Tagged: gowanus

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Tweet "Like The Smashing Pumpkins , when they were good." So Lightouts describe themselves. I've heard of less ambitious introductions - there is such a thing as setting yourself up for a fall. How many members did The Smashing Pumpkins have, again? Like, four plus several extras? And we're talking about the early years, with Billy Corgan at the peak of his powers. Up against this towering monolith of rock go two blokes from a grubby suburb of New York. You could be [...]

• Lightouts - And It Come And Goes
• Lightouts - Faces, Places
• Lightouts - I Am The Key (The La's Cover)

[Photos courtesy of Jill of fortheloveofbrooklyn photoblog] Our friends Real Estate have spent the past few years doing it "the right way" - garnering critical attention for the debut LP and building off of that with varied, exciting and packed live shows. Their hard work has paid off in the form of an exciting new deal that finds them leaving one of our absolute favorite boutique labels - Woodsist - for one of the best-curated international indie labels, Domino Records . Per Domino's press release , a new [...]

[Photo by Jill of fortheloveofbrooklyn photoblog] We last caught Julian Lynch at Music Hall on a freezing cold January night, where he showed off some new songs from his then-forthcoming record, Terra . Since then, Terra has been released and proven another unqualified success, and Julian has had more time to develop the material in the live setting. This show found him opening for fellow Ridgewood, NJ natives Real Estate at the Bell House , a somewhat more cavernous space than the tight-sounding Music Hall. The [...]

[Low-quality photos by acidjack] The Charleston, South Carolina musicians Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent recently teamed up to combine several disparate recording ideas into a collaboration they call " Shovels & Rope ", which resulted in a record by the same name and a nationwide tour that included a number of dates with The Felice Brothers. This show at the Bell House was one of such opening sets (you can get the Felice Brothers set here ), but Shovels & Rope were given a headliner-length set, and deservedly so. [...]

G.R.A.S.S. On Fire is a jazz/ska tribute to the Bob Marley classic album Catch a Fire.

[Video screenshots courtesy of D.F. Yonkman of Dead Elm ] From busking in NYC subway stations six years ago to selling out the Bell House two nights in a row this week, life for The Felice Brothers keeps evolving in a positive direction. Although they effectively got their start here in New York City, their sound and their approach are more informed by their hometown of Palenville, in the Catskill Mountains upstate. Their country-inflected rock is full of grit, with primary vocalist Ian Felice drawling out his lines in whiskey-drenched full throat, reminiscent [...]

[Photos from the 5/10 show courtesy of Chris Gerbeck at fucking nostalgic ] After an epic Tuesday night "Spin the Wheel" show that found Yo La Tengo playing a special "Name Game" first set, the second night kicked off with "I'd Like To Buy A Vowel," a new wheel item that requires the band to play only songs of theirs that begin in vowels. In other words, the fans got some great music, but compared to having to, say, perform a classic sitcom, it was a fairly lucky and safe choice for the band. The safe moves [...]

[Wakey Wakey! at SXSW 2011. Photos courtesy of James Buchan - check out his Flickr stream [ HERE ]] A lot can be learned about Brooklyn's Wakey Wakey! by considering the following anecdote from last Wednesday's show at Rock Shop . It was the third song in their headlining set, following an outstanding set from tourmates Jukebox the Ghost . Keyboardist/vocalist/frontman Mike Grubbs dismisses the band from the stage and launches into a quiet solo number. As he sings the first line, peals of laughter erupt - he is covering [...]

(photo by King Texas) Just shy of a year since the actual shutdown of BKLYN Yard and the switching of venues and nomadic travels of one of the better summer series parties, Sunday Best, partner Doug Singer just sent out a correspondence to fans of the party with shocking news, including his departure from the [...]

Gowanus, Brooklyn Photo : D. Caplan According to the neighborhood sleuth's at Brownstoner , the other side of 4th ave is about to gain it's third music venue ( Littlefield and The Bell House being the other two that I can think of). At this week's CB6 meeting a cabaret license was approved for 177 2nd Avenue , between 13th and 14th. The 5,000-square-foot warehouse will be transformed into an "old school music hall" featuring live soul, rhythm, and blues. It's [...]

[photos by Johnny Fried Chicken Boy] Buke and Gass (that's pronounced byeewk and gayse, in case you were wondering) are the exciting new Brooklyn duo of Arone Dyer, on vocals and the buke (a self-modified six-string ukelele) and Aron Sanchez on the gass (a guitar-bass hybrid), all of it blown through homemade amps. The band uses this unorthodox instrumentation to make similarly unorthodox and unexpected rock music, with rapidly shifting tempos and lyrics that range from the lovelorn to the whimsical. The effect, in the live setting, is magical, as you wonder, first, how the hell [...]

[photo by Johnny] Judging by the gig I saw this night at The Rock Shop , it's no wonder that Brooklyn-based The Forms are sharing stages with some of indie rock's best acts and garnering quite a bit of attention. Beginning their show by walking through the crowd with a steel drum and accordion and playing a very unique take on their song, "Knowledge In Hand", Alex Tween and Matt Walsh treated us to a brilliant set of their intricate rhythms and melodies. Being the release show for their ' Derealization [...]

[Photos by acidjack] We had the pleasure of seeing Nada Surf play two very different types of special shows in 2010. First, there was their The Weight Is A Gift full-album runthrough that we recorded at the Bell House in March. And, at the end of the year, this very special not-quite-acoustic show at The Rock Shop to benefit Little Kids Rock , a worthy charity that provides free musical instruments and music instruction to public schools. True to form, the [...]

[Photos courtesy of Alexis Maindrault for A Heart Is A Spade ] Fresh off of three opening gigs at the Beacon Theater for The Decemberists (one of which we recorded ), Baltimore's Wye Oak gave their dearest fans a special night of music at the intimate Rock Shop . Fans had braved the cold and snow to pack the house for this outstanding performance, which featured a number of new songs from the band's forthcoming album on Merge Records, Civilian . The married duo of Jenn Wasner [...]

[Photos by Eloy Anzola . Visit his website here ] Montreal's Suuns are one ambitious, exciting band. If you punched up any random 30-second clips of tracks from their debut LP, Zeroes QC , you could encounter any number of distinct musical ideas. You might find the Zeppelin-on-acid riffs that are the foundation of "Armed for Peace," or the brooding, addiction-nightmare hiss of the vocals over a spare beat on "Up Past the Nursery," or even the slowed-down dubstep beat on "Pie IX". The point being, Suuns make angular, twisted art rock without a single stylistic straightjacket. From [...]

[Photos by Johnny Fried Chicken Boy] The inimitable Mission of Burma have graced us with their presence a lot recently - first, back in December at Maxwell's for one of the Yo La Tengo Hanukkah shows , then Maxwell's again this past Friday. But according to fans who saw all three, this bigger show at The Bell House was the king of them all. It is not uncommon for legendary bands of Mission of Burma's generation to get by on autopilot, playing the old songs everyone wants to hear in a [...]

[iPhone4 photo by acidjack] The Brooklyn duo Acrylics stopped by the A Heart Is A Spade launch party to celebrate both the launch of that outstanding new music site as well as, it turned out, a big playoff win by the New York Jets, which guitarist/singer Jason Klauber was particularly pumped about. Perhaps Jason's happiness about the football victory translated into an extra-exuberant set of polished indiepop by Klauber and keyboardist/singer Molly Shea. The band did a superb job of reproducing their electronic compositions in the live setting, avoiding the trap that [...]

[Grooms at Bowery Ballroom last year. Photos by Amanda Hatfield ] Grooms released their searing debut LP, Rejoicer , in late 2009 (followed by a broader re-release in 2010), and have a second, tenatively entitled Prom , already around the corner. In a treat for the audience, they dedicated the majority of this set at Rock Shop , celebrating the debut of our friends A Heart Is A Spade , to new material from that album. Despite frontman Travis Johnson having thrown his back out earlier in the day, he, drummer Jim [...]

[Photo by Johnny] Bardo Pond came to Brooklyn a couple Saturdays ago to headline an event at the Bell House appropriately titled the "Memory Burn Psych Fest." If you have seen Bardo's live show before, you know they picked the right event, as they have been known, at times, to sear one's mind. I cannot describe their sound any better than this article from Terrascope did: Bardo Pond has the outward specifications of a rock band — guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, occasional but crucial flute and [...]