Blog: hearsay

See related story, photo and video link at brooklynvegan Arcade Fire : Boys Don't Cry (live at Union Sq, NYC) video

Friday night I caught the Autumns at Spaceland, a venue that I really appreciate for its intimacy and smaller social spaces in addition to a great curtain adorned main space. On this night there was a sizeable crowded, a good showing for the Autumns , especially given that they played a show at Spaceland last month. Though the Autumns have not been particularly prolific in recent years, their highly regarded debut full length debut 'Angelpool' established a dedicated fanbase, especially in Los Angeles, that remains faithful even through the recent lean years of production. [...]

Tonight I got free tickets to see the Los Angeles Kings play the St. Louis Blues at the Staples Center. Though a poor hockey fan, I've played hockey most of my life and couldn't turn down the opportunity. Though I have not been to many professional sporting events, I never fail to take notice of the inspiring, crowd rousing music they play at the games. Arriving at the game tonight I expected to hear the typical Queen and Steve Miller Band peppered with some more recent tunes by Greenday and Hootie and the Blowfish, maybe Nirvana if [...]

Seeing a show at NYU was kinda weird. The auditorium at the Kimmel Center was acually pretty big. I would compare it to the Bowery Ballroom in size, but with much less character. I think this was the first rock show I've been to where no beer is served. Given the merit of the bill, the night was surprisingly undersold, I'd say 60% attendance. I suppose everyone that really wanted to see Wolf Parade already saw them on Monday or Tuesday. The Honey Brothers , [...]

Dirty On Purpose are definitely alive and well. A little dusty, maybe, but no worse for the wear. They recently posted a new demo track, "Light Polution" on their website and myspace page . They also have a whole bundle of new tracks recorded at a live set they did in Boston at the beginning of the month available here . I like the new songs, although the falsetto voice can be a bit much on the live tracks. It sounds alot better and more controlled in the demo, so my guess is they are still [...]

I saw Wolf Parade play back in June at Pianos . At that time, the hype machine was just getting geared up, and their justifiably praised Apologies to the Queen Mary had yet to be released. They were missing Hadji on the sampler/therimin/keys and were admittedly drunk, but still showed immense promise. Last night, they were yet again admittedly drunk, but had their full band plus and unnamed '5th member' who played an odd stand up percussion kit which included a drum, tambourine and a couple of [...]

Rogue Wave 's new album, Descended Like Vultures , comes out today. I think its really great, and I can't wait to get off work to pick it up. I saw Rogue Wave once while they were touring to support their first album, Out Of The Shadow , and I wasn't really all that impressed. They had a Shins sort of feel but I didn't think the songwriting wasn't really up to par. In hindsight I think that they just hadn't gelled yet as a band, and [...]

I was pretty surprised to hear Sun Kil Moon featured in Steve Martin's Shopgirl , let alone to see Mark Kozelek acting in the movie. He plays basically himself, Luther, a singer/guitarist in a band called "Hot Tears," who mentors Jason Schwartzman's character, Jeremy. Low bassist Zak Sally also plays in the fictional band. Sun Kil Moon has a new album of Modest Mouse covers coming out, that, while an interesting idea, I don't really think does the songs justice. Kozelek's versions are short sweet excercises in song writing that utilize Isaac Brock's vocals, but [...]

This past week has been hot like Mcdonald's coffee, pre-lawsuit. Last night at The Echo , Mt. Egypt and Band of Horses opened for Austin, TX's Okkervil River . Okkervil River's stuff has some leanings toward VHS or Beta , but with their lead singer Will Sheff on performance enhancing drugs to overcome strep throat, he was sounding more like Conor Oberst . I really went to see Band of Horses, but Mt. Egypt was an added bonus. Mt. Egypt is the project of Travis Graves who currently resides in Los Angeles. [...]

The first time heard The Hold Steady , they were opening for labelmates Les Savy Fav in Brooklyn shortly before their first album, Almost Killed Me was released. I was totally blown away by their energy, humor and theatrics. The first time I saw The Constantines play at a tiny venue on the Lower East Side, I noticed Craig Finn of The Hold Steady standing next to me in the crowd. So, while excited, I wasn't all that surprised when I found out the two bands were touring together this [...]

When I heard the Iron & Wine + Calexico collaboration EP, In The Reins , I was shocked by how cohesive of a group they made together. Iron & Wine's, Sam Beam and Calexico's Joey Burns share equally unsure, light voices that seem to match perfectly, like they were meant to be paired together. In a way its no big surprise; Beam's voice seems to work best in harmony, and he's already pulled off a convincing Simon & Garfunkel impression when singing alongside The Shins ' [...]

I think radio is up for a comeback. Unlike the recording industry , which hasn't found ways to use new technologies other than that which Apple has gifted them , the radio world is branching off into more powerful satellite radio and is taking advantage of streaming over the internet to overcome geographical boundaries. When I first heard about podcasting, most podcasts available were homemade experiments that often suffered from way too much boring chit-chat by unfunny hosts. Among those, the only one that i could really stand was [...]

i keep seeing the silversun pickups wherever i go. i think they are stalking me. first i saw the bassist, nikki, at masa one sunday. then i saw her again at the clap your hands say yeah show . then last week i saw the drummer and keyboardist, christopher and joe at the earlimart show . tuesday all four were hanginig out at the great northern show at spaceland. the last staw was when i saw lead singer brian and his girlfriend leaving the dios show at [...]

From the Sigur Ros Message board : here is a message from dean, sigur ros's manager: Re: LAS VEGAS SWAG The venue tonight charge 30% of our gross. The sales tax is 7% and on top of this there is a new gaming tax of an additional 10%. We, the band, have to pay for the cost of the shirt, the shipping, the printing, our merchandiser etc from the remaining 53%. The obvious and usual reaction to extortionate venue commissions is to hike the [...]

I ditched out on drinks in honor of Zoviet's visit last night to check out L.A. locals, Earlimart . I guess it was the last night of their tour, and a sort of return home for them, so they played a good set with some new songs. I like their Elliott Smith-inspired album, Treble & Tremble , but I pretty much thought that every song they played was "Heaven Adores You" until they finally played that and I couldn't mistake other songs for it anymore. I must not pay enough attention to song titles anymore. Lead signer Aaron [...]

Freed and I caught Clap Your Hands Say Yeah playing with The National last night. Clap Your Hands was quite good as expected. After hearing a few live sets including the one on KCRW , I wasn't surprised that they started with 3 new songs, but I still felt was a questionable approach. The band was pretty mellow with the exception of lead singer, Alec Ounsworth , who danced around while yelping and yodeling like a strained, barely comprehendable Fraggle . I was surprised & impressed by The National [...]

Idaho could be called a one-man band. Jeff Martin co-founded the band with John Berry in the late 80’s but didn’t release their first full length Year After Year on Caroline Records, now part of Astralwerks, until 1993 with Mark Lewis and Vincent Signorelli of Unsane a relatively unknown lower east side noise rock band. Since then a mixed cast has played along with Martin, including Joey Waronker of Walt Mink and Lewis and Terry Borden of Flotilla . Given the contrast between these other musicians interests and [...]

Cokemachineglow recently published a 2-part interview with indie hypethrobs, Wolf Parade . What makes the interview really great, is the immediate chemistry and back-and-forth wit between interviewer, Aaron Newell and Wolf Parader, Spencer Krug. Pretentions about manners are thrown out in favor of some good old sarcasm. The candid nature of the interview makes not only an entertaining read, but also throws down Spencer's guard, allowing him to give an honest and revealing look at what went through the band's mind while they were writing & recording their new album, " Apologies to the Queen Mary [...]

Between the upcoming MF Doom/Ghostface colaboration, "The Mask" (on DangerDoom ) and the recent iTunes released MF Doom/RZA track, "Biomusicality", it seems that The Wu is looking to rekindle its fire by tapping into the underground hip-hop community. The latter is the lead single to the appropriate, yet ridiculously named, " Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture " which is to be released October 18th. : RZA (feat. MF Doom) - Biochemical Equation : : Wu Tang (feat. Aesop Rock & Del) - Preservation :

01. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank 02. The Arcade Fire - LP2 03. Radiohead - LP7 04. 05. Les Savy Fav - New Album 06. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder 07. Bloc Party - New Album 08. Zykos - Zykos 09. MF Doom & Ghostface - Swift and Changeable 10. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away