Magic Milk It's Friday the 13th! The first one of the year. Spooky. Don't stay home paralyzed by fear of the impending zombie apocalypse. Go live it up with some rad Chicago shows. Up and Atom ! FRIDAY MAGIC MILK Fasten your dancing snow boots because when garage rockers Magic Milk hit the stage there's going to be a whole lot [...]
Swimsuit // Swimsuit If you couldn't tell from the band name and the album artwork, Swimsuit is a band that prides itself on warm summertime vibes and beach pop influence. When I was first sent this LP I prematurely compared the band to the likes of Tennis and Seapony before I even heard it. That was a foolish assumption on my part because Swimsuit really doesn't sound like either band. Featuring members of City Center and Tyvek [...]
City Center — Fur City Center , the band behind this year's utterly fantastic Redeemer , has dropped us a surprise gift in the form of "Fur". Supposedly written about "burnouts wearing mink coats", this short 'n' sweet jam floats lazily on a bed of gentle strums and pooling reverb— snag it below. [ mp3 ]
City Center — Teardrop Children I've been keeping it neatly under wraps, but City Center 's Redeemer (out now on K Records ) has been slowly and methodically killin' me these last few days. These guys have never gotten a fair shake when it comes to critical lauds, but not for lack of quality material; their self-titled debut on Type was a palatable (if uneven) blend of hazy pop fragments, and [...]
Every Monday, we'll be offering you early picks for some of the week's best concerts. Do you think we omitted something worthwhile? Let us know in the comments! Be sure to visit our Local Concert Calendar for an expanded set of daily listings. Fred Thomas' City Center/Swimsuit tour arrives at Milk I'm a big Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me, Mighty Clouds) enthusiast, and Thomas' latest project, City Center , continues [...]
Live This Month: May 2011 In Live This Month , we sample some of the great local and out-of-town bands performing in the coming month in the San Francisco Bay Area. May features a couple of local festivals - S.S. Records' ten-year anniversary celebration and SF Popfest (which we'll be discussing later this month in a separate mixtape) - as well as the usual slate of touring bands coming through town. Veterans like Cass McCombs and The Raveonettes both recently put out what might be the best albums of [...]
![City Center: Redeemer [Album Review]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/3406903_lg.jpg)
Fred Thomas and Ryan Howard, the duo behind City Center , are set to give us their debut full-length, Redeemer . Their slightly reverb-laden dream pop is sometimes electro-infused, sometimes as lo-fi as the band's K Records brethren. The album is a reflection on youth from one in the throws of growing up, an attempt to understand where they have been and project they are going (but mostly the former). Redeemer is laid back with upbeat surges. The title track is [...]
" Peace Gull was a limited cassette of all instrumental Swimsuit jams released on my label sometime this last summer. There were around 50 copies and it sold out pretty quickly. I've been meaning to post a download link to the mp3s for a while, so here it finally is. This tape is some of my favorite of the Swimsuit material because it just kind of washes by in a really soft, basement blur. I hope you like the sounds if you haven't already heard them." Download at City Center
amen dunes - periódico de ayer city center - this is how we see in the dark everything everything - tin grasscut - in her pride
mp3: Woods - I'm Not Gone mp3: White Fences - The Love Between Woodsist , the awesome label that has brought memorable releases from Woods, Real Estate, Ganglians, Kurt Vile, Wavves, and Crystal Stilts, is throwing a music festival this month - one that is spread over three different days in two major cities and one coastal destination. It all kicks off this Saturday in Big Sur, then continues in Los Angeles at the Echoplex on June 15th ( tix ) and in Brooklyn at [...]
Tomorrow, Friday May 7th, Blackburn Recordings will host a night at Cake Shop as part of the beloved New York City's music venue's fifth anniversary. This party will also kick off the budding relationship between Blackburn Recordings and Connecticut's masters of hazy psychedelica Sore Eros . This show will be the 73 Release party for the new Sore Ero's record on Blackburn Recordings! I was a big fan of Sore Eros' amazing full length from last year , [...]
In the day of digital photography concert reviews, and photos typically come the next day, but over here at the Great Pumpkin I move at a slower pace...and it's not because I'm lazy, but more due to the fact that my pictures come from a film canister. City Center played the first show of their US tour on March 29th at Death By Audio ( Love of Everything was there too, and there will be photos and video of them to come), and while this was only my third [...]
I've been listening to City Center since last summer when I had a whole lot of nothing to do at work and was in ambientish rockish exploration mode. How cool do I feel when the Fader highlights them... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Shows at Death By Audio are always the most fun. Even when I'm alone on a rainy Monday, I don't feel out of place just plopping down on one of the couches and reading a book in between sets. Of course, seeing quality bands always makes for a good night, no matter what the circumstances. The evening began with Love of Everything , a Chicago twosome that's mainly the project of a man named Bobby Burg. The set was extremely stripped-down, and the songs are a lot more filled out on record, but his tunes were still filled with [...]
(photo by Amber Fellows) The last time I wrote about City Center was back in September, when I caught them at Cake Shop and thoroughly enjoyed their mix of loops, noise, and pop sensibility. As I said then, Fred Thomas is an excellent songwriter, and this new track that's been circulating around the Internet is as beautiful as ever. Heavy with the nostalgia and existential angst that characterizes a lot of Thomas' music for me, it's another good MP3 to check off in your collection from this musician. Check them [...]
City Center is a band that I have been a fan of almost since they began. I've been following this project of Fred Thomas and Ryan Howard pretty closely not only because of their past projects, but more the fact that they have been posting free mp3s, live sets, and more on their blog non-stop since they started. As City Center they have released a handful of 73s, an LP, at least one tape, and now this beautiful 123 on Quite Scientific Records . This is one of the most [...]
You maybe remember City Center from my Top Albums of 2009 list, the project is still going strong with plenty of releases planned like this limited pressing EP on Quite Scientific that really grabbed my ear. The duo is always on the road and really great live, I highly recommend seeing a live show. Foxes In Fiction has a pure honest sound, it touches on the softness of Atlas Sound yet keeps this youthful honesty that is not as common in music these days. Ativan could be [...]
Here in New York all we are getting is snow, but it seems like it's summertime in Michigan, or at least people are wearing their swimsuits. Fred Thomas, of City Center , has teamed up with his friends Shelley, Dina (who also plays in Secret Twins, among others) and Amber (formerly of Dos Hermanos, among others) h to form Swimsuit . The first thing I read about Swimsuit was: "Did you ever watch that show Kids In The Hall? Remember the theme song? All of our songs sound like that. [...]
Out in mid-January, the great Fred Thomas' new seven-inch "Cops Don't Care" showcases the ol' sensitive songwriter buried inside a more recent track record of releases generally more interested in texture and pushing sonic boundaries than guitar chords. It's a very welcome turn, and it's truly haunting, in that these vocal harmonies will peer over your shoulder as you do dishes in the dark and hover just over your face as you drift to sleep at night, whether you leave the turn table sp...
City Center return with two tracks that sound nothing like their previous Type album, instead winding their way through distorted garage and heated ambiance. City Center – Cops Don't Care 7" City Center drew a lot of heat for comparisons to Panda Bear when their self-titled album came out but this single ought to dispel any rumblings that Fred Thomas is hooked on the same track as Noah Lenox. He dabbles here in a quake of fuzz that [...]
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