Suicide at ATP 2009 (more by Ryan Muir)

The initial lineup is out for this year's Moogfest, which is taking place in Asheville, NC on October 28-30. This year's lineup has some pretty impresive names including three pioneers of electronic music; Tangerine Dream, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Suicide, who are performing their highly influential 1977 self titled debut album in its entirety. The Flaming Lips, Crystal Castles, Little Dragon, Passion Pit, Toro y Moi, Chromeo, Austra, M83, Tim Hecker, and many others on there too. Tickets go on sale Saturday (6/4) at noon. Check out the full initial lineup and a video below.

Continue reading "Moogfest initial 2011 lineup (Suicide, Tangerine Dream, Flaming Lips, Little Dragon, Passion Pit & more!)"

Lollapalooza last year (more by Josh Darr)

Lollapalooza celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with some huge names on its just-announced lineup. See it in full below.

The festival has obviously changed over the years. What started out as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction with a 'touring festival' lineup that included the Rollins Band, Nine Inch Nails, Butthole Surfers, and Souxsie & The Banshees, has turned into a one-weekend Chicago festival that Lady Gaga co-headlined last year. As leaked a while ago, Foo Fighters, Muse and Eminem all play this year, as will Coldplay, Cee Lo Green, and My Morning Jacket along with the reunited Cars and the continuing-to-be-reunited Big Audio Dynamite and Death From Above 1979, and a bunch of other bands which may or may not be worth the ticket price depending on how you feel about the headliners and generally seeing bands in big, hot, outdoor crowded parks (Lollapalooza happens in Chicago's Grant Park from August 5th - 7th).

Full 2011 Lineup and a couple of videos (one from 1991, one from 2010), below...

Continue reading "Lollapalooza 2011 lineup announced"

photos by Tim Griffin

Mayer Buble @ Austin City Limits 2010

"It's no secret that 2010 has been a breakout year for throwback R&B singer Mayer Hawthorne -- even he knows that. But just how big is he these days? Early in the day before his afternoon set at Austin City Limits, he was in Waterloo Records, the town's most famous store for all things musical.

While minding his own business, flipping through vinyl, a man approached him and said, "Can I have your autograph?" Naturally, Hawthorne was taken aback, flattered and most importantly gracious. "Yes," he said, and the man got out a pen and paper. "As I was signing it, the man leans in as I was writing and says, 'You're Michael Bublé, right?'"

Hawthorne isn't Buble big yet, but he did convert the thousands that showed up to check out his early afternoon set. [Spinner]

Pictures from that early afternoon Saturday set are in this post.

And now Mayer Hawthorne is about to take a trip across the country with The Heavy. After kicking thigs off in Philly on October 16th, the two groups will hit NYC for two nights in a row. Tickets are still available for the shows at Webster Hall Bowery Ballroom (October 17th) and Music Hall of Williamsburg (October 18th), and I have some you can get for free (update: the Webster Hall show was moved to Bowery Ballroom not long after I first posted this - contest now just applies to the better venue). Deails on how to win, with more pictures from ACL, below...

Continue reading "Mayer Hawthorne (not Michael Buble) played ACL (pics), kicking off tour w/ The Heavy (WIN TIX) "

Mayer Hawthorne @ Coachella 2010 (more by Rachel Carr)

The Heavy are co-headlining a tour with Mayer Hawthorne & the County this fall. Kicking off in Philly on October 16th (a week after Mayer plays ACL), they'll quickly hit NYC for two shows. Those are October 17th at Webster Hall and October 18th at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets for both go on sale today (9/15) at noon. All dates below...

Continue reading "The Heavy & Mayer Hawthorne - 2010 Tour Dates"

photos by Rachel Carr, words by Daiana Feuer

Gorillaz Clash

The third and final round of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival was funky, and not just because the port-a-potties reeked. Keeping a loose theme every day (see Friday & Saturday), Sunday focused on relentless rhythm and groovy basslines. The absolute golden moment belonged to Yo La Tengo's blistering final song. Rhythm that revels in repetition + guitar that tries to destroy itself = wee mind blown. Sometimes the moodiest things are the most uplifting.

Thom Yorke brought his dancing shoes, his favorite Flea, and Nigel Godrich. His band Atoms For Peace played almost every song off The Eraser, many of which featured strong world rhythm sections. When Yorke didn't have a guitar in hand, he danced, whirled, and punched the air like he was rehearsing a scene from Fame. We wanted a high kick, but it didn't arrive. King Khan & The Shrines, on the other hand, featured legs flying all over the place, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba characters, burning money, as well as a visit from the police-who crept on stage to snap pictures. Probably the first time Khan runs into cops and doesn't leave wearing cuffs. Sunny Day Real Estate had the audience offering bids to buy property, and Phoenix had people choking on dinner as they tried to dance and eat at the same time.

King Khan Gabba Gabba

Not every Julian Casablancas song captivated, but his band delightfully binged on rhythms. Each musician had a personal backbeat player supporting each fill. The drummer plus his sidekick especially sounded great. Matt & Kim's ebullient smiles inspired chaos in the audience, as usual. Mayer Hawthorne and the County revived Motown soulful brassiness and covered Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." The Big Pink played some new songs from next year's album, reaching out for Depeche Mode with a drummer in a pink bathing suit. Electro sweet popper Little Boots forgot her pants as well, wearing a sparkly shirt and knickers, and played with the lasers on stage. Charlotte Gainsbourg inaugurated her "first tour, first everything" with a feminine "Candy-O" sensibility, sometimes in French. Florence & the Machine rounds out the great lady performances of the day, and brought on Nathan Willett of Cold War Kids.

All clad in white, France's DJ ego-powers Club 75 demonstrated the ability to cooperate together with just a few elbows thrown. Cassius, Justice, Busy P, and DJ Mehdi still use CD's (so old school), and took turns passing on the headphones between them and finishing each other's remix sentences, trading places at each station. Backstage security bobbed along while staying tough. When it was their turn, Rusko turned the Sahara tent into a mechazoid robot battle and Orbital live-produced virtual reality anthems for Satan wearing Matrix miner lights around their heads. Infected Mushroom instructed on the benefits of "Becoming Insane" flanked by two mushrooms with red eyes.

The Middle East should not be confused with The Soft Pack, formerly The Muslims. The former may be from Australia but it sounds like a back porch band from Woodstock, and the latter offers a "Parasite" infestation that's as pure as sunshine and a neat drum set up that packs a giant tom punch. What appears as regular rock on headphones reveals its brilliance when experienced live. One of the strangest live moments of the festival belongs to Sly Stone, who played four hours late and on the wrong stage. He bitched, he slurred, he cursed, lay down, walked off, stopped songs and good grief, made a total mess of himself. But that's rock and roll.

Sly Stone made history look unable to get past its youthful drug phase, but Jonsi, Pavement, and Spoon come from a music scene that did a little bit less cocaine. Jonsi repped the awesomeness of Sigur Rós and great hats. Steve Patterson of White Rabbits joined Britt Daniels and the rest of Spoon to add percussion on "I Turn My Camera On". Spoon's tour-mate Bradford Cox (who played earlier in the day in Deerhunter) also joined Spoon on stage, like he did on their recent Kimmel appearance. Pavement ran through the hits during one of their first U.S. shows since reuniting. "That's the 90's in a nutshell," said Stephen Malkmus after the angsty "Unfair"...

"...Pavement, the iconic slacker band of the '90s, who took the main stage against what turned out to be one of the fest's chief attractions, the finally wildly popular French dance-rock band Phoenix, who wowed possibly the biggest crowd of the entire fest ... while Pavement played to a field half-full of true believers rather than the massive throngs many expected, and thought the band deserved.

No matter, though. Pavement still delivered a set that vindicated the group of prior crimes -- namely a Coachella performance near the end of their career so notoriously bad, many in attendance point to it as the moment the band decided to break up.

This night, however, they were tight, they were loud, and they sounded large on that vast field -- an odd statement, given the fact that in their heyday they were far more known for being introspectively small rather than arena-ready..." [The OC Register]

Virtual Snoop Dogg introduced the Gorillaz set, but Blur's Damon Albarn appeared in the flesh, with a few special guests including Paul Simonon, Mick Jones, De La Soul-who kicked their own old school jams earlier in the day-and Little Dragon's Yukimi. One unique rhythm transcended the next, showing the mutability of hip hop and dance music. And then that was it, suddenly. The festival ended and tens of thousands of people started wondering where they left their car keys...

Radiohead Peppers For Peace

Daiana's Weekend Top 10:
1. Yo La Tengo's last song
2. Little Dragon's Yukimi
3. Gossip leading a revolution
4. Thom Yorke dancing to African rhythms
5. PiL giving a history lesson
6. Sly Stone wigging out
7. Bouncing penises + fat people in undies (Die Antwoord + Major Lazer)
8. Devo putting on the hats that ushered in modern pop culture for "Whip It"
9. John Waters corrupting many young minds
10. The Gorrilaz lyric: "Super fast jellyfish going super fast. You can't even see him but you wanna eat him."

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Owen Pallett, Local Natives, Miike Snow, and Yann Tiersen also played the fest Sunday. Gary Numan was among those who couldn't. Reviews & pictures from Day One, HERE and Day Two, HERE. Setlists (Thom Yorke and Pavement), pictures, and videos from Day Three, below...

Continue reading "Coachella 2010 - Day Three in pics, video & review (the Thom Yorke & Pavement setlists included) "

After a hectic day of updating the constantly updating Bonnaroo lineup page, the entire thing has been announced. Gwar, Norah Jones, and the rest of the lineup below...

Continue reading "the complete 2010 Bonnaroo lineup (Stevie Wonder, The Melvins, Kings of Leon, Isis, Local Natives & many more) "