photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

Fleet Foxes, touring in support of their new Sub Pop album Helplessness Blues, played their first of two shows at United Palace Theater in NYC last night (5/18) with the Cave Singers. Pictures from the show, including one of the setlist, are in this post.

They do it again tonight, then appear on Fallon Friday, and finish the tour in Upper Darby, PA on Saturday. Fleet Foxes' other upcoming dates, mostly scheduled in July, now also include Austin City Limits in September. All of them are listed below.

You'll notice on the Wednesday night setlist it says "solo break." That's when Robin Pecknold came out and played "Oliver James" to lead off the encore. Robin, who toured solo with Joanna Newson not too long ago, released a free 3-song solo EP even more recently. That EP, which contains a duet with Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear and a Chris Thompson cover, can be downloaded and streamed, under the rest of the pictures, below...

Continue reading "Fleet Foxes & the Cave Singers played United Palace (night 1 pics & setlist, more dates & Robin's free EP too)"

Solange & Ed...

Her recent credits include playing with Dirty Projectors at Fashion Week and singing with Of Montreal at Highline and Terminal 5. Now Solange is DJing at Brooklyn Bowl on Friday, June 18th. I'm not totally sure if she's a good DJ or not, but tickets are on sale.

That's her in the picture above with her friend Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear who maybe she'll be checking out Sunday at Williamsburg Waterfront (again).

Grizzly Bear also have a NYC show coming up later in the summer at Governors Island with the Walkmen (tickets are still on sale). The Walkmen have just announced a new album! Pitchfork reports:

"Yesterday, we reported that Interpol's new album comes out September 14. As it turns out, September 14 will be a big day for bruised, world-weary New York indie rock, since that's also the date that Fat Possum will release Lisbon, the new album from the Walkmen.

The band recorded the follow-up to 2008's You & Me over two years, working in warehouses in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. They also wrote a few songs on trips to the Portuguese city that gave the album its title. St. Vincent/Mountain Goats/Thermals knob-twiddler John Congleton produced the 11-song album, and Passion Pit/Les Savy Fav veteran Chris Zane engineered it."

As Pitchfork said right there, Interpol's new album is coming soon too, and their old label Matador will be releasing it in the US! In the UK it will be Interpol's "own newly formed label, Soft Limit" that puts it out on September 13th (one day before the US). More details below. Interpol, now with a new 5-person lineup, are playing a free NYC show on June 26th.

Back to Solange for s second... She blogs that that she is in the process of finishing her new, indie (as in not on her former label, Interscope) album with indie rocker Dev from Lightspeed Champion (something that was originally reported a while back). That update is below...

Continue reading "Interpol (on Matador!), the Walkmen & Solange Knowles (who is DJing Brooklyn Bowl) are releasing new albums "

words by Rachel Kowal, photos by Getty Images for American Express
--

All week, The National has sponsored nightly events at their "High Violet Annex" to celebrate the release of their highly anticipated fifth album, High Violet. On Friday they even performed a set of National songs at the space. Saturday night's sold-out "ZYNC from American Express Presents The National to Benefit Red Hot" show at BAM capped off the week's festivities which started earlier the same evening at the Annex where 70-or-so lucky attendees were, unexpectedly, given tickets to the BAM show and then bussed to the Brooklyn venue to see the show...

the bus @ BAM

The BAM show began with a brief behind-the-scenes video about their recording process, and then the band launched into "Mistaken for Strangers" and then played a string of new songs. Though the National is technically a quintet, as many as nine additional people joined them on stage to play a variety of string and brass instruments. Sufjan Stevens joined the band to sing backing vocals (like he did on Letterman) on a handful of songs. Sometimes National-members Padma Newsome and Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) made a rare appearance together on stage (usually its one or the other as a member of the band). The biggest surprise band member of the night was the Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry who sang backup and played a variety of instruments throughout the set. Richard, Sufjan and Thomas all also contributed to High Violet which is out now.

With its ornate molding, dramatic curtains, and theater-like seating, BAM may be a bit of an odd choice to host what is essentially a rock show, but the beautiful space complimented the dapperly dressed band and gave them enough room to spread out on stage. Possibly sensing that something was not quite right, lead singer Matt Berninger hopped off the stage and began pulling people up into a standing position early into the show.

Throughout the show, Berninger was a sight to behold. One moment, he'd take a sip of white wine and sing softly into the mic stand and the next, he's wildly pacing back and forth on stage with his head down, pounding his hands together like a mad man. The contrast between Berninger's smooth baritone voice and his manic behavior makes for a dynamic performance. During the four-song encore, Berninger leapt off stage again and rushed the audience in the orchestra section. With his impossibly long mic chord trailing behind him, Berninger climbed desperately over anything in his path - be it chairs or people. From the middle of a row, he stood recklessly on a chair, screaming the chorus to "Mr. November" into the faces of ecstatic fans.

When all was said and done, The National played the entirety of High Violet in addition to a number of older songs. Film directors D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus were on hand to direct the live webcast of the concert that was happening on YouTube (the band addressed the Internet audience a few times), and which you can still watch there (some videos below too).

After the show, a fancy ZYNC-sponsored afterparty was held around the corner at One Hanson Place, aka the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, downstairs in the old bank's bottom floor (now used as an event space). The National, their friends and associates, partied until late with an invite-only crowd that also included members of Grizzly Bear and Beirut, and some celebrities who had attended the show (like Julia Stiles). And there was a lot to party about - recently completed Europe tour and a week of festivities in NYC aside - High Violet is selling really well too. More pictures from the show and the afterparty, with the setlist and some videos below...

Continue reading "The National & guests played BAM & YouTube (pics & video) "

Estimated Value: Priceless
Item Number 128
Item Description
These are very rare, limited edition Daft Punk toy robots called "Daft Punk 1000% Kubricks" made by the legendary Japanese toy manufacturer Medicom in collaboration with the legendary Hong Kong based toy manufacturers, Silly Thing.
They have both been signed and decorated by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Momem-Christo, of Daft Punk
They sell new for $2000 for the pair.
They are 25" tall.

... and the bidding is currently at $1900. Other items for sale at "Crafts for a Cause" include a Chan Marshall (Cat Power) "I Love You" painting, an Aziz Ansari caricature, Natalie Portman's worn shoes, an Adam Green t-shirt, a Kimya Dawson tote bag, a Feist shirt, a Devendra Banhart painting, plus stuff by Regina Spektor, Mars Volta, Fleet Foxes, Tegan & Sara, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, Sia, Norah Jones, and Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear's childhood guitar....

Continue reading "Daft Punk dolls, Ed Droste's guitar & other stuff for charity"

What makes an album great? And perhaps even more critical for this list, what makes a great album gay? To create our list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time, we polled more than 100 actors, comedians, musicians, writers, critics, performance artists, label reps, and DJs, asking each to list the 10 most important albums of their lives. After receiving responses from Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, the Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, Perez Hilton, Nate Berkus, Jake Shears, Ed Droste, Nico Muhly, John Cameron Mitchell, Wilson Cruz, Junior Vasquez, Janis Ian, Lady Bunny and a slew of others, we tallied the results to determine our top-100 list. [Out]

And the gayest album of all time goes to.... David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The entire list is at Out's site. They also ranked the The Gayest Christmas Songs, and The Gayest Videos

Pitchfork also just released their list of the Best Albums of 2009.

photos by Jonny Leather

Department of Eagles and Here We Go Magic played Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Monday night (1/19). More pictures from the show below...

Continue reading "Department of Eagles & Here We Go Magic @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC - pics"

Ed Droste @ Lollapalooza 2008 (by Bao Nguyen) (Zach shot them too)

Currently on tour with Radiohead, Grizzly Bear's next NYC-area shows are this Friday at the All Points West Festival and the very next night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I sent Grizzly Bear frontman Ed Droste a few quick questions to see how he was doing....

---

How is the Radiohead tour going? How was Lollapalooza? Any good stories?

Ed: It's been so amazing. It's definitely an entirely new experience for us, we aren't used to, and will likely never play spaces this big again, and we're still getting our festival legs. As many people might imagine our sound isn't exactly catered to a massive outdoor setting, but we are giving it our best. Playing Montreal was insane, the biggest crowd we've ever played for, about 30K people actually in the pouring rain, just incredibly amped up for Radiohead. It was extremely surreal. A rainbow came out as well at one point.

Paul Simon or Radiohead?...

Continue reading "an(other) interview w/ Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste "

photos by Zach Dilgard

After the set we [Grizzly Bear] decided to unwind and watched both CSS and Radiohead's set. Tomorrow we meet Radiohead for the first time and to say we are beyond excited is an understatement. It was surreal watching them with Kele from Bloc Party and the Yeasayer guys all just marvelling at how insanely great Radiohead are, and how universally loved. Literally what I would guess was 70 thousand people singing along to "All I need" is a pretty spectacular sight. I can't even believe we get to share the stage with them the next few weeks. [Ed Droste]

You saw the setlist. More pictures from Friday night's headlining Radiohead performance, below...

Continue reading "Radiohead @ Lollapalooza 2008, Chicago, IL - pics"

DOWNLOAD: Sidetrack (Dirty Projectors) - Too Much Pressure (MP3)

This song will appear in the soundtrack for an independent film, 'Vernon Avenue' by Steffani Jemison and Amiel Melnick that takes place in Bed Stuy. The words are adapted from a scene in the movie where a man is teaching a girl how to play the guitar. I wrote the music, SideTrack and I co-produced. They are playing second at the Bowery on Tues, after Julianna Barwick and before White Williams." -Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors

This song is the perfect addition to one of my favorite albums of the year.

Tonight's show is still not sold out (Dec 4, 2007). Sidetrack was also scheduled to back Grizzly Bear on Conan O'Brien - the show that never happened due to the writer's strike. Grizzly Bear recently offered up these two sweet tracks.....

DOWNLOAD: Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) - Too Little Too Late (Jo Jo cover) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Grizzly Bear - Graceland (Paul Simon) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Feist - Intuition (alternate version) (MP3)

Ed Droste top 15 albums of 2007 below.....

Continue reading "Sidetrack, Dirty Projectors, Bowery show, Julianna Barwick, Grizzly Bear, Daniel Rossen & Ed's top 15 (MP3s)"