words & photos by Dominick Mastrangelo

La pluie. It just wont stop. From sun up to sundown and well into the night here in Montreal the rain continued, making the second day of Pop Montreal (Thursday, September 30th) , and everyone attending, a soggy mess. Buses were crowded, Bixi (the public bike racks that blanket the city) were not an option. It was taxis or hoofing it.

The rain forced the "Pop BBQ" indoors and up Boulevard St. Laurent to the Barfly where Lost In The Trees were first up. The set times were moved up an hour and upon arriving there were maybe 20 people in the bar. Nestled back in the corner the seven-member ensemble performed, without microphones. It had the feeling of a Take Away show with people carrying on quiet conversations, watching the band or sitting at the bar nursing a beer. After playing a raucous sold-out show the night before it had to be just a bit disappointing for the band. But you wouldn't know it by how they sounded.

After hiding out in the Notman House where registration and the hospitality area are, it was back up the boulevard and a fun, hip-hop set by Montreal's Socalled. "Does anybody want to play bass with Socalled tonight?" asked bandleader Josh Dolgin to the rapidly filling up space. (One of the curious things about some of these shows in Montreal is the way a venue will be nearly empty 10 minutes before a set and by the time a band takes the stage nearly packed.) Two songs in a guy came walking up with a bass and joined right in.
While waiting for Greenland's Nive Nielsen to begin at boutique clothing store next to the Barfly, I popped in to see who was on and was surprised to catch Brooklyn's She Keeps Bees killing it to what appeared to be the same 20 people from a few hours earlier.

Then if was off to see the see Polaris Prize-winners Karkwa. I arrived early and caught most of Montreal's Leif Vollebekk. Sounding a bit like the Bowerbirds with a voice that sounded equal parts Ryan Adams and Andrew Bird, his set was the more impressive of the two bands. And their sounds couldn't have been more differennt. If you stripped away the blistering light show, Karkwa's songs come away a bit less impressive. But from a spectacle standpoint it was worthy and the Montreal crowd was very much in love with them.

A dash through the rain and into The National to close out the evening. I arrived early and caught the last bit of the Black Feelings. Women followed and might have been the highlight of the night. Liars capped the evening and were loud, loud and more loud.

Read about the first day of the festival. HERE. More pictures from the second day below...

Continue reading "Pop Montreal 2010 - Day 2 in pics & review (Liars, Women, Karkwa, She Keeps Bees, Socalled & more) "

DOWNLOAD: DD/MM/YYYY - "Van Tan" (MP3)

DD/MM/YYY @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom in June

Women are currently in EU through the middle of September, but will hit the road for a US tour shortly after the release of their new LP Public Strain for Jagjaguwar. The trek includes dates with Liars and DD/MM/YYYY (but not both at the same time) and includes TWO NYC dates: Mercury Lounge on 10/7 (tickets) and Knitting Factory on 10/9 with So Cow (tickets).

Women also have a split on the way with their tourmates DD/MM/YYYY, who have their own album in the works for late 2011. Meanwhile DD/MM/YYYY's current LP, Black Square, will be released in Europe on 10/11 via Invada Records, Geoff Barrow of Portishead and Beak>'s label. The EU version will contain the previous LP tracks (like "Van Tan" above), as well as bonus tracks.

Speaking of Beak>, they'll be around here soon.

Women and DD/MM/YYY both played the NXNE Festival in Toronto this year. A set of DD pics from up there with all upcoming dates dates and some videos below...

Continue reading "Women & DD/MM/YYYY tour dates, new albums, NXNE pics "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Friendo - Oversees (MP3)

Friendo are a trio from Calgary, Alberta that includes Women drummer Mike Wallace. Here, Wallace plays guitar and sings and there's not much similar going on, musically, with his other band. Friendo's debut, Cold Toads was originally released on cassette but has been picked up by St. Ives (a Secretly Canadian subsidiary) which has made a super-limited-edition vinyl run (200 pressing with handcrafted covers), plus digital. And those cassettes are still available. You can check out one of Cold Toad's tracks, "Oversees," at the top of this post.

Friendo are currenty on a North American tour that hits Atlanta tonight (6/8), and which will be in NYC this weekend. They play Cake Shop on Friday (6/11) and Glasslands on Sunday (6/13) (tickets). Their tour mates are Chicago's Yourself and the Air who to these ears sound a little like Loney Dear (or even Chin Up Chin Up if you remember them). Yourself and the Air are currently working on their first album.

Click through for all Friendo/Yourself and the Air tour dates.

Continue reading "Friendo is on tour w/ Yourself & the Air - 2010 dates & MP3"

photos by Joseph Xu

Happy Holidays! I take on more than I can handle. That results in a lot of unposted content. In the name of catching up, while also taking it easy during this final week of the year, here's some of that lost material.

More pictures from the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival, below...

Continue reading "pictures from the 2009 Pitchfork Festival "

a shot from Sled Island 2008 (more by Rae Holtsabum)

The Sled Island Music and Arts Festival -- taking place at various venues in Calgary, Alberta from June 24 to June 27 -- is pleased to announce the initial line-up and the inclusion of Olympic Plaza as the main venue on Friday, June 26. This year will include over 200 bands performing at 23 venues plus art shows, film screenings, and a comedy component at the Sled Island Music and Arts Festival.

Sled Island 2009 will feature performances by the influential indie rock darlings The Breeders (featuring Kim Deal of the Pixies) making their first Calgary performance, NYC post-punk revivalists Liars bringing the noise, the legendary Canadian metal band Anvil the recent subjects of the critically acclaimed documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil and the garage rock assault of Tel Aviv's Monotonix known for their incredible live show. New Orleans-based musician and mad genius inventor of the 'drum buddy' Quintron & Ms. Pussycat will bring the party along with blood-soaked party rocker Andrew W.K. and Toronto-based electro tour-de-force Holy Fuck on the more 'offensive' front. Phil Elverum's (of The Microphones) latest moniker Mount Eerie will deliver a symbiotic balance of fuzz and folk matched by Owen Pallett's Final Fantasy surrealist violin stage performance. Calgary-based experimental icons Azeda Booth aim to mystify crowds along with their all-male psychedelic pop counterparts Women making their second festival appearance...The complete festival line-up and schedule will be revealed on June 1. [pr]

As previously reported, Colin Newman, vocalist and guitarist for Wire, will be guest curating this year's festival. Full lineup below...

Continue reading "Sled Island - 2009 fest lineup (Breeders, Liars, Anvil & more) "

DOWNLOAD: Crystal Stilts - Love is a Wave (MP3)

Crystal Stilts @ Less Artists More Condos (more by Gabi Porter)

For a show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, tonight's lineup is jam packed with bands (3/14). Originally just a stop on the Women / Crystal Stilts tour (which goes from Brooklyn to Austin for SXSW), the show now also includes Blank Dogs, Naked On The Vague, and Silk Flowers on the bill. Tickets are currently still available.

The new Crystal Stilts song linked for download above comes from their upcoming Love is a Wave 7" which will be released by Slumberland on March 31st.

Once in Austin, Crystal Stilts will be keeping busy by playing at least five shows, one of which is Cake Shop's showcase, and another at Ms. Bea's for Todd P. Crystal Stilts also have a show coming up at the much smaller Cake Shop (in NYC) with Pains of Being Pure at Heart in June. All dates below...

Continue reading "Crystal Stilts tour dates (BK tonight, SXSW) & a new MP3"

Frankie (Crystal Stilts) mans the drums @ Market Hotel (more by Tim Griffin)

Crystal Stilts, one of the many high-profile "Crystal" bands to pop up in 2008 (see also: Crystal Antlers, Crystal Castles), has drawn comparisons to everyone from The Velvet Underground, Joy Division and The Jesus and Mary Chain to less obvious '60s groups like The Seeds. But by exploring these depths and darkened corners of British Invasion psychedelia and brooding post-punk, the Brooklyn band's debut, Alight of Night, shakes up its predecessors enough to propel itself into newer territory. [NPR]

Women are also heading to Europe this month, and then also have some North American dates lined up in March and April with their friend, collaborator and prodcuer Chad VanGaalen. All dates and some videos below...

Continue reading "Crystal Stilts & Women - 2009 Tour Dates , videos"

The Dodos, Department of Eagles, Torche, Harvey Milk, Abe Vigoda, The Duchess and the Duke, Jay Reatard, Sun Kil Moon, Why? and Women were among the twenty 2008 "honorable mentions" Pitchfork awarded today. In other words, these albums will not be part of the Top 50 of 2008 they are publishing soon.

What was your favorite album of 2008?

The Dodos opened for the Walkmen @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple last night (12/16)

photos by Kyle Dean Reinford, words by Andrew Frisicano

Women played the Knitting Factory Tap Room on Saturday (10/25), early evening, as part of BV's CMJ day party. Hawking their new Jagjaguwar released self-titled debut, the band split its sound between downtown arty and straight-up psych-pop. Somewhere in there Women found the perfect recipe of indie buzz bands (Interpol guitars, Panda Bear vocals) to make single "Back Rice" crackle with sonic anticipation (it being one of the most whistleable songs I've heard in a while). Predictably, it came at the end of the set. Live, Women sound tight, and if you're a sucker for bands in small spaces like me, check out Women soon.

More pictures below...

Continue reading "Women @ Knitting Factory, NYC (BV CMJ) - pics"

Photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Women

The marathon, which concluded on Saturday night, was created in 1980 by the weekly college-radio newsletter once called College Music Journal and now known as CMJ New Music Report. It started as a pre-Web way to share information, practical knowledge and contacts among the many do-it-yourself bands discovered and nurtured by noncommercial college radio, groups that at the time were just beginning to create lines of communication between local scenes. [NY Times]

Continue reading "Women, etc.. @ the PTST day party @ Cake Shop - pics"

DOWNLOAD: Takka Takka - Everybody Say (MP3)

Gabe and Drew (Takka Takka)

Like Women, Crystal Antlers, and The Muslims, NYC band Takka Takka are playing a multitude of CMJ-related shows in NYC this week. And like Women, Crystal Antlers, and The Muslims, one of those shows Takka is playing is a BV party. I asked Takka Takka guitarist Drew Thurlow about the experience...

Continue reading "a CMJ interview with Drew Thurlow of Takka Takka"

Black Dice @ Market Hotel (more by Lori Baily)

==== FRIDAY 10/24 @ DANBRO STUDIOS WAREHOUSE ====

:: GROUND CONTROL TOURING / TODD P PARTY

:: BLACK DICE
:::: VIVIAN GIRLS
:::::: PONYTAIL
:::::::: Women
:::::::::: BARR ------------- yes, the return of the real BARR!

[ DANBRO STUDIOS WAREHOUSE ]
268 Meserole St @ Bushwick Pl | East Williamsburg Industrial Park, Brooklyn
L-Montrose, G-Broadway, JM-Hewes | ALL AGES | $8 | 8pm

Ponytail also just added a special midnight show at The Bell House on Saturday night. They'll also be back on Halloween.

Women are also playing the free BrooklynVegan show at Knitting Factory on Saturday.

DOWNLOAD: Lemonade - Big Weekend (Delorean Remix) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lemonade - Real Slime (Mashepest Remix) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lemonade - Sunchips (Ghosts On Tape remix) (MP3)

"Lemonade marries big beats with heavy psychedelic noises, while touching on elements of North African rai, dub, breakbeat, and samba and much more in their self-titled debut. The SF based trio (soon to be NYC trio) is comprised of childhood friends Callan Clendenin (vocals), Alex Pasternak (percussion) and Ben Steidel (bass)-did not have grand expectations for the project outside of exploring their shared vision of a place that they have never been: a fantasy landscape that is at once gritty and pristine, tropical and foreboding. Their trippy, pulsing self-titled debut is out now, Oct 21st, on True Panther records and its already received favorable mentions from RCRD LBL, Pitchfork Media, XLR8R, SF Weekly, Uncut, among many others. Hot on the heels of this much anticipated release, Lemonade is announcing the REMIXTAPE album this November as companion to their debut. The REMIXTAPE features contributions from Delorean, Lazer Sword, Ghosts On Tape, C.L.A.W.S, among others." [PR]

@ Knitting Factory, FREE, October 25th

Main room
12:00 Starfucker
12:45 The Carps
1:30 Little Boots
2:15 Shout Out Out Out
3:00 Marnie Stern
4:00 Made Out of Babies
5:00 Rival Schools

Tap Bar <------------ announcing for the first time
5:45 Women
6:30 The Mae Shi
7:15 TBA
8:00 Lemonade
8:45 Pattern is Movement

Lemonade are also playing Zebulon on Friday, Pianos later on Saturday (the True Panther CMJ showcase), AND going on tour with El Guincho in November and December. Assuming EG doesn't cancel, that means they Lemonade play (le) poisson rouge in NYC on December 2nd. All dates below....

Continue reading "Lemonade - MP3s, 2008 tour dates (3 CMJ shows, El Guincho)"

Wye Oak

In the short time Bill has been here, many bands have been featured in his Week In Indie column on BrooklynVegan. At least 19 of those bands are playing shows for, and during, CMJ in NYC this week. Each of those bands is listed below with links back to what Bill said about them...

Continue reading "'Week in Indie" bands playing CMJ this week "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Kirsten Ketsjer - The Brigde (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Kirsten Ketsjer - Ernie and the Sand (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Kirsten Ketsjer - Foot and Foot
DOWNLOAD: Women - Black Rice (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Elk City - Los Cruzados (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Elk City - Cherries in the Snow (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Amazing Baby - Infinite Fucking Cross EP (Zip file)
DOWNLOAD: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Everything with You (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Come Saturday (MP3)

Kristen Ketsjer & friends

With all the quality shows between now and tuesday you'd think CMJ had already started and it's making it very hard to keep to my vow to take it easy before next week's onslaught. Here are a few that are making it especially difficult.

I only caught two songs by Danish trio Kirsten Ketsjer at this year's SXSW, purely by accident, but I was taken by their VU-meets-Television style guitar rock that can be both delicately beautiful and monsterously loud. But mostly beautiful. Drummer Anja Jacobsen sings while guitarists Andreas Führer and Anders Lauge Meldgaard spin webs around each other. Not sure why they haven't gotten more attention than they have -- last year's FFFFOO K TSSCCH! is a pretty magical album -- that may change after next week. They're playing at least once a day during CMJ and there are two shows this week (Thursday [10/16] at Lit, and Friday [10/17] at Dead Herring) if you want to catch them early. Do check them out.

Elk City

Elk City are playing a special show this Saturday (10/18) at Union Hall. The band, who've added former Luna guitarist Sean Eden to their lineup, agreed to be the entertainment at a friend's wedding which meant they had to learn a whole slew of cover songs and the Union Hall show is a dress rehearsal of sorts for the big day. Expect more along the lines of Bowie, Nina Simone, and Carol King than "The Chicken Dance," "The Electric Slide" or the dreaded "Butterfly Kisses." The show will be interspersed with Elk City material too, including some of the songs in contention for their new album. Opening are Boy Genius who put on a nice show Tuesday opening for Bearsuit.

White Denim

If you're willing to go out on a Sunday (10/19) you can see a lot of CMJ buzz bands before the fest actually starts. And actually, at Mercury Lounge are Austin's White Denim (tickets), who are skipping CMJ entirely in favor of a European tour. Their U.S. debut, Exposion, is out November 11 and is a slightly different version of their acclaimed UK release, Workout Holiday, which was released earlier this year. It defies easy description: there's some noodling guitars a la the Minutemen; bluesy passages like some other White bands; shouty indie rock and blissful psychedelia. I dig it. White Denim also play Union Hall the next night (10/20) (tickets).

Playing with them at Mercury Lounge are Amazing Baby who I've written about more than once both here and over at my own blog. They've been playing pretty regularly over the summer and are a pretty tight machine these days, so they should be ready for CMJ and their upcoming tour with MGMT and Violens. If you haven't heard them yet, you can download their Infinite Fucking Cross EP for free.

Women

Meanwhile, around the corner at Cake Shop, Friction NYC have put together a pretty unmissable lineup as well: The noise-drenched pure pop of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart who are fresh off a tour of Sweden; reverb-loving Canadians, Women;, who are certainly one of CMJ's most buzzed-about bands; Jackson Heights' only garage rock band*, The Beets (*fact completely uncomfirmed by me); and the organ styling of another Canadian, Katie Stelmanis.

Current # of CMJ-related shows Women have coming up: 9
Current # of CMJ-related shows The Muslims have coming up: 9

Both Women and The Muslims are playing BrooklynVegan parties during CMJ. The Muslims are on the Thursday October 23rd one. Women are on the unannounced Saturday October 25th one. If you count the pre-CMJ Cake Shop show, that raises Women's total NYC show count to 10. Don't be surprised if more NYC shows pop up on both of their schedules.

All tour dates and videos for all bands in this post, below...

Continue reading "Kirsten Ketsjer, Women, Elk City, White Denim, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart & more in This Week In Indie"

Portastatic @ Sled Island 2008 (more by Rae Holtsabum)


It's the "CMJ Artist Lounge at Red Bull Space Presented By Paste, KCRW.com, and indie outlaw." Open to CMJ artist badges all day. Free to the public at night. Band schedule and flyer below...

Continue reading "free 2008 CMJ 'Artist Lounge' shows @ the Red Bull Space"

By Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Chad VanGaalen - "Willow Tree" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Women - Black Rice (MP3)

Chad VanGaalen

Pop songsmith Chad VanGaalen is playing Blender Theater at Gramercy in NYC this Sunday, Sept 21st, with Howe Gelb's Americana rock band Giant Sand. Chad later launches into a tour of his native Canada in October and visits Europe in November. It feels like forever since Chad was last in NYC, and this Sunday show also seemed to pop out of nowhere. Tickets are on sale.

Giant Sand, the headliner at Gramercy, is on a huge tour of their own in support of their new album proVISIONS, released earlier this month on Yep Roc. Their first album in almost four years features guest appearances by Neko Case, M. Ward and Isobell Campbell. "The incarnation of Giant Sand hitting the road in support of this release includes Howe along side Danish musicians Thøger T. Lund on bass, Peter Dombernowsky on drums and Anders Pedersen on slide guitar."

Giant Sand

VanGaalen's latest record, Soft Airplane, was released earlier this month on SubPop. (See MP3 above.) Unlike Chad's previous releases, which pieced together material spanning several years, the tracks on this album were all sprung from the same creative burst. To give an idea of the aesthetic, SubPop says that most of Soft Airplane was recorded in Chad's basement on "an old tape machine and a JVC ghetto blaster."

VanGaalen recently recorded Women's debut self-titled LP, out on Jagjaguwar Oct 7 (or out now in Canada on Flemish Eye). Women, in all their psych drone-rock glory, will be touring with VanGaalen this fall and visiting NYC on Sunday, Oct 19 for a performance at Cake Shop with The Pains of Being Pure of Heart and more ($7, 8pm doors, 21+).

See full tour dates and a video of "Molten Light," off VanGaalen's latest, below...

Continue reading "Chad VanGaalen + Women + Giant Sand - new records, 2008 Tour Dates, NYC shows"

DOWNLOAD: Women - Black Rice (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Women - Group Transport Hall (MP3)

Speaking of signings, Women (as recently seen here) have a record contract...

Jagjaguwar will release Women's self-titled debut full length on October 7th, 2008 throughout the world (January, 2009 release in the UK, and Canadian label Flemish Eye is releasing the record in Canada.) The band will tour the U.S., Canada and Europe in support of the album throughout 2008, and tour dates will be announced soon.

DOWNLOAD: Women - Black Rice (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Women - Group Transport Hall (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Parenthetical Girls - A Song For Ellie Green (MP3)

Women @ Sled Island 2008 (more by Rae Holtsabum)

"Recorded by label-mate Chad VanGaalen and the band members, the 10 song (2 of them above), self-titled album by Women is an explosion out of the gates for this young band. Sometimes light and spacious, at other times eerie and dense with an ominous weight, this debut flirts with the noisy beauty of the Velvet Underground and effortlessly toys with the intricacy and playfulness of Deerhoof as crude percussion beats out a pulsing tattoo of clatter."

DOWNLOAD: Mogwai - Folk Death 95 (MP3)

photos by Rae Holtsabum

Mogwai

I'm still trying to properly wrap my mind around (and recover from) the amazing performances (and blazing sun) I was able to experience at Sled Island. It's hard to believe both the amount and range of wonderful music that was up for consumption over the course of four days, and last night's set from mainstage headliners Mogwai, shredding guitars with grace like only they can, followed by a flawless late-night club show by underrated Canadian folk rockers Rock Plaza Central, was the perfect send-off to a festival that defined itself on eclecticism and near unmitigated musical quality. [Beyond Robson]

Continue reading "Wire, Mogwai, and the rest of the pics from Sled Island 2008"