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Heyyyy. Come to the MICRO-PIXEL-RITES party on Saturday night! Great bands! A REALLY SPECIAL SECRET GUEST BAND! See the flyer below, pass it around to your pals. See you then…
TONIGHT
Akron/Family, Warpaint, Please the Trees at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8ish
THURSDAY
Man Man, Born Ruffians, Javelin at NYU Kimmel Center, 8ish
Sunburned Hand of the Man, Nancy Garcia, Grasshopper, Zebu, Sord at Death by Audio, 8ish
Gunfight, Shark?, Quiet Loudly, Scary Living at Glasslands, 8ish
Animal Collective (performing Transverse Temporal Gyrus), Danny Perez (artist) at the Guggenheim, 4:30 and 9
FRIDAY
Tanlines, Lemonade, Janka Nabay, Pictureplane, Blondes at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
SATURDAY
MICRO-PIXEL-RITES Pump-Up Pre-SXSW Show: Details TBA at 402 Jefferson, Bushwick
Golden Triangle, Sandwitches, Coasting, Girls at Dawn at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
Titus Andronicus, Parts and Labor, The Babies, Cloud Nothings at Bowery Ballroom, 8ish
Amniotic, Twin Sister, Jersey Band at Coco66, 6:30 ish??
Nude Beach, Total Slacker, Girls At Dawn and more at Don Pedros, 9ish
Evan Dando at Mercury Lounge, 10ish
Free Kisses, Shark?, Byrds of Paradise, Philip Seymour Hoffman at Shea Stadium, 8ish
SUNDAY
Washed Out, Small Black, Pictureplane, Oneohtrix Point Never at Mercury Lounge, 8ish (Monday too)
Awesome Color, Tyvek, Talk Normal at Market Hotel, 8ish
MONDAY
Oneohtrix Point Never, Metacomet, Sweetheart, Luke Perry at Bruar Falls, 8ish
Pictureplane, Oberhofer, The Shams at Glasslands, 9:30ish
Thomas Van Buskirk and George Langford are Javelin. The music they make is unique– they recreate themselves what sounds like a sample. So when you hear something you recognize, like the Salt n Pepa blip in “Oh! Centra” below, it’s likely the band made that. It’s their own recreation.
Hailing originally from Providence, Javelin now call BK their home. Thomas and George are cousins, and I think you can feel the familial vibes in the music.
Javelin has put out some music on Thrill Jockey and have a self-released demo album, but on April 20th (4/20!) the band’s debut on Luaka Bop, No Mas, drops. Pick it up!
The duo took some time to answer questions from MME. (They said they really liked them, by the way).
Why the name “Javelin”? What does the weapon mean to you.
The name was bestowed by George’s sister. It’s kind of like a nickname that you are given and then have to spray paint all over your neighborhood. Javelin the weapon: fast, long-range, and largely outdated. Javelin the event: theatrical, hilarious, vaguely
dangerous. Combine all those words together and that’s pretty much our band.
What do you think about these guys? http://www.javelin-band.com/Home2.html
Get them eat them.
What do you like about each other?
Since we are cousins and both Virgos, we are basically cut from the same cloth. So maybe we like the same things about each other.
You live in Brooklyn now, right? Why did you leave Providence?
Something horrible happened. But you can’t keep running forever. We
got as far as Brookyn.
I have a friend who lives in Olneyville and has been deep into that scene for more than 10 years. Were you into that too? What’s better or worse or different about Brooklyn from Providence? It seems MANY bands move from one place to the other.
Smaller toxic pond = larger mutant fish. We definitely absorbed a lot from the people there– Tom grew up in Providence, went to high school, then college. At the same time we never really fit in with what was going on. The best thing we learned there was risk taking, and crawling into your own wormhole. There are too many bands in
Brooklyn. No Stuffies neither.
How do you make your music and write your songs? Together in a studio?
Bof. One of us usually gets going on an idea and then we expand.
Would you say your desire is to make people dance? If no, then why do you make this music?
In a live setting, yes. Across the board we aim for positivity. You can wash dishes or take showers very easily to our recordings. Another thing is definitely humor. We basically want to make people feel good.
Tell me about your use of samples. You use them creatively, in that you only feature a small bit, is that right? What’s the point of that? It sounds like a lot of work. Are you trying to be more authentic?
Sampling is just another tool in creating an aesthetic. Whatever the material calls for tends to grow out of it– like a starter culture or something. Sometimes it stands alone, sometimes it’s a part of a larger collage. Then there is the element of sampling oneself as
being the basis of recording in a slightly more fragmented, non-linear way. Our new record contains very few samples– as opposed to our CD-R demo Jamz n Jemz. Some of the songs from J+J are on the new record, but most have been transformed, remade, or are completely new. We get a little bit of satisfaction when someone asks “Where did you
get that sample?” and we get to say, “We played it… all of it.”
You contributed a song to The Report. How did that come about?
Our other cousin Sam introduced us to McGregor. He filmed us when we played in the basement of Damon Dash’s Blokroc label– which was some crazy shit. It’s going to feature an interview by our cousin where he reminisces about recording childhood tapes together.
What are some of your favorite bands. Right now, and historically.
Killer Whales from Chicago, (right now, although they are always claiming they are history), Lucky Dragons from L.A., The Ex, Smokey Robinson, De La Soul, the classics
Are you turned on more by food or by nature. Cars? Clothes?
Natural foods. Clothes with cars on them.
What are your hobbies. What does a Friday night look like?
Hot toddies and mixed Canasta.
Why boom boxes? You seem to like to use newfangled instruments too. Is it a throwback? Or just a cool look?
We grew up with boomboxes, recording music to them, recording mixtapes off the radio, playing them on batteries everywhere– we also like the sound they make. We run our drums through them live and mic them like guitar amps… FM radio is a sonic factor as well as shitty speakers. If you want to take it to the theoretical realm, boomboxes can
represent peoples’ ownership and self-identity with music in a public place. (See Radio Rahim)
You have a song called C-Town. Was it inspired by the grocery store? Those are unique to Brooklyn i think. What about the C-Town do you like? The bright lights?
They have them in Harlem too. Some of song titles are arbitrary.
Javelin: Oh! Centra
Together with the ladies of Pixelhorse and Visitation Rites, we are Sisters Doin’ It For Themselves this year at SXSW! This is female powered– and sure to be an overwhelmingly awesome and DIY backyard showcase.
The party goes down at 1204 Salina Street in Austin on Thursday, March 18 from 1-8 pm. Check out the flyer, post it, pass it, love that cat on records!
And stay tuned for a BIG announcement… pre-SXSW-pump up party wump wump featuring awesome bands. IN BROOKLYN.
Twin Sister took the stage at Matchless with 8 minutes to go before midnight, which is when Matchless shows are supposed to shut down. They played til probably 20 past 12. You tell me why…. did you guess? Yeah, the answer is because they are a fucking incredible band. The sound guy knew it and everyone in the room, which was at capacity, knew it too.
The band moves with the music like lava runs down the side of a volcano. It’s like something that must happen. And even though it looks like its moving slowly, its actually gushing pretty quickly, and its scorching hot.
Lead singer and siren Andrea Estella jumps like a pogo all over the stage while attacking her vocal duties like a panther. In a voice that both whispers and snarls, she woos you. Just check out the slideshow below, you’ll see.
Twin Sister makes music that is impossible to categorize, which is obviously a good thing. At one moment their songs could be considered lo-fi spooky mood changers. At another they are almost a jam band, and I don’t mean noodling, I mean deep, intense jams that move you from valley to mountain to plateau. Their drummer is particularly apt– he plays off the beat and his strikes are far from simple, only adding more to the already bubbling pot.
See the band this Saturday at Coco66, or if you’re heading to Austin, there’s the MICRO-PIXEL-RITES Showcase!
more about “twin sister“, posted with vodpod
