January 10, 2010
This Week In Shows
THIS WEEK IN SHOWS
TUES, JAN 12
Led Er Est, Light Asylum
Glasslands
9:00 PM, $7, 21+
Todd Pendu’s throwing a new Tuesday Nite Disco party at Glasslands, but it’s not so much disco as “dark-electro-synth-pop.” If this lineup is any indication, these parties are going to be pretty cool. Both bands are super synthy, but Led Er Est is colder, darker, more elemental (more weird?) whereas Light Asylum plays more throwback romantic synth pop.
WED, JAN 13
The Drums, Surfer Blood, The Depreciation Guild
Bowery Ballroom
7:30 PM, $12a/$15d, 18+
Okay, another post about the weather. I’ve been thinking of this show as something like Wii surfing or like… O’Doul’s for summer? You sure won’t be capturing the real thing, but the feeling’s there. Total beach party.
More on This Week In Shows
Stream the Entirety of the Them Crooked Vultures Self-Titled Album, Which is, In My Opinion, a Bit of a Let Down (But, Hey, I Think Led Zeppelin’s Entire Career is a Bit of a Let Down…) [Youtube]
The Magnetic Fields Announce New Album, Realism, Set to be Released January 26; Stephen Merritt Remains Better at Naming Songs Than Just About Anyone, With Song Titles Like “We are Having a Hootenanny” and “Everything is One Big Christmas Tree” [Pitchfork]
Watch Claymation Video From anticon. Founders Themselves, “Roman is as Roman Does,” Which is Nearly as Frightening as Lady GaGa’s Video For “Bad Romance” [Prefix]
Stream Beck, Binki Shapiro, and Devendra Banharts’ Version of Leonard Cohen’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong;” Grow Frustrated When Finding Out That Banhart Still Shows a Lot of Talent Even Though What Will We Be Was Awful (And Self-Fulfilling: A Poorly Conceived Album is What We Will Be) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
British Electro Rockers Hot Chip Announce New Album, One Life Stand, Which is the Quality of Emo-Pun I’d Expect from the All American Rejects; Released Februrary 9 [Spin]
The Drums Announce New Single Release of “I Felt Stupid” from the JM Approved Summertime! EP; I Look Back Fondly On When the Drums Were Our July Featured Artist, and Encourage You All To Go See Home Video (Our Current Feature Artist) This Thursday [NME]
Stream Delorean Remixing Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight Track “Live Alone,”and Turns It Into One Big World Music Party Jam! Drinks All Around (Preferably Served Out of Some Kind of Exotic Balearic Fruit…Perhaps a Kiwi) [Pitchfork]
Stream New Single from that Swedish Glow-Fi Band jj, “Baby,” Which is Set to an Understated Montage of Graceful Horses, and is Deliciously Auto-tuned (As Much as a Song Can be Delicious, as Sound is Not Edible) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
compiled by Max Sebela
September 20, 2009
This Week In Shows
THIS WEEK IN SHOWS
MON, SEPT. 21
Rain Machine
The Bell House
7:30 PM, $15, 21+
In case you haven’t heard, TV On The Radio is going on a yearlong hiatus to pursue some of their other projects. But you won’t be hurting for music from these guys – Kyp Malone, for one, is already going full-force on his new project, Rain Machine. His album drops on Tuesday, and this show at The Bell House kicks of a month-long US tour. Hells yeah, this should be pretty interesting.
TUES, SEPT. 22
The Drums, Knight School, Kordan
The Mercury Lounge
8:00 PM, $10, 21+
I’ve yet to see Knight School live, (though I desperately want to), but I will tell you that The Drums and Kordan played our JM.com Feature Show in July and had the crowd in a frenzy. I hate to use the word “poppy,” but The Drums are just the poppiest, most endearing live band I’ve seen in a while. They combine eighties synth with a fifties girl group sound and sing songs about the beach. They even whistle. The whole thing is terribly cute, but not in a gross way.
More on This Week In Shows
September 9, 2009
The Drums | Summertime!
FRESH BAKED
in NYC
The Drums
Summertime!
2009 | Twentyseven
A-
Brooklyn gets a lot of flack for being the music capital of pretentious bullshit. And anyone who’s ever waded through a crowded Todd P show in a Bushwick loft that should’ve been condemned in the 70s just to see a band that plays exclusively through broken drum machines knows that description can be right-the-fuck-on a lot of times. But for every unnecessarily hyped band to crawl out of Kings County, there’s a band like The Drums that could have only come from our fair borough. The brainchild of longtime friends Jonathan Pierce and Jacob Graham, The Drums play saccharine pop somehow manages to find common ground between the discographies of Dick Dale and Ian Curtis. It’s a gonzo mix that really could only fly in a place like Brooklyn where musically anything goes.
Fresh off a series of well-received shows this past spring, The Drums finally got around to putting out their first proper release, the Summertime! EP. A lot of the songs here have already showed up on the unofficially released The Drums EP, which seemed to appear on the internet out of thin air earlier this summer. What ended up on Summertime! is a catchy mix of giddy 50s surf numbers and nihilistic 80s pop a la Factory Records. It’s a combination that seems awkward on paper, but sounds great on record. Songs like “Make You Mine” draw you in with a bouncy bit of exuberant pop and then hit you with a sharp jab of lovesick fatalism, all in under three minutes. There’s the obligatory tribute to surfing, “Let’s Go Surfing,” with the catchiest whistled hook since Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks.” And even over six quick pop numbers, The Drums manage to create a nice little arc, beginning with the sugar rush of “Saddest Summer ever, which slowly burns away until the only thing that’s left with is the brooding desperation of “Down by the Water.” Add in some melodramatic “ohhs” here and there, and you’ve got an EP that would make Moz croon with approval.
More on The Drums | Summertime!
Rivers Cuomo Explains Crappy Name For New Weezer Album, Ratitude: His Friend Came Up With It! Swear! [SPIN]
Hitch A Ride To Rock Rock Rockaway Beach Tomorrow For A Whole Lotta Music and Art [The Tripwire]
Dead Man’s Bones (Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields) Announce First Tour. Better Start Rehearsing: Each Opening Act Will Be A Talent Show! [Pitchfork]
Watch New Dan Deacon Video, “Paddling Ghost.” The Finger Puppet Ghost Is Cute, But The Finger Puppet Dan Deacon Is Even Better [Stereogum]
Ooh Ooh! This Just In, New Yorkers: Insound’s Tenth Anniversary Party Tonight At Brooklyn Bowl Featuring The Drums, These Are Powers, Cymbals Eat Guitars, And Real Estate. Hot Damn, The Week Is Lookin’ Up [FREEWilliamsburg]
Jimi Hendrix Biopic In The Works [Prefix]
What With Inglorious Basterds Opening Today, Why Not Read What Tarantino Has To Say About Some Of His Career’s Key Soundtrack Picks? [Rolling Stone]
Willie Nelson Stayin’ Busy With Myspace Show and New Album of Jazz Standards, American Classic, Out On Aug. 25, Available To Stream Via Myspace Tomorrow [The Tripwire]
Harlem, Yeasayer, Kid Sister Added to Fun Fun Fun Fest Lineup [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Bon Iver Just Got Way Cooler In My Eyes. Why? Oh, Just A Little Show He’s Gonna Play At Sunrise. In A CEMETERY! [The Tripwire]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
No More Radiohead Albums? AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH! [The Tripwire]
Watch The Drums New Video for “Let’s Go Surfing,” Look Out For Their Upcoming Shows [Brooklyn Vegan]
C-Murder Convicted of Second-Degree Murder [NME]
Co-Owner of Matador Records Loses House In Fire [Brooklyn Vegan]
Don’t Look A Gift-Horse In The Mouth and For God’s Sake Don’t Punch It!!! Man Arrested For Punching Police Horse After Lollapalooza [Pitchfork]
Watch The Trailer For Tom Waits’ Upcoming Film, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” [Prefix]
And In More Tom Waits News…Anton Corbijn Is Publishing Book Of Tom Waits Portraits [The Tripwire]
If Morrissey Ain’t Making Money Off It, Why Bother? Morrissey Tells Fans Not To Buy Reissues [Rolling Stone]
I Always Secretly Hoped Elton John Would Work With Alice In Chains, Now My Dreams Are Fulfilled [Prefix]
821 Entertainment To Make Hank Williams Biopic [Prefix]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
Cymbals Eat Guitars, Real Estate, and JM.Com’s July Feature Band The Drums All Set To Play Online Record Store Insound’s 10th Anniversary Party at Brooklyn Bowl [Brooklyn Vegan]
John Hughes, Director of The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, And a Major Force In Popularizing New Wave, Passes Away at 59 [New York Times]
All Tomorrow’s Parties NY Finalizes Its Line-Up; Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and Menomena Join the Already Bomb-Ass 3-Day Extravaganza [Brooklyn Vegan]
San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival Replaces Headliners Beastie Boys With Tenacious D (Man, There’s Going To Be a Stark Contrast Between Hearing Beasties Highlight “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and Hearing Tenacious D’s Highlight “Fuck Her Gently”) [Spin]
Purchase Everlasting Punk Force Iggy Pop’s New Album Preliminaries For $3.99 Today Only [Spin]
Bob Dylan, A Jewish American and Cultural Legend, Slated To Release A Christmas Album This Winter – How Is It That Bob Dylan Can Be In Recorded Music For 50 Years, And Still Be Really, Really Weird? [Billboard]
Watch Garage Punk Jay Reatard’s 20-Minute Documentary Waiting For Something; Dude Hilariously Insults Just About Everything, From Thievery, To Audiences, To Effort [Prefix]
UK House Duo Basement Jaxx Announce New LP, Debut New Video For Single, “Raindrops” (This Video Is Absolutely Batshit; It’s As If The Mummy Was Set In Moulin Rouge…Only With Techno); Scars Released October 6 [The Tripwire]
Willy DeVille, Frontman Of Early New York Punk Band Mink DeVille Passes Away At 58 [ABC]
by Max Sebela
July 15, 2009
JezebelMusic.com Features The Drums in July
Photo by Jen McManus
JEZEBEL MUSIC FEATURE
The Drums Feature Show at Public Assembly has passed. Sad, we know. But if you missed the extravaganza, do not weep, for The Drums are industrious young go-getters and have a bunch of shows coming up this summer (listed after the jump)! And if you have not already done so, check out the Feature Article and read JM.com’s interview with Drums masterminds Jonathan Pierce and Jacob Graham. More on JezebelMusic.com Features The Drums in July
