by BBG

High on Fire at Fun Fun Fun Fest (more by BBG)

March 16th, March 16th, March 16th! If you're going to be in Austin, save the date on your calendar folks! On Friday March 16th, 2012 at Scoot Inn (1308 e4th St), BrooklynVegan, The Power of The Riff, and Southern Lord will combine forces for a MARATHON of events that kickoff at noon and end waaaaay after the sun goes down.

The FREE daytime portion, in conjunction with the four-day Thrasher/Converse "Death Match" event at the venue, is an all-ages shindig that will kick off at noon and feature a skateramp with skaters and bands all day long. Shortly after doors open, expect to see eleven bands across two stages including sets from the following:

March 16, 2012 @ Scoot Inn, Austin, TX (noon-6pm)
* High on Fire
* Off!
* Trash Talk
* Black Cobra
* Ceremony
* Deafheaven
* Full of Hell
* Heartless
* Balaclava
* Dead in The Dirt
* DNF (members of Trash Talk, Touche Amore)

That's right... High on Fire AND Off! AND Trash Talk (playing their FOURTH year of SXSW shows with us) AND Black Cobra AND Ceremony all in the same space, not to mention the awesome undercard of bands like Deafheaven (playing their second year of SXSW shows with BV), new favorites Full of Hell, Balaclava, Heartless and Dead in The Dirt. It is going to be insane, so bring a hard hat.

As the day show comes to a close, we'll get ready for our night show at the same venue... amounting to a total of FOURTEEN HOURS of destruction! Not to mention the food trucks, a full bar, and so much more to keep you fed and hydrated (or buzzed, depending on your poison) during the onslaught. Stay tuned to BrooklynVegan for details regarding the official night showcase, and for more about the day show, including set times. In the meantime, head below for video of some of the bands playing our MEGA-show at Scoot Inn on March 16th!

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan, Southern Lord & Power of The Riff present a back-to-back day show/official SXSW showcase at Scoot Inn"

Watch out House of Vans, it looks like yeat another corporate-sponsored show-series is vying for contender of "best free shows" in NY this year. Taking place over fifteen days in Long Beach, NY (and finally explaining that mysterious Flaming Lips date), The Quiksilver Pro New York series ("the first-ever ASP World Championship Tour stop on the East Coast of the United States") will feature surfing, skating, and BMX demos from some of the biggest names out there (Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk, etc).... not to mention some major music acts like The Flaming Lips, Girl Talk, Interpol, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Q-Tip, Neon Indian, Wavves, Taking Back Sunday, Saves The Day, and many more. Best of all, admission to everything is FREE.

All dates with the full lineups are below, but the music portion kicks off on Saturday, 9/3 with Girl Talk, Saves The Day, "a special surprise performance" & more. Sunday has Interpol, Portugal. The Man, The Ettes (who play NYC tonight), and more. Monday (Labor Day) will see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Civil Twilight, and more. 9/9 is probably the most impressive show with The Flaming Lips, Q-Tip, Neon Indian, Wavves and Charlotte O'Connor. Saturday 9/10 will play host to a "Benefit Concert Hosted By Kelly Slater & Friends + The Max Weinberg Experience" with Taking Back Sunday, The Sounds and SLUNT. More details on the benefit show are TBA.

If you can't make it to Long Island, "The Quiksilver Pro New York will be broadcast from September 3-15 by MSG and Fuse, with programming that will feature some of the biggest artists, athletes and live performances from the event."

More details and lineups below...

Continue reading "Quiksilver hosting free shows in Long Island (Girl Talk, Flaming Lips, Interpol, Q-Tip, Neon Indian, Wavves, more)"

Eric Swensen (left) at the Independent foundry in 1983

The man who ended his life in front of the Mission Police Station on Monday was a skateboarding icon and co-founder of San Francisco-based Thrasher magazine.

Skaters worldwide are mourning the loss of Eric Swenson, 64, of Potrero Hill, whose local manufacturing and publishing ventures helped launch a massive and lasting subculture.

Swenson shot himself around 8:30 a.m. without going inside the police station or talking to any officers. Loved ones believe the longtime San Franciscan's struggle with a debilitating motorcycle injury led to the suicide.

A "very private person," Swenson may have chosen the police station to end his life in order to spare his loved ones from finding him, said Gwynn Vitello, Thrasher's publisher and wife of Swenson's business partner, the late Fausto Vitello. - [SF Examiner]

If you grew up like me, then you probably took in your share of Thrasher magazines and skated on Independent Trucks as well. Swensen co-founded both, as well as both Juxtapoz and Slap magazines as part of his High Speed Productions Inc. magazine company. Swenson left behind a wife and daughter in the wake of his suicide. - BBG

R.I.P. Eric

photos by Andrew St. Clair

"Vans made a power move into Brooklyn Saturday October 18, 2010 and unveiled its new, state-of-the-art event space, the House of Vans, opening it's doors to 900 of New York's skate community.

The new space is located in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood and is a prime example of Vans' commitment to and respect for the East Coast skate scene. The House of Vans is a 25,000-square-foot renovated warehouse, featuring an indoor concrete bowl and outdoor street course, a permanent stage for concerts and enough space to do whatever the Vans heart and soul could desire. The House of Vans will be Vans' East Coast hub, with two full-time employees to start.

The new space's outdoor skate park and bowl, designed by California Skateparks and influenced by Lance Mountain and Brian Pino, were well received by those in attendance." [probably a press release]

The 25,000 square feet House of Vans (15,000 indoors and 10,000 sq. ft outdoor enclosed patio and skate plaza), located at 25 Franklin St (at Meserole), hosted a Warped Tour kick-off show back in March. It's not exactly the type of show we'd normally cover, but when I heard there will be more concerts there this summer (stay tuned for announcements), I asked Andrew to send over some of his shots from that event so we could get an idea of what to expect. They continue below...

Continue reading "House of Vans warehouse in Brooklyn hosts concerts (and is a skate park) -- pics"

photos by Leia Jospe

No Age @ Don Hill's

No Age paid a visit to NYC on Friday for not one, but two Skateboarding-related shows. Earlier in the evening they played on the halfpipe at KCDC Skateshop in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Later that night, they played an Ooga Booga-presented free show at Don Hill's in Manhattan with Bubbles, Allies, No Fear and Rat King. Ooga Booga is a California surf and skate shop.

No Age went on around midnight at Don Hill's, were backed by visuals, and played for about an hour. In Leia's words, "during the show the bouncer would come into the crowd and grab people and tell them to stop dancing. After awhile he just stood in the middle of the crowd glaring at everyone if they bobbed their heads." DJ Total Freedom played after No Age for the rest of the party.

More pictures from Don Hill's and a video and picture from KCDC, below...

Continue reading "No Age played skate parties @ KCDC & Don Hill's (pics & video) "

photos by Tim Griffin

David Yow rides the crowd as beer flies

Titus Andronicus drama aside for a second, I was worried that the "party" crowd wouldn't be a good audience for the Jesus Lizard and Bad Brains. But as security pointed out, the audience very much treated the show like the "concert" it was. It got crazy for Jesus Lizard, energetic front-man David Yow included...

"The Jesus Lizard performed a ferocious set, with singer David Yow crowd diving and singing noise rock anthems while sweaty hands held him aloft. Meanwhile, the line outside on North 10th Street snaked around the block, as hundreds of costumed revelers waited in the rain to get inside." [The Wall Street Journal???]

The crowd was ferocious too, but ironically they were 10 times more ferocious for Bad Brains whose front-man just stood there in a white hoodie. Luckily for security (who after a few songs of frustration just let the show be), Bad Brains played a lot of reggae jams. That kept it relatively calm. Bad Brains setlist below. The Jesus Lizard will be back for two more NYC shows later this month.

The bands played upstairs in the two-level warehouse on North 10th Street between Berry and Wythe. Downstairs, and between bands, there were DJs. I was especially appreciative of all the classic 90's techno hits (at the 1994-themed party). The music mixed with the warehouse location, lights, and smoke machines probably made the Vice event more Maskarave than the actual Maskarave happening across the river. That felt especially true late night, after Bad Brains which was when the majority of the crowd left (and they weren't letting anyone else in). I don't know a lot of song names, but Moby's "Thousand", Josh Wink's "Don't Laugh", and "Percolator" were at least three of the more popular ones I remember hearing during the DJ sets from Dave 1 from Chromeo, Peanut Butter Wolf, Nick Catchdubs, Rub-N-Tug, and/or Blu Jemz. Earlier in night there was also lots of classic hip hop, sometimes accompanied with the song's video.

As promised, there was a skate ramp with skaters too (and all the alcohol was free) (I wish they had more porta potties though). More pictures below...

Continue reading "Jesus Lizard & Bad Brains @ Vice's Halloween Party - pics"

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)"

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 "

"It is with a heavy heart that we report the untimely death of NYC skateboard legend Andy Kessler. Kessler, 49, died on Monday night from cardiac arrest due to an allergic reaction to a wasp sting he sustained on Montauk, Long Island." [ESPN]

Continue reading "Andy Kessler, RIP"

Pitchfork reports that Nathan Williams of/aka Wavves "broke his wrist in a skateboarding accident" on July 12th.

Despite that, Williams is still scheduled to go on with his upcoming shows, the first of which is tomorrow, Wednesday, July 15th at Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Opening will be Woods, Real Estate (who both play the Cameo Gallery the next night) and Popo. Tickets are still on sale.

After that he'll be playing Pitchfork Festival on July 18th and two SoCal dates, one of which is a benefit for a skate park with No Age.

These will be Williams's first shows since canceling his European tour after an incident on stage at Primavera Sound on May 28th.

All tour dates, with a clip of Williams discussing his favorite records, below...

Continue reading "Wavves broke his wrist skateboarding, but is still scheduled to play Bowery, P4K Fest, a skate park benefit..."

photos by Tim Griffin

"The other day I attended the Afro-Punk Festival at the BAM skate park. I had the pleasures of seeing Janelle Monae and Saul Williams. There were also cats skating [and biking] around and doing tricks. All around there was just a good ol' merry vibe and I had fun for the short time I was there." [Phantastictful?]

Janelle Monae has been added as opener to the Erykah Badu show happening on the beach at Governors Island on August 4th. Tickets are still on sale. More pictures from Monday's Afro-Punk Fest show, below...

Continue reading "Janelle Monae played the Afro Punk Festival w/ Saul Williams (pics), playing Governors Island w/ Erykah Badu"