Artist: Acid Jacks

[Wakey Wakey! at SXSW 2011. Photos courtesy of James Buchan - check out his Flickr stream [ HERE ]] A lot can be learned about Brooklyn's Wakey Wakey! by considering the following anecdote from last Wednesday's show at Rock Shop . It was the third song in their headlining set, following an outstanding set from tourmates Jukebox the Ghost . Keyboardist/vocalist/frontman Mike Grubbs dismisses the band from the stage and launches into a quiet solo number. As he sings the first line, peals of laughter erupt - he is covering [...]

[Photos by acidjack with Hipstamatic] I fully admit to knowing next to nothing about the Atlanta band Lyonnais - except that they rock. The four piece began in 2008 as a project between two WRAL-Atlanta music directors, Farbod Kokabi and Farzad Moghaddam, and the two clearly have an affinity for drone, psychedelic and post-rock, as they layer on the heavy reverb and distortion without apology. Their music has become increasingly experimental, focusing on longer compositions that defy the traditional 3-to-6 minute format. This show at Glasslands , opening for Eternal Summers (that recording [...]

[Photos by acidjack] Starting with their band name, Austin's ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead have never been concerned with doing things the way that other bands do them. They are the kind of band that opens a co-headlining (yet nonetheless, technically opening) set at the Bowery Ballroom on a Friday night with a fifteen minute song ("Strange News From Another Planet") from a new record (2011's Tao of the Dead ) that likely even the fans in attendance knew less well than their classic material. They [...]

[Photos by wagz2it and courtesy of A Heart Is A Spade ] Low are perhaps the best musical example of the value of speaking softly. Since 1993, they have been playing perfectly expressed, understated American music with a deftness and grace that eludes all but the very best artists. Much is made of the fact that, throughout a musical period where brash, loud and reckless are the touchstones of popular indie bands, they have won legions of fans with songs that are none of those things. Indeed, their songs are [...]

[Local H live at The Riot Room, Kansas City, MO in 2008. Photos courtesy of Todd Zimmer. See his Flickr stream [ HERE ]] The Chicago power duo Local H are a bit of a rock n' roll time capsule. Although they formed in 1987, the band first hit the mainstream in the the post-Cobain years with their 1996 FM smash "Bound for the Floor", which couldn't help but remind alt-rock fans of their departed hero. The album that featured the single, As Good As Dead, generated several more radio classics, including "Eddie Vedder" [...]

[Photo by Megan Barron. See her Flickr stream here ] It is a not-uncommon trope on this site that bands tend to give it their absolute best when playing their first Bowery Ballroom show - it's a big moment for any band, and the venue itself is nearly perfect - spacious yet intimate, welcoming, and outfitted with an excellent sound system. Maps & Atlases took full advantage of their breakout moment this Tuesday night, as they played an outstanding set to a welcoming 16+ crowd fueled more by the band's incredible music than [...]

[Photo by acidjack] I was a bit surprised that my first experience in the upgraded/redesigned Glasslands - complete with better sightlines, more bars, more bathrooms, better sound, and better light - was actually a band that wasn't from NYC. But Roanoke, VA-based Eternal Summers certainly have their finger on the pulse of the sensibilities of the moment, whatever their geographic orientation. They make the kind of smart, plaintive pop-punk that would have fit well into the early 90s scene in DC and Arlington, VA. With a record, Silver on Kanine Records that [...]

[Photos courtesy of Geoffrey Dicker for According to G ] I don't know what's in the water up in Ontario, Canada these days, but a serious music scene is percolating in Toronto that is fresh, exciting and varied. PS I Love You are from the college town of Kingston, about three hours from Toronto, but they belong with their Toronto-based brethren when it comes to being part of this burgeoning Canadian scene. This set, opening for NYCTaper favorites Diamond Rings , showed off the chops of guitarist/vocals Paul Saulnier and drummer Benjamin [...]

[Photos courtesy of Nikki Nicole. See her Flickr stream [ HERE ] It's no longer news when an "indie" band sells out a mega-sized venue. But the story of Explosions In the Sky - an instrumental rock band on the tiny (and uniformly outstanding) label Temporary Residence Limited - has got to be one of the strangest of all. Sure, EITS are an absolutely killer live band, and their music is incredible - but that could also be said of their brethren in the instrumental rock scene, the next-most-popular of whom [...]

[Photos courtesy of Jim Dalton] This Saturday, we went on a journey with the band Oneida that began at 1pm and ended at well after midnight on the following day. Continuing one of the band's most exciting and ambitious traditions, the band performed six improvisational sets for a select audience in their private Williamsburg studio and rehearsal space known as the Ocropolis. The impetus in this case was disaster relief for the people of Japan - in particular, an effort organized by Shinji Masuko of the Boredoms for [...]

[Photos by acidjack] At the end of a weekend where a certain other "band's" "farewell" show sucked up a lot of the oxygen, this set by the multi-talented Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer, was the perfect coda. As brilliant and distinct as Bejar's musical vision is - and his 2011 release, Kaputt , is already on the "album of the year" shortlist, if the Twitter-ing masses can be believed - Bejar's music is almost radically foreign to what else is going on in American music today. Which is to say, Kaputt isn't really dance music, nor [...]

[Video stills by Cannons ] I met Christopher Laufman, aka Wise Blood , just before he took the stage at Glasslands on Saturday. He seemed like a friendly, mild-mannered type of guy. In fact, dude was so unassuming, I would never have guessed he was a musician - and definitely not the kind of musician/performer that he is. He took the stage in a white sweatshirt and (as he pointed out) moccasins. He named his act after a Flannery O'Connor novel. Does this sound like some kind of badass MC to you? [...]

[Photos by Johnny Fried Chicken Boy and acidjack] For the past two years now, the funk/jazz trio Soulive have been commandeering the cavernous adult playland Brooklyn Bowl for a series of concerts they dub "Bowlive". These special shows in their home state of New York (they are originally based in Woodstock) feature memorable performances by the band as well as hordes of special guests; if anything, this year's "Bowlive II" was even more epic than last year's outing. This final night of their 10-day run promised to be a special one, [...]

[Photos courtesy of EardrumNYC ] The Elephant 6 Collective is a unique force in modern American music, a merry band of collaborators whose psychedelic, Beatles-inspired songs continue to resonate with indie aficionados across the globe. If you aren't up for seeing more than 10 bands in one place at one time, you should skip the E6 Holiday Surprise extravaganzas, because over their usual three sets in a given night, they will illuminate and educate you, as well as wear down the unready. This gig at the Knitting Factory was night one of three here in [...]

[photo courtesy of Adam B ] Acidjack reports: "After Tuesday's Godspeed You! Black Emperor show at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, I could not imagine the band being able to top itself the following night. But GYBE are far from an ordinary band, and Wednesday's show was the type of extraordinary tour de force that humbled even their awe-inspiring Tuesday show. This show built on all of the elements that made Tuesday special - the hypnotic, narrative visuals, the seamless two-plus hours of music that ebbed and flowed, and twinkled and [...]

[photo courtesy of Adam B ] Acidjack reports: " Godspeed You! Black Emperor returned to New York after a nine-year break from our city. How the world has changed since then. When the band last played here, their music could have been the soundtrack to those times - a soundtrack to an era of real fear - not of something to do with esoteric finance - but a visceral, inescapable apprehension of a decaying world. GYBE are an unabashedly political band, and their music, as well as the [...]

[Photos by Geoffrey Dicker for According2G ] La Sera is the new LA-based project from Katy Goodman, best known for her work with the Vivian Girls . La Sera may be an LA band but the Bowery Ballroom crowd welcomed Katy and her new band with open arms, and well they should have. La Sera more or less picks up where the Vivians left off, but adds a lighter California twist that befits their hometown. La Sera songs, compared to the Vivians, are suffused with a sunnier tone [...]

[Video stills by Cannons ] Looking at Brooklyn bands with big, big potential to come out of SXSW this week transformed into rising stars, Hooray For Earth has got to be high on the list. Though there is no exact formula for making it to the next level, it has to include the appeal to resonate beyond narrow indie borders into the broader pop realm. Look at bands that have done it recently (Yeasayer, in particular) and Hooray For Earth is right up there with them. How so? The energy of Hooray For Earth [...]

[Photos by acidjack with iPhone4 and Hipstamatic] Brooklyn's Widowspeak could be considered a Pacific Northwest import of sorts - vocalist/guitarist Molly Hamilton and drummer Michael Stasiak hail from Tacoma, Washington (guitarist Robert Thomas is from Chicago) and the rain-washed influence of that region suffuses both their sound and their songwriting. Stylistically, you hear it in their guitar playing, which picks up the jangly, rangy sound of some of the early K Records acts like Beat Happening, and in the band's unforced delivery. There is a mellow, wistful air to Widowspeak that is uncommon to hungry young [...]

[Photos by Johnny Fried Chicken Boy and acidjack] The Brooklyn band Mr. Dream gives the lie to the adage about writers, and critics in particular: That those who cannot actually do something become critics instead. In Mr. Dream's particular case, the former Pitchfork writers Nick Sylvester and Adam Moerder joined with bassist Matt Morello to make the kind of rock music that made them become critics in the first place. Which is to say, rock music from the days when independent rock music wasn't just the go-to tuneage for car commercials - [...]