photos by Tim Griffin, words by Andrew Frisicano

Happy Holidays! I take on more than I can handle. That results in a lot of unposted content. In the name of catching up, while also taking it easy during this final week of the year, here's some of that lost material.

Zazen Boys...

We were anticipating a somewhat speedy return to the US after the three NYC-area shows in March by Japan's Zazen Boys. While here, the band expressed interest (in an interview) in coming back in the fall, and then there was an October 4th show at Southpaw scheduled. But no other dates were announced and eventually that show was canceled. Here's hoping they manage to make a return to NYC and the US in 2010.

The set of pictures here are from their from Cake Shop show on Friday, March 6th, which they played with Sweden's Paper, who played the venue three nights straight. More pictures are below...

Continue reading "Zazen Boys & Paper @ Cake Shop in NYC - pics "

Bob Mould two nights ago @ Joe's Pub (more by Jacob Blickenstaff)

Last night (4/9), while some were enjoying (or not enjoying) a Passover Seder, others caught Bob Mould at his second of two shows at Joe's Pub. Anonymous wrote,

Unfortunately it was not an ideal venue tonight.
It could have been, but the atmosphere just wasn't the way most BM solo shows usually are.
Still not bad, and the audience was with him, but people were eating dinner....that's an ideal venue for Bob Mould?? I don't think so.

We have a review and pictures from the first night, HERE. Tonight (4/10), Bob switches it up a little and plays DJ (and maybe performs live?) at Highline Ballroom for his popular gay dance night Blowoff. (Tickets are on sale.)

Paper Magazine held their "Beautiful People Party" at Hiro Ballroom last night. Past musical guests at the annual get together have included Antony and Joanna Newsom (whose music is now featured in a bra commercial). This year it was Paper cover-girl Katy Perry who was already in town playing multiple nights at Irving Plaza and humping bananas.

Speaking of humping bananas, Chris Cornell played two shows at Webster Hall this week. In the YouTube video below you can see that he.... shaved his guitar player's head on stage while they were playing at one of them.

Also featured in Paper's new "Beautiful People" issue is comedian Aziz Ansari who co-stars with Amy Poehler in the TV show Parks and Recreation which premiered last night. Did you catch it? What did you think?

Lissy Trullie was featured in last year's "Beautiful People" issue. Last night she played Union Hall with US Royalty (who play the Studio at Webster Hall tonight).

New Ditmas Park/Flatbush venue Sycamore hosted its third-ever live show last night. Check out the schedule for what they have coming up.

The Books paid a somewhat rare visit to NYC. The band, noted one showgoer, "debuted some sweet new tunes." Those'd be from the group's forthcoming record, which, according to the Columbia Spectator, is due next year. The Spectator also noted the lack of promotion for the show - which according to the Books' Twitter sold out less than a day before it happened. One student, on the minimal on-campus promotion, said, "I had no way of knowing they were playing at Columbia...I found out about the concert on a random music blog that I was casually browsing -- I don't even remember which site it was."

As NYC's summer concert lineup comes together, two shows were added to calendar yesterday - Casiokids at South Street Seaport and Shilpa Ray at Castle Clinton (as part of a Sly Stone tribute concert). Shilpa played Death by Audio last night. Look for more summer-show announcements today (in addition to Simian Mobile Disco at the Williamsburg Waterfront).

UK band Pet Shop Boys almost became Rescue Shelter Boys.

What did you do last night?

Continue reading "What did you do last night?"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "The Hungry Saw" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "Yesterday's Tomorrow" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks - "The Other Side of the World" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paper - "Out of It Into It" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Week That Was - "Learn to Learn" (MP3)
DONWLOAD: The Antlers - "Bear" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Antlers - "Two" (MP3)

Tindersticks

The most exciting show of the week for me has to be the return of Tindersticks, who play the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Friday (3/6). The band rarely tour the States, having last been here five years ago for their album Waiting for the Moon. In the interim, frontman Stuart Staples put out a solo album in 2005, fueling break-up rumors. It was more like break in half: the band lost three members, leaving Tindersticks as a trio comprised of Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser and percussionist/keyboardist David Boutler.

The three have been busy lately. Not only did they put out last year's very good The Hungry Saw, but just finished soundtrack work for Claire Denis' new film 35 rhums. (Tindersticks previously worked on Denis' 2001 film Trouble Every Day.) Despite the shrinking membership, Tindersticks sound just as dark, lush and cinematic as before on The Hungry Saw. Like Nick Cave, Tindersticks' seem to get better with age. For these North American shows, Tindersticks will be touring as a seven-piece, including the amazing-in-his-own-right Terry Edwards on brass.

Tickets for the Brooklyn Masonic Temple show are still available,. Longtime BV fave Dawn Landes opens. Meanwhile, Tindersticks singer Stuart Staples is featured in this week's Pitchfork Guestlist.

The Week That Was

South by Southwest is only two weeks away, which means UK, European, and Canadian bands on their way there will start playing NYC shows soon. Next week is kind of insane, so in an effort to cover some of it early, I'll remind you again that The Week That Was play Mercury Lounge this Monday, March 9. Here's what I wrote a while back:

TWTW are one of the two splinter groups created when Sunderland, UK's Field Music decided to retire that moniker but still basically make music together. David Brewis released a phonetics-obsessed solo project under the name School of Language(which toured here last March). His brother Peter created The Week That Was, a concept album equally obsessed with (lyrically) The Media and (sonically) the Big '80s production style of Kate Bush and Trevor Horn. It's a brilliant album that made my Top Five of 2008. Both David Brewis and Field Music keyboardist Andrew Moore, plus about five others on percussion and strings. They'll only be a quartet at Mercury Lounge, but if they even come close to replicating the album's wall-of-sound, it will be worth attending.

Tickets are still available and I highly suggest you do. Also on the bill: Boston's underrated Hallelujah the Hills, Philly's Arc in Round, and Brooklyn locals Monuments. The Week That Was are doing a few other dates around the U.S. as well as a few at SXSW and all dates are at the bottom of this post.

Paper

Backtracking a bit, the first of those three consecutive PAPER shows at Cake Shop start tonight (3/4). It's the Swedish band's first-ever U.S. gigs and they've already been here a few days, blogging about their adventures in the city, systematically cataloging their food intake, complete with number ratings. Pretty funny. Of the three shows, Friday's (3/6) looks the most interesting to me, with Japan's Zazen Boys (who we featured earlier in the week) and Your Nature who, until just recently, you may have known as Frankopollis. But tonight's show (3/4) has local dance-rockers Holy Hail and Phones, which features members of White Rabbits and The Subjects. Not to short Thursday's show (3/5), of course, which has Talk Normal, Graffiti Monsters and Never Tune.

The Antlers @ Cake Shop during CMJ (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

And lastly, Thursday night (3/5) at Union Hall, The Antlers are having the record release party for their new album, Hospice, which is out this week and has been getting a whole lot of blog love. It was recently named "Best Album of 2009 So Far" by the folks at NPR's All Songs Considered. Personally, I don't start ranking things till at least April but I will say Hospice is definitely worth checking out. (There are a couple tracks from it at the top of this post.) I am curious to see how its dense, multi-layered sound will come off live. It's a nice night of music, actually, with North Carolina's chamber pop band Physics of Meaning, and the country jangle of Brooklyn's Brilliant Mistakes.

Like usual, tour dates and video follows after the jump...

Continue reading "Tindersticks, The Antlers, Paper, The Week That Was, Your Nature (formerly Frankpollis) & more in This Week in Indie"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Paper - Out of It Into It (MP3)

Zazen Boys @ Mercury Lounge on 10/5/08 (by Jeff Winterberg)

"Zazen Boys were formed in 2003 by Mukai Shutoku, former leader of Japanese rock band Number Girl. In a word, Zazen Boys aspire to be `Led Zeppelin in kimono."

Japanese funk-rockers Zazen Boys are playing three NYC-area dates this weekend - Friday (3/6) at Cake Shop; Saturday (3/7) at The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ (tix); and Sunday (3/8) at Pianos.

A Baltimore City Paper review of the band's visit to that city (in support of their September 2008 release IV) captures the band's dueling improv-art-rock and dance groove tendencies, with plentiful name dropping:

After a brief introduction in delightfully accented English--"From Matsuri Studio, Tokyo, we are Zazen Boys!"--the quartet first pounded away with some mathy hardcore and obnoxiously endearing noise. In a far-fetched conception, this portion of the band's set was like California's Health, but with dramatically fewer loops and noise explosions; the drummer was adequately primal but keen to all the subtle transitions of art-rock composition.

But as the Boys softened a few of the hard edges and brought out funk fit for dancing shoes, it was possible to view them more accurately as disciples of the Dismemberment Plan, or even George Clinton. The hit "Weekend," with its juicy slap bass, pornographic guitar noise, and bilingual (nearly spiritual) party lyrics, made the show definitely feel like the "buzzworthy" arrival of foreign rock stars. "I Don't Wanna Be With You" was a delicious club number with hip-swerving runway synthesizers and pitch-altered Dan Deacon-esque vocals. It was unexpectedly mind-blowing, a show more than worth the in-box clutter.

At the Cake Shop, Zazen Boys will share the bill with NYC's Frankpollis, and Sweden's Paper who we also recently featured and are playing Cake Shop two other times that week.

Videos from Zazen Boys's 2008 release IV, and those dates in list & flyer format (their only scheduled shows at the moment), below...

Continue reading "Japan's ZAZEN BOYS - 3 NY-area shows, Cake Shop w/ Paper"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Paper - Out of It Into It (MP3)

Stockholm, Sweden's Paper are coming to the U.S. for a three-night stint at Cake Shop (March 4 -6). Featuring Calle Olsson of the mighty Bear Quartet, their debut is an absolute stormer. Like so many Swedish bands, I first heard about them via Jim Kelly at Parasol Records, whose sub-label Hidden Agenda first brought Jose Gonzalez, The Soundtrack of Our Lives and The Moonbabies to this country. He describes Paper thusly:

Paper's sound is based around the frustration of punk, the delicacy of pop melody and the hypnotic power of repetition. Think early Wire meets early Wire, simple, single-minded, powerful; with contrails of Neu!, Silverbullit/Citizen Bird and Joy Division. Fans of The Bear Quartet's recent electronic eccentricities, Audionom's hypnotic avant-punk, and Paddington DC's zoom-pop will be spellbound, if you don't mind a bit of krautrockin' cochlea-knocking.

I also think Scandinavian-centric site It's A Trap isn't too far off when they called them "the missing step between Joy Division and New Order" and Bjorn Yttling says "If you don't like PAPER I really can´t take you seriously."

Here's video of Paper playing "Ears Keep Ringing" which may also serve as a warning to wear earplugs if you go to one of these shows:

Continue reading "Sweden's Paper is coming to NYC - MP3 & video"