by BBG

DOWNLOAD: Imaad Wasif - "Our Skulls" (M4A)
DOWNLOAD: Imaad Wasif - "Priestess" (MP3)

Dead Meadow at ATP NY 2009 (more by Ryan Muir)

Dead Meadow will hit the road with Imaad Wasif for a string of dates that include Bowery Ballroom on 4/25 with Endless Boogie. Tickets are on sale. All dates below.

Imaad Wasif is also scheduled to play the Tee Pee showcase at SXSW, rockin' joints from his album The Voidist which impacted late last year. The album features appearances from Dale Crover of The Melvins (who have a tour coming up too), Chad Bamford (Weezer) and Greg Burns (Red Sparowes). A pair of tracks from that record are available above.

Wasif's other recent musical output included his stint as a member of "The Kids" in "Karen O and The Kids" from the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack. The DVD for that Academy-Award nominated film will be released on Tuesday (3/2). Special features on the DVD include "Series of "Where the Wild Things Are" shorts by Lance Bangs: The Absurd Difficulty of Filming a Dog Running and Barking at the Same Time, Crew Pranks Spike, Vampire Attack: The Max Records Short, and The Kids Take Over the Picture."

Dead Meadow's upcoming new release is also a film and soundtrack...

DEAD MEADOW's forthcoming THE THREE KINGS is a full-length, old-school concert movie with soundtrack. The film consists of live footage from a 2009 LA show intermingled with "vignettes that abstractly depict themes of corruption, destruction and rebirth".

That release hits stores on on March 23rd. Cover art, tracklist, video for "That Old Temple", and all dates, below...

Continue reading "Dead Meadow & Imaad Wasif - 2010 tour dates, new releases (albums & DVDs), videos & MP3s"

photos by Chris La Putt

Spike Jonze @ MoMA

Just got back from NYC. I made a special trip up to the Big Apple to check out "An Evening of Skate Videos" - an event held by Poprally in support of the Moma's exhibit honoring the work of Spike Jonze, co-owner of Girl Skateboards and director of "Video Days" (the epic Blind Skateboards video), and director of "Where the Wild Things Are." The panel included a who's who of the skateboarding world, they included Spike Jonze, Patrick O'Dell (MC for the evening), Mark Gonzales, Lance Mountain, Jake Phelps, Tobin Yelland, Ty Evans, Greg Hunt, and Ed Templeton. Some other notable's that showed up included Giovanni Reda, Steve Rodriguez, Steve Olson, Jason Dill, Mike O'Meally, and Pitcrew Local Tyler Tufty. It was a great night of some classic skate videos and a great chance to get some great comments by those that were involved with them. Following the event, the band No Age put on a kick-ass show while the Colt 45 flowed.

Good Times! [Eastern Imagery]

After playing LPR on Wednesday, Oct. 14th, No Age's next stop on their four-show NYC run last week was at MoMA, where the band appeared with Spike Jonze and friends. After the skate-video clips and well-attended panel, No Age played in the lobby. It was No Age's first of two consecutive museum shows, though the second, the band's performance at the New Museum on Friday, October 16th, wasn't a regular set, but a live score to the 1989 Jean-Jacques Annaud film The Bear.

No Age @ MoMA

Village Voice: Does it seem uncanny for you guys, within a week's span, to be playing at the MoMA and then at Todd P.'s venue, then at the New Museum?

Randy Randall from No Age: No, it's not strange at all. For us, it's something we've always wanted to do. We come from a world of Todd P. auto-part store shows, yet we've always been fans of going to museums and galleries as patrons. We've always played places like Death By Audio, a venue with totally fun energy in the room. But sometimes, the rooms are too small and not everyone can get in. So we have to play (le) Poisson Rouge, a place with a bar, where your feet won't get stepped on, and money is paid to security guards and whatnot. That's more strange to us. The museum events we're playing are going to be fun and we've been fortunate now to get booked in places like that. It's hard to book those yourselves.

More pictures from MoMA are below...

Continue reading "No Age played with 'The Bear' @ The New Museum, and w/ Spike Jonze & skaters @ a MoMa PopRally event (pics)"

by BBG

DOWNLOAD: Imaad Wasif - "Priestess" (MP3)

Imaad Wasif and Jack Lawrence, keepin' it gangsta

It's not just David Pajo. More than one artist has done time as a live member of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and much like Pajo, Imaad Wasif has also recorded with a few different bands (Lou Barlow, Folk Implosion, in addition to YYY's newest LP) and has a catalog of music of his own. The latest entry in the Wasif canon is his new solo LP, The Voidist, out NOW via Tee Pee Records and featuring "Priestess" (like the band) downloadable above. The LP, which was recorded with his supporting band Two Part Beast, features appearances from Dale Crover (Melvins) and Greg Burns (Red Sparowes) and was laid to tape by Chad Bamford (Weezer).

Imaad Wasif, who was picked by Jack White to open for The Raconteurs and Dead Weather based on his live show, will be in NYC to perform at three CMJ shows: an RSVP-only day party at Pianos on 10/23, the Tee Pee Records 2009 CMJ Showcase at Union Pool with Priestess (like the song), Nebula, Naam, Quest For Fire, Kreisor, Hopewell, Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast and Weird Owl ($12, or use your CMJ badge), and the third is the showcase with Rain Machine, Sharon Van Etten, Violens, Threes And Nines and Stricken City at Bowery on 10/24 (tix here, or CMJ badges). The Tee Pee showcase is second Tee Pee event happening during CMJ, the first being their day party at Cake Shop on 10/22.

Besides his new solo LP, Waasif can also be found on the soundtrack to the Where The Wild Things Are as one of "the Kids" that make up Karen O & The Kids. Joining Karen O (YYYs), is the rest of her current band, Wasif, Bradford Cox (Atlas Sound, who is playing CMJ) Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather), and Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs). Want a copy? I have TWO UP FOR GRABS as well as a pair of Vice mini-magazines with 24 artists' renditions of Where The Wild Things Are. More on how to win at the botton of this post. For some behind the scenes videos from the movie (which opens TONIGHT, check VBS.TV.

Nebula and Naam are scheduled to play the BrooklynVegan day party at Fontana's on 10/23 with Goes Cube, Ume, and Crystal Antlers (more on those additions later). The night show at the same venue on the same day will be done in conjunction with Relapse Records, and will feature Misery Index, Salome, Revocation, Black Anvil, Complete Failure, Howl, and Gloominous Doom.

Imaad Wasif is also scheduled to play the Fog Rising festival on 11/7 in San Francisco with Witch, Ancestors, Red Fang, Black Math Horseman, and many others. More and that show, including tickets, are here.

Tee Pee showcase flyer, Imaad Wasif and Nebula dates, and a NSFW video for Imaad Wasif's "Redeemer" are below...

Continue reading "Imaad Wasif - new album, MP3, tour dates (CMJ) & Where The Wild Things Are (movie out today, win a soundtrack)"

No Age and Spike Jonze are both involved in an upcoming PopRally event at MoMA happening October 15th. For the night, "An Evening of Skate Videos," the museum "invited Patrick O'Dell (Epicly Later'd) to assemble an evening of influential skateboarding videos from the 1980s to today -- including Jonze's own legendary contributions to the genre -- and to bring together a panel of significant skateboarders and filmmakers, including Jonze himself, to discuss their work. An after party with a live performance by No Age follows the film program."

The event is in conjunction with the museum's mid-career retrospective of Jonze's work (titled "Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years") taking place from October 8th-18th. A schedule of the screenings at MoMA (which include his music videos, feature films like Being John Malkovich, etc., and his work as a producer) is below. The opening event on October 8th pairs Jonze with Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are. Jonze's film adaptation of the book is coming out October 16th and features a soundtrack by Karen O "and the Kids".

""Where the Wild Things Are" seems sure to appeal to the sensibilities of a certain cohort of urban young adults -- the type who read comic-book novels and wear skateboard sneakers; who might concur with a note I saw one day scrawled on a legal pad in Jonze's office: "There is no difference between childhood and adulthood." Finding an audience beyond that demographic, though, may well pose a challenge to Warner's marketing department, which is trying to position the movie as a family-friendly film for kids of all ages. They have adopted a broad-based strategy to lure children into the theater, buying advertising on Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network. They'll also be making a special effort to reach what one executive described to me as "hip, tastemaker" kids: Ugg will be selling a special "Where the Wild Things Are" kids' boot, and Urban Outfitters has a collection of "Where the Wild Things Are" T-shirts and shadow puppets." [NY Times Magazine]

The No Age performance at MoMA is in addition to the band's four other upcoming shows in the NYC area. One of those will be the band performing a live score to the Jean-Jacques Annaud film The Bear at the New Museum on October 16th (no tickets yet). They played with the movie at L.A.'s Cinefamily on August 30th and you can find a video of that show (with the full Jonze/MoMA schedule) below...

Continue reading "MoMA Spike Jonze exhibition w/ another NYC No Age show "

Karen O @ Lollapalooza 2009 (more by Paul Birman)

"DGC/ INTERSCOPE TO RELEASE WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK: ORIGINAL SONGS BY KAREN O AND THE KIDS. ALBUM OUT SEPTEMBER 29! LEAD SINGLE "ALL IS LOVE" OUT DIGITALLY AUGUST 25! MOTION PICTURE IN THEATERS OCTOBER 16!

Inside Karen O is a Wild Thing - as singer for the Grammy-nominated Yeah Yeah Yeahs, her wild thing is in your face, vulnerable, obnoxious, tender, exciting... a self-proclaimed "spazoid." However, to Oscar-nominated Where the Wild Things Are director Spike Jonze, Karen O and her music possess a child-like innocence, a guileless charm that put her exactly on the right emotional wavelength to sonically capture the highly-anticipated film.

To compose music for the film, O enlisted friends and fellow musicians she believed had the musical intuition that would bolster her intent to marry sound to vision. Dubbed Karen O and the Kids, the kids include Tristan Bechet (Services), Tom Biller (co-producer with Karen O and member of Afternoons), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Brian Chase (YYY), Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather), Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee), Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather), Oscar Michel (Gris Gris), Imaad Wasif (New Folk Implosion), Nick Zinner, (YYY) and an untrained children's choir." [Where the Wild Things Press Release]

As the press release says above, the song "All is Love" is out today. You can listen to it at MySpace.

In related news, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on September 29th. That's six days after their much larger Manhattan show at Radio City Music Hall which sold out, I am told, in less than a day (UPDATE: There are a few random single tickets still available for Radio City at the moment, so not completely sold out yet)... I'm sure the MHOW show will sell out in less than a minute when tickets go on sale Friday at noon (2-ticket limit, will call only, opener TBA).

Some related videos below...

Continue reading "Yeah Yeah Yeahs add MHOW show - Karen O & the Kids made the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack (single out now)"

Video below...

Continue reading "Where The Wild Things Are trailer w/ Arcade Fire"