photos by Amanda Hatfield

Kurt Vile & the Violators @ Bowery Ballroom, 5/16/2013

The set was strong throughout, with certain jaw-dropping standouts. The pulsing "Shame Chamber," arguably the bounciest and most radio-friendly track on Pretty Daze, came to a gripping crescendo of piercing howls, frantic guitar soloing and tireless percussion. It was almost as though Vile was baiting the FM dial only to forcefully back away and maintain his musical independence. "Girl Called Alex," a heady, wafting song that grows increasingly more agitated and electrified as the measures race by, had the crowd applauding before it was even over.-[Williamette Week]

Last night's Bowery shows was one of many on Kurt's tour, that will swing through NYC again next month to headline the 4Knots Fest. Tonight (5/16) Kurt will be on The Late Show with David Letterman. More pictures from Bowery Ballroom are below.

Continue reading "Kurt Vile & The Violators played Bowery Ballroom with Angel Olsen and Steve Gunn (pics); playing Letterman tonight"

photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

Eric Burdon @ Highline Ballroom, 5/15/2013

The band came out, and warmed the room up. the audience had a good mix of people, some old, some middle aged, and some young. Everyone seemed pretty excited, and the energy by this point was strong. Finally, he came out, and the band kicked into "When I Was Young".

Among the highlights were "Spill the Wine", which really sounded very funky and had a lot of life tonight, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", which had a sort of reggae feel, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", "I'm Crying", and, of course, the biggest and most famous song on the list, "House of the Rising Sun".

A strong overall performance by a musical legend, and it was really great to see him again! I think this show was probably a better performance than the two prior times I had seen him, although being front and center last time certainly enhanced the experience, I would say. But this was a very enjoyable evening, at affordable prices, and I was certainly glad to have been there! - [The Charbor Chronicles]

Eric's added a few shows to his 2013 schedule (like Bumbershoot) and an updated list of North American tour dates are listed, along with more highline pics, below.

Continue reading "Eric Burdon & the Animals played two nights at Highline Ballroom (night 1 pics & setlist)"

by Dominick Mastrangelo

The Flaming Lips @ Wellmont Theatre, 5/16/2013

The Flaming Lips played the first of two New York-area shows last night (5/16) at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey.

It was near-sensory overload -- as all Flaming Lips shows have been since The Soft Bulletin tour -- as strobes and lasers flashed all about the theater. Wayne Coyne ascended a pile of silver half domes where his mic sat atop and he cradled an infant doll for the first three songs as black confetti was shot from cannons, two on either side of the stage, during the second song of the evening, "The Terror." It was everywhere and I found myself fishing confetti out of my camera bag on the train ride home.

It was also a far cry from my first Lips show - "The World's First Headphone Concert" - in Dallas in 1999 when Coyne had a solitary trash bag of confetti and would launch handfuls of it into the crowd. Colors cascaded through fiber-optic cords that snaked around the domes and back behind Coyne. From afar it looked as if he was standing on the glittering remains of a Disney Electrical Parade float. You may have seen it on their Late Night with Jimmy Fallon appearance.

The set leaned heavily on material from their new release, The Terror, and the past few records back to Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. We were treated to one song from The Soft Bulletin ("Race For The Prize") and nothing from the earlier records which I think is a bit of a shame.

Nonetheless, it was a spectacle that looked and sounded great. Spanning thirty years, the Lips maintain an eclectic and wide-ranging age group of fans. The younger part of the crowd did their part as kids toward the front wore costumes and covered themselves in glitter and fake blood. One girl - front and center - even had her own infant doll.

The Flaming Lips, along with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Darkness, will play the first night of Great GoogaMooga 2013 tonight (the Lips are on at 6 PM) before heading over to Europe for a handful of dates.  Setlist and more pictures from Wellmont --  including ones of opener Julianna Barwick -- are below.

Continue reading "The Flaming Lips played Wellmont Theatre (pics, setlist); GoogaMooga is tonight"

photos by Sachyn Mital

Matthew E White @ Bowery Ballroom, 5/13/2013

Last night at the Bowery Ballroom, he was given a lot more space, but he brought a much smaller band along for the ride. Opening with the soft, aching "Will You Love Me," it was quickly apparent that this wasn't going to be a night of horn-and-string-filled chamber pop. Instead, White and his band ripped into the louder sections of the song with a gnarled guitar part and a country-tinged swagger. The group has been touring this material for a while now and like any adventurous, talented group of musicians, it's obvious they take a certain amount of glee in finding new wrinkles in them, stretching solos out into new shapes and trying out new arrangements just for the hell of it. That playful tendency grew even more apparent as the group jumped into "Steady Pace," a brisk whirling dervish of a track from the record. At one point White and bassist Cameron Ralston even did some coordinated dance moves, shuffling back in forth with shit-eating grins on their faces. - [CMJ]

Matthew's North American tour is over now and he'll head to Barcelona next weekend for Primavera Sound. He's got a few other festivals (like Bonnaroo) on the summer docket, plus an upcoming European tour. All dates are listed, along with more Bowery pics, below.

Continue reading "Matthew E. White played Bowery Ballroom (pics)"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

Foxygen @ Knitting Factory 5/13/2013

Foxygen just wrapped up a three-night NYC run, that began with the BrooklynVegan-curated Red Bull Sound Select show at Knitting Factory on Monday (5/13) and a second night there (5/14) and finished last night (5/15) at Mercury Lounge. Anybody hit the second Knit or Mercury Lounge show? Anyone go to all three? We've got a second set of photos from the RBSS show, including ones of openers Amen Dunes, LODRO, and Prince Rupert's Drops, in this post.

Foxygen will spend their summer on the festival circuit, playing Pitchfork, Woodsist and Solid Sound amongst many others. That also includes another stop in NYC at the free River Rocks show on July 25 with Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. All tour dates are listed with more pictures from KF below.

Continue reading "Foxygen played three NYC shows (more pics from our RBSS one with LODRO, Amen Dunes and Prince Rupert's Drops)"

photos by Samantha Marble

Juicy J / A$AP Ferg @ Iriving Plaza, 5/14/2013

Memphis hip hop favorite and Thee 6 Mafia member Juicy J played his second show in two days at Irving Plaza on Tuesday (5/14), part of the "Stay Trippy" tour with A$AP Ferg. Pictures from the show are in this post.

As mentioned, Juicy J performed a show the day prior, an RSVP-only affair as part of a FADER issue launch party that saw him perform three songs before calling it a night (pictures). No word as to how many trippy sticks, xanny bars or purple drank was consumed during his tenure in the city.

Juicy J is part of this year's Rock the Bells tour, though no word on whether he'll be part of the rotating line-up when it hits NYC.

In other news, A$AP Ferg released a video for the "Work" remix featuring A$AP Rocky, French Montana, Trinidad James & Schoolboy Q. Check that out, along with more pics from Irving Plaza, below.

Continue reading "Juicy J and A$AP Ferg played Irving Plaza (pics); A$AP Ferg released video for "Work" remix"

by Toby Tenenbaum

MS MR @ Bowery Ballroom, 5/15/2013

From the website to your album cover art, it seems that everything you guys touch possesses a stunning and unique visual quality. Who comes up with these works of art?
While every element of the project comes directly from us, one of our initial goals for MS MR was to create a community around the project, and we've had the incredible opportunity to work with up-and-coming directors and photographers like Tyler Kohlhoff, who shot the covers of the EP and the album. These artists have helped us refine our aesthetic (and their own) and continue to contribute as we incorporate new visual ideas.

Will these visuals play a factor in your upcoming U.S. tour? Can you give some examples of what readers can expect if they come to one of your shows?
The live show has actually been a chance for us bring it all back to the music - during this first year of touring we've had the opportunity to put a face on the project and show our musicianship, so we have kept it all very minimal. We're also a new band and can't afford to yet fully realize our elaborate schemes for set design...but we're always thinking about it and are excited to start incorporating things bit by bit.

Last night at Bowery Ballroom (5/15) was a great, if short, glimpse into the freshly released MS MR album Secondhand Rapture. Energetic, bold and powerful, MS MR (who played a BVSXSW day party this year) were enjoying their hometown gig on their first headlining tour. In addition to the music, singer Lizzie Plapinger, who two nights earlier was spotted in the crowd at Foxygen, treated the audience to nuggets of band autobiography between songs, including how they formed two years ago in keyboardist Max Hershenow's bedroom.

Tourmates Magic Man played a 40 minute opening set to warm up the crowd. More pictures from last night's Bowery Ballroom show are with many more tour dates below...

Continue reading "MS MR played Bowery Ballroom (pics), on 'Letterman' tonight, touring (dates)"

by Fred Pessaro

Youth Code @ Nothing Changes, 5/15/2013

Los Angeles duo Youth Code played Nothing Changes at Home Sweet Home last night (5/15), their only show in the NYC area. Employing harder than hard EBM that reminded me of Ministry and Nitzer Ebb, the duo danced around their rigs and screamed into microphones while cranking out tunes from their latest demo cassette and their forthcoming LP on DAIS. Hardcore clearly runs through their veins (judging by their membership in Carry On, a Cro-Mags tee, and on stage discussion of the Judge reunion), and it was that high-energy that made their set so compelling despite almost endless gear issues. Check out pictures and video from their set below, along with a stream of their demo available now for pay-whatever on Bandcamp. Recommended.

Embarassingly enough, this was my first trip back to the former grounds of the party known as WIERD (eulogy here), and I don't quite know what I was waiting for. Nothing Changes has similarly good DJs, live bands, smoke machines cranked to 11, and much the same vibe. Change is always good in the long run, but if Nothing Changes can stay with a similar WIERD vibe and I'd be completely content. Upcoming Nothing Changes events include Craow, Outmode, Halves & Thirds on 5/22 and Tempers on 5/2.

More pictures, that stream and  video are below...

Continue reading "Youth Code played Nothing Changes (pics & video)"

photos by Sarah Frankie Linder

Patti Smith @ Stubb's, Austin, 4/30/13

Patti Smith will play Bowery Ballroom on June 5. Tickets to the Bowery show go on sale Friday (5/17). The show is part of the celebration of the Federico Garcia Lorca Birthday Celebration which has been going on since early April and continues through July with events thoughout the city:

Lorca in New York: A Celebration is the largest-ever festival in North America celebrating the work of acclaimed Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. With more than two dozen events throughout Manhattan, it focuses on the brief but prolific period (1929-1930), during which Lorca came to New York and wrote one of his most significant works, Poet in New York. Presented by Fundación Federico García Lorca with support from Acción Cultural Española, it is anchored in the premiere of Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York at The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (April 5-July 20) - an exhibition bringing together for the first time manuscripts, drawings, letters, and photos Lorca generated while in the city.

She'll also perform on September 20 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for a tribute to Hildegard of Bingen, the "twelfth-century German writer, composer, philosopher, visual artist, mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath." Tickets to that show are still available. All Patti Smith tour dates are below.

Patti Smith played Stubb's in Austin at the end of April (4/30) and there are photos from that show in this post.

More pictures and dates below...

Continue reading "Patti Smith playing Federico Garcia Lorca tribute at Bowery Ballroom & other dates, played Stubb's in Austin (pics, dates)"

photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

Big muff superfuzz: ZZ Top @ Bergen PAC, 5/14/2013

Legendary, bearded, and legendarily bearded (except for the drummer, whose name is Beard) Texas hard rock trio ZZ Top, who will be at Bonnaroo this year, played Bergen Performing Arts Center in NJ last night (May 14), part of a larger ongoing tour for the band that puts them in Westbury NY for a sold-out show at Theater at Westbury tonight. Pictures from their show are in this post.

If you missed it, we also recently caught Billy Gibbons back with his old band Moving Sidewalks in Austin and NYC.

The ZZ Top shows are in celebration of the band's massive legacy, compiled into a single, similarly massive chunk -- a 10-disc collection of their studio albums due on June 10:

The set, including the albums initially released on the London label as well as the string of Warner Bros. hits that followed, includes ZZ Top's First Album (1971), Rio Grande Mud (1972), Tres Hombres (1973), Fandango! (1975)*, Tejas (1976), Degüello (1979), El Loco (1981), Eliminator (1983), Afterburner (1985) and Recycler (1990). Each album is presented in a wallet sleeve that faithfully reproduces the original artwork, including the gatefold designs used for Tres Hombres and Tejas. The set presents, for the first time on CD, the original LP mixes for: ZZ Top's First Album, Rio Grande Mud and Tejas that have long been on the wish lists of the band's most fervent fans.

Continue reading "ZZ Top are on tour, played Bergen PAC (pics, dates)"