The second annual Hopscotch Festival will go down in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, across 12 different venues with over 135 bands, from September 8th through 10th. The lineup this year runs the gamut of independent music... from traditional indie staples (The Flaming Lips, Guided By Voices, Superchunk) to southern-inflected rock (Drive-By Truckers) to noise (Prurient) to hip hop (Beans) to garage (Jeff The Brotherhood) to funk (Budos Band) to metal (Krallice), and everywhere in between (Swans, Rhys Chatham, etc etc). Tickets are currently on sale. Full lineup is below.

Hopscotch happens almost three months after Guided By Voices play a Brooklyn Northside Festival show in McCarren Park (tickets) which is one day after Beirut plays a Northside Festival show on the same McCarren Park stage with... Sharon Van Etten (though she may have been accidentally announced at one point, they officially kept her placement on the bill under wraps until after Saturday's Music Hall of Williamsburg show). Tickets for Beirut/SVE are still on sale, and another opener will be added too.

Guided by Voices (whose Brooklyn show also has more openers coming) are also playing Pitchfork in July with Animal Collective whose Prospect Park show is now on AmEx presale.

Swans' upcoming NYC show is now on AmEx presale too.

Hopscotch lineup below...

Continue reading "Hopscotch Fest returns to Raleigh (2011 lineup announced), Sharon Van Etten officially added to Northside Fest"

Nada Surf (member) @ MHOW last night (more by Paul Birman)

today in NYC
* comedy in Brooklyn
* comedy in Manhattan
* The Long Count @ BAM
* Hawksley Workman @ City Winery
* The Answering Machine @ Coco66
* Boy Crisis, Gordon Voidwell, Spanish Prisoners @ Pianos
* Emilie Simon, White Cats (Tara Angell) @ Knitting Factory
* Jeffrey Lewis Band, David Heatley, Shilpa Ray @ Glasslands
* Devin the Dude, Method Man Redman & Snoop Dogg @ Starland Ballroom
* The Dear Hunter, Annuals, Steven Brodsky (Cave In) @ Bowery Ballroom
* Thing-One, The Little Death, TAB The Band, Grandchildren @ Mercury Lounge
* Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard, John Roderick (of The Long Winters) @ Webster Hall
* Charles Bissel (of The Wrens), They Might Be Giants, Nada Surf @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Steven Brodsky of Cave In opens for The Dear Hunter and Annuals at Bowery Ballroom tonight. Cave In goes on tour in November.

What else?

The Hold Steady @ Terminal 5 11/6/08 (more by Chris La Putt)

All four of the Hold Steady's scheduled NYC shows, June 8th - 11th, have sold out, though the group's second Music Hall of Williamsburg show (Thursday, June 11th) is part of the Northside Festival, which still has badges available.

Openers for those shows are Right on Dynamite (6/8 @ Bowery Ballroom), Mischief Brew (6/9 @ Bowery Ballroom), Gost Trio (6/10 @ MHOW) and Hype of the States (6/11 @ MHOW).

The Hold Steady's other upcoming dates include them playing as openers themselves for the Counting Crows (in the UK in May) and the Dave Matthews Band (in the US in June).

The band also just announced some new headlining dates including a Friday, July 24th show at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 15th at noon.

The Sayreville show is then one day before the Hold Steady play a show further south at the 2009 XPoNential Music Festival. The three days fest runs from July 24-26 at Wiggins Park at the Camden Waterfront. Yeasayer, Peter Bjorn and John, Aimee Mann, and many more artists are on the bill.

Complete fest lineup, and all Hold Steady tour dates below...

Continue reading "2009 XPoNential Music Festival lineup (in Camden) & more Hold Steady tour dates (Starland Ballroom)"

DOWNLOAD: Annuals on AOL's The Interface (Jan 9, 2009) (MP3)

"Since we first welcomed Annuals on the [AOL] Interface in 2006, a lot has changed. For starters, most of the members are able to legally enter the 21+ venues that they play in. Still, while their sound has also matured, the band's inspirations remain the same, particularly when it comes to visuals. "It comes from these fantasy books that I've been reading since I was twelve or thirteen by Terry Goodkind," keyboardist Anna Spence tells Spinner. "He's really awesome. We always wanted to be animated 'cause we're really bad actors. We're not good in videos."

The North Carolina sextet has been touring relentlessly behind their latest album, 'Such Fun,' but stopped long enough to unload their equipment into our Los Angeles studio, replete with two drum sets and four percussionists, for some drum-laden chaos." [Spinner]

Continue reading "Annuals - 2009 Tour Dates (NYC tonight), Spinner podcast"

Photos by Chona Kasinger

"This past Saturday night [10/25] I saw Minus the Bear at Webster Hall. It was an awesome show; they are a very tight band that brought the crowd through a wide range of emotions. I was damn surprised that their drummer plays a basic, clear fiberglass Ludwig four-piece set with only two crashes, a ride cymbal, and hi-hats. His sound is generally much fuller than the equipment portrays. It's great seeing bands in small venues, where you can actually see the performers' faces instead of resorting to a big screen.

Afterwards, with time to kill before my train home, I went to my most favorite place on Earth (ok, my favorite bar at least) for some libations. Despite the large crowd in this oddly laid out location, I grabbed a seat at the bar, and had my first beverage. As I was consuming my second, a girl came up to me, 'Excuse me, sir'. [edmarsh.com]

Continue reading "Minus The Bear & Annuals @ Webster Hall, NYC - pics"

by Black Bubblegum

Tail Swallower & Dove

Seattle's These Arms Are Snakes have declared their new album and Suicide Squeeze debut, Tail Swallower & Dove finis! Due Oct 7th, the record was produced by Chris Common at the Red Room (Matt Bayles & Common's recording studio) in Seattle.

In related ex-Botch news, Minus The Bear has announced another US tour this time with Annuals. The tour includes another date a Webster Hall with Sylvie on October 25th, tickets go on sale Saturday 8/9 at noon here.

Also in the ex-Botch file, the new Narrows seven-inch isn't out yet, but you can get it digitally on iTunes and Amazon.com.

A video of Minus the Bear's recent Jimmy Kimmel appearance and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "Minus The Bear & Annuals tour dates, Kimmel video & the new These Arms are Snakes record "

photos by Bao Nguyen

Siren Festival Girl - m4w - 32 (* see below)

hey...you know who you are...we exchanged glances, (or was i suffering from heat stroke and imagining the whole thing??). you are the adorable indie-looking girl
approx 25-30. * this was either at the dodos, ra ra riot, steven malkmus, bss, the boardwalk, surf ave...

after i saw you i had to jump in the ocean to cool off, and i think i may have ingested discarded medical waste in the process, so don't you see...i am very deserving of your reply. [Craigslist] (via)

Continue reading "the 2008 Coney Island Siren Festival in pictures (part 1)"

STEPHEN MALKMUS AND THE JICKS, BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, THE HELIO SEQUENCE, BEACH HOUSE, TIMES NEW VIKING,
JAGUAR LOVE, THE DODOS, ANNUALS, FILM SCHOOL, PARTS & LABOR, DRAGONS OF ZYNTH, THESE ARE POWERS and more to be announced!

DOWNLOAD: Annuals - Where Have You Been (Machester Orchestra) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Manchester Orchestra - Brother (Annuals) (MP3)

No longer "indie" (and not suprisingly since this band seems to consistently make moves that rub people the wrong way hence the very little you've heard from them since CMJ last year), Annuals (not that I'm necessarily judging them) have signed to a Sony label. Currently on tour with their labelmates Manchester Orchestra, they play Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Halloween (tix). The two MP3s above are the two bands covering each other for a split 7" that you can buy at the show. All tour dates below....

Continue reading "Annuals (now on Sony) - 2007 Tour Dates w/ M Orchestra"

Tien Mao brings us these photos from Sunday's (7/22) free show @ McCarren Pool...

Oxford Collapse

Continue reading "Oxford Collapse, Annuals & Band of Horses @ McCarren Pool"

BOH @ Hiro Ballroom, NYC - July 10, 2007 (CRED)

Last night Band of Horses played Hiro Ballroom. On July 22nd they're playing McCarren Pool with Annuals. Get some free Annuals MP3s at Daytrotter.