Tickets to see Big Terrific's 5th Anniversary show at Music Hall of Williamsburg go on sale today at noon.

Mika plays Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 12 and tickets go on sale today at noon. Mika also plays Le Poisson Rouge before that on April 9 and those tickets are currently on sale.

Tickets to all three of the Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel Band shows at Mercury Lounge go on AmEx presale today at noon.

Tickets to see Flume at Music Hall of Williamsburg go on AmEx presale today at noon.

Tickets to see Marnie Stern at Music Hall of Williamsburg go on AmEx presale today at noon.

Tickets to see Born Ruffians at Bowery Ballroom go on AmEx presale today at noon. Tickets to their Maxwell's show go on sale today at noon.

Tickets to see Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus Three with Peter Buck at Webster Hall go on AmEx presale today at noon.

Tickets to Redd Kross' show at Santos are on sale now.

Ludacris, Neon Trees, Timeflies and Questlove will play the Billboard Launch party which happens at  Stage 48 on Thursday (2/21). Tickets will be given away via Billboard's Facebook and Twitter.

Prince Rama is playing the afterparty for the Art Lottery benefit for ISSUE Project Room at Three-Legged Dog tonight (2/20). Tickets ($50) for the show are on sale now.

by Andrew Sacher

As mentioned, Big Boi releases his second solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, next week (12/11) via Def Jam. His solo debut, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, is still my single favorite hip hop album of the new decade so naturally I've been seriously anticipating VLADR since Big Boi mentioned he began work on it. And admittedly, the album is a bit overshadowed by its predecessor, due in part to lacking a song as huge as "Shutterbug." But though the album never hits a moment as large as that one, it's still a winner in its own right.

Vicious Lies opens up like a classic OutKast album, with a short, slow and pretty intro track that leads right into a blunted headknocker, "The Thickets," which appropriately features Sleepy Brown of Organized Noize, who worked on a lot of early OutKast. The bar continues to raise on the next track, a rhythmic club track up there with "Tangerine" or the Big Boi-featuring Janelle Monae track from that same year, "Tightrope." The album plateaus a bit there but more standouts start appearing later on with tracks like "Thom Pettie," a dirty synth track with a great hook from Little Dragon and a characteristically abrasive verse from Killer Mike. Later on we get "Lines," which is probably the best track on the album thanks to a killer chorus from Phantogram that doesn't leave your head once its in there (A$AP Rocky is on the track too). But the most interesting moment of the album has to be "Shoes For Running," which is carried by a hook sung by Wavves dude Nathan Williams. The only thing stopping it from being a total head scratcher is that Nathan toured with GZA and Killer Mike (which itself was a head scratcher) and I still can't decide if it's one of those fun indie/rap collabs like Kid Cudi and MGMT's "Pursuit of Happiness that you'll be hearing all year, or just plain weird. But the fact that I'm still going on about it must say something.

Big Boi will be in NYC next week, the day before his album release for an invite-only Hot 97 show at SOB's (12/10). The only way you can get in though is to win them from Hot 97.

Before that, Big Boi will stop by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Friday (12/7) to perform "Mama Told Me" with Little Dragon, who were initially supposed to guest on the song's recording, but were replaced on the album by Kelly Rowland.

Since we last spoke about the album, Big Boi has (legally) revealed two more of its tracks, the Kid Cudi-featuring "She Hates Me," and the T.I. and Ludacris-featuring Atlanta boasting party "In the A," both of which you can hear below. In related news, TI just revealed his storied track with Andre 3000, "Sorry," which will appear on his upcoming Trouble Man LP and can also be streamed below.

Continue reading "Big Boi releases new 'Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors' tracks, playing Hot 97 show in NYC (streams)"

This letter, signed by a ton of artists and pictured above, is set to appear in an ad in Billboard:

We are big fans of Pandora. That's why we helped give the company a discount on rates for the past decade.

Pandora is now enjoying phenomenal success as a Wall Street company. Skyrocketing growth in revenues and users. We celebrate that. At the same time, the music community is just now beginning to gain its footing in the new digital world.

Pandora's principal asset is the music.

Why is the company asking Congress once again to step in and gut the royalties that thousands of musicians rely upon? That's not fair, and that's not how partners work together.
Congress has many pressing issues to consider, but this is not one of them. Let's work this out as partners and continue to bring fans the great musical experience they rightly expect.

The issue is that Pandora is supporting the Internet Radio Fairness Act which they say will "help end the long-standing discrimination against internet radio". Artists are mad because that possibly means less money for them, but Pandora and other Internet radio providers argue they can't stay in business the way things are now.

Continue reading "A bunch of artists wrote an open letter to Pandora who support the Internet Radio Fairness Act"

photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

St. Vincent/Radiohead

Complimenting [Radiohead's] case for its post-major-label forays into art-rock craftsmanship was a stunning stage production that was a work of art in and of itself. With band members backlit by two towering video walls, a dozen tile-like screens shifted shape overhead and changed color with thrilling results. Wild-card set list selections included "I Might Be Wrong," "House of Cards," and "Kid A"; while live staples like "Idioteque," "Karma Police" and fevered-pitch show-closer "Paranoid Android" were among the oldies represented. [Rolling Stone]

Before playing "Supercollider," Thom Yorke took a minute to dedicate the song to Jack White. He said, "This song is for Jack White. We saw him yesterday. A big thank-you to him, we're not going to tell you why but you'll find out." As many have speculated, this could mean that Radiohead have recorded/will be recording a Third Man single. We'll see.

Continue reading "Bonnaroo Day 2 in pics (Radiohead, St. Vincent, Feist, Ludacris, Laura Marling, Little Dragon & Sharon Jones)"

"Superfly Presents and A.C. Entertainment are excited to announce the initial lineup for the 2012 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. The 11th annual four-day camping and music festival will be held on June 7 - 10 on the same beautiful 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles south of Nashville. A full list of confirmed acts follows, and more will be announced in the coming weeks. The final Bonnaroo 2012 lineup will total over 125 bands and over 20 comedians performing on 13 stages over four days.Tickets for the event will go on sale on this Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 12 noon EST exclusively at bonnaroo.com."

Continue reading "Bonnaroo 2012 lineup announced"

Beach Boys @ The Grammys

Though the Bonnaroo lineup won't be announced until later today (via Spotify), Knoxville.com has supposedly leaked some of it via a photo gallery which includes Beach Boys, Radiohead, Bon Iver, Phish, Foster the People, Alice Cooper, Ludacris, Black Star, Skrillex, Punch Brothers, The Avett Brothers, The Shins, Flogging Molly, Feist and Aziz Ansari. We can't know for sure if this is all correct, but I did hear that the Beach Boys were playing, and many of those bands have been rumored for a while, and the Beach Boys have promised more dates, so... well, we'll see soon! UPDATE: Yep, they are!

If it is all true, I really hope that this time Foster the People stay off the Beach Boys' stage unlike at the Grammys, as you can watch below...

Continue reading "Beach Boys played the Grammys, playing Bonnaroo? (we'll know for sure soon)"

photos by Chris Graham

Pavement @ Sasquatch Fest 2010

The above-pictured Pavement show took place in May 2010 (and wasn't free). In September, Pavement will play Virgin Mobile FreeFest (and it is free)....

"Breaking from traditional festivals, the Virgin Mobile FreeFest presented by Kyocera unveiled its lineup for the award-winning festival, selecting relevant, important, and eclectic headliners to represent this year's free show. This morning, Chairman of the Virgin Group Sir Richard Branson announced the lineup on Virgin Mobile Live, the company's new Internet music stream available on Virgin Mobile websites.

The lineup will include:

M.I.A., LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, PAVEMENT, T.I., LUDACRIS, JOAN JETT, THIEVERY CORPORATION, MATT & KIM, JIMMY EAT WORLD, THE TEMPER TRAP, EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS, AND YEASAYER;

DANCE FOREST: CHROMEO, SLEIGH BELLS, DIE ANTWOORD, MODESELEKTOR, AND NEON INDIAN

Not bad for a free show (and yet another Pavement show!). More details, with the full set of pictures of Pavement playing this year's Sasquatch Fest, below...

Continue reading "Virgin Mobile FreeFest lineup +++ Pavement Sasquatch pics "

Ludacris is playing the Apollo Theater on December 28th. Tickets are now on presale (password = ALIST).

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the Beach House show happening at Webster Hall.

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the Yeasayer show happening at Webster Hall.

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the two upcoming Rogue Wave shows in NYC.

The Sadies are playing Mercury Lounge on February 27th. Tickets are on sale
(@ noon).

A whole bunch of other tickets just went on sale too.

Bishop Allen @ Fun Fun Fun Fest 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

today in NYC
* DANCE
* Stella @ Union Hall !
* NY Dolls @ Stone Pony
* Ani Difranco @ Town Hall
* Rasputina @ the Bell House
* Al Green @ Wellmont Theater
* The Hackensaw Boys @ 92YTribeca
* Robyn Hitchcock @ Symphony Space
* Slutty Puppets @ Galapagos Art Space
* The Dig & Frankpollis @ The Studio at Webster Hall
* Baroness, Coliseum & Minsk @ Bowery Ballroom
* Electric Six, Local H, Fall On Your Sword @ Webster Hall
* Bishop Allen, Drink Up Buttercup & Electric Owls @ MHOW
* Peter & The Wolf, Ava Luna & Draw Into Disorder @ Silent Barn
* We Are Scientists, Mobius Band & Grandma's Boy @ Irving Plaza
* Grails, Silver Apples, Dinowalrus & Nudge @ Knitting Factory
* Hopewell, Bear in Heaven, Artranker Convoy & Tulips @ Cake Shop
* Cheap Time w/ The Black Clouds, The Konks, and Golden Error @ Asterisk Art Space

in Boston: The Brainwaves Festival

! I have no idea when they added the Stella show at Union Hall, but Union Hall's site reads "SOLD OUT: no tickets are available". It's a warmup for the upcoming tour and shows at Nokia Theatre. It's not clear whether Michael Showalter will also be performing with Eugene Mirman at Union Hall this Sunday. How was the Showalter/Black show at Caroline's?

Local H goes on at 7:45 tonight at Webster Hall (or someone just told me maybe 9:00).

Bishop Allen also plays MHOW on Sunday.

Tonight was supposed to be the first of two Flower Travellin Band shows at Knitting Factory.

NY Dolls added tonight's NJ show since I last posted their tour dates that include Irving Plaza in December.

Ludacris is playing Highline Ballroom Tuesday night.

Bjork turned 43 yesterday.

Karen O was born today in 1978.

Steven Van Zandt was born today in 1950.

John F. Kennedy died today in 1963.

Grails played Union Pool last night. Video below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Saturday?"

Busta Rhymes @ Radio City Music Hall - Oct 6, 2007

NEWS

• I attended the Boost Mobile Rock Corps concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, Just Blaze, Biz Markie, Marley Marl, Hurricane Chris, Spliff Star, Yung Joc, Keshia Cole, and a mesmerizingly beautiful Eve who was on the wrong side of the stage for me to take photos of. Dagger! It was a great show with a lot of highlights and a lot of love between performers backstage. A few photos are in this post and more can be found here.
• Lupe Fiasco has gotten himself into a Hip Hop purist beenest by first messing up the Tribe Called Quest lyrics during the VH1 Hip Hop Honors tribute, and then lashing out to critics over it. A nice summary of it all can be found here.
• Prodigy is going to jail for 3.5 years.
• Jim Jones signed a deal with Sony/BMG.
• JD explains his secret to success: naked dancing women.
• Say it ain't say. Nelly & T.I. are apparently working on a collaborative album.
• Kool G Rap has a new album coming soon. Tracklist and coverart here.
• Dan Love enlightens us on the 3 bar loop applied in A Tribe Called Quest's music.
• Jay-Z is releasing his new album American Gangster November 6th. YN got a chance to preview it.
• Kanye West, Will.i.am - On Board For New Michael Jackson Album

For more downloads, videos, news and tour dates, keep reading below....

Continue reading "Wes' Weekly Hip Hop News Roundup (October 11, 2007)"

future Ludacris ticket holders cleaning Prospect Park

Do some volunteer work. Get a ticket to Radio City in return. The October 6th show will feature Ludacris and "additional talent to be announced".