Tagged: dpa

[Photos by Geoffrey Dicker for According 2 G . See his review of the show here ] This same night that the inimitable  Björk took the stage at the New York Hall of Science , it happened to be "music's biggest night of the year" - the annual Grammy Awards.  In a giant auditorium in Los Angeles, the four major U.S. music corporations ("record label" seems too artistic a term) slathered awards on artists who - even in the case of the best performances - dutifully trod the well-worn ground of Motown, 60s rock, [...]

[Photos by acidjack] I suppose one could fairly accuse this site of not featuring enough heavy music.  There are several reasons for that, not least being that a lot of "metal" bands aren't into being recorded.  But here's to hoping that changes, especially since Brooklyn has had a vibrant metal scene going for quite awhile now, as chronicled by BrooklynVegan  among few "indie" sites that acknowledge metal even exists.   Naam are one of the first bands that made me realize such a gap existed in our coverage, when I saw them open for Om [...]

[Photos by acidjack] In an excellent piece in the L Magazine entitled "101 Secrets to Indie Rock Success", the magazine advises that "[p]laying instruments on a stage isn’t all there is to a performance. It’s got to rise to the level of a show. There are different ways to put one on, but just playing instruments, even quite well, isn’t enough."   Our Mountain have obviously taken that to heart in a big way - they're one of the most dynamic, engaging new live bands I've seen in awhile, and they look the part. [...]

[Photos by acidjack] The Phantom Family Halo deserve your attention - and they've already gotten their fair share.  Last year's The Mindeater EP with Bonnie "Prince" Billy , another artist with some Louisville roots, earned them mention in the New York Times and beyond.  Bandmember Dom Cipolla also participated in another high-profile collaborative affair recently when he contributed to a live session at Joe's Pub that covered Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets .  This Monday night show at Glasslands , however, was dedicated to the band's own material, [...]

• THE PHANTOM FAMILY HALO - "White Hot Gun"

[Photo from night one courtesy of EarDrumNYC ] That life is short is one of those well-worn cliches.  It's also true.  Knowing that this would be the only Yo La Tengo Hanukkah show I would see this year - and knowing that YLT frontman Ira Kaplan might not have been able to make it at all - that old cliche came to mind in full force.  This is a band that consistently holds nothing back - a band that, whenever its career is over, will wind up its run with no regrets.  The same can [...]

Thurston Moore at Williamsburg Waterfront. Photo by anonymous Live music in 2011 saw several newer bands consolidate their hold on greatness, while well-established acts from the 90s brought out crowds for reunion shows and, sadly, farewells.  For those of us at the site, we were inspired by crowds of people who were, in a lot of cases, younger than we were checking out bands like Archers of Loaf live for the first time, or finally gaining appreciation for the work of artists like Cass McCombs and Bill Callahan.  At the same time, favorite new or [...]

[Photos courtesy of Pete Matthews for Feast of Music ] The National are closing out a massive two years of recording and near-constant touring in style here in New York, with a run of sold-out shows at the Beacon Theatre that have featured many of our favorite bands ( The War on Drugs , on this night) as openers.  Not many years ago, I could not have conceived of a band that makes moody, melodramatic indie rock of their particular variety selling out large NYC venues like the Beacon and Terminal 5; [...]

[Photos by Dominick Mastrangelo ] Jessica Lea Mayfield sure is a heartbreaker.  She has the affect of the pretty, reserved, stonerish girl in the back of the class - you always wondered what that girl was thinking.  If that girl actually was Mayfield, well, that girl would have a hell of a lot deeper feelings than her air of ironic detachment might suggest.  She'd be all-but-given-up on God ("Bible Days"), head-over-heels in love ("The One That I Love Best"), or maybe flat-out horny "Grown Man."  And that voice of hers... well, it would hold your [...]

[Photos courtesy of Patrick Proctor at Hippies Are Dead ] "We feel like we're in the Deep South," said The Sea and Cake 's Sam Prekop somewhere mid-set at the Bowery Ballroom this Tuesday.  "And that's a compliment."  No doubt Sam was referring to the level of enthusiasm from this weeknight crowd, including at least one audience member who seemed to think it was a Motley Crue concert.  To hear a girl screaming "Bring the fuckin' heat!" in between songs at an almost professorially mild-mannered, jazz-influenced Chicago indie act was certainly a new one [...]

[Photos courtesy of Amanda M. Hatfield ] We were thrilled that recent site favorites Mr. Dream were able to headline our CMJ Day Party this year at Cake Shop .  With two Harvard-educated former music journalists in their lineup, Mr. Dream's SST-and-Pixies-influenced sound reflects the bandmembers' excellent taste in heavy but melodic music.  Their live approach takes a similar long view of what makes a modern punk show successful.  Their music is unrelenting and ballsy, but it's also well-played, and it has a sense of humor.  The band has garnered a ton of critical [...]

[iPhone photos by acidjack] For some, Halloween means dressing up in an ironic/slut/wacky costume, and then hitting various bars acting like a jackass - which is totally cool by me.  But for those seeking a tad more structure on a Monday Halloween night (and somewhere more interesting to wear said costume), Music Hall of Williamsburg offered an ideal bill of bands with a dark, psychedelic vibe - gothmeisters  Exitmusic (our Glasslands recording of them here ), headliners The Black Angels (our most recent recording of them here ), and [...]

[Photos by acidjack] Thrill Jockey's band page for Arbouretum describes them as a "taper's dream", and they could well be right about that.  With open song structures, a hard-rocking, Southern-informed psych-rock sound an solid dose of showmanship, the band comes off a bit like an updated, thinking man's version of bands like CCR and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and they play a hell of a good show that doesn't belie that comparison.  The band took the stage behind a veil of smoke, launching into a brief psychedelic intro before hitting full stride on "False Spring" [...]

[Photo courtesy of Shaun Regan at eardrumnyc ] Since we first caught them at the Market Hotel back when they were a mostly-unknown Florida band, Surfer Blood have become a bit of an indie staple.  And for good reason: Their sound is infectious, upbeat and delivered with a great attitude.  After touring the hell out of their breakout debut Astro Coast, the band began writing the new material that eventually became their new EP release, Tarot Classics .  Several of those songs were on display at this momentous occasion, a sellout [...]

[Photos by acidjack] Portland's Eternal Tapestry brought their heavy left coast psych rock to Glasslands this past Friday night, performing three long-form compositions of their densely layered guitar, bass, and saxophone (an instrument that seems to be making a big comeback lately!).  The first two numbers came from the band's latest record, Beyond the 4th Door , but the final track, "Doing Your Own Being", was my personal highlight.  With its eastern-inflected sax melody, the song is not only compelling, but rare.  Released only on the very-limited-edition box set, Not the Spaces [...]

[Photo by Jason Persse . Used with permission] The final day of this year's ATP "I'll Be Your Mirror" festival in Asbury Park, NJ found the festival split between a hip-hop dominated Convention Hall (Ultramagnetic MCs and Public Enemy), and the Paramount Theatre across the concourse hosting (along with Jeff Mangum's second set of the weekend) some incredible post-rock performances, including Earth (which we posted recently ) and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra .  SMZ (to use the favored shorthand) were the final act that I saw at the festival, and [...]

[Photos by Dominick Mastrangelo ] When I first heard Aly Spaltro, aka Lady Lamb the Beekeeper , I flat-out couldn't believe a girl so small ( the band's Facebook page cheekily describes her as 6223) - and so young (early 20s) - could make such a large, mature sound.  Her "band" is no more than her and her guitar, but Aly never sounded intimidated or lonely on that empty stage.  She cold-opened with an a cappella number - "Up In the Rafters" - that gave me chills.  Stripped bare, the song is a sustained cry [...]

[Photos by acidjack.  The photos are bad, but the recording is great.] The band Trans Am reintroduced themselves in a big way with their seminal 1999 album, Futureworld nine years into their career.  For the first time, the post-rock band introduced vocoder-enhanced vocals to their rock/krautrock hybrid.  In many ways, this record, with its Atari graphics cover, augured the chiptunes genre, with its propulsive, fast-paced rock attack and robotic vocals.  It also showcased a little bit of the band's sense of humor, which you can get a dose of on their band page [...]

[Photos courtesy of Jason Persse ] The revivified (as of 2005) Seattle band Earth is a behemoth of sound.  Progenitors of an entire microgenre ("drone doom"), the band's latest incarnation is a slightly more epic, and also more delicate outfit that combines elements of heavy grunge guitars, drone and americana.  The band also has several ties to the band Nirvana, including lead guitarist and founding member Dylan Carlson's well-documented friendship with Kurt Cobain, and current bandmember and cellist Lori Goldston's role as touring cellist for Nirvana (and cellist on MTV Unplugged In New York ). [...]

[Photos by acidjack] Phil Elverum is one of those elusive and otherworldly presences in music, who can take the simplest organ line or bell tone and build a surprising, hauntingly beautiful song around it.  Best known for his work under the moniker The Microphones , Elverum rechristened the project Mt. Eerie in the middle of the last decade, but continues with many of The Microphones' themes and sounds.  This show at 285 Kent, presented by the legendary ToddP , had the type of intimate feel that echoed the very bedrooms where Elverum has [...]

[Photos by Jill for fortheloveofbrooklyn ] NOLA's legendary Funky Meters , the successor to the even-more-legendary Meters, put on one of their now-regular multi-night stands at Brooklyn Bowl earlier this month, and this Wednesday night show was a standout.  While the band's shows back in February faced some hiccups, the band was fully on point this night as they delivered an almost two-hour set of nearly-continuous music.  Along with NOLA classics from themselves, the Meters, Allen Touissant and others, the band showed their virtuosity with rock n' roll as well, with numbers like the [...]