My good buddy Austria from AZ told me about Black Kids a while back and, as is always the case, whatever band Austria tells me about inevitably becomes one of the “it” bands down the road.
They play some funky, indie-pop goodness and have the special power of stirring people’s racial emotions due to the fact that only two out of the five people in the band are actually (says in whisper) black.
A clever marketing plot or a statement about race in our country? You can decide for yourself when you see them on tour.
Friday 07/25/08 New York, NY @ Santo’s Party House
Friday 09/19/08 Jacksonville, FL @ Freebird
Saturday 09/20/08 Orlando, FL @ The Social
Tuesday 09/23/08 Atlanta, GA @ Earl
Wednesday 09/24/08 Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
Thursday 09/25/08 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Friday 09/26/08 Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
Saturday 09/27/08 Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat
Monday 09/29/08 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
Thursday 10/02/08 Boston, MA @ Paradise
Saturday 10/04/08 Montreal, PQ @ Cabaret Music Hall
Sunday 10/05/08 Toronto, ON @ Mod Club
Monday 10/06/08 Chicago, IL @ Metro
Tuesday 10/07/08 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
Friday 10/10/08 Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s
Saturday 10/11/08 Vancouver, BC @ Richards
Sunday 10/12/08 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne
Monday 10/13/08 San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore
Wednesday 10/15/08 Los Angeles, CA @ Mayan
I thought I made a mistake. I was surrounded by women. Hot women dressed in tight jeans and knee-high heel boots, all achingly awaiting for the Australian wonder twins that make up The Kin to hit the stage. Already, I felt completely out of my element.
Initially, I was drawn to the show because of the band’s commitment to charity:water, an organization dedicated to building clean water wells in places like Africa. The Kin’s specific well was for a community in Kenya, and was to cost $35,000.
During their shows, they sell $20 bottles of water with all of the money going to the charity. According to the charity:water, $20 can give one person safe water for 20 years.
So, since I made a New Year’s resolution to stop being a dick, I bought one (though there’s something weird about drinking water from a charity that aims to bring water to people who don’t have it).
Still, after seeing the twins come up on stage, I was tempted to leave and not witness all the eye-fucking that was going on between the patrons and the group.
Then something happened. The brothers left the stage and pulled their charm onto the main floor, asking the crowd to form a circle around them. They performed a couple of songs, one of which was the political “Abraham.” It started with someone yelling for the rest of the bar to “shut up!”
The Kin - Abraham (live at TT the Bears)
For a moment, the wall between audience and performer was broken and suddenly we were all drunken friends, singing along with these two Aussies as if it were a house party and someone had found a guitar in the corner. The Kin performed in the dark, away from the spotlight, mics, and speakers of the stage.
It got to the point the everyone in the circle began singing the chorus towards the end.
After a couple more songs, the boys returned to the stage where the eye-fucking got completely out of control, with the women crowding towards the front (there were even some dudes there).
But the impromptu and intimate performance in the midst of the audience was enough to convince me that this was a group to see more of. They played most of their songs from last year’s “Rise and Fall,” and promised a new album was coming this summer.
Sure, this is a group that makes music ripe for those “emotional” moments on television dramas, but there was something inspiring about breaking down that wall, bringing the concert experience to the audience and bringing music fans together as one rowdy bunch in the middle of dive bar.
It ended as most good parties do, with another sing-a-long, this time to Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” with the brothers again in the middle of an audience-made circle.
I showed up late to your set and caught, I think, the last two songs. My bad. I’m usually better at getting to t places on time but, well, it was a Wednesday night and, at the time, I was more interested in running back home to play Call of Duty 3 to beat the shit out of some Germans in World War II.
But I got into your set. And it wasn’t because i enjoy all-girl groups that rawk or the fact that I was in the mood to hear something loud and primal. It was the way your lead singer’s eyes seemed to almost pop out of her skull. That was truly engaging and I had to inch closer to the stage to see if it would happen.
And even though it didn’t, it was fun to watch and see some of the male members of the audience cower in the back.
So thanks Girl in a Coma. You got me in the mood to break things. Bless you.
Recently, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward made hipsters cream themselves with the release of She & Him “Volume One,” a collaboration that combines Ward’s musical talent with Deschanel’s general awesomeness.
She’s always been great in films, delivering that much needed sarcastic tone/look/atmosphere that can elevate a film like “Failure to Launch” into the “watchable” pile.
But which do you prefer? Here are some videos to help you decide.
Zooey Deschanel in “Failure to Launch”
She & Him “Dream a Little Dream”
And by the way, if you haven’t picked up She & Him, it’s worth it, provided you like a throwback to the sounds of a ’70s summer and a cover of “You Really Got a Hold on Me.”
As for me, I think I prefer concert Zooey. Even “Elf” gets tiring after the 12th viewing and I can tell I’ll be listening to “Volume One” for a while.
First off, I suck at posting. I went to this show like a week ago and am only getting to it now. My excuse? I’m a lazy bastard who let’s his day job cut into more important things like this blog and time with the Nintendo Wii (I’m hooked on Call of Duty 3 and if i don’t play it soon, the Germans will take over the world).
I walked in late and caught half of the opening band, a group called Bodies of Water. For some of their set, they sounded like a wayward country band, content with re-hashing the bonanza theme beat for a bunch of hipsters. However, one song stuck out, which is here. Oh and the girl on the keyboards was indie chic hot. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
I did like their song “Doves Circle the Sky”
Sons and Daughters was a different story. They came out and the crowd went nuts. Then lead singer Adele Bethel told the 50 that were there to come closer to the stage because “everyone will have more fun that way.” It’s a Monday night, that’s why.
Thanks to Bethel’s suggestion, everyone got a good look at her legs, since she opted for a super short, glittery disco dress that would have showed off “her business” had she not been wearing boxer shorts underneath (she jumped around a lot and revealed them. I’m not a sicko…at least not like that).
Here they are doing “Gilt Complex” for the crowd off their new album “This Gift,” which is a good listen for anyone into indie dance music.
To be honest, I didn’t have much hope for this band. But I’ve been listening to “Gift” a lot lately and it’s growing on me. That, and it’s pretty impossible for me to shy away from a Scottish girl.
It’s a shame this show had to go down on a Monday night though. I can only imagine the kind of drunken depravity that would have taken place had it been a Friday or Saturday night. Because in a world where there are indie bands galore content with singing songs about heartache and pain, sometimes it’s nice to see a cute girl jumping up and down on stage singing songs about sex.
We got this yesterday and we’re excited for two reasons. One, Aimee Mann kicks ass and two, we’ve finally been respected enough (at least by one agency, thanks Girle Action!) to pass along MP3s.
This is especially exciting since we were recently webslapped by the long arm of the Raconteurs who didn’t want us to stream their song.
Enough anger. Below you will find a new song from Mann titled “Thirty One Today” that will be off her seventh studio album @#%*! Smilers due out on June 3.
And, as you can probably guess, the song is about Mann’s personal best at chicken nugget eating. Don’t buy it? Fine. It’s about the depressive state of aging.
“I thought my life would be different somehow/ I thought my life would be better by now…”
Thanks Mann. Whenever I need a melodic song with depressive undertones, you constantly deliver the goods. In fact, to prepare, I’m going to take your advice and get loaded and watch CNN.
June 2 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 6 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
June 10 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 12 Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis Zoo
June 13 Milwaukee WI Pabst Theater
June 15 Manchester, TN Bonnaroo Music Festival
July 9 Boulder, CO Chautauqua Auditorium
July 11 Denver, CO Denver Botanical Gardens
July 12 Park City, UT Deer Valley Resort
July 14 Saratoga, CA Mountain Winery
July 15 Rosebud, OR Stewart Park
July 16 Seattle, WA Seattle Zoo
July 24 Calgary, Alberta Calgary Music Festival
Currently my favorite thing about living in New York City is that when I learn of an impossibly amazing band, it is like guaranteed they will be playing in the city within two weeks. Most recently and notably, a little duo called The Dodos were brought to my attention about two weeks ago and I’ve been patiently obsessed enamored since. Thusly, The Dodos were handed to me on a delicious musical platter in the form of a show yesterday evening at Sound Fix in Brooklyn’s hipster mecca Williamsburg, preceding a show at Death By Audio.
The venue itself sucked as far as venues go, because it’s really a record store sutured to a quaint, candelabra-lit bar in the back. The stage? Not really. I claimed my spot along the side wall opposite the bar (poor planning), lined with benches and tables; I propped myself on the bench’s backing and still couldn’t really see much beyond the audience hovering over where the band seemed to be standing. I did, however, manage a sweet view of drummer Logan Kroeber who sustained impressive levels of enthusiasm for such a modest little gig.
The show was short but free, so no complaints—and bonus points for squeezing my favorite track on the recently released and Pitchfork-praisedVisiter in their six-song set (that song being “The Season,” if you care). Plowing through the first three tracks on Visiter—beseeching no applause—Kroeber and vocalist/guitarist/other-of-two Meric Long (both supported by a third tour-hand and synth-xylo-enthusiast) erupted with energy by means of their respective instruments. They threw in a track from their debut album Beware of the Maniacs for good measure.
Normally I’d knock a band for playing too true to their recordings (and in chronological order, no less), but I’m still running on the novelty high, so bonus points all around! The Dodos are playing a full show (for $10 this time, the capitalists) Sunday at the Mercury Lounge. Check out their MySpace page to test the folksy waters.
Half-way through the third song of Tegan & Sara’s set I realized something: I like this band. I mean, I really like this band. And it’s not just because their cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” was inspiring. In all honesty, their show was the closest thing to perfection I have ever seen and, keep in mind, I entered the show feeling neutral towards Tegan & Sara.
I’ve listened to the new album, “The Con”, was aware of their existence and have always been a big fan of the words “twins” and “lesbian” in the same sentence, but my feeling towards them was comparable to Rolling Stone Magazine’s three-star album review (They use five stars and I feel giving something three stars is completely useless in terms of telling me what the album is like)
But there I was, enraptured by the Canadian lesbian twins, grooving to their songs and laughing at their on-stage banter.
“We love it when the front row is into it,” said Tegan. “I mean, there are two types of front rows. There’s the one that’s totally into it, yelling Tegan! Tegan! TEGAN! TEGAN! and I’m still talking and…”
“It’s like when we were kids…do you remember when we were kids?” interjected Sara. “When mom would call us down saying ‘Teeeeegan’ Teeeegan’ and when we had to clean out the litter box it would be louder…you remember, right?”
Here’s where Sara went on the first of her many digressions, forcing Tegan to stare at her, almost mentally saying “Shut. Up.”
Sara eventually got to the point (kinda, but not really) and Tegan went on with hers.
“So…yea, thanks for that Sara. This is already going on longer than I wanted. I just wanted to tell the story and introduce the song. Anyway, so there’s the litter box front row…”
“Did we just call them shit?” asked Sara.
“And there’s the other front row,” ignored Tegan. “The one where people are leaned back, arms crossed and looking like this. It’s as if they were just let out on parole and, as a stipulation, they had to see a Tegan & Sara show.”
Laughter erupts. I smile. Then I uncross my arms and throw them in my pockets, hoping no one saw.
This is how it went during the start of the concert, indirecting introducing a song and then playing it. But eventually, the duo just launched into indie-rock robot and busted through four songs, as if time was a factor for them (and, it being the Berklee Performance Center, it probably was).
Sara still allowed her personality to shine through. During one song, Tegan started it with a steady beat from the…um, it’s that thing that looks like an egg and it sounds like there’s rice inside of it. You know what I’m talking about (OK, I’m starting to sound like Sara). Anyway, Sara bobbed her head during the intro causing Tegan to spit out “You’re making a mockery of our band.”
But it’s more than just good interaction with the audience or the fact that their performance was engaging (notice I didn’t say flawless). They were honest and in a world of computer-generated music and digitally synthesized vocals, that goes a long way.,
Take “So Jealous,” a fan favorite and a song that the duo just couldn’t get started right. It got so bad, they just stopped and eventually Sara said “Let’s just go to the part where I change.” And they did. Sure, the song didn’t sound like it does on the album, but people don’t go to concerts to hear the album played back to them (something some bands/artists still haven’t grasped). They go for the experience, to see their favorite singers and gain a glimpse into the personalities behind the music they love.
Tegan and Sara did this and their show is something that should be witnessed by music fans everywhere…especially if you like a little bit of musical joy in your life and appreciate interesting covers like the one featured above.
When I first heard the Phil Spector-esque pop sounds of the Pipettes, the word that immediately came to mind was “fun.” It’s the kind of music that makes you want to put on a polka-dot dress, go dancing, and maybe break a few hearts. So on my way to a Pipettes concert at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on Thursday, I had high expectations for a carefree night. But as I was sitting in traffic staring at the gray sky caused by ash from the wildfires, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about going out to have a good time while homes were being destroyed not too far from me. I’m not sure if other concertgoers had the same thought, or maybe it was the poor quality outside, but as entertaining as these three women are, the all-ages crowd just didn’t seem to be feeling it.
This Oct. 25 concert kicked off the band’s rescheduled US tour at the Echoplex and in support of their debut album We Are the Pipettes, The band also toured the US and Canada in June to promote the Your Kisses are Wasted on Me EP.
When I arrived at 8:45 p.m. (doors opened at 7 p.m.), Monster Bobby, the guitarist for the Pipettes, was on stage alone busting out his experimental electronic music. The slight young man, a far cry from his monster moniker, was playing to a small and scattered crowd which seemed more interested in chatting or buying drinks than listening. I only got to hear one of his songs, but I would have liked to see more of the man considered to be largely responsible for the sound of the Pipettes. If you plan on attending this tour, I’d recommend arriving in time to hear his set.
The next act was LA’s own The Adored. I figured they would have some local fans, but when the band took the stage, nobody so much as clapped. I had heard some music on its MySpace page before the concert and the punk tunes with a hint of Brit pop immediately appealed to me. The sound didn’t grab me as much live and I found out that lead singer Ryan George had apparently left the band. Guitarist Drew 17 took over on lead vocals, but it was hard to hear how he compared because his mic was too low. The band overcame these problems with its energy, but most people were standing so still I thought maybe I was being Punk’d and everyone was replaced with statues (except for the girl texting next to me). The crowd didn’t even let loose during a brilliant rendition of Gwen Stefani’s “The Sweet Escape.” I wish the venue would have allowed cameras so I could have filmed it and added it here. It was pretty awesome.
By the time the Pipette’s backing band, The Cassettes, took the stage in matching sweater vests, the venue had filled up substantially (but I still had plenty of room to stretch out). It was refreshing to go to a concert and not be pressed up against strangers, but this show would have been better suited to the smaller Echo upstairs than the 700-capacity Echoplex. When the Pipettes entered to the sounds of an alien invasion, the audience cheered. I guess they were alive after all.
RiotBecki, Gwenno, and Rosay were charming in their different color and length polka dot dresses and dancing their choreographed routines that seemed straight out of a vintage episode of Top of the Pops. But the night felt a little rough. More than once, somebody started singing early, but this was always dealt with humorously and quickly forgiven. The biggest problem was that the harmonies and clever girl power lyrics were often drowned out by the band due to persistent microphone issues. Concert performances aren’t supposed to be perfect, but for music like this, I almost prefer the polished sounds of the album.
Before “Pull Shapes,” the Pipettes announced that this would be the final chance to dance (which was sort of a lie if you count the encore). Quite a few people took them up on the offer, myself included, but not nearly enough. One couple in the front was resting on the barrier and looked as if they were about to fall asleep. How could anyone resist the request to “Dance with me and you’ll be all right” over catchy ’60s-inspired orchestration? At least Drew 17 from the Adored made his way into the audience and proceeded to cut a rug, presumably to demonstrate proper concert etiquette.
It wasn’t the concert that I thought it would be, but maybe the next time the Pipettes come around, they will play in a better venue with a better audience at a less depressing time to be living in Califonria. And in the meantime, I can listen to their CD (the British version, which I’d recommend over the remixed American version) and get the experience I thought I’d be getting. I haven’t finished with them yet.
Well if you head over to the Fuse TV’s website – you can stream some live tracks by Dan and company from a Sony Connect session. I know I’m always curious what a band that has a lot of electronic elements will sound like live. PlayRadioPlay! is on tour for the next couple of months with Spill Canvas, Meg & Dia and New Atlantic. It’s a nice bill of developing artists- check em out when they come to your town.
In the meantime, there are some videos for you after the jump.
I’m a big fan of a talented, ensemble band. The New Pornographers are always a solid live show, especially when all the members come out for the tour.
The set-list was comprised of a pretty even mix of old and new songs, making sure to feature Dan Bejar (of Destroyer) and Neko Case with “Testament to Youth in Verse” and “Letter From an Occupant.” With Case’s and Bejar’s distinctive vocals it’s hard to imagine the band touring without them, but they have. Bejar stumbles across the stage, beer bottle in hand, and then wails with that voice. It’s shows like this that make me think, this is why you go to a show. It’s that minute, when Neko croons backed by a full band that gives me chills. They aren’t my typical musical fare, they are peppy, and way upbeat. But they have that something that only comes from a live show. There’s an earnestness and a joy backed by all that musical talent.
Opening for the New Pornographers was Lavender Diamond, a hippy, indie, pop, folk foursome with a definite schtick…or maybe not.
The lead singer gives the impression she could be a fourteen year old, and babbles softly on stage about peace and love. “Don’t let anyone tell you that there can’t be peace on earth.” Her act is punctuated with sugar smiles and curtsies, but they are also on Matador - so how much do you believe in the act? In between the more poppy numbers there are stark near-ballads, that mixed with the naive school-girl vibe gives off a creepy Twin Peaks-esqe aire. But for all this, they totally won this listener over. Call it the magic of the live show, I wasn’t ready to be a fan, but I left one. Check them out for yourself and see what you think.
All music and videos posted on this site are here in support of the artists. If you find anything that should not be posted, please let us know and we'll remove it immediately.
,” a collaboration that combines Ward’s musical talent with Deschanel’s general awesomeness.
,” which is a good listen for anyone into indie dance music.
, was aware of their existence and have always been a big fan of the words “twins” and “lesbian” in the same sentence, but my feeling towards them was comparable to Rolling Stone Magazine’s three-star album review (They use five stars and I feel giving something three stars is completely useless in terms of telling me what the album is like)
