Dan Deacon @ FYF Fest 2011 (more by Nathanael Turner)

Jeffrey Lewis, Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, and Emperor X play a show that starts at 8pm at Maxwell's in Hoboken tonight (9/21). Dan Deacon then takes over the club for a late Wednesday night show that starts at 11pm. It's a one-off for Dan who will hit the road proper in late October, playing both solo and Wham City comedy shows through 11/19, and then again for a few days at the beginning of December.

The "Wham City Comedy Tour 2011" hits 285 Kent in Brooklyn on 11/18, right before the tour ends back in Baltimore. What is the Wham City Comedy Tour? Well, "Their two-hour bat-shit variety show covers experimental theater, performance art, video, and stand-up." You might have caught it when it came to NYC in 2010. Video trailer (and dates) below.

Last week Dan reissued some stuff...

Deacon dug into the vaults and reissued two of his early LPs, Meetle Mice and Silly Hat Vs. Eagle Hat, on double LP via Carpark Records on Sept. 13. Also, limited cassette versions of Meetle, Silly as well as Spiderman of the Rings and Bromst will be issued and made available at shows and on the Carpark online shop. In October, Carpark will also reissue Spiderman of the Rings on LP

All dates are listed below...

Continue reading "Dan Deacon is here, announces fall solo & comedy tours"

The show is a broad hybrid of things, over 20 acts of stand-up, skits, music, and a very broad "other."

A sampling:

Kizer, playing the archetypal patient, but being asked to peer into his doctor's very, very exposed asshole.

Avant-garde musician/David Bowie impersonator/internet talk show host Ed Schrader singing a busted-up song about "kids jail" involving kids meeting various forms of execution.

Dan Deacon reworking the audio from a particularly choice segment of The Wizard of Oz backed by a building, anxious bassline to an effect as sinister as it is funny.

Performance artistist/ventriloquist April Camlin having a few very heavy existential moments: "What happens to me when we die?" asks her dummy.

Truth be told, the Wham City comedy tour is full of a ton of bleak, cutting stuff. Maybe that's another misconception about the group: that it's full of cartoon people that live cartoon lives. Watching nearly all of them do comedy, you can't shake the feeling that, funny or not, the collective's stacked with some seriously cynical people.

That description of the Wham City City Comedy Tour comes from a SPIN review of the Baltimore show. The tour ends in NYC at Showpaper 42nd Street Gallery tonight (11/20). Todd P's full listing for the show, below...

Continue reading "Wham City Comedy Tour w/ Dan Deacon ends in NYC tonight"

DOWNLOAD: Lightning Bolt - "Colossus" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dan Deacon - "Get Older" (MP3)

Lightning Bolt at Brooklyn Bowl (more by Leia Jospe)

Lightning Bolt and the Dan Deacon Ensemble will play a string of dates together that kick off in Lexington, Kentucky, and end a week later, 10/15, at Ridgewood Masonic Temple.

Friday October 15th @ RIDGEWOOD MASONIC TEMPLE

:: LIGHTNING BOLT
:::: DAN DEACON ENSEMBLE

| RIDGEWOOD MASONIC TEMPLE ]
1054 Bushwick Ave @ Gates Ave | Bushwick, Brooklyn
J,Z-Gates Ave, L,M-Myrtle/Wyckoff | 8pm | all ages | $tba

ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE WED 9/1 5PM
@ DESERT ISLAND BOOKS
540 METROPOLITAN AVE | 718.388.5087
MON-SAT NOON-9PM, SUN NOON-7PM

In between and before those dates both Dan Deacon (NOT Ensemble) and Lightning Bolt have scheduled solo outings, with DD also scheduled to appear at the Incubate Festival in Tilburg, NL AND Moogfest in Asheville NC over Halloween weekend. The stacked lineup at Moogfest will feature Big Boi (who plays NYC next week), El-P, Girl Talk, Devo, Jonsi, Massive Attack, MGMT, Panda Bear, RJD2 (who just played Webster), and many others over its three days. Tickets are on sale.

Lightning Bolt bassist Brian recently played NYC with Megasus at Acheron, and before that LB played Brooklyn Bowl instead of Williamsburg Waterfront.

All Lightning Bolt and Dan Deacon/Ensemble dates, as well as few videos that include New Dan Deacon songs played live at Whartscape and a short documentary piece on Deacon/Wham City/Baltimore, below...

Continue reading "Dan Deacon Ensemble touring w/ Lightning Bolt (dates) "

"For 4 years now Wham City has been organizing the WHARTSCAPE. What started as a summer warehouse party turned into a much bigger, multi-day outdoor festival with thousands of bands, performers, and folks traveling to Baltimore from all across the US and Europe.
Since, we organize this festival out of pocket and in our spare time, it is important for us to keep it comfortable and enjoyable for us to do. One thing we talked about at the end of last year's festival was shrinking it down slightly and having it feel more community based and familiar.

This year isn't focused around headliners, but mainly performers and friends that make up the community we tour, work and live in.
We are also greatly reducing the number of MEGA-PASSES (the 3 day pass ticket that grants you entry to every show and every day).
ONLY 300 Mega-Passes will be sold; this is the only guarantee that you can see all the shows.

Tickets will be sold to the individual shows, but it is strongly suggested that you buy a Mega-Pass, as it saves you money and assures you take in the entire poo-poo.
Whartscape will take place July 10-11-12 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art Studio Center Parking Lot, and Load of Fun.
We will begin selling tickets at 12 Noon, Monday, June 29th.

More info and full, 140 band lineup below...

Continue reading "Whartscape - 2009 Wham City festival dates & lineup "

Dan Deacon @ Bumbershoot 2008 (more by Chris Graham)

Both nights of the Baltimore Round Robin tour at (le) poisson rouge in NYC are sold out, so they added two more shows. Those who have tickets already now have tickets to the early show. Those who buy tickets now will go to the late one. Note that each night has a different lineup of artists. The times for each night will be as follows:

Continue reading "Baltimore Round Robin adds 2 more NYC (late) shows"

by BrooklynVegan Mike

DOWNLOAD: Adventure - Battle Cat (MP3)

Like FirestARTer before them, Crystal Castles and Adventure are 8-bit artists that don't rely on kitsch and nostalgia to buoy the songs. They are reframing the perception of the sounds used and putting emotion in, whether that be anarchism or affection. Adventure's music is certainly the latter, with pulsing dance beats wrapped up in NES and Genesis sounds.

Adventure is Benny Boeldt, a North Carolina native who relocated to Baltimore and hooked up with the Wham City crew including Dan Deacon who he'll be playing in round robin style with on a tour that includes Pop Montreal on October 5th and a show at (le) poisson rouge in NYC on October 18th. Adventure crafts pops songs on a grand scale. There is an epic quality that consistently builds through every song. To use an obvious video game analogy, every song sounds like a boss stage.

Adventure's self-titled album was released this week on Carpark and Benny is on a tour that his him playing four NYC-area shows this week including one tonight (Sept 25) at Crash Mansion. Album cover and tracklist, and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "Adventure - new album, 2008 Tour Dates (NYC now & later)"

photos by Bao Nguyen

DOWNLOAD: Adventure - Battle Cat (MP3)

Ponytail

Bao spent all day Saturday (July 19) running from Siren stage to Siren stage taking pictures and watching bands. In a heat wave. He didn't really feel like going to Whartscape in Baltimore the very next day (July 20), but he did (just a little late).

At a minimum he was hoping to report back on the very first performance of Who Is The Tunafish Man? (aka the Dan Deacon, Girl Talk & Spank Rock supergroup). Unfortunately, lack of permits and cops stopped that from happening, AND Black Dice didn't get to play because of rain. White Williams, Adeventure, Dan Deacon, Trey Told Em, Grand Buffet, Double Dagger and many others played before Bao got there, which was in time to catch Ponytail and then Parts & Labor (the only band on Sunday's 14-hour Whartscape bill that were also at Siren the day before). On top of that, Bao forgot to charge his camera battery, it was hot again (especially at the late part inside that got busted), and the whole festival was eventually running almost 2 hours behind (not that it ultimately mattered). More on the timing, who played, and a few pics (he didn't take that many to save battery life for the headliners) below...

Continue reading "Cops & rain messed w/ Whartscape, Who Is The Tunafish Man? (Deacon + Girl Talk + Spankrock) didn't play, poor Bao"

DOWNLOAD: Matmos - Rainbow Flag (MP3)

In Baltimore. soon...

Continue reading "Whartscape 2008 lineup, Matmos included "

Continue reading "secret guest @ Wham City-related show @ Death By Audio"

photos by Leia Jospe

DOWNLOAD: Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat (MP3)

Dan Deacon played a free show for at least 250 people at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC last night (Feb 8, 2008). More of Leia's pictures below...

Continue reading "Dan Deacon @ The Whitney Museum, NYC - pics"

That Santa Dads picture up there was drawn by Wham City (Baltimore) artist Dina Kelberman. You see,....

Mostly now in their mid-20s, the members of Wham City came together at Purchase College, the arty wing of the State University of New York system, in the early part of the '00s......Dan Deacon and cartoonist Dina Kelberman had already met; Connor Kizer, a friendly, lanky goof who now beatboxes and sings for Santa Dads, lived just above Deacon in a Purchase dorm. While the crew would only really begin its incestuous collaborations once in Baltimore, Endres says it was already "making a shitload of noise for no reason in the middle of the afternoon," in communal houses and dorms across the Purchase campus. Shows were booked at house parties where rooms would end up wrapped in plastic or shit got set on fire. A lifestyle of noise and mess as art and play was developing..... [Baltimore City Paper]

...and now Wham City's Dan Deacon is kinda famous, he just finished a tour with Wham City's Jimmy Roche, and he is soon playing the Whitney Museum in NYC where you'll also be able to buy Wham City's Dina Kelberman's new art book "A Year for Me". AND, you'll also be able to see Dina's art on display in NYC at Cake Shop from February 1st (tonight) to March 1st, AND tonight (February 1st) is the opening reception....

featuring the likes of comedian Mason Ross, & conjoined twins of rock, The Creepers and Santa Dads! Upstairs early show 6pm - 9pm cuz i procrastinated! It's at Cake Shop! Also see that this mini-catalogue of the show will be available to buy! Oooh!

That's right, you can check out Wham City's own Santa Dads at Cake Shop tonight. Just don't expect a whole lot from them....

Continue reading "Wham City, Dina Kelberman, Santa Dads, Cake Shop, Whitney"