photos by Tim Griffin & Ryan Barkan

Deervana by Ryan Barkan

I'll always be a Nirvana fan and I'm currently a huge Deer Tick fan (obviously), but I had low expectations for this Saturday night "cover band" show at Lustre Pearl. There was so much going on in Austin, I had already seen Deer Tick on Friday at the BV day party, and Sunday was the only day I didn't have to be up in the morning, but I followed friends who I would have rather been with than anywhere else anyway, and I'm so happy I did. It ends up Deer Tick does an amazing Nirvana, and the capacity crowd at Lustre Pearl did a great job dancing, crowd surfing and singing along. Someone next to me kept repeating that it was the best thing they saw all week. It definitely felt that way at the moment.

The bill for the night also included Holy Sons (who I was psyched to catch a whole set by after missing most of it at the BV day party Friday), Robert Ellis (an up and coming country singer who I was happy to check out for the first time) and Dawes (who always put on a great show). I knew Deervana would also be done by 2am so that meant I could still jet to either Odd Future at the Vice party or Kanye West at the Vevo party to really end SXSW week with a bang (I ended up opting for my bed instead).

Deervana, who previously played a show in Rhode Island and will be back again at Brooklyn Bowl on June 19th (part of the Northside Festival), ended their smashing set by smashing their instruments, though if you look closely at the pictures and videos, you'll see they weren't actually the guitars they were playing. More, including a shot of the setlist, below...

Continue reading "Deervana (aka Deer Tick playing Nirvana) played Lustre Pearl w/ Dawes (pics & video), playing Brooklyn Bowl"

by BBG

DOWNLOAD: Bruce Lamont - "2 Then The 3" (MP3)

Bruce Lamont on stage with Yakuza at Gramercy (more)

Cover bands aren't usually my scene, but it's definitely interesting when the "Robert Plant" also does time in a band that I dig. In this case, the cover band is Led Zeppelin 2 and the frontman is Yakuza vocalist Bruce Lamont. Led Zeppelin 2 is currently touring the US and will hit Gramercy Theatre on Friday (1/14). Tickets are still available. Full tour dates are lised below.

In related news, Bruce Lamont is prepping to release his new LP Feral Songs For The Epic Decline via At A Loss Records on January 25th. Much like his work with Yakuza, Bloodiest, and Circle of Animals, it shows the Chicago native putting his patented spin on heavy music, this time in a more ambient/goth direction. Check out "2 Then The 3" available for stream below and download above, and look for the record at the end of January.

All tour dates, the song stream, and some video is below.

Continue reading "Led Zeppelin 2 are on tour, Bruce Lamont releasing solo LP"

TONIGHT, FRIDAY, 10/29, AT DEATH BY AUDIO

PRE HALLOWEEN COVER SHOW
KISS ::: Boogie Boarder
THIN LIZZY ::: Passive Aggressor
NIRVANA ::: Reality War (Michael Jordan)
GREEN DAY'S DOOKIE ::: Freudian Slit
BLACK FLAG ::: Necking/Zulus
BABES IN TOYLAND ::: mems of Pygmy Shrews

The Death By Audio show is real bands pretending to be other bands for Halloween. The Sublime tribute band playing Mercury Lounge tonight is a Sublime tribute band all year long. Same is true about the Smiths and Radiohead cover bands playing Littlefield this evening.

Mr. Brownstone, a Guns n Roses cover band that comes in and out of retirement, is at Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday.

Cassie & Justin from the Babies will be the White Stripes on Sunday - the same (Halloween) day that Robbers on High Street will be ELO at Mercury Lounge where a Weezer cover band will open. Mouth Breather, a Jesus Lizard cover band, plays Fontana's. And at Union Pool:

SUNDAY, 10/31, AT UNION POOL

DAMN! a Halloween tribute to WHAM! (Max & Kev of Pizza Party on EVR)
THE CURE (Warm Ghost)
VIOLENT FEMMES (McDonald's)
ELO (Members of The Mad Scene and The Flaming Fire)
DANZIG/MISFITS (Members of Love as Laughter, Children, and Violent Bullshit)

More Halloween shows listed HERE.

Past Halloween, another tribute band is coming out of retirement, a very short retirement. Tragedy played their final show in January. The All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees plays their next show November 12th at Brooklyn Bowl (billed as their "last show ever").

The Fab Faux are performing The White Album in its entirety at Terminal 5 on December 11. Tickets go on sale at noon.

Zoso is playing 'The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience' at Music Hall of Williamsburg on January 29th. Tickets go on sale at noon.

And tribute bands are always playing BB King's.

"Metallica songs played with front man Gallagher."

The hippie in me doesn't approve of the waste of food. The kid in me rejoiced in rocking out to "Battery" while avoiding pieces of smashed watermelon (in the rain). More pictures, and some video, from Metallagher's set at Fun Fun Fun Fest on Sunday, below...

Continue reading "Metallagher = Metallica + Gallagher (pics from FFF Fest) "

Nouvelle Vague in Dublin 2008 (voss)

French cover band Nouvelle Vague will be playing a show at NYC's Irving Plaza on Wednesday, June 17th. It's the group's only US date on its list of upcoming shows so far. Tickets are on sale.

The band's last LP was 2006's Bande à Part, which, "like their eponymous first album, is a collection of Bossa Nova cover versions of 1980s New Wave tracks." [Wikipedia]

Though there's no 100% official word on a new record from the band, info is scattered about regarding a new album called NV3 which may be coming out on June 3rd which is not long before the Irving Plaza show. Apparently...

Nouvelle Vague reaches the point where a song, although already perfectly rendered in its original version, can still become a completely different one, to the extent that sometimes the public doubts whether it is a "cover" or not.

Nouvelle Vague's approach is so unusual that some of the original authors accepted to participate in the recording of the "NV3" cover of their own songs.

This is the statement of this 3rd album.

We never hear of any artists singing on covers which dissemble so much from the song their originally wrote nearly 30 years ago, or even covering their own song.

There are a variety of musical tones proposed by Nouvelle Vague on this third album such as Bluegrass, Country, Folk, Americana, Pop...

And the loop is looped when we hear on a "Nouvelle Vague" cover the voice of Martin Gore (Depeche Mode), Ian McCullough (Echo and The Bunnymen), Barry Adamson (Magazine), Terry Hall (The Specials), Samy Birnbach (Minimal Comact) or Chris Bailey (The Saints)...

More about Nouvelle Vague and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "Nouvelle Vague playing NYC, releasing NV3 (more covers, but with original singers too?) "

New Years Eve at Death By Audio is all regular bands playing as tribute bands for one night only. The Deep & Holy Sea will be The Replacements, Asa Ransom are The Clash, Necking will be Black Flag, Love or Perish are the Misfits, Liturgy are Black Sabbath, So So Glos are playing as a mystery band, AND a mystery band are playing as Weezer. E4e1 drops the hint that the mystery band is "Shakespearean". Titus Andronicus will already be in the neighborhood. The cover is just $2.00.

Speaking of the neighborhood, a member of Titus recently played there with Ted Leo who is also someone's New Years Eve mystery guest in Rhode Island.

Speaking of cover bands, here's the video of Mr. Brownstone playing Letterman on Wednesday...

Continue reading "Mr Brownstone - Welcome to the Jungle @ Letterman (video) "

80s Hardcore bill themselves as "The World's First and Only 80s Hardcore Cover Band", and although their MySpace doesn't list any of the members, we do know that the masked man is Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, who if you didn't know last week, you may have learned about in that recent "hipster" "news" video.

80s Hardcore is playing a free show at Cake Shop tonight/Friday (which means there are at least two reasons to go to Cake Shop today). What songs do I think they will play? Funny you should ask because their entire planned setlist, along with the flyer and a video, is below...

Continue reading "80s Hardcore - a cover band w/ Gavin McInnes, free tonight"

also keep reading for Moby, comedian Dave Hill & Hal Sparks

Tragedy @ Highline Ballroom, NY - Sept 2, 2007 (CRED)

Luckily, this isn't really about metal, it's about novelty metal. Sunday night, the Highline Ballroom brought together not one, not two, not three, but four of our area's finest examples of metal schtick. I only saw one of them, actually. I missed Boyz Nite (known for their "Die Hard" song), Queen Diamond (teenage girl King Diamond tribute) and Beatallica (you can figure it out). I came specifically to see Tragedy, the Number One All-Metal Beegees Tribute Band in the Tri-State Area. And more specifically, I came because I'm friends with the bassist. [Soundbites]

But more about Tragedy later. First let's talk about Ween...

Ween

Ween are set to release their next album La Cucaracha on October 23, 2007 on Rounder Records. Wait...Rounder Records? What do you have to say about that Dean Ween?

The guy from Rounder drove down to New Hope from Massachusetts and took us to lunch. We've been on a lot of labels the past 23 years and had a lot of lunches and we've heard a lot of "pitches". After making small talk for the first 20 minutes I finally felt like I should ask him something, anything-- since he drove all the way down here. The only thing I could come up with was "are there any other bands on Rounder comparable to Ween? I mean when I think of Rounder Records I think of all those Thorogood records and mostly folk type stuff." He said "no, not really." We all started laughing and the decision was made in our minds right there that this was where we needed to be. Later that night we watched the Red Sox game at our studio and then he drove back to Boston t he next day. That's the whole story, and now Ween is on Rounder. Anyway, it's not my job to critique Ween and measure one of our records against another, but I will say that we are super happy with La Cucaracha, we consider it to be a party record, unlike our last record which was more of a Jonestown type party vibe.

Good story, but there's more. Let it be revealed right here and now that "the guy from Rounder" is none other than Izzy Stradlin (aka Rounder A&R guy Dave Godowsky) from the recently disbanded Guns N Roses tribute band Mr. Brownstone...

"no, not really." (Izzy, Slash & Axl @ Bowery Ballroom)

More like NO, NOT REALLY BROKEN UP. Tickets are now on sale for a Mr. Brownstone reunion show at Bowery Ballroom on November 10th (they were broken up for a whole year and four months). They're also playing the Paradise in Boston on December 15th, and tickets are about to go on sale for that one too.

And speaking of metal reunions, Satanicide (who share a member with Mr. Brownstone) is also back! Possibly broken up for an even less amount of time, or maybe more - who can keep track....

On the heels of their sold-out Fillmore at Irving Plaza performance in August, SATANiCiDE will reunite for a one last show (at Bowery Ballroom this Friday September 7th). Making the 17 mile trek from Jer-Z with SATANiCiDE will also be Moby, and comedian Hal Sparks of Showtime's, "Queer as Folk". Other special guests include Suicide Girls, and SATANiDANCER, (and girlfriend of SATANiCiDE's Aleister Cradley) Peg Ramon-Stamos.

"How envious we are of you, all our fans", says SATANiCiDE lead singer Devlin Mayhem. "Unlike you, we will not be able to see our own show. We will be too busy rokking to witness the greatest spectacle of rokk this side of the Holland Tunnel".

Sharing the stage will be the recently Warped-toured THE NOTORIOUS MSG. Blasting out of the streets of Chinatown, THE NOTORIOUS MSG have arrived with a vengeance. Serving up deep-fried beats straight from the Chinese ghetto, they will not stop until they achieve complete world domination.

That's right, Moby (musical star of the new videogame Bioshock) will be there (again). Also (though not mentioned above) - comedian Dave Hill (a musician himself in a band that also shares a member with Satanicide) is also involved in this show in some way. Tickets are on sale.

But wait - what about TRAGEDY? Well, besides sharing a member (Phil) with Satanicide and Dave Hill's band Children of the Unicorn, not to mention Hair Suppply, Tragedy will in fact be opening at all three reunion shows - first for Satanicide at Bowery, and then at both of the Mr. Brownstone gigs.

BONUS POINTS: Now see if you can match this all up with the related post from over 2 years ago. Rock.