LA Fest FYF Fest is celebrating 10 years this year, and will take over Los Angeles State Historic Park on August 24 & 25. Check out the massive lineup in the poster above, and in alphabetical order below...

Continue reading "FYF Fest 2013 Lineup (My Bloody Valentine included)"

photos by Debi Del Grande

Atlas Sound / Dinosaur Jr. / crowd

LA's FYF Fest wrapped up on Sunday (9/2) after kicking off one day earlier. Sunday's portion of the fest gave us sets by Yeasayer, Dinosaur Jr., American Nightmare, Atlas Sound, Wild Nothing, Desaparecidos (Conor Oberst's old band who reformed this year), Paul Banks, Ceremony, Cursive, and many more.

Pictures of day 1 are HERE and more pics of day 2 are below.

Continue reading "FYF Fest 2012: day 2 in pics (Yeasayer, Dinosaur Jr., American Nightmare, Atlas Sound, Wild Nothing and more)"

photos by Debi Del Grande

Refused / Warpaint / Sleigh Bells, FYF Fest 9/1/2012

...Next came the great Warpaint / Hot Snakes / Chromatics dilemma of 2012. We love Hot Snakes, but with not-to-be missed hardcore Refused closing the evening, we needed something cerebral.

We picked Warpaint, and it made all the difference. The Angeleno quartet packed the main stage area to an earnestly mind-blowing set. No joke. Stella Mozgawa's metronomically perfect drumming is infused with the right amount of personality and swagger. To say nothing of the occasionally ethereal vocals and sonically interdimensional floating guitar licks. On top of the brain high, the all-lady act Warpaint drives a bit of a body-moving groove. If it weren't for the, er, gopher pockmarked ground, we might have just laid down and vibed out or whatever. Enough people did anyways... -[LA Weekly]

The ninth annual FYF Fest happened in Los Angeles with an incredibly stacked line-up that included M83, Warpaint, The Vaselines, Sleigh Bells, Fucked Up, The Men, Redd Kross, Refused, Chromatics, Cloud Nothings and loads more. And that was just the first day. Pictures of those bands and more from Saturday (9/1) are below.

Continue reading "FYF Fest 2012: day 1 in pics (Refused, Warpaint, Purity Ring, Sleigh Bells, The Vaselines, The Soft Pack and more)"

Quicksand last night on 'Jimmy Fallon'

Quicksand played Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night (8/23 early AM), performing "Fazer" and the unaired web exclusive track "Omission" for the crowd. Video of both songs are below.

Quicksand has two sold-out shows scheduled for this week, Friday (8/24) at Bowery Ballroom and Saturday (8/25) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Both feature support from Italian Horn. The band scoots out to LA to play FYF the following weekend.

If you missed it, FYF recently made some lineup changes to reflect the loss of Baroness and Wild Flag, adding Glass Candy, King Tuff, The Faint (who are hitting the road in the late Fall and reissuing material) The Orwells).

Video is below.

Continue reading "Quicksand played 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' (video)"

Baroness at Terminal 5 in May (more by Joe McCabe)

Earlier this week, we posted an update from Baroness showing that things were looking upwards for the band. Unfortunately though, with two members having broken vertebrae and frontman John Baizely having a broken arm and leg, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that Baroness have in fact cancelled some of their upcoming North American tour dates, including their NYC show at House of Vans and LA's FYF Fest. They will not be replaced on the House of Vans lineup, which happens on August 29 and now just includes Turbonegro, Doomriders, and Nightbirds. This is a bummer but it makes sense that the band takes the time they need to recover, and we wish them a speedy and successful recovery!

Meanwhile, FYF Fest, which Wild Flag also dropped off of, recently expanded its lineup. It now features The Faint (who just announced they'll be reissuing Danse Macabre and touring the album), Glass Candy, King Tuff, and newcomers The Orwells. Tickets for FYF Fest are still available. The updated lineup and flier are below.

Continue reading "Baroness dropped off House of Vans and FYF Fest, who added bands (updated lineup)"

DOWNLOAD: Paul Banks - The Base (MP3)

After a couple releases under the guise of Julian Plenti, Interpol frontman Paul Banks will release his first record under his own name on October 23 via Matador. You can download Banks opening track, "The Base," at the top of this post. While still from the same gloomy mold as Interpol, there's a sweeping orchestral/electro sheen to this that suits Banks well.

While no tour has been set up, Paul will play L.A.'s FYF Fest in September and Austin's FFF Fest in October. You can check out the LP artwork and tracklist below.

Continue reading "Paul Banks releasing solo debut LP in October (MP3)"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Paul Banks - Summertime is Here (MP3)

In case you haven't been outside in the last couple weeks, summertime is here. And if you don't believe me, perhaps you'd take the word of a more public figure, like Interpol's Paul Banks. Actually his song is called "Summertime is Coming," but he probably wrote it a while back. It will probably not usurp Carly Rae Jespen from her Queen of Summer 2012 iron throne, but it is a fine bit of Banks-ian melodrama. You can download it at the top of this post.

It's on Banks' new Julian Plenti Lives EP which came out today and features two Banks originals plus covers of J Dilla, Frank Sinatra (he kinda nails Ol Blue Eyes' "I'm a Fool to Want You"), and '80s-era composer Harold Faltermeyer (the guy who wrote the Beverly Hills Cop theme). You can listen to the whole thing below via a Spotify widget. Banks will also have an album out in the fall which seems more his season. He'll also be performing at FYF Fest in L.A. in September.

Continue reading "Paul Banks released 'Julian Plenti Lives' (MP3, stream)"

FYF Fest. September 1st and 2nd, 2012
At the LA State Historic Park, Los Angeles, CA
Tickets are $77 and go on sale Friday June 22nd.

WOW.

Quicksand recently reunited at Revelation Records' 25th Anniversary on the West Coast, and I would't be surprised if they do the same at Irving Plaza in October.

American Nightmare has two shows coming up at Webster Hall.

Full FYF lineup, in alphabetical order, below...

Continue reading "FYF Fest 2012 lineup: Quicksand, Refused, American Nightmare, Desaparecidos, M83, Hot Snakes & MUCH more"

photos by Nathanael Turner

Descendents

Punk rock long ago transcended class, age, gender and ethnicity to become a signifier not necessarily of outward rebellion but of the symbolic, crazy-on-the-inside variety. That sense of internal defiance continues to permeate the entire underground and has become a secret handshake that united not only the artists who made traditional-ish punk rock over the course of 10 hours of the FYF -- the Descendents, No Age, Off! among them -- but from a wildly divergent cast of in-yer-face artists including beat makers Nosaj Thing and Dan Deacon, the deeply sensual, self-referential house music of New York's Chromatics and Glass Candy, and the catchy, arena-aspirant bands like Broken Social Scene.

"It's a punk rock festival. That means we're going to play ... in the wrong key," declared Guided by Voices singer Robert Pollard during his band's sturdy, hook-infused rock set featuring acrobatic kicks, monster choruses and a sexy girl delivering between-song lighted cigarettes to guitarist Mitch Mitchell.

But Pollard missed the point. As anyone who roamed downtown's Los Angeles State Historic Park on Saturday could see, punk no longer means inept, either on a musical or festival level. It means being inspired and maybe a little irrational, like festival founders Sean Carlson, Phil Hoelting and Keith Morris. It means realizing strengths and weaknesses. It means pushing at the edges like L.A.-based instrumental Nosaj Thing, who fused the deep, penetrating bass of dubstep with touches of skewed Aphex Twin breakbeat rhythms to create architecturally sophisticated sound structures as solid as they were abrasive. Or it means setting up gear in the crowd like electronic/serialist/rhythmatist Deacon to make sounds so driving and strobing that the level of crowd surfing reached Nirvana-like proportions. [LA Times]

You saw the Future Islands shots. Here are some more of a bunch of the acts that played FYF Fest in LA on Saturday (9/3). No Dead Milkmen, Kid Dynamite or Guided By Voices, but a bunch of other stuff below...

Continue reading "more pics from FYF Fest 2011 (Descendents, Broken Social Scene, No Age, Girls, Japandroids & more)"

photos by Nathanael Turner

Future Islands @ FYF Fest

Future Islands play this weekend's Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC on 9/10, and after a few weeks away from the road, will kick off a US tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan that will last them into the first week of December. NYC has a date to call their own that falls toward the end of said tour, at Bowery Ballroom on December 1st. They're headlining (!) with Ed Schrader's Music Beat opening. Tickets are on sale. All dates are listed below.

The tour kick off happens exactly two weeks after On the Water, the band's latest full-length from Thrill Jockey, hits store shelves (October 11) Check out the video for "Balance" below.

Future Islands joined several other notables over Labor Day weekend in Los Angeles at FYFest. A recap of the festival that took place on 9/3 is on the way, but for now bask in the mayhem that took place during Future Islands' set (the fest's break out performance according to Lady Gunn). More pictures, the video and all dates below...

Continue reading "Future Islands played FYF Fest, touring (pics, video & dates)"

by Klaus Kinski

It goes without saying that New York Fucking City is the best fucking city in the fucking galaxy. Name some attributes of another city (and I am sure people *cough*commenters*cough* will) and any New Yorker worth his or her salt will gladly, after they're done laughing hysterically, verbally pants your claims and make you realize how much time you just wasted with your nonsense. Everything here is better, and we have more of it. End. Of. Fucking. Story. Among our better-than-everywhere-else attributes is our Comedy scene. And one way we articulate and reinforce this attribute is by having several comedy shows happening across this city every night of the week.

One of NYC's biggest stand-out weekly shows is Tell Your Friends! which happens in the basement of a place called Lolita Bar (almost) every goddamned Tuesday. Tell Your Friends! is the brainchild of the talented Liam McEneaney and it has been bringing some of the most incredible line-ups to its basement audiences for over 6 years. Conceived as a showcase that danced somewhere between open mic territory and some of NYCs other smaller, more intimate alt rooms, Tell Your Friends! was devised as sort of a "comedy workout room;" a place where comedians could workshop new material without all the hassles and limitations of standard open mics. No, Tell Your Friends! wasn't the first place to do this type of thing; 15 years ago NYC had Eating It at Luna Lounge, Klaus favorite Patrick Borelli set up shop at the Gershwin Hotel, and, of course, there was Invite Them Up at Rififi where Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale basically wrote the book on how smaller, independent comedy showcases should be run until its demise in 2008. Invite Them Up took their backroom comedy debauchery to the next level when they did three nights of recording at Pianos for a 3 CD/1 DVD set that was released by Comedy Central Records. Incidentally, now that Invite Them Up is long gone (unless you count the upcoming Invite Them Up night at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival), that CD/DVD set serves as an extremely important document of just how bonkers and diverse that era in comedy really was.

Like Invite Them Up, Tell Your Friends! has brought their presence in the comedy world to the next level with the release of Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film!. Shot at the Bell House, Liam McEneaney says

I had this idea that since I wanted to do a movie with standup comedians, comedians who had gotten their start outside the traditional comedy club scene, it shouldn't be shot as a typical comedy special. I sent Victor (Varnado) clips from concert films I felt should serve as the template, Woodstock, The Last Waltz, Stop Making Sense, The Beatles First Visit To America... Films that didn't just point a camera at a performance, but got you onstage with the acts themselves. And that didn't just record a concert, but really encapsulated a moment in history. Ultimately, we narrowed our influence down to Woodstock, and The Last Waltz, and used those more as our guides.

This epic piece of greatness features Reggie Watts, Kristen Schaal, Kurt Braunohler, Christian Finnegan, Leo Allen, Rob Paravonian, Nick Nace, Ann Enzminger, Marc Maron, and more. WANNA SEE IT!? Well SketchFest NYC is proud to present the New York City Premiere of Tell Your Friends! The Concert Film! at the Paley Center for Media on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011; at 7:30pm. After the movie there will be a panel moderated by Liam and feature Kristen Schaal, Kurt Braunohler, Christian Finnegan, Leo Allen, Neal Brennan, Jon Glaser, and Victor Varnado. Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for the general public UPDATE: and $8.00 to BV readers!

In unrelated comedy news, don't forget that FYF Fest is Saturday September 3rd in Los Angeles and features a pretty toupee-spinning bunch of comedy check out the full comedy line-up below.

Continue reading "Tell Your Friends! the movie! (is screening in NYC), comedians (are playing FYF Fest in LA Saturday)"

DOWNLOAD: Mister Heavenly - "Pineapple Girl" (MP3)

Descendents at FFFFest (more by Tim Griffin)

Much like last year, FYF Fest 2011 is poppin' off with some incredible bands, many of whom recently reunited. This year the LA fest will host a coveted Descendents appearance, a Death From Above 1979 show, Guided By Voices, another Kid Dynamite reunion, The Dead Milkmen, Explosions in the Sky, the return of The Weakerthans and many, many notable others. Full lineup is below. The show goes down at 1st and Main in downtown Los Angeles on September 3rd. Tickets are on sale.

Future Islands plays FYF Fest and plays Death By Audio in Brooklyn TONIGHT (6/28).

For Kid Dynamite, which features members of Lifetime, Paint it Black and None More Black, the reunion is their first since re-emerging for This is Hardcore last year with Ink & Dagger. The band called it quits in 2000 and reunited in 2005 at CBGB and some other times too. I hope they schedule another NYC show, but it's just LA for now.

This is Hardcore THIS YEAR features an appearance from Ressurection, which also featured Dan Yemin on guitar. Tickets for This is Hardcore 2011, taking place in Philly's Starlight Ballroom, is mostly sold-out, with tickets for the Sunday show still available.

The Descendents appearance at FYFest is one of several dates scheduled for the reunited band, NYC's Roseland, Chicago Riot Fest, and Philly's Riot Fest included. Tickets are still available for the 9/23 Roseland show.

Mister Heavenly will hit the road for a string of dates on the West Coast leading up to FYF Fest. Check out their full tour schedule below, and look for their new LP Out of Love on 8/16 via Sub Pop. Check out "Pineapple Girl" from that record above.

The Death From Above 1979 appearance is one of several slated for the band in the coming months, including a 7/22 appearance at Williamsburg Waterfront. Tickets are still available OR, you can try your hand by winning a pair at our Facebook. The full set of DFA1979 dates are below.

The Weakerthans have a few other dates slated for Europe and Canada in the coming months. Hopefully they add more US dates too. All dates for now are listed below.

A few bands on the FYFest lineup (namely, Cults, Off!, and No Age) will also appear in NYC at the House of Vans this summer, and for FREE. The FYF-presented House of Vans series of shows starts this Thursday (6/30). You just have to RSVP to get in (and maybe get there early).

All Weakerthans, DFA1979, and Mister Heavenly dates, some video, and the full FYF Fest lineup is below.

Continue reading "FYF Fest in LA, This is Hardcore in Philly, Future Islands in BK, Mister Heavenly on tour, a DFA1979 contest & more"