DOWNLOAD: Fan Modine - Julu Road (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Fan Modine - Through the Valley (MP3)

Go Sailor may be band from the past, but they have found Twitter and that's where the above message was posted last night during the NYC Popfest opening night show at Cake Shop where sets were played by PET MILK (PA), AMIDA (UK), GOLD-BEARS (GA), SEA LIONS (CA), DREAM DIARY (NYC), and THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART (NYC). Bill says it was surprisingly not that crowded, and that Gold-Bears were the stars of the night ("like Superchunk covering the Wedding Present, that kind of energy"). Pains sounded great too, though Peggy Wang joked, "I think we were better at Popfest '07." Here's a picture from their set at Popfest 2011:

Watch a video of Gold-Bears below.

Go Sailor's tweet also refers to the show they're playing for Popfest at Cameo tonight (5/20). They headline. SODA SHOP (NYC), CAUCUS (JAPAN), THE FELT TIPS (UK), and BETTY AND THE WEREWOLVES (UK) are all also on the bill which Bill discusses in much more detail in his entire fest preview. If you don't have a ticket, they say "LIMITED AMOUNT OF TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR (DAY OF SHOW)."

Go Sailor member Rose Melberg spoke to NY Press. Why did they reunite? "We had a great time when we got together last year for the Slumberland 20 year anniversary shows. So now when an opportunity comes up to play that works out for all of us we figure we might as well do it. It is mostly just a chance for us to hang out with each other since we all live so far apart." Who knows when they'll reunite again, so don't miss your chance tonight.

Popfest continues on Saturday and Sunday, and invividual day tickets are still on sale for both of those shows. Saturday is at Santos Party House. Sunday is the Rock Shop. More about both shows in our guide, but I do want to just remind you that Sunday's headliner is Fan Modine who doesn't get out much, and whose only other scheduled show at the moment is on 5/28 at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC. The Rock Shop show will double as a record release show for Gratitude the Shipper, his first album in seven years. Two songs from that album are re-posted on the top of this post.

But that's not all. As previously mentioned, many of the bands playing Popfest have other stuff scheduled too, and you'll find some of those shows listed HERE, HERE, and HERE. May you have a very great tweekend.

A video of Gold-Bears performing in the Newtown Radio studios, below...

Continue reading "NYC Popfest continues, Gold-Bears played w/ TPOBPAH, Go Sailor is tonight, Fan Modine Sunday"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: NYC Popfest Mix (Zip)
DOWNLOAD: Pet Milk - Cherry Outline (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Gold-Bears - Record Store (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sea Lions - All Right (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Go Sailor - Windy (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Soda Shop - Farewell (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Days - Simple Thing (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Days - Downhill (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Fan Modine - Julu Road (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Kids on a Crime Spree - Sweet Tooth (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Secrets (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Anyone's Ghost (the National) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Mother of Pearl (MP3)

Go Sailor

This week is the fifth-annual NYC Popfest which happens Thursday - Sunday (May 19 - 22) at a variety of NYC and Brooklyn venues, playing host to around 30 bands from around the world. Previous years have seen the likes of The Radio Dept, Pelle Carlberg, The Drums, Love is All, Allo Darlin' and more.

Festival passes are sold out at this point -- as are tickets to Thursday's show at Cake Shop with Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Gold-Bears -- but you can still get tickets to any of the other individual events.

We're also giving away pairs of tickets to the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shows. Line-ups for each night are at the bottom of this post. We've got:

1 pair of tickets for Friday night at Cameo
3 pais of tickets for Saturday night at Santos
5 pairs of tickets for the all-day Sunday show at The Rock Shop.

To enter, just send an email to BVCONTESTS@HOTMAIL.COM with the subject line "POPFEST" and the day you want tickets for, aka "POPFEST FRIDAY." We'll pick winners at random. Please note many of these shows are 21+.

This year's Popfest is a nice mix of new and old, jangly and loud. Every year at Popfest I've discovered at least two bands I'd never heard of before who've gone on to be favorites. I imagine this year will be no different. There are some MP3s above, plus a swell 24-song mix the Popfest folks made for your downloadable enjoyment. For this year's preview I'm just going to go through the events day-by-day. Keep reading below...

Continue reading "a guide to NYC Popfest 2011 (with lots of MP3s, day by day analysis & chances to win free tickets too)"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Summer Cats - Hey You (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Summer Cats - Super (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Summer Cats - Let's Go (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Summer Cats - TV Guide (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Black Tambourine - For Ex-Lovers Only (MP3)

Summer Cats

As previously reported, Australia is invading America (and NYC) this month -- musically speaking -- and another battalion has been added to their ranks: Melbourne's Summer Cats. The band are making the most of their trip with a quick East Coast / Midwest tour -- including Mondo! at Don Hill's on Friday (3/5) and then Bruar Falls in Brooklyn on Sunday (3/7) -- then down to Austin for SXSW, then to California for the West Coast editions of Slumberland's 20th Anniversary concerts.

Summer Cats are an almost quintessentially Slumberland-sounding band: sunny male/female vocals, jangly guitars that sometimes get very very noisy, and vintage organ. The band kind of is vintage Slumberland too -- singer Scott Stevens spent a good portion of the '90s fronting shoegazers The Earthmen, whose "Cool Chick #59" was one of the label's early singles. After a string of 7"s on labels like Popboomerang and Cloudberry, Summer Cats became labelmates of Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Crystal Stilts and released their debut album, Songs for Tuesdays, last year.

There's a brand new single out from the band, "Your Timetable," that definitely dips into the band's distortion-loving side. You can download it's poppier flipside, "TV Guide," at the top of this post. There are three other Summer Cats tunes to download too, do check them out -- good stuff.

As for the West Coast Slumberland 20 shows are happening March 27 in San Francisco (sold out) at the Rickshaw Stop, and then the next night (3/28) at the Echo in Los Angeles. As much as I enjoyed the SL20 show at Bell House back in November, I'm more than a little jealous of the California line-ups, especially the San Francisco one. Both shows are headlined by UK indiepop stalwarts Boyracer who are currently claiming these will be their last-ever shows, plus Henry's Dress (original lineup!!!), Go Sailor (Rose Melberg of Tiger Trap/Softies and Amy Linton of Henry's Dress/Aisler's Set, their first show in 14 years!), and more recent Slumberland acts Brown Recluse, Devon Williams, Neverever (ex Royal We and Bricolage), and third-ever (and fourth-ever) live performances of Sic Alps side project, The How. The Rickshaw Stop show also has local Slumberland act Brilliant Colors. And Summer Cats, of course. Holy crap!

Summer Cats also play the Cake Shop/Slumberland showcase at SXSW (3/19 at the Mohawk)  that also features The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Frankie & the Outs, Grass Widow, Reading Rainbow and Standard Fare (who we just posted about).

Black Tambourine

While on the subject of Slumberland Records, and to make this post as tangential (and Brooklyn Vegan-esque) as possible, as part of the label's 20th anniversary they're putting out a new compilation of one of their earliest bands: the short-lived but highly influential Black Tambourine. The group was made up of Pam Berry (also of Glo-Worm and co-founder of zine chickfactor), Velocity Girl's Archie Moore, Brian Nelson and Mike Schulman who runs Slumberland to this day. This replaces the label's previous Black Tambourine comp, offering up six previously unheard tracks. Two of those tracks are demos and the other four are brand new -- two originals, plus covers of Buddy Holly and Suicide. Out March 30, Black Tambourine will be available on CD and a gatefold double LP. Despite the new recordings, the band aren't getting back together or touring... so don't get too excited (editor's note: though I heard there is a chance of a UK show). There is a new video for their song "For Ex-Lovers Only," which you can watch below (and download an MP3 above).

After the jump there are Summer Cats videos and tour dates, and that Black Tambourine music video, album art and tracklist...

Continue reading "Summer Cats playing NYC, SXSW & LA Slumberland show w/ Henry's Dress & Go Sailor (dates) ++ Black Tambourine comp"