Gogol Bordello - Dec 2009 (more by Paul Birman)

Once again, we're approaching the new year, and as always, there are tons of ways to celebrate in NYC with a number of different New Year's Eve shows.

Gogol Bordello are returning to NYC to play Terminal 5 on December 30 and 31. Tickets for both shows are still on sale and we're also giving away a pair. Details on how to win are below.

Deer Tick will play Brooklyn Bowl on New Year's Eve. Tickets are still available and also available is a combo package that allows you entry to see the Deer Tick show and the Lucero show which happens at the same venue one night earlier (12/30).

Los Lobos, who, along with Deer Tick, have members in the new supergroup Diamond Rugs, also play NYE in NYC at City Winery. They're playing two shows at the venue and tickets for the early show and the late show are still available.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists will be in the NYC-area for NYE to play The Bell House on 12/30 (tickets) with Obits and Maxwell's on 12/31 (tickets). Comedian Kurt Braunohler opens both shows.

O'Death plays Spike Hill on New Year's Eve with The Woes. Tickets are still on sale.

A few similar electronic shows will happen on NYE, including AraabMuzik, Balam Acab, Light Asylum, Laurel Halo, and Run DMT at 285 Kent, a Laurel Halo DJ set at Zebulon and Nosaj Thing, El Topo (aka Nicolas Jaar associate Dave Harrington), and others at Glasslands. Tickets for the 285 Kent show and the Glasslands show are still on sale.

Another similar option would be the Cheryl dance party at Public Assembly (12/31) with a live set by Midnight Magic. Tickets are on sale now. The Underground Rebel Bingo Club is also throwing a sold out party in Public Assembly's back room.

There will also be DJ parties at Cameo Gallery (tickets) and Santos Party House (tickets).

Mister Saturday Night hosts a party at House of Yes.

Laidback Luke, who will set sail on the Holy Ship! cruise in the beginning of 2012, will be throwing a party at Pacha in Manhattan (warning: avoid at all costs). Another HARD-approved artist, Nero, will be at Webster Hall for an after-hours party, starting at 3:30 AM. Tickets for the party are on sale now (and is also probably somewhere you don't want to be).

Two Daptone Records affiliates will be in NYC on NYE. Charlies Bradley and The Budos Band play Music Hall of Williamsburg and Lee Fields & the Expressions with Sugar Pie Desanto will play The Bell House. Tickets for the Charles Bradley show and the Lee Fields show are still available.

For a different type of soul show, Fitz & the Tantrums are playing Gramercy Theater on NYE, but that show is now sold out.

The Stone is throwing their annual end of the year improv party with John Zorn, Thurston Moore, and others.

The Damnwells play two shows at Rockwood Music Hall.

Sandra Bernhard finishes a run of shows at Joe's Pub on New Year's Eve.

Barbes hosts Spanglish Fly.

Like he's done in the past, Chuck Berry will be playing two shows at BB King's on New Year's Eve. Tickets for the early show and the late show are on sale now.

For two shows that you definitely won't find BBG at, Phish play four MSG shows (12/28-12/31) and Matt & Kim play Hammerstein Ballroom on New Year's Eve with Super Mash Brothers and Body Language. Tickets for the Phish shows and the Matt & Kim show are still available.

In addition to Phish, another jam band option is Gov't Mule's two night run at Beacon Theater from December 30-31. Tickets for both shows are on sale now. Infected Mushroom is at Best Buy Theater.

The Fleshtones, Todd Youth All-Stars, The Waldos (featuring Walter Lure of Johnny Thunders' band), The Threads, Richard Bacchus & The Luckiest Girls, and The Dead Tricks will play Bowery Electric on 12/31 with a "surprise rockabilly legend." Tickets are on sale now. The flier for this show is above.

Patti Smith will do her usual run at Bowery Ballroom (12/29-31) but all three shows are now sold out.

In other NYC proto-punk news, New York Dolls will NOT be playing Irving Plaza on 12/30, the show has since been cancelled.

What else?

Details on how to win Gogol Bordello tickets below...

Continue reading "New Year's Eve concerts & parties in NYC --- Gogol Bordello (win tix!), AraabMuzik, Phish, Chuck Berry, Patti Smith, more"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Forever in Armitron (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Fleshtones - Bite of My Soul (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: STRFKR - Death as a Fetish (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Obits - You Gotta Lose (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Destroyer - Chinatown (MP3)

Destroyer

Welcome to the You Didn't Get Tickets to LCD Soundsystem edition of This Week in Indie. Or maybe some of you don't care about James Murphy's Last Hurrah, and if so you can consider this the I Don't Give a Crap About LCD Soundsystem edition of TWII. Luckily for everyone, this is another bonkers week for shows and there's bound to be something for everyone -- even if I don't write about it here.

Let's begin with what is my most-anticipated show of the weekend -- Destroyer, who play Webster Hall on Sunday (4/3).  (Tickets are still available.) I have friends who are Dan Bejar obsessives, but I've always been more of a casual fan. Destroyer's new album, Kaputt, is a masterpiece and easily my favorite of 2011 so far. Gone are the chintzy synths and thin production, replaced by glorious '80s widescreen pop that brings to mind (mine, at least) The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout. It's got the scope and the arrangements I always imagine Bejar wanted for his songs but never had the means to make real.

It's also the first album I've loved in a long time that has this much saxophone on it. I don't think there's a song on Kaput without it, and it's of the variety that makes you think of a city in the rain. Maybe the saxophonist is playing in the rain on a fire escape somewhere? Or maybe that's just every music video from the '80s. Anyway, Kaputt is evocative of that era for sure but Bejar's unmistakable urbane style keeps it out of cheeseball territory.

For this tour, Bejar has assembled an "eight-piece Destroyer orchestra" to bring Kaputt to life on stage. My friend Toby (who does the blog The Finest Kiss) saw the show in Seattle and said, "Seeing Dan Bejar play with a small band or solo under the his Destroyer moniker was always good, but I had never been blown away. I knew I was going to hear the songs from his latest Kaputt, but I had no idea that what I would get would far exceed that very good record and as well as any expectations I had." That raises my expectations quite a bit, but it does make me more excited... even if the show is at Webster Hall.

BOAT

This weekend also marks the return of Seattle's BOAT, longtime TWII faves whose scrappy underdog status may be in jeopardy. Pitchfork, who has barely acknowledged their existence in the past, gave BOAT's great new album Dress Like Your Idols a 7.6 (besting the day's big review by about two points):

"BOAT's fourth album, then, finds the Crane-fronted four-piece going through something of an underachiever's quarter-life crisis. On one hand, Dress Like Your Idols sees Crane, drummer Jackson Long, bassist/guitarist Mark McKenzie, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Goodman finally making their way into a real studio for the first time. On the other hand, that studio-- Seattle's Two Sticks Audio-- is already defunct. And the songs, like the album cover, are as inspired by the band's youth as ever, merging Stephen Malkmus's obliquely deadpan twang, Tullycraft's sugary scene-skewering, and Modest Mouse's "reptile boy" yelp. Where some slightly younger slackers have been opting for warped 1980s synth-pop, BOAT continue to love the 90s: an era when they didn't know, as per the rueful title track, that "the job you wanted doesn't exist." The result is the best album yet from a band whose style finally appears to be back in vogue, though its sometimes-bitterly sardonic humor still won't be for everybody."

Now part of this may be that the '90s are indeed now fully in fashion again, but if DLYI is of slightly higher fidelity (none of their albums could be called low-fi), it's still what BOAT has done along -- make tuneful, smart, funny, occasionally anthemic indie rock. This time they're just wearing their influences on the cover of their album. Check out "Forever in Armitron" at the top of this post.

BOAT play The Rock Shop on Saturday (4/2) with Miniboone, Landlady and Creeping Weeds. This is the start of an East Coast tour that will have the band back in town next weekend for an early show at Mercury Lounge on Saturday, April 9 with Moon Taxi and The Human Hearts.

Obits

Also Saturday night (4/2) is the record release party for Obits' second album, Moody, Standard and Poor, which is happening at The Bell House. As a bunch of indie rock vets, Obits aren't so much set in their ways as they know what they like. You know what you're getting with an Obits album, but this new one has a little more breathing room than I Blame You, but rocks all the same. And anyone who's seen Obits play knows they bring it live, no muss no fuss.

Also playing the Bell House show are California's Tijuana Panthers who were last here in December. As I wrote then, these guys are pals with The Soft Pack and evoke a similar -- if less aggressive,  more party-oriented -- style of '60s surf rock. You can listen to the entirety of Tijuana Panthers' self-released debut, Max Baker, via a widget at the bottom of this post. Good stuff.  Tijuana Panthers also play Friday (4/1) at Pianos as part of a solid bill that includes the Sundelles (also playing Obits' show), Shark?, and Air Waves. That is an excellent Friday night option.

Wu Lyf

What else? As you may have heard, WU LYF are making their U.S. debut this weekend, playing tomorrow night at Glasslands (a show BV is presenting) which is sold out, and then Saturday (4/2) at Shea Stadium. To go to the Saturday show, you have to  RSVP. And once you get there, you have to pay $10. I don't know what to make of this Manchester band -- they are careful controllers of their image and we haven't heard much in the way of released music -- but I am intrigued. Says UK music mag The Fly:

Far from being arrogant or appearing above their audience, tonight the band seem lost in their own world, having left the window open for all to see. Roberts is an intense and unforgettable performer, but his bandmates back him with a sound that flits between sparkling and cavernous with a rhythm section pounding a self-affirmed beat destined for far bigger venues than this South London archway. Connected to his organ throughout, Roberts only separates himself from the instrument to sip from a teacup between songs. The cacophony of noise he and his band make is not ground-breakingly unique, a meeting point of Nick Cave and Wild Beasts as displayed on 'Spitting It Concrete Like The Golden Sun God' for example, however, the fire burning inside Wu Lyf, a light that only shines in the souls of a select few, is a truly special one off.

We'll see, right? The Glasslands show features Wise Blood, True Womanhood, and DJ True Panther. Saturday's will feature sets by Total Slacker and Wise Blood.

That's the bulk of this weekend's action. Actually that's not true, there's lots more but I hit most of the stuff I'm interested in. More picks, day-by-day, are below.

JEFF the Brotherhood

THURSDAY, MARCH 31

JEFF the Brotherhood are at Santos tonight. Their second album, We Are the Champions, is out sometime soon and features songs called "Ripper" and "Shredder" so you know it both rips and shreds. It does! JEFF rules and surely you've seen them by now and if you haven't...go to this show! And more reason to go: Screaming Females, Juiceboxxx and Teen Witch. They also play their NYC spiritual home, Death by Audio, on Saturday but I'm gonna guess that show will be sardine city...not for the squeamish!

PS I Love You and Diamond Rings are at Glasslands tonight which is also a highly recommended. It may seem like an odd pairing but both these artists love each other's music and you're gonna get their collaboration "Leftovers" for sure.

continued below...

Continue reading "Destroyer, BOAT, Obits, Tijuana Panthers, Wu Lyf, Fleshtones, Starfucker, Dam Mantle & more in This Week in Indie"

The Feelies @ Maxwell's - July 1, 2008 (Max Lang)

TODAY IN NYC
* FREE STUFF
* The Feelies @ Maxwell's
* High Places @ Stuvesent Town
* The Fleshtones on a Rocks Off boat
* Oxford Collapse & Frightened Rabbit @ Southpaw
* Gelmania comedy @ Rififi w/ Fred Armisen (flyer below)
* Kimya Dawson & friends @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Stomp! Boink! (videos below)

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Wednesday?"