The annual Royal Flush Festival, "art and film and rock and roll", begins in NYC today (10/13). The live schedule includes a Kaiju Big Battle at Warsaw in Brooklyn on Friday, as well as the previously mentioned Lotion, Maritime and Zounds shows at Knitting Factory.

by Andrew Sacher

The Velvet Teen in Minneapolis last night (by Grayson Hary)

As mentioned, The Velvet Teen will open for Minus the Bear on their Highly Refined Pirates 10th Anniversary tour which hits Chicago's Metro tonight (10/11) and NYC during CMJ at Webster Hall on October 18. Both of those shows are sold out, but The Velvet Teen have just added their own headlining show in Brooklyn at Glasslands on October 17 with Crinkles. Tickets are on sale now.

The Velvet Teen haven't played NYC since their show at Knitting Factory's old Tribeca location in 2007. Since that show, they've joined back up with their old bassist Josh Staples and have been performing as a four piece. They recorded their first batch of material as a four piece, the No Star EP, at the tail-end of last year and released physical copies at the beginning of this year via Side With Us Records. The EP falls somewhere between the progressive noise pop of Cum Laude and the more straightforward emo-y indie rock of the band's earlier work. A video of the EP's title track is below. You can order the EP from the Side With Us webstore. The band also recently made all of their albums available for $5 downloads at their bandcamp.

Speaking of emo-leaning indie rock, Maritime are playing Knitting Factory on Friday (10/14) with Atlantic/Pacific (ex-Texas Is The Reason) and Kid Savant as part of the Royal Flush Festival that Lotion is reuniting for and that reunited punk band Zounds is playing too. Tickets for the Maritime show are on sale now.

All dates and video below...

Continue reading "The Velvet Teen schedule NYC show during Minus the Bear tour, Maritime here even sooner (dates)"

photos by Sarah Coulter

Zounds @ Punk Island

After a run of dates this year that included Punk Island, Zounds are back and will play a matinee at Knitting Factory on 10/15 with Witch Hunt and Skelptarsis as part of the Royal Flush Festival that Lotion are also reuniting for. Tickets are on sale. The date is part of a batch of East Coast shows for the UK band, who will focus their efforts on playing material from 1982's The Curse Of Zounds during the trek. Full tour dates, inluding NJ, CT, RI & MD, are below.

We never posted pictures from the Zounds' Punk Island gig, but we have some (and here they are). More of them with all tour dates below...

Continue reading "Zounds touring, playing Royal Flush Festival, played Punk Island (belated pics & dates)"

by Bill Pearis

The fifth annual Royal Flush Festival happens at Knitting Factory Brooklyn from October 13 - 17. Hosted by arts/comics/music mag Royal Flush, details are still a little sketchy on the fest's website, but bands include Art Vs Science, Kid Savant and Glitter Freeze. (Not sure about films this year.) Most excitingly, for this writer at least, is that the Royal Flush folks have coerced '90s-era indie rockers Lotion out of retirement for their first show in 12 years on Monday, October 17.

New York City in the 1990s was not the hotbed of local music it is today and apart from Soul Coughing and D Generation and Luna there wasn't a whole lot going on here. What there was of a scene, it mostly happened at Luna Lounge which served as a music industry hangout and place to catch local bands for free. Among them, Lotion were tipped Most Likely to Succeed. They were one of the first "Cute Band Alerts" in Sassy, their debut Full Isaac was named Album of the Year by the Village Voice (though not in the Pazz & Jop poll), appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, perhaps most famously, got reclusive author Thomas Pynchon to write the liner notes for their 1996 album Nobody's Cool.

Lotion toured with Pavement, Mercury Rev and others and got compared to R.E.M. a lot, which I never quite understood, but they did make some amazingly crafty, complex pop over the course of three albums, all of which are worth seeking out. (They're all out of print but used copies are affordably-priced.) Their live shows were legendary, especially at Luna Lounge which could be loose and boozy and filled with covers. After 1998's The Telephone Album (their best if you ask me), interest fizzled and the band ceased operations a year later.

Singer Tony Zajkowski and drummer Rob Youngberg formed Honeycomb in the early '00s. Honeycomb were equally pop-friendly but added a multimedia element to their shows that made them unique. Honeycomb won some big Best Unsigned band contest around that time, and snuck out an album in 2008 but the project ended shortly after. Zajkowski and Youngberg have formed a new band, Spellbender, that are still gearing up for their live debut.

I don't think Lotion's last show back in '99 was intended that way, so here's your chance to see them. A few choice Lotion cuts (via YouTube) are below.

Continue reading "Lotion reuniting for Royal Flush Festival in Brooklyn"

DOWNLOAD Seabear - I'll Build You A Fire (FM Belfast remix) (MP3)

Seabear @ by:Larm in February (more)

Iceland's Seabear is kicking off a US tour at Highline Ballroom (a venue that might be a bit too big for them?) in NYC tonight (10/16). North Highlands opens the show, which is also part of the Royal Flush Festival (last night's Kaiju event was part of that fest too), and tickets are still on sale.

Enjoy the free remix above and check out all Seabear tour dates below...

Continue reading "Seabear kicking off US tour (dates), NYC w/ North Highlands "

Les Savy Fav @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple (more by Natasha Ryan)

BROOKLYN KNITTING FACTORY SET TO OPEN / BROOKLYN'S LES SAVY FAV TO PLAY OPENING NIGHT

"The Knitting Factory, a leader in the New York arts scene for over two decades, is proud to announce that our new venue at 361 Metropolitan Avenue in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY will be opening September 2009. Brooklyn-based favorites, Les Savy Fav, will perform and host the opening night on Wednesday September 9th. Upcoming shows will feature performances by: Boss Hog, Rasputina, Mayer Hawthorne, Titus Andronicus, The Raincoats, The Spits, Mucca Pazza, Melissa Auf der Maur, cEvin Key, A Wilhelm Scream, Helado Negro, Maps and Atlases, No Neck Blues Band, Dub Trio, Smokey's Secret Family and much more to be announced. Upcoming special events include this year's Williamsburg Fashion Week's Fashion and Arts Premiere, the Miss LEZ Pageant and the Royal Flush Film Festival.

We've been waiting for this news since first finding out Knitting Factory was taking over the Brooklyn Luna Lounge lounge space in April 2008 (which was followed by official confirmation in July of the same year). Since then, Knitting Factory's Manhattan location closed and reopened (and closed again) and lots of people have been left wondering what the deal was.

Tickets for the September 9th Les Savy Fav show are on sale (thx Coma). They also play Fun Fun Fun Fest in November.

Boss Hog is September 10th (tickets). They play ATP NY on September 12th.

The Titus Andronicus/So So Glos show (tickets) is the last date on a long tour that also includes a show at Maxwell's.

Melissa Auf der Maur plays KF on October 17th as part of the Royal Flush Film Festival which makes sense since she made a movie. Tickets for that event are on sale.

And tickets and dates to all of the above mentioned shows are HERE.

More about the space, HERE.

Tim Harrington apologizes to his mom, in the video below...

Continue reading "Knitting Factory Brooklyn opening September 9th w/ Les Savy Fav (tix on sale) ++ other upcoming shows like Boss Hog"