it's been one week, vol. 5

Happy longest day of the year! Last year it was sweltering, but this week has been beautiful and mild. I took a little coffee break in Madison Square park the other day on my way back down from midtown. Pretty perfect, I must say.

Aside from listening to Yeezus, and being inadvertently sucked into having an interest in the Stanley Cup Finals, this week brought us:

- There's now a super awesome mosaic of David Bowie outside of the Rag & Bone store on Elizabeth St. It's made up of the lyrics to Heroes and Fashion.

- CHVRCHES played The Mother We Share, which is my favorite song of theirs, live on Jimmy Fallon the other night. Maybe they've just been playing She's All That too much on tv lately, but she reminds me of a (doe-eyed elf version of) Rachel Leigh Cook.

- How did I not know about MØ before? I was catching up on some of my music blog reading, and I had skipped over all the coverage on them previously. For shame, because now I'm obsessed. Their first album will be out this fall! Check out their Yours Truly performance:

and, their new video for "Waste of Time" (which I enjoy, minus the snake...) :
- Pitchfork finally released the set times for the festival which is now less than a month away!! Of course, the things my friends and I want to see overlap and we'll have to make some annoying choices. The biggest being, do we want to have an R. Kelly dance party, or a crazy TNGHT dance party on Sunday night? Choices, gah! At least I'll be free to watch Foxygen...if I get there at the stupidly early time they're on.

- Finally, I'm a bit surprised by how sad I was about James Gandolfini's death. Not that it is unwarranted, but my connection to him was not even so deep -- I wasn't a big watcher of The Sopranos (though my dad was and would talk about it all the time), but it was very sudden and untimely.

march danceness

Day #2 of "spring" is March Madness if I've ever seen it. Winter, you were a really lame non-starter this year and now your turn is over. Step aside, bro.

I'll have to settle for warming myself up with a little impromptu dance party. You know you want to, too.



+ bonus, not-available-on-Spotify track, which is guaranteed to get stuck in your head:

that's a wrap

Happy Monday! The world didn't end (again), but CMJ has come and gone once more. I didn't see a lot of bands at CMJ this year, but I still had a couple favorites:

I saw Boy and Bear at Union Hall in Park Slope on Friday night. They headlined a show that also included Conversion Party (who I recently saw open for CYHSY) and WATERS from California (and some other bands, too, I think, who we missed). They're here from Australia(!) and had a really enthusiastic crowd receiving them. I knew next to nothing about them beforehand, but they remind me of Andrew Bird particularly in the vocals.

Boy and Bear:

Conversion Party:

WATERS:

I caught Jape filling in last minute for High Highs at the I Guess I'm Floating showcase at Pianos. They're a Dublin band with charming Irish accents, and some 80s-y synths going on. If it wasn't the middle of the afternoon I suspect some people may have danced around more.



If I had more time, I would have loved to re-catch more of the (good) opening bands I've seen in the past year: Caveman, who played all over during CMJ and I saw open for The Hold Steady recently; Gauntlet Hair, who opened for The Dodos. Oh well, another year...

"How now did you see what I did see?"

Seemingly out of nowhere on Monday morning, a tweet/post went up on BrooklynVegan that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would be performing at Littlefield that same night with tickets going on sale at noon. I dutifully waited with my laptop and pounced, snagging 2 tickets. The show was great, as the crowd wasn't pushy nor the venue overly full (despite being sold out). Everyone seemed so chill, in fact, that Ana and I found ourselves in the front row moments before the opening act took the stage.

I tend to have mixed luck with opening bands that I'm unfamiliar with, but we were really happy with Conversion Party. They switched up vocalists and instruments several times, but the sound remained fairly consistent. I got a Thermals-ish vibe from them at times, which I didn't mind at all.

CYHSY played a mix of their first two albums interspersed with tracks from their upcoming album. All the new tracks sounded great and I'm really excited to hear the whole thing in September. While I was never the biggest fan of Some Loud Thunder, the songs they chose to play translated well to the stage and I may give it a second chance. The crowd was pretty vocal as time went on that they wanted Gimme Some Salt to be played, so their wish was granted in the form of an extra song thrown into the encore. How do we know it was extra? Because our front-row positioning allowed me to hop up onto the edge of the stage and snag Robbie's set list after the show. Win! Photos of the show, including the setlist, below:

(Gimme Some Salt was inserted before Heavy Metal)

This week has kind of flown by. I'm hatching lots of new plans, including reviving my Etsy shop, and dropping off my compostable refuse at the Greenmarket this weekend. In addition, here are a few other tidbits:

Things I did:

* After reading a tweet by @ohjoystudio, I knew immediately that I had to go make myself some Cuban potato balls. They're pretty tasty, though I think I undersalted the potatoes. I'm seriously considering making some for Passover, substituting matzo meal for the breadcrumbs. I think it will be a really good alternative to what I normally end up eating.

* Spent way too much time on tumblr (seriously, I took a long break from looking at tumblr because it was so overwhelming, but I've been sucked back in). Happened across this band, The Dogs, described as being a cross between Belle and Sebastian and Pains of Being Pure at Heart, though after listening to their bandcamp page, I'd go with more of the latter. They're Chicago-based, and one of them is related to teen fashion blogging sensation Tavi. If you like the brand of indie pop that Pains do so well, you'll probably like these guys, too.

(something about their name, and maybe a little of their sound, but more that they're from Chicago, reminds me of highschool when I loved The Dog and Everything).

Things I want:

* Are there no Girl Scouts in NYC? Seriously, though, I have never encountered a single Girl Scout and somehow cookies magically appear every so often. But not this year. :'( I think I may have to take matters into my own hands by trying out this recipe for Samoas (or as we Chicagoans know them, Caramel Delights). (tipped via Cup of Jo)

via Band of Outsiders - I want to be at this sunny tea party! Someone pull me up a 3rd chair!

You were bright, like a new day

Last week, on a whim, I bought myself a ticket to see Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr play at Bowery Ballroom (they were opening for Bear Hands).  I showed up just in time to see (the) Tony Castles and there was practically no one in there.  I casually found myself right up front, in perfect position for the awesomeness that is the DEJrJr set design.  They play off the ridiculousness of their name perfectly.  It is all so kitschy and delightfully trashy to look at.  I mean, they have wooden letters with light bulbs spelling out JR JR bookending the stage.  It all stands in great contrast to the sincerity of their sweet lyrics about love and girls (and not car racing). 

"Skeletons" (from their upcoming LP) was a) great, and b) a fun group performance

Oh look, it's me at the bottom right of this photo.  Thanks, BrooklynVegan!

I'm off to the airport now to spend a week back in Chicago.  Yes!  So excited to see my friends and parents and get out of the city for a bit.

receive all they deserve

This is my declaration of love for CMJ, my oft-desired, less-attended NY music festival of my dreams.  Every year I inch closer and closer to being the kind of hardcore CMJ attendee I want to be, but am always thwarted by things like having a job and friends and then oversleeping because of hanging out with said friends and missing the free Saturday showcase I wanted to go to. SIGH.

In any case, my big CMJ night was last Tuesday, when I had tickets to the showcase at Irving Plaza headlined by Jenny and Johnny.  But I'll get to them in a minute, because there were four bands that led off the evening, and I feel that they're all worth a mention at the very least.  So here we go.

La Sera
A sweet-sounding all-girl band, whose lead singer Katy (of the Vivian Girls) channels the hair of Jenny Lewis and the adorable factor of Zooey Deschanel.  Their sound leans more towards a dreamy/fuzzed out/reverb-filled pop act.  Their album doesn't come out until 2011, but their single Never Come Around has been floating around the internet pretty well.

Happy Birthday
A four-person band, this time with an aesthetic that remind me of some of the people I knew in high school.  Let's say if they were on Freaks & Geeks, they'd be out back chillin' with Daniel and Nick and Kim.  Their sound is considerably happier (poppier?) than I would have guessed (I know, I know, don't judge a book by its cover, blahblahblah).  Regardless, they're signed by Sub Pop which is solid and awesome, and I'd say they live up to that particular notoriety.

Times New Viking
I would like to pause here to mention talk about how I like some bands purely based on their name, whether or not I listen to their music.  I'm actually hesitant to ever listen to Casiotone for the Painfully Alone because what if I don't like it?  Then my favorite rhyming and yet emo-sounding band name will have been a let down.  But back to Times New Viking, whose allusion to a boring font is made way more awesome by inclusion of those Nordic warriors who just (unfortunately) happen to also have been by high school's mascots.  Speaking of the Midwest, these folks hail from Ohio and give that state more credibility than, well, anything else I can think of.  They're not exactly new (I mean, they're signed to Matador, which is a "real" label much like Sub Pop...), but their energy was intense and frenetic, and their pace from song to song was handled like the bus was going to blow up if it stopped for even a second.  Their drummer deserves a major round of applause.

Wild Nothing
There are always those bands that have so much freaking hype and play a million CMJ showcases and I always wonder to myself if they deserve it.  Wild Nothing was totally on that list this year (along with the likes of DOM and Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr), which meant that I was somewhat skeptical leading into their set.  As it turns out, they sing songs that sound sincere and gentle, in an 80's John Hughes sort of way.  They will steal your heart, both musically and well, aesthetically.  Funny story, though: they opened for Freelance Whales and the Morning Benders this summer at Governor's Island.  "Weren't you at that show?"  Why yes, yes I was.  But: we were in line/eating food for their whole set.  Oops?  Better late than never.

Jenny and Johnny
Ok, a million years later, here we go: the main act!   I've already discussed my love of Jenny Lewis, but any of the criticisms I had for Scissor Runner the song have since been dispelled by the rest of their album I'm Having Fun Now which is choc-full of sweet-yet-sultry Jenny Lewis vocals which mix quite nicely with her boyfriend's.  I still hear "Losing My Religion" whenever I listen to the beginning of "Animal."  On stage, she's a petite little thing that you'd never suspect would proclaim a fondness for the strip clubs of NY because "everyone needs a little smut" - but it's that LA-tinged grittiness that I love about this former Troop Beverly Hills-star-turned-frontwoman.  Their set was solid, and included an acoustic number sans their backing bandmates, but no encore.

And now I will share some crappy pictures and momentarily whine about how I need a better camera!

 Katy of La Sera (see what I mean?)

 

Happy Birthday

Times New Viking

Wild Nothing

Johnathan Rice

Jenny Lewis

sharing is caring

the whole band!

I have more CMJ-related commentary, but that will have to be saved for another day, clearly.  This has been a head-first leap back into how time consuming blogging can be.

polar bear bear

So while I'm in the midst of writing up my post-CMJ thoughts, and pre-Halloween thoughts (and don't even get me started on the other things I've wanted to share), I just had to lead off the week with this gem:



The non-remixed version is on their Myspace page: I Wish I Was A Polar Bear by Ted & Francis

Ted & Francis are from Australia (win) and re-mixed my favorite Two Door Cinema Club song (win), and have this awesome song about my favorite animal that will probably cause the end of my life one day when I try to hug one.

I do like the song, but some part of me knows that if almost anyone made a song about wanting to be a polar bear and then made a youtube video of a polar bear walking around in the snow, I'd be bound to fall in love.

(Jenny +) Johnny be good

It's remarkable how versatile Jenny Lewis can be.  Her solo project is already quite different than Rilo Kiley, and her newest side project Jenny and Johnny almost makes her sound like a completely different person.  I'm enjoying the free download that they're floating around ("Scissor Runner") - it's a peppy summer number  full of jingle-jangle.  On some level, I wish I heard a little more of the raw, soulful twang that I love about Jenny Lewis's voice (see: Moneymaker, Breakin' Up, etc).  That being said, I like this collaboration and the fact that the sound is so different (because really what's the point in having a side project that sounds exactly like your other band???)  And maybe she sounds happy rather than soul-crushed because she's singing with her boyfriend - just a thought.

If you, too, have a huge girl crush on Jenny Lewis and haven't heard the song yet, I highly suggest you go download it:

What kind of bear is best?

Last night a few of us went to the Bell House for NYC Pop Fest (which has actually been going on since Thursday and ends today).  We managed to catch all 6 bands:

• Very Truly Yours - from Chicago!  Adorable, fun music that made me feel like it should be a soundtrack for a cutesy Zooey Deschanel movie.
• World Atlas - Brooklyn's version of Belle & Sebastian (pretty much?)  A gazillion musicians on stage, as is often the case with the big orchestral pop sound.  One of their members, though, is a crossover who was in My Teenage Stride back in 2007 when I saw them at Cake Shop!
• Bears -  from Ohio, but one member lives in Chicago now(!)  We talked to them after the show, and they were all really nice and personable - man I love midwesterners sometimes.  Cori was a little bored while we were sitting around later in the night and drew a picture of their band, and of Very Truly Yours.  Anyway, (spoiler alert!) they were my favorite band-I-had-not-heard-before last night, both musically and in stage presence and energy.  Craig and Charlie and the two main band members, sharing lead vocal duties.  Also, I really liked all of the graphics and illustrations that Bears used, which we found out are drawn by Charlie's girlfriend, who also sells things on Etsy.  It was a lot of fun and I hope they come back to NY again. 
• My Teenage Stride - right, back to this story.  So I thought I recognized the girl in World Atlas, and I was totally right because they pulled up their former band members on stage with them to sing their last song of the night, "To Live and Die in the Airport Lounge."
• BOAT - something about the first half of BOAT's set reminded me of some of the bands I listened to in high school - not in a bad way, but more in an energetic happy way.  As it progressed, it was really solid and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  They were fun and people were dancing around quite a bit out in the audience.
• The Wake - (UK) 1) The Wake has been a band longer than I've been a person. 2) Their sound spans this entire time period, so there was a little something for everyone. 3) We were so tired by the time they came on that we pretty much sat the entire time, which isn't a personal statement against the band, it's just a good reminder that I should get more sleep the night before a music festival.

 Archival photo of My Teenage Stride in 2007 at Cake Shop!

the morning benders @ music hall of williamsburg!

Great show Saturday night!  There was some sort of concert fairy godmother that put really short girls in the front row (by really short I mean some even shorter than me) - which really is how things should go more often (ahem tall people).  Second row, therefore, was like a dream.

The Luyas, from Canada (as they often noted), opened the show.  They were fun (and much hyped by the show's organizer, Brooklyn Vegan), and had some really interesting percussion.  Their lead singer had red Toms that matched her guitar, which was adorable.  Her personality toed the fine line between "adorably quirky" and "awkward rambling" but I think they came out on top overall.

 

Holiday Shores were the 2nd opener, with two substitute musicians from Twin Sister.  While I had never heard (of) them before, their energy was contagious and it was clear that they had some really hardcore fans in the audience who made things really fun.

The Morning Benders are amazing.  The show was fantastic, minus the fact that I was in front of the bass amp and the vocals were hard to hear at times.  Chris Chu is a really great frontman - conversational and responsive to the audience; charming without being remotely sleezy; energetic and overall really friendly.  He polled the audience for people from the bay area (after someone had yelled out San Francisco early on, and he responded with "...bay area" - they're from Berkeley), and people who were going to multiples of their NY shows this week (which sadly I am not).  They threw in "Damnit Anna" for their old school fans, and their new 7inch "Go Grab a Stranger" for the multi-show attendees.  I think what I loved the most was that even after selling out these 3 NY shows (and a bunch of others), they're still really personable and hang out at their own merch table after the show, allowing their fans an opportunity to talk to them and take pictures.

"Promises"

"All Day Day Light" (a personal favorite off Big Echo)

and, some pictures from the show:

(plus my 15-year-old-fangirl moment, in which I told Chris Chu that he's awesome)

my brief jaunt with CMJ

This week has been CMJ Music Marathon, a whirlwind of concerts and showcases, which I always wanted to go to when I was in college.

I was a complete failure at trying to see The Antlers for free at Sound Fix, because I forgot that Sound Fix moved... Oh well, I grabbed some banh mi in Williamsburg and otherwise amused myself by going to buy some more pieces of my Halloween costume.

Clare and I had a fantastic Thursday, though, grabbing lunch at Benny's Burritos and then heading to the Brooklyn Vegan (free!) showcase at Pianos. They also had free Miller beers and Vitamin Water--score! We saw one punk band (if punk rockers wore grey cardigans), and a more folk-y act that Clare thinks wants to be Bob Dylan.

a really bad shot of Lovvers playing at Pianos

I never made it to the Gothamist CMJ showcase at The Bell House, which looked like it was going to be awesome... But! Ana and I now have tickets to see Freelance Whales and Fanfarlo play Webster Hall in December. I'm super psyched. Fanfarlo has gotten great reviews of their live shows during this CMJ week, so it should be a good time.

Unfortunately, my CMJ has to be cut short because my mom is here now for the weekend, and I can't even picture taking her to a concert...

Album Review: Freelance Whales - Weathervanes

My favorite subway platform discovery of the summer, Freelance Whales, finally debuted their album this month. It's full of all of the same genuine enthusiasm that initially drew me to their performance, but there are also really beautifully layered sounds and a hint of innocent desperation to their voices. "Broken Horse" sounds so much like it could be a Sufjan Stevens song, that I zoned out and actually thought that it *was* for a while. And it's true, their sound often has that dreamy layered (gazillion instrument-created) effect of acts like Sufjan Stevens and occasionally the Arcade Fire. My favorites are (still) "Generator ^ 2nd Floor", which was the song I first heard while waiting for an L train, and "Location". Perhaps not groundbreaking, but definitely delightful music to bring us into fall.

Their album is available on iTunes. Also, a few tracks are available for free through RCRD LBL

Also, can we discuss the cute, crafty quality of their cover art? Nice choice!

the dog days of summer

I always feel like August has snuck up on me. And here we are, half way through the last month of summer! It seems like just yesterday that I was compiling my original Summer playlist, and yet here are all these new songs that have joined my rotation:

August 2009

We saw The Drums last Friday, when they played at the Mondo dance party at Don Hills. Such great energy! I had a blast, and was excited to celebrate their EP release.

^The Drums at Don Hills^

I also saw the Freelance Whales a couple of weeks ago, at a ReThink Pop Music event. I'm continually impressed by what I see from them, in spite of the fact that the only way I can listen to them is on their myspace page (or, live!). I believe their album should come out sometime soon...?

video roundup

I don't particularly consider myself to be one of those people who watch a lot of youtube videos, but there have been a handful in the last couple of weeks that I've really enjoyed, for various reasons:

1) The reason I think it's legit to want a pet polar bear, despite their *supposed* human-eating tendencies (ignore the German newscaster and wait it out for the shots of Knut):

2) I stumbled across the new Miike Snow video for their song "Burial". I had more or less ignored Miike Snow all summer until this point, mostly because I thought that the double "i" was obnoxious. However, the visuals in the first half of the video are really nice. (The whole thing is almost compromised by the ridiculousness of having their rabbit with antlers thing in it at the end, but it's still alright)

3) Ali sent me this video which is super adorable, and the song is quite catchy, too! I especially love the bike dancing at the end :)

4) And, lastly, if you haven't seen the "JK Wedding Dance" video - it's amazing. It single-handedly is responsible for getting a Chris Brown song stuck in my head for 4 straight days.

housewarming

Saturday night was the official unveiling of my new apartment, so to speak. The party was a success, with punch themed perfectly to my cross streets (Pineapple St and Orange St). There were a bunch of Cornell people who I don't get to see very often, which was amazing. Pics of the apartment/party below:

Clare's friends in the kitchen...
"Livingroom"
Sleeping space

The playlist was about 4 hours long...with several Michael Jackson tributes interspersed, clearly.

I wished that I had my camera when I was out today (Sunday) because it was such a nice day full of lovely things! We had brunch in Morningside, then went to the Pride parade for a while, and headed down to SoHo. I took my first walk home from Manhattan across the Brooklyn bridge - not too long, and pretty efficient! I got a bit lost trying to find the entrance to the bridge on the Manhattan side, but eventually I got there. The bridge is pretty spectacular, I must say.

On a parting note, I'm really liking the new album by Electric Owls called Ain't Too Bright. I got one of their tracks ("Magic Show") on some random sampler playlist, and it's been getting a lot of play on my iPod lately. The album dropped on June 23rd - check it out, seriously!

"Magic Show" - Electric Owls

freelance whales

I'm taking a break from my slew of updates on this apartment to mention the band I saw playing at the Bedford stop on the L tonight: the Freelance Whales.  By "at the Bedford stop" I mean literally on the platform between the Manhattan bound and Rockaway Parkway bound tracks.  Quite the sight--normally the performers are something I avoid like the plague and blast the music in my iPod, but I really enjoyed them!  I may even be so inclined as to check out their next show, at Pianos on June 24th...

Check out their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/thefreelancewhales

Coming up on this blog:

- pictures of the actual "moved in" version of my apt

- beginning of summer 09 playlists!

- and of course, anything that happens along the way