This week’s NYC-area concert calendar is bumpin’! The Allmans Brothers are back at the Beacon, Elvis Costello’s at the Count Basie Theatre, They Might Be Giants play the Williamsburg Waterfront, we’ve got two shows by reunited 90s alt-rock titans (Bush and STP), and this oddball lineup of Weezer, The Flaming Lips and Yeasayer are all at Jones Beach.
But, as usual, it’s the smaller club shows — and, in this case, the boat cruises — that interest me most. For something a bit more rock-based and singer-songwriter-y, check out The Barr Brothers and/or American Babies at the intimate Rockwood Music Hall. Or, get a little edgier with Sonny & The Sunsets et al over at the Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg. But if you can only choose one, I highly recommend the Budos Band on the Rocks Off Concert Cruise for some groove-laden horn funk by the dudes laying down instrumentals for the majority of Daptone Records releases. Can’t be beat.
Interesting shows from this week’s NYC concert calendar: READ MORE
Summer Festival wanderlust is in full force this week as Wakarusa, Mountain Jam and an expected Jazz Fest lineup are released this week…
The powers-that-be just kicked the Bonnaspeculation season into overdrive by offering up their first in a series of clues that will lead up to the great big initial announcement in about a month’s time. Many of these cloos were misleading last year, and it seemed like the festival was just pulling our legs on a few. But after all, Bonnaroo has always been a great marketing force (even in the first year, when they relied almost strictly on word-of-mouth), always adding something new to keep people like myself intrigued year-in-and-year-out The first clue immediately brings to mind the great David Bowie, what are your thoughts?:
Clue #1 (courtesy of @Bonnaroo): A trip to space thwarted by a speckled lad’s demise. A watershed moment otherwise.
Not that Bonnaroo requires something like a big anniversary to pull out all the stops, but if the transformative Fifth Anniversary was any indication (2006–My personal favorite lineup, featuring Radiohead, Beck, My Morning Jacket, G.R.A.B., and Oysterhead), this year AC Entertainment and Superfly will be pulling out all the stops. So here is my completely speculatory list of artists who might be appearing on the farm in Manchester from June 9-12 (one can wish, wonder, and wander towards the Good Road): READ MORE
On Saturday, September 25th, the Virgin Mobile FreeFest returns, this time with a lineup that crosses indie, hip-hop, and dance boundaries. The much controversial M.I.A., NYC alt-dance outfit LCD Soundsystem, and recently reunited indie legends Pavement will headline this year’s festivities.
The tickets for the one-day festival set for Merriweather Post Pavilion will be FREE for anyone that can quick-draw the tickets on Saturday, 7/24 at 10am EDT. TicketFly.com will be hosting the tickets. Previous ticket holders and Virgin Mobile customers get a little break and get access to the tickets first on Friday.
I’m pleased to introduce the first of many writeups here at LMB from our friend, Wesley Hodges. In his first column, he previews the newly released Baeblemusic.com video featuring a full Yeasayer set from earlier this year in Brooklyn. -Jdub
Admittedly, I sort of burned out on Odd Blood months ago, after a few weeks of constant rotation and initially proclaiming it on par with the band’s debut All Hour Cymbals. Now that I’ve had time to fully digest and take a step back I can view the band’s second LP for what it is. All Hour Cymbals was one of the finest records of the last decade and Odd Blood is a nice contrast and addition to the band’s live canon, giving the live shows a fuller sound and doing away with a lot of the grooviness that stamped their early live sound in favor of a more dance-oriented show. A very strong effort, but All Hour Cymbals it is not in my opinion. However, seeing the opener (and strongest song on Odd Blood) “Madder Red” jarred me right back to the giddy level of excitement for the new material and last year’s anthemic stomp-clap “Tightrope” is a nice follow-up. Yeasayer is in a small group of three new-ish bands that have my full attention for the duration of their career (along with Delta Spirit and Dr. Dog–barring some sort of Kings of Leon foray/demise into arena rock homogeneity) and this video only resurrected my need to catch the band while they are still touring on the new material (they skipped New Orleans twice in the past year in route to Austin, something a lot of touring bands sadly do). These guys are gonna be around for a long time, so check out their fall tour dates and go see them while they are still playing smaller venues. READ MORE
It must be “West Coast Music Festival Lineups” week here at LMB. The Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle just announced their lineup today for the weekend of July 23-25th, 2010. It’s absolutely stunning for the price of admission. This is seemingly worth traveling for at that rate; some three-day passes are still available for $60.
In unabashedly conspicuous celebration of 14 years of independent music and culture, the Block Party has added a THIRD Day! After 13 years of being a two day festival, community support and tremendous talent opportunities initiated the addition of a 3rd day, Sunday July 25th.
Discounted: $60 three-day passes on sale Friday May 21st.
Discounted: $23 single-day tickets available on Friday June 4th.
Advance 3 Day Passes available here: www.thestranger.com/blockparty3daypass
On Saturday night, me and my crew found ourselves at a sold-out Yeasayer show at the Fillmore with Sleigh Bells opening, both bands fresh off their sets at Coachella. At one point during the show, Chris Keating from the headliners remarked that while he found Coachella “cool and all,” he was way more pumped to be in San Francisco because the Paris Hilton sightings at the festival bugged him out. And we were definitely treated to a solid showing from the band after some of the banter cooled off, with Odd Blood getting most of the air time during the 90 minute set. Plus, the openers, Sleigh Bells, definitely slayed the audience with their two-person approach to sexy, guitar-riff garage electronica. That new genre is all the rage, by the way.
Sleigh Bells were an interesting act to see, but ultimately left me wishing I had brought my earplugs given how close we were. They had the bass bumping and the guitar riffs flying, and the lead singer was working the photogs up front with some interesting shots.
Yeasayer came out and brought with them a nice light show to match their newly dance-able psychedelia-style indie rock, so I immediately started filming the action. Problem is, I was standing a bit too close to the soundboard where an extra security guy was chilling, so he immediately came over and asked me to take the camera to coat check right away. It could have been worse, but I was still bummed I wasn’t going to have any real footage from the show. The set was interesting; I may be a bit used to the “old’ Yeasayer that was a little less synth and techno jams but I still had a good time at the show. The new songs from Odd Blood seemed so polished and rehearsed already, which was possible to witness if you saw their Coachella webcast slot like I did. I guess I knew what to expect and maybe that detracted from it a small amount, but all in all it really was a great show. Go buy tickets here if you want to catch them on their current tour.
This weekend was a great one for live music with Coachella and Wanee music festivals both playing to the masses to kick off the festival season. I watched a ton of the Coachella webcast and really enjoyed the experience of being able to switch between sets, so let’s hope to see more of that with some free, festival webcasts going forward. As I was merely watching from the sidelines, following Twitter and fielding texts from my friends at the fest, I still got an idea of what I would have been interested to see or thought was a highlight. Upon further reflection, this lineup was amazing and I really wish I could have gone. Doh.
We hope to bring you some of our own friend-of-the-blog amateur coverage in the next day or so when our friends get back to reality, so stay tuned for that and read on for some links from Friday at Coachella 2010…
The full lineup announcement isn’t supposed to be due until some time in April, but it looks like Perry Ferrell and C3 Presents may have a tough time keeping it under wraps. All the more fun for all of us though, right?
Lollapalooza 2010 is slated for August 6-8 in Chicago’s Grant Park. Check out Lollapalooza.com for more info.
I’m not totally convinced I’m a full-on Yeasayer fan (as I often can’t get over the lead vocals), but I just can’t stop listening to their latest single, “O.N.E.” Not only is it catchy as hell, but it combines some really unique sounds and rhythmic textures. Their new album, Odd Blood, comes out on Feb [...]
The lineup for the Pitchfork Music Festival just got a bit better with the additions below: Newly added bands as of right this moment: Art-rock exhibitionists Yeasayer, rootsy dudes Blitzen Trapper, epic Danes Mew, Vancouver fuzz buckets Japandroids, Montreal folkies Plants and Animals, wiry post-rockers Disappears, and an indie rock band made by men called [...]
