Video from David Letterman, Craig Ferguson and Carson Daly, below...

Continue reading "Band of Horses, She & Him & Hold Steady were on TV last night (videos)"

Phosphorescent @ the Bell House in 2009 (more by Ryan Barkan)

tonight in NYC
* It is It @ Pianos
* Whiplash @ UCB
* Ratt @ Irving Plaza
* Chicha Libre @ Barbes
* Mike Birbiglia @ Union Hall
* Ricky Gervais @ Hunter College
* Phosphorescent @ Other Music
* Aqualung, Krista Polvere @ City Winery
* Magnetic Fields movie @ the Bell House
* Ane Brun, Olof Arnalds @ Bowery Ballroom
* Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir @ Union Pool
* The Joy Formidable & She Keeps Bees @ Mercury Lounge
* Crash Ensemble plays Donnacha Dennehy, David Lang and Terry Riley @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Silya, Debbie Miller, Sam Bisbee, The Last 55s, Jim Campilongo Electric Trio @ The Living Room

Phosphorescent is at Other Music tonight and play Union Pool tomorrow.

The Joy Formidable play Mercury Lounge tonight, and you can catch them live on the Internet at noon.

Craig Ferguson is playing Carnegie Hall on October 23rd at 2pm (on sale today at 11am) and 7pm (already on sale).

Local Natives made their late night television debut on Craig Ferguson the other day. Video below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

words & photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

A small group huddled around Kenny McKeeve and Gavin Dunbar not long after Camera Obscura's sold-out show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Sunday night (11/22). One globe-trotting fan from Toronto had recently seen and met the band in Barcelona and Glasgow on their recent tour across Europe prompting McKeeve to quip, "You've clocked a lot of miles, haven't you?"

Yet, the same could be said for Camera Obscura. It's hard to think of 2009 as a breakthrough year for a band that's been around in some form since 1996 with several critically-hailed records under its belt. But that's precisely what it was. They produced one of the finest records in 2009 - My Maudlin Career (4AD) - crossing the globe almost non-stop in support. They sold out four shows in New York City in venues of various sizes, made their US late-night television debut (video below), turned out three smartly done videos and still have more touring lined up at the start of next year.

The band showed no effects of their exhaustive schedule on Sunday. And there were several stretches where leadsinger Tracyanne Campbell could have not sung at all such was the crowd's voice on several of the songs, most notably, "French Navy". "Good singing," said Campbell after the song.

The crowd, which spanned from scenesters to indie pop kids and beyond, shook off pretensions and danced to all the upbeat numbers like "Honey In The Sun" and "Let's Get Out of This Country" while couples swayed and held onto each other during slower songs like "James" and "Pen and Notebook." It was timeless pop executed in winning fashion by a band performing at the top of their game.

On December 8th...

...they will be releasing a holiday single [via 4AD]! 'The Blizzard' will be available as a 7" & digital single with the album track 'Swans' as the b-side. 'The Blizzard' is a pretty dour song as far as "holiday" tunes are concerned. It was written by country artist Jim Reeves and is about a gentleman trying to get home to a gal named Mary Anne. He's riding a lame pony in a blizzard, and, well - it doesn't have a happy ending. He ends up just 100 yards short - ie: freezing to death before he gets there.

That's the cover art there to the right. Listen to "The Blizzard" in a YouTube below.

Papercuts is on tour with the band until December 3rd and opened this Brooklyn show. More pictures, the CO setlist, and all dates, below...

Continue reading "Camera Obscura played Music Hall of Williamsburg w/ Papercuts (pics & setlist), releasing holiday single (stream)"

Their first four albums had a hard-driving sound that occasionally flirted with rockabilly and blues; one critic suggests that X "were not just one of the greatest punk bands, but one of the greatest live rock acts of all time." By the time of their fifth album, Ain't Love Grand!, the band had taken a more mainstream hard rock-oriented direction, and began to appear on shows such as American Bandstand. X, however, had previously appeared on television for a 1984 performance on Late Night with David Letterman. [Wikipedia]

Last time members of legendary West Coast punk band X were in NYC town, it was just "Exene Cervenka and John Doe of X". They played shows at Joe's Pub and Music Hall of Williamsburg in January. Next time it will be the full band, at Bowery Ballroom, and for three nights in a row. Tickets for the May 29-31 shows go on sale Friday ($27 / $75 3 day ticket). All dates, and video from their recent appearance on Craig Ferguson, below...

Continue reading "X - 2009 tour dates (3 nights @ Bowery), Ferguson video "

photos by Zach Dilgard

"Somewhere around 10 p.m. (give or take 5-7 minutes) the Wu Tang Clan finally takes the stage. Pretty much everyone who I could recognize (Method Man, Ghostface Killah, etc.) was there, though I don't know what each and every member looks like, so I can't say for sure that every key member made the show.

Wu made sure to perform a bunch of their most well-known hits, including "C.R.E.A.M.," "Method Man," and "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F' Wit."

As I heard he tends to do, Method Man made sure to crowd-surf for a while.

The group also shouted out Old Dirty Bastard. And ODB's mom was at the show and came on stage, saying hello to the crowd for a second. They also did a bit of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya."..." [Inside Hoops]

Actually that recap is slightly wrong - Ghost wasn't there, but pretty much everyone else was - even RZA. There was also GZA (Genius), U-God, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killah, Cappadonna, Allah Mathematics, and Raekwon. More pictures and another review from last night's show (12/23), and a Christmas video featuring RZA, below...

Continue reading "Wu-Tang Clan @ Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC - pics"

Free Health Care

Craig Ferguson explains the whole thing really well before this taped No Age performance that aired last night...

Continue reading "No Age (without Obama shirt) on Craig Ferguson (video)"

Aug 27, 06:00 PM Comedy Central Presents in New York City: Anthony Jeselnik, Doug Benson
Aug 29, 06:00 PM Comedy Central Presents in New York City: John Mulaney, Kristen Schaal
Sep 06, 05:00 PM Family Feud
Sep 09, 03:30 PM Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Amanda Congdon. The Ting Tings
Sep 10, 03:30 PM Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Alice Cooper

That's a sample of the things you can get free tickets for.

by Klaus Kinski

Louis CK suprise appearance @ Pianos (more by Bao Nguyen)

The 2008 New York Comedy Festival is not until November 5-9, but tickets for lots of the shows start going on sale August 7th. The festival boasts some pretty massive talent, but the festival also boasts some enormous venues and somewhat hefty ticket prices. Individually, the tickets prices might not be so bad. But when you want to see 4 or 5 of these shows the overall cost (with fees) is a bit crippling. Some highlights of the Festival include:

• 11/6 - Louis CK - Town Hall
• 11/7 - An Evening with Craig Ferguson - Town Hall
• 11/8 - Sarah Silverman and Friends - Hammerstein Ballroom
• 11/8 - Tracy Morgan - Apollo Theater
• 11/9 - BJ Novak and Friends - Town Hall

What really has my curiosity going bonkers is the addition of "and Friends" to the Sarah Silverman and BJ Novak (The Office) shows. When Sarah performed at Carnegie Hall last year, her friends were Todd Barry and Doug Benson. TOTALLY worth the cost of admission. And BJ Novak, hilarious in his own right, has many many many very funny friends so there's a huge chance his show will absolutely blow the roof off of Town Hall. In their own words...

"We're thrilled to celebrate the fifth year of the New York Comedy Festival with such a talented and hilarious group of performers who are on the leading edge of the comedy business," said Caroline Hirsch, co-founder of the Festival and owner of Carolines on Broadway. "We are also very excited to launch a multi-year partnership with COMEDY CENTRAL, and look forward to working with them to extend the Festival's audience even further and to provide even more content and programming through COMEDY CENTRAL's various media platforms."

DOWNLOAD: Grand Archives - Torn Blue Foam Couch (MP3)

Sera Cahoone @ Sub Pop SXSW 2008 (more by Ryan Muir)

"How far will this thing go? And what the heck do we call it?

To answer the first question we need to look at the scene's origins. In the beginning, there were two bands.

The first is Carissa's Wierd, a Seattle "sadcore" band whose members included Sera Cahoone, Mat Brooke and Ben Bridwell. (Brooke and Bridwell went on to form Band of Horses, from which sprung Grand Archives). They were true originals, quiet, mournful and eerie; were briefly signed to Sub Pop; and were local favorites from the mid-'90s until their 2003 demise.

The second is Beachwood Sparks, a Los Angeles collective whose music was a clear and proud homage to the Byrds, Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield, the very same godfathers of the Moondoggies, Fleet Foxes and Grand Archives. Beachwood Sparks was also signed to Sub Pop, somewhere around 1999 until the band's dissolution in 2002."
[The new Seattle sound is pretty, pastoral and mellow]

Grand Archives @ Sasquatch 2008 (more by Chris Graham)

Grand Archives is an American indie rock band, formed in Seattle. The band, originally called Archives, is composed of several noted musicians from that city, led by Mat Brooke, former guitarist and vocalist for Carissa's Wierd and former guitarist for Band of Horses.

The band emerged, under their previous moniker, to little fanfare in March 2007.... [Wikipedia]

Grand Archives are on tour with Sera Cahoone. That's a lot of Carissa's Wierd. This Friday the 13th they'll be at Bowery Ballroom in NYC - part of a four band bill that also includes The M's and Centro-Matic. Then the next day you can catch both of them again at Union Hall in Brooklyn. All tour dates and some videos below....

Continue reading "Grand Archives & Sera Cahoone (a Sub Pop Seattle mellow double bill) - 2008 Tour Dates (Bowery & Union Hall)"

She & Him @ Webster Hall (more by Gabi Porter)

She & Him played the Craig Ferguson show last night....

Continue reading "She & Him on the Late, Late Show (video) "

Morrissey played on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the past two nights in a row. Both videos below...

Continue reading "Morrissey on the Late Late Show (2 nights, 2 videos)"

Continue reading "Grizzly Bear (w/ moustaches) on the Late Late Show (video)"