Frightened Rabbit @ T5, Nov. 2010 (more by Lionel Bergeron)

SXSW has just announced another round of bands for the 2013 edition of the annual music festival that will happen March 12 - 17. This brings the total current number of acts to around 1300. Someome of the highlights include Vampire Weekend, Frightened Rabbit, The Thermals, Black Lips, Camera Obscura, Merchandise, Bleached, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, Eagles of Death Metal, Parenthetical Girls, Indians, Night Beds, IO Echo, KEN Mode, Prince Paul, Pure Bathing Culture, Sepalcure, UK motorik post-punks TOY, Finnish instrumentalists K-X-P, Toronto's Moon King, UK indie rockers Splashh (not Brooklyn Splash with one "h") and loads more. Head to BV Austin for the whole Round 3 list.

DOWNLOAD: Mister Heavenly - "Pineapple Girl" (MP3)

Descendents at FFFFest (more by Tim Griffin)

Much like last year, FYF Fest 2011 is poppin' off with some incredible bands, many of whom recently reunited. This year the LA fest will host a coveted Descendents appearance, a Death From Above 1979 show, Guided By Voices, another Kid Dynamite reunion, The Dead Milkmen, Explosions in the Sky, the return of The Weakerthans and many, many notable others. Full lineup is below. The show goes down at 1st and Main in downtown Los Angeles on September 3rd. Tickets are on sale.

Future Islands plays FYF Fest and plays Death By Audio in Brooklyn TONIGHT (6/28).

For Kid Dynamite, which features members of Lifetime, Paint it Black and None More Black, the reunion is their first since re-emerging for This is Hardcore last year with Ink & Dagger. The band called it quits in 2000 and reunited in 2005 at CBGB and some other times too. I hope they schedule another NYC show, but it's just LA for now.

This is Hardcore THIS YEAR features an appearance from Ressurection, which also featured Dan Yemin on guitar. Tickets for This is Hardcore 2011, taking place in Philly's Starlight Ballroom, is mostly sold-out, with tickets for the Sunday show still available.

The Descendents appearance at FYFest is one of several dates scheduled for the reunited band, NYC's Roseland, Chicago Riot Fest, and Philly's Riot Fest included. Tickets are still available for the 9/23 Roseland show.

Mister Heavenly will hit the road for a string of dates on the West Coast leading up to FYF Fest. Check out their full tour schedule below, and look for their new LP Out of Love on 8/16 via Sub Pop. Check out "Pineapple Girl" from that record above.

The Death From Above 1979 appearance is one of several slated for the band in the coming months, including a 7/22 appearance at Williamsburg Waterfront. Tickets are still available OR, you can try your hand by winning a pair at our Facebook. The full set of DFA1979 dates are below.

The Weakerthans have a few other dates slated for Europe and Canada in the coming months. Hopefully they add more US dates too. All dates for now are listed below.

A few bands on the FYFest lineup (namely, Cults, Off!, and No Age) will also appear in NYC at the House of Vans this summer, and for FREE. The FYF-presented House of Vans series of shows starts this Thursday (6/30). You just have to RSVP to get in (and maybe get there early).

All Weakerthans, DFA1979, and Mister Heavenly dates, some video, and the full FYF Fest lineup is below.

Continue reading "FYF Fest in LA, This is Hardcore in Philly, Future Islands in BK, Mister Heavenly on tour, a DFA1979 contest & 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"

DOWNLOAD: Obits - You Gotta Lose (MP3)

Obits at Knitting Factory (more by Andrew St. Clair)

Obits will release their new LP Moody, Standard and Poor via Sub Pop on March 29th. Listen to a track from that record above and check out the full tracklist and cover art below.

Meanwhile the band will be priming that release with a gang of dates across the country. They're currently down south for another week with Gentleman Jesse and His Men, and will get on the road again in early March for some dates with their labelmate Jaill. That second run terminates in Dallas on March 15th (SXSW anyone?). The band will then make it home in time to play a record release show at The Bell House on April 2nd with The Sundelles and Tijuana Panthers. Tickets are on sale.

Speaking of Sub Pop, the band that Michael Cera is sometimes in, Mister Heavenly, will be in NYC this Sunday (1/16). Michael Cera may not be there though, but his bandmates Nick Diamonds (Islands/Unicorns), Honus Honus (Man Man) and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse) definitely will be.

All Obits dates and some videos below.

Continue reading "Obits releasing new LP, touring (MP3 & 2011 dates)"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Obits - Two-Headed Coin (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Obits - Pine On (MP3)

So we asked a load of NYC-area bands to tell us how their 2009 went, via a handy questionnaire. As we get them back we're gonna post them.

Obits on the Jimmy Fallon show - November 2009

This one is from Brooklyn's Obits, a band that features a bunch of indie rock veterans, including frontman Rick Froberg (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu), guitarist Sohrab Habibion (Edsel) and drummer Scott Gursky (Shortstack). Legend has it, a bootleg of their first gig (Cakeshop, Jan 2008) got them signed to Sub Pop, who earlier this year put out Obits debut, I Blame You -- one of my favorite straight-up rock records of 2009. Obits' next gig is New Years Eve Rock n' Soul Party at The Bell House that also features Eli "Paperboy" Reed (tickets are still on sale).

Sohrab (who you may have caught solo on Saturday when he opened for That Petrol Emotion at the Bell House) was kind enough to answer the questionnaire below... very candidly I might add...

Continue reading "an end of 2009 interview w/ Sohrab Habibion of Obits"