My first ever concert in NYC was a Superdrag show at Bowery Ballroom in 2000. I had recently moved to the city for college, and I went to this concert by myself, also experiencing the Bowery and its sea of homeless for the first time. It was 2000 and the Mets were in the World Series at the time. I proudly wore my old, dirty Mets hat, and a drunken bum attempted to hug me on the street, in celebration of the Mets. At the venue, that weird, scared feeling was abandoned when Superdrag totally rocked the house.

7 years later, Superdrag returned from a hiatus, with their original lineup of John Davis, Don Coffey Jr., Tom Papas, and Brandon Fisher, and this time they rocked The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. I was there, still wearing that grimy Mets hat, although this year wasn’t nearly as successful as in 2000.

Continue reading "Superdrag Bring Knoxville To NYC"

Photos courtesy of Jonny-Leather
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Denmark's Figurines

Coming from the far off lands of Copenhagen and Sydney, Figurines and Dappled Cities played the final date of their tour last night at Mercury Lounge. This was their second straight night at the Lower East Side venue, and surprisingly, it wasn’t packed.

Sydney natives Dappled Cities controlled the stage like a veteran band, commanding an immediately positive response from their audience. In essence, they are a veteran band with most of the members playing together since 1997, when they were only 15 years old. They’ve built a following in Australia, and only now are they making their move towards an American takeover. The vocals of guitarists Tim Derricourt and Dave Rennick really make the band unique, with each often ranging into falsetto hooks. At Mercury Lounge last night, it was that dramatic vocal exchange, as well as their excellent song-craft that made their performance special, especially with the grandiose set-closer “Holy Chord.”

Continue reading "Figurines and Dappled Cities Played Mercury Lounge"

Photos courtesy of Jonny-Leather
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After two records which drew favorable comparisons to indie rock royalty like Pavement, Built to Spill, and Modest Mouse, record three from Figurines presented itself as the perfect opportunity to mix things up a touch. Besides, record number two, last year’s catchy-as-hell Skeleton, had  helped score the band slots opening for bands like Tapes ‘n’
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If anything, you’ll enjoy it for the cute, fuzzy kitties. For real, we’re not being sarcastic. There are lots of kittens in this video from Liars
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When I was 11 years old, my brother went off to college to attend the University of Tennessee. Not long into his Knoxville, TN residence, Chris indulged himself in the local music scene, where he’d go on to play drums for popular pop-punk goofballs The State Champs. Knoxville’s rock scene has never gotten much attention, and The State Champs and loads of other good bands never quite made it, but in 1996 the best band in the scene broke out to mainstream success with a MTV and radio hit called “Sucked Out.”

That band, whose name you can’t quite remember, is not Nada Surf: It’s Superdrag. “Sucked Out” wasn’t a monster hit, but it was one of those songs that was played once an hour on rock radio and MTV for part of that year. While Regretfully Yours was a great album as a whole, and contained songs far superior to their unexpected hit, none was as infectious. A year later the band released Head Trip in Every Key, which saw the band expanding in every direction, very successfully. While it was well-received by the critics, the record company saw it as not having a strong enough single, and without steady radio play, it was a huge failure in terms of sales.

Since then the music industry has changed greatly and radio and MTV have less of an influence over the success of an album, and good reviews from critics can be much more influential.

Continue reading "Superdrag Reunion Tour Coming To NYC"
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Robert Pollard, grandmaster of the venerated Guided by Voices, turns 50 today. If you haven’t heard of him, his versatile lo-fi rock won critical acclaim during the mid- 1990s, cresting with 1994’s Bee Thousand.  Essentially, he’s an expert at cutting gems with crass tools. Pollard is a known asshole, and his latest solo work could
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You know those TV commercials for monster truck rallies that scream, “POWER! POWER… POWER… THIS FRIDAY NIGHT, NIGHT… NIGHT…” Well, that was what I kept hearing in my ringing ears in-between songs this last Friday night at the Bowery Ballroom. This weekend the unapologetically southern Drive-By Truckers rolled through Manhattan for one of the last
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A Place To Bury Strangers played at least 5 shows during CMJ week.

I’ll be the first to tell you that the CMJ Music Marathon is now totally unnecessary. Since the arriving to p2p file sharing, blogs, myspace, and email, it’s become incredibly easy for music industry people to discover new bands (which is the purpose of CMJ). Most of the bands playing CMJ had at one point this year infiltrated the vast system of music blogs that now control the independent music industry.

After speaking to a lot of people, there was a general agreement that this year’s CMJ was the weakest one yet. Many more popular bands had decided not to play the 5 day NYC takeover. In fact there was a number of much better shows the week prior, with indie rock icons like The National, PJ Harvey, Black Mountain, Nada Surf, and Sunset Rubdown all playing.

With that said, last week was still an insane week for a music fan. While it seems that everyone is talking about Wednesday night’s Dan Deacon/Deerhunter/No Age/White Williams show at Bowery Ballroom, there were a few other performances that night that will be hard to forget.

A Place To Bury Strangers’ late night performance at Music Hall of Williamsburg was mind blowing, and easily my nomination for the best performance at this year’s CMJ Marathon. As it was expected, they were as loud as anything you’ve ever heard, but it was an enjoyable loud that made it feel like there were planes taking off inside the Brooklyn venue. Projections and great use of strobes added to the spectacular nature of their performance. It was late, and I could barely remain standing, but every moment was pure bliss.

Continue reading "Hungover: or How I Learned to Stop Sleeping and Love CMJ Week"

Photos courtesy of Jonny-Leather

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Morrissey fans, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but our beloved Moz is headed for Vegas. At least, that’s the idea I couldn’t shake as I watched him on stage last night at Hammerstein Ballroom. As he whipped his microphone cord, pulled his hands through his pompadour and sweat through his electric blue
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While Los Angeles art-spazz quartet Health has indulged some of the dance and Nintendo-core elements unfortunately proliferating like viruses in their respective post-indie rock and post-hardcore scenes, the band’s self-titled debut comes a lot closer to conveying the band’s powerhouse live presence and innovative writing style. It’s hardly novel to combine screams, stabbing keyboards, mushroom-cloud
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