Tickets are on Am Ex presale (@ noon) for the Webster Hall show Tokyo Police Club are playing. If you don't have an Am Ex, they also go on Artist Arena presale at 3PM. Regular Ticketmaster sale begins Friday.

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the Department of Eagles show at Bowery Ballroom.

Tickets for the upcoming Sharon Jones shows at Nokia Theatre are on Am Ex presale (at noon).

The Teenagers are playing MHOW on Thursday. Tickets are still on sale. Their other NYC show is opening for Vampire Weekend at Terminal 5.

Tickets are back on sale for tonight/Wednesday's Vampire Weekend show at Terminal 5.

Tickets are now on presale (PASSWORD = BUYTIXNOW) fot two shows Antony & The Johnsons are playing at Town Hall.

Martin Sexton is playing two shows at Town Hall in February too, and tickets are also now on presale (PASSWORD = BUYTIXNOW ?).

Tickets are on Am Ex presale (@ noon) for the recently added Black Keys show at Terminal 5.

OK Go are playing MHOW on March 8th. Tickets are on Am Ex presale (@ noon).

Tickets are on sale for the show Coliseum is playing @ Europa on February 27th.

Tickets are on Am Ex presale (@ noon) for the 2nd Crystal Castles show at MHOW.

Tickets go on sale Friday for Amanda Palmer's New Years Eve show.

The above design can be had on a t-shirt.

LCD Soundsystem, RJD2, Devendra Banhart, Mum, The Decemberists, Neon Neon, Devlin & Darko, My Morning Jacket, VHS or Beta, Diplo, Gnarls Barkley, Tim & Eric, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings are among the artists contributing tracks to Causes 2, an album to benefit Darfur (out March 2009).

Causes 1 is out now and has tracks by Animal Collective, Bloc Party, Death Cab, Spoon, The Shins, Bright Eyes, Cornelius and many others.

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and the Decemberists are also among the artists who contributed to Dark Was the Night, a new comp to benefit the Red Hot Organization which will be released in February.

Sharon Jones just announced some tour dates. My Morning Jacket will be at MSG on New Years Eve.

A video trailer for Causes 2, below...

Continue reading "Causes 2 - a new CD comp for Darfur w/ LCD Soundystem, My Morning Jacket, Decemberists, Sharon Jones & many more"

Sharon Jones @ Highline Ballroom (Perez CMJ) (more by Faith-Ann Young)

Belting out such lyrics as "I can't have my cake and eat it too, so I gonna get up and walk out on you," funk-soul luminary Sharon Jones sounds like anything but a goody two-shoes. But like many divas before her, she was an angel when she discovered her pipes.

"I was somewhere between 5 and 8 years old when I played an angel at church, an itty-bitty angel with wings and a halo over my head," she recalls. "One time we did 'Silent Night,' and a lady at church said, 'Ooh-ooh, that little girl can sing.' That's where it all began." [The Isthmus Paper]

In other Daptone news, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings appear on that new Red Hot comp, Budos Band & Naomi Shelton are playing Mercury Lounge on December 19th, and the Menahan Street Band have a show coming up at Southpaw on December 20th. All Sharon Jones tour dates below...

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings -2008/09 Tour Dates (2xNokia)"

"What a fitting day to announce the complete list of artists involved with our upcoming album DARK WAS THE NIGHT - the February 17th 4AD release that will benefit the Red Hot Organization. It's World AIDS Day, and in honor of that, we bring you the exciting news."

Continue reading "Dark Was the Night - full 4AD comp artist list, cover art, etc"

photos by Chris La Putt

Menahan Street Band @ Southpaw

The Budos Band have three NYC shows coming up, one of which is tonight, Thursday November 13th, at SOB's. The second is at BAM Café on December 6th, and the third is December 19th at Mercury Lounge with their Daptone Records labelmate Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens. Naomi also performs every Friday at the Fat Cat. Mercury Lounge tickets are on sale.

In other Daptone news, Sharon Jones recently performed two non-CMJ shows during CMJ week, one of which was an Obama fundraiser, and the other for Perez Hilton. Back in September Sharon and the Dap Kings performed at Austin City Limits (ACL) (the festival), and for ACL the TV show. Look for the latter on PBS.

Last but not least, the latest Daptone/Dap Kings/Budos off-shoot, The Menahan Street Band, performed at Southpaw with the Phenomenal Handclap Band back in October (before CMJ even). They were joined on stage by special guests including Charles Bradley, but not Sharon (she stayed in the audience). More pictures from that show, and all Daptone-tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Budos Band tour dates, Menahan Band pics, Daptone stuff"

words & photos by Faith-Ann Young

A bleached-blonde, jolly, skinny (and hence nearly unrecognizable) Perez Hilton stepped on stage to Friday night (10/24) at Highline Ballroom ready to party. The bands he picked to play his party were performers who guaranteed a riotous, gossip-worthy show, from soulstress diva Sharon Jones to Yo Majesty's usually-topless, feel-good, with-attitude rap, to the catsuited were-you-a-stripper-before-you-learned-to-lip-sync? Lady Gaga. It wasn't as much about the music as it was the energy- and hence the MTV-loving crowd went wild.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings kicked it off in style and soul - (those Dap Kings are getting around these days. Members were also spotted performing on October 21st with Daniel Merriweather at Mark Ronson's Allido showcase and with the Phenomenal Handclap Band at the BV showcase that same night) belting, grooving barefoot, and inviting random chicks and drag queens onstage for a sing-along.

In between sets, the drag queens ruled the dance floor - grinding, teasing, flirting and pulling at each other's hair and fake tits.

Yo Majesty's rapper Shunda K and singer Jwl B performed with a dude in a kilt and a dude in a superman spandex ensemble while laughing, joshing and rappin' back and forth to the crowd's roars.

Next up: Semi Precious Weapons, who weave a precarious line between hard rock and fake eyelashes over heavy duty eyeliner. Lead singer Justin Tranter 'affectionately' calling everyone "you bitches" and strutting his wry frame around like a cracked out professional stripper. The rest of the band provided the perfect contrast, looking right out of AFI or some other alt-rock outfit. The overwhelming amount of eye-candy throughout the set distracted from the music, which was hard rock with lyrics like "It's not my fault I look cuter in a party dress" and "I can't pay my rent but I am fucking gorgeous." Sound bloody aweful? Musically perhaps, but if you let yourself get offended, you're taking life farrrr too seriously.

Last up, came Lady Gaga. People BATTLED for front row on this- I was nearly bitten by a teething, rabid female, who was wasted and ready to slit wrists to get to front row. The chick's got a furious fan club so if you haven't heard of her yet, listen up. A brief history: she performed in a bra onstage at Lollapalooza in 2007. Though the music was god aweful, her F*-all attitude got her signed to Interscope. They marketed her, fed her cat-suit and stripper boot addiction, got her featured in W Magazine, filtered her single "Just Dance" into all the clubs and had her perform late night at gay clubs (we will call this the Madonna-music strategy). So now-a-days, the chick's "hot" in the Britney-RIP sense: white space-suit with granny panties, a troupe of boy back-up dancers and tens of thousands of dollars in moving TV screens and superfluous stage props (a glowing crystal stick anyone?) It is unknown if she was actually singing or just lipsyncing throughout the set. The teenage mob was screaming too loud to hear.

The bottomline is Perez's party wasn't about the music. It was about fun- the patent-leather, glitter, sex-for-sale sort of fun. Which meant overall it was a success, since in the Perez world of guiltless shits and giggles, you only live once anyway, so alls well that ends in glitter and catsuits.

Fun Fact: Lady Gaga is now on tour with, and opens for, the New Kids on the Block who happen to be playing Madison Square Garden tonight (Monday, October 27) (after which LG plays a free in-store at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square). More pictures from Perez's party below...

Continue reading "Perez Hilton's CMJ party @ Highline Ballroom, NYC - pics"

Sharon Jones @ ACL (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

Sharon Jones will be performing at the Barack benefit going down at Southpaw Thursday night. Sharon Jones will be performing at the Perez Hilton party at Highline Ballroom on Friday night with Yo Majesty, Lady Gaga, Semi Precious Weapons & more TBA

I think the Menahan Band is playing the Southpaw show too (in addition to Budos Band and Naomi Shelton). Menahan are also opening for Sharon on the following dates...

Continue reading "Sharon Jones - 2 NYC shows this CMJ week! "

photos by Ryan Muir

Ramember all the way back in September when St. Vincent and Sufjan Stevens shared a stage at BAM in Brooklyn? Well, Daptone's own Naomi Sheleton was on that bill too, and here finally are the pictures from her portion of the evening which I thought would go nicely with this show announcement::

Thu. 10/23 @ Southpaw in Brooklyn
Daptone Family Fundraiser for Barack Obama
featuring the Budos Band and Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens plus very special guests from the Daptone Stable, as well as DJ's Honeydripper, TNT and Neal Sugarman
$20 adv./$25 d.o.s, 8 pm doors
>> buy tickets

Continue reading "Naomi Shelton BAM pics, a Daptone fundraiser @ Southpaw "

DOWNLOAD: The Menahan Street Band - Make the Road by Walking (MP3)

The Menahan Street Band is a collaboration of musicians from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings (Dave Guy, Homer Steinweiss, Fernando Velez, Bosco Mann), El Michels Affair (Leon Michels, Toby Pazner), Antibalas (Nick Movshon, Aaron Johnson) and the Budos Band (Mike Deller, Daniel Foder), brought together by musician/producer Thomas Brenneck (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Budos Band, Amy Winehouse) to record hits in the bedroom of his Menahan St. apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Tommy (Thomas Brenneck) is a member of both Menahan and Handclap, though it is unclear whether he'll be performing with TPHB tonight. He may just have contributed to their album.

Tommy is also the one who started Dunham Records, a subsidiary of Daptone. The Menahan Street Band album ("Make the Road by Walking") is their first release and it is out now. Download the title track above. You might recognize it from the sample used in Jay-Z's hit song "Roc Boys (and the Winner is...)". Speaking of which...

A few months after the release of the Jay-Z track, Brenneck was contacted by the principal of Public School 20, an elementary school in nearby Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, who had tracked down the original after being blown away by the sample in the radio hit. The school band invited the Menahan Street Band to their recital to watch them perform their own rendition of "Make the Road by Walking" and to join them in their music class the following Friday. The experience proved mutually inspiring for both the children and the band, and completed the songs poetic journey from the local community center through the national hip-hop airwaves, and back to the children of Brooklyn.

Continue reading "Menahan Street Band - new Daptone (Dunham) record, MP3, videos, Jay-Z, a show w/ the Phenomenal Handclap Band"

photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Let's face it, anyone who is going to style themselves "The Dap-Tone Super Soul Revue" had better be able to represent. Or, as Jones put it, "TES-tify and REC-tify." After a JBs-style instrumental vamp and rave-up by the nattitly-attired Dap-Kings, Jones came shimmying out onstage, ushering in almost an hour of non-stop pyrotechnics onstage. Several times, Jones pulled audience members from the crowd or out of the wings to join her aerobics tutorial, but she really didn't need the company. A soulful belter whose most obvious contemporaries are Bettye Levette and Irma Thomas, Jones sang convincingly of love and loss and the sorry, no-good so-and-sos responsible for both. [Austin360]

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings @ ACL 2008 - pics"

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings are playing a benefit at Socrates Sculpture Park tonight (9/23). Tickets still seem to be available. More details below....

Continue reading "Sharon Jones is playing tonight! ($10,000 and cheaper too)"

photos by Bao Nguyen

DOWNLOAD: Sharon Jones - 100 days, 100 nights (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Menahan Street Band - Make the Road by Walking (MP3)

"Hey, Duffy: This is what soul sounds like: Tribal, earthy, hip-shakin', swerve-throwin' Sharon Jones." [Time Out Chicago]

Naomi Shelton first lifted her soulful voice into the Daptone family back in the Desco days of the late 1990s. Under her maiden name, Naomi Davis, she gave us "Forty First Street Breakdown," which has become a secret weapon for funk DJs....Naomi has a regular Friday-night residency at the West Village's Fat Cat, during which she and her band regularly blow away the audience with her powerful vocals, popping basslines, and spot-on harmonies (andfor only $3, it's probably one of the cheaper ways to change your life)...

...Menahan Street Band is one of the many projects of Thomas Brenneck, best known, perhaps, as the guitarist for the Dap-Kings, the Budos Band, and Amy Winehouse. Recorded entirely in analog in his Brooklyn home, Menahan Street Band's debut LP, Make the Road by Walking, out October 14, redefines the idea of bedroom project.

The pictures in this post are from the Virgin Festival. More of those, and some videos from Lollapalooza, below...

Continue reading "Sharon Jones played Summerstage, Lollapalooza, Osheaga & the Virgin Festival (pics, video, tour dates)"

Battles @ Irving Plaza (more by Bao Nguyen)

Central Park Summerstage is the place to be for free shows on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Getting there early helps guarantee admission. I imagine that will especially be true on Sunday since Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings recently played sold out shows at both the Beacon and the Apollo.

Hercules & Love Affair @ Irving Plaza - Aug 8, 2008 (Eduardo)

Friday (August 15) there are some more events that are outside of my usual listening, but might be interesting:

Continue reading "the weekend in Dance w/ Showtrotta (Kelley Polar, Nicky Siano, Sharon Jones, My Cousin Roy & more )"

Sharon Jones @ the Roots Picnic 2008 (Kyle Dean Reinford)

You can see a few more pictures like the above, at Kyle's Flickr. The Dap Kings share members with The Budos Band (not the first time I brought that up). Break it down, below...

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - 'Tell Me' & other videos "

Sharon Jones @ Coachella 2008 (more by Ryan Muir)

There's another festival with "Jam" in the title happening this weekend.

Mountain Jam is a three day music festival in Upstate New York, held at the world-class ski resort, Hunter Mountain. Radio Woodstock and Warren Haynes will once again co-produce this event during the first weekend after Memorial Day, May 31st thru June 1st, 2008.

Sharon Jones @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple (more by Bao)

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - 2008 Tour Dates"

photos by Ryan Muir

NYC representin' in the desert....

Continue reading "the National, Sharon Jones & Battles - Coachella pics & video"

photo by Bao Nguyen

Steven Bernstein leads an all-star jazz band this afternoon at Masonic Temple as her teaches a new generation to swing! Today's concert features Dap Kings dame Sharon Jones bringing her hard driving blues funk to all you kids out there!

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & kids @ the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn - pics"

DOWNLOAD: Crosby, Stills & Nash - Long Time Gone (MP3)

Central Park Summerstage concerts, NYC, 2008
04/20 - Vienna Teng
05/30 - Duran Duran (tix)
05/31 - Duran Duran (tix)
06/13 - Mavis Staples & Stephanie McKay
06/21 - kokayi, JLove Calderon, La Bruja, Lemon, Will Power
06/28 - Vieux Farka Toure
07/23 - Mark Knopfler (tix)
07/27 - The Skatalites
07/29 - Crosby, Stills & Nash (tix)
08/02 - Thollem (SmhSmh) & Germaul Barnes (BitahkizAyeli Movement & Sound)
08/03 - José James
08/06 - Sonny Rollins (tix)
08/09 - Latin Alternative Music Conference presents Scud Hero & ??

ALSO, according to the NY Times:

Crosby, Stills & Nash; Mavis Staples, the experimental Brooklyn rockers Battles and Black Dice; DanceBrazil; and the Mexican pop singer Julieta Venegas will be among the performers at Central Park SummerStage this year, the City Parks Foundation has announced. Crosby, Stills & Nash will play on July 29 in one of the six paid benefit concerts during this 23rd SummerStage season. The other performances, along with the Afro-funk scion Seun Kuti and the vintage-soul revivalists Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, are free, beginning with Ms. Staples's concert on June 13. The complete lineup will be announced in April.

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Live on Fox 5 News (video)"

Also just announced at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple: "SHARON JONES sings for the kids with Steven Bernstein's BABY LOVES JAZZ project on Sunday afternoon, April 6." $15 tickets are on sale.

Up there is yet another picture from Sharon's recent show at Beacon Theater. She also just played Letterman. More tour dates below....

Continue reading "Sharon Jones singing for kids @ the Masonic Temple, tour"

Continue reading "Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings on Letterman (video)"

DOWNLOAD:

1. The Budos Band - Chicago Falcon (The Washington Sq Lads rmx) feat. Mark Ronson & Wale (MP3)
2. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Keep On Looking (Kenny Dope rmx) (MP3)
3. The Daktaris - Eltsuhg Ibal Lasiti (Mad Professor rmx) (MP3)
4. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Stranded In Your Love (Cool Calm Pete - Sweet Nothing Mix) (MP3)
5. The Sugarman Three & Co. - Take It As It Come feat. Charles Bradley (Afrodisiac Soundsystem mix) (MP3)
6. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - How Long Do I Have To Wait For You? (Ticklah mix) (MP3)
7. The Budos Band - T.I.B.W.F. (Hank Shocklee mix) (MP3)
8. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - My Man Is A Mean Man (DJ Spinna mix) (MP3)
9. The Sugarman Three & Co - Bosco’s Blues (Bull Jun mix) feat. Large Professor (MP3)

Daptone Records and Scion have partnered together to release one of this (or was it last) year's hottest remix compilations. As the official press release goes:

Scion has partnered with indie funk and soul label Daptone Records to launch Scion CD Sampler Vol. 19 - Daptone Records Remixed, a double CD-set compilation including nine exclusive remixes of various artists, along with the nine original recordings.

And don't forget to catch Sharon Jones on tour. -Terry