DOWNLOAD: The Music Tapes - For The Planet Pluto (MP3)

The Weakerthans @ Bumbershoot 2008 (more by Chris Graham)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Found Footage Festival
* Daniel Kitson @ Union Hall
* Eugene Mirman Comedy Fest
* Secret History @ Don Hill's
* Lotus, DJ DB @ Mercury Lounge
* Stryper, Manic Drive @ Irving Plaza
* ZZ Top, Tenderhooks @ Beacon Theatre
* Ben & Vesper, Kurt Wiseman @ Sycamore
* Of Montreal, Janelle Monae @ Terminal 5
* Big Daddy Kane, Groundation @ BB King's
* Lemonade, Small Black, MNDR @ 171 Lombardy Street
* Darcy James Argue's Secret Society @ Jazz Gallery
* Little Joy (DJ), Rude Crew, The Pharmacy @ Glasslands
* NY Gypsy Fest w/ Little Cow, Hazmat Modine @ City Winery
* Trevor Dunn's Madlove, Miho Hatori, Javelin @ Market Hotel
* Blowoff w/ DJs Bob Mould & Richard Morel @ Highline Ballroom
* The Weakerthans, Rock Plaza Central, Tomte @ Bowery Ballroom
* Wolfgang Gartiner (DJ), Viking (DJ), Telepathe @ Webster Hall
* Woven Bones, Girls At Dawn, Reading Rainbow, Nice Face @ Cake Shop
* This Is Ivy League, Patrick Cleandenim, Joel Plaskett @ Union Hall
* Ramona Falls, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Apothecary Hymns @ Bruar Falls
* Yura Yura Teikoku, Jessica 6, Light Asylum @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
* Brooklyn Country Music Fest w/ The Woes, Jack Grace Band, more @ Southpaw
* Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices), Library is on Fire, Cinnamon Band @ TLIOFHQ
* Ty Segall, The Mantles, The Holy Experiment, Dome Theater @ Death By Audio
* Golden City, forgetters, Solar Powered Sun Destroyer, Thought & Memory @ Lit
* Whiplash, At War, Deathrash, Enforcer, Cauldron, Cold Northern Vengence @ Europa
* The Trail Of Dead, Secret Machines, Midnight Masses @ Webster Hall
* My Teenage Stride, I'm Turning Into, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Spanish Prisoners @ Shea Stadium
* New Languages Fest w/ Mike Pride: From Bacteria to Boys, Nate Wooley & Joe Morris, Ben Gerstein: The Gates @ McCarren Hall

Of Montreal play Terminal 5 with the energetic Janelle Monae opening up. Of Montreal played Santos on Wednesday.

The FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL ("Acelebration of odd and hilarious found videos") runs tonight and Saturday at Anthology Film Archives.

The Weakerthans, Rock Plaza Central and Tomte play again, tonight at Bowery Ballroom. Last night was at MHOW.

Jessica 6 open for Yura Yura Teikoku only NYC appearance this year, with Light Asylum at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

See Ty Segall, The Mantles (on tour together), The Holy Experiment and Dome Theater at the recently altered Maze at Death By Audio.

forgetters (ex-Jawbreaker) and Golden City play Lit Lounge with Solar Powered Sun Destroyer and Thought & Memory.

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Secret Machines begin two nights in NYC with a show at Webster Hall. Midnight Masses open.

Tonight we have Brooklyn Country Music Fest with The Woes and The Jack Grace Band at Southpaw, NY Gypsy Fest with Little Cow and Hazmat Modine at City Winery, and New Languages (jazz) Fest with Mike Pride's From Bacteria to Boys, Nate Wooley & Joe Morris, Ben Gerstein: The Gates at McCarren Hall.

New Languages was kicked off last night by the contemporary big band Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, who play tonight at Jazz Gallery.

Bob Mould played with No Age at ATP. Tonight he DJs as the bear party that is Blowoff, at Highline Ballroom.

Little Joy deejay tonight at Glasslands with Rude Crew and The Pharmacy. A flyer is in the Dance post. Little Joy play Sunday at Maxwell's.

Pavement announced four reunion shows. A bunch of other shows went on sale today too.

A video of Nesey Gallons (from Circulatory System and Music Tapes) performing solo at ATP after the Flaming Lips' Sunday set is posted below.

A new Music Tapes MP3 is above. The video for the same song is below..

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Friday? (Rosh Hashanah) "

DOWNLOAD: Circulatory System - Overjoyed (MP3)

by Andrew Frisicano

Elephant 6 showed up in full force for Wednesday's triple bill at (Le) Poisson Rouge (Sept. 9th). First up was Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't. (comma and period in place, as noted by frontman Peter Erchick). The Olivia Tremor Control/Circulatory System keyboardist donned a guitar to lead the group through a set of uplifting, celebratory songs bolstered by violin, clarinet (both played by OTCer John Fernandes) and cello.

Next Nesey Gallons, guitarist for Circulatory System and Music Tapes (in the house when they visited NYC earlier this year), played songs from his debut solo record, Eyes & Eyes & Eyes Ago, which just came out. Alone with an ancient guitar (that failed on him a few times), Gallons sang with emotion, his eyes fixed in an intense stare while his feet tangled nervously below.

With Circulatory System on stage, Will Cullen Hart sang and pawed at his paint-splattered guitar, which was fed through an ever-present echo pedal. He was healthy looking and in good spirits (Hart was recently diagnosed with MS). It wasn't until they started that I realized I'd already seen almost everyone on stage earlier in the night. Similar to the Music Tapes/Nana Grizol setup on their spring tour, Pipes & Circulatory shared nearly all their members, rotated instruments (five played bass in the span of the set), made use of multiple drummers (a great touch) and somehow culled the onstage spectacle into a night of amazing sounds.

A necessary note at these things - as far as I can tell, Jeff Mangum did not perform (though I believe Pipes did play "I Have Been Floated" with Will, a song that Mangum and others have joined on in the past). Maybe at ATP NY on Saturday.

More pictures below...

Continue reading "Circulatory System, Nesey Gallons, and Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't. @ LPR in NYC - pics & setlist "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Circulatory System - Overjoyed (MP3)

Circulatory System (Nesey standing, left)...

Pure Pop: It seems like the E6 Collective is making a big comeback. The Holiday Suprise Tour, the Music Tapes' caroling tour, [the Music Tapes' regular tour,] Circulatory System's new album [see below] -- it's all really exciting. What's it like to be right in the middle of all this? Do you see great things in E6's future?

Nesey Gallons: yes, i do. and its nice to have had a hand in making things happen. that it all worked. and its been an honor to play with everyone and have brer hart ask me to finish his album and everything. its beautiful to see everyone together doing what they ought to, building worlds. im sure a lot of wonderful things will come drifting out of what has reawoken. in the coming year i plan to live in maine and work on a bunch of projects and things ive neglected during this past year. for some reason i have to be alone to really work properly on anything of my own.

Like much of the Elephant 6-connected material, the new Circulatory System album, Signal Morning, is a collaborative effort (as is the upcoming tour, more on that in sec). First, the album, headed by Oliva Tremor Control's W. Cullen Hart, features contributions from all the members of that band as well as Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum and Julian Koster. It comes out on CD and MP3 September 8th through Cloud Recordings. For vinyl, you'll have to wait a little longer, but when they ship in October, the first 300 will come with a bonus LP of demo versions and alternate mixes. Check out a track from the record, above.

The Circulatory System tour this September will host opening acts Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't (the side project of Olivia Tremor Control keyboardist Peter Erchick) and Nesey Gallons (the E6 regular interviewed above). Nesey visited NYC recently, playing banjo with Music Tapes in March and appearing on the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise tour last fall (with Circ. System's Hart and many others).

Those three acts will play NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge on Wednesday, September 9th. Tickets are on sale now.

A few days later, Circulatory System plays ATP NY.

Nesey also has an album of his own, Eyes & Eyes & Eyes Ago, that's coming out digitally September 8th (October 20th for vinyl) on Hurrah for Karamazov Records. See preview videos for that album, with Circulatory System's album art and tracklist and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Circulatory System - new CD (Jeff Mangum) & tour dates w/ Nesey Gallons & Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't (LPR, ATP) "

by Andrew Frisicano

The Music Tapes @ a CMJ show (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

The Music Tapes played Maxwell's in Hoboken on Sunday (3/1), and for those who missed the criminally under attended show (maybe something to do with the weather), you're in luck - they'll be back in town on Tuesday (tonight, 3/3) playing the Bell House with the same lineup of opening acts: musical mad scientist Brian Dewan and upbeat Elephant 6-ers Nana Grizol. Tickets are still available, and we're giving away a pair of tickets. Details below.

For the show at Maxwell's, I trekked through the blowing snow to arrive in Hoboken, a place that seems to have frozen in time the most picturesque parts of every U.S. small town. Inside the show space, hidden past the club's front restaurant-bar area, 40-50 brave concertgoer gathered around the stage, where second-act Nana Grizol rocked with warming exuberance. (I missed opener Brian Dewan - more on him later, though.)

Nana Grizol's eight-strong lineup crammed the stage, which was crowded with 7-Foot Tall Metronome and Static the Singing TV standing at attention for the upcoming Music Tapes set. But first, the Athens, GA, band shared songs and swapped instruments, which included guitar, bass, and two drum sets. One member switched from clarinet to trumpet to melodica with ease. The horn section expanded into three trumpet harmonies, then contracted to a single euphonium. The bulk of the songs were fronted by Theo Hilton, who sang with a kind of Promise Ring innocence in his voice. The roaring, clanking sound convinced me to shell out for a copy of their 2008 Orange Twin recording, Love It Love It.

Between bands, opener Brian Dewan set up a projector and screened a short film so good it made me wish I trudged out sooner to catch his solo set. The hand-drawn animated slides that populated the film told a short history of civic pride, coyly poking fun at the structures of society by connecting scenes of Aztec ritual sacrifice, paying taxes, and odious parking meters into a modern parable that paid homage to archaic public service videos. Each frame change was announced with a studious "plonk."

Shortly after, The Music Tapes took the stage, borrowing most of Nana Grizol's members (or maybe vice-versa). Julian Koster, as always, fronted the band with a banjo and saw. Elephant 6-regular Nesey Gallons also played banjo - in all, a lot of the Elephant 6 holiday tour seemed to be on board. On "Aliens," Dewan even joined the band, playing one of his homemade Melody Gins, a knob-covered oscillator contraption.

Koster played many of the same songs he did at the band's Mercury Lounge CMJ show: "Freeing Song for Reindeer," "Majesty," "Song for Oceans Falling," "Orchestra's Orchestration" and "What the Television Tells Us" (the latter two with props). A number of the songs started with just Koster and ended in double-drums, double-distorted banjo noise. On "Song for the Death of Parents," Koster played percussion by bouncing a kickball on a soup kettle with a microphone hidden underneath in a perfect melding of theme and medium.

Julian came into the crowd to play a singing-saw version of "The First Noel" and a song on his tiny electric organ, before returning to the stage and closing the show with "Manifest Destiny." (He also promised to play a crowd game with bells on Tuesday at the Bell House.)

Live, The Music Tapes continue to be one of the most consistently entertaining bands around. The scratchy, distorted sound of its recordings (can a singing saw's sound actually be recorded?), while interesting, drastically understates the buoyant joy and enigmatic energy of Koster and Co. in person.

Besides at tonight's Bell House show, New Yorkers can catch Brian Dewan when he performs a free set with his homemade-instrument project, Dewanatron (with cousin Leon), at the opening of Pierogi Gallery (177 N 9th St, Brooklyn) on Saturday, March 7, 9pm.

Video and contest details below...

Continue reading "The Music Tapes, Brian Dewan & Nana Grizol played Maxwell's (review) -- Bell House TONIGHT (win tix)"

Photos by Lori Baily

Yes, Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum appeared, but as someone pointed out, that was just five minutes of of a 2.5 hour Elephant 6 collective show that also included two other members of Neutral Milk Hotel, one of whom (Julian) also performed at The Music Tapes. There were also NMH's Scott Spillane and members of Olivia Tremor Control (and OTC songs) plus "Circulatory System, Gerbils, Elf Power, Nana Grizol, Nesey Gallons" and more...

have to agree that the show was overall pretty amazing...a little unfortunate that mangum didn't do any of his own songs, but it was a great surprise for him to even be there...he did seem quite pissed off in general though and especially when he was trying ot tussle with the big guy on stage...but what do i know....the one guy peaking/tweaking out on stage talking to himself was kinda weird..yea that afraid song was really good as well as the first song mangum came out for with the tuba...also really thought the drummer with the curly hair did some nice ones too... [anonymous]

More pictures from Saturday night's show below...

Continue reading "Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise (people who aren't Jeff Mangum) @ Knitting Factory, NYC - pics"

by Andrew Frisicano

Nesey Gallons

Julian Koster (NMH), William Cullen Hart (Olivia Tremor Control), Scott Spillane (NMH), Laura Carter (Elf Power), Eric Harris (Elf Power), Nesey Gallons and many more [along with The Singing Saw, the 7 Foot Tall Metronome, Static the Television and many others] will join together as a traveling variety show this October. Julian describes the evenings as "a big orchestra, variety show, silly happy thing." The large gathering of Elephant 6 members will be playing the music of The Music Tapes, Circulatory System, Scott Spillane, Gerbils, Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control, Nana Grizol, Nesey Gallons and more...

The 13-date "holiday surprise tour" will swing by the Knitting Factory in Manhattan (before it moves to Brooklyn in January) on October 11th. Tickets are on sale.

The tour also marks the debut of the "Major Organ and the Adding Machine" short film, directed by Joey Foreman and Eric Harris. The film will screen at the beginning of each show on the Holiday tour.

The film is currently being submitted to film festivals and will be coming out as a CD/DVD set in the Fall of 2009. Accompanying the Orange Twin DVD Edition will be the expanded version of the film's soundtrack, originally released in early 2000, that includes several unreleased bonus tracks and illuminating new liner notes by co-director Harris. The film and album stand as the consummate collaboration of the Elephant 6 collective, and feature musical and theatrical contributions from Jeff Mangum, Kevin Barnes, William Cullen Hart, Julian Koster, Andrew Reiger, Dixie Blood Moustache and all and sundry who participated in the hypercreative halcyon days of late-90's Athens, Georgia

Mangum-spotters can take note that past sightings have occured at various Elephant 6 NYC shows: Mangum sang briefly withOlivia Tremor Control at the Bowery in August 2005, with Elf Power in November of the same year at the Knitting Factory, and then with the Instruments at the Cake Shop in 2006.

Also, generally mysterious leader of Neutral Milk Hotel Jeff Mangum is said to be in the movie as well; although he is dressed in a lobster suit so it could possibly be anybody. [Wikipedia]

Post-tour, Julian Koster (of NMH, Major Organ, Oliva Tremor Control) and others is scheduled to return to NYC with The Music Tapes on October 25th to play the Merge CMJ Showcase at Mercury Lounge (the rest of that lineup TBA). The band just released Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes, and Koster is set to release The Singing Saw at Christmastime (currently streaming at Merge) on October 6th.

Elephant 6-ers Of Montreal will also visit NYC at the Roseland Ballroom October 10th as part of their tour supporting the forthcoming LP, Skeletal Lamping. (There's a listening party tonight - Sept 8 for the album in Portland, OR). Kevin Barnes also appears in the movie.

All tour dates and the "Major Organ" trailer (and cast listing), below....

Continue reading "Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour, Music Tapes + Major Organ and the Adding Machine - film, Merge, 2008 Tour Dates"