by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: NYC Popfest Mix (Zip)
DOWNLOAD: Pet Milk - Cherry Outline (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Gold-Bears - Record Store (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sea Lions - All Right (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Go Sailor - Windy (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Soda Shop - Farewell (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Days - Simple Thing (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Days - Downhill (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Fan Modine - Julu Road (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Kids on a Crime Spree - Sweet Tooth (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Secrets (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Anyone's Ghost (the National) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver Swans - Mother of Pearl (MP3)

Go Sailor

This week is the fifth-annual NYC Popfest which happens Thursday - Sunday (May 19 - 22) at a variety of NYC and Brooklyn venues, playing host to around 30 bands from around the world. Previous years have seen the likes of The Radio Dept, Pelle Carlberg, The Drums, Love is All, Allo Darlin' and more.

Festival passes are sold out at this point -- as are tickets to Thursday's show at Cake Shop with Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Gold-Bears -- but you can still get tickets to any of the other individual events.

We're also giving away pairs of tickets to the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shows. Line-ups for each night are at the bottom of this post. We've got:

1 pair of tickets for Friday night at Cameo
3 pais of tickets for Saturday night at Santos
5 pairs of tickets for the all-day Sunday show at The Rock Shop.

To enter, just send an email to BVCONTESTS@HOTMAIL.COM with the subject line "POPFEST" and the day you want tickets for, aka "POPFEST FRIDAY." We'll pick winners at random. Please note many of these shows are 21+.

This year's Popfest is a nice mix of new and old, jangly and loud. Every year at Popfest I've discovered at least two bands I'd never heard of before who've gone on to be favorites. I imagine this year will be no different. There are some MP3s above, plus a swell 24-song mix the Popfest folks made for your downloadable enjoyment. For this year's preview I'm just going to go through the events day-by-day. Keep reading below...

Continue reading "a guide to NYC Popfest 2011 (with lots of MP3s, day by day analysis & chances to win free tickets too)"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Weekend - End Times (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Weekend - All American (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Procedure Club - Feel Sorry for Me (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Procedure Club - Rather (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: No Joy - No Joy (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Ceremony - Someday (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Games - Everything is Working (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Family Trees - Dream Talkin (MP3)

Weekend @ Cake Shop

I hope you all survived the insanity that was last week. Thankfully, this week is not quite as action packed but still a lot of cool stuff going on. Let's get to it.

Lovers of shoegazy noisepop will want to be at Silent Barn tonight (8/18) for a pretty killer quadruple bill at which earplugs are definitely recommended. San Francisco's Weekend and New Haven, CT's Procedure Club are both signed to Slumberland Records. Weekend are pretty clean-cut looking dudes who make a dark-edged squall that shows a direct through-line from Joy Division to Jesus and Mary Chain to Ride and beyond. I caught them last night at Cake Shop and despite a few microphone problems I thought they were pretty good. Loud. Really loud. The band have already released singles on Transparent and Mexican Summer -- download tracks from those at the top of this post -- and the Slumberland album, Sports (is the title perhaps a tip of a hit to fellow Bay Area musician Huey Lewis?), is out in November. Weekend also play Death by Audio tomorrow (8/19) tomorrow night with sonic compatriots A Place to Bury Strangers.

Procedure Club

Procedure Club, meanwhile, are more on the bedroom pop side of things. Their album, Doomed Forever, came out in June and is a pretty low fi affair, but the songwriting begins to shine through the cacophony on repeated listens. Check out two tracks from the album above, and there's a video for "Rather" at the bottom of this post.

As for the rest of the Silent Barn bill, there's LA/Montreal duo No Joy who I've written about before (but still haven't seen) and are possibly the loudest band on a very loud night. The band's debut 7" is out now on Mexican Summer (grab the b-side above) and is recommended to those whose taste leans towards the sludgy side of things. No Joy are also playing the Death by Audio show with APTBS and Weekend tomorrow night, and will then head out on tour with Dungen, and those tour dates are at the bottom of this post.

Rounding out the show are Fredericksburg, VA's Ceremony who crib more than a little from JAMC (and Medicine and The Radio Dept.), though their album, Rocket Fire, has some nice moments on it -- you can download an MP3 of "Someday" at the top of this post.

Dean and Britta

Dean Wareham kicks off his "Plays Galaxie 500" tour tonight at the Rock Shop, and he'll do it again tomorrow night at Bowery Ballroom with Crystal Stilts opening. Both shows are sold out so I won't go on and on here, but I'm looking forward to this trip down Memory Lane. Hopefully he'll pull out some of my favorites ("Strange," "Parking Lot," "Oblivious"). Dean talked to the AV Club about the difficulties of rearranging the songs for his current band:

AVC: You play with four people now instead of three.

DW: We like four people, because I listen to the records, and there's generally two guitars, because there's an overdub on each track. Or sometimes Matt [Sumrow] plays keyboards; he switches back and forth. I think it sounds fuller with the live guitar. When I go back and look at the old Galaxie 500 live recordings, sometimes Kramer would get onstage with us and play a few songs. It sounded a little fuller. There are times when it works great as a three-piece, too.

AVC: Does touring the Galaxie songs as a four-piece involve some rearranging?

DW: It involves some rehearsing. The songs are more difficult to play than I remember. I listened to the live Galaxie 500 album from Copenhagen, and I realized that's at the end of a tour, after we had been touring for a couple of months and had gotten pretty good at it. In terms of chord structure, the songs are incredibly simple. For example, a song like "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" is only one chord, but there's a whole lot going on in it.

AVC: Peter Buck talks about how hard it was late in R.E.M.'s career to relearn some of their early songs. Because they didn't know what they were doing at first, it's incredibly difficult to replicate.

DW: On "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste," when I was going over my guitar solo, I had no idea what I was doing and I was completely lost. Then I'm like, "How did I do that?"

AVC: It's hard to stumble into the same thing twice.

DW: Well, obviously I don't have to replicate it note-for-note. Mind you, I've got fans who get mad if I play "Snowstorm" and I do the solo with the fuzz pedal instead of the wah-wah. "What! How could he do that?"

Dean & Britta, meanwhile, have a new album, 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which they'll be touring in the fall.  (NYC's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on 10/22.) All Dean Wareham Plays Galaxie 500 tour dates (including the Music Hall of Willimsburg one that was just added in December) , HERE, and video of the original band doing "Strange" is at the bottom of this post.

Deva

And a few more picks, day-by-day of shows that weren't covered above.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18

Family Trees, who probably own a Galaxie 500 record or two, play their dreamy folk pop to Pianos tonight opening for Julian Lynch and Family Portrait. Check out Family Tree's lovely "Dream Talkin'" at the top of this post.

Quality indie rockers Diehard highlight a fun bill at Bruar Falls that also has The Vandelles and The Sanctuaries.

Air Waves, The Beets, Easter Vomit and Rifle Recoil play a benefit for Yellow Fever's Jennifer Moore at Death by Audio.

continued below...

Continue reading "Weekend, APTBS, Procedure Club, Galaxie 500, Games, No Joy, Ceremony, Family Trees & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Loose Limbs - Red Hands (Martin Clancy Remix) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: New Numbers - Islands EP (Zip)

Broken Social Scene @ SXSW (more by Bryan Bruchman)

Aquarian Weekly: Where does Broken Social Scene go from here? Are there any cinematic soundtracks on the horizon?

Brendan Canning: We've got a lot of cinematic music in the can. There's a few movies we're working on while we do a month of touring and festivals to promote the record. We're involved with Daydream Nation, It's Kind Of A Funny Story, and This Movie Is Broken, which mixes Broken Social Scene live concert footage with a plot line that's half fiction thrown in. Now's the time to work hard, stay on top of things, and know this is our moment.

This weekend boasts an insane amount of awesome shows: Broken Social Scene, Beach House, The Clean, Caribou, Local Natives, Jonsi... of course they're all sold out. So I'm gonna try and suggest things to do that the more lackadaisical music fan can still get into. It's broken up by day...

Continue reading "Zeus, Broken Social Scene, New Numbers, Penguin Prison, The Primitives, Alex Bleeker & more in This Week in Indie "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Yummy Fur - Policeman (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Big Troubles - Freudian Slips (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Adam Green - What Makes Him Act So Bad (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Total Slacker - Demos (mediafire zip)

The Yummy Fur

There's a lot of great shows this weekend, but top of the list for me is Scottish cult indie rockers The Yummy Fur who have reformed to play a few shows surrounding a new best-of compilation, titled Piggy Wings, due out sometime soon on What's Your Rupture. They play 171 Lombardy Market Hotel Friday night. More influential than popular, The Yummy Fur started their life making scratchy, scrappy indiepop a la early Fall but got more glammy and synthy as they went on. Frontman John McKeown took the glam part further with his current band, 1990s. And former members Paul Thompson (who'll be part of tomorrow's show) and Alex Kapranos (who probably won't) have done okay for themselves since in Franz Ferdinand.

You can download one of my favorite Yummy Fur songs -- the 1999 single "Police Man" -- at the top of this post. This is the first, and likely last, time they've ever played the States, so miss this gig at your peril. What to expect? McKeown tells the NY Press:

Nothing. I'm never even really sure there will be people there, but I'm happy to play for whoever shows up. It's not like the band is our life anymore, so it doesn't mean anything to us except that we have affection for it. We do take it seriously, we play the gig straight, but we want to have fun. When 1990s plays the States and same with Franz Ferdinand, there are always people who come out and say they loved The Yummy Fur but we never made it over. This is their one chance.

Also playing the 171 Lombardy show are Bishop Allen, German Measles and Mcdonalds. There's some YouTube video of Yummy Fur's first reunion show in Glasgow at the bottom of this post, as well as all other U.S. Yummy Fur dates.

Grant Hart is back in town for two shows -- tonight (1/14) at Cake Shop and Friday at Knitting Factory. For a man whose previous band put out eight albums in six years (two of which were double LPs), Hart has slowed down a lot since -- Hot Wax is Grant's first album in ten years, and only his fourth since Husker Du split. He talked about his current Quality Over Quantity policy with the The AV Club.

AVC: Why the 10-year hiatus between Good News For Modern Man and Hot Wax?

GH: I've delved into a lot of non-musical projects. Learning new things and accomplishing things with my hands that I put aside as an adult to devote all my time to music. As I've gotten older, I've been concentrating on quality and no filler, and spending more time constructing all of the parts of music, rather than going into the studio with one or two parts and then letting the rest work itself out. The first song, "You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water," I took a year to come up with what I thought was an appropriate third verse. That's a long time to hold back on a song that you're excited about in order to make it more of a fulfilling experience. Would I have taken that opportunity in 1985? Hell no.

Tonight's Cake Shop show is good all around, with Drink Up Buttercup and Sisters opening. Tomorrow's Knitting Factory show, Grant is actually opening for Gary Lucas' Gods & Monsters. And you can also catch up with the other half of Husker Du's songwriting force -- Bob Mould, when he plays City Winery next week.

More things to do this weekend:

Zee Avi

Tonight (Thursday, 1/14)

Les Savvy Fav's Tim Harrington hosts a night of comedy and music at The Bell House, featuring charming Malaysian singer-songwriter Zee Avi, and one of my favorite comedians of the moment, Kumail Nanjiani. Plus Stardweller, Rory Scovel, Kevin Barker and screenings of Harrington's Beardo shorts. Plus other shenanigans.

Another chance to see Hot Rats, Danny and Gaz of Supergrass in cover band mode at Bowery Ballroom. Their take on The Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right" is pretty great. I'm told Tuesday's show at MHoW was a blast. The Heavy open (and then play 92YTribeca on Saturday).

At Silent Barn is a night of hazy indiepop, headlined by fine new local band Big Troubles whose debut 7" just came out and is well worth picking up. You can download "Freudian Slips" from it at the top of this post. I doubt they've ever heard '90s shoegazers The Boo Radleys, but "Freudian Slips" bears more than a little resemblance to the Boos' single "Lazy Day," dontcha think? Also playing: next generation twee poppers Dream Diary, the experimental noise of Blissed Out and dreamy New Haven band Procedure Club.

Real Estate @ Brooklyn Bowl - 1/5 (more by Andrew Frisicano)

Friday (1/15)

Not tired from playing every day last week, Real Estate headline a killer Less Artists More Condos show at new venue St James Church. There's open bar from 8 - 9, which is my kind of religion. Real Estate just put out a new EP on Mexican Summer which is, I think, the band's 78th release in just under a year. Also playing are The Tony Castles, The Beets, and two of my favorite new(ish) local bands: Beach Fossils and Total Slacker. You can download Total Slacker's five-song demo (via a Mediafire link) at the top of this post.

The Bell House has a fun show of new sound for now: Brooklyn chamber pop band Miracles of Modern Science (download their EP for free here), the raucous pop of Philadelphia's Drink Up Buttercup, Ravens & Chimes' folk pop and Milagres (maybe you remember them when they were called The Secret Life of Sophia).

Joe Pernice plays a solo show at Mercury Lounge where he'll likely talk as much as he will sing, which is fine -- he's a great banterer. A pretty good writer too, as read in his first novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop which he'll read from I'm told. Joe just finished his next album, which is apparently not a Pernice Brothers or Chappaquiddick Skyline or solo record. I hope he hasn't gone synthpop. Something entirely new for 2010 sounds good.

The Cribs @ Bowery Ballroom in 2008 (more by Vincent Cornelli)

Saturday (1/16)

If you can't make the St. James Church show on Friday, you can catch Beach Fossils again on Saturday night where they're playing a show at Monster Island put on by blog Chocolate Bobka. This looks to be a good show, as it also boasts Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, Cleveland's Cloud Nothings and the druggy sounds of New Hope, Pennsylvania's Nude Beach. It's where I'll be Saturday night.

The Cribs (still with Johnny Marr) are at Irving Plaza where they'll play with our (well someone's) generation's Jim Morrison, the always entertaining Adam Green. "What Makes Him Act So Bad," the first MP3 off of Adam's upcoming album, Minor Love (out 2/16 on Fat Possum), is at the top of this post. The Cribs were just great when they played Bowery Ballroom in November.

Videos, flyers and tour dates follow...

Continue reading "Yummy Fur, Cribs, Grant Hart, Adam Green, Zee Avi, Big Troubles, Joe Pernice, Beardo & more in This Week in Indie"