words & photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

DOWNLOAD: The Radio Dept - Freddie and the Trojan Horse (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Radio Dept - The Worst Taste in Music (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Radio Dept - A Window (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Radio Dept - Pulling Our Weight (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Radio Dept - Why Won’t You Talk About It? (MP3)

The Radio Dept.

"The Friday night show at Don Hill's was advertised as a "warm-up show" but it was hardly a dry run. [The Radio Dept.'s] eight-song set ran over half an hour - a full showcase at some festivals - and even though they had no drummer, no bassist and played over a significant amount of pre-recorded backing tracks - usually things that'd put me right off - they still grabbed the heartstrings. It's the songs. It didn't matter how they did it, but they came off with all the beautiful melancholy the records carried without sounding like a karaoke act. Favouring the cleaner sonic aesthetic of their more recent works, both Martin Carlberg and Johan Duncanson reproduced their surprisingly intricate guitar parts flawlessly, Carlberg's vocals were resonant with yearning and resignation and the feeling of being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket of sound very much in effect. True, their onstage charisma was nearly non-existent - they seemed awkward and uncertain how to respond to the enthusiasm of the audience - but even that fit perfectly with their persona." [Chromewaves]

Day Two of NYC Popfest (Friday, May 15, 2009) moved from local and stateside bands to The Scandavian countries. Sweden's The Radio Dept. (in a warm-up to their headlining show the next day) and Lichtenstein both performed ahead of the excellent Cats On Fire. Cats' lead-singer, Mattias Björkas, looks like David Bowie, sounds eerily like Morrissey and coyingly moves and postures like Rhett Miller. Their set at Don Hill's put everyone in a proper mood for the Mondo indie dance party that followed. Early on, local-boy Don Lennon and L.A.'s The Tartans also performed.

Cats on Fire and Lichtenstein shared a bill again, last night (5/19) at Bruar Falls in Brooklyn. More pictures and videos from the Don Hill's show below...

Continue reading "NYC Popfest - night 2 pics & video (The Radio Dept, Cats on Fire, Lichtenstein & more...) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Springfactory - On the Back of Your Bike (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Springfactory - Get Out of Bed (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Tartans - The Cats of Camerford (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cats on Fire - Horoscope (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cats on Fire - Letter from a Voyage to Sweden (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Liechtenstein - Roses in the Park (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Vaselines - Son of a Gurn (MP3)

Firstly, an update on NYC Popfest which starts tonight (5/14) and runs through Sunday (5/17). Advance tickets are sold out for the Saturday (5/16) show with The Radio Dept., Pants Yell! and The Secret History at The Bell House, as has the all-day Sunday show at Cake Shop, though the latter should have tickets at the door. The good news is The Radio Dept. have been added to the Friday night (5/15) show at the Don Hill's which already includes Sweden's Liechtenstein, the spiffy pop of Finland's Cats on Fire, L.A. band The Tartans and local boy Don Lennon. If you ask me, this is the unmissable show of the weekend. Tickets are still available through the Popfest website. Also, if you can't make the show Friday, both Leichtenstien and Cats on Fire play Bruar Falls on Tuesday, May 19.

In other Popfest news, another Swedish band, Stockholm's Springfactory, have been added to the free day show on Saturday at Cake Shop. There's a couple MP3s of theirs to check out at the top of this post. The fest kicks off tonight with an all-locals show at Cake Shop featuring Knight School, Soft City, Dream Bitches, The Metric Mile, My Teenage Stride and the Ballet. Full Popfest lineup is at the bottom of this post and there are loads more MP3s from just about all the bands HERE.

Acrylics

There's lots of other non-Popfest stuff going on this weekend, much of it making me wish I could be in two places at once. Cameo Gallery tonight (5/14) plays host to two Dirty on Purpose offshoots: Joe and the Flying Spoons which is guitarist Joe Jurewicz country-tinged outfit that features a chorus of girl backup singers; and Pursesnatchers which is drummer Doug Marvin's solo project that is the closest in sound of any of the DoP splinter groups to the original. Also on the bill: awesome duo Sisters who I've written about recently and were runners up in this year's L Magazine thing; and Acrylics who make lovely synthy pop not dissimilar to The Rosebuds. The three songs on Acrylics' MySpace are all quite good, definitely worth checking out whether you plan on hitting this show or not.

Cake Shop is celebrating its four-year anniversary this month with a series of special-event Saturdays. This Saturday's (5/16) seems especially special: an ADD-friendly marathon of 16 bands playing four songs each (natch), with different drink specials in between each band. And it's only $4 to get in. The party kicks off with Knight School at 8PM and finishes with Moonmen on the Moon, Man (supposedly from San Diego but who look suspiciously like Cake Shop owners and staff) around 1AM if they stay on schedule. In between, My Teenage Stride, The Beets, Boy Genius, Air Waves and more will get their 15 minutes. Check out the flyer below for the full list of bands and set times. This sounds like a blast.

Spiral Beach

I should also mention that Toronto's Spiral Beach are in town this weekend playing three shows: Tonight (5/14) at Death by Audio, and two shows on Friday (5/15): an early one at Fontana's, and then a house show at 265 Mikibbin St in Bushwick. Spiral Beach opened for Sloan at Bowery Ballroom a couple years ago and I wrote at the time: "I don't even know how to describe them. They're a bit like the Coral or the Zutons, by way of Oingo Boingo (minus the horns). Psychotic circus music?" They were a lot of fun. The band's 2007 album, Ball, just getting released in the U.S.

The Vaselines

And last but not least... The Vaselines! They play Sunday (5/17) at Bowery Ballroom (with Woods) and tickets are still available; Monday's (5/18) show at at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Adam Green is sold out. The band played Seattle on Tuesday and The Finest Kiss had this to say:

Seeing the Vaselines last night was like sex on the second date. The first date was last summer at Sub Pop 20 festival. Their set at Marymoor Park last July was just about perfect with Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee's sexually tinged funny stage banter and even better harmonies, they were easily the highlight of that perfect summer afternoon. After a first date that goes so well, you always kind of prepare yourself for a letdown on date number two. You start to see the imperfections, maybe a few wrinkles or a bald spot. The Vaselines may have their imperfections, but I'm still blinded by lust to really notice any of them. Francis joked saying that you may think you're at the wrong gig if you're looking for the people on the poster, referring to the much younger looking Vaselines that adorned the advertising for the show. They also tried to explain their long absence with wild stories of Eugene becoming a Hare Krishna, explaining his lack of hair, and Frances's time in prison for allegedly getting facials with underage boys...

The better sounding Vaselines is probably due to the band being better musicians than they were 20 years ago. Even though they sounded less ragged, they still have the attitude and humor that made them so special in the first place. There is no way that anyone at this gig went home disappointed from this gig, besides sounding great, they played every single one of their songs and even graced us with two brand new ones.

The band's classic compilation, The Way of the Vaselines, just got reissued on Sub Pop as a two-CD/3-platter-vinyl deluxe edition, now retitled Enter the Vaselines and it's just essential. And go see them if you can.

Flyers, videos, tour dates and the full popfest schedule after the jump...

Continue reading "NYC Pop Fest, Acrylics, Vaselines, Springfactory, Cake Shop, Spiral Beach & more in This Week in Indie"