words by Showtrotta, photos by Ryan Muir

While it would take a lot to top the great time I had at last years Insiders, this year's CMJ event at Irving Plaza looks pretty great as well.

Hercules and Love Affair perform great live disco, in a way very few bands are doing nowadays. Aeroplane continue to look promising (though I have still yet to see them this week!). James Zabiela has been getting tons of positive feedback lately. I fell in love with his Utilities double mix album several years ago and am excited to get to see him again in a setting that is not Pacha. Shinichi Osawa's opening set for Fatboy Slim in June was great - very hard, but not too in your face. The Fantastic Nobodies' performance art, aka crowd-feathering, during Modeselektor's set at Bowery Ballroom back in January was quite an experience. All in all, it should be a great night. Tickets are available here

Hercules & Love Affair's Andy Butler DJ'd MoMA MiXX on September 26th. Pictures from that event, along with the Insiders flyer and set times, below...

Continue reading "Insiders showcase @ Irving Plaza tonight w/ Hercules & Love Affair +++ pics from MoMA"

by Andrew Frisicano

Hercules & Love Affair @ MHOW in August (more by Sara Skolnick)

Hercules & Love Affair's Andy Butler was one of the many DJs at the Electric Zoo Festival that happened over Labor Day weekend. At the fest he was billed as himself, but on September 26th he'll be DJing as H&LA at MoMA MiXX, a new series of dance parties at the museum.

MoMA MiXX uniquely pairs together major artists with world-renowned musicians or DJs, with each featured performer spinning a set of music that night. The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby will be transformed into a dance floor, and MoMA's Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium will serve as a lounge area complete with bars. The money raised benefits the exhibition programming for The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

Opening up the first night will be DJ sets by Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin (of the Mister Saturday Night series among other things). The paired artists are Mickalene Thomas and Derrick Adams. Tickets are on sale, though they're not cheap...

Tickets for each event are $75 per person (or $200 for the first three events), and include an open bar.

The next two events in the series are planned for January and April 2010.

Also on the way, the museum is hosting Between Worlds, an evening-length "pop spectacle" performance by Fischerspooner on November 1st. Tickets TBA. (MoMA is also still running Looking at Music: Side 2, and will be showing a Spike Jonze retrospective with No Age in October.)

Hercules & Love Affair played two live shows in NYC in August. At them, they debuted their new current (but probably not permanent) lineup of Shaun Wright, Aerea Negrot, Kim Ann Foxman, Mark Pistel and Andy Butler.

In the past, Hercules & Love Affair's lineup prominently featured singer Nomi Ruiz. More recently, she's been playing with Jessica 6. They opened for CocoRosie's return-to-NYC show at the beginning of September. Coming up, they're opening for Japanese psych rock band Yura Yura Teikoku at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on September 18th. Then the next night (Sept. 19th), they play as part of the New Languages Festival, which runs for six nights (starting Thursday, Sept. 17th) on two weekends at McCarren Hall in Brooklyn (on 98 Bayard St, an address that might sound familiar). Tickets are available at the door only.

For Japan's Yura Yura Teikoku, the MHOW is one of three upcoming US dates they have scheduled. The other two are opening for Yo La Tengo on Tuesday (9/15) and Wednesday in Vermont and Boston. Their new album "Hollow Me", which includes their recent EP "Beautiful", is out September 14, 2009 on DFA's Death From Abroad label (which helps explain the Jessica 6 connection). Album tracklist and NYC show flyer below.

The whole lineup for the jazz-based New Languages Festival, which "attempts to provide a panoramic view of 21st century jazz in New York City," is pretty diverse and spectacular. It includes Akoya Afrobeat, which matches the sound of Fela Kuti almost note for note (and integrates some of his songs into their rep), drummer Mike Pride's From Bacteria to Boys combo (who recorded a live session for WFMU in April), a set led by noted improviser and avant-jazz composer Tim Berne, and an opening night performance by Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, whose debut, Infernal Machines, came out in May on New Amsterdam Records.

The full schedule of shows and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Herc & Love Affair/Fischerspooner playing MoMA, Jessica 6 playing w/ Yura Yura Teikoku & New Languages Fest (lineup)"

by Showtrotta

Electric Zoo (more by Zach Dilgard)

While from the outside, Electric Zoo (Sept 5-6, 2009) might seem like a 2-day hell, overrun by fake-tanned, heavily hair-gelled masses and their female counterparts, the actual experience (at least for me) was far from it. While my jaw dropped in horror as many of the element described above boarded the ferry to Randall's Island at the 35th Street pier, and I was only further freaked out when the entire boat broke out in a sing-along to "Now That the Love Is Gone" by David Guetta (one of many deejays playing the festival), once I arrived the dread of dealing that all day, subsided.

For starters, the festival grounds were very accommodating size-wise for the number in attendance. When I first arrived around 12:30 on Saturday, there was ample room and even as the day wore on and the grounds filled up, I never felt that I was trudging through a crowd to get where I wanted to go. Along with the size of the venue, the diverse spread of deejays (who were grouped at four different tents/stages vaguely according to similar genre/sound), kept my interaction with club-goers whom I would rarely run into under normal circumstances, to a minimum. In the instances where I was confronted with people straight out of My New Haircut (NSFW!) I couldn't say a bad thing about them. Everyone at the festival seemed to be too happy to be there, and dancing their asses off, to care what was going on around them, or to do anything too outwardly annoying to ruin anyone's time.

continued below...

Continue reading "the 2009 Electric Zoo Festival in review"

photos by Zach Dilgard

Frankie Knuckles / actual members of the crowd

"This past labor day weekend in NYC, thousands of dance and electronica music fans gathered together for the first, and hopefully annual Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island to celebrate Electronic Music. The festival lineup featured over 50 acts which included Steve Aoki, Busy P, Danny Tenaglia, Benny Benassi, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Markus Schulz, Tom Middleton, Kaskade, and Armin Van Burren over the course of two days....

...On the second day of the festival, house music icon DJ Frankie Knuckles alongside Andy Butler (Hercules & Love Affair) blessed the turntables with a raw and authentic classic house music set that made you feel nothing short of spiritual...

..."Music belongs to everybody," Frankie says after stepping off stage from his Electric Zoo DJ set. "Believe me, If I had the ability I would really just make it possible so that any and everybody could just show up (on the dancefloor)...a lot of times that's all you got to hold onto." To that end, it seems rather fitting that his biggest commercial hit was the ethereal and optimistic Whistle Song, which just might make him the pied piper of dance music who tries to leads the masses to a state of bliss.

Dropping next month is Frankie's Motivation Too album, which is his first compilation in six years. When asked about his own personal tactics for motivation, Frankie notes: "I normally get up early in the morning, like seven or eight o'clock. Musically I'm listening to things that are very spiritual and classical while I'm moving through the morning and getting myself together. I pretty much block out a lot of things that could possibly feed me any kind of negative energy, because my day has to be right...I figure why not get up on the right side of the bed and focus and maybe I'll get through the day and it will be alright."" [MC2D Magazine]

You saw Ryan's pictures from Sunday. More of Zach's pictures from both days of the fest (where he unfortunately missed Lindstrom, James Murphy, Al Doyle, Pat Mahoney, Busy P, DJ Medhi, Junior Boys, Holy Ghost, JDH, Dave P, Andy Butler, and others) (but did capture lots of scariness), below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo Festival 2009 @ Randalls Island, NYC (more pics)"

photos by Sara Skolnick

"I saw Hercules and Love Affair this weekend who now have Mark Pistel in the band (founding member of Consolidated) which made me remember about Meat Beat Manifesto and seeing them play live. Fucking great show. They had these dancers with mini crutches, one of whom hit my friend Angy in the head while dancing feverishly on stage. Good times." - waxy yellow buildup

Hercules & Love Affair played two NYC shows over the weekend. Friday night it was at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan. Saturday was over the river in Brooklyn at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

As Andy Butler somewhat explained to The Voice, guest vocalists like Antony (who is on the album) and Nomi (who has been a prominent vocalist in the band's live shows) are not permanent members of the band which will continue to change over time. Nomi was not present at the shows where, at Music Hall at least, they played mostly songs from their 2008 self-titled album, and some new stuff too. Jason Kendig opened.

In related news, Andy Butler will be DJing at the upcoming Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island, and "Antony and the Johnsons [releasaed] the "Aeon"/"Crazy in Love" double A-side single in the US on August 4th on CD and 7" through Secretly Canadian and on August 3rd in Europe and UK on 7" through Rough Trade."

More pictures from the Brooklyn H&LA show below...

Continue reading "Hercules & Love Affair (w/ Mark Pistel, but not Nomi) played Gramercy Theatre & Music Hall of Williamsburg (pics) "

Andy Butler of Hercules & Love Affair made a DJ appearance at the July 3rd Firecracker party at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Resident Advisor didn't mention Butler's set, but doesn't seem to have enjoyed the vibe of the night...

At 7:00 AM, July 4th, young party people ambled out of Manhattan Center into pale light already wearing sunglasses. But it wasn't freedom that was ringing in their ears after a long night out. For ten hours, inside the 20,000 square foot ballroom, miscalibrated bass punched their cochleas. Billed as the event to "pop off" before fireworks over the Hudson, over a thousand had waited patiently for someone to light the fuse.

Despite sound and stage, it was up to the DJs to forget business and elevate the room. Unfortunately, they failed to truly engage the receptive audience or even distinguish themselves from one another. It was a visual spectacle, but ultimately a misdirected marathon with a corporate aftertaste, that never allowed Firecracker to go off.

Butler will be DJing again in NYC at the Electric Zoo Electronic Music Festival, taking place September 6th and 7th on Randall's Island.

Butler will also be in NYC (where he lives) for a weekend of Hercules & Love Affair shows on August 14th and 15th. They'll play the Gramercy Theatre on Friday, August 14th. Tickets go on sale July 17th at noon. Then, they're be coming to Brooklyn for an August 15th show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets for that go on AmEx presale today (July 15th) at noon; general sale starts Friday at noon.

As a Hercules & Love Affair gig, it's not exactly clear who'll be on hand for the performance...

Village Voice: You know I have to ask about the state of Hercules and Love Affair. You guys cancelled your Coachella appearance, and everybody is slowly starting to form their own little subgroups (Jessica 6/Deep Red, Midnight Magic). What's going on?

Butler: [laughs] The situation is, for the next record, I'm involving a whole handful of new artists, and that's how it was going to be, always. There are a lot of artists I want to work with. Kim-Ann [Foxman], [vocalist] Nomi [Ruiz], all the kids that were working with me on the first record and the tours, they've started doing their own stuff. Nomi has her band, [bassist] Andrew [Raposo] and [keyboardist] Morgan [Wiley] have their own band...

VV: So it was more of a press misconception? Like, this solo project that happened to have a live touring band got cast more as a band when it wasn't?

Butler: Yeah. I mean, these are guest artists. Like, someone like Kim-Ann [Foxman] is potentially ever-present; she and I have a long friendship and a long-standing creative collaboration. The other artists like Antony and Nomi both have solo careers, and when they went into it, they knew they had solo careers and that they would be doing their own thing. So basically, the vocalists are Kim-Ann and a whole new batch of people that I've worked with at various points...I'm co-producing with a new producer. The whole scenery has changed.

Butler's DJ mix for the Sidetracked series is coming out July 21st on Renaissance Recordings. That record includes an exclusive new Hercules track. Butler's take on the track's new "angry" direction, with all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Hercules & Love Affair (Andy Butler+Kim-Ann+?) - 2 NYC shows (tix), Lollapalooza, Electric Zoo (and Firecracker)"

DOWNLOAD: Lindstrøm - The Long Way Home (Prins Thomas edit) (MP3)

Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair @ Studio B (more by Ryan Muir)

Hercules and Love Affair (aka Andy Butler) is releasing a new DJ mix called Sidetracked... July 21st on Renaissance Recordings. Butler will be making DJ appearances throughout the summer, mainly in Europe. One U.S. gig will be at the July 3rd Firecracker party at the Hammerstein Ballroom (tonight). Also at the event, as mentioned by Showtrotta, will be Steve Lawler, Tiefschwarz, Victor Calderone, Damian Lazarus (live) and Audiofly. Tickets are still on sale.

Butler will be at Lollapalooza on August 8th, and he'll be making an appearance at NY's Electric Zoo Electronic Music Festival, taking place September 5th and 6th on Randall's Island. Other acts at the fest include Special Disco Version (featuring LCD Soundsystem/DFA's James Murphy & Pat Mahoney), Felix Martin & Al Doyle (of Hot Chip), Lindstrom, Frankie Knuckles, Prins Thomas, and many, many more. Above you can check out the Prins remix of Linstrom's "The Long Way Home" off the latter's Where You Go I Go Too. Tickets to the fest, including 2-day passes, are on sale now. Electric Zoo's current lineup is posted below.

Another electronic music suaree, the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, is on the way as well, happening August 8th at the Old American Can Factory. The fest's headliners will be Juan MacLean (live) and RJD2; full lineup is still on the way. Tickets are currently on sale.

Electric Zoo lineup with Hercules and Love Affair comp info and tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo on Randall's Island, BK Electronic Music Fest, Hercules and Love Affair DJ sets & CD & more..."