photos by Chloe Rice, words by Bill Pearis

Tonight (10/9) at Silent Barn is also your last chance (for now) to see Lafayette, Indiana's TV Ghost, who played a NYC show last night, and one last week with Veedee and Pissed Jeans at the WFMU Fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Pictures from that latter are below.

They're on In The Red, so you know there's gonna be some element of garage rock in there, but they've got a Birthday Party paranoid thing going in there that is the perfect soundtrack to your next nervous breakdown. And Halloween's coming up. Consider them for your party mix. Tonight's Silent Barn show also has Wizzard Sleeve, FNU Ronnies, and Unholy 2.

All dates, a video and MHOW pictures below....

Continue reading "TV Ghost - WFMU Fest pics, Silent Barn tonight, other dates "

photos by Lori Baily

LA Record (via): When Teenage Jesus and the Jerks played in New York City last year, it was always set up as a one-shot deal. Yet here we are.

Lydia Lunch (vocals/guitar): I never thought I would have done reunions--it's ridiculous to me. It's Thurston Moore that's to be blamed with his no wave book that he put out last year. A few months before it was coming out he was actually in Barcelona on my couch and he turned to me and said, 'Well, what about a Teenage Jesus reunion?' I said, 'What about the fact that they're all dead except for Sclavunos? Are you ready to take the wrath of the wire coat hanger and play bass?' And he jumped up and down and said, 'Yes!' So that's how Teenage Jesus got together in the beginning. He decided he'd go under the coat hanger so we did the New York show and then we developed All Tomorrow's Parties. I guess the final nail in the coffin for the next couple of shows was based in the fact that in Montreal there's something called a Pop Symposium--they invited me last year with my multimedia thing and then they got the snifter of Teenage Jesus and they were so kind and I said, 'Well, I'm not going all the way to the States for one fucking show--I don't even want to come there for five shows!' Also the fact that I knew Thurston couldn't do it and so my favorite bass player in the world must be Algis Kizys from the Swans and he's doing it. This is what you get in L.A.--Jim Sclavunos, the original bass player, now on drums and Algis Kizys from Swans on bass--how could I say no? Mostly to me, it's kind of ridiculous. It's absurdist and I've always been absurd anyway. I've always considered myself a Dadaist and it's the most Dada fucking music, and it must be the most Dada idea that 30 years later we're doing this. One of the reasons is there is still not enough women playing ugly fucking music as a counter to all these pop princesses.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks returned over the weekend to headline the third and final night of the WFMU Festival at Music Hall of Williamsburg (10/3). Drunkdriver, Sightings, and Talk Normal were also on the bill.

One night later Lydia Lunch joined JG Thirwell and a bunch of pop princesses for a benefit show at Carnegie Hall.

One night earlier (Friday), Pissed Jeans headlined WFMU Fest. Faust were the night before that (Thursday). More pictures from Saturday, below...

Continue reading "Teenage Jesus & The Jerks played (ugly music at) the WFMU Fest @ MHOW (blame Thurston Moore) - pics"

photos by Greg Cristman, words by Black Bubblegum

Village Voice: So who is this band Faust? I don't think I've ever read about them on Stereogum.

WFMU Music Director Brian Turner: Oh wow....well...

I'm just kidding.

Oh (Laughs.) I'm sorry...

But how did you get them? They don't really tour the States that often.

I think they had been wanting to come over for years, but it's fairly involved with them doing a big tour, they drag a lot of stuff around with them, apparently. I think on their last tour they had a sheep as well as tons of heavy industrial stuff.

A sheep?

Yeah, I think they had a sheep on their last tour that they'd bring out as this symbolic thing of peace.

Oh. What did they do with the sheep?

I didn't see those shows, I'm not quite sure. I think it just wandered around or something. I know they had a sheep every night. But they would also go down to railroad tracks and get a lot of broken glass and debris and industrial stuff and bring it in.

No sheep this time, but Krautrockers Faust still made a go of it as headliners of the first night of WFMU Fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Support for the evening came from Aluk Todolo (who also played Union Pool on 10/4) and the new Wesley Eisold (XO Skeletons, Give Up The Ghost, Some Girls) project Cold Cave.

Cold Cave recently released Cremations on Hospital Productions, as well as Love Comes Close on Eisold's Heartworm Press. The latter is being re-released by Matador in November. The band is prepping to tour the UK in the tail end of October, but will be back in NYC with Sonic Youth at Terminal 5 on Nov 21. That show is sold out.

Cold Cave member Dominick Fernow, recently released the new Prurient, Rose Pillar via Heartworm. Fernow also runs Hospital Productions.

Faust are still touring the US, concluding with dates in Athens, Ga this weekend. Before Brooklyn they played a show and a workshop in Philly. After Brooklyn they headed north for Pop Montreal.

The rest of the pictures, and tour dates for Cold Cave and Faust, below...

Continue reading "Faust & Cold Cave @ the WFMU Fest @ MHOW, Brooklyn -pics"

Talk Normal photos by Lori Baily

Thurston "goes acoustic" @ United Palace Theater in July (more by Bao Nguyen)

Sonic Youth will follow up their currently-sold-out November 21st Terminal 5 show (with Dinosaur Jr. and Cold Cave) with a pair of shows at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg on Tuesday, November 24th and Wed, Nov. 25th. Talk Normal opens the 24th, while Jemina Pearl opens the second night. Tickets go on "artist presale" Thursday, October 8th at noon (Password: ETERNAL). General sale starts Friday, October 9th at noon. The band writes: "Tickets will be available with no service charge at the Mercury Lounge box office."

The band pairs those NYC shows with with two gigs at Boston's Wilbur Theatre on November 22 (with the Feelies, who play NYC the night before) and Nov. 23rd (with Meat Puppets and Cold Cave).

Jemina Pearl wraps her upcoming tour with Islands at Bowery Ballroom on November 5th. Talk Normal has two other NYC shows coming: on October 27th they play a record release party for their Sugarland LP, out the same day on Rare Book Room Records, at Cake Shop with Pterodactyl and Antimagic, and on October 30th show at Death by Audio with Teeth Mountain.

On October 3rd, Talk Normal opened the final night of the WFMU Fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg (the night Lydia Lunch's Teenage Jesus and the Jerks headlined, but not with Thurston Moore as a member of the band this time).

Texture Magazine: You've been continually (and I'd say accurately) compared to artists from the original No Wave era such as Lydia Lunch and DNA. Is that something that you aspired towards, or did it surprise you when you first heard the comparisons?

Talk Normal's SR: It wasn't an aspiration, per se, but the minimalism (at times equalizing maximalism) and fierceness, among other things, appealed to both of us. Broken down structures, broken sounds, different forms, making noises naturally yet seemingly 'inappropriate' to the source... Initially we aspired to be a take on a broken-down blues band, a la Geeshie Wiley/Jessie Mae Hemphill. Simple is always interesting, though not always the end result, and also (as it would) the 'idea' is always evolving. Too hypocritical to stay still or try to be only one thing. Of course there are many potential influences.

Pictures from Talk Normal's WFMU opening set are below.

Also related to Sonic Youth, L.A. Times reports that Thurston is getting deeper into the book business...

[October 3rd], Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore announced the upcoming launch of Ecstatic Peace Library, a boutique publisher of art books to debut in 2010. Catalogs of the initial releases...will be available from the publisher's website on Jan. 1. The publisher intends to release the art books in tandem with recordings from the artist-authors, slated to include Raymond Pettibon, Dave Markey and Kim Gordon, his wife and band-mate.

All tour dates and those Talk Normal pictures, posted below...

Continue reading "Sonic Youth add 2 MHOW shows - 1 w/ Jemina Pearl, 1 w/ Talk Normal who played WFMU Fest - pics & tour dates"

photos by Chloe Rice

"The Pissed Jeans live experience in a word? Sexy. Undeniably sexy, almost erotic. Singer Matt Korvette does everything that we--ladies, the world--are not meant to find attractive: rubbing his sweaty chest, awkwardly dancing, gyrating his hips, eating his foot, doing high kicks, wearing Cheap Mondays--but it works. These are all things I knew before but seeing it, and his crotch, in your face reaffirms them. His onstage swagger, for that it is what it is because he must know the effect he has, stands in stark contrast to the stunted machismo that happens in the pit during most of their shows. This time, a shirtless young man stage dived only to meet nothing but empty floor as the band continued to thrash and hash out its thoughts on the banal minutiae of everyday life. Guitarist Bradley Fry and bassist Randy Huth pushed the group's brand of undulating, harried, and sludgy hardcore forward while Korvette interjected with humorous tales of ennui ("Half Jesii Part 2") and the nine-to-five world ("Dream Smotherer.") Drummer Sean McGuinness yakked all over the stage. Sorry man, but that's all I can say about you. They stormed through songs from their excellent new album, King of Jeans, and indulged in their own mix of fleshy, visceral raunch. Korvette came onstage, asked the crowd if there were any pregnant women in the audience, and then proclaimed that they might be his, followed by a few swishes of his hips. After that show, there probably were." [FADER]

Pissed Jeans headlined the second night of the three-night WFMU Fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg over the weekend. Their next NYC show is later this month when they appear at Mercury Lounge for the official Sub Pop CMJ showcase. More pictures from MHOW below...

Continue reading "Pissed Jeans played WFMU Fest (pics), playing CMJ"

words by Black Bubblegum, photos by Greg Cristman

Aluk Todolo (mems-Diamatregon) played night one (10/1) of the WFMU fest at Music Hall of Williamsburg, supporting the legendary Faust and the blown-out darkwave-y synthpop of Cold Cave. The French band, which plays an interesting hybrid of black metal, noise, and krautrock rhythms, is in the midst of an east coast tour of the US in support of their latest LP Finsternis, and are playing Lit Lounge TONIGHT (10/3) with The Psychic Paramount. Their final show of that tour is on 10/4 (Sunday) at the Brooklyn Vegan sponsored show at Union Pool featuring Woe, Malkuth, and Castevet. The Brooklyn show starts at 8:30 and entry is just $8.

On Monday, Faust lead a workshop in Philadelphia.
More pictures from MHOW below...

Continue reading "Aluk Todolo played MHOW (pics), continue NYC run (dates)"

photos by Greg Cristman

"What do you get when you take one very influential German band, about 60 people, three amps, half a drum set, two Fender guitars, a small accordion, an upright vacuum, a ukulele, trumpets, trombones, a full size synthesizer, tambourines and chairs? It's not the easiest thing to put your finger on, but the Faust workshop [the other] night at the International House wasn't your average musical performance" [Phrequency]

Faust performed twice in Philly this week. The second show was a standard performance, like what they did last night at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The first was one of their workshops. That's where the set of pictures in this post were taken. Pics from the Brooklyn show are coming soon. All Faust dates HERE.

The Brooklyn show was also the first night of the three-day WFMU festival that continues tonight (10/2) with Pissed Jeans, TV Ghost, VeeDee, and Guinea Worms. Saturday is Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sightings, Drunkdriver, and Talk Normal.

More pictures from the Philly workshop below...

Continue reading "Faust played Brooklyn & Philly (pics) -- WFMU Fest continues "

All three WFMU Fest shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg are now on sale.

Tickets for the 9/11 Jay-Z show at MSG go on Citi Presale at 9:00 AM on Tuesday 9/8.

Tickets are on sale for the Times New Viking show happening at Mercury Lounge.

Tickets to all the Kiss shows are on sale.

Tickets are on sale for the Fuck Buttons / Growing show happening at Bowery Ballroom.

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks @ KF in 2008 (more by Lori Baily)

WFMU will be putting on a three-day Brooklyn festival at the Music Hall of Williamsburg from October 1st-3rd. Its Thursday and Saturday night bills will be headlined by two classic acts, German krautrock-ers Faust and NYC No Wave punks Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, respectively, while Friday night will feature Philly's Pissed Jeans (who have a new record out) in the top spot.

TJ & the Jerks last reunited in 2008 for a night at the Knitting Factory where Thurston Moore played bass. And like Faust, they're also playing Pop Montreal around the same time.

Tickets for all three WFMU days go on sale Thursday, September 3rd at noon. Pissed Jeans is only $12 advanced. The other two are $20 each.

The station writes, "These shows will not be broadcast over the air/net." Full lineup and poster below...

Continue reading "WFMU Fest @ MHOW - 3 days of shows w/ Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Pissed Jeans, Faust & more (Oct 1-3, 2009) "

"Formed 1969 in Hamburg, Germany and considered the inventors of "Kraut Rock", iconoclasts extraordinaire Faust are key figures in 20th Century music. In the early 70's, along with Can and Kraftwerk, they re-invented pop music as a specifically European art-form. In their own studio they were able to revolutionize the whole process of musical production; they improvised with industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in shockingly willful studio-based collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre, sometimes simultaneously. Every now and then they found time for a burst of satirical pop or waves of delicate ambience. Amongst those Faust have strongly influenced we must count Brian Eno, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Test Department, Neubauten, My Bloody Valentine, Julian Cope, Sonic Youth and a host of Industrial and Techno bands. The music has lost none of its immediacy or relevance--it sounds as if it was recorded last week, not last decade.

The touring members of this 2009 US Faust tour are original members Jean-Herve Peron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, along with James Johnston (Gallon Drunk, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and visual/video artist, painter, and musician Geraldine Swayne.

Faust kicks off that 2009 US tour on September 25th at The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina at a co-headlining show with Sunn O))). From there they tour through October 11th while hitting Pop Montreal (10/3) and Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn (10/1) along the way.

The Brooklyn show is one of three WFMU Festival days happening at the same venue. Also on the October 1st bill is Cold Cave (more on them later) and Aluk Todolo (more on them later too). Tickets go on sale Thursday, September 3rd at noon. All Faust dates and a video below...

Continue reading "Faust - 2009 tour dates (MHOW, Philly, Pop Montreal, more)"