Fischerspooner @ MoMA in November (more by Ryan Muir)

Fischerspooner will be playing a live show at Irving Plaza in NYC on New Year's Eve. Tickets are on sale. They also have a pair of DJ dates scheduled in Europe.

Speaking of New Year's Eve, shows for the night are coming together. Some NYC NYE events we've mentioned before include Patti Smith's multi-night run at Bowery Ballroom (sold out), Dean & Britta then The Felice Brothers at Southpaw, Antibalas at Knitting Factory, The Obits & Eli "Paperboy" Reed at The Bell House, Roky Erikson at Maxwell's, Clutch at Starland Ballroom, and The Detroit Cobras & The A-Bones then Titus Andronicus at Mercury Lounge.

Some we haven't mentioned include Lee Burridge at Santos Party House (tickets), Trouble & Bass at Europa (flyer below), Alice Smith at Joe's Pub (tickets), and Chuck Berry (who replaced the Dan Band) at BB King's (tickets - early and late). Tons of jam-friendly options this year: Soulive at Music Hall of Williamsburg, The Word at Terminal 5, Gov't Mule at the Beacon, The Disco Biscuits at Nokia Theatre, and most importantly, Mariah Carey at Madison Square Garden.

Phish have a four-night run in Miami.

For other out of town shows, The Black Keys and Kurt Vile play Chicago, where Jesus Lizard are also doing multiple nights and Jens Lekman is at the Empty Bottle (for three nights in a row actually). Girl Talk also plays Chicago that night- a sold out show at The Congress Theater. Crystal Castles are at Logan Square Auditorium. (Chicago wins)

Guns n Roses cover band Mr. Brownstone are playing Boston.

Pink Floyd cover band The Flaming Lips will be in Oklahama City's Cox Center, where they'll perform Dark Side of the Moon in full at midnight. They'll be assisted by OK's Stardeath and White Dwarfs. Flaming Lips are also reportedly planning an iTunes-only release of their own version of the album.

What else?

The Flaming Lips flyer, other flyers, and all Fischerspooner tour dates, below...

Continue reading "New Year's Eve options in NYC include Fischerspooner ++ Flaming Lips performing 'Dark Side of the Moon' in Oklahoma "

Esser & Datarock on stage together (rugbarn)

Hopefully you made it out Thursday & Friday. I did not, so we're heading right into what's happening this weekend:

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (part 2)"

School of Seven Bells @ South Street Seaport Friday (more by Chris La Putt)

Somehow I didn't go out last week, except for Pilooski and Friendly Fires on Tuesday & Wednesday which I already told you about. Plenty of other dance events went on though...the School of Seven Bells show at the Seaport (above), the DFA Boat Party, Flashing Lights, and Girls & Boys. Now, on to this week:

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (part 1) "

Passion Pit (more by Tim Griffin)

Not quite on the scale of their last NYC music event (that I know about), but Diesel Jeans's U:Music tour will visit NYC for a show at Webster Hall on Thursday, July 30th. The lineup for that includes The Roots (with a special guest), Drake, Cobra Starship (huh?), Passion Pit, Theophilus London, and contest winners (two bands won a contest to get on the bill) The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! (as seen HERE and HERE) and Heartsrevolution. "To get in, one has to appear at the store's participating NYC locations wearing a pair of Diesel jeans, though tickets are limited."

All Diesel fans will have a chance to witness this private event with a limited amount of invitations to be given away at participating Diesel stores. One must show up to participating stores in a pair of Diesel jeans to qualify...

Continue reading "Diesel throwing shows @ Webster Hall (Passion Pit, Roots, more), in their store & in their store window..."

DOWNLOAD: Trouble & Bass - Scion CD Promo Mix (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: AC Slater - Calm Down (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Drop The Lime - Tabac Theme (MP3)

While I haven't made it out to anything happening this week so far, I finished out last week by heading to Terminal 5 to see Fatboy Slim Wednesday night. I arrived a little after 8:30 and Terminal 5 was not full by any means...there was a decent amount of people there, but still plenty of room to walk around. Numbers had only slightly increased by the time Shinichi Osawa began his set at 9. He deejayed just over an hour and the time flew by. It was an hour of recent electro (Soulwax, Bloody Beetroots, Tiga...) that I've heard tons of times before...but Shinichi made it sound brand new. He teased the crowd to death with tracks that were to come, manipulated everything, messed with the levels, cut back and forth, sampled, looped...he did it all. The tracks he chose were all on the heavier side, but what he did to them really broke things up and kept the set from getting monotonous. The entire time you could tell Shinichi was glad to be up there...fist-pumping, smiling, raising his arms. By the time he was done, he had the crowd (which had since filled in) in an absolute frenzy...

...a frenzy which continued as "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory played against a projection of a clock whose hands kept changing time. After a few minutes it was the witching hour and the smiley Brit that is Fatboy Slim was back behind the decks, happy as ever. His intro was some slow verses from "Praise You" before launching into a nearly two hour set that went all over the place. It included decent amounts of some older dance tracks, newer stuff (Nadastrom's "Pussy", Fake Blood's "Blood Splashing", a "sample" from Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip's "Thou Shalt Always Kill" repeating "Fatboy Slim, just a band. BPA, just a band."), some of Fatboy's own tracks (Love Island, Right Here Right Now, Fucking In Heaven, Star 69, Renegade Master, Praise You), and some random fun stuff (Gorllaz - "Feel Good Inc." , DJ Kool - "Let Me Clear My Throat", House of Pain " - "Jump Around"). The entire time the screen, which originally showed the clock prior to Fatboy taking the stage, was always changing...from singing mouths, to eyeballs, to a blowfish, to Christopher Walken to a visual of Iggy Pop singing the BPA's "He's Frank" (many figured Iggy might actually perform at the show since he was in town)...the visuals were as varied as the music...though my favorite was when live projections of a very happy, dancing, smiling Norman Cook and reciprocating crowd (that was going apeshit the entire time) were displayed.

While it was not my favorite of the three Fatboy Slim deejay sets I have witnessed (and I'm still not entirely sure why), it was still a good one. It's great to see someone who has been involved with music and deejaying for a number of years, still enthusiastic and smiling about it and able to get an equally glowing reaction from those experiencing it.

Hopefully this weekend you will be able to find someone who makes you happy on the dancefloor. Here's what's happening starting with Satuday (6/27):

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (part 2)"

DOWNLOAD: 2020 Soundsystem vs. The Glass - Won't Bother Me (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Silver City - Shiver (2020 Soundsystem live version) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: AC Slater - Rock It Out (MP3)

Classixx @ the Studio @ Webster Hall - March 10, 2009 (CRED)

I was out of town last weekend and unfortunately missed all the awesome acts that came through New York. I managed to make it out Tuesday night for the Scion party, but was feeling tired and not too into it. You already know how I feel about Hearts Revolution and nothing about their performance on Tuesday changed that. I caught some of Classixx's set before I left, which started off with some mellow, almost loungey disco before quickly working up to some very danceable tracks from the likes of Holy Ghost, Mylo, Sebastien Tellier, Ce Ce Peniston, and Alan Braxe & Fred Falke. Tuesday night helped take the edge off, but I am really, really looking forward to a lot that's happening this weekend. Friday night (3/13) there is way too much good stuff going on.

Starting early in the evening (9pm) Four Tet & Jon Hopkins along with Mapei will be performing at One Step Beyond at the Musuem of Natural History:

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (Calvin Harris & more)"

DOWNLOAD: Little Boots - Meddle (AC Slater & DJ Skeet Skeet remix feat. Goldielocks) (MP3)

Matthew Herbert @ Studio B - February 7, 2009

Last week in dance wound up being a lot of fun. Friday night I went to see Little Boots at Studio B. I arrived sometime around midnight and was shocked at how packed the floor was by the time she went on around 1:15. Despite her set being good, especially her cover of Giorgio Moroder's "Love Kills", and including everything I expected after seeing her at CMJ, overall I wasn't as engaged by her performance this time around. It was just me though. Everyone in the place was bugging out and there really wasn't any good reason not to. As brief as her set was, the late start (she was originally scheduled to perform at 12) derailed the entire rest of the night and I ended up missing both One Man Party and Danger at Webster Hall. A friend there texted me highlights of One Man Party's set which read like a more intensely awesome mix of the Soulwax/2ManyDJ's remixes and current electro that he played at Webster last month. As great as it sounded, the regret really hit when I watched the following video of the beginning of Danger's set which started with "Ave Maria" and went into a great live version of "9h20":

Continue reading "the week in Dance w/ Showtrotta (Streetlab, Matthew Herbert, Justice, One Step Beyond, DJ Sneak, more...)"

DOWNLOAD: Trus'me on Beats In Space June 17, 2008 (MP3)

the crowd @ Studio B - January 10, 2009 (CRED)

What started out as a half-full Studio B on a snowy Saturday night (1/10) had turned into a full-out dance party by the time I left. The dubby, experimental band, Lemonade got the crowd warmed up with an energetic live set around midnight. I enjoyed this performance more than their show at the Annex, but they are still a little more mellow & dubby than what I would listen to regularly.

In any case, by the time Lemonade's set was over, the crowd which had been attentively bobbing their heads and working up to various levels of dancing began getting down to Holy Ghost's set nearly instantly. They were ready to dance - the crowd took the attention they had fixated on Lemonade and literally pivoted ninety degrees, faced the dj booth and just started going at it on the dancefloor. In a time when some people still cringe at the mention of disco, it was really great to see such a warm response to some markedly great examples of the sound (both new and old) from Holy Ghost.

Holy Ghost @ Studio B - January 10, 2009 (CRED)

I could see what my only complaint about the entire evening would be when Maggie Horn crept up on the platform in front of the deejay booth about 45 minutes into Holy Ghost's set - we were only going to get 1 HOUR OF DISCO! It was just cruel...Holy Ghost had such a good groove going, I literally was close to weeping when they stopped. There should be a 2 hour disco minimum!

Disco rant aside, the new Curses! track featuring Maggie Horn was pretty tight and I appreciated it. Following that, some of the Trouble & Bass crew (including the Captain, Drop the Lime, and Star Eyes) traded off on the decks, but I couldn't make the shift from sweet, sweaty disco to heavy bass so I called it an early night while the still mostly full floor danced on.

Maggie Horn and Curses! @ Studio B - January 10, 2009 (CRED)

This week the slight beginning of the new year dance lull has subsided and we're back to the usual monstrous amount of dancing to be done. Here are some options for where to get down on Friday, with a post of events for Saturday through next week on its way:

Continue reading "the Friday night in Dance w/ Showtrotta"

DOWNLOAD: Diana Krall - What Are You Doing New Years Eve (MP3)

Rude Bear @ a Muggabears show (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

• Grandmaster Mele Mel, Mickey Factz, Ninjasonik, Trouble & Bass, and more @ Studio B
• The World Famous Pontani Sisters @ The Bell House
• RUDE year's eve HEARTSREVOLUTION (Live+DJ set) plus Nick Catchdubs / Bubblyfish / RUDE (DJ set) / hosted by RUDE BEAR @ Glasslands Gallery
• Surprise Me Mr Davis (members of The Slip) and The Benevento/Russo Duo (late show) @ BB King's
• Famous Friends & Palms Out Sounds Present NYE 2008! featuring Kill The Noise / AC Slater / The American Dream Team / Udachi / Bradley D & VDRK / Hosted by Chaz & Jason Pants of Palms Out Sounds @ Europa
• EVERYTHING ELSE