photos by Tim Griffin, words by Andrew Frisicano

You Are Here (The Maze) is underway at Death By Audio. Last Friday (9/11) featured music from A Place to Bury Strangers, The Sian Alice Group, Nine 11 Thesaurus (pictured above and below), Experimental Dental School and Reading Rainbow. Tim stopped by early, before heading to Wild Beasts at Union Pool followed by The Intelligence at Market Hotel. Tim liked Nine 11 Thesaurus and appreciated the art, but wasn't a huge fan of The Maze from the point of view of someone actually wanting to see the bands who are playing. As you can sort of see in the picture above, you walk through a maze which ends at the stage where just a few handfuls of people can actually see what's going on... but maybe that's the point.

You can see more of the new setup in the pics below, or you can head over there yourself. Tonight (9/14) features music from a collection of K Records artists - label founder Calvin Johnson, Arrington de Dionyso and Desolation Wildnerness - with Regattas and City Center (who, with Desolation Wilderness, played at Cake Shop Sunday with the Intelligence). City Center, re-figured somewhat recently into a duo, is on tour (dates below).

Arrington de Dionyso, whose new record ,Malaikat dan Singa, comes out on the label November 3rd, plays two sets at Bowery Poetry Club's ESP Disk Live, with Calvin Johnson doing the other, on September 15th. He's also at Santos's Musicka Mystica Maxima Fest on September 21st and returns to DBA for a collaboration with co-curator Sam Hillmer on September 24th (full Maze schedule).

More pictures and tour dates are below...

Continue reading "The Maze is happening (pics) - continues w/ K Records crew ++ Calvin Johnson, Arrington de Dionyso & City Center dates"

'this week in indie' PART TWO actually...

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Super Furry Animals - Inaugural Trams (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Intelligence - Thank You God for Fixing the Tape Machine (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Desolation Wilderness - Boardwalk Theme (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Woven Bones - Yr Sorcery (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Box Elders - Hole in My Head (MP3)
STREAM: Kings of Convenience - Boat Behind (asx STREAM)

Earlier this week we had two nights with Sondre Lerche and tonight (9/10) is more Norwegian jazz pop when Kings of Convenience play a sold-out Bowery Ballroom, their only U.S. show, that I'm guessing they're playing while in NYC doing press for their new album, Declaration of Dependence, which is out next month. Quiet remains the new loud for Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye if the reports are true that the single "Mrs. Cold" is the really the most upbeat track on the record. If so, it's going to be a super mellow one, though really you could say that about all their records. I think we tend to remember singles like "I'd Rather Dance With You" and forget that the rest of Riot on an Empty Street was pretty spare too. I've only heard a few tracks from the new one, so I'm looking forward to more tonight. Hopefully we'll get a lot of everything, as they don't play America very often. As there's no opener, we can hope for an epic "evening with Kings of Convenience." The band's on at 9:30.

As I'm sure you've heard if you read this site with any regularity, this weekend is All Tomorrow's Parties and if you're not going there's a little runnoff with bands playing New York shows around it. Case in point: Super Furry Animals will do their only U.S. shows in support of new album Dark Days/Light Years. Specifically, tomorrow's (9/11) show at Highline Ballroom (Tickets still available) is the "only U.S. club show for 2009" and Saturday (9/12) at Maxwell's (tickets) is the "only U.S. restaurant concert this year!"

I'm a huge SFA fan, think they're one of the most consistently great bands of the last 15 years. I've seen them upwards of 20 times and they're always entertaining. Their live shows got a little over-the-top around 2005's Love Kraft with electric jumpsuits, synched video projections and prerecorded backing tracks, but they've scaled back the last couple years and there's a more spontaneous vibe these days. And the new album is really good, a nice mix of punchy rockers, sunshine pop, epic space rock, Welsh boogie, and weird disco. In other words, a Super Furry Animals album.

Woven Bones

Did I mention this weekend is super-packed? Austin's Woven Bones are on a fairly extensive U.S. tour, making two stops in NYC this weekend with Seattle's The Spits. They play the brand-new Knitting Factory on Friday (9/11) and Cake Shop on Saturday (9/12). Woven Bones spew out dirty, fuzzed-up blues-punk surf rock. Their new EP, which they will hopefully have for sale this weekend, is on San Diego's Zoo Music who put out the first Crocodiles single and a Dum Dum Girls EP, so that right there should give you an idea what to expect. You can download the a-side from their "Yr Sorcery" single at the top of this post. The Spits, meanwhile, straddle the line between straight-up garage punk and Devo-esque lo-fi keyboard proto-punk. Both are pretty catchy, but I think the latter is more interesting as you just don't hear that sort of thing so much these days. And something tells me their show might lean toward the theatrical. If you can't make either of these shows, Woven Bones play Monster Island Basement next Wednesday (9/16) with Box Elders, and then Cake Shop again next Friday (9/18) with Girls at Dawn and Reading Rainbow.

The Spits

We'll continue with the garagey sounds because Seattle's mighty Intelligence hit New York this weekend too, playing Market Hotel on Friday (9/11) and Cake Shop on Sunday (9/13). The Intelligence's new album, Fake Surfers, has yet to get old for me, I listen to it at least once a week. I think it's one of the year's best. While the building blocks are the same (surf, garage, reverb, distortion), Lars Finberg exists in his own weird universe of lyrics and sound and his songs just come out different than your Oh Sees or Sic Alps or Ty Segalls. (All of whom I love too, btw.) I know this weekend is choc-full of must-see shows, but make some time for the Intelligence.

The Market Hotel show also features Brooklyn's own (and awesome) Golden Triangle, plus Wild Yaks, Arrington de Dionyso (of Old Time Religun) and Smarts.

Desolation Wilderness

The Intelligence Cake Shop Show on Sunday is with fellow Seattle band Desolation Wilderness who are worth seeing as well. If you like the breezy beach music that is coming out of NJ's Underwater Peoples (or anything Dean Wareham's ever done), then you'll probably dig Desolation Wilderness if you if you're not already familiar with them. Their new album, New Universe, is their second for K Records and is just lovely stuff -- languid, dreamy melodies, with guitar flourishes that ebb in and out, perfect for this late summer weather. You can download "Boardwalk Theme" from the new album at the top of this post. They also play Silent Barn on Saturday (9/12) with Real Estate and "The Maze" at Death by Audio on Monday (9/14).

As mentioned fleetingly in the bit about Woven Bones, Omaha, Nebraska trio Box Elders are here next week before hitting their record label's garage rock extravaganza, Gonerfest in Memphis from Sept. 24 - 26. They play Cake Shop on Tuesday (9/15) and Monster Island Basement the next night. These are their first NYC shows since April, and their first since the release of their debut LP, Alice and Friends. With that Leslie speaker keyboard sound and their major chord melodies, Alice and Friends is like '60s bubblegum and R&B as reproduced by a bunch of kids in a basement. Which I guess it kind of is. They are really entertaining live, with drummer Dave Golberg simultaneously manning his kit as well as the keyboards, and brothers Jeramiha and loin-cloth clad Clayton McIntyre rocking and bouncing in the foreground. It's a fun show.

So that'll do it for this weekend. For more picks (Marmoset, Wild Beast) see yesterday's TWII Pt 1. Videos and tour dates for most bands mentioned can be found below...

Continue reading "Woven Bones, Intelligence, Desolation Wilderness, Kings of Convenience, Box Elders, SFA & more in This Week in Indie "

Sam Hillmer (left) playing with Zs @ the Yard (more by Sarahana)

You Are Here (The Maze) is a performance festival in a sculptural maze taking place at Williamsburg's Death By Audio from September 10 - October 2, 2009. Emphasizing the sprawling and interconnected nature of New York's underground, a trip through the maze offers a peak inside NYC's diy art/music scene. A meditation on passage and desire, You Are Here engulfs the space and presents beckoning inhabitants, dead ends, and uplifting epitaphs. Medium and genre vary and overlapping and simultaneous performances are frequent, each performer establishing a different corner or dead end as his or hers.

The lineup and installation is being put together by TROUBLE (Sam Hillmer & Laura Paris). Acts in the three-week schedule include Calvin Johnson, Screaming Females, Mick Barr, Ty Segal, Grooms, Extra Life and others.

Skeletons kick off the first night of the festival on September 10th as the Skeletons Big Band, a 12-piece band (expanded from their usual four) that's also playing September 7-9th at Roulette. There they'll be performing "New Works for a Larger Ensemble" which includes "excerpts and new arrangements from their record in progress "PEOPLE," a long form piece based around conversations in Greyhound busses and stations, and beyond..."

The full schedule for the Maze (and the lineup for Skeletons Big Band) is below...

Continue reading "Death By Audio's The Maze - schedule (includes 1 of 4 upcoming Skeletons Big Band shows & much more) "

Remember Death By Audio's 12-hour benefit on July 25th for something called You Are Here: A Maze?

Sam Hillmer & Laura Paris, who dubbed their art collaboration Trouble, had the first You Are Here festival in 2007, at 44th street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Paris drew out the floor-plan of the maze, while Hillmer, who plays tenor saxophone for the Zs, booked bands to play in the space and coordinated efforts to bring people inside to interact with the maze.

"It didn't seem like the kind of thing that could just sit in a gallery, it needs constant traffic," Hillmer explained. "That is the piece, people dealing with the situation [presented by the maze]."

This year's festival, scheduled for Spetember 10th through October 2nd, will take up the entire space of Death by Audio and feature a maze constructed out of salvaged doors from Built It Green, a nonprofit organization that sells surplus building materials. The space will also have woodchip-covered floors ("to reference mazes built out of bushes," Hillmer notes). The twists and turns of the venue will be littered by some 200 of Paris' sculptures, molded from some of her pieces and then cast repeatedly. [Greenpoint Gazette]

According to the promoter, "Medium and genre vary and overlapping and simultaneous performances are frequent, each performer establishing a different corner or dead end as his or hers." Sounds fun.

The preliminary lineup (aka almost a month's worth of shows at the venue while the maze is up) mixes interesting out of town names (Calvin Johnson, Ty Segal, The Coathangers) with local acts like Skeletons (as 'Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities'), Mick Barr (he is local right?), Extra life and Stars Like Fleas. Full lineup to be announced soon but more of it is below, along with video footage of the first Maze (starring Dave Longstreth, Thee Oh Sees and others), and other details and the flyer for the new Maze...

Continue reading "Death by Audio maze installation running Sept 10-Oct 2 (Skeletons, Mick Barr, Calvin Johnson, Extra Life, Ty Segall)"