photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

"Swans at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The most punishingly hot and loud show I've been to for a while. But pleasurably so, and they have a shirtless drummer named Thor. My brain is now a soft scrambled egg. Good night!" -snackish

"Watching the drummer from cop shoot cop be awesome w the swans reminds me how much I want a cop shoot cop reunion." -sethcdiamond

The Aquarian: You already recorded part of the new album in Berlin?

Michael Gira: We recorded the songs that we're playing live in Berlin, and also a portion of one that is built up from my guitar, my acoustic guitar. Now we have, at the end of this month's tour, we have another five days here in Upstate New York, we're going to record a bunch of new songs that I have written, and just build them up from the bottom up.

The album's going to be sprawling. I don't even know if you can call it an album--it's just a collection of music happening at the time. It can't be contained on vinyl, almost. It'd be like a six-vinyl set or something (laughs). So, I don't know how it's gonna be available, but we're just gonna do it and put it out later.

More pictures from last night are below...

Continue reading "Swans & Sir Richard Bishop played MHOW (pics), do again tonight (tix still available)"

by BBG

Wovenhand at Knitting Factory (more by Greg Cristman)

Though tickets for both Swans/Sir Richard Bishop shows are still available, the second night got a little more attractive with the addition of a third act - David Eugene Edwards, aka Wovenhand has been added to the bill! Wovenhand, who will also open for Swans in Boston on 9/29, will join the already awesome show on 9/28. The 9/27 will reportedly not get any extra bands. Get your tickets for either 9/27 or 9/28, or both. All Swans dates HERE.

Swans at Roadburn 2011 (more by Stefan Raduta)

Swans will now play two shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Sir Richard Bishop as part of a larger tour that leads up to Swans' appearance at ATP NJ. The first Brooklyn show, as previously announced, is on September 27. The new show will happen the next night (9/28). Tickets are still available for the 9/27 show and will go on sale for the 9/28 show on Friday (8/5) at noon with an AmEx pre-sale starting Wednesday (8/3) at noon.

All dates below...

Continue reading "Swans & Sir Richard Bishop expand tour, add 2nd Brooklyn show (updated dates)"

The second annual Hopscotch Festival will go down in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, across 12 different venues with over 135 bands, from September 8th through 10th. The lineup this year runs the gamut of independent music... from traditional indie staples (The Flaming Lips, Guided By Voices, Superchunk) to southern-inflected rock (Drive-By Truckers) to noise (Prurient) to hip hop (Beans) to garage (Jeff The Brotherhood) to funk (Budos Band) to metal (Krallice), and everywhere in between (Swans, Rhys Chatham, etc etc). Tickets are currently on sale. Full lineup is below.

Hopscotch happens almost three months after Guided By Voices play a Brooklyn Northside Festival show in McCarren Park (tickets) which is one day after Beirut plays a Northside Festival show on the same McCarren Park stage with... Sharon Van Etten (though she may have been accidentally announced at one point, they officially kept her placement on the bill under wraps until after Saturday's Music Hall of Williamsburg show). Tickets for Beirut/SVE are still on sale, and another opener will be added too.

Guided by Voices (whose Brooklyn show also has more openers coming) are also playing Pitchfork in July with Animal Collective whose Prospect Park show is now on AmEx presale.

Swans' upcoming NYC show is now on AmEx presale too.

Hopscotch lineup below...

Continue reading "Hopscotch Fest returns to Raleigh (2011 lineup announced), Sharon Van Etten officially added to Northside Fest"

Rangda kicked off a tour with their labelmates Major Stars at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory last night (8/28). The Drag City supergroup consists of Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance, Sir Richard Bishop of Sun City Girls and Chris Corsano in what Drag City describes as "a guitar-guitar-drums mind-melt for the ages". Their upcoming shows include the Godspeed-curated ATP in Minehead this December and Cake Shop in NYC TONIGHT (8/28). Their debut record, False Flag, is out now...

"Calling it "noise music" would be an insult. Rangda is, more than anything, "classic rock," a perhaps ultimate optimization of the breakdown. If you listen to the worst of SCG, you'll stop caring. If you listen to Rangda, with an attentive ear, you'll hear an ass-thrashing rock and roll coda that never starts and never ends." [Dusted]

Continue reading "Rangda = Ben Chasny+Sir Richard Bishop+Chris Corsano, played Brooklyn, playing Manhattan & other dates w/ Major Stars"

by Andrew Frisicano

Sir Richard Bishop @ MHOW 2009 (more by Ryan Muir)

No Wave icon James Chance will be sitting behind the piano at Greenpoint/Williamsburg bar Manhattan Inn (a hangout recently described as "Pitchfork come to life") on Sunday, June 27th, from 8-11pm. He'll be playing "original piano compositions...for the first time ever solo on a grand piano" though that could hew closer to jazz standard than free jazz punk. Entry is free; you'll probably have to get there early to get a table (and order a few drinks).

Sort of in the same vein, worldly guitarist Sir Richard Bishop will be playing every Monday night in July (5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th) at Zebulon. Bishop brought his Freak Of Araby Ensemble to Music Hall of Williamsburg and Studio at Webster Hall on their tour last summer.

The James Chance flyer is below...

Continue reading "James Chance & Sir Richard Bishop playing intimate shows"

photos by Ryan Muir

Like Lee Ranaldo, Bill Callahan's Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle was one of my favorite albums of the year. Bill is currently on tour in the South with his labelmates (and Brooklyn residents) Lights. They won't come anywhere near NYC unfortunately - the last chance we had to see Bill was during his June tour that brought him to Le Poisson Rouge & Music Hall of Williamsburg with Sir Richard Bishop as opener. An unpublished set of pics from the Brooklyn show, with all dates, below...

Continue reading "Bill Callahan on tour (dates) ++ a lost set of pics from MHOW"

by Black Bubblegum

DOWNLOAD: Sir Richard Bishop - Kaddak el Mayass (MP3)

Om in Brooklyn 9/23/08

On September 8th, Drag City will proclaim that God is Good. The duo of Al Cisneros (who recently played his final show in Sleep) and Emil Amos (also of Grails/Holy Sons) will release their new four track LP of that name, their first LP together and the first Om LP since 2007's Pilgrimage. More details on the Steve Albini-produced album to come.

In addition to the new Om album, Al Cisneros has also helmed a new compilation for Arthur Magazine. Entitled Transmissions from Sinai and featuring art from the legendary Arik Roper, the disc contains contributions from some of the usual Cisneros suspects (Current 93, Scott Kelly, Holy Sons, Grails, Wino) as well as previously unreleased tracks from J. Mascis, Six Organs of Admittance, Lichens, and Sir Richard Bishop. The full tracklisting is below. For more information and to order that disc, head to Arthur.

A few contributors to Transmissions From Sinai will be in NYC in the VERY near future! Lichens has a show at Cake Shop on June 15th with New Zealand's Bachelorette and Pikelet.

     Sir Richard Bishop

Arthur CD contributor, Sun City Girl, and Om's Drag City label-mate, Sir Richard Bishop double teams NYC in the coming days, with a show on June 13th at The Studio @ Webster Hall with Zaimph, and then two nights later with Bill Callahan (and a BV photo show) at MHOW. Sir Richard Bishop's new album THE FREAK OF ARABY was released by Drag City in May. All of his tour dates are below.

Om's previously mentioned live document, Live Conference, will be released (vinyl only!) via Important Records in the coming weeks.

Current 93 recently dropped Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain, as well as Monohallucinatory Mountain, the mono version of said record. Pick that up at David Michael Tibet's site. Spanning eight tracks over it's 53+ minutes, the LP features contributions from James Blackshaw, William Breeze (ex-Coil), Ossian Breeze (Coil), Rickie Lee Jones, Matt Sweeney, Andrew WK, Sasha Grey, and many many others.

Holy Sons (aka Emil Amos of Om / Grails) recently dropped Drifter's Symphony

Grouper recently toured with Animal Collective, and has a few additional tour dates in the Northwest laid out through the summer.

All tour dates and stuff below...

Continue reading "Al Cisneros made a CD for Arthur, Drag City releasing Om, released Sir Richard Bishop in May - 2009 tour dates"

Bill Callahan (of Smog)'s new record, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle will be released April 14th on Drag City. That same week, Callahan will be going on a promotional tour of U.S. record shops, with a NYC show at Other Music on Saturday, April 18th. April 18th, as you might remember, also happens to be Record Store Day. All dates below.

Callahan will also play two more NYC shows this summer, presumably as part of a larger tour (TBA). The first NY show is Saturday, June 13th show at (Le) Poisson Rouge (Tickets are on sale). The next is one night later, Sunday, June 14th at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn with Sir Richard Bishop and His Freak Of Araby Ensemble. That show, which is part of the Northside Festival, goes on sale today at noon (and stay tuned for more info on how to get a badge that gets you into all Northside shows).

Bill Callahan's Brooklyn show is the second MHOW Northside announcement. The first was John Vanderslice who is playing our own showcase at the same venue two days earlier. Like CMJ does in October for the whole city, The Northside Festival is acting as an umbrella for most of the shows happening at most of the venues in Williamsburg from June 11-14. Badges will be sold that let you jump from show to show to show (capacity permitting). More details will be announced.

All Bill Callahan tour dates, the new album cover art and tracklist, and a Black Cab Session performance video, below...

Continue reading "Bill Callahan - new album, a record store tour (Other Music) & 2 other NYC shows (1 for the Northside Festival) "