photos by Sarah Frankie Linder

Patti Smith @ Stubb's, Austin, 4/30/13

Patti Smith will play Bowery Ballroom on June 5. Tickets to the Bowery show go on sale Friday (5/17). The show is part of the celebration of the Federico Garcia Lorca Birthday Celebration which has been going on since early April and continues through July with events thoughout the city:

Lorca in New York: A Celebration is the largest-ever festival in North America celebrating the work of acclaimed Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. With more than two dozen events throughout Manhattan, it focuses on the brief but prolific period (1929-1930), during which Lorca came to New York and wrote one of his most significant works, Poet in New York. Presented by Fundación Federico García Lorca with support from Acción Cultural Española, it is anchored in the premiere of Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York at The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (April 5-July 20) - an exhibition bringing together for the first time manuscripts, drawings, letters, and photos Lorca generated while in the city.

She'll also perform on September 20 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for a tribute to Hildegard of Bingen, the "twelfth-century German writer, composer, philosopher, visual artist, mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath." Tickets to that show are still available. All Patti Smith tour dates are below.

Patti Smith played Stubb's in Austin at the end of April (4/30) and there are photos from that show in this post.

More pictures and dates below...

Continue reading "Patti Smith playing Federico Garcia Lorca tribute at Bowery Ballroom & other dates, played Stubb's in Austin (pics, dates)"

Tom Jones @ Terminal 5 (more by Chris La Putt)

Tom Jones is no stranger to Bowery Presents, and has been known to do some 'indie' things in his old age, but I'm not sure we ever thought we'd see the man, the legend in a place as intimate and grungy (relatively speaking) as Bowery Ballroom! Tom Jones plays Bowery Ballroom on May 18, 2013. Tickets are $65 and go on sale Friday at noon.

Palma Violets at BV SXSW 2013 day party (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Downtown Records are taking their Downtown Music Festivals to different North American cities this year with a lineup that includes Black Hippy (aka Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Ab Soul, and Jay Rock all playing together), Purity Ring, Earl Sweatshirt, Sky Ferreira, DIIV, Palma Violets, Trash Talk, Beach Fossils, Teengirl Fantasy, Inc., Ducktails, Royal Teeth, and Black Dave, plus more TBA.

The first festival takes place in NYC from May 10 to 11 across multiple venues, including Bowery Ballroom, Mercury Lounge, Rockwood Music Hall, Angel Orensanz, Pianos, Cake Shop, Tammany Hall, and Element. The full lineup and schedule for the NYC shows has not been announced yet, but we do know that it includes the previously announced Palma Violets show at Bowery Ballroom (which is now sold out, but tickets are still available for PV's MHOW show a day earlier). We also hear that they're trying to put up an outdoor stage and shut down Ludlow St to car traffic (which Pianos and Cake Shop are both on) for the festival, but no exact word on how that will work out.

2-Day Passes for the NYC festival are on sale now and tickets for individual nights go on sale Friday, April 12 at 11 AM.

After NYC, the festival will also pass through Philly, Toronto, Boston, LA, Denver, and Las Vegas, but the dates for those cities has not been announced yet.

photos by Ryan Muir

Santigold / Grizzly Bear @ Bowery Ballroom, 12/10/2012

We already posted one-and-a-half sets of photos from the private SPIN's "The Year in Music" party that happened on Monday (12/10) at Bowery Ballroom with Grizzly Bear and Santigold, but here's another set, these from Ryan Muir. More of his pics, including a few backstage shots with Santigold, below...

Continue reading "more pics from 'SPIN' party with Grizzly Bear and Santigold"

Cale @ Irving Plaza, 12/7/2012 (more by Chris La Putt)

Likable and long-running pop ironists Cake released Showroom of Compassion are playing Wellmont Theatre on January 12 (tickets) but have just added a NYC show as well the day before (1/11) at Bowery Ballroom. That's a pretty small venue for a band who sold out Terminal 5 and Music Hall of Williamsburg last year.) Tickets for that show go on sale Friday (12/7) at noon.

These appear to be one-off dates, as the only other shows the band have lined up are LA on New Year's Eve and Lollapallooza in San Sao Paulo, Brazil in March. All Cake dates are listed below, along with the video to their single "Short Skirt/Long Jacket."

Continue reading "Cake playing NJ & intimate NYC show in January (dates)"

Bowery Ballroom (more by Tracy Allison)

If a show is happening at NYC's famous Bowery Ballroom, it was booked by Bowery Presents talent buyer Johnny Beach (who started at the company booking Mercury Lounge). Johnny also keeps busy by co-booking Webster Hall, Terminal 5, Union Transfer in Philly, and other Bowery Presents-affiliated venues. The man books shows all day and is literally at one or more almost every single night. He told us what albums he listened to the most in 2012. Check out his list, and some related videos, below...

Continue reading "Johnny Beach from Bowery Presents: Top 10 Albums of 2012"

photos by David Andrako

Yellow Ostrich's Jon Natchez at Bowery Ballroom - 11/14/12

Yellow Ostrich returned to NYC last night (11/14) for the last club date on their fall tour (they play Bard College tonight (11/15)) at Bowery Ballroom. The tour started in October just a few days after member Jon Natchez returned from his trip around the country with David Byrne and St. Vincent (he plays saxophone, flute, clarinet, and flugelhorn in their band).

Yellow Ostrich's setlist at Bowery was pretty modest in length compared to the amount of material they've released in the three years they've been in a band, but they included material off most of their releases, not sticking to one album in particular. Opener Strand of Oaks (aka Tim Showalter) joined them for "Ghost," the title track on their new EP, and Darby Cicci of The Antlers came out for "Won't Fade Away," off that same EP (Peter from the Antlers will join Sharon Van Etten on stage at Town Hall tonight).

In addition to an opening set by Strand of Oaks, who we also saw opening for The Tallest Man On Earth this year, and whose new self-released album, Dark Shores, has gone undeservedly overlooked, Glass Ghost (who have opened for Sharon Van Etten at the same venue) provided support at the show. More pictures of all three bands and Yellow Ostrich's setlist are below.

Continue reading "Yellow Ostrich, Strand of Oaks & Glass Ghost played Bowery Ballroom (pics & setlist)"

Soundgarden in Atlantic City in 2011 (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

After Soundgarden plays 'Live on Letterman' on Monday (11/12), frontman Chris Cornell will head over to Bowery Ballroom for an intimate solo acoustic show to benefit Hurricane Sandy Relief. Tickets for that show go on sale today (11/9) at 3 PM and all proceeds will go to the Mayor's Fund.

That show is also one day before Soundgarden's first of three North American dates this month, which happens at Irving Plaza on Tuesday (11/13). Tickets for that show went on presale yesterday and sold right out. The general on-sale begins today at 10 AM.

Soundgarden plans to release their music video for "Been Away Too Long" at some point today, but until then you can check out the teaser video for the track below.

Continue reading "Chris Cornell playing Hurricane Sandy Relief benefit in NYC before Soundgarden's Irving Plaza show (which is on sale)"

Front St. on Monday evening (via @iggsactly)

Lower Manhattan got it pretty good by Sandy, South Street Seaport included. The area was under multiple feet of water. The Seaport Music Festival, who put on the free shows down there, still had their stage set up. Some gear was ruined though they luckily had taken down the deck, lights, tent and canopy in preparation for the hurricane. No word on how the Beekman Beer Garden fared, though one Tweeter fears it is "definitely gone". Wine store Pasanella and Son was reportedly "decimated". Sadly, there has also been some looting at the Seaport's shops.

At a press conference this afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg, who recently confirmed at least 18 Sandy related deaths in NYC, announced that like the subways (Buses start returning tonight [10/30]), it may be three or four more days before power is restored to the tons of residents who lost it due to Hurricane Sandy. This includes all of lower Manhattan where, as you know, a whole lot of Manhattan music venues are. Which probably means no shows till the weekend for Pianos, Cake Shop, The Living Room, Arlene's Grocery, Fontana's, Rockwood Music Hall, The Slipper Room, Mercury Lounge, Bowery Ballroom, Santos Party House, Le Poisson Rouge and others.

Good news, apart from no power, the Ludlow St. area venues all came out ok, with folks at Pianos, Cake Shop and Arlene's Grocery specifically saying there was no water damage. Williamsburg clubs, are getting somewhat back to normal sooner, with shows at Union Pool and Glasslands tonight.

Elsewhere, Park Slope/Gowanus's Bell House reports that they "had some minimal flooding but will be back to business as usual by tomorrow. Working on fundraiser ideas for you now " Bar 4 in Park Slope lost their awning.

by Andrew Sacher

Merchandise at Bowery Ballroom - 10/21/12 (via BrooklynVegan Instagram)

On Friday night (10/19) during CMJ, I made my way over to Brooklyn warehouse Villain, which has recently begun hosting shows, for Pitchfork's unofficial CMJ showcase. The venue's a pretty decent size, but with the wall running down the middle which separated the stage from the bar area, they could only let in 300 people. It's a nice location though, and they had great visuals for every artist, projecting footage of them performing blurred with trippy imagery onto the white wall behind the stage. I got there about a half hour before doors and was told that by the second act, the venue was at capacity, though with the always-crowded smoking pit and bar area, the crowd never felt too dense and it was easy to make your way to the front. I was there for about half the show and saw Angel Haze, Hundred Waters, Le1f, Daughn Gibson, Merchandise, and Holy Other. The whole lineup was great, but my main reason for going was to check out Merchandise, whose only other show this week was a post-CMJ show at Bowery Ballroom last night (10/21) (pictured above), so I'll start there.

Merchandise have been around for a few years, but they gained a significant more amount of attention this year with their impressive Children Of Desire album. And the tunes sound great on record, but the band are still without a permanent drummer and when they tried to pull it off with a drum machine at Villain on Friday, it just didn't cut it. I spent most of their set in the front and their amps were twice as loud as the drum machine (it was a bit better in the back). I've heard people like to mosh at Merchandise shows and there were a few attempts at a pit, but with such a lack of power in the band's sound, I couldn't see the motivation for one. And when frontman Carson Cox demanded the crowd "wake up," it was hard to really agree that the crowd was at fault here. To give credit where it's due, all three members of Merchandise who were on stage were great. They had totally driving bass, sharp guitar lines, and Carson's voice was just as romantic as it is on record and it's still the band's selling point -- they just need a drummer to give them the push they deserve.

A video of Merchandise from their set at the Pitchfork showcase is below.

Continue reading "Merchandise (still drummer-less) played Pitchfork showcase at Villain, and Bowery (video, review)"

photos by Tracy Allison

"Local Natives at Bowery Ballroom last night. New album is going to be fab! " - Theresa Montgomery

"New Local Natives material is sounding amazing. Get pumped for the new album. @ Bowery Ballroom" - John Verrochi

"Local Natives at Bowery Ballroom. New songs are more pastoral, but still anthemic." - B.Q. Nguyen

Finally the Local Natives took the stage and went straight into some new mind-blowing tracks. Their new stuff had a completely different feel from the first album. These songs were more brooding and intensely emotional. They had a slow build to them, which usually went from a quiet solo by Kelcey Ayer into that explosive three-part harmony for which the Local Natives have become so well known... Though I love the old materials, I was more impressed with the new and absolutely honored to be one of the first people to hear it performed live. [CMJ]

The new Aaron Dessner-produced album is called Hummingbird and will be out on January 29 via Frenchkiss/Infectious. A stream of the album's lead single, "Breakers," and the tracklist (including a song called "Bowery") are below. .

The band will be supporting the new record with a North American tour in 2013 which brings them back to Bowery Ballroom on February 2 and 3 and also hits Brooklyn for a Music Hall of Williamsburg show (2/1) a day earlier. Tickets for those shows are not on sale yet but check ticketmaster for updates. All dates, more pictures, the setlist from Bowery and new LP tracklist, below...

Continue reading "Local Natives played CMJ, announce tour, released new song & album info (pics, setlist, dates & stream)"

Not a lot of big acts at CMJ this year. Bowery Ballroom still has one night empty, and their Saturday night was just filled with the announcement that Wild Nothing is playing there twice (Saturday with Braids and Sunday with Merchandise). But now comes a last minute announcement that the Wednesday night of CMJ will be headlined by "Special Surprise Guest". SKATERS, San Cisco, Pacific Air, and Solid Gold open the show which goes on sale Wednesday at noon. Would you buy a ticket to a show if you didn't know who was playing?

by Bill Pearis

Crocodiles at 4 Knotts 2012 (more by Chris La Putt)

Crocodiles' tour rolls through NYC tonight (Friday, 9/28) for a show at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for that show are still available but if you'd like to go for free, we've got two pair of tickets to give away. Details on how to enter are at the bottom of this post along with a list of all dates.

The band are supporting their most recent album, Endless Flowers, which finds them widening their scope while still holding on to those Spacemen 3/JAMC roots. It's a good record. You can stream the whole thing at Spotify and check out the video for its title track below. Openers for this show are Punks on Mars and Alexis & Icewater.

Brandon of Crocodiles' wife, Dee Dee, will be playing with the rest of Dum Dum Girls at Europa on Sunday (9/30) with Chez Deep and Starred, and tickets to that show are still available. It's a record release show for their terrific new End of Daze EP. DDGs will be back opening for The Walkmen at Terminal 5 on October 18 (tickets).

Meanwhile, DDG drummer Sandy's band, SISU, play Glasslands before that on October 10 with Grooms, Royal Baths, and Punks on Mars (tickets). Bleeding Rainbow were on that bill originally, but seem to have dropped off. (They do have other shows in NYC though.)

Continue reading "Crocodiles are on tour, in NYC tonight (win tix!); Dum Dum Girls here this weekend too"

photos by Luis Ruiz

Devotchka at Bowery Ballroom 9/14/2012

It was Devotchka Weekend here in New York, where the gypsy folk band's tour came to town for two nights at Bowery Ballroom on Friday and Saturday (9/14 - 15) and then Sunday (9/16) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. A set of pictures from Saturday's Bowery show with Clare & the Reasons are in this post.

Devotchka are releasing DeVotchKa: Live with the Colorado Symphony in November which was recored at Denver's Boettcher Concert Hall back in February. Colorado residents can experience that collaboration in actual concert form this week when Devotchka with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra will play the famed Red Rocks Amphitheater on Thursday (9/20) with The Airborne Toxic Event. Remaining tour dates are listed, with more pictures, below.

Continue reading "Devotchka played 2 nights at Bowery Ballroom with Clare and the Reasons (pics)"

by Bill Pearis

Los Angeles' Allah-Las will release their Nick Waterhouse-produced debut album next week (9/18) on Innovative Leisure. You can stream it now below via Spotify. If you like leather fringe jackets, 12-string Rickenbackers, lush harmonies and jingle-jangle mornings, the Allah-Las do this sort of thing really well. You can also check out the video for their single "Busman's Holiday" below as well.

As mentioned before, The Allah-Las are on a tour with their producer Nick Waterhouse which will hit NYC on October 6 at Bowery Ballroom (tickets are still available). The band have added a headlining show, which happens the night before (10/5) at Union Pool. Union Pool's website says advance tickets will be available but there's no link yet.

All Allah-Las tour dates are listed below along with the album stream and video.

Continue reading "Allah-Las playing Union Pool before their Bowery Ballroom show with Nick Waterhouse (updated dates & LP stream)"

by Andrew Sacher

It's been a while since I've thought about progressive alt rockers dredg (though they've still been at it, having most recently released the album, Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy, last year), but when their name popped up multiple times as a sonic reference point for Baroness' excellent new album, Yellow & Green, I had a bit of an "oh yeah!" moment and threw them on a few times. In reproaching the band, I began with my best memories of them, which were 2002's El Cielo and 2005's Catch Without Arms. So it comes as a rather pleasant surprise that those are the two albums they'll be performing when they come to NYC for two shows at Bowery Ballroom in November. Whether these shows are part of a larger tour is still TBA.

dredg will perform El Cielo at Bowery Ballroom on November 9 and Catch Without Arms at the same venue on November 10. Tickets for both of those shows go on sale Friday (9/14) at noon. As I said, they haven't revealed a full tour yet, but a list of all currently known dates, plus some videos from both of those albums are below...

Continue reading "dredg performing 'El Cielo' and 'Catch Without Arms'"

Veteran Irish trio Ash are celebrating their 20th Anniversary this year and are playing two NYC gigs as part of their year-long celebration: November 16 at Knitting Factory and November 20 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for the Bowery show go on AmEx presale Wednesday (9/5) at noon with the regular on-sale happening Friday (9/7) at noon; Knit tickets go on sale Saturday (9/8) at 10 AM.

While it's about two years since Tim Wheeler (who's only 35) and the band released original material, the band recently put out an EP of covers titled Little Infinity that finds them tackling songs by Abba, The Beatles, David Bowie and others. You can stream it at Spotify.

Before the NYC dates, Ash will be out for a few shows with Weezer. All tour dates are listed below, along with a few Ash videos.

Continue reading "Ash celebrating 20th anniversary, released covers EP, touring (dates)"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

"@JULIA_HOLTER Great show at Bowery! You killed it." - @christianakey

"Hundred Waters blowing minds at Bowery Ballroom
on a Friday night." - Chris Blackburn

Julia Holter/Hundred Waters

Julia Holter and Hundred Waters brought their respective brands of art pop to NYC for a show at Bowery Ballroom on Friday (8/31) as part of a tour the two artists are on together. Julia focused the majority of her set on 2012's excellent Ekstasis, but did also reach back a bit to 2011's Tragedy and included a new song ("Gaston"), in addition to encoring with "Sea Called Me Home" from her "Live Recordings" cassette. You can check out a video of her encore at the Bowery Ballroom show, along with a video of Julia playing the new song in the UK below.

Silent Drape Runners opened the show. More pictures of all three bands, plus Julia Holter's setlist and videos are below...

Continue reading "Julia Holter, Hundred Waters and Silent Drape Runners played Bowery Ballroom (pics, videos, setlist)"

As mentioned previously, Milo Greene will be playing Bowery Ballroom on October 25 with Lucius. If you'd like to see the band at Bowery sooner, they're playing a private Logitech UE-sponsored show on Wednesday (8/29) with Frances Cone and we're giving away a few pairs of tickets. One of those pair of tickets will come with a new Logitech UE music product the details of which will be announced on Wednesday as well. Details on how to win tickets are at the bottom of this post.

You can stream a few Milo Greene songs below.

Continue reading "win tickets private Milo Green show at Bowery Ballroom"

Rob Delaney @ Sasquatch 2012 (more by Chris Graham)

The NY Times reports:

Rob Delaney may not yet have the name recognition of comedians like Louis C. K., Aziz Ansari or Jim Gaffigan. But with the help of his large and loyal Internet following, he is hoping he can take a page from his accomplished industry colleagues, and start creating material for and selling it directly online.

On Sept. 4, Mr. Delaney will release an original standup comedy special, "Live at the Bowery Ballroom," which will be available at his Web site, robdelaney.com, and sold as a $5 download.

Continue reading "Rob Delaney releasing 'Live at the Bowery Ballroom'"

by Bill Pearis

New Zealand dance rocker Ladyhawke (aka Pip Brown) released her second album, Anxiety, back in May on the newly-rejuvinated Casablanca Records, a label that seems to have cornered the market on indie dancepop (Crystal Castles, Saint Etienne, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs). If you liked her 2008 eponymous debut (and still like it), you'll dig the '80s inflected tunes on Anxiety as well. (That's the cover art above.) Videos for her singles "Blue Eyes," "Sunday Drive" and "Black White & Blue" below, along with a Spotify stream of the whole album.

Ladyhawke has just announced a North American tour that kicks off in NYC at Bowery Ballroom on September 8. Tickets to that show go on sale Friday, August 10 at noon. All tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "Ladyhawke released 'Anxiety,' touring (dates, streams, vids)"

Willis Earl Beal at MHOW, May 2012 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Willis Earl Beal has just announced a fall tour that includes a NYC stop on October 9 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are not on sale yet but you can keep checking Ticketmaster. All WEB tour dates are listed at the bottom of this post.

Meanwhile, Beal has made an animated short film based on his Principals of a Protagonist novella he made back in 2010. The film uses illustrations by Beal and recordings of songs from his Acousmatic Sorcery album as the soundtrack. Says the artist:

I envisioned it becoming a film. If you don't envision something as actually happening and being in action then there's no motivation to do it. Everything I do is cinematic. Everything I do I imagine what it would look like in the context of cinema- whether writing a song, writing a story or watching a movie and imagining myself in the role of the protagonist walking down the street. The movie for me is amniotic fluid.

Continue reading "Willis Earl Beal making animated film, going on tour (dates)"

by Andrew Sacher

As mentioned, Kilo Kish will be supporting Odd Future's The Internet on their upcoming tour which kicks off Saturday (8/4) in DC and hits NYC at Bowery Ballroom on Sunday (8/5) with Phony PPL. Tickets for Sunday's show are still available.

Kilo dropped the HomeSchool EP earlier this year (which you can stream below) and just followed that with a new song, "Watergun" (prod. The Internet), which you can also stream below. Her flow is similarly conversational (but less sarcastic) to Kitty Pryde (who also has an upcoming NYC show).

Kilo Kish will also be supporting SBTRKT on part of his upcoming tour, including the Red Bull-sponsored NYC show at Termnal 5 show on October 11 with Koreless. Tickets for that show are still available.

A list of all dates and song streams are below.

Continue reading "Kilo Kish touring with The Internet, and then SBTRKT (dates and streams)"

by Fred Pessaro // BBG

Red Fang at Orion (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

I'm starting to notice a trend. When we last spoke, I hypothesized that since Red Fang is from Portland and Black Tusk is from Savannah, the then-single-date at Bowery Ballroom on 11/11 (tickets) must be part of a tour. While a full schedule hasn't been revealed, Tickets are now on sale for a second show with the same lineup (Indian Handcrafts too) at the considerably smaller Saint Vitus on November 12th.

Still no full tour details, but all known tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "Red Fang / Black Tusk doing US tour; Saint Vitus show added"

Just a friendly reminder that tickets to Quicksand's Aug. 24 Bowery Ballroom show go on sale today (8/1) at noon. Good luck!

UPDATE: Did you get them?