Brooklyn’s Woods have joined up with Kurt Vile and Swedish psych stars Dungen for a tour we’re just going to call A Bunch of Great Bands on One Stage Tour 2009. In addition to the aforementioned trio of excellence, select dates will feature Grooms, Wavves, Real Estate and Popo. Other potential tour highlights include a stop in Big Sur (peyote optional) and a tour-closing date in Seattle, which seems pretty fitting considering all these guys clearly owe a debt to ’90s Northwest rock.
[Photo by Pascale Boislard]
One of our favorite French Canadian exports dropped a new CD entitled Labyrinthes back in March. We’ve had the new Malajube record in our iTunes since, but find it creeping into our consciousness as a standout when we’ve got the player on shuffle. With a pleasant, if not instantly recognizable, demeanor, statements like, “Wait, who is this?” followed by, “This is pretty good.” are common whenever a track from Labyrinthes pops up.
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Notes From Middle America is contributor Danny R. Phillips’ monthly column. You can read past installments here.
I have to ask. What happened to rock? Has it become passé or uncool for a band to struggle, tour, play shows night after night to build a fan base without the help of excessive internet buzz or douche bags in the “hip” magazines who supposedly have their fingers on the pulse of the American youth culture? If a band has to work hard to get what they have, is that far less important than the mandatory polo shirts they wear on stage?
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[Photo by Alexandra Marvar]
The funny thing about Hopewell is that they have been sorely overlooked by those who like the psychedelic, dreamy pop being made by bands like Animal Collective, Dungen or to a lesser degree, Dirty Projectors, mainly because they brewed their cred in upstate New York versus Manhattan or Brooklyn. But that might change with the release of Good Good Desperation in May.
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