Devendra Banhart at Webster Hall (more by Vincent Cornelli)

Devendra Banhart and the Grogs will team up with Adam Green at Terminal Five THURSDAY (8/19, tickets) and we have a pair of tickets available for giveaway. Details on how to win are below.

Devendra doesn't have an album on the way, but is involved in the release of the highly anticipated (and recently leaked) new Swans LP My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. The LP, due on September 27 via Gira's Young God Records, sees Banhart contributing vocals to old label honcho, alongside Bill Rieflin, Grasshopper (Mercury Rev), and Gira's 3 1/2 year old daughter Saoirse. They all lend their helping hand to the release. Stream the new song "Eden Prison" below, and get tickets to their show at Brooklyn Masonic Temple on 10/8. The Bowery Ballroom show scheduled for the next day is now sold out.

Devendra Banhart also contributed to the new Zach Hill solo record, and recently teamed up with Beck for a song to the recently released Life During Wartime, the new movie from the king of awkward hilarity, Todd Solondz (see Happiness, Welcome To The Dollhouse, etc).

The Banhart/Beck song, with lyrics written by Solondz, is streaming, along with the Swans song, Zach Hill album tracklist, all tour dates (including a UK trek with Arcade Fire) and contest details, below...

Continue reading "Devendra Banhart on new Swans, Zach Hill & 'Life During Wartime' soundtrack - touring, in NY Thursday (win tix) "

"Michael Gira's re-activated Swans will be undertaking their first U.S. performances in 13 years, celebrating the Fall release of the first new Swans album since Soundtracks For The Blind (1997). The album was recorded by Jason LeFarge at Seizure's Palace in Brooklyn and is currently be remixed by Gira with Bryce Goggin (Antony & The Johnsons, Akron/Family) at Trout Recordings." [PR]

Continue reading "Swans announce tour dates, album info, NYC show presale"

Michael Gira @ The Stone in 2008 (more by Lori Baily)


The highly influential post-punk band has returned, sort of...

COMING SOON, NEW SWANS ALBUM AND TOUR(S)

The song "Jim" recently added to the [Michael Gira MySpace] playlist is an acoustic demo (solo at home) recording by Michael Gira. this, and many other new songs recorded in the same way comprise many of the new (rough versions) of songs under consideration, to be fleshed out on the coming new Swans album. A cd of these acoustic versions, as well as a live (2 shows) dvd of M.Gira will be for sale very soon as a hand made (by Gira) package called I Am Not Insane (CD/DVD). This package - in a limited edition of 1000 - will be sold in order to raise money for the Swans recordings/offset the huge costs involved... coming soon...

Principal players on the Swans album are (and there will be many special guests):
Michael Gira / gtr / voice / mendicant friar act (original Swans)
Norman Westberg - Guitar (original Swans)
Christophj Hahn - Guitar (mid period Swans and most Angels of Light)
Phil Puleo - Drums, percussion, dulcimer etc etc (final Swans tour and most Angels)
Chris Pravdica - Bass and gadgets (Flux Information Sciences / Services / Gunga Din)
Thor Harris, Drums, percussion, vibes, dulcimer, curios, etc etc... (Angels, now also with Shearwater)

Angels Of Light is temporarily on hold while gira pursues his "new" project... -[Michael Gira]

Angels of Light was formed by Gira in 1998 after Swans broke up. Swans videos below...

Continue reading "Michael Gira reforms Swans - plans for new album & tour "

photos by Lori Baily

DOWNLOAD: Larkin Grimm - Pigeon Food (2005 MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Larkin Grimm - Secret Eye (2006 MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Larkin Grimm - Ride That Cyclone (2008 MP3)

"Larkin Grimm (born September 18, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and musician born in Memphis, Tennessee.

She was born into a spiritual commune/cult called 'The Holy Order of MANS'. Her father is a fiddler of German, Afro-Caribbean, and Sinti descent, and her mother is a hippie folk-singer of English, French, and Cree descent. After her parents left the cult, they relocated to Dahlonega, Georgia, where she grew up. She won a scholarship to study at Yale where she painted and sculpted. At 20 years old she dropped out of Yale, and moved to Alaska, where she hiked and began to experiment with singing. She later was convinced by a friend to return to Yale, where she began to record 'Harpoon', which was inspired by a love affair at that time. She then moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she has since produced another album called 'The Last Tree'. Larkin's third album 'Parplar' was released October 2008." [Wikipedia]

Parplar was released by Michael Gira's Young God Records in October 2008. Sample tracks from all three of her albums are available for free above. Check 'em out.

Larkin often gigs around own with Michael or her Young Gold labelmates. On September 3rd, she played Glasslands with Extra Life, Zs and Liturgy. The pictures in this post are from that show.

Coming up, she's playing September 11th in Boston and Sept. 12th in NYC - the latter of which will be at the new Knitting Factory Brooklyn (set to open on Sept. 9th with Les Savy Fav). There she plays with circus rock bands Mucca Pazza and Beat Circus. She's also at Santos' Musicka Mystica Maxima Fest on September 21st and 22nd. Finally, she is scheduled to play the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series at Joe's Pub on October 7th.

All dates and more pictures from the Glasslands show, below...

Continue reading "Larkin Grimm - Glasslands pics, MP3s & 2009 tour dates"

Issue Project Room during a benefit w/ Moby in April (more by Toby Tenenbaum)

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has generously granted $1,133,000 to ISSUE's capital campaign to renovate 110 Livingston!

We are humbled, honored, and inspired to have been selected as grant recipients for capital support. This award provides us with critical funding towards the $1.725 million necessary to complete a first phase of construction designed to: bring the jewel box theater space to code; install the necessary systems for soundproofing and performance; make renovations; and begin presenting as early as Fall 2010.

Once renovated, the new space at 110 will be home to more than 4,000 programs reaching more than 1,000,000 people across the next two decades. We are overjoyed at being so close to realizing this historic opportunity. -Issue Project Room

ABC No Rio in Manhattan just landed a very similar deal.

Tonight (7/10) Issue Project Room hosts the feedback choir of Lesley Flanigan with Luke Dubois on laptop. Issue Project has a full upcoming schedule, which includes a Saturday, July 25th show with Michael Gira and Wooden Wand. Gira will "be playing many unrecorded songs (to be included on Gira's next album, a Swans/Angels of Light hybrid) as well as songs from the Angels of Light and Swans catalog."

The New York Times talks more about Issue Project Room's money. Check out some of that below...

Continue reading "Issue Project Room gets more than $1 million from Brooklyn Borough President to renovate its new building"

DOWNLOAD: Wand - Arriving (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wand - Saturday Delivery (MP3)

James Jackson Toth @ Pianos 8/23 (more)

Earlier this year, James Jackson Toth "aka Wooden Wand aka Wand" put out two albums (both as "Wand," which I think is what he's mainly going by now). One of those was a b-sides and demos release called Hard Knox on Ecstatic Peace. The other was a limited-edition release called Born Bad on People in a Position to Know and Toth's own Mad Monk imprint. Two songs off Hard Knox are posted above.

The People in a Position label has a few more Toth releases in the works, including the debut of his band the Jescos. He also has a record coming out on Michael Gira's Young God Records set for early next year.

Wand will be touring the east coast this summer. Those dates include supporting gigs for Michael Gira, Woods and Akron/Family. The first of his NYC stops will be a show with Gira at the Issue Project Room on Saturday, July 25th.

Then, he'll be playing the Studio at Webster Hall on Sunday, July 26th with Larkin Grimm (who is also on Young God Records and whose upcoming shows include the Musicka Mystica Maxima Fest at Santos in September). Tickets are on sale.

Toth teams up with Akron/Family in mid-August to open several dates on that band's extensive summer/early fall tour. All Wand and Larkin Grimm tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Wand (James Jackson Toth) - 2009 Tour Dates (includes a NYC show w/ Michael Gira, one w/ Larkin Grimm) "

DOWNLOAD: Marissa Nadler - River of Dirt (MP3)

With a new touring band, a refurbished banjo and some personal clarity ("I just cut this person out of my life who I've been writing about for four records," [Marissa] Nadler said), she sounded extremely pleased talking amid rehearsals for the new tour [with the Handsome Family Band].

"I'm psyched about it because I've just spent too much time alone in hotel rooms for the past five years of my life," she said. "And people will be like, 'Well, God, write a happy f---ing song.' And I'm like, well, why would you be happy if you've been stuck your entire 20s in a hotel room by yourself?

"That's kind of like my sense of humor, I guess. Maybe I'll start writing pop songs once I fall in love and get happy and rich, I don't know," she added. "Kidding, kidding." [University of Maryland's Diamondback 4/22/09]

The singer/songwriter has a European tour planned for May. When she returns, she'll play the Mercury Lounge in NYC on Tuesday, June 9th with James Blackshaw. Tickets are on sale.

UK guitarist Blackshaw is signed to Michael Gira's Young God Records, which will release his seventh studio record sometime this year.

"James has received a lot of attention lately as a prodigy/virtuoso of the 12 string guitar. He used to be in punk bands in England, but then he started listening to people like John Fahey, Robbie Basho etc, and I assume soon locked himself in a room for 12 hours a day for several years and just played constantly. It takes intense discipline and a religious commitment to get to the place where he's at with his instrument. But his music isn't about his "skill" - it's not showy. It's deeply meditative - the secret language of a pre-thought, pre-dream place. He plays soulful and kaleidoscopic ever-shifting mantra cycles of, in my view, incredible beauty." [Altsounds]

An MP3 from Nadler's latest, Little Hells, out now on Kemado Records, is posted above (again).

All tour dates below...

Continue reading "James Blackshaw - 2009 Tour Dates (3 NYC shows including one w/ MARISSA NADLER)"

DOWNLOAD: Larkin Grimm - Ride That Cyclone (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Larkin Grimm - Pigeon Food (MP3)

Xiu Xiu @ Le Poisson Rouge (by Zach Dilgard) (more)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
7:00pm EDT :: Tickets $15
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 :: 212-334-3324

Live From Home presents Xiu Xiu, M. Gira and Larkin Grimm in concert. Video projections by Dominick Fernow (Prurient)

Larkin Grimm's new album "Parplar"was released by Gira's Young God Records. The track "Ride the Cyclone", available for download above, is from that album. Larkin's video for "Nomad" below...

Continue reading "Xiu Xiu, M Gira & Larkin Grimm playing Housing Works, MP3s"

Photos by Lori Baily

Michael Gira played an intimate and intense solo show at the East Village club The Stone on Tuesday night (September 30). It was the final night of a month of Stone performances that were curated by JG Thirlwell. One of the highlights of the sweaty (it was hot in there) get-together, in addition to the music, was hearing Michael's back-and-forth banter with audience member, and former Swans guitarist, Norman Westberg, as they remembered past gigs together.

More pictures from the show below...

Continue reading "Michael Gira @ The Stone, NYC - pics"

On January 10, 2008, Lou Reed and John Zorn, joined by special guest Laurie Anderson, played two benefit shows for The Stone, an avant-garde performance space on the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street in Alphabet City that supports itselfs solely on donations, giving all door revenues directly to the performers. Zorn, an alto-saxophonist and founder of the music label Tzadik, was the principal force in establishing the Stone in 2005 and currently holds the title of artistic director. [WallyG]

Saturday (Aug 23) @ The Stone: Ryan Sawyer/Thurston Moore Duo with Susan Alcorn

September @ The Stone: Everything JG Thirwell picked.

Shearwater @ @ Club DeVille (SXSW BV showase) - Mar 12, 2008

On Monday, May 5th and Thursday, May 29th, Shearwater will premiere Rook in special concerts at the beautiful Florence Gould Concert Hall at Manhattan's French Institute and The Parish in Austin, Texas. For both shows, we will be joined by a string quartet, woodwinds, trumpets, and a harpist, and will play our new album in its entirety, along with a set of older songs.

We are especially proud to announce that the New York show will begin with a rare solo performance by the legendary Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light), and will also feature projections by Kahn & Selesnick, the team behind Rook's cover art.

Tickets to these shows are limited. For New York (May 5), they are available from Other Music and from TicketMaster, starting Friday, April 11th at 10am.
Tickets for the Austin show are available from Front Gate.

Continue reading "Shearwater will perform 'Rook' in NYC & Austin (tix)"

DOWNLOAD: Angels of Light - Black River Song (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart (MP3)

Marissa Nadler is going on tour, and she has a few NYC shows coming up. One of them is with Michael Gira at the Highline Ballroom on September 14th (Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu was also originally on this bill - not sure what happened to him). In August, Michael will release a new Angels of Light album called We Are Him. I think he'll be playing some of those new songs at the show, but I assume by the billing that he won't actually have a backing band. In the past he has used Akron/Family as his band. They also contributed to the new record, and you can download one of those new songs they played on above.

Marissa doesn't have anything new out, but this is her first official tour since joining the Kemado Records family. Kemado is reissuing/releasing her latest CD in the U.S., and the celebration for that will take place on August 6th @ Sound Fix Records in Brooklyn where she'll play a free show (one of four free in-stores she has scheduled). Her other upcoming NYC show is September 13th @ Union Pool, and her last NYC show was just this past weekend for the Diamond Day Festival. Did anyone catch that? All tour dates below....

Continue reading "MARISSA NADLER - 2007 Tour Dates ++ MICHAEL GIRA & new Angels of Light"