by Bill Pearis

SISU, the band fronted by Dum Dum Girls drummer Sandra Vu, have a new EP titled Light Eyes that is currently out digitally and will be out in physical formats at the end of the month. Laying off the electric guitars a bit, the new EP has an almost baroque faerie folk feel to it. You can stream the whole thing below.

Having just wrapped up dates with Marnie Stern, SISU are now playing a few headlining shows. The tour wraps up with an EP release show on Friday (5/10) at Glasslands with Yellow Dogs and Young Boys. Tickets are still available and all remaining tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "SISU released 'Light Eyes' EP (stream it), playing NYC record release show and other dates"

Cat Power @ T5, 1/29/2013 (via @theconstantwanderer)

...the lights went down and Cat Power's backing band wound up with a slight guitar line that seemed to bring Chan Marshall out of the shadows. She had let her Mohawk grow out--no photographs were allowed during the set, so please bear with textual descriptors--but her hair was still short and bleached-blond, with darkly imperious eyebrows that arched over the back of the room. If you've never heard it before (I hadn't), Marshall's voice in person is only slightly less burnished than on record, not necessarily always the magnificent, ineffable thing I had been expecting. It was also difficult to hear contours and nuances due to Sun's stickier beats ("Sun"), vocal distortion ("Silent Machine"), and the simple fact that her voice was often sunk low in the mix ("Cherokee" and "Human Being"). When you could hear it above everything else, however, on older piano-driven cuts like "I Don't Blame You" or "Bully," it rose in her throat raw and untrammeled, transfixing everyone enough to shush themselves. - [Village Voice]

Cat Power's current tour hit Terminal 5 last night and we've got the setlist to the sold-out show below. Also on the bill was rapper Angel Haze, who also appears on a new, Ryan Hemsworth remix of Chan's single "Manhattan" which you can stream below.

Openers for the evening were SISU, the band fronted by Sandra Vu who also plays drums in Dum Dum Girls (Jules Dum DUm is also in the bad). You can catch them Thursday night (1/31) at Glasslands with "duo" versions of Crocodiles and Punks on Mars, as well as a solo set from Cassie Ramone. Tickets are still available.

You can catch Ryan Hemsworth live on his upcoming tour with Daedelus and Salvia.

Cat Power remix and setlist are below...

Continue reading "Cat Power & Angel Haze played Terminal 5 (setlist), teamed up for a Ryan Hemsworth remix (stream it)"

Sandra Vu

Since you are so busy with Dum Dum Girls, do you find it difficult to balance both projects?

Yeah, it's really difficult actually. With Dum Dum Girls, we have a lot of stuff going on, but it's still hard to kind of perceive what we're going to be doing next year, for instance, and with a band you kind of have to know when you're going to be free way in advance--like six to nine months--and that's kind of why I have to do more DIY stuff, because then I can just do it when I have time and don't have to plan with a company or anything.

While listening to Sisu it sounds much different than Dum Dum Girls--sparse, dark, more synth. What would you say are the largest differences between the bands?

Probably the biggest difference is that we use a lot of synth and keyboards, where Dum Dum Girls is more straightforward rock 'n' roll. Dee Dee [Penny] and I have similar tastes in music, but it comes out different. She mainly writes songs with guitar and her voice, where Sisu could be inspired by a keyboard part or drum part, or guitar too, but I think you can tell it comes out differently. It's not a straightforward rock band. -[OC Weekly]

Cat Power has had some pretty eclectic openers for her shows of late: Xray Eyeballs have opened for the singer in NYC and Europe, and Angel Haze will do so at Terminal 5 on Tuesday (1/29). For a couple of her other East Coast shows -- tonight (1/28) in Richmond, VA and Wednesday (1/30) in Philly -- Chan Marshall has tapped dream pop combo SISU, the band fronted by Dum Dum Girls drummer Sandra Vu.

UPDATE: SISU now also playing the Terminal 5 show as well. Updated dates below.

While on the East Coast, SISU will play NYC as well, hitting Glasslands on Thursday (1/31) for a pretty sweet line-up that includes an "electric duo" version of Crocodiles as headliners, plus Punks of Mars and a Cassie Ramone solo set. Advance tickets are on sale.

SISU will be releasing new music soon via NYC label Mono Prism but in the meantime you can stream Demon Tapes Vol. 2 below.

Continue reading "SISU opening for Cat Power on tour, playing NYC w/ Crocodiles, Cassie Ramone & more (dates)"

Royal Baths circa now

Royal Baths are opening for Moon Duo tomorrow night (10/5) at Knitting Factory and the show will be their first with a new line-up that includes Lesley Hann of Friends on bass (who seems to have left that group, along with Matthew Molnar, if their most recent 285 Kent show is any indication). Tickets are still available.

If you can't make it tomorrow night, Royal Baths have a bunch of other shows coming up, including Sunday (10/7) at Bowery Electric (whose booking seems to be getting more interesting now that Sam Mickens has been handling some of the shows there) with Larkin Grimm, Behavior & M. Lamar; Wednesday (10/10) at Glasslands with Grooms, Dum Dum Girls offshoot SISU and Punks on Mars (tickets); October 16 at 285 Kent with Forma and the Golden Awesome; and a CMJ show at Cheap Storage on October 19 with King Tuff, Habibi, Turnip King and Total Slacker (tickets). Royal Baths tour dates are listed below.

Meanwhile, Royal Baths' Jeremy Cox features on Blasted Canyons' version of "Venus in Furs" that will be on the upcoming Castle Face Velvet Underground tribute album we told you about. That album is out November 6. Royal Baths most recent album, Better Luck Next Life, came out back in February.

Speaking of Total Slacker, the band have had a sad week with the death of their drummer Terence Connor in a hit-and-run. The band will pay tribute to him this Saturday (10/6) at Cheap Storage with a dance party featuring DJ sets from Weird Rivers, Cool Serbia, DOM, and Prince Rama. Suggested donation is $5 and all procedes go to Connor's family. More info here.

Continue reading "Friends' Lesley Hann joins Royal Baths who have a bunch of upcoming shows (dates)"

by Bill Pearis

Crocodiles at 4 Knotts 2012 (more by Chris La Putt)

Crocodiles' tour rolls through NYC tonight (Friday, 9/28) for a show at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for that show are still available but if you'd like to go for free, we've got two pair of tickets to give away. Details on how to enter are at the bottom of this post along with a list of all dates.

The band are supporting their most recent album, Endless Flowers, which finds them widening their scope while still holding on to those Spacemen 3/JAMC roots. It's a good record. You can stream the whole thing at Spotify and check out the video for its title track below. Openers for this show are Punks on Mars and Alexis & Icewater.

Brandon of Crocodiles' wife, Dee Dee, will be playing with the rest of Dum Dum Girls at Europa on Sunday (9/30) with Chez Deep and Starred, and tickets to that show are still available. It's a record release show for their terrific new End of Daze EP. DDGs will be back opening for The Walkmen at Terminal 5 on October 18 (tickets).

Meanwhile, DDG drummer Sandy's band, SISU, play Glasslands before that on October 10 with Grooms, Royal Baths, and Punks on Mars (tickets). Bleeding Rainbow were on that bill originally, but seem to have dropped off. (They do have other shows in NYC though.)

Continue reading "Crocodiles are on tour, in NYC tonight (win tix!); Dum Dum Girls here this weekend too"

by Bill Pearis

Bleeding Rainbow at Brooklyn Bowl, 8/29/2012 via @brooklynvegan Instagram

Philadelphia's Bleeding Rainbow played Brooklyn Bowl last night with Oberhofer and Heavenly Beat and had a pretty good set, rocking more of a shoegaze-meets-X vibe now that they're a four-piece, playing songs mostly from their terrific new album, Yeah Right, which recently got moved from an October 2012 release to January 2013. You'll have another chance to see them before that as the band just announced they'll play Glasslands on October 10 and tickets for that show are on sale now.

Some of you may want to go just to see openers SISU which is Dum Dum Girls drummer Sandra Vu's band who make gothy postpunk/shoegaze a la Lush or Slowdive (with a slinky dash of Siouxsie perhaps). I caught them at SXSW this year and thought they were pretty good, despite their drummer being MIA. SISU's debut album is due out any minute, but in the meantime you can stream their Demon Tapes, Vol 2 EP below (and download it for free from Bandcamp). No other SISU tour dates at the moment but seems like a long trip from L.A. just for one show and CMJ just a week later.

Also playing are new wave fans Punks on Mars who just released a new single, "People Talk," on his Bandcamp which is also a free download and streamable below. If you like King Tuff or Jay Reatard or the Knack you should check 'em out.

Streams are below.

Continue reading "Bleeding Rainbow played Brooklyn Bowl, playing Glasslands w/ SISU (Sandra of DDGs) and Punks on Mars (streams)"

by Bill Pearis

Dum Dum Girls at Osheaga 2012 (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

Dum Dum Girls' new EP, End of Daze, is out September 25 finds Dee Dee and the rest of the girls expanding their sound into some cool new areas. "Lord Knows," which you can download via a widget at the bottom of this post (with your email address), is a soulful "Crimson and Clover" style groover that could've been played at the Hacienda in 1990, and the EP also contains a blissed-out cover of Strawberry Switchblade's 1983 dayglo psych debut, "Trees and Flowers."

Dum Dum Girls will play an End of Daze release party in NYC at Europa on September 30 with "Special Guest" and tickets are on sale now. They'll also be opening for The Walkmen (with whom they played at Montreal's Osheaga fest) at Terminal 5 on October 18.

If you need more related music, check out SISU which is fronted by DDG drummer Sandra Vu and falls a little more on the gothy shoegaze side of things. (I caught them at SXSW.) Their new "Demon Tapes Vol. 2" EP quite good and is a "name your price" download at Bandcamp and is streaming below.

All tour dates are listed below, along with streams and widgets.

Continue reading "Dum Dum Girls touring, playing 'End of Daze' release show in NYC, opening for The Walkmen at T5 (dates)"