If you're like me, you've already been sent this article at least ten times, but did you read the whole thing yet? Or the 546 (as of this posting) comments?

Oh, and check out what Travis Morrison has to say about that.

DOWNLOAD: Phantom Family Halo - "White Hot Gun" (MP3)

photos by Adam Cantor

Sohrab Habibian & JG Thirlwell @ Joe's Pub

The tribute to Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets went down at Joe's Pub on January 8 to a sold out audience (that included Bradford Cox). As mentioned when we first posted about the show, contributing musicians included Travis Morrison (of The Dismemberment Plan), Sohrab Habibion (Obits), Jim Sclavunos (The Bad Seeds/Grinderman), Vernon Reid (Living Color), Paul Duncan (Warm Ghost), Dom Cipolla (Phantom Family Halo), and JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus). Pictures from the show, John Schaefer of WNYC included, are in this post. You can also look at the full setlist below.

Dom Cipolla's (who played the show) band Phantom Family Halo has a new album coming out, titled When I Fall Out, on February 14 via Knitting Factory Records. You can download the album track "White Hot Gun" above and stream it below. Phantom Family Halo have two upcoming NYC shows. One happens next week at Glasslands on January 16 with Our Mountain, Eraas, and Vensaire. Tickets are available. They also play Saint Vitus on February 11. Support TBA. Tickets are on sale.

More pics from the 'Here Come the Warm Jets' show, the setlist, and PFH song stream below...

Continue reading "Brian Eno was performed @ Joe's Pub -- pics & setlist (w/ JG Thirwell, Phantom Family Halo, Travis Morrison & more)"

by Andrew Sacher

Brian Eno - 'Here Come the Warm Jets'

In 1974, following his departure from Roxy Music, Brian Eno released his first solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets. The album (and its followup) is probably his most similar to the art rock of Roxy Music, before Brian began experimenting with soundscapes and eventually created some of our most interesting ambient music. Despite his large departure in sound from Here Come the Warm Jets, the material on that album has been a long lasting influence on indie rock, and like the show at the Rock Shop this past May, on January 8 at Joe's Pub, a number of indie rock musicians will honor the album and perform the entire thing. The contributing musicians include Travis Morrison (of The Dismemberment Plan, who also performed at the Rock Shop show), Sohrab Habibion (Obits), James Sclavunos (The Bad Seeds/Grinderman), Vernon Reid (Living Color), Paul Duncan (Warm Ghost), Dom Cippola (Phantom Family Halo), and JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus). Tickets for the show are on sale now.

I wonder who's going to handle Robert Fripp's guitar solos. They should have got St. Vincent for that...

Catch Obits on 12/30 at the Bell House with Ted Leo, and then at Cake Shop in March.

Some tracks from Here Come the Warm Jets below...

Continue reading "various peeps performing Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets""

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Amor de Días - Bunhill Fields (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Damon & Naomi - "Walking Backwards" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Damon & Naomi - "Shadow Boxing" (M4A)
DOWNLOAD: BNLX - Burn the Boats (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BNLX - Garbage Strike (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Beige - Folds (MP3)

Amor de Dias

This weekend is dominated, for me at least, by NYC Popfest but as I've already written an exhaustive (exhausting) post about that, so go read it and we'll discuss other shows here. There's lots more to cover anyway.

One thing, and this is Popfest related really, is that Amor de Días are here this weekend, playing Knitting Factory on Sunday (5/22) opening for Damon & Naomi. We've got a pair of tickets to give away to this show. Just send an email with your name to BVCONTESTS@HOTMAIL.COM with the subject line "Amor de Dias" and we'll pick a winner at random.

As you may know, the duo (Amor de Días) are Alisdair Maclean of The Clientele and Lupe Núñez-Fernández of Pipas, a group who played the first ever NYC Popfest back in 2007. I actually thought it was going to be Amor de Días in the "TBA" slot at the Thursday night Cake Shop show that turned out to be Pains of Being Pure at Heart. For this show to be happening at the same -- but not part of -- the 'Fest seems a little criminal.

MacLean and Núñez-Fernández formed Amor de Días back in 2008 and wrote and recorded whenever they had time, with help from current tourmates Damon & Naomi, indiepop legend (and master arranger) Louis Phillipe and Ladybug Transistor's Gary Olson. Their debut, The Street of the Love of Days, came out this week on Merge and is a lovely little album as you might imagine from the talent involved. Their styles and voices are a perfect match for one another and the arrangements are just perfect. Among the treats is a particularly nice version of The Clientele's "Harvest Time." You can download "Bunhill Fields" at the top of this post.

Damon & Naomi's new album, False Beats and True Hearts, is a really nice record too. And if it's still pouring out Sunday night, all the better. It's an evening of rainy day music.

BNLX

A much louder duo, also in town this weekend, are Minneapolis' BNLX, who play Pianos on Friday (5/20) and The Rock Shop on Saturday (5/21). I've written about them a couple times this year already and I do really dig their mix of rockin' tunes and corporate humor. I'll quote myself again:

Volume isn't just for punishment, though in the wrong hands it most certainly is. But sometimes you just can't achieve that clarity of sound, that particular strain of feedback, that shriiiiiiinnnnng you get from flicking the strings above the headnut, that tone...without cranking the amp. Ed Ackerson, a 20-year veteran guitar slinger of such Minneapolis bands as 27 Various and Polara, knows what he's doing. BNLX didn't just blow eardrums, they kinda blew minds...

...for being just two of them and a laptop, they made quite a racket at the Rock Shop. Normally I'm one to complain about bands using canned backing instead of a real drummer, but vintage drum machine sounds -- right out of 1987, be it Jesus & Mary Chain or Age of Chance -- are kind of integral to what BNLX are doing. With a stroboscopic lightshow (what, no smoke machines?) you didn't really need anyone else.

You can download two tracks from EP#5 at the top of this post, and I have a good feeling they'll have EP#6 at the merch table for the NYC shows. Also playing The Rock Shop show is Black Onassis, which is not the ex-drummer of Urge Overkill but a new group from former member(s) of Kasabian and Daylight for the Birds. Don't know much about them.

More interesting is what's happening earlier that same evening at The Rock Shop: a tribute to Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets featuring a cavalcade of indie rock talent. Here's the press release:

When Brian Eno's first solo record, Here Come the Warm Jets, came out in 1974 it turned heads. It continues to baffle great minds due to the sneaky way it overlays whimsical pop with the beginnings of Eno's whole philosophy of creativity and experimentation.

Indy music stalwart Rob Christinsen (Eggs, Grenadine, East Ghost West Ghost) and Rock Shop booker Jack McFadden team up to present this great curiosity of a recording LIVE with a melange of rockers and experimentalists.

"It sounds fantastic but one of the things that I tried to do with Warm Jets was to bring musicians together who would normally never play together and to play a music that they couldn't agree upon. The music would come from the chemistry. But of course, it was impossible to do. I couldn't expect any of the session people I worked with to go along with it. They literally fought." - Brian Eno, 1974.

In that spirit, fifteen singers and ten instrumentalists from all musical worlds team up to perform this masterpiece.

The evening will be emceed by walking/talking Brian Eno encyclopedia, WNYC's John Schaefer.

Musicians performing include Travis Morrison (Dismemberment Plan), Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), Richard Baluyut (Versus), Rob Christiansen (Eggs), Amy Klein (Titus Andronicus), and Ben Trokan (Robbers On High Street).

Of course the big tribute this weekend is Sunday's Our Concert Could Be Your Life which celebrates the 10th anniversary of Michael Azzerad's chronicle of the American indie rock scene in the '80s. The talent assembled paying tribute to the bands covered in the book is pretty amazing, and it's changed/expanded a bit since first announced:

• Nat Baldwin, David Longstreth and Brian McOmber play Black Flag
• Delicate Steve plays the Minutemen
• Citay plays Mission of Burma
• Ted Leo plays Minor Threat
• Grooms plays Husker Du
• Titus Andronicus plays the Replacements
• Tune-Yards plays Sonic Youth
• Callers plays Sonic Youth
• Dan Deacon plays the Butthole Surfers
• St. Vincent plays Big Black
• Wye Oak plays Dinosaur Jr
• Buke and Gass plays Fugazi
• White Hills plays Mudhoney
• Yellow Ostrich plays Beat Happening

Janeane Garofalo and Eugene Mirman host the evening -- which is sold out, but I wouldn't be surprised if tickets were released day of show. Keep an eye out. UPDATE: They are back on sale as I type this.

[note: both Tune-Yards and Buke and Gass play a sold out show at MHOW one day earlier. Dan Deacon also plays more shows this week. Delicate Steve has a headlining show coming up soon at Brooklyn Bowl.]

---

Cymbals Eat Guitars

And lastly, Cymbals Eat Guitars play their first show in a long time this Friday (5/20) at Glasslands. The band are finishing up their sophomore LP which is due out this fall ,so hopefully we'll get a preview of what's to come which they'll be playing in full at the show. The whole line-up is pretty good, with fellow '90s loving indie rockers Radical Dads (whose member Robbie just announced a new album for one of his other bands), Iranian transplants Yellow Dogs, and the psychedelic sounds of Mirror Mirror.

A few more picks, day by day, are below.

THURSDAY, MAY 19

It should be a fun night at Union Pool with neo baggy kids McDonalds, volatile and soul-bearing Wild Yaks, and The Surprisers.

continued below...

Continue reading "Amor de Días, not Popfest, BNLX, Cymbals Eat Guitars, album & book tribute shows, Cheeseburger, Beige & more in This Week in Indie "

by Klaus Kinski

"...Part of the reason is that the EP has a lot of guest musicians from various bands we like (The National, Shudder To Think, St.Vincent, Pattern Is Movement, Physics of Meaning, and Dirty Projectors to be specific). I only sing half the songs actually. The rest is done by singers from those bands." - Alex from The Forms

The Forms @ Market Hotel in 2008 (more by Leia Jospe)

Of the millions of bands one could take a fancy to in their lifetime, it's kind of a weird phenomenon to consider a band consisting of your friends as one of your absolute favorites. Sure, we'll always support our friends' bands with kind words and by showing up at gigs, but to say "I like my buddy's band as much as I like [insert other favorite band here]" and actually mean it? Well, in the case of me and The Forms, truer words have never been spoken.

Anyone familiar with a Klaus post knows that I like to talk about myself. Let me keep that tradition alive. The Forms and I go way back. The guitar player and the bass player of a band I was in starting in 2001 both went to high school with Forms mainstays Matt and Alex (in high school they had a band called The Heathers). The guitar player for my band was doing double-duty as the Forms bass player (at the time they were a 3-piece outfit) and can be heard tearing up the-guitar-that-hath-but-4-strings on The Forms' critically acclaimed first album Icarus. At the time, Alex was living with the a fore mentioned bass and guitar players, but when Alex left that living situation I took over his room. At some point during that period, Matt (of the Forms) and I had a project called The False Gods wherein Matt wrote all the music and I did my best to keep up with it on the drums. We had maybe one gig and it was at the Charleston back when the Charleston was run by an old guy and his son and the basement was used to store things. That project didn't last long and the guitar player for my main band left the Forms to focus on our project. The Forms from that point on went through many line up changes going from a three piece to a four piece, to another four piece, and then down to what is now a two piece. Because of the time they take to record records, the various side projects, and the sparse gigging tendencies, someone somewhere along the line referred to them as glacier rock which I always found quite fitting.

What does the future bring? Well, they are getting ready to release a new guest-filled EP and they have a NYC gig happening very soon. It takes place Monday, August 16th at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. The show is being billed as The Onion / AV Club Present, and tickets are only 10 bucks. It's been a while since any Forms news has surfaced, so I recently asked Alex 5 questions to get us all up to speed:

Continue reading "Klaus Kinski interviews his friends The Forms (who are playing a show, releasing a guest-filled EP) "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Travis Morrison - As We Proceed (MP3)

DC: Can you tell us a bit more about the next album with the Hellfighters? You've gotten me all excited!

Travis Morrison: The new one is crazy. It's like, all this ambitious two-guitar art-punk stuff combined with polyrythmic stuff, like Television crossed with Tito Puente or something... and the lyrics I love so far, it's all about money and class.
-[Washingtonian interview, 2008]

Travis Morrison Hellfighters are in the midst of a pair of Washington DC/Brooklyn dates that visit the two cities Morrison splits time between, according to the Washingtonian interview quoted above.

The first show, the band's "first in ten months," took place March 14th at DC's Black Cat with Poor But Sexy, a five-piece that includes Hellfighters David Brown and Brandon Kalber and ex-Dismemberment-Plan guitarist and All Y'All producer Jason Caddell.

The second will happen this Saturday, March 21st at the Bell House in Brooklyn, an early show (8pm) with openers Palomar and Limbs. (Tickets are on sale.)

Morrison describes work on a new album above, which might include new song "Henrietta," up on the band's Myspace with other new song "Cruisin' All Night Long." It would be his first since 2007's All Y'All (streaming at Barsuk).

Live videos for All Y'All's "You Make Me Feel Like a Freak" and new song "Henrietta," below...

Continue reading "Travis Morrrison Hellfighters - a Brooklyn show & other news "

DOWNLOAD: Travis Morrison - As We Proceed (MP3)

Travis Morrison - famous for fronting The Dismemberment Plan, and for that infamous zero he got on Pitchfork - is in town. He plays The Knitting Factory with Georgie James (famous for containing a member of Q and not U) and Aqueduct tonight (Nov 15, 2007), and then Union Hall in Brooklyn tomorrow. All tour dates, and new album info, below....

Continue reading "Travis Morrison - 2007 Tour Dates (tonight) + album stream"

Dirty Projectors in London, October 2007 (CRED)

Currently busy on tour in Europe until the end of November, Dirty Projectors will play a headlining show at Bowery Ballroom in NYC on December 4th (tix on sale Wednesday). Yeasayer recently said an interview,

One of the best shows we’ve ever played was with Dirty Projectors, Spank Rock, and Ponytail all on the same bill. That kind of diversity is ideal. [Drowned in Sound]

No openers announced for the Bowery show yet. Travis Morrison recently said,

I saw a show of a band called the Dirty Projectors at the Black Cat, I was screaming like a girl they were so good. Oh my god! I was actually starting to worry about my relationship with rock and roll, nothing was really like... I mean there were things I would appreciate and enjoy listening to, but I hadn’t been obsessed with rock music for a while. And I kind of got a band crush, I kind of flipped out about this band. [DCist]

That was pretty much how I acted last time I saw them too. Get three new live tracks for free at Daytrotter. All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Dirty Projectors playing Bowery -- 2007 Tour Dates"