still from Ari Marcopoulos's film Detroit...

Ari Marcopoulos's photographs and videos capture the rhythm and feel of diverse youth-oriented subcultures from snowboarding to underground music. His honest portraits depict, as he has stated, "something that just stands for life lived." This evening, he brings together musicians from the electroacoustic improvisation scene, including Orphan and Yellow Tears, for a night of performance and noise. [Whitney]

Participants in the "performance and noise" described above will also include Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. It'll happen at the museum at 7:30pm on Friday, March 26th during the museum's pay-what-you-wish Fridays (6-9pm). That's less than a week before Thurston, drummer Ryan Sawyer and Daniel Carter play Rose Live Music.

In other SY news, the Thurston-led hardcore band re-forming for SXSW, Society's Ills, has changed is name to Demolished Thoughts (the lineup is still Thurston Moore: Vocals, J Mascis: Guitar, Don Fleming: Guitar, Andrew W.K.: Bass, Awesome Allison: Drums). They're playing at the Ecstatic Showcase on Friday, night (3/19) and a Mog day party on Saturday at the Mohawk (with the Black Keys). For their set, they'll expand on their 7 Seconds repertoire with a mix of hardcore selections from scenes that include Boston, Detroit, LA, DC and NYC.

Back in NYC, Lee Ranaldo, photographer/artist spouse Leah Singer and their two sons will be performing at IVANAHelsinki & Love Contemporary pop-up store (238 Mulberry St btwn Spring + Prince) on Sunday, March 14th. The event, titled "What Is That Little Black Thing I See There In The White?" features Lee Ranaldo/Leah Singer/Sage Ranaldo/Frey Ranaldo doing "Music/Movies/Candy/Paper Cutting." It's all ages and runs from 4-6:30pm.

Videos of some recent Lee Ranaldo sound performances are below...

Continue reading "Ari Marcopoulos @ the Whitney, Demolished Thoughts & other Sonic Youth-related happenings "

Garage noise punk band Tyvek is on a tour of the country, and of NY, with psychedelic punk band Awesome Color. The two Detroit bands already played a show on 3/3 @ the Bug Jar in Rochester and then one the night after that at Vasar. Last night (3/5) it was at Cafe 9 in New Haven CT, and tonight (3/6) they hit SUNY Purchase. Finally (on their NY-area itinerary), you can catch both bands on Sunday night (3/7) at Market Hotel in Brooklyn...

====| SUNDAY MARCH 7TH @ MARKET HOTEL |====

:: Awesome Color
:::: Tyvek
:::::: Talk Normal
:::::::: CSC Funk Band

| MARKET HOTEL |
1142 Myrtle Ave @ Bdwy | Bushwick, Bklyn
JMZ-Myrtle, L-Jefferson, G-Myrtle/Willoughby | 8pm | all ages | $8 - reduced!

As you can see above, Talk Normal and CSC Funk Band are also on the Brooklyn bill.

Tyvek & AC then stay on the road together through 3/27. That leg includes stops in Mexico and SXSW for both bands. One of Tyvek's Austin shows is the free BrooklynVegan/AnSo day party at Spider House on Thursday, 3/18. One of Awesome Color's shows is the official Ecstatic Peace showcase. On 4/5, Awesome Color hook up with Hair Police for another solid month of touring. All dates below...

Continue reading "Awesome Color touring w/ Tyvek & then Hair Police - 2010 dates (Market Hotel Sunday, SXSW & more) "

DOWNLOAD: Sweet Apple - Do You Remember (MP3)

Thurston w/ Sonic Youth @ MHOW in November (more by Lori Baily)

Society's Ills: In 1994 Society's Ills (Moore, Cadena, Watt, Markey) made their world premier with the now coveted "Skins, Brains, and Guts" release - a slab that managed to cram (9) 7 seconds covers onto one 7". In 2010, the band is back and once again fronted by Thurston but he brings with him a new crue of slayers to launch the hardcore fury:

Thurston Moore: Vocals
J Mascis: Guitar
Don Fleming: Guitar [SY producer & Velvet Monkeys/Gumball frontman]
Andrew W.K.: Bass
Awesome Allison: Drums [from Awesome Color]

This set is their first, but don't worry if you miss it cause I'm sure we can put this together again in another 15 years! [Ecstatic Peace]

Society's Ills play in addition to Thurston Moore solo, Talk Normal, The Entrance Band, Violent Soho, the Slits' Viv Albertine, Awesome Color, Jemina Pearl and more at the Ecstatic Peace SXSW Showcase happening Friday, March 19th at Red 7 in Austin. Curious about Society's Ills? Their version of 7 Seconds' "I Hate Sports" is below.

J Mascis will also be playing at SXSW with Sweet Apple, who are playing Mercury Lounge on April 20th. One of their SXSW sets will be at the showcase for TeePee Records, who are putting out the Sweet Apple debut, Love & Desperation, a track from which is above. That show is Thursday, March 18th at Habana Calle 6, and also on the bill are Priestess, Iron Age, Nebula, Naam, Imaad Wasif and more. Full details and a poster are below. Tee Pee Records has also teamed up with BrooklynVegan and Chronic Youth for another day party taking place on Saturday, March 20th in Austin. This is the first we've mentioned it. Stay tuned for more info.

Lou Barlow will also be at SXSW (backed again by The Missingmen) - one of his shows will be the Merge Records showcase at Cedar Street Courtyard on March 18th also featuring Let's Wrestle, She & Him, and others. Full lineup below. For She & Him it's one of two official SXSW shows. They also play Saturday night (March 20th) at Auditorium Shores (with Justin Townes Earle & TBA). Cheap Trick play the same slot at Auditorium Shores one night earlier.

Merge's showcase mentions that one slot will be filled by "Special Guest". We don't know who that is, but we'd have to guess Superchunk is a strong possibility since Mac & Laura have a speaking engagement (in a bookstore) on March 17th, and another one (official SXSW) at the convention center on March 19th (with Michael Azerrad), and the band is on the bill of the Village Voice day party happening at La Zona Rosa the afternoon of March 19th (with the xx, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Surfer Blood). It's definitely not Spoon who play the NPR show at Stubb's on March 17th with Deerhunter (their tour-mates) and The Walkmen.

Society's Ills Bassist Andrew W.K. will also be performing separately (and speaking) at SXSW (and at MtyMx in Mexico).

Kim and Thurston are playing with the Plastic Ono Band in their two-night Brooklyn Academy of Music run. They were at the dress rehearsal (aka the first night) last night (2/16). BV photographer Greg Cristman was in the audience and told us, "One definite highlight was Thurston and Kim played with Yoko as a trio and did a killer version of Mulberry from Unfinished Music No. 2 while the film Fly was projected on a huge screen behind them!" - a (poor quality) video clip of one of the other songs is below.

Full lineups for the showcases and videos are below...

Continue reading "Thurston Moore (& Kim) rehearsed w/ Yoko @ BAM, recreating Society's Ills (w/ Mascis, WK), appearing @ SXSW (like She & Him, Merge Records, Tee Pee...) "

by Andrew Frisicano

Jemina Pearl @ Union Pool...

The audience was left to wonder exactly what happened when Jemina Pearl walked off stage less than 30 minutes into her headlining set Saturday night (2/13) at Union Pool. The question wasn't the shortness itself, but the abruptness of her departure: after getting increasingly frustrated with something, she kicked the drum set, gave the one-finger salute to her band and left, to the stunned then embarrassed faces of her supporting trio. The show was really just getting started. "As long as everyone had fun, that's what matters," said the bass player sheepishly before getting a lit cigarette thrown at him by the singer, in a brief return to the stage.

They did manage to get through "I Hate People," a cover of "Band on the Run" and a handful of others (though not "Heartbeats" which one of the most enthusiastic fans requested as a not-to-be encore). It was an awkward hometown end to nearly a month of touring.

Openers Harlem were admirably sloppy and enthused (it's hard not to think of a less manic Black Lips). Their animated, banadana-ed singer/guitarist and more straight-laced drummer swapped roles halfway through the set, which brought out a different dynamic for sure - round two was cleaner with more of a focus on pointed guitar riffs and less on effusive vocals. The Austin band's second album is due this summer on Matador, and they'll be touring the West Coast for the next few weeks.

Jemina's next scheduled show/shows are SXSW. The full Ecstatic Peace SXSW showcase lineup (Thurston Moore, J Mascis & Andrew WK included), more Union Pool pictures, a video and Harlem tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Jemina Pearl played Brooklyn w/ Harlem, stormed off stage (pics), playing SXSW w/ Thurston, J. Mascis, Andrew WK"

photos by Lori Baily

Matador Records helped Sonic Youth celebrate the release of their new record The Eternal with a party at Home Sweet Home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan last Friday. The semi-private show had local bands playing Sonic Youth covers while the actual Sonic Youth was hanging out in the crowd.

Bands included The Antlers, Tiny Masters of Today, Apache Beat, The Homosexuals (backed by members of Fiasco), and "The Goo Believers" (at least that's what I think they called themselves). They were Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine), Jemina Pearl (Be Your Own Pet, Ecstatic Peace label), Matt Krefting (Ecstatic Peace label), Zachary Cale, John Maloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man), and Jaiko Suzuki (Electroputas). You can see Thurston Moore watching them from the sidelines in some of the pictures below...

Continue reading "pics from Sonic Youth's 'Eternal' party @ Home Sweet Home (Homosexuals, a supergroup of Thurston's friends, more)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: MV & EE and the Golden Road - Anyway (MP3)

The New England psych-raga rockers MV+EE and the Golden Road are playing tonight (1/20) at Cake Shop (set at 11pm, $7, 21+), and tomorrow (1/21) at Monster Island Basement with Spectre Folk, Kurt Vile, Pink Reason, and Christian DeRoek of Little Gold (8pm, $7, all ages). After a Jan/Feb tour down the East Coast, MV+EE will then get back to NYC for a February 27 gig at Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint with Marissa Nadler and Mountainhood (a.k.a. Michael Curtis Hilde who's hosting the gig as part of his The Story series - this one is Chapter XII: Blisses).

Today, MV+EE and the Golden Road dropped a new duo-and-friends LP/CD, Drone Trailer, this time on San Francisco's Dicristina Stair Builders label. The band, fond of recording and releasing albums, worked with Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label on 2007's Gettin' Gone and last year's Astral Bleachers/Big Moment limited-edition live bootleg. The band's blog also reports that "[MV+EE] got some deep live archives being waxed for heroine celestial agriculture[EE's label] for the jan/feb tour as well as a sweet deluxe C.O.M. - all heads be united." I'm not really sure what that last part means...

Thurston Moore recently gave his Top 10 of 2008 - listing MV Carbon's The Dislodged Parahelion CD at No. 7. MV Carbon, a Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist, is a similarly dubbed, but totally different person than MV+EE's Matt Valentine. All tour dates and a video below...

Continue reading "MV & EE - 2009 tour dates & more album releases "

According to her (and Be Your Own Pet's) label Ecstatic Peace, ex-Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl is busy "writing and recording" her debut solo album. Since BYOP broke up, Jemina surfaced once in the form of a Ramones cover she sang with Ecstatic Peace label boss Thurston Moore for an episode of Gossip Girl. She'll surface again (now with brown hair?) when she opens for The Fluid at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn this Saturday night (1/17). It is apparently her first, and only scheduled, solo show, for now. Denver band The Overcasters are also on the bill. Tickets are still on sale.

The Fluid and The Overcasters also play Maxwell's in Hoboken on Friday, one night earlier (tix).

Listen to Jemina and Thurston in the video below...

Continue reading "Jemina Pearl of BYOP writing, recording, playing a show"

"By now you probably know the story ... days before the release of their sophomore album Get Awkward (Ecstatic Peace / Universal) Be Your Own Pet were informed by the Universal Records higher ups (ya know, the people in suits in the corner office at the top of the building) that three tracks on the album were too violent for the impressionable ears of Be Your Own Pet fans. The band was given the option of recording the tracks without the offending lyrics or taking them off the album. Not wanting to give up artistic control they chose the latter and thus off the album came\"Becky,\" a song about kicking the ass of your former best friend, the nihilistic\"Black Hole\" and\"Blow Yr Mind\" which is about just that.

XL Recordings (Be Your Own Pet\'s label outside of North Amercia) then entered the picture. The indie had no problem releasing Get Awkward as it was given to them and is only too happy to be putting out this Get Damaged EP so America can finally hear the songs that were banned for being too violent.

Get Damaged is currently available via itunes and will be in-stores on June 24." [official PR]

Be Your Own Pet are playing McCarren Pool with Black Keys and Tapes n Tapes on August 7th. Tickets are still on sale. All tour dates below....

Continue reading "Be Your Own Pet censored EP & 2008 Tour Dates (McCarren)"