Bruise Cruise (more photos by Gabi Porter)

The Soft Pack, who will in fact be the surprise guest at both of the upcoming free Vice shows (that the band curated) in Costa Mesa and San Diego, are among those just announced on the lineup of Bruise Cruise II. The drunken "3 day tropical rock n roll vacation" opportunity will return in 2012 and is even already on sale!

BRUISE CRUISE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES ITS SECOND YEAR!
FEBRUARY 10-13, 2012
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
THREE DAY TROPICAL ROCK 'N' ROLL CRUISE VACATION
SAILING FROM MIAMI TO THE BAHAMAS AND BACK

FEATURING KING KHAN & THE SHRINES, THE SOFT PACK, THE DIRTBOMBS, THEE OH SEES, QUINTRON & MISS PUSSYCAT, NEIL HAMBURGER AND DJ MR. JONATHAN TOUBIN WITH MORE ACTS TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON

After a successful first year, Bruise Cruise Festival is back for round two. This year's lineup will feature an even crazier spectacle of today's best rock 'n' roll talent, including King Khan & The Shrines, The Soft Pack, The Dirtbombs, and America's funnyman Neil Hamburger. Coming back for another blast of sun-soaked fun will be Bruise Cruise favorites Thee Oh Sees, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and New York's infamous soul DJ, Mr. Jonathan Toubin.

Continue reading "Bruise Cruise announces its return & lineup, The Soft Pack also playing free CA shows, Quintron & Miss Pussycat touring"

DOWNLOAD: Kurt Vile -Invisibility: Nonexistant (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Kurt Vile - Gagdad (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Purling Hiss - Don't Even Try It (MP3)

Kurt Vile @ Terminal 5 in July (more by Matt Eisman)

Kurt Vile/Times New Viking/The Clean: That three-band bill looks so good, I'd probably have trouble sleeping the night before such a show came through Vegas. At Matador at 21, it was but the tiniest sliver of a giant, weekend-long musical pie. Beginning at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, the festival's lone matinee event drew a solid crowd to the Palms Ballroom for its first two acts, then packed the place wall to wall for the third.

Kurt Vile, a rising singer/songwriter/guitarist from Philadelphia who's released three albums in two years, kicked off the day's music with his three-piece band, the Violators. The foursome delivered a satisfyingly dense curtain of psychedelically-hued classic-y rock. Really good tunes that sound even better live. If your tastes run toward Springsteen and Neil Young, track down a copy of 2009 Matador disc Childish Prodigy. [Las Vegas Weekly]

Both bands meanwhile have some dates of their own, and Kurt has some shows scheduled after then too. That includes a December 3rd show at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn with Philadelphia;s Purling Hiss (the side project of Birds of Maya's Mike Polizze) who will also be opening the Soft Pack/Kurt dates. Tickets for the Soft Pack-less NYC show are on sale.

The above downloadable Kurt track comes from Kurt's recent Square Shells EP. The Soft Pack one is a song from a limited edition, tour-only 7", titled Gagdad, that you can pick up on their tour with Kurt. The Purling Hiss track is off a new full length called Public Service Announcement being released by Woodsist on October 26th. Full tracklist, the newest Soft Pack video and all dates below...

Continue reading "Kurt Vile touring w/ the Soft Pack & Purling Hiss (who has a new Woodsist album) -- dates, MP3s & stuff"

photos by Tim Griffin

""This festival is super-cool," said Strokes singer Julian Casablancas from the stage at Austin City Limits on Friday night. "Lotta stuff." It's true: The festival, now in its ninth year, packs 130 bands onto eight outdoor stages arranged around the 350-acre Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. The lineup is a mix of huge rock acts (the Eagles headline Sunday) and big-name indie bands, plus DJs, country singers and the occasional rapper. With an expected attendance of around 70,000 a day, the festival similar in size, if not in spirit, to Lollapalooza. "Lollapalooza has that city energy. It's like the hot girl you want to take home," one organizer, Lisa Hickey, said. "ACL is more laid-back -- it's like your best friend." And unlike South By Southwest, the music and film showcase that takes over the Texas town every spring, ACL doesn't have much of a music-industry angle -- it's almost strictly for fans.

On Friday night, the packed lineup presented the crowd with a happy problem: Four big-name guitar bands -- Spoon, Sonic Youth, Vampire Weekend, and the Strokes -- all had sets starting within two hours of each other, and seeing each set in its entirety was impossible."
[Rolling Stone]

Kings Go Forth pictures are HERE. The rest of the pictures from the first day of the 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival (where Ezra Koenig joined Miike Snow on stage), continue, with a bunch of setlists (including Spoon's which points out that Eleanor Friedberger played a Fiery Furnaces song with Spoon) (video proof too), below...

Continue reading "ACL 2010 Day 1 in pics (Strokes, Phish, Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Vampire Weekend & more) "

words by Andrew Frisicano, photos by Chris Juarez & Rachel Carr

Local Natives & the crowd @ FYF Fest Saturday

Yesterday was FYF Fest. We know all the problems... The lines... And are addressing them now. In no way are we sleeping on these problems. The bands were amazing and the turn out was unreal. I'm speechless. -Sean Carlson & FYF Fest

The day's short sets kept you wanting more from nearly every act, many of whom played for a half hour or 35 minutes (which expanded in 5 minute increments up to an hour for the headliners). That made for tough decisions between overlapping sets. Ted Leo and band blew through their 45 minutes, and Titus Andronicus could've continued for another 35 at least with the momentum from their Monitor songs. Those two, along with Screaming Females, were part of what Ted Leo termed the "New Jersey Takeover" - three punk bands with Garden State roots who all played great sets at the fest.

Ariel Pink

Los Angeles represented with a number of notable hometown acts. Growlers, in grey facepaint, brought an earthy, ramshackle sound and lots of friends. Best Coast, Abe Vigoda, Local Natives and Ariel Pink also repped their hometown - the latter two with mezmerizing late afternoon sets.

Other acts brought some nice surprises. A chorus of kids, costumed as zombie versions of dead historical figures, backed Dead Man's Bones' Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields. The Blow introduced some of her new songs written for an unnamed celebrity (and played recognizable earlier songs too, including one "written with Sting...when [she] was 7"). And Big Freedia, the fest's only act with any trace of hip-hop, shocked the crowd with a short pre-headerliner dose of "Azz Everywhere."

Big Freedia

There was plenty of garage rock (Thee Oh Sees brought the man responsible for their cover art, William Keihn, to play tambourine), punk and metal. A reunited Sleep, in New York this week, grinded away, as !!! had people shaking their ass on the sister stage. On the fest's third stage, hardcore band 7 Seconds reminisced about their first time in LA almost 30 years ago and lead a spirited circle pit. Add to those bands, breezy folk from AA Bondy, the jams of Warpaint and Delorean to name a few.

If FYF's organizers are a bit defensive above, it may be with good reason: the few critical organizational errors were fairly memorable. A long line at will call (an hour would be a short estimate) kept many waiting in the 90 degree sun while the first bands of the day (Magic Kids, Let's Wrestle and The Goat) could be heard starting in the distance. Water inside was also an issue, with limited access to free drinking water and bottled water at $4 (which, according to Noah Lennox, ran out).

By the end of the night, the two final acts - The Rapture and Panda Bear - set up on competing stages. Panda Bear aka Noah Lennox interspersed his dreamy lullabies with patches of noise and dissonance while videos and images that could be described only as "trippy" played behind him; I think your response to the set depended largely on your state of mind after the long day: exhausted or ready for a patience-testing string of songs and sounds. He and The Rapture provided, alternately, a place to dance or doze.

--

Unsane also played a rare runion set at the festival where Off! shared a bill with Lower Dens. School of Seven Bells, Davila 666, Cults and Ceremony were there too.

Read what Noah thought about his own set, HERE. More pictures from the entire day, below...

Continue reading "FYF Fest 2010 in pics & review "

The Soft Pack @ Cake Shop in February (more by Gabi Porter)

The Soft Pack have some festival dates coming up, confirmed for several NXNE shows, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands and Austin City Limits. Between those the band will be playing two nights at Bowery Ballroom on September 10th and 11th. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon.

Their self-titled record, which came out in February on Kemado, is streaming on Myspace.

Videos and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "The Soft Pack are playing 2 nights @ Bowery & other dates "

Outside Lands 2009 (more by Chris Graham)

San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival 2010 takes place in Golden Gate Park from August 14th-15th. Headlining acts for the fest include Kings of Leon, Furthur featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, The Strokes, My Morning Jacket, Phoenix, Social Distortion, Levon Helm and Al Green. Other acts include Nas & Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, The Budos Band, Dawes, Gogol Bordello, Cat Power Janelle Monáe and Tokyo Police Club. The full lineup (which will be added to) is below.

Two-day passes go on sale Tuesday, June 2nd at 1pm EST. Single day tickets go on sale Sunday, June 6th.

Check out pictures from all three days of Outside Lands 2009 (which as you may have figured out was one day longer than this year's).

A video trailer for this year's fest and the lineup is below...

Continue reading "Outside Lands 2010 lineup announced"

ACL 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

October 8-10, 2010 | Zilker Park, Austin, TX

"The Austin City Limits Music Festival began as a modest, two-day event and now, as it enters it's 9th year, has become a perennial American music experience. Taking place at the heart of Austin, Texas in the legendary Zilker Park, ACL Festival has grown to 3 days, 8 stages and over 130 bands."

Continue reading "Austin City Limits announces 2010 festival lineup (Eagles, Muse, Phish, Strokes, MIA, LCD, Spoon, Gayngs, more) "

photos by Rachel Carr, words by Daiana Feuer

Gorillaz Clash

The third and final round of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival was funky, and not just because the port-a-potties reeked. Keeping a loose theme every day (see Friday & Saturday), Sunday focused on relentless rhythm and groovy basslines. The absolute golden moment belonged to Yo La Tengo's blistering final song. Rhythm that revels in repetition + guitar that tries to destroy itself = wee mind blown. Sometimes the moodiest things are the most uplifting.

Thom Yorke brought his dancing shoes, his favorite Flea, and Nigel Godrich. His band Atoms For Peace played almost every song off The Eraser, many of which featured strong world rhythm sections. When Yorke didn't have a guitar in hand, he danced, whirled, and punched the air like he was rehearsing a scene from Fame. We wanted a high kick, but it didn't arrive. King Khan & The Shrines, on the other hand, featured legs flying all over the place, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba characters, burning money, as well as a visit from the police-who crept on stage to snap pictures. Probably the first time Khan runs into cops and doesn't leave wearing cuffs. Sunny Day Real Estate had the audience offering bids to buy property, and Phoenix had people choking on dinner as they tried to dance and eat at the same time.

King Khan Gabba Gabba

Not every Julian Casablancas song captivated, but his band delightfully binged on rhythms. Each musician had a personal backbeat player supporting each fill. The drummer plus his sidekick especially sounded great. Matt & Kim's ebullient smiles inspired chaos in the audience, as usual. Mayer Hawthorne and the County revived Motown soulful brassiness and covered Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." The Big Pink played some new songs from next year's album, reaching out for Depeche Mode with a drummer in a pink bathing suit. Electro sweet popper Little Boots forgot her pants as well, wearing a sparkly shirt and knickers, and played with the lasers on stage. Charlotte Gainsbourg inaugurated her "first tour, first everything" with a feminine "Candy-O" sensibility, sometimes in French. Florence & the Machine rounds out the great lady performances of the day, and brought on Nathan Willett of Cold War Kids.

All clad in white, France's DJ ego-powers Club 75 demonstrated the ability to cooperate together with just a few elbows thrown. Cassius, Justice, Busy P, and DJ Mehdi still use CD's (so old school), and took turns passing on the headphones between them and finishing each other's remix sentences, trading places at each station. Backstage security bobbed along while staying tough. When it was their turn, Rusko turned the Sahara tent into a mechazoid robot battle and Orbital live-produced virtual reality anthems for Satan wearing Matrix miner lights around their heads. Infected Mushroom instructed on the benefits of "Becoming Insane" flanked by two mushrooms with red eyes.

The Middle East should not be confused with The Soft Pack, formerly The Muslims. The former may be from Australia but it sounds like a back porch band from Woodstock, and the latter offers a "Parasite" infestation that's as pure as sunshine and a neat drum set up that packs a giant tom punch. What appears as regular rock on headphones reveals its brilliance when experienced live. One of the strangest live moments of the festival belongs to Sly Stone, who played four hours late and on the wrong stage. He bitched, he slurred, he cursed, lay down, walked off, stopped songs and good grief, made a total mess of himself. But that's rock and roll.

Sly Stone made history look unable to get past its youthful drug phase, but Jonsi, Pavement, and Spoon come from a music scene that did a little bit less cocaine. Jonsi repped the awesomeness of Sigur Rós and great hats. Steve Patterson of White Rabbits joined Britt Daniels and the rest of Spoon to add percussion on "I Turn My Camera On". Spoon's tour-mate Bradford Cox (who played earlier in the day in Deerhunter) also joined Spoon on stage, like he did on their recent Kimmel appearance. Pavement ran through the hits during one of their first U.S. shows since reuniting. "That's the 90's in a nutshell," said Stephen Malkmus after the angsty "Unfair"...

"...Pavement, the iconic slacker band of the '90s, who took the main stage against what turned out to be one of the fest's chief attractions, the finally wildly popular French dance-rock band Phoenix, who wowed possibly the biggest crowd of the entire fest ... while Pavement played to a field half-full of true believers rather than the massive throngs many expected, and thought the band deserved.

No matter, though. Pavement still delivered a set that vindicated the group of prior crimes -- namely a Coachella performance near the end of their career so notoriously bad, many in attendance point to it as the moment the band decided to break up.

This night, however, they were tight, they were loud, and they sounded large on that vast field -- an odd statement, given the fact that in their heyday they were far more known for being introspectively small rather than arena-ready..." [The OC Register]

Radiohead Peppers For Peace

Daiana's Weekend Top 10:
1. Yo La Tengo's last song
2. Little Dragon's Yukimi
3. Gossip leading a revolution
4. Thom Yorke dancing to African rhythms
5. PiL giving a history lesson
6. Sly Stone wigging out
7. Bouncing penises + fat people in undies (Die Antwoord + Major Lazer)
8. Devo putting on the hats that ushered in modern pop culture for "Whip It"
9. John Waters corrupting many young minds
10. The Gorrilaz lyric: "Super fast jellyfish going super fast. You can't even see him but you wanna eat him."

--

Owen Pallett, Local Natives, Miike Snow, and Yann Tiersen also played the fest Sunday. Gary Numan was among those who couldn't. Reviews & pictures from Day One, HERE and Day Two, HERE. Setlists (Thom Yorke and Pavement), pictures, and videos from Day Three, below...

Continue reading "Coachella 2010 - Day Three in pics, video & review (the Thom Yorke & Pavement setlists included) "

"The 2010 Lollapalooza line-up is official: Soundgarden, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, and Phoenix will headline, joined by Social Distortion, MGMT, Jimmy Cliff, Hot Chip, and The Black Keys. With 130 bands on this year's bill, its sure to be a weekend long feast for the ears.

It's a monumental year for Lollapalooza, filled with homecomings, reunions, and first-times. Soundgarden, 1992 and 1996 Lollapalooza alumni, return to the Lollapalooza stage for their first performance since 1997. Green Day will rock Grant Park sixteen years after their first Lollapalooza appearance. While Lady Gaga will headline the festival only three short years after playing the BMI stage at Lollapalooza 2007.

Arcade Fire returns to Grant Park, having played the reincarnated Lollapalooza in 2005. This is the first Lollapalooza for The Strokes - and also their first show in four years. And making their Lollapalooza debut: Phoenix." - Lollapalooza

Continue reading "Lollapalooza actually announces 2010 lineup "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Beaters - Fishage (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Nodzzz - True to Life (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dom - Jesus (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Golden Girls - Newports (MP3)

The Soft Pack @ Cake shop in Feb (more by Gabi Porter)

The Soft Pack are here again, the first real shows in town they've played since releasing their debut album on Kemado: tonight (3/31) at Maxwell's, tomorrow (4/1) at Mercury Lounge, and Saturday (4/3) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I've seen these guys a zillion times (and written about them nearly as much) but they remain one of my favorite current live acts. That said, I'm just a tad bit more excited about the bands who they've brought with them on tour: Nodzz, Beaters, and Male Bonding.

Geeky, funny, tuneful Nodzzz were relatively quiet in 2009 -- at least compared to some of their San Franciscan brethren -- touring early in the year and only releasing one single. Mind you, it was an excellent one, "True to Life," which made by Best of the 2009 list. They're bound to have a new record in the works,  so hopefully we'll get a bunch of fresh tunes.

Beaters

Beaters, from The Soft Pack's hometown of San Diego, are signed to Zoo Music, the label run by husband/wife duo Brandon of Crocodiles and head Dum Dum Girl, DeeDee. If you're familiar with their roster at all, you'll have a pretty good idea what to expect: dark, over-caffeinated, paranoid, heavy on the reverb. You can check out their single "Fishage" at the top of this post.

The Music Hall of Williamsburg show adds UK punks (and Sub Pop signees) Male Bonding who also play with The Smith Westerns and So Cow on Sunday (4/4) at Mercury Lounge.

Golden Girls

Two bands from Worcester, Mass are here this weekend -- Dom and Golden Girls. -- who play together tomorrow (4/1) at Pianos and then on Monday (4/5) at Cake Shop.

Of the two, I find Dom a little more interesting. There's some of that fifth-generation cassette tape chillwave sound going on, no doubt (which I'm getting a little waterlogged from frankly).  But they've got some good songs under that hiss (check out "Bochicha" on their MySpace) and appear to play real drums and guitars (as well as crappy old synths) so I have hopes that their live show will prove less gauzy.

Golden Girls are more straight-up indie rock, a duo on recordings but are a four-piece live. Raucous and on the sloppy side,  and with a single about cigarettes, you can draw a line from Golden Girls back to the Replacements pretty easily. They've only got two singles out so far, and I'm definitely curious to hear more.

A few more picks, by night, to take you through the weekend, along with tour dates and videos and stuff, below...

Continue reading "Beaters, Nodzzz, Best Coast, Ash, Abe Vigoda, Dom, Dum Dum Girls, Golden Girls, Soft Pack & more in This Week in Indie"

interview & Cake Shop photos by Gabi Porter

The Soft Pack @ Cake Shop

The Soft Pack celebrated the release of their self-titled debut LP on Kemado records at the Cake Shop on the Lower East Side of New York on Friday (2/5) with a free and packed midnight show. We had the chance to chat with lead singer Matt Lamkin after the show and before the boys from San Diego hit the road on a tour of the US and Europe that will finally wrap up at Coachella in April.

That interview and more pictures from Cake Shop below...

Continue reading "an interview w/ Matt of The Soft Pack who played a midnight show @ Cake Shop (pics) "

photos by Rachel Carr

As previously mentioned, The Soft Pack (previously the Muslims) "did ten shows in one day in L.A. on January 30th with the help of FYFest's veggie oil powered bus." Photographer Rachel Carr spent the whole day with them. Check out the rest of her pictures (and a reposted video) below...

Continue reading "The Soft Pack's ten LA shows in one day (in pics)"

tonight in NYC
* Superbowl
* Hannibal Buress @ Knitting Factory
* K-Holes, Golden Triangle, Family Trees @ Union Pool
* Bauder/Cymerman/Evans/Wooley Amplified Quartet @ The Stone
* Willy Mason, Colin Ruel, Tony the Bookie @ Bruar Falls
* Orleans/Gunn, Samara Lubelski, Pete Nolan, Helen Rush @ Zebulon
* Graffiti Monsters, Sweet Bulbs, Betray, Genuine Imitations @ Death By Audio

NYC Music venue related Superbowl options include Mercury Lounge, The Bell House, and Brooklyn Bowl.

The Who are performing during the Superbowl halftime show.

In a melding of the quintessential British band and the most American of events, the Who will deliver about 12 minutes of glory Sunday (February 7) at the halftime show for Super Bowl XLIV on CBS. The band is the latest in a line of mostly boomer-oriented A-list rock stars to play the spectacle, among them Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Prince, the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney.

But those acts had something to promote -- be it a new album or an upcoming tour. Outside of a greatest-hits album released in December and at least one upcoming high-profile performance, the Who doesn't have much to announce at the moment. "Totally original, as usual," Roger Daltrey says with a laugh.

"We've got an event (planned) for a charity that I'm a patron of, but that's about it. I know Pete (Townshend is) working on material. It's not that we're never going to work again -- it's just at the moment there's nothing in the pipeline." [Reuters]

The Soft Pack played a record release show at Cake Shop at midnight Friday night. Video from the show below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Sunday? (Superbowl) "

DOWNLOAD: The Soft Pack - Answer to Yourself (MP3)

The Soft Pack are in the middle of a series of record release shows for their self-titled debut (under their new name), which came out February 2nd on Kemado. They played San Diego on Feb. 2nd, and will do Philly on the 4th, and a free, all-ages show at NYC's Cake Shop on February 5th (which is a week before they make their network television debut on Letterman). Think that's an ambitious travel schedule? They did ten shows in one day in L.A. on January 30th with the help of FYFest's veggie oil powered bus. Videos documenting that day are below.

The band travels to the UK and Europe later this month and March before returning stateside for a full tour. That'll include three NYC-area stops. The first is at Maxwell's on March 31st. Tickets are on sale.

They'll then play Mercury Lounge on Thursday, April 1st and Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, April 3rd. Tickets are on AmEx presale now; general sale starts Friday (2/5) at noon.

All of the Spring shows seem to be with Beaters, and Nodzzz, the San Francisco lo-fi band who hasn't been to NYC in a year. Sub Pop signee Male Bonding is also on the April 3rd Music Hall bill. Male Bonding play Mercury Lounge with The Smith Westerns one night earlier.

A song from the new SP record is above. All tour dates are below...

Continue reading "The Soft Pack played 10 LA shows in 1 day, announce more 2010 tour dates, shows w/ Nodzzz, Beaters, Male Bonding"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Oberhofer - Away FRM U (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Golden Triangle - Neon Noose (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Morning Benders - Promises (MP3)

Oberhofer

If you were like me, you spent last night at home puzzling over the LOST premiere (or maybe you went to the Bell House to watch it.) But maybe in an alternate universe I chose instead to go see Oberhofer at Pianos last night. And also in that alternate universe, everyone has health care and I own my own apartment and there is a jukebox in every high school cafeteria. I digress. Luckily for me in this world, Oberhofer are playing again this Friday (2/5) at The Studio @ Webster Hall with Radical Dads.

There's no shortage of bedroom rockers out there hawking their one-man-bands on MySpace, but Oberhofer definitely have something. While there is plenty of every home recording enthusiast's best friends, reverb and distortion, Oberhoffer is not Wavves-style scuzz. The most obvious comparison is probably The Dodos (clattery drums, glockenspiel, whistling), but I even hear a little Real Estate in there too on the track "Away FRM You" which you can download above. You can download a seven-song EP via his MySpace by giving up your email address. While the recordings are just Brad, he's put together an actual band which is what you'll The Studio @ Webster Hall on Friday.

Savoir Adore

Savoir Adore will play Cake Shop the next three Thursdays. Their debut, In the Wooded Forrest, is loaded with great big pop songs and made my Favorite Albums of 2009 list and they are great live too, so if you've yet to check them out live don't wait any longer. The band has hand-picked the bands for their residency shows, and this Thursday (2/4) is especially good, featuring the very good and fun French Horn Rebellion who you might also see opening for Hot Chip this weekend. The two bands help each other out live (FHR's David Perlick-Molinari plays guitar in Savoir Adore; Savoir's singer Paul Hammer plays drums in FHR) so there should be a good party vibe going on.

Also on the bill are DJ/electronic artist Pocketknife and singer-songwriter Cameron Hull. If you'd like to go I've got a pair of tickets to give away. Just send an email with "Savoir Adore" as the subject to BVCONTESTS@HOTMAIL.COM and a winner will be chosen at random.

Hot Chip's show with French Horn Rebellion happens Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. It's sold out, but you can also catch Hot Chip one night earlier at Highline Ballroom with Free Energy. The MySpace Secret Show is free - first come, first served.

Twin Sister

There's a lot going on this week. Also Thursday, at Studio @ Webster Hall is another Twin Sister show put on by blog Chocolate Bobka. (Seriously, McGregor puts on shows like some people put on pants [ie fairly often].) I finally got to see Twin Sister last Friday at Bruar Falls and I was pretty blown away by how good they are live. Last year's Vampires with Dreaming Kids EP (downloadable from their website), as good as it is, doesn't really give an accurate picture of what they now sound like. These days, they're combining '80s-back-to-jazz (Sade, Style Council) with more drony/Krautrock type stuff (Notwist, Stereolab). They were just fantastic live, and I haven't come away from a show that excited about a new band in some time. Totally impressed. Twin Sister have a bunch of shows coming up and I do suggest you check them out soon, as I think 2010 is gonna be big for them.

In addition to Twin Sister, the line-up includes Big Troubles -- who I like and have written about them before), as well as Run DMT, Pigeons, and Alice Cohen.

And a few more quick recommendations:

Miniboone have their record release party at Glasslands on Wednesday night (tonight, 2/3) with a few other worthy bands: Shark?, I'm Turning Into and Pet Ghost Project. $8.

The Soft Pack's debt album is out today, well worth buying, and they play a free all-ages show at Cake Shop on Friday (2/5). Doors are at Midnight. One of my favorite live bands of the last two years. if you miss the small venue show, they'll back back in March April to play Maxwell's, Mercury Lounge and Music Hall of Williamsburg (all just went on sale).

Montreal's We Are Wolves are in town this weekend, and play The Studio @ Webster Hall on Friday (2/5) and Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday (2/6). The Saturday show is also the Hot Chip MHOW afterparty with a DJ set by the band.

Golden Triangle's debut for Hardly Art, titled Double Jointer, is out on March 3 and you can download an MP3 from it, "Neon Noose," at the top of this post. The band will be going on tour around that time as well (tour dates below) but play a one-off show this Saturday at Union Pool with the Cramps-y garage of K-Holes. This should be a fairy debauched good time.

Acrylics play twice this weekend: Friday night (2/4) at Brooklyn Bowl with Tanlines as part of BAM's "Sounds Like Brooklyn" Festival. Then they're on a kind of amazing bill the next night (2/5) at Glasslands that is officially the record release party for Class Actress' debut EP. Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor (who runs Terrible Records that both bands are on) DJs. The show also features Blood Orange (aka Dev of Lightspeed Champion) and The Morning Benders. That's a good show!

An MP3 from The Morning Benders' new album Big Echo (out March 9th on Rough Trade) is above. All of their March and April tour dates in support of the new record are below.

There's a new video for Acrylics' "Molly's Vertigo" after the jump as well, along with tour dates and flyers...

Continue reading "Oberhofer, Twin Sister, Savoir Adore, Golden Triangle, Acrylics, Morning Benders & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Soft Pack - Answer to Yourself (MP3)

The Soft Pack's self-titled debut album is out February 2 on Kemado and the band will embark on a whirlwind tour around it, including a FREE show at Cake Shop on 2/5. In the midst of this, they'll play ten shows around the Los Angeles area in one day (January 30), including the home of a fan who won an online contest to have the band play there. The FYF Fest is helping out on this, letting The Soft Pack use their vegetable oil fueled bus for the marathon run of shows that day. The band will also play The Late Show with David Letterman on February 12.

Recorded in Brooklyn last summer with producer Eli Janney, the Soft Pack's debut is ten songs that just barely cracks the 30 minute mark. The speed and snarl's still there, as is the band's knack for a catchy tune. And I'm pleased to say they've only recycled one song from their Muslims days ("Parasites"). It's a solid record. You can check out "Answer to Yourself" at the top of this post.

All Soft Pack tour dates and videos for "Answer to Yourself" and "C'mon" are below.

Continue reading "The Soft Pack - new album soon & 2010 tour dates (w/ free shows & 10 performances in LA in one day) "

Wow...Public Image Ltd, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Grace Jones, Fever Ray, Devo, Hot Chip, Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, Mew, Camera Obscura, Gil Scott-Heron, The xx, John Waters, Dillinger Escape Plan, Deer Tick, Gary Numan... Full Coachella 2010 lineup below....

Continue reading "2010 Coachella line up announced (Faith No More, Pavement, Muse, Gorillaz, Thom Yorke, Jay-Z, LCD Soundystem, ???)"

"Hope you've all had a great [2009]. Besides playing shows in France, Switzerland, Japan and NYC/NJ, things might have seemed quiet on the Nada Surf front, but I'm happy to tell you that the band are finishing up a covers album and we'll be making a full on announcement of the release (and tour) in early 2010. The one thing we can tell you is that it will include a version of the Depeche Mode song 'Enjoy the Silence' and for your listening pleasure, we've put a home demo Matthew recorded on our myspace site.

Nada Surf - 3 nights in NYC
Mar 25 @ Bowery Ballroom - performing 'Let Go' (AmEx presale Wed)
Mar 26 @ The Bell House - performing 'The Weight Is a Gift' (on sale 1/8 at noon)
Mar 27 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg - performing 'Lucky' (AmEx presale Wed?)

There's a presale for most dates also starting Wednesday. All dates, and more info on the covers record, below...

Continue reading "Nada Surf releasing a covers album, playing 3 full albums in NYC, touring (2010 dates & presale) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Fluffy Lumbers - Cruisers (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Thomas Function - Belly of the Beast (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cheap Time - Woodland Drive (MP3)

Cheap Time

As you may have heard, Jay Reatard's Shattered Tour blows into town tonight (10/1) at Le Poisson Rougue, having seen every band on tonight's bill except for Useless Eaters, I can say this sounds like a whole lot of fun. Except for the part that it's a five band bill where doors don't open till 11pm, which seems super late for a 21+ show. So if you don't have to get up and go to work on Friday, or you've evolved beyond the need for sleep, definitely check it out. (The scheduled set times for the night is below.) Expect nudity, maybe some blood, and a whole lot of catchy garage punk pop from Box Elders, Nobunny, Hunx & His Punx, Useless Eaters, and your host for the night, Mr. Reatard (who is also performing with Useless Eaters). You can download a free sampler featuring all the artsits on the tour at the bottom of our just-posted interview with Jay.

A band that are on some of the Shattered Tour dates, though not tonight's, are Cheap Time who are gonna be in town this weekend playing Friday (10/2) and Saturday (10/3) at Silent Barn. This Tennessee trio leans more on the catchy punk and less on blown-out levels and reverb than many of the bands lumped in the garage universe, with their new single "Woodland Drive" being a big leap forward sonically and songwriting-ly.

Friday's show also has Fluffy Lumbers on the bill. Their song "Cruisers" has gotten a lot of play on my stereo over the last two months. You can download it at the top of this post. The band's line-up is in flux at the moment, so I'm not sure how many Fluffy Lumbers there are at this point, but they're worth listening to. Also playing: art-punks White Diamonds and Beachniks which includes members of German Measels and Crystal Stilts.

The Saturday show also features New Orleans piano-based trio The Pharmacy, plus Columbus, OH's Guinea Worms, Brooklyn's Uzi Rash and The Sediment Club.

Thomas Function

Speaking of Silent Barn, Alabama's Thomas Function played there last night (9/30), their first NYC show since January. You've got two more chances to see them: tonight (10/1) at The Studio at Webster Hall and tomorrow (10/2) at Bruar Falls. Thomas Function have a new album, In the Valley of Sickness, which is out October 13 but I'm pretty sure they've got it to buy at their merch tables this weekend. I've only heard a few songs from it (you can download one at the top of this post). What I've heard sounds a just slightly less raucous than last year's Celebration, but I have a feeling the songs will be a bit wilder when played live. Both NYC shows (and all upcoming dates with TF) are with mysterious French dude Yussuf Jerusalem whose MySpace page and artwork might lead you to believe he makes some sort of scary black metal but in fact it's catchy, slightly gothy psych-rock not that far off from Ohio greats My Dad is Dead.

The Soft Pack @ Bowery Ballroom in March (more by Chris La Putt)

The Soft Pack are also back in town this weekend, playing their first shows since being odd men out on that NME tour that had them sharing the bill with UK acts Friendly Fires and White Lies. Their show at Bowery Ballroom on Friday (10/2) makes a lot more sense, with onetime 1928 labelmates The Sundelles, plus Right on Dynamite and The Dig. The band did spend part of their summer in Brooklyn, recording their debut for Kemado Records which should be out in early 2010. I haven't seen them since their Union Pool show back in January with Those Darlins which is one of the best times I've had all year, and I'm anxious to hear some new tracks, like "C'mon" which you can watch a live performance of at the bottom of this post.

There'll be more This Week In Indie later, including The Dø, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Besnard Lakes, the return of Frank Sidebottom and more. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out videos, flyers and tour dates after the jump.

Continue reading "Cheap Time, Thomas Function, The Soft Pack, Fluffy Lumbers & more in This Week in Indie (part 1)"

The Soft Pack, a band you may remember by their former name - The Muslims - are going on tour this fall, with dates across North America. The trip starts in California, where they open a set of shows for Phoenix (who are coming to NYC for two nights in September and whose dates are updated below). The Soft Pack tour closes with a return to Cali, their home, to play alongside WAVVES.

In the middle, the Soft Pack will pay a visit to NYC's Bowery Ballroom on October 2nd. Ticket info to come.

The San Diego-based Soft Pack are currently in the process of recording their debut LP in Brooklyn with Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys (who has also produced Jawbox, Obits, Secret Machines, and others). That disc will come out on NYC label Kemado Records.

All Phoenix and Soft Pack tour dates below...

Continue reading "The Soft Pack & Phoenix - 2009 Tour Dates (some together) "

Suckers @ Prospect Park earlier this month (more by Natasha Ryan)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Maluca @ Santos
* Zé Luis Quartet @ MoMA
* Todd Barry @ Carolines
* Megafaun @ Monkey Town
* MC Lyte @ Von King Park
* Dark Dark Dark @ Sycamore
* Dwele, Leela James @ BB Kings
*I Need That Record (film) @ 92YTribeca
* The Click Five @ Rocks Off Boat Cruise
* Bonnie Baxter, Beloved Rogue @ Shea Stadium
* Titus Andronicus, The So-So Glos @ Glasslands
* PG Six, Zachary Cale, Rachel Mason @ Union Pool
* Matisyahu, Umphrey's McGee @ Central Park Summerstage
* Title Tracks, The Nouvellas, Charles Burst @ The Cameo
* The Drums, Living Days, Zambri, Kordan @ Public Assembly
* Chris Garneau, The Lisps, Scary Mansion @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Suckers, The Octagon, Hearts of Darknesses, Etta Place @ Pianos
* Midsummer Night Swing w/ Woody Herman Orchestra @ Lincoln Center
* GrandWizzard Theodore, PopMaster Fabel, Biz Markie @ Crotona Park
* Matt & Kim, Flosstradamus, Team Robespierre @ Hudson River Rocks Pier 54
* Jon Wiley Benefit w/ Chairlift, Adam Green, Lightspeed Champion @ The Shank
* Those Darlins, Heavy Trash, Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers @ Mercury Lounge
* Mia Riddle, Bon Savants, Patrick Bower & The World Without Magic @ The Bell House
* NY Ear & Eye Fest w/ Nymph, Religious To Damn, Hunters, Dinowalrus, more @ Knitting Factory
* Latin Alternative Music Conference w/ Leon Polar, Natalia Lafourcade, more @ Bowery Ballroom
* Mewithoutyou, The Dear Hunter, Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Free Brooklyn Lager from 7:30- 8:30 at the Bell House.

Matt & Kim play a free outdoor show tonight, the first of this summer's HudsonRiverRocks series. That'll bring Ted Leo and Yeasayer in the coming weeks. Opening tonight's show are Team Robespierre and Flosstradamus (whose remix of Matt & Kim's "Yea Yeah" is below with other, revealing M&K vidoes).

GrandWizzard Theodore, PopMaster Fabel and Biz Markie play a free Park Jams show
at Crotona Park in the Bronx. Luminescent Orchestrii performs a free River to River set at World Financial Center Plaza. MC Lyte plays in Von King Park. At the Central Park Summerstage, Matisyahu and Umphrey's McGee play a ticketed show.

"Four cemetery workers have been charged with dismembering bodies after police found what they called "startling and revolting" conditions at a historic cemetery near Chicago." [AP]

Titus Andronicus and The So So Glos play a free-with-RSVP, limited-capacity show hosted by Colt 45 & Vice at Glasslands tonight. See a video of Titus "Shotgunnin' Burrs" with The Soft Pack on their UK tour together, below.

The Drums, who will be gigging in NYC a lot this summer, play Public Assembly tonight with Living Days, Zambri and Kordan.

Suckers begin their four-Thursday Pianos residency with guests The Octagon, Hearts of Darknesses and Etta Place.

Chairlift, Adam Green, Lightspeed Champion and others play a benefit for local musician Jon Wiley at The Shank.

In a nice triple bill, Those Darlins, Heavy Trash and Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers all perform at the Mercury Lounge tonight.

Megafaun, who opened for Bowerbirds last night, plays Monkey Town tonight with a "special guest."

The NY Ear & Eye Fest II kicks off tonight at the Knitting Factory. The fest includes a record fair/concert at the 92YTribeca on Saturday and a closing party at Death By Audio Sunday night. 92Y is sceening record store doc I Need That Record tonight with filmmaker Brendan Toller in attendance.

"Google says that its forthcoming Chrome operating system will be so secure that "users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates." But Google's claim is being met with skepticism within the Internet security world." [PC World]

The Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing fest continues tonight with the Woody Herman Orchestra directed by Frank Tiberi at Damrosch Park.

10 bands play for $10 tomorrow at Terminal 5.

The first free Williamsburg Waterfront show is this Sunday.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart plays South Street Seaport on Friday.

Title Tracks, which is John Davis formerly of Q and Not U, plays the Cameo Gallery with The Nouvellas and Charles Burst.

Blitzen Trapper's new video for "Black River Killer", below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Thursday?"

photos by Chris La Putt

Friendly Fires

"White Lies and Friendly Fires, a pair of vigorous young bands from Britain, take divergent paths toward much the same destination. In both cases, the unspoken aim is a kind of submissive bliss: they want you in their thrall, not just listening but experiencing, absorbing. By that measure they were impressively but only intermittently successful at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday night.

Each band has released one album, making a splash chiefly in Britain, at least for now. A few months ago White Lies made its British chart debut at No. 1 with "To Lose My Life ...," which Geffen released in the United States last week. Friendly Fires had more modest success last year with its self-titled album on XL.

The bands, which are jointly headlining a North American tour, have been sponsored and duly plugged by NME, the British music magazine, with the Soft Pack, from Southern California, as an opening act." [NY Times]

Continue reading "White Lies, Friendly Fires & The Soft Pack @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC - pics "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Micachu - Lips (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Chap - Proper Rock (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Choir of Unbelievers - Next Summer (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Youth Group - "Start Today Tomorrow" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Fumes - "Automobile" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Parallelogram (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Light Powered (MP3)

Micachu @ Cake Shop (more by Tim Griffin)

Welcome to the SXSW Hangover edition of This Week in Indie. Those who went to Austin might not want to go see live music, but for everyone else it's a boon. Most of these bands have been covered before so I'm just going to go night-by-night of the shows I'd recommend...

Continue reading "Deastro, Obits, White Lies, WAVVES, Ladyhawke, Efterklang, Primal Scream & more in This Week in Indie"

Friendly Fires @ the BV party @ Pianos on Oct 23, 2008 (more by Leia Jospe)

Soft Pack (Muslims) @ the BV party @ Pianos on Oct 23, 2008 (more by Leia Jospe)

White Lies, one of the most hotly tipped new British bands of 2009, confirmed that potential with a No. 1 debut for their first album, "To Lose My Life" (Fiction/Polydor) on the new U.K. album chart. Lady GaGa's "Just Dance" (Interscope/Universal) started a third week atop the singles survey.

White Lies was known as Fear Of Flying until about a year ago. The band has released three singles so far under its current name, of which the most successful, also titled "To Lose My Life," edges 35-34 this week. Its instant album chart success came as the Script's self-titled Phonogenic/Sony BMG debut slipped 1-3, while Kings Of Leon's "Only By the Night" (Hand Me Down/Sony BMG) held at No. 2. [Billboard]

Continue reading "White Lies, Friendly Fires & the Soft Pack - 2009 Tour Dates"

photos by Tim Griffin

Plenty of bands opt for unprintable names -- last year was a great one for **** Buttons, ****** Jeans and ****** ** -- but what about an untenable one? Really, how far could a group calling itself the Muslims get in this day and age?

"It's just a band name," the guitarist Matty McLoughlin told an interviewer early last year. "It isn't meant to describe us or associate us with anything." But by the end of the year, the band had switched to the Soft Pack. "We were sick of it," he later said. "Sick of questions, jihad comments, basically everything about it. It became a total nuisance."

It did its job, though, helping this Los Angeles-via-San Diego mope-punk outfit break through to wider attention last year. At the Mercury Lounge on Friday night, some fans still shouted "Muslims!" as the band took the stage. And the band wasn't above teasing a bit, twiddling through a few bars of "Lawyers, Guns and Money," by Warren Zevon, who passed away in 2003, before the singer Matt Lamkin deadpanned, "We were better before we died." [NY Times]

Continue reading "Those Darlins & the Soft Pack @ Union Pool, NYC - pics"