Oh hey, did you miss us on Tuesday? We bet you did. But to be honest this week has been a wild one already– Martin Luther King Day was not spent being productive, we’ll tell you that much. We’ve been playing catchup and have failed to bathe, forgotted to feed our roomate’s fish, and have been literally sleeping in a pile of garbage and dirty laundry since we were trusted with a three day weekend. Never again. So naturally, we thought we’d give ourselves an extra day to gather our wits because chances are you needed one too. Here’s to hoping you made not-like-us and spent the long weekend resting up for all the sick shows happening starting now.
No One Will Fault You For Liking Pretty Music Sometimes
Weyes Blood, Excepter, Regal Degal, Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk
Saturday January 24th, 8 pm at Baby’s All Right, tickets $10
Soothsaying singer Natalie Mering trades in ethereal ambience while still managing to inspire an eyes-wide open intensity in the listener. Her ability to balance these two opposing forces really came to light on The Innocents, her second record which Mexican Summer dropped last fall. Her music is bare bones but forceful, ensuring an intense live show, so if you didn’t get a chance to see her a few weeks back, this might be your last before Weyes Blood takes off on their European tour.
Space Goth
Profligate, POI, Jahiliyya Fields, Nick Klein
Friday January 23rd, 11:55 pm at Palisades, tickets $10 at the door
Yes. Just the dark electronic show we needed. Grab your goggles and moon boots coz Profligate (of LA’s Not Not Fun records) aka Noah Anthony is pulling in to town. He hails from Philadelphia, a town with no shortage of nasty punk and psych bands, but not many minimal electronic acts. Peculiar. Perhaps he’s an alien from space? If that makes you uncomfortable, POI will bring you back down to particular spot on Earth– Germany, to be precise, with their Kraut-influenced synth loops. Two opening acts, Jahiliyya Fields (of Brooklyn-based L.I.E.S. records) and Nick Klein from Bushwick’s own Primitive Languages.
Dry Your Eyes BB
Vows, Pawns, Tele/visions
Saturday January 24th, 8 pm at Aviv, tickets $7 at the door
Tele/visions, Nick Rattigan’s solo effort, exists halfway between super lo-fi garage and bedroom pop. It’s earnest music to be sure, his bored, depressed, frustrated lyrics sometimes ring of Jay Reatard and his guitar riffs of New Order– but maybe that’s because I’ve been listening to Substance all day for no real reason other than it’s the equivalent of like a donut or something when I’m having a shitty day. So now that I’ve listened to Mr. Rattigan’s tracks, I think I’ll switch over. Check him out live this weekend at Aviv and join me in drowning my sorrows in cheap champagne.
Um, This Will Definitely Never Happen Again
Round-Up with Sufjan Stevens
Wednesday January 20th through Sunday January 25th at BAM, tickets $30- $65 +
If you’re willing to splurge, this is truly not to be missed. Sufjan Stevens performs a live score to a documentary film about the 2013 Pendleton Round-Up in Oregon, a rodeo event and “classic American tradition.” Sounds… dull, right? Well, we promise you, no. The film is a mesmerizing picture of rodeo, one that slows the process down, allowing the viewer to focus on the tiniest details. Also, it’s a more inclusive, less white bread testosterone event. Not just white people! Like the filmmakers, Stevens has turned rodeo on its head and dug deep by composing a soundtrack that is equally as unexpected as the meditative, lingering shots of Round-Up.
Probably Won’t Be A Meat Grinder Here
Zola Jesus
Sunday January 25th and Monday January 26th, 8 pm at Saint Vitus, $15 (sold out)
So, we definitely reached peak Zola Jesus way back in 2012, when the art establishment embraced her, letting the artist perform in their hallowed halls (i.e. the Guggenheim). And her latest album,Taiga, shows a different side of Nika Roza Danilova than the one that enchanted most people in the first place, namely her voice shoved through some awfully generic filter not unlike a meat grinder shaping rough cuts into easily consumable patties. In short, she kind of lost her edge. But that doesn’t mean her live presence will be any bit as watered down. And if you’re willing to bet she’s the same old Zola Jesus underneath all that sugar pop coating slopped on by her overlords at Mute, scrounge up some of those sold out tickets and make your way to Saint Vitus this weekend.
Noise Will Be Noise
American Jobs, Cyanide Tooth, Key of Shame, Cosmic Moon, Soren
Saturday January 24th, 10 pm at Trans Pecos, tickets, $8
If you’re more into noise these days because you’ve listened to all the actual music out there and have grown bored with all that hullaballoo, then there’s no place you’d rather be that Trans Pecos on Saturday. Trust me. Two acts from Columbus are headlining this shindig– Cosmic Moon (accordionish drone) and the American Jobs (vaguely goth experimental rock). Minimal music that resembles bed creaks and steam pipe bangs more than, like, stuff that comes out of instruments will be provided by Brooklyn’s Key of Shame and death-on-tape tracks brought to you by Cyanide Tooth.
Psych Night
Amen Dunes, Kevin Morby, Nude Beach
Thursday January 22nd, 8 pm at Bowery Ballroom, tickets $15
If many of the shows this week are either one-man or woman synth projects, or captained by one big personality, Amen Dunes is sort of the exception in that the psych band’s excellent new EP off of Sacred Bones, Cowboy Worship was the work of, like, 16 musicians. Ok I lied, so Amen Dunes is a lot like many of the other acts this week, because it’s basically a moniker for Damon McMahon. You can definitely bet on the singer-songwriter being at the show this week, it is his band after all, but who will be backing him will be something of a surprise. And if you’re down, better hurry because this is your last chance to seen Amen Dunes play until at least late spring, but quite possibly much longer. Kevin Morby and Nude Beach, a band that one of our 30 under 30s happens to play guitar for.
Scumbag Boys
Honduras, The Teen Age, and the Yin Yangs
Thursday January 22nd, 8 pm at Coco 66, tickets $???
If you just wanna get your rock n’ roll rocks off this week and nothing more, definitely check out Thursday’s show at Coco 66. Brooklyn bands Honduras (the poppier side of garage punk) and the Yin Yangs (garage psych dudes) will hit things and shred things the old fashioned way.