by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Dive - Sometime (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Caged Animals - Teflon Heart (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Caged Animals - Girls on Medication (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Heaven's Gate - Weakness Worms (MP3)

Toys & Tiny Instruments

It's a fairly quiet post-ATP weekend, which is fine. And the big stuff (Jens Lekman, James Blake) is sold out. CMJ is coming up in less than two weeks, and I plan on taking it (fairly) easy until then. (More than anything else, I'm stoked for the Breaking Bad finale on Sunday!) But there is, as always, stuff going on that's worth your time and coin. So this week I'm just going to do an extended version of the day-by-day picks.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6

Anika at Glasslands.

Dive, the new band from Beach Fossils dude Cole Smith, is easily the hardest working group in Brooklyn right now. You can see them tonight at Death by Audio on a pretty stacked bill of locals. I've caught Dive a couple nights now and am really impressed with their energy -- dark and motorik (not totally unlike Captured Tracks labelmates Soft Moon) -- and Smith's ability to spin around and play in clothes six sizes too big for him.

Dive also plays tomorrow (10/7) at 285 Kent with Night Manager and ex-Sweetbulbs band Heaven's Gate (who have a new MP3 to download at the top of this post) and Friends.

The rest of the show is good too. Caged Animals is Vin of Soft Black's new band. There are MP3s above and you can read more about them here. The show is also a record release for Spanish Prisoners' new album, Gold Fools, which you can stream in its entirety at the bottom of this post.  It's been a while since I checked in with them... it's a really nice record, especialy the single "Rich Blood" which you can download for free from their Bandcamp. Also playing are Quiet Lights who might fill the void for lovely loud guitar pop left by Dirty on Purpose.

Over at Cake Shop are the Toys and Tiny Instruments Band who do not play live very often. It's exactly as it sounds, seven or eight folks playing songs on kazoos, melodicas, penny whistles, plastic guitars and other toys and tiny instruments. (Not unlike Pianosarus for those whose memories go back to '80s obscurities.) They are way better than you think they're going to be.

And at Public Assembly it's electronic psych rock pioneers Silver Apples who play with MNDR, Lemonade, Ital and Todd Pendu on DJ duty. Another worthy show.

continued below....

Continue reading "Dive, Caged Animals, Ladytron, Taste of the Seaport, Psychic Paramount & more in This Week in Indie"

DOWNLOAD: Trans Am - Futureworld (MP3)

This is not the Beaver Boys. This is Trans AM

Trans Am go on a two-week tour in late September that kicks off in Philadelphia on 9/27 and concludes with a very special two-night stint at Union Pool on 10/8 and 10/9. The NYC shows are special because on 10/8 the band will perform 1999's Futureworld in its entirety, while 10/9 will feature "a special set". Tickets for 10/8 and 10/9 are on sale. All dates are listed below...

The Futureworld set is to celebrate the reissue of the 1999 LP via Thrill Jockey who are celebrating their own 20th anniversary. Out September 13th on CD & vinyl, the remastered reissue will come with 2 digital bonus tracks. They are "Nazi/Hippie Empire", a studio outtake from the Futureworld session, mixed by James Murphy and "Now You Die, Thriddle Fool!" which was originally released by Strength Magazine on a flexi-disc 7". Check out the title track from Futureworld above/below with all dates...

Continue reading "Trans am reissuing 'Futureworld', performing it live in NYC, touring (dates)"

"Trans Am is still all of our main musical agenda" [Phil] Manley says, quick to dismiss the notion that the band is no longer a priority. "It just seems like less of a job and it's more for fun. Because we're all still great friends, and it is so much fun to play together, and this distance and the time spent apart makes it that much more fun when we get back together."

The band still tours regularly and earlier this year released one of its finest albums to date, "Thing." Taking its name from the 1982 John Carpenter movie "The Thing," the record was originally conceived as the score to a sci-fi horror film for which the band was commissioned out of the blue. "Partway through the process, we got an e-mail saying the movie had been canned due to lack of financing and that they were sorry," Manley says. "So we were like ... we're this far into it, we'll just keep writing this record for a movie that doesn't exist." [SF Gate]

As Trans Am is celebrating 20 years as a band, its guitarist Phil Manley (who also plays in The Fucking Champs) is prepping to release his first solo LP, Life Coach, via Thrill Jockey Records on January 25th, 2011 (cover art above). It's a nine-track instrumental LP, and one of those tracks, "Forest Opening Theme," has been given the video treatment. Check it out for the first time below.

As far as shows go, Phil just has a single date on his schedule and that is on the album's release date, 1/25, in San Francisco (the same town Trans Am played on November 6th - hence the above quoted article). Trans Am also has just one gig coming up: Nov 19th at La Capital in Mexico City, Mexico.

Check out that video and the new solo album's full tracklist below...

Continue reading "Trans Am's Phil Manley releasing solo album (video) "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Trans Am - Apparent Horizon (MP3)

Thrill Jockey: You've spoken before about a desire to transcend music. Do you think this album accomplishes that?

Trans Am: Absolutely. This album isn't about music at all. It's about being prepared mentally and physically. It's about training 8 hours a day for the past two years. You know, too many people today are results-oriented. We want to win as much as anyone, but we're not going to abandon our system now. That's what got us where we are and we're not going to throw everything away and just play for music's sake.

Trans Am will put out their ninth (!) LP, Thing, on April 20th, and you can hear a tight, vocoder-riffing rack from it above.

The band is currently on tour with Portland noise-rock band Nice Nice and Jonas Reinhardt (a group not a person). They play two NYC shows. The first is at Santos this Saturday (4/17). Tickets are still on sale.

Their other NYC show, on Sunday (4/18), was relocated from Market Hotel to the Knitting Factory. Oneida (who headlined the venue in March and who play the Joshua Light Show fest this May) is also on the bill. Tickets are on sale.

Album art, tracklist and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Trans Am on tour (dates), NYC show w/ Oneida moved to Knitting Factory, new album out soon (MP3)"

by Andrew Frisicano

Record Store Day - a nationwide event created to support independently owned record stores - will take place on Saturday, April 18, 2009. A list of participating NYC stores is available online at the Record Store Day venue list.

On RSD, Generation Records (210 Thompson Street, NY, NY) will host an acoustic in-store by punk band The Bouncing Souls, free for customers who pick up a copy of the band's 20th Anniversary Volume 1 7-inch the day of the show.

Other events, such as in-stores at Williamsburg's Sound Fix, which announced its intent to celebrate the event with live music despite ending shows after losing its liquor license in February, are still being announced.

Many record labels are supporting the event with limited-edition records. Matador, for example, will be pressing 2500 copies each of Jay Reatard/Sonic Youth and Sonic Youth/Beck split 7-inches, plus a Pavement Live In Germany LP. Thrill Jockey is sending out 900 copies of Records Toreism, an LP that includes tracks from Mountains, Tortoise, White Hills, Trans Am featuring Tim Soete, and Baltimore's Double Dagger (who cover "Stagger Lee") and will be packaged with two zines (feat contributions from Ian MacKaye and more).

Record Store Day, which coincides with the 2009 Coachella Festival, will also be running a record shop at the fest. The press release, copied below, notes that the Coachella on-site store, "previously operated by Virgin, is noted for its high profile foot traffic and good vibe." Both events come in the same month that the Times Square Virgin Megastore will close - the NYC shop is notable for having the nation's highest sales volume. Its sister location in Union Square will be gone soon after.

Full list of Record Store Day exclusives, in the form of a press release, below...

Continue reading "Record Store Day 2009: lots of bands releasing exclusive vinyl, a Bouncing Souls in-store & more..."

Continue reading "F Yeah Fest 5 - the LA festival lineup"

DOWNLOAD: Oneida - Up with People (MP3)

DOWNLOAD: Oneida - Run Through My Hair (MP3)

DOWNLOAD: Oneida - Wild Horses (MP3)

DOWNLOAD: Pterodactyl - Polio (MP3)

DOWNLOAD: Pterodactyl - Esses (MP3)

Oneida

Oneida help the NYC Knitting Factory celebrate their 20th anniversary (and their new sound system) with two shows this Saturday (early & late).

Oneida @ Knitting Factory, NYC, 2007 (TICKETS)
Feb 24 6:45 - Trans Am w/ Oneida & Big Bear
Feb 24 10:30 - Trans Am w/ Oneida & Pterodactyl

Oneida & Pterodactyl are also playing Tonic in NYC on March 24. Pterodactyl, who also just played Studio B with Girl Talk and Parts & Labor, have an album coming out on Brah Records on April 24, 2007. Brah Records is part of JagJaguwar which is the home of Oneida.

Trans Am is also going on a North American tour with Zombi in April. Presale here. Before that they'll be touring in Europe. All dates below...

Continue reading "Oneida + Trans Am + Pterodactyl - MP3s + TOUR DATES"