by Bill Pearis

It's that time of year again, when The L Magazine picks "8 Bands You Need to Hear Right Now." Like usual, the 2011 list is a mix of bands you may have seen, may have heard of, and more under-the-radar picks. No photoshoot at Bushwick Country Club this year. Here's the list, with the artists' next next NYC area show (where applicable):

Grand Rapids (no upcoming shows)
Devin Therriault (no upcoming shows)
Radical Dads (April 28 [tomorrow], The Delancey)
Mainland (May 25, Brooklyn Bowl)
Luke Rathborne (no upcoming shows)
Slowdance (May 9, Knitting Factory)
Yellow Ostrich (June 3, Mercury Lounge)
Family Trees (no upcoming shows)

This year's Honorable Mentions list includes Gross Relations, The Weed Hounds, The Hairs and more. There's also an entertaining sidebar where The L asks local bands and tastemakers "So, What's Wrong With the Brooklyn Music Scene?"

And if you missed it, The L Mag's Northside Festival just announced a slew of new bands to this year's line-up, including Surfer Blood (opening for GbV), Sharon Van Etten (opening for Beirut), Iceage (U.S. debut), Frankie Rose & the Outs, Teengirl Fantasy, Theophilus London, DOM, Mount Eerie, White Fence, Blondes, Janka Nabay • Holiday Shores, Eternal Summers, Delicate Steve, Gatekeeper and pretty much every band on the "8 Bands" list.

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Eternal Summers - Prisoner (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Crystal Stilts - Through the Floor (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Zaza - Distance Creator (ZIP)

Lyonnais

Coachella may be happening on the other coast but it's a lovely day here in NYC and I don't feel like I'm missing anything this weekend staying here. For one thing it's Record Store Day which also falls the same weekend and Tax Day which may be good or bad depending how you did this year. And there's lots of other stuff worth seeing too, so let's get into it.

McDonalds are one of these local groups whose name I'd seen around for a while and given the bands they often played with -- German Measles, Home Blitz, Tyvek -- I had it in my mind they sounded one way when, in fact, they don't. Well, that's not exactly true. They are kind of shambly indie. But their great new single "Good Parts" is like some lost obscure 7" from 1990 Manchester, that era when C-86 melted into the baggy scene. You can check it out -- in video form -- at the bottom of this post in a fun green-screened clip starring a lot of people you might recognize if you hang out at Bruars Falls or Cake Shop with any regularity.

McDonalds have three shows coming up in the next week: tonight (4/14) at Union Pool with Lyonnais and Helado Negro, then Saturday (4/16) as part of Cake Shop's Record Store Day extravaganza (more on that in a minute), and then next Wednesday (4/20) with former Swell Maps/Television Personalities dude Jowe Head & The Extremities.

As mentioned above, also playing the Union Pool show tonight are Atlanta four-piece Lyonnais whose dark, ethereal sound will likely draw comparisons to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive... or even mid-'80s goth like Xmal Deutchland or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. Their debut album is still being shopped around, but you can stream "Transitive Properties of Youth" at the bottom of this post, and a few more at their MySpace.

In addition to tonight's show, Lyonnais play tomorrow (4/15) at Glasslands and I imagine playing under the venue's stormcloud installation will be pretty apropos. I hope they are really loud too.

Eternal Summers

That Glasslands bill also features Roanoke, VA's Eternal Summers who have a new EP titled Prisoner out on Kanine/Forrest Family next week. The title track -- downloadable above -- is one of my favorite Eternal Summers songs yet and the whole EP is pretty excellent overall. The band, at least the last time I saw them, have expanded to a trio for live shows which fills out their sound nicely.

The Glasslands show, in addition to Eternal Summers and Lyonnais, features Toronto's Golden Dogs and locals Dream Diary who don't play together so much anymore now that guitarist Madison moved to Memphis. Brad Oberhofer will DJ in-between bands.  That's a good night of music.

Eternal Summers also play Cake Shop on Saturday (4/16) which is the venue's Record Store Day extravaganza, featuring a slew of great -- mostly local -- bands. The downstairs will be a record mart during the day (noon - 6PM). Bands during the evening include the previously-mentioned McDonalds, Natural Child, Widowspeak, Overlord, Hands & Knees, Night Collectors and Twitchers. Eternal Summers head out on tour next month with the Beets and all those tour dates are at the bottom of the post.

Also, for the real record nerds, Cake Shop is running a fun little contest. They've made 77 versions of the Record Store Day flyer, each with different backgrounds taken from album covers. Take a look, name the artist and album of as many as you can and email your answers to cakeshopusa@gmail.com. The entry with the most correct answers (or first entry in case of a tie) wins either a $77 bar tab at Cake Shop or $77 credit for the Cape Shok record mart during that day. Winner's choice. I got about 55 for sure, with another 15 I could figure out with a little time.

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And finally, Spectrum (aka Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember who also co-fronted Spacemen 3) are in town this weekend playing two shows with Crystal Stilts: Saturday (4/16) at Le Poisson Rouge and Sunday (4/17) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Kember is one of the forefathers of drone pop and in the past few years has become known for his work behind the boards, having produced MGMT's underrated/misunderstood Congratulations album, and he mixed the new Panda Bear. There's a new Spectrum album duo sometime soon too. Kember's influence seems more relevant than ever. Glad to see he's staying busy.

Crystal Stilts

Crystal Stilts owe more than a little to Kember's many records. The band just released their second LP, In Love with Oblivion and I think it's pretty great, pretty easily besting their 2008 debut (which was one of my favorite albums of that year.) The production's better, the songs are better, and the artwork's really nice as well. It's hard to listen to the new album without thinking of Frankie Rose whose relentless drumming style, I feel, probably had a lot to do with the way standout songs like "Sycamore Tree" and "Death is What We Live For" were formed. Both of those Kraut-heavy tracks made their debut in late 2008. As much as I like Rose's solo work, I miss her being in this band.

But the new new songs show that it's still guitarist JB Townsend and singer Brad Hargett writing great songs. The biggest improvement over the first album is probably the influence of keyboardist Kyle Forrester, whose parts add a bright color to Crystal Stilts' sound, especially on "Silver Sun" and single "Shake the Shackles." The record got a deserved 7.9 in Pitchfork today. You can download "Through the Floor" at the top of this post and watch the video below. Crystal Stilts are on tour starting next week and all dates are below.

That's it for this edition. Some daily picks and more after the jump.

Continue reading "McDonalds, Lyonnais, Eternal Summers, Record Store Day @ Cake Shop, Spectrum, Crystal Stilts, Zaza, Rebecca Gates & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Weekend - End Times (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Weekend - All American (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Procedure Club - Feel Sorry for Me (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Procedure Club - Rather (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: No Joy - No Joy (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Ceremony - Someday (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Games - Everything is Working (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Family Trees - Dream Talkin (MP3)

Weekend @ Cake Shop

I hope you all survived the insanity that was last week. Thankfully, this week is not quite as action packed but still a lot of cool stuff going on. Let's get to it.

Lovers of shoegazy noisepop will want to be at Silent Barn tonight (8/18) for a pretty killer quadruple bill at which earplugs are definitely recommended. San Francisco's Weekend and New Haven, CT's Procedure Club are both signed to Slumberland Records. Weekend are pretty clean-cut looking dudes who make a dark-edged squall that shows a direct through-line from Joy Division to Jesus and Mary Chain to Ride and beyond. I caught them last night at Cake Shop and despite a few microphone problems I thought they were pretty good. Loud. Really loud. The band have already released singles on Transparent and Mexican Summer -- download tracks from those at the top of this post -- and the Slumberland album, Sports (is the title perhaps a tip of a hit to fellow Bay Area musician Huey Lewis?), is out in November. Weekend also play Death by Audio tomorrow (8/19) tomorrow night with sonic compatriots A Place to Bury Strangers.

Procedure Club

Procedure Club, meanwhile, are more on the bedroom pop side of things. Their album, Doomed Forever, came out in June and is a pretty low fi affair, but the songwriting begins to shine through the cacophony on repeated listens. Check out two tracks from the album above, and there's a video for "Rather" at the bottom of this post.

As for the rest of the Silent Barn bill, there's LA/Montreal duo No Joy who I've written about before (but still haven't seen) and are possibly the loudest band on a very loud night. The band's debut 7" is out now on Mexican Summer (grab the b-side above) and is recommended to those whose taste leans towards the sludgy side of things. No Joy are also playing the Death by Audio show with APTBS and Weekend tomorrow night, and will then head out on tour with Dungen, and those tour dates are at the bottom of this post.

Rounding out the show are Fredericksburg, VA's Ceremony who crib more than a little from JAMC (and Medicine and The Radio Dept.), though their album, Rocket Fire, has some nice moments on it -- you can download an MP3 of "Someday" at the top of this post.

Dean and Britta

Dean Wareham kicks off his "Plays Galaxie 500" tour tonight at the Rock Shop, and he'll do it again tomorrow night at Bowery Ballroom with Crystal Stilts opening. Both shows are sold out so I won't go on and on here, but I'm looking forward to this trip down Memory Lane. Hopefully he'll pull out some of my favorites ("Strange," "Parking Lot," "Oblivious"). Dean talked to the AV Club about the difficulties of rearranging the songs for his current band:

AVC: You play with four people now instead of three.

DW: We like four people, because I listen to the records, and there's generally two guitars, because there's an overdub on each track. Or sometimes Matt [Sumrow] plays keyboards; he switches back and forth. I think it sounds fuller with the live guitar. When I go back and look at the old Galaxie 500 live recordings, sometimes Kramer would get onstage with us and play a few songs. It sounded a little fuller. There are times when it works great as a three-piece, too.

AVC: Does touring the Galaxie songs as a four-piece involve some rearranging?

DW: It involves some rehearsing. The songs are more difficult to play than I remember. I listened to the live Galaxie 500 album from Copenhagen, and I realized that's at the end of a tour, after we had been touring for a couple of months and had gotten pretty good at it. In terms of chord structure, the songs are incredibly simple. For example, a song like "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" is only one chord, but there's a whole lot going on in it.

AVC: Peter Buck talks about how hard it was late in R.E.M.'s career to relearn some of their early songs. Because they didn't know what they were doing at first, it's incredibly difficult to replicate.

DW: On "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste," when I was going over my guitar solo, I had no idea what I was doing and I was completely lost. Then I'm like, "How did I do that?"

AVC: It's hard to stumble into the same thing twice.

DW: Well, obviously I don't have to replicate it note-for-note. Mind you, I've got fans who get mad if I play "Snowstorm" and I do the solo with the fuzz pedal instead of the wah-wah. "What! How could he do that?"

Dean & Britta, meanwhile, have a new album, 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which they'll be touring in the fall.  (NYC's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on 10/22.) All Dean Wareham Plays Galaxie 500 tour dates (including the Music Hall of Willimsburg one that was just added in December) , HERE, and video of the original band doing "Strange" is at the bottom of this post.

Deva

And a few more picks, day-by-day of shows that weren't covered above.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18

Family Trees, who probably own a Galaxie 500 record or two, play their dreamy folk pop to Pianos tonight opening for Julian Lynch and Family Portrait. Check out Family Tree's lovely "Dream Talkin'" at the top of this post.

Quality indie rockers Diehard highlight a fun bill at Bruar Falls that also has The Vandelles and The Sanctuaries.

Air Waves, The Beets, Easter Vomit and Rifle Recoil play a benefit for Yellow Fever's Jennifer Moore at Death by Audio.

continued below...

Continue reading "Weekend, APTBS, Procedure Club, Galaxie 500, Games, No Joy, Ceremony, Family Trees & more in This Week in Indie"

DOWNLOAD: Family Trees - Dream Talkin (MP3)

Kimya Dawson will be in Brooklyn August 17th for an intimate show at The Pyramids (32D South 1st St), a space also known as South 1st Studios and formerly known as Glasshouse. Also on the bill are No One and the Somebodies, TURBOSLEAZE, Pablo Das and Only Son. The show is at 7pm, all ages, no advance tickets ($10), and the space fits about 200. It's part of a short tour for Kimya that includes a house show in Baltimore and a gig in Philly.

Also at the Pyramids is a show a few days earlier on August 12th with Eternal Summers, Reading Rainbow (who have shows with Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles coming up), Rescue Bird, German Measles and Family Trees (who have a 7" out for the song above, with a video below). That show is $8.

Tour dates and videos are below...

Continue reading "Kimya Dawson schedules dates, The Pyramids hosting shows "