Lady Lamb at Knitting Factory in February (more by Amanda Hatfield)

As mentioned, Brooklyn folk singer Lady Lamb the Beekeper is on tour in support of her new album, Ripely Pine, and that tour passes through her hometown this weekend for a show at Glasslands on Saturday (5/11) with Slothrust. Tickets for that show are still available.

A month after the Glasslands show, Lady Lamb will head out on a tour with the like-minded Torres, which should make for an excellent double bill. Unfortunately that tour doesn't hit NYC, but you can find out all cities that it does hit below.

Jackson Scott

Meanwhile, Torres also has two of her own shows this weekend (not in NYC), and they're with Asheville, NC's Jackson Scott. The "rising" musician will release his debut LP, Melbourne, via Fat Possum at some point this summer. You can stream that album's first single, "That Awful Sound," which should appeal to Atlas Sound fans, below.

All dates are listed, along with streams from all three artists, below...

Continue reading "Lady Lamb on tour, playing shows w/ Torres who has shows w/ Jackson Scott who signed to Fat Possum"

One of the most eclectic lineups in the US, Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC, will be back for 2013 on September 5 -7. Pulling from all genres, this year's line-up includes names like Big Boi (who plays NYC tonight), Spiritualized, Sleep, Wolf Eyes (who have a new video), The Breeders (performing Last Splash), John Cale, Kurt Vile & the Violators, Gorguts, Inter Arma (who play NYC on Saturday), Double Negative (who played NYC this past weekend), Swearin' (them too), Pissed Jeans, Dan Friel, Waxahatchee and many many others. Three-day wristbands are on sale now with individual day tickets going on sale in June. Full lineup is below.

Continue reading "Hopscotch announces 2013 lineup (Big Boi, Sleep, Spiritualized, Kurt Vile, Wolf Eyes, John Cale, more)"

photos by Sarah Frankie Linder, words by Andrew Sacher

Delorean / Savages

We kicked off our free BrooklynVegan SXSW day parties yesterday (3/13) in Austin at the Main & The Jr (aka the old Emo's location, aka 603 Red River St) with sets from Delorean, Robyn Hitchock, Savages, Camper Van Beethoven, Caveman, Braids, Maserati, Caitlin Rose, Anamanaguchi, Indians, Marnie Stern, Team Spirit, Torres, and Deep Sea Diver. Pictures from the party are in this post, and more are on the way soon.

The biggest surprise for me personally was Torres (aka Mackenzie Scott), whose self titled debut is great, but she really takes it to another level live. Her band is super tight, loud, and confident (her guitarist has some rock star moves) and Mackenzie has some serious pipes that she doesn't even fully reveal on the album. It was a much heavier show than I expected, and if you can catch her at one of her other upcoming SXSW shows, highly recommended.

Torres was followed by other great sets on the outdoor stage (Glasslands Stage), like the noisy math rock of Marnie Stern (who played a lot of her great new album), the danceable video game punk of Anamanaguchi, and a set from post-rockers Maserati, who along with Caveman, cooled things down for a bit. But that cooling down didn't last long, because once Savages took the stage, they were possibly even more intense than CMJ. They played some new stuff that they didn't have back then, and once that album finally drops, I've got pretty high hopes for it. Finally, Delorean wrapped up the outdoor stage with a dancey set. It was nice to end the day with some familiar tunes like "Real Love." Then Maserati came out and joined Delorean for a cover over Gary Numan's "Cars." Not really.

Meanwhile, indoors Deep Sea Diver kicked things off around the same time as Torres outside and they were followed by the fun-rock of Team Spirit, Copenhagen's Indians (who were a 3-piece and were better that way than when I saw him solo), a rousing country set from Caitlin Rose, the new electronic sound of Braids (which we also heard at CMJ), and the show ended with sets from two musical veterans: Camper Van Beethoven and Robyn Hitchcock. Robyn was great and he is especially funny on stage with his in-between song banter. He referred to the overheard sounds of Delorean from the other room as the sounds of devils, and "if they had been heard 200 years earlier, marches of men would have been sent to destroy these fiends," (or something like that).

In addition to the music, Onkyo was there, sampling their new headphones which hit stores next month. mophie, maker of invaluable iPhone chargers, were giving away discount cards good at their pop-up shop which was set up right across the street on Red River. We were also serving complimentary Jameson, and Zico coconut water, and free vegan queso and chips from Food For Lovers. We also had BrooklynVegan t-shirts for the first 50 people in the door, thanks to American Apparel. Also thanks to our other sponsors, Korg, Vox, Blackstar, Creative Recreation, Signazon, WILLCALL, Mirrored Media, and Redigi.

Our day parties continue today (3/14) with sets from Cloud Nothings, Parenthetical Girls, Death, METZ, Milk Music, Beach Fossils, Widowspeak, and more.

More pictures from yesterday's party below...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan SXSW Wednesday day party in pics (Savages, Robyn Hitchcock, Delorean, Camper Van Beethoven & more)"

by Bill Pearis, Fred Pessaro and Andrew Sacher

Savages @ CMJ 2012 (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

SXSW gets underway today (3/13) in earnest, with 83,207 bands* playing SXSW this year. Trying to figure out who to see can be an overwhelming feeling. (Actually, just standing on 6th St. on Friday night is an overwhelming feeling.) Hopefully this post will give you some inspiration if you're among the throngs of people. Or maybe just some new stuff to listen to if you're not there.

Of course you could just hang out at all our day parties (our first starts at noon today!) and evening showcases, as we're really proud of our line-ups. But there are bands who we are pumped to see who aren't playing too. So here are 40 bands we're genuinely pumped to see in Austin this week. We made a Spotify playlist of all the bands (at least the ones on the service) you can stream below.

Check out our list below...

*not the actually number of showcasing bands. But it feels accurate.

Continue reading "40 artists we're excited to see at SXSW"

follow @BVSXSW on Twitter. here's another BVSXSW lineup announcement...

As you know, BrooklynVegan is returning to Austin for SXSW this year and throwing four days of day parties at The Main & The Jr aka 603 Red River Street at the corner of 6th aka the old Emo's location. Those happen Wed (3/13), Thurs, Fri and Saturday (3/16). All shows are 100% FREE with RSVP.

We announced the Saturday lineup, and then the Friday lineup, followed by the Thursday lineup, and finally, here is the fourth and final one: the WEDNESDAY LINEUP...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan free SXSW 2013 Wednesday day party lineup (Robyn Hitchcock, Delorean, Savages, Camper Van Beethoven, Caveman, Marnie Stern, Anamanaguchi & more)"

photos by Amanda Hatfield; words by Andrew Sacher

"Saw Torres play their first New York show tonight at Cake Shop. SO good. Do yourself a favor and check out her record. Her voice is KILLER." - Sharon Van Etten

Nashville's Torres (aka Mackenzie Scott) came to NYC over the weekend for her first two shows here, having played Cake Shop on Friday (2/22) and The Paper Box on Sunday (2/24). Mackenzie's voice is great live and her band sounded well-practiced and really tight, as they brought a sincere mix of folk, country, grunge and punk to back Mackenzie's personal lyrics. We caught her Paper Box show (and as you can see from the quote above, Sharon Van Etten caught her Cake Shop show), and more pictures from that show, including openers Mainland and Divining Rod, are below.

Continue reading "Torres played Paper Box after NYC debut at Cake Shop (pics)"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Torres - "Mother Earth, Father God" (MP3)

Nashville singer/songwriter Torres (real name Mackenzie Scott) hails from a long-running breeding ground of folk and country music, and she takes after her hometown's lineage, but also weaves in grunge and punk inspired grit like EMA or Sharon Van Etten. Her self titled debut album, which Torres self released last week (1/22), arrived fully formed, strikingly self-aware, and subtly diverse.

On a track like "Jealousy And I," Torres recalls the bedroom folk of the early '70s, while "When Winter's Over" is a straight up '90s alt rocker, yet the album never fails to feel concise and cohesive. And when she spills lines like, "Feed me something real while I've got youth left in my veins," you know Torres is an album with purpose. You can stream two album tracks, "Honeys" and "Mother Earth, Father God," below, and download the latter at the top of this post. The album is available on iTunes.

Torres is playing a record release show in her hometown this February, and after that she'll play a few other dates, including her first Brooklyn show on February 24 at The Paper Box with Mainland and special guests TBA. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

UPDATE: She also plays another NYC show on February 22 at Cake Shop.

A list of all dates and song streams below...

Continue reading "check out Torres who released LP, playing shows (dates, MP3)"