November 19, 2009
When MTV's college-obsessed little sister station mtvU announced the nominations for this year's Woodie Awards, we had some fun trying to make sense of the logic underlying the way in which they had grouped together bands and pit them against one another. The logic being: their demographic is college, and college is the time when our tastes change! This is the time to experiment with our sexuality, or at least with the contents of our iPods. The apparent Viacom dictate, then, is to be all things to all people, and so the awards followed suit. Your winners:
Continue reading Photos, Video From The 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards...
Posted at 5:48 PM by amrit in
Tags: Alexa Chung | Alison Mosshart | Amber Tamblyn | Asher Roth | Ben Gibbard | Chris Walla | Clips | Cyndi Lauper | David Cross | Death Cab For Cutie | Diplo | Fall Out Boy | Jack White | Leighton Meester | Mary-Louise Parker | Matt And Kim | mtvU Woodie Awards | Passion Pit | Pete Wentz | Rick Ross | The Dead Weather | Zooey Deschanel
latest by semyon
Not that Dirty Projectors' set of four shows at Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall Of Williamsburg this week needed any help selling out -- that was handily accomplished simply by releasing one of this year's best (and most misunderstood) albums -- but after NY Mag's attempt to survey the Brooklyn scene by crowning David Longstreth its king, and Solange's making an honest R&B track out of "Stillness Is The Move," your prospects at some Craigslist action got slightly more dire. The run kicked off last night at Bowery with support from ascendant BTW tUnE-yArDs, whose shift-key shenanigans are no longer keeping people from tuning in. Which is a very good thing.
Tonight and Saturday the scene shifts to Williamsburg for the MHOW shows before closing out with a return to Bowery on Sunday night. Check these shots of the bands plus early opener Glass Ghost by photographer Jessica Amaya, and here's a list of what Dirty Projectors performed:
Continue reading Dirty Projectors/tUnE-yArDs @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC 11/18/09...
Posted at 3:29 PM by amrit in ,
Tags: Dirty Projectors | Glass Ghost | tUnE-YaRdS
latest by homelessdad
November 16, 2009
Friday night in Hollywood, the Raveonettes played to a fairly full house at the Henry Fonda Theatre. Support came from local BTW Crocodiles who performed as a quartet, down a drum machine and up a drummer. Andrew Youssef was on hand to deliver this photo spread.
Posted at 4:42 PM by amrit in ,
Tags: Crocodiles | The Raveonettes
latest by Dave-android
November 10, 2009
Sweden's the Mary Onettes are '80s radio playlists raiders of the highest order. On the best tracks from their second LP Islands, the band finds a wistful sweet spot between synthetic swell (everyone from New Order to a-ha) and new romantic swoon (the Cure, or even Echo & The Bunnymen). Last week, they came through NYC for their second time, to support this second album, playing three public shows -- at Union Hall (11/4), the Studio @ Webster Hall (11/6), and Mercury Lounge (11/8) -- and one private one at their label offices. Along the way they even did normal human things like riding subways, bar hopping in the East Village, selling CDs on street corners, returning lost wallets to NYC students, and ample etcs. Photographer Kyle Dean Reinford spent a few nights shadowing the band in their various guises and delivers this caption-filled photo essay for a peek at how much fun it is to visit the city when you're in a band that everybody is into. Click through for the gallery, and click below for a couple of MP3s and the video for the excellent Islands standout "Puzzles."
Continue reading The Mary Onettes Visit NYC...
Posted at 5:46 PM by amrit in , ,
Tags: The Mary Onettes
latest by Eugenia
Few rooms offer what Bowery does in terms of acoustics; dial your levels right onstage and the Ballroom's soundsystem and resonant effects will do the rest. With Cass McCombs's fourth LP, the endlessly repeatable Catacombs, the traveling troubadour has never been quite so forthright with his lyrical content: he's singing about what's on his mind, and what's on his mind is mostly what's in his heart. So Bowery was the right room for this late-support show of his latest LP, where the bed of Korg keys and gently swelling pedal steel guitars could color, but never color over, those sweet Catacombs couplets. At times the locomotive rumble and dustier trappings of his writing can feel like paging through a book of faded photographs, which made the coat rack casually hanging out stage right a perfect prop; the checkered, flickering light rig in back was a curveball, but a good spin for a songwriter that's been tough to pin down over the years. (These weren't all new songs, after all, the setlist dating back all the way to his debut EP Not The Way's title track.)
Opening were Acrylics, who we've seen twice with a drummer (opening for Besnard Lakes at Mercury, again at the Terrible Records showcase during CMJ) -- and after last night, once without. Going without drums shouldn't be a permanent shift, and I don't imagine it was, but it offered a chance to hone in on what makes the band's best songs ("All Of The Fire" and "Vertigo" if you're tracking) tick: the uncluttered and unabashedly '70s radio-pop melodies, the occasional harmony, the voice of Molly Shea. The band's Chris Taylor-produced debut EP All Of The Fire is out now. Download the title track here, and have a pass at these photos by Jessica Amaya. (The early opener was Bad Girlfriends, a band helmed by Cass's touring bassist; she wore red for the early set, black leggings for the late.)
Posted at 4:33 PM by amrit in ,
Tags: Acrylics | Bad Girlfriends | Cass McCombs
latest by td
In the 11/22 episode ("My Morning Straitjacket"), Stan becomes a MMJ groupie so Yim Yames shows up in shaggy pre-MOF form, the other guys are angelic in the buff. Six songs by the band will be featured in the episode, and Zach Galifianakis cameos as a super-fan. Take a peek at these stills (via stewiesplayground via TwentyFourBit), and if you're curious how this collaboration happened, read a press release Q&A with American Dad co-creator Mike Barker reprinted below.
Continue reading My Morning Jacket Animated By American Dad...
Posted at 10:56 AM by brandon in ,
Tags: American Dad | Bonnaroo | My Morning Jacket | Seth MacFarlane | Zach Galifianakis
latest by MacAttack
November 9, 2009
Much as Billy Corgan has made a sport of testing Smashing Pumpkins fans' limits this past year, last night's benefit for one-time Smashing Pumpkins Fan Club chief Laura Ann Marusa is a reminder that he really does appreciate those that appreciate him. Of course Laura isn't just your average Pumpkin lover; in addition to making delicious artisanal jams, Masura is a musician in her own right, a Chicago scene drummer and founding member of the bands Evil Beaver, the Prescriptions and Motorhome. A ghastly motorcycle accident shattered her leg, and her health care doesn't cover much of the fallout. True to his beneficial mode of 2009, Billy anchored last night's benefit show at the Echoplex, creating the band Backwards Clock Society for the event, featuring Mark Tulin of the Electric Prunes on bass along with longtime Pumpkin associate Kerry Brown, ex-Catherine drummer and ex-Mr. D'arcy Wretzky (who has recently been found, btw).
Continue reading Backwards Clock Society @ The Echoplex, Los Angeles 11/8/09...
Posted at 1:04 PM by amrit in ,
Tags: Backwards Clock Society | Billy Corgan | Light FM | The Pity Party | The Smashing Pumpkins
latest by Luke
Things were different from the last time we saw Girls live, when we hosted their first NYC show at Market Hotel: near unanimous praise for one of the year's best Albums, and a recently reconfigured lineup that saw the abrupt departure of their touring guitarist, replaced for this trek on a few days practice by Ryan Lynch aka BTW Dominant Legs. As a result the jangle-pop was jammed to a manageable tempo, the heartbeat drums dialed down to a low pressure BPM, but the songs remained the same: a batch of 13 finely tuned happy/sad gems (along with their show-closing and -stopping cover of Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End") shaped in a classic-pop mold that took the slower pace to be more dynamic and less California dreamy.
Opening were the New Jersey BTW Real Estate, who seem to be in an early slot on most every bill you'll see in NYC these days whether you want them or not (not complaining). But this one was different: this bill was a true pairing, a linking of stylistically related bands with a thread stronger than their respective buzz to tie them together. That's supported by Girls' Chris Owens shaking a tambourine during Real Estate's "Basement," sure (the symbolic lending a hand trick, maybe those people yelling for "Girls!" through the set will shut up now), yet it was made most clear by hearing how both put their own little twists on songs that live on simple progressions and boogie bass: One band anchored by a budding nerd rock laureate, the other by shambling Budweiser and sprite dazes, but both featuring pensive inebriates who built their tracks staring down sunsets over different oceans. A setlist follows, as does Kyle Dean Reinford's photos on the night.
Oh and also: Looks like Chris's story checks out. Girls really are two steps in to a killer Behind The Music one day.
Continue reading Girls/Real Estate @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC 11/6/09...
Posted at 10:45 AM by amrit in ,
Tags: Dominant Legs | Girls | Real Estate | Tough Knuckles
latest by stegasauruslover
