photos by Amanda Hatfield

Tickets are now on Live Nation presale (password = "concert") for Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti at Irving Plaza on June 2nd. Presale ends at 10PM tomorrow (3/31) and tickets go on regular sale on Friday (4/1).

The show is two days before Ariel plays the 4th annual Roots Picnic in Philadelphia, PA. There he'll meet up with The Dismemberment Plan, Nas, Man Man, Wiz Khalifa, and many others. Tickets are still available. Ariel's only other date at the moment is Coachella which is much sooner.

Ariel Pink played The Rock n Roll Circus under the Big Apple Circus big top in January (a day after the "unruly" Japanther). Another, long lost set of pictures from that show are below, along with the list of dates...

Continue reading "Ariel Pink will play NYC before Roots Picnic (and here are some more pics from that circus show)"

photos by Andrew Boyle

Ariel Pink, who is among those playing Coachella this year, made his network television debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon the other day. If you haven't seen it yet, the video from that, with a new set of pictures from the show Ariel played under a NYC circus tent, is below...

Continue reading "Ariel Pink Fallon video & more Japanther circus pics"

photos by Chris La Putt

Ariel Pink

I'm pretty sure the Big Apple Circus is considered a humane circus, so hopefully that means they treat all those white ponies that ran in circles at Tuesday's show, really well. There were ponies, and contortionists, and Ariel Pink who caused a Kodak moment by climbing one of the tent's support beam things while singing, and there was Nick Zinner and Aska, and Amazing Baby and more at the second day of Lincoln Center's 'Rock & Roll Circus' which went way better than the first/Japanther night did. A full set of pictures from both days, with video of Ariel Pink and the ponies, continues below...

Continue reading "Ariel Pink, ponies & the rest of the Rock & Roll Big Apple Circus @ Lincoln Center in pics & video"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

The So So Glos

About 100 fans of the Brooklyn-based band Japanther rushed the stage during the Rock N' Roll Circus in Damrosch Park at 11:30 p.m., said the event's co-producer, Jessica Resler.

"People were crowd-surfing and jumping on each other. It was like, what the hell just happened?" Resler said.

A teenager who went to see her favorite band with two pals said she was scared to death.

"Oh, my God, it was crazy. I was off my feet for a whole minute. I thought I was going to die in there," said Jessica Schmidt, 18.

"I thought my friend was going to get trampled because he fell and hit his head pretty hard."

The event, which attracted more than 1,000 people, took place in the tent that normally houses the Big Apple Circus, which helped produce the event. -[NY Post]

Mosh pit + Lincoln Center = sensational NY Post article about last night's 'Rock N Roll Circus' show. We previously posted about it, but here's a full set of pictures that includes every band who played (it first got rowdy during the So So Glos set)...

Continue reading "more pics from the Rock n Roll Circus night 1 (So So Glos, the Pharmacy, mad security guards, etc)"

photos by Chris La Putt

""Ladies and gentlemen get out of the ring or they will not play"" - Leia Jospe

""That's what i'm talkin about. Carnage. Total carnage. Up the punks!" -guy smoking inside @japanther show/riot/fail, lincolncenter" - Nina Mashurova

"What a mess. Japanther got stopped twice - lights on, music off, so floor could be cleared of moshers. People were booing and throwing shit." - Pamela Z

"Japanther gets shut down at Damrosche Park because it's a "security f**king circus."" - Rozalia Jovanovic

"A riot at the circus #2011" - Leia Jospe

"that was one of the craziest, oddest shows i've been to in a while. pandemonium broke loose. if tomorrow's day 2 even happens, that'll be the last time lincoln center opens its doors to rock bands. it was pretty fun till the very end. stupid kids, agro's for dorks."
[Anonymous | January 4, 2011 1:11 AM]

They probably shouldn't have booked Japanther at the "Rock & Roll Circus" if their goal was complete order. Not only that, Monday night's Lincoln Center-presented show under the Big Apple Circus big top was free. Things will surely be calmer for the ticketed Tuesday night show that Ariel Pink is headlining (assuming it is still happening). More about what happened later (with more pictures of all bands and the aftermath), but in the meantime, you can check out more pictures taken during Japanther's set, below...

Continue reading "the Japanther show @ Big Apple Circus didn't go so well (pics)"

"The Rock & Roll Circus, a two-day, three-ring, musical extravaganza featuring Ariel Pink, Amazing Baby, Nick Zinner and Aska, Saint Motel, contortionist, acrobats, and more will kick off 2011 under the 40,000 square foot Big Apple Circus Tent at Lincoln Center on January 3rd and 4th."

Meanwhile you can catch Ariel Pink (who strangely replaced OK Go on the originally advertised circus lineup) in Brooklyn on New Years Eve (aka tonight).

photos by Chris La Putt

Devotchka @ Big Apple Circus

Depending on the realtor, the New York outpost of Alex Calderwood's Ace Hotel is either located in NoChe (short for North Chelsea) or NoMad (for North of Madison Square Park), but regular people just think of the area as a place to buy knockoff handbags. Inside the hotel it's a different scene, like some dreamy Epcot Center version of the Pacific Northwest, especially on this Friday afternoon, when Colin Meloy, the frontman of the Portland-based Decemberists, began tuning up for a solo show, sponsored by KEXP, the great Seattle radio station that moved into the lobby of the hotel for three days during CMJ. "I'm so glad this pocket of Portland is here," Meloy said of the hotel, which was founded in Seattle but is now headquartered in Stumptown. "Now I feel safe in New York." His set... was prefaced by 15 minutes of lovely droning gibberish from Nick Urata's gypsy punk band DeVotchKa. -[New York Times]

The KEXP show at Ace Hotel was the lone date for Colin Meloy during CMJ (videos HERE), but other artists who played the Ace Hotel that day (Glasser and Devotchka) were busy at CMJ this year (though Glasser played one less than planned).

On 10/22 in particular, Devotchka first played the KEXP bash (LISTEN TO IT AT KEXP'S SITE), Fontana's, and then the BrooklynVegan Day Party at Public Assembly to a packed house (thanks again) - all before 6pm.

But the band's big and most-official CMJ show came the next day, Saturday (10/23), under the Big Apple Circus big top at Damrosch Park. That's where the band headlined a unique show with Spirit Family Reunion and Angus & Julia Stone, complete with aerialists and other circus performers. It was part of the "Sideshow" series, though so far the "series" is only that one show.

Pictures from Friday at Fontana's and the Saturday Big Apple Circus show are in this post, and they continue, with some circus show videos, below...

Continue reading "Devotchka played KEXP, Fontana's & the Big Apple Circus --- (CMJ pics, video & streaming audio)"