Tuesday night's New York x New York party was another fine hybrid of boozy, indie/comic goodness: Amidst a sea of free, Pom-based cocktails, Hiro Ballroom patrons flexed their checkbooks in hot pursuit of the donated, aesthetic abominations, auctioned off by a perfectly awkward Zach Galifianakis -- all followed by a generous helping of Sub Pop reverb rockers Band Of Horses. A joke set started the night (impressions of Vincent Van Gogh answering his cellphone and a bespectacled, pretentious illiterate, followed by regaling us in the tale of his attempt at suicide by jumping off of a Pizza Hut and berating the crowd with "I was in Corky Romano, I don't need this shit!" taunts), leading directly into high class art auction-time. Either attendees were blind, charmed by Zach's pithy descriptions, or disproportionately blasted by free Velvet Elvises, 'cause this thing went for $95...
Could also have been that the sales were to benefit the New York Cares charity, but more likely everyone was just wasted. Wonder what loser bought that! (Full Disclosure: Stereogum offered $30 for that ostrich-headed monstrosity and just may be bitter for being outbid.) An "original" by "Richard Petty" fetched a whopping $500, which was followed by Zach starting bidding on an exact replica. Oh, how we laughed! Zach mixed up the proceedings by showing off the music vid he shot for Kanye, along with some hilarious original shorts featuring Michael Showalter and others. And this one had the room in stitches: Zach interviews Moby and tries to understand why music isn't considered art ... at all.
Makes you miss Late World, doesn't it? A brief break later we got some Band Of Horses (or "Brand Of Horses," in Zach's world), whose set was full of Everything All The Time jamz ("Do I have to play this song again?!" big-bearded Ben asked before launching into a crowd-pleasing "The Funeral"), but also roped in lots of new stuff (from their "southeast record"), a promising peek at their more hooky and rigid rock sound. Ears peeled for that one in October.
