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      Directing the Beatles Was Just One Part of His Long and Winding Career

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      HUDSON, N.Y. — Of course I wanted to talk with Michael Lindsay-Hogg about the Beatles. Everyone wants to talk with him about the Beatles, especially since his star turn in “Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s epic documentary, which debuted last fall on Disney+.In January 1969, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg was the brash young film director who tried to charm and cajole John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr through warring agendas as they hashed out new songs and gave their last concert on a London rooftop. Soon after that, he started shaping his nearly 60 hours of footage into the documentary “Let It Be,” a film largely unavailable since its initial theatrical run in 1970.Mr. Lindsay-Hogg’s footage, as well as more than 100 hours of audio that he recorded with his crew, some of it with hidden microphones, got new life when Mr. Jackson cleaned it up and reassembled it for his nearly eight-hour series. Mr. McCartney and Mr. Starr, along with most critics, hailed “Get Back” as an upbeat corrective to Mr. Lindsay-Hogg’s more somber take.So would he like to talk about his time with the Beatles?“That was a small part of a long career,” he said in the sitting room of his three-bedroom Civil War-era house in Hudson, N.Y.He had a point. In the so-called Swinging London of the 1960s, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg made a name for himself as a creator of the music video, directing promotional films, as they were then called, for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who a decade and a half before MTV. In the early 1980s, he was again a trailblazer, as the co-director of “Brideshead Revisited,” an 11-hour adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel that was a forerunner of prestige television dramas like “The Sopranos.” He is also a Tony-nominated stage director, painter and author. Oh, and Orson Welles may very well be his biological father.It’s almost too much to get through. No wonder he had a request, delivered in a deadpan voice: “Please make the entire article about my painting.” But eventually, over the course of three interviews, we got around to John, Paul, George and Ringo.The Third ManMr. Lindsay-Hogg, 82, lives with his wife, Lisa Ticknor Lindsay-Hogg, a former fashion model and casting agent, in a narrow cream-colored house in this river town nestled into lush green hills. The rooms have a lived-in feel, with book stacks rising from table tops and the walls blanketed with paintings, many of them scavenged from flea markets, and photos from his varied career.“I am the maximalist,” he said. “Lisa is the organizer.”A photo on display in Mr. Lindsay-Hogg’s home of a dinner in London more than 50 years ago, after a screening of his film “Let It Be.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesIn addition to working with the Beatles, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg directed the Rolling Stones in the concert film “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesSprinkled among the decorations are posters from past projects, including “Agnes of God,” a 1982 Broadway play he directed, for which the actress Amanda Plummer won a Tony, and “The Object of Beauty,” a 1991 film written and directed by Mr. Lindsay-Hogg, with John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell in the lead roles. A sculpture of a rabbit head sits on a credenza. He got it in Harare, Zimbabwe, when he filmed Paul Simon’s “Graceland: The African Concert” in 1987.Three cats provide daily entertainment. “She’s a movie star waiting to happen,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said when a black cat named L’il Mew brushed against my leg.The couple has lived here less than two years. During lockdown, they rented a rock-star-style tour bus and fled Los Angeles, where they had lived since they were married in 2002. California’s wildfires were part of what drove them out.“The sky was yellow,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said. “You could taste the soot.”The move meant abandoning a city where he had deep ties. Although he was born in Manhattan and educated at Choate, the Connecticut prep school, he spent six years of his childhood in Hollywood, mingling with William Randolph Hearst, Olivia de Havilland and Humphrey Bogart.His mother was the actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, who starred opposite Laurence Olivier in William Wyler’s “Wuthering Heights” in 1939. His father — at least, according to his birth certificate — was Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, a baronet of Rotherfield Hall in East Sussex, England. The younger Mr. Lindsay-Hogg inherited the title upon the elder’s death in 1999.“Technically, I could be a ‘Sir,’ but unlike Mick and Elton, I didn’t earn it,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said, referring to his friends Mick Jagger and Elton John.A young man in Swinging London: Mr. Lindsay-Hogg in 1965, when he was a director of the British pop music show “Ready Steady Go!”Evening Standard, via Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesThe question of paternity has long hovered over him. His mother, born in Ireland, made her American stage debut opposite Orson Welles in a 1938 revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House.” The production was directed by Mr. Welles at the Mercury Theater, the New York repertory house he had co-founded. When Mr. Lindsay-Hogg was a teenager, his mother told him of the rumors that Mr. Welles, best known for his 1941 film classic “Citizen Kane,” was his biological father.“It certainly played into my life growing up, partly because of the way I look,” he said. “I was heavy when I was young, and Orson was heavy. I have a round face; he had a round face. I didn’t look like Edward Lindsay-Hogg, who, if anything, looked more like, say, Jeremy Irons.”At 19, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg had a small role in Mr. Welles’s stage production of “Chimes at Midnight” in Dublin. “I knew him over the years, and he’d pop up every so often,” he said. Shortly after the run, Mr. Welles offered him a job in a London production of Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.” “He said, ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days and you can come over,’” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg recalled. “I then did not hear from him for five years.”Decades later, his mother, who had Alzheimer’s at the time, gave a cryptic confirmation that Mr. Welles was his father — then seemed to contradict it. Mr. Lindsay-Hogg got an answer when he spoke with Gloria Vanderbilt, a friend of his mother’s whom he had dated in the 1980s, while working on his 2011 memoir, “Luck and Circumstance.”“Gloria said, ‘I hesitate, because I promised your mother I wouldn’t say this, but she’s dead now. Geraldine told me Orson was your father,’” he recalled. He took a pause. “I’m kind of past that,” he said. “Whoever was in the bed that night was in the bed that night.”‘Seventh Career’He led me up a narrow staircase to a well-lit bedroom that he had converted into a painting studio. His latest work was on the easel: a portrait of a couple with haunted eyes that recalled the German Expressionists of the 1920s. Painting has become “a seventh career of sorts,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said.He said he recently sold four pieces at the Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles, but art is more of a passion than a business. Painting also comes as a relief for someone who has endured the pressures of directing. “It’s all yours,” he said. “There’s no producer to say, ‘I don’t like that scene, why don’t you cut it out.’”Mr. Lindsay-Hogg calls painting his “seventh career.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesHe hasn’t abandoned show business entirely. In recent years he directed several episodes of the web comedy series “Tinsel’s Town,” about a YouTube star in Hollywood, and he is writing a script for a film he hopes to direct, set in 1946 Nevada.On the wall next to the staircase were two black-and-white close-up portraits of Mr. Jagger in his early 20s, both stills from the 1960s British pop music show “Ready Steady Go!,” the program that gave Mr. Lindsay-Hogg his start in directing at 24, a few years after he dropped out of Oxford. On the third episode he directed, the Rolling Stones performed “Play With Fire,” and Mr. Jagger made an immediate impression.“He was absolutely beautiful, like a Botticelli cosh boy,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg recalled, using an old British slang term for stylish teenage hoodlum.He went on to direct more than a dozen Rolling Stones music videos, from early hits like “Paint It Black” to “Start Me Up” in 1982, and has remained close with Mr. Jagger. Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said he called him for advice last year, shortly before he was scheduled to have valve-replacement heart surgery, a procedure Mr. Jagger had gone through.“Mick is creative,” he said, “but he’s also extremely practical.”In 1968, around the time of the release of the Rolling Stones album “Beggars Banquet,” Mr. Jagger asked him to direct a TV concert film. A few weeks later, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg called Mr. Jagger and said, as he recalled it: “‘I’m going to say seven words to you: “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.”’ And he got it. It just sounded right.”The production, filmed during a grueling one-day shoot on a London soundstage, included performances by the Who, Jethro Tull and a supergroup called the Dirty Mac featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Yoko Ono. The Rolling Stones closed the show. Now considered a classic, the film was shelved until 1996, when it premiered at the New York Film Festival.“In late January ’69, while doing ‘Let It Be,’ I showed a rough cut to Mick, Keith and Allen Klein,” he said, referring to the guitarist Keith Richards and the group’s manager at the time. “When it was over, they thought the Who were great, but didn’t think the Stones were as good as they could be. Keith said, ‘If it were called “The Who’s Rock and Roll Circus,” I wouldn’t mind.’”Mr. Lennon’s appearance came as little surprise. Mr. Lindsay-Hogg had been working with the Beatles since 1966, when he directed promotional films for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.” Two years later, he was at the helm for the videos for “Revolution” and “Hey Jude.”Let It Be?In late 1968, Mr. McCartney asked him to direct a television special meant to accompany the album the band was about to record. Mr. Lindsay-Hogg was enthusiastic, but he knew from experience that “four Beatles would be four opinions.”“Giving an idea to them was like putting a lump of meat in an animal’s cage,” he said. “One of them would pick it up and sniff it and toss it to the next one to take a bite.”A poster in Mr. Lindsay-Hogg’s home of a 1991 film he wrote and directed, “The Object of Beauty.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesHis leather-bound diaries, which he started keeping in the mid-1960s, in his library in Hudson, N.Y.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesAfter 10 days of filming, it became clear that the production he had envisioned — a concert in a cinematic location, with Mr. Lindsay-Hogg pushing for an amphitheater in Libya, as well as a separate show documenting the rehearsals to run as a kind of teaser — was not going to happen. In the end, he did what he could to salvage something of the original idea by nudging the Beatles to the roof of the Savile Row building that housed Apple Corps, the group’s media company. There they played a glorious lunchtime set as passers-by peered up quizzically from the sidewalks below.Drawing from the dozens of hours that did not make it into “Let It Be,” Mr. Jackson turned Mr. Lindsay-Hogg into a major character in “Get Back”; his efforts to maintain some kind of momentum against long odds provided the three-part series with a narrative through-line. When “Get Back” started streaming, however, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg found himself in a vulnerable position: The man accustomed to a behind-the-camera role was now in the spotlight.And so he was seen chomping on a cigar and suggesting that he could film the Beatles playing a benefit show for orphans or sick children. “But I don’t mean for really sick kids,” he was quick to tell the group. “I mean for kids with broken legs. I mean, really, kind of, 1944 Hollywood musical Bing Crosby kids.” On social media, Disney+ viewers took swipes at his 28-year-old self, calling him “the upper class twit of the year,” among other insults.“I try to steer as clear from social media as possible,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said.He added that he is more concerned about the legacy of his own documentary. The Beatles skipped the premiere, and “Let It Be” has never appeared as a DVD or on streaming platforms. Most fans know it from washed-out videocassettes; and its reputation has suffered thanks to remarks made by Mr. Starr and Mr. McCartney. “There was no joy in it,” the Beatles drummer said last year on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”Mr. Lindsay-Hogg disagrees with that assessment.“There are moments of great sweetness,” he said. “No matter where you put the camera, no matter how you edited it, they loved each other. Anybody who sees ‘Let It Be’ again will find that.”He believes the tone he struck is not really so far from that of “Get Back,” which he said he found “terrific.” Mr. Jackson’s account, he added, had the advantage of being five times longer, its images and sound enhanced by 21st-century technology. “He had canvas to fit a Rubens painting,” he said, “and I had a canvas to fit a little David Hockney painting.”On July 20, 1969, the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the four Beatles and some family members attended a private screening of a rough cut of “Let It Be” in Hanover Square. They seemed pleased, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said. Afterward, he and his girlfriend at the time, the British actress Jean Marsh, went for a late dinner at Provans, a restaurant in the Fulham section of London, with Paul and Linda McCartney, Mr. Lennon and Ms. Ono, and the Apple executive Peter Brown.“It was a friendly meal,” he recalled. “We had a couple of bottles of wine and mostly talked about our differing childhoods. They were happy with the way things were going, certainly, otherwise there would have been no dinner.”“They were grown men, not the Fab Four of the early 1960s,” he added. “And they were OK with being shown navigating relationships which were old, but changing.”Mr. Lindsay-Hogg in his studio.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe film was a victim of bad timing, in his view. By the time of its May 1970 premiere, the Beatles had broken up. Traumatized fans saw it as “a breakup movie: ‘Mom and Dad are getting divorced!’” he said.Apple has said in the past that it had plans to rerelease “Let It Be” at some point, and Mr. Lindsay-Hogg believes it deserves a fresh viewing; but he doesn’t dwell on his time with the Beatles, or the past in general, he said.“I have a very, very good memory,” he said. “It may be because I never took all the drugs. But I’m very not-nostalgic. Nostalgia is, for me, like the vermouth that I do not put in my martini.”He has preserved much of what he went through with the Beatles in diaries, which he has kept since the “Ready Steady Go!” years.He led me to a bookcase in the memento-filled library next to his art studio. It was filled with dusty leather-bound diaries, many overstuffed with letters and photos. At my suggestion, he dug out the volume from 1969. It was curiously slender.He thumbed through the pages and landed on January 30, the blustery day in London when the Beatles played in public for the last time. As captured by Mr. Lindsay-Hogg and his team, their swan-song performance was the climax of both “Let It Be” and “Get Back.”The diary page was blank, except for one word scribbled in black ballpoint pen.Roof.“The busier you are,” Mr. Lindsay-Hogg said, “the less you write down.” More

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      ‘Ready to Rock, You Guys?’ The Winklevoss Twins Play Amagansett.

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      At the end of a tour that drew some social media mockery, the billionaire brothers’ rock band received a friendly reception at a venue close to their parents’ beach house.The 40-year-old billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have been on the road with their rock band, Mars Junction, since early last month, crisscrossing the country to offer their versions of songs by Blink-182, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Police, Pearl Jam and Journey. Tyler sings; Cameron plays guitar. On Saturday, they rolled into Amagansett, N.Y., the Long Island beach town not far from where they spent their childhood summers.They arrived in grand style, cruising down Main Street in a 45-foot Prevost tour bus with “Mars Junction” in huge lettering on the side. A Mercedes-Benz Sprinter brought up the rear. The twins’ retinue included the four musicians in the band, a documentary filmmaker, a merchandise salesman and assorted staff members.The two vehicles parked in front of the Stephen Talkhouse, a venue with an old-salt vibe where a number of marquee performers have taken the stage over the decades, including Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Cliff, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Sheila E. and Suzanne Vega. Mars Junction was closing out the tour with two nights at the Talkhouse on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets were $50.The twins, whose cryptocurrency company, Gemini, laid off 10 percent of its staff in the recent crypto crash, hit a bump on the road to Amagansett. An audience member at the band’s show at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J., posted a video of Tyler trying and failing to match the crystalline high notes of the singer Steve Perry in Mars Junction’s rendition of Journey’s 1981 hit “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The clip went viral, and the comments on social media about the twins — former Olympic rowers who made a fortune in Bitcoin after having a role in the creation of Facebook — came in hot.Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who were born in nearby Southampton and grew up in Greenwich, Conn., had a much warmer reception at the Talkhouse. By 7 p.m. on Saturday, the place was packed, mainly with young adults in Bermuda shorts and summer dresses who appeared to belong to the same crowd as the Harvard-educated twins. Their parents, Carol and Howard Winklevoss, were in attendance, as were several family friends.Tyler Winklevoss, left, and his twin brother, Cameron, closed a nationwide tour in Amagansett over the Fourth of July weekend.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThe crowd at the Stephen Talkhouse during the first of two Mars Junction shows.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThe twins took the stage and dove into their opener, “Top Gun Anthem,” the instrumental theme to the 1986 film and its recent sequel. With his mustache, slicked-back hair, aviator shades and wallet chain hanging from a back pocket, Tyler had a look somewhere between “Top Gun” and Tommy Bahama. Cameron, in an orange shirt and white slacks, had more of a surfer vibe.Suddenly, his legs wide apart and the microphone held sideways, Tyler led the band into Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name.” “Now you do what they told ya!” he sang before leaping into the crowd, where he engaged in a flurry of high-fives and fist bumps with the Mars Junction faithful.“What up, Talkhouse!” he said after the song was done. “Fourth of July weekend, it’s the big one! Ready to rock, you guys?”The hits kept on coming: Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire”; Mumford & Sons’ “The Wolf”; the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Can’t Stop.” When Tyler sang Sublime’s “Santeria,” he made a change to the line “Well, I had a million dollars” by replacing the word “million” with “billion.” Cameron executed a wah-wah guitar solo and took a swig of Liquid Death water.Then came the challenging part of the show: the Police medley, which required Tyler to hit the high notes so effortlessly sung by a youthful Sting in his 1980s glory.“So Lonely” segued into “Message in a Bottle,” which morphed into the hard-rocking “Synchronicity II” (“The factory belches filth into the sky!” Tyler sang) before settling into the reggae vibe of “Walking on the Moon.” Tyler was stretching his voice to the limit. Why not make it easier on himself by starting it off in a lower key? But that is not the Winklevoss way.The crowd sang along with the next one, “Flagpole Sitta,” a 1997 hit for Harvey Danger. When the music died down, a young man in the audience repeatedly screamed out a profane chant against Mark Zuckerberg, whom the Winklevoss twins sued unsuccessfully, accusing him of denying them their fair share of Facebook money.“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Tyler said to the rowdy fan, the hint of a smile on his face.He got nostalgic in his introduction to Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow.”“Let’s go early ’90s, yeah?” Tyler said to the crowd. “What do you think? Early ’90s? Pre-internet? Can you handle that? No social media? All right, you want to go back there?”He channeled Eddie Vedder’s growl. Cameron busted out two solos.“Whooooooo!” said the crowd.“We’re going to stay early ’90s for this next one,” Tyler said. “Ready for some Nirvana?”The crowd whooped again.“OK, that feels like a yes!”Then came “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” As they played the next song, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Suck My Kiss,” their mother, Carol, was clapping along to the beat as their father, wearing a blue blazer and button-down shirt, maintained a stoic demeanor.Tyler Winklevoss tosses Mars Junction T-shirts into the crowd.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesFor the song “You’re So Last Summer,” by Taking Back Sunday, Cameron put on a Mars Junction cap. More were available at the merch table for $20.02 apiece.After the audience sang along to “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, Mars Junction offered a pair of Journey songs as encores: “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Any Way You Want It.” The lights came up to the sound of AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” on the Talkhouse sound system. The twins left to have a late dinner with their parents at Gurney’s in Montauk.Before the Sunday evening show, the brothers took a moment to chat in an upstairs room at the Talkhouse. As Tyler cracked open a Liquid Death, he said the previous night’s show had the feel of a homecoming and noted that his parents still had the beach house in nearby Quogue. He added that Mars Junction was in a somewhat vulnerable position, since it plays such familiar songs.“When you play covers, you’re judged against the recording,” Tyler said. “And the more iconic the song, the more people know the recording, and live’s a little different. So it’s a tough thing.”One thing the Mars Junction experience has taught them, the twins said, was that the life of a touring musician can be wearying.“You’ve got to rest for these shows,” Tyler said. “It’s a huge exertion and, as a vocalist, your voice can go if you’re not careful.”“Guitars don’t get tired,” Cameron said. “But humans do.” More

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      Overlooked No More: Klaus Nomi, Singer With an Otherworldly Persona

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      His sound and look influenced everyone from Anohni to Lady Gaga. He also sang backup vocals for David Bowie.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.A wide range of musical genres fueled New York’s nightclubs in the late 1970s and early ’80s, including new wave, no wave, punk and post punk. Klaus Nomi, who performed during that era, defied being categorized under any of them.“I wouldn’t give it a label,” Nomi said of his sound in a Belgian television interview. “Maybe the only label is my own label: It’s Nomi style.”His music combined opera, infectious melodies, disco beats, German-accented countertenor vocals and undeniable grandeur. He influenced everyone from the singer-songwriter Anohni to Lady Gaga; in 2009, when Morrissey was asked to select eight essential records for the BBC radio program “Desert Island Discs,” Nomi’s version of Schumann’s “Der Nussbaum” made the list.Nomi’s stage look was equally eclectic, and inseparable from his sound. The gender-fluid mix included dark, dramatically-applied lipstick as well as nail polish, the occasional women’s garment and often a giant structured tuxedo top that suggested Dada as much as sci-fi. His style influenced the fashion world as well, in collections by designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Riccardo Tisci.Nomi’s look was indisputably nonbinary, and a bit otherworldly. “He still comes across as an outrageously expressive and strange figure,” Tim Lawrence, author of the 2016 book “Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983,” said in a phone interview.“There was something about his entire being, which seemed to be queer, around makeup and voice and music and dress,” Lawrence said.Nomi — or Klaus Sperber, the name he was born with — moved to New York City from his native Germany in the early 1970s. He fell in with a group of creative friends and in late 1978 joined many of them to perform at New Wave Vaudeville, a series of quirky variety shows. The bill included a stripper, a singing dog and a performance artist dressed as a sadistic nun.Nomi, in the background at center, at the Mudd Club in Manhattan in 1979, the year he met David Bowie there.Alan KleinbergAs the closing act, Nomi sang an aria from Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila” while wearing a transparent raincoat over a shiny, fitted top and pants along with dramatic eye makeup and lipstick.“He really blew people’s minds,” Ann Magnuson, who directed the shows, said in an interview. “He had all these snarky punk rockers out there who were speechless.”With the performances came a new name, inspired by the name of a magazine focused on outer space, Omni.“Klaus said, ‘I can’t go out as Klaus Sperber,’” his friend Joey Arias, the singer and performance artist, recalled by phone. “‘That’s not a star’s name.’”Soon he was performing as Klaus Nomi at tastemaker Manhattan clubs like Max’s Kansas City and Hurrah, with a set list created with the help of Kristian Hoffman, a musician who served for a time as his musical director. The material included edgy originals and unconventional takes on well-known hits. Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” became an enraged dirge, for example; the chorus of “Lightnin’ Strikes” morphed into an aria. The thought was that pop songs would “catch the ear of an audience who isn’t ready for opera,” Hoffman said in an interview.As The New York Times put it in a review of one of his performances, Nomi’s music was “positively catchy, in a strange sort of way.”One night in late 1979, Nomi and Arias were at the Mudd Club, in TriBeCa, when they met David Bowie there. Nomi called him later — Bowie had asked him to, scribbling his phone number with a friend’s eyeliner — and Nomi and Arias were recruited to be Bowie’s backup singers for an appearance that December as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”For the show’s three songs, they wore clinging women’s Thierry Mugler dresses, purchased at Henri Bendel. The look was extremely provocative at the time, especially on national television. Throughout, the TV cameras’ focus seemed to be as much on them as on Bowie.“It legitimized everything, because it had been sort of a private scene, and all of a sudden there it is, right in front of you on ‘Saturday Night Live,’” said Katy Kattelman, a designer who is known professionally as Katy K and who was a friend of Nomi’s.Soon after, Nomi signed a record deal with RCA France. His debut album, titled simply “Klaus Nomi,” was released in Europe in 1981; a second album, “A Simple Man,” came out the next year. The records sold well — “Klaus Nomi” earned gold-record status in France — and he performed abroad to packed venues.Nomi returned to New York toward the end of 1982, excited by the prospect of possible American tours and releases. But he arrived gaunt and exhausted — he had contracted AIDS. He died of complications of the illness on Aug. 6, 1983. He was 39.A scene from the 2004 documentary “The Nomi Song” showing Nomi getting ready for a performance.Palm PicturesNomi at Hurrah, one of many nightclubs he performed at in New York City.Harvey WangKlaus Sperber was born on Jan. 24, 1944, in Immenstadt, a town in what was then West Germany. He was raised by his mother, Bettina, who worked odd jobs. A fling with a soldier, whom Klaus never met, resulted in his birth. When he was a child, he and his mother moved to the city of Essen, about 400 miles away. Opera music was often playing in their house, and it set Klaus on his path.“The first time I heard an opera singer on the radio I said, ‘My God, I want to sing just like that,’” he said in interview footage that is included in the 2004 documentary “The Nomi Song.” As a teenager, he became equally fond of Elvis Presley.He moved to West Berlin and worked as an usher at Deutsche Oper, where he sometimes sang for colleagues after the audience had left. But he aspired to sing professionally, and, Arias said, “he felt like he was at a dead end.”“He wanted to come to New York because he felt like it would change his life,” Arias added.Nomi settled in Manhattan’s East Village. He worked for a while in the kitchen of the Upper East Side cafe and celebrity hangout Serendipity 3 and started a baking business with Kattelman called Tarts, Inc., supplying restaurants with desserts made in Nomi’s St. Marks Place apartment.Nomi was known to frequent after-hours clubs, like the Anvil and Mineshaft, where casual sex was commonplace. There were sexual encounters at home as well — Arias said he once arrived at Nomi’s apartment to find a naked Jean-Michel Basquiat toweling off.To get a green card, he married a woman, Melissa Moon, a U.S. citizen, in 1980.“I don’t think he was in any way being anything that wasn’t himself, which was pretty gay as far as I knew,” said the artist Kenny Scharf. “When you’re creating your persona, the sexuality part is obviously part of the persona. It was all part of his sense of style and him being an artist in every way.” More

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      The Best Actors to Play Elvis Onscreen

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      In honor of Austin Butler’s performance in the Baz Luhrmann biopic, we ranked 10 of the best — and worst — Presleys to grace the silver screen.Kurt Russell had the hip swivel down cold. Val Kilmer nailed the sincere, soulful voice. And Michael Shannon … well, the credits identified him as Elvis Presley, so that was the character he must have been playing in “Elvis & Nixon,” right?Since the King’s death in 1977, at 42, more than a dozen actors — and one space alien — have portrayed his walk, talk and famous charm in dozens of films and TV shows. Now one more has joined their ranks — Austin Butler, whose on-point hip gyrations are at the heart of Baz Luhrmann’s new “Elvis.”So how does Butler’s sultry, baby-faced King stack up against Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s Golden Globe-winning crooner or Harvey Keitel’s over-the-hill rocker? We offer our rankings. 1979Kurt Russell, ‘Elvis’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸The perfectly coifed pouf, the raw, emotive voice, the frenzied hip thrusts, the gleaming, skintight rhinestone jumpsuit … blink, and you could easily believe, thanks to this near-flawless portrayal in a 1979 TV movie, that Kurt Russell is Elvis. Sure, Russell doesn’t actually sing — that was all the country artist Ronnie McDowell — but that speaking voice is spot-on. Buy it on Amazon.2005Jonathan Rhys Meyers, ‘Elvis: The Miniseries’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸The two-part show, which tackles Presley’s rise from high school in Mississippi to international superstardom, is a showcase for Rhys Meyers’s heart-pounding leg pumps (with memorable supporting turns from Randy Quaid as Col. Tom Parker, Presley’s manager, and Rose McGowan as the actress Ann-Margret, with whom Presley was rumored to have had an affair). Like Russell, Rhys Meyers doesn’t do his own singing, but he lip-syncs flawlessly to an even better option: the real thing. (This was the first biopic that the Presley estate allowed to use the master recordings.)Rent it on DVD.com.2005Tyler Hilton, ‘Walk the Line’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸Hilton pops up in four scenes of this Johnny Cash biopic as a young Elvis, opposite a young Joaquin Phoenix as Cash. It was one of Hilton’s first forays into acting — he considered himself more of a musician at the time — but he nails Presley’s slurred vocal style and the deeply felt conviction of his singing.Stream it on Tubi; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.1993Val Kilmer, ‘True Romance’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸This romantic crime drama written by Quentin Tarantino centers not on the King, but on an Elvis fanatic (Christian Slater) and his new wife on the run from mobsters. But Kilmer’s apparition of Elvis, complete with gold lamé suit, might just be the most memorable part. (That’s saying something in a film that also featured Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson and a young Brad Pitt.) Kilmer’s appearance tops out at around two minutes and he’s credited only as “Mentor.” But the suave voice whispering murderous thoughts into Slater’s ear is unmistakably intended to be the King’s, and Kilmer aces it.Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.1998Harvey Keitel, ‘Finding Graceland’ 🎸🎸🎸OK, so strictly speaking, Harvey Keitel is not Elvis but “Elvis,” a fictional older — and very much alive — version of Presley who faked his death in 1977 after becoming overwhelmed by the pressures of fame. Keitel nails the melted-chocolate quality of the rocker’s voice and delivers a full-throated portrayal of an over-the-hill King, complete with hip thrusts and shoulder shimmies. (The film was produced by Elvis’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, and scenes were actually filmed inside the Graceland mansion in Memphis.)Buy it on Amazon.2003Bruce Campbell, ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ 🎸🎸🎸In this R-rated comedy-horror flick, Bruce Campbell is an aged Elvis impersonator in a nursing home, Ossie Davis is a fellow resident who claims to be President John F. Kennedy, they fight an Egyptian mummy sucking out residents’ souls through their butts, and, just trust us, it works. Campbell brings an endearingly crusty charisma to the part, and his self-deprecating hospital-bed monologues about growing old are surprisingly moving.Stream it on Tubi or Amazon Prime; rent or buy it on Apple TV or Vudu.1988David Keith, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ 🎸🎸🎸“Heartbreak Hotel” sounds, from the title, like an Elvis-adjacent chick flick, but it’s actually a comedy written and directed by Chris Columbus about a teenage boy who kidnaps Elvis as a present for his mother when she’s recovering from a car crash. (Elvis happens to be his mom’s favorite singer.) Critics — and the public — gave Keith’s portrayal a rather tepid reception, with Rita Kempley of The Washington Post concluding in her scalpelesque pan that “Playing Elvis is like playing a Kennedy, nearly impossible.” At least someone liked it: Keith’s King, who was fatherly, clean-cut and drug-free, did get the blessing of the Presley estate and Elvis’s national fan club.Buy it on Amazon.1981Don Johnson, ‘Elvis and the Beauty Queen’ 🎸🎸This made-for-TV movie focused on the end of Elvis’s life and his relationship with the beauty-pageant contestant Linda Thompson, whom he was romantically involved with after the end of his six-year marriage to Priscilla Presley. To judge by YouTube clips, Johnson rocked a jumpsuit as a zonked-out Elvis, yes, but his high-pitched speaking voice was better suited for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch than a seduction scene, and his bushy black wig was downright hokey — and that was before the heavy eyeliner and mascara.2016Michael Shannon, ‘Elvis & Nixon’🎸If you didn’t hear a security guard say, “It’s Elvis Presley!” you wouldn’t know Michael Shannon’s careworn, sullen Elvis was supposed to be the King. His craggy face is at odds with the King’s smooth features, and, combined with a voluminous black wig, his Elvis smacks of Michael Crawford in “Dance of the Vampires.” The film, a historical comedy, focused on a 1970 meeting between Presley and President Richard Nixon (played by Kevin Spacey, who also does not resemble his real-lie counterpart). Shannon is a great character actor, but he can’t overcome this confoundingly bad casting, despite the gleaming gold belt buckle, tinted glasses, high-collared shirt and flashing rings.Stream it on Amazon Prime; rent it on DVD.com.2002Bonus: Stitch in ‘Lilo & Stitch’He ain’t nothin’ but a hound alien. In this animated comedy, Experiment 626 — a.k.a. Stitch — uses a black wig, white jumpsuit and ukulele to indulge Lilo as she tries to teach him to be a model citizen. And honestly, based on the number of beachgoers who swooned when they got one of his flirtatious winks, we’d have to crown him the hip-swivel champion.Stream it on Disney+; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube. More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Break My Soul,’ and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Taylor Swift, the Mars Volta, Gorillaz featuring Thundercat and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Beyoncé, ‘Break My Soul’The first song from Beyoncé’s album due July 29, “Renaissance,” has a clubby house beat and an attitude that equates defiant self-determination with salvation. She and her co-producers, Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, work two chords and a four-on-the-floor thump into a constantly changing track. They sampled shouted advice — “Release your anger! Release your mind! Release your job! Release the time!” — from “Explode” by the New Orleans bounce rapper Big Freedia. Beyoncé extrapolates from there: joining the Great Resignation, building “my own foundation,” insisting on love and self-love, facing every obstacle with the pledge that “You won’t break my soul.” When she invokes the soul, a gospel choir arrives to affirm her inner strength, as if anyone could doubt it. JON PARELESGorillaz featuring Thundercat, ‘Cracker Island’A kind of living cartoon character in his own right, the charismatic bassist Thundercat is a natural fit in the Gorillaz universe — so much so that it’s almost surprising he’s never collaborated with them before. Thundercat’s insistent bass line and backing vocals add a funky jolt to the group’s “Cracker Island,” a sleek and summery jam that happens to be about … a made-up cult? Thankfully the tune doesn’t get bogged down by anything too conceptual, though, and invites the listener to simply lock into its blissed-out groove. LINDSAY ZOLADZElizabeth King, ‘I Got a Love’The Memphis-based vocalist Elizabeth King once seemed headed toward gospel stardom. In the early 1970s, she and a group of all-male backing singers, the Gospel Souls, scored a radio hit and won the Gospel Gold Cup award, presented by the city’s gospel D.J.s. But then King stepped back, spending decades raising 15 children; her public performances were limited to singing on a weekly gospel radio program. It wasn’t until last year that King, now in her 70s, released her first full album, the impressive “Living in the Last Days.” She returns this week with “I Got a Love.” On the title track, King reprises the sultry style of praise-singing that she had perfected in the 1970s, telling us about her rock-sturdy romance with God over a slow and savory tempo. Behind her, a tube-amplified guitar slices out riffs, an organ alternates between full chords and long rests, and a heavy, pushing bass keeps the band’s muscles flexed. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAmanda Shires, ‘Take It Like a Man’The title track from Amanda Shires’s upcoming album is a poetic and provocative torch song enlivened by an electrifying vocal performance. Featuring her husband Jason Isbell on guitar, “Take It Like a Man” is a sweeping ballad that continuously builds in blistering intensity — sort of like something Shires’s Highwomen bandmate Brandi Carlile might release. But the song is a showcase for the unique power of Shires’s voice, which is both nervy and tremblingly vulnerable at the same time. “I know the cost of flight is landing,” she sings as the melody ascends ever higher, “and I know I can take it like a man.” ZOLADZThe Cultural Impact of Taylor Swift’s MusicWith two quarantine albums and new recordings of her older albums, the pandemic has been a time of renewal and reinvention for Taylor Swift. A Fight for Her Masters: Revisit the origin story of Swift’s rerecordings: a feud with the powerful manager Scooter Braun. Pandemic Records: In 2020, Ms. Swift released two new albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” In debuting a new sound, she turned to indie music. Fearless: For the release of “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” the first of the rerecordings, Times critics and reporters dissected its sound and purpose. Reshifting the Power: The new 10-minute version of a bitter breakup song from 2012 can be seen as a woman’s attempt to fix an unbalanced relationship by weaponizing memories.Taylor Swift, ‘Carolina’“Carolina,” from the soundtrack to the forthcoming movie “Where the Crawdads Sing,” holds the distinction of being one of the spookiest songs in the Taylor Swift catalog; save for “No Body, No Crime,” it’s the closest she’s come to writing an outright murder ballad. Co-produced with Aaron Dessner, “Carolina” sounds of a piece with Swift’s folky pair of 2020 releases: The arrangement begins with just a sparsely strummed acoustic guitar that eventually swells into a misty atmosphere with the addition of strings and banjo. As on her 2015 single “Wildest Dreams,” there’s a hint of Lana Del Rey’s influence as Swift digs into her breathy lower register to intone ominously, “There are places I will never go, and things that only Carolina will ever know.” ZOLADZSessa, ‘Canção da Cura’“Canção da Cura” (“Song of Healing”) from the Brazilian songwriter Sessa’s new album, “Estrela Acesa” (“Burning Star”), hints at some clandestine ritual. In his gentle tenor, Sessa sings, “To the sound of the drums I’ll consume you.” Acoustic guitars and percussion set up an intricate mesh of syncopation, and in his gentle tenor, with hushed backup vocals overhead, Sessa sings, “To the sound of the drums I’ll consume you.” It’s a brief glimpse of a mystery. PARELESThe Mars Volta, ‘Blacklight Shine’After a decade of other projects, the wildly virtuosic, conundrum-slinging guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and the singer and lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala have reunited as the Mars Volta, with a tour to start in September and a new song: “Blacklight Shine.” It’s a six-beat, bilingual rocker, full of complex percussion and scurrying guitar lines, with lyrics like, “the high control hex he obsessively pets with his thumbs/thinking no one’s watching but I got the copy that he can never erase.” But unlike many of Mars Volta’s past efforts, this one strives for catchiness, and its rolling rhythm and harmony vocals hint, unexpectedly, at Steely Dan, another band that tucked musical and verbal feats behind pop hooks. An extended “short film” connects the song’s underlying beat to the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Puerto Rican bomba. PARELESCKay featuring Davido, Focalistic and Abidoza, ‘Watawi’Commitment is an iffy thing; in “Watawi,” the Nigerian singers CKay and Davido and the South African rapper Focalistic stay evasive when girlfriends ask “What are we?” CKay suavely croons a non-answer: “We are what we are.” Keeping things up in the air is the production by Abidoza from South Africa, which hovers around a syncopated one-note pulse as it fuses the cool keyboard chords of South African amapiano with crisp Afrobeats percussion. In its final minute, the track introduces a fiddle that could easily lead to a whole new phase of the relationship. PARELESAlex G, ‘Runner’There’s something wonderfully uncanny about the music of Philadelphia’s Alex G. His songs often gesture toward familiar sounds and textures — “Runner,” from his forthcoming album “God Save the Animals” bears a melodic resemblance to, of all things, Soul Asylum’s early ’90s anthem “Runaway Train”— but their gradual accumulation of small, idiosyncratic sonic details produce an overall sense of strangeness. “Runner” initially sounds like warm, pleasant alt-rock pastiche, but before it can lull the listener into nostalgia, the song suddenly erupts with unruly emotion: “I have done a couple bad things,” Alex sings a few times with increasing desperation, before letting out a thrillingly unexpected scream. ZOLADZLil Nas X featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘Late to da Party’Exile comes in many forms — sometimes it’s spiritual, sometimes it’s literal. The pop-rap phenom Lil Nas X recently took umbrage — seriously or not, who can tell — at not being nominated for a BET Award at this year’s ceremony. YoungBoy Never Broke Again remains on house arrest, one of rap’s most popular figures but one who’s achieved that success without the participation of traditional tastemakers. Together, they share the kinship of outsiders, even if they never quite align on this song, which is notionally aimed at BET; the video features a clip of someone urinating on a BET Award trophy. They are radically different artists — two different rapping styles, two different subject matter obsessions, two different levels of seriousness. By the end it feels as if they’re seeking exile from each other. JON CARAMANICATove Lo, ‘True Romance’“What does a girl like me want with you?” the Swedish songwriter Tove Lo asks in “True Romance,” a four-minute catharsis. The track uses only two synthesized chords and a slow pulse, but the vocal is pained, aching and constantly escalating the drama: a desperate human voice trying to escape an electronic grid. PARELESRachika Nayar, ‘Heaven Come Crashing’The composer Rachika Nayar explores the textural and orchestral possibilities of electric guitar and digital processing: effects, loops, layering. Much of her work has been meditative, and so is the beginning of “Heaven Come Crashing,” with shimmering, sustained washes of guitar and abstract vocals from Maria BC. But there’s a surprise midway through: a hurtling drumbeat kicks in, and what had been a weightless drift is suddenly a warp-speed surge forward. PARELESAbraham Burton and Eric McPherson, ‘Will Never Be Forgotten’In an alternate universe, the release of new music from the tenor saxophonist Abraham Burton and the drummer Eric McPherson would be a major event. Both are Gen X jazz eminences, and across decades playing together, their styles have grown in complement to one another. Burton holds long notes in a strong but wavery yowl or shoots out notes in string-like bursts, conveying a wounded tenderness in spite of all that volume and power. McPherson has a relatively gentle touch on the drums, but still channels the earth-moving polyrhythmic force of Elvin Jones. Last summer, these longtime musical partners gave a concert, joined by the bassist Dezron Douglas, as part of Giant Step Arts’ outdoor series at the old Seneca Village site in Central Park. The performance closed with “Will Never Be Forgotten,” a lament with a descending bass line and a melody that winds downward like a teardrop. A full recording of the concert was released on Juneteenth, as “The Summit Rock Session at Seneca Village.” RUSSONELLO More

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      Inside New York’s Throwback Roller-Skating Extravaganza

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      Music is the key to a summertime experience for pros and amateurs called the DiscOasis in Central Park. Its curator: the funk-disco guru and lifelong skater Nile Rodgers.To some people, a roller rink is just a place to skim around in a circle, not even very fast, going nowhere. But to its devotees and to the creators of the DiscOasis, a new skate experience in Central Park, it is transformational, spiritual — time travel on four wheels.On Saturday night, more than a thousand skaters packed Wollman Rink, laced up their quads and spun off into sparkling nostalgia. Spotlights shone onto the surrounding trees, as a concert-level light show bathed the space in cyan, fuschias and golds. “Good Times,” that 1970s party staple, blared from D.J. Funkmaster Flex’s booth, as the crowd — some wobblies, some more expert — parted for the pros: One roller dancer in flared jeans dropped to a split, while another flipped off her wheels, uncoiling into a headstand. For 10 minutes, it was all hot pants and acrobatics, and then regular New Yorkers — many with a style not far-off — slid back in.Hovering over this opening night like a sequined demigod was Nile Rodgers, the Chic guitarist, funk-disco eminence and lifelong skater. He curated music for the DiscOasis, and, with voice-over introductions, provides its cultural through line from 1970s and ’80s New York, when he used to frequent the city’s now shuttered, once legendary rinks with Diana Ross and Cher. Kevin Bacon and Robert Downey Jr. too. (The ’80s were wild.) With some skill on wheels, “You feel like you have special human powers,” Rodgers said in a recent video interview. “You feel like you can fly.”Scenes from the opening night of the DiscOasis, which will be open through October.Thao Nguyen from Constellation Immersive (in purple sequins) and Lynná Davis of the Central Park Dance Skaters Association (in blue sunglasses) join the set designer David Korins (second from left in back row) and more DiscOasis stakeholders at its ribbon cutting.OK McCausland for The New York TimesRoller-skating is having another flash of popularity, but the DiscOasis sets itself apart from the city’s other rinks and pop-up events (Rockefeller Center is temporarily hosting wheelers, too) through its production value, theatricality and pedigree. There’s blossoming disco balls as big as eight feet in diameter, and a multitiered stage, created by the Tony-nominated set designer David Korins, who did “Hamilton” and shows for Lady Gaga. The cast of 13 includes legends of New York roller disco, like the long-limbed skater known as Cotto, a fixture in the city’s parks for more than four decades, whose signature leg twirls and pivots have influenced scores of skaters.“We call it jam skating,” he said. the DiscOasis coaxed him out of retirement — he’s had both hips replaced — for choreographed shows, five nights a week.The energy is ecstatic, and infectious. “Being on wheels is paradise to me,” said Robin Mayers Anselm, 59, who grew up going to Empire, the storied Brooklyn emporium. “I feel more connected to myself and my spirit when I skate.”That’s true even for the newbies, like Robin L. Dimension, an actress wearing an embellished jumpsuit and a chunky “Queen” necklace with her psychedelic-patterned skates. “I got a really nice outfit,” she said, “so I look good going down.”Billed as “an immersive musical and theatrical experience,” the DiscOasis began last year outside of Los Angeles.OK McCausland for The New York TimesBilled as “an immersive musical and theatrical experience,” the DiscOasis began last year outside of Los Angeles, the pandemic brainchild of an events company led by a C.A.A. agent. But its foundational home was always New York, and it will be open through October.“For us, DiscOasis is a movement, it’s a vibe — we want as many people to be able to experience it,” said Thao Nguyen, its executive producer, and chief executive of Constellation Immersive, its parent company, which partnered with Live Nation and Los Angeles Media Fund to stage the series.For New York’s skate community, it is first and foremost a good floor. “You know, we’re not impressed by the accouterments of the illusion,” said Tone Rapp Fleming, a New York native and skater for 50 years, who came for a preview on Thursday. That’s mostly because ride-or-die skaters like him and his friend Lynná Davis, vice president of the Central Park Dance Skaters Association, would skate on a trash can lid, as she put it. But they praised the rink’s glidable new surface, painted in primary shades of blue, yellow and red.The DiscOasis’ creators knew that if they won over the old-school skate crew, the world would follow; Davis, an ageless wonder in rainbow-flecked braids and custom bejeweled, be-fringed wheels, helped with casting. “Work it out, kids!” she cheered on the younger dancers, as they cartwheeled their routine, to a soundtrack that spun from Queen to “Rapper’s Delight.”For David Korins, who created the stage for the DiscOasis, the space is a Studio 54 throwback, but fresher. OK McCausland for The New York TimesRodgers created the playlists for the performances, which happen throughout the night, interspersed with live D.J.s (the daytime is for more relaxed skating). A longtime New Yorker, Rodgers coined his skate style as a 12- or 13-year-old on a brief sojourn in Los Angeles, when he tore up the town with other kids, performing little routines. “I had this wobbly leg way of skating,” he said. He still does, “even though I’m going to be 70. And it looks cool.”His crew stood out even then: “We used to skate to jazz,” he said, recalling their grooves to the guitarist Wes Montgomery’s 1965 classic “Bumpin’ on Sunset.”Fast forward 30 years, and Rodgers had largely hung up his skates. But he has been so energized by his association with the DiscOasis, which approached him for the Los Angeles event, that it reignited his devotion. Now on tour in Europe, he has been conjuring minirinks wherever he goes, one hotel ballroom at a time.“They lift up the rugs for me and create a big dance floor,” he said. “I can skate in a little square. There’s nobody in there, because I skate at such weird hours — 4 or 5 in the morning.” (He doesn’t sleep much. As befits a disco-era fashion legend, he also has personalized skates — orange, green, iridescent — which got stuck in customs on their way to Europe. His favorite are a classic pair of black Riedells.)Even for someone well-versed in skate culture, the Los Angeles version of the DiscOasis offered some lessons. Most skaters only stick to the rink for about 45 minutes, Rodgers said. The space around Wollman has a nonskate dance floor and a few Instagram-ready installations inspired by his music. The giant half-disco ball stuffed with oversize wedding bouquets, pearls and askew mannequin legs, for example, is supposed to symbolize Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” which he produced.For Korins, the production designer, the space is a Studio 54 throwback, but fresher. “We’re leaning into this oasis idea — if you think about mirrored balls and foliage coming together to have a child, that’s what we’re making,” he said. (Think discofied palm trees and cactuses.) And the Central Park location, with the Manhattan skyline rising above it, brings its own magic. “It takes all the best things about roller-skating and disco and it literally rips the roof off,” he said.Amateurs and pros alike fill the floor at the DiscOasis.OK McCausland for The New York TimesSome attendees (including Davis), come dressed in their skating finest.OK McCausland for The New York TimesThe cast of 13 that performs at the DiscOasis includes legends of New York roller disco.OK McCausland for The New York TimesLike other skate habitués, Korins has a theory about why it remains to addictive. “It’s really hard to find an experience in life that’s both kinetic and dynamic,” he said — you can flex your solo style and also get the communion of “an organism moving around together.”Shernita Anderson, the choreographer, saw that in action. For solos, the cast was on its own. “We were like, ‘Go off, live your best life!’” she said. “And that’s what they did.”Pirouetting and high-kicking his way through the act was Keegan James Robataille, 20, a musical-theater-trained dancer who only began skating two years ago as a pandemic outlet. A swing in the company, this is his first professional, contracted gig. He grew up near a rink in Amsterdam, N.Y. “I remember going there all throughout middle school and being like, ‘Wow, I wish I could skate backwards and do these cool tricks,’” he said. “And here I am performing in New York City, doing what little me would have dreamed of doing.”A closing number — set to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” naturally — came on and he sailed away for his cue. It had the skaters in capes dotted with LEDs, like luminescent butterflies.“I have never seen anything like this in New York,” said Samantha O’Grady, a 24-year-old native. The rinks she started learning at all closed “by the time I was a tween,” she said, but the retro ambience of the DiscOasis gave her a flicker of how the scene looked before her time. “I sent a picture to my mother; she was so jealous.”First-time visitors were already planning to become regulars, like Robbin Ziering, whose wedding was on wheels. “We love to work, we love to dance, we love music — but we live to skate,” she said. “And that’s what it’s all about.”Kalia Richardson contributed reporting.OK McCausland for The New York Times More

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      Soccer Mommy's ‘Tidal Wave’ of Feelings on ‘Sometimes, Forever’

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      The songwriter Sophie Allison finds new sonic frontiers alongside Oneohtrix Point Never on her third studio album, “Sometimes, Forever.”“I don’t know how to feel things small,” Sophie Allison, the songwriter behind Soccer Mommy, sings in “Still,” which closes her third studio album, “Sometimes, Forever.” She continues, “It’s a tidal wave or nothing at all.”With each album, she has expanded the ways she conjures those tidal waves. Allison, 25, started releasing home-recorded Soccer Mommy songs on Bandcamp as a teenager, layering her vocals and guitars, and she dropped out of N.Y.U. in 2017 after her dorm-room recordings landed her a recording contract.She formed a band and toured extensively, and on her studio albums “Clean” (2018) and “Color Theory” (2020), she confidently tapped a legacy of guitar-driven 1990s indie rock: Liz Phair, the Breeders, the Cure, Alanis Morissette, Smashing Pumpkins. Her tunes maintained a sturdy, old-fashioned clarity, even as her lyrics faced disorder, determinedly exposing her fears, depression and self-destructive impulses. “I am the problem for me, now and always,” she sang in “Royal Screw Up” on “Color Theory.”The same struggles run through “Sometimes, Forever,” pushing toward new extremes of misery and (possibly delusional) rapture. “Wherever you’re going I’m going too/Nothing else matters when I’m with you,” Allison vows in “With U,” amid a stately swell of Beatles-esque chords that could promise bliss. But there’s a streak of masochism in her devotion: “I’ll take the pain, feel it every day/Just to have you look at me,” she sings.Even a seemingly happy situation holds ominous undertones. “Shotgun” is the album’s more-or-less poppiest song. Its verse rides a grungy bass line as Allison recalls “coffee and menthol on your breath” and problems with drugs. But she realizes, “This feels the same without the bad things,” leading into a chorus that switches to euphoric major chords and promises “Whenever you want me I’ll be around.” Yet why is she thinking about weapons?Allison writes orderly tunes, with neatly delineated verses and choruses. Her melodies often rise and fall symmetrically and her singing stays levelheaded, almost reserved. But she chose a chaos agent as her producer: Daniel Lopatin, who makes albums as Oneohtrix Point Never and composed the white-knuckled score for “Uncut Gems.”Lopatin knows how to weaponize nebulousness. Working with Soccer Mommy, he used reverb, distortion, synthesizer tones and guitar feedback, at every volume level from subliminal to overpowering, to create backdrops that can easily warp from sumptuous to menacing. Allison fully unleashes him in “Unholy Affliction.” She sings, with a sinking melody, about a compulsive, unattainable, all-consuming perfectionism: “Carve me up and let the colors run,” she offers. Behind her, the production deploys distorted bass lines, salvos of drums, bleary Mellotron notes and down-tuned guitars, all battering just under her voice, clawing at her.In “Darkness Forever,” she confronts suicidal feelings. “Head in the oven didn’t sound so crazy,” Allison sings, alone amid echoes; then a lurching dirge rises around her like a haunted castle. The music is much more upbeat in “Don’t Ask Me,” a galloping rocker with gusts of guitar noise recalling My Bloody Valentine, but the best the lyrics can hope for is temporary numbness. “No more fire in my veins/My will is gone I don’t feel a thing,” she sings; later, she concedes, “I know it comes back around.”Throughout the album, Soccer Mommy staves off despair with musical craftsmanship. The modestly titled “Newdemo” — billed as just another work in progress — is a ballad that starts with Allison singing and strumming a lo-fi guitar. She sings about impending storms and destruction, but the music ascends into a glimmering psychedelic wonderland, with simulated cellos and sitar. Wistfully, warily, Allison observes, “What is a dream but a hope you hold onto?/A lie that you wish would come true.” She doesn’t expect it to last, but for the moment, she’s singing.Soccer Mommy“Sometimes, Forever”(Loma Vista) More

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      James Rado, Co-Creator of the Musical ‘Hair,’ Is Dead at 90

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      Working with his fellow writer and actor Gerome Ragni and the composer Galt MacDermot, he jolted Broadway into the Age of Aquarius.James Rado, who jolted Broadway into the Age of Aquarius as a co-creator of “Hair,” the show, billed as an “American tribal love-rock musical,” that transfigured musical theater tradition with radical ’60s iconoclasm and rock ’n’ roll, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 90.The publicist Merle Frimark, a longtime friend, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was cardio-respiratory arrest.So much of the power of “Hair” resided in its seeming raw spontaneity, yet Mr. Rado (pronounced RAY-doe) labored over it for years with his collaborator Gerome Ragni to perfect that affect. Contrary to theatrical lore, he and Mr. Ragni were not out-of-work actors who wrote “Hair” to generate roles they could themselves play, but rather New York stage regulars with growing résumés.They met as cast members in an Off Broadway revue called “Hang Down Your Head and Die,” a London transfer that closed after one performance in October 1964. Mr. Rado bonded with Mr. Ragni and was soon talking to him about collaborating on a musical that would capture the exuberant, increasingly anti-establishment youth culture rising all around them in the streets of Lower Manhattan — a musical about hippies before hippies had a name.A musician before he’d become an actor, Mr. Rado began writing songs with Mr. Ragni, which they sometimes sang in what were then beatnik coffee houses in Greenwich Village.Moving to an apartment in Hoboken, N.J., where rents were even cheaper than in downtown Manhattan, they borrowed a typewriter from their landlord and went to work writing their musical in earnest, transcribing into song the sexual liberation, racial integration, pharmacological experimentation and opposition to the escalating Vietnam War that was galvanizing their young street archetypes. In solidarity, Mr. Rado and Mr. Ragni let their short hair grow long.A museum stroll in mid-1965 brought them face to face with a painting of a tuft of hair by the Pop artist Jim Dine. Its title was “Hair.”“I called it to Jerry’s attention, and we were both knocked out,” Mr. Rado later recalled. Their nascent musical now had a name.A moment from the original production of “Hair,” at the Public Theater in Manhattan in 1967.DagmarWhat happened next would become the stuff of Broadway legend, albeit in fits and starts. In October 1966, on a train platform in New Haven, Conn., Mr. Ragni recognized Joseph Papp, impresario of the then-itinerant New York Shakespeare Festival, and handed him a bound script of “Hair.” Mr. Papp took it, read it and resolved to consider making “Hair” the opening production at his Public Theater, just nearing completion in what had been the old Astor Library on Lafayette Street in the East Village.Mr. Rado and Mr. Ragni, meanwhile, had decided that their lyrics needed better melodies than the ones they had written, and embarked on a search for a legitimate composer to improve the songs. The search yielded the Canadian-born Galt MacDermot, a most unlikely choice: He was slightly older than his colleagues and a straight arrow with an eclectic musical background but scant Broadway experience. Mr. MacDermot wrote the melody for versions of “Aquarius” and several other songs, on spec, in less than 36 hours. It instantly became clear that he was the ideal choice for setting Mr. Rado and Mr. Ragni’s lyric ruminations to rocking show music.A demonstration soon ensued in Mr. Papp’s office, with Mr. MacDermot singing and playing the trio’s new songs. Impressed, Mr. Papp announced that he would open the Public with “Hair.”Yet, second-guessing himself, he soon rescinded his offer, only to reconsider after a return office audition, this time with Mr. Rado and Mr. Ragni doing the singing. “Hair” did, in fact, open the Public Theater on Oct. 17, 1967, with the 32-year-old Mr. Ragni leading the cast as George Berger — a hippie tribe’s nominal leader — but without the 35-year-old Mr. Rado, who was deemed too old by the show’s director, Gerald Freedman, to play the doomed protagonist, Claude Hooper Bukowski, even though the character was based almost entirely on Mr. Rado himself.“Hair” — an impressionistic near-fairy tale of a flock of flower children on the streets of New York taking LSD, burning draft cards, shocking tourists and making love before losing their conflicted comrade, Claude, to the Vietnam War — ran for eight weeks at the Public’s brand-new Anspacher Theater, generating ecstatic word of mouth and reviews that ranged from perplexed to appreciative.A wealthy young Midwesterner with political ambitions and strong antiwar politics named Michael Butler stepped in to move the show, first to Cheetah, a nightclub on West 53rd Street, and then — much rewritten by Mr. Rado and his collaborators, and with a visionary new director, Tom O’Horgan, now in charge — on to Broadway, where Mr. Rado was restored to the cast as Claude.Mr. Rado, second from left, with, from left, the actor Paul Nicholas, Mr. Ragni, the actor Oliver Tobias and the director Tom O’Horgan in London shortly after “Hair” opened there in 1968.Getty“Hair” was a Broadway sensation, hailed for its irresistible rock- and soul-driven score, its young cast of utter unknowns, its often-searing topicality and its must-see 20-second nude scene. It ran for 1,750 performances after opening at the Biltmore Theatre, on West 47th Street, on April 29, 1968. (It is now the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.)“Hair” quickly conquered the culture at large — though there were naysayers, who found its nudity, flagrant four-letter words and flouting of the American flag objectionable. It played all across America and ultimately the world, engendering a 1979 film adaptation directed by Milos Forman — which was disavowed by Mr. Rado — and a Tony Award-winning Broadway revival in 2009 that Mr. Rado helped guide. The original cast album won a Grammy Award and was the No. 1 album in the country for 13 straight weeks in 1969. (It was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019.)The score generated ubiquitous cover versions. In 1969 alone, the Fifth Dimension’s medley of “Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (it went on to win the Grammy Award for record of the year), while the Cowsills’ version of the title song reached No. 2, Oliver’s “Good Morning Starshine” hit No. 3 and Three Dog Night’s “Easy to Be Hard” got as high as No. 4. Among the many others who recorded songs from the “Hair” score was Nina Simone.“From the start, I envisioned that the score of ‘Hair’ would be something new for Broadway,” Mr. Rado later reflected, “a kind of pop-rock/show tune hybrid.”“We did have the desire to make something wonderful and spectacular for the moment,” he added. “We thought we’d stumbled on a great idea, and something that potentially could be a hit on Broadway, never thinking of the distant future.”James Alexander Radomski was born on Jan. 23, 1932, in Los Angeles to Alexander and Blanche (Bukowski) Radomski. His father was a sociologist who taught at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. Mr. Rado grew up in a Rochester suburb, Irondequoit, and then in Washington. He graduated from the University of Maryland, where he majored in speech and drama. A lover of Broadway musicals since childhood, he began writing songs in college and co-wrote two musicals that were produced on campus, “Interlude” and “Interlude II.”After serving two years in the Navy, he returned to pursue graduate theater studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, writing both music and lyrics for a revue there called “Cross Your Fingers.” After moving to New York, he wrote pop songs; recorded with his band, James Alexander and the Argyles; performed in summer stock; and did office work while studying method acting with Lee Strasberg.He landed his first Broadway job in 1963 in the ensemble of “Marathon ’33,” written by the actress June Havoc and produced by the Actors Studio. Following their initial encounter in 1964, he and Mr. Ragni were cast by Mike Nichols in his 1965 Chicago production of Ann Jellicoe’s comedy “The Knack.”In 1966, Mr. Rado appeared on Broadway in James Goldman’s “The Lion in Winter,” originating the role of Richard Lionheart, the oldest son of Henry II of England. His mainstream theatrical focus, however, was being redirected to the downtown avant-garde by Mr. Ragni, who, through his involvement with the Open Theater and Ellen Stewart’s La MaMa E.T.C., introduced Mr. Rado to the experimental aesthetic that became central to the experience of “Hair” onstage.“The truth is, we unlocked each other,” Mr. Rado wrote in a foreword to the book “Hair: The Story of the Show That Defined a Generation” (2010), by Eric Grode. “He was my creative catalyst, I probably his. We were great friends. It was a passionate kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing, into creating this piece. We put the drama between us onstage.”Mr. Rado in 2017 at a Jazz at Lincoln Center celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Off Broadway opening of “Hair.”Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesIn the immediate aftermath of “Hair,” Mr. Rado’s fellowship with Mr. Ragni fractured. “We couldn’t be in a room together, we would burst into an argument,” he recalled. Mr. Rado wrote the music, lyrics and book (with his brother, Ted) for a “Hair” sequel he called “The Rainbow Rainbeam Radio Roadshow,” which ran Off Broadway in 1972, just as Mr. Ragni and Mr. MacDermot were suffering an ignominious Broadway flop with their post-“Hair” musical, “Dude.” Mr. Rado then reunited with Mr. Ragni to write “Sun (Audio Movie),” an environmental musical, with the composer Steve Margoshes, and “Jack Sound and His Dog Star Blowing His Final Trumpet on the Day of Doom,” also with Mr. Margoshes.Mr. Ragni died in 1991. Mr. MacDermot died in 2018.In 2008, Mr. Rado confirmed in an interview with The Advocate what had long been an open secret among his “Hair” castmates and collaborators: that he and Mr. Ragni had been lovers.“It was a deep, lifelong friendship and a love of my life,” Mr. Rado stated simply. “Looking back,” he later elaborated about “Hair,” “what was really underlying the whole thing was the new way men were relating to each other. They were very openly embracing each other as brothers. It wasn’t gay; it wasn’t repressed… We suddenly realized this was a musical about love in the larger sense.”Mr. Rado, whose brother is his only immediate survivor, never married and did not identify as gay, but rather as “omnisexual.” Asked before the 2009 “Hair” revival opened if the show was based on his relationship with Mr. Ragni, Mr. Rado answered yes.“We were in a love mode,” he said, “and this whole love movement started happening around us, so the show got it. ‘Hair’ was our baby in a way, which is pretty cool.”Maia Coleman contributed reporting. More