by Andrew Frisicano

NY EYE & EAR FEST II - JULY 9 - 12, 2009!
4 DAYS - 3 VENUES - 2 BOROUGHS
Knitting Factory & 92Y Tribeca in Manhattan & Death By Audio in Brooklyn
Pendu presents: NY Eye & Ear Fest II ... a massive 4-day New Music and Arts Fete showcasing some of the most exciting bands, artists, and filmmakers currently living and working here in NYC. In addition, NYE&E assembles a Record Fair featuring NYC-based Record Labels and Vendors selling LPs, CDs, 7''s, cassettes, lathes, comics, zines, stickers, and art prints.

The fest is a part II to the December event of the same name. The Fest's four days of music kick off at the Knitting Factory on July 9th. The bands there include Grooms, Liturgy and Love Like Deloreans (to name a few) with headliners Nymph and Neg-Fi. The fest returns to the Knit on Friday, July 10th, for a show with Magik Markers, Child Abuse and more. In addition to the venue's two floors of music, its already-creepy basement will be turned into a "Video Art Installation and a 7-hour Continuous Drone Room."

The Fest then switches to the 92YTribeca on Saturday for a concert and a free record fair. Also at 92Y will be a program called "Women of NYCinema," with films and music from Sarah Lipstate (aka Noveller), Liz Wendelbo, Rachel Blackwell and Dirty Churches. The vendors range from big names like Matador Records to the recently featured Journal of Popular Noise to notable jazz label ESP-Disk.

The fest's final, fourth day moves to Brooklyn for a closing party at Death by Audio. That lineup includes Murdertronics, Team Robespierre, Talibam!, Total Abuse and Drunkdriver.

Tickets for Thursday, Friday, and a variety of Saturday packages are available.

Separate from the festival, on Thursday, July 9th the 92YTribeca will screen filmmaker Brendan Toller's I Need That Record, a documentary about the problems facing record stores around the country. It will be the NYC premiere of the movie that was getting some attention already all the back on Record Store Day 2008. The movie includes interviews with Thurston Moore, Ian Mackaye, Mike Watt, Chris Frantz and more. Toller will be on hand for the showing. Tickets are on sale.

More details on the film (with video trailer) and the Ear and Eye Festival, below...

Continue reading "NY Ear & Eye Fest II - shows & record fair this weekend @ KF, DBA & 92Y Tribeca (also screening 'I Need That Record')"

In their disheveled attic studio, the members of Gay Beast don't talk mathematics. Early on, they don't talk much at all. Today, singer and keyboardist Dan Luedtke is busy screen-printing the inserts for the vinyl version of the band's latest spazz-rock collection, Second Wave. The process, it seems, is nearly as painstaking as creating an actual Gay Beast tune, minus the eyeballs-on-fire jitters their adrenal scores provoke...

City Pages: How did you become involved with your label, Skin Graft?

Luedtke: Our friends in AIDS Wolf are on the label. We were looking for a label, putting together demo packages, trying to do it differently this time, trying to be more proactive. They were going to sign two bands for '09. The label owner lives in Vienna, so there was a bit of a courting period, talking to each other on the phone.

Explain the new record's title, Second Wave.

Luedtke: Second Wave relates to second-wave feminism, and the songs include portraits of different feminists. Before this record, we did a split 7-inch about Donna Harroway. There's a song about Andrea Dworkin. For me there's an interest because I feel it intersects with queer politics a lot. We can look at what feminists worked on as a way to talk about personal politics and strategies for changing things. There is a lot of interest with the second-wave feminist era because there was a lot of idea creation happening. Modern, radical ideas, some of which were far-fetched and impractical. People wanted something so badly they'd make up new means for accomplishing it.

The noisy Minneapolis band kicks off a three night stay in in NYC, tonight (6/3), with a show at the Silent Barn featuring Satanized, Joe Lentini and Hot Guts. They'll be at Bruar Falls June 4th with Talk Normal and Body Type[s], and at the Market Hotel on June 5th with Titan, Child Abuse, NYMPH and Liturgy.

Gay Beast's Second Wave LP came out a few weeks ago, at the end of May on Skin Graft Records. Check them out for yourself. There's a video of Gay Beast at NYC's Cake Shop in 2006, with all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Gay Beast - making noise in NY this week -- 2009 tour dates "