Fool’s Gold delivered.
The crowd seemed to be sleeping.
Please note: dancing good.

Fool’s Gold:

Ocote Soul:

Givers:

Awesome Tapes From Africa (aka Brian Shimkovitz):

- – -

longhair got some tunes.
crew, hirsute too, was on point
beer, gin, “don’t get cute”.

young and in basement
doused in red wash, moving to
despicable dogs

The Tony Castles:

Small Black:

Blind Man’s Colour:

Beach Fossils

Sonic Youth

The Entrance Band

Major Lazor’s debut arrives this week, and what better way to bring it in than to crash NYC. Diplo whipped together a half-hour dj set for the eager gang of packed-tight, squirming fans, while Switch stood back, grinned and swigged on beer.

Photos and words by Rez Avissar

You can read reviews of this show all over the internet. I’ll just deliver with my 2 cents: The weather was perfect, the sound (at least up front) was great, Byrne’s voice sounded full after all these years, the Gala after-party (open bar!) was actually awesome, the amount of people that came out was mind-boggling (I read somewhere close to 30,000). As many reviewers point out, at 57, Byrne is in fantastic form. The press area in front of the stage had about 10-15 feet or so between the stage and the first row, and by the time the band was beginning to hit its stride, somewhere between “Heaven” and “Crosseyed and Painless,” everyone was up out of their seats and the area filled up with a sea of excited, dancing bodies, which remained there for the remainder of the 2-hour long set. That stride never lost steam from there, and of course the more well-known Talking Heads tunes got the most people rowdy and jerking around. One of those concerts where everything goes right.

I remember very clearly the first time I heard Julianna Barwick. I was listening to the Portuguese radio show Má Fama, two summers ago. First, came “Unt. 4,” a simple, repetitive and haunting tune that drew me in and piqued my curiosities (still one of her overlooked gems). When that tune segued into “Dancing With Friends,” that’s when I knew I had found a great artist.

“Dancing With Friends” is a song that evokes warm hues, community, and, as its title suggests, friendship… while I can’t actually imagine many people dancing to the tune, I’ve always pictured a gathering of children dancing around in the warm red hues of a fire-lit living room, with Indian headdresses on their head. Needless to say, it’s inviting, it’s great, and even without words, it speaks volumes. Julianna Barwick sculpts her songs out of her voice and occasionally an instrument or sample here or there; her voice is always the central element, and there’s always repetition, her main weapon being a loop pedal. She performed an extended rendition of the tune for Má Fama six months later in a wonderful session (no direct link, just scroll down). (Sadly, the blog and radio show have been abandoned, but you can still download both posts). The appearance led to coverage by popular blogs and a few ripples of attention, but proper recognition still eludes Barwick. She has since remixed Radiohead, done a Daytrotter session, played New York regularly, and just recently dropped her second release, the Pitchfork-approved Florine EP. Each has done its part to help her steadily rise, and more and more people in the blogosphere seem to be picking up on her name. I believe that if she keeps it up and builds a body of more great work that she will get the attention she deserves. On this night, only the first of her Pianos residency, the attendance was a bit underwhelming. Barwick seemed at home, though, an she communicates with her audience as one would performing to a small group of attentive, like-minded friends.

When she told her audience “I’ll play just one more; it’s a long one” I knew we were in for her ten-minute “Untitled” tune which she performed on the aforementioned Daytrotter and Má Fama sessions which sounds like a chanting chorus of children raised on Animal Collective, and was a perfect way to end the show.

The lighting in there was awfully dark and I feared the sound of my clicking shutter would disturb so I kept the photos to a minimum. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even post them here, but I feel Julianna Barwick deserves the attention and I will totally throw whatever support behind her that I can. Head over to her MySpace page for the full list of upcoming tour dates, and don’t sleep on catching her live. She’s doing something truly beautiful and unique.

An intimate night at (le) Poisson Rouge, who’s standing room area got converted to a seated dining space. With an entry price of $400, the guests were unsurprisingly ritzy arty types, and I kept thinking that there were probably more than a few artists in attendance that I’ve heard of but couldn’t point out.

Boasting two legends (Monk and Reich), a satisfying food menu and an open bar, this photographer is quite glad he was comped (and thanks to the waitress who brought me out leftovers and dessert!)

Reich’s performance was a clapped piece (humored me the way they both were staring at the sheet music so intently). It was short, and it was ultimately not that special. Meredith Monk, however, one of my favorites ever, absolutely nailed it. With no announcement of what was to be played, I was thrilled to find out she’d be performing “Hocket.” Out of all my favorites of hers, “Hocket” is the one I’d wanted to see live the most (check out this YouTube video of her performing it at The Whitney in February). Her performing partner, Katie Geissinger, actually nailed the difficult notes with flying colors. It sounded so amazing that I literally was almost brought to tears, and that doesn’t happen very often. Their vocal acrobatics were mesmerizing, but during the unhinged last quarter of the song where the two voices fly off the rails, the two were even more affected by it than in the video linked above or on record, going deeper and with voices more rough and gravelly than I’d heard before. This caused laughter among many attendees, even before a crowd you’d expect would think they “get” this sort of stuff. Still, the song was followed by the biggest ovation of the night. Meredith Monk is an awesome artist and the vibes she was giving off reminded me a bit of Bjork.

Unfortunately I had to miss the last two acts, Talujon and Cossin & Michael Lipsy, as I had to hop to another show since the event was behind schedule. When I returned 20 minutes later, the show was over, but I had caught what I had wanted to catch.

Steve Reich and BOC percussionist David Cossin

Kenny Savelson

Wu Man

BOC Co-founder David Lang

Maya Beiser performing Lang’s art-school take of Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”

BOC co-founder Julia Wolfe

Meredith Monk and Katie Geissinger: “Hips Dance” & “Hocket”

My boys in U.S. Royalty killed it again with their consistently energetic performances, playing a sampling of some new tunes from their upcoming debut full-length. Art Brut: It’s hard not to like the guy, he’s just so inherently goofy and innocent, like a grown-up child, singing about stuff like DC Comics. With a good row of devotees the performance pretty much perfectly reflected their M.O. laid out in their first album title: bang bang, rock & roll.

U.S. Royalty

Art Brut

There seemed to be some mixed opinions on the venue but I found it to be a pretty inspired choice, although admittedly in the press box I was thinking to myself that the folks in the back’s view must be suffering. It sounded good and everything went very smoothly. I arrived just in time to catch the final three acts of the night.

[Wu Man, Sandeep Das, and Brooklyn Rider]
Performing Sulvasutra by Evan Ziporyn

[Bang on a Can All-Stars & Ryuichi Sakamoto]
Performing new work by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Horses of Instruction by Steve Martland

Tortoise’s harmonically-rich set was mostly taken from their upcoming record, Beacons of Ancestorship, starting off with album opener “High Class Slim Came Floating In.” They have been called everything from “post rock” to “ambient jam band” to “jazz” and their set filled all of those pretty neatly. With visuals that were visibly custom-made for each individual track, the band members switched up instruments in between songs,

Tthe band played a short, 7-song set largely driven by its two drum kits. Other songs abandoned the drums for malleted percussion, which moved the group away from driving jams to more minimal pastures. Their volume drowned out the room’s rattling air conditioners, but at times the drums, right up front, overwhelmed the total group sound in the echoing hall. Granted, shifting, propulsive beats are kind of Tortoise’s raison d’être, and their groove-heavy songs capped the Marathon with engaging, kinetic energy. A collection of psyched devotees jammed along in an area next to the stage. [Andrew Frisicano @ brooklynvegan]

Photo note: Darkest performance I’ve ever shot by far! But I’m tired of complaining about poor lighting. I’m actually way surprised I was able to squeeze these shots out @ 1/8 sec shutter speed.

[Tortoise]

A night of no-bullshit indie rock at Bowery Ballroom, with all three bands filling the space with indie-rooted, rock n’ roll-indebted, experimentally adventurous, and most importantly, well-crafted songs.

[The Antlers]

I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about any of the three bands tonight, especially The Antlers, (Ed. Note: Read our feature interview with Antlers’ frontman Peter Silberman here.) it was more of a “sounds good, let’s check it out” shows (this website doesn’t assign me these shows, I shoot the shows I wanna). They were surprisingly good, setting the tone for the night: tight, focused, folky rock songs with strong pop melodies. With the high falsetto vocals, it kind of reminded me of Woods.

[Cymbals Eat Guitars]

Cymbals Eat Guitars‘ debut record’s title is pretty dead-on (Why There Are Mountains). Their music is all about sweeping highs and lows, and judging from singer/guitarist Joseph D’Agostino’s performance last night, touring these songs out has not worn their effect at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone sweat so much in my life. It was literally flying off of him. The sweat-to-inspiration ratio was pretty darn good, too. Many will diss the band for D’Agostino’s college-band-dude look or his gauche banter, but the band put out a great record. And underneath that the band, like the last, seemed candid, sincere and genuinely appreciative.

Check out dude’s awesome effects pedals.

[White Rabbits]

Then White Rabbits came out and killed it. The three bands were a good trio to put together, but White Rabbits stood out as the right choice for headliner with their presence, which betrayed the confidence earned from extensive touring and years of playing together.

Photos and words by Rez Avissar

Photo note:
Frustrating night for photos. Bad/static lighting job for most of the night, overpowering red lights for entire sets (the bane of a live photographer’s existence), Sonic Youth not playing for long enough for me to catch a killer close-up of Thurston Moore thrashing. I was forced to do some Photoshopping to try and repair the pics, and meanwhile saving up for a better low-light lens. As consolation for going through all these, I snapped some candids of the band right as they walked off stage, discussing with No Fun organizer/curator Carlos Giffoni whether or not to go back out for a second encore (All friends: “That ending was perfect! Leave it at that!”).

Each band played for twenty minutes. Yellow Tears was the unexpected surprise of the night, winning over everyone in the room with their meticulosuly warped sample manipulations and sounds. Out of all the bands, here’s one that took the twenty minute time slot and really found inspiration, breaking into sweat and taking off their shirts, and getting genuinely into it. The stage was illuminated by a single bright red light bulb. The best part of the set was the member who kept striking a large scrap of metal and sending it through various effects processors, throwing it onto the ground and making a spectacle yet wrenching some pretty freaking insane and wicked sounds from it. Their energy was welcome and the crowd response was thunderously approving from the sold-out crowd. A dude on the L train was raving about them on the way back, displaying the record he bought of theirs; I have a feeling he’s not the only one.

Also in tow were Blank Dogs, who played a full-band, fleshed out and developed indie set, far more song-based than anything else that night. Sons of God: wow, check out the shots of those guys. They had two very whacked stage performers/contorters who kind of dominated the show. The music itself (and the show, too, a little) reminded me of Excepter, with their unpolished, spontaneous, often random but distinctive sound. Mattis was a fucking MADMAN. Bardo Pond killed, in a quiet way. I felt as if I only got a taste of them, though. They need much more space, much more time. I wonder if they usually get heavy? Not tonight.

The chatter before the show was that Sonic Youth were playing seated and unconventionally. This caused understandable groans among the attendees. Instead of playing the faves or any Sonic Youth material at all, tonight they joined the pack of rattly, rough-edged noiseniks, almost blending into the pack. Thing is, Thurston and co. do these kind of gigs all the time. In a past write-up I wrote ”I’d pay ten bucks to watch [Thurston Moore] assault the fuck out of a guitar for a half hour any day of the week.” This rings true, but…. this set was twice the $$, and they played for even less time. With Lee Ranaldo absent (no, sorely missing), Kim’s vocals were a welcome addition to the guitar mangling. Several times, including the powerful encore, it came together perfectly. However, we all would have been happy if they treated us to a gritty rarity for an encore, or at least played to us for more than twenty minutes (incl. encore)? These gripes are valid, right?

I should add, however, that I haven’t been to a proper Sonic Youth gig yet, so take that into account. Can’t wait to see them play a full real set later this summer at United Palace. I promise better photos then. Also look out for their new record, due soon.

[Pulse Emitter]

[Mattin]

[Yellow Tears]

[Sons of God]

[Blank Dogs]

[Pedestrian Deposit]

[Toral Yeh Tremaine]

[Bardo Pond]

[Sonic Youth]

Animal Collective for the first time seem content. With each record having its own distinct sonic palette as well as instrumentation, this band works in eras: a batch of song gets written, toured for months, recorded, released, and then comes back with a new sound and new set of songs. On every tour pre-Merriweather, the majority of material would be new to all ears. Mostly unreleased new material, Avey Tare once explained that the band began doing this because in their formative years they played mostly to the same friends and handful of faces in New York and wasn’t content to play them the same stuff each time. This stuck with the band, and despite sometimes disappointing casual fans by not playing the “hits,” it gave them ample opportunity to explore and flesh out new material (check out the (ongoing) development of a jam like “Fireworks” for instance). This has allowed fans to watch the songs grow and evolve, often changing names several times (…remember when Fireworks was called “Bottle Rocket?”). It also kept things very interesting, part of the reason Animal Collective’s bootlegs get swapped so lovingly by fans.

But now, for the first time, there’s no new batch, and the band isn’t quite ready to move on yet. According to Avey, “we’re not in a new place right now, and I feel like it took a little bit of work to bring us to this point. I think we have a lot of thinking or planning to do to think about, or take the step into, the next direction, whatever that is.”

There actually is some brand new material being played on this tour, a three minute gem that goes by the working title “Bleed,” written last week, which continues Panda’s odyssey of Caribbean gold digging, just back and forth vocal interplay over a bed of washy noise and instrumentation so sparse it’s hardly there at all. It’s quick — some I heard from even mistook it for a between-song interlude — but it again finds them stroking just the right melodic nerve amidst the weirdness. The other new song played was the Grateful Dead-sampling Merriweather outtake “What Would I Want Sky.”

Another change is the band’s new way of not only bringing back songs from their back catalogue, but completely reworking them. With guitarist Deakin taking a leave and radically different gear being used each album/era, plus drawing influence from a well-documented adoration for Daft Punk’s mega-mix of a concert (my hunch), Animal Collective began to bring back more of their past songs, stretching, molding and adapting them to the time’s sound and setup. They opened the show with their epic reworking of “Chocolate Girl,” a standout from their almost-decade-old first record, Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, a proper starting point. The list of tracks they’ve revamped/remixed between this tour and last reads like a greatest hits collection and their re-workings are almost always hit, not miss (I myself am not too big on the snail-paced new “Winters Love,” (although the original is one of my favorites of all time), but I find the snailed-out “Banshee Beat” totally stunning and sublime). That and their amazing hip-hop reworking of “Who Could Win A Rabbit” were both sorely missing tonight, but you can stream them at the NPR show linked below.

Other standouts included their sing-along, “My Girls,” evergreen banger “Summertime Clothes,” ANOTHER added section to the guitar jam now in the middle of “Fireworks,” a piercing “What Would I Want Sky,” and “Brother Sport,” which tore the place down and sent everyone home on a rather breathless note. To those of you who, like me, are wondering why they have never played Merriweather standout “Bluish” in the live, Panda Bear recently explained to a fan why: for no reason more than that they lost the cable of the machine holding the samples. On the upside, they plan to begin playing it out this summer. Rejoice!

It seems the band is plagued by poor venue selection here in New York; they always seem to kill at Bowery Ballroom, which they have vocalized their liking for, but they’ve outgrown that size venue (although they like to treat fans to some intimate one-offs). They have tried on Webster Hall, Grand Ballroom and now Terminal 5, but none seem to fit. Here’s to hoping they find a more inspired venue that can both house their swelled-up and growing fanbase (it was PACKED tonight) and also not suck. Perhaps this played a part, but I’ve noticed that their moods seem to be reflected by the quality of their between-song interludes, another thing that adds a whole other dimension to their show. Tonight, it seemed that this gig was not one they were exactly going all-out for. Obviously they have no trouble delivering their goods live, but it seemed like tonight was an average effort by the band. Everything sounded good though, and they’re visibly comfortable now, commanding and owning the stage and their sound. By now in their current era they have a lengthy list of songs to choose from [to play], and finally are giving themselves the set length that gives their songs the space they need and deserve (almost 2 hours).

Since experiencing Feels live in early 05 (yes, before its release), I’ve seen these guys many times, and unlike far too many bands, whenever new dates are announced it remains a consistently appealing experience as I know I’m in for something new. I can’t fault them for doing what’s actually standard by playing past and recently-released material, but the selfish id in me just really wants to hear more new stuff. (Still haven’t heard the new box set). Regardless, the guys have really mastered their game, so let them have their victory spliff: it’s live AC and it rules.

Listen to their full performance from May 11th’s DC show HERE.

May 13, Terminal 5 Set List
Chocolate Girl
My Girls
Also Frightened
Summertime Clothes
Slippi
What Would I Want Sky
Guys Eyes
Comfy in Nautica
Fireworks
Leaf House
—
Bleed
Lion In A Coma
Brother Sport

[Animal Collective]

[Grouper]
Grouper was the opener. I had seen pictures and videos, though never close up, but I honestly had thought that in no way could a voice as haunting/chilling/beautiful come out of something so haunting/chilling/beautiful. Now that I think about it, it kind of makes sense, right? But also she sounds many years older than she looks.

The music was as the photos may suggest — (here come the adjectives) dreamy, flowing, hypnotic, glowing? The songs were long and drawn-out, deceptively suggesting formlessness. As far as I know she strayed from her well-known material, as I didn’t recognize anything, not even the spellbinding “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping” (update: some have mentioned that she did play that at the end. I remember hearing that guitar progression and listening intently for the melody, but the vocal was wayy different this time). Also, check out her eyes and expression in the pics — in some she looks positively entranced/possessed. Thankfully, the audience was respectful and quiet, as this is really the kind of set that can be ruined by some impatient shmuck’s remarks (exactly what happened to Tickley Feather when I saw her open for them). Many didn’t like it as it certainly wasn’t for everybody, but if you are the type to enjoy this kind of music, chances are you could appreciate her performance.

Trekked out to SIlent Barn to catch Philly’s Kurt Vile and NYC’s Sightings (sadly I missed openers Gary War and Drunkdriver).

Riding on a wave of blog hype and positive Pitchfork reviews, the draw was surprisingly underwhelming. Maybe he was feeling particularly lonesome, but his sound teetered toward rambling, minor key blues. It’s his right to select which songs to play, but out of almost all of the outstanding peaks from Vile’s two full-lengths, including “Freeway,” “Beach On The Moon,” “Red Apples,” “Breathin Out,” and “Can’t Come,” among others, Vile decided to play none. After the gig he explained to me that this is because of the absence of one or more performing partners (in The Violators), but he still could have played a track like “Beach On The Moon,” which some in the audience were asking for.

Instead, he trudged more downier wistful territory in the vein of “My Best Friends (Don’t Even Pass This)” (which he did play). A highlight was a version of the great “My Sympathy” which featured new falsetto melodies, the standout moment of his set to me. It was very intimate (dishes stacked in the backdrop et al) and many sat down cross-legged as Vile deftly plucked away and sang to us both through tinny small amps with the reverb all the way up. If he keeps up the quality of his better tracks (paradoxically his oddest and most accessible), I see his profile rising considerably. What could help him a lot, though, is a live show as captivating as his records.

update: I want to add that as of going to this show, I had only heard his two full-lengths. All the talk from his other shows seem to be highly positive and I’m definitely willing to give him the benefitting side of doubt, as I thoroughly enjoy his music. Also, he’s got a brand new record on the way – check out this in-depth, revealing feature in Dusted magazine.

As for Sightings, a more aggressive, fleshed set than when I saw them last, a couple months ago. Quite a bit of energy coming from the band, and the right kind of space to see them. The audience needed to wake up, but Sightings definitely held it down, up-staging Vile. Also of note, they hung out all night and seem like genuinely chill human beings.

[Sightings]

[Kurt Vile]

It was rainy and wet outside, leading to a hot, moist and loud evening inside at Less Artists More Condos. Good thing it was a stacked line-up as all three bands on the bill were worth the effort of trying to find a hiding place for your umbrella. So good in fact, we had two Tripwire photographers there. Here is what they saw. [Derek Evers]

The Place To Bury Strangers dudes put on what I imagine would be their own wet-dream shows. Their venue preferences lean toward the dank, the DIY and the grimy, and they do what they can as far as tricks nabbed from the book of Cheap Theatrics That Work, with their fog machine, awesome visual projections, strobe lights, periods of absolute pitch darkness, tearing the strings on your guitar with your fingers while playing it, swinging your guitar around inches away from people’s faces, holding it up in the air and striking it as if it’s God (or Satan?) strumming his wrath through your very pick, and on and on. Oh….. and it was fucking LOUD. Painfully, blisteringly, gloriously loud. [Rez Avissar]

[Crash Diet Crew]

[Sarahana]

[Dinowalrus]

[Sarahana]

[Rez Avissar]

[A Place To Bury Strangers]

[Sarahana]

[Rez Avissar]

[Less Artists, More Condos]

Big concert, and currently, every mag large and small in New York is raving about how amazing it was. I had to come out to check out what was in store, as the lineup read like a who’s who of upper-echelon indie rock, crowned by Byrne, plus Sharon Jones!?!? Of course, when you pack this many acts into a night something has to give, and each artist performed four songs or less, sort of bite-sized micro-sets.

The highlights of the night were the David Byrne tunes from the Dark Was The Night comps over the years (including “Knotty Pine” w/ Dirty Projectors, “”Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes” w/ Bon Iver, “Waters of March” w/ Feist and “Don’t Fence Me In” w/ drummer crew) which sounded amazing, the latter three evoking his African-cribbing heyday, an alternate version of “Flume” featuring Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), “Train Song,” Feist’s Vashti Bunyan cover from the compilation, and the finale where everyone came out at once to do “This Land Is Your Land” which got Sharon Jones REMIXED. I’m not usually one for venues this large, but the sound was incredibly crisp and clear. Lots of collabs, lots of memorable moments. I’ll let the other reviewers recount them to you:

BrooklynVegan
Stereogum
Rolling Stone
Happy Genius Heroes
PAPER mag
Metro Distortion
Quiet Color
Second Doubles
New York Rock Market
Music Mix, Entertainment Weekly
Black Raptor [w/ video]

Google Blog Search: Dark Was The Night

NPR is supposed to have video of the entire concert shortly.

We were only allowed to shoot for the first song of each act (ugh). Here’s what I came up with.

[Dirty Projectors w/ David Byrne]

[John Carlin of Dark Was The Night and Red Hot]

[My Brightest Diamond]

[The National.]

[Dave Sitek]

[David Byrne]

[intermission]

[Bon Iver]

[Feist]

[Sharon Jones]

[everyone]

Look who decides to make a cameo – Annie Clark (St. Vincent)!

Mogwai treated the Music Hall of Williamsburg to a strong set that combined some classic picks with their newer, more head-banging material.

I’m glad I finally got to see these guys live. Sick with a vicious flu, I was certain I wasn’t going to make it. That was, until I came across a video of a performance of “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” featuring cello that ripped me to shreds. With minutes left, I immediately sprang to Music Hall. I got there in the middle of the first song.

Mogwai certainly aren’t the most photogenic or energetic band, and Stuart (the bald one) is the only one with any sort of energy or presence on stage, but of course they make up for it with sonic stimulation. I spotted two laptops on stage, one running Ableton Live, and I’m wondering how they’re incorporating this software, because I couldn’t tell. Snapping photos next to their guitar guy, I saw how the tunings change from song to song (Mogwai diehards, check the last pic for his setlist with tunings). These guys have found ways to wrench gut emotions from their strings, sometimes with three guitars chugging at once, blending together to form one beast of a sound. I’m sure on record there are many, many more layers, but, paired with the volume levels they are notorious for, live in the flesh you can really FEEL it grab you.

With their other recent setlists a little too bloated with cuts from their latest, The Hawk is Howling for my liking, this tour saw them bring back some carefully chosen older gems like “Yes! I’m A Long Way From Home” and “Summer.” The bro-centric audience, with more than a few conspicuous long-haired headbangers, rode every wave, especially the powerful 4-song closer of “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” (yes, vocoder, no cello), “We’re No Here,” then “Like Herod” and “Batcat.” There were several moments where the drums would drop out and the strobe light would pulse faster and the crunchy drone would slowly climb where it all locked together, and for “We’re No Here” and “Batcat,” the band channelled straight-up metal a la Isis/Mastodon (as for the other two, rightful staples). This is where the peaks were found in this set, but still couldn’t approach the sublimity of a performance like the one linked earlier, at least to me. As a matter of fact, instead of reading this, just watch that clip. Like, now.

It was the ideal evening and setting at Highline Ballroom last Thursday: a packed house of eager ears, a booming sound system, and Simian Mobile Disco delivering the highlights from their debut record, remixed (and sometimes, re-imagined). As the guy next to me said, “I don’t really know what they’re doing up there but it sounds awesome.” It looked pretty ultimate, too…

A good night for photos, especially now that I’ve upgraded (i.e. using the office camera). I like how timeless the dudes from RATATAT look. Bluesy, ragged and rocking. Terminal 5 was tight on photo privileges: photo pass required to take photos for no reason, no flash (I don’t usually use much) and only during the first three songs (not rare, but oh so irritating). Weak. But here’s what I could squeeze out of that first three.

Tussle sounded tight. A bit more tribal than I recall hearing on their records. The band has little as far as stage presence but the crowd seemed to love it.

[Tussle]

How great it must be to live the lives the dudes in RATATAT are living — to what it is you love the most every night. For these guys, what they enjoy doing is pretty clear: soaring and wailing on guitars.

Their style is very defined and confined, but it could have gone on for several hours more with nary a complaint because it’s that good. I had no idea they were this big, though- the place was surprisingly packed with mainstreamers. When did they become a household name? Apparently, not long after “Seventeen Years” got picked up by every DJ in the country in 04 and snowballed. No surprise that that song got by far the biggest audience response, because, yes, it’s still the most bangin. But the whole set assumed an Air-level perfectionism — the place devoured it.

[RATATAT]

Well, there were no white horses this time, no Kevin Barnes full-frontal nudity, and only a handful of wardrobe changes. But of Montreal definitely brought the party to Music Hall of Williamsburg for three nights of their wild freak show/celebration.

Looking at photos from last fall’s Roseland gig, it’s clear that they chose to play a more intimate venue and a (relatively) stripped-down show. Going to an of Montreal show these days comes with built-in expectations of Flaming Lips-level antics and grandiosity. Music Hall holds about 550, though, while Roseland holds 3500, and the stage is a fraction of the size. What I’m wondering, however, is why the setlists were shorter than their past gigs. If playing to your most devout fans, why not treat them to more? When I saw Broken Social Scene at Bowery several years ago they played for three hours with not an attention span lost. Still, the show packed at least 20 or so hand picks into almost 2 hours.

of Montreal is at their best when they’re most unabashedly up-front about that brand of dark, sugary pop they’ve crafted, and when the opening bass line of “Gronlandic Edit” dropped guitarist Bryan Poole asked “are you ready to party?” while the crowd was already a dancing frenzy. The awesome “Id Engager” and “Sentence of Sorts” drew similar responses, and the crowd, including the sea of cute girls in the front, were more than happy to dance and get excited. The band opened with “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal” which was a curious choice and probably an offering to the die-hards and the fans who bemoaned its absence from the Roseland show.

Barnes and his band are now seasoned professionals. Their troupe hoists them onto their shoulders, fondles and paints the members at will and they still manage to hit every note. Their versatility shows through in their wide repertoire of covers, nailed so consistently that the band may rank as one of the best cover bands of all time. They closed with a cover of Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” with Janelle Monae, and an insane guitar solo [anyone know who that was?]. They are one of the most accomplished bands in indie pop and this show, like all of their shows, was an all-out resplendent party.

Rusty Santos mixed Panda Bear’s Person Pitch (among releases by Animal Collective, Born Ruffians, White Magic and others) and is a long-time friend of the Animal Collective crew. I’ve seen him before opening for Panda Bear at Bowery Ballroom, which was an awesome, surprising freak-out set. This time, he sported a very Panda Bear-like setup of twin Roland SP-404s (even though Panda has since upgraded to 555s). However, he manipulated a vastly different palette of sounds and to very different effect.

One year strong, the band still seems to be exploring different sounds, and Santos Party House’s downstairs area was a perfectly intimate setting to witness the fruits of their experimentations so far. As a long-time follower of Rusty, it’s hard to tell where this project is going to go… the three-piece is mixing together some seriously disparate musical elements (check the differences between the songs on their MySpace) and I’m curious to see where their experimentations (and instincts) take them.

[Taka Imamura and Gang Gang Dance's Brian DeGraw (in hat) DJed]

Vivian Girls opened.

[Vivian Girls]

It has been a productive period for Ariel Pink, who has been releasing new material steadily through blogs and his MySpace over the past few months. Now with a new cleaned-up sound and a full, solid touring band, his current outing is his most ambitious. Indeed, in a MySpace blog, he wrote: “HAUNTED GRAFFITI IS FULLY COOKED and DRESSED UP FOR OUR BIGGEST and BUSIEST TOUR.”

I’ve seen him in the past and the shows were wonderfully disastrous tragicomedies, pissing off many but ultimately adding to his legend. This time, however, I feel like the band should have been called Ariel Pink and the Haunted Graffiti, as the full band added a new dynamic. Yes, he’s toured with multiple helping hands in the past (most notably a tour where he invited different amateurs from town to town), but the difference here was the tightness. For the first time, the consensus seems to be that Pink & Co killed it. He said in an interview that he “likes to be a good singer and like to be backed up by good sounds” and that definitely showed here — but another thing he said was that there’s minimal preparation involved. Maybe on his part (still stoned, still awkward), but especially in the epic and largely instrumental “Trepanated Earth”, it showed that the band had definitely been doing some prepping.

The thing about his discography is that there are so many good tunes, and typically, he (rightfully) divides his setlists between standards and gems. While I could write a long wishlist of tunes I wish they’d play, over the course of the long set the band did bring out highlights such as “Among Dreams,” “Trepanated Earth,” “For Kate I Wait,” “Interesting Results,” new single “Can’t Hear My Eyes”, and a surprise “The Bottom”. This also marks the first time I’ve seen people inspired to dance at an Ariel Pink show.

It’s been a productive period for Pink and as a long time devotee to the Pink cult I’m glad to see the end of a long struggle of finding a solid backing band, as well as new, honed and slightly polished musical beginnings. Definitely hoping his next focus is a new full-length full of new of haunted gems that never were. In the meantime, you can follow the band on their blog, Earth Foot.

[Ariel Pink]

Nathan Williams’ current wavve of attention has been helped by incessant touring — so far in this young year he’s toured around the world, including at least six shows here in NY.. and he’s playing again tonight at Mercury Lounge.

A quote from a Ramones documentary claimed that if you slowed down their songs you’d get The Beach Boys. Although WAVVES acknowledges that his music is pop, his flirtations with noise, ambient and lo-fi have helped win him an adoring indie fanbase. Yet last night’s Cake Shop performance was, at least to me, distinctly punk rock – 30 fast-paced minutes, dimly lit hot packed basement, the smell of sweat, dancing and pushing. No need for any shouts of “1234.”

The songs sounded good live. I’ve always enjoyed WAVVES live better than on record. The song “To The Dregs,” in particular, was a highlight. At the end of the (first) brief set, the audience demanded more, to which Williams asked drummer R.W. Ulsh “do we even know any more songs?” Apparently so: the rare encore featured, if my memory serves me correctly, “California Goths” into a solo (and great) “Weed Demon.”

*Sub par photos due to bad lighting:

I made my way down to D.C. Monday night to catch this stop of the tour at the still somewhat intimate (and very packed) 9:30 Club, a place where I attended many memorable shows growing up.

Cut Copy brethren and remixer Knightlife opened and spun between sets, providing French Touch-infused electro and keeping up the night’s energetic vibe.

Matt and Kim’s set was so well-received that Matt practically tripped over himself grinning and gushing about how much he enjoyed the gig. After the exuberant set, Matt spent a few minutes up front greeting fans and friends in the audience. The show was what you’ve come to expect from Matt and Kim, only this time the DIY-centric couple hit the larger concert circuit, and oddly enough seemed all the more happy to be there. Matt and Kim always kind of seem on the verge of exploding from their own energy and excitability, and tonight that permanent caffeine buzz was even more intense. But sincerity sometimes can really appeal, and on this night it added to it.

[Matt and Kim]

Cut Copy is a fun band to see live because, especially with their as-yet-limited discography, you are familiar with most or all of the songs, and with the exception of few, each song shares a familiar sugary bounce to it. For an hour and fifteen minutes, the band ripped through selections from their two albums, with the only exception to that being the unreleased “Sands of Time” (which, if you like Cut Copy and haven’t heard yet, check it out (now!) on the band’s Myspace or on Hype Machine). Other highlights included a surging “Saturdays,” and similarly effusive bangers from their latest effort In Ghost Colours, “Hearts On Fire” and “Lights & Music” which bookended their set.

I love the song “A Dream” but it doesn’t exactly beg you to dance so I can understand why they leave it off their setlist, but I don’t see why they didn’t add time for their excellent pairing of “That Was Just A Dream” into “Zap Zap” (which you can watch here by clicking on “Zap Zap” [Incorrectly paired into the same track]).

Cut Copy setlist:
Intro
Hearts On Fire
Far Away
Visions
Nobody Lost
Autobahn Music Box
Sands of Time
Saturdays
Feel the Love
Unforgettable Season
So Haunted – Knightlife
Out There On The Ice
Right On Target
—-
Strangers In The Wind
Future
Lights And Music

It’s pretty easy to take good photos of Cut Copy, with their ceaseless pretty-boy posturing, bouncing, wide-ranging instrumentation and synaesthetic light show (though this in particular has stood out to me), and in between bouts of dancin out, Far and I snapped a ridiculous amount of photos, which has been narrowed down to the 55 or so you see below. Enjoy.

[Cut Copy]

Far’s photos:

This was a different kind of show from the beginning, and it was more difficult than most shows to get press into. However, I decided to trek out to Brooklyn’s isolated Glasslands, as Eric Copeland is one of my favorite noisemakers and I wanted to see what Thurston Moore and Carlos Giffoni (No Fun’s organizer/curator) would treat us to (plus Glasslands is a choice place to see a show).

I arrived just in time to catch Copeland setting up. My feelings on his set went back and forth. Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson called Copeland a “sonic dumpster diver” which is a pretty much perfect description of his solo work. DJ-style, Copeland deftly blended one song into the next, hunching over his pile of gear and sometimes picking up a mic to ..do what he does over it. I myself happen to be a musician and after seeing his band Black Dice several times, I still have no idea how he or the Dice make their sounds — from the audience perspective it’s all focused knob twiddling. It wasn’t too thrilling to watch.. made me think of this breed of noise shows in general and the name “No Fun.”

During the set I began asking myself why I can’t appreciate this stuff live as much as on record. I began to wonder if this kind of music is inferior to more straightforward music styles, especially in the live setting, but tracks like “Hermaphrodite,” “Alien in a Garbage Dump,” and the delicious “Green Burrito” (which I wish he played) as well as countless Black Dice tracks, have soundtracked many glorious subway rides and hazed-out walks down 8th Ave. Yet here I am standing before one of the best noisemakers around feeling shades of ennui setting in. Copeland and Dice’s music is quite visual and the performance would have been helped by something other than the house visuals. Still, it was cool to hear his aural colleges in this environment, and cranked up.

[Eric Copeland]

What can I say? Thurston is a bona-fide king, a god, and I’d pay ten bucks to watch him assault the fuck out of a guitar for a half hour any day of the week.

[Thurston Moore and Carlos Giffoni]

Up next was Emeralds. I’m trying to get into the practice of hearing at least something by each band I am going out to see, but I didn’t have much luck looking for their music online and didn’t find out much more than that they’re apparently an improv band from Ohio. Turns out it’s three dudes with a bunch of analog gear and an effects-treated guitar. After five to ten minute calm drone, I quickly wrote them off.. it’s not that they couldn’t have pushed it further, as they did manage to squeeze some pretty cool sounds out of their equipment (synthetic waves and flying saucer sounds conjuring some sort of warm electronic lagoon) but I wished they did something a bit more interesting. Then, out of nowhere with a single arpeggio it began to peak… warm psychedelic textures emerged and spun around, and the chatter in the room died down. Very pretty stuff, true to their name.

[Emeralds]

[Glasslands]

[No Fun DJs]

Rez and I headed into Death By Audio expecting a noisy raucous affair, but were treated to a sonic wonder to start the show in U.S. Girls. The one-woman show that is Meghan Remy — a Philly-based noise conductor drenched in fuzz and reverb a la Wavves or the Dum Dum Girls, but with vocals that will send shivers down your spine. Unlike the lazy drawl of many of the lo-fi deconstructionists, Meghan takes an almost R&B vibe on her vocals, and she belted out emphatically over the heavy beats and blips, including her cover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Bits And Pieces”. [Derek Evers]

[US Girls]

And then there’s Fiasco, the band I’ve seen countless times only to keep saying they get better with age. Which was ironic on this night as one of them actually became legal — guitarist Jonathan Edelstein celebrated his 18th birthday with the help of The Homosexuals. With two new songs to their repertoire and the usual array of blistering beats and tapping guitars, Fiasco remain one of my favorite bands to witness live. [Derek Evers]

[Fiasco]

I’d only heard NYC’s Sightings on record and never knew exactly how they concoct their weird, damaged soundscapes. I was pretty impressed to find out that they construct their sound with nothing more than a guitar, a bass, electro-acoustic drums and a bunch of effects pedals. The whole show was like one blistering assault of damaged noise, with guitarist/vocalist Mark Morgan laying down his baritone vocals over the grand cacophony. Their drummer is really sick/technical and all three members are interesting to watch but by the second half of the set, every song seemed to kick its feet into the next and the crowd grew a bit less enthusiastic, rather than the other way around. [Rez Avissar]

[Sightings]

AIDS Wolf tore the roof off the place. I was thinking of adjectives to use to describe the show… “frenzy”…”pandemonium”…”intense.” The band was tight, the singer Special Deluxe was extra vicious on the mic (and looked amazing in her purple sequin dress), and the whole place went fucking nuts. I haven’t danced this hard in a long time and in between paused to snap some glimpses into what basically was sweet, sweet mayhem. [Rez Avissar]

[AIDS Wolf]

[Death By Audio]

The able men of D.C.’s U.S. Royalty did their thing at Piano’s on Tuesday night. There’s a lot of talent between the four of them, and their drummer, the dapper Luke Adams, has Pro Tools chops which means the band is usually putting down ideas in their Chinatown studio as they please. The last time I saw these guys they headlined Hiro Ballroom, which was a great feat, but they also fit the bill as a bar band surprisingly well, and Piano’s was a pretty perfect venue for them to play their 2-week “residency.” What didn’t change from last time, however, was the string of excited girls in the front. Catch them at one of their DJ gigs and they’ll often spin remixes of their own jams as well as some probably-never-to-be-released mixes of some classics. (They spin somewhat regularly in D.C. and recently got remix treatment by Passion Pit’s Ayad under his Bo Flex project). Also, their lead singer, John Thornley, has energy, in voice and in bodily stamina, that would make most frontmen envious. And when he’s not seated at the keys, he prances the stage. A lot. 

 U.S. Royalty has all the makings of a great band and with two EPs under their belt, they are currently writing their first full-length. We’re waiting for it and we’ll keep you posted.

This show should have happened long ago, November to be exact. I happened to add Glass Candy to my MySpace friends around that time, and attached one of those notes to the friend request expressing confusion as to their scheduled date’s disappearance. It didn’t necessarily call for a response, but a few hours later I received a message from producer/programmer Johnny Jewel, explaining, “we had to cancel the trip to finish our new 12″ and mix a new 12-track CD [presumably Deep Gems]… we’re gonna throw a huge party in the Spring out there, and bring out Farah and Chromatics to make up for it!!”

Chromatics and Farah were swapped for Italians Do It Better pals Twisted Wires and Nite Jewel, but throw a huge party they did. It’s apt that he billed it as a party, as the atmosphere was leaning as much if not more toward that than a show (one reviewer called it “[Jewel's] own private loft party”), with many a hand being thrown in the air, swigs of Maker’s Mark on stage and shared with all, vocoder-laced exclamations by singer Ida No (”we did ecstasy before the show!”), encouragement of fans to rock with the band on-stage, loads of t-shirts and CDs lobbed into the dancefloor, and Johnny and Ida generally showering us with good vibes (and huge balloon orbs).

When asked in an interview how Animal Collective approaches their music, Panda Bear said “it’s our own form of soul music” and to me, Glass Candy’s approach to Italo disco is powered by that same drive. It’s somewhere between the depth of No’s voice when she tries to sing (see “Beatific”) and the spontaneous nature of all of their actions and much of their work (don’t forget, they are rooted in punk). It’s what inspired their fans to flip out on Saturday and to form the longest line I’ve seen at Poisson Rouge.

Candy has emerged as one of the leaders of their brand, despite that their output has yet to match up to their promise. But what G/C doesn’t show in its discography (yet!) is made up for by their presence, infectious energy, and command of their sound. Beneath the dark inspiration and icy synth waves lies a deep soul. It’s why I didn’t feel awkward drunkenly stumbling up to No as she greeted fans by the stage after the show. She was approachable and sincere. Fearing JOOSE’s effect on compromising my memory, I asked for a setlist. She told me to email Johnny and he’ll send it to me. And for some reason, I knew he would.

In his message, Johnny wrote “it was such a special night for us. It really meant a lot. Thanks for being part of it.” I’m glad I was a part of it, too.

Glass Candy’s setlist, from Johnny:

The Game Goes On
Digital Versicolor
Beatific
Poison or Remedy
Candy Castle
The Beat’s Alive
Miss Broadway
Feeling Without Touching
Animal Imagination
Life After Sundown
Geto Boys

[Twisted Wires]

Before Glass Candy, Twisted Wires and Nite Jewel performed, but Nite Jewel shined even brighter than high expectations set off by a recent flurry of praise. They played their most well-known songs, including “What Did He Say” and “Weak 4 Me,” pretty faithfully to the recordings. The girls looked like “glowing 70s angels” (as my friend put it) under the lights, and the tape-hiss harmonies and dark new-noirish atmosphere were all good looks.

[Nite Jewel]

[Glass Candy]