pellytwins (a new york & boston-based music blog.)

Stop the Presses: Hilly Eye Joins Don Giovanni, Announces LP and 7"

2012-01-18T05:55:00.000-08:00

Art by Debbie Allen
The perennially awesome New Brunswick label Don Giovanni has confirmed they'll issue the debut LP from Hilly Eye, a post-Riot Grrrl two-piece fronted by Amy Klein (ex-Titus Andronicus). The record will be out in July, with a preceding 7" single, "Jacob's Ladder" b/w "Almanac".

Amy and drummer Catherine Tung are currently recording the album at Brooklyn's Seaside Lounge with friend and fellow Permanent Wave comrade Danielle DePalma. (Who, as you may know, is also the bassist for Amy Klein and the Blue Star Band.)

Fireworks by hilly eye
"Our influences are wide-reaching, but all of them are noisy," Catherine notes. The song "Double Dutch'", for example, "harnesses a Lightning Bolt-like energy," while one of the band's new songs draws a fair amount of influence from the Japanese noise group Nisennenmondai. "We often look to Sonic Youth in our songs that experiment with dissonance and tonality," Catherine says. "Our free-noise moments remind me a lot of earlier Boredoms."

In other Don Giovanni news, the label just announced that the new Screaming Females LP, Ugly, will be out April 3. It's preceded by the "It All Means Nothing" 7", which the band performed in this cute NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Ugly was recorded by Steve Albini, much like the new Cloud Nothings album. While Screamales, Cloudy No's, and Hilly Eye have not yet announced a national tour of basements and DIY spaces, and maybe they won't ever, we would very much like them to, thnx.

Watch a video of Hilly Eye playing a "Pellytwins Presents" showcase that Liz booked in Boston in October:

Words by Jenn & Liz

Guest Mix: Don Giovanni

2011-10-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

Note: This is one of the best things we have posted on this blog ever.

Earlier this summer I wrote an article for Billboard on the "50 Best Indie Labels in America," and naturally included Jersey punk label Don Giovanni, who I first learned about in 2008, when I wrote about Screaming Females for Rolling Stone. I will never forget the moment in that interview when the drummer, Jared, told me that Joe, from Don Giovanni, once threatened to kill himself if he could not release the band's records. That sort of enthusiasm is always intriguing. Don Giovanni has since become one of my favorite indie labels operating anywhere in America, due in no small part to their releases for bands like the Females and Shellshag, whose energy is I think unparalleled by any other pocket of contemporary DIY music. Here's what I wrote about them for Billboard:

Don Giovanni isn’t a household name, but when founders Joe Steinhardt and Zach Gajewski launched the label as students at Boston University in 2004, that was hardly their intention—they set out to document the New Brunswick basement punk scene, and have become recognized throughout the underground DIY punk community for indie rock and punk releases from the likes of Shellshag, The Ergs!, and the critically-acclaimed Screaming Females.

We have probably spent more time talking about DG on this blog than any other label or band, and this guest mix by Joe is the first in a series of mixes that we will be posting as we "relaunch" our blog this fall. Many of these tracks have never existed before in MP3 format. Check out what Joe had to say about the mix, as well as the tracklisting, below. Screaming Females and Shellshag play Bowery Ballroom with Hilly Eye, tonight.

mix: Don Giovanni Guest Mix 4 Pellytwins Blog

When the Pelly twins asked me to put a mix together for their site I was stoked, especially when they said they wanted me to do all current bands not on the label. I've heard over and over again that there aren't as many good bands around as there used to be, or that all the great bands broke up, etc. This mix represents just a small part of a class of bands that are not just the best around right now, but who are sure to be considered classic in the future. With I think just two exceptions of bands that recently broke up, all of these bands are active:

01 Tacocat - Party Trap
02 Masshysteri - Dom kan inte hora musiken
03 Tropical Punk - To Hearts
04 The Men - Think
05 House Boat - Real Life As a Metaphor for Real Life
06 Blasting Concept - Age of the Rat
07 Avon Ladies - Power Failure
08 The Two Funerals - Boy's Club
09 Tenement - Stupid World
10 Lemuria - Wise People
11 The Gift - Corpse Reviver
12 Emily's Army - Strictly For The Birds
13 Lecherous Gaze - Phaze
14 P.S. Eliot - Sadie
15 Omegas - Peasant Dance
16 Grabass Charlestons - Dale
17 Dead Mechanical - Sidewalks
18 Vacation - Cop Knock
19 Night Birds - Paranoid Times

Previously:
-- Q&A with Don Giovanni Records
-- Premiere: Modern Hut's debut single, "Wrong"
-- mp3: Big Eyes - "Why Can't I"
-- Shellshag Played the New Afternoon Show
-- Big in 2k10: Byrds of Paradise

Farewell 2 College Radio: Heaven's Gate and Bryan Waterman on NAS

2011-09-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

It is with both sadness and excitement that I prepare for my final week at WNYU, where I have spent the past two years hosting the New Afternoon Show. I have often joked that joining WNYU changed my life, but it's definitely true to some extent. I feel certain that, had I not joined the station during my first semester at NYU, my approach to music/life would be a lot less interesting. WNYU served as my gateway to a lot of important records, as well as to a deeper way of thinking about music. (But luckily I get to pack up all of these experiences and take them with me to my new job at P4K.)

The show will kick off with a guest DJ set from one of my favorite former professors, Bryan Waterman, who just published his 33 1/3 on Marquee Moon this past summer. Certainly not a new name if you are a regular reader of this blog! I will be playing excepts from live sets, interviews and guest DJ sets from my past two years at WNYU, including songs and words from Tune-Yards, Male Bonding, Hilly Eye, La Big Vic, Twin Sister, Weed Hounds, Coasting, Shellshag, Beach Fossils, Julian Lynch and more.

Around 7pm, the show will close out with a live set from Heaven's Gate, who are the kind of band I created this blog to write about — a punky noise-pop group comprised of folk singer/songwriter Jess Paps, former Sweet Bulbs members Mike Sheffield and Jack Wolf, ex-Michael Jordan guitarist Alex Cvetovich, plus Weed Hounds' Patrick Stankard on drums. Check out their new track, "Weakness Worms," below, which is covered in hints of their musical histories.

Weakness Worms by jennpelly

Check Out This Sick Pop-Punk Comp to Benefit Planned Parenthood

2011-09-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

On October 4th, the Gainsville, FL punk label Paper + Plastick will release Are You With the Band?, a stacked pop-punk compilation of female-fronted artists to benefit Planned Parenthood. Curated by Lauren Denitzio, formerly of The Measure SA, it includes previously unreleased tracks from two of the best bands we've featured on this blog: Noun (Marissa of Screaming Females), and Brooklyn's Shellshag. Not to mention Cheeky, Little Lungs, Slingshot Dakota, P.S. Eliot and more. It's kind of like a who's-who of the Microcosm-fueled DIY pop-punk/indie scene, and will be available digitally and on 12" vinyl with a large-format, full-color art booklet. Other pockets of contemporary DIY could do well taking a page out of this scene's book; we're hard-pressed to recall other recent projects with such positive and proactive social agendas.

Track listing:
1. Aye Nako – Bent Out Of Shape *
2. Cheeky – Two Face
3. Black Rainbow – Make Amends *
4. Dead Dog – Couch *
5. Sourpatch – Things You Say *
6. Little Lungs – Things Fall Apart
7. Slingshot Dakota – Michael Jordan Saved My Life
8. The Measure – Stop Calling *
9. The New Dress – Hey Kid *
10. No More – Flatland *
11. Noun – TV Shows *
12. The Two Funerals – Too Late *
13. Shellshag – Crybaby *
14. The Homewreckers – Uncontrolable Decay *
15. P.S. Eliot – Entendre *
16. WITCHES – Grey
*Previously unreleased

Pigeons: "Tournoi" (video)

2011-09-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

Pigeons' recent releases for Soft Abuse, Curatorial Club, and Olde English Spelling Bee highlighted the Bronx duo's noir-ish breed of slow, psychedelic pop. But on "Tourni," from their forthcoming The Sweetheartstammers LP, guitarists Wednesday Knudsen and Clark Griffin carry their sonic vision to a new level of clarity, with higher-fidelity production values and help from two new members: bassist Jason Meagher and drummer Nathan Bowles. The result is a fuller-sounding Pigeons that still maintains their brooding beauty, but with pronounced hints of Hope Sandoval and brighter guitars that meander densely. In the video above, Brooklyn-based filmmaker/visual artist/recent Julian Lynch collaborator, Amy Ruhl layers chroma-keyed footage atop digitally animated archival photos. And like Pigeons, the result has an eery gracefulness that feels vintage and secret.

Pigeons tour Europe and the USA this fall and winter. The Sweetheartstammers drops November 8th on Soft Abuse.

Pterodactyl: "Nerds" (mp3)

2011-09-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

mp3: Pterodactyl - "Nerds"
It's refreshing to hear a track called "Nerds" from a Brooklyn band that genuinely eschews its home-zone's trend wagons. But would you expect anything less of a band on Brah Records, the Jagjaguwar imprint curated by Oneida? Pterodactyl's perennial art-rock pummel was first plucked up by their neighbors at Brah for 2007's Pterodactyl and 2009's Worldwind. Those records' tornados of angular, mathy guitars, skitzo drums, and piercing, emotive screeches are toned down in their forthcoming LP, Spills Out, with a pop structure that's a tamer Pterodactyl, but still pretty frenetic. The band says "Nerds" is about playing life like a video game: "role playing," "nerdy gamers in love," and the mindmeld you reach in a relationship "when you lose track of who's who." Despite cleaner, criss-cross croons and a potentially voguish Spector-fuzz influence, "Nerds" maintains a thrashy momentum that keeps the sound delightfully uncool. Just check out that first verse's melody — appropriately lifted from Zelda's theme.

Spills Out drops November 15th on Brah Records.

Pre-Order Real Estate's LP for 285 Kent Bootleg

2011-09-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Remember back in June when we helped organize that sweet book-launch show for Waterman and Patell's 33 1/3 volumes? You can now grab a bootleg of Real Estate's set, pressed to vinyl, when you pre-order their sophomore record, Days. (Thanks, NYC Taper!) It's out October 18th on Domino and will likely be one of our favorites of the year. It seems appropriate that this bootleg would become a tangible artifact; the set was performed to honor a time in New York music before mp3s and YouTube streams made many people forget how important physical pressings can be in properly documenting our musical moment.

Pre-order the Real Estate LP here, and if you haven't already, order 33 1/3's Marquee Moon here.

Check Out Our New Banner

2011-08-30T04:30:00.001-07:00

I guess this is growing up.

Widowspeak: "Widowspeak"

2011-08-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Widowspeak's debut record for Captured Tracks is characterized mostly by its careful sparseness, tasteful subtlety, and knowing restraint. Listen closely to the young trio-- from Brooklyn by way of Tacoma and Chicago-- and it's clear that although the record could lean primarily on singer Molly Hamilton’s refined alto, or guitarist Rob Thomas's psychy twang, it does neither. Widowspeak is a collection of smoky pop melodies, and it's also a great guitar record. Mostly, it's a continuous call-and-response, pinned by drummer Mike Stasiask's studied, vintage beat and occasional organ touches from the lipstick-red Farfisa at Rear House, where the band tracked the LP with Jarvis Taveniere of Woods earlier this year.

Side A opens on the East Coast with the upbeat and delicate surf guitars of "Puritan." Molly's soft, unfurling vocals deliver images of New England car-rides, and the track embodies an indie-pop purity that its title can't help but signal. The band switches gears with Northwest-inspired hit single "Harsh Realm," a moody slow-burner with serious licensing potential, the silver ping of Thomas' guitar coming to a crawl. "Nightcrawlers" builds to a dark, twangy psychedelia that is dissonant and urgent and a seeming ode to overwhelming New York late nights. But "In the Pines," a chugging and atmospheric pop song that is also one of the record’s most compelling, shuttles us out to the country once again.

Most of the songs on this album could be singles, and Side B makes that more obvious. A steady string of poptimism on "Gun Shy," "Hard Times," and "Fir Coat" carries the band's formula to sunnier, more upbeat territory, suggesting that had Captured Tracks not plucked them from obscurity, a whole lot of other indie-pop labels would have probably taken notice eventually. There's no denying Widowspeak have crafted Captured Track's cleanest-sounding LP to date, embracing a minimalism that's refreshing and, for this label, wholly new.

Stream the full album below. This post originally appeared on Altered Zones.
Widowspeak: Widowspeak by alteredzones

mp3: Walls - "Sunporch (Holy Other remix)"

2011-08-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

mp3: Walls - "Sunporch (Holy Other remix)"
Most followers of Holy Other's dense house-oriented works would be immediately intrigued by the idea of the gothy Manchester producer remixing a bright, buzzing dance track called "Sunporch." Unsurprisingly, Holy Other's sophisticatedly spookish persona changes the track entirely. It kicks off with his cold, trudging beats, and picks up to pace as Walls' glassy synths swim over Holy Other's deep and melancholy electronic washes. If you're guilty of occasionally upping the BPM a bit on your fave Tri Angle tracks, just for kicks, look no further than halfway through this jam.

This post originally appeared on Altered Zones.

MP3: Quilt "Children of Light," from their new Burger Records tape; new LP out on Mexican Summer this fall

2011-08-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

The new Quilt tape rules & you can buy one now from Burger Records!
They have an LP out on Mexican Summer this fall!
O also they're playing the Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge tonight!!! $FREE$

With their new cassingle tape on Burger Records, some of Quilt's spooky patch-worked psych-pop is re-packaged onto a 5-track short-player, featuring previously-released Peonobska Oakwalk and Cowboys in the Void (which Jenn wrote about here) and three new cuts.
QUILT "Children Of Light" by lizpelly

One new song is "Children of Light" (mp3 above), a three-and-a-half minute track of 60s-inspired three-part harmonies, alternating between high and low pitches over deep, ringing, Eastern guitar riffs and the fast shaking of a tambourine. ("We got that earthly drone, and yes we like that Bossa Nova, we'll learn to forget the past, but we'll still remember something.") It all plays with light/dark, high/low, major/minor, past/present, eventually psyching-out into a hypnotizing drone.

Another new one is "Silver Stairs of Ketchikan," a minimal, slow-moving track of twanging guitars, deep, bouncing drum beats and repetitive cymbal taps. Jenn was particularly spot on in her last Quilt review when she wrote: "At a moment when so much underground psych is focused on synthesizers and electronic vibes, Quilt’s organic, vocal-heavy psych-rock is uplifting." The tape ends with an instrumental of "Penobska."

The cassingle was recorded with Jesse Gallagher in Cambridge in 2010 and pressed in a run of 300. Get one for six bux via Burger Records webstore. Also, have y'all seen this bit of news up on the Mexican Summer website? Future releases from Radio People, Pink Playground, Date Palms, Home Blitz, Yellow Year, QUILT, and more. Word!

Premiere: Modern Hut's debut single, "Wrong"

2011-07-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Wrong by Modern Hut
Pellytwins’ Weblog is stoked to unveil the very first studio recordings from New Jersey’s Modern Hut — the indie rock project of Joe Steinhardt, founder of New Brunswick punk label Don Giovanni. And it sounds just like that. Joe seems to draw influence from our favorite chapters of Our Band Could Be Your Life: big, Mascis-like guitars with a distinct and monotone drawl that endearingly recalls Calvin Johnson, all with the honest, catchy thoughtfulness that pervades his own label’s catalog. Stream his first single, “Wrong,” above.

Also stream its B-side, “Life,” which features guest vocals from Screaming Females’ throaty front-shredder Marissa Paternoster. Marissa produced the tracks at NJ’s Hunt Studio, where Screaming Females recorded their past two records; she plays drums, while Fid from The Measure (SA) holds it down on bass. Whereas “Wrong” is unequivocally rooted in Joe’s pop-punk unbrining — he played in NJ band For Science until 2008 — “Life” shows Modern Hut’s affinity for honest, straightforward lyricism that captures life’s candid moments, reflecting on life, death, and boredom, while maintaining a sense of humor about it all.

“A lot of songs are very whimsical and carefree. They’re all about surfing and hanging out and partying, and all of these things that life really isn’t, ” Joe told us. “I’m just trying to write songs about the things you actually do in life.”

Three years in the works, Modern Hut’s debut release, for which Joe is seeking a label, is out later this year.

Follow Joe via twitter.com/dongiovannirecs.

Words by Jenn & Liz.

Video Premiere: Sweet Bulbs, "Kissing Clouds"

2011-07-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sweet Bulbs' weird-pop anthem "Kissing Clouds" is a song saddled in nonsensical emotion, which its video, above, portrays pretty well. Brett Marren's animation for the 2010 single starts out with a cartoon-bird flapping his wings, charging towards us, surrounded by a vibrant, neon blue sky. Then he poops and his poop turns into a loosely sketched couple who jive and flip around. Someone eats them, and soon we are under the sea. A dolphin swims by, retreating to a small house, where I believe he shoots heroin, falls down dead, and is eaten by a swarm of insects, then a hamburgler-creature slurps up his remains with a straw, and eventually we are in a clay-mated other-world with sugarcube stairs and subtle masonic imagery. It all ends with a psychedelic skull figure looking tormented. How's that for trippy? As Inna sings in the song, herself: "it, doesn't make no sense."

Sweet Bulbs' debut self-titled LP is out now on Blackburn Recordings.

2NITE: Real Estate + Widowspeak at 285 Kent

2011-06-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

We could not be more stoked to be presenting this show tonight at 285 Kent, in honor of two awesome new additions to Continuum's beloved 33 1/3 series: Television's Marquee Moon by Bryan Waterman, and The Rolling Stones' Some Girls by Cyrus Patell. Widowspeak and Real Estate will play music from their respective forthcoming LPs for Captured Tracks and Domino, both of which are among our most anticipated this year.

Bryan and Cyrus are both my former English professors; I took/Tweeted their course "Writing New York" at NYU last semester — as well as Bryan's course "The Downtown Scene in the '70s" last summer — and was beyond stoked when they asked me to help organize a release celebrating New York's current musical moment. It's especially fitting that we have Real Estate on the bill, as their new record was just mastered by the same guy who did Marquee Moon.

====| THURSDAY 6/30 @ 285 KENT AVE |====

|| 33 1/3 BOOKS release party
|| "TELEVISION: MARQUEE MOON" by Bryan Waterman
|| "ROLLING STONES: SOME GIRLS" by Cyrus R. K. Patell
|| presented by http://pellytwins.blogspot.com/

|| Real Estate
|||| Widowspeak
|||||| Vacation

| 285 KENT AVE |
285 Kent Ave @ South 1st | Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L-Bedford, G-Metropolitan, JM-Marcy | 8pm | $10 | all ages

| curated by Jenn Pelly and Bryan Waterman |

Come celebrate the launch of two new 33 1/3 volumes on 'Marquee Moon' and 'Some Girls' by NYU professors Bryan Waterman and Cyrus Patell. Live music from Vacation, Widowspeak, and Real Estate - whose forthcoming sophomore LP was appropriately just mastered by the same dude who did Marquee Moon.

http://ahistoryofnewyork.com/
http://pellytwins.blogspot.com/

http://realestatetheband.blogspot.com/
http://myspace.com/realestate
http://widowspeak.bandcamp.com/
http://thisisvacation.com/

Special -THNX- to Todd & co. for letting us take over 285 tonight.

Northside: Iceage in America

2011-06-18T00:58:00.000-07:00

It was, apparently, difficult to get near the stage at Public Assembly during last night's Iceage show, their debut on American soil. I was unaware. Here's some footage I shot from my easily-attained spot on the side of the stage. Watch a monsoon of camera flashes and fist-pumps, and at the very end, the singer drops into the crowd. Photo of the setlist, below. Iceage were dark, chaotic, and fun, but would I expect anything less of a Sacred Bones showcase? I enjoyed The Men, Prurient, Pop 1280, and Cult of Youth just as much — if not, more.

Lookout for a full Northside report here on Monday.

This Monday 5/30 @ Great Scott: Girlfriends, Sweet Bulbs, Young Adults, Sore Eros (pellytwins+blackburn co-curated show)

2011-05-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

Our next show at Great Scott in Allston is on Monday, May 30, with Girlfriends, Sweet Bulbs, Young Adults, and Sore Eros, co-curated by our good friends over at Brooklyn's Blackburn Recordings.

We've written about Sweet Bulbs a lot. I last wrote about Girlfriends in November. Watch some videos below + if you are in Boston come hang on Monday night!

Times New Viking keyboardist talks about their new record, various record labels, force-formed genres, etc.

2011-05-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last Friday at approximately 11am I called the singer of Times New Viking for an interview scheduled days before. He never answered, so at 11:30 I called the band's keyboardist Beth, who told me the singer's phone was broken and then asked if I could call back in 10 minutes because she had to make coffee. The following interview is what followed when I made a third phone call, wherein we discuss: the then-forthcoming rapture, their new record on Merge, the laziness of "lo-fi" as a label, and music writers force-forming genres. This originally appeared on the Boston Phoenix's On the Download blog in advance of their show tonight with The Babies and Earthquake Party at Great Scott.

Apparently "the rapture" is coming this weekend. If you guys could only play one show before "the rapture," where would it be and who would you play with?
It would probably be in Columbus, Ohio and we’d probably just play with all of the local bands that we’ve known for a long time. We’d probably just try to play with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Psychelic Horeshit, Cheater Slicks, that kinda thing. Mike Rep, definitely, Tommy J. I’d like to be next to Mike Rep at the time of the apocalypse.

What inspired TNV to go towards a cleaner pop sound on the new record?
It was part of a natural progression. We always try to record a little bit differently every time we make an album. This time, our fifth album, we definitely felt the effects of getting a little bit older... we wanted to see if we could flesh out a pop album rather than doing it as off-the-cuff as we used to. Just try to have a little more patience with it.

Have the sonic adjustments towards poppier sounds changed the experience of playing live?
No, I wouldn’t say our shows have changed. Our record’s only been out a month so I haven’t noticed any change like that. And I think live, we play the songs just like we play our old songs. We still play as loud as we can, pretty fast.

How is being on Merge been different from Matador or Siltbreeze?
The thing that’s nice about Merge is it’s run by practicing musicians, so there’s kind of an understanding more of that aspect of what musicians are dealing with on a regular basis. I think it’s a lot more laid back. It’s in North Carolina, not New York.

How did you get hooked up with your first label Siltbreeze?
We played a couple of shows live, and had made a CD-Rs of our recordings just for us and our friends. Mike Rep got a hold of it, he liked it and he told his friend who runs Siltbreeze, and he came down to visit, because he’s from Ohio, and he played it for him. So we didn’t ask them or send it to them. He just sort of accidentally heard it and liked it and wanted to put it out.

How long were you a band before putting out the first record with Siltbreeze? Was it home recorded?
Yes. We started in late 2003 and Dig Yourself came out in 2005.

That scuzzy, home-recorded sounded that you guys have always maintained has become super popular over the past few years. Do you have any feelings about that?
I don’t know. I think people have always made music like that. I think it might have gained a little attention because of the recession. And then also, once certain avenues latch on to a sound like that, it can make it seem like it is way bigger or more prevalent than it really is. Like Pitchfork will all of a sudden pay attention to those kinds of bands and so then it will kind of like force form a genre of sorts even if the bands have nothing to do with each other.

Do you think that’s a bad thing for music/culture in a more general sense?
I think it doesn’t do the individual bands justice, to lump them into something...to say "these bands are the same genre because of a certain recording process or sound." And then sometimes the sound is completely off the mark, too. Sometimes bands don’t even sound lo-fi and they call them lo-fi. It’s a little bit lazy.

Has that been happening to you guys? Have you seen outlets pinning you guys to bands that you don’t really have anything to do with other than sounding "lo-fi"?
Yeah absolutely. Yeah that’s definitely happened. When I think of a genre I think of bands that have something more in common than that. Its just a shame because there’s probably a lot more going on in individual bands and it doesn’t feel right to put them under that umbrella.

Do you think that has something to do with why a lot of bands who were putting out home-recorded stuff have been driven to put out tighter, more expansive records -- to not just be defined by their production? I feel like in the past six months there’s been a handful of new releases by bands that were previously home-recorded, putting out tighter stuff?
Yeah well, it makes sense that when a band first starts, in its early years, to be home-recorded, and then go in that direction. That just seems natural to me. Also to see, if you can get extra money if you can go to a studio, you want to challenge yourself you go to the studio, you get more confidence if you go to a studio... all of those things are at play there.

Does Times New Viking have any funny Boston stories?
Boston...we were super late to one of our Boston shows. And we had to show up and load on to the stage. And Boston is not the place to show up late to a show. The guy was really upset like, "What the FUCK is your problem? You came from New York? What the fuck’s wrong with you?"

This originally ran May 25, 2011 on the Boston Phoenix's On the Download blog.

mp3: Alan Watts - "Spectral Void"

2011-05-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

MP3: Alan Watts: "Spectral Void"
Alan Watts (b. 1915) was a Bay Area philosopher who popularized Zen Buddhism in America. After publishing The Way of Zen in 1957, he appeared in several Kerouac novels. Flash forward fifty-four years to a smoky basement in Bushwick. Brooklynites M. Watts, J. Watts, and P. Watts are at the DIY venue Xpo 929, smoking weed and lighting incense, messing with an MPC drum machine and riffing out distorted guitar textures. They’re doing their best to drown out the teenage emo-core show upstairs. They fittingly call themselves “Alan Watts.”

The trio’s debut Thank You, Spectral Void EP is an organic and loosely poppy take on pulsating, industrial darkwave. Their sprawling, gloomy "Spectral Void" loads warped, subtly screeching guitars over a Suicide drive of steady bass and schizophrenic beats, worthy of repeat plays. “It reminds me of the Factory Records shift to club music and ecstasy,” bassist P. Watts tells me. “The sweet spot right between ‘Closer’ and Happy Mondays.” Meanwhile, guitarist M. Watts says, “we channel alien airwaves through a microwave oven attached to a bus.” Alan — who said, “in music, one doesn’t make the end of the composition the point of the composition” — would approve.

Grab “Spectral Void” below, plus check the entire EP at Soundcloud. Thank You, Spectral Void drops as a limited pressing tape on House of Aragon in the near future. Alan Watts plays 6/28 with Hubble at The Silent Barn (Queens, NY).
MP3: Alan Watts: "Spectral Void"

United Waters - "Platetectonics" (mp3 + video)

2011-04-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

p-tec from b sullivan on Vimeo.

Speaking of chilling out ... This post originally appeared on Altered Zones.

mp3: United Waters - "Platetectonics"

As half of burning experimental duo Mouthus, Brooklyn noisemaker Brian Sullivan has released crushing hard-psych records since 2002 with everyone from Ecstatic Peace! and Troubleman Unlimited to Olde English Spelling Bee, Load, and No Fun. On April 15th, Peace labelmate Pete Nolan — of Magik Markers and Spectre Folk — released the debut LP from Sullivan’s ambient solo project United Waters on his label Arbitrary Signs. Sullivan’s work with United Waters is music for daydreams, giving clarity and breathing room to his band’s organic, experimental spirit. “Platetectonics” loops muted acoustic guitar strums and the light thunder of a distant cymbal under Sullivan’s deep, mellow verse and submerged electric guitar tones. Check out the equally gorgeous minimalism at play in the track’s video above. Headphones required.

United Waters’ debut LP Your First Ever River is out now via Arbitrary Signs.

A Q&A with Showpaper Artist and Graffiti Legend COST

2011-04-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

In the 90s, Adam Cole, a.k.a. COST, revolutionized street art culture by catapulting the wheatpasting medium to an international phenomenon. An elusive character, COST wore masks in photos, ran from the police, and became mythic after dropping out of the street art world from 1996 to late 2010, when he designed a newsbox for Showpaper in November. So it's no surprise that COST now returns to with an awesome Showpaper cover, drawing off the gritty, boldfaced aesthetic of his newsbox design — check it out, above.

Back in December, COST and I met up at the Mars Bar to chat about the creation, theft, and recovery of his newsbox for the Local East Village. Read on for some outtakes from our conversation, and grab a copy of COST’s Showpaper issue while you still can.

JP: Do you feel, with this Showpaper project, you’ve connected the old school and the new school, in terms of the graffiti world?
COST: I’ve been told in the past that REVS and I bridged the gap from graffiti to street art. It’s spiraled into what it is today. We didn’t initiate everything we’ve done, but we’re the guys who ran with it, and we created a blue print for the whole graffiti and street art world. Now, if you follow that blue print, you can produce work and get recognized. There’s a way to do it, and people are going about it, and this whole scene blossoming. When we were doing it, we weren’t accepted; we were shunned for it. It took time to digest what we were doing. We were changing the approach to graffiti and street art at the time. If I don’t make a dollar in my life off this stuff, that’s fine, as long as people know I was there when it started to take off. You can have a guy like Derek Jeter who makes 20 million dollars a year and what not, but Willie Mays will always be Willie Mays.

JP: How was your work perceived back then?
COST: When we were doing this, the graffiti guys were angry at us, and unwilling to accept what we were doing. The avant-garde and mainstream artists were furious at us as well because we were not shopping ourselves to the galleries; we created a gallery right outside the actual gallery. We were the anti-artists, and there were politics behind what we were doing. We were youthful, and there was a lot of rebellion involved. Rebellion doesn’t equal money. I’ve never heard of a multimillionaire being a mad rebel. He’s usually sitting by the pool sipping an iced tea.

JP: What have you been up to since the mid-90s?
C: I feel like I’ve been slowly dragged and coerced back into the art world. I’ve been on the fence with whether or not I should get back. I have done graffiti and art on and off since the mid-90s but nothing to the point of extreme where I would be in the pool. After I got arrested in the mid-90s, it pushed me in another direction. I’ve had some success in other areas of my life; I started to push the street art and graffiti world behind me. I’ve done okay for myself. I became a businessman; I started a small business, it’s honest work. I almost didn’t want to look back. I have a Porsche outside. No matter how much success I had making money, and doing other things, I never have been able to fill that void that the art fills for me. It left a very empty feeling. I always found my way back down this path one way or another, and here I am again, back in the mix.

JP: Can you describe the evolution of the graffiti and street art culture in the East Village since the 90s?
COST: Back in the day, it was mostly born and bred New Yorkers. Now, since graffiti has gone international, you have street artists from all over the world flocking here to participate in the movement. It’s gotten very watered down. There was a rule set that doesn’t apply anymore. It was more dangerous, more gang-related. People brought weapons to the train yards. Now you can creep out of your house and do a quick tag or installation, and scoop back upstairs. You used to have to go into territories like train yards, like turf wars. But that’s so 1980s.

JP: What are the benefits and consequences of these changes?
COST: The new wave of street artist, over the last few years…they’re kind of gallivanting around, tip-toein through the tulips. If someone takes their work, people shrug it off. But me and REVS, we’re from the old school. We were doing graffiti in the 80s on the trains, and in the 90s, so this stuff is heart and soul. We look at it differently if someone takes our work. A lot of the new guys are doing wonderful stuff. But if something gets removed off the street, it’s like an “it is what it is” kind of thing. That’s why this thief is thriving and he’s created a small business of selling stolen artwork on eBay. You do that to the older guys, from a different generation, we don’t want to sit back and let it happen.

JP: Over the years, have you been approached by galleries?
COST: I’m approached by galleries all the time. I’ve been out of the game for a bit, and now that I’m back, wetting my feet on the fringes of the art scene, galleries have approached me left and right. But once again, the answer is no. I don’t mind continuing where I left off, but I’m not going to change my tactics or approach. I still have my own way of getting my art and my word out to the streets.

JP: Can you elaborate on that decision to stay out of galleries?
COST: My work is for me and for the public. I’ve always had a love affair with the landscape of New York City, so I like to put my work on the streets, not in a gallery. The thief went against that code. The thief created a value on it. My work is supposed to have no value; I don’t sell it. I never wrote graffiti as a money making process, you know? I can make my living elsewhere. The [current] street art boom is very mixed; there are street artists, and there are big money people, and they’re intertwining to corrupt the whole thing. It’s hard for me to watch, but it’s out of my control.

JP: What is your opinion of curated public murals, like on Bowery and Houston?
COST: I’m not really looking to join the circus. And I feel the street art culture right now has become like one big circus; a bunch of different rings. I’ve got to be careful where I jump in at this point in my life. I’m not knocking any of the people or the legal murals, it’s all good stuff to some people, but it’s not good to all of us.

JP: Do you have plans for future projects?
COST: It’s a snowball effect. You start slow and hopefully get bigger. Let’s see where it goes.

Do you think the East Village was previously more a center for this stuff?
C: It was the mecca! It still kind of is, but it’s gone abroad and become an international phenomenon now. I didn’t realize how much a veteran like myself is recognized until people told me. I thought I was dead and buried, but maybe not so much. Maybe I’m not so off the map; I thought I was off the map. Money has now invaded the East Village, and a lot of purity is lost when money takes over…that’s a shame. You hope to keep a balance of money and purity…but I don’t know if that can be done.

Special thanks to COST for the interview and Andrew H. Shirley for coordinating.

Big in 2k11: QUILT

2011-03-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

If you follow Liz Pelly on Twitter or attend her shows, you are most likely sick of hearing her talk about Boston/New York psych trio Quilt. Hell, I was, until I heard their new single: “Cowboys in the Void,” a five-minute jammer that knots prickly guitars and haunted group vox into a psychedelic patchwork recalling the trancey haze of San Francisco in the Sixties — stream it below. “Cowboys” starts off with swirling Eastern guitar picks and soft drum rolls, before the chugging ‘60s vox and skinny acid guitars sweetly layer up and get all hypnotic. Think Woods doing Jefferson Airplane or 13th Floor Elevators, but dreamier, with some 21st century art school creativity sewn in.

The aesthetic makes their upcoming debut LP, Gome Home, a huge progression from the 7-inches and cassettes released by the band — Boston’s Anna Rochinski and Brooklyn’s Shane Butler on guitar/vox, plus drummer John Andrews — after forming in early 2009. And thus it’s appropriate that, along with playing our SXSW house show, Quilt recently shared an Austin bill with Sun Araw and Prince Rama.

As the band preps Gome Home, I’ll have to admit Liz Pelly was right all along, and I sense we in New York and beyond will be hearing much more of Quilt in coming months. At a moment when so much underground psych is focused on synthesizers and electronic vibes, Quilt’s organic, vocal-heavy psych-rock is uplifting.

QUILT - Cowboys In The Void by Pellytwins blog

James Blake in America (video)

2011-03-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Last night James Blake made his live debut on American soil at Music Hall of Williamsburg. A totally transcendent performance, IMHO. Check out the first minute, recorded via iPhone, above.

Blake and his bandmates — who he said were longtime friends — seemed in awe of the response from the crowd, who roared each time the bass kicked in or Blake sang a word. I've attended shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg since the venue was remodeled and never witnessed a crowd so loud and transfixed. As the trio's sound built on thundering spectacles like "I Never Learnt to Share" and "Wilhems Scream" and "Limit To Your Love," their lack of movement on stage seemed increasingly appropriate for the performance.

Blake himself — in New York for the first time, he said — thanked the crowd after nearly every song. When his guitarist — the minimalist dubstep producer Airhead — was most involved, like on “Lindesfarne II,” that recurring Justin Vernon comparison seemed particularly on-point, although it was one of the set's less interesting moments.

Sooo… who can get me into Blake’s SXSW shows? Plz email jennpelly [at] gmail [dot] com

WNYU/Pellytwins House Show in Austin TX!

2011-03-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

We are psyched to be helping present the stacked show above, happening at a house in Austin, Texas next Friday. We'll be hanging with friends from Brooklyn, Boston, Austin, Italy, and Australia, and you should be there too! To get everyone even more excited about it, we've put together this mixtape* with tracks by some artists playing the show. Full line-up and relevant links are below, too.

WNYU SXSW HOUSE SHOW PLAYLIST by Pellytwins blog

FULL LINE-UP & RELEVANT LINKS:
++ NYMPHO BONIACS (Fredericksburg) 1pm
++ SLUG GUTS (Australia - Sacred Bones Recs) 2pm
++ LAZY NATIVE (Denton) 3pm
++ LA BIG VIC (Brooklyn - Underwater Peoples Recs) 4pm
++ TWERPS (Australia - Chapter Music) 5pm
++ PASTURES (Austin) 6pm
++ SWEET BULBS (Brooklyn - Blackburn Recordings) 7pm (>> more relevant linx)
++ QUILT (Boston) 8pm
++ A CLASSIC EDUCATION (Italy) 9pm
++ THE DAZE (Austin) 10pm
++ PRINCE RAMA (Brooklyn - Paw Tracks) 11pm
++ MONDO DRAG (Iowa) 12am
++ POP 1280 (NYC - Sacred Bones Recs) 1 am
++ CULT OF YOUTH NYC - Sacred Bones Recs) 2am

Seeya there!

xoxo,
liz & jenn

** You may have noticed that there are two tracks on this mix by Quilt, and thought, "why?" It's because I've been thinking all day today about how psyched I am that they are driving me to Austin (thanks guys!) and as a result, I get to see them play for 5 nights on the way there. (One of those tracks, "Lost and Lewd", is from their new record.) I will be blogging about the whole trip for The Boston Phoenix, where I am now a staff member. (I haven't mentioned that yet here! But it rules!) Follow those blog posts at the Boston Phoenix's On The Download blog.

Video Premiere: Timmy's Organism, "Building the Friend-Ship"

2011-03-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been thinking about how Homo sapiens engage nature, as a result of an Ecocriticism class I'm taking at NYU. These nature writings and ecopoetics have shown me how people too often violate the natural world in art and literature. Thus I was especially pleased to see this grainy, psychedelic video for "Building the Friendship" from Sacred Bones weird-punks Timmy's Organism. From an ecocritical standpoint, the video does as its title suggests: a monsoon of color, it demolishes societal walls between humans (ie. floating astronauts) and animals (ie. frogs and butterflies) and nature. My favorite part is when cartoony flowers explode from multicolor acid hearts.

Timmy's Organism mastermind Timmy Lampinen — a.k.a. "Timmy Vulgar" — is frontman of Human Eye and was recently a Kresge Artist Fellow in Detroit. "Building the Friendship" from the band's debut LP, Rise of the Green Gorilla.

Guest Mixtape: Easter Vomit - "Weirdos v. Mermaids"

2011-02-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

To ensure that all of our friends in Allston are *as stoked as possible* for the second installment of our new Boston-meets-Brooklyn monthly showcase -- happening this Monday at Great Scott -- Easter Vomit have put together a sick mixtape of their favorite bands from Brooklyn. (Coincidentally, some of our favorites too!) They even made this sweet hand-drawn track list. Check it out above/below && come see Easter Vomit on Monday with Ming Ming, Rene, and Free Pizza. Coralcola DJs between sets. 18+ $7 9pm.

guest mix: easter vomit - weirdos vs. mermaids by Pellytwins blog

KEWL BAND: Easter Vomit (playing Great Scott Feb. 21st with Ming Ming, Rene, Free Pizza)

2011-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

MP3: Easter Vomit - Grey Shapes
MP3: Easter Vomit - Rhythm Rock

I've been reading Easter Vomit's name on line-ups with Total Slacker, Widowspeak, Fergus and Geronimo, and other Brooklyn favorites for months, and it makes sense: their noisy psyched-out EP definitely appeals to fans of those bands. Easter Vomit vs. the Natural History Museum is full of textured garage rock, punky guitars, muffled vocals, and steady spaced-out drumming. The selling point is their weirder, slow-moving side; they spend the greater part of a track jamming on distorted riffs and letting slow solos bend and reverberate. Check out "Grey Shapes" and "Rhythm Rock" (mp3s above/video below) to see what I mean.

Easter Vomit formed in early 2010, with frontman Michael Delaney (a Bronx native who started playing in bands around NYC as a kid) and former Beets drummer Jacob Warstler. They recorded the aforementioned EP together, some of which appears on a limited cassette from Brooklyn label Wild Isle. The current line-up — Delaney plus Chie Mori on drums and Joe Boginski on backup vocals — has been together for about two months, and will release a 7" on Blood of Jesus Records pretty soon.

They also play Great Scott in Boston this Monday — with Ming Ming, Rene, Free Pizza, and DJ Coralcola — as part of our new monthly series featuring new bands from Brooklyn and Boston. More info here.

Julian Lynch Live on WNYU

2011-02-10T01:27:00.000-08:00

In light of Julian Lynch announcing his new record — Terra, due this spring on Underwater Peoples — we present a set from Julian and some Ridgewood friends, performed live on WNYU last month. Accompanied by Family Portrait's Evan Brody on guitar, as well as Big Troubles' Ian Drennan and Sam Franklin, the group submerged our little station into a hazy pool of psychedelia for one afternoon in January. Plus: a PSA by Matt Mondanile. Audio proof below.

Click here to stream or download Julian Lynch's set on WNYU. Note: music starts right at the 1:15 mark.

PREMIERE: Sweet Bulbs - "Dilated Sleep"

2011-02-09T11:19:00.001-08:00

MP3: Sweet Bulbs - "Dilated Sleep"

Following previously released singles "Springstung," "Kissing Clouds," and "Eyes Feathers," we are psyched to premiere a free download from one of our favorite debut records of 2k10. Like the Brooklyn band's first three punky dreampop singles, "Dilated Sleep" by Sweet Bulbs is a sticky noise-pop anthem, with front-girl Inna Mkrtycheva's shoegazing, shout-along hooks sounding simultaneously unaffected and angsty. It's a more uptempo track than the first three singles -- with more aggressive drums, and a faster punk bounce. But overall, like the rest of their self-titled, the 138-second track maintain the same badass punk backbone laden with early Slumberland-era fuzz.

Sweet Bulbs - Dilated Sleep by Pellytwins blog

Related:
6/18/10 - Big in 2k10: Sweet Bulbs
10/31/10 - Video: Sweet Bulbs at 171 Lomardy
Boston Phoenix record review: Sweet Bulbs | Sweet Bulbs

The record is now available to order via blackburnrecordings.com.

This week in Boston: Yes Oui Si opening, Boston Underground Summit no. 3, Papercut zine/record fair, + more

2011-02-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

Many excellent local & touring bands are playing this week in Boston: Laura Stevenson, Deerhoof, Doomstar, Skimask, Golden Girls, Mmoss, and a lot of others. Also: Yes Oui Si's new exhibit "Cycles" is opening, the Boston Underground Summit no. 3 is happening, and Papercut Zine Library is hosting a zine/record fair. Details, flyers, and relevant mp3 streams after the jump.

Wednesday 02/09: Laura Stevenson and the Cans at Great Scott. 9pm, 18+, $8adv/10dos. (fb event)
Don Giovanni's most recent signees Laura Stevenson and the Cans play Boston this Wednesday in advance of the label's epic showcase in NYC this weekend. A former member of Long Island's Bomb the Music Industry, Laura Stevenson's music is a folksier take on her punk-inspired roots. Chances are they'll play tracks from their forthcoming record Sit Resist (out this April) and all the hits from A Record (released in 2008, available for free via the Quote Unquote Records site). Check out this old video of Laura & her band playing If You Make It's Pink Couch Sessions.

Thursday 02/10: Deerhoof, Ben Butler and Mousepad, DOOMSTAR! at Middle East Downstairs. 9pm, all ages, $15. (fb event)
On Thursday, San Francisco art-rock 4-piece Deerhoof will play from their new record, Deerhoof vs. Evil, at the Middle East Downstairs. This is their 11th record in 14 years, and its out now via Polyvinyl. (Download the first single "The Merry Barracks" here.) Also exciting is that one of my fave local bands DOOMSTAR! will open -- if you haven't heard their latest singles, "Sea Gull" and "Night at the Movies," check em out below:

Friday 02/11: Opening Celebration for "Cycles" @ Yes Oui Si. Sets by the Hogstompers and Mornin' Old Sport. 6-10pm, all ages, free.
The new(ish) music and art space (located by Mass Art and the MFA) celebrates the opening of its new exhibit "CYCLES" this Friday evening, with old-timey folk sounds performed by the Hogstompers and Mornin Old Sport. It is described as a show covering all types of cycles: "seasonal, plant, life, lunar, dream, bicycles, popcycles." As this show nears, I am becoming really excited about the future of a Yes Oui Si in general. (Did you see that they're hosting weekly donation-based Yoga classes starting Feb 14th?!) Check out the Yes Oui Si website for updates, and listen to some Hogstompers below, courtesy of the Boston DIY bandcamp:

Saturday 02/12 - Papercut Presents: A Record & Zine Fair at the Democracy Center. 12-6pm, free entry. (fb event)
Trying to decide between Boston and NYC for this Saturday was HARD. I ultimately have decided to go to NY for the annual Don Giovanni Showcase (it only happens once a year!) but this Saturday in Boston is going to rule as well. To start, during the day Papercut Zine Library is hosting a record & zine fair at the Democracy Center (45 Mt Auburn Street in Cambridge), bringing together labels and zinesters from all over Massachusetts. Papercut, WTBU, Bodies of Water, Whitehaus, Lucy Parsons Center, and PM Press will all be represented, as well as a bunch of other local hardcore/punk labels and book/zine distros. The official flyer:

Saturday 02/12 - Boston Underground Summit III at the Central Square YMCA. 630pm, all ages, $7-10 sliding scale. (fb event)
Immediately after the zine/record fair, Bodies of Water presents the third installment of the round-robin style Boston Underground Summit, with Young Adults, Shitaly, Ming Ming, Doomstar, Sore Eros, and more. This is guaranteed to rule. (As all of the other Boston Underground Summit line-ups have. Will someone buy Bodies of Water their own venue already?) Check out this sweet GIF. Also, take vids for me, 'cause like I mentioned, I will be at this excellent showcase in NY. (See I told you it was a hard choice!)

Sunday 02/13 - Doomstar, Ski Mask, Golden Girls, Sewn Leather, Narwhalz + MORE @ The B.shoppe.
Is this a joke? Nope, 110% real. Possibly the best line-up I've ever seen @ this place. (Except maybe when Beach Fossils and Cloud Nothings played last March.) Check out the new Golden Girls EP via their bandcamp, below. If you are not in the mood to rage in a crowded basement, you could also check out Royal Blood, tooth ache., The Devil and a Penny, and Kal Marks @ Church.

Monday 02/14 - Mmoss @ Zuzu. free, 21+, 10pm. ++AND++ Viva Viva, You Can Be a Wesley, + more @ Mid East Up 8PM, 18+, $10. (fb event)
Valentine's Day is LAME but these side-by-side shows will be fun. At Zuzu, Night of the Living Deadhead is hosting Mmoss (music below) and a couple of others for $free$. Next door at Middle East Upstairs, Viva Viva are throwing a Valentine's Day Prom ft. sets by themselves and You Can Be a Wesley. Word on the facebook is they will be joined by members of Doomstar and Drug Rug during their set. Flyer:

SEEYA.
xoxo
lp

Revolution Lady Style Now Presents: PERMANENT WAVE (Sunday 2/6 @ Death by Audio)

2011-02-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

In November, Amy Klein, of Titus Andronicus, was angry. Not surprising for a forward-thinking female guitarist in today's male-dominated, and largely male-controlled, indie music culture. In the spirit of Riot Grrrl, Amy held a meeting at her apartment for those interested in continuing a feminist conversation put on pause in the 90s — and recently subject to unprecedented levels of historicization. Klein's group is providing a femme-punk model for the next generation; a modern manifestation of those 90s icons who inspire them.

I am way proud to be involved with said group, and the launch of its event series, Permanent Wave, this Sunday at Death by Audio. The event will purposefully take place on Super Bowl Sunday, and all proceeds from the event — music, poetry, art, food, etc. centered on issues of relationship abuse — will benefit to The Brooklyn Center Against Domestic Violence. Fuck the Super Bowl. Join the Revolution. Poster after the jump.

Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture (also: a DIY enthusiast/documentarian is running for Irish Parliament)

2011-02-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture (2008) from Dylan Haskins on Vimeo.

In light of Jenn's Nylon article on Dublin's DIY music scene being on newsstands globally this month, it seems like a good time to catch up on some Dublin-related posts. To start, above is an inspiring short film, Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture.

The 27-minute documentary, created in 2008 by 23-year-old Dubliner and DIY enthusiast Dylan Haskins, discusses DIY ethics in music communities and beyond. This is a particularly timely week to check out the film: Haskins just announced over the weekend that he is running for Irish Parliament; he discusses his involvement in DIY music communities on his campaign website. "We write the future and we should stop telling ourselves that this is all beyond our control," he explains urgently in his campaign video. (Serious DIY politics in action -- hell yeah.)

As for the documentary -- it starts by highlighting non-commercial all-ages spaces in Dublin, like Seomra Spraoi and now-defunct Hideaway House, and then follows Haskins to DIY venues and 'autonomous social spaces' in 13 European countries. (During summer 2007, he was on tour with US folk punk band Ghost Mice while shooting the film.) It's an interesting look into the state of DIY culture in Europe, where squats and social centers are more popular than basements and warehouses.

The trio first drives to Le Fouloir in rural Nantes, France, and then continues on to social spaces and backyards in places like Aalborg, Denmark; Genoa, Italy; Cologne, Germany; and Brighton, England. Interviews reveal the radical roots of these social centers -- in one interview, volunteers at a Braunschweig, Germany space explain their experience squatting in a long-abandoned building, spending 6 years in court, and finally having the government sign the building over to them for 30 years. (For free.)

The film does an excellent job of highlighting the sophisticated politics of DIY music scenes and the ways that DIY participants analyze the culture and societies they exist within. In the film, Haskins interviews Ian MacKaye, The Ex, author Ellen Lupton (who discusses the complications of being "sort of DIY" versus "off the grid"), and others. Lupton explains how the values of DIY surface in other aspects of life, further than just art -- for example, she suggests that the sustainability movement is a DIY movement, because it is all about "taking control over your own consumption and output."

A large part of the documentary is also spent discussing the relationships between political systems and DIY communities. (What happens when the government starts to see a social center as a space that could be more valuble as a commercial asset?) All of this is set to a sing-along punk soundtrack of bands like Lemuria, Defiance Ohio, the Ex, Heathers, and Adebisi Shank.

Roll Up Your Sleeves is a must-see for anyone interested in DIY -- as is Haskin's political campaign website, and his campaign video, posted below. For a physical copy of the film contact info@hideawayrecords.net, but I probably wouldn't expect a response until after the Irish Parliament elections on February 25. If you don't live in Ireland but want to support this campaign, you can donate here.

February Countercultural Compass

2011-02-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

Can you believe the Counter Cultural Compass has already been around for a whole year? (Woah!) If you missed it in December, this blog post by the BU Quad explains the history of this monthly one-sheet, which has quickly become a staple in Boston's underground/DIY music community. (And recently launched a sweet new website.) This month's guide is after the jump.

A few months ago I tweeted out to the Twitterverse, asking if any other cities had a regular DIY show list/zine as awesome as Boston's Countercultural Compass or New York's Showpaper. As of now, I'm still unaware of anything similar in other American cities -- I'm sure they are out there though; send them my way! It would be fun to see similar newsletters from around the country.

What's going on this week in Boston? 1/26--2/2

2011-01-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

Now that I am a college graduate, I am entering the real world of going to shows every night. Since I make lists for myself anyway, I think it makes sense to post weekly lists here too. Expect these lists to focus on local/underground shows, with some exceptions for noteworthy larger acts, plus occasional listings for music/DIY-related talks, readings, film screenings, fundraisers, etc.

Wednesday 01/26: Wumme, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Many Mansions, and Peace Loving at Gay Gardens. 8pm, all ages, free/donations. (fb event)
- On Wednesday, Gay Gardens hosts Cloud Becomes Your Hand, a Brooklyn-based solo project of Stephen Cooper, who also plays with the Dan Deacon Ensemble. Cloud Becomes Your Hand has a tape out via Canada Goose Tapes, which Mango Nebula tells me is a tape label run by Atomfoam of the Whitehaus. Also playing Gay Gardens on this night are Wumme, Many Mansions, and Peace Loving. Many Mansions recently released WHALES, a free live EP of four tracks recorded at WMBR last summer.

Thursday 01/27: Hands and Knees, Needy Visions, Doomstar!, Fedavees at Great Scott. 9pm 18+ $9. (fb event)
- Thursday is the record release show for the new Hands and Knees record, Wholesome, a great, wide-ranging pop record that features some noisy guitars and twangy influences, shout-a-longs and quieter moments, and a drummer who previously played with Gary War and Bobb Trimble. Needy Visions and Doomstar both made my year-end list for Boston releases, and I just mentioned Fedavees on this post about the "DIY Boston" bandcamp page. Four of the best bands in Boston for 9 bux.

Saturday 01/29: Quilty and Arvid Noe at Obrien's. 730pm 21+ $8 (fb event)
- I have been trying to catch Quilty for months, ever since I saw them open for Best Coast last year. I even once went to a weird "steer roast" event at MIT in hopes of seeing them play, but missed their set. (It was the worst, especially when I realized it actually was a "steer roast.") Saturday night they play at O'Brien's on a line-up that also features Arvid Noe. If I am lucky, both of these sets will be before/after Girlfriends' set at Brighton Music hall, just around the corner. Also on Saturday: Tunnel of Love play Great Scott, and Sore Eros (of Blackburn Recordings fame) play PA's Lounge.

Sunday 01/30: Blank Dogs/Soft Moon @ Brighton Music Hall. 9pm 18+ $8
- I am psyched to have Blank Dogs, of In the Red and Woodist and Captured Tracks Records, be my introduction to the new Brighton Music Hall. (A band who most likely would have never played the space in its days as Harper's Ferry, amirite?) Their most recent record was Land and Fixed, released last year on Captured Tracks.
04 Blank Dogs: Scenes In Town by colin.ilgen

Monday 01/31: Life Partners, Shitaly @ Zuzu. 10pm, 21+, free
- Night of the Living Deadhead is a weekly series at Zuzu, one of the four venues that comprise The Middle East. (And the best of the four, clearly.) This week brings a new noisy post-punk band, Shitaly, who played one of the most memorable sets I saw at Homegrown. This show is at 10pm, 21+, and FREE. Listen to Shitaly's "Tom Sawyer's Nightmare":
04 tom sawyer's nightmare by shitaly

2/12 Don Giovanni Showcase ft. Screaming Females, Laura Stevenson and the Cans, Shellshag, Lemuria, Byrds of Paradise

2011-01-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

Some year-end lists never make it past the Microsoft-Word-brainstorming-document stage. But if my "Best Shows of 2k10" list ever made it to the Internet, Don Giovanni's February 2010 showcase would have been near the top.

Last year, I wrote about said showcase, saying "[it] totally ruled, and somehow managed to fill Bowery Ballroom with the energy of a New Brunswick basement." I also posted an incredibly long interview with my friend Joe who runs Don Giovanni, where we discussed the label in depth. (Read the interview here.)

This year's Don Giovanni showcase is Saturday, February 12 at Music Hall of Williamsburg, with Screaming Females, Laura Stevenson & The Cans, Shellshag, Lemuria, and Byrds of Paradise. The mini-fest line-up is too great to miss (and it has been far too long since I last saw Shellshag... 5 months?) so I am for-sure taking the bus down from Boston that morning. These showcases have sold out in the past -- you can get tickets in advance here to be safe.

Check out some videos of Screamales, Laura Stevenson, Shellshag, and Lemuria below:

Screaming Females - Wild from marissa paternoster on Vimeo.

Shellshag "Resilient Bastard" from Revery Media on Vimeo.

Laura Stevenson & The Cans - Beets Untitled from Leyla Carleo on Vimeo.

Lemuria - The Origamists from If You Make It on Vimeo.

Good Idea: "Boston DIY" Bandcamp Collection

2011-01-21T09:54:00.001-08:00

Someone just had a cool idea: take a bunch of the best releases by DIY-minded Boston bands, and put them all up for free on one streamlined Bandcamp page. Not sure who the mastermind behind this is, but featured on the page are Whitehaus staples like the Needy Visions and the Points North, garage/psych 3-piece the Fedavees, Allston basement regulars Fat History Month, and Arvid Noe -- who play at Great Scott on 2/23 -- plus some others.

Check out the Boston DIY Bandcamp here:

boston.bandcamp.com
It's like listening to an Allston basement show without the fire-hazards and broken ceilings! hehe.

1/23 @ Great Scott in Allston: Quilt, Total Slacker, Widowspeak, No Way Jose

2011-01-08T01:50:00.000-08:00

We are excited to officially post about our new monthly series at Great Scott. Starting January 23rd, we'll be hosting regular showcases once per month at the Allston club, curating line-ups of bands from Boston and Brooklyn. Just like how we cover Boston and NYC on this blog, our goal is to equally cover music from both cities with these showcases as well. The first show features Quilt, Total Slacker, Widowspeak, and No Way Jose. After the jump, find some words, videos, and songs from each band.

RSVP on Facebook here. To stay updated on all future shows, send a blank email with the subject "newsletter" to pellytwins at gmail.com.

Quilt are a NY and Boston-based trio who I have mentioned many times on Pellytwins.blogspot.com. I just mentioned them here, on my year-end list of favorite releases by Boston-based bands. (Fun fact: Quilt is the only band on my 2k10 list that was also on my 2k9 year-end list.) I also mentioned them a few other times throughout the year, calling their "gritty, deep psychedelia" a "textured sonic 'patchwork' of spooky three-part harmonies, tripped-out finger-picked guitars, twangy banjos, tambourine taps, echoing cymbals, and hypnotic vocal drones." Their 2009 self-titled tape and 2010 Agents of Play EP can be downloaded for free at quiltmusic.bandcamp.com.

Total Slacker at 171 Lombardy from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

Like their name implies, Total Slacker employ some serious '90s-era nostalgia, bringing shoegazy influences together with frontman Tucker Rountree's insane guitar shredding. They frequently pound out fine-tuned slack-rock at DIY spots all over Brooklyn, but this is only their first show in Boston! Some of their recent releases include a 7" with Impose and a tape with Boston-based Breakfast of Champs. Check out this video of Total Slacker playing our Mischief Night party, for proof of aforementioned 'insane shredding'.

Widowspeak were recently signed to Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. (Also home to Thee Oh Sees, Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing, etc.) The slow-paced, moody psych rock on their textured October tape is essential listening for recent fans of Grass Widow or Warpaint, and long-time fans of Cat Power. It is available for free at their Bandcamp.

No Way, Jose - live @ Gay Gardens 8-5-10 from pointy ears on Vimeo.

No Way Jose is a new 2-piece, made of members of Doomstar (mentioned in my best of 2k10 post here) and Amoroso (they appeared in this post I did for the Boston Phoenix's On the Download a few months ago). No Way Jose recently played that Counter Cultural Compass benefit show I booked in December, and totally 'killed it.' Sort of sounds like Jeff the Brotherhood, only with more kaleidoscopic song structures and aggressive, psych-ed out jams. Above is a video of them playing an Allston basement show at Gay Gardens.

xoxo liz & jenn

2k10 in Review: Favorite moments captured on video

2011-01-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

Having a Vado camera at shows this year was fun. I thought it would also be fun to sort through all of the videos that Jenn and I posted this year, plus all of the videos that never made it off of my hard-drive, and pick out the most noteworthy ones. Out of roughly 70+ videos, below are my favorite 13, in chronological order. (Some shot by me, some by JP.) The list features previously posted videos of Cloud Nothings, Twin Sister, The Splinters, and Best Coast at SXSW; Squarehead, Yeh Deadlies, and So Cow in Dublin this summer; videos from Mischief night (including a vid I never posted of Dom at Silent Barn), and a bunch of others. Happy new year, xoxo LP.

In March, Cloud Nothings playing at the Micro-Pixel-Rites backyard show at SXSW, hosted by Microphone Memory Emotion, Pixelhorse, and Visitation Rites.

Cloud Nothings play a backyard show in Austin
Uploaded by brooklynvegan. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Twin Sister playing the same SXSW backyard show, just days before releasing Color Your Life. (I shot these two for BklynVgn.)

Twin Sister play a backyard show in Austin
Uploaded by brooklynvegan. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

The Splinters played a stripped-down acoustic set in a carpenter's workshop during SXSW. This song, Worry, is the only acoustic track on their LP Kick. (Which I reviewed for Bitch later in the year.) JP recorded this for BV.

The Splinters "Worry" at a carpenter's workshop
Uploaded by brooklynvegan. - Explore more music videos.

Jenn caught this fun one of Best Coast playing "Boyfriend" at SXSW outside at Ms. Bea's, months before releasing Crazy for You. Some more words about this video by JP here.

On my second day in Dublin (in June), I asked a clerk at a record store for local band suggestions. He told me about a Yeh Deadlies show happening a couple days later at Shebeen Chic, so I went, and they ended up ruling and so does this video and their Magazine 7". Also, check out how awesome this venue is:

Someone at that show told me to check out Squarehead the next night, so I went to that too, and they ended up ruling too. I caught them a bunch of times, but this garden performance in July definitely yielded the best videos. (Thanks JP.) This is their hit single "Fake Blood." So stoked for their LP later in 2011.

So Cow played at Whelan's on one of the last nights I was there. It was fun; this is them playing a Del Shannon cover:

In August, Memoryhouse played at Great Scott in Allston, opened for Twin Sister, and covered My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep."

A video of 16-piece experimental/drone spectacle Electric Zeus at Homegrown Fest in October:

Sweet Bulbs opening up our Mischief Night party at 171 Lombardy:

Sweet Bulbs at 171 Lombardy from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

Total Slacker absolutely destroying it at the same show:

Total Slacker at 171 Lombardy from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

After that show was shut down by police, we re-located to the Silent Barn, where Dom played at 3am. It was really dark but here is a 1-minute snapshot of "Burn Bridges."

Lastly, Girlfriends playing my favorite Girlfriends song at Great Scott in November. Some words about that here.

Girlfriends "Cave Kids" at Great Scott from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

Best of 2k10: My Favorite Releases by Boston-based Bands

2011-01-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

This fall, I spent several months reporting this story about The Temple, a non-commercial all-ages space that opened this year in Jamaica Plain. The article discussed the venue's struggle to attain an entertainment license in Boston, and more generally all of the bureaucratic bullshit involved in maintaining a legal, sustainable, alternative show space in Boston. "2010 was huge for Boston's underground, and The Temple was a big part of it," I wrote.

It is discouraging that the city makes it difficult for this creative community to exist anywhere other than basements prone to police shut-downs, fire-hazards, etc. Certain bars like Great Scott are also valuable, locally-owned/operated focal points (< 3 u g.s.), but still, whenever I am in New York, going to shows at places like the Silent Barn, Market Hotel, Death By Audio, etc. always makes me think about how incredible it would be for Boston to have a space like those. It is pretty incredible that even without anything like that, kids have still been able to foster a really great underground music community in houses and basements around Allston and JP. Some of my favorite shows of the year took place in said houses, and some of my favorite records of the year were by Boston-based bands.

Between the Temple, Yes Oui Si, and another new space in the works by Dan Shea (of BOWAAC), Boston is set for some major strides in 2k11, despite difficulties involved. I can only imagine that with more sustainable places, the underground music community in Boston could flourish even more this year than it did in 2k10.

** favorite Boston-based records of 2k10 after the jump **

Young Adults - Black Hole (AMDISCS)

Girlfriends - Government Seizure 7" (Aurora 7 records)

Doomstar - Rainbow Bloodsucker (Self-released)

Quilt - Agents of Play EP (Breakfast of Champs)

Whitehaus Family Record Family Record (compilation)

The Needy Visions - The Needy Visions (Bodies of Water/Arts and crafts)

2k10: Local Releases (NYC)

2011-01-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

When I interviewed Big Troubles in November, they called New York a “soul-crushing” place to be a musician. “The thing that’s best about New York,” said drummer Sam Franklin, “is you can have a very specific idea of what you don’t want to be.” New York, for sure, incubates some easy-to-ignore trend bands, but I’d relentlessly defend 2010 as an excellent year for the 'underground' scene.

In 2010, unemployment and the Internet continued to foster rich environments for small-scale record releases worldwide — a monumental year for me, The Fangrrrl. That trend is on-point in New York, of course, where we’ve got the strongest roster of DIY labels in the country, and, for shows, the most solid underground infrastructure. 2010 also marked the 30th anniversary of the radio show I host on WNYU: the New Afternoon Show, once a go-to for bands like Swans and Cat Power. For me, sifting through WNYU’s recently digitized archives this year (check them out here) emphasized the legacy/concrete importance of challenging/forward-thinking music in New York.

2011 marks the fortieth anniversary of The Kitchen, and the tenth anniversary of Todd P.’s presence in New York. Perhaps it's a stretch, but I think 2011 will interestingly point at once to what the city’s avant-garde music environment was (“serious” art) and how that’s evolved into the city’s current DIY scene. Pulling that thread through various New York area scenes in 2010, the pop-centric releases below were, to me, just as important.

Note: numbers only partially relevant.

1. Twin Sister — Color Your Life EP (Infinite Best) + Alternates (Curatorial Club)
2. Sharon van Etten — Epic (Ba Da Bing)
3. ShellShag — Rumors in Disguise (Don Giovanni)
4. Sweet Bulbs — S/T (Blackburn)
5. Big Troubles — Worry (Olde English Spelling Bee)
6. Frankie and the Outs — S/T (Slumberland)
7. Woods — At Echo Lake (Woodsist)
8. Beach Fossils - S/T (Captured Tracks)
9. Pigeons – Liasons (Soft Abuse)
10. Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal (Editions Mego)

FAVE CASSETTES: Sultan — The Moon (Curatorial Club), Welcome Home - Diggin' The Universe comp (Woodsist)
FAVE 7-INCHES: Coasting — Coasting (Group Tightener), Real Estate - Out of Tune (True Panther)

mp3: BIG EYES - "Why Can't I" (from Don Giovanni)

2010-12-28T22:20:00.000-08:00

mp3: Big Eyes - "Why Can't I"

I first learned about Big Eyes this summer, at Jen Shag (of ShellShag)'s birthday party, after Screaming Females tore down Goodbye Blue Monday and the crowd had taken to the Bushwick sidewalk to recuperate. A pretty prime setting to be tipped off to new band like Big Eyes — a year old pop-punk trio from New Brunswick and Brooklyn, and a recent addition to the Don Giovanni roster — and since then, the band's "I Prefer to Be Alone" demo (download here) has gotten ample airplay on our radio shows. "Why Can't I" is the latest from Big Eyes — blaring, hooky power pop with a crunchy lead riff, specked with snarly love-rhymes from singer/guitarist Kate Eldridge, formerly of CHEEKY. The group played at Gainsville, FL's nine-year old DIY punk convention "The Fest" in October, and says they're most influenced by The Ramones, Cheap Trick, The Nerves, and Black Flag. RIYL: every band mentioned in this post.

The "Why Can't I" b/w "Your Lies" seven-inch is out 1/18 on Don Giovanni. They play 1/1 at Party Expo and 1/6 at Union Pool with German Measles.

XMAS 2k10: A Video from Belfast's Sea Pinks

2010-12-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

(No The Snow) Won't Break Your Fall from Sea Pinks on Vimeo.

MP3: Sea Pinks - "(No The Snow) Won't Break Your Fall"

Last month, we posted a few tracks from Sea Pinks, the Northern Ireland surf-pop project from Girls Names drummer Neil Brogan. On Christmas Eve Eve, Neil — who has also released music from the likes of Cloud Nothings and High Places on his tape-label, Cass/Flick — sent over this video for an original XXmas song, "(No The Snow) Won't Break Your Fall," complete with "LOL-80s-Christmas-party" images lifted from an old Wham! video. (Watch his vid above.) Following that aesthetic, the holiday track is more straight-forward and alt-rocky than his other neo-60s seaside tunes, but catchy Christmas conversation nonetheless. The track is a sweet and subdued regret over a love-let-go; the kind only lonely holiday seasons can spark. "No I didn't mean to let you go, but I had to make the call / No I didn't mean to let you go at all."

Here's how we described Sea Pinks in November:

In sound and texture, Sea Pinks' debut cassette "Youth is Wasted"...grips a vintage flair often missed by Brogan's guitar-pop peers. The songs are sunny and stripped down with a strong '60s seaside vibe, and a softness that makes them more the sort of ear candy a name like "Sea Pinks" would suggest.

2011 sees a new Sea Pinks EP via Cass/Flick. Stay tuned!

Finals Mix for Liz Pelly

2010-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Once a dreaded time period, I have, as a senior, come to enjoy Finals Week. My attention is always fragmented during the semester, but during Finals, I have no excuse to not engage fully with (and enjoy) my Lit coursework. I thrive amid the chaos. Swimming out into the abyss of the all-nighter, I always cross pools of creativity and productive procrastination. ALSO: I make tons of playlists! I should have been rereading Mrs. Dalloway and Wuthering Heights last week, but I made this mixtape for Liz Pelly instead. Hope you enjoy it, Internet. Finals end Tuesday.

1. Henry's Dress - Target Practice
Early Slumberland with a pop-punk punch.

2. Spiritualized - Anyway That You Want Me
Troggs cover and first recording they released.

3. Bratmobile - Cheap Trick Record
H8 boys.

4. The Magnetic Fields - Reno Dakota
One of my faves from 69 Love Songs.

5. Zola Jesus - Poor Animal
She's come a long way since I saw her perform curled up on The Silent Barn's kitchen floor in '09.

6. Kanye West - All of the Lights
He's not gone too far since I saw him at Bowery last month.

7. Brian Eno - King's Lead Hat
The new record on Warp has been getting some heavy air-play on my radio show, but (thnx to Dan K.) I've been going back to Eno's '70s stuff.

8. Eric. B & Rakim - Eric B. Is On The Cut
First heard Paid in Full during Finals Week 2008, while researching a paper on SPIN's history. This was the highlight of my DJ set last week at the Showpaper Gallery.

9. The American Short Story - All I Really Want to Do
This is Mike from Sweet Bulbs, who played this track at 171 Lombary in October. I enjoy the Dylan allusion here.

10. Sharon Van Etten - Love More
Fave release from this wonderful label I profiled a few months ago.

Photos: Sacred Bones Records

2010-11-30T20:23:00.002-08:00

Earlier today, Altered Zones published a Q&A I did with Caleb Braaten and Taylor Brode of Sacred Bones Records. Along with the interview, AZ published a few photos I took at Bones HQ in the basement of Williamsburg's Academy Records. Check out the Q&A here, and more photos after the jump.

Big in 2k11: Sea Pinks (mp3s)

2010-11-22T10:17:00.001-08:00

Sea Pinks, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the solo surf-pop project of Neil Brogan, drummer for Girls Names — who released an EP on Captured Tracks this year, and have a split 7" with Brilliant Colors out on Slumberland Records today. Despite his band's booming stateside popularity, we've heard of Sea Pinks only from our pop cohorts on the other side of the Atlantic. In sound and texture, Sea Pinks' debut cassette "Youth is Wasted" (released in September alongside releases from Cloud Nothings, High Places, and more on Brogan's Cass/Flick tape label) grips a vintage flair often missed by Brogan's guitar-pop peers. The songs are sunny and stripped down with a strong '60s seaside vibe, and a softness that makes them more the sort of ear candy a name like "Sea Pinks" would suggest. Single "Japanese Knotwood" has been in heavy rotation. We dig.

01 Japanese Knotweed by user2607418

(More tracks, after the jump.)

03 Bobby Beau by user2607418

05 Evening, Dreaming of Empire by user2607418

07 Falling Over by user2607418

An Evening with The Raincoats at the Museum of Modern Art (setlist + videos)

2010-11-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

(Photo by Pier Harrison)

Last night, too broke for the subway, I walked 60 blocks from Soho to Midtown, past Fifth Avenue's lit-up Rolex and Hollister shops, to watch one of the most influential post-punk bands of all time, The Raincoats, perform at the Museum of Modern Art. If you're unaware of the influence exerted by the late-70s femme-punks, they inspired both early Riot Grrrl bands and Kurt Cobain. (See below.)

"You wouldn't believe we've been playing these instruments for 30 years!" joked guitarist Gina Birch, before jumping into a new song. "But we like to keep it real." The between-tracks banter was met with roars from the multigenerational crowd. "We still haven't reached that pinnacle where you have someone else tune your guitars and hand them to you," Birch said. "But we're very DIY, you know."

Highlights (see videos, below) included "Fairytale in a Supermarket" and a new track, where Birch sings, "When you ask me if I'm a feminist, I say why the hell would I not be." Another highlight came at the end, when Kathleen Hanna joined the band for an early Slits cover ("Vindictive") in honor of Ari Up; the band taped pictures of Ari to their mic stands. The sold-out show packed much of the Museum's sleek ground level, plus the entire staircase to the second floor. The few truly mind-blowing "Oh-my-god-this-is-real" moments were very in line with the mecca-like vibe of Corin Tucker's recent Bowery Ballroom show.

Kathleen Hanna DJ-ed prior to the band's one-hour 10 p.m. set. Raincoats fans watched her bop her ponytailed head along to M.I.A. and other dubby dance picks — of course interspersed with dark post-punk and no wave-y riot grrrl — as she sifted through her bright red 7-inch box and cued tracks up in her massive white headphones. Attendees (Hanna wannabes, grown-up-punx, artsy Moma people) sipped on free wine and beer, and the exhibit "Pictures of Women: A History of Modern Photography" was on display, a selection of photographs featuring "influential women artists."

Check out my FlipCam footage after the jump; more legit footage, via MoMa's Pop Rally site, will be available here. The Raincoats played All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead earlier this year, and will, apparently, be playing more in 2011.

Below: The Raincoats play a new song. "In the scheme of 30-odd years it's pretty new. You wouldn't believe we've been playing these instruments for 30 years! But we like to keep it real.

"I don't really know anything about The Raincoats except that they recorded some music that has affected me so much that, whenever I hear it I'm reminded of a particular time in my life when I was (shall we say) extremely unhappy, lonely, and bored. If it weren't for the luxury of putting that scratchy copy of The Raincoats' first record, I would have had very few moments of peace. I suppose I could have researched a bit of history about the band but I feel it's more important to delineated the way I feel and how they sound.

When I listen to The Raincoats I feel as if I'm a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I'm listening in on them. We're together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught - everything will be ruined because it's their thing."

-- Kurt Cobain, June 1993, liner notes to The Raincoats debut album CD reissue

Above: The Raincoats cover The Slits with Kathleen Hanna.

Below: The Raincoats close their set with "Fairytale in the Supermarket"

"Among the legions of first wave DIY innovators and wannabe-iconoclasts who arose in the wake of punk, it's perhaps the humble Raincoats, and their recently reissued debut, that best embody what post-punk could and should mean...Yet as Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon acknowledges in the liner notes she wrote...they were a band of ordinary people who, lacking the trappings and poses of many of their peers, created something extraordinary."
-- The Quietus, 2009

Q&A with Ian Perlman re: Monkey Water (tomorrow in Brooklyn)

2010-11-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

All shows are social events: you watch the bands, see familiar faces, chat about music and shows during the “lull” between sets. With a new type of film-and-music social event titled Monkey Water, Brooklyn-based photographer/Pitchfork videographer/SVA student Ian Perlman is trying to recreate an extended version of that “lull” between sets.

Tomorrow night, Monkey Water makes its debut at Brooklyn Fire Proof (119 Ingraham St.) in Brooklyn, NY, featuring live footage from an Underwater Peoples showcase at Glasslands Gallery, the premiere of Ian’s music video for “Take Me Somewhere” by Tennis (a rough cut), plus other short films and live videos.

“My whole goal is to create an environment like a show,” Ian told me on the phone Saturday afternoon, while he was sitting by his window, sipping a cup of coffee, watching people go by on North Sixth street in Brooklyn. “I never really feel as comfortable and at home as when I’m at a show.”

But at shows, the conversations usually stop between sets. At Monkey Water, talking through “sets” is the whole point. “I want people to talk,” Ian said. “I want a lot of my friends to come and just hang out, for new people to meet my friends, to see everyone coming together feeling awesome.”

After the jump, read a full Q&A with Ian re: Monkey Water, the experience of gathering friends to watch live concert footage, the Underwater Peoples community values, and the way those values translate on film.

What inspired this event, "Monkey Water"? What do you hope people can get out of the experience of coming together to watch live concert footage?

My whole goal is to create an environment like a show — for people to feel really comfortable and at home. You never feel so at home as when you’re at a show, with your best friends, having a drink, with the music there for you. Then there is that lull in between sets, when you talk to your friends. That is Monkey Water to me. I would like if Monkey Water became this artist collective where sound, visual, and other artists could have their work showcased.

I don’t want people to focus so much on the films —- it’s a middle ground between the lull and the actual show. Usually you don’t talk when a band is playing. I want people to talk. "Oh I like that band I saw them that one time." I want a lot of my friends to come and just hang out, for new people to meet my friends, to see everyone coming together feeling awesome. I want them to create something I could never create. I want people to come together and be really fucking happy!

This is the first time I’ve really showed any of my work. I had a short film of mine, I Miss You More – the story of Noah and Julia, who form a connection through the communication of Polaroid photos – in a few film festivals. Besides that, I’ve never had a screening. But always wanted to do one with a nice, loose vibe. Brooklyn Fire Proof is perfect for that. It has 2 rooms-- a bar, and a room adjacent to that with a huge open space and nice big wall to be projected on.

Yeah this is cool because, I don’t know, some people probably feel really comfortable at shows but don't always feel as comfortable just going out to bars with people. This is kind of an in-between.

When you are at a show, you know that the people standing around you are into the same or similar music. And if we're into the same music, I can pretty much guarantee we'll get along. I always feel comfortable talking about the show with the people around me. This is like a social mixer.

I am not really shy. But just going to a bar I don’t have that sense of comfort as at a show. At shows I always feel comfortable, like I could talk to the person next to me.

What are your goals when filming concerts? On a general level, what do you think these videos (the ones you are showing on the 16th) have captured?

When I’m shooting, I go into this weird "trance" of sorts, where I kind of live through my camera. I’ve been using a Rebel T2i dSLR with my late grandfathers old 50mm prime lens. It’s interesting because there’s no zoom option for zoom on a prime—it’s basically portraying what you’d see through a human eye. It’s important to be where the focus is. So people can really relate to this because it’s allowing someone to see a show through my eyes.

My whole goal when I shoot live shows is to make people feel like they were there. So people in Mississippi can feel like they were on a Brooklyn rooftop with Twin Sister.

How did you meet the Underwater Peoples dudes? Why did you choose to showcase your films of these bands?

A while back I filmed Real Estate at Music Hall of Williamsburg with my tiny Flip camera. This is how it all started. I went and filmed this with my Flip camera, knowing my friend Dan (NYCtaper) was there. This man knows sound. He is so good, to watch him work is amazing. I always credit him and try to hype his work. He is really really, really underrated. I think he is like a God at live sound. I’ve never heard anyone record live sound better than he can. The majority of my videos, he did the sound for.

So this Real Estate show-- I linked his audio to it, and Pitchfork picked it up. It got so many hits, I was like ‘holy shit!’

Real Estate - "Fake Blues" from Ian Perlman on Vimeo.

I really loved Real Estate and I started hanging out with those guys after that show. I then met Evan Brody, Sawyer, Ari, all those guys after that Real Estate video took off and starting shooting more of those bands. They really helped put my.. for a lack of better word, career, where it is. I shot their showcase at Shea, and then Tennis at Glasslands, and eventually did their music video. From that Real Estate video spawned meeting those guys, and then meeting Tennis. I’m premiering the rough cut of that Tennis video on Tuesday. To me that is a big one; it’s probably not coming out until December.

To be be able to highlight these really awesome bands is like a way of saying 'thank you' to Underwater Peoples. Real Estate, Julian Lynch, Big Troubles, so many talented guys. Sometimes I hear that people don’t know who they are and I’m like 'How do you not know who Julian Lynch is!" So I’m just giving thanks to these people who have helped me out and inspired me to be where I am right now.

It seems like there’s definitely an element to the community amongst these bands – everyone playing in each others bands. Do you think there are aspects to these bands that translate well over video, but couldn’t be picked up by just listening to mp3s?

Definitely! The live show for those guys, seeing a showcase, really, you can't get that same feeling from just listening to a recording. It’s cool to watch them all play in a sequence. I don’t think I'll ever post all of this on the web. It won’t translate as well as it will at the event, when you watch the same band members switch positions from video to video.

That’s also with the Twin Sister footage from Hunter's rooftop, it's meant to be watched in a sequence; I Want A House, All Around and Away We Go, Something About Us (Daft Punk), End Jam. "End Jam" isn't as powerful when watched alone, but when watched as full sequence, it all makes sense. Watching the Underwater Peoples musicians play different bands—you don’t get that from just listening to mp3s.

Twin Sister - "I Want A House" from Ian Perlman on Vimeo.

What is "Monkey Water"? (Literally- how did that name come about?)

I really didn't want to name it 'Ian's Screening'. I wanted a cool name but I couldn't think of anything. I was sitting in my friend Nick's place a few weeks ago, hanging out, reading old drug-and-alcohol pamphlets, like the ones you read at the doctor's office. They were pretty weird and there was this one was about heroine, and one of the slang words for heroine was 'monkey water'. Back in high school I had a film production company called 'Smart Monkey Films.' Monkeys are my thing.

The first 'Monkey Water' is tomorrow night at Brooklyn Fire Proof.

Interview: Big Troubles (uncut version)

2010-11-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, after baffling fans and bloggers with a hilarious faux break-up message, three-quarters of Big Troubles came from Ridgewood, Bronxville, and Boston for an Altered Zones interview at my Soho dorm. Despite a few minor interruptions — "Casey has Guided by Voices tickets! Can I get back to Boston in three hours? They're only in my top five favorite bands ever..." — the interview was wildly entertaining. Here's part of what I wrote for AZ:

Worry is a 4-track-trimmed collection of blistering guitar-pop that fuses the conflicting leanings of its principle song-writers: Alex Craig’s affinity for Slumberland shoegaze, and Ian Drennan’s roots in blown-out, artful electronics. But when I caught up with three of the four members in Manhattan last week-- Alex came in from Ridgewood, Ian from Boston, and drummer Sam Franklin (a.k.a. Fluffy Lumbers) from Bronxville, NY-- they made it clear that their next record will be less of the above, and more, well...radio-friendly funk.

Download "Video Rock" and "Freudian Slips" from their debut record Worry over at Altered Zones, and check out an extended version of the three-hour interview after the jump.

What are you guys up to on a daily basis these days?

Alex: I just graduated from NYU, so I’m in between live stages. I’m not a boy, not yet a man. I’m living in Ridgewood, trying to treat music and songwriting as a job.

Ian: I’m a student at Tufts. I’ll graduate in December, then move back to New York or New Jersey, and apply to grad schools in New York, I think for industrial design. Having to commute between Boston and this tri-state area has been a struggle. I can only hope that in the next ten years Boston will just descend back into the bay, or slide back into hell and save America. Once I graduate, Alex and I are also going to start really putting effort towards our next record.

A: We’re going to write a song every day. Treat songwriting as a career and daily routine. There are about 70 Big Troubles songs right now. And we’re going to hit the road soon.

Sam: I study Cinema Studies at Sarah Lawrence. I maxed out all the Humanities credits I could take, so I am professionally miserable. Luka is doing the same at Sarah Lawrence.

It’s awesome you’ve been able to do so much in college before even graduating.

A: We’re going to hit the road soon.

I: Once I graduate in December, Alex and I are going to start really putting effort towards our next record.

A: We’re going to write a song every day. Treat songwriting as a career and daily routine.

So you have tons more songs written than what’s been released?

A: Yeah. Because we have two songwriters in the band there are probably about 70 Big Troubles songs.

You guys went to high school together. How exactly did you meet?

A: Ian is a year younger than me. We were in the same P.E. class, with Coach Johnson. We did not care for Coach Johnson.

I: I liked Coach Johnson, he was a nice guy. He was fun. It was actually a Wellness course.

A: He was trying to teach these health life lessons but his only frame of reference for anything was sports. We took that class together in 2005, but we first met in 2004. Ian was in ninth grade, and I was in tenth. We were playing in different bizarre instrumental bands. My band needed a bassist. My drummer saw Ian play bass, and immediately asked him to join, without conferring with me at all. So I resented Ian because I had no say in this decision. Ian was the symbol of my lack of agency in the direction of the band. Ian’s first memory of me was being mean.

I: Well, dismissive...

S: I knew Ian freshman year of high school; we were in a German class together. He was a little bit better in that German class than I was. I immediately bailed after the first year of German. We both went our separate ways as far as friends are concerned. I was hanging around with more people at Ridgewood High School, and he was hanging around with Alex and more people around northern New Jersey.

A: In the “scene.”

S: We had a class together our sophomore year, with Ms. Carton. I remember she liked Crusty the Clown a lot. That was like her claim to fame.

I: My one memory from that class was there was one point where I started wearing a blazer.

S: Ian, you would dress in black, and that’s when you started wearing slightly skinnier jeans, and you would wear a blazer over a black hoodie.

A: I thought it was kind of cool.

S: It was something I would never do but I gave him props.

A: You became friends with Ian because you saw him wearing a blazer over a hoodie and decided you should approach him and see what his musical interests are.

S: Ian and I became friends because we were talking about Modest Mouse, and The Cure. Also, Luka was in Glen Rock. I didn’t spend a lot of time with Luka until my sophomore year of college.

When did you start playing and writing music?

A: I taught myself guitar when I was in middle school. I started writing songs before I knew how to play guitar, in elementary school. I made this amazing outsider pop record when I was 11.

S: Truly hypnagogic. It’s like the most naïve music in the world.

A: It was more Daniel Johnston than Daniel Johnston, more Shaggs than the Shaggs. It was songs about “wanting to rock and roll.” I was making up chords that were really dissonant, all recorded to a midi cassette. It’s amateurish, but I don’t think I’ll ever make music as great. My band was called T3, which was the fastest Internet connection at the time. I really think it’s the most sincere music I’ll ever make. Maybe OESB will reissue it.

I: I taught myself a couple of instruments in high school; I took some lessons at Ridgewood Conservatory and worked there for a while.

S: I started playing guitar freshman year of college. I’ve been a drummer since 7th grade. I had a band with this guy Carl. He liked Weezer a lot. He had one song that was called “Cleo the Albino Sea Otter,” it sounded a lot like The Sweater Song, or My Name is Jonas. There are no recordings of this band, but there are sketches of songs made entirely in midi. I had another band later in high school with my friend Alex, who sometimes now plays as the shredder in Alex Bleeker’s band.

How did you guys get involved with Olde English Spelling Bee?

I: Matt Mondanile had been working with Todd [of OESB], for a Ducktails record, and he played it for him.

S: I played it for Matt. We were driving to some Ducktails show in Manhattan, and I had a CD of Big Troubles demos in my car. He wasn’t really paying attention, but after a few times of being like, “check out this song, it’s really good,” he was like, “this is really good.”

A: The first time Todd listened to us on MySpace, halfway into a song, he messaged us and said: “hey, I’m sitting with Matt from Ducktails, I want to put out your record, it will be chill.” This was Summer 2009.

Alex, do you think living in Brooklyn last year motivated you to write music?

A: Living in Ridgewood motivates me. Living in New York was a soul-crushing, horrible experience. I came wanting to play music, and within a couple of years I had almost given up.

S: The best thing about being in New York is that you end up with a very specific idea of what you don’t want to be.

A: I learned more about what I don’t want Big Troubles to be.

S: I’ve become unbelievably anal about what I don’t want to be.

I: There are certain popular motifs we’re trying to avoid now, that we often are accused of playing into…

S: Terms like noise-pop, fuzz, lo-fi, dreampop, 90s alternative rock…

A: Being in New York was not inspiring. The big indie rock world that was going on when I started college was really uninteresting to me. It was the post-Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene world of having five glockenspiels and really quirky female back-up vocalists. Eventually I had given up on the idea of making rock music. I was always into song-oriented guitar-pop. When I started to feel like a distorted guitar-pop song could be appreciated again, that inspired me. When the Pains got big, I thought: I write songs like those, maybe someone will like them, instead of calling them cheesy 90s alternative rock.

When did Big Troubles officially begin?

A: Ian and I started recording summer 2009. Until then, I had been disheartened with everything and was making Elliott Smith-wannabe bastard-music. It was introspective and Beatles-y.

I: We were in touch but we weren’t really seeing each other. I was in Boston, making computer music. It was basically microsound. That was called Big Troubles.

S: I remember the first thing you sent me that actually sounded song-y. It was a Quicktime. It was more or less two chords and it sounded kind of like a muffled version of Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen. Very synthy, and there were vocals on it.

A: There is still that difference in the way we approach songwriting. Since we started working together, my songs have gotten more damaged and Ian’s have gotten poppier.

I feel like you have the same train of thought, you were just executing it differently.

A: Yeah. I think by working together we learned a lot from each other. Since we started working together, my songs have gotten a little more damaged and his songs have gotten a little poppier. Since the earliest Big Troubles songs, our distinct songwriting styles have become a little more unified.

Alex, how did you go from playing Elliott Smith-type music to writing a song like Freudian Slips?

A: Freudian Slips was one of our first songs; I wrote it right before Big Troubles came together, when I was doing the hush-toned pop. I had the main chord progression for a different song a year before, which was heavily inspired by Oasis. When I decided to make something noisier, I was like, what good four-chord progression do I know and like? The vocal melody in Freudian Slips, that’s a John Lennon thing. The Beatles always had that resolve on everything, and I was studying that kind of songwriting. When I wrote it, I was into a band called the Pernice Brothers, which is almost adult contemporary. It’s shiny, upbeat pop, with insanely depressing lyrics. I try to do that with Big Troubles. Ian and I are utterly miserable, and we need to be true to that.

You guys cite a lot of obscure music as influences—you recommended the band Cleaners from Venus on your AZ guest post. How did you discover these bands?

A: We’re music nerds since day one.

I: I spent a lot of time in Soul Seek chatrooms in high school. That’s how I found a lot of music.

A: We’re of that generation that grew up with the Internet. That’s how we discovered all the obscure pretentious bullshit we like. In high school, we just bonded over entry-level shoegaze bands. We were 16, listening to Loveless and Souvlaki and being like, “why aren’t we making this kind of music, why are we in this stupid band.” It took us five years to actually do that.

I: Rollerskate Skinny was a bit later. I think Horsedrawn Wishes is one of the best records ever.

A: The guitarist was Jimmy Shields, the brother of Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, so by virtue of digging about, it came up.

I read that you guys also like funky 80s synth pop.

I: It’s really a desire for more pristine production quality, like Prefab Sprout or mid-career Scritti Politti records. Our next LP will absolutely be a studio record.

A: All we want to make is extremely clean pop music. There were two great records Scritti did in the 80s. Cupid Psyche in ‘85 and Provision in ‘88. Those two records are just perfect, smooth, funky pop.

S: The reason it sounds so good to us is because we spend so much time listening to horribly recorded music.

You said you want your recorded sound to be cleaner. Does that mean you don’t want distortion?

A: We just want things to sound like they were recorded without hiss. We’re interested in something that’s poppy, but messed up a bit. This interest is at play in how we recorded Worry. That was great, but we don’t want some kid who just likes hooks and rock to not be able to enjoy the Big Troubles record because he thinks it sounds like shit. It’s already happening that bands who broke with lo-fi blog hits are making studio records.

S: “The Columbia Records executive now cocks a pistol at Alex’s head…”

A: Until he says, “We are very interested in making the most hi-fi music as possible.” Then Alex starts to wet his pants and the interview is over.

So why was Worry recorded with a 4-track?

A: On Worry, it’s mostly guitar that’s distorted by running it through a 4-track, and then into our computers. There was no reason to even think we could make a studio record. Now there’s been more interest in the band, so we’ll hopefully have an opportunity to indulge our younger impulses and make a really big rock/pop album.

We’re not going to release home-recordings anymore. We can recreate the sound in a studio with distortion pedals. The guitarist from Medicine, Brad Laner, got his sound by running his guitar into the 4-track and then running it right into the board. That was influential for us.

People talk about 90s nostalgia a lot with Big Troubles. When did you start thinking about the 90s in retrospect and incorporating those ideas into your music?

A: I was into 90s music in the 90s, and continued to be as I grew older. I couldn’t get into any Mid-00s indie rock. I felt like I couldn’t relate to people because I only wanted to listen to obscure shit from 1995. I was obsessed with bands that put out major label albums in the 90s and flopped immediately: Dandelion, Summercamp, Orbit, Figdish. Bands that in the post-Nirvana wave got snatched up by major labels, released albums, and got dropped immediately. This was happening a lot from like ‘93 to ‘96. I have a whole collection of Nirvana failures.

Can you describe Ridgewood? Do you think people dramatize the musical situation there in terms of a Ridgewood sound?

A: I didn’t know there were any other bands from Ridgewood. What are the names of the bands from Ridgewood? I could have sworn we were the only band from Ridgewood.

It’s like every other suburban town. There’s nothing special about it. There just happens to be some good songwriters who influenced each other and came from the same town. Ridgewood been completely mystified, starting probably with Titus and Vivian Girls in 2007. It has become more like a collective, in a way. People collaborate more. But it’s really rare that we play in New Jersey.

Were you friends with the Real Estate guys in high school?

A: Those guys all knew about the idea of Alex Craig. They knew me online because when I was in middle school, I found their bands online; the Ridgewood bands, with the Real Estate guys. It was pre-MySpace; they had an AOL Hometown page and I would sign the guestbook.

I: When we were freshman, the Real Estate guys were seniors. We would go and see them perform at the same open mic events at the high school.

S: I knew Bleeker very well. I did theater with Bleeker.

I: I have a very vivid memory of watching Andrew Cedarmark sing and rip guitar in Seizing Ellion, a pre-Titus band, and thinking that he was the coolest.

Would you say the support from Real Estate early on motivated or informed your music in any way?

I: It gave us hope.

A: It made me realize that after college I didn’t have to get some horrible desk job just to pay rent in New York. I could live with my parents and work on music, and not be lame. Before, it didn’t seem like a reality.

S: I want to make it very clear that we are not trying to postpone adulthood or stay children.

A: Ian and I have plans to move to space. Move to outer space, and release field recordings of space.

What contemporary bands do you guys associate yourselves with?

A: Weezer.

S: Weezer

Whose your dream band to tour with?

A: Weezer

S: Best Coast, Wavves, and Weezer

A: Blues Traveler. The Blues Brothers.

Can you tell me about the Angelfire page?

A: I used to make a lot of Angelfire pages when I was young. I would make fanpages for bands I really liked. I had one for a pop-punk band called Mellancollin, I had a NOFX one. I would copy and paste tabs from a website called “Tabs.” So I knew the limited HTML to make a really groovy looking Angelfire page. I was like, hmm, Big Troubles should have a website…wouldn’t it be funny if I made it how I used to make those fan sites.

S: But people used to use them to make themselves look more professional: like, a .GIF of a bear dancing.

A: That’s early Internet nostalgia. 2000s nostalgia. We love crappy media. It’s an important part of our humor. That sense of humor is really important to everything about this band.

S: We don’t just riff with guitars. We riff with each other.

"We can't get to sleep 'cause we've got oversized dreams, woah-oh-oh-oh"

2010-11-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Girlfriends "Cave Kids" at Great Scott from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

Girlfriends play my favorite type of music: textured, hook-heavy, fuzzy guitar-pop, informed by heavy doses of 60s pop and 70s punk, a la Cloud Nothings or Squarehead. The guy/girl vocals sound perfectly monotone, guitars are overblown, bass is fuzzy. What's less comparable is their upfront lyrics, which are just audible enough to catch occasional choice, resonating one-liners. Girlfriends songs tackle political themes, celebrate youth, and maintain an overarching thoughtfulness that is generally unmatched by most other fuzz pop bands I have heard in recent years.

Their song "Cave Kids" is one I've been spinning (and singing along to) all semester. (Via this Band in Boston session.) It's loaded with said lyrical genius, one-liners, singalong choruses, "ba da ba ba da bas", "woah oah oahs", Boston references, fuzzy guitar solo, etc. On Saturday, they played at the Young Adults record release party at Great Scott with Earthquake Party and Doomstar. I was able to capture a video of this fave Girlfriends jam, above. ^^

Girlfriends are recording an EP right now to be released early 2011 . There's also a self-titled tape you could pick up via Floating Garbage Continent (on its third edition now) plus a 7" via Aurora 7. The band will appear on WHRB's Record Hospital this Friday, and also play a must-see ++free++ show at Zuzu with Weed Hounds and Cuffs on 11/29.

Photos from Mischief Night

2010-11-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

All photos by Ian Perlman. More by Ian here, here, and here.

++ many more after the jump ++

Sweet Bulbs

Total Slacker

Yellow Fever

Smith Westerns

Q&A: Sultan (playing Shea this weekend)

2010-11-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

If your All Hallow's Eve fragmented too quickly, or you managed to miss the recent Wiccan “Samhain” festival of darkness, listen to Sultan. We first posted on Sultan — the experimental home-recording project of Brooklyn's Kayla Cohen — in June, and said this:

Kayla sculpts sublime soundscapes that are at once ambient, noisy, and pristine, with Codeine, MBV, JAMC and Spiritualized as smart influences...reverby drones and loops build up and down to a hyper-hypnotic place where the stars align and its all mystical and goth.

Since then, her tape-psychedelics have gracefully trudged further into the light. The next Sultan 7" is out on Blackburn Recordings (alongside releases from Big Troubles, Sweet Bulbs and Sore Eros) and her latest tape, "The Moon," is out now on Chocolate Bobka’s Curatorial Club. Early next year, she’ll also be releasing material on New Images Limited, a label from Matt Mondanile of Ducktails and Real Estate. Check out our Q&A with Sultan after the jump, wherein she muses on the influence occult studies, the Tarot, and her years in the New York DIY scene have had on her music. Catch Sultan live at the Bobka/Blackburn showcase at Shea Stadium this Saturday — and grab her Curatorial Club tape (streaming here) before the pagan Winter Solstice creeps up.

JP: When did the idea for Sultan begin to formulate?
KC: The idea for Sultan has been germinating for the past two years. It's sort of trying to be an ideal representation of my personality: how I see myself over the past few years, and in the future. I have always had an idea in my head of exactly what I want Sultan to sound like. The process is trying to somehow reach that ideal. It's sort of like trying, through music, to reach into the essence of my mind, and bring that outside, in hopes that this will accomplish something for my personality or wellbeing. And hopefully other people might see some of their own thoughts in the sound and enjoy listening.

JP: Can you talk about how being involved with the New York music scene over the past few years has influenced your work with Sultan?
KC: For a while I was working at and putting on shows — so I know what it’s like to be in a touring band, and I know how much work it takes to get anywhere with music. Through that, I’ve seen what amazing potential there is for live experiences in New York City... Space truly can be used as an element of the live show. Just thinking about some transcendent shows I've attended here in New York over the past five years: many shows at 3rd Ward, Shangri-La in Greenpoint, Entrance at the Syrup Room a while ago, Market Hotel. That's even after missing the first wave, from 2003 to 2005. It's made me very appreciative of the work people put into the music scene in New York, but also very aware of what it could be.

JP: What kind of equipment do you use to create and record all of these awesome sounds?
KC: Both the cassette and the digital 7" I recorded with a plastic tape recorder, with two mics attached. That’s why the cassette is a cassette, and not a CD. I recorded it straight to cassette and thought it sounded fine that way, so I made some copies with a tape dubber and gave them out, and McGregor wanted to release it, so he did. It's all recorded live without overdubs. It's easy to record that way and that's why I did it. I'm trying to get more sophisticated with the setup for the next things I put out, so I'm experimenting. I do like how tape sounds right now, better than computer recording. Right now all I'm using is a reverb pedal, a loop pedal and a delay, and my Peavey 212 classic.

JP: You've cited Witchcraft and Planetary Movement as influences. How have these elements and aesthetics informed your music?
KC: I am very interested in occult studies, astrology, and mysticism — and so, I am aiming to connect and express these themes through my music. My most recent release, a cassette from the Curatorial Club, was recorded in March. I had been spending a lot of time with the Tarot then, which I am very interested in, and the Moon card in particular was one I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about. So I wanted to record an album that was my interpretation of the "journey" one would take through the atmosphere of the card, or the moon valley in the painting on the card. I recorded that in a couple afternoons in the apartment I was living in at the time.

JP: It seems the aesthetics of the project are dark, but your “Summer Sigh” single is pretty uniquely bright and hypnotic.
KC: The “Summer Sigh” digital 7" has a different feel than the cassette, for sure. That was recorded this summer in an afternoon at my practice space. Those were all improvised and recorded on the spot, which is why there are some weird mistakes in there that I decided to leave in. The sound is pretty bright; it was so hot this summer and I was reflecting that. Those songs are definitely meditations in the sense that playing that way, straight through a loop pedal, can be entrancing. That's a state I try to achieve often when playing.

Videos: Homegrown Festival, night 1 (Marissa Nadler, Bobb Trimble, Damon + Naomi)

2010-11-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Homegrown Festival is an annual underground music festival in Boston, Massachusetts, booked/managed by the 10-year-old DIY show booking group Bodies of Water Arts and Crafts. The festival's second installment took place at Temple Sound & Stage from October 15-17. Temple Sound & Stage a.k.a. "The Temple" (b. May 2010) is a recording studio, art gallery, and show space. It is located on the third floor of a building filled with office suites, i.e. a dentist, holistic therapist, parenting magazine, Taekwondo studio, etc.

Homegrown II brought bands like Damon and Naomi, Jeff the Brotherhood, Ty Segall, BBQ, So Cow, and dozens more to the new DIY space in JP. Overall, the festival was great and I think has potential to grow into something that will draw even more bands and fans to Boston. This is great because there is a vibrant underground music community in Boston at the moment (for both local and touring bands) and more out-of-towners should come check it all out. + + + + +

This year's opening night included spaced-out sets by Major Stars, Damon and Naomi, Marissa Nadler, Larkin Grimm, Bobb Trimble, and others. I was sitting in one of the recording studio's isolation rooms tabling for WTBU, handing out zines, etc. throughout the night, but I caught a bunch of videos too, posted above + below. More vids from the rest of the festival coming soon. (Some of them are HD so make them big!)

Marissa Nadler

Bobb Trimble

Damon & Naomi

Thanks for Coming to Our Show

2010-11-02T00:40:00.000-07:00

Dear friends + awesome people,

We want to say THANK YOU (x100) to everyone who came out to the show at 171 Lombardy this weekend.

(Lots more after the jump.)

Our sincerest apologies to anyone who trekked all the way out to the space just as it was getting shut down, especially those who came from out of the city and state for the show, and there were many of you.

If you weren’t there, here’s an abridged back story: first three bands played, were awesome, then NYPD showed up during Smith Westerns' fifth song, around 12:30. One cop (or lieutenant?) jumped on stage, took the mic, and said the show was over. According to the police, this was because of issues regarding permits that the space did not have. However I asked several cops if they could be more specific as to which sorts of permits these were and none would specify. More info via Todd is on the Village Voice here. Apparently some kids were kicked out for underaged drinking, and then put in a call to the police. Funny: we try enforcing the law by getting rid of assholes, and get shut down because of it. Meh. We quickly moved the show to Silent Barn.

We should have looked into issues regarding permits/etc before promoting the hell out of this show. But the fact of the matter is, when the cops want to shut down a show — for example, at the end of the month, when they have quotas to fill — they'll have more motivation to find any reason. People keep wondering why so many venues (Santos, Coco66) have been raided as of late. As Todd pointed out to the Voice, it's unlikely that the three venue closings in the past week were part of any sort of NYPD conspiracy — but going off the many NYPD stories we grew up hearing from our grandfather, I’d assume quotas have at least something to do with it.

We hope everyone who came out to 171 Lombardy enjoyed the first 3.5 bands. Sweet Bulbs are certainly one of our top five favorite new bands of 2010 (check out a sweet vid Liz caught here) and Total Slacker were insane (we weren't expecting Tucker to totally demolish his guitar at the end of their set. Dude! so wild). DOM's 3 a.m. Silent Barn set was one for the books — and a testament to what awesome dudes they are for sticking it out. When's the next chance you'll get to see them play a show in someone's living room? Not in the foreseeable future, I'd say. Kids were going insane for it. Totally epic. They played all of their songs ("Jesus" twice, on request) and apparently covered Katy Perry and Lady Gaga although I did not recognize these songs.

A few weeks ago, at CMJ, I spoke on a panel about DIY shows called "Who Brought the PA?" There, I said, "Don't be afraid to do shows just because you think they might get shut down by the cops. Half of an awesome show is better than none at all." Ric (of Altered Zones, International Tapes, Market Hotel) said, "The best shows are the ones that get shut down." So, if anything, I'm glad to be practicing what I preach. It’s frustrating to spend so much time and effort promoting and then have something like this happen. But it’s also a textbook example of why Market Hotel needs to be reopened legally. Please support the Market Hotel Project here! Thnx.

On the bright side, all of the bands got to play, and nothing seriously horrible happened. Thanks again for all of the support for our biggest show to date! More to come, for sure. Feedback and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged.

Sweet Bulbs Played 171 Lombardy

2010-10-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Sweet Bulbs at 171 Lombardy from Liz Pelly on Vimeo.

Sweet Bulbs are one of our favorite bands in Brooklyn right now. They played our Halloween party at 171 Lombardy last night — before it was prematurely shut down by the NYPD, more on that tomorrow — and Liz caught this gem from the front row. It's one of our favorite tracks off their debut LP forthcoming on Blackburn Recordings. The video catches their fuzzy art-pop's live energy, informed equally by their past experiences in hardcore, post-punk and indie rock bands. Check out the video, and catch their record release show at Silent Barn with Magic Kids, Fergus & Geronimo, and Phone Tag on November 13.

Prince Rama live on WNYU (10/20)

2010-10-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

I can't understand their Sanskrit lyrics, but Prince Rama speak my language. I was awed by their recent live set on WNYU — before playing last week's Paw Tracks CMJ showcase and unofficial Altered Zones party — wherein the Brooklyn trio brought their futuro-tribal chants, hypnotic drones, and Eastern beats to 89.1 FM. We + humbly offer + the entire set below; it starts two-minutes in. Check them out 2NITE at Brooklyn Bowl w/ Neon Indian or at The New Museum 12/10 w/ Deakin. Their incredible LP Shadow Temple is out now via Paw Tracks.

01 PRINCE RAMA IN STUDIO by user2607418

Related: Liz Pelly on Prince Rama for State.ie (July 2010)

Birthdays chilled at WTBU, played at O'briens, etc.

2010-10-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

I first heard of Boston's Birthdays from my friend Lou, then my friend Diana, then my friend Mike. They all said things like 'Birthdays is awesome' and 'do you know Birthdays?' and 'he is such a chill dude' and 'you should have him play on the radio'. A couple of weeks ago I finally responded to an email and said, 'Hey Birthdays, want to play on my show?' and he said 'hell yeah let's hang out! psyched on life!'

Birthdays - Live set on WTBU's 'Left of the Dial' by leftofthedialboston

Two Fridays ago, after a four-hour Bolt Bus ride from NYC — where he'd just played Shea Stadium with Woodsman, La Big Vic, Run dmt — Birthdays (a.k.a. Sam Yaegar) jetted straight from South Station to WTBU to play live on Left of the Dial. Three days later, he played O'briens in Allston with PPALMM. MP3 of the in-studio is above; video from O'briens is below.

Birthdays is associated with the FMLY collective, so it makes sense that he is not only an extremely friendly, sprightly, positive dude, but also very busy, productive, psyched on life, etc. This fall, he has already toured the West Coast for six weeks with Vacation Dad, gone on an East Coast mini-tour with Weekends, and played at last week's CMJ/Impose fest in Brooklyn.

Birthdays also did a Nitetrotter session and has a tape out on Impose.

Mischief Night in Brooklyn: Dom, Smith Westerns, Sweet Bulbs and more (mp3s + flyer)

2010-10-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

Flyer by Molly Smith
mp3: Sweet Bulbs - Springstung
mp3: Dom - Jesus
mp3: Smith Westerns - Be My Girl
mp3: Yellow Fever - Bermuda Triangle
mp3: Total Slacker - Magical Date Night

Our Mischief Night extravaganza is rapidly approaching! There will be Halloween decorations, pumpkins, spiderwebs, a fog machine, witches, ghosts, gremlins, sage, black cats, etc. And we'll be having WNYU's own DJ Zane B. spinning sweet techno jams in between sets. (Scary! Hehehe.) Also, if you wear an inter-esting costume — like that dog, above, dressed as a Veggie Dog — the cover is reduced from $13 to $10! Hope to see y'all there.

College Radio and You: A real-life pocket zine

2010-10-26T09:29:00.001-07:00

In September and October, two different student publications asked me to write articles about working in college radio. I included my personal thoughts as well as interviews with other college radio managers and DJs. Drawing from both articles, I assembled this tiny 1-page pocket zine, appropriately titled "College Radio and You: An explanation of college radio's unique cultural role in today's changing media landscape, and, a guide to listening to and connecting with radio stations in Boston and other places". I made 350 copies, and distributed about half of those at Homegrown II and CMJ. If you would like one, email lizpelly [at] gmail.com with your mailing address, and I will gladly send you one. If you already have one, email me your thoughts-- they could appear in the next installment! Collegeradioforever.

MP3: The Replacements - Left of the Dial

Meet Michael, Jordyn, and Greg + download their new/first EP, '!!!', for free

2010-10-09T11:50:00.001-07:00

mp3: michael jordyn and greg - opposite day
MP3: michael jordyn and greg - we can get there (if we wanna)

Michael Jordyn and Greg play noisy pop songs, clearly rooted in the complex rhythms and meters they played as jazz students at Berklee. As they grew bored with playing straightforward jazz over the years, they eventually rejected it in favor of experimental, rock, noise, and pop influences. The resultant EP, !!!, was captured by Greg (upright bass, vocals), Jordyn (drums, vocals), Mikey (piano, guitar), and friends with a 4-track tape recorder over the past few months in their Lower Allston loft. (Free on Bandcamp.)
<a href="http://michaeljordyngreg.bandcamp.com/album/ep">!!!(!) ep by Michael Jordyn and Greg</a>
!!! isn't using super lo-fi production to hide anything. Instead, the EP sounds like distant field recordings of something incredibly intricate. Poppy melodies and an overarching charming innocence, but also with a rare complex rhythmic section serving as the backbone of their sound.

Greg explained this to me: "We'll often have forms with a strange number of bars, like a 5-bar phrase instead of a normal 4 bar phrase. Or we'll have a few different time signatures going at the same time, like in 'Wake up and smell the bad guys' I'm playing in 6, Jordyn's in 4, and Mikey's in 5. We also will use just one bar of a different time signature to get different effects sometimes, like in 123457 when I say 7, we play a bar of 7. Things like that. It's not really a conscious decision to write things like that, most of the time it's just kind of what comes out. Also, can you put in there that we like the Zombies and the Microphones a bunch?"

Cool! Michael Jordyn and Greg are trying to tour in January. Book them!

mp3: Helicopter Goes Kaboom, "Diners and Beds"

2010-10-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

mp3: Helicopter Goes Kaboom - "Diners and Beds"

Helicopter Goes Kaboom is the hi-fi home-recording project of Mike McManus and Brian 'Bdee' Donaldson, a New York based duo who have been crafting experimental pop songs on Long Island since 2008. "Diners and Beds" — download above, stream below — comes off their sophomore album, Vegas in a Basement, out later this year.

McManus draws influence from slick pop bands like Fleetwood Mac; he also has a serious thing for David Byrne. "Diners and Beds" draws from both, as McManus reaches the falsetto-driven gold of the track's chorus, which takes on a high-pitched pop theatrics of its own. The chorus's most urgent and memorable line — "I'd kill myself a thousand times to be her man, could anyone now please try to understand?" — is desperately repeated throughout. Juxtaposed verses provide slick pleads ("How could you look me in the eye, say it was just another night?") via light sonics, dark narratives, alt-rock guitar solos and clean "Oooh la la las."

Lots of bands today claim affinities for "straightforward pop" — but, here, Helicopter Goes Kaboom takes the concept to a different level that's less-often explored.

Helicopter goes Kaboom - Diners by lizpelly

Words by Jenn & Liz Pelly

Pellytwins/Todd P. Mischief Night Party in Brooklyn with Dom (now on EMI), Smith Westerns, Sweet Bulbs, + More

2010-09-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hello, we are excited to report that we will be throwing a pre-Halloween Party on October 30th. Mischief Night!

The show will be in East Williamsburg at 171 Lombardy with some of our favorite new bands: Dom, Smith Westerns, Sweet Bulbs, Yellow Fever, and Total Slacker.

Saturday October 30th @ 171 LOMBARDY

:: PELLY TWINS PRE-HALLOWEEN PARTAY
:: http://pellytwins.blogspot.com

:: DOM
:::: SMITH WESTERNS
:::::: Yellow Fever
:::::::: Total Slacker
:::::::::: Sweet Bulbs

| 171 LOMBARDY |
502 Varick Ave @ Lombardy St | East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L-Grand St, G-Nassau | 8pm | all ages | $tba

Tentative: costume requirement and/or contest, Pelly Twins DJ set, vegan halloween treats, etc.

Fun facts/observations:
++ According to Dom The Band's MySpace page, they are now signed to EMI/Modular Records. Woah!
++ Are you going to the Underwater Peoples showcase next week? Sweet Bulbs are! Because they're playing, with Alex Bleeker/the Freaks and LA BIG VIC.

Click here to RSVP on Facebook. Videos/etc after the jump!

Pavement and YYYs Make Wednesday Night Epic

2010-09-22T22:42:00.001-07:00

Last night, Pavement played through rain, thunder and lightening for a sold-out crowd at Central Park, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs played for a crowd of 150 at Secret Project Robot. Wouldn't have believed any of this for a second last summer, which is the last time we saw Yeah Yeah Yeahs — at Lollapalooza's main stage.

Evidence (via pics and videos from both shows) after the jump.

I arrived at Pavement around 4:45 and the line was surprisingly very short. In the front row we befriended a 16-year old dude from Madison, Wisconsin who had just flown in for the show Wednesday morning.

The rain was an incredible addition. My only complaint is that the band didn't play "Frontwards" which they've been playing at other shows.

"Summer Babe (Winter Version)"

More Pavement videos here.

Then, after Pavement, I made the dramatic generational leap to Williamsburg for Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Secret Project Robot, and was able to catch the band's last four songs - "Maps," "Y Control," "Modern Romance," and "Heads Will Roll."

Not sure that these were actually accurate, but here are pics of the setlist:

"Maps"

"Y Control"

"Modern Romance"

Upcoming ++Festivals++ in Boston

2010-09-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Typically the thought of 'music festivals' conjures images of sweaty outdoor happenings during the blistering spring and summer months, but for Boston, this Autumn is shaping into quite an eventful 'festival season' of sorts, with three clear highlights:

Friday, September 24 >> JP Fest @ the Temple
Next Friday, Bodies of Water Arts & Crafts (who were recently responsible for Campout Fest in Palmer, MA) introduce the first-ever 'JP Fest' at Temple Sound & Stage, a.k.a. 'The Temple'. The all-ages one-night fest is a bargain, featuring 12 of the neighborhood's best garage rock, pop, experimental, and electronic acts for a mere 10 dollars. Local staples like the Thick Shakes, Big Big Bucks, and Needy Visions are all on the bill, plus nine others.
Thick Shakes - (Baby) You're A Starfish by lizpelly

October 15-17 >> Homegrown Fest II @ the Temple
BOWAAC also brings the super-epic Homegrown Fest II to The Temple this October, spanning over three days and nights. The line-up is a mix of legends, heroes, local favorites, and buzzy ungerground bands from around the country, including Damon and Naomi*, Marissa Nadler*, Mark Sultan a.k.a 'BBQ', Jeff the Brotherhood*, Parts and Labor, Home Blitz, Turbo Fruits, Ty Segall, Truman Peyote, Needy Visions, Lord Jeff, Many Mansions, and lot more. Save ten bux on the daily door price by grabbing a 3-day pass here.
Marissa Nadler - True Love Will Find You In The End [Daniel Johnston cover] by Evan Hurst

* particularly psyched

November 12-13 >> Deep Heaven Now 2
The upcoming festival season also includes the second installment of August's 'Deep Heaven Now' festival, set for November at PA's Lounge and Precinct in Somverville. The line-up features mostly Boston-area ambient and psychedelic rock bands like Mmoss, Quilt, Herbcraft, Mind Yeti, Ghost Box Orchestra, the Dirty Dishes, Mmoss (again), and over a dozen more. Also awesome is that $10/day get you into both venues.

Awesome things are happening in Boston!

Family Portrait and more, Live at Liz Pelly's house (videos)

2010-09-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

House shows are huge in Allston, Mass. Also known as 'Greylock House of Yoga,' Liz Pelly's house is a disheveled cottage on Greylock Road with a living room capacity of 40. On Sunday, August 22, the space was host to an insane six-band line-up, including Worcester's Golden Girls, Lord Jeff of Ecstatic Peace!, and the Underwater Peoples themselves, who jammed at Liz's house after their gig at The Great Scott with Tennis. (Videos above+below.)

Also on the bill were Friendship Bracelet-recommended Werewolves of Pittsfield, who opened with with a rocketfire punk set; Allston resident John Lindsay, a.k.a. Ming Ming Dance Co, who produced futuristic Kosmische-inspired soundscapes; and some more time-traveling drones from Many Mansions, who played with extra help from Lord Jeff members.

Neighbors and cops tried/failed at prematurely ending the show. A displaced old crusty attempted to slam dance into LP's television. But, alas, the show raged until 4 a.m. Nothing was trashed but the Twilight poster in the hallway. (And most attendees.)

^^Tambourine and drumstick cameo via the Tennis dude!

^^ 40 more seconds before my camera died

Quilt playing Silent Barn tomorrow (Showpaper benefit) + Great Scott on Monday

2010-08-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

All summer, I've been revisiting the four kaleidoscopic psych-folk tracks that make up Quilt's Agents of Play EP. Recorded in an Allston basement and released by Breakfast of Champs in the spring, the record's gritty, deep psychedelia ultimately really is a textured sonic 'patchwork' of spooky three-part harmonies, tripped-out finger-picked guitars, twangy banjos, tambourine taps, echoing cymbals, and hypnotic vocal drones that crescendo and decrescendo. A staple in Boston's garage-psych basement circuit, Quilt are bringing their mind-bending live performance to NYC this weekend, and back to Boston on Monday.

MP3: Quilt - Agents of Play

Tomorrow, 8/28, Quilt plays the Silent Barn in New York. The show is a Showpaper benefit, also featuring two of our recent faves, Sweet Bulbs and Byrds of Paradise, plus Red Romans (mems. of Beach Fossils), Total Slacker, Baybee Teeth, Tonsils. Then on Monday, 8/30, Quilt play the Great Scott with Free Pizza, Herbcraft (mems. of Cursillistas), and DJ Jesse Gallagher. Both are bound to rule.

After the jump are some vids of Quilt from SXSW that I never posted. They are playing in the doorway of a glass-blowing shop.

Soundgirl - "Our Love is Electric"

2010-08-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

Soundgirl seems to be the new electronic recording project of Madison Farmer (of Dream Diary and Coasting) and Alex Craig (of Big Troubles) — earlier this week, they dropped this piece of romantic synth-pop to the Internet. Take the relentless pop sensibilities of their bands Dream Diary and Big Troubles, clean them up and add a killer '80s synth-line, plus some epic, airy guitar soloing for good measure, and you've got "Our Love is Electric." They render the sound "electro-emo."

Download the track at Soundgirl's Bandcamp here. What's next?

Squarehead cover the Everly Brothers

2010-08-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, we posted on Dublin band Squarehead, likening their sound to an indie rock reading of 50s and 60s boy-bands. The Irish three-piece have covered one of those groups — you can download their version of The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" below. Here's an excerpt from last week's post:

Specked with “baby babies” and “ooh aahs” comparable to other recent indie-rock readings of Phil Spector and straightforward 60s pop, the band says they are most concerned with harmonies. Duffy’s boy-band rhymes are a bit distant and monotone, a detached brand of slow-moving Beatles/Beach Boys-inspired pop that would seem fitting for a Dublin-based indie rock band.

Squarehead - Cathy's Clown (Everly Brothers cover) by Nialler9

(via Nialler 9)

Artist Advocacy Mix: Las Robertas

2010-08-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Before reading about Costa Rican garage pop trio Las Robertas on Sweet Oblivion, a Dublin-based music blog/radio show, I only briefly saw the all-girl band mentioned on this 'Are Las Robertas the new Best Coast?' Hipster Runoff post. But after giving them a closer listen, I've had their 3-track Cry Out Loud EP (which are surprisingly all in English) on repeat for some time:
<a href="http://lasrobertas.bandcamp.com/album/cry-out-loud">Street Feelings by Las Robertas</a>

After listening to their EP repetitively, I thought it made sense to email Las Robertas to ask them about making a mix for Artist Advocacy. The result is a brilliant collection of pop songs (all sung in Spanish) from Costa Rica, Spain, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. Highlights are Aias, a Barcelona band recently signed to Captured Tracks, as well as KoKoshca from Pamplona, Spain and S.P.E.C. from Tijuana, Mexico.

Listen to the whole mix here on Artist Advocacy or stream after the jump.

Las Robertas mixtape by artistadvocacy2

New Screaming Females video/mp3, 'I Don't Mind It'

2010-08-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Our fave band Screaming Females just released a new video for 'I Don't Mind It', a track off their forthcoming album Castle Talk. (Artist statement here.) The record is officially out on September 14 via Don Giovanni, though we noticed they had copies for sale at their Maxwells show in New Jersey last week. It's also available to pre-order over at Insound.

Stream/download 'I Don't Mind It':
Screaming Females - I Don't Mind It by lizpelly

The Screamales show we caught last week in NJ was also their tour kick-off date; they just embarked on a national 2-month tour, playing shows along the way with Big Eyes, Shellshag, and Ted Leo. All of the dates are listed after the jump. Catch a show now before they head to Europe!

8/16 - Gallery Five - Richmond, VA
8/17 - JJ's Bohemia - Chattanooga, TN
8/18 - Grimey's Records - Nashville, TN (early show)
8/18 - Exit/ In - Nashville, TN
8/19 - The Bishop - Bloomington, IN
8/20 - F***ing Awesome Fest (Magic Stick) - Detroit, MI
8/21 - Schuba's Tavern - Chicago, IL
8/22 - 7th St. Entry - Minneapolis, MN
8/23 - BFG - Appleton, WI
8/25 - Ski House - Carbondale, IL
8/26 - Replay Lounge - Lawrence, KS
8/27 - Hi Dive - Denver, CO
8/29 - Red Room - Boise, ID
8/30 - Backspace - Portland, OR
8/31 - Healthy Times Fun Club - Seattle, WA
9/2 - Holland Show Space - Reno, NV
9/3 - Thee Parkside - San Francisco, CA
9/4 - FYF Fest - Los Angeles, CA
9/5 - Awesome Fest 4 - San Diego, CA
9/6 - Trunk Space - Phoenix, AZ
9/8 - Mohawk - Austin, TX
9/9 - Zeitgeist - New Orleans, LA
9/10 - The Farside - Tallahassee, FL
9/11 - The Atlantic - Gainsville, FL
9/12 - Secret Squirrel - Athens, GA
9/13 - Static Age Records - Asheville, NC
9/14 - Black Cat - Washington, DC
9/15 - Knitting Factory - Brooklyn, NY !
9/16 - The Ox - Philadelphia, PA
9/18 - TBA - Columbus, OH
9/19 - Brew Not Bombs (Portage Theater) - Chicago, IL
10/12 - Common Grounds Coffeehouse - Gainsville, FL $
10/13 - The Social - Orlando, FL $
10/14 - Cafe Eleven - Saint Augustine, FL $
10/15 - The Handlebar - Greenville, SC $
10/16 - THe Southern - Charlottesville, VA $

! = w/ Big Eyes and Shellshag
$ = w/ Ted Leo & the Pharmacists

Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females at Siren Fest, shot by Vincent Pelly for SPIN.com.

Dublin band Squarehead acoustic at The Squarehouse (mp3 + videos)

2010-08-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

On a typically dreary afternoon in Dublin, Liz Pelly and I caught a rare acoustic session from one of the city’s most exciting up-and-coming bands: Squarehead, a three-piece who craft their own catchy brand of neo-50s boy-pop, indebted in equal parts to Robert Pollard and the Everly Brothers.

Filmed behind the house where 2/3’s of the band lives — among piles of weeds and flowers and empty wine bottles — their typically fuzzy music seemed cleaner and sparse, highlighting their greatest attribute: singer Roy Duffy’s unique, drawling rhymes.

"Fake Blood" - Squarehead by lizpelly

Specked with “baby babies” and “ooh aahs” comparable to other recent indie-rock readings of Phil Spector and straightforward 60s pop, the band says they are most concerned with harmonies. Duffy’s boy-band rhymes are a bit distant and monotone, a detached brand of slow-moving Beatles/Beach Boys-inspired pop that would seem fitting for a Dublin-based indie rock band. The occasional line really sticks: “If I was not unusual, if you were not so beautiful, then maybe everything would be great, and all these things would fall into place,” he sings on recent debut single “Fake Blood,” out last week on Dublin label Any Other City.

"Everything" - Squarehead by lizpelly

Check out our faves “Fake Blood” and “Save Yourself” — plus an Everly Brothers cover and more — after the jump. While it’s clear their songs are made to be plugged in, this session is a cool intro to a band who will undoubtedly be getting some international attention as they wrap up their debut LP later this summer.

Squarehead - "Mother Nurture" (+ special surprise)

Squarehead - "Fake Blood"

Squarehead - "Save Yourself" (skip to abt 1:35 for the song)

Squarehead - "Cathy's Clown" (Everly Brothers cover)

Squarehead - "Insight"

LA BIG VIC Live on WNYU 8/12/10 (mp3s + interview)

2010-08-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was ecstatic to have Brooklyn's LA BIG VIC — one of my favorite new bands going right now — live on WNYU yesterday. Soaring with retrofuturistic direction, the band's music draws inspiration from past visions of the future. Using synthesizers, violin and percussive vocals, La Big Vic (Emilie Friedlander, Peter Pearson and Toshio Masuda) creates massive and sublime soundscapes — sultry, slow-moving space jams and pulsated, beatific atmospherics are perpetually ringed with a cosmic exoticism. The time-traveling all makes you want to get on a concord jet and head somewhere mysterious (or Utopian) and new (or old).

The band brought four tracks to the New Afternoon Show (the whole set is about eighteen minutes) and hung out for a quick interview, where they explained what they think the future will be like (green with floating shopping malls), their 70s Kosmiche and Krautrock influences, the many languages of La Big Vic, and their forthcoming release on Underwater Peoples.

++ Download: LA BIG VIC live set on WNYU, 8/12/10
++ Interview here, partially transcribed + surprises after the jump

Can you guys talk about your background and when you all met and formed La Big Vic?

Emilie: I think that you guys met before I met you.

Peter: Quite possibly. La Big Vic has a past that’s shrouded in mystery.

It seems like you guys would. The music is really mysterious. Around when did you form?

Peter: These guys played together last fall, about a year ago. My first show with the band was December.

Emilie: Before Peter joined we played a show I think at Market Hotel Yoga, it was totally protean at that point.

Toshia: It was just two of us. Still very cranky, very intense. Peter is peaceful.

Peter: It’s a lot more synthesizers now, too, before it was guitar and violin. They did a social at Camilla from Future Shuttle’s fabulous loft.

Emilie: Perfect Wave Gallery.

I read online that you guys met through someone named Vic and that’s why you’re called LA BIG VIC. Is that true?

Peter: Yeah. He’s like 6 ft. 8 or something. 7 ft. 1? He’s huge.

Emilie: And he isn’t anymore, but he used to be a pizza delivery guy, and he would deliver his pizzas on skateboard. And we wanted him to be in the band really really bad but he didn’t want to be in it. He’s a mysterious guy.

Peter: He’s kind of shy, even though he’s really tall.

So you guys are all from different countries? I read that on the Internet, too.

Emilie: There’s some misinformation out there. Toshio is from Japan, he’s from around Osaka. I’m from Brooklyn, born and bred, but I’m of Swiss descent.

Peter: I’m from the country of Wisconsin. Hi dad, he’s listening.

That’s interesting, because on the Internet people seem to play up this aspect of your music, like — “it’s music from people from three different countries!” That’s kind of interesting, the way people make myths about music.

Emilie: We like myth.

I like myths, too. I think there should be myths surrounding a band like La Big Vic. So you guys started around the fall, and you have a cassette out on Whip?

Emilie: Whip Casettes.

Peter: It’s out now, but I think we’re putting something out on Underwater Peoples soon. I don’t know if that’s official or not.

That’s awesome.

Emilie: More or less, it will be a tape.

That’s awesome. With new songs?

Emilie: A mixture of new and old.

It seems like you guys would fit in well with the Underwater Peoples’ roster. That’s cool. Another question, you guys get described as ‘futuristic’ a lot, and I was kind of wondering where you draw influence from in terms of making your music sound futuristic, if that’s even intentional. And what you guys think the future is going to be like?

Emilie: Toshio can talk about anything political. He speaks for political views of the band. On my end, well, we’re all pretty into synthesizers, and especially Toshio and Peter. And especially 70s Kraut-rock and Kosmische music, among other movements, and a lot of that music had a strong futuristic element, and was kind of an announcement through the synthesizer of this Utopian future.

Peter: Alternate futures of the past or something.

Emilie: Yeah, so when we talk about it today it becomes retrofuturism, meaning that we’re looking at how people in the past envisioned the future, and it changes it up a lot. It changes it from if we were just making music about the future, we’re making music about past futures. And our future.

Peter: The future is going to be green. And in space.

When do you guys think you all discovered that sphere of music that influences you?

Emilie: I’ve been listening to that stuff since high school.

Peter: It kind of starts with punk rock, I think, and branches out in all directions.

It’s interesting to hear an elaboration on the word futuristic, describing your music, because I feel like futuristic is so vague and you can think of…the Jetsons, or something, when you think of futuristic. But that’s...probably not what you’re going for.

Emilie: That’s sort of another retrofuture, I guess, when we look at it today.

Peter: It’s also because Toshio’s from Japan, and they live in the future. About twelve hours I think. [laughs] It’s probably already tomorrow there.

Toshio: Yeah it’s like 7:30 in the morning or something.

Emilie: Are your parents up to listen to it?

Toshio: I think so.

When did you move to New York?

Toshio: Like, two years ago, almost.

Ohh, cool. I read also somewhere, that you write your lyrics in a made up language. Is that true? Or is it just some language that we’ve never heard of?

Peter: Like the Cocteau Twins or something.

Emilie: There are many languages of La Big Vic. In one of the songs I’m singing in Latin.

Which song is that?

Emilie: Musica. On another song we’re singing in English. And there are some lyrics in the Heyo song that are more percussive than actually semantic but there are actual words for most of it. I’m singing about a sicada and a Silver Morning. But we wish that Toshio would sing in Japanese because Toshio speaks five different languages.

Are there any bands from Japan that you think are really good right now?

Toshio: That depends. The Japanese underground scene is kinda cool. Like, Boredoms. Or, Boredoms. [laughs] There are so many good local bands, especially in Osaka, northern Tokyo.

Is there anything else in the future of La Big Vic?

Emilie: We’d like to have guest collaborators. DM us.

Peter: If you want to have our music in airline commercials or anything like that.

Emilie: Oh yeah, that’s our main goal.

Peter: Air France.

Is that for any particular reason?

Peter: Someone told us that we should have our song in an Air France commercial and we thought it was funny.

Emilie: And probably pretty appropriate. That’s the one home I can imagine for our music.

There is this kind of…not otherworldly and not ethnic, but it reminds you of traveling or something.

Peter: Like concord jets or the new huge shopping malls with wings.

VIDEO: Twin Sister "Saturday Sunday" @ Great Scott in Allston

2010-08-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of Twin Sister playing my favorite Twin Sister song on Monday night at Great Scott in Allston:

Saturday Sunday is one of the best Twin Sister songs IMO. An MP3 of Twin Sister playing this song on my twin sister's radio show is posted for free on Twin Sister's website.

VIDEO: Memoryhouse cover My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep"

2010-08-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

Memoryhouse ended their set at the Great Scott in Allston last night with this cover of "When You Sleep" by My Bloody Valentine. They mentioned that they've only played this one other time live. Here is a video:

Memoryhouse are currently touring the US with one of our favorite bands going right now, Twin Sister. (All tour dates are posted here.) Last night was the first night of the tour and both sets were beautiful, as expected. I have a bunch of vids from Twin Sister's set coming soon.

Download Memoryhouse's Years EP at the Arcade Sound Ltd site and Twin Sister's Color Your Life at Twinsistermusic.com.

Calvin Johnson Played a House Show in Dublin (photos + video)

2010-07-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last night we saw Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening and K Records play a house show in Dublin. The show was at a gorgeous penthouse overlooking the city — Calvin rendered the locale "poetic," which was spot on. It was very interesting to be at a DIY show at a venue without graffiti on the walls or a bar in the back. Calvin played acoustic and sang many of his songs a capella, incorporating theatrical and flamboyant body language.

Organized by local promoter/DIY celeb Dylan Haskins, the show was undoubtedly a highlight of my time in Dublin, and probably the most high-brow DIY gig I've been to in my life. Ecstatic Youth and Patrick Kelleher opened and were also incredible. A quick video of Calvin and more photos after the jump.

video: Big Troubles - "Bite Yr Tongue"

2010-07-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

BIG TROUBLES "BITE YR TONGUE" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.

If there's one thing the kids behind the recent wave of New Jersey bands are good at — aside from crafting great pop songs — it's romanticizing the suburbs. In Big Troubles' new "Bite Yr Tongue" video, director Spencer Dennis uses gritty 1960s Super 8 mm film to document Ian, Alex, Sam and Lucas stuffing their faces at local NJ fast food joints, posing with vintage airplanes at their Aviation Hall of Fame, and drivin around with the windows down. "Bite Yr Tongue" is less hyperactive and less sugary than previous B.T. tracks — the video plays out as a dreamy tribute to the yesteryears of their native Ridgewood, NJ and its surrounding hoods. (I recommend Xing out around the 2:54 mark to avoid the "explosive" ending.)

Fresh off a northeast tour with Ducktails, Big Troubles play Glasslands tonight and drop their debut LP on Olde English Spelling Bee next month. Check out the "Bite Yr Tongue" video above — and be sure to catch all of Olde English Spelling Bee's sick videos on Vimeo, here.

Vids: So Cow @ Whelan's in Dublin, 7/24

2010-07-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hey you guys, here are some sweet videos of So Cow playing in Dublin on Saturday night. Before I came to Dublin for the summer, So Cow was one of the only Irish bands I had ever heard of. They were touring the US all summer but returned to Ireland just in time to play a show on my last Saturday night in Dublin! Awesome timing.

Here is their cover of 'Runaway' by Del Shannon:

And here is one more song:

Lots of fun! Hope they come play Boston again soon.

Hey Nyc, Microphone Memory Emotion show @ Glasslands next Friday 7/30

2010-07-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Jenn Pelly and I will be in Dublin next Friday night — seeing Calvin Johnson! — but if we were in New York we would for sure be at the show that Georgia of Microphone Memory Emotion has lined up at Glasslands Gallery: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, Campfires, Big Troubles, and La Big Vic. Details ++ awesome flyer below:

LA BIG VIC - "FAO Schwartz" Live at Cameo Gallery from Elise Oh on Vimeo.

These artists have dropped some of our favorite albums and tracks of 2010. Going to rule!

Siren Fest in Photos (& a SPIN review)

2010-07-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Liz Pelly and I have gone to Siren Fest together for the past five years but she is in Ireland this summer so we couldn't go together and that sucks. BUT I did get to cover it for SPIN which was pretty dope. I wrote about Screaming Females, DOM, Harlem, Ted Leo, and Matt & Kim. If you are so inclined: review here, more photos after the jump.

Bomb the Music Industry: a documentary about Quote Unquote Records

2010-07-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Below is the trailer/Kickstarter page for Bomb the Music Industry, an upcoming documentary about the community surrounding Quote Unquote Records, a Long Island-based donation-only pop punk label. Created and produced by 2 recent NYU grads, the documentary follows label founder and BTMI frontman Jeff Rosenstock, showcasing Quote Unquote's DIY punk ethic and how their label functions in a changing music industry.

The film was created/directed by recent Gallatin grad Sarah Goldstein and is being produced/promoted by our good friend Emily Rinaldi. A BTMI short film has already been created, which NYU's Gallatin Arts Festival accepted for screening earlier this year. This summer Emily and Sarah are planning to expand it into a feature length film. Check out their Kickstarter for more info on how to help make this documentary a reality.

All of Quote Unquote's releases are available online for free, including records by BTMI, Laura Stevensen and the Cans, and Cheeky. Go get some here!

Beach Fossils Live on WNYU

2010-07-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Beach Fossils came to WNYU back in February prior to their Northeast tour with The Beets. The now-controversial BK beach pop quartet broke a lot of rules including bringing alcohol into the studio and playing Chat Roulette on our computers for extended periods of time. However not even these minor infringements could dampen my love for Beach Fossils. I uncovered the band's 15-minute WNYU set (below) mostly for the sake of listening to tracks from their Captured Tracks LP on my computer.

Download: Beach Fossils Live on WNYU 2/9/10

vid: Dream Diary - "Something Tells Her"

2010-07-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Dream Diary - Something Tells Her from Future Sweden on Vimeo.

(This review originally appeared on NYULocal.com.)

Dream Diary’s aesthetic is packed with even more beautiful nostalgia than the concept of a Book of Dreams itself. The Brooklyn four-piece plays pure, unadulterated indie pop that sounds transported from 80s and 90s UK territory — think 80s Glasgow indie as upbeat as The Pastels and jangly as Creation Records-era Primal Scream, finished off with stronger pop sensibilities a la Phil Spector, 60s doo-wop, or 90s Swedish pop like The Cardigans.

Packed with an innocence that makes their MySpace headline (“We’ll play your prom”) all the more appropriate, “Something Tells Her” sees guitarist Madison Farmer (Steinhardt ‘07) applying harmonies and a shiny, danceable lead riff over singer/guitarist Jacob Sloan’s melodic, Morrissean vocals. Recent fans of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, take note — Dream Diary is your new favorite band.

After playing their first show in August 2009 at Brooklyn’s Bar Matchless, Dream Diary spent ten months frequenting New York’s small-scale cool-crowd spaces like Cakeshop and The Silent Barn. A slot at May’s NYC Popfest earned a New York Times shout out rendering the band “promising” with “Smiths-like tendencies.” On Sunday, Dream Diary inked plans to drop their debut record with Brooklyn’s Kanine Records — the label responsible for doing Grizzly Bear’s 2004 debut, and more recently signing the 2010 beach-pop success story that was Florida’s Surfer Blood. “Something Tells Her” appears on their forthcoming full-length, out on Kanine early next year.