June 18, 2007

Save The Date: After The Jump Festival

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After The Jump Festival 2007

www.afterthejumpfest.com

august twenty-fifth, two thousand and seven
line-up to be announced shortly

curated by the people behind:

themusicslut . batteringroom . disconap . earfarm . ryspace . irockiroll . musicsnobbery . merryswankster . softcommunication . theunderratedblog . sitdownstandup . watercoolergossip . bumpershine . themodernage . productshopnyc . yetidontdance . slapyouinpublic . subinev . fingeronthepulse . punkphoto . poptartssucktoasted . stereoactivenyc

for more information, please email:

booking: booking@afterthejumpfest.com
charity: charity@afterthejumpfest.com
sponsors: sponsors@afterthejumpfest.com
publicity: publicity@afterthejumpfest.com

June 15, 2007

Hot Tickets and This Weekend's Walk-ups

There are lots of free shows in the next week. From Television at Summerstage to Todd P's BBQ with bands like Vampire Weekend and Meneguar on Roosevelt Island to the roaming Make Music New York Stage setting up in Williamsburg for Oxford Collapse. This is Television's last show ever. Their first was at CBGB's back in 1973 where they allegedly even helped to construct the first stage. Will their last show be a washed-up last grasp for the spotlight or a triumphant farewell to legends? You kind of have to go to the show to find out.

HOT TICKETS
David Vandervelde and the Moonstation House Band / Blitzen Trapper
Mercury Lounge
Wednesday, July 25 (7:30 PM doors) $10 tix
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The White Stripes
The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza
Tuesday, June 19
Tickets $30, sale at the box office at 10 AM tomorrow. The Modern Age has all the details.

THIS WEEKEND'S WALK-UPS
FRIDAY, JUNE 15
Voxtrot / Favourite Sons / Au Revoir Simone
Webster Hall (6:00 PM doors) $18
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The Battering Room Presents KO! Round 5: Peel / Charles Bissell / The Antlers / Cinema, Cinema
Matchless (8:00 PM doors) $7

SATURDAY, JUNE 16
Television / Apples in Stereo / Dragons of Zynth
Central Park Summerstage (3:00 PM doors) FREE & All Ages
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Aeroplane Pageant / Great Lakes Myth Society / Bad Veins / Christy & Emily
Union Hall (7:30 PM doors) $8
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Heartless Bastards / Illinois / Viva La Foxx
Bowery Ballroom (8:00 PM doors) $15
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The Pull-Out Method Presents: Vampire Weekend / Sam Rosen / Bear Hands
Glasslands (9:00 PM doors) $tba
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Oneida
Highline Ballroom (9:00 PM doors) FREE & 16+
--and--
Soundfix Records (4:00 PM doors) FREE & All Ages

SUNDAY, JUNE 17
Todd P's Springtime Unamplified Acoustic BBQ:The Ballet / Big A little a / Christy & Emily / Dirty Beauty Shoppe / The Fugue / The Goddamn Rattlesnake / Golden Ghost / High Places / Katie Eastburn / Meneguar / Necking / Po Boy Johnson, Shooting Spires / Skeletons and Kings of All Cities / Shellshag / TK Webb / Vampire Weekend / The Woods
Southern Tip of Roosevelt Island (12:00 PM) FREE & All Ages
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Brakes Brakes Brakes / Pela / Electric Soft Parade
Mercury Lounge (8:00 PM doors) $12
**Saturday Show Sold Out**
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Bad Veins / Peel
Piano's (10:00 PM doors) $8

TUESDAY, JUNE 19
Big Business / Panthers / Hull
Knitting Factory (8:00 PM doors) $12a/$14d
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DOWNLOAD
Panthers - Uncertainly (MP3)
Panthers - Goblin City (MP3)

THURSDAY, JUNE 21
Oxford Collapse / Cheeseburger / Best Fwends
Williamsburg Make Music New York Stage (6:00 PM) FREE & All Ages

FRIDAY, JUNE 22
Todd P presents: Matt & Kim / Parts and Labor / Deathset / The Golden Error
Above the Auto Parts Store (8:00 PM doors) $tba & All Ages

June 14, 2007

Franz Ferdinand at Bowery Ballroom

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Franz Ferdinand sold out almost instantly if you don't count the ticketweb system not being able to handle the surge in traffic. Considering that, I was surprised at the number of bloggers that came out of the woodwork to be at that show. Full review at the 'Shop.

June 11, 2007

The Veils at Mercury Lounge and Union Hall

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The Veils Nux Vomica is probably one of my favorite releases for the year. Their shows Thursday and Friday at Mercury Lounge and Union Hall were intense but were missing the clarity and precision of their album. The band sounded a little better at Union Hall. Regardless, The Veils made an impressive showing for their first time performing these songs in the States. In person, Finn has a fantastically warm but wretched voice. There is a full review and more pictures at Product Shop.

Quantifying Seven Nights of Bright Eyes

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I always though that pointless graphics or statistics about indie rock shows would be a good idea. I had no idea the blog emo + beer = busted career even existed. Bravo. The New York Times sent Andrew Kuo aka Earl Boykins to all seven Bright Eyes shows at Town Hall to gather "data" about Conner's residency there. They explain the graphics as:

On the blog earlboykins.blogspot.com Mr. Kuo meticulously dissects indie rock and hip-hop records and shows and then transforms the data into complicated, brightly colored charts and diagrams. The joke is, the more banal the information or sweeping the generalization, the more complex the graphics.

The full set of graphs is huge and definitely meant for the printed paper. Click on the thumbnail after the jump to see all of the findings.

Also, take a look at the NYT'sWhite Stripes article, which mentions Product Shop being shut down for a whole day because of a few mp3s from their new album.



The Noisettes and Maccabees at Knitting Factory

I went to see the Noisettes and the Maccabees at The Knitting Factory last Wednesday. Neither band floored me but the show was worthwhile. The Maccabees are very together as a band and seem to have a bit more buzz surrounding them at the show since it was their first US performance. They sing too much about childhood romance for my taste though. The Noisettes headlined and had their own set of anglophile fans but the Maccabees are actually bigger in the UK. Full review at Product Shop.

MACCABEES
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NOISETTES
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June 10, 2007

Totally Michael Is Fun For Kids of All Ages

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I like a good dance party. Totally Michael could rile up the same crowd that smash into each other at Matt & Kim and Deathset shows, except his party would probably be strewn with balloons and bowls of cashews. The man loves cashews, but aside from that he makes absurdly fun music by laying down a drum-machine beat, a sequenced keyboard melody, and some punk power chords.
In "Death Hill" the guitar chords chug as much as drums, which takes me back to the mid-nineties when bands like Green Day and NOFX topped the charts and I romped around the friendly all-ages punk shows for bands like The Queers. Totally Michael makes a similar burst of pop-punk, happycore, funcore, dancecore, cashewcore, or what every you want to call it. Punk will never die.

DOWNLOAD
Totally Michael – Death Hill (Over and Over) (MP3)
Totally Michael - Cheerleaders vs. Drillteam (MP3)

There are more MP3s at his website. Totally Michael is currently on tour but he does not have all his shows lined up yet. So if you want him to play your bar mitzvah or club party give him a holler. Full tour dates after the jump.

TOUR DATES
Jun 10 @ The Black Bear Lair – Louisville, Kentucky
Jun 11 @ The MUSE - Nashville, Tennessee
Jun 12 @ Murphy's - Memphis, Tennessee
Jun 13 @ Arkansas Sustainability Network - Little Rock, Arkansas
Jun 14 @ The Outland - Springfield, Missouri
Jun 15 @ 407 W. Oak St - Carbondale, Illinois
Jun 16 @ The House - Dekalb, Illinois
Jul 01 @ 2719 N. Pierce - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Jul 14 @ Berea Fest #2!! - Berea, Ohio
Jul 19 @ People Projects (Mauled By Tigers Fest 2!) - Chicago, Illinois
(the shows below are still up in the air – help him out!)
Jul 31 - Columbus, Ohio
Aug 1 - Cleveland, Ohio
Aug 2 - Buffalo, New York
Aug 3 - Saratoga Springs, New York
Aug 4 - Burlington, Vermont
Aug 5 - Portland, Maine
Aug 6 - Boston, Massachusetts
Aug 7 - Providence, Rhode Island
Aug 8 - New Paltz, New York
Aug 9 - Brooklyn, New York
Aug 10 - Brooklyn, New York
Aug 11 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Aug 12 - College Park, Maryland
Aug 13 - Greensboro, North Carolina
Aug 14 - Knoxville, Tennessee
Aug 15 - Athens, Georgia
Aug 16 - Pensacola, Florida
Aug 17 - Mobile, Alabama
Aug 18 - New Orleans, Louisiana
Aug 19 - Houston, Texas
Aug 20 - Austin, Texas
Aug 21 - Fort Worth, Texas
Aug 22 - Little Rock, Arkansas
Aug 23 - Nashville, Tennessee
Aug 24 - Louisville, Kentucky
Aug 25 - Bloomington, Indiana

June 08, 2007

Bowery Presents Themselves

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There is an article in the New York Times about the booking prowess of the good folks at Bowery Presents with a nice history of the little club empire they have build. They have gradually expanded their size of their clubs they own with the idea that once you find a band with huge potential, you might as well try to keep them in the family as they move up the ladder of New York venues.
Supposedly there is a war going on for midsized venues with new ones popping up all over town. Location is an important factor. Any small club open every day would have major problems surviving in Manhattan above 14th street and west Union Square. Brooklyn is another story.
But ultimately, the booking is what determines whether a venue lives or dies. Some of those venues are destined to fail but I think Bowery Presents will be around for a while.

This Weekend's Walk-ups

Here are a few things to do if you have not made plans. There are lots of sold out shows like The Veils, The Clientele, and The Long Blondes but these options seem pretty solid too. Saturday is a night of secret guests with Greg from O'death opening the free Music Slut Anniversary Show during the free PBR hour at 8:00 PM and We Are Scientists playing as Beat Up Old Fellas at the Mercury Lounge. It is even worth sticking around to see the headliners of those shows too.

FRIDAY, JUNE 8
Rooftop Films presents: This is What We Mean by Short Films / Luke Temple
Roof of 350 Grand Street (8:00 PM music performance, 9:00 PM short films) $8 door or $5 online w/ code RFJUNE

SATURDAY, JUNE 9
The Music Slut's Second Year Anniversary Party: The Glass / The Gaskets / The Lisps / Greg from O'death (secret guest)
The Delancey (8:00 PM doors) FREE w/ RSVP
FREE PBR from 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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The Spinto Band / The Teeth / Beat Up Old Fellas (We Are Scientist) / Bling Kong
Mercury Lounge (8:00 PM doors) $10
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Project Jenny / Project Jan / The Bloodsugars / The 1900's
Union Hall (8:00 PM doors) $8
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USAISAMONSTER / Eric Gaffney (ex-Sebadoh) / Thee Scarcity of Tanks / Child Abuse
Glasslands (9:00 PM doors) tba

SUNDAY, JUNE 10
Loney, Dear / The Silent League
Union Hall (9:00 PM doors) $12

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13
Flight of the Conchords / Eugene Mirman
Gramercy Theatre (7:00 PM doors) $25

THURSDAY, JUNE 14
Earl Greyhound / Dirty On Purpose / Great Northern
Bowery Ballroom (8:00 PM doors) $13
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Flight of the Conchords / Eugene Mirman
Gramercy Theatre (7:00 PM doors) $25

June 07, 2007

Yeasayer.

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New York is overwhelming. This week, one of the shows I am kicking myself for not going to is Entrance and Yeasayer at Don Pedro's on Tuesday. Yeasayer's music is a bit overwhelming too. Listen closely and you might hear guitar riffs firing in rounds, hands clapping a Baltimore beat, voices harmonizing in unison, or children laughing. Maybe not, but the two songs I have (yes, I have only heard two songs) are sliced from a thick atmosphere. I could not even begin to list their musical influences.

Density seems to be the sound of Brooklyn right now. With exceptional albums from Grizzly Bear and Panda Bear (and a forthcoming from Animal Collective) out in the past two years, bands are finding something new in blurring rhythms, noises, voices, and sounds together. Maybe it is the vocal harmonies or just the warmth of the music but for some reason these bands tinkering around in Brooklyn sound like they are all listening to Brian Wilson or the the Beach Boys. But the music is obviously more than that, it feels new. This may not be the only thing happening in Brooklyn, but sonically it is the most exciting.

Yeasayer is signed to Monitor Records who are releasing their expansive single "2080" and an album this year. Said The Gramophone, Gorilla vs. Bear, and Culture Bully also have their ears peeled. Get ready.

DOWNLOAD
Yeasayer – 2080 (MP3)
Yeasayer – Sunrise (MP3)

June 04, 2007

Miranda Interviews Khaela

interview_maricich.gifI am back from Sasquatch. Yeah, I know the festival ending a week ago but I spent some time in Seattle after that. More later, but I can tell you now that one of the best acts I caught out there was the Blow. In this month's Believer, Miranda July interviews Khaela Maricich. The best part about seeing Khaela perform (besides her sweet dance moves) is that she likes to talk and has a lot of stories that lead into her songs. I can hear these words coming out of her mouth. It's a long read so here are a few excerpts.

KM: And then I decided to just try making a couple of pop records because it reaches a lot of people, and you can talk to a lot more than just people who like janky low-fi indie music performance. So the last two records of the Blow has been me and Jona, and in the future I don’t know what. Jona’s mom played “Parentheses” at her wedding.

. . .

MJ: Another beautifully sad lyric on that record is the one that goes, “If something in the deli aisle makes you cry…”

KM: What’s funny is that I made that up in my head around you.

MJ: Really?

KM: Yeah, we were in the Whole Foods, when I was visiting you in Portland one time, and I was staring at the overwhelming mass of all the food, kind of personal but really so impersonal. I had that really overwhelmed feeling; just wanting someone to come up and see that, and see me, and see that they should walk me outside.


Read on for the rest of the story. Also, if you have not done so already, check out Miranda's fancy website for her new book.