Voice's founding) is taking over our site all March. The full schedule and results (as of March 23) below; you can also follow along with our bracket.

Laura Nyro (10) And Paul Simon (2) Take SOTC's March Madness Tournament Down By The Schoolyard

​Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week. Today, all the remaining contenders in the Uptown division battle it out in the Round of 32. Keep up with all the action here. In a stunning upset, No. 10 seed Laura Nyro has upended the brackets ... More >>

So Beautiful? So What: Why The Grammys Shoved Paul Simon Aside And Embraced Skrillex

A good while back, I was envisioning a Grammy-night dogfight between what, at that point, were my two favorite albums of 2011: Lady Gaga's Born This Way and Paul Simon's So Beautiful or So What. (Both ended up on my Pazz & Jop ballot.)I mentioned this to Maura and she said, "No. Adele." Up went my v ... More >>

Hey, Bono, Here Are Five Songs You Might Want To Consider For This "Song Lyrics Of Literary Excellence" Contest You're Judging

​The New England branch of the literary society PEN has announced that it's bestowing its inaugural award for outstanding achievement in song lyrics in February (hat tip: Dave Bry/Maud Newton). Lyrics from all stripes of popular music can, of course, be utterly banal, but they can also employ ... More >>

Felicity Jones: Q&A With A Rising Star

Twenty-seven-year-old British actress Felicity Jones gives an enormously appealing performance in Like Crazy, in which she and Anton Yelchin share some college lovin', only to encounter some obstacles, American-style. Felicity won a Special Jury prize at Sundance and is nominated for a Gotham Award ... More >>

Tanlines+Nguzungu+Teengirl Fantasy+Sun Araw

Mark Nadler

Live: Tom Waits (And A Punk-Rock Neil Diamond) Dominate The Rock Hall Induction Ceremony

The 2011 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Monday, March 14 Better Than: Whatever was happening at Death by Audio tonight that Bruce Springsteen didn't show up to, for whatever reason. First off, let's tell you what you want to hear: Tom Waits stole the show ... More >>

LADYSMITH RETURNS

Joseph Shabalala’s group continues to thrive

Sunday Evening Link Dump: R.I.P. to Barbara Billingsley and Bad News in Iraq

Sundog​It feels a little like Fall outside in New York City and the news wires are mostly calm this Sunday evening. Football is dominating, as it tends to do this time of year, with the Jets on in Denver and the Giants holding on to beat Detroit, though Cablevision customers in the area missed all ... More >>

Janis Joplin Highlights a Surprisingly Good 'Summer Festival for Peace' at Shea

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. August 13, 1970, Vol. XV, No. 33 Riffs By Don Heckman If anybody out there is looking for a convenient, already-built set for a film of Kafka's "The Castle," I've got just the thing -- Shea Stadium. Endless ramps that lead nowhere in p ... More >>

Oh, Yoko Ono

BAM throws a cheerfully random, surreally star-studded tribute to the Plastic Ono Band

Tonight! Plastic Ono Band (For Real This Time), Wavves, Lightspeed Champion, and Bear Hands

​Today, Yoko Ono is busy assembling the year's most disparate backing group. After yesterday's "dress rehearsal," her reincarnated Plastic Ono Band will be performing at BAM, with guests ranging from Eric Clapton to Sean Lennon to ... the Scissor Sisters? Also included in the lineup are Mark R ... More >>

The Would-Be Bankrobber Who Attempted to Impersonate Paul Simon Was "Depressed," Cops Said

​"A con man trying to impersonate Paul Simon was arrested for trying to take money out of the singer's bank account," reports the Post. Though the man, named Rafael Ramos, had the singer's social security and bank account numbers, "the teller became suspicious after realizing the suspect is 10 ... More >>

An Interview With tUnE-yArDs: 'Get People's Attention or Die'

An occasionally embarrassing chat with the one-woman feral folk sensation

Here We Go Magic

Peter Martins, George Balanchine, and Richard Alston Play With Symmetry

Clip Job: Goldstein Talks to Simon and Garfunkel

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. November 3, 1966, Vol. XII, No. 3 The Sound of J.D. Salinger Clapping By Richard Goldstein We know about the sound of two hands clapping. We're pretty sure these days what one hand clapping sounds like. But what is the sound of J.D. ... More >>

Rock Hall Show at MSG Includes A Couple of Jersey Guys

The Rock and Roll Hame of Fame 25th Anniversary events kicked off last night at Madison Square Garden with key Jersey representation, including sets by Paul Simon of Newark and Bruce Springsteen of Long Branch. Here's Simon and former collaborator Art Garfunkel really milking "Sounds of Silence." ... More >>

Bruce! Sam! Billy! Bonnie! Live From The Ludicrously Star-Studded MSG Rock Hall Extravaganza

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Celebration Madison Square Garden Thursday, October 29 The first half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's two-night benefit concert and 25th-anniversary celebration lasted six hours, ended at 1:30 a.m. and featuring star-studded sets by curators Bruce S ... More >>

Bassam Saba & the New York Arabic Orchestra

Amazing Baby Release a Second Video for "Headdress," Which Showcases White Mice, a Llama, and a Caped Booby Witch

We've had plenty of time to get familiar with the Amazing Baby single "Headdress" since it was one of the four songs the Brooklyn band released as the free download EP Infinite Fucking Cross a little less than a year ago, around the time frontman Will Roan let us into his apartment. But despite Am ... More >>

Sound of the City Officially Rejected from VW Bugs Vampire Weekend Cover Band

You may have already heard that the meme-baiting Vampire Weekend cover band will be staffed by four Princetonians and will be named "The VW Bugs." We, unfortunately, found this fact out the hard way: through brutal, real-world rejection. Wanting nothing more than to pretend to be the guy who prete ... More >>

Live: Allen Toussaint Soundtracks Your Lunch at BAM's R&B Festival at Metrotech

Allen Toussaint MetroTech Center Thursday, June 11 It is 12:15 p.m., ominous and overcast, and the emcee is stalling by announcing that he's stalling, complaining about the Mets, complaining about his pants. New Orleans r&b legend Allen Toussaint will be out shortly. A crowd of quiet, seemingly d ... More >>

33 1/3's Recession List

The folks at Continuum and 33 1/3 continue to put on a clinic in the uninspiring and potentially dire realities of publishing in 2009: The final 33 1/3 slate is out, 11 books as compared to the original, optimistic promise of 20, almost all of which focus on records about which you are already proba ... More >>

Live: Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel Reunite at the Beacon Theater

Paul Simon Beacon Theater February 13 Consider the slack, orgasmic vagueness that invades Paul Simons face as, down below, his right hand twitches, by reflex alone, into the first four chords of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"--a song that appears, even when being played by the man who wrot ... More >>

Paul Simon

CALL OF THE WILD

Get lost in the woods with Grizzly Bear

Paul Simon at BAM: Will and Grace

The crossover king of Queens and a global armada make a triumphant return trip to Africa

Paul Simon: Diamonds on the Soles of His Shoes

Grizzly Bear, David Byrne, and host of others join the April BAM residency of New York's quintessential songwriter

Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu

More deep spirituality from Paul Simon's favorite vocal group

Hugs and Kisses 23: Vampire Weekend Bassist Chris Baio on His Favorite Records

Dracula in Disneyworld

Vampire Weekend's goofy charms

Patti's Long-Gestating Covers Album

Patti Smith's Twelve

1981

Listings

Demolition Men

Forever Old

NARAS Sifts Through an Arty Bunch in a Don't-Miss Year

Large and in Charge

Music

Beyond Salsa