photos by Andrew St. Clair

New York Press: You guys reunited last year and now you've got this new record. Tell me how it all happened.

Get Up Kid Matt Pryor: The band broke up basically because we were sick of each other... but the business of the band still existed. There were some tax issues that we needed to get everyone's signature for. So we went to Rob and Ryan's bar in Lawrence and we were just having some beers and it hit me that all, or at least a big bulk of that baggage wasn't there anymore. I was just enjoying hanging out with my friends. Then when someone brought up the idea that we should play a show. We were like, "Yeah, lets do it." So then we were like "Yeah, let's play some festivals," and then a tour. Then at some point backstage we were like, "Let's make a record, but let's write it start to finish and record it in two weeks and that's it." Then we just kind of went from there. It's all been very natural and very pleasant for the most part.

The Get Up Kids are now on tour with Miniature Tigers & Brian Bonz, and they brought the pleasantness to NYC shows at Webster Hall on 3/2 and Music Hall of Williamsburg on 3/3. Pictures from the Webster Hall show and the setlist, below...

Continue reading "The Get Up Kids played MHOW & Webster Hall w/ Miniature Tigers & Brian Bonz (pics & setlist)"

"i read this as Braid and got excited" - Anonymous | November 28, 2010 11:38 PM

"Third post about this band and I
always think it reads Braid..." - Anonymous | November 29, 2010 9:31 AM

"how are you gonna name your band braids without someone, anyone telling you "yeah,so there was already this band called braid in the 90s who were a pretty big deal and you'll look like clueless morons if you go around calling yourselves that"?" - Anonymous | November 30, 2010 12:22 AM

Braid (not to be confused with Braids)

The Eagle: Why did Braid initially break up?

Bob Nanna: Chris [Broach] - one of the guitar players - wanted to stop touring and go back to school. The rest of us were still into touring and wanted to keep going. Basically Chris wanted to go back to school and we all thought it would be better to break up the band at that point in time. We decided to start a new band at that point.

The Eagle: Why did you decide to reunite and go back on tour?

Nanna: Mainly for people who got into us after we broke up and never got a chance to see us play. We got together to do commentary for this DVD that came out [on May 11] and when we got together to do commentary we were just talking about how cool it would be if we played a show when the DVD came out to promote it and have fun and let people come and see us play. Then since we all realized we didn't have much to do over the summer that we would just do a tour and give everyone in the U.S. a chance to see us play.

The Eagle: How do you react to the assertion that Braid was one of the godfathers of emo?

Nanna: Mixed. I don't know. I guess it's kind of flattering, but when you think about it it's not like we invented something new. We were taking bits and pieces of all these other genres that we liked and making it our own. I would even think of other bands before Braid as the "godfathers" just because we tended to copy some bands as well.

The above comes from a 2004 interview with Braid vocalist/guitarist Bob Nanna during their first reunion. Now comes word, via AV Club Chicago, that not only will they reunite again, but Braid will record a new 12-inch with J. Robbins (who helmed their last record, Frame And Canvas) for release this year on Polyvinyl Records who will "officially announce the record tomorrow" according to AV Club.

Braids (the plural band from Canada) are touring in February with Baths.

In other emo inventor news, The Get Up Kids have a new album (out TODAY) and a tour coming soon too. You can stream "There Are Rules" over at Spinner and purchase it for just $3.99 over at Amazon. Their latest set of tour dates and a live Braid video are below...

Continue reading "Braid reuniting, putting out a new LP (Get Up Kids out today)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: The Get Up Kids - Pararelevant (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Get Up Kids - Regent's Court (MP3)

Reunited since 2008, The Get Up Kids have recorded their first studio album since 2004's Guilt Show. The album called There Are Rules is set to be released on January 25, 2011 via Quality Hill Records. I had the chance to hear the new album, and I think it's not just a reunion album, but a step forward for the band. It seems like Matt Pryor must have gotten his softer, more melodic side out of his system in The New Amsterdams, because There Are Rules is some of The Get Up Kids' hardest hitting stuff since the classic Something to Write Home About (an album Drowned in Sound gave a 9 when it was reissued, and that Pitchfork gave a 2 when it came out). You can listen to two of the new songs above.

The band have announced new dates for their US tour in support of the new album in early 2011 with openers Miniature Tigers and Brian Bonz. The tour hits New York on March 2 at Webster Hall and March 3 at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Presale tickets will be available on Friday at noon. Tickets go on sale to the general public on December 16. These new dates were added to the end of the first leg of the tour with openers Steel Train and River City Extension, who will not appear at any of the New York dates.

Matt Pryor will also be in New York this weekend as part of the Where's The Band tour with Dustin Kensrue (Thrice), Chris Conley (Saves the Day), and Anthony Raneri (Bayside) (editor's note: yikes!). The four frontmen are each doing solo acoustic performances at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday (12/11) and Highline Ballroom on Sunday (12/12).

Miniature Tigers also returns to New York one more time before The Get Up Kids' shows to conclude their tour with Freelance Whales on December 15 at Webster Hall.

All tour dates and tracklist below...

Continue reading "The Get Up Kids releasing new album touring (MP3 & dates) "

"If this is the world we helped create," guitarist James Suptic said, after looking into the crowd at a reunion gig, "then I apologise."

The Get Up Kids were either second- or third-wave emo, depending on who you ask. What is certain is that they formed in 1995, released four albums, broke up in 2005 and reunited last year. And yet their earnest, heart-on-sleeve punk pop inspired much of the more theatrical late-noughties emo boom.

"There should be a How to Be a Pop-Punk Kid Starter Kit with bands like the Get Up Kids, so kids would know whose shoulders bands like us are standing on," Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz told Alternative Press in 2005. "Fall Out Boy would not be a band if it were not for the Get Up Kids."

"Honestly, I don't often think about the state of emo," Suptic told Drowned in Sound. "We played the Bamboozle fests this year and we felt really out of place. I could name maybe three bands we played with. It was just a sea of neon shirts to us ... the punk scene we came out of and the punk scene now are completely different. It's like glam rock now."

While acts like Fall Out Boy pay tribute to Get Up Kids, the feeling isn't mutual. "If a band gets huge and they say we inspired them - great," Suptic said. "The problem is most of them aren't very good. What does that say about us? I don't know. Maybe we sucked." [Guardian]

Tour dates HERE.

Screaming Females, now on tour with Jack White, are playing Mercury Lounge on September 1st. Tickets are on sale.

Lez Zeppelin, ladies who pretend to be Led Zeppelin 365 days of the year, are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg on Halloween. Tickets are on sale.

The Misfits, men who pretend to be the Misfits 365 days of the year, are playing BB King's on Halloween (as usual). Tickets are on sale.

Get Up Kids tickets are on sale: MHOW and Irving Plaza (which is happening on Halloween). Their tour also includes a show at Gramercy Theatre, but no tickets for that yet.

by Black Bubblegum

The Get-Up Kids

The Get Up Kids came back strong earlier in the year, playing a few shows including a pair in the NYC-area at Bamboozle and a quickly sold-out Gramercy Theater (setlist below). Now comes word that the band has added another huge tour with THREE more NYC shows: Oct 30th at Gramercy, Halloween at Irving Plaza, and Music Hall of Williamsburg on November 1st. Support for MHOW will come from Kevin Devine and The Life & Times. Presales are going on right now for the whole tour. MHOW tickets go on general sale on July 23rd at 1PM which is also when Irving Plaza tickets go on sale. Gramercy tickets aren't up yet as of this posting. All dates below.

On a related emo-but-don't-call-me-emo note, Jonah Matranga has scheduled a show at Southpaw in Brooklyn for August 10th (tickets here), but much more interesting is a show that he is putting a few days later in LA:

Aug 13, 14, 15: onelinedrawing at Knitting Factory LA
A onelinedrawing 'reunion'? Why not? :) The plan is to play the entire onelinedrawing catalog over 3 nights, should be fun. And yes, the robot will be in full effect :)

While you could hardly call a solo project a "reunion" (which judging by Jonah's quotes, he knows that), the entire catalog over three nights could be very interesting. Tickets for all three nights are here or get individual nights "with a treat" here.

In other Jonah related news, Far recently announced "The Scream-A-Long Project" where they asked their fans to participate by contributing gang vocals to an upcoming song.

Full tour dates for The Get Up Kids & Jonah Matranga, and some videos, below...

Continue reading "Get Up Kids tour (3 NYC dates, presale), Jonah Matranga too"

Willamette Week's Musicfest NW announces this year's festival line-up which will be held at various venues around the Portland, OR metropolitan area on September 16, 17, 18 & 19. On the heels of the most successful MFNW to date, MFNW 2009 launches with nothing but the hope of a bigger and better festival. MFNW's ultimate aim is to provide Portland with a unique and special musical experience that features all types of acts including nationally renowned artists while still honoring and supporting the special musical scene of the Northwest.

Four-day passes to the fest are on sale now.

The lineup so far, including the newly-reunited Sunny Day Real Estate, is below...

Continue reading "Musicfest NW in Portland, OR (Sept 16-19) - lineup"

King Khan @ Bowery Ballroom in November (more by Zach Stern)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Tribeca Film Festival
* Gabriel Kahane @ Joe's Pub
* Get Up Kids @ Gramercy Theatre
* Enslaved & Opeth @ Starland Ballroom
* Hoodwink Festival @ Giants Stadium
* Look & Listen Festival @ OK Harris
* Satanacide, Sex Slaves @ Mercury Lounge
* Loren Conners, Shahzad Ismaily @ The Stone
* Night of a Thousand Stevies @ Highline Ballroom
* India.Arie @ Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center
* Jean Grae, Derrin Maxwell, 3beanstew @ New Museum
* Browns, Pacific Theater, The Sundelles @ Matchless
* Pontiak, Orphan, Heavy Hands, Degreaser @ Cake Shop
* The Dears, Great Northern, Eulogies @ The Bell House
* Shout Out Out Out Out, Future Rock @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Justin Townes Earle, Neil Bryden, Dick prall @ Maxwell's
* Alec Ounsworth, David Johansen & Rhett Miller @ Count Basie Theater
* The Beets, Wild Yaks, The Subjects, pow wow! @ Red Star Bar
* Leilolai, Darlings, Snakes Say Hiss, Boogie Boarder @ 92YTribeca
* Noah And The Whale, Ferraby Lionheart, Anni Rossi @ Bowery Ballroom
* Cattle Decapitation, Rose Funeral, Dr. Acula @ The Studio at Webster Hall
* Liturgy, Predator Vision, Husere Grav, Telecult Powers, Sannhet @ Death By Audio
* A Place to Bury Strangers, Dinowalrus, Crash Diet Crew @ Less Artists
* White Rabbits, Motel Motel, Golden Triangle, Teengirl Fantasy @ NYU
* King Khan & The Shrines, Mark Sultan, Georgiana Starlington @ MHOW
* Road to Recovery benefit w/ Iggy Pop, Tom Morello, Perry Ferrell, Billy Bragg, more

A Camp's new video for "Stronger Than Jesus" below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Friday?"

"Live Nation is hoping to dump the lease for the Gramercy (Blender) Theater on 23rd Street, just a few years after completing a hefty renovation of the space. The 600 seat space is a choice of last resort for most major acts in town that would seek a venue of this size, with many acts choosing to perform in one the Bowery Presents facilities. If you have ever dreamed of running your own music venue, now is your chance." [Down by the Hipster]

I've often wondered how the Gramercy Theatre (officially no longer the Blender Theater) still exists. Their schedule is always so random.

Recent shows there have included Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio, Napalm Death, and a secret-like show by The Dead.

The Get Up Kids are playing there tonight (5/1).

Kaiju Big Battel @ the Yard (more by Chris La Putt)

Kaiju Big Battel returns to Warsaw in Brooklyn for a show this Friday, April 3rd. Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears are opening. Tickets are on sale.

Tickets are still on sale for the Metal Machine Trio (Lou Reed and friends) shows at the Gramercy Theatre.

Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan show at Webster Hall.

Those Darlins are playing Southpaw on July 10th. Tickets are on sale.

Tickets are still on sale for the Tallest Man on Earth / Red Cortez Union Hall show.

All Points West goes on pre-sale today at noon.

The Get Up Kids are back. Tickets go on sale at noon for a May 1st show at the Gramercy Theatre in NYC. Motzah's Ballzes are also on the bill. All dates below...

Continue reading "Kaiju Big Battel, Get Up Kids, Lanegan, Reed & other tickets"

The Get Up Kids are breaking up. Tickets for their final tour go on pre-sale tomorrow, Wed. March 23rd at noon here. They hit Webster Hall in NYC on June 24th. The rest of the dates below.

Continue reading "Final Get Up Kids Tour"