THIS WEEK IN SHOWS

The most noteworthy concert this week is Sonic Youth with Dinosaur Jr. and Cold Cave, one of the few lineups that’d get me to Terminal 5, but that’s been sold out, so let us non-ticket holders lick our wounds at some of these other, very worthwhile shows.

MON, NOV. 16

The Jesus Lizard, Skeleton Key
Irving Plaza
9:00 PM, $25, 16+
In case you haven’t heard, The Jesus Lizard have been kicking ass all over the place this year, crowd surfing and stage diving like its 1989. It’s Monday night, and who knows how long this reunion thing will last. Get in front, put your arms up, and get ready for a handful of David Yow.

TUES, NOV. 17

Kurt Vile, Wild Yaks, Home Blitz, Pink Reason
Europa
7:00 PM,  $10, 18+
I think it would be really fun to book a show with either Kurt Vile or Wild Yaks, because both mesh well with any number of bands on a lineup, but you can’t automatically pair them with anybody in particular. There’s something more “classic rock” – I almost want to say masculine – about Kurt Vile than a lot of other “woozy” psychedelic pop acts, and there’s a poignancy to Wild Yaks’ songs that’s lacking in other bands who’re equally rowdy and debauched. Maybe they go perfectly together? Maybe not, but I feel like you can’t go wrong with this one. (For something completely different, check out Kurt Vile on Wednesday with Big Star.)
More on This Week In Shows

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Santos Party House
October 20, 2009 | Panache Booking & New York Night Train CMJ Showcase

As someone who often judges music by her backbone, I’d like to take my hat off (yes, it’s a little fedora with a press card in the band) to Panache Booking and New York Night Train: both have a knack for putting on shows that get the crowd to really move. That being said, I was moving more than I’d expected at their two-floor showcase at Santos Party House, because the CMJ-tight scheduling meant that whenever a set ended upstairs, we could conceivably run downstairs just in time for that set to start, then scramble back upstairs to repeat the process - for a dozen bands, whew! My feet were pretty sore by the end of the night, and after a few hours of drawing, our sketch artist Hazel Santino had to start taking breaks to stretch those priceless thenar muscles of hers. But here it is, finally, a quick-and-dirty rundown of the ups, downs, hits, misses and highlights of the Panache Booking/New York Night Train CMJ Showcase of 2009.

In case you didn’t go to any CMJ shows this year: Surfer Blood is the new hot shit. If you did go to CMJ then you probably saw Surfer Blood: they played like a billion (or ten or twelve) times last week. They’re a surf band, but don’t think Dick Dale; think heavily-reverbed indie rock songs about the beach. I understand the appeal of Surfer Blood, and I think they should score a teenage summertime movie (maybe with The Drums?) and I’ll go see it simply for the tunes. That said, though they played cleanly and with friendly exuberance, Surfer Blood didn’t get me pulling my skirt over my head or anything. Sorry. I couldn’t hear the danger and chaos that’s been ascribed to their music by critics. Had it been there, maybe the set would’ve been tugged into a tenser, more interesting place.

If, as a child, I’d been aware of the possibility, I think I would’ve wanted to grow up to be in a band like Dinowalrus. Maybe it’s the Star Wars laser sounds, or the constant instrument trading, or lead singer Pete’s yeti growls and propensity for balancing on one leg. Hell, maybe it was the awesome screaming eagle t-shirt he was wearing that particular Tuesday night at Santos. Wherever it stems from, there’s definitely a child-like playfulness beneath all the noise of a Dinowalrus show. “This song’s kinda baggy,” Pete exclaimed at one point, “so put on your bucket hat like you’re going to Manchester!” I like the way Dinowalrus works their noise into a song, letting it gurgle or stew at the beginning, thunderstorming it out at the end, but making room for discernible and surprisingly catchy melodies at the core. From the “Once in A Lifetime”-esque synth and bass of “BEAD” to the snarling “Cage Those Pythons,” (which somehow kept reminding me of “Rowche Rumble,”) to a goose-call clarinet solo, Dinowalrus had me hooked in the gills from their very first song to the moment they rolled their snare drum into the audience, signaling that it was time for me to book it upstairs to catch Harlem’s set.

Lovvers
More on CMJ 2009: Panache Booking and New York Night Train Showcase @ Santos Party House | 10.20.09

THIS WEEK IN SHOWS

It’s time for CMJ again, which means the same New York bands you can see all the time in will be playing alongside some touring bands – who would’ve all come to New York at some point anyway – in marathon-length shows full of semi-interested badge-holders and grumpy photographers who get angry when you accidentally bump into them while rocking out in the front row. (Except our photographers, who are very cool and friendly.) We tend to complain about CMJ, but since it’s here, we might as well embrace it. It IS really fun to see ten of your favorite bands in one night, and, exhausting as it may be, it’s fun to do that five nights in a row! As usual, these are my totally subjective and incomplete recommendations for the coming week. You can flesh this out by telling us who you’re going to see… Send us some photos if you go. Or boycott CMJ; that’s totally respectable too. As for us, we’re just excited for a reason to shirk our other responsibilities for a week and rock out in the name of journalism.

TUES, OCT. 20

PANACHE/NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN CMJ SHOWCASE
Upstairs: Heavy Trash, Golden Triangle, Lovvers, Harlem, Surfer Blood, K-Holes
Downstairs: The Stalkers, Unnatural Helpers, Flexions Dinowalrus, Julianna Barwick, SCREENS
Santos Party House
7:00 PM, $10/$12, 18+
It seems that every other show I get excited about is somehow connected to Panache Booking or New York Night Train (or both), and Tuesday night’s bigass blowout is no exception – just check out the lineup!!! I just need to figure out how to be upstairs and downstairs at the same time. I’ve yet to see Heavy Trash, though I’ve heard good things about their show, but Stalkers deserve some props too. They don’t seem to get much press, but they’re one of my favorite live bands: their songs are totally fun and anthemic, and besides, I’ve seen them throw cymbals, get naked, dribble vomit, and last time I caught their show, lead singer Andy Animal was tossing firecrackers into the crowd with a menacing glee. Alright!
More on This Week In Shows: CMJ EDITION!

FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Golden Triangle
Golden Triangle EP
2009 | Kemado/Mexican Summer
B

Garage punk guitar riffs, pounding drums, distortion, male/female vocals, songs referencing ghosts…am I listening to Thee Oh Sees?

Oh wait, there’s not enough shrieking. Hmm, okay. Golden Triangle. I can dig it.

All joking aside, this EP is a strong showing from the Brooklyn-based sixsome, who were signed to Sub Pop junior label Hardly Art in early May. It’s not the most varied garage-punk record a person could buy, but sometimes you just need some stompers. And this EP has them aplenty.

Channeling some group-girl vocal-age on the opening track, over some deeper male mumble/moaning, “Prize Fighter” is an upbeat number that acts as a good introduction to the EP. A climax of “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey” is simple, but certainly gets the point across. The motorcycle noises in the background are a nice touch, too.

“Ghosts,” track two of seven, on an EP that is less than 15 minutes long, is the most slowed-down (and longest, at over 3 minutes! Gasp!) track on the album, not that that’s saying very much. Here the female vocals, singers Vashti Windish and Carly Rabalais, take on a more Vivian Girls-esque drone, and the words all blend together, but the effect is still engaging. It, and “Red Coats,” the next track, are certainly not standouts on the album, but they help it maintain a cohesive feel throughout.
More on Golden Triangle | Golden Triangle EP

Hey Everyone!

We won’t be posting much this week because we are giving ourselves a little makeover, but we’ll be back in full force next Monday.

But hey, take this as an opportunity to get away from that computer screen today. We can’t decide which free show we’d rather check out: Golden Triangle and friends at the Monster Island Block Party, or the These Are Powers show Under The Tracks. The last P.S.1 Warm Up is today too, but it’ll cost you ten dollars if you don’t live in L.I.C. and you might want to save that cash for The Maze at Death By Audio that opens this Thursday. Hmm…

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Glasslands Gallery
July 2, 2009 | Golden Triangle

photo by Rebecca Gaffney

I got to Glasslands right as The Beets’ set ended, and hung out with the sweet, massive, overworked bouncer as like 200 hundred sweaty peeps poured outta the door, one after the other; a bright-eyed cacophony of faces and skinny limbs, meeting a stream of maybe 100 kids trying to go the other way, in.

“At capacity, no one else can enter!” the bouncer yelled, though after a while he let me in when I told him I was gonna cover the show. Feeling like I’d won the golden(!) ticket, I made my way up to the left-hand corner of the stage and proceeded to inadvertently get in the band’s way, like twelve times, as they set up. I don’t think they gave a crap. The whole vibe there was kind of in the way, in yer face, off-the-hook, in the most gentle way possible. It was challenging and lulling at the same time – exactly  what you would want from a night out. They had a garage-rock DJ and there were weird, rad, brightly-colored vids playing – they  looked like benevolent skulls, fiery snakes, washed-out rainbows. But who the hell knows, it was hard to see through the steamy, sexy heat. The night was a trademark Toubinesque (as in Jonathan Toubin, New York Night Train founder) wild, happy party. The whole crowd seemed high on the hot, steamy, slightly oxygen-deprived setting. I was ready for a good inaugural view of Golden Triangle, who I’d scandalously missed for years.

Golden Triangle started up pretty quickly – exploded would be a better way to describe it. It felt like a fireball made up of three parts exuberant female, three parts art dude, crazy energy, crazy fun, with guitarist OJ holding it down and grounding the whole thing. I got obsessed with trying to capture stills of them, getting their crazy hooha, holding so still with my camera’s shutter open for like 20 seconds: a study in opposites. Every now and then I took a break to freak out with the boisterous audience. Every now and then lead singer Vashti’s vocals would break through with an endorphin-releasing post-Siouxsie clarity that made you just go, “ahhh.” It felt like they swept the audience up in their wild tornado, glamored us, and sent us back out, panting and happy, a half hour later. So, fuck yeah, go see Golden Triangle bring on the awesome.

by Rebecca Gaffney

DAILY NEWS PICKS

Hardly Art Signs Brooklyn‘s Golden Triangle [Brooklyn Vegan]

Neutral Milk Hotel, Carousels, and Now a School Play [Idolator]

Daft Punk Forays Again into Film [The Tripwire]

Animal Collective Appears Live on Letterman [Prefix]

Van Halen the Video Game! [Billboard]

Flaming Lips Frontman Gets Back to the Books [The Tripwire]

Coldplay Comments on Copyright Case (and a Funny Video) [Idolator]

The Dodos Are Ready To Do It Again [Pitchfork]

compiled by Elana Jacobs