Tickets to see Dinosaur Jr. play a Governors Ball after party at Irving Plaza go on sale today at 10 AM.

Tickets for the The Psychedelic Furs show at Irving Plaza go on sale today at 10 AM.

Tickets to the Courtney Love shows at Stone Pony Summerstage in Asbury Park, NJ and The Paramount in Huntington, NY go on sale today at 10 AM. Tickets to The Capitol Theatre show go on sale today at noon. Tickets to the Warsaw show are on sale now.

When we last spoke, Starred were only opening the Paramount date, and they've since been added to the Warsaw and Stone Pony shows.

Tickets to see Indians at Knitting Factory go on sale today at 10 AM.

Tickets to see The So So Glos, Heavens Gate, Dinowalrus and Trabajo at Knitting Factory go on sale today at 10 AM. Tickets for The So So Glos' Public Assembly show are on sale now.

Tickets to see Chance the Rapper, The Internet, Vince Staples and others open for Mac Miller at Stone Pony Summer Stage and Hammerstein go on sale today at 10 AM.

Rebelution and Matisyahu are playing Rumsey Playfield in Central Park on September 10. Tickets for that show go on sale today at 10 AM.

Dropkick Murphys and Swingin Utters are playing on August 22 at Ives Concert Park in Danbury, CT and on August 25 at Stone Pony Summer Stage in Asbury Park, NJ. Tickets for the Ives Concert Park show go on sale today at noon and the Stone Pony show goes on sale today at 10 AM. Tickets to DKM's show at The Paramount are still available.

Tickets to see Beck at Celebrate Brooklyn at the Prospect Park Bandshell go on sale today at 11 AM.

by Andrew Sacher

Say what you will about Courtney Love's solo material or the current state of Hole (not counting their surprise classic lineup reunion at Public Assembly last year), but the first two Hole records are 90s alt-rock classics, and if the lead singer of those albums is heading out on a solo tour, it's at least as notable as Billy Corgan's version of the Smashing Pumpkins touring. We briefly mentioned that Courtney would be doing some NYC-area shows this year, and have since realized they're part of a short Northeast tour she's doing in June.

The tour hits Philly, Boston, and Maryland, before culminating in four NYC-area shows: June 26 at Warsaw in Brooklyn, June 27 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, June 28 at Stone Pony Summer Stage in Asbury Park, and June 29 at The Paramount in Huntington. Tickets for the Warsaw show are on sale now, tickets for the Stone Pony/Paramount shows go on sale Friday (5/10) at 10 AM, and tickets for the Cap show go on sale Friday (5/10) at noon.

The Paramount show and the non-NYC-area shows on the tour are with Brooklyn goths Starred, but no openers have been announced for the Warsaw, Cap, and Stone Pony shows yet. Starred's impressive Prison to Prison EP came out last year, and we've since heard new material from them on the Sub Pop 1000 compilation. Their contribution, the dark folk dirge, "Doomed," is one of the standouts on the compilation and the best track I've heard from Starred yet. You can listen to "Doomed" 34 minutes into the full album stream of Sub Pop 1000 below.

UPDATE: Starred have been announced as the openers for the Warsaw and Stone Pony shows as well.

All Courtney Love dates are listed, along with the Sub Pop stream and some classic Hole videos, below...

Continue reading "Courtney Love touring with Starred in June (dates)"

Phoenix, who just played Coachella, are streaming their shiny new album, Bankrupt!, on iTunes.

Sub Pop 1000, the Record Store Day compilation with tracks from Peaking Lights, Iron Lung, Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Starred, My Disco, and others that we recommended in our RSD2013 guide, is streaming now on Pitchfork.

The new Nick Drake tribute album with covers by Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, and others is streaming on Spinner.

Jose Gonzalez's band Junip are streaming their new self titled album on Pitchfork.

Meat Puppets are streaming their new album, Rat Farm, on Spinner.

Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge are streaming their new film-soundtrack-style album, Twelve Reasons to Die, on NPR.

Montreal shoegazers No Joy are streaming their shimmery new album, Wait to Pleasure, on Pitchfork.

Tera Melos are streaming their new spastic pop album, X'ed Out, on Spinner.

The Boy Least Likely To are streaming their new album, The Great Perhaps, on Pitchfork.

by Bill Pearis and Andrew Sacher

Ex Cops DJing at Other Music, RSD 2012 (more)

We're about a week out from Record Store Day 2013. When it began in 2008, RSD was a celebration of brick-and-mortar stores in the face of digital downloads, offering up exclusive releases to get people out to stores. It's blown up considerably since then, with hundreds of RSD-only releases. (Many of which fall into the hands of folks who turn it around on Ebay that same day, but what can you do?) While it is a mob scene these days, there is no doubt it helps what record stores there are left -- though not enough, as Record Store Day will be the last day for Williamsburg's Sound Fix. Participating stores around the country are listed here.

There are always some pretty cool exclusives too, items that may have never seen the light of day without RSD. With that in mind we've gone through the list of North American RSD exclusives to highlight a few things to keep an eye out. This isn't comprehensive, just stuff we wanna get. What records are you trying to get this year?

We've written about the Sacred Bones comp, the Astralwerks comp, Old 97s, Frightened Rabbit, Austra, Sonny & the Sunsets, and Titus Andronicus Check out our new list below...

Continue reading "a guide to Record Store Day 2013"

Chelsea Wolfe at Highline Ballroom in 2012 (more by Greg Cristman)

As mentioned, Chelsea Wolfe (with Ben Chisholm on analog synths/bass/keys and Andrea Calderon on violin) is going on an acoustic tour with King Dude which hits NYC on January 26 at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Starred. Tickets for that show are still available and we're also giving away a pair.

A list of updated dates, contest details, and a stream of Chelsea Wolfe's acoustic album, Unknown Rooms, below...

Continue reading "win tix to Chelsea Wolfe's Music Hall of Williamsburg show with King Dude & Starred! (updated dates)"

by Andrew Sacher

Gambles

Gambles (aka Matthew Daniel Siskin, former guitarist of now-defunct NYC indie rockers Levy) just released a video for the track, "Trust," which was directed by Grant Singer (DIIV, Sky Ferreira). The song is part '90s sad folk and part Garden State soundtrack, and it sounds like it was recorded live in an empty room with nothing more than a bit of reverb thrown on. You can check out the video below.

He'll be playing his first ever show this Sunday (12/9) at MoMA PS1 for the Long Island City venue's Sunday Sessions with Starred, for whom the show is a release part for their debut EP, Prison to Prison. The show takes place from 3-6 PM in the VW Dome and also includes music by DJ Tom Roy and a special guest reading.

Speaking of Levy, the band's frontman James Levy has been continuing to make music too, under names like James Levy and the Blood Red Rose and Reputante who have shows coming up at Pianos and Glasslands.

Gambles video below...

Continue reading "Matthew of Levy is Gambles, playing first show with Starred"

photos by PSquared Photography

Tamaryn @ Mercury Lounge 11/9/2012

Tamaryn played two area shows over the weekend, including a stop at Mercury Lounge on 11/9 with Young Prisms (who also played Glasslands) and a show the next night at Knitting Factory (11/10) with Starred and Alexis. The shows were part of a tour in celebration of Tamaryn's new LP, Tender New Signs, which is out now. Pictures from Tamaryn (we missed Young Prisms) from Mercury Lounge below, alongside video from Knitting Factory.

Later Saturday night, Tamaryn also stopped in to DJ her KF show's afterparty at The Flat which also featured the live debut of former Religious to Damn-ers Azar Swan. Check out video from Azar Swan's performance below.

Continue reading "Tamaryn played Mercury Lounge and Knitting Factory, DJed KF afterparty with Azar Swan (pics/video)"

DIIV at River Rocks, August 2012 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

DIIV already revealed they'll be headlining the Captured Tracks CMJ show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Thursday (10/18) and will also play the KEXP CMJ day show at Union Square Ballroom on Thursday and also at Fader Fort (RSVP) that same day too, not to mention the Pitchfork party on Friday (10/19).

The band will also be the secret guest at the Life or Death PR CMJ show Saturday night (10/20) at 92YTribeca that also includes Twerps, Slug Guts, Mac DeMarco and more (though no 2nd secret guest as originally announced). $10 at the door, or get in with your CMJ badge. More info here.

Full line-up for the 92YTribeca show, set times and the flyer, and DIIV tour dates, below...

Continue reading "DIIV revealed as secret guest at another CMJ show (updated dates & Life or Death showcase set times)"

by Andrew Sacher

Berkley, CA lo-fi pop artist Sam Flax, like Ariel Pink or Girls, sounds like he's spent a lot of time with the FM playlists of years past and has now taken to his bedroom to let those influences spill out into his own music. The result is his solid debut full length, Air Waves, which he recorded mostly on his own from 2005 to 2011 and pressed on cassette tape this past February via Burger Records. That pressing (250 copies) has since sold out, but in late September Burger finally got the album out vinyl in the US and The Sounds Of Sweet Nothing did the same in the UK. You can always buy it digitally too, and the whole thing is streaming below.

The album opens strong with "Fire Doesn't Burn Itself," which is kind of a (excuse the comparison) better version of Caesars' "Jerk It Out," and though it never really returns to that height, Age Wavves remains solid throughout. It bounces back and forth between bubbling disco synth tracks ("Child of Glass" and "Dark Water") and more guitar pop akin to the album's opener ("Another Day" and "Further West"). A couple videos from the album are below.

Though Sam recorded most of the album himself, he plays live with a band, and that band will be making their way over to the east coast this month for a show at Glasslands on October 15 with DMTs (OJ from Xray Eyeballs), Starred, and Alexis & Icewater. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

Meanwhile, Starred, who just opened for Dum Dum Girls over the weekend (9/30), have other upcoming shows, including one opening for Tamaryn at Knitting Factory on November 10. Tickets for that show are still available.

A list of all dates, videos, and song streams below.

Continue reading "check out Sam Flax, playing NYC soon (dates & streams)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Starred - "No Good" (MP3)

Brooklyn/LA duo Starred aka Liza Thorn (who previously played with ex-Girls frontman Christopher Owen in Curls) and Matthew Koshak are set to release their debut EP, Prison to Prison, on November 20 via Pendu Sound (also home to Chelsea Wolfe). Given that label's preference for dark, brooding music, it's no surprise that they took interest in Starred, who play the sort of dream pop that has more in common with slowcore and psychedelic folk than much of their shinier, synthier contemporaries. You can stream two EP tracks, "Cemetery" and "Call From Paris," and check out the video for the latter below. They've also got a 7" single on the label for the track "No Good," which you can download above or stream below.

Starred have a couple upcoming shows Brooklyn shows, including one this week at Glasslands on Tuesday (9/11) with Captured Tracks band Cosmetics, ex-Team Robespierre band Black Marble, and Warm Ghost. They'll also play with Tamaryn and Cool Angels at Knitting Factory on November 10. Tickets for the Glasslands show tickets for the Knitting Factory show are on sale now.

UPDATE: They also open for Dum Dum Girls at Europa on September 30 with Chez Deep. Tickets for that show are still available.

There's also another chance to catch Black Marble in NYC this month at Public Assembly on September 21 with Plastic Flowers, Indian Flowers, and Total Slacker, plus DJ sets by Heavenly Beat, Pictureplane, The Death Set, Creep, and Le Sphinxx. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

Starred streams, video, cover art and tracklist below.

Continue reading "Starred releasing EP on Pendu, playing shows (dates, streams, video and MP3)"

Tamaryn at Emo's in Austin, April 2011 (More by Tim Griffin)

San Francisco ethereal vibestress Tamaryn is set to release her new album, Tender New Signs, on October 16 via Mexican Summer. You can stream the first single from the album, "I'm Gone," at the bottom of this post. (It's available now on 7" as well.) She'll also be touring this fall with two NYC dates: November 9 at Mercury Lounge and November 10 at Knitting Factory. No ticket info yet for either of those shows but you can keep checking Ticketmaster for Mercury Lounge and Ticketfly for Knitting Factory.

UPDATE: Young Prisms open the Mercury Lounge show and play Glasslands two days earlier (9/7) (tickets) and Starred and Cool Angels open the Knitting Factory show. Merc tix go on sale Friday (8/24) at noon and Knit tix go on sale Friday (8/24) at 10 AM.

Tamaryn song stream and tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "Tamaryn releasing new LP, touring this fall w/ 2 NYC shows (dates)"