Built to Spill at BV SXSW 2012 (more by Ryan Barkan)

The Hopscotch festival in Raleigh, North Carolina will celebrate its third year from Sept. 6-8, 2012 in downtown Raleigh, with 175 bands in 15 venues. The initial lineup, released today, runs the gamut from traditional indie favorites to punk to noise music to hip hop to noisy black metal and all stops in between, featuring performances from Built to Spill, sunn 0))), The Roots, The Jesus & Mary Chain (who played SXSW), Liars (who have a show coming up at Webster Hall), Baroness, Deerhoof, Death Grips (who play NYC soon and have new material on the way), Danny Brown (who was at Coachella and plays Prospect Park soon), Pallbearer (who play an exclusive East Coast Show soon), Screaming Females (who recently played NYC and are on tour now), Thee Oh Sees, The Spits (who just played NYC twice), Tenement, The Mountain Goats (two sets, one of which will be an all metal-covers set!) and so many more.

(and now we know the Jesus & Mary Chain are coming back soon)

Tickets are on sale. The full lineup and flyer (update: and a few more announced J&MC dates) are below...

Continue reading "Hopscotch lineup announced; Jesus & Mary Chain will be in NC in September; John Darnielle to do metal covers set "

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Lushlife - "Big Sur" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lushlife - "She's a Buddhist, I'm a Cubist" (ft. Cities Aviv) (MP3)

Lushlife is set to release his new album, Plateau Vision, on April 17 via Western Vinyl. The album features guest spots from Heems, Cities Aviv, Andrew Cedermark, and Sun Glitters, who all appeared on his recent mixtape, in addition to appearances by Styles P (who recently announced a tour with Curren$y), Shad, Botany, Ryat, and more.

If the guest spots don't give it away, Lushlife fits right in with the indie-leaning hip hop (or "cloud rap") scene going on right now. You can sample his stuff by streaming three tracks, "Still I Hear the Word Progress" (ft. Styles P), "She's a Buddhist, I'm a Cubist" (ft. Cities Aviv) and "Big Sur" (prod. Botany), below, or downloading the latter two above. Also grab "The Romance of the Telescope" which features Andrew Cedermark and reworks OMD, HERE. The album artwork and tracklist are below.

Lushlife will celebrate the album with a record release party in NYC which happens on April 18 at Glasslands with Shine 2009 and My Dry Wet Mess. Tickets are on sale now.

Meanwhile, if you're down in Austin for SXSW, Lushlife will be playing at our 'Hotel Vegan' hip hop stage TODAY, Saturday (3/17) with Main Attrakionz, Action Bronson, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, Spaceghostpurrp, Fat Tony, Rittz, and Cadence Weapon.

All dates, streams, album art and tracklist below...

Continue reading "Lushlife releasing guest-filled album, playing Glasslands in April & Hotel Vegan today"

photos by Erik Erikson

G-Side @ Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn

We've been busy throwing BrooklynVegan live shows this month, and slow to post about them. Back before we started throwing the term "holiday party" into the mix (times three), we put together and presented what ended up being one of my favorite shows of the year: G-Side, Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire, and Cities Aviv at Glasslands on 12/6. As extremely talented G-Side backup singer Joi Tiffany put it, "THE NEW YORK SHOW WAS MF CRAZY!!!!!!" The NY Times was also there:

" The show featured three acts -- G-Side, the headliner, from Huntsville, Ala.; the rapper whose name is printable only when shortened to eXquire, from Brooklyn; and Cities Aviv, from Memphis. Each of these acts tells a story about making hip-hop on the fringes of the mainstream in 2011, but the stories are not the same.

At best, they have tradition in common -- not outright nostalgists, or unreasonably emulative, they owe a heavy stylistic debt to the 1990s, both the mainstream and the underground."

Continue reading "G-Side, Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire & Cities Aviv @ Glasslands (BV party pics & videos)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Cities Aviv - "Wet Dream" (MP3)

It's almost 2012; deconstruction of rap, you know? It's not the same anymore, none of this shit matters anymore. I'm like rapping in tight-ass pants, it's the future. I mean some people don't like that, they wanna hate all that, you know fuck those people. I feel like it's getting better, you got dudes like Odd Future, Lil B, Main Attrakionz. So many different sounds are being fused that the lines are not only being blurred, they're being destroyed.

Cities Aviv plays the BV-presented show at Glasslands TONIGHT (12/6) with G-Side and Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire (Facebook invite HERE). Tickets are still on sale. Get them online or at the door (Cities Aviv is on at 9).

Cities Aviv recently put up the non-album track "Wet Dream" on his bandcamp. You can download that track above and stream it below. He also posted an indecipherable picture to his tumblr a few days ago with the caption "B L A C K | PLEASURE - 2012." Is he hinting at a new album?

He's also one of the artists who will be performing at 35 Denton in Texas this March along with Bun B, The Mountain Goats, The Raincoats, John Vanderslice, Julianna Barwick, Sun Araw, and others. No other dates to report.

Video and song stream below...

Continue reading "Cities Aviv (at Glasslands tonight) MP3 & video interview"

G-Side @ Fun Fun Fun Fest

Huntsville, Alabama rap duo G-Side are on a tour that brings them to their BV-presented show at Glasslands TONIGHT (12/6) with Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire (who the Village Voice just interviewed) and Cities Aviv. (Facebook invite HERE.) Tickets are still available and we're also giving away a pair here. Details on how to win are below.

Earlier on in G-Side's tour, they played Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin. More pictures from their set there, where they came out into the photo pit to be closer to the crowd toward the end, are in this post. The five people you see on stage include the duo, their two much-more-than-backup singers and the DJ. The crowd started relatively small for their daytime set, but grew large by the end due to their undeniable talent and charisma. Read more about another recent show they played HERE.

SPIN profiled G-Side for their December 2011 issue, 'The Changing Face of Hip-Hop.' They talked about the town of Huntsville, Alabama, where NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is located, and how G-Side rides "past the rocket to test records out." That rocket is the "363-foot-tall white Saturn V" off the highway, I-565. They talked about the tightly knit scene there. G-Side's manager Codie G. said, "In a city like this, all you get is small wins, If I see somebody here get some success, I feel like that's my success." Then the members of G-Side discussed their difficult childhoods and how they eventually met up in their pre-teenage years and began making music together. According to Yung Clova, their new album Island (which is streaming on bandcamp) "might be the last album," Either this album is gonna make us or it ain't. Struggling, trying to pay your rent -- it gets old," he said. Come support at Glasslands tonight or at one of their other upcoming shows.

All tour dates, more pics from FFF Fest, and contest details below...

Continue reading "G-Side are here (win tix to Glasslands tonight) --- updated dates, album stream, a SPIN feature, more pics from FFF Fest"

photos by Kellyann Petry, words by Andrew Sacher

G-Side @ Purchase Fall Fest

Alabama rap duo G-Side release their new album Island TODAY (11/11/11). You can order it at the link and listen to a track below.

Though it has been announced elsewhere already, we're excited to announced that G-side will be playing at least one BrooklynVegan presented show in December (stay tuned for the possibility of another). The announced show is taking place on December 6 at Glasslands in Brooklyn with Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire and Cities Aviv also on the spectacular bill. Tickets are on sale now. It's one of many dates they just announced. They're all listed below.

Back before Fun Fun Fun Fest (where multiple BVers said they were awesome), G-Side (who also played Pitchfork Fest) played SUNY Purchase Fall Fest on Saturday (10/29) (after playing a last minute show at 285 Kent the night before). The G-Side guys bring one DJ and two extremely talented R&B singers on stage with them for what ends up being much more than just rapping to a backing track. At Purchase there was tons of interaction between those on stage and the audience. They got the entire Fall Fest crowd bouncing, moving it to the left, and whatever other moves they brought with them, chanted "Ain't no party like a Purchase party," and by the end of the set both rappers ended up in the crowd. They ended with an unplanned encore of "How Far," which samples Beach House's "10 Mile Stereo." Pictures from their Fall Fest set are in this post.

More of them, with all tour dates, and a collaboration with UK DJ/Producer Sinden that you can listen to, below...

Continue reading "G-Side release 'Island' TODAY, played Fall Fest (pics), playing BV-presented show @ Glasslands (and other dates)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: R E A L M A G I C - "Hard 2 Keep" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: R E A L M A G I C - "No Things Left" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: R E A L M A G I C - "Crip Tics" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wise Blood - "Nosferatu" (REALMAGIC Remix) (MP3)

The past few years have seen the boundaries of pop music pushed further than ever before as the line between singer/songwriter and electronic producer continues to blur. Denver, CO's Drew Englander, who records under the moniker R E A L M A G I C, is continuing to push these boundaries. Drew uses grimey synths and dance beats to sculpt carefully arranged soundscapes that will make you take a step back from the dancefloor to absorb the music with your mind before you let your body back into it. He tops all of this off with his own soaring vocal harmonies which set him apart from many of his computer-manipulated and effect-ridden contemporaries. This past June, he released two tracks via the Heart Music Group bandcamp, "No Things Left" and "Crip Tics." You can download both of those above, and check out the artwork for the tracks which Drew designed himself, along with a teaser video for "Crip Tics" below. He recently followed those recordings with the new track, "Hard 2 Keep," which you can download above. He also remixed "Nosferatu" by fellow Heart Music Group affiliate Wise Blood, which is available at the top of this post as well.

R E A L M A G I C will be make his NYC live debut during CMJ. He'll play the Heart Music Group Showcase at Pianos on October 21 with Wise Blood, Cities Aviv, Supreme Cuts, Evan Voytas, North Highlands, Hard Mix, and Chrome Sparks. Tickets for this show are on sale now. The next night, he'll play the Reverb showcase at Fontana's on October 22 with Caveman, Gauntlet Hair, Balkans, 1,2,3, Hands, and Flashlights. He's also been announced for this year's SUNY Purchase Fall Fest, which is not technically open to non-students.

All dates, video, and artwork below...

Continue reading "check out R E A L M A G I C (MP3s & CMJ dates)"

by Andrew Sacher

New album STROKED: A Tribute to Is This It, as the title hints, is a tribute to The Strokes' massively influential debut Is This It. The album was released for free on Stereogum today (7/26). They write:

Is This It was recorded in NYC at Transporterraum with Gordon Raphael. When it was finally released in the States in the Fall of 2001, a decade after Nevermind, it helped not only put contemporary New York City in the forefront of music lovers' minds, it offered an easy reference for people to dig backwards into the Big Apple's rock 'n' roll past. For certain younger fans, it was maybe the first time they carefully considered Television (the late '70s), the Velvet Underground (mid '60s to early '70s), and other lesser known garage and rock and whatever bands that inhabited a dirtier, grubbier Manhattan. The title's pure Richard Hell. The original sexy album cover a minimalist echo of New York Dolls (via Roxy Music). It's no coincidence that 2001 NYC -- eventually, especially Brooklyn -- ended up being known for its post-punk revival. (See, for instance, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, Black Dice, Vice Records' No New York nodding collection Yes New York, etc.) Is This It was a history lesson, but one with enough new ideas to also offer a roadmap.

--
Cities Aviv

Wise Blood contributed "Someday" to "Stroked". He and fellow weirdo rapper Cities Aviv share a bill on September 1 at Glasslands in Brooklyn. The show is one of many scheduled around the world for Wise Blood, but is Cities Aviv's only date we see scheduled at the moment. Tickets for the Brooklyn show are on sale now.

Wise Blood's tour includes another NYC show two days later. He plays a Jelly RockBeach show on September 3 with Pictureplane and others TBA. More dates are listed below.

Cities Aviv, the self-proclaimed "Post-Death" rapper, is also on the Glasslands bill with Wise Blood. The Memphis native released his debut full length Digital Lows on May 2. The album's production credits go to a number of virtually unknown producers, Muted Drone, RPLD GHOSTS, Danny Dee, Upgrayde, and Royal'T. The beats are dreamy, reverb-soaked headknockers that sound about as woozy as that album art (below) looks. Cities Aviv takes the beats, which on their own would make up a pretty solid chillwave album, and spits biting lines with a classic southern drawl. Fille Catatonique provides sung vocals which blend quite nicely with the album's vibes. The final track, "Float On," features Cities Aviv rapping over chillwaver Blackbird Blackbird's cover of the Modest Mouse song, that he recorded for 2010's Happy High EP. It's a fun way to end the album, and is far better than Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Must Go On," which sampled the Modest Mouse song earlier this year.

Cities Aviv isn't exactly the only rapper crossing into lo-fi/indie-approved territory lately, but he's certainly approaching the crossover from a unique angle. Digital Lows isn't nearly as blown out as, say, Shabazz Palaces, but he's still got way more experimentation going on than guys like Wiz Khalifa or Theophilus London. Grab the album for free at his bandcamp and check out some songs below.

All tour dates, videos, album art and tracklist below...

Continue reading "Stereogum giving away Strokes tribute album, Cities Aviv giving away an album too, playing Glasslands w/ Wise Blood"