The Greenhornes 2007

After detours in The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather among other projects, The Greenhornes are back at it and will release their first LP of new material in eight years via Jack White's Third Man imprint. The record, entitled Four Stars, will be proceeded by select east coast dates that will include Mercury Lounge on 9/3 (free with RSVP) and Maxwell's on 9/4 with The Black Hollies (tickets) leading up to their appearance at ATP NY on 9/5 ("full" lineup).

A month later (on 10/2), The Greenhornes are confirmed for Scion Garage Fest 2010 in Lawrence, Kansas alongside a plethora of killer notables including The Oblivians (who recently played Knit), The Gories (who just played Bowery and toured with Oblivians), The Raveonettes (who are playing Bumbershoot), King Khan & The Shrines (who are playing Santos and Bell House), Best Coast (who just played the Seaport and like weed), Tyvek, Thee Oh Sees, Hunx & His Punx, and a ton of others.

Much like Scion Rock Fest, the show will take place across four venues and is FREE, but RSVP is required. Full lineup is below.

Some videos and the full Scion lineup & flyer is below...

Continue reading "The Greenhornes playing shows - ATP, a free one @ Mercury & Scion Garage Fest (full lineup - Oblivians, Gories, more) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Braids - Lemonade (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: No Joy - No Joy (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Psychobuildings - Birds of Prey (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: North Highlands - Sugar Lips (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Besnard Lakes - Albatross (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Land of Talk - May You Never (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cheap Time - Woodland Drive (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Bad Sports -On Video (MP3)

Owen Pallett playing w/ the Luyas @ Webster Hall (more by Sarahana)

It's Memorial Day Weekend which used to mean, if you stayed in town, there was nothing to do except go see whatever piece of crap Hollywood was foisting upon us, hang out at backyard BBQs (not a bad thing at all), and enjoy a relatively emptied-out city. Not so much anymore. I mean, there's still Hollywood crap -- take your pick of sand-n-sandals epics SATC2 or Prince of Persia if you must -- but people stick around more, and there's clearly more options for the music fan. Lots of good stuff this weekend, most of which you can still get tickets.

Also: lots of Montreal action this weekend. Starting tonight (5/27) with an early show at Mercury Lounge with The Luyas and Braids. If you check in with BV fairly often you already know we're pretty big fans of the former. It took them a while to finally come play NYC but now that they have, they seem to be coming back weekly. It's not the most straightforward music, but there's a magical quality about The Luyas that worms its way under your skin.

Braids are doing a similar thing but with a different sonic palette, more electronic, more trancey. As I wrote before, I was impressed when I saw them on Tuesday at Knitting Factory. I wish they spent as much time on the songs as the soundscape-ish arrangements, but there's a lot of promise in their best songs (like "Lemonade" which you can download above) and they're definitely worth checking out. Like I said, it's an early show -- Luyas open at 7:30 -- which leaves most of your evening open. If you can't make it tonight, Braids also play Rooftop Films tomorrow, where they're paired with a collection of "Dark Toons," which sounds like a good match to me.

No Joy

If you wanted to keep the MTL thing going after the early Luyas/Braids, you could then head over to Cameo Gallery to see No Joy who split their time between that city and Los Angeles. I don't know a whole lot about these two girls but I really dig the two songs that have been floating around which were produced by Think About Life/Miracle Fortress whiz kid Graham Van Pelt. I've seen some people call their sound shoegaze, but it's more in that Dinosaur Jr. kind of way than a Ride/Slowdive kind of way. Thick, sludgy and rockin'. Look out for an EP on Mexican Summer sometime soon. They played last night at Shea Stadium and apparently blew everyone's eardrums out. You are warned.

Also on this eclectic bill: the paranoid postpunk/electropop of Psychobuildings (check out "Birds of Prey" at the top of this post) who kind of remind me of The Pop Group; The Surprisers (another band featuring German Measles/Cause Co-motion/etc etc dudes); and the gentle orch-pop of North Highlands who I've written about before a few times.

And am writing about again right here. Shameless plug time. As you may have seen, I'm working with the Seaport Music folks to put on a series of lunchtime shows every Wednesday in June down at Pier 17 (the Seaport Stage). The shows are in conjunction with the Fulton Stall Markets, a farmers market in the old Fulton Fish Market stalls across the street from the Seaport. The market opens on Sunday and we're doing a kickoff show with North Highlands. I DJ at noon and then the band is on at 1PM. I'm super happy to have North Highlands play the first show, they were the first band I thought of for this, and think they're easily one of the most promising new bands in NYC. Anyway, come down if you can. The rest of the Sound Bites Lunchtime Series schedule (including The Beets, Ribbons and more) can be found here.

Besnard Lakes @ SXSW (more by Tim Griffin)

Okay, back to Montreal. Friday night (5/28) The Besnard Lakes are playing Bowery Ballroom with Land of Talk. People overuse the word "epic" but the Besnard Lakes make music that deserves that description. And epic doesn't necessarily mean "overblown." Take, for example, "Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent" which opens their new album Are the Roaring Night. It's an amazing slow build that explodes (in slo-mo, yet not in a Michael Bay way) in the chorus with a giant wave of guitars. One of my favorite songs of the year, and it crushed at the Brooklyn Vegan day party during this year's SXSW. I've never seen a bad Besnard Lakes show. I highly, highly recommend you go.

Openers Land of Talk are no slouches in the live department either. The band's second album, Cloak and Cipher, is due out August 24 on Saddle Creek, and we should get a nice preview of it tomorrow night.

A few more weekend picks, day by day (and tour dates below):

Continue reading "No Joy, North Highlands, Besnard Lakes, Luyas, Eternal Summers, Twin Sister & more in This Week in Indie"

DOWNLOAD: Cheap Time - Woodland Drive (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Bad Sports -On Video (MP3)

Cheap Time...

The last Scion Garage show at Knitting Factory brought Pierced Arrows and Black Lips to the venue on April 29th. Video from that gig is below.

Catchy Tennessee garage punks Cheap Time and Denton, TX trio Bad Sports will play the next Scion Garage show at the same Brooklyn venue on Thursday, May 27th. RSVP for free entry here.

The Cheap Time single posted above came out on In the Red in 2009. A flyer, more Bad Sports tour dates (around the West Coast mostly this summer) and videos of Black Lips show in April are below...

Continue reading "Cheap Time & Bad Sports playing free show & other dates "