Ed Askew's new self pic (via)

'60s folk survivor Ed Askew, who lives in NYC and has been playing here and recording a lot in recent years, will holding a residency at Zebulon every Monday in November. The shows happen on November 5 with Gary Higgins and Vaudville; November 12 with Yva Las Vegas, Supercute, and Pull My Daisy; November 19 with David Garland, Glenn Jones, and C Spencer Yeh; and November 26 with Federico Ughi Quartet, Federico Ughi/Tyler Evans Duo, and Hearsay & Hyperbole.

An Ed Askew song stream and all dates in list format are below.

Continue reading "Ed Askew in residency at Zebulon this November with many guests (Gary Higgins included)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: oOoOO - "NoWayBack" (Ft. Butterclock) (MP3)

Sam Mickens w/ Zac Pennington at Ecstatic Music Festival (more by David Andrako)

Late last year, Sam Mickens announced a split 7" with Voice on Tape due out "winter 2011/2012." That 7" still hasn't been released but you can stream Sam's contribution HERE. However, he did release a single last week, "One Final Round"/"To Victory or Death," which you can stream and purchase at his bandcamp. The songs have a traditional ballroom pop feel led by organic pianos and horns, until halfway through "To Victory or Death," when the band kicks it up into a double time punk beat.

Sam Mickens, who performed Saturday night as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, has a few more upcoming NYC shows this month. He'll premiere his "Micropatronage" piece with a string quartet at Roulette on February 16 with Jim Staley and Zeena Parkins and Loren Mazzance Connors (whose new album, A Fire, was scheduled to come out this week but has since been delayed). Tickets are on sale now. Sam will then play the same venue on Feburary 18 when he hosts a live taping of ESP TV, which is also part of Roulette's Experimental Love Festival along with C. Spencer Yeh, Little Women, Grasshopper, MV Carbon, and Amanda Long. The event was curated by Scott Kiernan and Victoria Keddie. Tickets are on sale now.

Sam Mickens will also celebrate his 30th birthday at Shea Stadium on February 23 with performances by Sam Mickens Ecstatic Showband & Revue (who recorded the new 12") and Sam Mickens Fourth World (feat. members of Deerhoof, Extra Life, and Cuddle Magic). The bill also includes White Ring and Mirror Mirror.

White Ring last played in NYC last month at Glasslands (1/21) opening for oOoOO (who just announced an EP). How was that show?

Speaking of oOoOO's EP, Our Living is Killing Us (due April 10 via Tri Angle), Stereogum recently premiered the first track, "NoWayBack," which features vocals from collaborator Butterclock. Her airy vocals and oOoOO's beatwork bring to mind some of Grimes' downtempo material and its easily oOoOO's best track yet. Grab an MP3 of the song above and stream it below.

All dates and stream below...

Continue reading "upcoming Sam Mickens shows & a new oOoOO MP3"

by Andrew Frisciano

The on-again, off-again rain on Sunday didn't cancel the 17th annual WBAR-B-Q, but it did move the show inside to Barnard's LeFrak Gym, a bit different aesthetically from the lush spring greenery outside but serviceable enough. It helped that the lineup had a focus on experimental noise and noise-inspired acts - every act I saw had the reverb and distortion keyed up, so the added resonance of the hall wasn't really an issue.

The show kicked off with Prince Rama, U.S. Girls and Think About Life, all of whom went on before I got there a little after 2pm. By then the free food was gone too, but the cotton candy machine and sno-cones were stocked all day.

On the center stage, Baltimore's Lower Dens (with guitarist Jana Hunter) played floating, moody distorted rock; drone violinist and loopmaster Burning Star Core/C Spencer Yeh serenaded (with huge bass drops) along the back wall; and Blues Control performed effects-heavy keyboard-and-tape jams.

The room looked fairly empty for most of the day (being a huge gym), but by the time Cold Cave went on people were on their feet and dancing. New member Jennifer Clavin (ex-Mika Miko) played keys and stepped in for vocals, and the band was off after a short-ish, no-encore set. Twin Stumps and their crazily enthused frontman set up on the floor across the gym and kept the show going with dissonant, pointed punk. Liturgy closed the show, but I took off before they played.

It was the second free show of the weekend for Cold Cave, who played the HEALTH-headlined NYU Solar One show the day before (which I heard also had plenty of room for people to move around). They play (Le) Poisson Rouge on Thursday with Cult Of Youth, Beaut, Max (reading), Mike Goodstein (WFMU) and DJ Mike Simonetti (Italians Do It Better). Tickets are still on sale.

More pictures from Barnard and a video of HEALTH at Solar One are below...

Continue reading "Cold Cave (and a lot of bands) played free shows @ Solar One (for NYU) & in Barnard's LeFrak Gym (WBAR-B-Q rain location)"

Sunday, September 6th @ 8:00pm ISSUE Project Room presents, in the courtyard of the Old American Can Factory: Jandek with Ryan Sawyer, Susan Alcorn, Shahzad Ismaily + Ryan Sawyer, C. Spencer Yeh, Nate Wooley Trio - TICKETS are on sale. I wonder if it will be funkier than last time (when Issue Project Room was at a different location) (maybe if there's a time after this, it will be in a different location again).

DOWNLOAD: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Old Panda Days (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cryptacize - Blue Tears (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cryptacize - One Block Wonders (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cryptacize - Mini-Mythomania (Edited by C Spencer Yeh) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cryptacize - Tail & Mane (MP3)

Cryptacize

"Cryptacize is former Kill Rock Stars artist, Nedelle Torrisi, plus Chris Cohen of The Curtains/ex-Deerhoof and Michael Carreira. Mythomania is their second album - out now on Asthmatic Kitty. Cryptacize deals in the unforgettable melody, the forsaken chord and the extravagant sentiment."

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (aka Owen Ashworth) released two albums earlier this year -- a singles collection, Advance Base Battery Life, and his fifth LP, VS. Children, both on Tomlab. "Old Panda Days," from the former, and "Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm," from the latter, are posted above.

Ashworth is currently on a summer-long North American tour, which has been fleshed out with a full schedule, listed below. He'll be playing Friday, July 3rd at the Market Hotel with Katie Eastburn and tourmates Cryptacize.

Unlike his recent European tour, which featured CFTPA as a four-piece band, these Casiotone dates will be solo. Sets will include "selections from Vs. Children & Advance Base Battery Life plus reworked olden times CFTPA classics in solo formation."

Cryptacize's new album Mythomania was released on April 21st. Three tracks off that album, and one made "mini", are available for free above. Buy it HERE.

Ashworth (Casiotone) recently posted a Myspace note about his tour plans for the fall, with info on how you can get him to play your town. That's posted below, with all tour dates and a selection of videos from his June 27th tourstop in KY, and some Cryptacize videos, below...

Continue reading "Cryptacize & Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - 2009 Tour Dates (Market Hotel), MP3s, albums, videos, stuff"

"For 4 years now Wham City has been organizing the WHARTSCAPE. What started as a summer warehouse party turned into a much bigger, multi-day outdoor festival with thousands of bands, performers, and folks traveling to Baltimore from all across the US and Europe.
Since, we organize this festival out of pocket and in our spare time, it is important for us to keep it comfortable and enjoyable for us to do. One thing we talked about at the end of last year's festival was shrinking it down slightly and having it feel more community based and familiar.

This year isn't focused around headliners, but mainly performers and friends that make up the community we tour, work and live in.
We are also greatly reducing the number of MEGA-PASSES (the 3 day pass ticket that grants you entry to every show and every day).
ONLY 300 Mega-Passes will be sold; this is the only guarantee that you can see all the shows.

Tickets will be sold to the individual shows, but it is strongly suggested that you buy a Mega-Pass, as it saves you money and assures you take in the entire poo-poo.
Whartscape will take place July 10-11-12 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art Studio Center Parking Lot, and Load of Fun.
We will begin selling tickets at 12 Noon, Monday, June 29th.

Continue reading "Whartscape - 2009 Wham City festival dates & lineup "

photos by Lori Baily, words by Andrew Frisicano

Sonic Youth ended the second night of 2009's No Fun Fest with a seated set of distorted guitar noise and drums. Instead of Lee Ranaldo (who was busy at Cannes?), guitarist Bill Nace performed with the band. (No Mark Ibold either.) The noise shifted from heavy chords, made by drum stick on guitar, to strangely tender sustained feedback and sample-and-hold-esque, skittish riffs. Like a standard SY set, Steve Shelley's tom-heavy drums weighted the action and marked changes in movements. His pummels echoed the intro to "Wipe Out" as the three others on stage took to twisting SY's sonic palette into a No Fun appropriate adventure. After one 20-minute-or-so sustained set, the musicians left the stage. A brief encore continued in the same vein. Kim Gordon intoned into the microphone ("I don't want to leave you behind," I think), causing not a few crowd-members to peak up with hopes of some classic or The Eternal material. No such luck. After four more minutes of music, the band left for good.

Radio23.org, who streamed the SY set and other parts of the fest live, tweeted, "I think we can excuse the Youth as no one else has delved into short-form improv so far... We liked the 3min30sec encore :)" Other bands on the night's bill included Blank Dogs, Mattin, C Spencer Yeh, and Pedestrian Deposit. Hearts Arena wrote...

Pedestrian Deposit: Most thrilling set of the fest so far. Even the dillweeds in the audience were quieted by the end of this. Pedestrian Deposit explores and exploits the frayed edges of sound and texture, wherever they find them on the spectrum. Moving with aplomb from penetrating high ends to heaving silences pulled back from the edge of explosive noise and percussion and then off to the final gorgeous tones of the cello. Soft landing. Everybody in that room knew that something special had just happened. Me, ecstatic.

Yellow Tears was the unexpected surprise of the night, winning over everyone in the room with their meticulosuly warped sample manipulations and sounds. Out of all the bands, here's one that took the twenty minute time slot and really found inspiration, breaking into sweat and taking off their shirts, and getting genuinely into it. The stage was illuminated by a single bright red light bulb. The best part of the set was the member who kept striking a large scrap of metal and sending it through various effects processors, throwing it onto the ground and making a spectacle yet wrenching some pretty freaking insane and wicked sounds from it. Their energy was welcome and the crowd response was thunderously approving from the sold-out crowd. A dude on the L train was raving about them on the way back, displaying the record he bought of theirs; I have a feeling he's not the only one.

Continue reading "No Fun Fest @ MHOW - night 2 (Sonic Youth) - pics & video"

NYC's very own critically-acclaimed lyricist Jean Grae will perform at NYC's New Museum on Friday, May 1st along with "the soul-inspired hip-hop of Derrin Maxwell and the gritty, heavily-fried underground funk of 3beanstew." Tickets are on sale.

That show is part of the museum's Get Weird series. A week later (Friday, May 8th), Get Weird hosts the Younger Lovers (featuring Brontez Purnell of Gravy Train!!!!) and Gamma Rays. Tickets are on sale.

During the No Fun Fest, taking place May 15th-17th at the MHoW, the New Museum will partners with Rhizome and the No Fun to present "No Fun 2009: Infinite Sound and Image" on Saturday, May 16th. The live-music and silent film screening includes Jim O'Rouke (a man with many credits including Sonic Youth and producing Wilco), Robert Beatty (of Hair Police and Three Legged Race), Sarah Lipstate (of Noveller), and C. Spencer Yeh (of Burning Star Core). Noveller and C. Spencer Yeh both also make separate NFF appearances. Tickets for the New Musem show are on sale. Full program details are below.

The museum combines its Get Weird music series and its Younger Than Jesus exhibit (artists less than 33 yrs old) and gets a show with BARR/Brendan Fowler and MEN on Friday, June 12th. Tickets are on sale for that too.

All details, with more upcoming New Museum music events (including Nick Hallett performing Meredith Monk, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others) below...

Continue reading "Jean Grae, Jim O'Rourke & others playing the New Museum"

by Black Bubblegum

DOWNLOAD: John Wiese & C. Spencer Yeh - "Swedish Couch" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paul Flaherty, C. Spencer Yeh & Greg Kelley - "Track One" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paul Flaherty, C. Spencer Yeh & Greg Kelley - "Track Two" (MP3)

Tony Conrad & Keiji Haino

Experimentalists collide when Keiji Haino and Tony Conrad team up for a show at The Studio At Webster Hall on April 25th (tonight), one of only three US shows for the duo. Tickets for the NYC show are still available. Full tour dates are below.

Although the duo has not recorded anything, Keiji Haino recently dropped a new record under the moniker The Haino/Masataka Fujikake Duo, on the Japanese label Full Design Records on February 11. A collection of live material from a batch of 2005 shows in Yokohama, the record is currently available to us yankees here.

Opening The Studio show will be another violinist of the avant-garde persuasion, C Spencer Yeh, who recently dropped two collaborative LPs: Cincinatti with noise technician John Wiese (available on CSY's label, DroneDisco) and New York Nuts and Boston Beans with Paul Flaherty and Greg Kelley (available here). April 25th will be the only solo show for CSY over the next few weeks, but he does have dates as part of a duo (with Michael Johnsen) and a trio (with Rafael Toral & Trevor Tremaine). One of those trio dates will take place in NYC in the next few weeks, as part of the No Fun Fest featuring headliner Sonic Youth.

Hopefully SY's Lee Ranaldo gets his long lost Fender Mustang back by then.

The guitar (pictured above) was stolen from Lee in July 1999. Then, last week, someone unknowingly bought it on eBay, and before even receiving it (he still hasn't received it as of this post), the buyer coincidentally was "just looking at Sonic Youth´s guitars", and recognized the guitar that he had just bought as Lee's stolen guitar.

He posted his story in a thread (that is currently 35 pages long) on Offsetguitars.com. Lee was then contacted, offered the guitar back (at the eBay auction cost) and accepted. In another coincidence, the buyer lives in the Netherlands and Sonic Youth is in Europe this week. Unfortunately the guitar didn't arrive from seller to buyer in time for the buyer to hand it to Lee in person, but...

"So my brother, a friend and me went to Dusseldorf yesterday to see Sonic Youth. We spent the whole afternoon in museums to see the Sonic Youth exhibition, which was really great. I can recommend it to anyone with the possibility of going there. It made me want to start reading William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg immediately.

The concert was supposed to start at 20:30 and we arrived at that time, we figured it probably wouldn´t start until 22:00 or so as that´s what we´re used to. Surprisingly, they started exactly on time so I missed a chance to get onto the balcony for special guests. So we watched the gig among the ´common´ people , which wasn't so bad, though it´s sometimes hard to stand the smell of those puny creatures. Tongue The concert was amazing, as usual with these guys, they played a normal set but when it was over it felt like they had only played for 15 minutes. The highlight for me was Kim´s singing, her voice sounds better than ever. The new songs (I think they played 4) sounded good too, but I can´t comment on the specific songs as I don´t know the titles.

After the gig was over I pushed my way up to the front row and called the guitar tech, Eric Baecht, he came up to us, gave me a mastery bridge (from one of Lee´s guitars, he even included the allen wrench keys!) on which Lee had written a thank you note, along with a couple of picks with Sonic Youth prints on them. Can´t wait to try it on my Jazzmaster! Eric then told me to wait for him to finish clearing the stage and took us to the backstage where I met Lee. We had a little chat about the guitar, Mark Ibold also showed up briefly. I met Eric again who told us we can get on the guest list for any SY gig in the future (!!!). I also spotted Thurston but he left quite early , Kim was there the whole time, didn´t see Steve.

So my friends and me hung out at the bar for a while feeling quite awkward and trying to think of something to talk to Lee about without sounding cliché but it seemed impossible so we left soon after. It was a bit of shame because they´re really kind and approachable people, but I just didn´t know what to talk about.

After all we had a great day and I´m looking forward to going to their gigs in the future. For free! HA! Plus I won´t have to worry about the show being sold out or anything." [Sauerkraut the guitar finder]

Speaking of Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore will perform as part of a trio with saxophonist Daniel Carter and Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas) at Union Pool on May 2nd, with Trevor Dunn's Madlove, and Pink Noise. Madlove recently announced the release of their new album, White With Foam on Ipecac Records.

Sonic Youth's new album, The Eternal, drops on June 9th. Check out "Sacred Trickster" here.

Trevor Dunn will play bass with the Melvins when they play all of Houdini at Webster Hall.

Tour dates, and some videos from Sonic Youth's exhibition in Germany, below...

Continue reading "Lee Ranaldo's stolen guitar recovered, Tony Conrad playing w/ Keiji Haino, a Thurston show & stuff"

No Fun Fest 2009. May 15,16,17 at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Daily Schedule,ticket info/prices will be announced by January 12.

Continue reading "Sonic Youth, Merzbow & Bardo Pond playing No Fun Fest 2009 (full 3-day, Brooklyn lineup)"

Photos by Lori Baily

Monday, December 1, 2008
7:00 p.m.

Film Screenings & Events
Thurston Moore Introduces Early Music Videos by David Bowie
Theater 1 (The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1), T1

Held in celebration of the recent gift from the David Bowie Archive of music videos to the Museum, this program presents a special selection of works by the celebrated musician, actor, and producer. Bowie, who began playing the saxophone when he was thirteen years old, worked as a commercial artist before studying mime and, later, playing in bands. In 1969 he co-founded Beckenham Arts Lab in South London, a crucible for experimentation that hosted artist studios, poetry readings, and events such as light shows, theatrical and dance performances, and puppet shows. For several of his videos, Bowie collaborated with the photographer and filmmaker Mick Rock, best known for his photos of 1970s glam and punk icons including Iggy Pop, Queen, the Ramones, Lou Reed, and the Sex Pistols. Thurston Moore, of the "No Wave" band Sonic Youth, provides commentary throughout the program.

Continue reading "a Thurston Moore/David Bowie MoMA thing & Glasslands pics w/ Zeena Parkins, Carlos Giffoni & C Spencer Yeh"