You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2010.
Today is the day for spaced out and scary sounds. Music to get lost in. Music that makes you want to dance for rain. Or sun. Or warmer weather, if you live in Brooklyn. Woods Family Creeps is the “alter-ego” band of Woods… I take that to mean it’s Woods doing crazzzzy stuff and noodling out over space jams instead of playing structured songs. And that’s cool. The alter-ego band is playing Monkeytown Monday night, to help close out that awesome space/club/restaurant. You should really try and get there before it closes. You need to make a reservation. And you should try and see something trippy because everyone sits on a couch in a black box type room, with projections all over the walls. It’s something to ponder, for sure.
The song is called “Party In The Pines,” which is what the Kemado show in Big Sur last summer was called. Everyone played…I wish, wish, wish I had been there. Definitely one of the great regrets of my life. If you havne’t been to Big Sur, California, you really should go. It’s like, MAGIC.
This is a live recording, you can even hear voices in there, so it must have been done at the Henry Miller Library, in Big Sur. Ooooof this is a good feeling! Check it….
Woods Family Creeps: Party in the Pines
This monster track hit my inbox recently and holy shit i’m glad i listened to it. It sounds like getting lost in a belly ache. And then deciding that that’s a fun experience, and you want to explore the pain and grossness. “Create Something to Love” is a growling mess of rough sounds, beats and female talk-sing vocals reminiscent of Elisa Ambrosio of Magik Markers.
Oreaganomics is from Chicago and all the songs on their release, Atlas Drugged, on The Collective Family, sound spooky and weird. These sounds could only have been made during an acid trip, or by people that have so much creativity oozing out of their ears and eyes that they can’t do anything but hide out and put stuff together until it sounds strange enough. Download the whole thing here. Also, all albums on The Collective Family are released under Creative Commons. RAD.
Oreaganomics: Create Something to Love
Family Trees is a Brooklyn band, which is funny because as Neu Magazine so aptly points out, all they sing about on their Windbreaker album is being in the sun, on the beach. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might write an album’s worth of songs. I guess it worked out in this case!
The band is giving the whole album away, they’re so generous! So you should definitely go see them play with Reading Rainbow (awesome) and Total Slacker on Jan. 20 at Death by Audio. See some pics on their blog, too.
Here’s my favorite, not least because of the hand claps and shaky kick drum beat, “Do You Ever Wonder?”
Family Trees: Do You Ever Wonder?
by Jon Bergman
Yuck is the band. “Georgia” is the song. Take a listen and try and tell me this Jesus and Mary Chain influenced pop song doesn’t make you want to start jumping around whatever room you’re currently in. In fact, I dare you all to do that right now. Just do it, don’t worry about who sees you. Like that scene in “Garden State” where Natalie Portman encourages dorky and emotionally stunted Zach Braff to do something “completely original,” something no one else has ever done. It could be freeing people!
I can’t find anything about Yuck besides this. Oh and Neu Magazine says they are playing dates in the UK. Figures!
Thanks guys for singing about me, it feels so good.
Yuck: Georgia
UPDATE: Get another Yuck song on their blog, called “Automatic.” It’s enchanting, but nothing like “Georgia,” which could suggest many things…
Jason Boesel, Jason Boesel, Jason Boesel. Just listen to his tenor that verges on baritone and tell me you don’t feel pangs in your heart. And if you know him already, the pain is just that much more beautifully painful.
He’s been playing drums with Rilo Kiley and Bright Eyes for many years now. And now, he’s going off on his own. And damn if he hasn’t made a great start at it.
Hustler’s Son is a gentle ride through Southern California influenced Americana. Boesel clearly has a lot of love and respect for Byrds-era songs and the echoes that are only possible in caverns like Coldwater and Laurel. You can hear it here on “French Kissing.”
Be sure to see a live show- he’s on tour for the next month. It’s not going to be a spaced out stoner vibe show. It’s not going to be lo-fi. It’s going to be clean, honest, uplifting. Only true California bands can be like that.
Jason Boesel: French Kissing
Hustler’s Son is out now on Team Love.
TONIGHT
Sam Amidon at Mercury Lounge, 9ish (also Monday w/ Beth Orton at Bell House)
WEDNESDAY
Trouble and Bass, Uproot Andy, Ninjasonik at Studio at Webster Hall, 10ish
THURSDAY
Teengirl Fantasy, Stellar Om Source, Lemonade (DJs) at Pianos, 11ish
Big Troubles, Blissed Out, Procedure Club, Dream Diary at Silent Barn, 8ish
FRIDAY
Real Estate, Beach Fossils, The Beets, Total Slacker at St. James Church, LES, 8ish
Gordan Gano (Violent Femmes) and others at the Bell House, 11:45 pm
SATURDAY
Beach Fossils, Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, Cloud Nothings, Nude Beach at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
Dinosaur Jr. at Bowery Ballroom, 8ish(& Sun. at Music Hall of WBurg and Mon. at Brooklyn Bowl)
Aa, Dinowalrus at Cake Shop, 9ish
MONDAY
Ecstatic Sunshine, Jason Urick, McDonalds at Cake Shop, 8ish
Woods at Monkeytown, 2 shows, 8 and 1030
A mix of Mountain Man-esque vocals, Joy Division 80s soft synth sounds and spaced-out drums result in exploratory feelings…no wonder this is hitting a nerve in me.
Twin Sister is from “in and around NY,” and the band is playing tons of shows this month, including two with Pure Ecstasy at the end of the month. Those are guaranteed to be great shows.
“Ginger” is off the band’s EP, “Vampires with Dreaming Kids,” that they’re giving away on their site. It’s a breathtaking song that is grandiose and uplifting, yet still rooted in dark reality.
Thanks to Chocolate Bobka for turning me on.
Twin Sister: Ginger
New Jersey bands are all the rage, and reality TV shows about certain Jersey “guidos” is the most popular “i only like this ironically” bit of American pop culture. But the band Screaming Females is some real shit that you can like without feeling like an asshole. Yes, this is the stuff that might make you open up your brain a bit more to the possibilities of awesome understanding and personal growth.
Marissa Paternoster and crew hail from New Brunswick, a part of Jersey that is culturally and racially diverse and has a history of economic struggle. It is a fact that climates that aren’t all picture perfect inspires art…
“I Do” is off the band’s upcoming Don Giovanni EP “Singles,” out Feb. 9. It features the all too grisly Paternoster guitar stylings that have given her quite the shredder reputation. The song is 90s esque in its verse, melody, guitar solo, verse, melody structure. I think if you were to ask the band who their greatest influences were you wouldn’t be surprised…
The song trickles off at the end, giving the impression that a hard rock song doesn’t have to end with a bang. Sometimes life is not all “boom pow” and then it’s over.
Don Giovanni hosts a big label showcase at Bowery Ballroom on Feb. 6.
Screaming Females: I Do
There’s a new DP’s song, the b-side of the Ascending Melody 7″. You can buy it or download both songs over at DirtyProjectors.net. Stream it below.
Both “Emblem of the World” and “Ascending Melody” are beautiful examples of the textured and intricate Dirty Projectors. Both rely heavily on female vocal harmonies and simple yet fierce guitar lines. The b-side, however, features drummer Brian McComber’s distinct drum roll that appears like thunder, fast and furious.
“I believe in what I see in you.”
What a lyric. Most DPs seem to be like this one these days, positive and blissfully hopeful.
Will they ever do wrong?
Some people just have a lot of pride and a lot of faith. One such person is Sam Hillmer.
Hillmer is kind of a Brooklyn extraordinaire: he plays experimental saxophone in Zs, runs programs for youth in Bushwick and brings people all around him together, inspiring creativity and collaboration. Hillmer is the dude behind Representing NYC, which links established Brooklyn musicians with budding youth who want to write and perform and You Are Here: The Maze, which set up shop in Death by Audio in September, turning the club into a maze and thus subverting the typical club experience.
Now, Hillmer is back with ¿REAL BUSHWICK/BUSHWICK RÉAL?, a joint venture between The Beacon Center for Arts and Leadership and Representing NYC. The Bushwick focused performance series is meant to represent the “multi-faceted communities that make up Bushwick’s vibrant arts scene.” The first performance is on Jan. at IS 291 and features Nine 11 Thesaurus and Dan Friel from Parts & Labor.
Nine 11 Thesaurus began writing and rapping together after they met at Hillmer’s Representing NYC workshop at the Beacon. The group has released an album on Social Registry and played shows all over the city. Read a review here.
The series continues on Feb. 5 with Unicornicopia and youth performers The Beacon Dance Crew.
