Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:12 AM
So, after a week filled with just no joke awful shit, in which filing taxes counted as a pretty delightful romp, comparatively, we are all in need of some pure weekend holiday joy. Luckily, Record Store Day, our favorite made-up music nerd holiday cum cry for help from an industry that keeps on taking beatings, is tomorrow! Yeah! Let's just go out in to the sunshine and buy some records. And then go home and celebrate some other, more illicit but totally complementary made-up holiday in our houses? That sounds kind of perfect.
Below, check out a few places to go and a few things to search for when you are there. (Those not willing to take our suggestions can find a complete list of RSD exclusives here, and a more thorough list of participating local shops here).
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 12:44 PM
Karen O is a very odd rock star. She became an icon without really doing the deep, conceptual work of coming up with a defined character to perform as, let alone tweak from record to record. She just sort of bounded to the stage in garish tangles of fringe and glitter, her crazed enthusiasm just a thin line from total collapse. She's always had a dramatic quality, an instinct to dress up and make a spectacle of herself that feels weirdly like hiding rather than showing off. It's not coherent, and never was. Just armloads of stuff, space singlets, funny wigs, a miner's lamp, maybe? It's felt like the work of a bored drama kid who found herself in her high school's prop closet and decided to become a whole new being, if just for a second. To stave off perpetual anxiety by acting the part of some crazy person who could never feel anxious.
Her band, original Williamsburg gentrification totems Yeah Yeah Yeahs, released their fourth album Mosquito yesterday. It's a record that strains at its own edges in that same unpurposed way, grabbing bits of anything—gospel choirs, found sounds, ill-fitting rap cameos—and just blindly mashing them in. A record as a Cold Stone Creamery cup. It's actually their first album that fully sounds like Karen O looks on stage. It's a pretty exciting mess!
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 11:44 AM
Hey everybody, did you hear that there's a new Daft Punk album coming out? It's been hard to miss. At a Coachella Festival pretty heavy on chill French guys doing kinda weird collaborations with notable R&B fellas, the electronic duo trumped everyone by just sitting in the VIP area, drinking froofy cocktails, and playing a prerecorded trailer for Random Access Memories that announced some of its details. It might be the first time that a festival audience was tricked into wildly cheering for a music blog's news post? The Coachella tease was perfectly timed with a Rolling Stone interview, dropping the mask ever-so-slightly on "The Robots" secret identities, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (names way harder to remember than just, "The Robots"). All of this perfectly played hub-bub is meant to make us forget that the duo's actual last album, an attempt to get "back to basics" by recording really fast, ended up being kinda lousy. And these clips are doing a really good job! Everyone is really excited about every drip of detail or cryptic SNL commercial. They are more excited about thinking about this potential record for a second than they are to watch a super expensive music festival happening right in front of them!
In the RS interview, the guys talk about wanting to return to the quaint glamor of billboard ads and TV spots for upcoming records. But they fail to mention that they wouldn't be allowed to do that if all of their plans didn't also slot perfectly into a news-hungry Internet culture that's handing them all the real, valuable social network-shared advertising they really need. What's the point of debuting their record in the middle of an Australian farm convention? It's weird! People will write about it! Not that some farmers who probably don't care will somehow feel their slick disco music more authentically. The videos they've been rolling out through Vice's Creator's Project to spotlight the album's illustrious collaborators are even more aggressively modern in a way the guys pretend to reject.
Posted
by Henry Stewart
on Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 12:38 PM
At Marty Markowitz's final State of the Borough address last night, Tony Danza did a rap—"you've heard of Vanilla Ice? I'm Italian Ice"—listing famous Brooklynites and sort of making their names rhyme, something he'd first done for Markowitz at last year's Brooklyn Book Festival. Lucky for you, we had the presence of mind to take out our smart phone and press record.
Posted
by Lauren Beck
on Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 1:00 PM
It's become common acceptance that New York City is overrun by bands. Bands are everywhere. So many bands. A lot of them are really awful, let's not kid ourselves here. But there's a solid army of them keeping this place afloat as one of the creative centers of the universe—and that takes more than just eight bands. With that we'd like to tip our hat to a few honorable mentions wholly deserving of your attention.
Icewater
For a band so obviously informed by rootsy 60s guitar rock (Neil Young lite?), Icewater's most potent weapon stretches surprisingly skyward. Ever-reaching vocals, scrubbed clean of grit and and the weariness of age, unfurl across rolling Fleet Fox melodies to turn songs into gentle anthems. They're currently recording a full-length; we suspect listening to it will make you look out windows and think about important things.
Festival season is in full swing, which means at least a couple of things. Ideally, it means that you'll get to party a lot, travel a little, and see bands you like (or new bands that you're going to like). But, more assuredly, it means that throngs of hyper-intense PR people will be doing a lot of crazy shit to get your attention for a few minutes longer than whatever other sponsored tent is right next door.
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Connie Lungpin...
Last night on Late Night, in a shocking turn of events, one of the best rock bands we've got premiered a new noise-pop song from their upcoming album in the form of a loud, snarled live performance as opposed to a widely disseminated, embeddable widget. (Well, they streamed it on YouTube too later...) Deerhunter, whose sixth record Monomania is released the first week of May, debuted a new line up, new blouses, and apparently a new rock n' roll alter ego for frontman Bradford Cox. The picture of "Connie Lungfish" at the right was Tweeted from backstage by the head of the hype hydra, himself.
I interviewed Cox once, right around the release of his first solo Atlas Sound record. As he is an extremely intelligent, extremely talkative guy, I feel like we covered a good chunk of rock history. Asked about the distinct personas of different Bowie eras, he made a really good, under-made point that they had been brought on by personal changes in band, geography, and producer just as much as they were a product of divine theatrical impulse. But he'd never do that. To quote: "I totally respect that, but it's not where I feel comfortable. I would feel really pretentious trying to do a Bowie thing. And I don't think it's very necessary." Cox has been playing with his image for a long while, now, but this is his first dive into a distinctly named stage persona. Ch-ch-changes.
Watch Lungpin sing "Monomania" with Deerhunter below:
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 10:00 AM
Maybe better to drive off, waving goodbye...
Tonight, at the Bell House in Gowanus, The Breeders play the first in a series of concerts reviving their 20-year-old record Last Splash in full, ahead of a recently announced lavish anniversary re-issue. They are hardly the first band to go this route. The practice has gotten more and more common over the last ten years or so, with legacy record sales going to total shit and festivals coughing up more and more money for ticket-moving attractions. The Breeders' Kim Deal herself spent much of the last decade trotting out old Pixies material for everyone in the universe who wanted to hear it. And, from a fan point of view, there's always going to be a strong lure in knowing, just knowing, that every song you loved from a specific point in time is going to be recreated and none of them skipped. Hopefully the feelings you had back when you loved a band the most will be rekindled as well. I bet everyone at the Bell House tonight is going to have a great time! Still, thinking past a universal desire to relive something that reminds you of hazy days of youth, I can't help but feel that this is getting increasingly toxic, culturally.
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:39 AM
And with album art this inviting...
I've been grumping a bit lately about how the album has started to slip out of our pop cultural conversation, except for the newsiest of newsmakers, and the buzziest of buzz bands. But what album would I choose to talk about, given the chance to do so on the website of an actual publication, you might ask? Let me tell you!
Recently, I've been listening obsessively to Wormfood, the first proper record from Detroit band Jamaican Queens, who formed just last year. It was self-released at the beginning of March, and given the short attention span of the web, I wonder if it's already been ignored and forgotten? It's a bit of an overstatement to say that no one has paid attention to the band so far (but thanks for reading!). Their reputation is building, and they've been invited to do a few magazine video sessions, and such. But the full album certainly deserves more acclaim than it's gotten.
Let's listen to a couple tracks below, and discuss...
So, it's officially happening. We've arrived. The VMA's are coming to Brooklyn. And not just any VMA's! This summer's ceremony at the Barclays Center will mark the 30th anniversary of the Most Important Awards Show of Our Time. For Brooklyn, MTV, and the growing list of things that make you feel just a little bit weird and old, this is a milestone.
Posted
by Henry Stewart
on Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:35 PM
Today is Dyker Heights native Angelo Badalamenti's birthday, and, in celebration of the renowned composer best known for his David Lynch collaborations, there'll be a Twin Peaks costume party at The Owl's Head wine bar—WHERE THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM—tonight in Bay Ridge (as close to Dyker Heights as you'll find someone willing to throw a fucking Angelo Badalamenti party). While I raid my closet to see if I can pull off a One-Armed Man costume, I figured we could all get into the mood by listening to the best tracks from Julee Cruise's first two solo albums, with lyrics by Lynch and music by Badalamenti, many of which were used on Twin Peaks. [photo]
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 10:00 AM
A nice view from the window seat.
Now that it drags out over 10 days, following coverage of Austin's SXSW megafestival from afar has sort of seemed like war correspondence, describing a compressed arc of nervous excitement, confusion, blood, fatigue, and a deep longing to return home. A victim of its own wild success over the past 10 or 15 years, even as the music business itself keeps on its incredible shrinking industry course, South By now seems defined as a magnet for any brand with money to spend to get their logo into a few hundred smartphone photos, even if they are partially blocked by Prince. So much of the discussion seemed disgruntled this year (for example...), that we're not really that mad that we stayed put, and we're sure that even after a whirlwind of excitement, the bands of the world are relieved to get back to wherever it is they are from.
Ha, but not so fast, bands of the world! New York City remains the one place that bands hoping to take off need to come all year round, and hey, as long as you're in the U.S. anyway, how about another quick set or three? Here are 5 passport-packin' acts that land in New York this week, thus returning our smug assurance that we are still in the cultural center of the globe. Phew.
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 10:15 AM
There is no album in the world that can save the newspaper industry, but you might see this graphic on some blog posts.
In an essay posted on the site today, I make the argument that even with streaming first listens of new records becoming a music industry standard, actual conversation about work from new bands and career artists has somewhat waned due to the trouble ong-playing records have breaking into the easily digestible, quick-hit news culture of the Internet. There are always exceptions, of course. I mentioned the return of My Bloody Valentine, back from 22 years of tinkering, but the last week or two has given us another couple of examples in this vein. The surprising returns of Justin Timberlake and David Bowie to record-making have sparked quite a lot of conversation indeed. (A Bowie example here, Timberlake there.) Timberlake sat out 6 years of his prime, Bowie went 8 years without a new record, while suffering and recovering from a heart attack. Their respective returns have sparked in ways that the most recent records by pop legends like Prince and Madonna did not. So, is that what it's going to take going forward? Be really really famous, disappear long enough for everyone to miss you, and then just put the record up all of a sudden so everyone can tune in.
2013 is actually unusually loaded with high-profile returns that could totally blow up. We're expecting new records from The Knife, Daft Punk, Arcade Fire, and M.I.A. (Go, 2013!) With the possible exception of Daft Punk those probably won't matter much to the culture at large, but all are notable, influential acts who've all been out of the public eye for a second. But we're daydreaming about a BIG DEAL here. Who else is out there who's been out of the album business long enough to dive back in and make a instant splash?
Posted
by Henry Stewart
on Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 9:00 AM
In their greatest work, Carousel, Rodgers and Hammerstein boldly melded the American musical comedy with the European tragic opera, crafting something serious and sad that wasn't meant to play a house fancier than any on Broadway. Last week, it made it to Lincoln Center, though, Avery Fisher to be exact, where the New York Philharmonic performed a semi-staged production filled with some of the top singers of opera and musical theater—it was, I would wager, the definitive Carousel, featuring the kind of orchestral performance that elicited howling ovations, the sort of singing that floods your body and tries to bust back out through every pore.
Posted
by Mike Conklin
on Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:04 AM
On Saturday, March 2nd, buzzy New York City dance-pop band Avan Lava played their first even headlining show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Driven by lead singer Tom Hennes's assured, attention-grabbing vocals, they make no concessions to the recent wave of easily forgotten, wishy-washy electro-pop, instead favoring big hooks, and bold production and theatrical live performances. For the Music Hall show, they prepared for two weeks, collaborating with Lovefoxxx (of CSS), Noemi Ruiz, lighting and production designer Marc Janowitc, choreographer Jenn Freeman and costume designer Lily Jean. They took some polaroids as they were getting ready, and we're happy to share them with you here, along with a short and totally crazy clip from the show.
Posted
by Henry Stewart
on Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM
Benjamin Britten's A Turn of the Screw, at BAM through Saturday, involves a governess, a house in the country, and a pair of sweet children. But only a sucker would expect things to go well—Britten signals from the beginning that something isn't right, the expository introduction accompanied by ominous music. There are no major-chord resolutions; expect something sinister.
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 12:19 PM
This song, basically.
Yesterday we heard the first song from Yeah Yeah Yeahs' upcoming record, Mosquito. Since we also got a look at that album's track list, we know that "Sacrilege" will be the album-opener. It's a soulful pop number, featuring a 24-piece gospel choir and keyboard work by Money Mark (do you guys remember/were you ever aware of Money Mark? He worked on Beastie Boys' records? And was a big college radio deal for a second?).
The gospel choir outro is the biggest point of interest, clearly, a bit of tongue-in-cheek bombast cementing lyrics which are very definitely about having sex with a literal angel from heaven and feeling conflicted about it. "Fallen for a guy, fell down from the sky. Halo round his head. Feathers in a bed. In our bed." There's really no other way to read that.
Listen to "Sacrilege" here, and then we'll discuss:
Posted
by Jeff Klingman
on Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:52 AM
DJ booth best-case scenario
The globe-hopping Red Bull Music Academy events date all the way back to the baggy rave pants good ol' days of 1998, but I can't remember an announced spate of their NYC shows as cool sounding and specifically appealing, to me, as the ones they just announced. Putting on 34 shows from April 28th to May 31st, there's a lot we still don't know, but get a load of these tidbits:
Posted
by Henry Stewart
on Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 11:35 AM
City Opera's production of Thomas Adès's blue and boozy Powder Her Face (at BAM through February 23) is a bit... risque. Take for example the moment in the first half when two dozen men emerge in the bedchamber of the famously promiscuous Duchess Margaret Campbell (a stellar Allison Cook): roughly 24 butt-naked men pile like clowns out of every door, stage wing, and piece of furniture until they crowd the stage; director Jay Scheib wanted to fit more, but there's no more space. As these men mill about, Campbell seduces a waiter and performs fellatio on him, hitting a (muted) high note as she does so. Throughout the opera, there's more coitus, lovers in bed before and after—more than you usually see at the opera house, at least.
