photos by Chris La Putt

Phantogram / Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It was ugly and rainy outside, but that didn't stop the pretty people from heading to the W NY Downtown hotel last night (12/8) to attend a party in honor of the Mick Rock picture exhibition that will be up at the hotel between now and 12/28. Mick Rock was of course in attendance, and there was a "Symmetry Live Performance" (the name of the hotel's performance series) by Phantogram (live) and Mark Ronson (DJ). DJ Cash also provided some tunes while we were there.

We left before Mark Ronson took over, but you can see more pictures of Phantogram (who played a bunch of songs from their new album), their setlist, Mick Rock, members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Zuccotti Park (it's right there), and more, below...

Continue reading "Phantogram played the Mick Rock party @ W Hotel (pics)"

As you know, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has an opera coming to St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO. Kicking off in conjunction with VICE's "Creator's Project" (more details TBA), the show will actually run on eight nights from October 12-22...

An assault on the tragic joys of youth, fever dreams drenched in visual seduction, a cathartic spell spun through a cycle of nine songs.

Featuring Money Mark, Jack Lawrence, Patrick Keeler, Brian Chase, Nick Zinner, Jason Grisell, Gillian Rivers, Yuiko Kamakari, Justin Kantor and Lili Taylor

Tickets for those shows and the rest of St. Ann's 2011-2012 season including another run of Daniel Kitson shows, and The Tiger Lillies (starring Justin Bond), are on sale now!

Nick Zinner at MoMA in 2010 (more by Bao Nguyen)

The Met is hosting an evening with Cinema 16 on June 3. The event features Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Shahin Motia of Oneida, and MV Carbon of Metalux performing an original score for six short experimental films. Admission is free with museum admission. No reserved seats; space is limited.

Films:

Poeme Electronique (1958), dir. Edgard Varse and Le Corbusier
Screen Test: Salvador Dali (1966), dir. Andy Warhol
The Face (1967), dir. Herbert Kosower
Seeing the World (1937), dir. Rudy Burckhardt
Stone Welcome Mat (2003), dir. Gina Carducci
NY, NY (1957), dir. Francis Thompson

Nick Zinner is also showcasing his photography at Anastasia Photo through June 4.

Speaking of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and movies, Karen O recorded a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with Trent Reznor for the upcoming film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The film is the second adaptation of the Swedish novel of the same name by Stieg Larsson, and the first in English. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is written by Steven Zallian and directed by David Fincher.

Check out Karen O and Trent Reznor's take on "Immigrant Song" in the trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as well as the preview video for Cinema 16 at The Met below.

Continue reading "Nick Zinner, Brian Chase & friends playing w/ films @ the Met, Karen O & Trent Reznor covered Led Zeppelin (listen)"

Founded in June 2010 the Undead Jazzfest is new kind of festival, bringing together an incredible array of artists from the new jazz and improvised music community currently exploding in New York City. With no headliners, affordable tickets, unorthodox venues and no drink minimums, the Undead Jazzfest aims to shake the public perception of what jazz can be today, celebrating the incredible music being made in a setting that is inviting to both the veterans and curious new fans.

Encompassing eleven venues over its four days (6/23 - 6/26), the Undead Jazzfest will feature appearances from more than 50 bands including names like Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Mountains and many others. The full list of participating bands is below. Four day passes are on sale for $45 until 4/28. The price increases to $50 after.

Undead Jazzfest is also responsible for curating another show outside of said festival, this one going down at Central Park Summerstage on June 11th with Medeski Martin & Wood, Josh Roseman's King Froopy All Stars and Jim Black's AlasNoAxis. It's one of many free 2011 Summerstage shows that have been announced.

AND, Undead Jazz presents a show at Le Poisson Rouge tonight (4/25) with Orchestre National de Jazz with Daniel Yvinec and John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble with special guests Theo Bleckmann , Kate McGarry and Uri Caine. Undead Jazz also presents Todd Sickafoose's Tiny Resistors and Mary Halvorson Trio at the same venue on May 18th.

Full Undead Jazzfest 2011 lineup below.

Continue reading "Undead Jazzfest 2011 lineup announced, tix on sale now, and other related shows too"

by BBG

Monarch! played another NYC show Wednesday night (11/17) at Death By Audio with an assist from Brian Chase & Seth Misterka, and Vaura. The Monarch! set was easily their best of their three NYC outings (pictures from Cake Shop & Union Pool); rife with tension, peppered with razor-like noise/feedback, on-a-dime start-stops after engulfing ten-ton riffs, and featuring appearances from Jerry & Yoshi of Bloody Panda on vocals, Monarch! was in top form. One of my favorite performances of the year.

Vaura and Brian Chase & Seth Misterka were no slouches either. Featuring Toby Driver on bass and Kevin Hufnagel on guitar, Vaura blends gothy-pop with elements of shoegaze and black metal, resembling Alcest at times, but with other tricks up their sleeve and more punishing passages to punctuate wilder mood-swings. It was only their third live show, but Vaura seems much wiser than their years (the sum of good DNA I take it).

Brian Chase & Seth Misterka performed a set of free jazz, complete with Coltrane style swings up and down the scale on saxophone and drum hits on everything within reach, including his snare (which he was stepping on at the time). Refreshing, fun, complex, and great.

In all, a particularly impressive night of that I have tried to do justice to in pictures, as (((unartig))) has tried to do in video, Both are below...

Continue reading "Monarch played Death by Audio w/ Vaura & Brian Chase & Seth Misterka (pics & video) "

words and photos by BBG, additional photos by Greg Cristman

Monarch at Union Pool

They just can't get enough! French doom greats Monarch have added a third and final NYC show. It happens WEDNESDAY (11/17) at Death By Audio in Brooklyn. The BrooklynVegan-presented show will also feature performances from Vaura (a new project featuring Kevin Hufnagel of Gorguts/Dysrhythmia & Toby Driver of Kayo Dot/Maudlin Of The Well) and Brian Chase & Seth Misterka (Brian of Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing free-jazz with saxophonist Seth Misterka). The show kicks off at 8PM and costs $8!

We already posted pictures from the Monarch/Bloody Panda show at Cake Shop (which happened 11/12 with nutjobs Tinsel Teeth), but until now, haven't posted the shots from the show that happened at Union Pool the following night (11/13). Evoken opened that party with roar (and to similar audience applause), with Bloody Panda following and Monarch batting clean-up. Again, another great showing from both Bloody Panda and Monarch, who sounded incredible on the PA at Union Pool.

More pictures and video of all bands from Union Pool, including video of Monarch's full set, below...

Continue reading "Monarch played Union Pool w/ Bloody Panda & Evoken (pics, video), add Death by Audio show w/ Brian Chase, Vaura, more"

sometimes Superhuman Happiness dresses up

Superhuman Happiness, the afro-funk outfit headed by Antibalas's Stuart Bogie, kicks off a weekly Monday residency at Coco 66 tonight (10/4). The regular shows will have guests - some confirmed on the venue's website are Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on October 11th, comedian Matt Higgins on October 18th, and Jeremiah Lockwood of The Sway Machinery on November 1st.

The Coco 66 show tonight (10/4) will be after (presumably) the free "Music of Fela!" concert at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1 at 6:30pm (that's cause trumpeter Eric Biondo, Stuart and others play in both bands).

A video of Matt Higgins improvising with Stuart Bogie and drummer Miles Arntzen and Stuart Bogie's Superhuman Happiness at Public Assembly in 2009 are below...

Continue reading "a Superhuman Happiness residency & free Fela! reminder "

by Benjamin Lozovsky

Rain Machine

Four distinctly non-metal acts came together to celebrate the upcoming release of Until The Light Takes Us, a much-anticipated documentary on the Norwegian Black Metal scene written and directed by Brooklynites Aaron Aites and Audery Ewell. Aites and Ewell made themselves available for the whole show, amiably speaking to fans about the film and taking pictures in front of promotional gear sporting a pixilated harbinger of doom. The event felt less like a release party than a gathering of friends to show support however. Despite moving to Norway while making the film, Aites still has plenty of Brooklyn-informed leanings, and he tapped friend and collaborator Kyp Malone (the two play in local band Iran together) to perform with his Rain Machine project. It ended up being just Malone solo, as he performed songs from the project's self-titled debut album with just a plaintive (and at times shattering) guitar and his quivering, unpredictable vocal charms.

Malone might have a future, although maybe just a small one, in comedy or motivational speaking; he filled up the awkward pauses of a quiet audience with deadpan cracks and mildly inspirational calls to move about, if not at this show, then perhaps sometime in the future.

Dave Pajo, playing as Papa M, was probably the only musical participant that had delved into metal material in the past, but on this night he performed his critically revered post-rock album Live From a Shark Cage. Or at least part of it, because after 5 or 6 numbers, the band left the stage. His ambient, textural guitar lines grew slowly as he looped percussive guitar bits underneath the ambling melodies that joined to form a more grand harmonic synthesis. He too had his peoples out in force, as co-members of his new band Yeah Yeah Yeahs Nick Zinner and Brian Chase showed up to cheer on their collaborator and friend. Pajo plays the album again at ATP's 10th Anniversary Festival in England in December, and he'll assist Zinner and Co in performing their breakthrough debut Fever To Tell at the same event.

Overall, it was very subdued night, with only one out of the four acts even rocking a drum kit on stage. That was Soft Circle, who mixed reverb-heavy, almost surfer guitar sounds with punishing krautrock and dance punk beats, courtesy of drummer (and layering whiz) Hisham Akira Bharoocha. But after listening to all that black metal, can you really blame Aites and Ewell for toning it down a notch on this night? There will be plenty of time for bleeding ears once the movie is released. Catch it in New York starting December 4th at the Cinema Village.

Kevin Barker was the first of four on the bill. We missed him, but more pictures from the rest of the show below...

Continue reading "Papa M, Rain Machine, Soft Circle & Kevin Barker helped celebrate a black metal movie @ Knitting Factory - pics"

Karen O @ Lollapalooza 2009 (more by Paul Birman)

"DGC/ INTERSCOPE TO RELEASE WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK: ORIGINAL SONGS BY KAREN O AND THE KIDS. ALBUM OUT SEPTEMBER 29! LEAD SINGLE "ALL IS LOVE" OUT DIGITALLY AUGUST 25! MOTION PICTURE IN THEATERS OCTOBER 16!

Inside Karen O is a Wild Thing - as singer for the Grammy-nominated Yeah Yeah Yeahs, her wild thing is in your face, vulnerable, obnoxious, tender, exciting... a self-proclaimed "spazoid." However, to Oscar-nominated Where the Wild Things Are director Spike Jonze, Karen O and her music possess a child-like innocence, a guileless charm that put her exactly on the right emotional wavelength to sonically capture the highly-anticipated film.

To compose music for the film, O enlisted friends and fellow musicians she believed had the musical intuition that would bolster her intent to marry sound to vision. Dubbed Karen O and the Kids, the kids include Tristan Bechet (Services), Tom Biller (co-producer with Karen O and member of Afternoons), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Brian Chase (YYY), Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather), Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee), Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather), Oscar Michel (Gris Gris), Imaad Wasif (New Folk Implosion), Nick Zinner, (YYY) and an untrained children's choir." [Where the Wild Things Press Release]

As the press release says above, the song "All is Love" is out today. You can listen to it at MySpace.

In related news, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on September 29th. That's six days after their much larger Manhattan show at Radio City Music Hall which sold out, I am told, in less than a day (UPDATE: There are a few random single tickets still available for Radio City at the moment, so not completely sold out yet)... I'm sure the MHOW show will sell out in less than a minute when tickets go on sale Friday at noon (2-ticket limit, will call only, opener TBA).

Some related videos below...

Continue reading "Yeah Yeah Yeahs add MHOW show - Karen O & the Kids made the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack (single out now)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Dynasty Electric - "One Small Push" (MP3)

"Since becoming a vegetarian I've felt a new openness and lightness. Channels have been cleared and obstacles have been removed; energy is flowing more freely from top to bottom. An elimination of obstructions, both physical and spiritual. And with this I've discovered a new sensitivity."
-[YYYs drummer Brian Chase on the band's site]

Today (3/10), New York art-rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs released their third album, It's Blitz!, digitally (available from iTunes in deluxe and regular versions). Physical copies come out in the US on March 31st and worldwide on April 6th, and right now, the record is streaming on the YYY's Myspace.

The '80s-inspired video for the first single, "Zero," was directed by Barney Clay who, with Karen O, previously directed the video of Tiny Masters of Today's "Hologram World," among others. Watch both of them below.

As far as touring, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have announced a number of European summer dates, plus three US festivals so far - Coachella (4/19), Sasquatch (5/23), and Bonnaroo (6/12). Stay tuned for more future tour info as it becomes known.

The YYY's Brian Chase drummed on a track for Brooklyn's Dynasty Electric. That song, posted above, will be included on the band's forthcoming Land of Dreams record.

Besides the YYY album, video, and tour dates, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been releasing bizarre art-film shorts, dubbing their creation the SNAKESWEAT TRILOGY - both released clips are below. The band also covered The Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" on the War Child: Heroes benefit compilation.

All tour dates and videos below...

Continue reading "Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz out now & streaming, new videos, tour dates & a Dynasty Electric MP3"