Outside Lands Fest 2012 (more byAmoreena Lucero)

The 2013 edition of San Francisco's Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival with happen at Golden Gate Park on August 9 - 11. This year's line-up includes Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, D'Angelo, Willie Nelson, Grizzly Bear, Band of Horses, Hall & Oates, Foals, A-Track, Jurassic 5, Kurt Vile and many more. Tickets go on sale Thursday (4/18) at noon PDT.

This is the sixth edition of Outside Lands, and the full announced line-up is below.

Continue reading "Outside Lands Fest 2013 line-up: Paul McCartney, Nine Inch Nails, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs ++ more)"

photos by Sarah Frankie Linder, words by Andrew Sacher

Delorean / Savages

We kicked off our free BrooklynVegan SXSW day parties yesterday (3/13) in Austin at the Main & The Jr (aka the old Emo's location, aka 603 Red River St) with sets from Delorean, Robyn Hitchock, Savages, Camper Van Beethoven, Caveman, Braids, Maserati, Caitlin Rose, Anamanaguchi, Indians, Marnie Stern, Team Spirit, Torres, and Deep Sea Diver. Pictures from the party are in this post, and more are on the way soon.

The biggest surprise for me personally was Torres (aka Mackenzie Scott), whose self titled debut is great, but she really takes it to another level live. Her band is super tight, loud, and confident (her guitarist has some rock star moves) and Mackenzie has some serious pipes that she doesn't even fully reveal on the album. It was a much heavier show than I expected, and if you can catch her at one of her other upcoming SXSW shows, highly recommended.

Torres was followed by other great sets on the outdoor stage (Glasslands Stage), like the noisy math rock of Marnie Stern (who played a lot of her great new album), the danceable video game punk of Anamanaguchi, and a set from post-rockers Maserati, who along with Caveman, cooled things down for a bit. But that cooling down didn't last long, because once Savages took the stage, they were possibly even more intense than CMJ. They played some new stuff that they didn't have back then, and once that album finally drops, I've got pretty high hopes for it. Finally, Delorean wrapped up the outdoor stage with a dancey set. It was nice to end the day with some familiar tunes like "Real Love." Then Maserati came out and joined Delorean for a cover over Gary Numan's "Cars." Not really.

Meanwhile, indoors Deep Sea Diver kicked things off around the same time as Torres outside and they were followed by the fun-rock of Team Spirit, Copenhagen's Indians (who were a 3-piece and were better that way than when I saw him solo), a rousing country set from Caitlin Rose, the new electronic sound of Braids (which we also heard at CMJ), and the show ended with sets from two musical veterans: Camper Van Beethoven and Robyn Hitchcock. Robyn was great and he is especially funny on stage with his in-between song banter. He referred to the overheard sounds of Delorean from the other room as the sounds of devils, and "if they had been heard 200 years earlier, marches of men would have been sent to destroy these fiends," (or something like that).

In addition to the music, Onkyo was there, sampling their new headphones which hit stores next month. mophie, maker of invaluable iPhone chargers, were giving away discount cards good at their pop-up shop which was set up right across the street on Red River. We were also serving complimentary Jameson, and Zico coconut water, and free vegan queso and chips from Food For Lovers. We also had BrooklynVegan t-shirts for the first 50 people in the door, thanks to American Apparel. Also thanks to our other sponsors, Korg, Vox, Blackstar, Creative Recreation, Signazon, WILLCALL, Mirrored Media, and Redigi.

Our day parties continue today (3/14) with sets from Cloud Nothings, Parenthetical Girls, Death, METZ, Milk Music, Beach Fossils, Widowspeak, and more.

More pictures from yesterday's party below...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan SXSW Wednesday day party in pics (Savages, Robyn Hitchcock, Delorean, Camper Van Beethoven & more)"

follow @BVSXSW on Twitter. here's another BVSXSW lineup announcement...

As you know, BrooklynVegan is returning to Austin for SXSW this year and throwing four days of day parties at The Main & The Jr aka 603 Red River Street at the corner of 6th aka the old Emo's location. Those happen Wed (3/13), Thurs, Fri and Saturday (3/16). All shows are 100% FREE with RSVP.

We announced the Saturday lineup, and then the Friday lineup, followed by the Thursday lineup, and finally, here is the fourth and final one: the WEDNESDAY LINEUP...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan free SXSW 2013 Wednesday day party lineup (Robyn Hitchcock, Delorean, Savages, Camper Van Beethoven, Caveman, Marnie Stern, Anamanaguchi & more)"

Camper Van Beethoven will release their first new album in nine years, La Costa Perdida, which will be out January 22 via 429 Records. The record features original members David Lowery, Greg Lisher, Jonathan Segel and Victor Krummenacher and was produced by the band. You can watch a lyric video for the album's first single, "Northern California Girls," below along with album art and tracklist.

You can get an early taste of the album, plus classic CVB cuts, when the band goes out on the road this winter with Lowery's other band, Cracker. Some dates on the tour will only feature one band or the other, but the NYC stop at Studio 48 on January 19 will have both bands in tow. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

A list of all tour dates and song stream, below...

Continue reading "Camper Van Beethoven ready first LP in nine years, going on tour with Cracker (dates, stream)"

This letter, signed by a ton of artists and pictured above, is set to appear in an ad in Billboard:

We are big fans of Pandora. That's why we helped give the company a discount on rates for the past decade.

Pandora is now enjoying phenomenal success as a Wall Street company. Skyrocketing growth in revenues and users. We celebrate that. At the same time, the music community is just now beginning to gain its footing in the new digital world.

Pandora's principal asset is the music.

Why is the company asking Congress once again to step in and gut the royalties that thousands of musicians rely upon? That's not fair, and that's not how partners work together.
Congress has many pressing issues to consider, but this is not one of them. Let's work this out as partners and continue to bring fans the great musical experience they rightly expect.

The issue is that Pandora is supporting the Internet Radio Fairness Act which they say will "help end the long-standing discrimination against internet radio". Artists are mad because that possibly means less money for them, but Pandora and other Internet radio providers argue they can't stay in business the way things are now.

Continue reading "A bunch of artists wrote an open letter to Pandora who support the Internet Radio Fairness Act"

If you're like me, you've already been sent this article at least ten times, but did you read the whole thing yet? Or the 546 (as of this posting) comments?

Oh, and check out what Travis Morrison has to say about that.

Alt-rock vets Camper Van Beethoven and frontman David Lowery's other band Cracker are going on tour together in December & January. They'll kick off the tour in their home state of California and make their way over the east coast after playing a New Year's Eve show in Chicago, stopping at NYC's Highline Ballroom on January 14. Tickets for the NYC show are on sale now. All dates are listed below.

Earlier this year, CVB went on a short tour playing their 1989 album Key Lime Pie in its entirety. That tour was also with Cracker, who were playing their 1993 album Kerosene Hat. There's no word of what the setlists will be like at these upcoming shows, but according to Monterey County Weekly, CVB are working on a followup to 2004's New Roman Times, so maybe we'll be treated to some new material.

All dates and a video of CVB playing "When I Win the Lottery" in Houston in May...

Continue reading "Camper Van Beethoven & Cracker -- 2011 Tour Dates"

by Bill Pearis

Currently celebrating their 25th anniversary, Camper Van Beethoven are playing Friday (1/9) (tickets) and Saturday (1/10) (tickets) at Bowery Ballroom in NYC - the band's first shows here since 2006 (thx anon). They also played some shows in 2004 when they released New Roman Times, their first album of original material in 15 years.

Camper Van Beethoven were one of the few bands of the '80s loved by both punks and hippies, taking the f-you attitude of the former and the laid-back vibe of the latter, mixing it with various forms of ethic music plus their own Santa Cruz style and humor. Whether punks and hippies ever acknowledged each other's presence at shows back then is a different story. (It took me till the late-90s to admit that "Good Guys and Bad Guys" sounds a lot like The Dead.) While best-known now for their their early single "Take the Skinheads Bowling," CVB were also capable of thoughtful, insightful, and moving songs as well. Time has been kind to them, actually, and records like their 1985 debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, 1986's eponymous third album, and the finale of CVB's initial run, 1989's Key Lime Pie have held up more than a lot of other records from the same era. And New Roman Times was a fine addition to their discography, almost like they never went away.

If you're a big CVB fan, you might want to consider hitting both shows. The band's 2-night stint in Chicago back in November saw sets of around 25 songs, with only 9-10 of them being duplicated both nights. I last saw them was at a 2-hour plus, sweltering show (literally) at Knitting Factory in July 2002. It's almost all of the original lineup and, if anything, the band have gotten better as musicians since.

Opening at the Friday show at Bowery (1/09) is McCabe & Mrs Miller, which is CVB bassist Victor Krummenacher's project with Alison Faith Levy (formerly of The Loud Family) and also features Camper members Jonathan Segel and Greg Lisher.

Additionally, Krummenacher and Segel are both doing solo sets at Pianos on Sunday (1/11) - a bill that also includes local fave Sharon Von Etten. I wouldn't be surprised if other members of Camper make appearances. Segel also plays in Noodle Shop at Le Poisson Rougue on Wednesday (1/14).

But wait there's more. Monks of Doom, which is basically Camper Van Beethoven minus frontman David Lowery plus David Immergluck (who has played in Counting Crows but spent the '80s in the bizarre theatrical band The Ophelias), are playing Europa in Greenpoint on March 12 and 13. Tickets are on sale. Lowery, meanwhile, continues to play in Cracker too. These guys stay busy.

A few classic CVB videos, and all dates, after the jump...

Continue reading "Camper Van Beethoven shows & a Monks of Doom reunion "

Street Team shenanigans (CRED)

A bus, and a bowling alley too....

Continue reading "VIDEO: White Stripes in a bowling alley"