Atoms For Peace @ Roseland 2010 (more by Bao Nguyen)

"After the opening of the Stanley Donwood exhibition at Subliminal Projects Gallery an afterparty was scheduled at MOCA in LA with Gonjasuffi, Ana Caldaron, as well as Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich (Nigel: "We're Djing at Mike D's bash"). The two under the name Atoms For Peace played 5 new songs with Thom Yorke vocals. And it all points out to tracks from the highly anticipated Atoms For Peace album.

Atoms For Peace is live band of Thom Yorke, which includes Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea. A new album was in the works, but till today there was no sign of new material." [At Easeweb]

A couple of videos from the set, a recently-gone viral video of Carrie Manolakos covering "Creep" at Le Poisson Rouge, and a video of little kids reviewing Radiohead, below...

Continue reading "Thom Yorke & Nigel Godrich debut new songs in Atoms For Peace DJ Set"

photos by Rachel Carr

Devo

"An aggregate 225,000 people bought tickets to see a [Coachella] roster headlined by Jay-Z, Muse and Gorillaz during the April 16-18 event at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio.

The previous attendance record was set in 2007, when the headliners included a reunited Rage Against the Machine. Final figures are still being tallied, but AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips said the gross will exceed $20 million.

Phillips said the future looked bleak for AEG Live's nascent All Points West festival, which took place in 2008 and 2009 across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J.

"We're probably going to kill it," said Phillips. "As beautiful as (the site) is, it's very hard to get New Yorkers to cross that river. All Points West is an experiment that just didn't work." [Reuters]

The 2010 edition of Coachella actually began excactly one week ago today, and we already posted full picture sets from: DAY ONE, DAY TWO and DAY THREE. Now here is one last group that contains unposted outtakes from all three...

Continue reading "more photos from Coachella, more confirmation that All Points West is not happening"

photos by Rachel Carr, words by Daiana Feuer

Gorillaz Clash

The third and final round of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival was funky, and not just because the port-a-potties reeked. Keeping a loose theme every day (see Friday & Saturday), Sunday focused on relentless rhythm and groovy basslines. The absolute golden moment belonged to Yo La Tengo's blistering final song. Rhythm that revels in repetition + guitar that tries to destroy itself = wee mind blown. Sometimes the moodiest things are the most uplifting.

Thom Yorke brought his dancing shoes, his favorite Flea, and Nigel Godrich. His band Atoms For Peace played almost every song off The Eraser, many of which featured strong world rhythm sections. When Yorke didn't have a guitar in hand, he danced, whirled, and punched the air like he was rehearsing a scene from Fame. We wanted a high kick, but it didn't arrive. King Khan & The Shrines, on the other hand, featured legs flying all over the place, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba characters, burning money, as well as a visit from the police-who crept on stage to snap pictures. Probably the first time Khan runs into cops and doesn't leave wearing cuffs. Sunny Day Real Estate had the audience offering bids to buy property, and Phoenix had people choking on dinner as they tried to dance and eat at the same time.

King Khan Gabba Gabba

Not every Julian Casablancas song captivated, but his band delightfully binged on rhythms. Each musician had a personal backbeat player supporting each fill. The drummer plus his sidekick especially sounded great. Matt & Kim's ebullient smiles inspired chaos in the audience, as usual. Mayer Hawthorne and the County revived Motown soulful brassiness and covered Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." The Big Pink played some new songs from next year's album, reaching out for Depeche Mode with a drummer in a pink bathing suit. Electro sweet popper Little Boots forgot her pants as well, wearing a sparkly shirt and knickers, and played with the lasers on stage. Charlotte Gainsbourg inaugurated her "first tour, first everything" with a feminine "Candy-O" sensibility, sometimes in French. Florence & the Machine rounds out the great lady performances of the day, and brought on Nathan Willett of Cold War Kids.

All clad in white, France's DJ ego-powers Club 75 demonstrated the ability to cooperate together with just a few elbows thrown. Cassius, Justice, Busy P, and DJ Mehdi still use CD's (so old school), and took turns passing on the headphones between them and finishing each other's remix sentences, trading places at each station. Backstage security bobbed along while staying tough. When it was their turn, Rusko turned the Sahara tent into a mechazoid robot battle and Orbital live-produced virtual reality anthems for Satan wearing Matrix miner lights around their heads. Infected Mushroom instructed on the benefits of "Becoming Insane" flanked by two mushrooms with red eyes.

The Middle East should not be confused with The Soft Pack, formerly The Muslims. The former may be from Australia but it sounds like a back porch band from Woodstock, and the latter offers a "Parasite" infestation that's as pure as sunshine and a neat drum set up that packs a giant tom punch. What appears as regular rock on headphones reveals its brilliance when experienced live. One of the strangest live moments of the festival belongs to Sly Stone, who played four hours late and on the wrong stage. He bitched, he slurred, he cursed, lay down, walked off, stopped songs and good grief, made a total mess of himself. But that's rock and roll.

Sly Stone made history look unable to get past its youthful drug phase, but Jonsi, Pavement, and Spoon come from a music scene that did a little bit less cocaine. Jonsi repped the awesomeness of Sigur Rós and great hats. Steve Patterson of White Rabbits joined Britt Daniels and the rest of Spoon to add percussion on "I Turn My Camera On". Spoon's tour-mate Bradford Cox (who played earlier in the day in Deerhunter) also joined Spoon on stage, like he did on their recent Kimmel appearance. Pavement ran through the hits during one of their first U.S. shows since reuniting. "That's the 90's in a nutshell," said Stephen Malkmus after the angsty "Unfair"...

"...Pavement, the iconic slacker band of the '90s, who took the main stage against what turned out to be one of the fest's chief attractions, the finally wildly popular French dance-rock band Phoenix, who wowed possibly the biggest crowd of the entire fest ... while Pavement played to a field half-full of true believers rather than the massive throngs many expected, and thought the band deserved.

No matter, though. Pavement still delivered a set that vindicated the group of prior crimes -- namely a Coachella performance near the end of their career so notoriously bad, many in attendance point to it as the moment the band decided to break up.

This night, however, they were tight, they were loud, and they sounded large on that vast field -- an odd statement, given the fact that in their heyday they were far more known for being introspectively small rather than arena-ready..." [The OC Register]

Virtual Snoop Dogg introduced the Gorillaz set, but Blur's Damon Albarn appeared in the flesh, with a few special guests including Paul Simonon, Mick Jones, De La Soul-who kicked their own old school jams earlier in the day-and Little Dragon's Yukimi. One unique rhythm transcended the next, showing the mutability of hip hop and dance music. And then that was it, suddenly. The festival ended and tens of thousands of people started wondering where they left their car keys...

Radiohead Peppers For Peace

Daiana's Weekend Top 10:
1. Yo La Tengo's last song
2. Little Dragon's Yukimi
3. Gossip leading a revolution
4. Thom Yorke dancing to African rhythms
5. PiL giving a history lesson
6. Sly Stone wigging out
7. Bouncing penises + fat people in undies (Die Antwoord + Major Lazer)
8. Devo putting on the hats that ushered in modern pop culture for "Whip It"
9. John Waters corrupting many young minds
10. The Gorrilaz lyric: "Super fast jellyfish going super fast. You can't even see him but you wanna eat him."

--

Owen Pallett, Local Natives, Miike Snow, and Yann Tiersen also played the fest Sunday. Gary Numan was among those who couldn't. Reviews & pictures from Day One, HERE and Day Two, HERE. Setlists (Thom Yorke and Pavement), pictures, and videos from Day Three, below...

Continue reading "Coachella 2010 - Day Three in pics, video & review (the Thom Yorke & Pavement setlists included) "

Flea night 1 (looked the same night 2) @ Roseland (more by Bao Nguyen)

"An underground fire caused chaos in midtown Tuesday afternoon, sending flames into the streets, shutting down Broadway shows, and leaving hundreds of tourists without a place to stay. At about 4:30 pm a transformer fire burnt three 13,000 volt cables, causing a three-alarm fire. Over a 130 firefighters rushed to the scene to put out the flames. Amazingly, there were no reports of injuries. Among the four buildings that had to be evacuated was the Novotel Hotel after high levels of carbon monoxide were detected in the basement. FDNY Deputy Chief Jay Jonas told WPIX that the levels reached as high as 700 parts per million, which is enough to "kill someone with just a few breaths." Tuesday night's performance of Jersey Boys was also canceled due to the fire." [Huffington Post]

Jersey Boys is right next door to Roseland Ballroom where Atoms For Peace did end up playing their second of two NYC shows last night (4/6). It almost didn't happen. There was at least an hour or two where the venue wasn't sure if they were going to have to postpone it. 52st street was closed and it was madness around the venue - even after the show the street was still closed (people were herded out along the sidewalk as cops made sure that nobody hopped the barrier and went into the street). To get in to the show, which ended up opening hours late, people had to enter through the 53rd Street back door. Ironically, all tickets were will call to keep away scalpers. That meant thousands of people had to start checking in not long before the opener was originally scheduled to start. Some people waited hours, but luckily set times ended up being pushed back an hour. I missed Flying Lotus who played while many people were still stuck on the street. Thom Yorke, Flea, Joey Waronker, Mauro Refosco and Nigel Godrich (aka Atoms for Peace) took the stage to an extremely packed house at 10:03.

Not one for many words, Thom Yorke (and band) immediately started playing his solo album The Eraser from start to finish. I was anticipating some funny commentary from Thom on the craziness that preceded their set, but all we got was a quick (not an exact quote) "interesting afternoon, huh?" after the 2nd song (which i think he followed with something like, "my friend texted me and said he was drinking all day and tired and that I should hurry up and start playing"). After the nine song album, the band left the stage and Thom came back and did three songs solo (guitar and piano) including Kid A's "Everything In It's Right Place" which got the loudest cheers of the night. It was one of a few Radiohead songs in the setlist (they also played "Fog" and "Paperback Writer") (there were no Red Hot Chili Peppers songs) (but it would have been kind of awesome if they actually did play one). Thom's other solo song was a cover of Mark Mulcahy's "All the Best" which he recorded for that recent tribute album. He reportedly never performed that one live before which was also true about the new song he played at the first show (but not play again at this one).

Like the night before, the full band came back for the last four songs. Relatively speaking, Thom started to get more talkative at that point, but the banter was basically limited to naming the song they were about to play and mentioning that we might be able to buy the recent single (from which they played both songs again to close the show). Speaking of buying, the ticket price was expensive, $40 t-shirts are a disgrace, it was a major pain getting in (not anyone's fault), and the whole show was only about 80-85 minutes (Wilco's recent shows in NJ were each longer than both nights of Thom combined - I know, they have much more material). Those details were definitely all a little off-putting, but the show itself was great. Watching and listening to Thom perform is definitely something special. Throw in Flea on bass and you have two very dynamic (and talented) characters sharing a stage in what felt like a rare treat complete with a super tight supporting band and colorful light show.

Pictures from the first night HERE. Videos from the show, of the line, of the manhole exploding, and the full setlist below...

Continue reading "Atoms for Peace played (almost didn't) Roseland Ballroom again - night 2 setlist & videos (of the NYC show, line & fire)"

Firemen hose West 52nd Street after an underground transformer explosion near the "Late Show." (Late_Show) (you can see Roseland back there)

"Firefighters and Con Ed are dealing with a third alarm manhole fire near 226 West 52nd Street. WCBS 2 reports, "It's believed a second transformer may have blown at 1697 Broadway, near the Ed Sullivan Theater. Flames could be seen shooting from the manhole and bits of the street were blown out from the blaze. Witnesses reported hearing a loud 'pops' from potential explosions in the manhole."

Some buildings were evacuated because extremely high levels of carbon monoxide were measured and Broadway between 50th and 54th were shut down. And a tipster writes, "Atoms for Peace, Thom Yorke's side project, is playing at Roseland tonight and the crowd of people that won't move" because they "have been waiting on line to get in since early this morning."" [Gothamist]

NOTE: I just got word that the show IS HAPPENING (see you there!)

UPDATE 2:. just got another update from someone else there that ""not definitely we'll know in a few minutes, as of now we're evacuated"" (as of 7:10pm)

UPDATE 3 It's on! Definitely 100% open, happening. Set times pushed back 30 minutes (see you there!).

And see pictures from last night HERE.

UPDATE 4: And the so the show happened.

photos by Bao Nguyen

"Sorry I did fall asleep cause I was resting from such an amazing show! I'm wide awake now!" - Bao

"The line in front of Roseland Ballroom stretched around the corner of 52nd Street and up Broadway but moved along quickly. The band's ticketless method to limit scalping seemed to work without too many headaches. Flying Lotus was on the wheels when I walked in spinning chilled-out techno but it's tough to build a groove when the sound system is popping and cracking like a blown speaker, what a shame. Sound improved toward the end of his set and he closed with 'Idioteque'.

Atoms for Peace took the stage as a 6-piece with Thom Yorke at piano and a guest horn player center stage (he would depart after 2 songs). They opened with 'The Eraser' and two things became immediately clear: 1) the sound was now perfect and 2) Flea would add some SoCal funk/punk to the set. With blue hair and a white tee (the rest of the band was in black), he was immediately wiggling/dancing across the stage laying it on thick. The set was comprised mostly of songs from The Eraser but included some Radiohead and some new songs as well." [Blackraptor]

As promised, here are the pictures from last night's show at Roseland Ballroom (and some from the after-show party in the mezzanine). They continue below...

Continue reading "Thom Yorke, Flea & band were Atoms for Peace @ Roseland Ballroom (pics from the show & afterparty) "

Atoms for Peace (jrlevine)

Thom Yorke's new band Atoms for Peace (complete with Flea) kicked off their tour last night (4/5) at Roseland Ballroom in NYC. They play the same venue again tonight (4/6). Flying Lotus opens both nights. The setlist included a lot of songs from Thom's solo album The Eraser, both songs from the "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses" single, and a brand new song. The full list is below.

UPDATE: Pictures are HERE.

I think Bao fell asleep editing his pictures from the show and I'm not doing so well myself, so (stay tuned for those photos and) without further ado, a few videos including the new song (called Chris Hodge/Let Me Take Control) with the entire setlist (thanks Ethan!), below...

Continue reading "Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke) played Roseland Ballroom - night 1 setlist, videos (new song included) (pics soon) "

Atoms for Peace tickets are on sale at 10am.

Thom Yorke in L.A. last October (more by Darren Kim)

hey everyone

ok so in April the other band.. that i got together to do the eraser and other stuff u know .. Mauro, Flea, Me, Joey and Nigel is going back out to do some shows in the US.. ending with playing with Coachella. we had too much fun to just leave it there...

it has been decided that we call ourselves Atoms For Peace. hope you like the name.. it seemed bleedin' obvious.

these are the shows + Flying Lotus is opening for us -
New York Roseland Ballroom 5th + 6th
Boston Citi Wang Theatre 8th
Chicago Aragon Ballroom 10th + 11th
Oakland Fox Theatre 14th + 15th
Santa Barbara Bowl 17th

all warmth

Thom [via]

As you can see above, they play NYC's Roseland Ballroom on Monday April 5th and Tuesday April 6th. Tickets (4/5) / tickets (4/6) go on sale Saturday, March 6th at 10am ("No phone, box office or outlet sales. Tickets are non-transferable").

Thom Yorke appears on the new album from Flying Lotus (who has other shows coming up too). That includes March 30th at Le Poisson Rouge. Tickets are still on sale.

More date and ticket info below...

Continue reading "Thom Yorke names his band Atoms for Peace, announces April 2010 tour dates (including 2 nights in NYC)"