Slayer at Izod Center (photos by Samantha Marble)

Slayer, Thee Oh Sees, Public Enemy, Girls, Danzig Legacy, (Danzig + Doyle von Frankenstein playing Misfits, Samhain & Danzig), Hot Snakes, Diplo, Major Lazer, Henry Rollins, Ted Leo & The Phramacists, Spank Rock, Murder City Devils, Hum, Lykke Li, Passion Pit, Four Tet, Rakim, The Damned, Austra, Purity Ring, and Flynt Flossy are just a few of the acts announced today as part of the Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011 lineup. Another amazing year! Check out the full lineup below and stay tuned for more announcements coming in August and September.

The new additions to the Austin, Texas festival, which takes place from 11/4 - 11/6, are in addition to the the previous "lineup leaks" that included Brian Posehn, Odd Future, Okkervil River, M83, X (performing "Los Angeles"), Reggie Watts, Flying Lotus, Tune-Yards, Ra Ra Riot, Kid Dynamite and others

2011 is the festival's sixth year, but first at its new home Auditorium Shores (no more Waterloo Park). Tickets are on sale now.

Slayer also has a NYC performance coming up with Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth as part of the "Big Four" show at Yankee Stadium on 9/14. Tickets are still available.

Fun Fun Fun 2011 flyer and almost-full lineup is below.

Continue reading "Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011 lineup (Danzig Legazy, Passion Pit, Slayer, Lykke Li, The Damned, Henry Rollins & much more)"

Girls at ACL 2010 (more by Tim Griffin)

Girls are set to release their sophomore LP Father, Son, Holy Ghost on September 13 via True Panther which is part of Matador. They'll go on a North American tour in September and October in support of the album. The tour hits NYC on September 22 and 23 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday (7/15).

All tour dates, new album art, and tracklist, below...

Continue reading "Girls announce new album & tour dates"

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"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

Magic Kids toured through town again, this time hitting Mercury Lounge and Silent Barn with Bosco Delray who they're now touring back to Memphis with, in support of Memphis. The Mercury Lounge show was also with Big Troubles and Brianne, and the pictures in this post are from that show. We also recently had pictures from Magic Kids' set at Fun Fun Fun Fest (set 1 and set 2).

The Mercury Lounge pictures continue, with a yourstru.ly video of the band playing "Candy" with an "orchestra, which features Christopher + Garrett from Girls, Max from Smith Westerns, some friends of someone's aunt who had a weekend flute club, a real string section and some more random friends," below...

Continue reading "Magic Kids played Mercury Lounge w/ Bosco Delray, Brianne & Big Troubles (pics) +++ yourstru.ly 'orchestra' video"

photos by Tim Griffin

""This festival is super-cool," said Strokes singer Julian Casablancas from the stage at Austin City Limits on Friday night. "Lotta stuff." It's true: The festival, now in its ninth year, packs 130 bands onto eight outdoor stages arranged around the 350-acre Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. The lineup is a mix of huge rock acts (the Eagles headline Sunday) and big-name indie bands, plus DJs, country singers and the occasional rapper. With an expected attendance of around 70,000 a day, the festival similar in size, if not in spirit, to Lollapalooza. "Lollapalooza has that city energy. It's like the hot girl you want to take home," one organizer, Lisa Hickey, said. "ACL is more laid-back -- it's like your best friend." And unlike South By Southwest, the music and film showcase that takes over the Texas town every spring, ACL doesn't have much of a music-industry angle -- it's almost strictly for fans.

On Friday night, the packed lineup presented the crowd with a happy problem: Four big-name guitar bands -- Spoon, Sonic Youth, Vampire Weekend, and the Strokes -- all had sets starting within two hours of each other, and seeing each set in its entirety was impossible."
[Rolling Stone]

Kings Go Forth pictures are HERE. The rest of the pictures from the first day of the 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival (where Ezra Koenig joined Miike Snow on stage), continue, with a bunch of setlists (including Spoon's which points out that Eleanor Friedberger played a Fiery Furnaces song with Spoon) (video proof too), below...

Continue reading "ACL 2010 Day 1 in pics (Strokes, Phish, Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Vampire Weekend & more) "

words and photos by BBG, more photos by Samantha Marble

Thurston & Jim @ ATP NY (photo by Abbey Braden for ATP)

My 11 Most Notable Moments at ATP NY 2010 by Adrienne Day

(11) Book club with Samantha Hunt and Luc Sante. Apparently Nikola Tesla thought he was married to a pigeon. #ThingsIlearnedatATP

(10) Jim Jarmusch and Thurston Moore's silly but entertaining exchange about "weird New York"

(9) @janelerner's Mary-Poppins-like bag with its bottomless supply of comforts from home

(8) Sleep's defibrillating two-hour-plus set

(7) Blagdon Lake at dusk: http://twitpic.com/2m59gh

(6) Beak> opening with the terrific "Blagdon Lake" and keeping it surprisingly cohesive / groove-able for the whole set

(5) Injuries sustained while losing at air hockey: a heavily bruised knee and what feels like a torn rotator cuff

(4) Years of incontinence producing an unmistakably ripe aroma in Kutsher's front elevator

(3) Stooges scholarship ("Williamson should go back to designing computer chips"; "Iggy's slowed down a bit but still, holy shit")

(2) This little pumin has apparently already been featured on Brooklyn Vegan: http://twitpic.com/2m59bb

(1) no wifi as its own time warp, leading to in-depth convos and contemplative gazing on the lake

Ron Jeremy & new friend @ ATP NY Sunday night

How do you get out of a conversation with Ron Jeremy? It's 1:30 AM on Monday (Sunday night), my friends are talking to the porn legend, and all I can think about is rest. It's been a brutal weekend of fantastic performances, great conversation, contact highs, 30 packs of beer, fantastic people, not to mention great music. But by the end of Sunday (the final day of ATP NY 2010), I just needed some Zs.

After a day-opening set of psychedelia from White Hills on stage two (which I enjoyed though it didn't manage to give me the kick in the ass I needed), The Greenhornes held down my interest for what I caught of their set. The Detroit Cincinnati band's garage pop played to one of the biggest early day crowds that I had seen on all three days. Kurt Vile's garagey punk followed on the second stage, sounding much heavier live than I had anticipated.

Fucked Up was next on the main stage, so I made sure to secure a primo slot for the mayhem. Madman Pink Eyes, who sang 2/3 of the show from the crowd, did all of the following during his set in the Stardust Room: crushed a coke can like Stone Cold Steve Austin, sprinkled Cocoa Puffs on the crowd, smeared himself with Oreos, performed all of "Crusades" with a plastic bag on his head, laid down in the center of the crowd, instigated a group hug of 20-30 people, and took audience members on piggy back rides. After two days of festival madness, it was definitely the shot in the arm I needed. Vivian Girls, who followed them on the second stage, was a bit of a comedown, but then again who wouldn't be?

GZA's set was moved to later that night on stage two (which I would end up missing due to Altar), so his stage one slot was filled by comedian Hannibal Burress who had also performed Friday night. I missed his set and ended up catching Wooden Shjips' powerful psychedelic set on the second stage. There were many retro-leaning bands playing over the course of the weekend. My favorite sets in that category came from Dungen and The Black Angels. Powerful, trippy and fantastic.

With the lights down low, Hope Sandoval played xylophone and crooned with her enchanting voice to the Stardust Stage crowd. On any other occasion, I might have found the set mesmerizing, but at that moment another pick me up was needed and I surprisingly found that in Girls's sunny Elvis Costello brand of pop directly afterward. With all of the recent brutality (Fucked Up, Wooden Shjips, and in a much different way, um, Vivian Girls) it was a fun change to see the band run through tracks like "Laura" from their recent LP. Great set from this Cali crew.

T Model Ford

Of all the artists walking around Kutshers during ATP weekend, the two that seemingly had the most fans/people clamoring to meet them were Sunday's curator Jim Jarmusch, and T-Model Ford. It didn't hurt that T-Model was apt to take his guitar out and play anywhere with a little battery-powered amp. The bluesman finally got his time under the lights of the second stage on Sunday night though, and the adoration continued, with people cheering while he tuned (multiple times).

Raekwon took the stage a touch late with an introduction from Ron Jeremy, running through the classic Wu material: "Protect Ya Neck", "C.R.E.A.M.", "Ice Cream", set opener "Motherless Child", "House of Flying Daggers" and many more. Though I nerd out to the tracks and even ODB classic-that-felt-like-set-filler-in-a-Raekwon-show "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" on the Stardust Room system, the set felt phoned in. Not to sound insensitive, but is a few-minute shout out to your grandfather who is buried in Monticello really necessary? GZA, Kim Gordon, and Thurston Moore watched the set from the sides of the stage.

I missed GZA's rescheduled set completely on the second stage (because of Altar), but he reportedly delivered a freestyle-heavy set. The Wu-tang rep later showed up at The Deep End Bar to greet the legendary Kool Herc who was DJing late-night...

GZA & Kool Herc ATP (Kory Grow)

Partway into [Kool Herc's] set, in walked Wu-Tang Clan's GZA, who had played a sort-of aggressive set at the same time as Altar (I went back and forth between the two.) ...in the presence of Herc, he was nothing but reverent. He nonchalantly stepped behind the turntables and said hello. ...It was one of those rare moments where you felt like you were seeing something rare and historic. GZA grabbed the mic and talked about what a legend Kool Herc was and thanked him before leaving.-
[Sadness Is Delicious]

Pictures from Friday HERE and Saturday HERE, and the rest of Sunday, below...

Continue reading "ATP NY 2010 - Day 3 pics (Jim Jarmusch, Thurston Moore, Ron Jeremy, Fucked Up, Girls, T Model Ford, Raekwon & more) "

by BBG

Kurt Vile at Brooklyn Masonic Temple (more by Lori Baily)

It's almost final and official, ATP New York is ruling. The best Hudson Valley festival to ever be held in a 1960s time capsule has announced the "final additions" including two comedians chosen by Syd Butler of Les Savy Fav (more to come... that's all "so far"), as well as a few new and interesting additions to the Jim Jarmusch curated date. Behold:

Continue reading "ATP NY announces (almost) complete lineup (GZA, Kurt Vile..)"

photos by Kate Gardiner

Major Lazer @ Pitchfork Fest Sunday

"The tempo picked up again with Major Lazer at 6:15 p.m., and--hallelujah!--it stayed at a pretty high level through the end of Pitchfork 2010...

...Though Young is missing from the [Pavement] reunion, Stephen Malkmus and his bandmates were musically concise, tight, and focused, and they delivered many of their best songs--"Range Life," "Frontwards," "Greenlander," and "Unfair" among them--in versions that were every bit as strong as they were back in the day, and better in some cases than that last stage of the group. Since the music always seemed timeless, there was less of a taint of nostalgia here then with, say, the Pixies reunion, though to be sure, the motivations probably were very much the same, and mostly colored green... [Jim DeRegatis]

Continue reading "Pitchfork Fest 2010 in pics & setlists (Day 3 - Pavement, Big Boi, St Vincent, Major Lazer, Lightning Bolt & more) "

Matador's 21st birthday fest will be happening in Las Vegas October 1st-3rd. For it, they've pulled the cream of the indie-rock crop. Previously speculated headliners Belle & Sebastian and Pavement will be there - on top of that, Guided By Voices will be reuniting to play, "in the band's "classic '93-'96 lineup!" The most recent show for GBV was New Year's Eve 2004/05.

In addition to those three, the lineup includes Sonic Youth, Spoon, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, New Pornographers, Superchunk, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Guitar Wolf (who also play NY), Chavez, Girls, Fucked Up, Harlem, Cold Cave, Shearwater, Kurt Vile and Jeffrey Joe Jenson. More will be annonuced July 5th.

A flyer is below...

Continue reading "Matador Fest lineup announced - Guided by Voices reunion! + Guitar Wolf, Belle & Sebastian, Pavement & many more"

ACL 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

October 8-10, 2010 | Zilker Park, Austin, TX

"The Austin City Limits Music Festival began as a modest, two-day event and now, as it enters it's 9th year, has become a perennial American music experience. Taking place at the heart of Austin, Texas in the legendary Zilker Park, ACL Festival has grown to 3 days, 8 stages and over 130 bands."

Continue reading "Austin City Limits announces 2010 festival lineup (Eagles, Muse, Phish, Strokes, MIA, LCD, Spoon, Gayngs, more) "

photos by Rachel Carr

Devo

"An aggregate 225,000 people bought tickets to see a [Coachella] roster headlined by Jay-Z, Muse and Gorillaz during the April 16-18 event at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio.

The previous attendance record was set in 2007, when the headliners included a reunited Rage Against the Machine. Final figures are still being tallied, but AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips said the gross will exceed $20 million.

Phillips said the future looked bleak for AEG Live's nascent All Points West festival, which took place in 2008 and 2009 across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J.

"We're probably going to kill it," said Phillips. "As beautiful as (the site) is, it's very hard to get New Yorkers to cross that river. All Points West is an experiment that just didn't work." [Reuters]

Continue reading "more photos from Coachella, more confirmation that All Points West is not happening"

photos by Rachel Carr, words by Daiana Feuer

"Wow. The Sahara is past capacity at Coachella for Die Antwoord. No midget. Waiting for the trainwreck but people dig it." - The Scenestar

"Seeing a shirtless Danny DeVito run across the stage while Faith No More played pretty much made my #coachella weekend." - stovn

Die Antwoord, Faith No More

Flopping phalluses are in this year according to Major Lazer and Die Antwoord. Each presented the intersection of beats, party-hyping, gross humor, and dancing in your underwear. Day 2 of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival had an overall far-out theme. Some with sexually explicit lunacy, others with psychedelic music. South Africa's Die Antwoord introduced zef-rap to the festival, South Africa's version of white trash hip hop-a bold, fearless expression of crazy stick a finger up your bum entertainment.

Before arriving at these culminating moments, the day progressed through a series of psychedelic and/or raunchy expressions. John Waters kicked things off with thoughts on crawling through pig poo, taking poppers, the pleasures of sploshing, and strange things he wants to do before he dies. Gossip's Beth Ditto hoped he was watching her blazing disco soul performance but was afraid to look backstage and see him smiling and waving at her. Gossip put on a set that inspired revelations on reality in the most self-empowering ways.

John Waters & Beth Ditto @ Coachella (this pics via Jermey Scott)

The day's best covers include Faith No More doing "Reunited" (they also covered Michael Jackson's "Ben"), Portugal, The Man's jamming Bowie's "Moonlight Daydream," and Girls' flawless "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers. The last was a most appropriate choice for the band with an Ariel Pink sensibility towards '50s ballads. MGMT brought the futuristic 1960s with songs from its new album. Many pointed out that the band didn't play "Kids", but that seems to miss the point that MGMT put on a pretty sophisticated, experimental live performance of the band's signature Indian headdress on Phil Spector Fraggle Rock sound.

The Raveonettes played as a duo and sans drum machine, adorably sharing a mic sometimes. The rest of the band remains trapped under lava in Iceland, figuratively speaking. Camera Obscura also shouted out bands stuck in the UK, dedicating "Let's Get Out Of This Country" to those who could not make it.

It seems almost every DJ this weekend has sampled Major Lazer's "Pon De Floor" except Flying Lotus, who took the stage all on his own (no Thom Yorke cameo included). After warming up the crowd with some first grade experimental hip hop, FlyLo brought out the big guns, sounds combined in layers and pitches that act like quaaludes on the light speed continuum. The Dirty Projectors girls evoked cool electronic birds and the Dezurik Sisters with their harmonizing powers. Beach House cooed the audience romantically as 50% of the band, Alex Scally, rubbed his slide up and down the frets.

Did that sound sexy? It's time to talk about sexy. The xx provided the mellow arousal Blonde Redhead and Portishead have given Coachella the last two years. People like The xx because they want sex that fits this soundtrack. They also want sex as excitingly goofy gross as Die Antwoord and to fall in love with a gal like Sia, all at the same time. Sia's beautiful voice closed the night in the Gobi tent, and though her accent rendered her side comments completely incomprehensible, everyone laughed and agreed with anything she said. On the other hand, as great and sexy as the Dead Weather sounded, I don't know if I want to bed someone who demands I treat her like my mother. Old Crow Medicine Show suggested letting a woman rule your mind leads to troubles during "Minglewood Blues." Instead, let her win your heart with country-fried dinner.

Faith No More's twelve-song set included a cameo by a semi-streaker who happened to be Coachella regular Danny Devito. You can see that happen in one of the videos below. Faith No More's whole setlist is down there too.

Porcupine Tree, Tokyo Police Club, Hot Chip, The Almighty Defenders, Les Claypool, Devo, and Muse were also on the bill Saturday. Our review, pictures and videos from Friday are HERE. Saturday continues below...

Continue reading "Coachella 2010 - Day Two in pics, video & review (Die Antwoord shots & Faith No More's setlist included)"

Modest Mouse @ Terminal 5 in March 2009 (more by Chris La Putt)

Modest Mouse will join Faith No More and Nas & Damian Marley (tickets) as one of the acts set to play at Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn this summer. Their Friday, July 23rd show will be ticketed/non-free (like the others mentioned). Tickets go on sale Friday at noon (which is when the just-added Faith no More show goes on sale too).

Modest Mouse's Brooklyn show is a week after they play the Pitchfork Festival which recently updated its lineup. New acts playing the Chicago fest include Big Boi, Major Lazer, Neon Indian, Beach House, Free Energy, Local Natives, Robyn & more. Check that out in full below. Single day tickets are still on sale.

UPDATE: Modest Mouse's Brooklyn show is one day after they play one in NJ.

Modest Mouse will be reissuing their third album, The Moon & Antarctica, on vinyl for its 10th anniversary, on Record Store Day - this Saturday, April 17th. "The album features restored original artwork and replicates the infinite lock groove found in the original vinyl pressings of 2000. The new vinyl reissue includes a download card for the album." All dates the the P4K Fest lineup, below...

Continue reading "Modest Mouse playing Williamsburg Waterfront, the Pitchfork Festival (updated full lineup) & other tour dates"

photos by Brian Reilly

"GIRLS doesn't yet have the power to sell-out Webster Hall, a feat fellow indie giants BEACH HOUSE accomplished in days. But it sure as shit looked like they sold that bitch out, the last row's backs were mashed against the bar. And with good reason. GIRLS 2009 LP Album is packed tight with authentic 60s-touched pop songs spanning all sorts of genres. Christopher Owens is as enigmatic a frontman as you will probably ever find, and Chet White freezes his bass his lines are so cool. Yeah, it's pretty obvious why Webster Hall nearly filled to capacity. Most of the show was pretty slow, and I'll be honest I wish I had a nice couch that shit would have been raw. But it was kinda worth it to stand for the moments when GIRLS straight blew-up onstage. GIRLS does bounce between genres, and they land on slow jams more often than not. But they also stop on land mines, and nowhere is that more evident than on Lust For Life, which is so clearly their best song it's just so phenomenal. And GIRLS just can't help but be GIRLS, putting flowers all over the stage (flowers are kinda their signature) and having a frontman who's legit a little bit crazy. During Lust For Life, Owens lowered his guitar and slung his left leg over the neck, while still playing, as he sang "instead I'm just crazy, I'm totally mad." Yeah." [Right Hear]

Continue reading "Girls, Dum Dum Girls & Leisure @ Webster Hall - pics & video"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Beaters - Fishage (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Nodzzz - True to Life (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dom - Jesus (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Golden Girls - Newports (MP3)

The Soft Pack @ Cake shop in Feb (more by Gabi Porter)

The Soft Pack are here again, the first real shows in town they've played since releasing their debut album on Kemado: tonight (3/31) at Maxwell's, tomorrow (4/1) at Mercury Lounge, and Saturday (4/3) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I've seen these guys a zillion times (and written about them nearly as much) but they remain one of my favorite current live acts. That said, I'm just a tad bit more excited about the bands who they've brought with them on tour: Nodzz, Beaters, and Male Bonding.

Geeky, funny, tuneful Nodzzz were relatively quiet in 2009 -- at least compared to some of their San Franciscan brethren -- touring early in the year and only releasing one single. Mind you, it was an excellent one, "True to Life," which made by Best of the 2009 list. They're bound to have a new record in the works,  so hopefully we'll get a bunch of fresh tunes.

Beaters

Beaters, from The Soft Pack's hometown of San Diego, are signed to Zoo Music, the label run by husband/wife duo Brandon of Crocodiles and head Dum Dum Girl, DeeDee. If you're familiar with their roster at all, you'll have a pretty good idea what to expect: dark, over-caffeinated, paranoid, heavy on the reverb. You can check out their single "Fishage" at the top of this post.

The Music Hall of Williamsburg show adds UK punks (and Sub Pop signees) Male Bonding who also play with The Smith Westerns and So Cow on Sunday (4/4) at Mercury Lounge.

Golden Girls

Two bands from Worcester, Mass are here this weekend -- Dom and Golden Girls. -- who play together tomorrow (4/1) at Pianos and then on Monday (4/5) at Cake Shop.

Of the two, I find Dom a little more interesting. There's some of that fifth-generation cassette tape chillwave sound going on, no doubt (which I'm getting a little waterlogged from frankly).  But they've got some good songs under that hiss (check out "Bochicha" on their MySpace) and appear to play real drums and guitars (as well as crappy old synths) so I have hopes that their live show will prove less gauzy.

Golden Girls are more straight-up indie rock, a duo on recordings but are a four-piece live. Raucous and on the sloppy side,  and with a single about cigarettes, you can draw a line from Golden Girls back to the Replacements pretty easily. They've only got two singles out so far, and I'm definitely curious to hear more.

A few more picks, by night, to take you through the weekend, along with tour dates and videos and stuff, below...

Continue reading "Beaters, Nodzzz, Best Coast, Ash, Abe Vigoda, Dom, Dum Dum Girls, Golden Girls, Soft Pack & more in This Week in Indie"

Boris @ ATP NY 2009 (more by Ryan Muir)

There aren't many music news items that get me excited as ATP lineup additions. This one is no different. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions, Torotoise, Bardo Pond, Beak> featuring Geoff Barrow of Portishead, Sleepy Sun, Avi Buffalo, Sunn O)) & Boris performing material from their collaborative album Altar, Dungen, and White Hills have all been added to the already-stellar bill of the 2010 festival at Kutsher's Country Club in Monticello, NY (Sept 3-5). All confirmed artists and more details below...

Continue reading "ATP NY expands 2010 lineup - Hope Sandoval, SUNN O)) & Boris, Tortoise, BEAK> (Geoff Barrow of Portishead) & more!"

The Pitchfork Music Festival celebrates its 5th anniversary this year at Union Park in Chicago. It runs from Friday July 16th - Sunday July 18th. Three-day passes are now sold out, but you can still get single-day passes on Ticketweb.

The Updated Lineup is below:

Continue reading "Pitchfork Festival updates lineup (Broken Social Scene, Jon Spencer, Panda Bear, Girls, El-P & more) "

We'll get a more complete press release in the morning (and confirm what is listed below is 100% correct), but in the meantime below is a picture of the 2010 Sasquatch poster (that someone Tweeted) and the lineup as read by Bradford Cox at tonight's Atlas Sound show in Seattle (and being listed all over the Internet)....

Continue reading "Sasquatch announces 2010 lineup (includes Massive Attack & My Morning Jacket) (and many more) "

All Tomorrow's Parties will return to Kutsher's Country Club, Monticello for the third ATP New York festival over Labor Day weekend, running from Friday 3rd September - Sunday 5th September. We are very excited to announce that legendary film-maker Jim Jarmusch, well known for his fantastic collaborations and documentaries with musicians will be the guest curator on Sunday 5th.

Continue reading "Jim Jarmusch to curate ATP NY - updated lineup w/ Sonic Youth, EITS, Breeders, Brian Jonestown, F'd Up, Raekwon"

Girls @ Bowery Ballroom in Nov (more by Vincent Cornelli)

San Francisco's Girls are currently on the road with their friends the Smith Westerns and Magic Kids, the many-membered pop group from Memphis who played NYC last July and whose debut LP, it was just announced, comes out later this year on True Panther Sounds (which is now part of Matador and also the label that put out the Girls record).

Girls will go on tour across North America this April with Sub Pop signees Dum Dum Girls. The trip finishes at Coachella, but before that, the bands will play a Saturday, April 3rd show at Webster Hall. Tickets on sale soon.

Before then, Dum Dum Girls have a February 21st show at Mercury Lounge with Frankie & The Outs, Sub Pop signees Happy Birthday and Coasting. Tickets are still on sale.

The Smith Westerns will also be in NYC in April - two shows were just announced. They'll play Market Hotel on April 3rd (the same night Girls are at Webster), and then Mercury Lounge with Sub Pop signees Male Bonding on April 4th (tickets on sale Friday at noon).

Dum Dums will be in the UK at the end of February and SXSW in March, where you can see Magic Kids as well. All tour dates and a video of Magic Kids at Goner Fest '09 and around town are below...

Continue reading "Girls touring w/ Dum Dum Girls & the Smith Westerns & True Panther signees Magic Kids - 2010 dates"

Wow...Public Image Ltd, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Grace Jones, Fever Ray, Devo, Hot Chip, Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, Mew, Camera Obscura, Gil Scott-Heron, The xx, John Waters, Dillinger Escape Plan, Deer Tick, Gary Numan... Full Coachella 2010 lineup below....

Continue reading "2010 Coachella line up announced (Faith No More, Pavement, Muse, Gorillaz, Thom Yorke, Jay-Z, LCD Soundystem, ???)"

Animal Collective @ ATP NY (more by Ryan Muir)

So how the hell did Merriweather Post Pavilion-- an album closer in spirit to the sub-aquatic psychedelia of 2005's Feels and Panda Bear's 2007 solo Person Pitch than its predecessor-- wind up in the Billboard Top 20 and outsell both the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand's most recent albums in North America? That mystery is ultimately the most wonderful thing about the album. Unlike so many indie-rock crossover artists before them, Animal Collective did not breach the mainstream by cleaning up their act, or adopting classic-rock conventions, or scoring a strategic soundtrack or iPod-commercial placement. And, above all, they did little to formalize their defining mercurial quality. [Pitchfork]

Pitchfork also listed their Top 100 Tracks of 2009, and the Top Albums of the Decade.

Animal Collective is DJing the Museum of Natural History in January.

DOWNLOAD: Big Boi f. Gucci Mane, "Shine Blockas" (MP3)

In theory, she was an artist you want to root for-- all these ideas about art and celebrity and a flair for the dramatic. But the first few singles made the Lady Gaga project feel so presumptuous, her artsy entitlement overwhelming her songs' occasional strengths. "Bad Romance" was the moment where the music didn't just live up to the (self-inflated) hype, but surpassed it. The track is epic in construction-- by the time she gets to the bridge, more than three minutes in, the realization that there are hooks yet to come is thrilling. It helps that RedOne's production matches the songwriting's torrential drama; the churning, earth-shifting low-frequency synths are a programmatic reflection of the singer's unsteady, perhaps unwise, infatuation. But it's Gaga's performance, the wholly unapologetic fools-rush-in carnal energy, that commitment to emotional bravery in a context of increasingly twee chart pop, that makes "Bad Romance" feel so necessary. --David Drake [39. Lady Gaga "Bad Romance"]

Neon Indian is also on there twice, which is the the same amount of times they're playing Mercury Lounge (Tuesday and Wednesday night).

The video for the 21st best song, below...

Continue reading "Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2009"

photos by Vincent Cornelli, words by Andrew Frisicano

"Smith westerns just pissed all over our backstage floor." - Girls

The second NYC-area stop on the Girls/Real Estate tour, after the Nov. 2nd kick off at Maxwell's, happened Friday, November 6th at Bowery Ballroom. Girls frontman Christopher Owens and bassist/album producer JR White took to the Bowery Ballroom stage with their new guitarist and drummer (after their former axeman quit during their recent European tour) for Girls' biggest NYC show so far. The show was sold out.

And so what began as a coronation became an exercise in the lowering of expectations, in a performance that was, for the most part, frustratingly inert. Mr. Owens, his hair matted with sweat or some other adhesive, meandered through most of "Album," along with some new songs and a blissful cover of Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End." He sings in a mottled, nasal quaver that demands a sort of reverence to ingest fully, but the quiet in the room wasn't of the good kind. Regardless, Mr. Owens, Mr. White and the two members of the touring band, Ryan Lynch on guitar and Garrett Godard on drums, plowed on with the ease of a campfire singalong. (Mr. Godard sang harmony on many songs, a welcome jolt of energy.) [NY Times]

Continue reading "Girls & Real Estate played Bowery Ballroom (pics)"

After months of speculation (much of it in our own corridors), we can happily announce that Matador Records has purchased the True Panther Sounds label. TPS, best known to many of you as the imprint behind Girls' recent rise to prominence, will continue to be managed by label founder Dean Bein. What would possess Matador to become involved with another label in this capacity? As Victor Kiam once explained his decision to purchase the Remington Shaver operation, "I liked it so much, I bought the company." Needless to say, we like Dean, Girls, Glasser, Tanlines, Lemonade and Hunx & His Punx much more than than Mr. Kiam appreciated those razor blades.

At the moment, Girls' 'Album' is the only True Panther Sounds title to be worked through Matador's fearsome promotional & marketing machinery (ie. Hunx' recent 'Gay Singles' LP, was not). However, in the months to come, additional offerings from TPS' impressive roster (prior releases have included titles from The Fly Girlz, Ty Segall, Rainbow Bridge, The Standing Nudes amongst others) will receive similar treatment. Stay tuned! [Matador]

Girls were not here for CMJ when Matador and True Panther teamed up for a showcase at The Suffolk.

Tanlines' last NYC show was at the Guggenheim with Yeasayer.