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Real Estate pulls on heart strings! This video for “Suburban Dogs” was shot in two locations, both of which conjure for me feelings of home, peacefulness and youth: a suburban Real Estate office Christmas Party, (Martin’s Mom’s, yeah?) and a field somewhere with a fence fit for climbing. These guys really have the best of both worlds, the love of Brooklyn and a place in that scene, yet a home in the “country” where soccer and basketball and jumping fences is an everyday occurance. Yeah, you could say they’re too lucky, they’re rich kids, etc., but they revel in it. And who wouldn’t?
The fact that there are moving Christmas reindeer in the video only add more to the aforementioned heart strings affect.
CLARIFICATION: I am not actually certain of the financial situations of the members of the band Real Estate. I am going off of what I can glean from their videos and other stuff I’ve read and/or heard. No judgments made whatsoever, the music is what counts.
more about “REAL ESTATE – SUBURBAN DOGS VIDEO“, posted with vodpod
Video directed by Richard Law.
WEDNESDAY
Dream Diary, Cloud Nothings, Fluffy Lumbers, McDonalds, Free Kisses at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
Dam Funk at Bowery Ballroom, 8ish
Men, Light Asylum at Mercury Lounge, 9:30
The Magnetic Fields at Town Hall, 7:30 (and Thursday and Friday)
THURSDAY
Yacht, MNDR at Bowery Ballroom, 8ish
Prudence Teacup, Key Demo, Chris Brokaw (Guitar Trio) at Bruar Falls, 8
FRIDAY
The Very Best, Theophilus London at the Museum of Natural History, 9
Woods, Real Estate, Happy Birthday, Wild Nothing at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8
Tanlines and Maluca and more, Eyebeam Party, 1 am
SATURDAY
Drunk Tiger, Darlings, The Sundelles, Total Slacker, Whatever Brains, Big Troubles, Fluffy Lumbers at Bruar Falls at 7
Darlings, The Sundelles, Total Slacker, Whatever Brains, Big Troubles, Fluffy Lumbers at Cake Shop, 7
Casiokids, Spleen United, Banjo Or Freakout, A Classic Education at Pianos, 8ish
SUNDAY
Lord Jeff, Truman Peyote, Julie Bryne at Silent Barn, 8
David Daniell & Doug McCombs (and Ryan Sawyer), Alan Licht, Loren Connors, Margarida Garcia, Ben Vida, Koen Holtkamp (from Mountains) at Union Pool, 8
MONDAY
Let’s Wrestle, Casiokids, The Wave Pictures, Banjo Or Freakout at Knitting Factory, 7ish
Javelin is a strange band. Great on record, great in performance. That’s kind of rare when it comes to pre-recorded and chosen beats and (recreated) samples, but Javelin pulls it off. The intensity of both Thomas Van Buskirk and George Langford is infectious, and even on a big stage like the one at the Kimmel Center on Washington Square Park, they brought the jamz. Check out the snaps and this Q&A MME did with the band.
more about “Javelin Jamz at NYU“, posted with vodpod
Haunting and arresting– that’s pretty much Emily Reo‘s trademark. And this new track she just sent me, “Blue Canoe,” is no exception. The music almost sounds like you could be on an amusement park ride– a haunted house ride. Like that scene in Amelie where she is turned on by the man with the book of photos when he whispers menacingly into her ear.
Organ, drum machine and muffled vocals end up being a potent mix– you’re going to need to play this over and over again.
Reo hails from Orlando, Florida, land of Disney and palm trees. Where does she get her influences from? Emily- how are you inspired to make dark music like this? If anyone should be making fuzzed out beach pop, its you. Right?
Emily Reo: Blue Canoe
Can't you tell this was a rockin' time? Pic by Rez Avissar
Real Estate played a secret show on Saturday night, headlining a bill with other Underwater Peoples bands Family Portrait and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks. This was a fundraiser/pre SXSW pump up show hosted by none other than MICRO-PIXEL-RITES!
We kicked a keg, had a visit from the Cops and generally wrecked havoc on the Pixelhorse headquarters. All the bands sounded great, they were totally at the top of their game. Family Portrait is on the road now, check them out, or see them in Austin! Real Estate play a sold out show at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Woods on Friday.
Rez Flicks was at the party and he has some great shots, including candid party photos. Our own photog, Rhiannon Marino took a bunch of shots too and they will be up soon. Stay tuned…
Come out to MICRO-PIXEL-RITES at SXSW! Watch our trailer…
Rachel Coleman is a lot of things. In this pick and choose, do what you can job market, Coleman swims in a gumbo of “jobs.” That’s not just a clever joke, even though, yes, Coleman won the reality show “Worst Cooks in America.”
She has a regular day job working as a website copy editor, but at night Coleman turns into Pop Jew and haunts Williamsburg and Bushwick with her always diverse indie shows and funny blog posts and tweets that are mainly about jews, cute boys and bands.
On a recent night she was hosting a Purim party at Death by Audio, a music venue in Williamsburg. We talked while Coleman blew up balloons. In between sentences she’d inhale loudly and inflate.
“DIY man, fuckin blow up your own balloons,” she said, dressed up like a cop but with black tights and a tiny jean skirt.
Coleman’s foray into Reality TV didn’t actually take her too far off track. As a student at NYU’s Gallatan School of Individualized Study, she took a keen interest in pop culture theory and, of course, Reality TV. As for being on screen, Coleman liked it– at first.
“I love TV and I really loved being on TV,” she said. “I was getting recognized on the street!” But eventually, the excitement wore off and Coleman realized she wasn’t cut out for it.
“‘What am I going to do a show about? This band has been on Captured Tracks,’” she said, laughing at her own insider joke.
So what does Rachel Coleman (or Pop Jew) actually want to do with her life?
“You want to know what I would love, my ultimate dream in life?” she boldly asked when that exact question was put to her. “My greatest dream is to organize a community in the greater Williamsburg or Brooklyn area that’s a supportive, involved, hip community for Jewish 20-somethings.”
Coleman thinks its too bad that anything having to do with religion is deemed “uncool.”
“Yeah it would involve prayers,” she said, unapologetically. “It’s hard to have my interests…” She trailed off, perhaps knowing that her hope was a far off dream.
“It would be so amazing to have a Jewish community linked to music,” she said. “Pop Jew isn’t just a thing, my Judaism is as important or more important than the music.”
So there you have it. Somehow Pop Jew will combine all of her worlds and most of her interests. Perhaps a Reality TV show about hipster Jewish music fans in Williamsburg is not too far off.
more about “popjew in brooklyn“, posted with vodpod
Todd P at work at Dead Herring
MtyMx, the three-day festival at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains in Monterrey, Mexico, is not just a festival of music. It’s a call to action coming from a Brooklyn party promoter with big goals.
“The only time we hear about Mexico is when there’s drug dealing or swine flu,” Todd Patrick said one recent sunny afternoon at Dead Herring, a party space/residential loft located by the Williamsburg Bridge on-ramp.
Todd P wants to fight against the stigmas surrounding Mexico, while bringing contemporary, indie music to the burgeoning middle class there.
One-party rule ended in Mexico in 2000 when Vicente Fox was elected president, ending a 71-year rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This was credited with creating a path for people to rise from poverty. Before, there were rich and poor, and not much in between. The growing middle class is searching for alternative, Todd P says. And they are making music all their own.
“People are oblivious, Mexico is our neighbor and just as much an equal as Canada,” he said. “We should respect their cultural output.”
Todd P wants North Americans to see that there is nothing to fear in Mexico, and for bands to think of it as a place worth touring.
“Americans are convinced it’s a war zone,” he said. “They won’t give it a chance.”
MtyMx is being thrown with Yo Garage, a DIY music promoter based in Monterrey. While he is working hard to bring Americans over the border in buses from Austin, where SXSW will be going on, he expects most of those in attendance will be Mexican citizens. He points to Twitter to show the hype.
About 90 percent of the tweets with MtyMx hash tags are in Spanish, he said. “You can see people are psyched.”
Negative assumptions of Mexico are proving hard to beat, however. Just yesterday the state police in Texas issued a statement warning “spring breakers,” a term generally used to refer to college students taking their spring break on Mexican and Caribbean beaches, to be wary of the border regions of Mexico. The statement was repeated and reported in many major news sources, including CNN. Americans on Twitter responded by warning against traveling to MtyMx. There was just one problem.
“The festival’s in the state of Nuevo Leon, & you drive thru Tamaulipas to get there. Neither one’s mentioned in that story,” Todd P wrote on his Twitter last night.
In fact, Monterrey is the safest and most “American” city in Mexico, Todd P said. It is where big American corporations set up shop in Mexico and is referred to as Mexico’s “silicon valley.”
Of course, Todd P being Todd P, the festival is DIY and totally non corporate. While Mexican alternative culture is being bombarded with branding campaigns and outrageous sponsorships, Todd P aims to show, like he has in Brooklyn, that you can do all ages, indie shows in Mexico without the corporate backbone.
“The lifestyle marketing that’s going on is gross,” he said, mentioning that the Vice Magazine brand, American Apparel and Camel tobacco were some of the biggest brands to inflitrate the indie music scene in Mexico.
In Mexico, the branding is “right out of the gates,” he said. Unlike in the U.S., Mexico hasn’t had decades of punk and hardcore music scenes with their accompanying subcultures, which at their core rebelled against corporate power and the political status quo. So this undeveloped scene is being hit with Vice photo booths without even being aware that there is an alternative.
This is the first year of the festival, and Todd P has some lofty ambitions. But so do all who try to change the way things are.
MtyMx takes place March 20, 21 and 22 at Autocinema Las Torres.
Black Tambourine was a project hatched in 1989 from the mash up of musicians from Velocity Girl and Whorl. The band only lasted til 1991– but Slumberland is about to release a “Complete Recordings” album, with 6 unreleased songs. In fact, Slumberland Records first release was a Black Tambourine record.
The band has been highly influential, bands like Vivian Girls and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have referenced Black Tambourine as an influence. (It’s really not hard to hear the similarities.)
“For Ex-Lovers Only” literally knocks you down to the ground. I slid out of my desk chair when I first heard it! Ok, that’s not true, but it made me feel really powerful and in control on first listen. It’s a total fuzz babe fest with echo-ing vocals and swirly guitars. Just awesome. This is throwback perfection.
Black Tambourine: For Ex-Lovers Only
Sun Araw is California wonder Cameron Stallones. His music drips with chaos and even induces a kind of dream state if you listen softly enough. You have to let this happen…
Here’s a video perfect for the morning. Perhaps your day will be stranger… here’s hoping.
Ray Concepcion shot this at Coco66 on Sunday night. And thank God, cos I missed it. Pick up the 7″, Sun Ark, at Not Not Fun.
more about “Sun Araw at CoCo 66, by Ray Concepcion“, posted with vodpod
Frank LaRosa
Kill Rock Stars is releasing remastered versions of the bookends of the Elliott Smith catalog: 1994′s Roman Candle and 2004′s posthumous release, From a Basement on the Hill. Two songs were released on the Kill Rock Stars site yesterday, “Last Call” and “Twilight.”
“Last Call” could be one of the most powerful songs ever written. The depth of the story, the twists and turns the character makes in it, and the musical shifts from one section to the next within the song, make it complex and dynamic– much like Smith himself. The lyrics can tie you up and leave you tongue tied.
“You’re a crisis, you’re an icicle. You’re a tongueless talker you don’t care what you say, you’re a jaywalker and you just, you just walk away and that’s all that you do.”
And Smith, the longtime feminist, even weaves what’s interpreted as God’s identity into this complicated tale:
“I’ll go to the service, and I’ll go to pray. And i’ll sing the praises of my maker’s name like I was as good as she made me. And I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me….(repeat)…I’m lying here waiting for sleep to over take me.”
This song was different from the rest of Roman Candle, a decidedly lo-fi affair consisting of mainly acoustic numbers with No Names. “Last Call” is a monster.
The albums were remastered by longtime Smith friend and engineer, Larry Crane of Jackpot! studios in Portland and Tape Op Magazine. The sound is incredible.
Elliott Smith: Last Call (remastered)
