Permanent Wave is a network of feminist artists and activists. If you want to help challenge the gender binary as it manifests itself in art, politics, and our personal lives, we want you to join. We believe that women, queer, and trans people should see each other as collaborators and inspirations, not rivals. We want to finish the conversation about equality that started generations ago and change the way women are treated.

As mentioned in This Week in Indie, MEN play a Permanent Wave party at 285 Kent tonight (1/26) with Making Friendz. Get out your goth tits tee and go. Tickets at the door. More info, like how there's gonna be a bake sale too, at the Facebook invite.

(MEN are not to be confused with the Men who just put out a new song and who play 285 Kent in March)

MEN have announced via their new website that "IN ONE MONTH OR LESS THERE WILL BE AN EP RELEASED." and that they've been nominated for a GLAAD Media Award, and that they now have a street team you can join.

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Cloud Nothings - "No Future/No Past" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cloud Nothings - "Stay Useless" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: My Best Fiend - "Higher Palms" (MP3)

Nada Surf

The column comes early as it's a busy week and there are lots of shows to talk about. First up, venerable NYC trio Nada Surf's new album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, is out today and the band play Bowery Ballroom this evening to celebrate. Tonight's show is sold out but Nada Surf will be streaming the show live via their YouTube channel starting at 10PM. The band then head out for a good two months of touring and all dates are at the bottom of this post.

The band's seventh album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, is another fine record in Nada Surf's catalog of positive-vibe guitar pop, bolstered this time out by Doug Gillard who provides a lot of great lead work. This kind of music may not be in fashion right now, but it also never really goes out of style. And they do it really well You can stream or download the ebullient first single "Waiting for Something" at the bottom of this post and Spotify users can listen to the album here.

Cloud Nothings - 'Attack on Memory'

Also out today: Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory which, as Andrew noted a couple weeks ago, is much more sophisticated and agressive than the tuneful pop-punk the band have released in the past. They're still writing catchy songs -- check out "Stay Useless at the top of this post -- but the shift is fairly radical, so much so that main man Dylan Baldi briefly considered changing the name of the band. (It's not that radical.) It's a very good album, and you can listen to it on Spotify and watch the brand-new video for "No Future/No Past" at the bottom of this post.

The album, you may have seen, got Best New Music on the 'Fork yesterday, and despite this there are still tickets to be had for Cloud Nothings' show this Thursday (1/26) at The Studio @ Webster Hall though I imagine not for long. Knowing how good the band are live (what a drummer!) I'm really anxious to hear these songs live. It's a one-off show, but the band will tour starting mid-February including, need I say it, time in Austin for SXSW. All dates are at the bottom of this post.

The Hundred in the Hands - Bowery Ballroom Feb. 2011 (more)
 

The Hundred in the Hands are playing their first show in a long time this Friday (1/27) at Glasslands, which will give us the first taste of the duo's second album which will be out on Warp at some point this year. While they haven't released any tracks from it yet, they are still updating the THITH Zine, the band's culture zine that most recently interview artist Zander Blom. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the archives that's worth checking out.

My Best Fiend

A lot of people will be at Glasslands on Friday just to check out THITH's Warp labelmates My Best Fiend whose album In Ghostlike Fading is out February 21. My Best Fiend are not your typical Warp act, closer to the space blues of Spiritualized or My Morning Jacket (or Neil Young) than the electronic music that fills most of the label's roster. The band have been plugging away in the Brooklyn scene for upwards of seven years and its good to see it pay off for them. You can download album-opener "Higher Palms" at the top of this post and you can stream "Cracking Eggs" (which features Light Asylum's Shannon Fuchness) further down.

The Glasslands show also features duo Bikini who make unapologetic four-on-the-floor dancefloor fodder, and Bear in Heaven will be DJing between sets, hopefully not playing all the records at 400,000% slower than normal.

Guy Harvey

And finally we have Florida's Guy Harvey, which is a band and not a solo artist and should not to be confused with Elbow frontman Guy Garvey which I did for half a second. The band are on tour with Gainsville residents Averkiou and hit NYC this weekend for two shows: Friday (1/27) at Cake Shop and Saturday (1/28) at Death by Audio. All GH/Averkiou dates are at the bottom of this post.

You may recognize Guy Harvey frontman Adam Perry from his moonlighting gig as an auxiliary member of Surfer Blood. There's not a lot of Guy Harvey music out there to listen to, but both sides of a 2010 7" (streamable below) are ace, with a strong Flying Nun influence. If you liked the Twerps album from last year, give Guy Harvey a listen. Averkiou, meanwhile, make fuzzy, shoegazy pop not too far from early Teenage Fanclub. Check out a few streaming tracks at the bottom of this post.

Friday's Cake Shop show is with Byrdsy locals Slow Country whose new album is a name-your-price download at their Bandcamp and is quite nice. Saturday's show at Death by Audio also has underrated Brooklyn bands I'm Turning Into and Bright Lights. Either show is worth checking out. Or go to both!

That's the main stuff for this week. Below are a few more picks, day-by-day, of shows not covered otherwise.

The Hairs

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24

There's a TWII-approved line-up at East Village mainstay Lit Lounge -- that is now booking bands I've heard of again -- with The Hairs (new single out next month), Pigeons, and Gross Relations.

Friends have shown up on most of the "Bands to Watch in 2012" lists. Go watch them in 2012, tonight, at Cameo as part of a very solid bill with Phonetag and Spanish Prisoners.

continued below...

Continue reading "Nada Surf, Cloud Nothings, Hundred in the Hands, My Best Fiend, Guy Harvey, Averkiou & more in This Week in Indie"

Hunx at Cake Shop in April (more by Chris La Putt)

Hunx & His Punx are going on tour at the end of this summer. The full tour hasn't been announced yet, but we know that it That includes two NYC shows. The first is on September 3 at Mercury Lounge with K-Holes. The next is September 17 at Knitting Factory with Natural Child and Making Friendz. Tickets are on sale for the Mercury show and the Knitting Factory show. All dates are below.

In related news, Shannon & the Clams, who share members with His Punx, are touring with Shonen Knife, who are releasing a Ramones tribute album. They don't open either of the two NYC Shonen Knife shows though.

K-Holes also play tonight (7/14) at Union Hall with Gary War and Pop. 1280. Tickets are available. K-Holes also play Friday night at 251 Norman, and July 18th at Death By Audio.

All Hunx tour dates below...

Continue reading "upcoming Hunx & His Punx shows, K-Holes too (dates)"

DOWNLOAD: Making Friendz - Situation (MP3)

Making Friendz aka Tami Hart

MEN (featuring JD Samson of Le Tigre) started a tour at Bowery Ballroom back in March. That tour ends tonight, April 7th, at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn with opening sets by Australia's Romy and No Bra (who literally wears no bra, or shirt even). Tickets are still available for tonight's show and I have a pair you can win. Details below.

MEN bassist Tami Hart is otherwise known as Making Friendz, who used to be signed to Kathleen Hanna's Mr. Lady Records, and is now signed to Brooklyn's Last Bummer Records who are releasing her next album, Social Life, on 6/21. The first track from that high energy "sweet, sweaty mixture of lo-fi punk and glossy pop, R&B and disco" is called "Situation" (hopefully not a reference to Jersey Shore). You might remember dancing to the song at one of Tami's live shows, or heard the demo on MySpace, but now the album-ready, studio-recorded and mastered version is finished, and it makes its first appearance in this post. Download it above. Stream it below.

Some videos and the contest details below too...

Continue reading "Making Friendz is Tami Hart from MEN (who play MHOW tonight), releasing 'Social Life' (MP3 premiere)"

Kathleen Hanna with Bikini Kill in the 90s

Kathleen Hannah will be celebrated on December 11th at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, as a host of bands she has influenced will team up to perform songs from across her career. The show is a benefit for a forthcoming documentary on the Bikini Kill/Le Tigre member:

Kathleen is currently the subject of a documentary tentatively titled The Kathleen Hanna Project, a.k.a. Who Told You Christmas Wasn't Cool?, directed by Sister Spit alumni, Sini Anderson. ...The documentary explores exactly what makes people react so strongly to Kathleen Hanna's work... her personal motives and perspective on the scene she's been a part of for 20 years, "there's also a lot of context: the history, the musicians, the other people who were part of that movement." The film is also about perseverance in the face of personal attacks, even from those within one's own marginalized community. "Kathleen took an enormous amount of shit. She ate a lot of dirt along the way." And Anderson wants to know, "when people are so busy trying to take you down, how do you keep on creating?" -[The Feminist Guide To Hollywood]

Sini Anderson will also be filming the show for the documentary. Tickets are on sale.

Bands playing include Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Kaia Wilson, MEN (aka JD Samson of Le Tigre's new band), Bridget Everett, Care Bears on Fire, Hilly Eye, She Murders (featuring Kim Gordon's daughter Coco), Toshi Reagon, Making Friendz, Christy & Emily, and many many others including video performances by Caroline Polachek (Chairlift) and a dance performance by Emily Wexler. Full lineup is below.

Kathleen Hanna DJed the sold-out Raincoats show at MoMa on 11/20. Some videos below...

Continue reading "Kathleen Hanna documentary benefit @ Knitting Factory "