St. Vincent @ Portlandia @ Bowery Ballroom (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

Look for St. Vincent "on a special Valentine's Day episode of Gossip Girl, Feb 13, performing "Cruel" and "Cheerleader." The show airs Monday, February 13, at 8pm/7pmc on The CW." I honestly didn't even realize Gossip Girl was still a thing until I heard this news. I do however religiously watch Portlandia which featured a guest spot by Annie this week, about two weeks after she was Fred & Carrie's guest at Bowery Ballroom. You can watch her clip from the TV show (Isaac Brock was on the episode too), with a bunch of tour dates and other stuff, below...

Continue reading "St. Vincent was on Portlandia (video), will be on Gossip Girl"

photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

Like he did the night before at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Hugh Cornwell showed up as Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein's special guest at Bowery Ballroom on 1/21 (the second NYC show on the the Portlandia live tour). This time Hugh played hit single "Golden Brown" by his band The Stranglers to the sold out Manhattan crowd. Bowery showgoers also got live appearances by Portland mayor Kyle MacLachlan and music by Annie Clark aka St. Vincent (who just announced a tour). Annie covered Pearl Jam's "Black" at the Feminist Bookstore Pop Up Shop (Eddie Vedder, who recently announced a tour, was also a guest on the IFC show this season). Video of the cover with more pictures and the setlist of the show, below...

Continue reading "St. Vincent & Kyle MacLachlan joined Fred & Carrie for Portlandia @ Bowery Ballroom (pics, video setlist)"

photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

Initially announced in November with more dates added in January, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein have been bringing their funny/offensive IFC show Portlandia to live stages across the country over the past month. They started at the end of December with shows in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco (where Thao & Mirah joined them for a song). January's run started in LA, continued to Chicago (where guests included Jeff Tweedy's kids), and then hit NYC for two shows: 1/20 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (pictures in this post) and 1/21 @ Bowery Ballroom (pictures HERE).

The Brooklyn show, pictured here, included special guests Adam Horovitz (aka Beastie Boy Ad-Rock) and Hugh Cornwell. The live band included Carrie's Wild Flag bandmate Rebecca Cole.

Wild Flag were all in the audience at the same venue just over a month earlier to see Eleanor Friendberger perform. Eleanor opened for Wild Flag on their October tour, and is joining Portlandia on their February run of dates that kick off 2/19 at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. All dates and more pictures from the Brooklyn Portlandia show, below...

Continue reading "Portlandia hit MHOW w/ Ad-Rock & Hugh Cornwell (pics), bringing Eleanor Friedberger on tour (dates)"

Portlandia show in Chicago (more by James Richard IV)

Via Gawker:

These sketches are the white subcultural equivalent of a minstrel show, that while perhaps intended as a charming homage to oddballs, has in fact drummed up a sentiment best summarized as "it's about damned time someone put those weirdos in their place."

By labeling the show Portlandia, instead of Hipsterville U.S.A., it gives the erroneous impression that these are isolated phenomena and the hateable characters portrayed are somehow representational of all Portlanders.

...

[W]hen laughing, it's important to stop and ask yourself if you're laughing for the right reasons. And there's a good chance you aren't." [Boise Weekly]

Mirah

Mirah has two NYC shows coming up this February. First, she'll play as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival as one of the guest vocalists performing with Jherek Bischoff, which also includes David Byrne, Craig Wedren, Greg Saunier, and Zac Pennington. That show takes place on February 4 at Merkin Concert Hall and tickets are still on sale.

Two days later, she'll play her own show at Glasslands (2/6). Tickets for that show are on sale now.

Mirah, along with Thao, who she released a collaborative album with in 2011, recently performed Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It" with Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen on the Portlandia Tour (which was just expanded) when it stopped at San Francisco's Mezzanine on December 30. A video of that, along with all dates below...

Continue reading "Mirah played 'Push It' w/ Thao, Carrie Brownstein & Fred Armisen (video), playing Brooklyn after Ecstatic show (dates)"

Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) and Carrie Brownstein (Wild Flag, Sleater kinney) from IFC's hit original comedy Portlandia are embarking on a unique six city tour bringing the romanticized and dreamy rendering of Portland, OR to life for fans across the country. "Portlandia: The Tour" will feature Armisen and Brownstein, the co-creators, writers and stars of Portlandia, performing live music, presenting sneak-peek clips from the show's second season and sharing personal anecdotes about the creation and inspiration of Portlandia and its variety of eccentric characters. "Portlandia: The Tour" begins in Portland, OR, on Tuesday, December 27, 2011.

Bowery tickets, as of this post, are already on Ticketmaster and go on sale at 10am Tuesday EST. Chicago tickets go on sale the same time, but CST.

The Chicago show, which is at the Hideout, happens exactly a month after Fred opens for Wilco at Lincoln Hall in the same city.

All Portlandia dates below...

Continue reading "Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein are bringing Portlandia on the road (live dates)"

Tom Morello @ Newport Folk Fest 2009 (more by Jim Brueckner)

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello has announced plans to perform at the Occupy Wall Street protest at noon [today] in Manhattan. Morello, who has previously performed at the Occupy Los Angeles rally, will play a solo set as the Nightwatchman.

"The Nightwatchman will Occupy Wall Street [today] at noon, adding one more voice to the growing chorus of millions demanding economic justice at home and around the globe," Morello tells Rolling Stone. "And I'll be playing some songs. Likely in the rain."

Morello will be the third major act to perform at the protest. Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum and rapper Talib Kweli have recently played impromptu sets at the protest site. Earlier this week, Kanye West visited the scene, but did not perform. [Rolling Stone]

We get why the Rage Against the Machine guitarist would show up at Occupy Wall St, but why Comic Con? Well, Comixcorner.com says:

Tom Morello's graphic novel Orchid, which tells the tale of a 16-year-old street prostitute in a dystopian future, will be released in twelve issues through Dark Horse Comics will be on sale October 12th. Orchid features a variant cover by the well-known and influential street artist Shepard Fairey, with interior art by Scott Hepburn (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic).

"Orchid is part Suicide Girl, part Joan of Arc, who becomes the Spartacus of Whores in a story that merges the epic scope of Lord of the Rings with the politics of street terrorism." - Tom Morello

Headlined by DJ Z-Trip, the concert is free to all VIP's and 4-Day ticket holders BUT seating is first come, first served and will be extremely limited due to size of the auditorium and popularity of the event. Ultimate Access, Special Access and Anime Access VIP ticket holders will be guaranteed to get into the show first; then, 4-Day ticket holders will be let in until the auditorium is full. The concert is open to all 4-Day ticket holders on a first come, first served basis and we cannot guarantee that all 4-Day ticket holders that want to attend the show will be able to get in.

"I'm stoked and honored to be playing alongside Tom Morello at the New York Comic Con. He's one of my favorite guitarists of all time, and I've always admired the level of consciousness he brings to the table. This show is gonna be great. Can't wait to read his new comic too." - DJ Z-Trip

Tom Morello is appearing courtesy of Dark Horse Comics, New York Comic Con and Midtown Comics - who will be selling Orchid #1 exclusively at the Kick-Off Concert.

Kathleen Hanna at Planned Parenthood rally in February (more by Chris La Putt)

Feminist artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman-Leeson's documentary !Women Art Revolution made its theatrical debut at Manhattan's IFC Center on June 1. The film is still screening every day at 4:25 PM through June 16. The film features a score by Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), an appearance by Yoko Ono and much more. Get your tickets for the remaining days (and go see Wild Flag at Williamsburg Waterfront).

The movie is one example of how "the Riot Grrrl movement still inspires", as NY Times puts it. The article talks about the Kathleen Hanna tribute show that took place at Knitting Factory this past December and discusses the effect the movement has had on today's indie rock scene. Amanda Warner of MNDR said, "I remember it being weird if you saw a girl in a band, and now it's not weird at all, it's just totally normal."

That Knitting Factory show in December not only served as a tribute to Kathleen Hanna, but also the debut of her new band The Julie Ruin. The project formed as a revival of her late '90s solo project Julie Ruin, the moniker under which she recorded one album of the same name in 1998. The new band also features Bikini Kill bandmate Kathi Wilcox and Kenny Mellman, Justin Bond's sidekick in Kiki and Herb. They are currently working on a debut full length. Details on the album are limited but Kathleen posted pictures from an overdub and mixing session for the album back in May.

A Le Tigre documentary titled Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour (pictured above) chronicles the band's 2004 tour and is out now. You can purchase it on Amazon. Last week there was a screening at at Maysles Institute in Harlem which was accompanied by a Q&A with director Kerthy Fix and Le Tigre member Johanna Fateman. Joly was there and taped all 45 minutes of it. If you missed it, check out the Punkcast video below. AND, they do it again on June 26th at the Ace Hotel, complete with Johanna Fateman, Kerthy Fix, AND Kathleen Hanna for the Q&A. All screening dates are listed below.

Kathleen Hanna recently spoke to Spinner, to promote the movie and stuff, and they asked her about Odd Future:

Spinner: Have you been paying attention to the controversy with Odd Future and their homophobic, misogynistic lyrics?

Kathleen: No, not really. They don't seem that interesting to me.

Spinner: Sara Quin just spoke out against them and it created a bit of a media storm.

Kathleen: I feel like, if you don't want to listen to them, don't listen to them. If you do want to listen to them, do listen to them. I couldn't really comment about on exactly what their lyrics are about, because I haven't gotten that deep into it. But if people are writing lyrics that piss you off, hurt your feelings and make you feel like s---, don't listen to it. I don't think the best idea is to have a boycott. Just don't talk about them and they'll go away. The more you talk about them, the more attention they get. Tegan and Sara fans probably wouldn't even know this band existed if they weren't talking about them. I find the whole conversation kind of boring. There are so many great artists that are doing interesting things, that I don't want to focus on boring people.

Ironically (sort of, maybe), Odd Future recently complained that Australians were racist. Australians say no they are not.

Odd Future's lesbian member Syd tha Kyd, who famously responded to criticism that she associates with a sexist group by saying, "That's what I do. I slap bitches", is DJing at PS1 'Warm Up' on July 23. Gang Gang Dance also DJ and Laurel Halo, Miracles Club, and Lunice play live sets on the same date. No word on if any other members of Odd Future will be in town at the time.

Film trailers, dates and a mash-up of Tyler, the Creator's "Yonkers" and Tegan & Sara's "Call It Off" by The Jane Doze, below...

Continue reading "Katheen Hanna, Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin, Odd Future & other Riot Grrrl news (movies, articles, events & stuff)"

Tickets are still available for Thruston Moore's headlining show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, but his band Sonic Youth has announced a show set for this summer. Thurston and the gang will team with Wild Flag to play the Williamsburg Waterfront on August 12. Tickets go on sale Friday (4/29) at noon.

Thurston Moore is also curating The Stone for the tail end of April, and the venue welcomed a surprise appearance from Yoko Ono on Saturday night (4/23). She joined Kim Gordon who was listed on the bill "with guest". Video from that improvised performance, that also included Chris Corsano, is below.

Steve Shelley is scheduled to play 285 Kent Ave on Thursday (4/28) with Spectre Folk and will hit the road with Disappears next week.

All tour dates and that Kim Gordon/Yoko Ono video is below.

Continue reading "Sonic Youth & Wild Flag playing Williamsburg Waterfront (and other dates)"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

"On March 5, all-girl supergroup Wild Flag made their New York City debut with two shows at the tiny Rock Shop in Brooklyn. Featuring some of indie rock's most experienced and flat-out rocking women, the fledgling band sounded exactly like the sum of its parts. Now, for most other bands, that might seem like faint praise. However, when your "parts" are made up of two-thirds of Sleater-Kinney (guitarist/singer Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss), ex-Helium frontwoman Mary Timony, and Rebecca Cole of the Minders, that's a sum that most bands can only dream of." [TheMST]

And don't forget Wild Flag are also play Radio City Music Hall with Bright Eyes on Tuesday and Wednesday - tickets to the Tuesday show are still on sale.

More Rock Shop pictures below...

Continue reading "Wild Flag played the the Rock Shop (early show pics)"

Tonight, Friday, 1/28, Iron & Wine are playing a free show at the Apple Store in SoHo. On Monday (January 31 at 7pm), Carrie Brownstein & Fred Armisen will discuss their IFC TV show Portlandia, live, at the same location. Meanwhile you can catch Portlandia three times today on IFC, including at 10:30pm.

Carrie Brownstein's band Wild Flag is playing two now-sold-out shows in Brooklyn in March (and other dates). Catch Fred Armisen on SNL this Saturday, 1/29, with musical guest Nicki Minaj (who recently announced a tour with Lil Wayne who was on SNL not that long ago)

That picture above shows Portland band the Thermals (who play a show in Portland tonight) arriving at the Portlandia premiere party in NYC last week. The band performed at the event, though unlike some members of the Decemberists, I'm not sure if the Thermals actually get any screen time in one of the upcoming shows. Carrie Brownstein however, as you might remember, gets some screen time in the recent Thermals video for "I Don't Believe You" which is the same song the Thermals will be performing on February 1st on 'Lopez Tonight'. The song comes from the band's 5th LP Personal Life, as does the song "Never Listen to Me" which now also has a video, which you can watch with other stuff, below...

Continue reading "Portlandia is coming to the Apple Store, The Thermals have a new video (and are playing "Lopez Tonight")"

"heading to NYC to play the PORTLANDIA premiere!" - The Thermals

"good flight. I finally learned what the mile high club is. I always thought it meant getting stoned in Denver" - The Thermals

The Thermals @ 2009 Pitchfork Fest (more by Joseph Xu)

"Allow us to introduce you (against their wishes) to Forbidden Friends!

Forbidden Friends is part secret society, part torrid love affair. The kind of experience you cherish, yet would kill to keep secret. Well as of this moment the secret is OUT. You can wash your dirty sheets as many times as you want, but once the world knows all your steamy indiscretions there's no going back! Might as well post all your (formerly) deep, dark secrets as your next status update. Forbidden Friends may have hoped to keep their little club private, but it's too late now! The gossips have spoken and won. Let's tell EVERYBODY. Please help us!

Forbidden Friends is a new band from Hutch Harris, lead singer and mastermind of The Thermals, Portland's last great post-pop-punk-power trio. Initially conceived as a way for lovers to send hidden messages in plain view (isn't there an app for that?), Forbidden Friends is now a legitimate, public work of art. The band is at once old fashioned (acoustic instruments, mono mixes), forward thinking (reference-less, incredibly danceable), and timeless (classic lyrical themes of love and desire.)

Forbidden Friends will release their debut single, "Tiny Hands", on the Kill Rock Stars label March 15, 2011, on vinyl (7") and digital download. It is accompanied by the b-side "For You". Harris played the basic instruments (drums, guitar, bass, vocals), and was assisted in the studio by his fellow Thermals Kathy Foster and Westin Glass, as well as Michael Lerner of Telekinesis, on percussion. Both songs are truly upbeat and fun, and are the perfect introduction to this exciting new band." [Kill Rock Stars]

Portlandia, starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, premieres on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT on IFC, but you can watch it now in the video embedded below.

The Thermals, after the Portlandia party (1/19), have some dates scheduled on the west coast followed by a European tour with The Coathangers. Their list of dates, and Carrie's new band Wild Flag's updated set of dates, and pretty much every upcoming Kill Rock Stars-artist tour date currently listed by the label, is below...

Continue reading "Hutch of the Thermals forms new band 'Forbidden Friends' (Thermals playing a Portlandia party in NYC & other dates)"

"People on the subway are staring at my scabs"

Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and Jim Carrey performed as "A Taste of New York" on Saturday Night Live this past weekend (on 1/8). A Taste of New York is an "authentic" band from "an area between Avenue B & Avenue C" in New York City. And though Holy Sons are from the West Coast, we have learned that the sketch/song was inspired by new Holy Sons song "A Chapter Must Be Closed" from the recent Survivalist Tales. Fred Armisen watched the video for the song and the rest is history. Compare/contrast the videos below.

Musical duo The Black Keys also played Saturday Night Live on 1/8, a few days before they appeared on the Colbert Report with Ezra. Video of both songs they played are below too.

Musical duo Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (ex Sleater-Kinney, current Wild Flag) go way back. Their Thunderant series of videos have been making the rounds online for years, and so it's pretty awesome that they've landed a "6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series" called Portlandia which premieres on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT on IFC. "Each episode's character-based shorts draw viewers into "Portlandia," the creators' dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon."

An assortment of guest stars inhabit PORTLANDIA, including Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks, Sex & The City), Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), Selma Blair (Legally Blonde, Hellboy), Heather Graham (The Hangover), Edie McClurg (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Kumail Nanjiani (Michael & Michael Have Issues), Jason Sudeikis (SNL, The Cleveland Show), and Gus Van Sant (Milk). Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann also guest stars, alongside James Mercer (The Shins), and local Portland musicians Jenny Conlee and Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) and Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney).

Continue reading "Fred Armisen inpired by Holys Sons for SNL sketch, pairs w/ Carrie Brownstein for new IFC show 'Portlandia'"

by BBG

I have it on good authority that...
Corin Tucker had more than one leg at Bowery Ballroom... (photo by killerfemme)

The Corin Tucker Band played Maxwell's on 10/23 (with Screaming Females) and Bowery Ballroom on 10/26 as part of a short leg of East Coast dates in support of the new LP 1,000 Years. The shows were part of Tucker's first tour in the East since selling out Webster Hall with Sleater-Kinney in 2006 as part of the band's final leg of dates before going on hiatus. Flanked by a supporting cast of Sara Lund of Unwound and Seth Lorinczi of Golden Bears, Tucker's new project won over the crowd at Bowery with a combination of bombast and tranquility:

At Tuesday night's show, the turned-to-11 jams (like "Riley" and "Doubt," the latter of which sounds the most like Sleater-Kinney) got the biggest reactions, but Tucker's quieter moments were the most stunning. The band paused for a brief acoustic interlude (including strings) for runs through gorgeously-arranged new epics like "It's Always Summer" and "Dragon," both of which began small and swelled to surprising crescendos. "Miles Away," which opened Tucker's encore and features little more than her gentle, dynamic voice and a rolling piano riff, is lovely on the album but became a full-blooded torch song on stage. Sleater-Kinney's songs mostly all swirl and no release, but Tucker's new approach seems to be about resolution. -[MTV]

And in case Wild Flag and The Corin Tucker Band just don't do it for you, take comfort in the fact that Tucker also recently told the Seattle Weekly the following in response to questions about a Sleater-Kinney reunion: "We're all still friends and we have talked about doing Sleater-Kinney in the future again... I'm hopeful that that will happen."

The Corin Tucker Band's 1,000 Years is out now via Kill Rock Stars. Video from Tucker's Maxwell's and Bowery Ballroom sets are below, along with all Wild Flag dates...

Continue reading "Corin Tucker's band played NYC, Wild Flag hopefully will soon"

"I Don't Believe You" from the new Thermals album that I can't stop listening to, below...

Continue reading "new Thermals video starring Carrie Brownstein"

"JAWBOX IS REUNITING ON THE SHOW TONIGHT! Last week, this iconic 90's post-hardcore band re-released their classic album For Your Own Special Sweetheart. Tonight, they perform together again for the first time since 1997! They are not touring or performing anywhere else - THIS IS IT!" - Jimmy Fallon (actually Sara Schaefer)

Continue reading "Jawbox played Fallon - 'Savory' & 2 videos from rehearsal"

Chris Swanson (Jagjaguwar/Secretly Canadian/Dead Oceans): I'm not sure that people don't know labels now. I still think the music geeks know labels.
Portia Sabin (Kill Rock Stars): I think labels are caught in a cultural bind: No one really wants to know what a label does; it's like the sausage factory. Even long-established bands have a hard time talking about what labels do.
Gerard Cosloy (Matador): I mean, HoZac couldn't have a singles club otherwise.
Mac McCaughan (Merge): I'm one of those people that doesn't pay attention, either, I guess; I don't know what HoZac is!
Carrie Brownstein: I don't know HoZac, either.
Gerard Cosloy: GOOGLE THAT S---.
Mac McCaughan: GTS!
Maggie Vail (Kill Rock Stars): http://www.hozacrecords.com/

People like Fred Armisen, Carrie from Sleater-Kinney (and NPR) (man, she was rough on Tallest Man on Earth), Joe Mande and Nick Kroll will be watching comedy shorts (with piano accompaniment) tonight...

Continue reading "ThunderAnt, Max Silvestri, others & film @ MoMA Tuesday"

...if she (Carrie Brownstein) wants permission to stream their track on her blog.....

An interesting tidbit: This mix was supposed to have the Grateful Dead on it, whose music I really love, but they refused unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site. Here's a sentence I've never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple "no thanks" would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity? Because I swear there's a dancing bear sticker on every third car I see in Portland. And now I've written a paragraph on them anyway, for free, not even in exchange for a song. Doesn't that count?!
[Carrie Brownstein/NPR]