Sxip Shirey at the Cooper Square Hotel

On a rainslick Wednesday evening aural alchemist Sxip Shirey plied his trade in a post-modern penthouse twenty-one stories above the Bowery, the azure glow of the Manhattan skyline serving as an ideal backdrop. While Joe's Pub undergoes renovation, the Cooper Square Hotel kindly lent their upper reaches to the occasional musical outing. On a wooden deck high above the city only a flimsy glass panel prevented guests from being swept overboard by the tempest to the concrete far below. The acrophobes stayed safely indoors.

Revving up the evening was the Raya Brass Band, their jumping brand of Old World Balkan dance music in stark contrast to the ultra-modern space. This hardly concerned the gathering crowd, who encircled the troupe as the percussionist drubbed his tupan and the trumpeter shook his instrument to dislodge more notes out of it.

When Sxip took the stage he hauled aboard various members of the Raya Brass Band and guest vocalist Xavier ("he's like Michael Jackson meets Lionel Richie, only taller.") to compliment his unique bag of bells, whistles and conjurer's tricks. To get the audience in the right frame of mind, he repulsed them with a gratuitous description of blood pudding, a taste for which had acquired on a recent trip to Scotland. He then launched into his usual fare of careening funhouse melody welded to a streetwise stomp. Midway through the show he unveiled the "Sxipenspiel," a conundrum of bicycle bells constructed especially for him by an appreciative Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. Sardined in the small space, the crowd raised wine glasses and cameraphones in celebration and good cheer. A neophyte within earshot attempting to describe Sxip's music to his companion eventually gave up in defeat, surmising "the English language doesn't contain the words for it."

The Chelsea Hotel soon may die a gruesome death. CBGB was dismantled and chucked in the dustbin. New York City had better cling to Sxip Shirey's pleated trouserleg while it can before he is lured away by the dubious temptations of European cuisine.































The Raya Brass Band:
Greg Squared: Reeds
Ben Syversen: Trumpet
Don Godwin: Tuba
EJ Fry: Tupan
Matthew Fass: Accordion

Xavier: Vocals
Sxip Shirey: A chest full of toys