New Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"

Grizzly Bear continue to impress me as they performed a brand new song entitled "Two Weeks" on Letterman last night. The amazing harmonies and poppy melodies are once again presented in an interesting and unique manner that make Grizzly Bear one of my favorite current bands. Can't wait to catch these guys at All Points West in a few weeks.



Also according to a rumor on productshopnyc Barack Obama may be making a special guest appearance at Lollapolooza to introduce Kanye West for his headlining slot. Sounds pretty good to me.

Siren Fest 2008

If there is one thing to be said about this year's Siren Fest on Coney Island, is it was hot! The Village Voice once again hosted it's annual free summer music festival, however this year it happened to land on one of the hottest days of the summer. The weather would plague my friends throughout the day and we ended up losing a few soldiers along the way.

Weather aside, the day was great. We caught an early performance by Parts & Labor upon first arriving. These guys had a great mix of post-punk/indie rock/noise going on, however the draining heat limited my ability to enjoy the set. Since the Dodo's were running late I was unable to see any of their show and so I headed straight to Annuals on the Stillwell Stage. The band did a great job of mixing some new songs into the set while stilling being able to rock through songs off their first LP. Even the somewhat jammy finish came across with much appeal. The rest of the day was dispersed amongst other various sets by Beach House, Jaguar Love, Islands, the Helio Sequence, and wondering Astroland. As Broken Social Scene's set loomed closer we were able to catch the Helio Sequence's surprise cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows" which revived some much needed energy. BSS took the stage at 8:00 and immediately dived right into their excellent set. From the moment these guys walked out the energy began to climb and it didn't peak until they left the stage. Brilliant guitar work on "Cause=Time" was followed up by the catchy "Fire Eye'd Boy" and my personal favorite "7/4 (Shoreline)." Not only was the entire crowd drawn into the performance, but these guys just seemed to be having so much fun onstage. So much fun that only the marathon closer of "It's All Gonna Break" was able to end this weekend party.

Parts & Labor

Annuals


Coney Island


The Crowd

stolen.

I saw this last week or so on gorillavsbear and I couldn't resist. My favorite albums from each year I have been alive. Obviously the earlier it goes the harder it was to determine a favorite so I did my best.

1988 – Sonic Youth | Daydream Nation
1989 – Pixies | Doolittle
1990 – Pixies | Bossanova
1991 – My Bloody Valentine | Loveless
1992 – Rage Against the Machine | Rage Against the Machine
1993 – Nirvana | In Utero
1994 – Portishead | Dummy
1995 – Radiohead | The Bends
1996 – Weezer | Pinkerton
1997 – Radiohead | OK Computer
1998 – Neutral Milk Hotel | In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
1999 – the Get Up Kids | Something to Write Home About
2000 – Radiohead | Kid A
2001 – the Strokes | Is This It?
2002 – Wilco | Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003 – the White Stripes | Elephant
2004 – Arcade Fire | Funeral
2005 – Sufjan Stevens | Illinois
2006 – TV on the Radio | Return to Cookie Mountain
2007 – Arcade Fire | Neon Bible

video: drive-thru

I've always thought people should do stuff like this more often. Collaborations, while aren't always good, are at least usually fun. Thus is the case here. I really like all three of these artisits, but the song is not that great. Anyway it's a cool idea and the video is pretty sick. Maybe more things like this will start to happen.

Produced By Pharrell - Santogold, Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D.

All I am saying is that this pin was sold at the Republican Convention in Texas this past weekend. Check it out.

Bon Iver played St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church

After spending the past five months in London I cannot think of a better way to end things then with this show on Wednesday night. After seeing Battles a few weeks ago I thought it would be a while before I saw another great show, however this did not turn out to be the case. Port O'Brien opened the show and for never having heard them before I was pretty impressed. Great job of foot stomping folk tunes to get the crowd ready for a great night ahead. While these guys were good, the spotlight clearly belonged to Bon Iver.
The church setting could not have been more perfect for the angelic voices that descended upon the audience as these three men took the stage. I was a little nervous about how well the album would translate live as those voices are simply gorgeous on the recording, yet I was anything but let down. From the opening distorted guitar sounds I knew that this show was going to be something special. Everything seemed to be perfect. The harmonies were unreal, the percussion was thundering, and the guitars were filling in all the right places. I cannot think of a better sounding live show that I have ever witnessed. The guys played "For Emma" in it's entirety (albeit out of order) and never missed a beat.
Justin kept thanking the audience over and over and referred to the experience as a dream after the audience erupted in joy and applause after each number. "Skinny Love" ranks right up there with other classics as one of the best songs I have ever seen performed live (Others being "Paranoid Android" and "Hey Jude"). However the ending rendition of "For Emma" in the middle of the church sans microphones and just and acoustic guitar and those amazing vocals was directly in front of me is an experience I will not soon forget.
The show was simply breath taking. There was nothing to complain about from the brilliant sound to the absolutely quiet audience. The last time I saw people so enthralled with a performance Thom Yorke was playing the opening to "Exit Music (For a Film)". The only thing that the show made me sad about was the fact that I do not think listening to that record will ever give me the satisfaction I felt from hearing it performed live.

Sigur Rós gets folky

In keeping with the trend of new music posts, I am currently digging the new single from Sigur Rós entitled "Gobbledigook." The single is available free for download on their website and the new album drops in June. This is definitely a new direction for these guys (think Animal Collective on Sung Tongs) and I hope they keep it up on the rest of the album. Something to look forward to for sure. I also highly recommend watching the video for the single which you can see at their website while you download the mp3.

Also the people over at Woxy have a complied this year's list of the 500 greatest modern rock songs. I guess modern rock covers quite the field of songs, but none the less this is a pretty good list. Very up to date with old classics and new indie anthems that should please the average moder rock fan. Anyway here is their top 10 and you can find the whole list here.
10. U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
9. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
8. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
7. The Clash - London Calling
6. Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
5. R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe
4. The Smiths - How Soon Is Now?
3. Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun
2. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
1. Radiohead - Creep

Beck - "Chemtrails"

The first single has been released from the forth coming Danger Mouse produced Beck album (check it out). I think Beck is one of those artists that consistently release good music, but for some reason people don't get as into him as they should, or at least that's my feel towards him. I always seem to forget about him and I really shouldn't. The man has put out some amazing stuff throughout his career (and this track seems to lean towards more great stuff), but for some reason I keep him on the back burner of my playlists.
In other new music news I must admit that I feel like this year has been a little lack-luster. Nothing has come around that has blown me away like albums from last year. I realize that we're only about halfway through the year, but not much has really stuck with me. Aside from the new Portishead (which is currently atop my year list) only a handful of releases have really stuck with me. Vampire Weekend was an early front runner and is something that I still really dig. M83 put out another great record, but after that I have some slim pickings. Narrow Stairs is good, but at least for now sounds just like other Death Cab albums. I was hoping for a curve ball somewhere in there and as of current listenings I have yet to hear it.

Suggested Listening of 2008:
Portishead - Third
Vampire Weekend - s/t
M83 - Saturdays=Youth
No Age - Nouns
Los Campesinos - Hold On Now Youngster...
Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP
Animal Collective - Water Curses EP

Battles played Astoria

It had been a while since I had seen a show so I was particularly excited tonight when I went to see Battles. Mirrored was one of my favorite albums of last year so I couldn't wait to see these tracks live.
The opening acts were also something I was looking forward to seeing. British band Fuck Buttons opened the show and I must say these guys were as impressive as they could be considering the way in which these guys make music. There is only so much two guys mixing sonic sounds of swirling samples can accomplish in a live act, yet these guys were pretty good. They mixed stuff up and had some really killer beats that got the crowd moving. Overall I was left with the same feeling I get off their record. These guys build some killer sound, but it doesn't seem to go anyway. I keep waiting for it to peak and it never quite does. Still I was impressed with what I saw.
Originally Liars was supposed to take the second slot, but they had to back out in order to open for Radiohead. Instead they were replaced with Dirty Projectors, a band I knew nothing about. Even now after seeing them I'm not too sure what to think. I was not sure what I was supposed to walk away with afterwards. They had some great female harmonies, a eccentric drum with some really awesome beats, and a guitar player that jumped all over the stage. In the end I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to take away from the performance. It seemed as if too much was going on for me to really be able to take in the band as a whole.
When Battles took the stage I was in complete awe. Their recordings are such intricate works of art that I was unsure of how they would translate live, but I was anything but disappointed. They were one of the tightest bands I have ever seen and performed more like a well-oiled machine then a band. Just watching them was amazing let a lone the sounds they were producing. They started things off a little slowly, but eventually built things up and had the place rocking. From the time "Rainbow" came out of the speakers until the end the place didn't stop rocking.