Blog: 'Sup Mag

Thanks to recessionomics the development of Coney Island has been postponed yet again, leaving the boardwalk open for another year of New York City's best free festival . You know the drill - take the Brooklyn bound orange or yellow trains to the end of the line, turn left out of the station and follow the noise. Map and set times are below, and we'll see you on the Cyclone (or Shoot the Freak, in line for Nathan's hot dogs, or slouching in the shade of the Warriors mural)...

GRAND DUCHY /// INTERVIEW BY LOU WRIGHT /// During which Lou skypes with Black Francis and Violet Clark (!!!), who were kind enough to touch base w/ 'Sup from the road. Grand Duchy is touring in support of their debut album Petits Fours out now on Cooking Vinyl with their three youngest children in tow. As you can see nothing was off limits - drum machine, diapers and dinosaur discussions abound. Tour dates listed below. [...]

RUMBLE STRIPS /// WORDS: JOSH JONES /// PHOTOS: DAN WILTON /// Rumble Strips charged like an English fox hunt into our ears with their debut album Girls & Weather in 2007. With a notable horn section, their music was a raucous, live music fiesta of noise. Then they went off radar a bit to take stock and make another record. Now they're back. Recruiting a fifth member to swell their sound, they were hand-picked [...]

Update: We had awesome lo-fi mpegs of the show up earlier today, but were sternly informed (they didn't even say please) that we needed to pull 'em down asap because "Converse, as the sponsor, has exclusive rights to all video content and we can't have press outlets posting video at all." Erm, it's a free outdoor festival that supposedly celebrates the spirit of DIY. Have fun chasing down the other thousand hipsters w/ Flipcams over the next seven weekends guys. -Ed. THE [...]

SUPERSONIC 2009 /// CUSTARD FACTORY, BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND /// JULY 24th – 26th /// WORDS BY MAREK STEVEN /// When it comes to the musically minded, curated 'progressive' music festivals in the UK, All Tomorrows Parties gets most of the attention. And no two-ways about it, ATP is fantastic in almost every way. However, there is another! A comparable gem of a noisy weekend has been happening every July for a number of years. It's name is Supersonic , it takes place [...]

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No. Words. See photos from Michael Jackson's memorial service at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem *HERE*

VEGA ///
 INTERVIEW BY MIAMI HORROR /// 
PHOTOS BY CAROLINE MORT ///
 MELBOURNE, AUS /// If you happened to catch 'Sup's last party at Cameo Gallery for Issue #19, you might have caught a set by what was listed on the flyer as In! Visions! VISIONS! - aka VEGA . The nom de plume was instated because Alan Polomo and company had a gig the following night at Studio B and obvs wanted to do the right thing. What up exclusivity [...]

CHOIR OF YOUNG BELIEVERS /// THIS IS FOR THE WHITE IN YOUR EYES /// GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL /// WORDS: LOU WRIGHT /// Singer, songwriter, and composer Jannis Noya Makrigiannis ditched his Copenhagen digs and headed for the Greek island of Samos to craft the sound which became Choir of Young Believers ' This is For The White In Your Eyes . This, weirdly enough, makes sense. There's something of that [...]

PATTI SMITH /// LONDON, ENGLAND /// WORDS & PHOTO BY HANNAH LANFEAR /// I'm beside myself excited. Patti Smith at the Royal Festival Hall. Patti. Freakin'. Smith. She's a rare soul, a legend yet alive, a tangible piece of musical history, and the divine inspiration for our own goddess of diamond-hewn rock and roll, Ms Polly Jean Harvey . Although I'm a long standing fan, I've never seen Patti Smith live. I'm unarmed for the assault of the senses that are to come. The gig is part of the Meltdown [...]

PATTI SMITH /// LONDON, ENGLAND /// WORDS & PHOTO BY HANNAH LANFEAR /// I'm beside myself excited. Patti Smith at the Royal Festival Hall. Patti. Freakin'. Smith. She's a rare soul, a legend yet alive, a tangible piece of musical history, and the divine inspiration for our own goddess of diamond-hewn rock and roll, Ms Polly Jean Harvey . Although I'm a long standing fan, I've never seen Patti Smith live. I'm unarmed for the assault of the senses that are to come. The gig is part of the Meltdown [...]

PHOENIX /// BROOKLYN, NY /// WORDS & PHOTOS BY ABBEY BRADEN /// For reasons beyond explanation, the night before Phoenix 's sold out show at NYC's Terminal 5 (a cavernous 3,000 person capacity venue) the boys hopped the East River and unleashed a full set in the much more intimate Music Hall of Williamsburg. Both tickets were hot commodities obvs, but the Brooklyn gig had people just about offering up their firstborns for admission (shout out to Bumpershine ). Let's just say whatever [...]

THE COATHANGERS ///
 INTERVIEW BY LOU WRIGHT ///
 PHOTOS BY LEIA JOSPE ///
 JUNE 13, 2009 /// This June the Coathangers blew into Brooklyn, and 'Sup was there to see it. There were, in fact, two interviews conducted. The first was legendary – so legendary, in fact, that the recorder died. The salient details of that interview are as follows: The Coathangers do in fact eat children and adult cats and use their remains for arts and crafts, they have no musical influences, and they all have [...]

PATRICK WOLF/// THE BACHELOR /// NYLON RECORDS /// WORDS: CONNIE TSANG /// There's something extremely theatrical about Patrick Wolf's fourth album, The Bachelor . Not in the sense of jazz hands and glitter jumpsuits but in the way that biblical characters are used in his lyrics, accompanied by a powerful stream of violins, chorus, and Wolf's own interpretation of poetic justice to his words. That to me is a shebang. Compared to Wolf's [...]

THE COATHANGERS /// SCRAMBLE /// SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS /// WORDS: LOU WRIGHT /// It's nearly summer in New York - by the time this posts we'll really be in the shit – and everything is moving too goddamn slow. Luckily, I just got The Coathangers ' Scramble . A record that crackles with nervous, static electricity and sci-fi sound clips, firing off short, razor-sharp rounds. It's a record that delivers the kind of shock treatment a [...]

Sweetheart with the cigarette you're giving me a banjee girl effect... Leave it to the FoTP boyz to hit the next YIKES!!! lineup out of the park. This Friday Grum will be making his Studio B debut and he'll be joined by 'SUP #20 supastars House of Ladosha . Hostage (straight outta Edinburg) and Chicago's very own Local Hero will round out this fantabulous lineup. We [...]

• Grum - Sound Reaction (Original Mix)
• House of Ladosha - Banjee Girl Realness

Raindrops on robots and heavy metal vikings; these are a few of our favorite things... Color us happy upon receiving news that The Social Registry 's very own Douglas Armour was getting a hand with his new video by uber director Bryce Kass and the wizards behind Daft Arts . (That's Daft Punk joining forces with Electroma producer Paul Hahn to you and me). We've been a [...]

PINK MOUNTAINTOPS ///
 INTERVIEW BY MAREK STEVEN /// 
PHOTOS BY ABBEY BRADEN ///
 Stephen McBean is unquestionably the Arch Duke of Vancouver rock. Building on his '90s punk roots and work with Jerk With a Bomb he formed Pink Mountaintops and Black Mountain from the ever growing collective of musicians initially called The Black Mountain Army. He's released two incredible Black Mountain records and now a third in his mellower - and sometime solo - Pink [...]

Rockness, Loch Ness, Scotland /// Words: Josh Jones /// Photos: Steve Bliss /// Rockness is the furthest I've ever been in a car… driving for 11 hours and over 500 miles to Loch Ness at the very top of Scotland isn't much of a much of a laugh at all. Luckily, what was waiting at the other end of the that voyage was a whole bunch of fun. Set on the banks of the world's most famous loch, Rockness is arguably [...]

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS/// THESE FOUR WALLS /// FAT CAT RECORDS /// WORDS: AARON COULTATE /// My first introduction to heavily accented Scottish pop/rock came when, like many Australian kids who grew up in the early 90s, I was made to listen to the Proclaimers in my parent's car. By the time I was 17 I even had a Proclaimers Australian tour shirt, worn without any evident sense of irony despite the fact I would have been about three years old when said tour took place. So when I heard young Edinburgh [...]