photos by Winnie Cheung

"EXCUSE ME?! GIRL TALK AT TERMINAL 5?!?! TONIGHT????
WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS?!?!" - Shaina

"I hate everyone that got Terminal 5 Girl Talk tickets. I hate you." - Al

"It's like woah at Girl Talk @ Terminal 5" - Amber Roussel

Girl Talk kicked off the second leg of his 2011 tour at a sold-out Terminal 5 in NYC last night (2/24). The first leg ended at Wellmont Theater earlier this month.

Max Tundra and Junk Culture (who both also played Glasslands on Wednesday) are opening all dates through March 23rd. That includes last night, though we missed them. Pictures from Girl Talk's set are in this post though.

$75 "Early Bird Tickets" went on sale yesterday for the Governors Ball, the new fest coming to Governors Island that will feature a co-headlining set by Gregg Gillis. It's unclear how many tickets were in the "Early Bird" allotment, but they are already sold out. $85 "Limited Advance Tickets" are on sale now. They eventually go up to $95 each.

More pictures from Terminal 5 below...

Continue reading "Girl Talk played Terminal 5 (pics), Governors Ball on sale"

photos by Brian Reilly

DOWNLOAD: Junk Culture - Weird Teenage Vibes (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Junk Culture - Summer Friends (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - The Rockford Files theme song remixed (ZIPPED MP3)

Girl Talk @ Wellmont Theater

Girl Talk completed the first leg of his current tour at Wellmont Theater in Montclair, NJ Saturday night (2/5) (one night after Lauryn Hill played the same venue). Penguin Prison opened the show, like they did on previous dates. Pictures from that show are in this post.

Now on a slight break, Greg Gillis will launch the second leg of his tour at Terminal 5 in NYC on 2/24. The show is sold out.

Opening all Girl Talk dates from 2/24-3/25 are both Max Tundra and Girl Talk's Illegal Art label-mate Junk Culture, both of whom will first play their own smaller show at Glasslands in Brooklyn on 2/23 with Nite Club and George & Jonathan. Tickets are on sale. All tour dates are listed below.

Junk Culture released "Summer Friends" this week. The full 5-song tracklist is listed below. Download two of the tracks for free above now.

"Oxford Mississippi native Deepak Mantena of creative pop-project Junk Culture developed the sound for his newest release, Summer Friends, from a lifetime collection of sounds he'd captured on a handheld recorder. Drawing on inspiration he found in the vibrant harmonies, psychedelic noises and dance rhythms that saturated his environment, he created alluring melodies using guitar, keyboard, and percussion and topped them off with choruses of his own explosive vocals. Experimenting with recording and sampling the symphony of sounds from his everyday life left him filled with a sense of freedom and a revived faith in the process of making music; the warm euphoric tunes he emerged with reflect a compelling range of influences that include everything from west-coast style pop to hip-hop mash-ups and raw punk-informed electronic dance tunes." [PR]

Max Tundra doesn't have a new release, but has been busy in the studio creating one. Meanwhile he is giving away a new track in the form of a Rockford Files theme song remix (grab that above). He has also recently released remixes for Marnie Stern, Abe Vigoda, Chilly Gonzales, Tune-Yards, Kele and others. Listen to those remixes below.

More pictures from the NJ Girl Talk show, all tour dates, and a pair of time lapse videos from the show in DC are also below...

Continue reading "Girl Talk & Penguin Prison played Wellmont Theater (pics), Max Tundra & Junk Culture playing Brooklyn & releasing stuff"

Dan Deacon has been tapped by Francis Ford Coppola to score his next film, Twixt Now and Sunrise, due later this year. The gothic romance stars Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Ben Chaplin & Elle Fanning. In addition to scoring the film, Mr. Coppola and Mr. Deacon are collaborating on a larger level, details of which will be announced soon.

The announcement comes on the cusp of Deacon's concert of new music for So Percussion on Jan. 20th at the Merkin Concert Hall in NYC and his first performance of new orchestral work Feb 3rd and 4th with the Kitchner-Waterloo Symphony in Kitchner, Ontario.

In not really related news, Dan's old touring partner Girl Talk was the topic of a much-talked-about article in the NY Times (again) this past Sunday. Girl Talk is on tour now. Max Tundra and Junk Culture are both opening the sold out Terminal 5 show. Penguin Prison opens the sold out Wellmont Theatre show.

The new Francis Ford Coppola movie is a horror movie, as the video below points out...

Continue reading "Dan Deacon scoring new Francis Ford Coppola film 'Twixt Now and Sunrise', Girl Talk in the NY Times"

Owen Pallett @ Webster Hall in April (more by Sarahana)

Arcade Fire collaborator and 2010 Polaris Prize nominee Owen Pallett (ex-Final Fantasy) has been added as the opener to both the August 4th and August 5th Spoon & Arcade Fire shows at Madison Square Garden (tickets). Those dates are in addition to his upcoming tours with both Dirty Projectors (he opens Terminal 5) and the National (he opens Wellmont Theatre).

Owen is giving away a free EP via Domino for one week only. The tracklist for that EP (Dan Deacon remix included) and all dates below...

Continue reading "Owen Pallett adds more tour dates, opening for Arcade Fire & Spoon @ MSG, giving away free EP"

photos by Andrew Frisciano & Chris La Putt

DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Reaction To Substance M (MP3)

The Deastro & Max Tundra tour is underway and lands in NYC tonight (11/11) for a show at Mercury Lounge. Anamanaguchi and Blast Off! open (not sold out).

A few Saturdays ago Deastro played the free BV/BP party at Pianos. More pictures from that show and all dates below...

Continue reading "Deastro on tour w/ Max Tundra (NYC tonight) ++ Pianos pics"

photos by Tim Griffin

DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - Which Song (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Reaction To Substance M (MP3)

Deastro and Max Tundra will join up for a tour (all dates TBA) that includes a NYC show at Mecury Lounge on Wednesday, November 11th. Tickets for that are on AmEx presale now. General sale starts Friday, August 28th at noon.

Max Tundra was last in NYC this past Sunday to open for Girl Talk. You saw him in Bao's pics, but Tim's were all of the crowd. More of Tim's (slightly stylized) shots of Max, with all dates, and a video of Deastro live on KEXP, below...

Continue reading "Max Tundra & Deastro to tour - MP3, NYC tix, Pool Party pics"

photos by Tim Griffin

"From every vantage point, there were flailing body parts, sweat-drenched faces and tumbling body surfers. After hours of shoving, pushing, jumping, air-humping and fist-pumping, the crowd screamed and let out a huge breath of air and walked their limp bodies home in the rain.

Even though his live show is little more than a dude from Pittsburgh with a laptop, Gillis' intensity is undeniable. He started the concert dry-headed and wearing a sweatshirt, but by the end of the set he was half-naked and completely soaked in his own sweat. By then, Gillis was just another dude in the crowd, as the audience had long since rushed the stage to join the party next to Gillis. Halfway through the set, the music stopped suddenly because the crowd had pulled out some cords. 10 minutes later, the music stopped again because the stage was falling apart from all the weight of the dancing fans.

"You guys broke the stage!" Gillis yelled." [MTV]

You can view one set of pictures from the show, HERE, and another set that's Gillis-free, below....

Continue reading "pictures of people enjoying Girl Talk @ Sunday's Pool Party"

photos by Bao Nguyen

"And here I thought the week was going to start out with some slow news cycle bullshit about how I need to take my dog to vet because I think she ate something really bad last night and can't stop pooping on my roommate's shit, but lucky me! A blogger friend just called from the Williamsburg Pool parties (which I guess are called something else now since they don't happen at McCarren Pool) to tell me that Senator Chuck Schumer is hanging out and meeting his hipster constituents.

Of course this is no coincidence...Schumer happened to be on Meet the Press today, talking about giving up on a bipartisan health care plan in lieu of trying to get the Democrats' plan passed with all 60 votes from Dems in the house. And while we appreciate the effort Schumer is making in trying to get young people to care about this important topic, he DOES realize that 99.9% of kids who go to Girl Talk shows are living in Williamsburg because of their trust funds, right? I guess individual health care does make sense when your parents dole out allowances in the millions." [mediaelites]

Schumer was also recently showing his support for Grace Potter in Prospect Park.

And the show was packed. Not everyone got in. At one point they needed to stop Girl Talk because supposedly the stage was collapsing. Check out the above crowd shot HUGE. More pictures from Sunday's Pool Party (8/23), below....

Continue reading "Girl Talk, Max Tundra & Wiz Khalifa (and a lot of people) @ the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn - pics "

"The emails have been piling up and everyone's asking, "dude, what's up with the Pool Parties?" Well DUDE, so sorry to keep you waiting, but here at JELLY we've been working our asses off to bring you one of the greatest free concert series in history. The Pool Parties are going to be extremely crucial this year, "epic" or "amazing" as you people say these days. Seriously, eight weeks of FREE shows on the waterfront of Williamsburg? Does it get any better? You might be thinking "waterfront"? Yeah, in case you didn't hear the McCarren Pool's closed so get over it :) , and yeah we kept the name Pool Parties even though the East River's not at a pool, so what? We've still got DODGEBALL, basketball, DJ's, bands, burgers the works! We love you more than your parents ever could, and if you want to have fun and hang out with us this summer. [Full schedule below]. Bring your friends but please don't bring these things [pictured above]. As you can see below, underage drinking will not be tolerated. . You guys wouldn't do that though, so there's nothing to worry about. Thank you for visiting and stay tuned!!" -Jelly

The big news here is that they finally announced! As far as this year's lineup, well, we figured most of that out already. The Black Lips will also play the show with Trail of Dead, HEALTH, and Grupo Fantasma. Jemina Pearl is also on the bill of the first show on July 12th (Mission of Burma). Full lineup poster and a video below...

Continue reading "JellyNYC announces Pool Parties @ Williamsburg Waterfront!"

photos by Chris Graham

"Now this was THE dance party of the weekend. The set started with dozens of fans on the stage dancing, and about an hour of almost non-stop music followed. For those not familiar, Girl Talk is Gregg Gillis, a DJ who just does crazy mashups -- and people love it. The set at the Wookie Stage was way crowded, and not a soul was still.

It was just great to hear how Gillis could somehow fit in classic riffs like Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" or GNR's "Sweet Child of Mine" with all kinds of rap beats or hooks. It was great to hear the crowd scream and holler whenever a sample of something they recognized came on, then sing along at the top of their lungs (who knew "Jessie's Girl" worked well with dance beats?)." [Ear Candy]

Girl Talk played the Sasquatch Festival in Washington on Memorial Day. A few days later he played a more intimate, indoor gig at Hiro Ballroom in NYC.

This summer he'll be back for something much larger, much more public, outdoors, and totally free (I think). Girl Talk will be playing the "Pool Party" at Williamsburg Waterfront on Sunday, August 23rd. And (I think) the openers are Max Tundra and Wiz Khalifa.

After this post, I'll be updating the master list of shows taking place at the same venue this summer. More GT tour dates and pictures from Sasquatch below...

Continue reading "Girl Talk played Sasquatch (pics), playing JellyNYC Pool Party"

I almost went to the Max Tundra / Junior Boys show at Webster Hall last night (5/7). The person I almost went with said, "oh man. all you really missed was... nothing. their equipment kept on breaking and i think they actually made it through 3 songs. PAINFUL. i felt soooo bad for them." Similar comments are in the Junior Boys post: "wtf with tonight's show in nyc??????", "disaster show.", and "Poor junior boys, that was hard to watch!"

DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - Which Song (MP3)

Max Tundra @ Bowery Ballroom in January (more by Dese'Rae Stage)

Max Tundra will be embarking on an extensive six-week tour of the Americas, commencing on March 28th in Toronto in support of last year's Parallax Error Beheads You. Joining him on the tour will be Domino labelmates Junior Boys, they of the forthcoming Begone Dull Care...

Begone Dull Care, the remarkable new album from the duo of Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus, professionally known as Junior Boys, is set for release on March 24th in their native Canada, with the US to follow on April 7th. Begone Dull Care is the band's third album, following the critical and commercial successes of Last Exit (2004) and So This Is Goodbye (2006). The title is a reference to a short film by the pioneering Oscar-winning Scottish-Canadian animator and electronic composer, Norman McLaren, who was a big influence on the conception and creation of this album.

Max Tundra and Junior Boys play Webster Hall in NYC on May 7th. All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Max Tundra & Junior Boys - 2009 tour dates, new albums"

photos by Dese'Rae Stage

Max Tundra

Max: "Well, I get very distracted from my work: someone will phone me up and say there's a strange looking puddle in the street, d'you want to come and look at it?' and then I'll go do that for four hours. The music's also very labor-intensive to record, there's loads of dense programming. And I only ever record one song at a time; it just feels like I'm cheating on one song if I'm working on another. It'd take me six months to work on one song, then four months to do the next one."

About.com: Did you ever feel like you'd never complete it?

Max: "Certainly. As recently as a year ago, I was thinking: this is going to take me the rest of my days. But I did it. And the feeling of elation when I did it was so strong. Any time I'd gone to family engagements or out with friends, it was always: 'How's the album going?' Finally I was able to say: 'well, it's finished.' And after having that question asked of you for six years, that felt amazing."

As previously pointed out, Max's latest album was his first in six years and his show at Bowery Ballroom on Friday night (1/16) was his NYC debut. The Rosebuds headlined, and then Max played his 2nd NYC show one night later at Le Poisson Rouge. More Bowery pictures below...

Continue reading "Max Tundra & The Rosebuds @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC - pics"

DOWNLOAD: The Rosebuds live on KEXP, January 2009 (MP3)

The Rosebuds @ Mercury Lounge (CMJ 2008) (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

The Rosebuds kick off a short tour tonight/Wednesday (1/14) in Baltimore. The NYC show is Friday, and as Bill pointed out, the Bowery Ballroom lineup recently got much more interesting with the addition of Max Tundra. The Love Language is also on that bill. Tickets are still on sale.

In sadder news, The Rosebuds' dog Jasmine recently passed away. In her honor they made a video for their new song "Nice Fox" using footage from a time they took Jasmine to the lake. The song appears on their new record Life Like which is out now on Merge.

""In the Backyard" is a chilling, but darkly funny song, one that never gives in fully to bleakness like Night of the Furies did. And, like many other songs on Life Like it hints at something better. Something far off, perhaps, but better nonetheless. And with help from Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Portastatic's Matthew McCaughan, and many others, Life Like feels like the product of a community. Of people coming together to make something positive, without losing sight of their clear-eyed reality. The Rosebuds have long threatened to be the best, and smartest, pure pop band going, and with Life Like they take a big step towards becoming exactly that." [PopMatters]

Whether The Rosebuds will be playing the recently announced XX Merge Festival is still unknown (probably?), but all other tour dates, and the sad video for "Nice Fox", below...

Continue reading "The Rosebuds kick off tour, new video starring Jasmine"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - "Which Song" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - Playboy (Hot Chip) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - promo mix 2008 (MP3)

Max Tundra

Enigmatic Brit artist Max Tundra has been releasing music for 10 years but only just released his third album, Parallax Error Beheads You, back in October -- his first in six years. One of the reasons for being such a slowpoke probably has something to do with the way he makes them:

The main technology behind this and all of my albums has been the Commodore Amiga 500 - bestselling home computer at the time - running a $1 public domain software tracker program. The sounds don't emerge from the Amiga itself however; the machine is used to control various synths, samplers and the like. I look at columns of numbers all day on the screen of a black and white television; these digits relate to pitches, durations and tones. A lot of the noises on my record are real; the cello, bass guitar, drums, piano, trumpet and others are all rehearsed and played by me, but sometimes I will use realistic fake versions of these noises. Each song is recorded in a different way; drumkits are recorded on mono cassette recorders twice, then stuck together on the left and right of a mix; string arrangements are planned and then layered up; each note of an electric guitar is sampled so that it can be sequenced in ways too complicated for my fat fingers to play at full speed. And then I have a cup of tea and sing my heart out.

Seems like a painstaking and annoying way to make a record to me, but there's no denying the results: his albums don't sound like anybody else's. (Well, maybe just a little like Scritti Politti.) Max is making his NYC live debut this week, opening for The Rosebuds at Bowery Ballroom on Friday (1/16, tickets) and a headlining FIXED show at Le Poisson Rouge on Saturday (1/17, tickets). I'm curious to see how he'll pull it off his music in a live setting as well as how much equipment he'll have. What concert reviews of his I've read have been favorable (like this one from December).

Darren Hanlon

A few more options for you this week. Australian singer-songwriter Darren Hanlon has two NYC shows this week: tonight (1/13) at Googies (above The Living Room), and tomorrow (1/14) at the Bell House where he'll be trading off songs with Graham Smith of Kleenex Girl Wonder in the venue's front lounge. It's a free show. Hanlon's shows are as well known for his witty between-song stories and banter as he is his lovely folk-pop, so if you are fans of Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock or fellow Aussies The Lucksmiths (with whom Hanlon spent a brief stint in the late '90s). He's a charmer.

As I mentioned a while back, Ida Maria is in town this week playing Mercury Lounge on Thursday (1/15) and Union Hall on Friday (1/16) and I am super-psyched for this. Both shows are sold out, but Union Hall usually has a few tickets available night of show if you get there right as doors open (which is 8PM, but Ida's not on till 10).

Also this week: The Muslims make their first New York appearances since switching their name to The Soft Pack. Their EP, which made my Best of 2008 list and has already sold out two vinyl pressings, is getting re-pressed in February under the new moniker with an additional three songs. Maybe they'll have those with them at the merch table for these shows? They play Mercury Lounge on Friday (1/16) and Union Pool on Saturday (1/17). Both shows also feature their 1928 Recordings label-mates the Browns.

Speaking of name changes, SpaceKamp, who I've written about before, now spell their name as SpaceCamp. Same great sound, now with more C. In addition to working with Adam Green, Spacecamp are helping Dev Hynes with the new Lightspeed Champion record as well. (Video of Dev and Spacecamp in the studio below.) They play Zebulon on Friday (1/16) and maybe you can quiz them on the new spelling if you go.

Videos and such after the jump...

Continue reading "Max Tundra, Darren Hanlon, SpaceCamp, Soft Pack, Ida Maria & more in this Week in Indie"