Deerhunter at Austin Psych Fest 2013 (more by Tim Griffin)

Governors Ball is less than a month away, and the fest has now released the daily schedule. They've done a pretty good job with not too many giant conflicts -- though there's a few like Grizzly Bear vs Beirut, Bloc Party vs The xx, Erykah Badu vs Beach House, and Nas vs Guns N Roses. Check out the daily line-ups across their four stages below.

Continue reading "Governors Ball announces set times"

We're only a couple weeks out from Vampire Weekend's third album, Modern Vampires of the City, which hits retailers digital and physical on May 14. Look for the band, who just played Coachella, to preview tracks from the album at their sold-out show on Sunday (4/28) at Roseland Ballroom which is being broadcast live on the internet as part of the American Express Unstaged Performance series. The webcast, which is being directed by Steve Buscemi, starts at 9 PM EDT.

For those in NYC who would like to make the webcast experience a little more concert-like, Brooklyn Bowl, with help from the Tribeca Film Festival (which concludes on Sunday), will be showing it live on their many giant HD screens with "full concert sound." It's free entry.

Speaking of bowling, Vampire Weekend and Steve Buscemi, the band and Boardwalk Empire star are continuing to play out their friendship on the web with a second installment of the "documentary" about prepping for the Roseland show, which ends up at Brooklyn's Melody Lanes. There's also other episodes -- one with Grimes -- and you can watch them all below.

And last but not least, Vampire Weekend will appear on the May 11 episode of Saturday Night Live which is hosted by former castmember Kristen Wiig. So get ready for affable indie rock and the probable return of Gilly. Kanye West and Ben Afleck will apear on SNL's 38th Season Finale on May 18, and next weekend (May 4) it's Zach Galifianakis and Of Monsters and Men.

All upcoming Vampire Weekend tour dates (there are some new ones including Hollywood Bowl with Beirut, not NYC) are listed, along with the bowling video, below...

Continue reading "Vampire Weekend add dates, playing SNL (w/ Kristen Wiig) ++ more Buscemi videos (one with Grimes!); Roseland livestream @ Brooklyn Bowl"

Miguel on 'SNL' / Daft Punk w/ Pharrell & Nile Rogers

Another new SNL, another new Daft Punk commercial. This one -- a slightly shorter version of the one shown to Coachella audiences -- gives us the first substantial taste of Random Access Memories' "Get Lucky," that's been teased in previous ads, and features both Pharrel Williams and and some chic guitarwork from Nile Rodgers, not to mention the men/robots themselves. This is, we assume, a snippet of the "Get Lucky" video? You can watch it below.

Meanwhile, Daft Punk have released the third in their "Collaborators" series of promotional videos with the folks who worked on Random Access Memories. This one is with Nile Rodgers who very humbly talks about his contribution to dance music over the years and you can watch that below too.

Meanwhile, on the actual show (4/13), Miguel performed his Grammy-winning hit "Adorn" and then a rocked-out version of "How Many Drinks," with that magnetism (that we saw at our BV CMJ day party last year) on full display. The next new SNL is May 4 with Of Monsters and Men performing, while Zach Galifianakis hosts. Miguel videos from last night are below.

Continue reading "Miguel played 'SNL,' which featured a new Daft Punk commercial (with Pharrell and Nile Rogers)"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

Half Moon Run @ BVSXSW 2013

Montreal's Half Moon Run have played BV SXSW day parties the last two years, playing our Friday show this year and pictures from their set are in this post. The band's debut album, Dark Eyes, is getting reissued in America on Glassnote (home of Phoenix, CHVRCHES and more) which should bring their harmony-laden songs to a lot more ears. You can stream it below.

Meanwhile, the band are going out on tour with their new labelmates Mumford & Sons this summer, as well as dates with Of Monsters and Men. Amongst these big, big shows Half Moon Run will play two headlining club dates in NYC: June 7 at Glasslands and June 10 at Mercury Lounge. Tickets to Glasslands and tickets to Mercury Lounge go on sale Friday (4/5) at noon. All tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "Half Moon Run touring, played BV SXSW (pics, dates)"

A still from 'Mistaken for Strangers'

The National, who'll headline the Barclays Center in June, are the subject of a new tour documentary, Mistaken for Strangers, which will make its premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival (April 17 - 28). The film was directed by Tom Berninger, whose brother Matt is lead singer of The National. Here's the synopsis:

Adrift in life and fuelled by the desire to create, Tom Berninger accepts his brother's offer to come on The National tour as a roadie and decides to chronicle his experiences with the band. Although Tom starts off with dreams of making a rock documentary (you can watch the portaits he made on each of the band members), a different story emerges as tensions among the band members lead to unforeseen drama. Following the band from Berlin to Paris to Los Angeles to a 2010 Obama rally in Madison, Wisconsin, Mistaken for Strangers is not your typical road documentary.

Festival packages go on sale to AmEx cardholders on Monday (3/4), which is one day before the entire slate of films for Tribeca will be announced. Festival passes go on sale to the general public following Monday (3/11). Individual tickets will go on sale 4/9 for AmEx cardholders, 4/14 for downtown residents and 4/15 to the general public.

In related news, The National are co-headlining (with fun.) the Boston Calling Music Festival which goes down in Beantown on May 25 and 26. The fest also includes appearances by The Shins, Of Monsters & Men, Dirty Projectors, Andrew Bird and more. Tickets to Boston Calling go sale Friday, March 8 and the whole line-up is below.

Continue reading "The National (band & documentary) playing Tribeca Film Fest, headlining Boston Calling Music Festival"

Weird Al and Bonarroo phone bank (including Mike Birbiglia and Eugene Mirman...

With help from Eugene Mirman, Chris Gethard, Mike Birbiglia, Portugal. The Man and more, Weird Al just began announcing the 2013 Bonnaroo line-up on the Bonnaroo YouTube page which happens June 13 - 16 in Manchester, TN. Weird Al just announced Pretty Lights, Wilco, A$AP Rocky, and The xx, and over the next hour, more artists will be announced. We'll update this post as more announcements come.

Other artists playing include Passion Pit, Kendrick Lamar, David Byrne and St. Vincent, Jim James, Big K.R.I.T., Billy Idol, Grizzly Bear, Japandroids, Foals, Wild Nothing, Deap Vally, Killer Mike, Lord Huron, Divine Fits, Nas, Beach House, The Gaslight Anthem, Local Natives, Dirty Projectors, Baroness, The National, The Vaccines, Holy Ghost, Death Grips, R. Kelly, Alt-J, Purity Ring, Cat Power, Wu-Tang Clan, Bjork, Tame Impala, Animal Collective, The Tallest Man on Earth, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Paul McCartney, Earl Sweatshirt, Four Tet, Father John Misty, Swans, A-Trak, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Cults, AraabMuzik, DIIV, Charli XCX, Matthew E. White, Frank Turner, JEFF the Brotherhood, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Calexico, Two Gallants, and more.

Tickets for the festival go on sale Saturday (2/23) at noon EST.

There's also now a video of Daniel Tosh announcing the initial lineup, which you can watch, along with the current list of announced names, below...

Continue reading "Bonnaroo 2013 lineup announcement underway"

Click it for the bigger poster.

Icona Pop

As you may know already, Passion Pit are currently on tour and will play NYC at Madison Square Garden on February 8 with Matt & Kim opening. Another opener has been added to that show, Swedish dance outfit Icona Pop. Tickets are still available. After that show, the "I Love It" duo will play a few West Coast shows with KFlay and all tour dates are listed below.

UPDATE: Icona Pop were also just announced on a ton more Passion Pit shows. Now all listed below.

Icona Pop, who are playing the just-announced 2013 Governor's Ball here in NYC, will also play the 2013 Wakarusa Festival which happens May 30 - June 2 on Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, AR. The diverse line-up includes Widespread Panic, The Black Crowes, Of Monsters and Men, Gogol Bordelo, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, De the Funky Homosapien, Calexico and many more. Full Wakarusa line-up is below.

In related news, Icona Pop appear on the new soundtrack for the TV show "Girls", not to be confused with the possibly upcoming reality TV show inspired by it.

A list of all Icona Pop and Passion Pit tour dates, plus Wakarusa 2013 line-up, are below...

Continue reading "Icona Pop added to Passion Pit MSG show (and tour); Wakarusa announced their 2013 lineup"

Governors Ball, which started as a small NYC festival on Governors Island and moved to the larger Randall's Island last year, keeps getting bigger and bigger. This year's fest takes place June 7th, 8th & 9th, and tickets go on sale Friday. Check out the full lineup, in list, video and flyer format - one unannounced headliner included, below...

Continue reading "Governors Ball 2013 lineup (Kanye West, Kings of Leon, Grizzly Bear, xx, Cut Copy, Kendrick, Anco, Beach House & MUCH MORE)"

photos by Toby Tenenbaum

Of Monsters and Men @ T5, 11/20/2012

Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men's rapid rise in popularity is one of 2012 big success stories, as evidenced by two sold-out NYC shows at Terminal on Tuesday (11/20) and Wednesday (11/21). Pictures from Tuesday's show are in this post. Both nights featured openers openers Elle King and fellow Icelander Sóley who plays a headlining set tonight (11/23) at Rockwood Music Hall to which tickets are still available.

More pictures from Tuesday's T5 show are below.

Continue reading "Of Monsters and Men played two nights at Terminal 5 with Elle King and Soley (night 1 pics)"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Soley - I'll Drown (MP3)

Icelandic singer Sóley, who you may know from her band Seabear, is currently on tour with her fellow countrymen Of Monsters and Men who play Terminal 5 on Tuesday (11/20) and Wednesday (11/21), both of which are sold out. But if you are curious just to see her, Sóley will play Rockwood Music Hall on Friday (11/23) and tickets are still available.

If you haven't heard Sóley's most recent album, 2011's We Sink, you can download "I'll Drown" from it above or stream the whole thing via Rdio below (along with the video for "Smashed Birds"). Her music is delicate, strange and rather lovely. I caught a few songs at M for Montreal on Saturday (11/17) when she opened for Of Monsters and Men at Metropolis and thought she was pretty good, but the fragile nature of her music is certainly better suited to an intimate venue like Rockwood than a 3,000 capacity venue where people are less inclined to pay attention to the opener.

All Sóley dates are listed below, along with streams and video.

Continue reading "Soley opening for Of Monsters and Men, playing NYC headlining show at Rockwood Music Music Hall (dates, stream)"

by Bill Pearis

The seventh annual M for Montreal festival happens next week (November 14 - 17) in its namesake Canadian city. Previous years, M4M has featured mainly Montreal (and other parts of Canada) artists, being showcased to a group of "international delgates" (talent buyers, journalists, music supervisors, tour agenents and other industry types) in a tightly controlled set of shows, this year's fest expands its scope with nearly 100 performer at 16 venues, giving it more of an actual festival feel than an industry conference that has music showcases the public could by tickets to.

The line-up is much more global this year as well, with musicians from France, Iceland and, for the first time, the United States playing alongside bands from all over Canada. Artists playing the 2012 edition include Death Grips, Of Monsters and Men, Mac DeMarco, Suuns, Mykki Blanco, Sun Airway, A Place To Bury Strangers, Cadence Weapon, Memoryhouse, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, Bleeding Rainbow and Blue Hawaii. Full list of performers is below and daily schedule is here and advance tickets to shows and panel discussions are available.

Like in years past (2011, 2010, 2009, 2008), I'll be heading up for the M fest, and will be reporting the goings-on.

If you want a taste of Montreal this week in NYC, beyond the snow we're currently experiencing, Montreal rapper Cadence Weapon plays Glasslands on Friday (11/9) with Fat Tony. Tickets are still available. Cadence Weapon tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "2012 M for Montreal Festival: full line-up (Death Grips, A Place to Bury Strangers, Of Monsters & Men, Mac DeMarco + more)"

Of Monsters and Men @ Hotel Vegan 3/15/2012 (more by Amanda Rae)

Tickets to Of Monsters and Men's 11/20 Terminal 5 show sold out almost immediately when they went on sale at noon today, but if you tried and failed to get them there's some good news: the band have just added a second T5 show the day after (11/21). Tickets to the second show are on sale imminently.

Of Monsters and Men @ Hotel Vegan 3/15/2012 (more by Amanda Rae)

Icelandic indie folk phemons Of Monsters and Men are coming back to America this fall for their biggest tour yet. After selling out Music Hall of Williamsburg and Webster Hall back in April, it's no real surprise that the band would move up for Terminal 5 for their next show: which is happening on November 20. Tickets go on sale Friday, September 21 at noon with an AmEx presale beginning Thursday (9/20) at noon.

All Of Monsters and Men North American tour dates are listed below, along with a video of their single "Mountain Sound."

Continue reading "Of Monsters and Men touring this fall, playing T5 (dates)"

by Dominick Mastrangelo

Florence / Dum Dum Girls / the scene, Osheaga Fest 8/03/2012

"I can't believe we walked the whole thing."

This was the opening of an e-mail Saturday morning from my friend, the Montreal based singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk. Day 1 of Montreal's Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (8/3) was in the books and instead of joining the crush of people all trying to get into the Metro, we opted to walk with a much smaller group of people from Parc Jean-Drapeau, the festival's home, over the closed-off Jacques Cartier Bridge back to the Mile End.

"You know," Leif's e-mail continued, "we could've all just waited for the subway, but then we might have been accused of being reasonable."

What came before the trek from the island to the mainland was a hot, dusty, sweaty blur of music and dancing and a sold-out crowd determined to pull every ounce of enjoyment from their day out.

The highlight for me on Day 1 was always going to be Sigur Ros, who I'd seen just a days before in Philadelphia. Sure, Justice may have been the official headliner on the day, but the Icelandic band, even restricted to their one-hour time slot, felt like the real headliner and reduced the electronic duo and their glorified DJ booth to the equivalent of an afterparty.

Earlier in the day, The Walkmen featured Skyler Skjelset of Fleet Foxes on bass and guitar and Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men packed the field at the Scene Verte stage on the other end of the park for their mid-day set.

The Dum Dum Girls set was delayed with sound issues and once they got going the tech guys spent most of their set running back and forth across the stage adjusting and fixing gear. It was the beginning of a trouble-filled weekend at the Scene des Arbres stage where delays were constant and, on Day 3, Zola Jesus' set was controversially cut short as thunderstorms rolled through. (Festival officials shut her set down just as the worst of the storm had passed.) She took to Facebook to voice her frustration (though what happened in Montreal was nothing compared to what went down at Lollapalooza in Chicago the same weekend).

Gary Clark, Jr. impressed over at the Scene Verte as his loud, fuzzy guitar riffs conjured dancing girls and good vibes.

Along with a beautiful set from Florence and the Machine and a raucous end-of-the-night set from Montreal's Les Breastfeeders, it was a great start to the festival.

Stay tuned for more on Day 2 and 3. More Osheaga Day 1 photos are below.

Continue reading "Osheaga Festival - Day 1 review and pics (Sigur Ros, Florence, The Walkmen, Dum Dum Girls, Of Monsters and Men, & more)"

We just posted about Austra who's coming back to North America (including 9/19 at Music Hall of Williamsburg) after a tour of Europe. She's also one of many artists playing the 2012 Osheaga Festival in Montreal which happens August 3 - 5. Tickets are still available for the three-day event.

In addition to Austra, Osheaga plays host to The Black Keys, Snoop Dogg, Justice, Metric (who play Radio City Music Hall soon), Sigur Ros (who play Prospect Park and are streaming their new LP), Florence & The Machine (who plays Jones Beach this summer), The Weeknd, Passion Pit (who play Governor's Ball soon), The Jesus & Mary Chain, MGMT, Santigold (who just played Irving), Zola Jesus (who just played the Guggenheim) and many many more.

Full Osheaga lineup is below.

Continue reading "Justice, Metric, The Black Keys, Sigur Ros and more playing Montreal's Osheaga Festival in August "

"Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly Presents and Starr Hill presents, in a partnership with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, are proud to announce the lineup for the fifth annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival. The world's only gourmet music festival will once again take place in San Francisco's historic Golden Gate Park August 10 - 12, 2012. Tickets will go on sale Thursday April 19 at 12 noon PDT via www.sfoutsidelands.com. A significant portion of every ticket sold will directly benefit San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department."

Continue reading "Outside Lands 2012 lineup (Metallica, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Jack White, Foo Fighters, Beck, Skrillex...)"

Dry the River @ Lincoln Hall recently (more by Sarah Frankie Linder)

Nitsuh Abebe recently published an article in NY Magazine called "The Indie-Folk Crossover: Commercials for Our Selves in a Hunger Games World" which discusses all the popularity bands like Mumford & Sons, The Head & The Heart and Of Monsters & Men are having...

There's a whole clutch of indie-folk guitar bands, up-and-comers and major-label crossovers alike, who enjoy dressing as if they just stepped out from among the coal miners of Hunger Games' District 12 and prefer hardscrabble tales of personal determination to gothic glitter. There are hugely successful Grammy favorites like Mumford & Sons and Arcade Fire; jaunty American acts like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros; whole slews of whispery guitar-pluckers with ampersands in their names, from the Head & the Heart to Boy & Bear; and baroque Brits like Dry the River and Fanfarlo. Somewhere at the center of them is a form of polished, triumphal, suspender-friendly indie-folk that is, for the moment, enjoying a surprising amount of commercial success...

Continue reading "Indie-folk enjoying commercial success... (Dry the River announce May tour)"

Lollapalooza (more by Grant MacAllister)

Chicago Sun Times reports:

Lollapalooza has revealed its official 2012 list of performers -- a typically wide-ranging smorgasbord of genres and styles topped by nearly a dozen mainstage headliners: the Red Hot Chili Peppers, freshly reunited bands Black Sabbath and At the Drive-In, the Black Keys, Jack White, Florence + The Machine, the Shins and Passion Pit, plus spotlighted electronic music including Swedish house titan Avicii, French dance duo Justice and DJ-producer Bassnectar.

The annual music festival is scheduled for Aug. 3-5 in Chicago's Grant Park.

Rumored lineups have circulated widely, as they usually do, and Lollapalooza itself stoked the speculation in recent weeks via a series of CTA and online advertisements that seemed to hint at who would be playing.

The ads featured lyrics from such acts as Sigur Ros, Santigold, Jack White, Kimbra, Twin Shadow, the Weeknd, Bloc Party and more -- all bands that wound up on the bill.

Continue reading "Lollapalooza 2012 lineup (Jack White, At The Drive-In, Sigur Ros, Black Keys, RHCP, Afghan Whigs, M83, Weeknd, SBTRKT, Black Sabbath & more)"

photos by Amanda Rae & Tim Griffin

Of Monsters & Men @ Hotel Vegan (by Amanda Rae)

Right before Glen Hansard played and while Love Inks was playing on one of the inside stages, Of Monsters & Men kicked things off right at noon on Thursday, March 15th at Hotel Vegan in Austin. Here are a few pictures from their set along with a video recap the Iceland band made of their entire SXSW 2012 experience which you can watch below. Pictures and a review from their more-recent Chicago show, HERE.

Of Monsters & Men, now on tour, are in NYC for two sold out shows, the first of which will STREAM LIVE ON YOUTUBE from Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight (4/5) at 10pm EST. Check out the stream's trailer, along with all tour dates and the SXSW stuff, below...

Continue reading "Of Monsters & Men played Hotel Vegan (pics), on tour now, STREAMING Brooklyn show TONIGHT"

the flyer (with most of the bands playing on it)

BrooklynVegan is proud to team up with M for Montreal again for a FREE Day Party in Austin on Thursday, March 15th from noon-7pm at Hotel Vegan (one of BrooklynVegan's FOUR DAYS in the venue located at 1500 E. 6th St.).

I'll let this full three-stage lineup speak for itself...

Stage 1 (Hotel Vegas Outside)
12:00 Of Monsters & Men
12:45 Glen Hansard (of Swell Season & the Frames)
1:30 We Are Serenades (formerly Serenades, mem. Shout Out Louds)
2:15 Hospitality
3:00 Korallreven (mem. of the Radio Dept)
3:45 Fanfarlo
4:30 The Drums
5:15 The Wedding Present
6:15 This Will Destroy You

Stage 2 (Hotel Vegas Inside)
12:00 Half Moon Run
12:45 Thus:Owls
1:30 Cold Specks
2:15 Cymbals Eat Guitars
3:00 The Velvet Teen
3:45 Yellow Ostrich
4:30 The Jealous Sound
5:15 Parlovr

Stage 3 (Volstead) (BV Austin stage)
12:15 Love Inks
1:00 Feathers
1:45 Gashcat
2:30 Ringo Deathstarr
3:15 Silent Diane
4:00 The Young
5:00 Ume

In addition to the completely free lineup of 24 bands playing on THREE stages, we will also have complimentary drinks courtesy of HobNob Wines, the official wine parter of our entire week of FREE PARTIES at Hotel Vegan (check out HobNob's Facebook page for free music downloads), and a hosted bar courtesy of Sailor Jerry

We will also have FREE VEGAN TREATS courtesy of NadaMoo! and FREE Honest Tea. AND Supercuts will have a team of stylists on-site the entire day providing FREE haircuts and styling!

Special thanks to all of our partners and sponsors for making this party possible - including Vox, Blackstar and Korg, our official backline partners, as well as ASCAP, HobNob Wines, NadaMoo!, Sailor Jerry and M for Montreal! And special thanks to GBH Design for making our awesome flyer!

--

This is the first full day at Hotel Vegan announced. 2/3 of the Wednesday lineup is HERE. Friday and Saturday coming shortly.

We also have THREE official showcases (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday), and a Saturday metal day party at Lovejoys,

The Newport Festivals Foundation continues to celebrate the festival's historic past by featuring emerging young artists alongside some of folk music's most venerable names. This year's festival features: My Morning Jacket, Jackson Browne, Conor Oberst, Iron & Wine, Patty Griffin, Guthrie Family Reunion, Dawes, The Head & The Heart, Deer Tick, Punch Brothers, City & Colour, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Tallest Man on Earth, tUnE-yArDs, Tom Morello, Trampled by Turtles, Gary Clark, Jr., Alabama Shakes, Blind Pilot, Of Monsters and Men, original music from: Jay Farrar; Will Johnson; Anders Parker; & Yim Yames set to the lyrics of Woody Guthrie, Sharon Van Etten, First Aid Kit, Sara Watkins, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Brown Bird, Jonny Corndawg, Jonathan Wilson, Spirit Family Reunion, Deep Dark Woods, Carl Broemel, Ben Sollee, Robert Ellis, Frank Fairfield, The Apache Relay, Spider John Koerner & His Rag Tag Boys, Joel Rafael, Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons, Elizabeth Mitchell, honeyhoney, Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, The Kossoy Sisters, The Berklee City Music Choir and very special guests to be announced.

by Bill Pearis

While the rest of the world was asking who the #$%@ Bonny Bear and Paul McCartney were, I was asking that same question of Of Monsters and Men who are playing here in April. They've already sold out their 4/5 show at Music Hall of Williamsburg and 4/6 show at Bowery Ballroom, though the Bowery show was moved to Webster Hall (tickets are still on sale, but maybe not for long). Actually, half their US tour is already sold out (all dates at the bottom of this post).

Then I remembered I had actually seen Of Monsters and Men -- who are from Iceland --  at last year's M for Montreal at teeny tiny club Casa Del Popo. Their name is a bit on the generic side which is why I think I couldn't place it. (You also see a lot of bands at festivals. It's a blur.) Anyway, here's what I wrote then:

The other Icelandic group, Of Monsters and Men, made more of an impression with their stirring folk rock that was augmented by horns and an especially fancy accordion. (It had LED switches on it.) While also similar to a lot of other sweeping ensembles (fill in your favorite here), the songs were memorable and I did wish their set had been a couple songs longer. So it goes with festivals.

They're already huge in Iceland (which is like being huge in Rhode Island, but still), where their debut album, My Head is an Animal, was released last year. Of Monsters and Men signed to Universal who rushed out the Into the Woods EP in America late December, which contains the KEXP hit "Little Talks". The band will be at SXSW too and are surely one of the "Bands to Watch" this year for some folks.

Click through for all Of Monsters and Men tour dates, plus some videos as well.

Continue reading "are Of Monsters and Men Iceland's Mumford & Sons? (MHOW sold out; Bowery moved to Webster Hall) --- 2012 Tour Dates"

By Bill Pearis

Absolutely Free

After two songs of sweating onstage, the drummer for Absolutely Free -- who made their live debut last night at Mile End venue La Salla Rossa -- peeled off his flannel shirt to reveal a Neu! t-shirt underneath. But by that point we already got it, though a Can shirt might have been more to the point.

Featuring four fifths of DD/MM/YYYY, as Absolutely Free they still make complex, time signature-shifting music, but this was less manic, less skronky with decidedly groovier rhythms. (For me, that's a definitely an "Oh Yeah.") With no recorded music to hear yet and a short 20-minute set, I don't think we've got a full picture of what these guys are capable of, but it was a very promising first show.

Cadence Weapon

La Salla Rossa, which nests on top of a Spanish restaurant with the same name, was host to the night's showcase co-presented by SXSW. We also got the first taste of Cadence Weapon's new album which is due out in January or February -- his first in about three years. With screwed-ish beats (and a little dub reggae), his set was pretty terrific. Dude is confident and funny and drops lines about Lite Brites and had a song that seemed to be entirely about SXSW day parties, not sure if it was made up for the occasion. Best set of the night.

Young Empires

Headliners of the night were Toronto's Young Empires who some cynical types might dub Friendly Foals* and it wouldn't be too off the mark. Big Hooks, anthemic choruses, extra percussion, all very digestible. Young Empires are also pretty slick (and a little bro-y) but they seem destined to become big, at least in a Naked and The Famous kind of way (whose career path they seem to be modeling). Especially once they get around to putting out their debut, due out in January. (I like them better on record than live.)

Daniel Isiah

Night Two opened with Daniel Isiah who is signed to Secret City (the home of Patrick Watson and Plants & Animals) and has an appealing desert twang to his sound (think Chris Isaak or Springsteen's "I'm on Fire") which you can check out on his most recent album, High Twilight. It was a nice start to the evening.

M for Montreal never lets attendees stand still for too long. In between bands at La Salla Rossa, we hopped across the street to affiliated restaurant/venue Case Del Popolo for two Icelandic bands (Iceland Airways co-presented). First were instrumental quartet For a Minor Reflection whose stirring music would be perfect for an Icelandic remake of Friday Night Lights. You've heard this kind of stuff before but they do it well and clearly love playing it.

Of Monsters and Men

The other Icelandic group, Of Monsters and Men, made more of an impression with their stirring folk rock that was augmented by horns and an especially fancy accordion. (It had LED switches on it.) While also similar to a lot of other sweeping ensembles (fill in your favorite here), the songs were memorable and I did wish their set had been a couple songs longer. So it goes with festivals.

Today I'll be seeing Colin Stetson, The Midway State, Hollerado, Parlovr, Thus: Owls (points for colon use), Doldrums, Bran Van 3000, Misteur Valaire and something called Tonstartsbandht, plus about 10 other groups. Hopefully organizers have budgeted time to eat. Look for reports on tonight and tomorrow's M festivities on Monday. Until then, click through for a few more picks from last night's action...

Continue reading "M for Montreal 2011 -- Night 2 in pics & review (Absolutely Free, Cadence Weapon, Young Empires, Daniel Isiah & more)"