The 2013 ACL Festival happens in Austin, TX on two consecutive weekends: October 4 - 6 and October 11 - 13. Weekend passes are on sale now and the full line-up is below...

Continue reading "2013 ACL Music Fest lineup announced (Depeche Mode, The Cure, Atoms for Peace, The National, Vampire Weekend + more)"

photos by Autumn Andel

Phoenix @ Crystal Ballroom -- March 30, 2013

As mentioned, Phoenix, who are currently touring the west side of the United States, ard bringing their tour to NYC for a show at The Apollo on May 13. Tickets for that intimate show, which were sold through a lottery system, are now sold out, but the band whose last NYC show was at Madison Square Garden will return for a show closer to that size on October 2 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Support at that show comes from The Vaccines and tickets for that show go on sale Friday (4/5) at 10 AM.

You can also catch Phoenix much sooner in New Jersey the day before the Apollo show for WRFF Radio 104.5's 6th Birthday Show at Susquehanna Bank Center (5/12) with Passion Pit, Silversun PIckups, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Airborne Toxic Event, Paramore, and twenty one pilots. Tickets for that show are still on sale.

And though we have to wait until May to see them live in NYC, they'll be here much sooner as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this Saturday (4/6). That happens on their way over to Indio, CA for Coachella, which is less than two weeks away.

Updated dates are listed along with more pictures from Phoenix's Saturday night show in Portland, below...

Continue reading "Phoenix played Portland (pics), add Barclays Center show ++ SNL Saturday, a NJ show w/ Passion Pit before sold out Apollo & more (updated dates)"

Osheaga Festival is returning to Montreal's Parc Jean-Drapeau from August 2-4. This year's lineup includes The Cure, Mumford and Sons, Phoenix, New Order, Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Hot Chip, Alt-J, Beach House, Explosions in the Sky, Big Boi, Baauer, Father John Misty, Disclosure, Frightened Rabbit, Angel Haze, Jessie Ware, DIIV, Guards, and many more.

3-Day passes go on sale Friday (3/15) at noon. There are still over 20 artists TBA, but you can browse the complete initial lineup below...

Continue reading "Osheaga Festival 2013 lineup & tickets (The Cure, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, New Order and more)"

Silversun Pickups at Terminal 5 in 2012 (more by Luis Ruiz)

Silversun Pickups, released their new album, Neck of the Woods, and toured in support of it throughout 2012. Now they've scheduled some spring dates for 2013, which will happen prior to their appearance at Detroit's Metallica-headlined Orion Music + More. Those dates include a NYC-area show on May 5 at Wellmont Theatre. Tickets for that show go on sale today (3/8) at noon.

All dates are listed, along with a video, below...

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups touring this spring (dates)"

Metallica at Orion 2012 (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

Metallica held their inaugural Orion Music & More festival in Atlantic City in 2012, and as mentioned, they'll be moving to Detroit for the 2013 installment. It happens from June 8 - 9 in Belle Isle and the lineup was just announced, including headliners Metallica joined by Japandroids, FLAG, Tomahawk, Gogol Bordello, Death Grips, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Deftones, The Dirtbombs, Death, Foals, The Bronx, The Orwells, Red Hot Chili Peppers, FIDLAR, and more. Full lineup below. The announcement includes no word on Metallica playing full albums like they did last year.

Tickets for the festival go on sale to the general public on Friday (3/1) at 10 AM EST with a Met Club presale starting Tuesday (2/26) at 10 AM and an Orion E-list member presale on Wednesday (2/27) at 10 AM.

Continue reading "Metallica announce line-up & tix for Orion Music & More 2013 (Japandroids, FLAG, Tomahawk, Death Grips, RHCP & more)"

photos by Tracy Allison

Silversun Pickups / Cloud Nothings @ T5 10/15/2012

Last week, Silversun Pickups brought their tour with Cloud Nothings through NYC for shows at Terminal 5 on October 14 and 15. Pictures, videos, and setlists from the first night are HERE, and we've got pics from the second night in this post. The setlist was pretty similar to the first night, but they did switch it up a few times. Cloud Nothings briefly mixed it up too, replacing "Our Plans" from the night earlier with "No Sentiment."

More pics (including opener Atlas Genius) and the setlists from SSPU and Cloud Nothings are below.

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups and Cloud Nothings played Terminal 5 again (pics, setlists)"

photos by Luis Ruiz

"if you play a show and it's not mind-numbingly loud what is the point" - Cloud Nothings

Silversun Pickups/Cloud Nothings

Silversun Pickups took their tour with Cloud Nothings to NYC this week for shows at Terminal 5 on Sunday night (10/14) and Monday night (10/15). Silversun Pickups played mostly off of their new album, Neck of the Woods, though of course included their popular singles from the last decade like "Lazy Eye." Cloud Nothings weren't exactly the most fitting opener for the band, and we can't say they pleased all SSPU fans but they brought it nonetheless. As Matthew Levine for CMJ put it, they "[transformed] several audience members in the crowd into dancing rag dolls with limbs flailing all over." Tourmates Atlas Genius opened both shows as well.

Pictures, videos, and the setlist from night 1 are below. Pics of night 2 are coming soon.

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups & Cloud Nothings played Terminal 5 (night 1 pics, video, setlist)"

Cloud Nothings at Summerstage in July (more by Chris La Putt)

As mentioned, Silversun Pickups are going on tour with Cloud Nothings this fall and hitting NYC on October 14 at Terminal 5. That show is sold out, but they've just added a second show happening one day later (10/15) at the same venue. Tickets for the newly added show go on sale Friday (9/14) at noon with AmEx and WRXP presales starting Wednesday (9/12) at noon. Atlas Genius is also on both shows. An updated list of dates is below.

Speaking of Cloud Nothings, we just posted earlier today about their side project Chomp, who are releasing their debut LP, Buddah Jabba Momma, on September 18 via Exit Stencil and playing a record release show in NYC at Cameo on September 21 with Swearin' (tickets).

All dates are listed below...

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups and Cloud Nothings sold out Terminal 5, add 2nd show (updated dates)"

R.E.M., who recently described "why President Obama's vision is essential to the notion of equality and democracy in America", posted the following note today:

R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" was used in the Fox News coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night. R.E.M. today, through its music publisher, Warner-Tamerlane Music, demanded that Fox News cease and desist from continuing its unlicensed and unauthorized use of the song. Michael Stipe said, "We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there."

In related news, R.E.M. recently reunited... for dinner.

Silversun Pickups at Firefly Music Fest in July (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

Silversun Pickups released their third album, Neck of the Woods, earlier this year and you can stream three of its tracks below. The band will be supporting the new album with a tour which begins this September. The first leg of that tour has already been announced, and the band just revealed some October dates as well including New Orleans festival Voodoo Music Experience and a NYC show which happens on October 14 at Terminal 5 with Cloud Nothings and Atlas Genius. Tickets for that show go on sale Friday (8/24) at noon.

Hopefully Cloud Nothings will add a small DIY show while they're here like they did the last time they came to NYC for a big show. The dates with Silversun PIckups come after Cloud Nothings wraps up their own North American tour in September. They recently pushed back the release of their Live at Grog Shop 12" which was supposed to come out this past July, to September 25. They also recently recorded a performance of "Fall In" for For No One TV, which you can watch below.

All lists of dates, video, and streams are below.

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups released an LP, touring w/ Cloud Nothings (dates, streams and video)"

photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

Jack White / Bassnectar fans

Mallory Bolyard, 25, of Townsend, was planning to go to Firefly Music Festival whether her friends were going or not. And although she has some friends here, a lot of them are only interested in concerts with big names that they like. They're not as interested in discovering new music. Her mom is, though, so the two hit the three-day festival together. Mallory was excited to see the festival come to her home state. "It's the first major concert in Delaware besides the State Fair, which is basically country," she said. [DelawareOnline.com]

Here are some pictures from that day (with Saturday and Sunday on the way soon). More below..

Continue reading "Firefly Music Fest day 1 in pics (Jack White, Silversun Pickups, The Wallflowers, Bassnectar, John Legend, OK Go & more)"

The 14th annual Voodoo Music & Arts Experience happens from October 26 - 28 at City Park in New Orleans. Among the 70+ acts at this year's fest are Jack White, Green Day, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Skrillex, Justice, Silversun Pickups, Thomas Dolby, Die Antwoord, The Dirty Dozen Brass, and Bootsy Collins. Tickets are on sale with a variety of options as is the usual with festivals these days.

Full Voodoo Experience line-up is below.

Continue reading "Jack White, Green Day, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Justice & more playing the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans (lineup)"

The 2012 edition of MusicFestNW takes place in September 5 - 9 at 18 venues in Portland, OR and will feature performances from over 150 bands, including Passion Pit, Hot Snakes, Girl Talk, Danny Brown, Beirut Silversun Pickups, Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh, many more.

In addition to those previously announced artists, MFNW has just added The Hives, Flying Lotus, Wild Nothing, DIIV, Quasi, Moon Duo, My Goodness, DZ Deathrays, and Strand Of Oaks to the already impressive line-up. Wristbands, available various levels and packages, and tickets to individual shows are on sale now. Check out the complete MFNW lineup below.

Continue reading "MusicFestNW 2012 lineup expands (The Hives, Flying Lotus, Quasi, DIIV, Passion Pit, Hot Snakes, Beirut, Swans & many more)"

photos by Chris Graham and Rae Graham

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah/Feist

Before the release of their 2011 album, "Hysterical," Clap Your Hands Say Yeah had been inactive for three years, but they were as lively as ever on Monday afternoon. Blowing through tracks from all three of their albums, Alec Ounsworth and company charged through a set full of guitar-based indie rock that catered heavily towards their fans. But judging by the crowd's response, even those who were unfamiliar with the band were enticed. After playing Sasquatch! 2006 on a much smaller stage, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's triumphant set had the crowd, well, clapping their hands and saying "yeah!"

Mogwai (who have upcoming shows with Balam Acab) were supposed to play that day but they cancelled last minute and were replaced by Deer Tick who came on to play a set of covers.

Pictures of Day 1 are HERE, Day 2 are HERE and HERE, Day 3 are HERE, and more from Day 4 below...

Continue reading "Sasquatch 2012 in pics - Day 4 (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Feist, Beck, Spiritualized, SBTRKT, Shabazz Palaces & more)"

"Following last year's 10th anniversary, which crushed previous attendance records and set a new mark for the speed with which tickets sold out, the Sasquatch! Music Festival unveils its 2012 lineup which once again features 4 days of music. The festival, hailed as "a model of well-paced programming...in a four-day schedule as efficient and natural feeling as an expertly built algorithm" by NPR Music while Wired notes, "leave the landscape out of it and Sasquatch! has a lineup to kill for," runs May 25-28 (Memorial Day Weekend) at The Gorge, the internationally acclaimed concert venue carved in the basalt cliffs high above the Columbia River Gorge in Quincy, WA."

Continue reading "Sasquatch! 2012 lineup announced (Bon Iver, Jack White, Beck, Tenacious D, Shins, Portlandia, Spiritualized & more) "

photos by Toby Tenenbaum

"The show last night was great. It was at the Brooklyn Waterfront in Williamsburg. I swear Brooklyn is looking more like Manhattan every day. I miss the old Brooklyn. Ken and I used to go to raves in the factory buildings in Williamsburg - the Cat's Head was one I particularly remember - wild. I had friends who lived there in 89 and the early 90's, it was definitely the fringes - think Johnny Suede, yeah that's the Williamsburg I know.

But they made a nice open space on the water. The stage faced the city so the musicians kept commenting how how awesome it was to play in varying stages of sunset looking over Manhattan. It was beautiful...

...The [second] band was Against Me. I'd only heard "I was a teenage anarchist" on the radio and of course loved the song. They were a really tight bar punk band. Matt said they reminded him of a lighter version of The Drop Kick Murphys. The thing that bugs me is this 'woah-oh-oh' chorus thing all these bands like Cold Play, Kings of Leon are doing. They did that and it annoyed me because it was unnecessary. It was tight and a bit raucous. I liked them a lot." [Semper Fido]

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups & Against Me! played Williamsburg Waterfront - pics, video & setlist"

Tickets are on general sale at noon for the 2nd (actually the first) Faith No More show at Williamsburg Waterfront.

Tickets are on sale at noon Saturday at noon for the Silversun Pickups / Against Me! show at Williamsburg Waterfront.

Tickets are on sale at noon for the the Silversun Pickups / Against Me! show at Wellmont Theater.

Tickets are on sale at noon for the the Hole show at Wellmont Theater.

Tickets are on sale at noon for an August 26th Foreigner show at Wellmont Theater.

Tears for Fears, who also have a show coming up at Wellmont, are playing Hammerstein Ballroom on August 19th. Tickets just went on sale.

Phil Collins & Erykah Badu have Roseland Ballroom shows that are on sale too.

America is celebrating their 40th anniversary at Nokia Theatre in NYC on October 16th. Tickets are on sale at noon.

Tickets are on sale at noon for the Ween show at Rumsey Playfield aka Central Park Summerstage. Tickets may also still be available for the show happening at Starland Ballroom four months earlier.

Tickets are on sale at noon for the Junip (with Jose Gonzalez) show at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are also on sale for the Knitting Factory show that Mountain Man is opening.

Warpaint is playing Mercury Lounge on June 14th. Tickets go on sale at noon. They have a Knitting Factory show too, one day later. Tickets are on sale now.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros play Webster Hall on July 22nd. Tickets go on sale at noon.

Tickets are on sale at noon for the Grace Potter & the Nocturnals show at Webster Hall.

Squeeze & Cheap Trick, Alice Smith tonight, another Chapterhouse show, Omar Rodriguez Lopez & other tickets are on sale too.

HEALTH & Cold Cave play a free show on Saturday.

Continue reading "Faith No More, Silversun Pickups, Ween, Hole, Junip, America, Foreigner, Tears for Fears, Warpaint & other tickets"

Silversun Pickups are set to announce a summer tour today. While we wait for the full dates, we can say that one of those shows will happen Friday, June 25th at Williamsburg Waterfront. Also on the bill are Florida punks with a new album on the way Against Me! and L.A.'s The Henry Clay People (who also have a new disc, Somewhere on the Golden Coast, due in June on TBD Records). Tickets go on sale Saturday at noon.

UPDATE: All dates announced. They include Wellmont Theater. Check them out below.

Silversun Pickups join Modest Mouse, Faith No More and Nas & Damian Marley, all of whom also have shows scheduled at the Waterfront this summer.

Against Me! are on tour now. They play Asbury Park on April 29th.

SP's last record, Swoon, came out in April 2009. A video of the band playing their song "Panic Switch" from that on Jimmy Kimmel in January is posted below with all tour dates...

Continue reading "Silversun Pickups playing Williamsburg Waterfront & other dates w/ with Against Me! & the Henry Clay People"

photos by Bao Nguyen

The sheer explosion of music and technology was an assault on the senses, bringing out the best of my deeply geeky appreciation for both. Before taking the stage, there was a guest appearance by Matt Pinfield looking to get the crowd amped up while cautioning audience members to be sure not to miss the moment when they took the stage. Let me tell you, he wasn't kidding. Playing the waiting game before a show always has a bit of excitement and anxiety as you just want to see the band come out as you get swept away in the moment. As we waited for Muse to take the stage we were left looking at a stage with 3 floor-to-ceiling columns covered with a fabric scrim. Not too visually appealing in the state they were in, but you couldn't help wonder what part they would play come show time...Matt Bellamy is a rock god, and it couldn't be more fitting that once the lights dimmed, the columns turned into three buildings with staircases with the band members coming down the steps, as if from heaven. The aha moment came when the screens fell and revealed the band members on separate raised square platforms, suspended mid-arena with large columns projecting each of them on all four sides while they opened with "Uprising" from their latest album. There wasn't a bad seat in the house. [Geek Bouteek]

Continue reading "Muse & Silversun Pickups @ MSG in NYC - pics, setlist"

"[A Grammy] definitely doesn't hold as much credence in the indie world," said Amy Phillips, news editor of online music tastemaker and news site Pitchfork.com.

Though the Grammys occasionally have bestowed their highest reward on albums that pretty much everybody agrees are great - such as OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, in 2004, or The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in 1998 - the Recording Academy's choices usually don't match those of the music press.

(And that's as true this year as ever, despite the academy's efforts to get hipper and younger. After wins in the last two years by Herbie Hancock and the duo of Robert Plant and Alison Kruass, there's a notable absence of geezer entries in the top categories this year.)

That's because the critical consensus of what makes for good pop music in 2010 has coalesced around indie bands - all of them at least partly based in Brooklyn - such as Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors and, most of all, Animal Collective, which won the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll, published earlier this month.

You won't find any of those bands up for any Grammy Awards. But you will find all of them on 2009's Top 10 list from Pitchfork, the online music magazine whose 1-to-10 scoring system - down to scientifically precise decimal points - is taken as gospel in the indie universe. (Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion garnered a world-beating 9.6.)

As Chuck Eddy skeptically pointed out in his essay accompanying the Pazz & Jop poll, eight of the Pitchfork Top 10 also made the P&J Top 10, suggesting that "indie-rock is suddenly better than everything put together." [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The Ting Tings, Silversun Pickups, and MGMT all appear in the Grammy's Best New Artist category. David Byrne & Brian Eno, Death Cab For Cutie, Depeche Mode, Phoenix, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are all up for Best Alternative Music Album (the latter two also made the top 10 albums list in Pazz & Jop).

UPDATE: Phoenix won it.

"I'm sure Lady Gaga will do something amazing, and I can't wait to see that," said Pitchfork's Phillips. "That's really good, but the awards themselves don't seem to be relevant.

"I think what people don't really realize is that it's all industry people voting for themselves. The fact is that it's taken so seriously, and it really shouldn't be." [Omaha World-Record]

Continue reading "good albums don't win Grammys (tonight), Pazz & Jop 2010 looks like Pitchfork, & other obvious statements "

"More dates TBA", but in the meantime Muse officially announced some North American dates in 2010 including the previously-mentioned show at Madison Square Garden on March 5th with Silversun Pickups. Tickets go on sale at noon.

All dates below...

Continue reading "Muse - updated tour dates & tickets on sale "

UK rock band Muse will headline (for the second time) Madison Square Garden in NYC on March 5th. Recent grammy nominees Silversun Pickups are lined up to open the show. Tickets go on sale Saturday, though there will be pre-sales even sooner. The show is part of an about-to-be-announced tour that includes a show the very next day at TD Garden in Boston. All currently known dates below.

According to Consequence of Sound, Muse is also playing Coachella.

"According to a source with knowledge of the festival's plans, Muse will serve as a headliner for the Indio, CA event, set to take place from April 16-18. This will mark the British outfit's first appearance at Coachella since 2004 and will come amidst what will likely be a summer chock-full of tour dates in support of the band's most recent effort, The Resistance.

A separate source confirms that both Hot Chip and The xx will make room in their recently announced U.S. tour and also appear. These latest additions join Devo, Craze & Klever, and As Tall As Lions, all of which have been previously confirmed by other Internet outlets.

Keeping the fun going, Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, The Avett Brothers, and Pavement are all heavily rumored, while Tegan & Sara, Spacemen 3, Pretty Lights, Cornelious, and Imogen Heap are among the others currently appearing on our Coachella Outlook page."

Continue reading "Muse touring w/ Silversun Pickups, playing Madison Square Garden in NYC (and Coachella?)"

Beast @ CMJ 2009 (more by Chris La Putt)

Lady Gaga was nominated five times. Considering her rocket to fame over the last year, many were expecting more for her. But at least the contests are going to be really interesting: Beyoncé, [Taylor] Swift and Lady Gaga are going head to head in three of the most important categories: album, record and song of the year. Will one of them sweep, or will the lady vote be split?

One of the usual complaints about the Grammys is that it over-rewards older, established, familiar acts at the expense of newer, fresher ones. MGMT, the Brooklyn synth-rock duo, was nominated for best new artist, a big coup although not unexpected. But some of the shoulda-been names that have been circulated and Tweeted: Grizzly Bear, another acclaimed Brooklyn group; Regina Spektor, a young New York songwriter who started in the underground and has found some mainstream popularity; Diane Birch, a young soul-style singer, just the revivalist type the Grammys usually adore; and the Decemberists, an alt-folk-rock band from Portland, Ore., that released an ambitious concept album this year. [NY Times]

One surprise (for me anyway) came this year in the video category. Montreal's Beast were nominated for "Mr. Hurricane". That video with a list of some of the other nominees, below...

Continue reading "Beast's 'Mr. Hurricane' video & other 2009 Grammy nominees "

Silversun Pickups @ All Points West Sunday (more by Chris La Putt)

Awesome...

Continue reading "dancing in the APW mud to Silversun Pickups (videos) "

photos by Tim Griffin and Chris La Putt

"After a soggy Friday and sunny Saturday, the thunderstorms returned for the third and last day of All Points West, this time resulting in major delays and canceled sets for the festival held at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ. But after the rain cleared and mercifully stayed away, organizers hustled to get the schedule back on track, culminating in a dazzler of a headlining set by British rockers Coldplay.

Sunday's line-up, scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. in the comedy tent and 2 p.m. on the music stages, was pushed back several hours due to severe storms that hit the area midday. Fans who arrived early were turned away at the gates, and it wasn't until just before 4 p.m. that ticket holders were invited to line up at the festival entrance for an even longer wait for admission. Comedians Todd Barry, Christian Finnegan and Janeane Garofalo, originally slated for 45-minute sets at the Queen of the Valley tent, were rushed through with 10 minutes each to make way for the musical acts that followed them. "I might do a tour of entirely rained-out festivals," said Barry, "it's big money for not a lot of work at all."

Some sets were canceled altogether--indie rockers Steel Train and New Jersey punk band the Gaslight Anthem, scheduled to take the main Blue Comet stage in the afternoon, were scrapped to allow later bands to perform at their scheduled times." [Billboard]

MGMT played against Coldplay on Sunday, and Echo and The Bunnymen instead opened for Coldplay on the main stage (with Courtney Love watching in the wings). Akron/Family, Silversun Pickups, Mogwai, Lykke Li, Elbow, the Black Keys, and others also played sets on the shortened, very wet day. More pictures, and the two Coldplay cover videos, and some setlists, below....

Continue reading "All Points West 2009 - Day 3 Pictures (Coldplay, mud, MGMT)"