Photo by Joe Mangat . Well, after a trip up to Portland, Oregon and a bout with a still-lingering illness, I'm finally back up in this. Perfect timing too, because there's a lot goin' on right now. Most notably, you can now stream a song from the most exciting effort still waiting to see an official release this year - Animal Collective 's Fall Be Kind . "Graze" opens this stunning EP with a languid interplay of sounds and soaring vocal trade-off between Avey Tare and Panda Bear before transforming into [...]
I'm with you, kids - let's celebrate the end of another week. Before we leave, though, let's do a quick recap: - We had more fun with Magnetic Fields covers . There's a whole slew of more fun coming this Sunday, when Part Five drops. - I dreamt of crack . which was whack, but it helped to remind me of The Moldy Peaches, which was whacker. It also reminded me to subtly plug my nascent dream blog , which was the whackest of all. - We saw Random [...]
The following tickets are on sale beginning Saturday, November 21st, 2009: Dropkick Murphys: What: Tour dates for North American tour When: February - March Tixs: Price varies depending on location Buy: Ticketmaster.com at 10:00 AM EST Jay-Z: What: Tour date for East Rutherford, NJ When: March 6th, 2010 Tixs: $36.50 [...]
We're happy to see that perennially knit-capped, Mercury Prize-winning Brit singer/songwriter Damon Gough -- aka Badly Drawn Boy -- is back for his first new recordings since 2006's Born In the U.K. Similar to his acclaimed songcycle/score for the '03 Nick Hornby film About A Boy , new album is Is There Nothing We Could Do" a collection of 15 new songs "from and inspired by" the upcoming British TV film The Fattest Man In Britain starring busy character actor Timothy Spall. New project arrives overseas on December 14 -- hopefully we'll see [...]
Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the three upcoming Vampire Weekend shows in NYC (United Palace, Bowery Ballroom, and Webster Hall) Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the two Magnetic Fields shows happening at Town Hall . BAM tickets are also now on sale. Tickets are on sale (@ noon) for the two February Yeasayer album release shows at [...]
Vampire Weekend at The Wellmont Theatre (12/08/08) Photo : Jon Klemm On Sales Vampire Weekend at Bowery Ballroom, Jan 19 ( Buy Tickets ) Vampire Weekend at Webster Hall, Jan 18 ( Buy Tickets ) Vampire Weekend at United Palace Theatre, Jan 17 ( Buy Tickets ) Jonathan Richman at MHOW, Feb 12-14 ( Buy Tickets ) Yeasayer at Bowery Ballroom, Feb 8 [...]
The Bloodsugars stellar debut album, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On was released this week on Engine Room Recordings. After their short Midwest tour last week, including a great show in Cincinnati, singer/guitarist Jason Rabinowitz was able to take some some time to answer some questions about the creative process and theme of the new album, some of their new favorite bands and the their new-found love for Bobby McFerrin. Atlas and the Anchor: My favorite song on I Can't Go [...]
No. I Don't. As of two hours ago, I am now aware that Echo & The Bunnymen are a long running, prolific outfit fronted by a liverpool loving scouser. Despite my heart bleeding Chelsea...ok that's a bit much, I just like Chelsea and dislike Liverpool excluding torres / stevie-g... I won't hold geography against them. Now while I've seen other reviews of Echo & The Bunnymen with these smart ass bloggers crapping on and comparing it to their previous work, my knowledge of this band extends to their last two releases and [...]
I'm sending you into the weekend with three artist I hope you'll enjoy: Elysian Fields For those who like: Low, Dresden Dolls An experimental duo out of NYC, the pair make very dramatic music. Elysian Fields' Myspace The Housewives For those who like: The Cribs, Maximo Park Some dang fine English guitar rock. The Housewives' Myspace Overspill Poets For those who like: Bob Mould, Ted Leo
No I'm not stalking Rural Alberta Advantage 's Amy Cole as much as the above photo may seem - it was just the best photo I could capture having arrived a little late for the band's intimate instore performance at Soundscapes in Toronto this past Tuesday. 'Intimate' is the key word as the band opted for a more subdued performance than their usual live show as will likely be on display when they play a sold-out show at Lee's Palace tomorrow night. It was very much a bedroom performance as if they were trying not to disturb the [...]
With Spoon, Beach House, Interpol, Vampire Weekend, Four Tet, The Magnetic Fields, Hot Chip, and Rogue Wave (among plenty of others that I'm forgetting, surely) all slated to drop new records in early 2010, the new year looks like it will be starting off with a bang. At least for fans of independent music anyway. Of any of those though (besides Spoon), the upcoming release I'm most excited about is Shearwater's The Golden Archipelago . Reason being that Rook , their amazing 2008 album, made such a big [...]
The following tickets are on sale beginning Friday, November 20th, 2009: The American Carnage Tour (feat. Slayer and Megadeth w/ Testament): What: Tour dates for North American tour When: January - February Tixs: Price varies depending on location Buy: Ticketmaster.com from 10:00 AM EST Cheech & Chong: What: Tour dates for North American tour When: February [...]
Thao Nguyen of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down has written a long, impassioned article for Bitch magazine on breakup songs. Titled "Break Me Off a Piece of that Breakup Song," it looks at "the perverse pleasure of musical pain" you get from wallowing in sad songs, and lists ten of Nguyen's favorites. The Virgina native-turned-San Francisco musician should know. Her newest CD, Know Better Learn Faster is one of the most memorable post-breakup albums in recent memory, with its emotionally-fraught songs like "When We Swam," "Good Bye Good [...]
So here we are at the weekend before the holiday season officially begins and everyone's schedule gets really busy, so get your music fixes in now. On Thursday night you can check out the final night of the Jenny Dee & The Deelinquints residency at the Lizard. It's also the first night of the International Pop Overthrow 4 night stint at Church. Night 1 of the IPO has The Buckners, The Doom Buggies and more. There are also 2 great free shows on Thursday, Lars Vegas is at the Alchemist and Sally O'Brien's has an impressive lineup. On Friday Thalia [...]
Dean & Britta are not Galaxie 500, just like Luna were not Galaxie 500 and sometimes that makes it hard for me to be rational. Nothing is better than Galaxie 500 were and if I try and measure anyone up against that yardstick they're all going to come up a bit short. I just need to stop measuring. The Dean & Britta show last night was a gem. There were flaws but those were caused by the venue and me not by Dean & Britta (and support Cheval Sombre) who put on a great show. Firstly [...]
Our good friend PJ Sykes shot the awesome cover photo for Lambchop 's brand new live album which came out digitally this week ( Nov 17 ) and will be released as a limited edition CD and high def video download next week ( Nov 24 ) exclusively via the Merge Store . Lambchop - Live at XX Merge (Cover photo by PJ Sykes ) As Merge fans know, Lambchop has [...]
It seems like often times the best art comes out of tragedy. Some of the most moving and emotionally stirring music in the last few years such as Funeral , "Casimir Pulaski Day" , The Meaning of 8 , or more recently Hospice , touch on feelings of loss, depression, and redemption. Sam Jacobs, singer-songwriter and frontman The Flying Change , draws from him caring for his wife, who suffers from excruciating back pain due to spinal nerve defects, and their shared experiences [...]
![[Video] Yeasayer's Experimental Video Thing (NSFW)](http://cache.elbo.ws/posts/2136326_lg.jpg)
What's with all the NSFW videos of naked people running around in fields and forests hitting the web these days? Has this replaced hand-drawn animation as the new cool indie video fad? All that's not to undervalue Yeasayer 's new video (up at their website ), which sees a few very naked people interacting with a 360° panoramic camera and then running into the desert to chill with some silverish spacey looking thing. Check it out... Here's Yeasayer's latest single, "Ambling Alp" » [MP3] Yeasayer [...]
Norman Wong Even though he coined it himself, I often wonder if Joel Gibb regrets encouraging the use of "gay church folk music" as a description for the music of The Hidden Cameras . Certainly they got a lot of mileage out of it in the band's earlier days, as it was both attention grabbing and accurate, but now, four albums in, it probably deserves to be retired. It's not that it's no longer descriptive - Gibb is still gay (one assumes), it's still music and it's still built on foundations of folk and church traditions [...]
Click here to view the embedded video. Asobi Seksu - Transparence I don't know much about Asobi Seksu, having first been drawn to them thanks to "Thursday" being featured in an episode of Skins series 2. However, I do love this video for their new single - echoing summer perfectly, it's gentle and hazy, reminiscent of those lazy Sunday lunchtimes in muddy fields around the UK. Watch and enjoy. You can catch them on the road supporting White Lies at the moment.
![Echo & The Bunnymen - Interview + Do You Know Who I Am [Later... with Jools Holland]](http://cache.elbo.ws/youtube/wRJNRaapcGc_130.jpg)
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Bobby B's Top 50 Albums Of The Decade (#25-21)
Tila Tequila NSFW UStream Freak Out (Video)
HOT CHIP TAKE another crack at IT and I’m IN
