Moonface at FYF Fest 2012 (more by Debi Del Grande)

Moonface, the project of Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake), has two full lengths and an EP under its belt, and he doesn't have any plans to release a followup or tour at the moment, but he has announced two NY shows which will take place this spring, and are billed as "solo piano" shows. He also recently did a solo piano set at the Foodstock Festival in Helsinki, Finland, which has led some to believe he is working on a solo piano record.

One of the NY shows is at Hamilton College, and then he plays NYC on May 5 at Littlefield. Tickets for that show go on sale today (3/29) at noon.

Meanwhile, Spencer's ex-Wolf Parade bandmate Dan Boeckner has been keeping busy with his band, Divine Fits (which also feature's Spoon's Britt Daniel). Check out pictures of them at SXSW HERE.

Tour dates (all two-of 'em) are listed, along with a video, below...

Continue reading "Moonface playing solo piano shows, including 1 in NYC"

Handsome Furs in Austin in 2011 (more by Tim Griffin)

With a heavy heart the time has come to let all of you know that Handsome Furs are no more.

The most important thing that needs to be said right now is how extremely grateful we are to all the fans all over the world that showered us with love and support over the years. Thank you for everything! It's been an incredible 6 years and we owe it all to you.

xoxo

HF

Sadly, Handsome Furs, the project of Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexie Perry, posted the above message to their website last night, announcing their end as a band, with no other elaboration. This announcement comes almost a year after Wolf Parade played their last show "for a long time."

In related news, you can catch Spencer Krug's Moonface project on tour this spring/summer. That tour includes the previously mentioned NYC show at Bowery Ballroom on June 30 with La Big Vic. Tickets are still available.

Some Handsome Furs videos from 2011's Sound Kapital below...

Continue reading "Handsome Furs break up"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Moonface - "Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips (MP3)

Last year, Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown vocalist Spencer Krug released his debut full length under his relatively new Moonface moniker, Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped. That album featured little more than Spencer's voice, organ, and a drum machine, a fairly drastic but welcome change from the guitar/piano songwriting he's become known for in his other projects. Now, he's set to release the followup to Organ Music, which he recorded with Finnish krautrockers Siinai. The album's titled Heartbreaking Bravery and its due out on April 17 via Jagjaguwar. The backing of a full band makes the album more similar to Spencer's other bands than his previous work as Moonface, but the songs do retain some of the looping qualities of Organ Music. Stream the full album below (via AV Club) along with the video for album single "Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips" (which you can also grab the MP3 of above).

Moonface will tour internationally in support of the album in the next few months, hitting NYC on June 20 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets for the NYC show are on AmEx presale now and go on sale to the general public on Friday (4/13) at noon.

All dates, album stream, and video below...

Continue reading "Moonface streaming new LP, reveals tour dates & new video"

photos by Tim Griffin

Moonface (aka Spencer Krug), who "currently recording a new full-length album in Finland with Siinai", has announced a full tour to go with that October 30th Bowery Ballroom show we mentioned. All dates are listed, along with more of an unpublished set of pictures from a July show at Emo's with Flow Child and White Dress, below...

Continue reading "Moonface announces tour -- updated dates & pics from Emo's"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

"#moonface at mercury lounge. Expectations super exceeded. So, SO good. Also Spencer looks great." - Jed Crocker

Moonface (aka Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown) played Mercury Lounge on Wednesday (7/20) as part of an ongoing tour. Spencer performed with with an organ and was accompanied by a drummer. They played every song on the recently released LP Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped and the non-album track "The Way You Wish You Could Live in the Storm." They ended their set with "All Fires," one of Spencer's contributions to his project with Dan Bejar and Carey Mercer, Swan Lake.

Flowchild opened the NYC show which happened right after EMA in the same venue. Pictures, videos, and setlist are below...

Continue reading "Moonface @ Mercury Lounge w/ Flowchild (pics, video, setlist)"

I actually came across this other band named Moonface (from Providence, Rhode Island) while looking for info for our last Moonface post. Moonface, the one we were writing about, is the new Spencer Krug project. At first I thought maybe Spencer (of Wolf Parade fame) had accidentaly used a band name that was already taken, but then I saw that this other Moonface appear to be even newer. They haven't even played one show yet, have been on Twitter less than two months and so for only have demos posted on their BandCamp. They need to change their name (and do a better job of Googling).

Spencer's Moonface released an EP in 2010 via Jagjaguwar (announced in 2009) and is now well known to Google and the indie rock world. To make matters worse (and the reason I'm writing this post in the first place), the Rhode Island band is confusing people and even getting booked by people who think that they're booking Spencer. Not only is Spencer NOT playing Glasslands on August 13th, neither is the Moonface from Rhode Island since Glasslands realized that was who they accidentally booked to headline the Saturday night show which is now cancelled.

Spencer is however touring and playing NYC in July.

DOWNLOAD: Moonface - "Fast Peter" (MP3)

Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped

Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown vocalist Spencer Krug announced the first-ever tour for his Moonface project, which hits NYC on July 20 at Mercury Lounge. Tickets for the NYC show go on sale this Wednesday (5/25) at noon. All dates are listed below.

His live debut for the new project took place earlier this month (5/6) at the secretly-located Brooklyn venue Envelope, and he played a show in Montreal since (a low quality video from the latter is below).

The tour is in support of his upcoming full length Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped, which serves as the follow-up to his debut EP Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums. According to Krug, the album is "something between pop and lush drones." Organ Music drops August 2 via Jagjaguwar. Download the track "Fast Peter" from the album above.

The tracklist, live video, and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Moonface announces new LP & tour (MP3 & dates)"

Spencer Krug's solo project Moonface will be in Brooklyn at the secret venue Envelope for his first ever performance under the Moonface moniker. The show, originally scheduled for tonight (4/20), has been moved to Friday, May 6. The $25 ticket includes 3 fancy drinks and the location of the Bushwick venue. The show is being opened by Matteah Baim. Moonface's 2010 EP Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums can be downloaded on his website. Donations welcomed.

In other Wolf Parade news, Handsome Furs just came through town on their tour which is still underway. Their upcoming third album Sound Kapital drops June 28 via Sub Pop. A new track, "What About Us," can be downloaded here.

DOWNLOAD: Sunset Rubdown - Idiot Heart (MP3)

'This is the best band retreat yet...'

"By no means am I a poet or a great lyricist, I just like to include some sort of beauty in the lyrics," [Sunset Rubdown's Spencer Krug] says. "Sometimes I'm trying to make them more straight-forward, but it's still in me to return to the metaphor and I'm not very good at it. My friend Dan [Bejar - aka Canadian solo artist Destroyer] is one of the few people who can pull off poetry and music at the same time. The imagery isn't anything complex. I'd like to get to the point where I could create something like that, without hiding behind metaphors. I'm my own worst critic, right?"

"[With the new record] it's turned very much into a collaborative band - they're not just hired guns," explains Krug with a hint of relief. "I'm still the principal songwriter. I bring my ideas to them and then they add their own colours and flavours to them and it becomes Sunset Rubdown. If I was to sit down and record with just a piano and a guitar it sounds all right but it makes me miss the band."
[Spins and Needles]

Spencer and Sunset Rubdown kick off a month-long tour of Europe on September 2nd. When they return, they'll be playing shows across North America through October. That tour comes to NYC for an October 16th show at Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom. Tickets go on sale Saturday, August 8th at noon. After missing the show at Studio B during the Northside Festival (which apparently was a disaster anyway), I can't wait for this one.

The group's great new record, Dragonslayer, came out on June 23rd on Jagjaguwar. "Idiot Heart" from that album is above.

Dan Bejar, Krug's Swan Lake collaborator shouted out above, just finished a short solo Destroyer tour. He played XX Merge in North Carolina, and a July 30th NYC show at Bowery Ballroom...

"Last night I had the privilege to see my favorite band/singer Destroyer at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. I've been to countless shows over the past 18yrs or so and I've even seen Destroyer a number of times, but last night was special. He played material off of each of his EIGHT albums and even a song from a side project called Swan Lake, AND he did it all solo with an acoustic guitar. I've always been partial to a sripped down lo-fi sound anyway, so in my opinion, it was best like that. Not to take away from what the band contributes, but it really was amazing this way. So luckily I brought a pad to do a few quick drawings (in the dark) as I always think it would be great to reportage these events and then some how I never seem to. Glad I did last night." [Greg Betza]

Destroyer is releasing a new 12-inch vinyl EP, titled Bay of Pigs, on August 18th via Merge. Bejar will be back in the fall for a Wordless Music show at the Miller Theatre on September 12th, as well as an appearance at Pop Montreal. All tour dates below.

EP art, tracklist, the setlist from Destroyer's XX Merge show, and Sunset Rubdown live videos and tour dates, are below...

Continue reading "Sunset Rubdown announce 2009 tour (dates), Spencer's friend Destroyer releasing EP & played Bowery Ballroom"

DOWNLOAD: Sunset Rubdown - Idiot Heart (MP3)

Sunset Rubdown @ Studio B - June 12, 2009 (in our hands)

-tons of sound problems. extremely frustrating for the crowd and the band. vocals kept dropping out.
-studio b could be blamed? venue sucks. also extremely hot.
-one of the lead guitarists got stuck in one of the stage pieces, couldn't get himself unstuck. very sad.
-spencer- many "best show ever"s, very sarcastically
-lots of people yelling out "JUST PLAY ANYWAY". band became visibly frustrated. i thought spencer was going to lose it at times.
-new song was just okay. the rest of the set was great. wish there was more stuff from older albums, but what can you do.
[Anonymous | June 12, 2009 11:26 PM]

Sunset Rubdown's new album Dragonslayer is out today (6/23)! You can stream it at NPR. Tour dates and Studio B setlist below...

Continue reading "Sunset Rubdown played Studio B ++ Dragonslayer released"

DOWNLOAD: Elfin Saddle - Temple Daughter (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Swan Lake - Spanish Gold 2044 (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Swan Lake - A Hand At Dusk (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Swan Lake - Spider (MP3)

Swan Lake

Have Swan Lake (the supergroup composed of Spencer Krug, Dan Bejar and Carey Mercer) ever played a live show? I don't think so. While we wait for that to happen, we at least have shows by some of the members' individual projects -- the projects that made Swan Lake interesting enough to care about in the first place.

Spencer Krug's band Sunset Rubdown plays Studio B in Brooklyn on June 12th (no general admission ticket info yet). The show is part of the Northside Festival, and part of a much larger tour with fellow Canadians Elfin Saddle.

Since arriving in Montreal in 2006, Elfin Saddle has been steadily gaining audience and acclaim for their original and emotive live performances. Having released Gigantic Mother/Wounded Child on Kill Devil Hills Records in early 2008, they are proud to be releasing their follow-up, Ringing For The Begin Again, on Constellation. A recent addition to their recordings and live performances is Nathan Gage (Shapes and Sizes, owner of Phonopolis record store in Montreal), rounding out their sound with thick drones and subtle bursts on double-bass and tuba. [Core band members] Emi and Jordan are currently working on an extensive stop-motion/time-lapse film, featuring the growth of plants and the animation of a large collection of scavenged objects. [PR]

The MP3 on the top of this post is from Elfin Saddle's new Constellation album. All Elfin/Rubdown tour dates below.

Dan Bejar will be playing as Destroyer (solo) on a few May dates with Azita. He'll also be visiting NYC this summer for a solo show at Bowery Balllroom on July 30th with Iran. Tickets for the NYC show go on sale Friday at noon. All dates below..

Continue reading "Destroyer & Sunset Rubdown playing shows, NYC included, but not together (especially as Swan Lake) - 2009 dates"

To Whom it May Concern

A petition was put together recently in order to persuade Canadian super group Swan Lake into touring. Most of you have posted on your sites about their forthcoming second record, Enemy Mine, which is due out March 24th on Jagjaguwar. In regards to touring, Jagjaguwar posted that "Swan Lake does not currently have any tour plans but is easily swayed by gold doubloons and/or enthusiastic mobs". Upon reading this, we the fans have come together to prove to the band that they definitely need to tour to support their new record.

We are urging all of you to help us in our quest. If you would post a link to this petition along with any upcoming posts about Swan Lake, we'd greatly appreciate it. Once we hit our target goal of 1000 signatures, we'll send the petition to Swan Lake's booking agent at Billions who will present the petition to the band. After being overwhelmed by the shear number of signatures, we're sure the band will want to hit the road.

http://www.petitiononline.com/swanlake/petition.html

Thanks for all your help.

Maria Carullo
http://wolfparade.nonstuff.com

DOWNLOAD: Handsome Furs - What We Had (old MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Handsome Furs - Cannot Get, Started (old MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Swan Lake - All Fires (old MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Swan Lake - The Freedom (old MP3)

FACE CONTROL is the second album by Montreal's Handsome Furs, 2007's Plague Park was their first. Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner wrote the songs on FACE CONTROL together. The album was recorded and mixed by Arlen Thompson at Mount Zoomer. It was mastered by Harris Newman at Hotel2Tango. It will be released on March 10th, 2009 [by Sub Pop].

That makes two-upcoming Wolf Parade-related albums in March....

The release of SWAN LAKE's new album is imminent! It is called "Enemy Mine", to be released on Jagjaguwar on March 24th, 2009 (March 23rd in the UK).

For those unfamiliar, SWAN LAKE is the musical group featuring celebrated songwriter-mystics Daniel Bejar (of Destroyer and New Pornographers), Spencer Krug (of Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade) and Carey Mercer (of Frog Eyes and Blackout Beach).

Together they recorded Enemy Mine, their nine-song second album, in Victoria, British Columbia, in early 2008, a little more than a year after the release of their well-received debut collaboration, "Beast Moans", also on Jagjaguwar.

While their debut album was a beautifully-weaved mash-up of their disparate song-writing styles, often with layer upon layer of various melodies and stylistics thrown into a collaborative cauldron to magical, and at times discordant effect, their second album "Enemy Mine" reflects a more stripped-down, more deliberate approach to collaboration. It's as if they really tried to just make nice songs together. To quote Krug, "There's architecture here." Not that the lyric is about collaboration--it fits nicely though.

It is the band's contention that this is the first known use of a "court painting" as a record cover used in popular music. As a result of this enthusiasm, the band had planned on calling the album "Before the Law", a beloved Kafka parable and a reference to this court painting. However, the band is tired of being tagged as "literary", so they dubbed the record "Enemy Mine", a beloved movie from Bejar's youth, and a good metaphor for collaboration.

Both new album tracklistings, and Handsome Furs tour dates (including SXSW), below...

Continue reading "new Handsome Furs & Swan Lake albums, MP3 & tour dates"

by BrooklynVegan Mike

"For me the most depressing, the worse thing, that has happened with Wolf Parade, is how the media pit me and Spencer against each other."

Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade) @ Terminal 5 (more by Kyle Reinford)

We first spoke with Dan Boeckner from Wolf Parade two years ago. He had just had a rough set and a kerfuffle with a mid-90s college act. Last year we caught up with him again - that time with Alexei Perry and we talked Handsome Furs. Another year has passed and the ever prolific Boeckner (and the rest of Wolf Parade) are back with a new record called At Mount Zoomer. We spoke with Dan AGAIN - this time after Wolf Parade's biggest Montreal (August 3rd) show to date (a show that was still smaller than the two NYC shows they played a few days earlier). We talked about the NYC shows, the record, the upcoming Furs record, Fine Young Cannibals, and those persistent Dan/Spencer rivalry questions.

--

Before we talk Wolf Parade, I just read online that there is already a title for the new Handsome Furs record?

Continue reading "another interview w/ Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs"

DOWNLOAD: Wolf Parade - My Father's Son (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wolf Parade - Shine a Light (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wolf Parade - Call it a Ritual (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Wolf Parade - Language City (MP3)

NY Magazine: What do you see as the biggest aesthetic and philosophical differences between you guys and the Arcade Fire?

Spencer Krug: You want me to compare Wolf Parade to Arcade Fire right now?

NY Magazine: You don't have to.

Spencer Krug: I think the differences are huge. If you want to talk about the sonic aesthetic, they have more members, they have more ambition, more of a drive for perfection than we will ever have, so they sound bigger and they sound better. [Laughs] They will always sound tighter and more thought-out. Arcade Fire has everything just so. And that is to their benefit as a band, probably.

We're friends, but we're very different in terms of music and even probably politics, and how we approach our place in the world, if that makes sense. I don't mean politics, like what they stand for, but the way they operate within this industry. They're just more successful and have had to deal with things that we'll never have to deal with it, like whether or not to play Saturday Night Live.

Wolf Parade play Terminal 5 in NYC tonight (July 31) and tomorrow (August 1). Spencer will also be will be back in NYC to play two more shows in September with Sunset Rubdown.

In related "news", Radiohead & Arcade Fire are BFF.

Sunset Rubdown @ MHOW in 2007 (more by Adam Schneider)

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for a September 16th Sunset Rubdown show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn and for one the very next day at the much smaller Mercury Lounge. You don't have to wait until September to see Spencer though. Wolf Parade are touring too and they'll bring Spencer to NYC for two shows at the end of this month. All SR tour dates below...

Continue reading "Sunset Rubdown - 2008 Tour Dates (Mercury Lounge/MHOW)"

"Boost Mobile + Jelly NYC present 'THE SECRET SOCIETY' with SUNSET RUBDOWN, Ecstatic Sunshine and special guests". That is exactly how the March 27th show is being billed. I think the "The Secret Society" is the party name because the show is in the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Tickets are on sale and they're only $10. All Sunset Rubdown tour dates below..

Continue reading "Sunset Rubdown - 2008 Tour Dates (Masonic Temple)"