Solange at Bowery Ballroom in 2012 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

As noted, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival will return to BAM from April 25 - 27 and is again curated by The National's Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner. A partial list of 2013 performers has been announced and includes headliners The Roots, Solange and TV on the Radio, as well as Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Julia Holter and Here We Go Magic. Full list of announced performers is below.

Festival passes to all three days of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry are on sale now as are tickets to April 25 (The Roots), April 26 (Solange), and April 27 (TV on the Radio).

Continue reading "The Roots, Solange and TV on the Radio headlining 2013 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (initial line-up announced, tix on sale)"

Bang on a Can 2011 (more by Andrew Frisicano)

The 2012 River to River Festival kicked off today (6/17) at noon with the Bang on a Can Marathon at the World Financial Center Winter Garden. As mentioned the marathon runs through midnight and features a huge variety of performers including Kaki King, David Longstreth, Steve Reich, and many others.

If you missed it, the full schedule for today's marathon is listed below...

Continue reading "Bang on a Can Marathon kicked off today (running through midnight)"

Glenn Branca Ensemble at last year's Marathon (more by Andrew Frisicano)

As previously announced, the 2012 River to River Festival will kick off with the annual 12-hour Bang on a Can Marathon on June 17 from noon to midnight at the World Financial Center Winter Garden:

Some highlights include Bang on a Can All-Stars, astonishing cellist Maya Beiser, Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Band, sound pioneer Alvin Lucier, indie guitar sensation Kaki King, jazz genius Matthew Shipp, music by David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Steve Reich, David T Little, Ruby Fulton, Michael Harrison; film by Bill Morrison, and much more. Stay all Day!
Presented by River To River Festival, Arts Brookfield and Bang on a Can.

River to River just released the full Bang on a Can Marathon schedule which is detailed below.

Meanwhile, you can also catch Thurston Moore in NYC tonight (5/31) with Bill Nace and Joe McPhee.

Continue reading "Bang on a Can Marathon schedule released"

Bang on a Can Marathon last year (more by Andrew Frisicano)

Bang on a Can, who recently celebrated their 25th anniversary with a big show at Lincoln Center, bring the annual, free Marathon back to the World Financial Center Winter Garden this year from June 17,12PM - June 18, 12AM...

Bang on a Can brings its 25 Year celebration back downtown with its incomparable 12-hour super-mix of boundary-busting music from around the corner and around the globe. What started as a scruffy loft concert in Soho back in 1987, now ranks among the iconic annual concert events in NYC. This year's edition features rare performances by some of the most innovative musicians of our time side-by-side with some of today's newest music pioneers. Some highlights include Bang on a Can All-Stars, astonishing cellist Maya Beiser, Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Band, sound pioneer Alvin Lucier, indie guitar sensation Kaki King, jazz genius Matthew Shipp, music by David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Steve Reich, David T Little, Ruby Fulton, Michael Harrison; film by Bill Morrison, and much more. Stay all Day!
Presented by River To River Festival, Arts Brookfield and Bang on a Can.

Stay tuned for more details.

Nat Baldwin, David Longstreth and Brian McOmber play Black Flag
Delicate Steve plays the Minutemen
Ted Leo plays Minor Threat
Titus Andronicus plays the Replacements
Tune-Yards plays Sonic Youth
Dan Deacon plays the Butthole Surfers
St. Vincent plays Big Black
Wye Oak plays Dinosaur Jr
Buke & Gass plays Fugazi

No, that's not a list of what happened in a weird dream last night. That is the LINEUP of a NYC show at Bowery Ballroom on May 22nd in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Michael Azerrad's "classic history of the '80s indie underground", Our Band Could Be Your Life (a book everyone reading this site should probably own!)

To quote show co-presenter Tiger Mountain Presents, "some of the best bands in contemporary indie music will play songs by each of the 13 bands in the book."

"For years, all kinds of people -- musicians, people who run labels, concert promoters, journalists, whatever -- have told me that they've been very inspired by Our Band Could Be Your Life and the bands it profiles, which is incredibly gratifying and totally unexpected," says Azerrad. "The tenth anniversary of the book was a great occasion for the current generation of bands to celebrate these pioneers."

More bands & guest hosts TBA. Tickets are $25 & go on sale Friday, 3/11 at noon.

Meanwhile the book will also be the topic of a panel discussion at SXSW that Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs (who is also playing the festival) will speak on.

Ted Leo is headed to Austin too, an appearance at the BrooklynVegan official SXSW showcase included.

Delicate Steve and Wye Oak are going to SXSW too. Wye Oak can be found at the BV/KF/Partisan day party at Swan Dive on Friday, 3/18. Wye Oak will also play Bowery Ballroom as part of a tour in April.

St. Vincent plays Big Black. I just felt like saying it again!

Continue reading "'Our Band Could Be Your Life' 10th anniversary show lineup (Big Black, Black Flag & Fugazi songs will be played)"

photos by David Andrako

We arrived at about 9PM as Björk was hanging out behind the turntables gearing up to begin her set. The venue "Above The Auto Parts Store" was indescribably hot, but regardless fans packed in to get a glimpse of the one and only Björk. I was prepared to be at the venue for the long haul thinking Björk would be last, but she thankfully was second up on deck. DJ selections included a lot of obscure Asian and Middle Eastern house music, most notably including a cover of 2 Unlimited's "No Limit," along with Major Lazer/Crooker's "Jump Up!" [Tastes Like Caramel]

Bjork, Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors, Battles' Tyondai Braxton, and writers Alex Ross and Brandon Stosuy DJed at Above the Auto Parts Store on Sunday (5/2) at a benefit for Partners In Health, a health care nonprofit that works in Haiti. They called it "The Rites of Spring". Alex Ross posted his playlist, which paired The Ex, Justin Bieber, Stravinsky and more. That and more pictures from the event are posted below...

Continue reading "Bjork, Dave Longstreth, Tyondai Braxton & friends DJ'd for Haiti (in the heat) Above the Auto Parts Store (pics)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Sonic Youth - The Eternal (montage) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "June"(MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion performing Steve Reich's "Drumming, Part Three" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "Melody Competition" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "Fast"(MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "Go" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "March" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: So Percussion - "Work Slow Life"(MP3)

Bang on a Can All-Stars...

New work by Dirty Projector David Longstreth is OFF THE PROGRAM for the Bang on a Can All-Stars People's Commissioning Fund (PCF) concert on April 2nd at Merkin Hall. Maybe it has something to do with Longstreth currently playing Europe with Dirty Projectors, or the host of other shows the band has planned (including the Longstreth new-composition debut scheduled with Björk at Housing Works Bookstore & Café on May 8th).

The spot on the April 2nd concert is being filled by a piece composed by guitarist and Downtown muscian Fred Frith...

Fred Frith, the English guitarist and composer...is one of the more respected figures in the gray area of music where rock meets the avant-garde. A Dadaist improviser with a streak of the mystic in him, Mr. Frith, like that granddaddy of avant-gardists John Cage, finds music in everything that clanks, squeaks, rattles and hisses. He can turn just about anything lying around the house into a musical instrument. And in one sequence, he and some friends give an impromptu backyard performance of bossa nova music using rhythm instruments made of empty bottles and other household debris. [NY Times]

Tickets for the event are still on sale. Also on the bill for that night is "How Deep Are Rivers? (A Map is a Good Piece of Paper)," the "New York Premiere of a live collaboration with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth." Full program below.

The next scheduled Bang on a Can event (this time in collaboration with Wordless Music) takes place at LPR on April 22nd, with So Percussion performing as part of supergroup Signal. Tickets are available for the show, which will feature Bang on a Can founder Michael Gordon's Trance played in its entirety. Later this spring, both the Bang on a Can All-Stars and So Percussion will play the Look & Listen Festival 2009 in New York (May 1-3).

But before that, So Percussion plays at the MATA Festival (for young composer new-works) on Saturday, April 4th at (Le) Poisson Rouge. (Tickets are on sale.).

The group then performs with Matador band and Björk collaborators Matmos (and special guests PLOrk, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra) at The Kitchen on Friday, April 10th and Saturday, April 11th. Tickets for both Friday and Saturday are on sale: "All three [acts] will share the stage to preview songs from an upcoming collaborative album, as well as new arrangements of music from Matmos's Supreme Balloon and So Percussion's Amid the Noise."

Program for the April 2nd concert and videos from 1990 avant-doc on Fred Frith, Step Across the Border, below...

Continue reading "Longstreth drops off PCF, Matmos playing w/ So Percussion "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Sonic Youth - The Eternal (montage) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: David Byrne & Dirty Projectors - Knotty Pine (MP3)

Dan Deacon fans @ the 2008 Bang on a Can Marathon (more by Leia Jospe)

On April 2nd, 2009, New York's electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars return to New York's Merkin Hall for their annual People's Commissioning Fund Concert.

The All-Stars will perform three world premieres by international up-and-coming composers Kate Moore (Australia-Holland), Lok Yin Tang (Hong Kong), and New York's David Longstreth, also known widely for his ground-breaking indie rock band Dirty Projectors. The second half of the concert is a terrific double-feature: a recently commissioned work by the legendary American composer Alvin Lucier, and the New York Premiere of a live collaboration composed for the group by Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, for which Ranaldo will join the All-Stars on stage. The concert is a special edition of WNYC's New Sounds Live, hosted by John Schaefer.

Tickets are on sale.

David Longstreth has been keeping busy. He just premiered the Dirty Projectors' new 6-person line-up in anticipation of new album Bitte Orca, out June 9th on Domino. The MP3 above is his band's collaboration with David Byrne for the new Dark Was the Night charity album. On May 3rd they'll be performing at Radio City Music Hall for the same cause.

Ranaldo is also playing with Sonic Youth April 16th-19th at BAM, at No Fun Fest on May 16th, and on the band's 16th album, The Eternal, also out June 9th (on Matador).

Last year's Bang on a Can Marathon, the all-night fest happening this year at World Financial Center on May 31st, included a 4am Dan Deacon set (pic above). The lineup last year also included Signal (a.k.a. large ensemble w/ So Percussion) performing Steve Reich's Daniel Variations.

This Thursday (3/19), Reich will be speaking at Japan Society with Nobukazu Takemura and WNYC's John Schaefer in the first New Yorker/Nihonjin: Contemporary Cross-cultural Dialogues Series to "discuss post-minimalism, emerging trends in contemporary classical music and their collaboration on Reich Remixed." Tickets are available here. Reich Remixed (w/ tracks by DJ Spooky, Coldcut & more) is out now on Nonesuch (click for clips).

Signal (Brad Lubman, conductor) will be performing Michael Gordon's "Trance" at Le Poisson Rouge on April 22nd. The show is co-presented by the Wordless Music Series and Bang on a Can. Tickets are on sale. Signal will perform Philip Glass' Symphony No. 3 and Suite from The Hours with pianist Michael Riesman at the same venue on May 17th. Tickets are also on sale.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars (line-up below) are also performing at this year's Look & Listen Festival 2009 in New York (May 1-3) - which includes a So Percussion performance of John Cage's Third Construction and Child of Tree, and a Todd Reynolds and So Percussion collaboration on Meredith Monk's Gotham Lullaby (video below).

Full April 2nd Merkin Hall program and line-up below...

Continue reading "upcoming Bang on a Can, Signal & Steve Reich events - David Longstreth, Lee Ranaldo & Nobukazu Takemura included"