The Darkness @ Stubb's, May 2012 (more by Tim Griffin)

!!! aboard the SS Coachella, December 2012 (more by Greg Cristman)

today in NYC
* Trio Babel @ The Stone
* The Stepfathers @ UCB
* Shelia E. @ B.B. King's
* Howard Fishman @ Barbes
* Shannon McNally @ Joe's Pub
* Secret Chiefs 3 @ Mercury Lounge
* Joe Bonamassa @ Beacon Theatre
* Gabriel Rios, Aly Tardos @ 92YTribeca
* The Staves, Escondido @ Mercury Lounge
* Father John Misty, Jessica Pratt @ Maxwell's
* Black Francis, Reid Paley @ Symphony Space
* Lucia Pulido Canciones De Despecho @ Barbes
* Mother Feather, Velta, Fan Tan @ Cameo Gallery
* Psychic Twin, Pompeya, Genghis Hans @ 285 Kent
* Shake The Baron, Nightbox, Tinmouth @ Glasslands
* Melissa Ferrick, The Western Den @ The Bell House
* !!!, Sinkane, DJ Thanksgiving Brown @ Bowery Ballroom
* Distal, Owen Howells, Dave Q, Braille @ Cameo Gallery
* Bettye LaVette, Blind Boys of Alabama @ The Town Hall
* Ola Podrida, Anacortes, Aaron Zimmer @ The Rock Shop
* Body Language (DJ Set), BFG, Sleepyhead, Figgy @ Bizarre
* Honduras, BNLX, Eastern Hollows, Grand Resort @ Big Snow
* Retox, Tinsel Teeth, Psychic Limb, Meek is Murder @ Pianos
* Vitamin X, Living Void, Grudges, Brain Slug @ Saint Vitus Bar
* The Thang, My Left Tit, MC Biggles, The Regulars @ Cake Shop
* Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Rooftop Films (MetroTech Commons)
* SOJA, Nahko & Medicine for the People, Los Rakas @ Webster Hall
* Bueno, Video Daughters, Big Muff, Dog Water, Clouty @ Muchmore's
* Le Youth, Chrome Canyon (DJ Set), Air Zaire (DJ Set) @ Glasslands
* The Lonely Wild, Yellow Red Sparks, The Lonelyhearts @ Union Hall
* Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest), MASEO @ Paper Box
* Crazy and The Brains, Berth Control, Jeffrey Lewis @ The Bowery Electric
* Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Flaming Lips, The Darkness @ Great GoogaMooga
* Speedy Ortiz, Island Twins, Advaeta, Idiot Genes, Lunchbox @ Silent Barn
* Anamanaguchi, Pictureplane, Hot Sugar, George & Jonathan @ Irving Plaza
* ATB, Eric Prydz, Dirty South, Zed's Dead, Richie Hawtin, Seth Troxler @ Citi Field
* Turnip King, pow wow!, Las Rosas, The Teen Age, Cosmonaut @ Living Bread
* Andrew Cedermark, Brass Bed, Jonathan Meiburg (of Shearwater) @ Death By Audio
* The Hollows, The Future Laureates, The Third Wheel Band, The Woes @ Littlefield
* Porches, Laser Background, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Celestial Shore @ Shea Stadium
* Big Ups, Lunchbox, Villager, Night Visions, Sharkmuffin, Cum Blood @ Living Gallery
* The Electric Set, Cinema Cinema, Hounds Basket, Robot Death Kites, Bloom, Punks On Mars @ Brooklyn Fireproof East

Don't forget the GoogaMooga 2013 kickoff concert today starts EARLY with The Darkness going on at 4:45 PM, The Flaming Lips at 6:15 PM, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs at 8:30 PM.

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Thurston Moore's Chelsea Light Moving have released a new video for their track "Lips and you can watch that below.

Continue reading "What's going on Friday?"

by Bill Pearis

Existing for a barely five years, UK psych band Loop were one of the most perfectly-named bands ever. Rarely bothering with verse-chorus-verse song structure, the South London group took a riff and added layer upon layer till it had its own gravitational field. They were heavy, man, and got heavier as they went along. The band made three album and two of them (1987's Heaven's End and 1990's A Guilded Eternity) are genuine cult classics. All three of their albums (including 1988's Fade Out) were reissued in 2009 and can be streamed on Spotify.

The band called it quits in 1991 but the A Guilded Eternity line-up has reformed to play AND curate the second half of this year's All Tomorrow's Parties End of an Era which happens from November 29 - December 1 in Camber Sands, UK. The rest of their line-up includes postpunk legends The Pop Group and 23 Skidoo, plus Fennesz, Dirty Beaches, Eaux, Hookworms (who we recently profiled), The KVB, Thought Forms, a DJ set from Edan and more TBA. Earlybird tickets are on sale now.

No word on other Loop shows, specifically, but frontman Robert Hampson writes that they band will be performing "a number of shows from late 2013 to mid 2014 at various venues across the world." Let's hope that includes North America. Surely Austin Psych Fest would be interested?

The weekend before (November 22 - 24) is End of an Era Pt. 1 which is being curated by Barcelona's Primavera Sound. It features Television (minus Richard Lloyd) performing Marquee Moon in its entirety, plus Dinosaur Jr, Les Savy Fav, Chelsea Light Moving, Mum, Dinos Chapman, Oneohtrix Point Never, Wolf Eyes, Il Sogno Del Marinaio (featuring Mike Watt), Yuck offshoot Hebronix, Forest Swords, BEAK>, The Haxan Cloak, Demdike Stare, Eraas and more TBA. Earlybird tickets are on sale now to this as well.

As for the "End of an Era" part, these will be ATP's final "holiday camp" festivals, though they plan to continue putting on events. Flyers for both APT End of an Era weekends are below, along with Loop song streams, are below.

Continue reading "'80s UK psych band Loop reforming, playing and curating ATP "End of an Era" fest ++ other shows"

photos by Greg Cristman

chelsea light moving at bowery felt less like SY-lite than SY-as-genre. thankfully, a genre i love." - Jesse Jarnow

Thurston Moore's new main gig, Chelsea Light Moving, wrapped up their tour last night (4/7) in Boston. It began back in early March, after the band detonated a birthday party, included a NYC-area show at Maxwell's and hit Austin for SXSW. Before the tour came to an end over the weekend, CLM came back to NYC for a show at Bowery Ballroom on Friday (4/5) with Marco Fusinato and Prana-Bindu. More pictures from that show below...

Continue reading "Chelsea Light Moving played Bowery Ballroom (pics)"

photos by PSquared Photography

I had to remind myself at several points during this show that the exuberant, youthful guitarist and vocalist on the cozy Maxwell's stage in his band's own t-shirt was a 54-year-old member of rock royalty who I had seen perform in front of crowds hundreds of times this size. Sonic Youth may be on hiatus or it may be gone, but Thurston will keep playing - and keep playing well - for as long as he's breathing. Chelsea Light Moving, as a band, isn't Sonic Youth, but it isn't just a dim facsimile of it, either. With Samara Lubelski (a well-known solo artist and member of Thurston's solo band) on bass, John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man) on drums and Keith Wood (Hush Arbors, Wooden Wand) on guitar, Chelsea Light Moving has an accomplished cast and its own personality. In some ways, CLM feels more like SST-era Sonic Youth - younger, hungrier, rawer. It seems fun to be in this band, in a way that's almost impossible in a more established one. - [NYC Taper]

Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving, who recently played a basement party, kicked off their tour in the NYC area over the weekend. The tour began at Maxwell's on Saturday (3/2) for a show with Talk Normal and then came to Other Music for a free-instore on Sunday (3/3). At Maxwell's the band played a large chunk of their self titled debut album (out now) and also worked in some new material, and an old Thurston Moore solo cut, "Staring Statues."

Chelsea Light Moving's tour returns to NYC for a show on April 5 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for that show are still available.

You can stream live recordings of "Staring Statues" and CLM's "Empires of Time" from the Maxwell's show (via NYC Taper) and check out more pictures and the setlists from both bands below...

Continue reading "Chelsea Light Moving played Maxwell's with Talk Normal (pics, setlists, audio)"

Chelsea Light Moving @ Birthday party in Northampton, MA (via @brooklynvegan)

Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving weren't messing around when they said they were "ready to detonate any birthday party, wedding or hullabaloo in any country, planet or stratosphere that doesn't support right wing extremist NRA sucking bozo-ology." As you may have noticed, Thurston Moore responded to BrooklynVegan comments, promising that he would in fact bring his band to detonate someone's birthday party, and this past Sunday (2/24), Chelsea Light Moving went to a basement birthday party in/near Northampton, MA (near where Thurston lives) and commenced detonation. Three videos from it are below.

Chelsea Light Moving are about to kick off their tour and will be destroying the NYC area this weekend with a show at Mawell's on Saturday (3/2) (tickets) and a free in-store at Other Music on Sunday (3/3). After destroying the rest of the country, they'll return to NYC for more on April 5 at Bowery Ballroom (tickets). Brace yourselves.

All upcoming dates are listed, along with those videos, below...

Continue reading "Chelsea Light Moving on tour, did in fact detonate a birthday party! (watch the video)"

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Empire of Time" (MP3)

Chelsea Light Moving at Sled Island in 2012 (more by Zach Pollack)

As mentioned a few times, Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving are releasing their self titled debut on March 5 via Mataor (stream it) and supporting it with a tour that hits the NYC area on March 2 at Maxwell's with Talk Normal (tickets) and April 5 at Bowery Ballroom (tickets). They've also just added a free in-store at Other Music (3/3), happening the day after the Maxwell's show at 7:30 PM. Show flyer below.

As you may know, Chelsea Light Moving are also planning to detonate some house parties and you can pitch your house to the band in the BrooklynVegan comments.

A list of updated dates and the Other Music show flyer below...

Continue reading "Chelsea Light Moving adds free Other Music in-store to tour"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Empire of Time" (MP3)

Chelsea Light Moving at Sled Island in 2012 (more by Zach Pollack)

As mentioned, Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving will release their self-titled debut album on March 5 via Matador, but you won't have to wait to hear it, because NPR is streaming it in its entirety now. Of all the post-Sonic Youth projects, the CLM album is probably the most like Sonic Youth, but the noise parts are kept to a minimum and Thurson tends to stick to his "Teenage Riot"/"Dirty Boots" style of melodic songwriting (which of course isn't a bad thing). They also get pretty heavy at times, most noticeably on the sludgy "Alighted," perhaps inspired by Thurston recently joining metal supergroup, Twilight?

The band are supporting the new record with a previously discussed tour that hits the NYC area on March 2 at Maxwell's with Talk Normal (tickets) and April 5 at Bowery Ballroom (tickets). Plus, Thurston and company are planning to detonate some house parties and as you may know, he's been reading BrooklynVegan comments and you can leave your house show pitches HERE.

Continue reading "Thurston Moore's band Chelsea Light Moving streaming new album (listen)"

Matador Records confirms that it is in fact Thurston Moore in the BrooklynVegan comments, who wrote this:

I'm in London now - but i'm heading to east coast USA feb 16 -- gonna conspire with the band and matador and figure out where to do this -- i'm thinking sick house basement birthday party --- gonna see about inviting some heavy peeps like alice cooper, negative approach, savages (from france!), trash kit (from uk!), ZZZs (from japan!) -- or at least some local, wherever that may be, killer krusherzzzz!!! insanity approaches!!!!!
thurston

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Empire of Time" (MP3)

Chelsea Light Moving at Sled Island in 2012 (more by Zach Pollack)

As previously discussed Thurston Moore has a new band, Chelsea Light Moving, who will release their self titled debut album on March 5 via Matador and have a tour on the way in support of it. That tour includes Maxwell's (3/2) in Hoboken with Talk Normal (tickets), SXSW in Austin, Bowery Ballroom (4/5) in NYC (tickets), and ends on April 7 at The Sinclair in Thurston's home state of Massachusetts. What it doesn't appear to include though are any birthday parties, weddings, or hullabaloos on other planets, which are all fair game according to the band's bio...

Chelsea Light Moving is the current group led by Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore. He is the songwriter and plays over-amped hyper electric guitar and sings with raw-glam-destructo vocals. The band is a four piece featuring Samara Lubelski, who has played violin with TM on his last two solo LPs (Demolished Thoughts and Trees Outside The Academy) and with Chelsea Light Moving plays deep psyche pop metal bass guitar. Keith Wood, who records under the aegis Hush Arbors, plays electric guitar with a pick forged from angel wing and John Moloney, aka "Pegasus", approaches the drums like an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. The first self-titled CD was recorded in two spurious sessions with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato in Sone Lab, a killer studio in Easthampton Massachusetts. The band is ready to detonate any birthday party, wedding or hullabaloo in any country, planet or stratosphere that doesn't support right wing extremist NRA sucking bozo-ology.

Download the CLM track, "Empires of Time," above. All dates are listed below...

Continue reading "I wonder if Thurston Moore's band Chelsea Light Moving will really detonate your birthday party?"

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Empires of Time" (MP3)

Chelsea Light Moving at Sled Island in 2012 (more by Zach Pollack)

Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving (with Keith Wood, Samara Lubelski, and John Moloney) have announced (via Matablog) that they will release their eponymous debut on March 5 via Matador and are supporting it with a corresponding tour. The tour kicks off in Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's on March 2 with Talk Normal and then returns to the NYC area for a show at Bowery Ballroom on April 5 (support TBA). Tickets for the Maxwell's show go on sale Friday (1/11) at noon and tickets for the Bowery show are not on sale yet but check ticketmaster for updates.

You can grab an MP3 of the track, "Empires of Time," above. The album's cover art and a list of all dates, below...

Continue reading "Thurston Moore's new band Chelsea Light Moving announces debut album and tour (dates, MP3)"

photos by Chris La Putt

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Groovy & Linda" (MP3)

Sharon Van Etten @ Town Hall

Sharon Van Etten brought her tour through NYC for a hometown show at Town Hall on November 15, her biggest headlining date in the area yet. Though she unfortunately was not supported by Damien Jurado, who opened most of the tour, she treated her hometown fans to a special show without an opener, which instead saw Sharon playing two sets and an encore with a number of special guests. The guests, mostly past collaborators, included Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak, Peter Silberman from The Antlers, Brad Cook from Megafaun, Aaron Dessner (who produced her new album) from The National, Thurston Moore (and his band, Chelsea Light Moving), and her own father, who came out to cover "Barstool Blues" by Neil Young (who he is a fan of and it was his birthday, which is why Sharon chose that cover) during the encore. A special night for many reasons.

When Thurston Moore first came out, it was all the members of his band Chelsea Light Moving (Keith Wood, Samara Lubelski, and John Moloney) and all the members of Sharon's band, to play the CLM song, "Groovy and Linda," which you can download above and stream below.

Sharon is also presenting a show in NYC soon with She Keeps Bees and Speck Mountain, that she may or may not be performing at.

More pictures and the setlist from the show, below...

Continue reading "Sharon Van Etten played Town Hall w/ Thurston Moore, Aaron Dessner, Jenn Wasner, HER DAD & other guests (pics, setlist)"

Lee Ranaldo at Prospect Park, July 2012 (more by Dana [Distortion] Yavin)

While the status on Lee Ranaldo best-known musical endeavor remains up in the air, he's keeping busy supporting his new solo album which came out on Matador earlier this year, like opening for Wilco at Prospect Park last month. Next up: he's playing Union Pool on August 30 with Chris Lee and Spectre Folk. No advance tickets for this show at the moment.

UPDATE: Tickets go on sale today (8/15) at 6 PM.

Lee's Sonic Youth bandmate Steve Shelley not only plays in Lee Ranaldo's band and Spectre Folk, but also runs new label Vampire Blues which just released new records by Spectre Folk and Chris Lee so this is basically a big label launch / record release party. You can stream both below via a Spotify player. Shelley plays drums on Chris Lee's new album, Bury the Kings, so he may not leave the drum kit all night.

In other related news, Ranaldo's other other band, Glacial, just released their new album, On Jones Beach, which consists of one 42-minute track. (Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.) Ranaldo will also be playing this year's ATP New York in September. And Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving, plays their first NYC show at 285 Kent on September 12 and tickets are still available with proceeds going to benefit Charalambides' Tom Carter who fell seriously ill this year while touring Europe.

Flyer for the Union Pool show and album streams are below.

Continue reading "Lee Ranaldo playing Union Pool with Chris Lee and Spectre Folk; Steve Shelley drumming for all three?"

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Groovy & Linda" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Frank O'Hara Hit" (MP3)

Chelsea Light Moving at Sled Island 2012 (more by Zach Pollack)

Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving, who played a few shows in June (Sled Island included) has finally announced a show in Thurston's hometown of NYC. Chelsea Light Moving will play Issue Project Room 285 Kent on September 12 with Steve Gunn and White Out. (UPDATE: The show is presented by Issue Project Room but it's happening at 285 Kent.) Tickets for that show are on sale now. All proceeds go to Tom Carter.

You've already heard the band's first song, "Burroughs," which you can now watch "the officially unofficial video" for below. They've since revealed two more songs, "Groovy & Linda" and "Frank O'Hara Hit," both of which you can download above.

Chelsea Light Moving isn't the only new project of Thurston's. It was also recently confirmed that he joined black metal supergroup Twilight, which there has been talk of since 2010. Thurston joins a lineup of Nachtmystium's Blake Judd and Sanford Parker, The Atlas Moth's Stavros Giannopolous, Leviathan's Wrest (aka Jef Whitehead), Krieg's Imperial (aka Neill Jameson), and Isis/Old Man Gloom's Aaron Turner. In a press release (via P4K) Thurston says, "We're not coming together to make music, we're joining forces to destroy all rational thought."

In other Sonic Youth news, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Lee Ranaldo revealed that the band hope to release a deluxe edition of Sister and live albums from specific points in their career, with a 1985 live album coming "in the next couple months." They also have recordings they made for films that were never released that they'd like to get out there.

That video is below.

Continue reading "Thurston Moore's band Chelsea Light Moving playing NYC show; Thurston joins Twilight; Sonic Youth planning reissues"

photos by Zach Pollack, words by Parker Langvardt

Thurston Moore/Shadowy Men.../Yamantaka//Sonic Titan at Sled Island, 6/22/2012

Calgary's multi-venue Sled Island festival took place last month. Pictures and a review of day 1 are HERE, Day 2 are HERE, and Day 3 are  in this post.

We started Friday (6/22) of Calgary's Sled Island Music & Arts festival at Broken City, where we caught the Toronto instrumental legends Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, the secret headliners of an all ages Mammoth Recording Company show. Shadowy Men's first show in 18 years took place  a couple nights before (6/20)  at No. 1 Legion. Don Pyle played his hollowbody electric guitar with a twangy country edge, using the whammy bar heavily to provide the surf sound the band is known for. Bassist Dallas Good's bright tone had a slight distorted edge to it, helping to provide the sense of adrenaline in their performance, exemplified by "Having an Average Weekend" (aka the Kids in the Hall Theme, video below).

After a couple hours off, we saw Yamantaka//Sonic Titan at Grand Theatre Junction. The Montreal band's set was similar to their performance at Schubas in Chicago, where I saw them kick off their first North American tour, though it was much more polished. Near the end of the set the whole band broke into a hypnotic chant over rolling drums, with the occasional counter-chant from drummer Alaska. After "Hoshi Neko," they broke into the punishing and noisy "A Star Over Pureland". Yamantaka//Sonic Titan also played Saturday at the same venue after How To Dress Well."

Thurston Moore and his new band Chelsea Light Moving walked on stage, and Moore said, "We're the Cowboy Junkies," referencing the beloved, mega-selling Canadian folk-rockers. As a black and white video ran in the background, they began with the dissonant and crunchy "Pretty Bad" from Moore's 1995 album Psychic Hearts which ended, like a lot of Moore's work, with feedback and droning. Moore furiously vibrated his whammy bar and Samara Lubelski quickly bowed her violin. In the middle of "Ono Soul", Moore left his guitar feedback on his stage monitor to locate something as the rest of the band improvised noise. He casually wandered around the stage until he found a pair of sticks, which he used to scrape his strings before they fell back into the song. They then played their new song "Burroughs." One of the last songs I caught before heading to Feist was another new one, which I believe was called "Groove and Linda." Moore remarked that "all songs will be free this year until some record company makes product out of it, which may happen," and by "may happen," he means it will definitely happen courtesy of Matador Records. Videos of two songs are below.

I caught the last few songs of Calgary native Feist, who performed backed by female trio Mountain Man, as well as a drummer, keyboardist, and a guitarist/multi-instrumentalist. That said, most of the members were playing tambourine during the first song I heard. The show happened at Olympic Plaza, the outdoor main stage of Sled Island, which was a giant puddle after the rain that occurred earlier in the evening. Video from her set is below.

We headed back to Broken City for Dirty Ghosts, who also played at the venue earlier in the day before Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. Guitarist and singer Allyson Baker played a lot of distorted off-beat chords over live bassist Erin McDermott's melodic lines, providing a positive feel to their punk sound. The Strange Boys closed the night with their country-tinged garage rock.

More photos from Day 3, plus a few videos, are below.

Continue reading "Sled Island day 3 in pics & review: (Chelsea Light Moving, Feist, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and more)"

DOWNLOAD: Chelsea Light Moving - "Burroughs" (MP3)

News on the current state of Sonic Youth remains ambiguous, but the members are certainly keeping busy. Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon are releasing a collaborative album with Yoko Ono (recorded before Thurston and Kim's split?) called YOKOKIMTHURSTON, which is due out on September 25 via Chimera Music. The cover art and tracklist, along with a video of the three musicians playing together at BAM in 2010 is below.

Thurston is also now the vocalist/guitarist for a new band called Chelsea Light Moving with Keith Wood, Samara Lubelski, and John Moloney. They've got a full length in the works, which is due out on Matador. You can download their first track, "Burroughs," which was inspired William S. Burroughs' last words ("Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is"), at the top of this post. Chelsea Light Moving have a few shows scheduled, including a Sled Island show in Calgary tonight.

Thurston was also added to Spy Music Festival, which goes down in NYC across multiple venues from June 29 to July 15. He'll be playing his first ever set as a duo with experimental guitarist Loren Connors at The Stone on July 14. Raajamahal (Pat Murano of No Neck Blues Band and Decimus, Carla Backer from Baba Yaga, and Santa Wolanczyk from Flower Orgy) was also added to the fest, and will be playing Death by Audio on July 13. Check out a sampler of artists playing the festival below.

Speaking of Yoko Ono, NY Post reports that she exhibited a new art piece in London's Serpentine Gallery called "To the Light," which featured no more than three piles of dirt. The post mentions that Britain's Guardian newspaper trashed the exhibit, suggesting "the exhibition's title has got to be a "mistake," noting that "those who have suffered near-death experiences often complain of a bright light -- and a voice telling them to go towards it." And no one would want to go toward this."

A list of all dates, video, and stream below...

Continue reading "Thurston Moore has a new band, made an LP w/ Kim Gordon & Yoko Ono, playing Spy Music Fest w/ Loren Connors"