It started last Sunday and goes through July 20, the Big Apple plays host to the Macintosh New York Music Festival with some 450 artists performing at 18 participating New York area clubs.

The New York MacFest is a major component of "The GIG" or "Global Internet Gathering" . GIG participants in clubs and on the Internet will be able to experience live musical performances, interact with bands and with each other in online conferences and chat sessions, download multi-media demos and press releases, and purchase music from the GIG website.

Columbia Records and WORK Group artists are playing a significant role in the MacFest with live shows going on all over New York during "The GIG." RealAudio broadcasts of their performances will be accessible over the Internet.

The show kicked off on, July 14, with "An Evening of Sweet Relief" at the Bottom Line (15 West 4th Street). The show consists of solo acoustic performances featuring Vic Chesnutt & Victoria Williams with appearances by David Lowery & Bob Rupe from Cracker; Howe Gelb from Giant Sand; Kristin Hersh; Sparklehorse; Garbage; plus some very special guests.

The concert is in celebration of the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation/The Songs Of Vic Chestnutt, an album featuring Garbage, REM, Nanci Griffith and Hootie & the Blowfish, Soul Asylum, dog's eye view, Live, Smashing Pumpkins and Red Red Meat, Sparklehorse, Joe Henry and Madonna, Kristin Hersh, Cracker, the Indigo Girls, Mary Margaret O'Hara, and Vic Chestnutt and Victoria Williams. The album is due in-stores August 6.

All performing artists and musicians have generously donated their time and talent to this project and a major portion of Sony Music proceeds from the sale of this record go to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a non-profit organization which raises funds for musicians with medical and financial hardship. For more information, email: SweetRlf@aol.com.

On Monday, July 15, Rasputina, the "ladies cello society" described by Paper magazine as "...a guitarless New York-based band whose antecedents include Bach, Bowie and very little in between" will perform at Fez (380 Lafayette). Rasputina's debut album Thanks For The Ether is due in-stores August 6.

The same evening finds Elephant Ride--a California-based five-piece whose demo so impressed Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones that he decided to produce Forget, the band's debut (released July 2) --thundering across the stage at the Mercury Lounge (217 East Houston).

Tuesday, July 16, is "Columbia Night" at the fabled Coney Island High (15 St. Mark's Place) featuring soulful Bostonian rockers Expanding Man and Talking To Animals, altrock chanteuse Mary Lou Lord, and the Philadelphia psychedelic powerpunk of Trip 66. Expanding Man's Head To The Ground is in-stores August 27, Talking To Animals' Manhole is due mid-September, and Trip 66's eponymous debut became available June 18.

Right around the corner from Coney Island High stands Brownie's (169 Avenue A), the hippest watering hole on the Lower East Side, where, also on Tuesday, Chris Whitley will show his fans why God made guitars. Whitley's eagerly-awaited third album, Terra Incognita, is scheduled for an October release.

Thursday, July 18, finds Columbus, Ohio's Howlin' Maggie on-stage at Irving Plaza (17 Irving Place) banging out their punk-inflected, groove-based, funk-speckled rock 'n' pop thang. Howlin' Maggie's Honeysuckle Strange hit the racks in April.

Also on Thursday: Inglewood, California, mixmaster deluxe D.B.A. Flip is gonna tear the roof off Tramps (51 West 21st Street) with his street-savvy melange of rhythm & rhyme. D.B.A. Flip's debut album, Flip On This is set for a mid-autumn release.

On Saturday, July 20, Irving Plaza (17 Irving Place) opens its stage to the poppy neo-folk-rock of dog's eye view, whose happy nowhere generated the ubiquitous radio-hit, "everything falls apart."

Same night, different venue: Imperial Drag, who wowed audiences along the Alanis Morissette tour route, bring their twisted musical take on pop culture from the 70s to the 90s to Tramps (51 West 21st Street). Imperial Drag's eponymous debut came out in May. For more information on the music, please contact the artist's publicist or Howard Wuelfing, Columbia Records, Media, New York, 212/833-8891. For more information on online webcasts, please contact Mark Ghuneim, Columbia Records, Online & Emerging Technologies, New York, 212/833-7382 For more information on The GIG: http://www.music.sony.com/Music/WireTap/Gig/index.html or http://www.thegig.com

 

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