Petty Fest is returning to NYC this October, though unlike previous years, this year there will be "Two Nights To Get Drunk And Celebrate The Songs Of Tom Petty." The fest is taking place October 5 at Music Hall of Williamsburg and October 6 at Bowery Ballroom. The fest is (almost) the same lineup of musicians that usually get together for things like this, like Norah Jones, Nicole Atkins, Jesse Malin, Sammy James Jr. (The Mooney Suzuki), Jody Porter (Fountains of Wayne), Tad Kubler of The Hold Steady, Josh Lattanzi of The Lemonheads, and others. Interesting additions inclue Har Mar Superstar and Jonny Corndawg. I hope they do a duet. And of course there will be "surprise guests". Tickets for both nights go on sale Thursday (9/1) at noon with an AmEx presale starting Wednesday (8/31) at noon. $2 from each ticket will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Jonny Corndawg meanwhile will also be in NYC TONIGHT (8/30) for his record release show at Union Pool.

Full Petty Fest lineup, flier, and a recent video of Neko Case and My Morning Jacket covering "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" together, below...

Continue reading "Petty Fest returns in 2011, 2 nights, 2 venues"

photos by Eric Townsend, words by Andrew Sacher

Ra Ra Riot are currently on a massive tour (with Guster?) that brought them to Ives Concert Park in Danbury, CT last night (8/3). It rained pretty hard the entire ourdoor show but (Guster) crowd feedback seemed positive regardless. Check out more pictures of Ra Ra Riot's set below.

Ra Ra Riot won't open Guster's 8/8 Central Park Summerstage show with Jack's Mannequin and Boy & Bear, but you will be able to catch Ra Ra Riot in NYC this Friday (8/5) at the far more interesting (and free) Prospect Park Celebrate Brooklyn show with Buke & Gass and Delicate Steve. 7:00pm show / gates 6:00pm. Hopefully the weather is better than last night's rainy Sufjan Stevens show (which happened the same time as Ra Ra in CT).

In related news, Ra Ra Riot bassist Mathieu Santos released his debut solo LP Massachusetts 2010 this past Tuesday (8/2) via Barsuk. The album is named after the album track of the same name, which is a reworking of "Massachusetts" off Ra Ra Riot's most recent LP The Orchard. You can stream the entire album on Spinner and check out a video for album track "I Can Hear the Trains Coming" below. You can also purchase the album as LP and MP3 on Amazon. The whole thing pretty much sounds like Ra Ra Riot with a slightly different singer. So there's nothing too groundbreaking here, but it definitely makes for an enjoyable listen.

Album art, tracklist, video, dates, and more pics from the Ra Ra Riot show below...

Continue reading "Mathieu Santos released a solo LP, Ra Ra Riot played CT (pics), playing free show in Brooklyn Friday (and other dates)"

"SummerStage, a program of City Parks Foundation, presents performances of outstanding artistic quality, free of charge, to serve the diverse communities of New York City. The artists represent a breadth of genres and cultures and perform in an outdoor setting accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. SummerStage strives to develop audiences' deepening appreciation for contemporary, traditional, and emerging artists as well as the communities in which these artists originate."

You might remember that since last year, "Summerstage" now encompasses free (and "benefit") shows in many NYC parks, not just at the "main stage" in Central Park. Free shows this summer include Friendly Fires, Wavves, The Budos Band, Reggie Watts, Fitz & the Tantrums, We Are Scientists, Talib Kweli, Rakim/EPMD, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Jim Gaffigan, Wanda Jackson, Imelda May, Guster, and many more.

The ENTIRE 2011 SUMMERSTAGE SCHEDULE is now posted at Summerstage's site.

Above picture, taken at the St. Vincent show in 2010, by Chris La Putt.

photos by Graeme Flegenheimer

"It took Patricia Mudnich and Joshua Garcia two weeks, driving their RV about 3,100 miles in a winding route from Santa Cruz, Calif., to arrive at the Rothbury music festival in West Michigan.

Cool weather and a short wait in line after the campground opened Thursday morning didn't faze them in the least. The diehard fans of The String Cheese Incident -- the popular jam band which plays its only reunion show of the summer at the second-year festival Friday -- were all smiles.

"The lineup was so impressive, we could not turn it down," said Mudnich, 41, a high school English teacher who estimated the couple spent more than $2,100 on the long trip, including festival tickets, gasoline and side trips to tourist spots such as Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore. "I used to go to these festivals all the time, but now I can only fit it into the summer."

For devoted rock fans flocking this week to the remote Double JJ Ranch from far-flung places across the United States and beyond, Rothbury has become THE summer destination.

Drawing an estimated 30,000-plus people again this year, many of the festival's devotees have logged impressive road and air miles to see their favorite bands -- from The Dead to STS9 -- with clusters of enthusiastic, colorfully adorned fans making the journey from Vermont, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Colorado and all points between in everything from compact cars and pickups to dilapidated Volkwagen vans and old school buses." [Mlive.com]

Rothbury happened July 2-5. Here are some (NSFW) pictures & videos...

Continue reading "pictures from the 2009 Rothbury Festival (NSFW)"

It's been ten years since we released Lost & Gone Forever, the album that put us on peoples' radars, helped us graduate from our van to a bus, and taught me to fill my finger cuts with krazy glue.

To celebrate, we're turning the clock back to 1999 and announcing the Lost & Gone Forever Ten Year Anniversary Tour -- 9 very special evenings with Guster. No opener. Two sets, one of which will be the album in its entirety. Yes, even Two Points for Honesty and Rainy Day. I haven't decided if we should play the album in order or in shuffle mode. Any thoughts? [Guster]

The final date on that tour will be a show at NYC's Beacon Theatre on Friday, November 27th. Tickets are on AmEx presale now. General sale starts Friday, July 17th at noon. More from the band about the album and tour, with all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Guster playing 'Lost & Gone Forever' - 2009 tour dates"

The Hold Steady @ Terminal 5 11/6/08 (more by Chris La Putt)

All four of the Hold Steady's scheduled NYC shows, June 8th - 11th, have sold out, though the group's second Music Hall of Williamsburg show (Thursday, June 11th) is part of the Northside Festival, which still has badges available.

Openers for those shows are Right on Dynamite (6/8 @ Bowery Ballroom), Mischief Brew (6/9 @ Bowery Ballroom), Gost Trio (6/10 @ MHOW) and Hype of the States (6/11 @ MHOW).

The Hold Steady's other upcoming dates include them playing as openers themselves for the Counting Crows (in the UK in May) and the Dave Matthews Band (in the US in June).

The band also just announced some new headlining dates including a Friday, July 24th show at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 15th at noon.

The Sayreville show is then one day before the Hold Steady play a show further south at the 2009 XPoNential Music Festival. The three days fest runs from July 24-26 at Wiggins Park at the Camden Waterfront. Yeasayer, Peter Bjorn and John, Aimee Mann, and many more artists are on the bill.

Complete fest lineup, and all Hold Steady tour dates below...

Continue reading "2009 XPoNential Music Festival lineup (in Camden) & more Hold Steady tour dates (Starland Ballroom)"

Throwing Muses with Kristen Hersh, Kimya Dawson, Ingrid Michaelson, Glenn Hansard of The Frames & Swell Season, Apples in Stereo, Tommy James and the Shondells, Jolie Holland, Keren Ann, Guster, The Db's, Bob Mould, Vic Chesnutt & Elf Power, Rachel Yamagata, Calexico, Patti Smith, and others will be singing R.E.M. songs at Carnegie Hall on March 11th. "100% of net proceeds to benefit musical education programs for underprivileged youth." Regular tickets are on sale at the venue's site. VIP tickets are available at the event's own site (thx rajohn)...

Your VIP ticket includes entrance to the private artist reception taking place at City Winery featuring cuisine designed by Mario Batali. Food will be delicious and the free wine will be flowing. Join the artists and friends in New York's first full winery and amazing new event space. The party will start immediately after the concert and go to 1am. With a full stage and sound system at City Winery, we expect many musical surprises!

Mario Batali and Michael Stipe are good friends. Michael Dorf is producing this whole event. Michael Dorf owns the new City Winery which is opening on New Years Eve which is the night Michael Dorf's old club Knitting Factory is closing (which Michael pointed out himself in that NY Press article).

Patti Smith also just added a 3rd show at Bowery Ballroom. Tix are now on sale..

Tickets are still on sale for Kimya Dawson's upcoming show at Bowery Ballroom.

Vic Chetnutt & Elf Power are also touring and playing NYC together in January.

Pro-shot video of R.E.M.'s encore in Mexico City the other day, below...

Continue reading "Music of R.E.M. @ Carnegie Hall w/ Patti Smith, Kimya Dawson, Calexico, Bob Mould & others (by Michael Dorf)"

Photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Last night (October 7) 6 musicians and 6 comedians came together to raise money for Democrtaic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The not-so-packed, but sold out event went on over the course of 5 and a half hours, ending with a set by Andrew Bird who thought this was the greatest afterparty he could imagine. The $40 event was highlighted by an appearance by not-so-secret-guests Franz Ferdindand (who play the same venue again tonight)

"Thanks for letting a bunch of Limeys like us play your rally," said Scot and Greenpoint resident Alex Kapranos. "We only hope you'll invite us back for your victory party." It was a fun night in support of who many of us hope will be the next President of the United States. [Sound Bites]

Other highlights were Eugene Mirman's RNC video coverage, a Les Savy Fav (another not-so-secret guust) patriotic song sing-a-long, and a set by the Fiery Furnaces.

Fiery Furnaces may have played all new songs, I didn't recognize an of them at least. Once again, they've reinvented themselves since last seeing them at MHOW last December. They're now organ-heavy, early '70s funk. I still marvel at Elanor's ability to memorize Fiery Furnaces insanely-verbose lyrics. [Sound Bites]

Each band played 3-5 songs and each comedian joked for about 15 minutes. Downstairs was Obama headquarters where live video of the debate was viewable.

More pictures below...

Continue reading "Barack Rock (Franz Ferdinand, Les Savy Fav, Fiery Furnaces, Andrew Bird, etc) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, NYC - pics"

Andrew Bird / Eugene Mirman / The Fiery Furnaces / Kumail Nanjiani / Alina Simone / Heather Lawless / Guster / Lizz Winstead / Martin Bisi / John Roberts / Adira Amram / Special Secret Musical Guests -- (Not appearing in order)
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN!

Tue 10/7, on sale 9/27 12:00 pm, 18+
Doors 6:30 pm / Show 7:30 pm
$40 advance / $40 day of show
@ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

This show happens while Andrew Bird is in town to play two shows at Hiro Ballroom.