Dead Milkmen @ Fun Fun Fun Fest 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

The NYC Descendents / Suicide Machines show is one day before both bands descend upon the first-ever Riot Fest East at Festival Pier in Philly on 9/24! The killer lineup also includes Dead Milkmen, Naked Raygun, X (playing Los Angeles in full like they'll do two nights in NYC), Hot Water Music, Weston, Samiam, Plow United, The Menzingers (who play Santos on 6/24), Excitebike, Shot Baker, Larry and His Flask, The Holy Mess and more. Tickets for the Philly festival go on sale Friday (6/24) at 10 AM. A Flier and more info below.

Riot Fest East is also one day of the 2nd annual Philly F/M Festival: "A Four Day Event To Promote Music and Film In The City of Brotherly Love To Occur Thursday, Sept 22nd - Sunday, Sept 25th 2011."

The second annual festival will take place over four days, largely in the Fishtown / Northern Liberties neighborhoods of Philadelphia, which in recent years have become a cultural center for music and arts in the city. This year's festival will feature over 15 indoor and outdoor venues with capacities between 100-5,000. Participating venues include: The Festival Pier, Trocadero Theater, TLA, World Café Live and The Ukie Club.

Modeled after successful long-standing events such as SXSW and CMJ, Philly F/M looks to establish itself as the premiere multi-venue music and film festival for the U.S. East Coast entertainment and tourism market. Last year's festival took place in 30 venues with 300 artists and over 60 films from around the world. Philly F/M 2010 attracted 13,000 visitors across all events with little or no "headline" artists. This year the festival will host at least fifteen 'headline-level' artists of all music genres, more than 100 artists total. Attendance projections for the festival is more than 25,000 paid attendees, which will include a core group of at least 5,000 all-access badge holders.

Continue reading "Philly gets a Riot Fest (which is part of the F/M Festival) -- lineup announcements"

Lower Dens @ Bowery Ballroom during CMJ (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Lower Dens headline Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight (2/25). Glory Girls and Ducktains both open. I have two pairs of tickets you can win. Details at the end of this post.

Tickets go on sale at noon for the Dears show at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Tickets go on sale at noon for the Cake show at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Tickets go on sale at noon for the Alexi Murdoch show at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

As previously discussed, Harvey Milk are in fact playing three shows at Union Pool and they've added support for each night. Tickets are now on sale and still available for all three: March 13th with Occultation (mem Negative Plane!), March 14th with Villains, and the newly-onsale March 15th with Luke Roberts.

Tickets go on sale at noon for the Yeasayer show at Terminal 5 (and for the Philly date at the Troc).

Downtown legend Joey Arias is headlining Town Hall on 4/21. Tickets go on presale at noon.

Tickets went on sale Thursday for a Justin Bond/Doveman show at Bowery Ballroom.

Balkan Beat Box are playing Webster Hall on 4/26. Tickets go on sale at noon.

The Airborne Toxic Event are playing Mercury Lounge, Bowery Ballroom and Webster Hall in three days. Tickets for all of them go on sale at noon.

Jukebox the Ghost and Wakey Wakey co-headline a show at Bowery Ballroom that same week. Tickets go on sale at noon.

The Boxer Rebellion have shows coming up at Bowery and Music Hall - both on sale.

Jeff Mangum tickets also went on sale at 11am and noon.

Strokes MSG tickets are also on sale.

Continue reading "Yeasayer, Harvey Milk, Joey Arias, Alexi Murdoch, Cake, Dears, Lower Dens & other tix "

photos by Diana Wong

Surfer Blood @ Stratosphere Sound

This can best be described in the words of the person who invited me to this:

"we're going to be hosting a private, unofficial CMJ artist lounge here at Stratosphere Sound (James Iha, Adam Schlesinger and Andy Chase's studio in Chelsea) on Thursday, October 21st.

We're going to be having [8] bands recording 2-3 stripped-down songs (which will be recorded by our Grammy Award-Winning engineer Geoff Sanoff, and then featured in a special Insound.com mixtape a week later). Confirmed acts:

11AM - Fake Problems
12PM - Dom
1PM - Bear Hands
2PM - Surfer Blood
3PM - Ma.Mentor
4PM - Woven Bones
5PM - Class Actress
6PM - Jukebox the Ghost

Additionally, [we'll have a lounge where artists and industry folks will be invited to enjoy drinks from our liquor sponsor Maker's Mark, and check out free goodies from Fred Perry]

Continue reading "Surfer Blood, Dom, Bear Hands, Woven Bones & others played Insound Sessions @ Stratosphere Sound (pics) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Lawrence Arabia - Beautiful Young Crew (Mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Lawrence Arabia - Apple Pie Bed (MP3)

Lawrence Arabia

Kiwi popsmith Lawrence Arabia (real name James Milne) is back in NYC for CMJ (last here with Crowded House), playing a few shows -- the first of which is today's (10/19) early evening New Zealand showcase at Le Poisson Rouge. He's on at 6PM and the show is FREE but you do need to RSVP if you don't have a CMJ badge. (Free booze of some sort too, apparently.) The rest of the NZ line-up is Zowie (who is also playing the Fader Fort and Fat Baby on Friday), Kids of 88, Street Chant, Ruby Frost and Electric Wire Hustle.

Lawrence Arabia also plays Thursday, Oct. 21 at Bowery Electric (11PM) for the Bella Union/Yep Roc showcase with former Lucksmith Darren Hanlon, Savoir Adore, Jukebox the Ghost, Drink Up Buttercup, Alessi's Ark, and Heidi Spencer.

Lawrence Arabia's excellent second album, Chant Darling, was released early 2010 on the Bella Union label and ranges from gentle folk to ELO-style orch-pop. You can download two tracks from the album at the top of this post. It's really charming, tuneful stuff. In addition to his solo work, Milne has also spent time in the Brunettes, Ruby Suns and as a touring member of Okkerville River.

Some Lawrence Arabia music videos, the flyer and stuff, below...

Continue reading "Lawrence Arabia & other New Zealand artists here for CMJ (dates, MP3s, videos) "

Free Energy @ SXSW 2010 (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

There is much touring in DFA band Free Energy's future including that series of Daytrotter Barnstormer dates with Nathaniel Rateliff and others, the Pitchfork Festival, and three weeks on the road with Jukebox the Ghost which brings them to Bowery Ballroom on May 29th. Tickets are on sale. Miniature Tigers, who open a portion of that tour, are also on the NYC bill.

We'll also get the chance to see Free Energy this summer when they play a free show at South Street Seaport with Best Coast on Friday July 23rd, part of the annual Seaport Music Series that kicks off on July 2nd (that day's lineup and the rest of the summer's will be announced, at least in part, soon). Best Coast, who are also playing the Pitchfork Fest, recently passed through NYC and played to packed houses at Knitting Factory and Mercury Lounge.

All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Free Energy tour dates w/ Jukebox the Ghost, co-headlining Bowery, playing South Street Seaport w/ Best Coast, more"

"The 2010 Lollapalooza line-up is official: Soundgarden, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, and Phoenix will headline, joined by Social Distortion, MGMT, Jimmy Cliff, Hot Chip, and The Black Keys. With 130 bands on this year's bill, its sure to be a weekend long feast for the ears.

It's a monumental year for Lollapalooza, filled with homecomings, reunions, and first-times. Soundgarden, 1992 and 1996 Lollapalooza alumni, return to the Lollapalooza stage for their first performance since 1997. Green Day will rock Grant Park sixteen years after their first Lollapalooza appearance. While Lady Gaga will headline the festival only three short years after playing the BMI stage at Lollapalooza 2007.

Arcade Fire returns to Grant Park, having played the reincarnated Lollapalooza in 2005. This is the first Lollapalooza for The Strokes - and also their first show in four years. And making their Lollapalooza debut: Phoenix." - Lollapalooza

Continue reading "Lollapalooza actually announces 2010 lineup "

photos by Alex Erde

Harvey Danger somehow...got John Hodgman to introduce them. It was hilarious...Once they came out on stage, they were incredible. They played for about 2 hours and 40 minutes, longer than I've ever seen any band play for before in my life. By the end, there wasn't really too much left that they hadn't played. It was really awesome and didn't get boring at all...even if we were all insanely tired by almost 2AM when we finally walked out.

For the encore, they came out and did a lot of Q&A and took requests. A bunch of them.

They sounded really on all night too, even towards the end of the set, they were still playing well and having a great time on stage. If you didn't make this show, you messed up, big time. Below is the full set list so that you can kick yourself for missing the show...[ihaveamessage]

Harvey Danger's final, final show happens August 29th at The Crocodile in Seattle. More NYC pictures, some videos and that setlist are below...

Continue reading "Harvey Danger played their final NY show -pics/video/setlist"

After 15 years, three albums, hundreds of shows, and far more twists and turns than we ever imagined possible, we've decided to put Harvey Danger to rest. The decision is totally mutual and utterly amicable. Everyone is very proud of the work we've done together, but we've also come to feel that our collaboration has--in a very positive way--run its course. We're all eager to try our hands at other projects, musical and otherwise. Chances are we'll all work together in one form or another; if we've learned anything, it's that you never know what will happen. Of course, putting an end to something we've been working on since our early 20s can't help being accompanied by a soupcon of melancholy. Nonetheless, as the Chambers Brothers remind us, time has come today. Rock bands have life spans, and Harvey Danger's has been longer, and more eventful, than even we would have predicted. [Harvey Danger]

The band previously played a "final show" in 2001, which led to a two year hiatus. Read the rest of Harvey Danger's goodbye note, with all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Harvey Danger is breaking up -- final tour dates (Bell House)"

Pattern is Movement

Tonight's show was supposed to be at Studio B and was supposed to have The Jealous Girlfriends on the bill (August 20). Instead, Pattern is Movement, Jukebox the Ghost, Bryan Scary and "a very special unannounced guest" (not Sarah Silverman) are playing at Le Royale on 7th Ave in Manhattan. Is the special guest The Jealous Girlfriends or is it The XYZ Affair or is it somebody completely different? I don't know.

On September 10th, Pattern is Movement kick of a tour in Canada and keep going through October when they eventually meet up with the reunited Shudder to Think to play a few shows including the October 4th one at Webster Hall. The Jealous Girlfriends are also on that bill. Less than a week later The Jealous Girlfriends go out on tour with the Wedding Present. That tour does not currently include the two NYC WP shows. All PIM and TJG tour dates (and the Le Royale flyer) below...

Continue reading "Pattern is Movement - 2008 Tour Dates (tonight, a special guest, Shudder To Think & The Jealous Girlfriends)"

DOWNLOAD: Le Loup - We are Gods! We are Wolves! (MP3)

Washington DC band Le Loup have everything going for them - good looks, good songs, good press, (and according to many I've talked to who've seen them,) an awesome live show, AND they're signed to Hardly Art - a label started earlier this year by Sub Pop. They've also got two upcoming NYC shows - one tomorrow night (Sept 7) at Pianos, and one on October 3rd as opener for Nightmare of You (random?).

The Pianos bill is extra special because it happens to be jam-packed with fellow DC bands like Exit Clov and Filthy McMuffin Band to Watch Jukebox the Ghost - WHO are also in the middle of a September Pianos residency. This show is one of those dates - all of them can be found at their MySpace page). All Le Loup dates below...

Continue reading "LE LOUP (Hardly Art) - 2007 Tour Dates (+Jukebox the Ghost)"

Jukebox the Ghost @ After the Jump @ Studio B, NYC - Aug 25, 2007

Though I wasn't personally involved with this weekend's After the Jump festival, BV dance writer David Bruno ("Slap You in Public") & BV hip hop writer Undisputed Wes ("Sit Down Stand Up"), were. And though I only personally made it to the Friday pre-festival roof party, impartial BV-correspodent Filthy McMuffin was in attendance at the daytime portion on Saturday, and he said "Jukebox the Ghost and Goes Cube were the best". He left before Spectrum (the daytime headliner) though. How were they?

Spectrum @ After the Jump @ Studio B, NYC - Aug 25, 2007

More pics by Bryan Subinev (like those in this post) at Flickr. More Spectrum (Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom) tour dates below....

Continue reading "After the Jump Fest @ Studio B & more Spectrum Tour Dates"